By PeakProsperity. Originally published at ValueWalk.
At PeakProsperity.com, we pride ourselves on providing fact-based context to breaking important events.
Within 72 hours of the Japan tsunami in 2011, we had analyzed the situation and concluded with high probability that three core meltdowns had occurred at the Fukushima nuclear plant. While it took years for officials to finally admit to the full extent of the crisis, history has validated our initial analysis.
How did we get it right? By using a science-based approach grounded in observation, deduction and a healthy skepticism of what the “experts” in charge claimed. We also went to great lengths to educate our readers about the science in play, explaining in detail how radioactivity and contamination differ, the health risks from such a nuclear accident, and what concerned folks could do to remain as safe as possible.
When California’s authorities suddenly reversed course and scrambled to evacuate nearly 200,000 residents living downstream of the Oroville dam, within an hour, we had released an analysis of the situation, explaining the critical differences among the primary spillway, the main dam, and the auxiliary spillway.
Where mainstream media outlets were consumed by covering the Grammy’s, we were able to tweet and blog relevant details to the worried people hungry for information about the dam’s integrity, keeping them both grounded and informed:
By 10:00pm that same Sunday night of February 12th, we had shared a series of updates with schematics, images and conclusions that was more complete, accurate and hysteria-free than any other news source we could find at the time.
By the next morning, we had located and interviewed one of America’s top dam experts, who provided an absolutely spectacular assessment of the situation at Oroville. That podcast has been listened to by nearly 50,000 people at this point, including residents of Oroville who have used its insights to determine whether or not to return home at this time.
And on top of all this, our own community began filling in the blanks with their expertise. One community member, an emergency worker deployed to the dam earlier this week, has been providing us with valuable insider information that state officials have resisted making public.
The reason I’m relating all of this now is because of the instructive lessons involved. It’s worth noting that communications from officials in Oroville transitioned from a steady, repeated stream of “Everything is fine. There’s nothing to worry about” to suddenly “Run for your lives!” within an hour.
Of course, the 188,000 people living downstream from the dam were caught off guard by the mandatory evacuation order. Many left with none of their possessions, only to get hopelessly caught on clogged roads. It was a time of panic and disorder, with no one seemingly in control.
The main lesson from Oroville — or Fukushima, or Katrina — is that governments do a poor job of relating accurate information to their citizens when big threats are involved. Part of that is likely due to a desire to avoid stoking fear. Part probably due to politics and bureaucracy. And part probably due to plain old incompetence.
Regardless of the cause, it means that the public — even the vigilant ones — suffer information deficits when it matters most. Simply put, the authorities do not share all the facts necessary for making informed decisions.
Why is why our longstanding advice has been a straightforward call to ‘trust yourself’ when assessing crisis risk. In most cases, good old-fashioned common sense and a little sleuthing will get you far closer to the truth, and faster, than 99% of your peers who are relying on being told what’s happening by those in charge.
In most cases, the information you need to assess the truth will be right there, hiding in plain sight but always obvious in retrospect. This means it’s also available to you in real-time, providing you’re willing to trust your own eyes and you know where to look.
Which brings us to one of the truly great risks we’re facing today. One with much more destructive potential than a single failed dam but, like Oroville, one the authorities are desperate to keep us in the dark about.
The Mother Of All Financial Bubbles
We are now living through the mother of all financial bubbles. We’ve been living with it so long now that we have to take three giant steps backwards to even detect its broad outlines.
As a reminder, a bubble exists when asset prices rise beyond what incomes can sustain. Florida swampland in the 1920’s, tech stocks in the late 1990s, or Toronto real estate today — all are fine examples of this.
The US government and the private banking cartel known as the Federal Reserve, in cahoots with a very compliant and complicit mainstream media, are doing everything in their vast and considerable power to convince us that we are living in an golden era of risk-free prosperity. And that tomorrow will be even better.
Now, regular readers of PeakProsperity.com’s reports will know there’s a mountain of evidence contracting this. But it’s critical to understand that this is the same public perception management style as we’ve recently seen at Oroville: Deny, deny, deny… and then finally admit the obvious.
So let’s take those three giant steps backwards and see if we can spot the flaw in the ‘everything is awesome!’ meme that the Fed et al are trying to paint for everyone by flooding the “markets” with so much thin-air liquidity (between $150-$200 billion a month) that nobody has any clue what anything is truly worth anymore.
Giant Step Backwards #1: Infinite growth is impossible.
This is such an easy concept that I’m continually surprised at how poorly appreciated it is and how much resistance it receives when raised. But it works like this: the earth is a sphere and therefore has a defined surface area and a defined amount of resources available for use.
The availability of these resources ranges across a spectrum from dense/concentrated on one end to dilute/useless at the other. Humans have already extracted and consumed most of the easily obtainable stuff. Now it gets harder.
Regardless of the economics of these resources, they are finite. And as our economic requires resources to function, if we want our economy to grow from here, that means consuming more resources at a faster rate then we have been. If resources are finite, then growth will one day prove finite, too.
This should be utterly, blindingly obvious to everyone. But it’s not, apparently. The Federal Reserve and the central banks in other nations are unified in their call for more economic growth, always and forever. That’s plan A. There is no plan B.
Giant step backwards #2: You can’t print your way to prosperity.
History is replete with the failed attempts of nations to print their way to prosperity. The pursuit operates on the same principle as alchemy: trying to get something for nothing. It has invariably and always ended the same way. In tears.
At first it, issuing more currency feels good because those closest to the money printing get stinking rich while doing practically nothing. As that trickles down, everybody initially feel smart and wealthier. Well, not everybody; but those running the system sure do.
After a while, though, all that feel-good activity is revealed as a fraud.
The post The Mother Of All Financial Bubbles Will be unimaginably destructive when it bursts appeared first on ValueWalk.
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