I’ll start with a quick bio. The story so far. My life, as it relates to history…
The Story…So Far
I was born in a small town in Romania just before the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Everyone had a job, everyone had a house, everyone had money, but there was nothing to buy. Everyone lived in deep austerity, anxious for some kind of rebellion against the dictator.
Then 1989 came. Revolution. The free market. I went to school. I left Romania and came to Canada. At the time, America and particularly the United States of America, was seen as a beacon for the developing world – a role model that the rest of the world would soon inevitably follow.
I went to school in Canada. I learned English, and I started to learn something else. I started to learn programming. At the age of 11, I was already writing my own DOS games. I loved DOS and everything that it provided – a simple API, 256-color VGA graphics, sound, and so on. I soon outgrew my first PC – a 386 – and moved on to a Pentium II, for which I picked the components myself, at the age of 11. An achievement I only now appreciate.
Once I gained an appreciation of Moore’s Law, I ventured into hardware and performance testing. At the age of 12, I created my first real commercial application: Dacris Benchmarks. I started selling it online and quickly made over $10,000 from it. It was a simpler time. It was a time when almost nobody knew anything about computers or the Internet. I was the “computer whiz” kid. I never knew just how much power I had.
Along came September 11, 2001. I was 14 at the time. I still remember that day vividly, and how my teacher kept telling us to “read between the lines.” Now I know exactly what that meant. Sure enough, the world after 9/11 was gripped by fear. Fear that the economy wouldn’t recover. Fear that the ‘terrorists’ would strike again.
But I kept moving along with my stuff. Then something began to happen. In 2002, my sales began to fall, dramatically. The world was changing but I didn’t know how yet. I was only 15. But I sensed that something fundamental had changed. Now, looking back, I can see how 2002 was the first year (since 1979) in which precious metals started rising.
Then, in 2003, as I progressed in high school I learned about outsourcing. I started learning about how American manufacturing jobs moved overseas in the 1980s and 1990s, but that the services industry was supposedly immune. But at the same time, outsourcing of technology jobs (IT) became a worrying trend, for me especially, since I was going to go into the work force soon, as a programmer.
I went to the University of Waterloo, starting in 2004. I started working as part of my co-op degree program in software engineering. I have to say 2004 was very different. For one thing, everything cost a lot less. Gas, food, books, tuition, etc. I started working full-time every 8 months, for 4 month terms. In my first two terms in 2005 and early 2006, everything was moving smoothly. The US was in ‘recovery’ and Canada was also doing well economically. I didn’t really care either because I had almost no savings.
In 2006, I started to save my money. I used a savings account and was fascinated by the idea that I could earn interest, while doing nothing, on money I choose to save. At the time, the interest rate I was earning was pretty high. It was over 3%, sometimes as high as 3.75%. So I kept saving. I lived with my parents during my work terms, so I was able to save close to 90% of my income by not going out, by not partying, by not buying useless stuff.
I was able to save so much that I actually paid for my 3rd and 4th year tuition entirely on my own. By the last term, I was entirely living off of my own money. I had accumulated close to $15,000 in savings by the end of 2006.
Then 2007 came. The year 2007 was a turning point in world history, as I look back on it now. In March of 2007, I started doing some investigative journalism into how the world operates. I wanted to pull apart the social machine and look into how it is engineered. That was the beginning of my ‘awakening’. In 2006 I already started to suspect something was wrong. I did not want to be the 9 to 5 wage slave if I could help it. I did not want to live in ignorance.
At the time, in late 2006, there was already a battle brewing between those who kept saying that ignorance is bliss and those who started to question everything and develop critical thinking. I chose to be on the side of the critical thinkers.
In 2007, I began to find out about the Bilderberg group, Bohemian Grove, Alex Jones, David Icke, and a whole host of people who would by most be considered to be “conspiracy buffs.” Then I started to study the financial system. I wanted to know how it is that traders can make so much money so quickly. In May of 2007, I began to look at the stock market. I wanted to potentially buy some stocks. Then I soon realized by June that the US stock market was ripe for a collapse. It had been going up for several years in a row with no downturn. So I reasoned, as a contrarian investor, that the stock market was due for a correction. So I stayed out.
In October 2007, that correction happened. I started following the news and in August, there was already talk of a “credit crunch”, a “credit crisis.” Indeed, “credit crisis” is exactly what the right term for that condition, which persists to this day, is. Credit is about belief. As more and more people wake up and credit (belief) vanishes, the credit system (which is based on belief) begins to malfunction. It begins to lock up and have spasms of volatility. Makes sense.
