FORECAST!
DO1276
13/2/82
--How to Prepare for the War!--And What's Next?
1. THIS IS A LESSON IN WORLD ECONOMICS & WHAT I'M EXPECTING TO HAPPEN TO THE ECONOMY & THE MONEY & THE GOLD AFTER THE WAR, & I presume you can see how important it is to be able to forecast & predict & theorise & at least make an educated guess about what the conditions are going to be after the War, because that affects what you do now with your gold, money, etc.
2. WE KNOW THE WAR'S COMING & WE KNOW PRETTY MUCH WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN IN THE WAR with most of North America & Europe destroyed, or much of it at least, & much of their population destroyed. Since this is a finance conference, when the U.S.A. is still smoking & stunned & paralysed & partially destroyed & its government virtually out of business, what do you think is going to happen to the U.S. dollar?
3. WELL, IF PEOPLE WERE THINKING IN TERMS OF THE U.S. ALONE, IT WOULDN'T BE WORTH THE PAPER IT'S PRINTED ON! But because the World has yielded to U.S. pressure & accepted dollars as a World currency & because an awful lot of people in the World still have dollars & won't want them to be worthless, in spite of the demise of the U.S.A. I don't doubt that the New World Government & the remaining World governments will do their best to try to support the dollar as much as they can so that they won't lose everything, & try to keep it as a World currency until they find something better, which they will, of course, shortly in the new Credit System. However, do you think it's going to be worth as much as it is now? I think it's going to take a nosedive!
4. THIS IS PROBABLY ONE OF THE THINGS THAT'S GOING TO DRIVE THEM INTO THE CREDIT SYSTEM because things are going to be in such a horrible mess they'll find that it's virtually impossible to go on with the present money system--particularly with the billions of dollars in debt some governments are in right now in their deficit spending.
5. THE WORLD IS SO FAR IN DEBT RIGHT NOW IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR IT TO GET OUT, IT WILL NEVER GET OUT! The whole Western Capitalist World is totally bankrupt & they don't dare stop the System because if they did or tried to correct it, it would totally crash! But more & more people are waking up to the fact that it's going downhill, that someday there's got to be a day of reckoning. The whole thing's built on their faith, & currency, paper money is built on their faith & their willingness to still accept it.
6. SO THE CRASH IS HERE. And it's not even that people don't know it! And it's not even that they're afraid to face it, they're even acknowledging it! It's not even that they don't dare face it! It is impossible to face it! They have to keep going this way, because if they try to reverse the trend they would precipitate the crash!--The real crash in which nobody would accept that worthless money any more.
7. WHAT WAS THE GOLDEN LESSON, OR I MIGHT SAY, THE PAPER LESSON WHICH THE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD LEARNED from the past two Wars & the Great Depression? The basic reason the corporations failed was because people lost faith. So they dumped their stocks, they ran on the banks, tried to collect their money, sell off their stocks & tried to save what they could.
8. WHAT DO YOU SUPPOSE WAS THE LESSON THEY LEARNED? (John: Keep your faith in the government.) There's no choice! There's no alternative! You've gotta keep believing! Even though you know the whole System is already bankrupt, you don't dare stop!
9. SO WHAT ARE THEY DOING ABOUT IT? They decided the smartest thing to do about it was nothing!--For the plain & simple reason there's nothing they can do, it's gone too far, they owe too much! All they can do is keep printing more paper money to pay it.
10. SO BOOM!--THE WAR COMES! The U.S. blows up, half of Europe gone, all the major Capitalist powers wrecked & their financial system crashed, what do you think Russia will do about it, & the remaining nations & the Third World & the few Capitalist nations remaining?
11. VIRTUALLY THE WHOLE WORLD WILL HAVE GONE INTO RUSSIAN RECEIVERSHIP & they will have to try to figure out how to salvage what they can of the nations of the World that are left. Russia doesn't want to destroy the whole World, conquering it wouldn't be worth anything if it was all going to be destroyed. So do you think she's going to want to at least save those countries, what's left of the World?--Even their economies.
12. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A COMPANY GOES INTO RECEIVERSHIP? They try to salvage as much as they possibly can that is of any value & try to scrape up the leavin's of whatever they can possibly put back together. So what are they going to do with the currency?--Devalue it!--& they'll declare by law that it's worth so much. Whether you like it or not, you've got to accept it at that value.
