Let me make a secret confession right here. For years, the producer of my radio talk show and I would draw straws each January to see who would “have the high privilege and distinct honor” of watching the president’s State of the Union address.

Do I have to clarify that the loser had to watch?

In case the president said something important – which almost never happened – I felt an obligation to play some audio clips and talk about it on the show the next morning. But, personally, watching Republican and Democrat presidents recite their laundry list of promised giveaways for the year ahead was more than I could bear.

I learned early on that I could avoid all of the ovations and applause, save time, and still capture what substance there might have been in a written paragraph or two. Soon, I’ll give you such a written account, a perennial synopsis that will allow you to watch something else – like American Idol – and still have a handle on what the president says.

And you might even have time left over to keep an eye on the real news.

While We Were Watching…

The State of the Union is treated with utmost seriousness by the dominant news media. All four major TV networks and the cable news channels carry the event. My local newspaper devoted most of the front page and big chunks of the inside pages to its coverage: photos, accounts, sidebars, response, and analysis.

But it’s actually a spectacle that crowds out the real news. News about the impact American diplomacy is having on our future standard of living. News about the U.S. dollar’s reserve status winding down.

On the day of the State of the Union address, news flashed around the world – but not on your favorite network or in your morning paper – that India and Iran have agreed to end-run the U.S.-imposed sanctions on Iran.

They will use gold to do so.

Those [U.S.] sanctions, which have now been agreed to by the European Union as well, will ratchet up in July. Their enforcement means that banks and financial institutions involved in oil transactions with Iran will be barred from doing any business with financial institutions in the United States and Europe.

According DEBKAfile, a news source based in Israel, Iran has taken steps to bypass American and European banks and their currency desks altogether, agreeing instead to sell its oil to India for gold. China is expected to soon agree to use gold in buying oil from Iran as well. It’s a move that would leave the long-standing global dollar pricing of petroleum in tatters.

The gold-for-oil agreement means a three things:

1. It hastens the unwinding of the U.S. dollar’s global reserve currency status.

The rest of the world is actively developing alternatives to the U.S. dollar. Although it will mean a falling standard of living for the American people, U.S. policies and secretaries of state, like Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton, have spurred what will become a stampede away from the dollar. DEBKAfile also reports that both China and Russia have secret mechanisms already in place to pay Iran in non-dollar currencies for its oil. And only a month ago, China and Japan, the world’s second- and third-largest economies, agreed to develop direct yen/yuan trading, forgoing the dollar as the reserve currency intermediary.

2. It accelerates the global monetization of gold.

Both China and India have been aggressively adding to their gold reserves. Other countries are following suit. The Keynesians, who have been in charge of American monetary policy, having destroyed the value of the dollar and enabled our ruinous debt, may actually believe that gold is a “barbarous relic.” But it is clear that their opinions have little functional value in the real world. The world is turning to gold more and more as U.S. debt continues to mount. Indeed, is there a better alternative monetary unit to be found? Certainly, it’s not the euro. Jim Grant of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer says gold is the only answer to the question, “if not the dollar, then what?”

3. It reveals the growing global impotence of the U.S.

Long able to enforce reluctant countries to adhere in its missions and embargoes around the world, the U.S. is finding its will frustrated. Nations that once had to weigh the favor of the U.S. against their own commercial and domestic political interests are increasingly ignoring the global dictates of the U.S. State Department. In 2003, Turkey, where the prospect of a U.S. invasion of Iraq was wildly unpopular, refused even bribes to allow the U.S. to stage the invasion from its soil. Today, the threat of a U.S. or Israeli strike on Iran is meeting with growing disapproval, especially from countries like China and India which rely heavily on Iranian oil.

Routine. Tired. Repetitive.

It may be that the State of the Union’s falling ratings – Obama’s speech the other night was down 12 percent from the year before, and was down 21 percent from 2010 – are a sign that people in large numbers have discovered there are better sources of important news than network television and Washington’s lapdog press.

Or, even better, maybe they’ve had about enough of the Washington party.

Or, maybe it’s simply because it’s all so routine, so tired, so repetitive. Even American Idol, entering its 11th season, has more surprises than the State of the Union. Consider:

Obama, who clearly doesn’t understand anything about markets, offered to have the government interfere with the real estate market in brand new ways in 2012. What could be more predictable than some president announcing a scheme to screw up the real estate market again in the new year?

It’s so routine. So tired. So repetitive.

And while the contestants on American Idol are fresh every year, the promises that make up the State of the Union are just reruns, season after season.

Now, if you’d like to be free to pay attention to the real news that actually affects your freedom and prosperity, let me provide you the following short, beginning-to-end account of this year’s State of the Union. You’ll be able to refer to it year after year, so that while you’ll still be informed about the president’s address, you can skip the show and save yourself time.

Time to follow the real news. Or to watch American Idol.

“Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.”

The president agreed to do something for (to?) homeowners. He also has decided to help teachers. And students. And women. Workers, too. The president wants to help workers, for sure. And jobs galore. The president is all about creating jobs in 2012. And more jobs in energy. Oh, they’ll be clean ones for sure!

Plus, he’s going to reform regulations so that regulators will be able to regulate better. And he wants to get a handle on the bureaucracy. And he wants to reform education. And both make government more effective and still grow the economy. Did he forget men and women in uniform? The president most certainly did not!

“Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.”

Regards,

Charles Goyette

Source

The State of the Union, Just Another Reality Show was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

I’ve given it a lot of thought, drawing on my decades of market-watching experience. In the end, I came up with three predictions for 2012, one of which I will talk about in today’s article.

[ Michael also tied these predictions to three new trade recommendations, currently only available to Agora Financial Reserve members, but which we are working on making available to Whiskey Shooters for an unbelievable discount. More on this later in the week. Keep an eye out of it. -- Ed.]

But be warned: While I believe these events have a very high probability of occurring next year, the mainstream media will likely disagree. Expect them to say I’m being absurd, or at the very least ascribe to them a very low probability of happening.

Let them whine — they were wrong in 2011, and they will be wrong in 2012. So these predictions will catch most investors off guard [...which means you have an opportunity to buy into the matching recommendations for a relatively low price. -- Ed.]

And remember, I’m not a “doom and gloom” guy. In fact, I actually hope all of my predictions do not come to fruition, as they will prove yet more detrimental to this already-anemic economy and country.

But I can’t ignore what I see…and it is my charge to find a way for you to prosper amid the coming chaos. Even if what I see isn’t 100% on the money, the plays I’ve selected should still do all right.

So sit down, strap in and prepare to be surprised, starting with my first recommendation.

It’s pretty clear that we’re going to see some sort of military action against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, either by Israel, the United States or even NATO. Recent words from Israeli policymakers, U.S. military action and even signals from the markets made that abundantly clear.

In a pre-Thanksgiving interview on CNN, former prime minister and current defense minister of Israel Ehud Barak spelled out his country’s position:

“People understand now that Iran is determined to reach nuclear weapons. No other possible or conceivable explanation for what they have been actually doing. And that should be stopped. And under nuclear Iran, the whole region will turn nuclear — Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt will have to turn nuclear. The countdown toward nuclear materials in the hands of terrorists will start, even if you take out the generation. But more than this, they will use the nuclear umbrella to kind of intimidate neighbors all around the Gulf, to sponsor terror. Try to think what happens if at a certain moment you wake up after Iran turns nuclear, three years down the stream, and you end up with a Bahrain overwhelmed by Iran — who will come to rescue? Who would have come to rescue Kuwait when it was taken by Saddam Hussein 20 years ago, if Saddam could have said credibly enough that he had three or four crude nuclear devices?”

The defense minister continued:

“It’s true that it wouldn’t take three years…probably three-quarters, before no one can do anything practically about it because the Iranians are gradually, deliberately entering into what I call a zone of immunity, by widening the redundancy of their plan, making it spread over many more sides.”

He then reiterated the time frame in which Israel has to take military action: “I cannot tell you for sure, nor can I predict whether it’s two-quarters or three-quarters. But it’s not two or three years.”

In case you couldn’t read between the lines, Mr. Barak has given us a time frame for a pre-emptive attack — sometime within the next nine months!

And that’s overt military action. The covert options may have already begun… with the United States providing a hand.

The Drone Wars

You’ve probably heard about the RQ-170 unmanned American spy plane that Iran claims to have shot down. After weeks of denial, the United States has admitted it was hunting suspected Iranian nuclear sites.

Now Iran has claimed it was able to take control of the drone during its flight, forcing it to land exactly where Iran wanted it.

Spy flights are one thing. Actual hostility would be something completely different. But the fact is that might have already started too.

Israeli newspapers declared that Israel’s war with Iran already had begun, in the form of covert action in cooperation with other groups. The Miami Herald has information backing this up.

It reports that there have been a series of “mishaps” at Iranian nuclear facilities and weapons sites. They may be part of a covert organized attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons program, according to the paper.

A recent occurrence outside Iran’s third-largest city, Isfahan, is thought to be the most-recent strike, though details on the intended target are still unclear. Intelligence officials across the Middle East say there is strong evidence that an explosion at a sprawling military base and nuclear facility outside Isfahan had done some “significant structural damage.”

But it’s not just the promises from Israel, scattered newspaper reports or signs of U.S. surveillance that indicate an attack on Iran is imminent. It’s the market indicators as well.
Consider oil prices. Logic dictates that if the global economy were slowing, the demand for oil would drop, along with its price. In fact, that’s what has been happening with most industrial commodities. But oil remains a glaring exception.

Take a look at the following charts:

The first shows the year-over-year change in oil and copper prices, and the second shows the change in both those commodities over the last 30 days.

We can see that oil prices are up 12% over the last 52 weeks and have surged 13% in the last month. But copper prices are down nearly 10% YOY and have dropped about the same amount in just the last month. As I alluded to in the last issue, falling copper prices are a signal that a global recession is just around the corner. However, oil prices are telling us that something other than just a global economic funk is in the cards.

I believe oil prices have begun to factor in the removal of the world’s third-largest exporter of oil from the market. But I think the markets are actually being too optimistic. There is much more at stake here than the 2.2 million barrels of oil that Iran exports each day.

If you know Middle Eastern geography, you know Iran sits alongside the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow body of water that connects the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea and, ultimately, the Indian Ocean.

