The last several weeks have been grueling; global travel layered on top of great emotional stress and all during a peak work load. As I do my self care and recover now that most of this is behind me, I want to presence a bit more depth around the basis presented in this book: The Great Taking, by David Rogers Webb. I did a deeper dive into this book in my Crumbling Time series last year. In particular today, I want to delve into the spiritual aspects more, with less about the technical or economic. There will be some of all of this next. I will make statements explained in the book above, and the PDF is freely available should you want to know more or legitimize my comments. Trust, but verify. And why touch a subject like this at all? To reinforce my understanding that about the only thing I know for sure is that this human experience will end. Nothing else is certain; not your “facts”, not your concept of ownership and property, not your spiritual foundation, not your Science™…
The premise of the book is basic: we aren’t taught anything about money; how it is created, how it is to be used, taxed, saved, or gifted. Now, think back to your schooling; what grade were you in when you learned how money is created? Thought so. But realize only a few truly know, and only a few have that first access to money freshly picked from the magic money tree. Believe me when I write: you don’t know who they are. I’m not talking about the billionaires whose names you know; I mean those who are behind and control the Central banks, who fund both sides of every kinetic conflict and invasion, who collect the debt service (interest) from those who have insufficient funds and must borrow including governments. The oppressors are unseen. They have the funding they need, they don’t rely on your tax payments. The purpose of taxation is harassment, limitation, and control; and not just the taking of tax, but the spending of tax collected, as they harass, limit, and control governments as much as citizens. Even financial advisors, and their bosses, and the friendly bank manager you ask, they don’t know what follows in this essay.
Who would be so stupid as to give their stocks, their house deed, their car, and their savings account(s) to the bank or broker to treat as the broker’s own? No one who knows anything about how this financial system has been arranged over decades; which, sadly, are the few I mentioned above. Of course your financial advisor will assure you that even though it is in street name, those shares are actually yours. And most certainly, that note in someone’s computer that says you are the owner of this fractional piece of gold ‘in our vault’ proves you are wealthy. Even if you have no mortgage, your home likely was part of a pool of similar assets once used as collateral for loans that have not yet been paid off. This concept goes beyond fine print on your loan agreement. It involves the sequence by which creditors can take collateral to satisfy a debt that is in default. Your auto dealer might (likely did) have used your car as collateral for a loan the dealership requested before you bought the vehicle; thus it is vulnerable to be repossessed even though you are no longer in debt for purchasing it. Property rights as we think we know them have been subsumed into contract(s) and there is a sequence for liquidating assets in the event of default. Because our USD system is fractional reserve in nature, because we leverage nearly every asset purchased, and because for every dollar created by debt the dollars we already hold are diluted; these reasons should be enough to realize we don’t “own” anything, and we are being set up to “own nothing”, as Herr Schwab told us nearly a decade ago.
Understand please: this is not a flaw in the particular bank or broker you trust as your custodian; they will be the target of our collective wrath when this all goes South in coming years, but they are not the perpetrators. We have lost priority placement in the chain of ownership, pushed out by those few who feed at the ‘new money’ trough and actually fund all debts. They can take assets to settle the debt without judicial review, without restraint. In the law, this is called F.O.P.: Free of Payment; which is fancy talk for they take but they don’t pay a dime to the “owner” because they claim they are the owner. It was a minor perversion of this concept when John Corzine at MF Global stole client funds, or when SBF stole client funds from FTX; in the first case no one went to jail amazingly. In the second, maybe.
This concept has been around in one flavor for decades: civil asset forfeiture. Your local police, among many others, can take cash, cars, or any number of other ‘properties’ they ‘find’ without due process in any court. It can be impossible to recover your money or property. So we have been slowly acclimated to owning nothing, it just wasn’t very explicitly stated unless you are the person in the police station being told, “Go away, there’s nothing of yours here”.
This is where you might want to read the book, if you question what I have written. The fix for this system of money is nigh impossible short of the ninth change of U.S. currency. Although it seems easy enough to stick to the dollar, doing so will involve new laws rescinding old, lawsuits to redefine ownership, and most importantly, many lost or shattered dreams of a productive material life. It will take decades to rebuild once all is lost to the greedy bastards, if they succeed in taking it all.
And so the spiritual…
Don’t let this immobilize you with fear, or destroy your ambition, or force you to surrender everything. Understand, this is the end, the right end, of a system of phantom wealth. The remedy or prevention will derive naturally as we, as we, focus on real wealth instead. We can prevent most if not all of the trauma by keeping eyes on the prize: goodness, truth and beauty. In this way we can pass through the societal trauma and yet remain whole and complete. “Be more specific…” OK:
Words matter. The meanings recently of many key words have morphed into something opposite the way in which we understand them. Words are a key source of manifestation, out of the quantum field into this material realm; be careful how you speak and consciously aware of what you intend your words to form. Know that others will translate your words into other, perhaps hideous, meanings. They might even claim to be hurt by your words, not understanding your meaning or twisting it into something that is hurtful but not your intent.
Integrity matters. You are what you do in the dark. It is obvious this whole topic of the Great Taking is about the poster child for a lack of integrity. But you and I, we have to maintain our integrity even when we are at a disadvantage we can overcome without anyone knowing what we do. That is the true meaning of integrity IMO.
Purpose matters. If your purpose focuses on phantom wealth, “money in the bank”; then this is a time when the pilot is on the intercom shouting, “Brace! Brace! Brace for impact!” If your purpose instead focuses on real wealth: healthy relationships, communities, and Nature, then you’ve clearly done some inner work and likely have a sense of purpose that is Wild, not so much Modern. Thank you. But, even I could use a lot more work on purpose, to make the most of the years I have left in this one wild human lifetime. Gain clarity of purpose and the transformation that follows is gold.
Love matters. Need I say more? Love, what else is there?
Modern cannibalizes our energy and dreams so we forget the Real, the Wild. Wild is community; find kindred, old souls. We lead. This is existential, as no other generation has faced. The mindset of TINA, There Is No Alternative, must be shattered. This is not the only way humans can, or should, live. Modern is incoherent and inconsistent; it held together for a long time, but is nearing the point when the cracks we are seeing turn into a shattering of the very foundation it was built on. Our major institutions, every single one, are teetering on the edge of an abyss. Healthcare, education, property rights, democracy, justice, economics, finance, energy, free speech, and all the rest are being subsumed into this “own nothing’ paradigm. Totalitarian systems (authoritarian) have always ended in mass atrocity, with almost no one having the integrity required to prevent or stop it. Fascist systems (corporate/government alliances) always strip speech and rights away from the public, and then finally the money.
This is where we are today, the end game around money. To prophesize a great culling scares more than helps. But always remember: nothing is non-local. We are all connected. Relationships must be curated with care and love. Communities only work when members are generous and take care of each other, not focusing only on Self. Nature takes generations to ameliorate toxicity, but will if given a chance. Nothing, not Empire, not money, not pollution, not people, lasts forever. Death is what I hear knocking at the door; do we let Death in and have a difficult but meaningful conversation? Or do we turn our backs, hold our nose, and dive into the Abyss? There has been no better time to remember our ancestors, our lineage, and our inheritance when we came to Earth. We began life as wild, loving creatures. The phantoms that surround us were made, not born that way. We have a choice; please choose Wild.
I wanted to comment something smart but I can’t 😅 so I just want to share my appreciation for this beautiful text 🤩