Over time I have had several, maybe even many, ask me why I am such a “doom and gloomer?” I’ve been told that I can’t see the good in anything and can always find the bad. I even had someone tell me once that if I saw a Unicorn frolicking in a field full of skittles I would find fault with it…well yeah I would, Unicorns don’t exist and skittles will make a four legged equine colic a painful death.
I decided to write about this topic because I have listened to what people have to say. It would be easy to shut out criticism, keep my head down and just spew out my opinions. I have analyzed this several times and each time I end up wondering what it is exactly that my critics “don’t understand?” Are my writings being misinterpreted? Are my theories “too far out there?” Have they been flat wrong? I try to tell the truth “according to me” (that’s all I can do) and I know that many times it is not popular …but it has turned out that “popular” when all was said and done was not the truth or even close to it. I can remember how unpopular writing that the U.S. was going to bankrupt themselves back in 2008 by trying to rescue everything…how does that look now in retrospect?
Here is how I see it: the majority of humans are usually optimistic (especially Americans) which is not by itself a bad thing. Humans also would prefer to live in a world of little conflict. “Conflict” meaning physically, mentally, socially or whatever. People generally would prefer “not to rock the boat” simply because the alternative may be worse than the present circumstances.
I “rock the boat” while writing about the economy, markets, geopolitics etc. because many times I see gaping holes in the bottom of the boat. Rarely do I just spout out an opinion without having (or providing) some sort of logic behind it. Often times I will even do the “2+2=4” math in written long hand to help readers connect the dots for themselves. What good would it do to write an opinion or hypotheses and not support it with any facts or logic? Those who already agree with me still would and those that don’t agree with me would shut down and maybe never even read my “drivel” again. Those on the fence wouldn’t be swayed towards “my truth” (belief) without a chain of logic and slowly (maybe even quickly) would see my e-mail and simply delete “the raving lunatic.” I write what I write for several reasons: I believe everything that I say. I try not to waste time on unimportant topics, I try to pick battles that are or will be meaningful to the masses. Because I see danger in illogical “group think,” I try to shake people into waking up and actually thinking for themselves. I guess my reasoning for writing is that “someone has to do it,” originally back in early 2007 I just wanted to be on the record because 99 out of 100 people told me I was nuts.
First off, I don’t mean to upset anyone else by saying that “someone has to do it” because there are many doing the same thing that I am. The internet is filled with some very good and very smart “truth tellers” that should be read and followed. Maybe it is because I can see something (like 3 steel buildings fall down, only 2 supposedly because of fire) and know that it is an impossibility. Maybe it is because I have been termed an “idiot” for having views that were so far off the radar (at the time). Many times it took just a little more time for my crazy view to show up on the far edges of anyone’s (other than the fringe) radar. Maybe I just want to be able to look back and think to myself, “yes I knew that?”
Let me put it this way, who in the world would have thought 25-30 years ago that ANY of “today” could have happened? Was it even possible that the Constitution could ever be “torn” much less shredded to bits during the Reagan years? Could the U.S. ever have run $1 trillion annual deficits? Or could the Fed ever have had a $4 trillion balance sheet…much of which is “junkier” than Treasury bonds? Could they have ever “secretly” lent out $17 trillion to “save the world” (more than half to non U.S. institutions)? Could citizens ever have been afraid that the government would try to restrict them from owning firearms…while at the same time watching various agencies stockpiling 2 billion rounds of “domestic” ammo to be used against whom? Could anyone have ever imagined babies, children, the elderly (and everyone else for that matter) getting patted down and strip searched to be able to travel? Or how about having to pay a tax if you did not have the “right type” of insurance? Speaking of “insurance,” can you imagine being required to have an imbedded “chip” to access your “coverage?” I have to wonder how long it will be before you are required to have this “benefit” to access (purchase) rice and beans at Walmart…but there I go again as President Reagan was so fond of saying.
Here we are now with much more debt, derivatives and money supply than in the pre-2007 good old days. The Treasury and our banks now have more leverage than they had going into the 2008 bankruptcy. We have more unemployed, more on food stamps and housing subsidy than ever before…and a smaller percentage working than in some 40 years. The “minority” is now working to support the “majority”…and the majority will vote to keep it this way. What is so “doom and gloom” about this? These are all “facts” that have become the givens of everyday life. If neither I nor anyone else said or wrote about this, would it make them “not so?” Does a hunter with a shotgun “vanish and go away” just because the ostrich tucks its head in the sand so as not to see him? No, it is what it is and the ostrich will end up filled with buckshot if it doesn’t get its head out of the sand and start running.
