The Year of the Iron Ox
Looking into the Void: This year the Aquarius new moon, which marks the start of the lunar New Year, takes place in the Chinese lunar mansion called ‘The Void’…
…which in general is considered to be unlucky. The Jupiter ‘station’, as it is called (where the ‘Year Star’ – Jupiter – is located) for this year is called ‘Nu’, the ‘Weaving Maiden’. It, too, is considered to be unlucky. Venus (the Metal Star) and Mercury (the Water Star) are also in Nu, “presaging disputes and quarrels among the family”[i] Applied to foreign relations, this is not difficult to see. Biden has already called both Putin and Xi and laid out his tough line about the various domestic issues within those nations with which the United States takes issue. He has also issued what are essentially empty threats about a tough stand on territorial issues. This year will be a double-blind year (having no li chun), too, which is generally seen to be unfavorable, meaning plans will be more difficult to push forward.
There was a very interesting prognostication from the ancient Chinese Imperial astrology regarding the Jupiter/Saturn Great Conjunction, setting the tone for this year, which we had last year at the Capricorn solstice: “When the Wood Planet (Jupiter) is in conjunction with the Earth Planet (Saturn) there are interior problems (i.e. problems within the State) and famines. The leader will wage war unexpectedly and will be vanquished.”[ii] Well, this is what we saw with the United States at the time, with long queues for food, with Trump being vanquished, with internal turmoil, talk of civil war and a riot at the Capitol. The conjunction took place in the lunar mansion ‘Tou’, the ‘Southern Ladle’, a.k.a. the ‘Head of the Tortoise’, since it is the 1st lunar mansion in the quadrant of the Black Warrior (Tortoise), the northern quadrant. This is the ladle shape we see in the constellation of Sagittarius.
Tou is said to be very fortunate,[iii] though, and for the US, it may turn out to be so, or perhaps not. Time will tell. But, that lunar mansion is in the 2nd house for the US (finances) and now we are seeing relief measures being pushed through Congress, much to the consternation of Republicans – karma, we might say. Biden is not repeating Obama’s mistake of not taking advantage of having a full sweep of a Democratic-controlled House, Senate and Executive. For the East, the conjunction followed the more positive indicators for the Great Conjunction and Tou, and solidified its gains, with the RCEP, closer cooperation between China and Russia, and the ASEAN nations generally having a little economic growth during 2020 in spite of disruptions to trade and economies. We also saw the deposing of another leader, in Myanmar, which also has Tou in its 2nd house.
For the West, the lunar New Year began while still in the Iron Rat year, meaning decisions are still to be made about how to move forward. This harks back to what was described earlier about the tetragram for the Iron Ox year, in that this will be a year for gaining experience once decisions have been made. The lunar New Year for the East, including Oceania, began at 03:06 CST (UTC +8:00).
The general element count for the year is as follows:
Wood: 4 – Inventive, very creative, very artistic
Fire: 1 – Quiet, domestic
Earth: 4 – Expansive, bold
Metal: 3 – Sportive, astute
Water: 0 – Secretive, cautious, tentative
On the whole, then, this year will be quite creative for the East, expansive, bold and astute. The focus will be on domestic issues in the East, as we are seeing in Myanmar, and in China’s domestic policy. There are already bold plans in play in Russia to develop its far eastern territory, focusing on foreign investment and further engagement with China. Russia is moving rapidly now toward realizing its soul motto, “I link two ways”, and it is doing this firstly because it sees the EU these days as being incapable of keeping its agreements and as an unreliable partner and secondly because of Russia’s growing relationship with China, which is spurring her interest in developing its vast resources and infrastructure in her far east. As Pepe Escobar recently pointed out, for these reasons, Russia is driving the Western powers crazy. Russia is disengaging with the West, probably to return its attention when the Western nations have sorted through their growing problems.