A curious thing started in late 2007: prices for things started going up. Food, gas, oil, etc. By early 2008, I watched as oil hit its record high of $147 per barrel. Then I heard Lindsey Williams on YouTube predict the collapse of oil down to $50 a barrel. Sure enough, in August, 2008, oil began to collapse and went all the way down to $37 a barrel!
I started my blog in 2007 and began to make market predictions, most of which turned out to be stunningly accurate. I called the crash in commodities of 2008. I called the bottom of March 2009. Amazing how much money I could’ve made if I had traded on that advice. But I didn’t. I didn’t have enough money to make any meaningful profits.
In the fall of 2008, the company I was working at decided to have a hiring freeze until at least March, 2009, starting in October, 2008. That was pretty scary because I would have liked a full time job there after graduation in 2009. It was also scary that a Canadian company could just all-out stop hiring people on the mere rumor of a potential economic downturn in the United States. That kind of awoke me to how fragile our jobs are, and how much control the corporate bosses (the directors) have over our jobs.
At the time (October, 2008), things were very scary. It was a panic. Stocks sold off, commodities sold off, everything sold off. The US dollar gained. Everyone thought deflation would hit in a big way. Banks would fail, unemployment would rise, something had to be done! It was like a financial 9/11. Read between the lines. Now you know better. It was a crisis created by the big banks so that they would get government money (our money) by threatening to implode the system (too big to fail). It was the beginning of a hostage crisis – a hostile standoff – between us (and our governments) and the big banks. The big banks started holding the governments hostage. They asserted their power and showed who really runs the show.
In the fall of 2009, I started seriously looking for work. After going through a few permanent jobs I decided that “permanent” was not something I could believe in (because no permanent position is permanent) so I decided to work as a contractor instead. I already knew about the outsourcing, about the loss of benefits, long hours, and the destruction of retirement in the US. I saw it starting to happen in Canada too. So I decided, no way, this is not a fair deal for an employee.
As an employee in 2009, I calculated that I would have been making $19.00 per hour (after tax, accounting for extra hours). That was less than my co-op pay! I mean, why don’t I just go back to being a co-op student? No. I became a contractor. I realize now just how valuable that work as a contractor has been to my own personal development. I have a business. I am now the proud director of this business. I am now even in a position to start hiring people. None of that would have been true if I had sheepishly gone into the permanent employee game like everyone else.
I also understood at that time just how fearful and dumbed down the whole population is. If people are willing to take jobs on such horrible terms, then they must be extremely fearful. They are afraid of something. In 2010, I began to study the financial system. I learned about the Federal Reserve, debt-based fiat money, and all the rest of it. I also learned about globalization and the push (by corporate directors) to move everyone into a sort of slavery around the world through global wage arbitrage and the removal of national sovereignty (and hence the destruction of democracy).
Then, in 2011, I, too, became fearful. Seeing the incredible magnitude of what we were facing left me with an enormous sense of fear. But I then became afraid of being afraid. We have nothing to fear but fear itself. That is what has driven us into this corner as a species. We have allowed fear to bring us to the precipice of a global tyrannical dictatorship (by the corporate directors) where we have no democracy, no rights, nothing. Just obedient workers (as George Carlin puts it).
Having read “the 4 hour work week” in 2010, I know how being assertive and having knowledge can give you enormous benefits in this world of fear and ignorance. The 4 hour work week is possible. All you need to change is your attitude towards fear. But long story short, Timothy Ferriss (author of the 4-hour work week) is the pioneer of the new economy that will emerge globally (even in the OECD countries) starting in 2012. And this brings me to the wrap-up of this segment.
The enormous level of global change that has happened in the last 10-15 years is staggering. The world is now waking up faster than ever, because when you lose your job and you have useful skills, you know something is wrong. The financial system is now getting in the way of the real economy. But there’s a much better way forward.
So here we go…
I intend to be the Henry Ford of our generation. Not necessarily (or not just) an inventor. A businessman, sure. An entrepreneur, absolutely. A critical thinker, yes. An investigative journalist and a trainer, absolutely.
Fundamentally, someone who can help individuals realize their own potential. Someone who sees a win-win in a situation and has the courage to go for that instead of the convenient alternatives which are many. This is who I aspire to be. Who I am now is a mere fraction of that. But this is now my mission.
