76 - Holywood Cafe
🇬🇧 This week we have been around Holywood, Bangor and Belfast. I have also met up with a few friends from school days - some of whom I had not seen for over 40 years! Some, like me are world travellers just taking a sojourn here, among other things, to "enjoy" the Northern Ireland summer weather.
This week I have one book and one interview to highlight - each of these will give you many interesting insights. The interview contains practical suggestions that you would do well to be aware of and consider.
Also a real hands-on project that you too can try (no excuses!) in the Projects Update section and some more fascinating interviews and talks in the links section.
Book of the week
"Secrets of the Federal Reserve" by Eustace Mullins, published in 1952, is a comprehensive critique of the United States' central banking system. The book delves into the secretive origins of the Federal Reserve, arguing (with references to original and definitive documents from the US Congressional Library) that it was established in 1913 through collusion between powerful banking interests, primarily the Rothschild family, and a handful of politicians. Eustace demonstrates that the Federal Reserve Act, signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, essentially handed control of the nation's money supply to a private group of bankers, leading to significant concerns about their influence over the economy and government.
He goes on to explore the implications of this private control, pointing out that the Federal Reserve's operations are shrouded in secrecy, rendering it largely unaccountable to the American public. He demonstrates that the central bank has been responsible for orchestrating economic booms and busts, manipulating interest rates, and creating financial crises to serve the interests of its powerful stakeholders. This control over the money supply allows the Federal Reserve to exert undue influence over political and economic affairs, furthering the interests of the wealthy elite while neglecting the needs of the general population.
Another key focus of the book is the role of fiat currency in the modern financial system. Mullins criticises the abandonment of the gold standard and the adoption of fiat money, which he points out has led to rampant inflation and a devaluation of the dollar over time, with worse to come. He advocated for a return to the gold standard to stabilise the currency and curtail the central bank's unchecked power.
Furthermore, the book raises concerns about the Federal Reserve's connections with international banking organisations, demonstrating that it plays a crucial role in advancing the agendas of global financial elites.
All of the above is more than confirmed if you just look around at what is happening today. The secrecy and unaccountability described for the Federal Reserve also apply to other Central Banks including Bank of England, European Central Bank and not to mention The Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
Interview of the week
This is a most interesting interview and I highly recommend that you give it a listen. You are likely aware to some extent of the KYC practices that banks exert and impose on their customers. What you may not know is that all independent academic research on the effectiveness of these practices (that have been forced on everyone for more than 20 years) demonstrate that they are almost completely ineffective and they impose unreasonable regulatory burdens on everyone - even including the banks themselves, who are effectively blackmailed by unaccountable regulators to keep doing more. Olivier explains:
02:13 The problem with KYC / AML 19:44 FATCA 27:21 Digital Nomadism disrupting nation states 43:21 Taxes and the Sovereign Individual thesis
The discussion on Flag Theory is especially interesting and highly relevant. Flag theory is a concept and strategy used by individuals and businesses to optimise their personal and financial freedom by diversifying their assets and legal entities across different countries or "flags." The idea behind flag theory is to take advantage of the varying laws, regulations, and benefits offered by different countries to minimise risks, reduce taxes, protect assets, and enhance privacy.
The main pillars of flag theory include:
- Residency: By obtaining residency in multiple countries, you can access different legal and financial systems, health care, and education opportunities. This can be achieved through various methods, such as obtaining residency through investment, work, or family ties.
- Citizenship: Acquiring second citizenship allows you to gain rights and benefits in different countries, such as visa-free travel to more destinations, access to different investment opportunities, and political stability.
- Banking: Diversifying banking relationships across multiple jurisdictions can offer increased financial stability, privacy, and protection against economic and political risks.
- Business Incorporation: Setting up businesses in different countries can provide benefits such as tax optimisation, asset protection, and access to international markets.
- Asset Allocation: Spreading investments and assets across various countries can reduce exposure to political, economic, and legal risks.
You do not necessarily need to plant all five flags and some of them might be in the same country/jurisdiction, but having all your flags in one country is likely not a plan!
More in this issue
- Photo memories - this week in Holywood and Cultra
- Project Updates - Hands On with AI, locally on your computer
- Plenty of useful links - don't say nobody told you!
- Closing out - The Myth of the Phoenix
🛠️ Project Updates
This week's project update is a bit more "hands-on" than usual. AI is one of the technologies that I am intrigued by - particularly when done in open-source and decentralised way; in subsequent updates we will talk about linking it with Bitcoin. Read on and if you have any scripting or coding skills (or ambitions); it is way easier than you think.
AI - for your benefit under your control
You likely already know Guy Swann from all of the superb voice-over readings that he does of all the Bitcoin material and many other great articles. Recently he has diversified his work into AI with a bitcoiner-perspective; ie decentralised, open source and collaborative.