The secretive side of the year, indicated by the lack of Water, will lie in efforts at regime change by the West towards our favorite ‘adversaries’. Overt conflict is not indicated this year to a great degree. That is likely to show next year and will be built up behind the scenes this year, as in rebuilding alliances that have suffered during the last four years, efforts at building blocs that can (the US hopes) push back against and stall China’s progress. And this brings us to why China is seen as Public Enemy #1 in the US. It is not because of any military threat. China has no interest in conquering nations militarily. Wherever the West loses influence, it is the Russians who step into the void, not the Chinese. Instead, it is the Chinese economic behemoth – economic competition, including technological advancement – that so threatens the economic dominance of the US. Added to this is the steady bypassing of the US SWIFT system and de-dollarization that a growing number of nations are starting to embrace, and we see why the propaganda against ‘belligerent nations’ is becoming so intense these days. The US is losing its dominance, and that simply cannot be tolerated by the regime in Washington, or their controlling oligarchy.
Given the growing animosity coming out of the Beltway, we can probably expect some sort of crisis next year. It will come probably in straits – the Taiwan Strait, the Strait of Hormuz, the Bosporus, or perhaps even the Bering Strait. These are economic and shipping choke points and have enormous strategic significance. China is beginning to ship more across the Arctic routes via the Bering Strait that Russia is developing, increasingly bypassing the Malacca Strait. The Strait of Hormuz will remain important because of the failure of the war in Yemen to open a pathway to the Red Sea for the shipment of oil. The Bosporus is the only transit route for the Russia Black Sea fleet into the Mediterranean. And if there are any attempts at independence for Taiwan or Western interests seeking to control the area, China has flatly stated there would be war in the Taiwan Strait. The latter is the most likely place possible for a major standoff between major powers, along the vein of the Cuban Missile Crisis we saw in 1962. The same remains true for the Strait of Hormuz, based in the 60-year cycle.
Reviewing last year’s forecast: In the forecast from last year we had the following:
- An important election in the US. Presidents elected in Metal Rat years have all died in office. We hope that is not the case this time, or maybe some people will, but it suggests that tensions within the US will be high. Two of those deaths were by assassination.
- Important treaties are signed, and important domestic legislation passed. (Civil Rights Act, Treaty of Waitangi, Panama Canal ceded to the US, Convention of London treaty, Treaty of the Hague, ICJ is founded at the Hague, OPEC is founded, torture banned in France)
- Important financial initiatives are implemented, and crashes occur (the gold standard is implemented, the South Sea bubble and market crash)
- Important rebellions are seen (Boxer rebellion, Gordon riots in England)
- Further setbacks for Turkey and crises in the Mediterranean (Oriental Crisis of 1840, the Damascus affair)
In order through the bullet points preceding, tensions in the US were indeed high, as we saw with the election partisanship, the Capitol riot, the plans to impeach Trump a second time and the Black Lives Matter riots. Important treaties were signed, as in the RCEP, the normalization process between Arab states and Israel, the UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, and the Brexit agreements with the EU. The major financial movement we saw was due to the pandemic, with the US very close to Great Depression troubles, but also experiments with national digital currencies. We also saw important rebellions, especially related to the national lockdowns and again, the BLM protests in the United States. And lastly, the Turks did see further setbacks this year, especially financially, and growing tensions with the United States. Where does this leave us?
It is clear, looking at the protests across the world, that economics will be a big focus in the year ahead. The Ox is endowed with financial acumen – the slow, steady process of building wealth and infrastructure. Both Biden and Trump in the US had vowed to rebuild American infrastructure. Boris Johnson in the UK had said the same for the UK. The Russians and Chinese are doing so, apace, while Europe’s infrastructure either stagnates or crumbles. Again, the failure of the West in the past two decades to address problems with infrastructure and economy goes back to the basic economic policy of Western nations and oligarchic control of finances and influence in national governments. This brings us to the economic changes that will be needed in order to rebuild all that lost or declining infrastructure and thus jobs and better prosperity for the West. It also brings us to our consideration of the so-called 4th Industrial Revolution and the WEF’s Great Reset.
