Introduction

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What would you do if you lost power for 3 weeks?

If your answer is: "I don't know" then you are in good company.

Our intention is to provide you with information you can use to answer this question and prepare for this or similarly disruptive incidents.

We are entering a period of higher than average instability and higher than average probability of black swan and disruptive events. We identify where we think those events might come from (economic, banking, military) and have an increasing list of content to help you learn about the topics, history and what people are currently thinking is happening.

Think about it

Most of the services we use on a daily or weekly basis are entirely dependent on power: Banking, internet, cell service, refrigeration, water and sewer, gas stations, grocery stores, trucks delivering goods, orders being placed at warehouses, goods moving from supplier to your doorstep.

How would you pay for things if credit cards didn't work, your bank balances 'frozen' and you could not pay bills online?
How would your work from home?
Would your job exist - and could you commute to it if there was limited or no fuel?
What would you eat?
How would you stay warm if it was was in winter and not swelter in summer?

Our Background

During and after the 2008 financial crisis we spent time studying the reasons for the great recession / financial collapse, the root causes (fraud and debt) and came to the understanding that (a) we narrowly escaped a major collapse, and (b) the problems were papered over and not really resolved.

This caused us to examine our personal situation, asking ourselves "What would have happen if the economy and banking system collapsed?" After examining the risks, we developed a tactical plan to mitigate holes in our risk profile. An ongoing task has been to stay much more informed that we were prior to the 2008 debacle, and we learned a few things:

You can't plan for what you can't see coming
You can't manage risks you don't know about
You can plan and take steps to buffer you from supply chain issues that typically accompany natural disasters and financial hardship
You, not the government, are your own "first responder" and best line of defense in a crisis.
Financial systems go through predictable cycles, but most people don't understand what is happening and therefore are not prepared
You need to establish reliable sources of information outside the control of big tech and corp media as they do not cover these topics in-depth.

Over the last 2 years we are seeing the signs of some serious headwinds facing the US / Europe, and a higher than average risk of unexpected events and we think it is important for you to plan for some of what appears to be heading our way and we wanted to share our perspective with others. What we never know is what the triggering events will be or when or if they will occur and the severity.

Wise Citizen's primary goals are to:

Ramp you up and provide education and context for the topics of concern (some current, some historical).
Help you identify risks and offer practical knowledge and solutions that you can use to quickly create and execute a plan to mitigate those risks
Encourage you to take steps to execute your plan, and to share this information with others

The Noah rule: Predicting rain doesn't count; building arks does.

Warren Buffett

This section touches on issues that we think are contributing to the global risk, and individual/business risk, particularly in the western countries. While US focused the similar things are happening in Europe and there are common themes. Leading the pack is government debt; political / policy related, ideological and economic / financial in nature.

The Be Informed menu/page contains video content that correspond to these topics.

Global Power Struggle

We are living during a period of time where the "old order" dominated by the US and Western countries is being directly challenged by Russia, China a new consortium of countries known as the BRICS. Russia has clearly stated NATO and the US will be at war with Russia if we allow the Ukraine to use western mid-range missiles to attack Russia. NATO, lead by the US, seems intent on provoking Russia into a broader war and is, in our opinion, playing a very dangerous game with unforeseeable consequences.

Historically, failing governments often embroil themselves in conflicts (start wars) and take advantage of crises to pass legislation that typically removes freedoms (movement, speech, financial repression) and resources (confiscation) from their citizens..

Global Supply Chains

The Houthi's in Yemen have substantially curtailed shipping through the Suez Canal, meaning higher costs to transport from Asia to Europe. China has been increasingly vocal about (forced) 'reunification' with Taiwan. Mid-Oct, China sent a large military flotilla to intimidate Taiwan.

The US has a defense treaty with Taiwan. Should war break out we think this will be materially disruptive to supply chains with accompanying shortages and price increases. Most people are unaware that the majority of pharmaceuticals / drugs and ingredients are not produced in the US (raw chemicals are produced in India and China) And most 'green energy' components are manufactured outside of the US, largely in China.

Shipping in the Red Sea has been significantly disrupted by the Israel/Hamas/Hezbollah (south Lebanon) /Houthi war. Hezbollah is a non-Lebanese military force largely supported by Iran. We don't expect this to cool off anytime soon.

US Government Spending & Debt

With $35 Trillion dollars of on book debt and adding an astonishing $1 Trillion (that's 1000 Billion dollars) every 90-100 days , we are in no position to meet our 'unfunded' domestic obligation (like social security) let alone take on an additional wars or big programs. Before you continue we recommend you take an hour and watch the documentary End of the Road: How Money Became Worthless: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co_tVd9gA2I - as this explains how we managed to get ourselves to this place, and is probably the first thing you want to know, as it creates context for many topics on this site.

Common with the late stages of fiat currency collapses (the US dollar is a 'fiat' currency) increasing debt issuance is the preferred method for handling budgetary problems. Eventually too many dollars causes inflation and reduces the value of the currency. As you will have noticed, inflation not only confiscates more of your paycheck but erodes the value of your savings and assets as paychecks do not keep up with inflation. Inflation in a fiat system is the equivalent of a tax.

Our forecast is for continued and possibly rapid/sudden devaluation of the US dollar. We have lost 20-25% of US dollar value in the past 3 years. Inflation rates, while having moderated (Oct-2024) will move up and down during this process, so don't be lulled into security by .gov statistics and prognostications when it moves down temporarily. Without fundamental change in the picture inflation will continue on a zig-zag upward chart trajectory.

