It was late October 2019 and for reasons I have partially but likely inadequately written about previously I had this feeling that “something was coming”. I have also written before I was not alone. There was my bug exterminator, just a very regular guy, a country boy, that in conversations with me, us noticing just things that were off, agreed with me that “something was coming”. There was the old man that sat in the pew in front of me at church, a farmer, he too on each Sunday for weeks would agree that “something was coming”. Humans have an amazing capacity for pattern recognition, for noticing, it is the equalizer that allowed us to live in a world of tooth and claw when we had access to nothing more than sticks and stones. Our post-modern world, with all its noise and distractions, stifles this ability, culturally we are reminded continually not to notice things that are true and obvious. Perhaps this is why in my life, me a retired guy, a bug man with time on his hands and a farmer could communicate our observations to each other while it seemed so many others could not see it. I suspect there were many such cases in many places that also noticed that things seemed off, ready to change, explode, or devolve in some way. I am not certain any regular guy like me and the two men I shared this experience with way back then in the beforetime knew what was coming, I certainly did not, not really. I wrote a book in the fall of 2019 that discussed what I saw and still see and key issues in the transition underway. But as is so often the case when we look forward, I really did undersell the scale of the problem. But none of that matters now. Things changed, in ways and at a scale that some perceive and others just notice the edges of the event horizon. The plain truth is, most humans, if you catch them in a moment of honesty and reflection would right now admit that things changed since 2019 and there seems no way to return to that time.

 

 

The something that is coming, the thing that is now almost here, is, was and remains almost incomprehensible to me.  Experts in aspects of this agree, whether it is cyclic historiography, economics or technologists, all the experts I refer to at present are shocked at the scale and speed at scale or changes they themselves have long believed inevitable in their own fields. Few, dare I say hardly anyone, fully writes or speaks of the synchronicity of all of the various accelerating changes in a comprehensive way. I do not presume that I can or should and will not fully try. A dying empire juxtaposed against a rising empire and all that entails is a long and well-understood narrative and pattern. We are witnessing that; we are entering the critical stage where the old does not merely go off quietly in the night. Decades of economics that relied upon the hegemony of the old empire, economics that have been unsustainable since 1970, the cost of that are about to be fully felt. We cannot kick that can down the road again with fiscal policy voodoo.

(I have written extensively about my attempt at a unified cycle theory and the precursor events of this present happening, numerous links here.)

 

 

It is difficult to write an essay such as this, I have avoided it for some time. All around us is AI hype, and this will not abate, it will exponentially increase in parallel with the exponential increase in the capabilities of AI alongside fear of a rising empire in the East as it becomes ever more apparent that the empire in the West is sliding into mediocrity and oblivion. Lastly the push toward AI, whether it works as well and as fast as the hype or not will be spurred on faster by the desperation of the coming economic environment, we will seek a savior. But the plain fact is we are in, not heading toward, but in, the final dying act of the current systems of PAX Americana. Everything is changing and that change will quicken over the coming months so that by the summer of 2026 I suspect few can argue it is happening, what they will argue about then is the meaning and the final outcome.

 

Below are just a few of my thoughts about the future. There is not a lot more to say, there are economically inclined content providers, Francis Hunt being one, that provide specific financial advice. There is also a sea of fools that suffer from hyper-normalcy bias but still find the audacity to talk everyday on podcast advising others how to invest for a future that will not happen. What is about to happen is either not a surprise to you or it is too late to worry about putting in the effort to fully understand the why. Maybe a few of my words below will spark ideas in your mind but I cannot recommend a guy like Hunt too strongly in practical terms.

 

In no particular order, offered for the edification of perhaps someone who has not yet thought deeply about this, it is not too late, it is just very late.

 

Prior Mistakes are Going to Hurt

 

It ought to be obvious, but the deeper invested one is at present into the debt-based economy, and I mean both as a financial investor and a lifestyle, the harder this is going to be. If you bought too much house, or the wrong house in the wrong place or too many houses, or cars etc. there will be problems.