Oil tankers from Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates all travel through the strait. In fact, 33% of the world’s tanker traffic and a mind-blowing 17% of the world’s oil pass through the strait.

So with just a little effort, Iran could effectively block nearly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply. And the country knows it.

This is not speculation. This is 100% fact. As Fox News reported, Parviz Sarvari, a member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security Committee, recently warned, “Soon we will hold a military maneuver on how to close the Strait of Hormuz… If the world wants to make the region insecure, we will make the world insecure.”

Wall Street cannot ignore that threat much longer. The increasing likelihood of an overt attack on Iran will not make the situation any better. Remember that when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, oil prices doubled. And that was just a fraction of the world’s oil at stake, compared with what closing down the Strait of Hormuz could mean.

But even if the world manages to avoid a confrontation with Iran, there are other reasons to have exposure to rising oil prices in your portfolio next year.

For one thing, there’s still the ever-present proclivity of global central bankers to print unlimited amounts of money. After all, oil has traditionally been a fairly good hedge against inflation. Remember back in the late ’70s when gold and oil prices soared together when the Fed under Arthur Burns sent inflation to 15%.

But couple Fed chief Ben Bernanke’s love affair with counterfeiting, er, creating new cash with the credible threat of oil shortages, and you can clearly see why owning oil-producing stocks may be a great asset in 2012.

Regards,

Michael Pento

Iran’s Desperate Gamble to Push Oil Up to $200 was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

The latest threats, and these are serious threats, are being directed at Iran. Regardless of the fact that the U.S. is still considered the world’s superpower, any aggressive war against Iran could come back to haunt even the most evil and powerful designers of U.S. foreign policy.

Iran is a country with 80 million people. Given the trouble the U.S. has had in dealing with places like Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, what on earth do they think will happen if they wage war on Iran? Keep in mind that the U.S. is already involved in multiple wars of aggression, and now is attempting to take over Africa as well. This type of imperialism will, eventually, lead to the destruction of the empire, but if either Israel or the U.S. attacks Iran now, all hell could break loose!

Iran is the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, which makes it attractive to many hostile neighbors and to Big Oil companies. This is reason enough for concern, but Iran is also geographically important, at least in the eyes of American foreign policymakers. Iran is bordered by Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey and Turkmenistan, and is just across the Persian Gulf from Saudi Arabia. Iran, literally, is the middle of the Middle East. Iran also borders the Caspian Sea, and the U.S. has long been after those huge stores of oil. Much of the reason for the war in Afghanistan was based on building and securing the north-south oil pipeline that would allow oil delivery from the Caspian through Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and into Pakistan. Securing Iran would take the U.S. a step closer to gaining access to the oil in the Caspian, but at what cost?

China and Russia, both nuclear powers, are very important trading partners with Iran. China now has very extensive oil and gas contracts with Iran. Iran currently supplies 12% of China’s oil, making Iran the third-largest supplier of crude to China. The Iran/China annual trade value is expected to increase to $50 billion just over the next few years. Russian and Iranian trade ties have expanded to include agriculture and telecommunications, as well as energy and other goods, and Iran exports many products to Russia. Will Russia and China sit back while aggressive attacks are taking place, or will they protect their interests in Iran?

This is only the tip of the iceberg, but it is obvious that any unleashing of force against Iran would probably come with many unintended consequences, very dangerous consequences at that. War with Iran would force the other Arab states to take sides. The entire Middle East would become a boiling pot of turmoil. The region is already a powder keg, and little agitation is necessary to turn this situation into total chaos.

In the past 100 years or so, Iran has not aggressively attacked any country, much less any Western country. During that same period, the U.S. and its complicit military have aggressively attacked, and in many cases, occupied country after country, nation after nation, and now are interfering with entire continents. The U.S. has become the leader in perpetual unholy wars of aggression against innocents, and most in this country still cling to the misguided notion that America is exceptional. It is only exceptional in its desire to gain total hegemony in its quest to conquer the world!

I fear that any attack of Iran by United States forces would bring cataclysmic results never before seen on this earth. Considering all the players involved, the entire Middle East, including Israel, China, Russia, the NATO countries and probably others, the ramifications would be deadly. This could easily turn into World War III, and with this many countries involved, it might only be a matter of time until nuclear weapons were used. If that happened, where would it stop, considering the nuclear capabilities of the U.S., China, Russia, Pakistan, India and, of course, Israel? It is evident that without the use of nuclear weapons by Israel or the U.S., Iran would be difficult, if not impossible, to defeat. This truth is not escapable.

The Pentagon is building and testing monstrous flying bombs that can travel anywhere on earth within an hour, killing all people in any given location. Killer-drone bases are being constructed everywhere. Our liberty at home has disappeared, and torture and rendition are commonplace. And while indefinite detention without trial is now accepted, and while the president — on his say-so alone — can assassinate Americans or anyone else he chooses, most are sitting in their living rooms waiting to see Dancing With the Stars or Monday Night Football. I have never seen or experienced anything more pathetic in my lifetime. This sickens me!

World War III might be just around the corner. The possibility of nuclear war is now a real threat, and that threat is too dangerous to consider. Do these loathsome politicians and war-makers know the real risks? Do they understand what consequences will befall us, should these wars continue? Do they even care? If they don’t know, then they are all fools playing a fool’s game, and that game does not have a happy ending!