Système D: The Way Forward for the World
It is November, 2011. Occupy Wall Street is probably on the news somewhere. The global anarchy revolution has begun. We are now challenging the legal structure of the world, having exposed the illegitimacy of the governments that have created that structure. Occupy Wall Street is about one thing only: justice. They see the hypocrisy of our world and they don’t like it. I’ve been blogging about it for some time. I began to understand this hypocrisy in 2001 with the 9/11 attacks.
The way forward in 2012 is one based on natural rights and freedom, including free markets. Those who have had enough of the hypocrisy will begin to construct the most trustworthy kind of environment for business: a true free market.
Welcome to Système D. This is the free market that the bankers tried to suppress. It is a totally “shadow” deregulated system of person-to-person business relationships. As Gerald Celente says, when people have nothing left to lose, and they have lost everything, they lose it! Why obey immoral laws? Why leave your house if you’ve been foreclosed on? Why shut down your business because you won’t pay IRS (internal racket service) taxes? If your elected representatives have given you nothing but injustice, then it’s time to fight back. One way to do that is to stop cooperating with the system, as I said many times before. Stop obeying immoral laws. Stop complying with thugs who invade your home without a warrant and call themselves “police.”
No more. The entrepreneurs of the world are being left with no choice but to move to Système D, which is almost as big as the GDP of the United States now. It is 15% of the world’s GDP! Note – this figure does not include “illegal actions that fit the characteristics of classical crimes like burglary, robbery, drug dealing, etc.”
Again, it is up to each of us to realize what is moral and what is not. Killing people in a war or as part of a gang so that you can feed your own kids is not moral. Peaceful integration is moral. Deception and hypocrisy is not moral. Mutual win-win partnerships are. Morality is what constitutes justice. Not arbitrary laws by government officials who are intimidated by banks to pass those laws.
Contrary to what you’ve been told, morality is not relative. It is objective. Not subjective. There is a win-win, an objective win-win, in everything. Maximizing that win-win is what is moral. Everything else is illusion. Love is nothing more than the mutual maximization of win-win. We need to extend love to all who live on this planet.
Resolution: Personal Rights Declaration
Every person has a right to assure his or her own existence on this planet. This fundamental right must be respected in all actions. If it is not respected, that is injustice. Nothing is more fundamental than this.
As the great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. puts it, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
November 3, 2011
0
A Personal Commentary on Where the World is Going
I’ll start with a quick bio. The story so far. My life, as it relates to history…
The Story…So Far
I was born in a small town in Romania just before the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Everyone had a job, everyone had a house, everyone had money, but there was nothing to buy. Everyone lived in deep austerity, anxious for some kind of rebellion against the dictator.
Then 1989 came. Revolution. The free market. I went to school. I left Romania and came to Canada. At the time, America and particularly the United States of America, was seen as a beacon for the developing world – a role model that the rest of the world would soon inevitably follow.
I went to school in Canada. I learned English, and I started to learn something else. I started to learn programming. At the age of 11, I was already writing my own DOS games. I loved DOS and everything that it provided – a simple API, 256-color VGA graphics, sound, and so on. I soon outgrew my first PC – a 386 – and moved on to a Pentium II, for which I picked the components myself, at the age of 11. An achievement I only now appreciate.
Once I gained an appreciation of Moore’s Law, I ventured into hardware and performance testing. At the age of 12, I created my first real commercial application: Dacris Benchmarks. I started selling it online and quickly made over $10,000 from it. It was a simpler time. It was a time when almost nobody knew anything about computers or the Internet. I was the “computer whiz” kid. I never knew just how much power I had.
Along came September 11, 2001. I was 14 at the time. I still remember that day vividly, and how my teacher kept telling us to “read between the lines.” Now I know exactly what that meant. Sure enough, the world after 9/11 was gripped by fear. Fear that the economy wouldn’t recover. Fear that the ‘terrorists’ would strike again.
But I kept moving along with my stuff. Then something began to happen. In 2002, my sales began to fall, dramatically. The world was changing but I didn’t know how yet. I was only 15. But I sensed that something fundamental had changed. Now, looking back, I can see how 2002 was the first year (since 1979) in which precious metals started rising.
Then, in 2003, as I progressed in high school I learned about outsourcing. I started learning about how American manufacturing jobs moved overseas in the 1980s and 1990s, but that the services industry was supposedly immune. But at the same time, outsourcing of technology jobs (IT) became a worrying trend, for me especially, since I was going to go into the work force soon, as a programmer.
