John Clayton Caris Blog

Special Knowledge - True State of Economy Not Grasped by the Public

I just had to pause in writing for other Isis Group Blogs to bring you an important paper entitled True State of Economy Not Grasped by the Public written by John Embry, an astute observer of the world financial, business and precious metals fields. He gives an integrated perspective in one brief paper for the current World situations in these areas.

I have found valuable over the years the writings of this perceptive Canadian investment man. He says what he truly believes, which is quite unusual relative to the senseless "Drivel" that comes from most of the investment world.

If you wish to read more of John's commentaries you can go Here. Possibly you may wish to read John's view of the world situation in September 2006 in the article Manipulation of Gold's Price Obvious When It Falls in Stunningly Bullish Situation

I mention his September 2006 Article because its situation has just happened AGAIN. We have had a Metals price fall this week in another stunningly Bullish situation for the monetary metals.

This week's mini-crash of the Shanghai Stock Market was interrelatd with similar events all over the world. This was another event when the Gold and Silver markets should have run higher. But what happened? They dropped dramatically, especially Silver that had been the stronger metal. Un-manipulated markets just do not behave this way, as John Embry pointed out so clearly last September. Both Gold and Silver in late February had broken out above previous resistance points. The "Paper Money" boys had their backs against the wall with massive short positions in derivatives aimed to hold the price of precious metals down. Something had to be done and fast - It was done - A massive selling campaign to try to prevent further metals price increases. Temporarily these actions may appear successful. We shall see later this year.

John Clayton Caris

Special Knowledge - Irredeemable Money Supply Out of Control

When I read the paper entitled How the FED Lost Control of the Money Supply I decided to offer it to you as one of my Special Knowledge posts.

Axel Merk, Manager of the Merk Hard Currency Fund, explains what has been "floating-up" all types of asset markets. The answer he proposes, and I agree with, is a massive flood of money and credit through Central Bank and Government auspices.

A few quotes from his paper may stimulate your curiosity to read about what I believe is a most critical dimension of our life today - Uncontrolled Money and Credit Supply:

"The world is awash in money. This money has flown into all asset classes, from stocks to bonds, from real estate to commodities."

"After the tech bubble burst in 2000, policy makers in the U.S. and Asia set a train in motion they have now lost control over. In an effort to preserve U.S. consumer spending, the Federal Reserve (Fed) lowered interest rates; the Administration lowered taxes; and Asian policymakers kept their currencies artificially weak to subsidize exports to American consumers."

(I agree but I also believe the policies after 2000 had a longer and richer heritage. They were enabled by the lack of any restraint on the creation of money and credit - In short, the virtually unlimited creation of irredeemable fiat money because there has been no restraint since the World's reserve currency - The US Dollar - after 1971 was no longer tied to Gold.)

"These policies have led to one of the longest booms in consumer spending ever – U.S. consumer growth has not been negative since the early 1990s. However, it was credit expansion, rather than increased purchasing power, that has fueled the growth."

"A massive source of money supply growth is purely of financial nature, ... What may seem like an abstract concept has propelled financial markets to the stratosphere."

"Two groups that have been most aggressive at taking advantage of this are hedge funds and the issuers of credit derivatives."

John Clayton Caris

Special Knowledge - The Integration of North America

Months ago I began to inform friends of then closely guarded secrets about emerging programs to integrate North America politically and economically by "stealth". News had leaked out through the Internet. Of course the conventional press did not mention it. I recall the incredulous looks I got from some of those I told.

If you have business interests in North America and you have political interests in open democratic process you may find the following information important.

You can read about the actions being taken Here, Here, Here, Here and in many other places you can easily find by doing a Google search on "Secret Meetings Banff".

This secret was that the US, Canada and Mexico were well along in creating a North American Union by "Stealth" means supported by the Executive Branches of the three national administrations without the active participation of the Legislative Branches or the citizens of the three countries except for a small elite who are engineering the deal. The "Union" would eventually supersede the constitutions and the separate govenments of the three countries.

At least one earlier meeting, before the Banff meeting in September 2006, was held in the US at Baylor University at Waco, Texas in March 2005 in secret between the elected chief executives of the US, Mexico and Canada.

After the "Secrets" leaked out, the Council on Foreign Relations (I give you three links to CFR:CFR View of Themselves, the Wikipedia view of CFR and a Less Flattering View) and other groups at the core of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America have begun a public relations process to convince the public that these moves, first made in total secrecy, were and are really for the best interests of citizens of the three countries. It is claimed that their actions had be be started in secret to deal with "uninformed opposition". I hope you will do a Google Search on the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SSP), read the range of opinions available and inform yourself on this critical issue.