Regards,

Gary D. Barnett

Targeting Iran Is a Fool’s Game was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

Iran’s defense minister, Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, was quoted in state-run media as saying, “By successful test of the Azarakhsh, planning for production of fifth-generation airplanes began.” Fifth-generation aircraft are designed and fabricated to incorporate stealth technologies that include advanced composite materials, radar-reflecting and radar-absorbing surfaces, and integrated advanced electronics and weapons systems.

However, based upon a photo of the Azarakhsh supplied by the government of Iran, the new aircraft appears outwardly to be a rough copy of the U.S.-sponsored, Northrop-designed F-5. The F-5 is a second-generation aircraft procured and first deployed by U.S. forces in the 1960s. Some upgraded F-5s remain in use in the air forces of some nations, and a stripped-down version of the aircraft is still used for jet pilot training by U.S. forces. The U.S. supplied several squadrons of F-5s, plus training manuals and spare parts, to Iran in the early 1970s, before the Iranian Revolution deposed the shah.

Not Fifth Generation

Contrary to any Iranian claim, the Azarakhsh aircraft does not appear to be designed or constructed with anything approaching fifth-generation materials, technology, or integrated combat systems. Much of the aircraft structure and capability may be reverse-engineered from that of the U.S.-supplied F-5s. Iran is not known to possess any of the industrial infrastructures necessary to design or build advanced, fifth-generation platforms and systems. In addition, a fifth-generation aircraft is more than merely a fuselage with attached wings and engines, however much advanced plastic is used in its fabrication.

Fifth-generation aircraft are part of an integrated air combat and battlefield system of systems. Fifth-generation aerial systems are the developmental efforts of several decades of intellectual and capital investment, and there is nothing simple about them in any respect. The Russians are just beginning to design a fifth-generation aircraft and recently selected the Sukhoi design bureau to do so. The Russians have announced their intention to field a flying version of a fifth generation by 2015.

Even the U.S. Air Force, with all of the resources at its disposal, has had a long, challenging, and expensive road, requiring 20-plus years to field its own fifth-generation aircraft called the Lockheed/Boeing F-22 Raptor.

Changing the Face of Aerial Warfare

The F-22 is now deployed with U.S. forces, and in field tests and evaluations, it has already demonstrated a staggering potential to change the operational and even strategic calculus of any aerial battlefield. The stealth, speed (including a feature called supercruise ability), altitude, advanced integrated avionics, and long-range weapon systems capability of the F-22 make that U.S. aircraft the most potent air-superiority fighter in the world. Here, for example, is a figure of the F-22 maneuver envelope at 5 Gs, as compared with that of the currently fielded U.S. F-15 aircraft. The comparisons are simply mind-boggling.

Alter the Combat Equation

Launched from U.S. bases in either Alaska or Hawaii, the long-range electronic and battle-management capabilities alone of the F-22 would alter the aerial combat equation of any conflict in, say, the Western Pacific. And that alteration of the combat equation would begin almost the moment the wheels of the lead aircraft left the runway. On that subject, I do not believe that I am at liberty to say more.

What I can say is that I am acquainted with the meaning of fifth generation. The new Iranian Azarakhsh airplane, whatever else it implies in terms of developments within Iranian industry and industrial capability, is not fifth generation. For fifth generation, you must look to the U.S. and its Air Force, for perhaps the next decade.

Until we meet again…
Byron W. King

August 14, 2007

Iranian Lightning, American Raptor was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

That’s the most eye-opening headline about Iran in a whole slew of them last week, coming after two months of, well, not much.

In March, the United Nations Security Council set a deadline for Iran to cease enriching uranium. That deadline passed last Thursday.

U.N. nuclear inspectors concluded that Iranian leaders not only blew off the deadline, but they’ve also actually expanded the enrichment process. The top U.N. nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, said that if Tehran is pursuing a nuclear weapon (and not just nuclear energy, as it claims), it is three-eight years away from success. That compresses the five-10-year window most intelligence experts had cited up to now.

The response from Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was predictably defiant: “With the support of the Iranian nation, we do not fear the enemy’s hyperbole and psychological warfare. We are nearing our final goals.”

Show of Force

The day before the U.N. inspectors released their report, nine U.S. warships sailed through the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf — 17,000 personnel in a show of force unlike anything seen since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. A second aircraft carrier was added to the armada at the last minute, with no explanation. And while U.S. ships typically sail through the region at night so as not to attract attention, this was done in daylight — to send an unmistakable message.

Said Rear Adm. Kevin Quinn shortly before the crossing, “There’s always the threat of any state or nonstate actor that might decide to close one of the international straits, and the biggest one is the Strait of Hormuz.”

If by “biggest” he means “most strategic,” there’s little doubt about that. Forty percent of the world’s exported oil is shipped through this narrow passage.

This too brought the usual bluster from Tehran. “Islamic Iran will resist…any kind of threat and will give a powerful answer to enemies and oppressors,” said Iran’s Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar.

