Having recently observed the fifth anniversary of W’s “mission accomplished” speech, what goes largely uncommented on is perhaps the most chilling sentence ever uttered by a U.S. president: “In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”
This was no slip of the tongue. In their hubris, the neo-cons clearly communicated that they considered Iraq to be a domino. A domino for regional democracy? Impossible. Clearly regional kings and dictators would not support their own overthrow.
In my conversations with both liberals and conservatives, I’m always shocked to find them unaware of the true neo-con agenda, what their military strategy is. They are unaware that we are witnessing (and a party to) the greatest power grab in the history of the world.
The views of the neo-con oil-military complex are no secret. Though the mainstream media, even PBS, observe a gag order on the subject, neo-con think tanks aren’t so bashful. Therefore, for the uninitiated, I shall present a thumbnail sketch of what your government is up to:
It is the opinion of the ruling cabal that–for better or worse–the economy of the world shall be animated by oil into the foreseeable future, fifty years hence and more. Having emerged from the Cold War as the sole Super Power, and having rigged the world’s banking system in our favor, it was incumbent upon the United States to preserve this mono-polar world for future generations.
The strategy was simple: Maintain an overwhelming military superiority for the US and park our troops on top of the oil where ever possible. Elegant in it’s simplicity, undemocratic and un-American (well…) to the core.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, as the world celebrated and contemplated a “peace dividend”, the US swooped into the newly liberated “stan” republics and plopped down US bases like so many hotels on the Boardwalk. We promised protection from the Russians and Chinese and Pasha lifestyles for the fledgling “presidents”.
Yugoslavia got caught in the gears of this machinery and was dispatched. Later, a small group of messianic Muslim former CIA assets calling themselves “al-Qaeda” suddenly found itself with fourth down on its own one yard line with ten seconds left in the game. The Americans were coming! They lobbed a 99 yard Hail Mary pass….complete! The question of whether the Americans called the play, pulled the defense or whether these hayseeds just got lucky, while important to know, has little bearing on our present predicament.
The neo-con blitzkrieg on the world oil supply would appear to be bogged down. Casualties are mounting. Elements of the military and the oligarchy are in revolt, though a “false flag” presidential candidacy has been mounted.
It is vital to remember that the neo-cons think in terms of historical context. In past eras, such a massive grab would have devoured perhaps hundreds of thousands of troops. Therefore, they believe that History will regard them as geniuses! Geniuses– just like Alexander and Napoleon and that Austrian person!
You may ask: “Aren’t the Chinese, who are funding this operation, likely to pull the plug?” The neo-cons are betting that the Chinese communists (sic) are like the Russian communists–ruthless, but politically naïve. Chinese growth has occurred in the context of our rigged world economy. More importantly, neo-cons are planning for China to have a “color revolution”, in which case our debt would be forgiven by our stooge.
The “false flag” candidate will fail. However, the neo-con media will mount a withering “human wave” type offensive over the summer and fall–one which will test the nerve of both the “anti” oligarchy and the slowly awakening public. The dye is 95% caste–if we falter, the America we have known (or thought we knew) will pass into History forever.
THIS IS REAL.
The Rule of Three by Three
Today we take a quick linguistic and historical detour to learn a bit more about how to make a small pile of money into a bigger pile of money by using the “Rule of Three By Three”–a rule that has been employed by multiple generations of Chinese in search of opportunity or, perhaps better stated, survival in the face of crisis. There are probably other ethnic groups utilizing a similar method of value creation, but I learned the fundamentals of this rule while living and working on the frontiers of China. You may find the origin and applications of the rule to be the best three and a half minute financial lesson you will ever have. Even if you are dedicated to “art for art’s sake”, if you can’t eat, you can’t create.
It is instructive that the Chinese characters for “business” are a combination of the words for “buy” and “sell” which are themselves actually the same characters in duplicate placed alongside each other but with the addition of the symbol for “dirt” above “buy”. Moreover, another way to write “business” in Chinese is a combination of the characters for “life” and “meaning”. Think about this, I just suggested that etymologically the life of business is the business of life and there is a linguistic road map of how to get to your destination–a road map of the fabled Chinese search for “the Golden Mountain” using a sure-fire method of value-creation even under conditions of hardship that should be useful for us all.
