Central banking, Complexity, Great Reset, Liberty, Monetary reform, Social development, Tyranny

CBDCs: why their future is not so bright

CBDCs are an expression of bankers’ fantasy of total control. Their first pilot program lasted 108 days and ended in total failure, lost elections and prison time.

This post was originally published on Alex Krainer’s Substack

Will the dreaded Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) become a thing? Will they be as awful as the ruling parasite class has intended? Will they be able to enforce compliance with whatever rule they choose to impose, oppressing us under a draconian system of arbitrary restrictions and prohibitions? Rest assured, they will not.

Over the last few months I was asked about CBDCs in a number of podcast interviews. The questions generally reflect the unease and anxiety about the prospect of finding ourselves in a totalitarian dystopia. CBDCs would allow our banking overlords to ‘see’ every purchase we make and condition our access to money through a system of permits that would enable them to micromanage any and all of our transaction choices in real time. This is what they mean when they say, “programmable” CBDCs.

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Great Reset, Liberty, Policy, Real life, Social development, Tyranny

The power of peaceful noncompliance

Originally published on my Substack, Alex Krainer’s Trend Compass, 14 September 2022

In 2020, I watched the New Normal die right in front of me. Here’s the story…

Peaceful noncompliance may not seem like much. It doesn’t make revolutions, nor is it suitable for Hollywood-style epics about the struggle for freedom. But it is actually extraordinarily powerful as I’ll try to convey with this personal experience.

On 22 May 2020, after three months of lockdowns, some of the beaches in the South of France finally opened. After weeks of being restricted at home with two small boys, I took advantage and went down to the seashore. However, this was going to be a New Normal experience with lots of new rules and restrictions. I was so horrified with what I found there, I refused to participate in what seemed like a humiliating treatment, so I just set down a few towels on the grass, overlooking the New Normal beach scene.

Over the following four days I simply sat there and observed while my kids were running around and playing. Later, I wrote an article titled, “A day at the beach in the brave new world” on my blog, The Naked Hedgie. What I did not appreciate at that time was that I was in fact watching that New Normal arrangement disintegrate and die right in front of me, under the weight of people’s simple noncompliance.

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Great Reset, Liberty, Psychology, Real life, Social development

The case for optimism

At the current crossroads, cultivating optimism should be regarded as a sacred duty

(Originally published at Alex Krainer’s TrendCompass)

Amidst the breathtaking pace of global events, many people sense that humanity is at an important crossroads. One path could lead to a dystopian future of totalitarianism, permanent warfare, and a radical decline of prosperity and liberty. The other path leads to a better future, even if many of us can’t quite envision what that future might look like, let alone how to advance in that direction. The first option is easy: we just have to obey, do as we’re told, and our invisible overlords and hapless leaders will take care of the rest. The blueprints have already been drafted and disseminated. 

The other option would require a bottom-up mobilization to steer the ship in the direction that 99.99% of us desire: a more beautiful, more gratifying living in greater prosperity and fuller liberty. It would require that we use our own imagination and creativity to formulate solutions to the many problems our societies face.

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Frequently salvation comes precisely when it appears as though all is lost – Leo Tolstoy

The other option would require a bottom-up mobilization to steer the ship in the direction that 99.99% of us desire: a more beautiful, more gratifying living in greater prosperity and fuller liberty. It would require that we use our own imagination and creativity to formulate solutions to the many problems our societies face.

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Energy crisis, Great Reset, Policy, Politics, Social development, Tyranny

By hook and by crook: pushing the Great Reset

Last July, following a 3-hour call with with the German firebrand MEP Christine Anderson, I published the article, “A small short: the coming collapse of the air travel industry,” about the strange epidemic of travel chaos at airports around the western world. The contention from three industry insiders on that call was that the chaos was being deliberately orchestrated to destroy the air travel industry. They presented detailed and compelling evidence for their contention.

Of course, any such conspiracy theorizing tends to elicit raised eyebrows among the normies. Evidence or no evidence, they reject whatever can’t be linked to “credible sources” in legacy media (by contrast, they’ll accept the official narratives even on statements attributed to unnamed officials). The dismissal of any suggestion that there might be a planned agenda to destroy an entire industry usually leads with the question, “who would do such a thing?

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Economics, Monetary reform, Policy, Politics, Real life, Social development

Policy: economic growth or quality of life?

Published on my Substack, 7 Dec. 2022.

It goes without saying that the key policy objective of fiscal and monetary authorities the world over is to achieve and sustain economic growth. This imperative is ultimately the by-product of the fraudulent monetary system we’ve had in place for several centuries now. In that time, the system has shaped and distorted economic and social policy, economic theory, cultural norms and even the way we think of ourselves.

