Most of us go through our days without a thought to what we use to exchange goods and services. Think about it – if you are like most of us, you do work for either yourself or someone else, and you get paid in something you never see, and you turn around and give it to someone else in a form they never see.

For example, let’s say you get a paycheck at the end of the month. It is probably direct deposited into your bank account, which means that the number on a computer that is in your bank account goes up. Or you might get a check, which is a piece of paper that tells your bank to make the numbers in their computer for your money go up.

Then, you take a piece of plastic (your debit card) and let people scan it for you, and they make that number go down and give you something in return.This is the most typical way of exchanging goods and services these days, and for most of us it has been sufficient to get us what we need.

If you are really “behind the times,” you might deal in cash, but again, you are just exchanging pieces of paper for goods and services. That piece of paper has absolutely zero value in and of itself.

But What Gives It It’s Value?

There is a reason why, for most of human history, people either bartered or exchanged using things such as gold or silver. These things have intrinsic value and usefulness. And even currencies, when they first began, were actually based on something tangible.

Without getting into all the history, even the US dollar was based on gold up until the 1970s. We used what was known as “the gold standard.” Our dollars were valued based on the number of them that existed compared to the amount of gold that we had. In other words, each dollar was worth a certain amount of gold, and you could even exchange it for it’s value in gold.

Then the 1970′s came along, and Richard Nixon took our dollar off the gold standard, and we started printing more money. But why is it now worth anything? If it is not based on gold, what is it based on?

One thing – the faith that the world has in the US government’s ability to pay people back. —-See why this is a problem? As we have already said in my last post, we now have more debt than an country in the history of the world. If we taxed everyone at 100%, it still would not match our real spending. We borrow 40 cents for every dollar we spend, and on top of that, our Federal Reserve continues to add money to the money supply.

The Federal Reserve will and does say that “they are not printing money,” and it is technically true. Why? Because they are just “digitizing” it. Remember what I said above about numbers changing in computers? This is what they are doing. They are adding to the numbers of dollars that exist on the computer, despite the fact that they do not exist in paper.

Take a look at the chart below shows just exactly how much more money has been added to the system -

Pay particular attention to what happened around 2007-2008 and beyond.

We started wildly adding money (Note that this started in President Bush’s administration and continued into President Obama’s.) What does that mean for you? It means inflation, which I will talk about in another post.

But to put it another way, it means that for every extra dollar they print, the ones that you have are worth less. It’s as if they took a dollar out your wallet, tore it in half, gave the halves back to you and said that you now have two dollars. It means that those of you who have been saving money are losing it, not in the numbers of dollars you have, but in the amount that each one is worth.

Let’s use an example – let’s say you had $10,000 in the bank. Then the value of the US dollar was taken down by 11%. In real numbers and value, you now only have $8900 in the bank (despite the number on the computer still saying $10,000). Now, imagine that happened for 10 years in a row. At the end of that ten years, your 10,000 would look like this -

• 2012 – $8900
• 2013 – $7921
• 2014 – $7049.69
• 2015 – $6274.23
• 2016 – $5584.06 (note that after only five years, you have lost half of your money in real value)
• 2017 – $4969.81
• 2018 – $4423.13
• 2019 – $3936.59
• 2020 – $3503.57
• 2021 – $3118.18

So, by 2021, if they keep adding to the money supply at even a modest rate, you lose about 70% of the value of your money. And they are adding at a much faster rate than 11%

Why Would They Do That?

Why would our government and the Federal Reserve add money to the money supply like this? Is this not economic suicide?

Yes, for the average citizen, no for the government. Remember, our government now owes over 15 trillion in debt. So, if they can bring down the value of that 15 trillion, it makes it easier to pay off for them.

However, at the same time, they effectively rob from each of us who use the US dollar.

Don’t believe me? Ask yourself this – why is gas so high now? Is gas more expensive to get out of the ground and refine than it was 10 years ago? No. However, the value of what we buy gas in – the US dollar – has gone down, thus, gas goes up because it takes more dollars to buy it from foreign nations. Now, imagine that the dollar continues to go down in the eyes of the world – how many dollars do you think it will take to buy gas then?

I could go on and on in this post, but I will stop here and pick it up at question 2 later this week – “Where does your food come from?”. However, here is a great video if you want to follow up on the money supply and debt issues and see if I am crazy or not -

In the past, I have kept most of my stuff on my site fairly lighthearted (other than the occasional protest of something stupid our government might be trying to pass, like SOPA). Not today.

