3 Phony Threats Not Worth Your Worry Time

We’ve been writing for years about actual crises that can affect you and your families. We write from the perspective of crises that can cause physical harm such as storms and other natural disasters. These include hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes, tornadoes and more. 

We also write about crises that can damage your portfolio and your net worth. These include bank runs, market panics and social unrest. Some crises can affect both your health and financial well-being. The 2020 pandemic is a good example. Millions died from health effects while stock markets crashed 30% in one month during March 2020. By the way, we predicted the 2020 pandemic and the market crash over a year in advance in my 2019 book Aftermath.

In this month’s edition of Crisis Survival Insider, we’re going to do something different. We’re going to write about crises that are not crises at all. It’s difficult to gather the financial, medical and technical resources you need to withstand actual crises. But it’s the case that increasingly, individuals are devoting time and effort to matters that aren’t even real crises. Instead of being concerned about events that are real, wouldn’t it be a relief to stop being concerned about things that are not real? 

It's unfortunate that political activists, phony scientists and fearmongers have ginned up a long list of alleged crises that don’t exist. They do this because they want to attract political followers, make money off donations or get you to invest in “solutions” that are not needed at all because the threat does not even exist. Their supposed threats are invented simply to change your behavior or to get your money. 

This phony threat industry does more than just skim your money or get you to follow their recommendations to advance their political agendas. The promoters of fake threats cause anxiety in the general population. They cause people to worry about things that are not even happening except in the imaginations of the threat promoters and their media stooges. 

Let’s look at three so-called threats that are not real at all. Once we internalize this information, we can all rest a little easier. 

Fake Threat #1 - Climate Change. You all know the rap. The world is burning up. Wildfires and extreme weather are out of control. Oceans are rising and will soon cause the elimination of island nations and flood the New York City subways. Crops will not grow. Oh, and don’t forget about polar bears. They’ll soon be extinct. You’ve heard this from Al Gore and Greta Thunberg and even the United Nations. Countries need to stop burning oil and natural gas, rely solely on windmills and solar modules and everyone should buy an electric vehicle (EV). If you follow that advice, all will be well. 

That’s the propaganda. Here are the facts. Climate change is real as evidenced by the Roman Warm Period (around 200 BC), the Medieval Warm Period (around 1000 AD) and the Little Ice Age (1350-1850 with a peak around 1665). But those changes evolved slowly. Notice how all of them pre-date the Industrial Revolution, carbon emissions and the automobile? 

In fact, there is no evidence that CO2 has anything to do with climate change. The causes of climate change (if it’s even happening today) are solar cycles, volcanoes, ocean currents, subduction and other large scale natural phenomena that humans cannot control at all. That said, the evidence for global warming today is scant. 

Extreme weather is not getting worse. Tornados peaked in the 1940s. Hurricanes peaked in the 1950s and 1960s. Drought was prevalent in the U.S. in the late 1920s. The most accurate data shows the ocean may be rising at about 7 inches per 100 years. That’s barely enough to get your feet wet by 2125. (After the last Ice Age about 12,000 years ago, oceans rose 400 feet. Humans survived just fine). In short, none of the extremes predicted by the climate cult are true. 

Here’s the good news: There is no climate crisis. Polar bears are thriving. You can enjoy your sports sedan and your backyard barbecue with a clear conscience. 

Fake Threat #2 – The End of the Dollar. You hear and see this claim on every website and every financial broadcast you tune into. According to the hysterical so-called analysts, China is dumping U.S. Treasury bonds, the BRICS will be launching a new currency to replace the dollar, and the dollar’s days as the leading reserve currency are numbered. 

None of these claims is true. The identify of the leading reserve currency does change from time to time but the process can take 30 to 50 years, and you can see it coming a mile away. In 1914, sterling was the leading reserve currency. It lost that role permanently in 1944 after the Bretton Woods conference. Still that process took thirty years. And there were many signposts along the way, including two world wars and major devaluations in 1931 and again in 1936. Sterling was replaced by the dollar, but it took decades to play out and asset allocators have ample time to make the switch. 

Do we see any signs of that happening to the dollar today? Actually, no. The dollar maintains a share of about 60% as the currency of major reserve assets, mostly U.S. Treasury securities. The dollar is the currency of choice in about 80% of global payments and almost 100% of payments for oil. The BRICS do not have an alternative currency; they are working on an alternate payments system, but that’s not a currency. 

It is true that the Chinese have been selling U.S. Treasury securities but that’s not a sign of dumping dollars. Quite the opposite. The Chinese are desperate to get dollars to prop up their currency and their banks. Selling Treasuries is the easiest and fastest way for them to get dollars in a world that is actually suffering a dollar shortage.

If you want to know how the dollar is doing, don’t look at euros, yen or other currencies. Look at gold. The price of gold is going up sharply, which means dollars are worth less when measured by weight of gold. That’s a reason to have gold in your portfolio (I recommend 10%), but it’s not a reason to worry about dollars. They’re still the only game in town when it comes to banking, savings, payments and global reserves. 

Fake Threat #3 – A Chinese Invasion of Taiwan. There’s no doubt that Communist China considers Taiwan to be part of China. There’s also no doubt that China will pursue reunification with Taiwan as long as it takes. But that’s not the same as invading Taiwan and pushing the world to the brink of World War III. 

The Chinese military has grown, and their weapons technology has improved. But they are still no match for the U.S. in the event of an invasion. And the U.S. would not be alone. We could count on help from Japan, Australia and possibly India to resist the Chinese. 

Among other countermeasures, the U.S. would interdict all oil flows into China by blockading chokepoints such as the Straits of Malacca. The Chinese economy (and military) would grind to a halt within weeks. And the Chinese know it. The U.S. could also use air power and precision guided missiles to sink the Chinese invasion fleet and to sink their entire navy within days. 

The more likely reunification scenario is that pro-mainland political parties in Taiwan will win elections and seek reunification on a negotiated basis. That’s not good for U.S. national security, but it’s not an invasion and it’s far from World War III. An even more likely scenario is that China collapses internally due to failures of the Chinese Communist Party leadership. That would be a huge win for the U.S. It would cause problems of its own but, again, it’s not an invasion scenario. 

So, the planet is not burning up, the dollar is not collapsing, and China is not invading Taiwan. 

Feel better? Hopefully you do. There are enough real dangers in the world. We should not spend time and effort worrying about the fake ones.