The Next Date That Will Live in Infamy.
December 7, 1941.
Anyone who recalls their elementary school American history will know that date is one that lives in infamy, or so said President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he announced to the American people that Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor and that the U.S. was officially at war.
This is not the story of that war.
It’s the story of December 6, 1941.
A day no one ever really thinks about.
Imagine, for a moment, you’re a sailor assigned to Pearl Harbor. Saturday, December 6 is just another day at the beach, literally. Sunny and warm on a tropical island paradise. You and your buddies head out to buy Christmas gifts for your family and friends back home, knowing that shipping them to the mainland will take a week or two.
Life is, in a word, normal.
Less than 24 hours later, life is diametrically opposite of normal.
That—the destruction of the status quo—is what today’s dispatch is really all about.
We are living in one of the most fraught ages I can remember in my 57 years.
For the last two decades, life in America has been devolving on numerous fronts. Freedoms have vanished. Unwarranted fear of everything has exploded. States and busy-body parents clutching their pearls have banned classic art and literature—from Michelangelo’s statue of David to George Orwell’s 1984 (the irony there of life imitating art is too rich).
The chasm between social and political beliefs is as wide as it was in the run-up to the Civil War. There’s a societal and cultural war on education and knowledge.
The financial system, as we’ve seen with recent bank failures, is held together by thoughts and prayers, which are doing just as good a job as they do when yet another school shooting occurs.
More and more American families are subsisting on credit card debt to live aspirational lives, even as quality of living and quality of heath decline, and as real income has effectively stagnated for the last few decades.
The government has reached a point where it, too, is so consumed by debt that the economy is in danger of collapse because of a pending fight over the debt-ceiling. And we have states and lawmakers literally calling for secession and the divvying up of America along red/blue lines.
Much as I love what my country once represented, I don’t see how America survives in its current form … which is why I keep saying a crisis looms, likely before the end of the decade and probably in the 2027-2028 timeframe.
If ever there was a time to start getting your ducks in a row, now is that time.
As Bob Dylan crooned in the tumultuous ’60s, “The times they are a changin’.” Americans face a fundamental realignment, socially and financially. The status quo we all accept as static is soon to shift. When it does, it will be seen as something akin to Dec. 7—that day of infamy.
Truth is, Dec. 7 wasn’t an unexpected unknown that just came out of the blue to change normalcy.
The U.S. had been pressuring Japan in various ways in Asia. And the U.S. knew on Dec. 6 that the Japanese navy was up to something when it intercepted a Japanese message regarding ship movements and the positions of American warships berthed in Pearl Harbor. The cryptologist gave that message to her superior… who said he would get back to her on Monday, December 8.
What’s coming, then, is not unexpected.
Pressures build and build, and build some more… and like an earthquake they finally shake loose. When they do, devastation abounds in all directions.
A life-changing earthquake is building under us right now, and it will change the world as much as December 7, 1941 changed the world.
Whatever you take away from this dispatch, I hope that you take away the knowledge that the status quo changes all the time.
We have to be prepared for that.
How do you prepare for an earthquake? You build a stronger foundation and you pack a go-bag with the essentials you need to live.
It’s the same with a financial and social earthquake. You build a stronger foundation for your life and your finances, and you pack a go-bag that allows you to uproot if needed, and which allows you to access your wealth anywhere in the world.
I’ve done this in my own life.
I pursued residency in Europe because I think it will be a safe place to live when the earthquake strikes. And if it’s not, I have a Plan B—decamping to Uruguay, where the residency visa process is quick.
I have packed my retirement and other investment accounts with beaucoup Swiss francs, gold in various forms, silver bullion, and a bundle of bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies. I have moved a great deal of my wealth offshore and out of the way of the fires that will erupt when the earthquake hits.
I know none of this is a pleasant read.
But I don’t want to be the cheerleader who plasters on a fake smile and tries to sugarcoat bad results.
I prefer to be the coach that players hate to love, because he tells you exactly what’s what, and he pushes you to consider hard truths about yourself and the game around you.
A new December 7 is coming.
December 6 is here.
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