But living under this system has been a relatively recent socioeconomic experiment. It has proven highly flawed, unsustainable and even pathogenic. At present, it is in an irreversible decline, and it is incumbent upon our generation to rethink and reimagine how to build the future, as even the Davos set claims we must. But we cannot hope to solve society’s problems unless we diagnose the problems correctly.

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Eurasia, Monetary reform, Politics, Social development

A report from the Eurasian Integrations conference

At the end of October I travelled to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan located on the western shore of the Caspian Sea. I went there to speak at the XV Verona Eurasian Economic Forum held on the 27 and 28 October 2022. I found a few things about this experience quite remarkable. For one thing, Azerbaijan was never on my bucket list of places to visit, so I was very pleasantly surprised with what I saw there – so much so that I put together an impromptu video postcard you’ll find below in this post.

The conference itself was superb, both in terms of the program and in terms of the caliber of its participants, among them the former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, Russia’s Integrations and Macroeconomics Minister Sergey Glazyev and many high-level executives from central banks, commercial banks, industry, research institutions and media. Participants came from Russia, France, Germany, India, China, United States, Turkey, Azerbaijan as well as many other Eurasian nations. As far as I know, I was the only participant from Croatia.

The content of the conference focused on the area’s economic development, banking and finance, evolution of the currency and payment systems, cryptocurrencies and crowdfunding; about infrastructure and social development, food production, and a very intelligent discussion about the role of technology in society. Quality of the deliberations was actually quite impressive. This wasn’t about possibilities of development in some distant future, but discussions about real solutions: elements of a new and improved operating system for society that are actually being developed and implemented even as you read these lines.

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Central banking, Eurasia, Great Reset, Monetary reform, Politics, Social development, War and peace

The real war: People vs. the Banks

Recessions, debt, energy crisis, inflation and wars… somehow it is all related, and it is related at a global level, impacting nearly all economies and markets. It all seems to be going rather badly for the “rules based global order,” or as some prefer to call it, “the empire of lies.”

Shock, after shock, after shock…

Last week, on Oct. 6, Kristalina Georgieva, IMF’s Managing Director gave a speech at the Georgetown University in Washington where she explained that the global economy, which was expected to recover strongly after the Covid 19 pandemic, experienced a “shock, after shock, after shock” instead, that it is now experiencing a “fundamental shift,” and that this shift could create a “dangerous new normal.” Georgieva thinks this can only be mitigated by “countries working together.”

We’re winning in Ukraine! Or maybe we’re not.

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Eurasia, History, Liberty, Policy, Politics, Social development, Tyranny, War and peace

Is the age of permanent war finally over?

Recent events in the world have given me great hope that we might finally emerge from the century of permanent war. The Great Reset agenda seems to be losing steam and those in charge of implementing it are losing conviction (with the exception, perhaps, of the very top echelon in power). At the same time, the ranks of people who are opposed to it and are willing to take a stand, appear to be swelling.

Since the very start of the great pandemic of 2020, something about the public health response didn’t feel right. It was clear from the measures that were enacted and from measures that were not enacted that their purpose had little to do with public health. Instead, they seemed to further a different agenda. Soon we learned that this was all connected to World Economic Forum’s hugely ambitious Fourth Industrial Revolution or the Great Reset. But the agenda and the steps taken seemed rushed, panicked and frankly, hopeless.

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Central banking, History, Media, Monetary reform, Policy, Politics, Social development, Truth, War and peace

Covid 19: the banking cartel is driving the agenda

For weeks now, the media and “health” authorities have relentlessly promoted a fear-inducing narrative about the Covid 19 “pandemic” as if the daily count of new “cases” were a major public health emergency, sensationalized by the media nearly 24/7. The official narrative is sharply at odds with the gathering voices from hundreds of doctors, virologists and epidemiologists.

Incoherence of the official narrative

Supposing that we are up against a “once-in-a-century” pandemic, this would be a great challenge for humanity, wrought with uncertainty. One would expect to encounter a lively debate, discussions, much doubt and controversy. Journalists should seek out as many domain experts as possible so we can all gain the clearest possible understanding of the new health challenge and how to confront it. Effective treatments should be promoted, celebrated, screamed from the rooftops. But the reality is very different. Continue reading

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Children, Health, Media, Policy, Politics, Social development

Of pandemics and tyrannies

A few years ago Dr. Jordan Peterson gave a lecture in which he made a chilling but noteworthy remark about the correlation between epidemics and tyrannies. I thought I’d transcribe the key parts (the video clip of this lecture is at the bottom of this article):

Jordan Peterson: “There was a paper published in PLOS 1 … about a year ago… They were looking at… political attitudes with … authoritarian beliefs scale, because authoritarianism has been studied quite a bit since World War II. … What they found was mind-boggling – Nobel Prize winning stuff as far as I’m concerned: Continue reading

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