As far as I can tell, there are two types of people in the world: Those who believe what they are told and those who make up their own minds and occasionally question what they are told.
My guess is a lot more people fall into the former group than the latter.
If my hunch is true and if much of the “conventional wisdom” being dispensed by “official” sources (such as government agencies) and “news gatherers” in the mainstream media is, in fact, bogus, the implications for the masses and society in general are ominous.
Take the subject of “the economy” as one example.
Conventional wisdom - framed by “official” government press releases and reported uncritically by probably 99 percent of mainstream media organizations - tells us that the American economy is “recovering,” and will recover even faster in the near-term future.
Inflation, we are told, is far too low and, at worst, is being “contained.” Unemployment rates are steadily declining and GDP is growing.
As someone who writes often on the topic of possible “suppression” of precious metal prices, these reports (taken for granted by most) are not insignificant to any analysis of this topic.
Indeed, a recovering economy, job “growth” and non-existent inflation provide important storylines to any effort to ensure “sentiment” for precious metals remains atrocious.
Historically, ownership of gold and silver are considered to be “safe havens” in gloomy or uncertain economic times. If there is no economic news of a gloomy nature, there is no need to purchase the personal economic “insurance” of gold and/or silver.
This, in short, is today’s economic “conventional wisdom.” Price manipulation + positive economic reports = continued terrible sentiment for PMs and low prices for same.
But what if the story most of us are accepting about the economy is completely wrong? What if more and more Americans are slowly starting to at least confront the possibility that they are being fed a pack of lies by the entity (government) they’ve always been led to believe is “protecting” them?
And that maybe the “watchdog” press corps - instead of being skeptical tigers when it comes to monitoring government activities and pronouncements - have instead become lap dog protectors of government?
Such an awareness, allowed to grow, might provide kindling to a spark that could grow into a political and economic bonfire.
Perhaps it’s not the rigging of precious metals prices (effectively ignored by the MSM) that will ultimately blow up the “status quo,” but the manipulation and “disinformation” about the true state of the economy that finally causes “real change” in how people examine the world and their place in it.
National Review comments
on the obvious
Even today we might be seeing some of the early signs that such a metamorphosis in collective thinking is occurring.
Last week, National Review columnist Victor Hanson wrote a column where he expressed his skepticism about the same economic data mentioned above, as well as the accepted “intelligence” used to justify the war in Iraq.
The column - judging by reader comments and the number of times it was shared via social media - hit a nerve with readers. My take on these responses is that the column “rang true” with most readers.
While National Review would not qualify as a member of the “mainstream media” to many of us, it is a powerhouse of the conservative “mainstream” press.
Hanson’s column and numerous other stories and essays in the so-called alternative press have, in fact, questioned many facets of the “all is well” or “all is getting better” economic storyline.
I’ve done my little part in The Montgomery Independent and with my silver columns published on the Internet.
If the economy is doing so well, why are so many more people on food stamps today? Why does every other commercial on TV seem to be paid for by a law firm seeking to recruit even more people to go on Social Security disability? If inflation is so low, why are the prices for about every good or service I pay for going up, in some cases dramatically?
If a person possesses any inkling of skepticism or any bent toward independent analysis, he or she can find all kinds of other examples that don’t jibe with the “all is well” economic meme.
Richard Russell, who I enjoy reading on King World News, offered a prosaic example a few weeks ago.
Russell speculated that news organizations might be losing paid subscribers in startling numbers. He based this judgement on the fact that he keeps receiving eye-opening enticements from magazines to subscribe to their publications.
When economic times are tough and getting tougher, what is one of the first things families or individuals cut out? Magazine or newspaper subscriptions, Russell pointed out.
This rang true with me as I’m a part of the group that has recently cancelled all of his magazine subscriptions. I did this to save money (my micro-response to the macro-inflation that allegedly does not exist).
I also changed insurance companies, cable providers, reduced my cell phone plan, fired a weed control company and sadly let go our twice-a-month housekeeper. I also informed my wife that our days of eating out are temporarily suspended.
My sense is that The Rices are far from the only family in America taking these actions. Multiply us by many million similarly-acting consumers and one can’t help but wonder how the Too Big Too Fail bank analysts keep saying that the economy is recovering, with an even greater burst of recovery just around the corner.