There is too much at stake. Too much on the horizon that many people who I know still don’t realize. And I have been preparing for what is coming for the past year. Some of you may remember that I postponed the publishing of my humor book last year, but I never told you why. I did it because the timing was wrong. I couldn’t publish something funny, at least not before I got prepared, educated, and spoke out on some issues of much greater value.

Ok, enough with all that, let me tell you what in the world I am talking about – the impending global collapse.

Oh no, Casey has become one of those crazy conspiracy theorists! Soon he is going to have one of those 3AM AM Radio shows and talk about the Illuminati, aliens, and JFK!

I know, many of you are now afraid that I have become a crazy conspiracy theorist, but that is not the case. I don’t believe in conspiracies. I think our government and others have done what they have done somewhat unwittingly and right in front of our face.

We just stopped paying attention.

Let me start my explanation out by asking you a few questions -

1. What is money? Do you even think about the concept that you exchange work for pieces of paper that you trade around on computers using pieces of plastic? What would you do if that process was ever interrupted somehow?
2. Where does your food come from? Do you have any idea? What would happen if the trucks stopped rolling to the grocery stores?
3. Why does the rest of the world seem to hate us? And why are there bloody violent protests all around the world and here in the US (do a little digging on the violence associated with Occupy Wall Street)?
4. What do all these protestors REALLY want? Who is stirring all that up behind the scenes?
5. What happens if the US dollar collapses?
6. What exactly is inflation? How does it affect us?
7. What can we do about it?
   

Rest assured, there are dark clouds on the horizon. The American dollar is in serious trouble. Real unemployment is almost 20%. Real inflation is around 11% (Don’t listen to the government’s numbers, they are doctored. They actually take food and fuel out of their inflation numbers and people out of work more than 2 years out of their unemployment numbers). And the current track we are on as a country is going to take both numbers even higher.

A note: Don’t think this is some kind of shill piece for the Republican party to win back the presidency. I see basically all of them the same, Republicans and Democrats. I actually would align myself with many of the stated values of the Republican party, but almost no one in the party actually holds to those principles. They both want more control, more power.

The solutions are not coming in the 2012 election. Anyone thinking that Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich would turn things around needs to think again. The answer is not them – it’s us.

Ok, so just what in the world is happening that could be so bad?

To put it in a nutshell – the US dollar is likely to lose a significant portion of its purchasing power because of our massive debt and out of control spending among many other factors (in other words, all that money in your bank account will be mostly worthless and the price of everything will skyrocket).

I don’t know exactly when it will happen, but it will happen. We are already at 11% inflation, which would mean that within ten years, gas would be $7.00/gallon even if we stay at the same level of inflation, and we won’t stay at that level. Inflation will continue to go up, meaning that $7/gallon gas could happen very soon.

Don’t believe me about inflation? Been to the grocery store lately? I dare you to check the prices against this time last year.

We are simply one trigger away from complete disaster. I don’t know what it will be – it could be a terror attack, it could be a default on our massive, crushing debt (we have more debt than any country in the history of the planet – ever). It could be a decision by the Middle East to cut off our oil. It could be a war. It could be a natural disaster. Or it could even be a gradual decline over time (although that seems unlikely).

I don’t know what it will be, but it IS coming. And when it does, will you be ready? I don’t know when it will be, either. It could be tomorrow or it could be 10 years from now (probably sooner rather than later). But it’s coming nonetheless.

Over the next few days, I am going to do my best to answer in detail each of the questions I posed at the beginning of this post along with helping you to prepare. I also have some pretty cool stuff in the works that I will be announcing.  Check back as you can, and please ask anything or argue with me or agree with me in the comments.

PS – Sorry for being a downer. I don’t write this stuff to depress you, and I promise I will have some fun here still too. I am writing to inform and prepare you, to give you hope and a chance to prepare, and if enough people understand, we might even be able to turn this thing around. We are NOT hopeless, and we are NOT alone (Jeremiah 29:11). More to come…

Just to give you an example of the draconian nature of these laws, the only other somewhat industrialized nations to have laws on the books similar to these are China, Iran, and North Korea. Not a group we want to be associated with when it comes to freedoms.

Instead of trying to explain SOPA and PIPA to you in detail, I will let this video do the describing for me, as it does a great job -

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

To help stop these awful pieces of legislation – sign the petition here – http://sopastrike.com/modal/strike-modal/index.html

UPDATE: I regularly monitor my site to see how people get here, and many people are searching something along the lines of “the Christian response to SOPA and PIPA” and ending up on this post. While I couldn’t possibly claim to speak for the whole of the Christian community on this issue, here is the way I see it -

1. First, I do not claim to endorse piracy on the web, and opposing these bills is not at all an endorsement or even acceptance of any sort of theft. There are other ways to fight piracy besides destroying the internet and the freedoms we all have. In fact, we already have fairly strong anti-piracy laws in place.

