{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Doug Casey Talks Covid-19, Fedcoin, and the Future of Western Civilization","description":"My good friend and mentor Doug Casey joins me on the podcast again to discuss world events, politics, U.S. monetary policy, and why Fedcoin isn\u2019t as far-fetched of an idea as it sounds. We pick up on topics we discussed in our first conversation, \u201cThe Money System - An interview with Doug Casey.\u201d Doug is known for outlandish opinions, but the situation we find ourselves in now is something that he\u2019s talked about for a long time. While we\u2019re experiencing this turmoil here in the U.S., he\u2019s watching it unfold from his ranch in Uruguay. Doug: I feel rather smug watching the collapse of the U.S. comfortably on my widescreen as opposed to uncomfortably out my front window. Over the next six months I expect I can turn the audio off and put on Rolling Stones\u2019s \u201cStreet Fighting Man.\u201d  1984 meets Brave New World We essentially have two major issues coming together: the decline of Western civilization and its Enlightenment values and the rise of a police state. Doug: It\u2019s not quite Orwell\u2019s 1984 and it\u2019s not quite Huxley\u2019s Brave New World, but it takes some of the worst elements of both of them.  The problem is there\u2019s not much anybody as an individual can do at this point. You can try to leave to avoid suffering the unpleasantness and inconvenience \u2014 but where can you go? All the countries in the world are going in the wrong direction.  In my upcoming third novel, Assassin, our hero, Charles Knight, becomes an assassin to eliminate malicious government officials. So that\u2019s one route. It\u2019s a good thing I\u2019m saying this in a novel; otherwise the men in black would be knocking on my door. Stoking racial divides When George Floyd was killed, it was the most unified in opinion I have seen America since 9\/11. Everyone thought that cop was a piece of [expletive] who needed to be in handcuffs. Everyone thought he should\u2019ve got the perp walk.  A moment when there\u2019s literal total agreement somehow gets turned into the most divisive issue of my lifetime overnight. How does that happen? Doug: The pot was boiling. This was just the catalyst that made it all blow up. It\u2019s been coming for some time. As bad as things are right now, things are still kind of held together because the stock market and bond markets are basically at all-time highs. When they melt down and the banks are in trouble and there\u2019s another wave of unemployment, who can say what\u2019s going to happen? Too many elites Russian-American scientist and writer Peter Turchin studies how societies grow and evolve over time. He\u2019s getting some renewed attention now because in his 2017 book, The Ages of Discord, he warned that things would get worse by 2020. His underlying thesis is that there\u2019s a overpopulation of elites in the U.S. and trouble happens when they start fighting each other, which is happening now. Doug: My friend Jim Rogers said that at some point in the future, the guys driving the Lamborghini\u2019s are going to be the guys driving trackers in the middle of cornfields, because commodities are going to go up. There\u2019s lots of good arguments for buying farmland. At the same time, there\u2019s lots of good arguments for continuing to stay away from them because the longest bear market in all of history is commodities. Monetary reset The monetary system seems set for a reset, something that\u2019s happened a lot in the past. The U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency carries all kinds of implications. Add the fact that, like most countries, we have a huge amount of debt that is unpayable. Americans tend to believe that if something isn\u2019t working right \u2014 whether it be education or healthcare \u2014 the problem is we\u2019re not allocating enough capital. In an environment where we have all these factors going on, it\u2019s hard to imagine it\u2019s not set for a monetary reset where things fundamentally change.  The rise of Fedcoin? One idea Doug floated a few years ago was the launching of a Federal Reserve cryptocurrency. It doesn\u2019t sound as out there of an idea any more. Doug: It\u2019s going to happen. Bitcoin is popular. Everybody has a cell phone today, and the government loves the idea of something like Fedcoin. If you deal in Fedcoin, it\u2019s all done electronically through your cell phone, which means they know everything that you buy and sell. There\u2019s no cash anymore. At that point if they don\u2019t like you, they can close your account. ","author_name":"Smith Sense","author_url":"http:\/\/smithsense.com","html":"