One-world government. Social credit scores. You will own nothing and be happy.
At first glance, these sound like conspiracy theories. A vast right-wing conspiracy, if you will.
But the aforementioned things weren't devised by conservatives or right-wingers. Rather, heads of government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and corporations want us to relinquish our possessions and surrender our freedoms to them.
A “new financial world order” is on the horizon, argues Carol Roth. She’s the author of the new book, You Will Own Nothing: Your War with a New Financial World Order and How to Fight Back.
Her title derives from the viral World Economic Forum videowishcasting eight predictions by 2030–including the Orwellian-sounding “You will own nothing. And you’ll be happy.”
Due to massive backlash, WEF conveniently made it disappear. The video was a complement to a 2016 WEF essay by Danish politician Ida Auken. Like the video, it’s been archived. Yet, the Wayback Machine still retains Auken’s essay, titled, “Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better.”
Roth warns even President Joe Biden is committed to the war on ownership. He told the Business Roundtable in 2022 that “things are shifting…there’s going to be a new world order out there, and we’ve got to lead it. And we’ve got to unite the rest of the free world in doing it.”
“The US economy has been rigged as it has been moved further away from free market capitalism to a cronyist nightmare wherein central planners and big companies work together to consolidate power,” the commentator writes.
Among the many issues profiled in the book, I’ll specifically focus on three topics given their timeliness: the coming U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC); the all-pervading environmental, social, and governance (ESG) movement; and the alarming corporate buyer trend threatening first-time home ownership.
“The stability—or lack thereof—of the US dollar is at the center of the new financial world order and your financial opportunities,” she wrote.
But digital currency like Bitcoin, she warns, isn’t immune either–especially if central planners get their way.
In March 2022, the Biden administration issued an executive order to study the viability of a U.S. CBDC. Last September, the White House said it produced the “first whole-of-government approach to addressing the risks and harnessing the potential benefits of digital assets and their underlying technology” – including a CBDC.
As recently as March 2023, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said only Congress can authorize a CBDC. But the results of a recent New York Federal Reserve “proof-of-stake” pilot program, published this month, might invite regulators to weigh in.
"From a central banking perspective, the proof of concept was conducive to exploring tokenized regulated deposits and understanding the potential functional benefits of central bank and commercial bank digital money operating together on a shared ledger," said Per von Zelowitz, Director of the New York Innovation Center.
Like CDBCs, ESG investing and the associated movement are geared towards stripping people of ownership.
Carol explains, “It is somewhat difficult to explain what ESG is because it shifts and changes around a moral code dictated by a relatively small number of people without specificity. This shifting is deliberate so ESG can serve the elites’ whims as their ideas and priorities shift.
She skewers ESG for delivering low returns-on-investments (ROI), perpetuating green-flation in the form of higher energy prices, and distorting free-market enterprise by aggressively forcing behaviors on consumers. Its backers aren’t altruistic either: ESG, she argues, is simply a return on ego (ROE) for its ardent proponents, not a wise return-on-investment (ROI) for regular people.
ESG investing is potentially an antitrust violation and even its most stalwart backers are renouncing the acronym. And backlash from within corporate boardrooms could soon doom the movement.
The TV commentator also exposed the nefarious attack on home ownership by crony corporate buyers - namely the likes of Tricon Residential - who desire homebuyers to, instead, “rent the American dream.”
Firms like Tricon can heavily outbid first-time home (often Millennial) homebuyers, she notes, because they are “flush with Fed-enabled cheap capital and who can waive a whole host of purchasing requirements, including inspections or even viewing a home.”
Americans should still aspire for home ownership, not perpetual renter-dom.
Roth not only warned about the “new financial world order’s” goal of separating us from property rights, money, wealth, and general freedoms, but also against those arguing “individual rights are substituted with “common good”--a popular refrain often uttered by national (or “common good”) conservatives.
Compelling, thoroughly-researched, and eye-opening, I learned a lot of new things reading this book. You will too.
Americans underestimate corporatists and central planners at our own peril. But their efforts aren't going unnoticed—especially by Roth.
“You Will Own Nothing” is a great successor to The War on Small Business, which I profiled here at Townhall two years ago. Some won't want you to read this. Don't give them that satisfaction.
Get Carol Roth’s latest here.