Michael Nystrom is somebody who I consider a friend out there in cyberspace, who whether or not I agree with his conclusions I feel always brings his 'A' game with sincerity and thoughtfulness. Here, Michael discusses The New Golden Age - The Coming Revolution Against Political Corruption and Economic Chaos.

It is easy to go on autopilot and predict a coming economic and social Armageddon (there are 'Acquisitors' who make money keeping people gridlocked in fear just as there are those that perpetually serve up easy and ongoing bullish optimism) but it not so easy to envision the positive change that can eventually result from the painful process of social 'progress'. There is little doubt that as the "rich get richer" (inflation) and - speaking for we here in the US - the country becomes more angst ridden and divided both socio-economically and politically, we are in some sort of high energy transition. But the degree to which the general public is not yet fully aware or engaged implies that a soft revolution I would hope for is still out there on the horizon.

My point here is that the catalyst to my personal economic (and by extension, socioeconomic) awakening was a figurative 'crash' course in Economic Armageddon 101. I won't get into the details of the who's and what for's, but I was profoundly influenced by ideas of what could be possible for society if an 'accident' were to occur in a highly leveraged (understatement of the year) global financial system. It was a sort of bottoming out if you will. The kind of bottoming out that finds you with an extra wood stove, a generator and a rabid impulse to off as much debt as possible. It was almost like going from one day living a normal life as a good businessman (yeh okay, I fit 'Acquisitor' more closely than the others but I'll claim a little 'Warrior', 'Intellectual' and 'Laborer' as well - at least I hope some of each of those are in residence) and so-so trader to stepping into an express elevator and finding myself in the basement the next day, working my way back up. Conscious frame of reference was re-calibrated and that is where the website and eventually the blog came from. I had to do them. And hopefully they are one tiny part of the soft revolution now in its early stages for the US and an interconnected world. Ideas, as corny as it sounds, being expressed through the amazing resource of the internet. Michael Nystrom is a great example of somebody who is constantly pushing the idea envelope. There are many Nystroms out there and they are the hope of a better world to come.