Three weeks ago I wrote a post titled ‘The Perfect Storm’, about why I am extremely bullish about Bitcoin. Since then the Bitcoin price has been very volatile and it’s down about 10 percent since I wrote the piece, but I still stand 100% behind my message that Bitcoin is ready to break out. This post is related, although it’s less about Bitcoin and more about the more traditional financial markets: I think we are at the beginning of a global financial meltdown.

Since I wrote my last blog post the Coronavirus turned from a local epidemic into a global pandemic. It is now spreading all over the world and many countries seem to be failing to contain it. It will have a huge economic impact and I believe this has not yet been priced in, simply because markets underestimate the global effects. One of the biggest economies in the world has come to a virtual stand still and this has been the case for over a month already. People in China are slowing going back to work, but it can take months before the country is back to it its pre-January levels. That means products and parts are not shipping, and factories all over the world can’t deliver their products on time.

Now the same is happening in other countries as well: South Korea and Japan are leading the pack by closing schools and factories, Iran’s leadership seems to be infected (10% has the virus already), and now Europe will be the next victim. In N-America Seattle could be the next Wuhan, simply because the government neglected to contain the virus in time and they are still not doing much. Don’t be surprised if in a few weeks the whole US economy comes to a stand still as well.

The day before I wrote my last blog post the Dow reached an all time high of 29,551 points. Since then there has been huge volatility and the index is now down about 12%. This may seem like a lot, but it’s not: the index first reached this level in January 2018, so basically 2 years worth of returns have been wiped out. What’s happening now because of the Coronavirus is just the tip of the iceberg.

From the outside it may look like things are fine, but when you look under the hood you will realize we are in for some major trouble. First of all, the FED tried to stop the fall in stock prices by doing a 50 bp rate cut. That is a major event that only happened a few times during the past 20 years (among others after 9/11 and during the 2008 financial crisis). There are some differences though: because interest rates are so low now, a 50 bp rate cut basically means cutting interest rate levels by 30%. That is huge. But worse, this time the 50 bp cut had no effect at all! The markets kept on falling after the rate cut. Huge overnight repo operations (basically printing $100 billion or more per day) also did not help anymore. I believe the FED is helpless unless it will start printing even more money (which could lead to hyperinflation) and that means the markets will be on their own. Likely interest rates will go to zero and we’ll probably even see negative interest rates, but it won’t help. It’s too little too late.

With powerless Central Banks equity markets will start falling heavily. In 1987 the market dropped 23% on Black Monday. If that would happen now it means the Dow would close below 20,000 points. I think it will happen, but it may take a few weeks to get there. Most people simply don’t seem to grasp the effects of the virus and what the secondary effects will be. If this becomes a depression you could see the Dow in 15,000 territory and possibly even lower. Maybe that’s good, because the markets were in a huge bubble caused by quantitative easing, but keep in mind it might wipe out most of the pensions of baby boomers. You don’t want to imagine the effect of that…

Most of the bubble in stock markets was caused by companies buying back their own shares. Because money was incredibly cheap they issued tons of debt (bonds) and used that to buy back their shares, causing their share price to go up. Because of stock options managers were strongly  incentivized to do this (their stock options go up in value when the share price goes up), instead of investing the money in the business.

The money mainly came from pension funds that lent it to corporates. So what will happen now? When the economy gets into a downward spiral these companies will be less profitable or even start to lose money. That means they won’t be able to borrow anymore or it will be more expensive for them to borrow. So they will be forced to stop buying their own stock, meaning that share prices will start falling. They may even have to sell their own stock again in order to pay back their debt, which means stock prices will go down even more. At that point baby boomers will likely start selling as well: their retirement is for a large part in equity so if markets go down 20-30% they might start to panic.

