A "palindrome" is a word which is the same spelled forwards or backwards. An example is "level" or "Hannah". When it comes to calendar years, you don't get "palindrome years" very often. The last one was only eleven years ago, in 1991. But the one before that was over a century ago, in 1881.
Many if not most people are already putting down 2001 as an extraordinary year. So it was, of course, on many different levels. The most defining moment of the year would undoubtedly be what happened on "nine one one". This was a terrorist attack, a very well planned and executed terrorist attack, which occurred on the soil of the continental United States. In this context, it must be pointed out that the attack on the WTC and the Pentagon was not the first such global atrocity of 2001. It must also be pointed out that terrorist attacks have been occurring regularly, many times a year, for decades. Nor was this the first terrorist attack on the continental U.S.. The WTC was bombed ten years ago. And, of course, one Timothy McVeigh was executed in 2001 for a terrorist attack on Oklahoma City carried out in April 1995.
But the response to THIS terrorist attack, the one which took place on September 11, 2001, would make an observer from another planet conclude that this was the first such atrocity which had ever been inflicted on innocent and unsuspecting people.
Horrendous as the attack was, and heroic as the response to it was amongst the men and women immediately affected by it, it is the enormity of the response to the attack which is making it so difficult to mount a rational examination of the WHOLE of the year just ended. But 2001 is now over. And no matter how traumatic or "apocalyptic" a year has been, at the end of it, the natural tendency is to stop looking back, and to look ahead to the year to come.
That is the danger that the global financial system faces as we enter 2002. In nations like Argentina, the focus is squarely on what is to come. The country is in a de-facto state of anarchy, with the resignation of the second president and cabinet in less than a month. Fully-fledged bank runs have now turned into the kind of upheaval which has many times in history been the precursor to revolution. And any such event in Argentina could not by any stretch of the imagination be prevented from spilling across her borders and affecting the rest of Latin America.
In Europe, the stage is set for the full-blown debut of a global reserve currency, the Euro. For more than two generations, since 1944, the U.S. Dollar has had this supreme financial role strictly to itself. The appearance of a "challenger" is an epochal event. So important, indeed, that it is being totally ignored by the U.S. media.
In Asia, the region is being slowly dragged under by Japan. Over the past two years, the Japanese stock market, already greatly depressed from its levels of the end of the 1980s, has lost almost 45% of its value. Now, Japanese government officials have gone on record as stating that they expect another downgrading of Japanese government debt paper from the main global "ratings agencies" early in the year. Such a downgrade would put sovereign Japanese debt paper in the "junk bond" category to the extent that large international institutional investors would be barred by their charters from holding it.
And then there is the U.S., where expectations of "economic recovery" have been maintained by brute force for nearly a year now. 2001 was the year of the rate cut. That cannot be repeated in 2002. The U.S. economy is "officially" in recession, and the Dow has just suffered its second losing year in a row, a phenomenon not seen since the dawn of the global fiat currency regime in 1973-74.
Global financial problems were worsening rapidly before "nine one one". They have been worsening even more rapidly since, as events in Latin America and in Japan make all too clear. Now, 2001 is over, and the potentially "once in a century" year of 2002 is about to begin.
Combine a major financial collapse in Argentina spreading throughout the region with a final biting of the "debt bullet" by Japan with the emergence of another CASH reserve currency in the Euro, and global financial "business as usual" will prove impossible in this new year.
Part of that global "business as usual" is, of course, the ongoing "cap" on the $US Gold price. That will also prove impossible to maintain in 2002. For those reading this page who really understand the historical role of Gold as money and who understand what has happened to "money" since Gold was forcibly removed from the system thirty years ago, 2002 is almost certain to be the year you have been waiting for.
Yes, there is a chance for profit. But much more important, there is a chance to re-establish the debate on what money is and why it is too important to be left to the whims of government. That is what The Privateer is REALLY looking forward to in 2002.
May we all have a very HAPPY NEW YEAR - stay tuned.