10 antidotes for the current global crisis
106: Take these steps to hedge yourself for any outcome
This weekend I did a good honest bit off reflecting. Reflecting on how wild the world is at the moment and how many areas for concern are present. Sure we’ve seen wild stock markets and asset bubbles, some irresponsible fed policy and power hungry politicians….
But sometimes it really is difficult for me to focus on work or the day to day when I stop to think on everything that is transpiring and the implications of where it seems to be heading.
Within my reflecting I found myself returning to one focal point in which I ruminated on over the course of the last several years. That is, that all of the major crises we are seeing unfold are almost exclusively deliberately made or manifested.
From the pandemic, to the absurd inflation and wavering economy we have, to the War in Ukraine that presents nuclear risk - all of it, either the result of incompetence or ill will.
I lean toward the latter.
In fact, in the face of such arrogance and ambivalence to the severity of the situation the globe faces right now, I think back to a passage from Charles Pellegrino's book The Last Train from Hiroshima — which serves as a stark reminder of what war looks like in the modern age.
In the aftermath of the nuclear blast on Hiroshima, he described a horrifying scene.
"One man, staggering on charred stumps of legs, was carrying a dead baby upside down."
"Now eyeless and faceless, with their heads transformed into blackened alligator hides displaying red holes, indicating mouths," he wrote.
"The alligator people did not scream. Their mouths could not form the sounds. The noise they made was worse than screaming.
"They uttered a continuous murmur like locusts on a midsummer night.
The 9,000-pound uranium-235 bomb known as “Little Boy” was dropped at 8.15 a.m local time, exploding 2,000 feet above Hiroshima. The blast was equal to 12-15,000 tons of TNT and destroyed five square miles of the city.
Nowadays the nuclear weapons armed and stored by the US, China, and Russia are 60-100 times as powerful.
Nuclear war, if escalated would mean the end of life for tens of millions of people instantaneously, leaving the unlucky remaining to deal with a ruined earth and atmosphere.
And yet, Ukraine, NATO, and the US are frivolously playing around with Nord Stream, blowing up the Kerch Strait Bridge, and other Russian objectives and pieces of infrastructure. Just this morning Putin struck the German Consulate in Kyiv. How long until a NATO country is dragged into the conflict or the US responds militarily prompting a nuke from Putin?
At this rate very soon. It seems in this digital age of tech, tik tok, seamless delivery, and more we’ve become highly disconnected from the raw nature of the world.
The reality is you deserve to be prepared and successful when things go south — that’s what so many of our ancestors have done over the ages of human history and come out on top.
Outside the threat of nuclear war, a US company tried to take the next step in censorship and suppression.
PayPal came under immediate fire for their alleged proposal today to fine users up to $2,500 if they broke the rules put forth regarding “misinformation” to be taken directly out of user’s accounts if the company deemed something was misinformation. The uproar was immediate as people started to delete their accounts en masse —- PayPal claimed it was a misunderstanding.
We expect this particular trend to continue in the payments/banking realm. What’s more as the Covid/Booster/Vaccine circus drags on, this weekend two senior MRNA researchers, PHDs, and Cardiologists (Dr. Peter A. McCullough and Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo) have been blackballed and canceled on Twitter/instagram for sharing factual information and updates regarding higher risks for myocarditis in young men from the vaccine.
At this point this is just ridiculous. The truth is being aggressively stymied for larger political ends BUT this isn’t a political post. It’s a loose guide to combating the madness.
What we are seeing is a sinister form of complete censorship in which ANY dissenting opinion, ideas, and concepts are immediately scrubbed from existence. It’s truly insane to witness.
This is happening because the situation globally is deteriorating. The elite understand that control of the narrative is vital in times as delicate as these.
Needless to say we face a range of immediate serious issues at the moment as everyday investors, citizens, and people. We’ve touched on quite a few of them, but it seems each passing week something new emerges.
