The End Game Strands Come Together: Daniel Oliver Talks Mideast Politics

The next, and final, round of money printing and World War III are two sides of the same fiat coin. Hopefully we'll get through it without being blown up.

• Daniel Oliver comes back from the dead and talks Mideast politics and gold.

• Acceptance of the End Game means acceptance of the impending isolation of Israel without US support.

• Russia is pouring weapons into Iran and the US is pouring strike forces into the Mediterranean.

• Unlike World War I and World War II, there is no money to fight World War III.

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As the End Game approaches, the various strands of the global inflation infection are starting to intertwine. Truth is, they've always been intertwined, but now it's obvious they are becoming braided in an intricate tapestry of destruction. It will be creative destruction, but it will be destruction nonetheless. I have chosen to live at one of the focal points. This is something I have accepted.

I am a man of faith, but I myself do not know how deeply that goes, as I assume there is some point where I may break, and I pray that God never takes me there, never gives me a test I cannot pass. I do feel that my whole life has been an exercise to strengthen my resolve, especially since Covid, when I did things and took risks I never thought I would or could do but felt compelled anyway. And so I feel I can handle more than I could in the past, though I have a long way to go, provided God keeps me alive.

So I'm fine, and with God's help will continue to be fine.

Anyway, Daniel Oliver ventured into Mideast politics with his latest missive on gold, which was a long time coming. His conclusion was this, and it sounds scary: "Without its sponsor [the United States], the Israeli state risks becoming but another entry in that long list of powers that have controlled Canaan."

I can't deny that the sentence is scary, for me especially, and it seems true on a superficial level. However, I know and I have always known that Israel will, eventually, lose its main sponsor, and we will be completely alone. I cannot preach about the fall of the dollar, which will also collapse the shekel, and pretend that the US can still protect Israel once that happens. Therefore being scared about what I know will eventually happen and am rooting for, makes no sense at all. Either I accept it all, or shut up about everything. So I accept it. At some point soon we will be on our own, as is our destiny (see Numbers 23:9), and we will have no one but God to turn to.

Hopefully we will be ready.

Oliver begins this way (my bold):

Less familiar to Western audiences are the successive empires that have dominated the Near East, especially Canaan, which today encompasses Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, and the southern portions of Syria and Lebanon. The Akkadian Empire subjugated Canaan as early as 2000BC, the Egyptians took their place from 1500–1069BC, the Israelites then established self-rule, but soon the Assyrians took over, then the Babylonians, followed by the Persians, then the Greeks under Alexander the Great and his successor the Seleucid Empire, then the Israelites reasserted independence, but were soon conquered by the Roman Empire, which was succeeded by the Byzantine Empire, which succumbed to the Arab invasion, which brought about the Ottoman Empire, which was succeeded briefly by the British Empire, which handed the territory to modern Zionists to establish the current Israeli state.

Well, third time's the charm I guess. Hopefully we get it right this time. (So far not so much.)

Notice what does not show up in this (more or less) correct chronology here: Palestine. It's the name of a territory, not a nation nor a State. Truth is, it's not even an actual name. It's a mocking nickname that the Israelites gave to their enemies to make fun of them. Literally, the root of "Palestine" is פולש, the Hebrew word for "invader". It's like using the term "Gook" or "Jap" or "Kraut". Just like another perennial Israelite enemy Moab, literally "from the father" meaning "product of incest" (see Genesis 19:32-37), or even Canaanites themselves. Canaan is a nickname. It literally means "loser" or "one who bends over" from the Hebrew word להיכנע (see Genesis 9:25-27) It's all ancient name-calling on our part.

The biggest joke of all this is that our modern enemies insist on being called by the names we created to demean our ancient enemies, and they don't even get it. They're honored by our ancient mockery, because they have no identity of their own, and would prefer to hang on to identities we created in order to humiliate our ancient foes. Take it all, knock yourselves out, Palestinians.

So then Oliver goes into post WWII US history, basically blaming America for today's mess by conquering the world instead of letting it be, as George Washington advised in his farewell address. I completely agree with this. The American Empire has gotten to a point where it can no longer be managed nor is there any money to do so even if it in principle could be.

America is now at the point of directly poking a bear with over 5,000 nuclear weapons. Oliver quotes Putin:

"The self-centeredness and arrogance of Western countries have led us to a highly perilous situation today. We are inching dangerously close to a point of no return. Calls for a strategic defeat of Russia, which possesses the largest arsenals of nuclear weapons, demonstrate the extreme recklessness of Western politicians. They either fail to comprehend the magnitude of the threat they are creating or are simply consumed by their notion of invincibility and exceptionalism. Both scenarios can result in tragedy.”

Oliver's World War III turnkey sentence is this one, "Pursuing a policy that, if successful, would move the control of 5,580 nukes from a centralized state to regional bandits is insanity." Indeed, it is. Putin must be left alone, but the US just won't do that. It seems that all regimes are suicidal these days, because all regimes want to conquer and there is nothing left to conquer.

And now, Israel is the trigger point, again. Russia is pouring weapons into Iran, and the US is pouring its own weapons into the region. If Iran moves forward with an attack (indications are that they will not, not for now at least), the US proxy (Israel) fights the Russia proxy (Iran) while a US proxy (Ukraine) fights Russia, and that all happening at once truly risks a world war. Except unlike WWI or WWII, there is no money anywhere to fund it, so it will not last very long.

Oliver then compares what is going on now directly to the 1970s:

The previous prolonged stagflation occurred in the 1970s and was exacerbated by the Yom Kippur War in 1973. That war did not emerge spontaneously: Egypt began bombing Israeli positions in 1967 using Soviet military hardware. Israel responded in kind using U.S. weapons, and both sponsors ramped up their military support until the denouement six years later.

Except there has been no denouement between Israel and Egypt. All the weapons Hamas attacked us with on October 7 came through Egypt physically, which lets it happen because they want it to happen. The peace treaty with Egypt was and still is a sham used to funnel weapons into proxies. We gave away the entire Sinai Peninsula for nothing, and we are going to have to deal with that, too.

Bottom line in terms of gold and stocks is this:

The 1970s stagflation was actually worse for stocks than the 1930s, but in a different way. The 1920s bubble was simply a credit bubble, there was no monetary debasement. The S&P 500 crashed 88% in nominal terms from peak to trough. In the 1970s, the S&P 500 from its peak in 1967 to its trough in 1980 fell only 14% in nominal terms but 94% in terms of gold.

If we are living through a repeat of the 1970s—and the parallels seem so perfect—we should not expect a cataclysmic collapse of the stock market despite the ridiculous valuations. Stocks would, instead, lurch higher and lower within a trading range for the next decade, ending at roughly the same nominal price but worth 90% less [in gold terms].

I will add what Oliver leaves out. If stocks will be worth 90% less soon, then all that purchasing power will not simply vanish. It must go somewhere. It will be sucked out of stock (and bond) portfolios and shoved into real money holders.

In conclusion, once again Oliver sees as I do, the various End Game strands coming together, and Israel as a pivot point. I do not know how it plays out, but I am fairly convinced that the End Game will feature collapsing fiat currencies all over the world, the end of empire, and the complete isolation of Israel, which will have no one and nothing to turn to but the God of Israel, as it was always supposed to be. (See Deut. 30)

I know my thinking seems strange and out there sometimes. To get a sense for how I frame this all in my head, I recommend people watch this video. There are English subtitles. This is the Israeli politician I support. He has no chance of winning without a miracle, but miracles do happen here. Moshe Feiglin was my next door neighbor for 7 years, and I taught him economics as we drove together once a month to the Temple Mount from 2009 to 2016.