2. Second, SOPA and PIPA, if passed, will almost certainly at some point be used at some point to censor messages that the government does not like. As a Christian who knows a bit about history, I know that those of us who are believers often end up the ones discriminated against. Why would I support something that would potentially lead to squashing free speech, including freedom of religion.

3. Finally, it is ok for Christians to speak out against their government if what they are doing is immoral. Some believers are afraid that speaking out might be a violation of Romans 13, in which Paul told the Romans to obey the government. However, remember the story of John the Baptist – he felt it was his obligation to speak out against his government when Herod was acting in an immoral manner. Therefore we see that there is certainly a Biblical case to be made for Christians to take a stand and speak out when government is acting in an immoral manner. Is SOPA/PIPA immoral? I believe so, because it attempts to take our God-given rights away.

Even though I have been doing this for a year now, I still get scared when things that I was counting on fall through. However, I find that God always brings some new opportunity to my door whenever things don’t go like I expect.

This week has been one of those weeks. I had my sites hacked, two big clients either dropped out or scaled back their work for me, and I threw my back out and couldn’t get around like I wanted to. But, right on schedule, new doors opened up to make up for the revenue lost, and the site hacking has helped push me to move to newer and better servers, something I have really needed to do for a long time. And my back is getting better too.

For those of you out there trying to carve out your own path like me, expect setbacks. Don’t count on anything until it actually comes through. But, don’t be afraid, either. God has continually amazed me with new opportunities when things don’t go as expected. Over and over again, He opens new doors for me right when I am actually ready to go through them. Thank You, Father, for that.

When people say to me, “Safety first,” I usually tell them that it’s not first, and not even in my top five. And certainly not anymore. However, our culture now seems to bow at the altar of safety. And it could eventually destroy us.

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Benjamin Franklin

Many people use the quote above, often misquoted to say something along the lines of “Those who give up liberty for safety deserve neither,” but the concept is the same even when misquoted. However, we have given up so many of our liberties in the name of “being safe.”

For example, without making this into a heated political discussion, have you tried to fly recently in the US? Seriously, it is a nightmare. And why? Because we want to be safe. Many people want to blame the government for giving us the TSA and all of their silliness, but the truth is that people demanded it after 9/11. Instead of seeing 9/11 as a tragic situation that was meant to make us afraid (hence the word “terror” embedded in the word terrorist), and then consequently responding by being unafraid, we happily gave up our liberties.

The same is true with jobs. So many people I know want to do something other than what they are doing, but they somehow believe that working for someone else is more “safe” than working for themselves. Ask the now (as of the time of this writing) 25 million Americans who are now unemployed if working for someone else is really job security. At least for me, I can change course at any time if things are not working, and I can’t get fired or laid off. No wonder we see a decline in entrepreneurship in a culture that is too afraid to take a chance.

You see this in families as well. I understand the desire to keep children safe, but having worked on a college campus for several years, I can tell those of you who still make every decision for your child when they are 20 are doing them a real disservice (and you will probably have them still living with you when they are 40).

The truth is, every bit of this safety is a complete illusion. Someone could attack our nation tomorrow despite our precautions. You could get laid off or fired this week. Your child could end up being so afraid of making a decision on their own that they do nothing with their lives (a common scenario for this generation).

Safety is certainly a concern. Jumping off a cliff just because you say you are a risk-taker is stupid. However, not being willing to try something new because you are afraid you might fail is also stupid.

Our liberties are eroding daily. Our government closes in on us, more and more trying to tell us what to do in every aspect of our lives. And many people welcome it. I don’t. I have realized that much of the Occupy Wall Street crowd actually wants MORE government intervention in our lives. That is insane. You want to give up more freedom to the group that you freely admit has stolen from you? And you expect a different outcome?

At the same time we have that happening, less and less people are willing to take risks,and compounding that is the fact that the government continues to make it harder to do so.

This is also, I believe, a misunderstanding of human nature. As a Christian, I believe that all of us are prone to sin and evil. Thus, I never want anyone to have control over my decisions, because I know that they are just as selfish by nature as I am. The typical humanist, however, believes that people are basically good, and if we could just get everyone together, we would all take care of each other and look out for the good of one another (Hint:it’s also called communism/socialism). I just can’t believe that because I know my own heart as well as the heart of man and what is contained within. That’s why I want as little forced intervention in my life by other people (also known as government) as possible, democracy or otherwise.