I went to the University of Waterloo, starting in 2004. I started working as part of my co-op degree program in software engineering. I have to say 2004 was very different. For one thing, everything cost a lot less. Gas, food, books, tuition, etc. I started working full-time every 8 months, for 4 month terms. In my first two terms in 2005 and early 2006, everything was moving smoothly. The US was in ‘recovery’ and Canada was also doing well economically. I didn’t really care either because I had almost no savings.
In 2006, I started to save my money. I used a savings account and was fascinated by the idea that I could earn interest, while doing nothing, on money I choose to save. At the time, the interest rate I was earning was pretty high. It was over 3%, sometimes as high as 3.75%. So I kept saving. I lived with my parents during my work terms, so I was able to save close to 90% of my income by not going out, by not partying, by not buying useless stuff.
I was able to save so much that I actually paid for my 3rd and 4th year tuition entirely on my own. By the last term, I was entirely living off of my own money. I had accumulated close to $15,000 in savings by the end of 2006.
Then 2007 came. The year 2007 was a turning point in world history, as I look back on it now. In March of 2007, I started doing some investigative journalism into how the world operates. I wanted to pull apart the social machine and look into how it is engineered. That was the beginning of my ‘awakening’. In 2006 I already started to suspect something was wrong. I did not want to be the 9 to 5 wage slave if I could help it. I did not want to live in ignorance.
At the time, in late 2006, there was already a battle brewing between those who kept saying that ignorance is bliss and those who started to question everything and develop critical thinking. I chose to be on the side of the critical thinkers.
In 2007, I began to find out about the Bilderberg group, Bohemian Grove, Alex Jones, David Icke, and a whole host of people who would by most be considered to be “conspiracy buffs.” Then I started to study the financial system. I wanted to know how it is that traders can make so much money so quickly. In May of 2007, I began to look at the stock market. I wanted to potentially buy some stocks. Then I soon realized by June that the US stock market was ripe for a collapse. It had been going up for several years in a row with no downturn. So I reasoned, as a contrarian investor, that the stock market was due for a correction. So I stayed out.
In October 2007, that correction happened. I started following the news and in August, there was already talk of a “credit crunch”, a “credit crisis.” Indeed, “credit crisis” is exactly what the right term for that condition, which persists to this day, is. Credit is about belief. As more and more people wake up and credit (belief) vanishes, the credit system (which is based on belief) begins to malfunction. It begins to lock up and have spasms of volatility. Makes sense.
A curious thing started in late 2007: prices for things started going up. Food, gas, oil, etc. By early 2008, I watched as oil hit its record high of $147 per barrel. Then I heard Lindsey Williams on YouTube predict the collapse of oil down to $50 a barrel. Sure enough, in August, 2008, oil began to collapse and went all the way down to $37 a barrel!
I started my blog in 2007 and began to make market predictions, most of which turned out to be stunningly accurate. I called the crash in commodities of 2008. I called the bottom of March 2009. Amazing how much money I could’ve made if I had traded on that advice. But I didn’t. I didn’t have enough money to make any meaningful profits.
In the fall of 2008, the company I was working at decided to have a hiring freeze until at least March, 2009, starting in October, 2008. That was pretty scary because I would have liked a full time job there after graduation in 2009. It was also scary that a Canadian company could just all-out stop hiring people on the mere rumor of a potential economic downturn in the United States. That kind of awoke me to how fragile our jobs are, and how much control the corporate bosses (the directors) have over our jobs.
At the time (October, 2008), things were very scary. It was a panic. Stocks sold off, commodities sold off, everything sold off. The US dollar gained. Everyone thought deflation would hit in a big way. Banks would fail, unemployment would rise, something had to be done! It was like a financial 9/11. Read between the lines. Now you know better. It was a crisis created by the big banks so that they would get government money (our money) by threatening to implode the system (too big to fail). It was the beginning of a hostage crisis – a hostile standoff – between us (and our governments) and the big banks. The big banks started holding the governments hostage. They asserted their power and showed who really runs the show.
In the fall of 2009, I started seriously looking for work. After going through a few permanent jobs I decided that “permanent” was not something I could believe in (because no permanent position is permanent) so I decided to work as a contractor instead. I already knew about the outsourcing, about the loss of benefits, long hours, and the destruction of retirement in the US. I saw it starting to happen in Canada too. So I decided, no way, this is not a fair deal for an employee.
