Michelle Makori, Lead Anchor and Editor-in-Chief at Kitco News, interviews Carol Roth, New York Times bestselling author of ‘You Will Own Nothing,’ who warns that we are on the brink of a financial world war where financial stakes will shift. She dives into the global elite’s plan to come out on top – the process that threatens to leave us owning nothing and under centralized control. Roth explains what is behind the World Economic Forum’s 2030 agenda and delves into the risks associated with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). She also highlights the importance of personal ownership and what you can do to fight back. Roth has a free newsletter – https://www.carolroth.com/newsletter/.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Coming Up
00:54 Latest CBDC Updates
02:32 Carol Roth’s Insights on Economic Freedom
07:18 Importance of Ownership
13:19 The Digital Realm: Ownership, Rights, and the Future
17:43 World Economic Forum’s Agenda for 2030
28:21 The Decline of the US as a Global Superpower and the Shift in World Finance
38:24 The Role of Technology and Tech Titans
43:03 Tokenization and Its Implications
44:47 Central Bank Digital Currencies: A Threat to Freedom?
49:29 The Dangers of Centralized Control Through CBDCs
55:23 The Global Push for CBDCs and Its Implications
59:06 The Role of Bitcoin in Preserving Financial Freedom
01:05:16 Practical Advice for Protecting Your Wealth and Freedom
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We are closer to “You’ll Own Nothing” Than We realize
By Charles Hugh Smith on SUBSTACK
The World Economic Forum’s catchphrase you’ll own nothing and be happy was widely mocked as an eyebrow-raising vision of a “sharing economy” future without the implicit agency granted by full ownership. Renting stuff that one needed only for one-time use has long been a market, and car-sharing makes sense for urban dwellers who only need a vehicle on occasion.
But to own nothing still implies powerlessness and poverty, not happiness, which continues to be associated with owning income streams and nice things, i.e. wealth.
Given our dependence on software / digital rights and the phantom wealth of credit-asset bubbles, “how much do we actually own?” is a fair question. Consider the recent New York Times article Why Tech Companies Are Not Your Friends: Lessons From Roku, which was reprinted in other publications with the more accurate title Our Gadgets Are Not Ours.
The gist of the article is that since we don’t own control of the software, our “ownership” of the device is illusory. Here is an excerpt:
More than a decade ago, when we bought a TV it was just that–a big screen that let you plug into it whatever you wanted. Nowadays, the vast majority of TVs connect to the internet and run the manufacturer’s operating system and apps. Even though you bought the TV, the software component, a major part of what makes the product work, remains controlled by the company.
Changes to the product’s software interface and data collection practices can happen at any moment. In extreme examples, a device can stop working. In 2020, for instance, Amazon deactivated the Echo Look, a camera that helped people organize their wardrobes. It issued a promotional credit for owners to buy a different Amazon gadget that lacked similar features.
The less extreme, more common situation is when companies stop supporting older products because they need to sell new gadgets. Apple’s original Apple Watch from 2015, for example, no longer gets software updates and now barely works.
This issue is not new but has grown more problematic as more of our devices rely on apps and internet connections, said Nathan Proctor, a director for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a consumer advocacy organization. With computers, consumers could modify their machines by installing a different operating system. But with many other types of electronics with locked-down software systems, from streaming devices to e-book readers, those modifications are typically not possible.
“When you get to the core of it, do you even own it anymore?” he said.
Indeed. Now think about the “ownership” of software-dependent systems such as vehicles and Smart Homes, and income streams running through software platforms such as Stripe. Payment software platforms can block your access to your money and delete whatever illusion of control you might have had by informing you that you violated their “terms of service,” which are open-ended and cannot be questioned.
One’s “ownership” of money and income streams turns out to be highly contingent.
As for vehicles, if the software fails (or is rendered inoperable), your vehicle becomes an expensive brick. So what exactly do we own if the vehicle is inoperable?
