Meistersinger wrote:
If you don't understand global economics (I sure as hell don't), that what do you make of the current advertisements being run on TV right with Ron Paul predicting gloom and doom and the inevitable collapse of the U.S. Economy? Personally, if you look at who is actually running the ad, you'll find out that Porter Stansbury, of Baltimore-based Stansbury Research is behind this. If you look further at Porter Stansbury, he is a charlatan, and a convicted felon. I trust him less than I trust the government economists.
I used to like RP. then I found out that he's hitched his cart to Stansbury. I can't imagine why he'd do that, he's no dummy and should know to stay away from Stansbury. I guess it's the same problem that led Robert Kiyosaki to gut his credibility (what he had of it) by selling Rich Dad Seminars to Russ Whitney, a con artist who threatens to sue anybody who talks smack about him, and whose "seminars" are basically just upselling the marks to ever more expensive seminars, with the promise that the NEXT ONE UP holds the secret to wealth.
Fortunately wealth cons have largely gone away, now the big thing is doom and gloom cons, with people saying that the economic collapse is right around the corner, and to prepare by fleeing the city for a homestead in the woods. The same ideas have been around the far right since the 70s. The basic conspiracy theories-FEMA camps, hyperinflation, "red lists" of dissidents who will be wiped out, stuff like that-also has its roots in 70s survivalism.
Somebody "purged" the wikipedia article on the 70s back to the land movement, but before that happened the page detailed how people who relied on income from homesteading activities like selling eggs eventually lost their land and went back to the city, while the few people who were able to make it work relied on practicing a trade in a nearby town.
Glenn Beck has made survivalist doomerism mainstream, along with typical pitches for gold, gear, and unmilled wheat.