As an employee in 2009, I calculated that I would have been making $19.00 per hour (after tax, accounting for extra hours). That was less than my co-op pay! I mean, why don’t I just go back to being a co-op student? No. I became a contractor. I realize now just how valuable that work as a contractor has been to my own personal development. I have a business. I am now the proud director of this business. I am now even in a position to start hiring people. None of that would have been true if I had sheepishly gone into the permanent employee game like everyone else.
I also understood at that time just how fearful and dumbed down the whole population is. If people are willing to take jobs on such horrible terms, then they must be extremely fearful. They are afraid of something. In 2010, I began to study the financial system. I learned about the Federal Reserve, debt-based fiat money, and all the rest of it. I also learned about globalization and the push (by corporate directors) to move everyone into a sort of slavery around the world through global wage arbitrage and the removal of national sovereignty (and hence the destruction of democracy).
Then, in 2011, I, too, became fearful. Seeing the incredible magnitude of what we were facing left me with an enormous sense of fear. But I then became afraid of being afraid. We have nothing to fear but fear itself. That is what has driven us into this corner as a species. We have allowed fear to bring us to the precipice of a global tyrannical dictatorship (by the corporate directors) where we have no democracy, no rights, nothing. Just obedient workers (as George Carlin puts it).
Having read “the 4 hour work week” in 2010, I know how being assertive and having knowledge can give you enormous benefits in this world of fear and ignorance. The 4 hour work week is possible. All you need to change is your attitude towards fear. But long story short, Timothy Ferriss (author of the 4-hour work week) is the pioneer of the new economy that will emerge globally (even in the OECD countries) starting in 2012. And this brings me to the wrap-up of this segment.
The enormous level of global change that has happened in the last 10-15 years is staggering. The world is now waking up faster than ever, because when you lose your job and you have useful skills, you know something is wrong. The financial system is now getting in the way of the real economy. But there’s a much better way forward.
So here we go…
I intend to be the Henry Ford of our generation. Not necessarily (or not just) an inventor. A businessman, sure. An entrepreneur, absolutely. A critical thinker, yes. An investigative journalist and a trainer, absolutely.
Fundamentally, someone who can help individuals realize their own potential. Someone who sees a win-win in a situation and has the courage to go for that instead of the convenient alternatives which are many. This is who I aspire to be. Who I am now is a mere fraction of that. But this is now my mission.
Système D: The Way Forward for the World
It is November, 2011. Occupy Wall Street is probably on the news somewhere. The global anarchy revolution has begun. We are now challenging the legal structure of the world, having exposed the illegitimacy of the governments that have created that structure. Occupy Wall Street is about one thing only: justice. They see the hypocrisy of our world and they don’t like it. I’ve been blogging about it for some time. I began to understand this hypocrisy in 2001 with the 9/11 attacks.
The way forward in 2012 is one based on natural rights and freedom, including free markets. Those who have had enough of the hypocrisy will begin to construct the most trustworthy kind of environment for business: a true free market.
Welcome to Système D. This is the free market that the bankers tried to suppress. It is a totally “shadow” deregulated system of person-to-person business relationships. As Gerald Celente says, when people have nothing left to lose, and they have lost everything, they lose it! Why obey immoral laws? Why leave your house if you’ve been foreclosed on? Why shut down your business because you won’t pay IRS (internal racket service) taxes? If your elected representatives have given you nothing but injustice, then it’s time to fight back. One way to do that is to stop cooperating with the system, as I said many times before. Stop obeying immoral laws. Stop complying with thugs who invade your home without a warrant and call themselves “police.”
No more. The entrepreneurs of the world are being left with no choice but to move to Système D, which is almost as big as the GDP of the United States now. It is 15% of the world’s GDP! Note – this figure does not include “illegal actions that fit the characteristics of classical crimes like burglary, robbery, drug dealing, etc.”
Again, it is up to each of us to realize what is moral and what is not. Killing people in a war or as part of a gang so that you can feed your own kids is not moral. Peaceful integration is moral. Deception and hypocrisy is not moral. Mutual win-win partnerships are. Morality is what constitutes justice. Not arbitrary laws by government officials who are intimidated by banks to pass those laws.
Contrary to what you’ve been told, morality is not relative. It is objective. Not subjective. There is a win-win, an objective win-win, in everything. Maximizing that win-win is what is moral. Everything else is illusion. Love is nothing more than the mutual maximization of win-win. We need to extend love to all who live on this planet.
Resolution: Personal Rights Declaration
Every person has a right to assure his or her own existence on this planet. This fundamental right must be respected in all actions. If it is not respected, that is injustice. Nothing is more fundamental than this.
As the great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. puts it, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”