We are pretty close to that in my opinion. Unless the money printing press goes into overdrive there just won’t be buyers anymore and that’s when things really get scary. Pension funds are much more diversified than many individual investors, but their equity investments will also be hit hard and they may not be able to fulfill their financial obligations. It gets even worse, because a lot of baby boomers are now at their retirement age, so pension funds will be net sellers to pay for their pensions. Without corporates buying share prices might drop even more. Some pension funds may actually blow up because of this.

It’s not a coincidence that over the past weeks a lot of corporate CEOs resigned, January 2020 actually set a record for the most CEO departing their jobs in the US. They saw this coming and did not want to end their careers with their companies in big trouble. It’s almost a perfect storm and unless the Coronavirus would be contained there is no real way out anymore.

The best way to play this is in my opinion to get out of equity if you are still in there and switch to cash, bonds, gold and bitcoin. Although gold and bitcoin both did not show a lot of strength when the markets started crashing, I believe both are great stores of value during a recession or even a depression. Cash is good so you can get back into the equity markets at much lower valuations. Of course shorting the market is a great idea as well, but because of volatility it’s a lot more expensive than a few weeks ago. Because markets may go down for a longer period of time you would need expiration dates that are at least 6-8 weeks from now (and possible much longer).

We will be in for a wild ride with many people losing their jobs, their investments, and even their pensions. It could change society completely, and not for the better. Just like most people in North America the markets still don’t see how bad the situation is, so at least there might still be time to position yourself well. Be prepared for the worst. Good luck.

Disclaimer: this is my personal opinion and not meant as investment advice.

Tonight I was walking along the Vancouver Sea Wall, something I do regularly these days. Just walking at a fast face (6-7 km/h) while watching the sea, the boats, the waves, and the occasional seal popping up, but mainly thinking through new ideas. I was feeling a bit anxious, which is unusual for me, so I tried to figure out why I was feeling that way. Suddenly I realized it is because of Bitcoin, not because of its recent performance (BTC is up 45% over the past 6 weeks) but because I realized we are finally at the point where Bitcoin is ready to break out. Let me explain.

Last Friday (6 days ago since I am writing this) Bitcoin broke through $10,000, an important psychological barrier for many investors. I was at a dinner party with friends while watching the Bitcoin price. During the beginning of the dinner I was more focused on the price than on the conversations (my bad…) and I actually managed to screen shot the exact moment when Bitcoin hit $10,000.

Of course the topic changed to Bitcoin right away (most of the people had some exposure to Bitcoin already) and I explained why this was an important moment for crypto. Not because Bitcoin would never go below $10K again (it actually dipped to $9850 a few days later), but because this was the first time that Bitcoin traded over $10K while I felt it was priced correctly. Breaking through $10K at the current fundamentals and at high volumes means $20K this year is suddenly very likely and my predictions of at least $100-200K per Bitcoin in a few years seem more and more likely.

During the past days I was more focused on non-crypto investments and new business ventures so I did not really take the time to put my thoughts on this together. But while walking I realized my mind had already done the work for me. So I am just going to type my thoughts into a blog post.

In 2017 BTC went up to an all time high of almost $20,000, but what people forget is that the ‘race’ from $10,000 to $20,000 lasted for just over a week and $14,000 to $20,000 happened in just 2 days. Hardly anybody bought or sold above the current price, meaning that today’s price of $10,000+ is actually quite similar to an all time high.

I remember that on December 6, 2017 we were on a Hut 8 road show on Wall Street and that we could not believe what was happening to Bitcoin when we checked our phones during investor presentations. Late afternoon after our presentations were finished, Mike Novogratz invited us to fly back to Toronto on his private jet and during the flight we mainly kept on checking our phones instead of enjoying the food and drinks. I think we hit $16,000 while in the air and I have to give it to Mike that he called the top at that point. He said it was time to start taking profits, something I was not so sure about yet at that point.

The next day I was speaking at a GMP conference in Toronto and I was literally checking the price while I was on stage (and announcing to the audience that the price had gone up a $1000 to $18,0000 while I still on stage). Looking back I should have realized it was crazy and could not continue like this. It was indeed not sustainable and not long after that the Bitcoin price started to crash hard.