If we don’t watch out, the “Fallacy of Safety” is going to cage us in and leave us with nothing but other people taking from us and telling us what to do.

img source: nydailynews.com

I’m sure most of you have heard about the Occupy Wall Street folks by now. If not, it’s a large group of protesters who have taken over a large chunk of territory in and around Wall Street over the past couple of weeks. The movement is now spreading, and there have been protests all over the country now as well, even here in Oklahoma, with some protestors in Tulsa.

But what are they protesting? That seems to be the question that no one can answer definitively. Sure, lots of folks are fed up. I am as well. We have witnessed some amazing chaos over the past decade -

• 9/11
• Two wars that we are not so sure why we are in (three if you want to count Libya)
• The decline of the US dollar
• Double digit unemployment…for a long time
• Our tax money wasted all over the place

I believe anger is a good response to all of the above. However, anger is not enough. In fact, left alone, it could be quite dangerous. Angry at what, or rather, who? And why? And more importantly, what can be done about it?

To The Protesters and Supporters

There seem to be many, many, very genuine people involved in this movement that know why they are there. However, others don’t, and I don’t want you to be abused by the powers-that-be who want to make it seem as if your agenda is their agenda. There are sinister forces that wish to stir you up and use you to support their agenda. Mostly, these are marxist groups who wish to spread communism in the US.

Don’t believe me? Then look at what the main slogan is for most of these rallies these days (there wasn’t one at all in the beginning) – Evict Capitalism.

Ok, so we evict capitalism. Why? Is “capitalism” or, in essence, the free market to blame? I certainly don’t believe so. It is government intervention, AKA the bailouts, along with the Fed and it’s inflating of our money, that has caused most of the problem. We don’t really have “capitalism” right now. We have lots of government intervention.

However, many of the “evict capitalism” crowd want to replace capitalism with communism – which of course then means the government owns everything, basically stealing it from you and giving it to whomever they want. How is that better? That’s worse than what we have now, which is bad enough.

In fact, give me anarchism before communism. At least theft isn’t required in anarchy. Communism is essentially theft-by-government.

Is captialism perfect? No. Of course not. But our problems are not caused by captialism, but rather our moving away from capitalism to cronyism, which has taken much of the wealth, and therefore the jobs, out of the hands of the individual.

Be careful to understand -

• WHY you protest
• WHO to be angry at
• WHAT to do about it

- before you go out into the streets. Otherwise, you are simply an angry mob. And you won’t get the general public behind you. You will just be a nuisance. Meaning you won’t advance your cause.

If you are angry that the government has stolen much of our wealth, and you have a real plan to get America back on track, I will be right there beside you.

Here’s some real solutions for you -

• Let’s do something like what Herman Cain advocates – the 9-9-9 tax plan – which takes out all those nasty loopholes in the tax codes.
• Let’s bring all of our troops home and quit picking fights all around the planet.
• Let’s ban future bailouts by the government and disallow such direct intervention and/or partnerships between the government and private enterprise along with the ridiculous tax loopholes that have allowed some major corporations (I’m looking at you, General Electric) to pay little or no taxes.

Those are real solutions. And they would make a difference.

You with me on those? Think I am way off? Let me know in the comments!

“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

Nelson Mandela

Since I left last year, I have started 3 businesses and have seen some real success along with some major failures. In fact, 2 of my businesses have been spectacular while one was a total failure. They say that 2 out of 3 ain’t bad, and I agree.

I learned a lot through the failure of the one business and the success of the others, and have been able to move on from that failure, and have done really well.

It has been extremely busy at times. I have found myself working all the time for most of the past year. But, it is totally worth it, because I am doing what I want to do and building something so that I don’t have to work all the time in the future. I also get to set my own schedule, and I wouldn’t want to trade that freedom.

For example, just yesterday, I got to have an almost 3 hour lunch with a friend. Not because we planned it that way, but because we just weren’t in a hurry. Sure, I had stuff to do, but it could wait. That’s something I have never had the freedom to do before.

I also get to work within my passions now. Every day, I can decide what I want to work on. Not that there aren’t parts of what I do that bore me, but I get to pick what type of business I am building, and I really love what I do. I have also been able to hire people to do most of the stuff that I hate doing!

Thanks to everybody who has been supportive and has cheered us on as we have gone on this journey! Here’s to another great year!