What exactly is the WEF? It was founded on 24 Jan 1971, of interest the same year we saw a real economic reset – the Nixon Shock. This is the Davos crowd. Their annual meeting “brings together some 3,000 business leaders, international political leaders, economists, celebrities and journalists for up to five days to discuss global issues, across 500 sessions.” There are two items for thought here. Firstly, the Nixon Shock was a real great reset of world monetary policy. It was originally intended to reform the Bretton Woods system, but failed to do so, after which world currencies became fiat currencies, based on trust rather than real value. Then, looking at the quote preceding, we see it is essentially a think tank, and a corporate think tank at that. Its members/funders include 1,000 corporate entities with a turnover of $5 billion or more. Keep in mind, there were no banking crises during the Bretton Woods years (1945 – 1971). After the fiat currencies became the norm and trade barriers came down, we began to see bank failures and stock bubbles again along with the large-scale globalization of the world economy, which has had mixed results. But the one thing it has done, noticeably, has been to shift Western economies from being primarily industrial to being service economies. Industry and jobs got moved offshore, building infrastructure overseas and raising living standards in the developing world. For a while, globalization increased the wealth of Western nations, too, but since the 1990s we in the West have seen a definite tendency to stagnation, loss of services and less purchasing power. The WEF has played a role in that.
The biggest stakeholder in the WEF is the United States. Of the 3,000 attendees at the 2020 meeting, almost a quarter were from the US, followed in numbers by the UK, Switzerland, Germany and India. Russia does not attend to any great degree, nor does China. The main theme of the WEF is Western capitalism. The WEF is primarily an Atlanticist project. The ‘W’ in WEF might as well be rebranded and the organization called the ‘Western Economic Forum’. The main shtick the WEF is promoting these days is a concept they call ‘stakeholder capitalism’, which is yet another face to corporate capitalism and globalization. Stakeholder capitalism, like some of our governments, did not get a very good report card during the pandemic. Corporations are still guided by the whims of their shareholders, with profit as the bottom line The world doesn’t appear to be ready for a true Aquarian version of stakeholder capitalism, which would take in the concerns of all parties – communities, employees, shareholders, suppliers and so forth. Then, there is the Great Reset. From what I can see, Schwab’s idea of a Great Reset is a lot of wishful thinking instead of anything of real substance. The wider world will not accept it, and it is doubtful much of the Western public would accept it. We covered the topic in the Scorpio letter last year. Of Klaus Schwab and the WEF it has been said:
The influence of Schwab on world affairs is of course grossly overestimated. The WEF does not control its members and participants; however, it supports them, serves as a consensus machine and confronts them with societal issues like climate change and social inequity. Schwab co-authored a book published in July 2020 entitled ‘Covid-19: The Great Reset’. I’ve read this book and – to be honest – in the book I didn’t find anything that substantiates the Great Reset Conspiracy Theory. Schwab and his co-author, Thierry Malleret, simply voice their concern about the economical, political and societal impact of the virus. They warn for incremental measures and ad hoc fixes. They fear the climate and social crises will deepen and that measures taken to contain the virus will leave the world even less sustainable, less equal and more fragile. To prevent this from happening the authors call on the world community to put into motion a Great Reset.
“It’s about making the world less divisive, less polluting, less destructive, more inclusive, more equitable and fairer than we left it in the pre-pandemic era,” the authors clarify. In essence there’s nothing new here. Schwab has been expressing idealistic ideas like these for at least two decades now. Naomi Klein, a well-known WEF critic, describes The Great Reset as “a coronavirus-themed rebranding of all the things Davos does anyway, now hastily repackaged as a blueprint for reviving the global economy post-pandemic by seeking a better form of capitalism.” As editor Andrew Stuttaford of the National Review puts it: “COVID-19 is just the latest excuse for Schwab to renew his longstanding campaign to replace free market capitalism with stakeholder capitalism.”
There is no grand conspiracy in the Great Reset. The conspiracy is that there is a grand conspiracy. From the same article:
Some think that it refers to global financial elites and world leaders that planned the pandemic, deliberately letting loose a coronavirus to cause conditions that will allow a restructuring of the economy, the financial system, politics and society. They refer to the pandemic as a ‘plandemic’. Others refrain from any opinion about the cause of the pandemic and merely think the elites are just taking advantage of the virus. Many believe the main goal of the Great Reset is to take global control by instituting a totalitarian regime, and by extension, a so-called new world order. Such a regime would abolish personal ownership and property rights, send the military into cities, impose mandatory vaccination, and create isolation camps for people who resist.