Today is very different though. 2017 was mainly a retail investor market, but most of these investors have left the market since. They did not really understand what they were investing in so they either sold at a loss or totally forgot about their investment. 2020 is different, I feel the current bull market is led by institutions and family offices. Well-informed investors that invest because they see Bitcoin as a potential store of value in volatile times. They were not in the market in late 2017 because they were either not allowed to be in it yet (e.g. there were no approved custodians) or because they did not know how to invest in Bitcoin. We have come a long way since then, but it’s still not easy to buy and hold Bitoin (one reason why we are very far from a new top). The narrative has changed though and many people start to see Bitcoin as a real new asset class.

One important factor is that there is finally a model to value Bitcoin. When Sean and I did a roadshow all over Canada for the FBC Bitcoin Trust in September 2017 we always made the comparison to Gold, explaining that if Bitcoin would just become a store of value and its market cap would be just be 10% of Gold, the price would be $50,000-60,000 (this is based on today’s BTC market cap of below $200B, while Gold is worth over $8 Trillion). I also explained the value of Bitcoin as a potential currency, and the value of the Bitcoin blockchain as the most secure database on earth, that would make Bitcoin even more valuable, but most people did not understand it. They wanted to see a model.

And now there is one, the stock to flow model, developed by fellow Dutchman Plan B (who wants to remain anonymous). The model is based on scarcity of Bitcoin and it can be used to calculate future Bitcoin prices. So far it hold up very well and it predicts a Bitcoin price of at least $50,000 next year and possibly up to $100,000. From there it keeps on going up to $1 million by 2028-29. Wishful thinking? Maybe, but 7 years ago Bitcoin was a factor 100 lower than now, so it could easily go up another factor 100 in the next 7 years. Many people have been trying to falsify the model, but so far nobody has managed, which is a very strong signal for me.

The title of this post is The Perfect Storm because I believe the world is heading into the wrong direction at the same time that Bitcoin is becoming more prominent. First of all because of the Coronavirus (another topic I should write about soon). In 2017 it was not clear what BTC was going to be: a currency, a store of value or something else. Right now BTC has shown a couple of times that it seems to be mainly a store of value (it still might have other functions in the future as well). The Coronavirus might be the catalyst for a new crisis.

China has literally come to a complete stand still. People can’t leave their homes (or don’t want to, even if they can), most stores and restaurants are closed and the retail economy has come to a stand still. But even more important, factories are closed and will remain closed for the foreseeable future. This means that supply chains all over the world will be disrupted soon. Even if your product only has one small part sourced from China you won’t be able to build your product. People in North America and Europe don’t see the effects yet and it’s actually hard to believe for me that it’s still business as usual here. But I believe that will change fast and it may be the Black Swan event that will lead to a major stock market crash. When that happens it could lead people to invest in Bitcoin as a safe haven, meaning a potential huge spike in the Bitcoin price.

Even if the Coronavirus won’t be as bad as I think it is, we still have the problem that many countries have so much debt that they will never be able to repay it. Whatever you call it or whatever it is, quantitative easing, repo short-term lending or simply printing money, the effects are all the same. This is not sustainable. The powers that be want the current state to last as long as possible, because they make tons of money. But it won’t last. The corona virus could be the nail in the coffin that will lead the financial markets to collapse. But even if it is not, something else will happen soon that will push Bitcoin as a safe have investment.

In 2017 the crypto bull market was led by retail investors, but not many are still in the market. However, they are quickly coming back. I can see it on Twitter where I suddenly have a lot more Bitcoin conversations than just a few weeks ago. I can see it in the altcoin markets, where coins that in my opinion have zero value suddenly go up with double digit percentages. And the emails start coming in again from people that want to buy large amounts of BTC. Something is happening, I can feel it. And I guess that’s where my anxiousness came from. I want to be behind my laptop knowing what is happening in the markets and being part of it. But walking the Seawall is probably more healthy and a better use of my time for an hour per day.

