Today, I’m going to show you what’s going on in Lebanon and you’ll see how what’s happening there, supports the need for you to create security in every single one of my mantra areas.
Chapters:
0:00 Why Preparing Matters
1:11 Communities Stand Up
5:41 Food Insecurity
7:47 Risk of Losing Access to Clean Water
8:44 Looking for Solutions to Energy Crisis
12:14 Political Violence Spikes
14:05 Bartering for Survival
18:19 Shelter Insecurity During Hyperinflation
20:36 Wealth and Income Inequality
TRANSCRIPT FROM VIDEO:
I’m Lynette Zang, Chief Market Analyst here at ITM Trading and a very proud prepper because as you know, I believe so strongly that we have to be as independent and self-sufficient as possible to go through these transitions. And today I’m gonna just show you via Lebanon. Why the mantra is the mantra I’m gonna do ’em a little bit out of order, but you’re going to see it.
I’m gonna start with Community because that could arguably be the most important part of the mantra. But we know that when people are hungry and hopeless, they make choices, they would not otherwise make. So recently you had depositors in Lebanon, lost access to their funds in 2019 and here we are in 2022. So these poor people who trusted the system and kept their wealth in there have been repaid by having no access to it for going three years or more. And authorities say Bassam al-Sheikh Hussein entered, forgive me if I butcher any of these names I don’t mean to but, entered the federal bank in Beirut. I love that word Federal, because it makes them sound like part of the government, but with a shotgun and a canister of petrol and threatened to set himself on fire, unless he was allowed to take out his money. All this man wanted to do was take out his money. But when they say no, what can you do? And especially as we get more and more digital, that’s a button push. Nope. And there’s nobody for you to talk to. But Thursday standoff follows an incident in January. So this is in August, when a 37 year old coffee shop owner successfully withdrew $50,000 of his own money from a bank branch in Eastern Lebanon after holding bank staff hostage. So they’re really forcing people into doing things they would not normally do. And how did the rest of the community respond? ‘This Man is a hero” because they’re all in the same boat for the Lebanese people and for the depositors, he is a hero. The community is coming together. People who gathered at the scene showed support for Hussein as they believe that his predicament is their predicament. It is. That’s why I fight so hard because I see what’s coming. I mean, it’s just a repetition of history. This is happening in real time and you need to see it. It isn’t, oh, that’s over there this is over here. This is global. And we need to come together in community to support each other. A crowd had gathered outside the bank during the standoff with many of the bystanders chanting down with the rule of the banks. Well, if you haven’t seen the piece that I did on ITMs on Thursday, you need to go back and look at that because the banks are in a position where they own all the Fiat money products. And I don’t know, they might actually put themselves in a position to own all the money too. I mean, it’s a scary thing, but he wants to live. He wants to pay his electricity bill, feed his kids and treat his father in the hospital. That’s what he wants to do. And here he is fighting for what he perceives his mind. But can you see that it’s not really his? Can you see that when you make a deposit into the bank, legally, the bank has the right to sweep that into sub-accounts in their name and then use your equity for their benefit. And so, boom, when there’s a bank holiday, you are the one that suffers. But the point is the community, we’re all in the same boat. It’s important to open your eyes, relate to what this man is going through because coming to a neighborhood near you. I can’t tell you exactly when, but I can tell you, I absolutely know this is coming. So it’s critically important for you to be in a position that doesn’t matter.
And of course, what is single most important thing as we go through these transitions? It’s food and we’ve certainly all been experiencing that food inflation and that’s not gonna be slowing down. Well, you know, you can live without a blouse. Can you live without food? No, you cannot. And this is setting up to be a doozy. So what can you know, and even the look at how they’re showing that it’s going down, that’s such garbage. What can you buy with 10,000 Lebanese pounds? Well, haven’t we seen the shopping cart in the U.S. Dollar. So you could buy a lot in 2019, you could buy a lot more earlier. 2020, that’s how much the, the currency had depreciated that purchasing power value. Doesn’t matter how much you have. It matters what you can buy with it. And it should be pretty clear, and it should be clear to you because you’re also experiencing this. It’s not just in Lebanon, right? That your dollar buys less and less and less. That is by design. If they do it slower, you don’t notice it. If they do it faster, like that’s happening now, when they lose control, you notice it. But either way, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna let that be okay with you? Or are you gonna do something? I mean, you can grow a garden. You can get gold, silver, that that will stabilize it ensure you’re purchasing power, but you know, you can buy long shelf, life food. You can do a combination of all of the above, which is really what I’m doing. Nearly 80% of Lebanon’s population now lives in abject poverty. And that’s about the global norm. When you’re going through these things, it’s about 80% of the population ends up with all of these different things, food insecurity, shelter insecurity, etcetera.
