Governments are not any longer in control of their national currencies and economies. They have opened the credit gates and are desperately inflating the money supply to keep the make-believe prosperity going. Business is moving off-shore away from national control. Markets are being rigged. Money has lost its intrinsic value. The American Dream has gone. Euroland has become an arena for internal bickering, mutual distrust and wide spread corruption. The US government has become a dead duck with lawyers having nothing better to do than picking on one another.

Ethics and morality should not light heartedly be dismissed as inflated properness. Ethics and morality are the heart and driving forces of a culture, of a civilization which have a community soul like any living being has its individual soul. If the "belief" in it erodes, its whole dies. If there is a "belief" in a fatherland, nationalism will prosper. If there is "belief" in a religion, the religion will bloom. It is the spirit-within which holds together. When people do not support any longer or belief any longer in their government, in the laws, ethics and morality, a civilization has seen its final days.

We gold bugs are not so much dreaming of owning gold for financial sake, although it would be nice, but we are hungry for gold to return and discipline the debauchery of fiat currency inclusive its unscrupulous promoters. To give people an anchor of freedom and an anchor for their savings and security. Get morality back into a decadent world. However I am afraid it is too late and that there is no recourse left for the West to recuperate its lost values. The rot has advanced too far.

That is history as it happens. But I do not feel cynical and down beaten as for every civilization dying a new one with new ideals will be born. This time however it will not be limited to only one specific group of people. This coming information civilization is going to engulf humanity as a whole. The global neuro webbing, the Internet, will bring it to fruition. For the first time ever has a force come into being which unites and not divides the world.

To understand the real meaning, the real impact of the Internet and the far reaching implications it is going to have, is a revelation. The Internet is not just something today's world thinks it will manage to adapt to its needs. No, the Internet will adapt the world to ITS structure. The Internet is a lightning fast growing neuro system wiring the whole planet, cutting through all national barriers, clustering people, economics and finance into new, totally different structures. That is the reason why national politics and specially national currencies are in crisis. People and business are losing faith in the old ways and are moving global. That is the reason governments cannot keep their countries together any longer. That is the reason Russia collapsed and China had to open up. That is the reason the non-governmental organizations or NGOs are mushrooming and becoming a political power. The old establishment is becoming decadent and shaky. A new order is going to shape the affairs of man. The Internet is going to affect every aspect of our daily lives, even the way we think. We are entering a new era for mankind, the era of the "Humapan" or pan-humanity.

The functioning of markets, as discussed earlier on, will change radically. There are already several automated trading systems installed for instance Nasdaq and the Hong Kong stock exchange. In how far they can be considered fair and level playing fields is still a question, especially after a few revelations about electronic commission settings taken advantage of by Nasdaq officials. But I do know from my time with our own telematics company, that it is feasible to design absolutely impartial electronic trading floors. We designed, for instance, a fully automatic system for a produce wholesale organization with 600 suppliers and 7000 clients. It included pairing offer and demand, electronic invoicing, contracts, commissions etc. We also designed a "Tour-Net" where any hotel or motel, any transport company, any tour operator, petrol station or tourist attraction, finance and insurance company could take part in. When I say "any" it means "any" and not like the majority of the present tourist pages on the web which have surrendered their pages to get established quickly to the big monopolies, the big airlines, the dominating hotel chains, the big four car rental companies and major credit card companies. Fortunately however it lies in the Internet's character transform these temporary measures with time into more broadly based solutions.

Like our own body functions are automatically regulated by hormones, the new global society will ask for automatic regulators and exchanges. Imagine if our stomachs, brain, and legs would fight between one another for their ration of blood with oxygen! Our bodies would not function. An integrating global society, a planetary bio-cell, will impose simplification, amalgamation and automation. Like the creation of a single global code of law and the ejection of the present Babylonian multi law confusion. Like the elimination of most human interference and tinkering with the markets and currency circulation.

However it is to be expected that there will be the greatest resistance from the old establishment to change. The metamorphose into the new age will not be smooth and rapid. It might even take one or two generations, but it will be irreversible.

There are great pioneering challenges to be met.

For the scholars of justice: the drafting of a global code of law. For the software developers, the Internet service providers and commerce: the design of markets with equal playing fields. For the social minded: the bringing together of the NGOs in global context under one umbrella and the laying of the cornerstone for a directly elected global Peoples' Forum.

And for Internet financiers and gold (-eagle) bugs: the creation of an incorruptible currency based on precious metals through PRIVATE INITIATIVE. It is simpler and more feasible than might seem at first sight.

Hans Schicht
Lake Chapala, Mexico
7 July 1999