During Bitcoin’s past 7 years I have only felt twice like this. Once in October 2013 when I was a partner in a venture capital fund and I literally had no interest in looking at new companies simply because I believed putting money into BTC would lead to much better returns (too bad I did not follow my gut feeling, this was when Bitcoin just broke through $100, two months later it hit $1000). The next time was in early 2017 when Bitcoin started its new bull run from $1000 to almost $20,000 and I felt BTC was finally more or less de-risked.

Now it’s February 2020, Bitcoin trades at just over $10,000 and it seems stronger than ever. The mining reward halving is coming up (which cuts supply by 50%, meaning a potential doubling of the BTC price), governments seem to be okay with Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining, and the Stock to Flow model predicts a 5-10X price increase before the end of 2021. The financial markets are at unsustainable all-time highs, a virus is threatening the world, and climate change is slowing but surely making the world a much worse place to live. It seems like a perfect storm to me and it may be time for Bitcoin to make its next big move.

China announced recently that it will launch its own digital currency based on the Chinese renminbi, probably with its own centralized blockchain. The currency might launch in early 2020 already and I believe it could be much bigger than just a China domestic payment system.

China, like many other countries, wants to control the way its citizens pay for goods and services, so that’s an important incentive to launch a digital currency. Cash is hardly used anymore in China, even beggars now use QR codes to receive digital money. However, the current digital payments are not run by the state, but managed by private companies Tencent (WeChat Pay) and Alibaba (Alipay). WeChat has over 1 billion users and Alipay has 1.2 billion users, meaning that if China would use their platforms it will be much easier to roll out a state-owned digital currency.

WeChat Pay and Alipay signs in the T&T supermarket in Vancouver

I believe China may have something bigger in mind, however. Until about a week ago non-Chinese residents could not use WeChat Pay or Alipay in China, simply because you needed a Chinese bank account or Chinese credit or debit card. All of a sudden this changed: first Alipay announced that foreigners could now prepay money into their Alipay account and 2 days later WeChat announced that you can now link non-Chinese credit cards to WeChat. Coincidence? I don’t think so. I believe the government pushed (or allowed?) them to start adding non-Chinese customers in an effort to make WeChat and Alipay more international.

For a while you could pay in some stores in Vancouver with WeChat or Alipay already, but it seems the 2 payments giants are now actively pushing this payment method and they are coordinating their efforts. I noticed large signs in stores promoting payments with WeChat or Alibaba, and I was surprised to see that even Canada Post has this payment option already. This means that Chinese when traveling abroad won’t have to change money anymore, but they can keep on using RMB. Nor do they need to use credit cards, they can simply use the same apps as they are using in China. Obviously merchants like it as well, because they don’t have to pay the 2-3% credit card fee. A very smart idea to slowly get the Chinese RMB accepted as payment outside China.

Canada Post accepts WeChat Pay and Alipay

I don’t think Vancouver, or North America in general, is important yet to these two payment methods. Most likely WeChat and Alipay are looking to roll out their services in countries where the financial system is not so well developed yet, such as Africa or parts of Asia. Those markets are relatively easy to conquer because people are used to cash and most don’t have bank accounts.

The game changer will be that China might integrate its new digital currency with WeChat and Alipay. Once they do that their domestic digital currency could suddenly become a digital currency for large parts of the world. And once it gets a good reception in parts of Africa and Asia it will automatically expand to other parts of the world, simply because people demand to use it. I think it’s a brilliant strategy, especially because so many people outside China already use WeChat for communication and it has a digital wallet built in.

The US has been so focused on stopping Facebook-coin Libra that they may have overlooked the risk of China doing something similar. By stopping Libra they may have shot themselves in the foot: if the US would have embraced Libra they could have been in the same position (by using WhatsApp to roll out internationally a Libra coin based on the US dollar), but because they tried to stop innovation they may now lose out in the upcoming digital currency wars. I don’t think Libra will be allowed to launch in the US any time soon, so China can move full speed ahead.