And what about water? Okay. I mean, this is the other thing you gotta eat. You gotta drink. You have to, in order to sustain life, as Lebanon’s electricity crisis deepens, water becomes scarcer. So there’s two things right off the bat and you know, everything is intertwined and interconnected and that’s what you have to understand. But water supply systems are on the verge of collapse in Lebanon, over 71% of people, risk losing access to water. And here, despite its natural water resources, Lebanon has reached a crisis point with many residents, unable to afford clean water. Don’t you be one of those. That’s why I talk about this so much. And the importance of getting into position. But they are crippled by electricity and water outages. And that’s typical when you’re going through these Lebanon’s economic collapse means that the Lebanese people are now responsible for sourcing their own electricity for most of the day, every day. Many of them are now turning to solar power previously seen as a luxury as a solution, get it done. Do you know how expensive that is? Which means a lot of the population are not going to be able to do that. Now we have subsidies. We have all sorts of things. We have access to make that change and make that difference in our lives. Take advantage of it, you wanna get everything that you possibly need in place right now while you still have that opportunity and that choice, but a major concern in the daily lives of Lebanese people continues to be access to electricity. You know up north, I have solar and I built a whole power grid. There’s also some wind and we will be building in some hydroelectric. So water, and we’ll be showing you that into the future, whatever ways that we can think to generate energy, we’re gonna show you and we’re gonna try and show you at a level that you actually can execute for yourself. But the Beirut and Mount Lebanon water establishment has announced that it has been reluctantly forced to subject the locations to severe and harsh water rationing. And we’re hearing a lot about electricity and water rationing in Europe too. So it’s not just happening in Lebanon. It’s happening all over the world. We’ve got some big problems. Lebanon has been plunged into darkness after oil stocks in the country’s last functional power plant, last functional power plant in Deir Ammar ran out of oil and because of what’s happening with their currency, they’re having a hard time going out and sourcing and getting debt. I mean, that’s really the answer in a debt based system take on debt so you can buy the things that you need.
But the problem is is this is not self-liquidating debt. In other words, you know there’s two kinds of debt there’s self-liquidating debt and there’s non self-liquidating debt. Here’s the difference between the two self-liquidating debt. You borrow money to expand your business and make more money. And that extra money pays off that debt. And then you can just go into profits, non self-liquidating debt, you borrow money to spend it. And that’s all for governments. Maybe they build a bomb. And when that bomb explodes, I mean, it’s not gonna generate income to pay off that debt for individuals, you have credit cards, you go and you buy a blouse. Is this blouse gonna generate help you generate income? No, that’s non self-liquidating debt. We have been taught to do non self-liquidating debt because then the banks make more money. Isn’t that nice?
But what happens when people get hungry and hopeless violence, also they make choices. They would not otherwise make in this particular case. And this is what scares the elites and it should scare them. Political violence steadily increased in the lead up to the recent elections and peaked on election day when nearly 30 violence events were recorded, a significant increase compared to violence in just August, 2021 when disputes over fuel shortages led to an increase in mob violence and armed clash events. Now I gotta ask you, when something like this happens here, because this, the political event was what prompted me to actually look at the hole in my personal strategy and I went, oh crap. Because that night back in April of 2020, when there were riots at the Capitol, there were riots up by the mall where my children live. And so near us in both cases, and I slept in bed with a gun that night and I thought, this is no way to live. Now, subsequently, should that happen again, I have the security shutters on my entire house. So I would not have to sleep with a gun, you know, in my bed, but even better if I know or anticipate it or have the ability, I gotta bug out location where I can go and breathe the air. And I don’t have to close myself in. I can, you know, actually open the windows, which is what I do when I’m up there and I can breathe. That’s one of the things I like about it, but make no mistake as this thing progresses. When people get hungry and hopeless they make choices they would not otherwise make.
