caseyresearch.com / By David Galland / February 1, 2013
Dear Readers,
It is said that death and taxation are the only certainties in life.
Expanding on that list, however, we also know there are “physical laws” derived from extensive observations, in some cases dating back to antiquity. For example, sticking fingers in fires will result in unpleasantness.
Then there is the realm of what one might call “common knowledge.” For example, the historical record makes it appear certain that, universally, power corrupts the human mind, and the greater the power, the greater the corruption.
For a relevant example, look no further than Kim Jong-Il, who at an early age evidenced what psychologists term the “big six” personality disorders commonly shared by dictators: sadistic, paranoid, anti-social, narcissistic, with schizoid and schizotypal thrown in for good measure.
Without the power devolved to him by his equally degraded father, Kim Jong-Il would have been hard pressed to get a date anywhere else in the world. As supreme leader, on the other hand, he was unhesitant in pressing into service a “Mansions Special Volunteer Corps” – a harem of attractive women plucked out of the population to attend to his every prurient whim.
Tangling things up in this area of common knowledge is that we humans are quite adroit at adopting unproven ideas as certainties, even though they may be anything but. While the list of entries in this particular ledger are almost infinite, as just one example, I would point to the absolute certainty with which so many people view the notion that humans are the biggest culprits in climate change (previously referred to as “weather”).
Another of these false certainties is that a government can create currency units out of thin air in unlimited amounts without triggering a subsequent devaluation of the currency units already in circulation. Furthermore, these days it is taken almost as common knowledge by a large swath of the population (at least by those who pay any attention at all to such things) that flooding a country with unbacked money is a good thing.
Not to go on, as I am wont to do, but I would also mention the misconception by many that the United States, the most powerful country in the world (see reference to Kim Jong-Il above), remains the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
While one might subscribe to a different definition of the words “Free” and “Brave,” from where I sit, the United States is increasingly looking like a large Club Fed populated by a people whose re-education as serfs laboring on behalf of the state is almost complete.
Recently, support for that contention was provided when Phil Mickelson pointed out that his taxes had reached 63% of his annual income and that, as a result, he was contemplating moving to a lower-tax state than California. For daring to want to keep more of his earnings than the state, which sinks not a single putt for its share, he was soundly pilloried in the press.
Sadly, rather than telling his many critics to bugger off, he issued a series of apologies for speaking out against his tax-slave status.
But the hour is growing late, and so enough of this rambling on.
Moving along, I thought it worth trying to divine something approaching certainty about a few of the key aspects of today’s world that have the very real potential to affect us all in ways most profound.
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