And what does this mean for Bitcoin? Just like when Libra was announced I think the effect of a Chinese digital currency will likely be positive. Simply because it introduces more people to crypto: once you have used a cryptocurrency and have a wallet on your phone, the step to using Bitcoin will be a lot smaller. We don’t know much about the Chinese digital currency yet and whether it will be supported by external wallets, but if that’s the case they sky will be the limit. Because if other wallets can also hold the Chinese digital currency, people could change it for Bitcoin and hold it in the same wallet! That probably seems a bit far fetched right now given the capital controls in China, but if they allow customers to spend RMB outside China already they may also allow them to change some of it to Bitcoin. Time will tell, but for sure there are interesting times in crypto land ahead!

After working on climate catastrophe solutions and investments for the past year or so I have come to the conclusion that what we are doing is not going to make any difference. The grassroots movement and Greta Thunberg mean really well, but it won’t make a difference. We need extreme global solutions right now (banning cars and banning flying for example), anything less won’t be enough. Let me explain why I have become so negative.

To start, I still believe we can stop and turn around climate change. But we have to move very fast because time is running out. And more important, we have to make huge global decisions that will be very painful for all of us. And that’s what the biggest problem is.

People are not willing to make sacrifices for the climate, simply because they don’t see the big picture or because they feel others should make changes first. I have seen it during the Canadian elections last month where many people felt that Canada should keep on using its natural resources to create jobs and prosperity. They feel other countries should take steps first. The problem is that people in these other countries say the same thing, they all want others to take action first. Arguments about jobs are so short sighted: yes, you can keep a few more jobs for now, but the future cost of those jobs will be so much higher of the temporary wealth they create. Once we get to the point of no return these jobs will be gone (probably long before that already) but the additional burden they have created will not go away anymore.

A few weeks ago I went to a Greta Thunberg rally in Vancouver. I was really excited about it and felt stoked about being part of it. But the event had the opposite effect on me and I felt it was depressing. I realized that the people in the climate change movement are the wrong ones to force a change. Not only was the organization of the demonstration terrible (speakers were hardly visible from the crowds, the speeches lasted way too long and were all similar), but instead of trying to be an inclusive group of people they were actively trying to exclude other groups. I fully agree with them on stopping the oil pipelines, but why combine that point in a speech with supporting the staff of the hotels in Vancouver that were on strike? Keep these issues separate, they are completely unrelated. The same with the support for the demonstrations in Chile that came up a few times in speeches, they are unrelated. Even though I feel sympathy for both the hotel staff on strike and the demonstrators in Chile, I feel they just don’t belong in a climate crisis march.

You need to rally as much people behind you as possible, by excluding others on issues that are not related you don’t do that. The people at the event did not seem like the ones that can make a change in the world, but they did not seem to realize it themselves. It made me feel a bit depressed to be honest. I thought Greta Thunberg was doing a great job until I saw her in action. I highly respect what she is doing, but she is not a very likeable person and I don’t think these climate strikes will make any difference. The grassroots movement may think they are changing the world, but they are not. They are just not the right people to make the change and they won’t get the right people on board with this kind of events.

The only thing that can save us are extreme global measures, things that might seem over the top until it is too late. Once we hit a level of about 450 ppm of CO2 in the air we will get into an unstoppable cycle that will make the current climate crisis seem a like a minor nuisance. At that point the effect of the melting permafrost will lead to methane being released into the air, something that will have catastrophic effects. We have to do everything we can to stay below 450 ppm. At the current rate we will get there by 2030, at which point it will simply be too late to do anything.

That means taking drastic global measures to cut CO2. What kind of measures? I believe the only way to save the planet is to immediately ban flying, to ban fossil fuel cars, and to reduce meat consumption by a large percentage. Sounds crazy? Yes, but if we don’t do it the effects on the planet will be so much worse that we would wish that we would have taken these measures when there still was time.

