Dominant Social Theme: After rough times, the global economy will bounce back.

Free-Market Analysis: When it occurred to us recently that the current version of Western fiat money was in very deep trouble and perhaps on the way out, we wrote an article on the subject (Depression 2010 - Western Fiat-Money Finished?). Now we return to the subject because the UK Telegraph has published a story (excerpted above) that provides us with corroborating detail on just how grave the economic situation really is. The article's actual title is "Economic policies look impotent in calming the storm" and it is also excerpted below.

As the article implies, (though it doesn't fully come out and say so) the potential crackup of the euro, plus a double dip "recession" and years of potential, grinding joblessness throughout the West are going to put extreme pressure on the current system. So ... why couldn't all of the above, plus stagflation - economic stagnation mingling with price inflation - do what a century of profligacy could not: finish the dollar and related fiat currencies once and for all? (And, yes, in the past we have written of how difficult it would be to dethrone King Dollar but that was in the context of another orchestrated fiat currency. And this, it seems to us, is beginning to be another world ...)

In our previous article, we tried to point out that the world's major economies were beginning to fail and fail in unison. While those who do not follow world affairs for a living might assume that capitalism is cyclical and that these shake-outs are normal and natural, what we wanted to get across was that most people - with the exception of a handful of hard-money observers and economists - don't fully appreciate the magnitude of what is occurring. They think it is happening in their back yard. It is happening everywhere.

It is for this reason, then, that we write of the death of fiat money. If the great fiat-money economies of the world stagger under the twin weights of price-inflation and failing, jobless economies, there will be massive socio-political difficulties in our opinion. But this time, the manipulations available to a power elite that wishes to keep the current damnable system in place will not be available because of the Internet. People will understand, in our opinion, and will not tolerate the machinations. The same thing that is happening to global warming will eventually happen to the entire central-banking scheme. It will begin to fall apart. People, tortured by their sudden poverty and the rapine of hopelessness, will read the truth and act. It will not be pleasant for the power elite that has invested so much time and money in the current intergenerational scheme, but it is simply human nature. It is life.

Conclusion: Smell that? There is a sudden but discernable whiff of panic in the air. We think the elite has miscalculated. Instead of global regulatory regime and controllable global populism, they are increasingly faced with the informed rage of millions and eventually, perhaps, tens or hundreds of millions. Add in China and Japan and you're talking billions. We know there are plenty of savvy readers who will disagree with us. It is all in the plan, they will write, as they have before. The elite is in control every step of the way, they will inform us with understandable cynicism or barely disguised despair. But, please consider ... what if they are not?