I would love nothing better than being able to write that everyone should sell the bulk of their gold and put it into stocks or productive businesses because that’s where I see the future to be. This day will come but we have to get there first, real money will help you get there. I’m sure that when (not if) this day comes, my sanity will again be questioned and I’ll be branded as one of those crazy optimists! I call ’em the way I see them, good, bad or ugly which makes me neither an optimist nor a pessimist…I try to be a realist and support my conclusions with logic or in many cases “factual dots” that are easily connected.
Bill…
You just keep on telling it like it is.
I’ll read it and remain informed.
Especially important is your handling of the practical consequences of the connected dots as they emerge.
One must remain clean in order to stand back and see the forest.
This says a lot about you.
Let them rant & rave.
Your compass is functioning just fine.
thank you David.
You don’t need to change a thing Bill. In fact, I’m surprised you even dignified these folks with a reply. I love the way you write and think. Your articles are always thought provoking and engaging. You give us important data points of historical significance in a timely fashion. If folks think you are too Doom & Gloom perhaps they should remain listening to the MSM for their rainbows and lollipops. You know, the recovery is right around the corner and if you bend this data point and message this market then you can almost see it! 🙂
Thanks Mark, rainbows, unicorns and skittles for all!
Bill,
Keep up the great work which is timely and very important.
For those who don’t like it; they can stop reading it and then say “…what the hell…” when the collapse hits.
sad that it’s so obvious yet so “unexpected” by the masses. It is almost a curse to understand what is happening rather than being oblivious.
Bill,
Your voice is one of the few out there that is speaking the plain, simple truth. It is appreciated. Keep it up.
Remember, the worse things get, the louder they have to speak and the more convoluted, obfuscating words they have to deploy to sell the “story” that things are okay. And the more they have to disparage any who shed the light of truth. Consider the rising storm of denials as an indicator of our proximity to the edge of the cliff.
yes I understand when “thou dost protest too much”. Thanks
I think you’re a realist, Bill. I see things much the same way as you, which is why I read your articles. I worked for the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in Washington, DC while David Walker was the Comptroller General. It was during my time there that I began to understand just how dire this nation’s fiscal situation is. You may find it hard to believe, but some of my colleagues at GAO didn’t, and still don’t, see things the way I do. They didn’t like David Walker. They think that things will eventually get back to normal. That is, the federal government will balance the budget and stop runing annual budget deficits (not going to happen); they’ll start paying down the national debt (it’s unpayable); somehow the unfunded liabilities for Social Security, Medicare, etc. will go away (those liabilities are getting worse every year). There have been times when I began to think that I, and others who think like me, were wrong. But I know we’re not. I think one of the reasons we’re criticized, Bill, is that The Powers That Be have managed to keep things going this long. Our detractors look at the fact that the economy hasn’t imploded as proof that it won’t. Keep writing, Bill. I’ll read your articles, even if nobody else will.
“normal” has morphed its way into insanity and insanity is now normal.
Keep telling the truth, Bill, and continue to ignore the detractors. You are bolstering us, ‘The Remnant,’ who will have to comfort and shepherd our shell-shocked family and friends once the implosion comes.
Consider yourself as being in Isaiah’s shoes: http://mises.org/daily/2892
I will.
Bill, your articles are informative and always up to the time. Those who cannot see what is occuring, let them stay in ignorance. I would rather be in the know, so i can be prepared. You are doing a great Job my friend.
Thank you Ezra.
Bill, The reason I find the articles by you all is because I believe you are all honest and don’t blow smoke. Now the reason I agree with you most of the time is because when I was growing up, I read The Weekly Reader in grade school. They I moved to U S News & World Report, Look, Time and The Saturday Evening Post along with two daily newspapers when in high school. I have read all I could of American History. I have read James Michener, Allan Eckert and Gay Talese. I have read The Man Without A Country. When I was a young boy during WWII I bought the American Way hook line and sinker. I remember Ike Eisenhower when he was President tell one of his cabinet Members to watch how I can double talk out of this situation. Now if you can’t trust Ike 100% who can you trust in Government. Anyone who keeps up with current Events and World History can’t but feel that what you write is true and honest to you and that is good enough for me.
