Right on the Money: Doug Casey on Economics, Investing, and the Ways of the Real World with Louis James

Chapter 37

Doug Casey: Something Wicked This Way Comes

February 23, 2011

Louis: Doug, a couple weeks ago we talked about mass riots spreading beyond the Middle East, and you were right. Yemen, Bahrain, and Libya—hundreds reported dead in Tripoli. But I see on Google News that some very brave individuals have organized protests in Moscow and Beijing. And now we have tens of thousands protesting in Madison, Wisconsin, citing the successful uprising in Egypt. There are counter-protesters in Wisconsin, fears of violence, talk of the governor calling up the National Guard. Is the spirit of revolution in the air?

Doug: On a deep level, there is a common thread running through these events. But, in bankrupt Wisconsin, the pro-union forces trying to hold on to artificially high wages and benefits have nothing in common with the hungry, oppressed, miserable people who took to the streets of Egypt. It’s fashionable for all sorts of people with a grievance to call those Egyptians “freedom fighters” and identify themselves with them. I’m a freedom-fighter, you’re a rebel, he’s a terrorist. The semantics are used to muddy the distinctions, not to clarify.

To a fair degree the Egyptians really are freedom fighters—they actually did oust a tyrant—but they are just going to replace the old boss with a new boss. It’s not been a radical revolution, at least not so far. The odds are that the new boss will be every bit as bad as, or worse, than the old boss, regardless of whatever window dressings ...