13. WHAT DO YOU THINK THEN ABOUT THE GOLD? Well, when the currency crashes, the banks crash & everything crashes in what's left of the Western World & the Capitalist World, what are they going to fall back on?
14. TEMPORARILY THEY WILL FALL BACK ON THINGS OF WHAT WE CALL INTRINSIC VALUE, real material values as they call them. They're so used to having faith in things, they're going to look around for some other "thing" to put their faith in that is valuable. Will gold be worth more or less than the paper money? It'll even be worth more! Of course, what will be the most valuable thing of all? (Peter: Food.) Yes, Food.
15. SO COMMODITIES WILL SKYROCKET IN VALUE! And since the paper money is not worth much anymore, they're going to barter: I've got something you need & you've got something I need & we'll make a trade. Barter will return because that's all that's worth anything.
16. BUT LIKE WE BROUGHT OUT IN THAT OLD ECONOMY LESSON (No.321), SOME OF THOSE THINGS ARE A BIT HEAVY TO CARRY AROUND! So you're gonna immediately need some simple, well-known, time-tested medium of exchange, at least temporarily. It's my opinion that they will fall back on what has always for thousands of years been, you might say, God's gold standard & His tried & proven & truly valuable medium of exchange!--Gold!
17. WHY GOLD? I'D SAY FIRST OF ALL BECAUSE GOD HIMSELF MADE GOLD STANDARD. Another reason, people have faith in it. And then your third reason, it has intrinsic value. It is valuable & useful for decorations & all this sort of thing. It also has a very new, almost very indispensable value--electronics! Without gold & gold circuits there'd be no televisions, no computers, these circuits & all this equipment.
18. THIS TRANSITION PERIOD IS THE DIFFICULT ONE IN WHICH THEY'LL STILL BE USING SOME MONEY, even dollars, declaring by law it's got a certain value, because otherwise everything would collapse. Russia doesn't want to just take over a collapsed building. So she's got to give them credit for some value to their currencies, & particularly to their gold, as they themselves fall back on gold, to tide over until she can get the New World Government organisation & economic system established. There's not going to be enough computers, enough electronic systems set up to immediately convert to this new electronic Credit System.
19. THEY'RE GONNA HAVE TO TEMPORARILY ESTABLISH SOME TYPE OF WORLD CURRENCY. They'll have to issue some kind of a World Currency Unit (WCU) then like they have the European Currency Unit, & once they get that rollin' they'll have to turn in their other currencies. And by the time they've got that rollin' & it's working, then they're gonna call in your gold & tell you what it's worth & "we'll give you so many of these units for your gold." And finally having called it all in & they've got the electronic system set up, they'll call in even WCUs to get your electronic credits.
20. NOW WHAT'S A GUY GONNA DO IN PERU TO PAY FOR HIS GROCERIES, when after the first strike the money exchanges are closed & the peoples of the World no longer receive the latest news on what the dollar's worth? If the U.S. government is gone but the Peruvian government is still there, which do you think will be worth the most the next day?--Dollars or soles? The day after the War, a guy's got one fist full of dollars & one fist full of soles. He goes down to the grocery store to buy groceries, which do you think the grocer is going to be most apt to take for his groceries? The only thing that the local people are going to have any faith in is the local currency! c
21. YOU SHOULD CASH YOUR WS CHEQUES IN IMMEDIATELY WHEN YOU GET'M, FOR LOCAL CURRENCY FOR OPERATING EXPENSES, because you know you'll spend it that month & the money's not apt to go down that much in that one month.
22. WHAT ABOUT YOUR RESERVES? What do you think you should have at least part of your reserves in? (Peter: Local currency.) A good sizeable chunk in case of the emergency which is coming the day after the War when your dollars may be worth nothing, your gold worth something, but the local medium of exchange still in operation. But if the local currency is going down fast, it wouldn't be wise to put very many dollars into it, maybe only a month's, because a month later it will be worth so much less.
23. YOU NEED TO KEEP THE GOLD FOR WHEN? (JOHN: THE INTERIM PERIOD.) Gold is a hedge right now against immediate inflation & devaluation, & of course will be even more valuable after the War. I should have named equipment maybe even before the gold, because equipment we need now, & we trust we'll still be able to use it after the War. Both are most likely to hold their value both now & after the War. We need dollars as a hedge against emergencies now--inflation & devaluation of local currencies--& we need local currency for immediately after the War as a definite value, a medium of exchange that we're most definitely & surely going to need after the War the minute the dollar is gone.