It will be very painful if we can’t fly anymore. Of course all the airlines will be out of business and hundreds of thousands of people will be out of their jobs right away, but we have no choice! We need to change our lifestyles and we will have to be forced to change them. Voluntarily we won’t do it. The same is true for fossil fuel engines in cars. We will need to make the switch to a different kind of transportation, most likely (shared) electric vehicles in the short run or potentially even autonomous vehicles. I am sure this will lead to new innovations very quickly (fully electric planes with much longer ranges for example), innovations to come out with products that are currently not economically feasible. The same for eating meat, there are simple and cheap solutions to drastically reduce the methane belching of cows (adding a bit of seaweed to their feed or to the water they drink), but there is no real economic incentive to implement it.

We have to make a transition to 100% renewable energy in a few years, while taking out as much CO2 as possible, for example through technological solutions like carbon sequestration. We need to change our lifestyles to a slower kind of life. No more flying to a holiday summer destination, but going there by train or other cleaner modes of transportation. Crossing an ocean might mean taking a boat. Or maybe Elon Musk’s hyperloop trains will be the solution to intercontinental travel. Things will take more time, but is that really a big problem? In the short term yes, but we will get used to it very fast. The Internet, virtual reality and free global communications make it a lot easier to achieve this than it would have been 20 years ago. It will impact me a lot more than most people, but I am willing to sacrifice this.

Of course I realize that the world will not come together to do this until time has run out. Partly because some people do not believe in the climate crisis (most will eventually, but by then then it will be too late), but mostly because people don’t realize how close we are to a complete catastrophe. A democracy seems like the best political system to most people in the West, but it is not fit to solve problems like this in time. I believe yuou actually need unelected (but smart and humane) leaders to be able to get things done, like in a corporate environment. Leaders that are respected by the people they represent, but that do not have to work on their re-election every 4 years or so.

Because of all of this I have come to the conclusion that we might as well party like it’s 1999, because we won’t come together and fight the approaching disaster. The grassroots movement is not going to make a difference. We need global measures to force people to change their lifestyles 100%. Not just by buying carbon credits to offset their emissions, but by completely stopping their emissions. It’s sad, but it seems to be the reality. For a while I thought I could make a change but except for creating awareness and investing in new technologies I just don’t see that it will have enough impact. We will need a global political force willing to make very painful decisions and we will need that right now. Unfortunately we are further away from that now than we have been in a long time.

Last week I spent a few days on the US east coast, among others visiting the Annapolis Boat Show. I had never been there, but because it is the largest sailboat show in North America I wanted to check out some of the new boats. It also gave me the chance to meet up with some of the round-the-world sailors that I have been following on YouTube and/or that I support on Patreon, such as SV Delos, Sailing Doodles, Sailing La Vagabonde and 59 North.

During the first day of the boat show I noticed that a water main had broken next to the Fleet Reserve Club and the Annapolis Waterfront Hotel, and that the road was partially flooded. When I came back a few hours later it seemed a lot worse, but because there were now police cars parked at the flooding I assumed they would be able to quickly solve the problem.

The next day I was at an event with among others Brian and Brady from SV Delos, when someone asked them a question about how climate change was changing ocean sailing and the sailing routes. The answer was interesting, it seems that the ocean sailing routes that have been used for over a century are suddenly not optimal anymore because currents and winds are changing. Sailors that still follow them take 50% more time to cross the Atlantic than others who create their own routes based on new weather and ocean current data. Then someone mentioned that the flooding in Annapolis was also related to climate change. I thought, flooding? And then I realized that what I had seen the day before was not caused by a broken water pipe but it was the Chesapeake Bay water that had risen.

I went back to the boat show and was surprised to see how far the water had come up in the mean time. Many exhibitors could not be reached, simply because of the water. I did a quick Google search and found that this was indeed partly related to climate change. One article mentioned that flooding on the east coast is up 50-75% since 2000, and that in 2017 there had been 63 days with flooding in Annapolis!

