Perhaps it’s because I’m no spring chicken myself any more. But over the years, I have come to understand that those who have lived a few years longer and have experienced more of life can very often offer valuable information to younger folks. Since my father passed away at the age of 85 on Dec. 31, 2009, I have frequently recalled many bits of wisdom he passed along to me that I have incorporated into my value system. When we are very young—from about our early teens through early twenties, we think we know it all. Then after we have had our heads bashed in a few times, we learn we are quite ignorant. Even the more stubborn among us finally start to pay attention to the older, wiser folks among us.

One old-timer who is as experienced and wise as anyone when it comes to markets is Richard Russell, who is a year or two younger than my father was when he passed away. I read Russell every day. He is very negative on this equity market and believes we will test the lows of March, which took us down into the 6,000s on the DJIA. This is what Richard said on March 4 about the stock market:

“Technically, there are three things I don't like about this market. (Then he named 4!) 

“(1) The Dow continues to fluctuate rather aimlessly below the much-discussed 50% level, which is 10725. I call anything below 10725 "the bear zone."

“(2) Volume indications have been bearish. Volume tends to contract on days when the market is higher and expand on days when the market is lower.

“(3) On days when the Dow opens with a surge, selling comes in and the Dow closes the day barely on the plus side.

“(4) As the business news appears to be turning bullish, the stock market appears to be stalling. The whole picture suggests "selling on the good news."

But as much as Richard is negative about stocks, he loves gold. Look at what he said in that same missive about gold.

“The big play that I see coming up is in gold. As suspicion increases regarding the dollar, the Treasury may have to raise the price of its huge hoard of gold to market. The figure I hear is that to fully back our phony Federal Reserve notes with something tangible, gold would have to be priced at around $7000 an ounce or maybe a bit over $6000. Could that ever happen? In an emergency, anything can happen. Just look at what happened to our federal debt over the last year. The truth, one of these days I expect to see gold bricks and gold coins on the cover of both Time magazine and Newsweek. Of course, that will probably mark the top of the great gold bull market.

“I just read over what I've written above, and my reaction -- boy, is this a stream of consciousness. Maybe I should start writing Hollywood screenplays. It reminds me of something Picasso once said. "Artists are lucky; they project their fantasies on canvas or film or in writing and in so doing they make a living."

“Returning again to the mighty stock market, I get all my thoughts together and design a scenario. Then I wait to see whether the stock market confirms or denies my fantasy. I saw the hard times during the Great Depression. I lived through the dangerous times of World War II. I saw the glorious times that followed the War. I saw the magic, the drugs, the build-up of debt and the rise of the good life that came after the War.

“What is borrowing and loans and debt, really about? It's a way of getting it now, it's "I want it and I want it now." You want that car now? Then take out a loan. You want to take over that company and make it part of your company? Then sell bonds and with the money you take in you can buy that company -- NOW.

“I guess you could call the years after World War II the "I want it now years."

“Well, we've got it now, and we've had it for decades -- and now I guess its pay-back time.

“Geez, where's the money going to come from?

“No problem, we'll create it out of thin air.

“But how about the stinkin' debt?

“No problem, dummie, we'll print an ocean more of dollars, and we'll pay off the debt with those dollars.

“Great idea,, but what if our creditors stop accepting all these dollars? What if they stop accepting our bonds?

“Don't bother me with details. It will all be worked out in the passage of time. Besides, don't forget this -- we've got the world's most powerful military, and if we have to, we'll use it.”

EDITOR’S COMMENT: 

John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, told me something I and many others suspected for quite a few years, and that is that one of the main reasons Bush II went into Iraq with the military was to enforce the dollar as the world’s currency law.

Perkins also noted, and I absolutely agree with him based on the work of others like Catherine Austin Fitts, that large corporate interests, not the President, are in charge of our country. Moreover, Perkins also suggested, and I think he is right again, that more and more the notion of sovereign nationhood is a myth. Large multi-national corporations, most significant of which are the banks, which with the force of our military, create money out of thin air that is then used to buy off and bribe foreign officials. Perkins talked about that in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man but at that time, it was with third-world countries. Now it seems clear to me, in large part from the insights Chen Lin has provided me, that larger powers like China and Russia are being bribed with goodies from our corporate power mongers to alter their geopolitical ambitions. Obama, for example, has pacified Russia with respect to Iran by agreeing to pull back nuclear weapons from Eastern Europe. And it seems China may have been bought off with respect to Iran by giving them access to Iraqi oil.

Whatever is going on, it’s way beyond the knowledge of American voters. Moreover, what is going on is totally unconstitutional and much more akin to the ideologies, like fascism and communism, that American boys were asked to give up their lives to fight against. It is a hell of a deal our leaders are putting us through. It is totally diabolical, but then to Christians, this should not be a shock, because as it says in the book of Ecclesiastes, “There is nothing new under the sun.”