MEDIA ROOTS — As U.S.A. comes to grips with a severe financial hangover, its economy will adapt to meet the peoples’ needs.  After 30 years of easy credit, subprime mortgages, zero interest loans, and binge spending, the economy has imploded.  The wizards of Wall Street continue casting spells and weaving their magic, as the corporate media rattles on about the wizards’ omnipotence like a rickety player piano. 

Meanwhile, back in the world of reality, some are beginning to realize the necessity of more contemporary ways of doing business.  Decreasing wages, increasing taxes for workers, stifling regulations, and a mortally wounded economy are all forcing people to do business a different way.  If current conditions continue, ‘black markets‘ will emerge, giving local economies an IV to keep them stable.

The global Black Market has already surpassed $1 trillion in sales.  The United States alone already accounts for more than $600 billion, almost three times the nearest competitor- China.  U.S. workers, seeing that the economy for the ‘99%’ is still toxic, are doing an end around to oppressive, financial restraints and austerity imposed by the government and Wall Street.  When times become too financially difficult and unbearable in the face of financial repression (think Prohibition and the War on Drugs) black markets spring up like mushrooms after a morning dew.  The economic intrusions of a government gone haywire include repression of raw milk sales, tracking gold and silver purchases over $600, the IRS considering taxing barter exchanges, and the FDA claiming jurisdiction over personal gardens.  Citizens are creating new economic systems which serve their own interests outside of corporate, monopolistic, centralized markets.

The ‘1%’ fear decentralized markets because money and profits they’ve pillaged will be siphoned away from them and they will be effectively locked out of large monetary streams.  Citizens who desire to create their own system, a system which benefits them, will move more and more to localized markets, increased reliance on localized products, and utilization of informal, non-mainstream business networks.  The status quo will viciously fight back against such developments, as new economic alternatives threaten their carefully orchestrated system of financially slavery they have created.  We must learn to reject this malevolent system and embrace the concept of black markets.  Black markets are simply unsanctioned trade dynamics. 

Black markets can be beneficial to most U.S. workers and advantageous in a number of ways.  For starters, no taxes are paid by the participants, and more goods may become available, which normally aren’t.  In times of economic duress, participation in a black market makes a revolutionary statement.  U.S.A. seems to be undergoing a bout of history repeating itself.  The Boston Tea Party and the Whiskey Rebellion gave U.S.A. the first taste of resistance to economic bullying.  However, we’ve forgotten that lesson for a long time.  After a nasty bout of binge-drinking easy credit and free money, the hangover it’s left us with is bringing us back to our roots.

Adam Miezio

***

ALT-MARKET — As Americans, we live in two worlds; the world of mainstream fantasy, and the world of day-to-day reality right outside our front doors.  One disappears the moment we shut off our television.  The other, does not… 

When dealing with the economy, it is the foundation blocks that remain when the proverbial house of cards flutters away in the wind, and these basic roots are what we should be most concerned about.  While much of what we see in terms of economic news is awash in a sticky gray cloud of disinformation and uneducated opinion, there are still certain constants that we can always rely on to give us a sense of our general financial environment.  Two of these constants are supply and demand.  Central banks like the private Federal Reserve may have the ability to flood markets with fiat liquidity to skew indexes and stocks, and our government certainly has the ability to interpret employment numbers in such a way as to paint the rosiest picture possible, but ultimately, these entities cannot artificially manipulate the public into a state of demand when they are, for all intents and purposes, dead broke. 

In contrast, the establishment does have the ability to make specific demands or necessities illegal to possess, and can even attempt to restrict their supply.  Though, in most cases this leads not to the control they seek, but a sudden and sharp loss of regulation through the growth of covert trade.  The people need what the people need, and no government, no matter how titanic, can stop them from getting these commodities when demand is strong enough.

This process of removing necessary or desirable items from a trade environment leads inevitably to counter-prohibition often in the form of strict cash transactions, barter markets, or “black markets” as they are normally derided by those in power.  The problem for economic totalitarians is that the harder they squeeze the masses, the more intricate the rebellion becomes, especially when all they want is to participate in free markets the way our forefathers intended.

Read more about America’s burgeoning black markets.

© 2012 Alt-Market.com

***

Photo by flickr user Refracted Moments