I have another bridge for sale as well. The pandemic in all its inglorious presentations across society has been a mix of factors, human and environmental. We won’t know where it came from maybe for years, if ever, but prevailing investigations reveal it to be zoonotic (from animals). This type of virus has been studied for years in bio-labs across the world. Different cultures responded to the disease differently as to how they confronted the infection. Various naysaying experts, apparently not experts in virology, have been giving their opinions on it, some of them hawking their own ‘cures’ or treatments. A few of those may have merit. Not being a medico, I am not in any position to say, aside from exercising common sense. This goes back to a quote in the Aquarius letter regarding specialists, in that specialists could stand to be more open to new approaches and come down from their ivory towers, while alternative therapists need to stop saying they have ‘the cure’ or ‘the answer’ to this virus and look at what the medicos on the ground are doing. Then, there are moneyed interests, corporate and individual, who have their own vested interests in the medical system, as well as the establishment in each nation that is always slow to change. Our political leaders, too, are much like the general populace (from which they come, after all), some of whom embrace some of the theories in the previous quoted paragraph and others who will follow the advice of professional physicians and scientific experts. And finally, there are the oligarchs (the 0.01%) behind the scenes who have made certain their interests have been looked after via their influence over political leaders and the media. There is not any one monolithic ‘Cabal’ running the show hoping for a one-world order. If there were, they are being increasingly disappointed, which we will get to shortly.
Reading the riot act: In closing out the consideration of the WEF, Vladimir Putin (speech transcript) and Xi Jinping (transcript) both addressed the latest virtual Davos crowd. Their message was plain enough. They spoke of multilateralism as the way forward instead of hegemony. The West can try to go ahead with their reset, but the greater part of Asia will not be participating. And no, China does not wield influence over the WEF. The WEF has tried to pull them into their orbit over the years, but without much success. Both China and Russia have state control over their essential infrastructure, are mixed economies, and having watched the West for years, want no part of our system. In fact, Sergei Lavrov has just told the EU if they want to slap more sanctions on key sectors of the Russian economy, they can all jump off the Kerch Strait Bridge. The German Foreign Minister is ‘disconcerted’ over Lavrov’s remarks in a marked moment of cognitive dissonance.
Putin’s speech was even more pointed than Xi’s, rivalling his 2007 Munich speech. The attendees sniggered at him in 2007, thinking Russia to be weak. They aren’t laughing now. After his Davos speech 80 of the attendees at the virtual meeting immediately signed up for private conferences with Putin, realizing the direction the world is headed. As well, Xi’s speech has been misinterpreted as aligning with Schwab’s ideas. Instead, Xi emphasized multilateralism, much as did Putin, in solutions to our pressing challenges – in other words, working from a place of consultation, embracing differences instead of challenging them: “To beggar thy neighbor, to go it alone, and to slip into arrogant isolation will always fail.” In a word, forget the Great Reset. There is a growing groundswell against it worldwide, and Asia-centered nations are actively going their own way, a way about which the Global South is taking notice and increasingly embracing. This brings us to consider the year ahead.
The outlook for 2021: Looking back at the common themes for Iron Ox years and starting with epidemics, we will see intensifying efforts to nail down where the COVID-19 virus originated. A new study has found variants of the COVID-19 virus in bats and pangolins from across East Asia, specifically in Japan, Thailand and China. The latest news out of Wuhan, where a WHO team has been conducting investigations, has largely ruled out the theory of a lab leak causing the outbreak in China. A very similar virus has been found in horseshoe bats from Cambodia, captured in 2010, which throws another interesting twist into theories and investigations. These other findings point to why virologists keep insisting the virus is zoonotic in origin instead of being manmade. If the Cambodia find proves to be a root variant of the current virus variants, then it will add weight to the current theory that the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has been with us for some time and has mutated naturally over time. The search for the index patient (‘Patient Zero’) continues, while suspicions about and accusations against China will continue unabated. That was amply illustrated in the latest NY Times piece saying the Chinese refused to hand over important data from the Wuhan investigation over the last month, when in fact two of the scientists on that team quoted in the Times article have refuted the Times’ claims, saying in fact the Chinese had been quite open and frank with the team. It is yet another example of narrative-steering against China.
