Let's Get Pragmatic

I recently saw a great French film, The Intouchables. In one memorable scene, the lead character who lives in an impoverished part of the city, played brilliantly by Omar Sy, is seated in an employment office as the counselor reviewing his work app says "under the skills section you listed only pragmatic." He smiles and proudly replies "yes, I am very pragmatic."

In the movie, he utilizes this skill to help him rise above his surroundings and ultimately succeed in life. I recommend everybody see this timely, feel-good movie which has become the third highest grossing film of all time outside of the U.S., raking in over $300 million worldwide thus far. 

Interviewed after the screening about the amazing and unexpected success of the film, Omar attributed much of it to the extreme instability in the world right now and the sense of hopelessness people are feeling that there is nothing they can do about it. The film's message is that by looking at  the world through pragmatic eyes, we then see it for what it really is, thus encouraging us to take practical actions that elevate our lives. More and more people are beginning to catch on to this way of thinking which is why the world has flocked to this film.

prag-mat-ic - adj. Relating to or being the study of cause and effect in historical or political events with emphasis on the practical lessons to be learned from them. 

I know this sounds like such a great concept in general. But you're probably thinking how the heck can this  actually be put into action since there are seemingly so many things outside of our control that have influence over our day to day lives? If you asked that, good question and I will do my pragmatic best to answer it in a way that allows us the opportunity to bring harmony and opportunity to our lives no matter what's going on outside of it. Tall order perhaps, but why bother if we're not up to conquering the greatest challenges, so let's proceed.

See the whole picture, then take action!

In my previous articles, you may have noticed an underlying and often overlying theme of practical spiritual living, which is really nothing more than learning to focus primarily upon the things in life we can do something about. This requires taking a step back to observe what comes at us in a non-emotional and indifferent way in order to see things for what they truly are.

An example of this is when someone catches us off-guard by accusing us of something we believe to be false. Our first reaction may be to shout back that they are wrong, or worse yet, crazy. Bad Choice, as that would be akin to jumping into an emotional tornado which circulates confusion, anger, fear and the struggle for survival. Caught up in that, we would not be able to make very rational decisions for obvious reasons. By seeing the tornado coming and not running into it allows us added perspective to see what it's really all about before taking action.

Just the cold, hard facts

However, in no way am I suggesting we live our lives as detached beings like Mr. Spock from Star Trek, who goes around saying "fascinating" to everything he observes without ever getting involved on an emotional level. No, that wouldn't do at all. What I am positing is that by looking at life in a pragmatic way keeps our emotions from running amuck and out of our control so we can make choices that are truly in our best interests.

Let's take a look at the recent elections, for instance. It would be hard to find a greater emotion-sucking tornado than that craziness! Everyone who joins either the Republican or Democrat mob gets swept up into this whirling dervish, hurling insults and fighting for victory at all costs for no real reason other than that's what they are supposed to do to survive this 'every four year' calamity. If we step outside of this, we can get to a higher-ground perspective to view it objectively, then pick it apart rather easily.

From one liar to another

A few questions our pragmatic mind comes up with from an outsider perspective may be "are there any real measurable differences between these two sides at all?" History suggests the answer to be "no." "Is there any measurable impact on my life regardless of who gets elected?" The answer appears to be a resounding "no."

Once selected, do Presidents ever honor their campaign promises? "No way, Jose," says recent history. So if the above is even somewhat true, why can't the majority of America see through this ridiculous illusion? The answer may well be because they don't want to be faced with that truth, for that would mean they would no longer have someone to decide for them or to blame for their individual shortcomings in life.

George Carlin - The American Dream

You see, Americans have found, over the last few decades especially, that it's far easier to let someone else be in control of their destiny, to obediently follow orders, to be told what to do and when to do it, to be compliant, submit to authority without question and most importantly, to consume and get into massive debt as a means of attaining the  mythical American Dream.

As George Carlin so succinctly put it, "it's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe in it." In return for living in this docile, controlled dream-state, Americans are rewarded with free things. So much for independence in modern America.

