What Happened in 1971?
I read an anonymous post claiming that Ed Snowden and Jack Dorsey are both asking the same question: what happened in 1971? We can search up a few things, like Nixon's diplomatic initiatives with China, the beginning of mandatory health insurance in the USA, the end of the gold standard, and some other things that Nixon undertook. But Nixon, and even the USA, just didn't have the ability to so dramatically affect so many variables that all changed at about that time.
There is something else... Something bigger than the US and mere geopolitics. The real money.
"The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organization for multinational companies based in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1971 by Klaus Schwab, a business professor at the University of Geneva."
https://search.brave.com/search?spellcheck=0&q=WEF+founding
What other things happened that might have had a hand in pic related?
In a word, Nixon.
Richard Nixon removed the U.S. (and the world) from the gold standard and in addition ushered in the modern regulatory state.
Those two things explain a huge portion of the declines since 1971.
I agree, which is why I mention Nixon. But I don't think he acted entirely on his own recognizance, and I don't think it's a coincidence that the WEF officially cranked up in 1971, which is why I mention that. Kissinger was Klaus Schwab's mentor. I think the web of financial ties runs through those loci that binds all the myriad catastrophic economic consequences together, and to 1971.
Thanks!
A short article about this topic was published yesterday in Forbes, written by a friend and colleague of mine, John Tamny:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2023/06/11/what-happened-in-1971-its-a-question-everyone-should-ask/
His basic premise is this:
Society and civilization isn't dollars alone. There are many other metrics that show alarming changes at that time that are difficult to link to the value of dollars, such as large increases in the amount of chicken Americans eat. I don't agree that wealth is a synonym for knowledge. While knowledge can enable wealth creation, it's not the same thing, and oversimplifies economic issues. That concept completely disregards crime and corruption, for example. You could as easily say that risk was money. You can take great risks and make great returns, but they're not the same thing.
Thanks for the deeper discussion and actual link to source. Those are rare and cherished bonuses here abouts.
Yes, without question.
The accumulation of wealth in society is not about dollars, or gold, or any other medium of exchange.
Dollars (or any other currency) merely allow individuals to exchange value for value. Nothing more, nothing less, imho.
George Gilder has been writing about wealth creation for 40+ years. It started with his 1981 book Wealth and Poverty. He refined and expanded on the link between wealth and knowledge in his 2013 book Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism and How It Is Revolutionizing Our World. Most recently, he discusses it in his just-released book Life After Capitalism: The Meaning of Wealth, the Future of the Economy, and the Time Theory of Money, where he links it to the concept of superabundance (see Marian Tupy and Gale Pooley's 2022 book Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet).
The essence of Gilder's argument is not that knowledge defines wealth per se, but that wealth is derived solely from value creation and that value creation at its core is derived from delighting customers in surprising ways, which he believes is the central facet of entrepreneurship. He then sums up that process as being a reflection of (or the result of) the accumulation of knowledge throughout all of human history. This essentially builds on a statement by Thomas Sowell, from his 1980 book Knowledge and Decisions:
From that perspective, 100% of the wealth that exists in the world today is derived from the application of the accumulated knowledge we have available to us now, that the cavemen did not possess. Take away that knowledge and we become no better off than mere cavemen.
I note we disagree on some basics, such as that 'cavemen' lacked knowledge we capitalize on today. In fact 'cavemen' had vastly greater natural resources at their disposal, as the extinction of 77 genera of megafauna ~13kya shows. Harvesting one mammoth provided ~4k meals of 4kcal, which is plenty to support a village for a month. While it was a demanding task, requiring incredible courage, skill, and physical grace, it is a hell of a lot more profitable in terms of ROI to take down a mammoth than to raise cattle or sheep in pens.
I pretty strongly contend that QoL was vastly greater for 'cavemen' than we the sheeple enjoy today, and that is because we have become slave labor for overlords, who parasitize the vast majority of the wealth Gilder accounts.
It's not knowledge or labor that creates that wealth. It's psychological manipulation, slavery, and evil. 'The love of money is the root of all evil.'
Mere mammon is of no value to society. Worse, it's actually an enormous harm to free sovereign people. What is most important to free sovereign society is each other, and 'cavemen' had it right.
There is a metric by which our state of knowledge, measured as technological capability, is more advanced today than prior to the Younger Dryas, and it's possible we could enjoy greater felicity today than was possible prior to historical times. For that to occur we'd have to broadly adopt decentralized means of production and eliminate parasitic losses - and the venal parasites that command the majority of our production and use it to subjugate and control society.
Happily, decentralization massively outcompetes centralization, and that transition to decentralization is ongoing today, which the laws of physics mandates by determining what technology is possible. It's going to be a rough ride, but after we get out and about, expanding across the universe to develop the illimitable resources in space in absolute freedom to create inconceivable wealth, it will be well worth the price we pay.
I'll happily spend every token I have for that wondrous prize - and much more besides - and anyone that wouldn't is a hopeless curmudgeon and luddite that deserves the slavery to psychopathic overlords they will purchase by hoarding filthy lucre instead of freedom and infinite wealth.
Edit: money is not wealth. Wealth is things that supply QoL, and only some fraction of wealth can be purchased for money.
Ah, yes. It appears that we disagree on a deep and fundamental level.
There are a few notions that we do seem to agree on:
Interesting information. Your photo sure does indicate that something happened to change the way things were handled before versus after 1971!
If you go to the link, there are dozens of similar charts that show dramatic changes in trends and demographics right at about that time. It's clear that a remarkable change in supply lines, governance, and finance all took place simultaneously.
Thanks!
You might be on to something and what I find most scary is that we were all blind to it, just as we're probably unaware of what other changes are taking place.
I hope as a community we are as fully aware of what has happened as we need to be to effectively surmount the challenges humanity faces today. I sure hope ya'll don't depend on my feeble understanding. I don't! We're going to have to work together to get past the hurdles in our way.
Thanks!
This guy says Nixon temporarily halted gold redemption but it wasn't temporary.
https://jjmilt.substack.com/p/wtf-happened-in-1971-edward-snowden?r=64wrz
What he says, if right, puts it all in perspective.
He's not wrong, but breaking the gold standard alone did not cause all the consequences we suffer of the events of that time. I very much appreciate the link, from which I learned things I did not previously know. Nixon didn't act alone, nor did the USA alone. The destruction of dollars was part of a program that has resulted in a weird scion of a German industrialist family demanding we eat bugs and employing a scrawny toadie to detail how we can be surveilled from inside our bodies. Clearly the gold standard was only one facet of that program.
Thanks!
Dear my respected senior @valued-customer !
I remember when Nixon dropped the gold standard in 1971, the world oil market became completely dominated by the dollar!
East Asians, including Chinese, now believe that the dollar has become the world's reserve currency because Nixon created a system in which world oil can be traded only in dollars.
So, They claim that the dollar will lose its position as a reserve currency because of the current war in Ukraine.
What is your think?
Basically I think they're right. However, I don't think the war in the Ukraine is killing the dollar. I think the dollar is being killed, and the war in the Ukraine is being used to help kill it. It's just one more guy kicking the dollar while it's down of many, such as the horrific inflation that the Fed is creating by pumping massive dollars out, and the horrific corruption of US government, the deprecation of the US military, and much more.
Thanks!
Looks like 1971 was when we all officially became slaves.
meh. It just increased the durance vile we endure, withal.