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posted ago by simon_says ago by simon_says +240 / -2

The Simon Lectures. Series I, Part 1.

Originally published on greatawakening.win, 2022 July 30.

Introduction.

I know that everyone is confused. Not just confused, disoriented. And not just disoriented, positively afflicted with vertigo. Excruciating vertigo. The kind where the room spins at the same time you float around it. And if you dare to open your eyes, you see: a stolen election; broken borders; a rising China; The Great Reset.

You don’t know what the hell is going on, and you want off this ride before you puke.

I can’t help you with the nausea. Frankly, I’m little nauseous too. But I can tell you what’s going on. I can explain it all.

And that’s what The Simon Lectures are all about. Take them or leave them as you please.

-simon_says

Series I, Part 1.

First off, let’s take a quick look at our money supply. I’m a United States citizen. If I say “our” money supply or “our” stock market or “our” debt and so on, I mean the money supply of the United States, the equities markets in the United States (NYSE, NASDAQ, etc.), and the debt of the United States federal government. I know this board is frequented by participants throughout the world. Pardon my parochialism.

The first thing to recognize is that our aggregate money supply totals about $21.7T ($21.7 Trillion United States Dollars). I’m talking about all the money in the whole system. Greenbacks. Savings deposits. Other demand deposits. Traveler’s checks. Money market deposit accounts. Retail money market mutual funds. Every other form of private-sector deposit. Certificates of deposits. Everything. The whole shootin’ match - nothing excluded. $21.7T. That’s the whole enchilada.

The next thing I want you to consider is our national debt. It currently stands at $30.6T. But who knows how big that number will be when Biden’s done. What we know right now is that its currently at $30.6T. And while you may not be a giant in the field of mathematics, you know enough to understand that $30.6T > $21.7T. What does this mean? It means that the United States federal government is insolvent.

Repeat after me: We. Are. Insolvent.

The United States Bankruptcy Code defines insolvency as a condition wherein the “sum of an entity’s debts is greater than all of such entity’s property, at fair valuation.” That’s us.

I know, I know. You’re thinking: Our debt may be greater than our money supply, but it isn’t greater than all of our property put together. It’s not greater than the value of all of our land, all of our oil, all of our gold, all of our natural resources, and so on. Our debt is not greater than the book value of all of our assets - we’re not actually insolvent.

I want you to perform a mental exercise. Let’s assume the federal government could assume ownership of every asset in the country. It can’t. But let’s just assume it could. So it acquires all the land. All the gold. All the oil. Every form of natural resource. All private residences (including your home). Every company. Including publicly traded and private ones – assume it acquires every form of equity out there. Hell, it acquires your automobile and wedding rings. Everything. Then let’s assume it conducted the largest liquidation sale ever performed. How much could it sell it all for?

Well, let me ask you this: when, in the course of conducting this hypothetical liquidation, the government attempted to sell your home or a parcel of land or a barrel of oil or an ounce of gold or whatever, what would it sell it in exchange for? This is not a trick question. It would sell your home in exchange for the exact same thing you would sell your home in exchange for: money. It would sell gold for money. It would sell oil for money. It would hock your wedding ring for money. And so on.

Now consider: it could not sell all of the assets of the entire country in exchange for more money than exists in the entire system. That’s the theoretical maximum. Even if someone tried to pay using Euros, our debt is denominated in United States Dollars. We’d have to turn the Euros back into Dollars. And there are not more than $21.7T dollars in the entire system. So that’s the theoretical maximum you could raise – when all was said and done – in conducting the liquidation. We could not net more than $21.7T. That’s it. If you hocked all of our shit at the world’s largest pawn shop, you could not net more than $21.7T, and that sum would not pay off our debt.

So, yeah, we’re insolvent. We’re underwater by $9T.

I know. Now you’re probably thinking: but it’s probably always been that way, right? This can’t be anything new. We may be insolvent, but somehow this works out, because it always has.

My friend, we have not always been insolvent. We came into this condition very recently. During the Obama Administration, in fact. (If I occasionally pen the name “Commie #1”, I am referring to Obama. “Commie #2” refers to Biden – he’ll come up in later parts.).

Every United States President who was taken office since the closing of the administration of Commie #1 has had to grapple with the fact that we are insolvent. Trump. Biden. And, God willing, Trump again.

We’re almost done with this part. But there’s one more thing, my friends. If you can’t sell all of our shit in exchange for its aggregate book value – which you can’t, because you can only sell it for $21.7T, max – what does that mean? Yes, yes: it means we’re insolvent. We’ve covered that. It also means that none of our assets are worth their book value. Your house is not worth what Zillow says it’s worth. Your shares of stock aren’t worth what the NYSE or NASDAQ says they’re worth. Your Bitcoin is not worth what the Bitcoin Marketplace says it’s worth. Not one asset is actually worth its book value.

Our insolvency, coupled with the illusory value of all of our assets, are the first basic points for you to grasp in all of this. I’ll leave you on this cheerful note, but there’s more. Stay tuned for Part 2. Or don’t. It’s your decision.

Ever yours, simon_says