Moving to East-West tensions, the British have decided in their wisdom to send a carrier flagship to the Taiwan Strait ‘to ensure freedom of navigation’ and to counter “Beijing’s ‘increasingly threatening and aggressive’ behaviour towards the island of Taiwan. The US has sent a carrier group into the area as well. The leadership in Taiwan do themselves no favors by inviting Western intervention in what Beijing sees as an internal matter. It would appear that the One-China policy is about to be scrapped. The United States is now particularly hawkish on China, with an anonymous official having just published a piece called ‘the longer telegram’, which is little more than regurgitated wishful thinking and at worst, a recipe for disaster. Taiwan has decided it has the leverage to force nations to concede policy due to its singular position as the nation that can produce the highest-end silicon chips, and has outlined a plan to build such a factory in Arizona. The US is of course happy to oblige. But it sets a dangerous precedent. China has flatly stated that any moves toward independence by Taiwan will be met with immediate invasion by China. It would be a last resort.
But the window on the West being able to coerce any change in mainland China and to secure Taiwan’s tech against Chinese equivalency is fast disappearing. China is pouring billions into building the capacity to equal Taiwan’s chip-making abilities, though it would take close to a decade to do so. No doubt, China will soon succeed. This has the US very worried, because China’s independence in that area marks a major strategic defeat for the US, in that it loses a significant leverage in trade relations with China and opens yet another market – a big one – for Chinese manufacturing and influence, not to mention home-grown chips that will not have Western backdoors in-built. This would represent a significant security hurdle for the Western powers to overcome. Such an outcome lies into the near-future, but it outlines a tech race that has military implications for Taiwan and increases tensions across the Strait. The outcome of any war over Taiwan is a foregone conclusion – Taiwan would be reabsorbed into China. There is no way feasible for Taiwan to be defended against China, for reasons outlined in the Capricorn letter (the section, “War, Anyone?”). The Chinese would rather do so via trade and cross-cultural exchange, thus ending an old cultural schism and ending the Chinese civil war, which has not really ended. But as has been the norm for over a century, the West would rather see China under the Western thumb. This year will mark a profound change in East-West relations due to US/UK intransigence over China. The conflict is economic. Then, there is the Russian bear that the West would also like to see cowed.
Looking from the outside in, one has to wonder if the neoliberals in Washington and the technocrats in Brussels are either stupid, insane or both when it comes to Russia. (See the latest Russia sitrep.) Considered opinion from the States affirms that most members of Congress are just stupid when it comes to foreign policy. Who decides policy in Washington, which also carries on into Europe, Japan and Australia? An interview a couple of years ago with Col. Larry Wilkerson gave us some answers, in that it is really America’s oligarchy that pushes US foreign policy. It was very easy to see with Trump, whose biggest donor was Sheldon Adelson and who pushed Trump in his Middle East policy. It is less obvious with Biden, but oligarchic influence still holds true, and the oligarchy controls Western media, which is also largely centered in the US when it comes to foreign policy. The legacy of American dominance in Europe and Japan since WWII is still powerful, though cracks have begun to appear.
To put the recent statement of Lavrov in context, mentioned before, the EU wants to put additional sanctions on Russia over Navalny’s supposed poisoning and the recent crackdown in Russia over protests calling for Navalny’s release. This story will give an example of how ‘evidence’ is fabricated against alleged adversaries. Firstly, there have been violent crackdowns over the past couple of years in Western Europe and the US over numerous protests. The gilets jaunes protests in France have drawn heavy criticism for the violent suppression methods used by police. Granted, there have been provocateurs on the yellow vests’ side, too. But protesters have been severely injured, lost eyes and even been killed by police. The Russians prepared a video of police violence in Western nations against protesters. In Russia, police methods were comparatively tame at the recent protests. There were stories about how police harassed and ‘targeted’ (feel the propaganda hook?) schoolchildren at the protests, while neglecting to mention that those children were egged on to go to the protests via social media, while it is illegal for minors to go to such protests in Russia.
The calls by Western media and governments for Navalny’s release ring with hypocrisy, while Assange rots in Belmarsh, for instance. Navalny is no hero. He is not even an opposition figure of any significance in Russia. He is certainly not a prisoner of conscience. An Assange, Mandela or Manning he is not. He is, in the real world, a convicted fraudster and purported CIA operative who skipped bail, having spent months living lavishly in Berlin while he recuperated, supported by a Russian neoliberal oligarch. He is Russia’s equivalent to Juan Guaidò. The protests have gone, at least for now. Navalny will be gone for the next few years, now enjoying his accommodation in one of Russia’s notorious (the emotional propaganda hook, again) prisons. Navalny barely registers on most Russians’ concerns, yet to hear the Western press, he is a major figure in Russia and a real threat to Putin. Bridges, anyone?
