“I’d say that contrary to what decades of political science research might lead you to believe, ordinary citizens have virtually no influence over what their government does in the United States.”

— Martin Gilens

Dear Reader,

Lest you find our insinuation yesterday that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s strategy against the protesting truckers is “laid at the feet of the globalist agenda” a tad slapdash, let me share with you this fact:

Chrystia Freeland, Trudeau’s number 2, has just been appointed to the governors of the World Economic Forum, hosts of the Davos conferences and architects of the Great Reset.

Freeland is the “authority” suggesting that under the freshly invoked Emergencies Act, the Canadian government can seize bank accounts of anyone involved in the protests and suspend the truckers’ automobile insurance.

There are plenty of Canadians, and Americans, who support cracking down on those nutjobs. Others who are aghast at the very suggestion.

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

“It’s clear to me,” a colleague mentioned to me this morning, “we have two sets of facts in the world, and they’re diametrically opposed to one another.”

It might appear that way. But I have another suggestion. There is one set of facts. It’s the starting off point, the prejudice of the observer, that makes it appear as differing sets of facts. Allow me to share with you this rendering of the political landscape from an unknown artist:

No doubt this will be a valuable NFT one day.

You’ll notice the reference to Door Kickers and Cake Eaters. If you haven’t binge-watched Seal Team on Paramount+, the reference will mean nothing to you. Moving on…

The conservatives, falsely depicted here on the left, begin their analysis of “the facts” from the viewpoint of the individual. Freedom and liberty are paramount. The state is merely an instrument to ensure justice and a level economic playing field.

The so-called liberals (an Orwellian use of the word) believe the state comes first, to which the individual must conform.

The facts in the case of Trudeau and company bear this out. There is a pandemic. There are vaccines. The Trudeauglodites believe they have the state authority to make everyone in Canada get the jab.

The truckers, on the other hand, believe they have the right to choose one way or the other. Sure some are probably even vaxxed up themselves, but they’re protesting against the mandate and the closure of one of the largest trade crossings in the world, which in turn is impending their individual right to make a living for their families.

Charles Hugh Smith makes a similar case in this week’s Wiggin Session. The state and markets arose together “to solve problems, to increase human security and stability,” he says. “The golden age of any economy is when people can turn labor into capital.”

When governments support people’s freedoms, everyone benefits. “It’s a positive synergy,” Charles says.

But centralization has put that on its head. Now we have ceased evolving, and in fact have devolved into “fatal synergy” — when the markets and governments are in cahoots and are no longer serving the individual. If anything, there is animosity between the two groups.

”When a few powerful people in the federal government,” Charles says, “try to tell us — 330 million people — this is the solution to your problems, there’s no way that’s going to work.” Our current state of fatal synergy applies to mandates (vaccine or masks), investment rules that exclude individual investors from the best deals or even the way cities and local communities are funded.

“It’s an old idea,” Charles admits, “but we have to push power back down to the local communities. And that has to include capital. It can’t just be the local government.”

There’s more to this discussion, which you’ll discover in the complete transcript coming up on Saturday. Tomorrow, we’re going to tackle what Charles suggests should be a realignment of our Grand Strategy around the concept of scarcity… scarcity of oil, scarcity of energy and scarcity of capital.

Follow your bliss,

Addison Wiggin
Founder, The Financial Reserve