The Global Banking System

While they do a good job trying to hide this information from the public, the banking system is in considerably worse condition than it was in 2008. Banks continue to stack up ridiculous levels of derivative contracts (hundreds of trillions). If these 'bets' fail, and they will during a global financial crisis, the banks in the US are allowed to pass their losses to depositors and taxpayers. This is thanks to the Dodd-Frank bill. Banking instability is being causes by 1) holding US bonds/bills as part of their bank reserves (now underwater because the Fed raised interest rates so rapidly), 2) Commercial Real Estate "CRE" is losing value, and 3) losses on home mortgages are piling up.

Our opinion is there will be significant bank failures and consolidations particularly if the recession triggers losses in the insane derivative positions held by our "must bail out" "too big to fail" banks such as Chase, Bank of America, etc.

US Dollar Competition

The BRICS countries will be rolling out a new trade currency called The Unit. If the BRICS do what they intend, this trade currency will be 40% backed by Gold. In case you are unaware, the US dollar, Euro, Yen and other currencies are not backed by anything. Take 15 minutes to ramp up on what the BRICS countries are. Their strategy is to unseat and degrade the US global dominance.

There has been a very significant move by countries and central banks globally to buy Gold as it is now considered a Tier-1 asset. Gold is now money again (legally) and this fact has sent the price of gold from around $1500 to $2650/oz in the last 7 years, with about 1/4 of that gain since Feb 2024 ($2100/oz).

US Domestic Security

In the US, the FBI has repeatedly told Congress in 2023/24 that we are at the highest risk of domestic security problems (terrorism) since the 9-11 attack. We have allowed millions of unvetted immigrants into the US, including a steady stream of military-age Chinese nationals (men mostly) into the US. Lax border control has allowed Mexican Cartels and recently Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua have set up shop all over the US (the state of Texas recently declared the latter as a terrorist organization in Sept 2024). Human trafficking in the US is at an all time high. The US government, but its own admission, has lost track of over 300,000 minors who entered the US.

Homeland Security

Due to reduction in police forces in many cities after the death of George Floyd, and a not-subtle refusal by some prosecutors to not pursue offenders, crime frequently goes unpunished contributing to significant degradation of safety and services in many large US cities. As if domestic homeless wasn't already a major issue, significant and avoidable pressure on housing has erupted as we try to find accommodation for asylum seekers, many of whom are dropped off by the Federal government into communities, seemingly with little consideration of the consequences.

The Globalist Agenda

To provide context and make sense of current events, you need to be aware there are organizations and people that have been functioning for decades that have goals and objectives that, upon inspection, are likely to not be in your best interest. We believe that many of the issues we are having today are the fruit of a multi-decade push by globalists to reshape the globe into a consolidated government where national governments are subordinate to the Globalists.

To understand their perspective, see these quotes: Henry Kissinger:

"Who controls the food supply, controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world."

John Kerry (WEF form, Aug2024 NYC), US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (2024); Sec State 2013-7, Mass US Senator 1985-2013

"Our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to hammer [disinformation] out of existence. We we need is to win... the right to govern by hopefully winning enough votes that you're free to be able to implement change." "Its very hard to govern today."

This group of global elites have very specific agendas, which are published and you can read (we have some links). The UN has also published plans that are similarly crafted.

The WEF organization is over 50 years old and is a real organization pushing for highly impacting policies. You can watch videos of their conferences on the internet.

WEF aligned leaders have infiltrated many western countries and are pushing an agenda that concentrates power in the hands of the few and is, despite the rhetoric, remarkably undemocratic in nature. Some WEF graduates: Tony Blair (UK PM), Emmanuel Macron (President, France), Kier Starmer (Curren PM, United Kingdom), Alexander Soros. In Canada many of Trudeau's ministers are WEF graduates. [We are compiling information which we will add to the site at a later date].

The global bankers are universally keen to introduce "Central Bank Digital Currencies" (CBDCs) which they intend to implement. CBDCs are "programmable tokens/money" - which allow the token holder to determine what you can do with the funds. CBDCs are not money - they are a substitute for money.

There is some indication that the FED will leverage other mega-huge financial companies to implement CBDCs, such as Blackrock, Fidelity or Vanguard, to give the appearance of a public-private consortium. A good example is the USDC crypto.

Like the FED, and the 'NGOs' the government hires to perform 'work' they cannot legally do themselves, these mega corps are not transparent and have an agenda that is not customer friendly. (For example, Bank of America provided the FBI data on credit card usage for all its customers in the general geographic area round Washington DC on Oct6 - without your permission or knowledge.)

Western governments will claim CBDC this is to "eliminate terror" or "drug cartel" activity, but realistically the banking system does a fantastic job scrubbing cartel money (Oct12-24 TD Bank/Canada was levied a $1.8b fine for money laundering).

The Chinese actively use CBDCs and a "Social Credit Score" to control dissent by taking your money or restricting what you can purchase or where you can go. We will let you draw your own conclusions as to how you think such a system might be used and mis-used by your government (all levels).

We think it likely that these parties will push CBDCs into replacing the dollar / euro, during an actual or manufactured financial crisis. They have the systems mostly in place. Recall the The US introduced invasive spying on citizens via the misnamed US Patriot Act and the coup de grace to citizen privacy.