24. CAN YOU THINK OF ANY OTHER MAJOR NEED OR INVESTMENT WE CAN MAKE? What is another very good investment as a hedge against inflation?--FOOD! I would say the average Unit could have survival stores of food to last them at least two months like we do with the finances. Because you know, things could get so bad that even food is not available, or the prices shoot up sky-high for food. We ought to have some water for a few days in case it's cut off, which could happen any time--due to revolution, civil strife, pollution & God knows what!
25. WHAT ELSE DO WE NEED BESIDES THE MACHINERY OR EQUIPMENT? There's another kind of supplies that we need.--Office supplies! What are we going to do, just sit there twiddling our thumbs for over two months? We've got enough to eat on, we've got the equipment to work with, but we don't have enough paper to feed it! We don't have the supplies to keep that machinery running! Not one of our Units, particularly our WS Word processing Units, should be without one good manually-operated typewriter!
26. SOME PLACES COULD CONSIDER A GENERATOR FOR ELECTRICITY, one of these little small portable generators, providing you could still get some gasoline. That goes under equipment, but you need food first.
27. WHAT ABOUT OTHER THINGS WE NEED THAT WE GO DOWN TO THE STORE NOW & WE CAN BUY? Maybe you need to go over everything you can think of & say, "Now what if I run out of this, or this breaks down or gets destroyed, how am I going to replace it? And if I ever want any more of'm, had I better buy'm now?" You don't need these things forever, you just need'm to tide you over the transition period, over the emergency, until somebody else picks up the ball, or the government explains to you how you can do without it, one or the other!
28. WE'RE ALL SUPPOSED TO HAVE ENOUGH CLOTHES TO LAST US FOR AWHILE IN CASE YOU CAN'T GET ANY. If there're any clothes you think you might need before the emergency is over, you'd better buy one or two items.
29. LET'S TAKE THE THREE MAJOR NEEDS OF MAN--FOOD, CLOTHING & SHELTER! It might not be a bad idea, that some places where it can be bought cheap & maybe you can't rent it & if you have enough money to buy it, to buy property, particularly if you can buy it on time, with a small down payment & monthly payments less than rent, if you're pretty sure you can stay there. This would have to be almost definitely a case of nationals, local disciples who would have some use for it in case the non-nationals got kicked out. In "Combos" I'm recommending that they probably rent it, preferably something like a campground which can be used for these 7 different purposes!
30. SO YOU DO NEED SOME SHELTER. If a local national church can see where it might be possible either to rent, lease or even buy on terms a National Center for some purposes, now is the time to do it! They're not going to get any cheaper!
31. I'M TRYING TO FINISH THESE 7 POINTS ABOUT WHERE TO PUT YOUR RESERVES: Food, invest in food; if you don't have enough clothes you should invest in clothes; shelter, to make sure you've got some place to live after the War, that they're not going to throw you out. And equipment, that's number four; & supplies of various kinds, that's five: All kinds of other things besides just food. We've already got some gold for exchange afterwards, that's six; some dollars for a hedge against inflation now, & some local currency for a hedge against the disaster afterward. There's even eight different things to put your reserves into to spread'm out!
32. MAYBE TO MAKE IT A NICE EVEN SEVEN WE CAN ROLL THOSE TWO CURRENCIES INTO ONE POINT SEVEN, BOTH DOLLARS & LOCAL CURRENCY, & JUST CALL IT CURRENCY, both for now & hereafter. Maybe they can split their currency three ways: Dollars, & the second most strongest currency in their area, as well as local currency.
33. CAN YOU THINK OF ANYTHING ELSE?--ESSENTIALS IN ORDER TO SURVIVE & KEEP LIVING? But not just living!--What's existence without being able to keep working? I would say in this case get a nice small portable mimeograph & supplies for small Units or even local Homes or Fellowships, to duplicate the Word you get secretly from us & to be able to at least pass out locally or even print your own lit if you have to.
34. I THINK THIS IS VALUABLE ADVICE FOR ALL OF US & ALL OF THEM! Every Home ought to have a little reserves on hand, if possible, for emergencies, & they'd be almost foolish not to! And if you have any, this is good advice on what you ought to do with it, how you ought to spread it around, how you ought to invest it in preparation for both the present & the future.
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family