Still, every indication has been that President Bush, chastened by public disgust with the Iraq war, has shied away from launching an attack against Iran, lest he wreck whatever chance the Republicans have of holding onto the White House in 2008. Thus, the thinking goes, he has thrown in his lot with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has pursued quiet diplomacy with Iran in recent months — culminating in an ambassador-level meeting yesterday in Baghdad to discuss what Washington and Tehran can do about security in Iraq.  While they didn’t agree on much, they might well meet again within a month.

Enter the veep.

Cheney’s “End Run”?

Washington policy analyst and blogger Steve Clemons reports that one of Dick Cheney’s senior aides is quietly spreading the word around the capital that Cheney is displeased with President Bush’s backing of the diplomatic track — and he’s taking steps that would force Bush’s hand.

How would this come about? Clemons cites what he calls “multiple sources”:

“The White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an ‘end run strategy’ around the president if he and his team lose the policy argument.

“The thinking on Cheney’s team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran’s nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against [Iran’s enrichment facility at] Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles).

“This strategy would sidestep controversies over bomber aircraft and overflight rights over other Middle East nations and could be expected to trigger a sufficient Iranian counterstrike against U.S. forces in the Gulf — which just became significantly larger — as to compel Bush to forgo the diplomatic track that the administration realists are advocating and engage in another war.”

In other words, Cheney doesn’t trust Bush to “do the right thing” with Iran, so he’d set events into motion that would bring Bush around to his formerly steely resolve to effect regime change in Tehran.

Of course, all of this might just be misinformation, and Bush has never wavered from a plan to attack Iran — he’s merely waiting for the right moment. That fits better with the usual picture of Bush as “The Decider” — firmly resolute or stubbornly delusional, depending on your point of view.

Regards,
David Gonigam

May 29, 2007

Who’s “The Decider” Now? was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

A.: I’m desperately looking for the time to visit Iran while that’s still possible. But my take, from reading and talking to overseas Iranians, of whom there are more than a million in North America alone, is that attacking it would be insane. One reason is that there’s plenty of restiveness among young people; they’ll likely, sooner or later, kick the mullahs out. Unless the U.S. attacks, in which case they’ll unite the way Americans would and try to find a way to counterattack.

Another reason is that Iran is a very large, sophisticated and well-educated place, with plenty of cash-although it’s cash that’s being badly managed, as is always the case with socialist economies. Since WW2, we’ve only invaded really small, poor, primitive places. Iran is big game.

Israel has threatened to act on its own if the Iranians build a nuke. I think that’s most foolish; nobody can hold back technology. But I’d let it be the Israelis’ problem, not ours. They’ve simply got to learn to get along with their neighbors. It’s too bad they live in such a bad neighborhood, but the location was their choice.

Q.: But isn’t Israel fighting for its survival?

A.: As hard as this may be to imagine, Jews, Christians and Muslims got on quite well in the Palestine before the aliyahs, the waves of Jewish immigration, began in earnest early in the 20th century. Then trouble started, as it does whenever there’s massive immigration from a different culture-especially if the newcomers are much better educated, cohesive and motivated than the locals. Things got out of hand when the Jews decided to transform Palestine into Israel in 1949. Israel’s formation is understandable, I suppose, in light of what the Jews had just been through during WW2. And what they’ve done is certainly nothing new in history, which, in addition to being little more than a compilation of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind, as Gibbon observed, is basically just a register of involuntary real estate transactions. Actually, if the Bible is to be believed, it’s the second time the Jews have done the same thing to the same people in the same place. The Promised Land and all that.

One thing seems baked in the cake: the Israelis aren’t going away voluntarily, and the Muslims, particularly the Arabs, particularly the Palestinians, are very unhappy about it. And the Muslims don’t need to fight to win; simple demographics would seem to guarantee their eventual victory at the ballot box. Democracy in action; that should make the U.S. Government happy. Meanwhile, as the recent Israeli/Hezbollah dust-up in Lebanon has demonstrated, even the military situation is turning against Israel. Their hi-tech, American-style weapons are great for fighting a conventional army. But they’re nearly worthless in asymmetrical, guerrilla-type warfare, where they’re not even fighting another state.

Q.: Isn’t that an overstatement?

A.: I think not. Another thing Osama has said is that he plans to beat the Americans by letting them bankrupt themselves-but Washington seems to have disregarded this statement as well. The math is quite simple. Their cost of fielding a fighter, typically a highly motivated teenager who feels he’s defending his family from alien invaders, is next to nothing. Our cost of fielding a U.S. soldier, typically a teenager looking for a college loan, or an adventure to help him grow up, is hundreds of thousands of dollars. Our cost for an M1 tank, or a Bradley fighting vehicle, is several million dollars. Their cost for an IED to blow up is next to nothing. Our cost for an F-16 to launch an air strike is maybe $40 million. Their cost for a SAM to bring it down is maybe $5,000.

Actually, it’s worse than that. The new Joint Strike Fighter will cost something like $300 million a copy. I can’t imagine who that’s supposed to be used against, besides the U.S. taxpayer. At best it’s an open provocation to the Russians and Chinese. And with the Persian Gulf, basically a shallow and narrow lake, full of U.S. warships at anywhere from $500 million to $5 billion per, it’s going to be a real shooting gallery for anyone who has a good supply of $1 million anti-ship missiles that can travel 2,000 mph. I’m sure the Iranians are planning on swarming the things. If the U.S. Navy isn’t careful, they’re going to wind up looking like the Japanese at Truk Lagoon.

