When initiatives like vaccinating the planet, “climate change,” and implementing a minimum global corporate tax are on the G7 agenda, and they’re selling it to a citizenry who would be content with their peanut butter on toast because “they are doing their best for us,” you know that freedom-loving people are in for a lot of trouble.
All three of these initiatives in isolation would be (and should be) horrifying to any freedom-loving individual. Collectively they are the equivalent of grabbing the global economy, hoisting it up onto your shoulders, and then tightrope walking across the Grand Canyon blindfolded with a swarm of mosquitoes biting you, but only after drinking an entire bottle of Absolut vodka. You might make it across to the other side, but the odds are right up there with finding a juicy T-bone steak at a vegan festival.
What these initiatives cement is a collapse in living standards of the global citizenry and ultimately a rather dramatic increase in the likelihood of a major international war.
Why? By pushing the climate hysteria agenda with its bedfellow of “CO2 reduction” and forcing it upon developing nations, they will be forcing not just a decrease in living standards but sending billions of people (literally) into extreme poverty.
First off, it’s important to understand where you’re at in any cycle, especially for long-term, deep-value macro investors (such as ourselves). We must attempt to parse noise from trends and focus on the latter while realising the former for what it is.
You’ll notice that one thing that is prevalent in all Western “liberal democracies” is that the leadership all act like angry stubborn old farts desperate to hang onto their own power. Karl Marx was right about one thing.
What Karl never went on to say but should have is the following: Aside from genocide, communism always also leads to shortages, stagflation, and a collapse in the standards of living of any who are unfortunate enough to live under it.
But we are where we are, and the average punter doesn’t see it, his mind being unable to believe that this is actually happening. That and a steady indoctrination have led him to actually believe this. It is being couched in feel-good terminology like “sustainability.” I mean, who doesn’t want that? There is “equity,” which, on the face of it, is about fairness. Again, who doesn’t want that? And of course, there is “stakeholder capitalism,” which is the new marketing term used to make communism sound palatable.
This means that the average punter is more buggered than an altar boy at the Vatican, but unfortunately, we’re all caught up in this insanity, and if we’re not very careful, we may suffer alongside the zombies.
It is under this magnificent collapsing system that we find ourselves today with “leaders” acting out their part, and so it isn’t a surprise that the focus is on hanging onto power (at all costs, it would seem).
To communists, a minimum global 15% corporate tax sounds perfectly swilling. This, of course, will come in addition to all the other taxes already hanging around the necks of government subjects.
This global tax will do little to harm large technology companies or even large corporations, but it will spell the death of many small and medium-sized businesses.
Arguably, though, what is more important is to think about what this means on an international playing field. Namely, on an international basis, this will be terrible for any small countries that are in need of attracting capital investment. If they are forced into this collective, their economies will suffer, with those aforementioned technology giants taking up much of the market share. Everyone loses, but large, multinational corporations get richer.
In fact, don’t be surprised when some of these large conglomerates mysteriously score a bevy of tax breaks and subsidies. You see, the new form of communism will not be like the old form. The reason for this is simple but very, very important to understand. The leaders you see on the idiot box are not in charge. They are stooges.
All presidents and major political figures are being micromanaged by handlers providing a carefully scripted cardboard-cutout image meant to look palatable to a gullible populace.
Whether it be small- and medium-sized businesses or small nations, they will lose their dynamism as well as their attractiveness for capital investment. This, in turn, means that because they will have fewer reserves to invest and grow in the future, their credit conditions will weaken, forcing them to raise interest rates in the face of declining collateral, which itself is deflationary for the respective companies.
But what needs understanding is that this will decrease the supply of … well, everything.
This at a time when these clowns are providing trillions of dollars in “stimulus” spending as now fiscal spending for their pixie land “build back better,” which is, of course, a green boondoggle.
Reprinted with permission from International Man.
