Formerly a businessman who lost every penny he had and apparently went over the edge as a result, Norton proclaimed himself “His Imperial Majesty Emperor Norton I.” He declared that he was the Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico back in 1859. He reigned for over 20 years, walking the streets of San Francisco in full military uniform on a daily basis.
He was known for making proclamations and giving orders on how the country was to be run, such as issuing an order that Congress be dissolved by force, demanding that a League of Nations be formed and that a bridge be built connecting Oakland to San Francisco. Is it a coincidence that two of those things have since happened? Well, yeah probably.
I came across one of the most inspired presentations I’ve seen in a long time (courtesy of Presentation Zen). During a challenging time it’s sometimes good to step back and watch an artist and teacher (Benjamin Zander) in peak form instruct us on how to tap into forgotten potentials. This is about 25 minutes long, but watch the first few minutes and see if you’re not delighted and enthralled:
I have never heard of David Morgan, but he weaves a heck of a good yarn regarding a possible currency collapse. Please note his storytelling abilities and use of empathy to communicate a potentially dire situation in a positive and even comedic light. And his advice to have some gold or silver on hand is probably reasonable:
Who could have predicted this? Wall-Street collapse! Credit freeze! Banks don’t trust one another! People don’t trust banks! Nobody saw this coming!
Bull. Plenty of very smart people saw this coming and have warned about it for years. Those people were derided as “pessimists” or “cranks” or killjoys or anything else we call people who don’t want to feed us partisan hackery, or convenient digestible good news, or irrelevant fluff. If you look at my recommended reading list or the links on the side of my site, you will have access to many of these people.
For example, watch the video of Peter Schiff from 2006 and the way he is treated on-air.
I may give myself the assignment to go back and do research and compile the people who I’ve been reading/watching who have “predicted” our current predicament so you can see their predictions plainly presented here.
This matters because who we ask to lead us through hard times matters. Are you going to trust the gang that got us here, or are you going to look to people who were willing to tell you the truth when the truth was unpopular? I am tired of lies.
I know two blog updates in a night is a major FO PAH in blogland, but I couldn’t resist posting this…
Even if you don’t use Photoshop, you might just after watching these.