We should be aware that this is a serious movement by powerful forces. I can see both important benefits and liabilities. The biggest question I have is whether such important transformations should be designed, engineered and controlled by secret means outside a process that involves the Legislatures of the three countries, even though it is a slower more agonizing process for the proponents. Another serious question is who is going to pay for its grandiose expenditures. I have read that the new SSP Trade Corridors will be paid for by making now free roads in the US into toll roads.

To assure you this is not fiction, I suggest that you look up theTrans Texas Corridor. The TTC is the Texas portion of a vast US road and rail system that bypasses US West coast ports to import freight directly from China through Mexican ports, partly owned by Chinese interests, then transported along the corridor to Mexican Government customs in Kansas City, Missouri and finally distributed throughout the US and Canada. The US-Mexico border would cease to exist for practical purposes.

Finally you should be aware of the planning to replace the the three national currencies with a new one called the Amero.

This movement seems to be accelerating independent of the Legislatures or public debate. On February 17, 2007 in Ottawa, Canada the third Ministerial Meeting of SSP was held. On June 26-29, 2007 PM Harper, President Bush and President Calderon are scheduled to meet Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada to further the SSP.

John Clayton Caris

Special Knowledge - Steve Job's Speech at Stanford Graduation

This is an inspiring speech by Steve Jobs at Stanford University's graduation ceremony! In it Steve tells 3 stories about his life. He concludes with a powerful admonition to the new graduates - "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish". This is a rewarding 15 minute listen. It assures you that your life and future do not depend upon the thought and practices of the conventional education establishment. Nor is it aligned with the conventional linear machine system or relativist-collectivist system concepts and practices of business. I am offering it to you as one of my Special Knowledge Posts. It is indeed a new item I find notable. The Isis Group is aligned with the wisdom Steve shares.

John Clayton Caris

Special Knowledge - Credit Derivatives

Here is more than you possibly ever wanted to know about Credit Derivatives.

But be assured, in the next years, maybe sooner, you are going to hear and read a lot about Credit Derivatives. I believe thay are going to become one of the notable scapegoats for the monetary fireworks on the way. Of course, those who have created this situation in a period of Worldwide unbacked paper and computer generated money will be in hiding. I will give you soon another post about the Causers.

When the fireworks show comes, or even before, you may wish to remember this Special Knowledege post to refresh your memory.

John Clayton Caris

Special Knowledge - Web 3.0 or Web X.x Coming

This link takes you to a Special Knowledge article entitled Even experts have difficulty understanding Web 3.0 .

It gives the clearest outline of evolving World Wide Web capability I have seen. We all know that Tag names like Web 1 and Web 2.0 and beyond are as obscuring as they are enlightening. John Jerney, who writes The Daily Yomiuri puts them into context for us.

This article shows me more evidence that our lives and our work are becoming more and more Embedded in the World Wide Web of the Internet as an enabling and nurturing environment.

It means that our lives and work are becoming more Living System like - The World human transformation to Living System Life and Work marches on.

Recall that one of the Principles of Living Systems is that they must be embedded within enabling and nurturing environments. One of those human environments is the Internet. During the Web 1 period we used the Internet as an extension of Linear Machine System Life and Work - But we were not Embedded. The so-called Web 2.0 period began to Embed us in the Internet's environment and integrate us with others who were also Embedded. It looks like that process has only begun as further Webs emerge.

Stay Tuned.

John Clayton Caris

Special Knowledge - New Items I Find Notable

As I do my daily reading and research I discover new items that I find notable.

They are Special Knowledge of notable importance to the concepts, work and practice of the Isis Group. Often they are Special Knowledge that makes or illustrates points consistent with our work. Other times they are Special Knowledge that people doing Isis Group work, or interested in it, should know, or at least be aware of, but probably have not seen in their daily reading and work.

Therefore, I created a special Category in my Personal Blog of the Isis Blog Network named Special Knowledge - New Items I Find Notable. These special items of knowledge are tagged with the name of this new Category.

If you are Subscribed to an automatic Feed from our Blogs, you will receive an e-mail announcement of these items just like you do for every other post we make to our Blogs and you will always be able to find a copy of these items by clicking on the the Category name in the right column of the blog page in your browser window. If you are not subscribed to automatic feeds from our blogs you can always find these items by clicking on the Special Knowledge - New Items I Find Notable Category.

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I am starting this new service today with a special article I found by Dr. Kurt Richebacher entitled Corporate America To The Rescue (Download CorporateAmericaToRescue.pdf).

It contains special knowledge of the US and World business environments I feel we should be aware of. Its thrust is that government agencies and central banks have of course not told us the truth about the current and future situation - But that their lack of forthrightness is greater than I was aware of.