Widening the scope of our inquiry, consider our ownership of a house that is mortgaged. If the fine print doesn’t preclude the lender calling the mortgage, then should the lender (or current owner of the mortgage) call the loan, the “owner” must pony up the sum owed or the “ownership” reverts to the lender.
Given the valuations’ dependence on phantom capital asset bubbles, we might say that “ownership” of a mortgaged house is more an option bet on future valuation than actual ownership, for should the Everything Bubble pop and the house value drops below the mortgage owed, then “ownership” means “ownership” of an asset with negative value, i.e. it’s worth less than zero as the “owner” owes more to the lender than the property is worth.
If the house is in a high property tax state / county, “ownership” includes a hefty annual payment which may well have no upper statutory limit. If the “owner” owes $20,000 in annual property tax, the “ownership” is in effect a lease, as non-payment of the taxes/”lease” eventually leads to confiscation of the property as a means of collecting back-taxes.
The same dynamic occurs in condominium “ownership” when common-area fees and special assessments have no statutory limits and must be paid. This article on outsized special assessments being mandated for older condo buildings raises the question, what exactly does the owner own, and what is in essence an open-ended lease?
New Florida Law Roils Its Condo Market Three Years After Surfside Collapse: More units are being dumped on the market because of six-figure special assessments tied to repairs for older buildings.
Ivan Rodriguez leapt at the chance to buy a unit at the Cricket Club, an exclusive bay-front condominium in North Miami. In 2019, he liquidated his 401k retirement account to purchase a nearly 1,500-square-foot unit with water views for $190,000.
But because of a recent state law that requires older buildings to meet certain structural safety standards, the condo board recently proposed a nearly $30 million special assessment for repairs, including roof replacement and facade waterproofing. It would amount to more than $134,000 per unit owner.
Rodriguez, 76, didn’t have the money. So he reluctantly put his two-bedroom condo up for sale, joining dozens of others in the building who are doing the same. After originally listing his unit for $350,000, he kept marking it down until finally it sold for $110,000 last month, or 42% less than what he paid for it.
Every time a potential buyer learned of the assessment, he said, “they’d run in the opposite direction.”
Maybe we should rephrase the slogan to you’ll appear to own things you don’t actually control and be happy. Does that generate the intended warm and fuzzy feeling?
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THE NEW AMERICAN DREAM
BY DOUG CASEY FOR INTERNATIONAL MAN
The fact is, the average American’s standard of living has been slipping over the past 50 years, though the average American today lives much better and longer than a king during pre-industrial times. There were never any guarantees that Americans would live in the lap of luxury for their entire lives.
We got to this high standard of living for two reasons. One, people tended to produce more than they consumed and saved the difference. And two, technology has been improving at almost the rate of Moore’s law for the last 200 years.
However, there’s no guarantee that either of these fonts of progress will continue, especially since savings are being wiped out by the destruction of the dollar. A lack of savings means there won’t be a capital pool to finance further advances in technology.
But there are other serious things at work, termites eating away at the foundations of civilization. It’s become customary for Americans to think that it’s okay for some people to live their entire lives without producing at all and to live at the expense of others. A lot of the country is on welfare. And many more are buried in consumer debt, which means they’re either living off the capital others have saved in the past, or they’re mortgaging their own futures.
On top of that, since about 1980, the main export of the US hasn’t been Boeings or soybeans; it’s been dollars. Foreigners have accepted those paper dollars in exchange for real wealth. They’re really just another form of debt. At some point—soon—they’ll repatriate them in exchange for titles to land and companies.
Capital is also being destroyed by the constant wars that the US fights against trivial countries on the other side of the world.
Our institutions, from corporations to academia to government, have become corrupt, ineffectual, and bloated. The Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that, in the physical world, things inevitably degenerate over time. That’s also true in the world of human action. In general, as any institution gets old, it winds down. That’s true of the US, and it’s apparent to everyone—at least anyone outside of the Washington Beltway.
