Well, life is too short, so love the one you got, Cause you might get run over, or you might get shot. – Sublime
There’s no hedging the Apocalypse.
Bitcoin and Gold are no hedge against Nuclear War.
Annie Jacobsen wrote a terrifying book aptly named Nuclear War. Based on heaps of previously classified information, those in the know describe the United States’ plans for conducting a General Nuclear War.
In two words –We’re Screwed. If you don’t believe me, ask the presidential advisors, nuclear engineers, airmen, soldiers, emergency management experts, and intelligence analysts who contributed to the book.
Nine nations currently possess Nuclear Weapons. Russia and the U.S. own the most, with inventories of over 5,000 nuclear warheads. This capacity is enough to obliterate the planet several times over.
Source: U.S. Department of Defense
What makes this a tinderbox is the current launch on warning strategy.
Launch on warning enables America to propel its nuclear arsenal if the early warning systems detect an impending attack. Absorbing a first strike and consulting what to do next isn’t part of the playbook.
This policy is risky because false positives based on accidents, miscalculations, or computer malfunction are ever-present dangers.
Once a warhead blasts off, the decision is final. Presidents Bush, Obama, and Biden have all spoken about the horrifying possibilities of a Launch on Warning doctrine, but nothing has changed.
It gets worse. The President has only six minutes to decide on a nuclear response.
Ronald Reagan once commiserated: Six minutes to decide how to respond to a blip on a radar scope and decide whether to release Armageddon! How could anyone apply reason to a time like that?
Miscalculations aren’t a low-probability event. Over the last several decades, nuclear war almost commenced over a flock of swans and the moon rising over Norway because early warning radars misread these items as impending attacks. AI’s influence concerning the risks of nuclear war is undetermined, but it scares the hell out of Warren Buffet.
Nuclear submarines are the reason for the need for a six-minute decision to decide the planet’s fate.
If Washington were attacked by a Russian sub 621 miles from our coast, the time of flight would be less than seven minutes from launch to impact.
In another discomforting thought during a contentious election year, the President is the ONLY person with the authority to launch nuclear weapons: period, full stop. No permission is needed. Checks and balances need not apply.
Will our missile defenses will save us? Think Again. There’s no Iron Dome over the homeland.
We have 44 interceptor missiles, most of which reside in Alaska. Even though we have spent billions of dollars on the system, nine out of twenty interceptor missions have failed during tests. We would be defenseless if Russia or anyone else launched hundreds of warheads. The odds aren’t in our favor if only a few warheads are dispatched based on the low kill ratio of the defense system.
Our missile defense system is mostly for show, not efficacy.
At least FEMA will pick up the pieces for our surviving citizens. Not exactly.
FEMA’s policy in the aftermath is self-survival. Stock water and stay inside.
FEMA is the government entity assigned to prepare for nuclear war. Its special access programs are highly classified, hiding or obscuring a misperception. The truth is that there is no federal agency to help citizens survive a nuclear war. FEMA focuses on how to save specific government officials in the wake of a nuclear attack.
The Cavalry isn’t coming.
It gets much, much worse.
As Nikita Khrushchev once said about Nuclear War, The Survivors will envy the dead.
Radiation poisoning ranks up there as one of the worst ways to die.
I’ll save you from all the gory details of an autopsy of a radiation victim with this exception: radiation destroys the tissue, separating one organ from the next. All the organs merged into one—the result- A Super Bowl of pain and misery.
We don’t need to go into the nuclear winter, which new studies find could last a decade. No sun for ten years means no food unless eating your underground bunker mates appeals to your taste buds.
Once Earth thaws, it’s still unsafe to go above ground. The pulverized Ozone layer won’t prevent ultraviolet rays from becoming the new killing machine.
The good news is that the Earth will eventually heal itself. The bad news is that it will take 25,000 years!
Why am I telling you this horrifying information?
Too many investors don’t understand that their most precious asset is time and continue to waste it worrying about issues beyond their control.
These include but aren’t limited to:
Parsing over the meaning of every word in a Fed statement
Freaking out over a few thousand jobs in a monthly report about an economy that employs well over a hundred million workers.
Going Apopleptic over a couple of pennies miss in a company’s quarterly earnings report.
Obsessing over impossible to predict market and interest rate calls.
Pledging loyalties to mercenary politicians because you think they will help your portfolio.
Constantly checking your portfolio as if a million dollars will suddenly appear.
If you insist on worrying, why not focus on the Handmaidens of the Apocalypse? Have at it and go full throttle.
Better yet, Ditch worrying and appreciating what you have rather than focusing on what you want.
We’ll always be 6 minutes away from the end of life as we know it. Don’t waste a precious second vexing over nonsense.
Start by choosing sanity in an often insane world.