Some of the issues we have covered include:
Nuclear War from the War in Ukraine
Global supply chains and famine
CBDCs/Social Credit Systems
The Financial Markets, Crypto, Recession
Politics in the US, Social Unrest, Soaring Crime
So I thought, what would be the best way to help folks wrap their heads around what all of this could mean.
There’s no perfect way to weather this storm but one thing’s for sure: you WILL NOT get any favors done through mainstream media and that’s why we choose to present the facts as they are here, unfiltered and unadulterated.
And I am no expert —- but I’ve compiled a list of ten concepts critical to being prepared and hedged for what comes next in financial markets, globally, and socially.
Unfortunately for something like a nuclear threat or strike, in some instances there is very little we/you can do but we will walk through the nuance of each issue as we see it.
The very real threat of a nuclear incident or war is growing by the week. For over a month Putin and his top advisors have hinted at the use of nuclear weapons. The recent Nord Stream sabotage and sabotage of the Kerch Strait bridge, makes retribution strikes likely in the coming weeks.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Putin, said this weekend that Russia should consider using low-yield nuclear weapons after Moscow’s troops were forced out of key regions in Ukraine. Certain groups seem to be trying to will a nuclear incident into existence!
This isn’t hype, we legitimately are entering situations where we could see nuclear weapons employed if the correct conditions are met, many people are vastly undereducated on the topic of nuclear weapons.
You really need to understand the gravity of this situation.
On the financial/government front - we spoke on CBDCs recently (Central Bank Digital Currencies) a few weeks ago and how there are many countries currently trialing digital currencies programs or have an existing similar system (China).
There are some ways to prepare for the implementation of a CBDC attempt.
The US Federal Reserve and White House have both commented on the devlopment of such a currency in the US recently. Just this weekend on the heels of PayPal’s attempt to implement a policy that charges people $2,500 for misinformation, we’ve seen heightened chatter about Central Bank Digital Currencies —- it’s obvious moves are being made by world governments to implement digital/centralized currencies that are immune to inflation and can be censored.
Remember this is about control.
With inflation remaining the stubborn the US Federal Reserve is likely to remain committed to rate hikes through the end of 2022 amid calls for a break on tightening from the UN and other countries. Experts fear a full blown recession could soon start despite the US being in a recession by the technical definition of 2 negative quarters of GDP growth.
And finally we look to the 2024 presidential election in the upcoming midterms, and the rather aggressive form of political partisanship in the United States.
Bottom line?
Things are grim, and while we want everything to look up in financial markets and on the world scale it is unlikely that occurs in the near term. Because of that, we want to properly hedge ourselves, and ensure that we are in the best possible positions to make it through these events to the other side where profits, assets, and hopefully prosperity await.
But in the short term - we expect worse crime, government attempts for more control, political unrest, and potentially grave escalation in the War in Ukraine that could pose a threat to everyone on the globe.
As we all slog our way’s into this Monday I wanted to provide something of value to help address some of the chaos around us.
If you’re observant, you know things didn’t just magically snap back into place after Covid, both socially and economically.
You know the whole Ukraine story doesn’t add up.
You don’t quite understand why we continue to provoke Putin but understand that he could use a nuclear weapon if pushed far enough.
You know the Fed sold all of their securities at the ultimate top of the market before deciding to induce a recession and crash global markets.
You know all of these global governments are vying for power over your social life, money, and health…..
We know all these things —- and yet people are surprisingly non chalant at the moment.
I wanted to compile 10 concepts/things every man or woman should consider having as we enter unprecedented times of economic turbulence, geo-politcial conflict, and social unrest. I don’t think of this as some strict list but more as a guiding list for themes and considerations and a potential way to come out of all of this better than ever.
Do you have all these things squared away? Are there things you still need? Would you be able to make it through a 2 week power grid blackout or internet/stock market collapse?
Let’s be perfectly clear here - these are 10 areas of focus/concepts/items to keep in mind in this crazy world we live in now, to help you prepare for financial, social, and global unrest/volatility. That’s it. Ten basic concepts to arm yourself with.
It’s not a crazy prepper’s manual it’s common sense.