“truth, justice and the American way” is how I grew up, so sad that not even reruns of our past can be seen anymore.
I am sure glad we have people like you around to broadcast what is really going on. It helps keep me sane.
It is amazing how many intelligent people who are caught in the matrix and truly believe the mainstream media and government propaganda.
I had this exact conversation just the other day, there are so many truly intelligent and smart people in other fields that don’t even have a clue as to what is really going on. This will be the shock of all shocks and the big question will be “who could’ve seen it coming?”.
well today’s post was a bummer. putting all those things we go thru and more to come in one list really brought me down. the worst is it’s all true. at least just this week I got some more long term food storage buckets and water jugs. hope I never have to us them except on a camping/fishing trip. keep up the good work.
your family will go from thinking you are crazy to thanking God for “the crazy one”.
Welcome to the ” Club ! ” Just glad there are journalist such as yourself to get the ” Truth ” out .
Too many people are just happy to watch the TV and bury their heads in the ” Book ! ” , refusing to educate themselves , outside the MSM . Then they wonder ” What is going on ” , when TSHTF !
they should be wondering now but the like you said, there will be no wondering until it’s too late to do anything about it.
I agree with the comments here on your writing, Bill. I would not change a thing, were I you, except for perhaps a bit more production. 😉
“I guess my reasoning for writing is that “someone has to do it,” originally back in early 2007 I just wanted to be on the record because 99 out of 100 people told me I was nuts.”
Henry Ford is reputed to have said of hard jobs, “Don’t waste my time with the 99 men who say it can’t be done. Send me the 1 man who can do it”. If only 1 in 100 gets it, then you write for that person’s benefit. The 99 sheeple will get exactly what they have coming. Yes, we see it coming but they do not and it will roll over them like a tsunami.
“Speaking of “insurance,” can you imagine being required to have an imbedded “chip” to access your “coverage?” I have to wonder how long it will be before you are required to have this “benefit” to access (purchase) rice and beans at Walmart…”
I don’t care what the reason given for it is. I am NOT having any damned chip embedded inside me. Not now, not tomorrow, and not EVER. Any MAN would feel the same! Those who do not are clearly non-men… which is to say born slaves who would finally be realizing their true potential. Poor dumb [email protected]@rds.
there are 999 “males” for every one MAN spelled with capital letters, on the planet. An old man told me this many years ago and it still is 100% true.
Thank Bill for all your good articles. I have chosen to avoid spending time with a lot of people b/c they need to stay in “denial” no matter how many facts are presented to them. Sometimes my friend and I joke about being able to take the “blue pill” for a weekend. At this point it seems so absurdly obvious that things are not right economically and socially, that having to be stressed about what I say to people b/c they want to believe in this silly money printing economy. The system always had a mathematical end and it always had a scientific end (you can not have infinite growth on a world with finite resources.) Not being able to speak and write about what is really going on in this world, is the very reason these elites have been able to do so many unpleasant things. This is not like the Matrix, this system has an end and people don’t want to deal with reality, so they attack those that do.
I agree, cannot have infinite growth in a finite world.
I call it realism, not doom and gloom. Unfortunately that is what our future holds for us though, doom and gloom. Kind of funny how my friend whom I encouraged to buy silver a couple years ago (she didn’t) kind of rolls her eyes when I explain that “they manipulated the price down”. She has no idea how the system works and how important little hunks of metal are. She trusts authority and won’t put in the effort to learn.
Anyways, it’s never going to improve unfortunately, because the average person is like that which allows our leaders to get away with murder. It’s only going to get progressively worse until the population is reduced to sustainable levels. I have been fortunate to have spent 25 years in school and working in the fields that support society (engineering, technology, ecology, biology), and when you do a numerical analysis of what is supporting us it is just so plainly obvious that we are well over the cliff of a Malthusian Collapse and the ONLY thing preventing that over the last 200 years is … fossil fuels.
The primary reason for a 40 year trade deficit was for the US to import the fossil fuels that it was running out of (is it a coincidence that Peak Oil happened in 1971, within a year or so of the gold standard defaulting?)
We have NO alternative energy plan on the horizon that could possibly come up to scale to make any dent in this energy predicament in time. Any recent increase in tight oil production is entirely due to ultra low interest rates. When rates rise, then oil production will tank, because it will become so expensive in relative terms that demand will tank.