It’s said that the generals always fight the last war. And that’s precisely what the U.S. military is prepared to do.

It’s perverse that the U.S. Government spends more than $400 billion per year on “defense,” almost as much as the rest of the world combined, and America basically has no defense at all. People are in a lather about North Korea launching missiles. This is a complete non-event. If the Koreans, or anyone else, want to attack a U.S. city, the last thing they’ll do is use a missile. Not only are they unreliable and inaccurate, but the victim can tell precisely where it came from, which is equivalent to the attacker signing its own death warrant. I have little doubt there will be one or more nuclear events in the U.S. over the next generation, but the delivery systems will be container ships or private yachts. Cargo plane or private jet. Or maybe FedEx. And nobody will know for sure who sent it. In today’s world, there is no military defense against attack.

Q.: So what should we do? Just roll over to the bad guys?

A.: Of course not. But it pays to think these things out beforehand, not jump around, hooting and panting like a chimpanzee the way Bush is doing. Start by noticing that the “bad guys” all sincerely see themselves as good guys. Even Hitler had the self-image of a man fighting for right against the forces of evil.

It’s insane to go out of your way to provoke people who can do you serious harm, especially if it serves absolutely no purpose. Remember “Bring it on!”? This is just one of several signs that Bush may be psychologically unstable, in addition to being demonstrably unintelligent, ignorant and thoughtless. The accelerating War on Islam has no upside. If it gets out of control, scores of millions of people could die. We’ll defeat them, of course, but it will be a totally Pyrrhic victory. The real winners will be the Chinese and the Indians.

So the wise course is to defuse the bomb before it goes off. Here’s what I suggest:

1. Withdraw all U.S. troops from foreign soil. As hard as it is for the average American to understand, foreigners like American soldiers running around in their country about as much as Americans would like an Islamic army here. Even if they were supposedly invited by Washington. Prognosis? This will eventually happen, but unfortunately, for pretty much the same reasons the Romans came home.
2. Cease meddling in other countries’ affairs. Despite our politicians’ certainty that they know what’s best for the natives, economic and military aid should stop. Not just because we have to borrow money from the Chinese to dispense it, but because it always makes steadfast enemies and gains only a fickle friend who has to stay bought. Prognosis? This will happen too, but only when the USG is forced to acknowledge bankruptcy.
3. Make a sincere and well-publicized apology to the Muslim world for having caused so much grief and promise it won’t happen again. Yes, I recognize the chances of this happening are about the same as those of Bush appointing me SecDef.
4. Return to the principles that made America unique and the world’s best-loved and most respected country. This is, of course, a complete pipedream.

In light of what needs to be done but won’t be done, I think it’s prudent to prepare for some really rough times ahead.

Q.: So you expect more terrorism?

A.: First, let’s discuss that word. Bush calls what he’s doing now a War on Terror. Which is completely idiotic. Terrorism isn’t an ideology, it’s a method, a tactic. Having a war on terror is as ridiculous as having a war on cavalry charges or frontal assaults or commando raids. Terrorism may be defined as an attack on a society’s non-combatants, with the intention of weakening their support for the status quo. It’s a tactic that melds the political with the military, much as guerrilla warfare does. But what’s new or strange about that? Clausewitz pointed out that war is nothing but the continuation of politics by other methods. Anybody can use terror, and most combatants do. We used terror extensively in WW2 with the fire bombings of places like Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo, when there was no military reason for it. Terrorism was what the Phoenix Program in Vietnam was all about. Everybody accuses his enemy of terrorism. It only seems illegitimate when the terrorist isn’t a recognized state.

One advantage of terrorism is its low cost. You don’t have to invest billions for cruise missiles to blow something up if you can get a guy to drive a truck full of explosives to the same place. It’s strictly PR to style only the latter as terrorism. Remember the old line “I’m a freedom fighter, you’re a rebel, he’s a terrorist”? You don’t hear it much anymore, I suspect, because it strikes too close to home. It sounds somehow seditious now that the war is underway. But this is to be expected. Truth is always the first casualty in war.

Q.: The current U.S. foreign policy would seem to be the containment of Iran and Syria. But containment turned out to be a failure in Vietnam. Why do you think we are trying it again in the Middle East?

A.: You know, you put people in a position of power, and they’ll predictably find some way to justify their existence by using that power as promiscuously, and therefore stupidly, as possible. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about the lowliest bedbug working for TSA or the Secretary of State.

Containment was a moronic concept not only when it came to Vietnam, but the whole Soviet empire. These places couldn’t even feed themselves. Their factories were museums of industrial archaeology. Their citizens joked “They pretend to pay us; we pretend to work.” The USSR would have self-destructed decades before it did, were it not for the U.S. acting as a bogeyman, which united its numerous nationalities, all of whom hated one another, against a common enemy. Worse, the U.S. propped the place up with technology transfers and loans. The only thing the Soviets had going was a military, which bankrupted them. And even the military was a paper tiger, as the Afghans proved.

Vietnam had absolutely nothing, only what the Soviets gave them. Except for one thing: spirit, because they were fighting invaders from an alien culture. People will always fight for their homes against foreigners, even if the homes are hovels, and even if they have nothing but sticks and stones for weapons.