 

Likewise, if you invested too deeply in the blackwater morass of post-modern muck and forsook all natural bonds of affection so that you could be hip or cool or rich and fancy (insert your own description) it will be tough. Basically, every sin any of us have committed, big or small will likely come back to bite us in some way in this event. We can be forgiven in this life for the wages of our sins, but the ramifications often remain. To those that do not get what I just said I suspect you will sooner rather than later.  It is impossible to erase the scars of bad choices, but it is not impossible to seek ways to fix broken things. The more we fix right now, the less that will hurt in the near future, I guarantee it.

 

Current Greed is going to Hurt

 

There is a house down the street from me, the first house in my town that did not sell as soon as it went on the market. The sellers took it off the listings last February and just relisted it. The home is empty, I do not know the status of the owners but I do know they purchased the home in 2022 for $89k less than they are presently selling it for. Without knowing any more details, I say that those people are first living in the hyper-normalized idea that things are the fake things they were before, and secondly, they are greedy. That greed is very likely going to end with them having the house foreclosed perhaps as soon as next year. Of course, I only know the small facts I observe, but the asking price right now is way overvalued. 43% of mortgage applications are currently being denied. Housing prices are still high because, well let’s be frank, real estate people are not our best, brightest or most honest lot and sellers attach greed and emotions to reality. The housing market is hyper overvalued right now and few see it.

 

Then there are the endless hyper-normalized investment bros on YouTube. Those people and their followers will buy the big dip in the stock market to their own demise instead of listening to wiser heads long before and moving into wealth preservation tools.

 

Not Making Moves Soon Enough is Going to Hurt

 

This brings up the old adage, that the time to prepare for tomorrow’s emergency was last month. There is a line out of World War Z that is applicable, Brad Pitt is talking to a father of a family holed up in the city and says he has seen disaster worldwide wide and those that move fastest at the right time survive. That applies here. It is late, but not too late, to make moves. You have to figure out what those moves are based on your circumstances. Wait and die, either financially or literally, or maybe just a little at a time with regret of what you should have done better.

 

Kinism Beats, “the Village” or “Community”

 

Millennials have been fed the communitarian line all their lives, in media and institutions. When push comes to shove, the person you have invested “relationally” within your “community” is not Kin, not blood. Blood is thicker than water, people did not just make that up. Even if a person has sold their soul to a group of people that have also sold their soul to that organization and forsaken natural affection when it comes right down to it, those people are not and never will be kin and in very hard times they will not do what kin would do for you. Do not get me wrong, it will be good to have a gang, gangs have power, but being a gang member or community servant or whatever term we want to use will not equate to the security that others who value Kinism will enjoy.

 

Human Nature Will Remain Unchanged and Manifest as It Always Does

 

When people have their paradigm shaken, perhaps they lose their jobs (and there will very soon be much of that) or they cannot afford what they want (or worse what they need) and they have prior to that moment spent no time thinking about the problem, those sorts of people get angry. In our post-modern muck everyone expects things, that things should be automatic and easy. We are not looking at a culture that will take kindly to hungry belly’s. Of course, this does not even account for the large swath of the population that has proven that at the smallest opportunity, they will burn and loot their own communities and go looking for others with more. People act poorly in this fallen world in the best of times, hard economic times will bring out the worst. The government may try to appease them with cash handouts but governments cannot really control prices and availability of products.

 

We Will Seek a Savior, and not Ask  Many Questions

 

Politics has been dead for a long time. We can only find absurd candidates on the far left and right. Populism of one sort or the other is the only real discourse. We have seen all that before in history, we know the outcomes, we can look at countries across the world in the 1930s and know the possibilities. When things get tough we will seek the most extreme solutions from anyone that promises to fix it, and accept any program they offer, AI, socialism, fascism, another ism, whatever. We will seek a savior.