Everyone can and should have these ideas flushed out so that if they do find themselves in a survival situation, natural disaster, financial blow up, or another type of massive calamity like a power grid outage, nuclear strike, or internet outage, you and your family will be okay and secure.
Remember the goal is to get through to the other side and become prosperous and wealthy —- can’t happen if you don’t have the means to make it through the worst that’s yet to transpire.
I assure you reading this will be entirely more helpful and useful than whatever job job you may intermittently check emails for today. So, ten concepts/antidotes for dealing with the host of major threats/issues in the world today.
The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining
—John F. Kennedy
1 - Diversified Wealth
Diversify your wealth…. really Andy? I can hear you now, but hear me out for a second.
When I say diversify your wealth, I don’t mean to just put 70% in equities and 30% in bonds and be on your merry way. What I actually mean is diversify the FORM your wealth or assets take.
With the advent of crypto, defi, and blockchain, digital currencies, markets, and exchanges have rapidly evolved.
As governments make moves to manipulate currencies and markets, and as more companies try to play the “woke” game PayPal tried to today, it will serve you well to have money spread out in different forms, on different platforms, and with varying levels of security.
You should have some physical gold and silver, physical cash with you, digital assets, and some portion of that in cold storage offline. I use two separate banks for personal and business funds.
I like to also have 2 or 3 items that I have around the house that I also know will hold their hard value and I work to regularly stock up on (guns, ammo, batteries, etc.) other examples include:
Luxury Items with resale value that holds
Wood/Lumber/Materials
Watches/Jewelry
Vices (Booze, extra curriculars)
Antiques
Medical Supplies
To name a few……
Spreading out your capital gives you peace of mind because you hedge your systematic risk.
So bottom line - make sure to get into multiple assets.
Given the heightened volatility in all assets and the constant macro headwinds, you’ll have the added benefit of having solid exposure that will reward you when things eventually begin to turn around again.
As a general rule of thumb, now is a great time to add to long term portfolios by buying up index funds and blue chip assets that have bled substantially but don’t discount that we could see a massive shift towards a new financial reality or paradigm as well. Nobody knows who is going to outperform who in the next several years.
We could Bitcoin go to $150,000, we could see a mandated government digital dollar, or we could see an internet black out, rendering all digital money useless. Don’t think that’s impossible, it is very much possible. Spread out so ensure you don’t get left behind on a major development.
You know I am bullish long term on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Chainlink, PolkaDot, and a handful of other crypto assets. I am also long term bullish on tech names, ammo/gun names, and some growth. I add these monthly.
Diversifying your wealth is also important as we may see quite a bit more bleeding in equity markets through the end of the year.
There are theories that if we have a bad enough financial event or recession, that world governments and the US Fed will move to implement a digital currency or CBDC - this would be the only money you can use for goods and services and, in similar fashion to PayPal’s proposed lunacy, would give the company/government all say over how you can spend, if you can access, and how you can use your money.
Don’t sleep on this shit - it’s coming and while all of this crazy shit is going on in the world around us, unless you have a trust fund or already made it ($1M+ net worth, you have to navigate how exactly to make it in this world where the rules and the playing field are constantly shifting or as many online spaces call it the matrix.
Bottom line — weather this storm, stay afloat, and come out richer so you can really benefit once conditions ease.
Recommendations
Ledger/Trezor (our recs) for digital asset storage
Physical copies of seed phrases/crypto wallet logins
DCA (Dollar Cost Average) - into blue chip equity/crypto
A good gun or valuables safe for storing items
Multiple bank accounts if possible
Stash of physical cash and precious metals like Gold and Silver
Proper copy of a will, asset structure, portfolio details for third parties
Learn more about tax opportunities if you qualify/meet standards abroad
2 - Nuclear/Disaster Considerations
With the tension we are seeing in the War in Ukraine and the recent attack on Russian infrastructure at Kerch, the threat of a nuclear weapon being used is indeed the highest it’s been since the Cold War.