Best of all it's free.
Oh, SNAP!

Last week, Obama proclaimed that the recovery had begun by throwing up phony GDP, CPI, housing and unemployment numbers in an effort to prove his point. Conveniently though, he'd like us to ignore the fact that since August, a half million new recipients were added to the welfare rolls, bringing the total to over 47.1 million Americans on food stamps.

This is roughly 20% of the nation and the highest levels in United States history. When you add the other myriad free money entitlement programs, including social security and medicare, those figures climb to well over 150,000,000, or roughly 70% of the country on some form of government welfare. Unfortunately, this is before you factor in the albatross that will break the back of  the current American economy for good: Obama-Care! More than 100 million Americans are on welfare

Fascism is corporate controlled government. Can
anyone deny this isn't true of the United States?

How is this even remotely sustainable? It's not and the game is about over! Most average Americans have been unknowingly suffering the consequences of this free-money insanity for some time now, yet the only thing they seem interested in is making sure the entitlement handouts continue indefinitely. They don't want to hear the government has run out of free money to give away.

They still stubbornly choose to close their eyes and ears to reality and blindly believe their leaders will this time divinely rescue them from their own destructive ignorance and apathy. Sadly, they are in for an even ruder awakening: there is no recovery coming!

Look out below!!

On the other hand, true pragmatists saw this train-wreck a long time ago and have prepared and taken decisive actions that have benefited themselves and those in their sphere of influence. By seeing things plainly for what they are, we become armed with valuable information that can be put into practical action.

See the opportunity in every disaster never was more appropriate a slogan to free ourselves from the tyranny of self-imposed oppression. Conversely, insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. Given this, it becomes abundantly clear that the vast majority of America has gone insane.

Let's take a peek at a few of these insane ideologies. As the Prez threatened the past week, the government is heading towards a dangerous fiscal cliff and if the right and left don't come together to fix it asap, financial destruction may result. Who is he trying to fool?

Definitely not the pragmatists among us who saw the government train careen off the cliff a long time ago and what's left of the wreckage is but a heap of smoldering steel, twisted and tangled at the bottom of the abyss. Despite this fact, the people shout "tax the corporations more. They must pay their fair share to support the black hole of government spending too!" 

Protect it from what exactly?

This is completely insane thinking. Have they never bothered to notice that corporations simply collect taxes on behalf of the government and do not themselves pay them? One simply has to look at utility, cable, phone or any bill issued by a corporation for that matter to see the increasing numbers of supplemental taxes included that have to be paid by the consumer.

The people scream for higher taxes for corporations, then scream again when the corporations pass all of the burden back onto them over and over again! Want to punish the greedy oil companies by mandating higher taxes? You get hit with higher taxes at the pump. Want the airlines to pay as well? Hello twenty-percent transportation tax added to your ticket. How about taxing the crooked banks? That'll cost you in new ATM, minimum balance, confusing customer service and transaction taxes and fees. This is all so plain to see, yet America remains happily myopic. After all, it's someone else's problem to fix. 

This is where your tax dollars go

Logic tells us that taxes don't work and have never been for the benefit of the taxpayers. The government lie that income taxes are needed to keep the system functioning like a well-oiled machine are so outdated and transparent that only those who lack the ability to reason coherently could ever fall for it.

Obama pleads with any sucker willing to listen that by raising taxes on the super-wealthy, it will somehow balance the budget and put a dent in the one hundred trillion dollar deficit the government has racked up over the years. Oh yeah? What a pragmatist asks is if taxes have been getting collected all along, how did the government ever pile up such an astronomical debt in the first place? Obama's answer would be "uh, next question and from someone in the gallery who can't see, hear or think, please."

Trading your paper assets for silver coins will not
only protect your wealth, but greatly increase it

You see, governments don't have a clue what fiscal responsibility is or even care to know. As soon as tax money hits their hands, it is immediately spent on any frivolous pursuit they can think of, wars, bribes, drones to kill its citizens, prostitution, influence peddling, general corruption, lavish lifestyles, you name it.