In fact, the Trump administration had been harder on Russia than any administration since the end of the Cold War, putting the lie to the story that Trump was ‘Putin’s puppet’. That looks likely to continue under Biden. So, while the Europeans look to be intent on further alienating Russia, under baseless claims, the Biden administration, via the US-led NATO, and under the guise of supporting the Ukraine militarily has added more fuel to the fire. In a recent meeting between Jens Stoltenberg and Ukrainian PM Denys Shymhal, both men at a press conference were upbeat about the Ukraine joining the NATO. If it happens, it will be the NATO road to perdition, as mentioned in a recent editorial. Keep in mind, the Russians lost around 25 million people fighting the Nazis in WWII, and now the NATO wants to include the Ukraine, which has a very significant neo-Nazi contingent and is strongly anti-Russian in the Western half of that nation. Russia will not take kindly to the Ukraine being a NATO member. The Ukraine is a red line for the Russians, much as Taiwan is for China. Georgia (the nation, not the state) is of the same nature of red line for Russia. Unfortunately, predictions from many commentators on foreign policy regarding the Biden administration are starting to appear true, in that this administration will be more hostile toward Russia and will continue the same foreign policies as the Trump administration, just with a rainbow face.
Then, there is Iran. There was excited talk before the election in the US about Biden taking the US back into the JCPOA. That will not be happening now, since Biden has declared Iran must stop enriching uranium before there will be any talk of dropping the sanctions. Enrichment will continue. Biden looks to be continuing the same failed policy of maximum pressure against Iran that previous administrations have tried, and which has failed to produce any change in the Iranian state – this, after 40 years. US leadership has a real problem with history and learning from it, as Wilkerson stated in a previously linked interview. The Europeans are starting to fall in line behind Washington, saying it is Iran who is making diplomacy more difficult. The solution is very simple. Washington must re-enter the deal, since it left unilaterally. But the hubris in Washington is such that to re-enter without Iran stopping enrichment is seen as weakness on the part of the Beltway. We may well see a repeat, but in another area of the world, of what we saw in 1962 (following our 60-year cycle) of the Cuban missile crisis. This brings us to the last point regarding a forecast based on past Iron Ox years – turmoil in the United States.
Two separate commentators have voiced the same concept but in different ways regarding US foreign policy. One of those commentators was Wilkerson, who called American policy one of ‘scramble’ as opposed to ‘blueprint’. The other was by Sharmine Narwani, who put the matter in terms of efficiency. Both said the same thing, which is the Asian powers – namely the three main ‘adversaries’ in Washington’s books – have efficiency and a blueprint, a clear vision ahead for the future. The US and Western powers instead use ‘scramble’ and are inefficient. That ‘inefficiency’ applies also to the Gulf kingdoms and Israel. The basic meaning here is that the Asian powers will prevail in the long term. They have a clear plan, they act steadily in realizing it, and they are efficient in doing so. The results speak for themselves. The other powers, conversely, are adept at sowing discord and are reactive to the long-term plans of the other Asian powers. The West scrambles to keep its dominance, all the while its problems increase. The Asian nations, aside from India, show increasing stability. Iran is a strong, stable regional power, much as we are told otherwise. If events continue as they have been, it will remain the main regional power into the future. Both China and Russia view Iran in several respects as a reliable partner, as in keeping terrorism off their doorsteps, as an energy supplier, as a strong ally against Western meddling and encroachment and as a stabilizing force in the region. This is the view from outside the West. It is also increasingly the view among the Gulf States. Only Israel refuses to see Iran in any positive light.