When I focus on what I see outside my car window and read in the local press (instead of what I read in Bloomberg or Reuters), I see many more examples of economic hard-times.
In Montgomery, Alabama, one story that’s generated local headlines is an effort to curtail the expansion of “pay-day loan” or “title loan” businesses. The fear is that these businesses kill the prospects of other retail establishments locating in certain sections of town.
The question I have, though, is why are these businesses proliferating at such a rapid pace? If the economy was recovering, if more people were going back to work, this would not be the case.
Temp agencies are another business type that is proliferating in Montgomery and I’m sure just about everywhere else in America. Employers seeking to hire only part-time temp workers and individuals desperate to secure a “temp” job also do not fit the “all is getting better” macros storyline.
Journalists ignore realities
of their own business
I can also look at my own profession of journalism. I know our paper hasn’t hired anyone new in ages. But at least we are not “downsizing” which is what our city’s daily paper (and apparently all the big daily papers in the state and country) have been doing for years.
When I recently cancelled my USA Today subscription, I told the nice clerk I spoke to that I was just trying to save money. However, I also mentioned that I didn’t agree with the paper’s economic writers, writers who routinely reported on “low inflation” and how the economic recovery was on-going.
I pointed out that the rack-sale price of the paper was just increased from $1 to $2 (a 100 percent increase in price). Before this, the paper’s publisher reduced the size of a page (meaning readers got less “news” for the same price - a common tactic to conceal inflation).
I’ve also noted that the ad count - and page count - of the paper continues to fall.
To compensate for declining revenues, the paper obviously has had to cut back on editorial and support staffers.
If the economy was in as strong a condition as its writers reported, why would the paper’s sales staff be having such a hard time selling ads? Why would so many subscribers be cancelling their subscriptions?
The answer is they wouldn’t. Even in their own 9-to-5 world (if they happened to observe it), editors and writers could easily conclude that the story they were telling in their paper didn’t match the economic reality of their own business.
The New York Times, MSNBC, CSNBC, CBS News, Time magazine, your local paper ... I’m sure the “real story” about the state of these news organizations’ economic conditions are the same. But it’s a story that is not getting reported.
To the question of “believe what you are being told,” or believe what is actually happening in your own little window to the world, “mainstream press” members for some reason seem to have opted to report as “fact” that which they are told by the government.
This despite the fact all of these journalists know plenty of former peers who have lost their jobs or had their salaries and benefits reduced. And presumably, some of them pay their own bills and have picked up on the fact that that they are not spending less each month (which would be the case if the deflation they report on was in fact occurring).
At some point more people who have depended on the press to uncover the “truth” might start to conclude that either (charitably):
A) The press (because of this great, recovering economy?) no longer has the resources to devote to uncovering the truth.
Or, cynically:
B) For ideological or agenda reasons, the press corps is not inclined to report stories that conflict with the picture they are intent on painting. As news “gate-keepers,” they have not and will not allow certain facts to be presented.
Circling back to where I started, most Americans still accept what they are told. However, the number who are starting to exercise some independent judgement might finally be growing.
When this latter percentage reaches a critical mass, giant - perhaps even revolutionary - changes might occur.
People don’t mind being lied to if they remain oblivious to the fact that they are being duped. On the other hand, if and when they reach this conclusion, they are almost certainly going to be - excuse my English - pissed.
At this point - stop the presses! - the “status quo” is going to become past tense.
At this historic moment any number of changes could and will occur.
One change will be that people will laugh (a dark, knowing laugh) when they are again told that the economy is just fine, thank you.
And when people are again told that - “you got to trust us here” - safe haven assets such as gold and silver are completely unnecessary and the last thing you need to spend your fiat money on, people will act accordingly.
“I don’t trust you as far as I can spit,” they will answer, before registering their distrust by voting with their purse strings. “Where do I get the stuff and how fast can I get it?”
Call it the Law of Unintended Consequences or The Law of the Opposite Effect.
Bank on it. In producing reports intended to scare people away from precious metals, the government and their allies in the mainstream press will one day create a run on gold and silver from a public that has belatedly learned to dismiss as bogus the pronouncements of both institutions.
***
Bill Rice, Jr. is managing editor of The Montgomery (AL) Independent. He can be reached by email at: bill@montgomeryindependent.com.
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