Jeff Berwick on Practical Solutions to a Collapsing World Order
Anthony Wile

Introduction: Jeff Berwick is an anarchist, libertarian and freedom fighter against mankind's two biggest enemies, the state and the central banks. Jeff is chief editor of The Dollar Vigilante, an anarcho-capitalist, Austrian economics based newsletter focused on surviving The End Of The Monetary System As We Know It (TEOTMSAWKI) and CEO of TDV Media and Services, which provides internationalization information and solutions for yourself and your wealth. He is also host of Anarchast, an anarchist video podcast, and is a contributing editor at many of the world's largest financial and precious metals related websites. In 1994, Jeff Berwick founded Canada's largest financial website, Stockhouse.com. A prominent speaker at many of the world's freedom, investment and gold conferences as well as regularly in the media including CNBC, CNN and Fox Business, Jeff expatriated long ago from his country of birth, Canada, and considers himself a citizen of the world.  He has lived in numerous locales since including Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Bangkok and currently lives in Acapulco, Mexico and is building a home in Cafayate, Argentina.  In essence, everything he writes about for TDV he has done or is doing.

Daily Bell: What's going on, Jeff?

Jeff Berwick: What isn't going on! We certainly live in interesting times and it is going to even get more interesting from here.

Daily Bell: Is the world getting crazier or is it just our imagination?

Jeff Berwick: That's exactly what I was saying. I am surprised so many people are so unaware about what is really going on in the political, economic and financial worlds. If they were aware, they'd be shocked. And, if they lack any moral philosophy and economic historical knowledge, probably dismayed. But maybe many purposely keep themselves in the dark for their own mental protection. I hear "I don't want to know" a lot. But like Ayn Rand said, "You can ignore reality, but you can't ignore the consequences of ignoring reality."

Daily Bell: What's the biggest issue on your plate? What are you most concerned about?

Jeff Berwick: I sum it up as The End Of The Monetary System As We Know It (TEOTMSAWKI), which is sort of an all-encompassing acronym for the fact that the political, financial and economic systems we have lived in for the last 40 years are all on the cusp of collapse. That collapse is actually a good thing, as the world has never been less free in human history thanks to the explosion in the size of the state during the last couple of centuries. But the transition from these systems to what will hopefully be a much freer system will be dangerous. And, of course, there is the possibility that when they collapse things get even worse as people panic and give governments and central banks even more power. In either case, this is the most dangerous time in history for capital.

Daily Bell: Give us some background, for readers who don't know you.

Jeff Berwick: I've been interviewed twice in the past by The Daily Bell so those who are interested can look at those interviews for a more detailed answer on my history. What I am really, though, is a truth-seeker. I want to know what the truth is and am not scared to dig far down the rabbit hole to find it. Secondly, I don't believe in thinking collectively when it comes to nations, but I do have a warm spot in my heart for humanity as a whole, and also for all the wondrous living things that are here on this space rock with us. And, because of that, I want to see everyone and everything living as happily as they can. It is my opinion, certainly as far as humanity is concerned, that the best way to make that happen is to spread the word of freedom and to rally against those who try to enslave and oppress others. Those people most often are the ones pulling the levers of government ... one of the worst ideas still being propagated on this planet.

Freedom from governments and the centralized violence of their laws and regulations isn't a desire to hurt or damage others or the environment; it's the only moral system and it turns out that it is has the very real side effect of constantly driving technological progress and standards of living.

Daily Bell: Are things getting worse economically for the West? For the US?

Jeff Berwick: I think it is unquestionable. I've been writing for years with proof of that. But you just have to look at numbers in recent weeks to see that is empirically the case. Unemployment in Spain is 26.6% and in Greece it's 27.6%. It's even worse for younger people who are really feeling the brunt of the socialist systems that have been in place for decades. Youth unemployment in Greece tops 75%! And, the real unemployment rate in the US is well over 20% when measured in the old way that doesn't try to hide realities that would cause unrest among the populace. Not to mention that 1 in 6 people in the US is on food stamps... 1 in 4 children is on food stamps. The entire Western world is already in a deep depression as bad as the 1930s depression and it is going to get much worse from here.

Daily Bell: Is the US coming out of a recession?

