In Australia they have a term, “walkabout,” which at present means to take a short, occasional interruption from regular work. The term originated with the Aborigines and was the word applied to a rite of passage in which adolescent males went into the wilderness for as long as six months. On this spiritual journey-of-discovery, the young men would trace their ancestors’ pathways of life, called songlines. The young teens would reenact many of the heroic deeds attributed to these precursors. Continued to this day, the walkabout is misunderstood by the white employers who saw it as an “aboriginal thing” in which suddenly without notice, a young man would disappear, reappearing just as suddenly weeks later. To the Aboriginal youth, it was an important spiritual matter for which his employer, from his lack of understanding, would not grant a leave of absence, so they just left when the need came upon them.

In a recent article in The Sovereign Society’s Offshore Letter, guest writer Chuck Dolce equated the practices of the Federal Reserve, our central bank, to those of The Godfather, Vito Corleone, whom he quoted, “Give this job to Clemenza. I want reliable people, people who aren't going to be carried away. I mean, we're not murderers, in spite of what this undertaker thinks...” - Vito Corleone. It is Dolce’s contention that our banking system operated much like Mafia loan-sharking.

The American Bankers Association had assembled at a convention in 1923 and hired humorist, Will Rogers, to give a keynote address to the assemblage. Noting the scandals that had riddled the banking industry over the previous two years, Rogers began his delivery with, “You have a wonderful organization. I understand you have ten thousand folks here. And, if you count the ones in the various federal prisons, it brings your total membership up to around thirty thousand.” Much like in the twenties, the present day financial woes can be at least partially attributed to the easy credit, high limits and greed within our financial industry.

Bargains, bargains everywhere. Headlines in newspapers, on advertisements and across the tops of industry newsletters extol the plethora of bargains available on nearly everything imaginable; Real estate, classic automobiles, jewelry, electronics, hey, even Omaha Steaks are 50% off! One headline announced that baseball Hall-of-Famer, Len Dykstra, just lost his house he had listed for $24.95 million. He had dropped the selling price by nearly $10 million, but it still didn’t sell and went into foreclosure. Another personality, music producer Scott Storch, lost his $7.5 million house to a bank who bought it at auction for $5.5mm.