But I think that this is really critical because for a minute, we’re all gonna get very, very local. It’s not gonna stay forever, but for a minute, and as Lebanon’s economy spirals, people’s resort to bartering for survival, this may be the only way you can get the things that you need. With economic implosion, accelerating at an alarming pace, the Facebook group, “Lebanon Barters” attempts to stem the tide by facilitating trade of essential goods between distressed citizens. So any, anything physical or any talent that you possess is barterable. I mean, that’s what we all do. When we go to work, we’re bartering our time and our energy and our skill sets for Fiat money, right? Personally, any extra for me goes right into gold or silver, most, mostly gold, cause I have my silver position built, but you have to understand that it’s really important to have things to barter with as well. And there are lots of things. Look, as a reminder, toilet paper is a great tool of barter <laugh> okay. So barterability. That’s why I always talk to you about silver is universally barterable, but known for being a sanctuary of stability. During the past decade of turmoil in the middle east, Lebanon is rapidly descending head first into its worst economic crisis since the 1975 to 1990 civil war. That was also when we were transitioning. They, you know, all of these entities, wherever they are in the world now they’re referring back to a period of time when we were transitioning from a goal based system to a debt based system. That includes Lebanon because everybody was on a gold based system up until, the U.S. did it first because we’re the world reserve currency. So we were the first ones to go off of the gold standard. And then everybody else followed suit. Switzerland, which is why so many people have this thought about Switzerland. They were the last one and that was 1978, but it is not a surprise that they would go into a civil war or some other crisis mode during this period of time, it was crazy in the sixties and the seventies and the Vietnam war. Anybody that somewhere in the vicinity of my age, you know, we had that experience and I personally cannot tell you how grateful I am to the universe, but this is what I was groomed to do to let me live through that. As a teen, as I think I was like 17, 1971, because that really, you know, those images and that what it smelled like, what it felt like the experiences stayed with me. I was old enough. I didn’t really understand what was happening, but I was old enough to absorb those experiences. And that is what enables me to share them with you on this level, cause I lived through it. But much of the chaos stems from the banking system, which has been compared to a Ponzi scheme, I’m sorry, does that not sound familiar? This whole system is a Ponzi scheme and that requires confidence and when all confidence is lost, the whole scheme dies. It really is that simple. The specter of a Venezuela style collapse appears imminent. Acute shortages of essential products and services are the norm alongside hyperinflation, excuse me, and increasing lawlessness. We need to be as independent and self-sufficient and self-reliant inside of community. We need to come together to help each other, whether this chaotic storm.
So let’s look at their issues around Shelter. This is, this is the most current dashboard. And I think what’s really interesting here. This is as of March 31st, 2022. Well they need 150 million, but they only have 10.2 million. That’s a bit of a problem, right? So they only have roughly 6.8% of what is required. In the meantime, all that helps is 4.3% of the population in need. They have what, 2.5 Million people in need? But they’re only able to target and help 32,109 people. That’s why you have to do it for yourself. You have to get yourself security in all of the areas, food, water, energy, as well as just to save your body. So security, barterability, wealth, preservation, community, and shelter. If you don’t do it, I’m gonna tell you the government ain’t gonna do it for you. They may try and appease people and keep everybody happy for a minute. But at the end of the day, it’s not gonna happen, because they don’t have the ability to keep the Ponzi scheme going. Shelter insecurity can become an issue during hyperinflation. And if you take a look at what’s happening in the U.S. or the UK or Europe or anywhere in the world right now. Prices have gone so high, thanks to that zero interest rate and encouraging people go out and buy homes. And then the renters and the flippers and the rent has gone through the roof. Like was it up 42% in Miami in one year 42 flipping percent. Are income’s growing that fast? No, they are not.