To me it just showed how little confidence the average American had, and has, in his civilization that he could actually feel threatened by a small, desperately poor bunch of peasants, who barely even knew that America existed. It’s proof of what Spengler said, that a civilization can’t be conquered from without until it’s already rotted from within.

We should let these people work things out for themselves. By sticking our nose in their business, we make fickle friends but really serious enemies. In fact, we should have let the Soviets and the Nazis sort things out after Hitler attacked in June of 1941. The chances are excellent both empires would have collapsed in exhaustion, and the Cold War, which barely escaped turning into a worldwide thermonuclear war, would have been avoided. No Korea. No Vietnam.

Q.: The ultimate price tag of the war in Iraq alone is estimated to top one trillion dollars. That’s real money. How does the country afford that, and what are the consequences to you and me as taxpayers?

A.: In pre-industrial times, wars could actually make economic sense, at least for the short run. You sent your army somewhere to steal valuable goods-gold, cattle, fabrics, artwork, women, slaves-and bring them back home. The folks back home liked the improvement in their standard of living. Better, after you killed the natives, you could distribute the land to your soldiers. And the natives who were left would be a source of continuing tax revenue. In those days, the most practical version of the Golden Rule was “Do unto others-and do it first.” There was a lot to be said for devastating your neighbors before they became large and powerful enough to devastate you. War, assuming it was successful, had some real advantages.

In today’s technological world, however, war is a totally different animal. Wealth is no longer something you can steal wholesale. This is why I never felt the Soviets would have invaded Western Europe-you can’t effectively steal businesses and technology, which are the main forms of wealth today. As economically illiterate as Marxists are, the Russians intuitively understood that.

The argument is made that we’re in Iraq to steal the oil, which is absolutely the only thing of value in the region. After all, Boobus americanus might self-righteously say to himself, “What’s our oil doing under their sand?” Of course it’s true that the Arabs wouldn’t even know what oil was, much less how to extract and use it, were it not for Western companies-which discovered and developed the deposits, only to have them stolen by the local governments. But in my view, that’s a problem for those companies’ managements and shareholders. It’s perverse to make it the problem of the U.S. taxpayer.

The direct cost of this war has been estimated at between one and two trillion. But who knows? The tab depends on how long the war lasts and how it mutates before the Americans have to abandon everything they’ve done in a panicked exit. Put it this way. Even if we were to ship out every drop of Iraqi oil, at zero production cost, that oil would still cost about $12 per barrel due to the war alone. It’s a ridiculous proposition from an economic point of view.

But the real costs are indirect. I’m not talking about the tens of thousands of permanently maimed and disfigured U.S. soldiers who will have to be compensated. Or the hundreds of thousands of dead and disabled Iraqis who will never be compensated. Or the wholesale destruction of the country itself. After all, we did pretty much the same thing in Vietnam, and life went on. The problem here is that Bush may have started what amounts to WW3. Vietnam was a small, isolated, pitifully poor and backward place; so we could get away with destroying it… although we almost destroyed ourselves in the process.

The difficulty is that the Muslim world sees itself as a whole. The worldwide Muslim community, notwithstanding the Shia/Sunni conflict, very much sees itself as the ummah, which is somewhat their equivalent of our term “Christendom,” a term that no longer has much meaning. Fortunately, for most Americans and Europeans, religion is largely a cultural artifact, a relatively insignificant accident of birth. I say fortunately because it liberates their minds to pursue things like science, technology and business; it allows them to think for themselves and not automatically see those who believe in other religions as infidels. Muslims, as a rule, take their religion much more seriously. It’s one reason the Muslim world is so backward.

We forget that the conflict between Islam and the West has been going on for over 1,300 years. Up to the Battle of Vienna in 1683 where the Turks were turned back, the Muslims actually had the upper hand, except for the interlude of the Crusades, when the Europeans invaded the Levant. But since the start of the Industrial Revolution, we’ve had the upper hand. And since the 19th century, most of the states of the Muslim world have been either European colonies or puppet governments. And we drew the boundaries.

It’s a history they resent. So would we.

Q.: Turning to other topics, do you think it is realistic that the U.S. dollar could lose its status as the world’s reserve currency anytime soon? What are the implications and how soon do you think it could happen?

A.: The U.S. dollar will eventually reach its intrinsic value; it’s simply a question of time. The Forever War is greatly accelerating the process. The whole idea of a reserve currency is meaningless if the currency is backed by nothing but the good will of the issuing government. That’s why gold has always been used as money; you don’t have to rely on anyone’s full faith and credit, good will, competence, trade surpluses, self-restraint or anything else. And it’s why gold will again be used, in everyday transactions, as money.

The dollar is a hot potato. there are trillions-nobody knows exactly how many-floating outside the U.S. But only Americans have to accept them, and only the U.S. Government can create them (although the North Koreans do their best). The Chinese have good reason to worry about all those dollars. When they tried to buy the Unocal oil company, they were turned away by the U.S. Government. So, obviously, their dollars weren’t good for that. When Dubai wanted to buy companies that manage six U.S. seaports, they found their dollars had no value.