This is a fascinating explainer of how he uses AI to transcribe and subtitle all of his material and how you too can install AI-based tools to do your own transcriptions locally on your computer without any need for central (empire-based) services. Obviously this is just the start of what is possible.
This should be within the capabilities of anyone who is really interested in technology and has a little bit of scripting and computer experience - he takes you step by step from zero to up-and-running - on a Mac.
Also fascinating is that Guy demonstrates how he got ChatGPT to write for him the extra AppleScript code to enable drag and drop that he needed. It really is that simple - you just say what you need and it writes the code for you.
The model download command is a bit hard to read and not clear in the notes:
bash ./models/download-ggml-model.sh base.en
Let me know how you get on - this should give you the encouragement to do more - let me know what other ideas you have!
Archaix material also available with AI search
Next up - this is fascinating. Jason has hundreds of videos and over a dozen published books. One of his "benefactors" has kindly made all of Jason's work searchable by AI query - just click here or the image below and ask your question. The response will give you links to his published material with the relevant text to give you context to help you decide which one(s) you want; the video(s) will play at the relevant timestamp.
🔗 Links for your edification
For the links this week I have picked an interesting and potentially provocative selection. The first one sets the scene and the others are in related and derived themes.
Ethical Skepticism
This first interview is intriguing. My initial reaction was to drop it and move on because some of the material did not resonate with my understanding. However as he points out Real Skepticism involves receiving information and suspending judgement until you have additional research to support or disprove it.
Listen to the interview here - as always with Greg's material you only get the first hour on these pubic feeds while his subscribers get a second hour covering many additional topics as he explains and itemises towards the end.
Macro meets Exponential Age
Next up is a provocation by Raoul Pal with Jordi Visser. Raoul is, himself a contentious character and pair him with a second former Goldman Saachs Partner and you will understand why I have reservations about what they say. However, in the spirit of Ethical Skepticism it is good to listen to these discussions and understand how the Beast thinks.
So what do you think?
This is a provocative one from TechLead who is himself also quite a provocative character. I think he is certainly on the right track but I could argue a few of his points - and that sponsor-read is just the height of inappropriate hypocrisy!
Recall everything that we have discussed about money and Eustace's book above. It is certainly interesting that Millennials like him (or is he last of the Gen X?) are now waking up to this. What do you think will happen when more people wake up and understand this?
And then this...
Neil's experience ought to really disturb you. Approximately no serious crimes (like the one that he suffered) result in any prosecution whereas 86% of so-called "hate crimes" where you have upset some snowflake's feelings result in prosecution with increased sentence. When will people have had enough of this nonsense?
Toxic relationship exits - revisited
A few subscribers were interested to know more about the background and rationale behind my hatred of Evernote. Nick explains it better than I can - he does promote his own system, but like all the best things, adopting this is optional and he does give many really useful tips and tricks that you will likely use whatever - presumably you are capable of making your own informed decisions.
And I am delighted to say that I have long since moved on. How about you?
Another toxic relationship that I have exited (for the second time, I admit) is Audible. Good to hear that Brandon Sanderson is making a stand on this. You will recall that I have recommended his books.
Saifedean and Greg explain
Bond math can be confusing this helps to keep the topic shrouded in mystery and out of public awareness. Greg and Saifedean discuss how the system really works and how this explains the current situation and they give possible evolutions. As an individual, there are a few things that you can do to protect yourself as they discuss. So - what are you doing?
This is fraud - Wake up!
This is a particularly informative video by Richard - did you know anything about these 100 million pound notes. Does this help you to see the corrupt lunacy that the empire is perpetrating on its population (ie you) at your expense?
Just as Eustace pointed out in this week's book, the Bank Of England (in UK) is the same corrupt regime as the Federal Reserve (in USA). You (we the population) have no stake in these Central Banks - they are fundamentally corrupt institutions sucking the wealth out of the nations in which they reside.
Meanwhile in Japan
Joe does explain things very well - his iPhone analogy works very well to help you understand the Bond Market and terms like "yield curve control", "risk profile" and "crowding out"- listen and learn and you will understand much more.
🤔 Closing Thoughts
Closing out this week with a fascinating book and Jason's analysis of it. Roelof "Roel" van den Broek is a Dutch religious scholar. He was a professor of Religious History of the Hellenistic period at Utrecht University between 1979 and 1991. He subsequently was a professor of history of Christianity until his retirement in 1997.
This is a book that you can only borrow for one hour. Do so and screenshot the pages you want to read; you can then transfer them to you iPad and read them with ease.
In the video below, Jason highlights numerous sections that cross-reference with and support his other material as published in his Chronicon and other published books. This material also independently supports the arguments made by Joseph Atwill that we discussed a couple of weeks ago.
Time to open your eyes and minds...
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