INCOME DISPARITY AND THE DEATH OF THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM IN AMERICA
It’s rather shocking that in a traditionally middle-class society like the US, the “one percenters”—typically those wired to the State and major corporations—now own about one-third of the total wealth.
What’s even more shocking is that the bottom half of society only owns 2% of the country’s wealth. That kind of imbalance makes for instability. No wonder it’s said that the average guy can’t lay his hands on even $500 cash if there’s an emergency. No wonder a criminal like Klaus Schwab can promote his “You’ll own nothing and be happy” meme and not be hung from a lamp pole—a lot of people now feel they’d be better off in that kind of world.
Increasingly, the wealth of the country is owned by corporations and their top management. It used to be said that “What’s good for General Motors is good for America.” I used to believe that because General Motors actually created cars, and that was good. But we’ve devolved. GM and other major corporations have become defacto arms of the State. Taxes, staggering regulations, subsidies, and bailouts have destroyed free-market capitalism.
The capitalist system in the US is long gone. We’ve devolved into classical Mussolini-style fascism, which is to say, State corporatism, where corporations and the State work hand-in-glove.
It’s euphemistically called a public-private “partnership.” The people in government and the people at top corporate levels scratch each other’s backs and reinforce each other’s positions. They feed each other power and money. This makes for a highly politicized society, where connections, not production, are what count.
For instance, in the last election, $14 billion was spent on campaign spending to get the hoi polloi to vote for one party or another. But only a fifth of that money came from small donors—the rest from the wealthy and corporations. Of course, the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer as our highly politicized society degenerates.
WRONG DIRECTION
We’re heading in the wrong direction at an accelerating rate because there’s been a breakdown of moral fiber in society. People, in general, no longer understand what’s right and what’s wrong—or what’s good and what’s evil. They’re taking less responsibility for their individual lives and what happens around them.
We’ve gone from a high-trust society, where you didn’t need to lock your car or your front door, to a low-trust society, where everybody is constantly observed, and security is of critical importance.
At the same time, the country has generally gone from having low time preferences and being future-oriented to high time preferences; “I want it all, and I want it now.” They’re not as future-oriented as they once were.
Going back to the question of moral fiber breakdown, the economic observer Thorstein Veblen coined the phrase “conspicuous consumption.” People wanted to show off expensive cars and clothes to advertise to other people that they were more successful. But now, because of all the debt in society, anyone can have a nice car. And nobody even cares about nice clothes anymore; everybody wears the equivalent of T-shirts and jeans.
The trendsetters have moved from owning and displaying frivolous goods to displaying frivolous ideas—like Wokeism. Everybody is adopting those ideas, to show that they’re hip, in-the-know, and part of the cognoscenti. In the past, adopting the conspicuous consumption lifestyles of their betters would only make them poor. Adopting these degenerate ideas makes them stupid and immoral—which is much worse.
STEM
First and most important, don’t go to college unless you need a STEM degree—Science, Technology, Engineering, or Math.
Going to college today does nothing but misallocate four critically important years of your life, permanently indebt you, and corrupt your mind with the idiotic ideas that Marxist professors and administrations cram down students’ throats. Educate yourself. Read constantly.
Next, work to become self-employed, not to “get a job.” You don’t want to rely on a job that somebody else gives you. And save your money—but don’t save in fiat dollars. Save in gold. When you have sufficient savings, learn to speculate and invest.
THE GREATER DEPRESSION
We’re well into what I’ve long called The Greater Depression. But I’d point out that most of the real wealth in the world will still exist—it’s just going to be owned by different people.
The opportunity will exist for nimble entrepreneurs and speculators to do well, even as most people’s standard of living drops. But the big question is: For how long will the societal trend that we’re now on continue going down?
When Rome collapsed over several hundred years, living well and peaceably got harder and harder as Europe entered the Dark Ages. Even if you had a lot of money, it didn’t do you that much good. That’s why it’s important to preserve what’s left of the idea of America.
