There seems to be a pattern developing that your average 9-5 worker may not truly understand or have time to see–but it’s happening before their eyes. This pattern is playing out between rich and poor people and where both of them see value (yep, you guessed it, the former are a bit better than the latter at assigning value). I won’t define rich or poor, I’ll let you set that standard yourself since I still believe your notion of that will apply. I have noticed this after travelling to 4 continents in the last few years, meeting and talking with all walks of life from all different backgrounds.

What are the Rich Doing?

Rich people are examining the world before them in a set of tradeoffs and probabilities to weigh out what is valuable to them in the long run. Notwithstanding the tax increases happening in the West, the rich will settle for less money & “nice things” in effort to sustain what everybody would regard as a ‘normal life’ 5 years ago. This means that they will seek to preserve a living standard involving reliable electricity & internet, heating, good food (not slammed with preservatives, hormones or pesticides), hygiene in the streets, safety (especially for their children) & familiarity in their cultures. However, this may mean that their income level drops by a considerable 40, 50, 60% from what they have grown accustomed to receiving. It may mean not working at all for some years given language differences & lack of resources in the new area and simply working off of accumulated savings. If your portfolio and business is going through the roof with success, but your world is a state of collapse–what the hell is the point? Theory of Money and Cr... Ludwig von Mises Best Price: $2.46 Buy New $8.54 (as of 06:40 UTC - Details)

Close to Wall Street

Furthermore, the rich & wealthy are actively seeking to create their own parallel systems of value to utilize those around them the best (to have a sources for medicine, for meat, for entertainment, for transport, for payment, etc.). They will deploy capital they have now (while they view it to still have purchasing power) in effort to create their own sustainable life and network. It’s already well known that “the rich” are buying up farmland hand over fist. Again, even if this means a considerably decline in their paycheque, bonuses or social status. After all, what’s the point of an ‘extra’ 5 million dollars if you’re forbidden from living as a free human. You can’t put a price on freedom.

What are the Poor doing?

Poor people are adopting a tunnel-vision approach by assigning the ultimate value to “money”. They strive to make more money at all costs but sacrifice their quality of life & freedoms to do so. They will willingly take the jump head first into a dystopian, apocalyptic world failing to see the ‘point’ of money in the first place. This is to say nothing about inflation.

Additionally, I believe poor people will continue to forego their relationships with their sexual partner, their family & their friends for the sake of more money. They will stop doing the things they enjoy and work around the growing inconveniences of life, unpredictable violence and soul-crushing nature of bureaucracy. All of this will be towards the chasing the dream of holding a larger bank account, the largest penthouse on the block, the most recognition amongst the business/tech/finance community. Of course, only a few will be successful at this journey given the mountain of resistance from regulation and taxes alone, but this journey would have removed any joy or meaning from their lives in the meantime.

Even those who are successful, there’s only so much you can do in a 15-minute-city that bans travel, meat consumption, healthy food or alternative medicines or news from the state-mandated versions.

Likewise, these poor folks are going to compete on who can be most connected to “the system”. That is, they will compete for the most number of social media accounts, purchasing the latest item, downloading the latest application. This techno-centric life will become increasingly detached from reality and attached to the virtual cloud or state-controlled power-grid. There won’t be any parallel system, it’ll be the same system that is currently controlled.

The Best Option is to:

Maintain your freedoms. It’s always superior to have yourself in a position whereby you have options or open doors that perhaps you do not need to walk through, but it’s much better to have some options than none. It’s a superior strategy to not be dependent on others for basic items such as finance, transportation, medicine, food, digital usage, speech, education, etc. This, I believe, is where the wealthy crowds assign real value that goes beyond their brokerage accounts. This may be difficult to imagine due to the fact that rich people like lots of gadgets and toys too. However, that was the before times, when political risks at least seemed minimal and manageable. Now, political scandals, tax & policy changes and unpredictability are at their high points meaning one can no longer dedicate their wealth to discretionary pleasure spending any longer. I believe this will reveal itself in the markets as well–consumer staples will out perform tech and discretionary spending in the near-to-mid future.

Tiny Story

I had a meeting where I was chatting to some folks who were definitely successful and wealthy about the nuances of the world around us. My partner felt insecure about the topics with lots of forecasts, predictions & names being thrown around. She felt as though she had nothing to offer. The conversation somehow ended up about food supply in her country and she remarked that her grandmother, poor in rural Mexico, owned a lot of chickens. The wealthy men immediately acknowledged this as being a great asset to have in life, especially now.

They were able to realize that it doesn’t matter if you have a sports car, fancy pair of shoes or a Rolex watch, what matters are the essentials [one of them being food!]. Survival of the Riches... Jeffries, Donald Best Price: $13.69 Buy New $12.79 (as of 03:45 UTC - Details)

Closing

We are seeing a situation where everything is about movement control in the Western world. Controlling your physical movement, your thoughts, your communication, your capital, your lives. Since the debts cannot be paid they have forced governments to become more tyrannical to kick the can down the road a little further. These areas of the world are run by collectivists that do not see the importance of individuals–they see the importance of their group; their parasitic sustenance and that is all. The powers that be have ensured, with lots of success, that being in any group (or utilizing any method) outside of their own is increasingly difficult. For both rich and poor cohorts, there is a powerful call for change to adapt.

During a period of chaos, the essentials, such as Maslows hierarchy of needs, are what really matters the most. A bear is a powerful apex predator, but even it knows to hibernate to withstand difficulty ahead. My travels have brought me to discover that those with capital are eager to enter to find their cave away from the chaos. Whether it be through experience, having access to good information or having the means to “break away” from the mainstream, ironically, the rich are planning for a world filled with more uncertainties, complications and disasters than the poor. Are you positioned the best you need to be for you and your family?


Thank you for reading! 

On The Ball, LLC was incorporated to preach freedom as often as we can so that you can make better decisions for yourself, your family and your wealth.