Before we get to the history part of today’s lesson, let’s consider the notion of “value”. However meaningful it may be to life, it is difficult to organize your thoughts about value (try it); it’s easier to be very concrete about money. (Indeed, I suggest that the value/money conundrum gets to the very heart of the quality vs. quantity distinction that continues to challenge our sensibilities). You can think of money as the tangible side of the more subjective, and therefore elusive, notion of value. In this sense, if you create value, it is worth money, and vice versa. In symbolic and practical terms then, value = money. To think of value in quantitative terms provides the necessary “discipline of equivalences”that allows us to exist in society. Money focuses the mind. After you have developed the cash flow to survive, or even to thrive, you can “afford” to consider whether the equation was a good trade-off. Where we place the fulcrum of balance between value and money in our search for either during the day is a private matter that each of us must weigh in our souls at night.
Basically, there are three things you can do with (value and) money: (1) create it; (2) exchange it; or (3) store it. A useful way to think about these three aspects of (value and) money is the “Rule of Three by Three.” In mathematical terms, 3 x 3 = 9 or three squared–this is a power law. In broad economic, or even philosophical, terms, a power law is a way to leverage values or, in practical terms, a way “to get more bang for your buck.”
Let us then consider how this powerful rule came into being so you may determine what parts of the formulation are relevant to you given where you are in your cycle of life as student, starving artist, head of household or, perhaps, some combination of these roles. Many of the underlying notions of this power law have been instinctively used by about 1.5 billion people on the planet; but only a successful few have reduced it to an easy to remember rule to follow deliberately and consistently. I will give it to you now.
One of the most valuable lessons that I ever learned in my decades of living and working with the Chinese diaspora throughout Asia was their abiding application of economic leverage, as (i) a family unit or (ii) alternative social network, for survival amidst chaos and uncertainty. I have distilled what was shared with me by multiple generations of successful entrepreneurs to a simple formulation for survival that I now call the “Rule of Three by Three.” which means “work, gold, and land–three times over.” What I now teach at our Nightschool for Entrepreneurs, as a “quick-and-dirty” framing exercise, is that in order to survive in society, you take a thing of value and divide it into its three functional equivalents.
To the Chinese, Work related to what one does best in life. Gold meant any asset you could carry on your person or put under your mattress. Land was anything you could not carry, or to be more historically to the point, any fixed asset that you could “mark with your own water” (or to be even more direct as Fuzz folks tend to be, to their credit, anything that you could piss on). In time, the triplet of “work/gold/land,” became the practical proxy for how capital is (i) created, (ii) exchanged, or (iii) held. And, for safety and opportunity among those living on the frontier, one learned to perform these three value functions “three times over” (that is, (i) HERE, (ii) NOT-HERE, and (iii) BY CHANCE) by yourself first and foremost, but if that were not possible or practicable, then with your “extended family and friends.” That is why you first hold your sons and daughters close to your bosom, but then send them away to grow and prosper but always as part of your intimate social network–“here” and “not here”, by “trial-and-error” as chance will have it. Without family or friends, chance has no leverage.
Through trial and error, fault and default, the exhilarating or bitter experience of your changing fortunes on the frontier evolved to become the Rule of Three by Three. “Work/gold/land” are tangible proxies for how capital is (i) created [work], (ii) exchanged [gold], and (iii) held [land]. And to do it “three times over” (i.e. here, not here, and secretly) meant (i) locally, (ii) globally (elsewhere for diversification), and (iii) seamlessly (to set up the framework for connectivity in an ever-changing and expanding network that sits precariously by definition at the edge of chaos.) Again, the Chinese say, sometimes you have to “eat bitter” before the good comes.
What about Fuzz artists and fans who are just getting started in life? To be sure, you may possess few assets (portable or fixed) while living on the frontier. Nonetheless, you do have your passion and your brains, to do the thing you do best. This is the “work” part of the work/gold/land value triplet. In capital formation, this is often referred to as “sweat equity.”
Your sweat equity will provide the small but powerful perch that you can leverage “to tilt the earth” to your advantage. Trust me on this. Struggling artists must often eat bitter while developing their calling. But they, or better, I should say we too have more than a zero base of social capital to provide that critical starting point to deploy our own Rule of Three By Three on the frontier…where we all choose to live for a reason.