The Great Unraveling

March 11, 2023

How do you take the tapestry that is the world, and pull out the rotten threads yet leave a viable cloth? How do you cut off the flow of funds to those who would destroy our world, without destroying everyone else who is also entwined in the global financial system?

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George Gershwin‘s “An American in Paris” sparkled from the radio ten minutes ago, gladdening the heart and lifting the spirit. 

Cheerfulness is good. I suspect there’s a lot of nail biting going on in households across the US and perhaps the world. The financial system collapse that has long been predicted appears to have landed last week, with the second biggest bank failure in US history. 

Naturally, my immediate concern was how this affects my own little world. I spent some time dancing with woulda-coulda-shoulda last night, but this morning I’ve returned to fatalism. Investing in silver, as I contemplated a while back, might’ve been a good idea at that time. But I elected to leave things as they were and, essentially, hope for the best.

While that sounds naïve, I think it’s a close cousin to what a lot of investment “strategies” look like. Shuffling funds in accordance with the fear-of-the-day or an advisor’s red-hot tip is probably just as dicey.

My admittedly sketchy study of stock and other investment vehicles led me to conclude years ago that, while those bits of paper or electronic blips could be transmuted into cash with actual purchasing power, such investments are more like Monopoly money than real-world assets.

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I still believe that’s a pretty accurate assessment. It appears that financial markets worldwide have been manipulated since inception for the benefit of the elite and the detriment of the masses. For the masses, it’s worthless Monopoly money, but for the elites, it turns to gold.

But that long-standing situation is poised to be dismantled and a new, beneficial-for-all quantum system is ready to replace it (or has already replaced it in the background, as many believe). For the majority of humanity, it appears that abundance is about to happen, and any financial setbacks will be temporary. Ordinary people are not destined to lose legitimately sourced funds. 

That sounds like a pretty good deal, but I can get bogged down in the how and when. Exactly how is this changeover going to happen? When will dollar-based assets be transferred to US treasury notes (or whatever the new financial instruments will be), how seamlessly will it happen, and in the meantime, how am I supposed to keep buying eggs and putting gas in the car?

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I bought eggs and other necessities at Trader Joe’s this morning and stopped to fill up the tank on the way home. The pantry and the vehicle are topped up for this week. Next week will be time enough to worry about next week. Or so I tell myself.

I can always hear the Siren call of woulda-coulda-shoulda just at the edge of sound. If I succumb to that lure, I could find myself wrecked on the shoals of fearfulness or sinking into the tar pit of regret. Neither destination is desirable.

But checking in with our bank next week merely seems prudent, not a fear reaction. Doing what I can to corral accessible cash also seems prudent.

It might be too late to buy silver. Too late to make a killing in bitcoin. Since both those investments seem to border on the alchemical, I’ll leave that cauldron of speculation for magicians who glory in that realm.

I’ll remain in my rowboat of faith, an oar of prayer in one hand and an oar of trust in the other. I’ll watch for water in the bottom of the little vessel and seek to patch the source of any leak.

Not much of a strategy, I realize. Despite the seriousness of this global financial situation, I still hear a strong inner voice chiding me not to worry so much. Remember, you still view it as Monopoly money. The system was stacked to favor the elites, not ordinary folks who put retirement money into what now seems like a sophisticated game of three-card monte, where the con always wins and the mark leaves empty-handed. 

Whatever might happen, whatever will happen, I know that humans will help each other through this. We’re likely to have ample opportunity to open the radiant doors of our hearts even further, open them into the sunshine where compassion and helpfulness are as natural as breathing.

Instead of an unraveling tapestry of the world, we’ll weave ourselves into whole cloth once more. Now that’s a magic I’m willing to gamble on.