“We have to pierce the tunnels of loneliness with the conviction that there are other people, and one has to trust that one is led to them.”
~Thomas Meyer
In the 1st Quarter of 2018, Robert Dupper and I decided to take a road trip from the Netherlands to Basel to film a discussion with Thomas Meyer on The Future of Europe. This discussion was one of the first throughout the year that explored the importance of culture. After discussing Chartres and the great cathedrals of France, I asked Thomas how people who are intent on preserving our culture and a human civilization can find each other. He then said something that inspired numerous subscribers to reach beyond their normal networks and connect with one another throughout the year: “We have to pierce the tunnels of loneliness with the conviction that there are other people, and one has to trust that one is led to them.”
This was a year of breakthroughs—of finding each other, of new doors opening, and of worlds emerging as we connected.
The year 2018 began with me writing The State of Our Pension Funds for the 2017 Annual Wrap Up with the very capable assistance of Jason Worth. If trillions of dollars are going missing through the federal credit mechanism, it is important to understand where that money has been coming from—the primary source is U.S. pension funds. As the funding ratios on U.S. pension funds continue to fall—as they have done since 9/11—the day of reckoning moves closer. I wanted to make sure that when that day comes, citizens and retirees see the big picture of how their assets relate to the financial coup—sufficient to assert both legal and political rights. It’s hard to be opposed to things you are actually financing.
The 2017 Annual Wrap Up included my News Trends & Stories discussion with Dr. Joseph Farrell, organized with the formidable preparation of our News Trends & Stories editor, Brad Eddins. This process of tracking the deeper trends and analyzing the news on a quarterly basis is an essential source of ongoing insight about what is happening and where we are going.
While I was in the Netherlands during the 1st Quarter, we published our first episode of our Future Science Series by Ulrike Granögger: Muons and Neutrinos – Excitement and Excitation (see https://science.solari.com). Developments in science are often the most significant news of our time.
As we published Ulrike’s first presentation on neutrinos and The State of Our Pension Funds, the Solari website went down. The damage was so great that we decided to complete the new site we had been working on rather than repair the old. Thanks to all the subscribers who continued to support us during that time and great work by the Solari Team, we launched a new site a month or so later. The new site contained the most recent content. Throughout the remainder of the year, we continued to fill out a library with all the content from the initial solari.com launch. Subscribers now have access to a very rich archive of over 400 Solari Report interviews and thousands of posts and articles.
One of the needs I identified at the beginning of the year was the need for briefing papers regarding the laws that created and defined the U.S. federal credit—including both monetary and fiscal policy. Dr. Mark Skidmore had published his report on the missing money in the fall of 2017. We created a website (https://missingmoney.solari.com) for his report, the underlying documentation, and historical articles and other materials on the phenomenon of what is now $21 trillion of undocumentable adjustments in accounts at the Department of Defense and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. However, as Dr. Skidmore and I spoke with interested researchers and reporters, it became clear that they also needed to understand the legislative and legal history to make sense of what was happening. Explaining this history was an enormous task. Throughout the year, The Solari Report sponsored attorneys Michele Ferri and Jonathan Lurie in writing a series of seven briefing papers describing the legislative and legal history of the U.S. financial accounts, including one paper that specifically described FASAB 56 after the policy was issued in October 2018. This entailed an investment of resources throughout 2018 that was significant—but essential if a wider audience of investors and reporters are to understand what is happening in the United States, let alone turn things in a more positive direction.
As our new website launched, I headed to Sydney, Australia to spend time with Jason Bawden-Smith before our two events with forty remarkable Solari Report subscribers in Uluru and the Australian Outback. Jason’s encouragement and support made these two weeks possible, as did the organizational support provided by Trina Bawden-Smith. Ulrike joined us for the first week, as did Charles Gowing, a brilliant Australian subscriber who continues to help me understand the Space-Based Economy, the theme for our 1st Quarter 2018 Wrap Up. Richard Dolan was our lead speaker and was joined by his wife Tracey Garbutt Dolan—indeed, they had a wedding ceremony overlooking Uluru in the first week!
One of the defining events of my year was standing atop the Attila rock formation—thanks to a helicopter ride to the top arranged by Jason. As I wrote in the 2nd Quarter 2018 Wrap Up, “For as long as I live, when I look back at my time in the 2nd Quarter of 2018, I will be standing on the top of Attila in the Australian Outback. I will feel the long sweep of human destiny across many centuries and among many stars.”
