This week I want to share a video that was shared with me by a friend. The speaker in this video is stringing several things together to build motivation for people to become more self-reliant. After watching this video, my friend and my wife both indicated that they were more significantly more motivated to spend effort on being better prepared and more self-reliant.
Many of the things cited in this video are things of which I already have knowledge from other sources. Multiple agendas of the World Economic Forum were not new. Efforts by a group of elites to lock up land worldwide and in the United States were not new to me. Reductions in food supply were not new to me. Massive consolidation of the supply chains related to food were not new to me. Having this knowledge is what prompted me to start the Self-Reliant Community. In the past, I have chosen not to spend too much effort on motivation but having seen the effects of this video, I may change that approach to a more balanced combination of motivation and information. I have also been cautious about suggesting specific solutions in many cases because I do not want to appear as a promoter of some solution. That approach may also be adjusted somewhat.
The speaker in the video is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. However, she is not an official representative of the Church, holds no position of authority in the Church and is not speaking for the Church. She is speaking as a concerned citizen who has done some homework and is sharing her conclusion. You can find the video here.
.One specific quotation from Henry Kissinger in 1973 caused me to take notice given current conditions. He said, “Who controls the food supply controls the people. Who controls the energy can control whole continents. Who controls the money can control the world.” The US dollar has been the world reserve currency since the end of World War II. That reality has for most of our lifetimes been the demonstration of Kissinger’s last point about controlling the world. But there are several efforts underway in the world to replace the dollar as the reserve currency. Its present weakness resulting from Fed actions in the pandemic greatly fuels those efforts. The reserve currency status will not long survive given current trajectories. But the other two statements about food supply and energy have never been a concern to me until a few years ago. Now they are very high on my list of concerns.
By accident or on purpose, the current stability of our food supply is in jeopardy. Agricultural land is being removed from production and locked up. Agricultural animals have been reduced and are under further attack. Food processing and distribution systems are in trouble. Last night we walked through a Walmart and a Fred Meyer. I observed in both stores that the shelves were not full. No one seemed to notice but that is a condition that I have not seen in my younger years. Empty shelves are a warning that the food supply chain is stressed. We saw it break in the pandemic and the result is a call for more government involvement and control over the food supply chain from production to consumption. Remember, “who controls the food supply controls the people.”
Energy is also in a precarious state. You remember the Colonial Pipeline shutdown. The government did nothing. The company paid the ransom. The government is also trying to shutdown petroleum production in the US by stopping exploration on all government lands. This year the United States became an energy importer again after becoming energy independent over the past few years. Incidentally, as part of becoming an energy importer we are purchasing energy from Russia and several Middle East states that are not politically friendly to the United States. This year, the US government stopped its opposition to a major pipeline linking Russia oil supplies to Europe. Remember, “Who controls the energy, can control whole continents.”
Money has gotten a bad rap from many. This is primarily caused be a focus on who has how much. This leads to stoking greed and envy. What has been forgotten is that money is a measure of value of time. That reality has been totally lost during the pandemic, as governments gave away money to hide their bad policy errors. The result has been a massive inflation in the money supply. But if money is a measure of value of time, then more money must make time less valuable when measured using a monetary standard. For example, if there is $1,000,000,000 available and there are 100,000,000 hours of available work labor, then an hour of work labor is valued at $10 on average. The number of hours available does not change unless people work more hours. Holding the hours constant, if there are $2,000,000,000 available to cover the same number of hours, then the average value of a labor hour is now $20. But the output of that labor hour did not change. This is inflation. You have seen it already and you will see it much more in the weeks ahead. Money was created to allow people to conveniently exchange the value of their labor for the labor of someone else. If money is not a measure of the value of one’s time, then what does it measure? When money is a measure of the value of time, then a person knows what their service is worth by seeing what others in their community will pay for their labor. But what happens when the government (local, national, or international) tells you what your time is worth?
Since World War II the US dollar has been the world reserve currency. This means that international business was all conducted using the US dollar. All countries in the world converted their currency to USD in order to engage in international business. The world reserve currency status is under siege. The monetary policies pursued by the government coupled with other international interests is at work to change the international status of the US dollar. Officially, the US dollar is not the international reserve currency at this time. For a more in-depth understanding of reserve currency see this article.
China is currently striving to have its Renminbi become the international reserve currency. That will probably not happen because of world fears of China’s political climate. However, it is not unreasonable to expect that China will play a much larger role in international monetary policy and action. The United States no longer has the sole position as the monetary leader and their policies are not furthering monetary stability. Remember, “Who controls the money can control the world.”
Now, how well do you feel you are prepared to stand alone or with a stable group of neighbors.
How is your food supply, both short-term and long-term?
How much energy do you need and what is your source, both short-term and long-term?
What do you plan to use as a means of exchange to trade your labor for the labor of others?
Addressing these three issues is the purpose of the Self-Reliant Community.