Never has it been used to pay down debts, ever! In fact, no matter how much tax revenue is sucked from the people, governments will always spend even more than they take in. It's like leaving drug addicts in charge of guarding a pharmacy at sundown and expecting to find fully stocked shelves in the morning.

So what's a pragmatist to do regarding money given the above? The answer is quite simple really. Get your money away from the influence of this broken system run by  government crackheads. How? Begin to eliminate most, if not all, paper (de)investment vehicles. The most insidious by far is the 401k, which is nothing more than a ponzi-scheme to trick the unwary into throwing investment capital into bad, government-created debts repackaged and sold by Wall Street shysters who know ahead of time the investments will go bust before the suckers retire.

This was shockingly apparent after the 2000 tech  and 2009 real estate bubble busts which destroyed many 401k's. Yet, this is only the beginning. For those who hold their deteriorating wealth in 401k, IRA, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, CD's or US dollars will continue to see them evaporate quicker than ever. 

The metals are poised to move much higher

For those who saw the writing on the wall and didn't sit around passively lamenting the unfairness of it all, took actions to their best advantage. In fact, during Obama's first four years, which were arguably the worst financial years in American history, those who got out of paper assets and into the safe haven of fixed assets, silver and gold, saw their wealth climb over 200%.

Think independently - take
back control of your life!

Even more impressive, since 2000, silver has smashed all other assets, rising as much as 2,400%! In comparison, adjusted for inflation, the DOW JONES has gone nowhere over the same period. Imagine what that did to millions of retirees who discovered there was nothing left to retire on?

It's very critical to understand that silver and gold prices only rise sharply and sustainably prior to a total economic and currency meltdown, the likes of which we are seeing play out across the globe now! Yes, the US dollar economy is at DEFCON 1, the government knows it, but is doing all it can to make sure its people don't, by conning them into staying all in in their rigged fiat currency game. Politicians don't go bust - the people do.

What might we conclude by all this, given the the same team that was in charge four years ago is back at it again, only now saying the debt spigots must be turned to "full power, no stopping us now!?" I'd say it's a certainty that silver and gold will vault much higher during the next four years in what is appropriately being called "the greatest transfer of wealth in human history." Those who hold either of the two metals will certainly be on the right side of that wealth transfer. That's just being pragmatic.

In fact, many states are also getting into the act by writing new legislation for silver and gold to be used as currency within their borders once again. 13 States now considering gold and silver as money

What is China pragmatically telling us?

China is certainly following this path by actively dumping the US dollar in favor of stockpiling gold and silver in order to make the renminbi the new world reserve currency.

So trading paper assets for silver and gold coins obviously becomes the most sensible undertaking for the people to counter the corrupt Federal government debt swindle.  Simple. Done. Next!

But what will the majority of Americans who refuse to take action on their own behalf and have traded their freedoms for welfare handouts do when the checks stop coming? Our government has a clue about that, which is why they recently purchased well over a billion rounds of ammunition and millions of new handguns in an effort to quell what they call the upcoming "zombie riots." DHS Classifies Ammo Purchase.

Are the states headed for civil war against the Feds in D.C.?

We are indeed living in strange times. Over the past week, 1.2 million Americans signed formal requests for their states to escape the clutches of the Federal government through secession. Of the fifteen states who have petitioned the White House so far, Texas leads the pack with well over 100,000 signatures. Texas secession request

Now that's pragmatism in action, in much the same way the original colonists, fed up with England's tyrannical bent, left to seek their own sovereignty. Who knows, it may be at that time again to hit the restart button! Either way, I am willing to bet we are in for some extraordinary and breathtaking times ahead and much sooner than we think...except for the pragmatists who already see it coming.

In Part two, I will discuss being pragmatic with your health to achieve optimal wellness. Until next time, stay conscious, independent and informed!