Throughout this time, my attorney Carolyn Betts and another member of the Solari Team were doing an incredible job responding to a state audit of my investment advisory company. The increased costs of regulation were one of the reasons I decided to stop providing individual investment advice and focus on screens provided to other investment advisors.
From Australia, I traveled to New Zealand with Louis Boulanger who had joined us in Uluru and had arranged for me to speak in Auckland about the global financial system. While in Auckland, I had the opportunity to interview attorney and professor Amy Benjamin on secrecy—one of our most popular interviews of the year—and then hang out with Mary Evans at her marvelous Heron’s Flight vineyard on the North Island.
Heading back to the United States, I stopped in the San Francisco Bay Area to have a marvelous afternoon gathering with subscribers at Court Skinner’s home in East Palo Alto. Michele Ferri and Jonathan Lurie joined to brief us on the latest developments in net neutrality. We had spent a great deal of time ahead of the event trying to find a restaurant where we could have a lunch at a reasonable price. In the end, we gave up and decided it was time to shift subscriber events from sit-down meals to afternoon gatherings. This format allows for much richer discussions and networking by members. Unfortunately, we had a person trying to record the event, and the result was more serious terms and conditions for our events—designed primarily to protect our subscribers from the occasional interloper.
A wonderful development that resulted from our gathering in California was that I reconnected with Brigitte Mouchet, founder of Healoha, and invited her to launch the Solari Wellness Series (https://wellness.solari.com). After working with hundreds of families regarding their finances, I am convinced that wellness literacy can be a very important contributor to improved finances—not to mention a free and inspired life! Consequently, I wanted someone to host this topic on The Solari Report who had a specialized focus. I am very excited about Brigitte’s contributions over the last year.
After a number of serious Wrap Up themes, including Control 101, the State of Our Pension Funds, and the Space-Based Economy, I thought I would choose a lighter topic for the 2nd Quarter 2018 Wrap Up. What I discovered in the process of researching The Rise of the Asian Consumer was that many of our subscribers in Europe and North America did not understand the enormous shift of economic and political power to Asia that began with the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 and is ongoing to this day. As a result, I spent quite a hot summer in Europe finishing up what turned out to be one of our most important Wrap Ups to date.
Thanks to Thomas Meyer, I headed to Sofia in Bulgaria in July to join Thomas and his group at the Sofia Opera House to see Wagner’s The Ring. This was the first time I had seen the full cycle—it was an extraordinary experience. It was also on this occasion that Thomas defined “hypermaterialist”—capturing a phenomenon many of us are struggling with. The term refers to members of the human race for whom the concept of an immortal soul is inconceivable, whose reality is defined by corporate media, and who seem overly keen on the acquisition of “stuff.”
Next, I traveled to Romania, where two wonderful subscribers had arranged for Jason Bawden-Smith and myself to see Bucharest and some of the beautiful countryside in the Southern Carpathian mountains. Jason and I had a memorable afternoon and evening by the swimming pool watching Croatia and France compete in the World Cup games—it felt like all of Europe and much of the world were watching with us.
Following the time in Romania, I headed first to Zurich and then to Austria’s Bregenz Festival to hear beautiful music with Ulrike and colleague Nicole Paratte. Then off we went road tripping to see the cathedrals and monasteries of Europe, including four days at Chartres. Along the way, we watched The Wave Genome, Ulrike’s second episode for the Future Science Series—if you have not watched it, you must see it!
Alastair Thompson, publisher of Scoop Media who is now working in Europe, joined me in Chartres and off we went to Normandy and Brittany, including a day at Mont-Saint-Michel during the celebration of the Assumption of Mary in August.
Then I headed to southern France to join Vanessa Biard—entrepreneur, journalist, and political commentator. In the process, we visited the Salvador Dali museum in Figueres and the Cathar castles, road tripping from Perpignan to Toulouse. I then headed back to the Netherlands for more time in Stavoren, working with Robert Dupper.
Returning to Hickory Valley in early September, I headed by car to North Carolina, where I joined Dr. Skidmore and his wife Kate for a wonderful dinner with Greg and Betty Hunter. The Skidmores and I then headed to the Biltmore in Asheville for a wonderful lunch with subscribers who had traveled from around the region.