Possibly a small quote from the beginning of Dr. Rachebacher's article will grab your interest as it did mine as he wrote:

"With some consternation, we have been reading that Fed officials think the U.S. economy is a lot sounder today than it was at the end of 2000 and in early 2001, when the Fed abruptly reversed course and began a string of rapid interest rate cuts. One can only wonder about its reasoning. What we see is a doubling of the U.S. trade deficit, the complete collapse of personal and national saving and an unprecedented borrowing deluge that created the most anemic GDP growth in the whole postwar period."

"During the five years 1995-2000, nonfinancial debt growth by 32.4% went together with 22.2% real GDP growth. In the following five years 2000-05, nonfinancial debt grew by 47.3% and real GDP by 13.4%. There has been an atrocious deterioration in the relationship between debt growth and economic growth."

The reason for his choice of title - Corporate America To The Rescue - becomes clear later in the paper when he explains that US official forecasts that US Corporate Investment will make up for massive lacks elsewhere are just not credible.

I leave it for you to read and enjoy - If that is the right term for reading about such a decaying situation being covered up by massive creations of basically worth less money. Just click on the link above to download the article.

We are indebted to the Daily Reckoning and Le Metropole Cafe for publishing this material on the web.

John Clayton Caris

Living System Principles Infect Davos Elite!!

I was quite surprised to read in yesterday's New York Times that the annual World Economic Forum held at Davos, Switzerland was focusing on shifting world power. Its Theme this year is Shaping the Global Agenda: The Shifting Power Equation. I had to find out what they are talking about - If it was not highly classified behind closed doors, as has been usual at Davos. Just recently its public relations mouthpieces have claimed that most of its proceedings are open.

First it is useful to outline the nature of Davos and introduce the issue of Shifting Power at Davos. I am doing this to prepare to discuss an article in yesterday's NY Times entitled Reworking the A-List that I see as evidence for world transformation to Living System Life and Work - In the most unlikely places.

Every January at Davos the world's power elite meet to confer, by private invitation, on how to make the world better, it is claimed. Who exactly it is being made better for is open to question.

For the last three decades a "top-of-the-top" group of the world's movers and shakers - The richest, most powerful, most influential elite from business, finance, government, academia, some press and a smattering of the arts - have participated. These have been, with little doubt, those practiced in the arts of wielding power through top-down command-and-control patterns of leadership/management within the largest, most machine like institutions of linear and collectivist power on Earth.

Of course, if you have previously read any materials written by me, you are aware that I believe evidence continues to increase (think General Motors or Microsoft) that such linear, machine system organizations and leadership/management are no longer working effectively as they once did. Their power and influence peaked in the Western world by the late 1960's or early 1970's - Is now fading, but still remains dominant. Davos represented the remaining dominance, or possibly last gasp, of such power and influence along with that of the collectivist New World Order.

You know that I see already in progress the leading-edge of a Phoenix-like world transformation to the emerging pattern of Living System organization and leadership/management (think WL Gore & Associates, LINUX , or Google). In emerging institutions persons making the most effective contributions work near the outside edges, or periphery, of networks of persons and organizations that are quite flat without pronounced up or down power positions or a command-and-control structure. Such structure and behavior are consistent with Living System Principles.

Now I can go to the core issue of this year's Davos theme of a Shifting Power Equation. Please read the NY Times article by Mark Lander, Reworking the A-List.

Klaus Schwab, the Swiss professor who has organized the Davos conference since 1971, claims that Davos has remained topical by climbing on-board the latest political and business trends. He observes that there is an important shift in global power.

He says, "The power shift is twofold, Power is shifting from the center to the periphery and from the top to the bottom." Mark Lander, the article's author, reports that Schwab, "views the spread of weblogs as more evidence of the changing power equation" and that Schwab, "might have to rethink guidelines for reporting events, which put many of the sessions off the record." I was almost shocked!

Davos, the bastion of elitist, linear and collectivist giant institution power is talking about a Power Shift whose dimensions are inconsistent, in my judgment, with its own basic nature - Conventional Linear, Closed, Machine System Collectivist Power. Maybe they do not see that they are talking about the demise of everything they have stood for. The founder Schwab is talking about power shift that is consistent with world transformation to Living System Life and Work.

In addition his mention of Blogs is fascinating. Blogs are one of the core technologies of Living System network communication and collaboration. You can feel Schwab's pathos in what he says about Blogs. Their power for open communiction may force him to re-think and abandon the previous Closed nature of Davos.

Therefore - from this article I see that Davos has been Infected with Living System Life and Work Principles. I really wonder if they realize what a marvelous disease they have contracted - I don't think so - But the blessing may be that they cannot stop their disease or its spread up to their eventual transformation. It will be interesting to watch their progress. If you go to Wikipedia's article on the World Economic Forum you can get the feeling that some well paid PR Agency has prepared a new sanitized and politically correct version of the remaining Davos reality.

Please keep your eye pealed for more Living System gems in the daily press.

John Clayton Caris