“No one knows about a good thing until a good thing is gone.“
~ Curtis Mayfield, “No One Knows About a Good Thing,” New World Order
When you deal with money, you quickly learn that money is never about money. It is about who gets what and whether there is enough to go around. It’s about who wins and who loses. It’s about in which direction the future lies and who’s on the train. When things go well, it’s about making the pie bigger for everyone. When things don’t go well, it’s about who lives and who dies. When the money comes up short, not everyone makes it.
Look through large pools of money, and you see into the important events of life: birth, death, love, hate, war, peace.
One of the things that you also learn is that money is a man-made invention. We create it, and we write the rules that apply. When many individuals—let alone billions of players—use a monetary and financial system and come to depend on it, there is always the risk of some players taking advantage and cheating. They counterfeit cash. They fake collateral. They falsify accounts and financial statements. They engineer “pumps and dumps.” In so doing, they free-ride and drain the system, in the process skimming earnings and assets from—and knocking out altogether—some or all of the participants.
This is why the free-riders invest a small fortune in media to affirm the appearance of the “rule of law.” And it is why one of the important questions to ask regarding any monetary and financial system is, “Who tracks and enforces the rules?” One of the reasons that a fortune is spent on political contributions is to determine who and what is in charge of such enforcement.
When you deal with lots of money and the man-made rules that govern it, you quickly find yourself considering “the rule of law.” In almost all systems of any size or complexity, that means cultural norms and laws as well as formal laws. Without the law—and regulations and contracts that create money or govern and dictate its use—there can be no money. If you want to understand money, first study the laws that create, govern, and enforce it.
I did not always understand the power and importance of the law. My father was a brilliant surgeon who was convinced that the world was run by lawyers. One night when I was a child, he proudly told me that someday I would grow up to marry a partner at a Philadelphia law firm. I knew when he said it that would never happen. I was going to be a banker. My view of the world from a young age was that the bankers told the lawyers what to do. Law was just a tool the lawyers used to rig deals and events to go the way the bankers dictated. As I saw it, the bankers had a code that was superior to the government and courts.
I did grow up and become an investment banker on Wall Street. I also married a partner at a New York law firm. We divorced as I left for Washington. Nothing I encountered along the way changed my simplistic notions of the “rule of law.”
It was not until the 1990s, when the “financial coup d’état” began in America, that I began to deepen my insights about the law. First, I saw the death and destruction happening as a result of systemic corruption and the resulting breakdown of law and order—first in poor neighborhoods, but then spreading across the middle class. In my efforts to prevent and stop a financial coup, I documented egregious violations of the law, and particularly the financial management laws of the U.S. government. I ended up spending ten years in litigation with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Justice. In short, I had a front-row seat from which to observe the erosion and destruction of U.S. sovereignty that John Titus so brilliantly describes in the 2021 Annual Wrap Up theme: “Sovereignty—A Primer on How to Lose Your Country.”
Something else happened that I had never expected. I got to meet and work with attorneys who taught me a great deal about the law. This included attorneys who believed in the law, practiced the law, and understood the power of the rule of law. I also dealt with government auditors, regulators, and bureaucrats who were committed to the rule of law, sometimes at great expense to their career and personal safety. As part of my extensive travel around the United States and across the globe, I encountered citizens and local officials who believed in the law and worked hard to keep their word and honor their transactions. I slowly came to understand that for millions of people, the law had the potential to serve as a glue that nurtures culture, economy, and civilization.
The law is real. The law matters. The law can work if enough people share the covenant and take the actions that make it work. As unusual as it may sound, the lawlessness of the U.S. Department of Justice and the related covert operations that I experienced created an opportunity for me to come to appreciate the power and possibilities of a renewed commitment to the “rule of law.”
The Solari Report has been blessed by John Titus joining me on our weekly Money & Markets reports, and by his research and writings to document the Going Direct Reset and the plans underway for CBDCs (central bank digital currencies)—not to mention the flow of incisive videos he publishes on his Best Evidence video channel. John’s article on sovereignty in this 2021 Annual Wrap Up is his best thus far, going to the heart of the matter. It maps the dance between law, money, and credit—helping us see what has been happening—and also highlighting the inevitable tragedy if we do not turn things around. Although John writes about what has happened in the United States, the process has been similar throughout the G7 and English-speaking world. As I write this introduction, the deterioration he describes is impacting every country and person on the planet. Wherever we live, we would be well served to understand it.
My pastor in Washington used to always say, “If we can face it, God can fix it.” By facing the facts about the debasement of our national sovereignty, we can see what is also causing the weakening of our personal sovereignty. More important, facing the precise causes in the deterioration of the rule of law is a doorway we must pass through to discover the power of a return to the rule of law and to appreciate how essential it is for the future of human civilization.
The clash of civilizations underway in the year before us is the clash between the forces trying to destroy national and personal sovereignty—and the forces trying to preserve and revive it.
Pick a side. There is no middle of the road. And put on your big-boy pants—because this fight is for all the marbles.
Finally, remember what our Solari Hero of the Year Wim Hof says: You are stronger than you think you are!
Catherine Austin Fitts
Stavoren, Netherlands
May 2022