Some time in Hickory Valley gave me the opportunity to begin our 3rd Quarter 2018 Wrap Up: Megacities and the Growth of Global Real Estate Companies. I had wanted to invest research time in this topic for several years, and writing in the 2nd Quarter about growth in Asia made me realize that now was the time. Special thanks to Jason Worth for his excellent work on real estate company stocks in the Megacities Wrap Up as well as on space stocks in the earlier 1st Quarter 2018 Wrap Up.
I next headed back to the Netherlands to attend a workshop on the Book of Enoch taught by Ulrike—and to spend time with Jeroen van Straaten and Robert Dupper on their plans for Breakthrough Energy and Secret Space Program conferences. Stay tuned for exciting developments in Spring 2020. Then I headed to Switzerland to spend some time with Thomas Meyer and his family before returning to the United States. Thomas launched his first salon in Basel for subscribers of his magazines Der Europäer and The Present Age—it was a remarkable event.
Life is what happens when you were making other plans. I had not planned for the U.S. federal government to take itself and the majority of the U.S. securities market dark during 2019—but it did so when it adopted FASAB 56 in October. No one noticed, because coverage of the brutal assassination of a Washington Post reporter and the teenage sex stories of a Supreme Court Justice nominee was filling up digital screens and airways. In the meantime, the missing money story was experiencing an unprecedented level of “modified limited hangouts” and disinformation.
I decided to change the topic of the 2018 Annual Wrap Up to The Real Game of Missing Money. I set to work with attorney Carolyn Betts to write Caveat Emptor: Why Investors Need to Do Due Diligence on U.S. Treasury and Related Securities and to assemble the comprehensive document before you. This significantly increased the Solari Team’s workload and extended the publication deadline. That said, I believe it is essential that this material—and particularly the facts that citizens, pension fund beneficiaries and trustees, and investors need to assess their political and credit risk issues—be organized and published in hard copy.
Throughout the year, I had the help and support of numerous critical allies. These included The Saker, who joins me for quarterly Solari Reports on The Emerging Multipolar World, and Rambus, who provides technical analysis for our quarterly Equity Overviews as part of the financial section on each Annual and Quarterly Wrap Up.
Food for the Soul author Nina Heyn decided to emerge from her nom de plume “Your Culture Scout” and to celebrate the Year of da Vinci, the 500th anniversary of da Vinci’s passing, the “All the Rembrandts” exhibition, and other exhibitions celebrating the 350th anniversary of Rembrandt’s death by filming with Robert Dupper and me in Milan and Amsterdam during the 1st Quarter of 2019.
The year 2018 also marked several goodbyes. First, Harry Blazer, who has done an outstanding job on our Food Series as well as a two-part series on the Deep State, is moving on. We wish him the best of luck in his new venture. If you have not yet done so, make sure you check out the Food Series at https://food.solari.com——it will stand the test of time.
We also want to say farewell to Dr. Laura Thompson, who passed away in the 1st Quarter of 2019 after a long illness in 2018, and say prayers for her loving husband Jon Rappoport, who we chose as Solari Hero of the Year 2018.
One of the most significant collaborations of my life has been with Ben Lizardi of Lizardi Communications, who designs the Wrap Up covers and graphics and organizes the PDF and hard copies. Ben is a strategic genius on many topics—including communications—and has taught me as much about integrity as anyone I have ever worked with. Ben will be retiring in 2019. This 2018 Annual Wrap Up will be his last Wrap Up for The Solari Report. I cannot imagine life without Ben’s laughter and wise counsel. I am hoping we will stay in cahoots.
I am also grateful and excited that Robert Dupper will be assuming Ben’s responsibilities in addition to doing his usual brilliant production of our audio and video work.
We had many fine guests join us on The Solari Report during 2018. I want to thank them as well as our subscribers, who sent many great ideas and suggestions for guests, documentaries, stories, and books. Our subscribers’ comments, questions, recommendations, support, and connections with other subscribers have made this emerging intelligence network come alive to take on a life of its own.
I want to give a final nod to The Solari Report team. You did an incredible job under challenging circumstances, while juggling responsibilities of raising and caring for children and family members; staying immune to colds brought home by kids; working around mass shootings and local crime, wildfires, tornadoes, and floods; and managing high strangeness on our digital systems. These times call for extraordinary teamwork and inspired leadership. The Solari team did not disappoint! One reason we enjoy our work is that we appreciate how lucky we are to work for our subscribers.
On behalf of the entire Solari team, I wish you the joys of creation as we move into 2019—and a new chapter in our free and inspired life. As Thomas Meyer inspires us to do, let’s find one another on the road ahead.
~ Catherine Austin Fitts