 

Things We Assume Are Settled and Firm Are Not

 

Governments are going to soon, in months I suspect as this accelerates, go into survival and scavenge mode. They will have to balance appeasing the masses with cutting programs and spending and searching for new revenue. The nature of what that looks like perhaps has something to do with us, unless it is scripted already. If we choose the right authoritarian path then what is cut and not looks one way, the left authoritarian path looks a bit different. Both, however, will take from us a lot of private wealth via various means. Services or pensions, or promises people today hold as sacred simply are not in this scenario. The idea of “unrealized capital gains” tax is one such notion, unfathomable, but whispered here and there now. I would be the least surprised if this was not applied to regular homes using fake and inflated values.

 

The takeaway however is, don’t assume that anything you think about your relationship to your property or the government is settled, safe and firm in all this.

 

 

Like all Depressions, Millionaires and Billionaires will Arise From This

 

Some of the winners are already determined. The very same leeches that presided over this will thrive but there will be new winners. It is always so. You too could be one, I cannot tell you how, I suspect many who try will lose it all to greed in the attempt, but good fortune to you if this is your aim and you are not among the elites already. Being a bulwark for my kin, preservation of wealth, freedom and lifestyle and dignity are more my concern right now.

 

We Are Not the Americans of 1930

 

I mentioned it above but it needs restating. We are not the sort of people to que peaceably in a soup line like the folks in the 1930s. Demographically we are not even Americans anymore and think of it what you will, there are ethnically bound groups with their own cultural affiliations that will value that Kinism over being polite to you. There are vast swaths of poor that have for generations lived under the expectation of government care and are mostly happy to spend their government stipends on entertainment and sugary drinks. None of this looks like the 1930s. Even ordinary people are not the same, entitled, impatient, rude, and rudderless, most hate their own kin, and hardly anybody even knows how to fix a hole in a pair of socks. Not the same sorts of people that weathered the Great Depression, the Greatest Depression will be worse.

 

Use the OODA loop

 

Observe this problem for what it is, orient your focus to it, decide your next steps and act. Many will soon become unemployed, underemployed or offered employment negotiations at reduced salaries just to stay employed. The bond market is crashing (soon), the housing market is done already, most just do not acknowledge it. The stock market will dip, dive, and bounce but as the Federal Reserve attempts voodoo to keep enough heat going eventually people are going to lose their shirts if heavily invested. Major investors are right now buying enormous quantities of physical gold. You do not need a worthless economics degree from some overhyped state college to understand all this. In hyperinflationary times cash is trash. There are things to be done, right now, but you have to begin with the first O up there.

 

 

Each night, for the last five years my nightly prayers begin the same way, well not actually begin. They literally begin with me profusely thanking my God and Creator for all He has given me and solemnly asking for forgiveness for all I did or failed to do that day. After that, I pray for wisdom, so that I can both understand what I think I see and know what to do with it. I do not think when I chatted with those men in 2019 that something was coming, I was seeing any of it wrongly and I believe, considering the steps I have taken since God shown grace on me with enough wisdom to do those things. I pray for wisdom for my children, every evening. I also pray for wisdom and grace to be shown to all the rest who have not yet noticed. I wish that to you. If my humble prayers were answered maybe something I wrote here at some point helped someone come to the point of beginning to grasp this.

 

I have said this once before but this time I mean it, justifying spending a single penny on anything not directly related to the objective of protecting me and mine requires a higher justification now. When the current contract for this site expires I will not renew it. I hope it served its purpose. I have written all the important things somewhere here. Find a relationship with the Lord God your Creator through his Son Jesus if you have not. Do that and have no fear about all of this. No matter what, do not fear. Steward your resources and do the right thing, prepare, don’t be shocked when it all becomes apparent but do not fear. If you have been a fool in any of the areas mentioned above, or in ways I did not mention, rectify that as best you can while you have time.

 

Peace and love, I mean that. If you are a person who seeks true truth and lives in principles based upon true and higher laws, I truly mean those words. PAX

 

I have included three videos below, one was for public consumption the other two were meant more privately but I think they have utility now.