Click here for a link to the article 

But most people seemed to dismiss it, saying the flooding was just due to a hurricane that passed by in combination with high tides. I am sure that was an important reason for the floods, but when I read some of the comments on sailor’s forums, people were saying that the extend of the flooding was unusual and that in the past this never used to happen. My take is that of course there were unusual circumstances, but that without climate change it would not have been this bad.

I talked to a number of people at the show but hardly anybody saw it as a serious issue. People did not seem to consider that it could be the beginning of something that will hit many more cities over the coming years and decades. And that is the scary thing, people are like frogs in a pot of water that slowly starts to boil. The frogs don’t realize it until it’s too late.

Flooding is not normal but soon it might be the new normal. Politicians are not doing enough to stop the climate crisis and grassroots movements do not have sufficient power to make a real change. We still have time to stop the climate catastrophe if we act now, but I am getting less confident every day that we will be in time to avoid the consequences. Be prepared…

The gap between the richest and the poorest in society has grown fast over the past decades. I remember traveling in the south of France in the early 2000s and when you would see a superyacht at anchor you would point it out. But when I was on the French Riviera last week I saw superyachts literally everywhere. And not just ’smaller’ ones of 30-40 meters, but also many with a length above 100 meters and a helicopters on deck. Maybe it was partially due to the Monaco Yacht Show, but to me this is a clear sign that the super rich have gotten a lot richer over the past decades, while incomes for the bottom 50% have only gone down in real terms.

This is a scary development that can’t continue like this. Why? When people need to have 2 jobs just to survive (unusual in Europe, but not uncommon in the US) and feel left behind, they will eventually revolt against this. That can take a long time because someone needs to take the lead in that revolution, but that person may actually be Trump.

For a long time my thinking was that if Trump would not get reelected in 2020 he would fight it, because he needs it to be reelected to stay out of jail. The most likely scenario would be that he would accuse the ‘deep state’ of rigging the election and then using Fox News and Twitter to stir the masses to fight for him. Trump would make his supporters feel wronged by the liberals, telling them they are trying to ‘take their freedoms away’ just like he is now already doing day in and day out on Twitter.

Many of the gun carriers in the US are Trump supporters and the situation could very quickly get out of hand. And if it would not get out of hand by itself, Trump’s enablers like Steve Bannon might not mind helping to get the situation to get out of control. Remember Steve Bannon and his obsession with the Fourth Turning? That’s not a coincidence of course. If Trump would not be reelected, this could literally go from a war of words to an emerging civil war in a matter of weeks.

The election is still over a year from now and a lot could happen in that time, so I did not give it too much thought so far. However, the fact that Trump might (finally) be impeached could accelerate these events. Trump is now already fighting it and using ‘his’ media to fight for him and accuse the Democrats of anything he can think of. And worse, he indicated on Twitter that if he gets impeached this could lead to a civil war. The fact that a sitting president says that is a very scary thing and it shows it is on his mind. Suddenly a potential civil war could be much closer than many believe.

You may think that everything is fine in your life, so it won’t affect you. You may go for a walk in the park, in the woods or just on a quiet street in your town and believe that a civil war would never happen where you live. But don’t underestimate how quickly things can change. Lots of people are fed up with the situation in the world and hope that chaos might be a good thing to give them a better life. Farfetched? Read this article about populism and you may change your opinion.

I see it on Twitter, the discussions seem to have become a lot more heated there. Not just about Trump, but also about climate change, and about the financial system (printing money to save the current system, bashing Bitcoin etc.). I personally feel things are getting out of hand and Trump is only pushing that. The USA seems to be more divisive than ever and I am genuinely worried that if an impeachment would be successful Trump would use his populist skills to start a civil war.

I hope I am wrong, but I just can’t imagine that Trump would quietly go away and risk ending up in jail after he left the Presidency. Maybe it can be avoided if he gets a non-prosecution deal, but I have my doubts. He and his enablers may have a lot more to gain from chaos than from keeping the status quo. Like I said in a recent post, be prepared.