So we need to make sure that you have security in every single area, including wealth preservation. I love this because this is wealth and income inequality. We see it all over the world, but Hey, it’s easy to point to finger and say, as Lebanese got poorer politicians stowed wealth abroad, right? So that’s why, you know, I’m always showing you what central banks are doing for themselves because who knows more about money than central bankers? And what have they been doing? Global central bankers have been accumulating gold. Why? Because that’s what keeps them with choices and in power. So we were talking about corporations the other day and corporations have been making profits hand over fist, highest margin since 1950. But what do they do with all of that excess wealth? Goes into stock, buybacks and dividends. So it goes outside of the company. And then when they run into trouble, taxpayers, you and me bail them out. That’s not capitalism, that’s crony capitalism, that’s choosing winners and losers and that’s exactly what the central banks and the governments do all the time. So we’re talking about Lebanon, but you know, I mean seriously, I mean seriously billionaires wealth as a share of national income. Well, let’s see the debt based system supports that income and wealth inequality. Yeah, this is true all over the world. Lebanon is not an exception to this rule and the U.S. Is not an exception to the rule. We know you’ve got the 1% that own mostly everything in this country. And they, even though they’re the smallest percentage generate the highest level of income, the 99% at the bottom and especially the 50% at the bottom. So you’ve got to understand it’s that nominal confusion, where it helps the government and it helps the central bank. When we look at the markets and how they’re going up in terms of numbers, but at the same time they’re being robbed. The Lebanese pound continues to plunge today. The black market rate registered. Now here’s the official rate right here, this red line, this is the black market rate. So this is what people are really willing to pay. The black market rate, registered seven thousand. Okay, so you can see the purchasing power and the value is plunging and really the last time I looked at trillion times zero is still zero, a hundred times zero is zero, a gazillion times zero is zero. But look at their stock market, up until recently doesn’t that look pretty darn familiar? And this is 2019, when they shut people out of their bank accounts. So I just think it’s interesting that people are running and that’s what we see too. People run to intangible assets thinking that that’s, what’s gonna save them. It’s not gonna save them that evaporates and goes away. That’s what history has told us, so many times, so many times. You think this time is different? It really is not different. So that stock market going up, but the currency value going down? A trillion times zero is zero. That’s why you gotta have gold. I’m sorry. It’s just simply a fact. And this is gold in Lebanese pounds. Now this is 2019, but what I think is particularly interesting, and this is the Lebanese spot market. So while everything is, you know, collapsing around them, you see the spot market go down. They don’t want people buying gold gold takes it out of the system. They can’t Rob them anymore. Oh, wait, that’s the U.S. Spot Gold market. I dunno? You tell me, look familiar?
What I want you to understand is that it doesn’t matter where it is in the world. The mantra became the mantra because these are the things that we need to sustain a reasonable standard of living. If that man, (Bassam al-Sheikh Hussein) had gold outside of the system, he would’ve been able to feed his family, get the medical care that his father needed, he wouldn’t be a man of desperation. Take a lesson from him, have wealth outside of the system, and also have wealth that as they’re destroying the last vestige of purchasing power in the currency, that doesn’t happen to you. You hold the gold here and as you need it, then you can convert it and then you use it immediately cause you know, it’s losing more value. So don’t forget the ITM channel. And when you’re on ITM, don’t forget the Beyond Gold and Silver channel. We’ve got lots more fun things coming and until next we meet, please be safe out there. Bye-bye.
SOURCES:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/11/armed-man-holds-beirut-bank-staff-hostage-demands-savings
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA0hu-a5GMY
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/12/lebanon
https://tradingeconomics.com/lebanon/food-inflation
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2088836/middle-east
https://www.energyforgrowth.org/memo/a-power-and-economic-dual-crisis-lebanons-electricity-sector/
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2106001/business-economy
https://acleddata.com/2022/06/09/lebanon-general-elections/
https://data.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/93160
https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/lebanon/equity-market-index
https://twitter.com/steve_hanke/status/1276174168631971849
https://goldprice.org/gold-price-charts/all-data-gold-price-history-in-lebanese-pounds-per-ounce