All that said, a rather concerning development is that tensions with all three nations are being increased, mainly by Washington, the UK and Israel, which may lead us into dire straits, pun intended, as in the Malacca Straits, the Strait of Hormuz, the Bab el Mandab Strait, the Bosporus, the Taiwan Strait, the Kerch Strait and maybe even the Bering Strait, as mentioned before. All of these areas are growing world hot spots and need to be watched carefully. We can be certain that as the propaganda rises, there will be a focus on one of those areas. I don’t really expect anything this year in those places, but planning, as in ‘Iron Ox’ planning, is going on this year, to be executed in the next year, the Year of the Black Tiger.
Ending here with the United States, which we will address more in another letter, do we expect turmoil there? It probably goes without saying, but yes. There will be restiveness in the US. And foreign adversaries are just the ticket to distract from internal problems. Wealth inequality, lack of public support, cuts to social programs, cuts to regulations, lack of internal revenue, plummeting educational standards, racial and minority issues, immigration issues, environmental issues to address, corruption in government, the liberal stranglehold on the public narrative, lack of universal health care, political polarization, the tech behemoths (which we will address elsewhere), media manipulation and misinformation, the steadily surging surveillance state – why would there be any restlessness or need for change? Facetiousness aside, Biden would do well to focus solely on internal challenges rather than seeking to enforce a dying agenda overseas. It would be better for the US to let its empire collapse. That is my opinion, true, but it is shared by many.
The American empire can collapse by slow attrition or by a spectacular event that really drives the aforementioned issues home and causes a much needed introspection for Americans, saying that as an American. I fully expect the latter, and it can come in any of a number of ways – like a natural disaster, a major military defeat, a financial collapse that requires pulling and pooling efforts back home, a significant enough number of the international community finally saying enough is enough or civil unrest of the type we saw rising 60 years ago, or perhaps a combination of the above. It is not that I wish for calamity. I don’t. We just need smart people to come to positions of leadership and show the common sense that many Americans do actually have, believe it or not. It only takes a significant minority, focused and with a plan, to effect the needed changes. And it usually takes a crisis to bring those people forward.
As we move toward 2025 – there’s that year again – if there is to be a softer rhythm after than point without much augmentation, then we don’t have much time to affect it. We see that our world is at a turning point, which is clear enough, and that our economics of the past 40 years are failing us, at least in the West. With America’s Pluto return coming next year, and in the US 2nd house, financial reform is on the way. And for those readers who were disappointed with Trump’s acquittal on impeachment charges, that event signals a split in the Republican Party, the one that has primarily led our financial woes in the last decades, meaning they will not be the once formidable political bloc they have been. Hope springs eternal. The Democrats have followed suit, too, with the economics of the Republicans. Politics in the US is about to see a major shakeup. And if the recent Game Stop event gives an indication, the oligarchs in the US, also represented by Pluto have been shown that Americans are on to their game. Yes, change is coming to the US. Watch for it. Be ready for it.
Yes, the Iron Ox is a steadier expression than the Iron Rat, but that carries another meaning, too, as in there is planning going on behind the scenes to implement the directions chosen in the Iron Rat years. That is not always something to be welcomed, though it can be. In all, the Ox is steady, stable, persistent, creates momentum, has a plan and produces results. It is the slow, steady path that leads to success. Metal can cut, as well as bend and be used to create objects of great beauty. Yin Metal produces discourse, breathes life into plans (Yin Metal rules the lungs) and brings durability to the planning of the Ox. Big plans have been made in Iron Ox years. Kennedy started making plans to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. He announced that plan the next year and it eventually became a reality. Teddy Roosevelt famous big stick quote produced changes in US foreign policies at his trust-busting efforts. Famous first flights took place and started the races to conquer the air and later space. Yet, we need to be aware, too, where those plans in Iron Ox years will lead us. Will they lead us to peace and prosperity, or to war and penury? It is up to us to be aware and to lead as we make our own plans going forward. The Iron Ox can become the Golden Ox if we think outside our current narratives and limited thinking, and lead us onward to the heights of achievements. We need a change of climate in our thinking, going back to the motto of this Ox, all the while taking care and realizing that adequate precautions prevent future calamities. Happy New Year, All! May this Iron/Gold Ox brings us a more peaceful and prosperous future!
Featured pic from Needpix.com
[i] Walters, The Complete Guide to Chinese Astrology, London: Watkins Publishing (2006), p. 102
[ii] Ibid, p. 205
[iii] Ibid, p.99