At some point there’s going to be a panic out of the dollar. When it happens, it’s likely to be the biggest financial upset since the 1930s. Part of the question is what they’ll panic into. The euro? As I have said many times, if the dollar is an “I owe you nothing,” the euro is a “Who owes you nothing?” I think the big beneficiary will be gold. The problem for the world’s economy is that just a trillion dollars-which is only about 1/6 of the dollars outside the U.S. alone-can buy a billion ounces of gold, even at $1,000 an ounce. But only about four billion ounces have ever been mined.

It’s an explosive situation. The one thing you can count on when there’s a crisis is that the government will “do something,” which means controlling its subjects-not, God forbid, itself. And that something is likely to be foreign exchange controls. A small straw in the wind is the new regulation making it illegal to export more than $5 worth of pennies and nickels, because their metal is worth more than their face value-even though there’s no longer much copper in the pennies or nickel in the nickels.

If an American doesn’t get significant assets outside the U.S. now, it may be impossible in the future. The best thing to do is buy real estate abroad, since it’s currently not reportable, like bank and brokerage accounts, and they can’t very well make you repatriate it. I expect, however, very few people will take my advice, even though they may agree with it. But everybody gets what he deserves, so it’s not a problem..

Q.: Looking at the broad picture, it seems like the U.S. government is facing nearly insurmountable odds. The cost of government has soared to something over 50% of GDP, weighing heavily on the private sector, yet there is no end in sight to the wide river of can’t-stop spending… on the military, on Social Security and Medicare-especially in the face of the baby boomers beginning to retire. How does the country manage to maintain that?

A.: Nothing lasts forever. I’ll be surprised if the U.S. is able to maintain its present geographic boundaries for this century. The Mexicans talk of the Reconquista; the gringos stole the Southwest from them in the 1800s, and they’re likely to take it back. What do you think the odds are that a young Latino male in California, 20 years from now, is going to pay 20% of his wages in Social Security and Medicare to support some old white broad in Massachusetts? Especially since he knows he’s never going to get an aluminum nickel back? Even today, polls show that more kids believe in aliens than believe they’ll see any Social Security money.

We’ve had really good times for a whole generation. People become fat and sassy, or in the case of Americans, obese and arrogant, during good times. They don’t think of hanging their leaders from lamp posts until things get seriously bad.

I don’t know how bad things will get. But when I’m asked, I’m prone to quip “Worse than even I think they’ll get.”

Q.: You and the team at Casey Research have been vocal about expecting a major inflation. Yet, other than occasional surprises-such as the 2% jump in the PPI for November-inflation doesn’t seem to be much of a problem. What gives?

A.: Things that you expect to happen usually take longer than you’d think. But once the process gets underway, they usually happen much more quickly. It’s like a boulder balanced on the edge of a cliff; nothing seems to happen until it happens all at once. Just adjust that analogy to the scale of a human lifespan.

The word “inflation” covers two different concepts, and it’s important to keep them separate. One concept is monetary inflation, which is an increase in the supply of money that outruns growth in the supply of goods and services. The other concept is price inflation, which is an increase in the overall level of prices for goods and services.

The relationship between the two is the relationship of cause and effect. Monetary inflation causes price inflation. But while almost everyone sees price inflation when it happens, few people notice the monetary inflation that is causing it. And so they tend to blame the producers of goods and services for higher prices-rather than the money-creating government that is the true culprit.

We’re now experiencing a lot of monetary inflation, which eventually will be reflected in price inflation. What’s really going to tip this over the edge, however, is the rest of the world deciding to get out of dollars. A lot of those $6 trillion abroad are going to come back to the U.S., and real goods are going to be packed up and shipped abroad. Inflation will explode.

It’s just a matter of time. But I think it’s going to happen this cycle.

Q.: Last year you went on record early calling for gold to top $700, which it did. But you expected it to end the year at about $750. Currently, it trades at around $640. Why do you think it didn’t hold up? And, just for entertainment purposes, how high do you think it will trade in 2007?

A.: I’m sure the government, directly and indirectly, did everything it could to keep the price down. The last thing they want to see is a gold panic. So the short run is hard to predict. But we’re still relatively early, certainly in terms of price, in what will be a bull market for the record books. It’s as if you can see the perfect storm brewing. Since I’ve been involved in the markets, there have been a number of times when things could have come unglued-’70-’71, with the stock market crash and the devaluation of the dollar, ’73-’74, with another market meltdown and financial crisis, ’80-’82, when commodities and interest rates both went through the roof, ’87, ’92, ’98, the tech meltdown… Throughout that time, I’ve always tended to be a bear. In other words, I’ve tended to make my money during the crises; it’s relatively easy to make money during good times. As the tech boom proved, any idiot who knows nothing about the markets or the economy, can do it.

My guess is that the next crisis is going to be breathtaking. And it’s not going to be just financial, but economic, social, military and political. Of course, I hope I’m wrong. If I’m wrong, I’m not likely to get hurt, for a number of reasons. But I don’t want to be inconvenienced if I’m right.

So where is gold going? I hate making predictions. I’m not a fortune teller. But I think this is the year gold goes over $1,000. And then the mania starts for the mining stocks…

Regards,
Doug Casey

January 25, 2007

Make War Your Friend, Part II was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.