Hotel California Or The Hotel Marriner Eccles

In 1977 the Eagles spoke to us about “Hotel California.”  Lyrics are here.

A few lines from the song …

“On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair…

Up ahead in the distance I saw a shimmering light…

Then I was thinking to myself this could be Heaven or this could be Hell…

Welcome to the Hotel California…

Some dance to remember, some dance to forget…

They’re living it up at the Hotel California…

We are all just prisoners here of our own device…

They stab it with their steely knives but they just can’t kill the beast…

Relax, said the night man, We are programmed to receive,

You can check out any time you like but you can never leave.”

The lyrics remind me of the Federal Reserve.  Call it the “Hotel Marriner Eccles.”

The above lines have been modified for the hypothetical “Hotel Marriner Eccles:”

“On a dark digital highway, QE rewarding my pals…

Up ahead in the distance I saw a burning pyre of debt…

I was thinking to myself this should be Heaven but it’s actually Hell…

Welcome to the Hotel Marriner Eccles…

Some pontificate to remember, some lie to forget…

They’re living it up at the Hotel Marriner Eccles…

We are all just prisoners here of our own device…

They stab it with econometric models and they poke the people’s lives…

Relax, said the chairman. We are programmed to receive.

You can check out any time you like but you can never leave.”

• US national debt in 1913 was $3 billion, today it is over $19,000 billion. There is no plan to reduce or eliminate debt …
• Money supply has grown similarly. Debt has grown far more rapidly than the economy which must support the debt.  Not viable in the long run….
• The debt will never be paid in today’s dollars, and debt cannot increase forever. Hence default – pick your poison!
• Outright default or default via inflation. Both will be painful.
• The economy is stagnant after about eight years of near zero interest rates … and more of the same will help?
• Who in their right mind, outside the Hotel Marriner Eccles, believes that any economy can solve an excess debt problem with more debt? The “powers-that-be” don’t want the excess debt problem solved  –  THEY WANT MORE DEBT.

Because …  “We are all prisoners of our own devices.”

From Michael E. Lewitt:

“The Fed is a complex institution that works in  mysterious ways, but if Americans and their representatives don’t come to better understand that it is destroying their money and the economy, the consequences are going to be catastrophic.”

 “Unfortunately, investors are not frightened but instead greet these low interest rates as an invitation to commit hari-kari with their money.  The sooner they figure out what The Committee to Destroy the World [Federal Reserve] is doing – trying to solve a debt crisis by creating trillion of dollars of more debt – the better off they will be.”

Like the Hotel California, the debt based currency system lives on, and we can never leave it. (without a traumatic reset)

Dishonest money – which can be created by politicians and bankers and is profitable for the financial elite – may look like heaven but it is HELL for all but the political and financial elite.  They don’t want the scam to end and so, “We are all prisoners of our own devices.”

The econometric models that supposedly guide the Fed are reminiscent of that line:  “Relax, said the chairman. We are programmed to receive.  You can check out any time you like but you can never leave.”

“We are all prisoners of our own devices.”  In the financial world, where actions eventually have consequences, debt is growing explosively, and our currencies are  …  shall we say …  basically a fraud, issued by insolvent central banks and insolvent governments.  There will be a reckoning.  The reckoning will be less traumatic if we are prepared with:

1. Gold and silver safely stored in a vault, instead of failing currencies.
2. An understanding of the consequences of decades of bad monetary and fiscal policies.
3. Hard assets instead of promises.
4. Knowledge instead of sound-bites.

“We are all prisoners of our own devices.” 

Gary Christenson

The Deviant Investor