Jeff Berwick: I think I can best answer that question with a question. What is a recession? What I mean by that is that the standard ways the government, media and economists calculate "a recession" make no sense. The entire West, and most of the world, is run rampant with incorrect economic thinking. GDP, as just one example, is a fallacy. It does not denote "growth" or "recession." Adding up the price of everything sold into one number for a geographic region does not say very much at all about the true economic health of the people of that region. If that were the case then, as Paul Krugman would advise, we should destroy every city in the West and rebuild it, as it would massively increase GDP as people's savings were used to just get them back to where they were before their cities were destroyed. It's a ludicrous concept.

The US is already in a depression that has just begun. There are no green shoots. There is no recovery. All that is happening is the Federal Reserve is printing new money (QE) and fooling people, temporarily, into thinking they are richer than they are as their existing earnings buy less and they have to take on more debt to keep their standard of living from plummeting. They'll soon find out the truth as that new money destroys their purchasing power and their lives get painfully downsized.

And so, to answer your question of whether the US is coming out a recession – where a recession or depression is a general decline in the standard of living – I think the answer is not only is the US not coming out of a recession but it is still in just the preliminary stages of a depression.

Daily Bell: What's your take on Obamacare and Obama? Is his administration gradually imploding?

Jeff Berwick: Many people incorrectly state that Obama and Obamacare are socialist. Obamacare in its current form is fascist and part of crapitalism – crony capitalism. It is just forcing people to use private, monopolistic insurance companies or be fined. Luckily, however, as with most things government does it is totally incompetent. This may be the fastest government program to implode in history.

Daily Bell: Will Obamacare be overturned? What will its impact be? Is the real goal a single payer system? How's that working out for Canada?

Jeff Berwick: Considering that its real results have been tens of millions of people losing their medical insurance (and having their rates increased by as much as 500%) with just a few thousand people actually receiving medical insurance, it will be interesting to see just how far the federal government can push the American sheeple until they finally have enough. As for Kanada, I have countless personal horror stories of the medical system there, as I was born and lived there until I was in my early 30s. I spend a lot of my time in Mexico now and much prefer the free-market medical system in Mexico to either of its fasco-communist northern neighbors.

Daily Bell: What about the Tea Party in the US? We think the movement is getting bigger.

Jeff Berwick: What I have found interesting is that the libertarian mindset is so foreign to the political class one-party system that Harry Reid (Communist-Nevada) called Tea Partiers anarchists! They for the most part aren't anarchists at all but constitutionalists or minarchists. What is nice, however, is that the word libertarian is finally being understood in the "land of the free" and is actually a cool thing to be now. Glenn Beck, who is a neocon, calls himself a libertarian. Bill Maher, who is a liberal, calls himself a libertarian. And the Republican Party is actually realizing that if they want a chance of winning, they will have to get the vote of the Ron Paul libertarians. Even better is that if libertarians form a substantial part of the Republican Party, it will destroy the Republican Party as we know it and soon after it will destroy the federal government. Because once people become libertarian it usually isn't very long until they become true anarchists and realize that government itself is an unnecessary evil. A popular Internet meme put it best: "What's the difference between a libertarian and an anarchist? About six months."

Anthony Wile is an author, columnist and entrepreneur focused on developing projects that promote the general advancement of free-market thinking concepts.

Mr. Wile is the Chairman and CEO of the Swiss-based publishing firm Appenzeller Business Press AG (ARBP). He is a senior editor of ARBP's flagship news site, TheDailyBell.com. In 2010, ARBP founded and appointed Mr. Wile as the Executive Director of The Foundation for the Advancement of Free-Market Thinking â€" a non-profit Liechtenstein-based foundation. Prior to founding ARBP in 2008, Mr. Wile founded and ran, along with the late Harry Browne and others, Free Market News Network Corp. His most popular book, High Alert, is now in its third edition and available in several languages. High Alert, first published in 2004 was an early predictor of many of the events that have rocked global financial markets during the past 6 years. Mr. Wile is a staunch advocate of free banking and the need for societies to adopt an honest money standard. Mr. Wile has published more than 200 articles dealing with a variety of issues from a free-market perspective. Other notable books written by Mr. Wile include The Liberation of Flockhead (2002) and The Value of Gold (2002). Prior to beginning a career in publishing, Mr. Wile worked in the Canadian investment industry with Scotia McLeod (Bank of Nova Scotia), and Nesbitt Burns (Bank of Montreal). He continues to advise and consult to large international banks and money managers as well as to senior executives at both senior and junior mining firms. A Certified Investment Manager, he was made a Fellow of the Canadian Securities Institute in 1994. In 1991, Mr. Wile graduated from Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with a business degree.

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