The numbers are so blatantly obvious to anyone who can interpret them that anyone who denies this is IMHO sticking their heads in the sand just like those who deny gold manipulation or the Fed’s ponzi scheme. The scary part I’ve come to realize is that I’m about as qualified as anyone to make this determination simply because I come from a variety of relevant backgrounds and can see the big picture clearly. And my numerical analyses basically agree with what the various experts in those more specific fields are also saying. We are behaving exactly as yeast in a petri dish do; there is no denying that uncomfortable reality.
yes, peak everything.
The collapse of wtc building 7 should easily convince Americans the official story is false. Once you accept the only possibility of the collapse it is an awakening. It is difficult to accept this world view but necessary ( take your head out of sand to survive like the hunter with the shotgun). We are not in kanas anymore. Notice the new laws after each man made crisis and the cover ups. Patriot act, nada etc would never have passed without the cover of national defense. These laws are for your safety. Americans need to be ready for the next event. No clue what’s coming but I know the next laws passed will be in the interest of national security again. Like the movie says ” you can’t handle the truth” sums up the majority of the population. The truth is ugly and depressing but I’d rather know it than live a lie
yes, “for YOUR safety”.
The path of truth is difficult and ridden with much criticism. The fact is you work for a precious metals SELLER and your job is to paint dark the dollar and make the silver and gold shine. We know that too. I’ve seen a lot of sell outs but i do not think you are one. Like peter schiff we must be wary that you gain by promoting PM’s constantly but we have lost over the last 2 years..lost 65% of our money. so people need to remember where your bread is buttered and think independently…. that i am learning. thanks. Frank
first, you can go back to read my work since 2007 at Murphy’s site, I have said the exact same things and logic all along …and when no one was paying me for my opinion. No one has lost 65% of their money in the last 2 years, not even if you top ticked silver at $49. I tell it as I see it, Miles Franklin gives me 100% freedom to write as I choose without editing unless something is offensive. If you believe that you have “lost money” then you do not know what money is. Are you in this to “win” more fiat dollars? If so then you should sell all your PM’s, take the cash and “stack it”, pet it, look at it or whatever. Let’s see how sitting on dollars works out for you …but no matter what you won’t “lose” money in terms of dollars. My bread is not buttered anywhere, David and Andy Schectman respect my opinion and understand that my opinion will not change no matter how much anyone offered me. To put it bluntly, you just insulted my integrity.
@Frank Jeffries – I have searched high and low for many years looking for voices of Truth especially in the financial world. I have found very few whose analysis was not tainted by their ego or the enterprise that they were a part of. Even some of those few I have questioned at times. However, in all the years that I have followed Bill Holter I have never questioned his integrity and have found his reasoning and facts to be of the highest caliber. I have worked on Wall Steet for over 22 years and have seen many of the ponzi schemes up close and personal. Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s when I started there were still some market opportunities for the average citizen. Now I cannot think of any financial market that is not totally rigged. Thank you Bill for the insight and wisdom that you continue to give to us all.
Thank you Scott for such kind words. No one could ever pay me any amount to write what I do not honestly believe. This doesn’t mean that I am correct always, just that I honestly believe what I say.
Hi Bill,
Now and then you make reference to those who say you are a doom and gloomer. You are not. You are very wise and logic is one of your strengths. Those who say that about you are fools. You would be a fool to think there is any substance to their shallow comments.
I am an Austro-libertarian to the bone. I read every newsletter, book and article published from those of my same values and principals. I am not wealthy but of little means. I have lost on investments many times but I maintain 20% of my liquidity in PM’s for insurance. Many think I’m a doom and gloomer also. We will see about that sooner rather than later I know it.
I have been reading your newsletter and buying metals from Joel for a long time. So have my family and friends. I have been in business for 40 years and have never failed nor quit. Your newsletter is the best in your industry. Your deals on PM’s can not be beat by anyone with integrity. So I say, with my record of success to back it, you, the Schectman’s, Hoffman, Cravits and the rest of your team are as smart and honorable as it gets sir.
Keep up the good work and quit whining about the “fools” who, for a record of 599 times in recorded history, have lost everything or died as a result of their foolish inability to study history and listen to the wise among them.
Thank you so much! Now get back to work on my newsletter for tomorrow please.
Gary Sorrells
thanks Gary, it’s already out and the next on the way.