- David Webb, a former hedge fund investor, has written a book called “The Great Taking,” as well as filmed a documentary by the same name. His book and film detail how the Federal Reserve influences financial markets, and how its money creation has outpaced economic growth of the U.S., which is a huge red flag indicating that the velocity of money is collapsing
- Central bankers and other globalists have carefully planned the coordinated takedown of the financial system using highly sophisticated strategies, including the manipulation of derivative markets. Whatever securities you believe you may own, you’re not the actual owner of, and when the derivative markets collapse, everything can be taken from you
- While Webb’s work raises serious concerns, there are other more pressing issues that need our attention. Priority No. 1 is ensuring we have control over our financial transactions. We need to help state legislators to protect financial transaction freedom
- North Dakota has a sovereign state bank, and the Florida State Legislature is getting ready to introduce legislation for state banking in the state of Florida. All states need to do this, as it’s one of the primary ways to protect the financial freedom of all citizens
- Priority No. 2 is building and securing food freedom, and No. 3 is transparency and education. We need to educate people about the severity of what’s coming, so that we can, en masse, begin to make different choices
(Mercola)—The video above features repeat guest Catherine Austin Fitts, a finance expert, and founder and president of the Solari Report. She’s one of the wisest persons out there when it comes to understanding finances and how to protect your wealth in the face of this global wealth transfer.
We also discuss the work of David Webb,1 a former hedge fund investor and a good friend of Austin Fitts. He has written a book called “The Great Taking,” available for free as a PDF from thegreattaking.com, as well as a documentary by the same name, available on CHD.TV, Rumble and YouTube.
Webb’s book and film detail how the Federal Reserve influences financial markets, and how its money creation has outpaced economic growth of the U.S., which is a huge red flag indicating that the velocity of money (the rate at which money is circulating through the economy) is collapsing. In short, a major financial depression is at hand, and when it all falls apart, we will lose everything.
A Financial Coup Is Underway
Webb reveals how central bankers and other globalists have, for at least five decades or more, carefully planned the coordinated takedown of the financial system using highly sophisticated strategies, including the manipulation of derivative markets.
Whatever securities you believe you may own, you’re not the actual owner of, and when the derivative markets collapse, everything can be taken from you. At the end of it all, you truly will “own nothing,” as predicted/promised by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
But there’s more. In her annual wrap-up, Austin Fitts reviews what she calls “many great takings,” because Webb only describes one of them. Wealth is also being stolen from us in dozens of other ways, and we need to understand them all if we are to protect ourselves with any amount of success.
“My focus is hugely on remedies, not problems,” Austin Fitts says, “and when it comes to remedies, you want to make sure you sequence your remedies against the enemy’s various tactics. So, sequencing is very, very important when it comes to remedies.
The important thing to understand about the great taking is that the World Economic Forum has told you what they’re planning: It’s 2030 and you have no assets. So the question is, exactly how are they going to strip you of your assets?
What David is talking about is stripping you of your securities, but you need to worry about far more than just your securities. You need to worry about your bank, which he touches on and does a very good job of describing some of the history around banking. You have to worry about your real estate. You have to really worry about your precious metals and other currency alternatives.
You have to worry about your business and your local investments and then yes, you have to worry about your securities. David is focused on just securities, which is why we did this section called ‘The Great Taking’ that goes through everything.”
Top Three Priorities
While Webb’s work may raise serious concerns, there are other more pressing issues that need our attention. Priority No. 1, according to Austin Fitts, is ensuring we have control over our financial transactions. Her focus for 2024 is therefore to help state legislators in the U.S. to work with banks and citizens within its jurisdiction to protect financial transaction freedom.
“That’s where pushback is critical,” she says. “If they can get financial transaction control then they can take everything, and I mean, everything, including your children …
If you dive in and look at the terms and conditions that some of these payment gateways are asking for now … you’re giving them permission to go into your bank account and take everything. It’s frightening.
So, the No. 1 thing to remedy against is financial transaction control. If you go to Solari, we have something called a financial transaction freedom memo. Print it out and start looking at all the things you can do to protect yourself from somebody controlling your financial transactions.
If they get that, The Great Taking is on. They take everything — real estate, securities, everything. So first and foremost, don’t worry about your securities. Worry about your banking and your transactions.
The second Great Taking is … food and health. The push to control the food system is on because to control financial transactions, they also need to control food because, if you can get your food and energy outside the banking system, you can survive without their banking system. This is why we cannot allow a 100% digital financial system.
The third Great Taking I’m concerned about is the real estate, because we see an extraordinary move being done to take control of the land, the real estate, including farmland, which is very much related to the food.
There are all sorts of games that can be played with the banking system to default people on their mortgages, and of course, interest rates and inflation are part and parcel of that.”
As noted by Austin Fitts, the process of reducing the homeownership rate has been going on for decades. It’s related to monetary policy, because inflation has doubled the average payment on the median-price home in America over the last four or five years alone. So, the younger generation is being completely wiped out and cannot afford to buy homes.
It’s also related to another Great Taking, which is the fraudulent inducement of student loans. Most of the big banks are paying close to zero percent for their capital, while students with loans are paying 5% to 9%, and those with credit card debt are paying 17%. “It’s an extraordinary differential in the cost of capital that’s literally engineered into the system in a very unfair way,” she says.
A System to Rob Us of Our Security Assets
Austin Fitts goes on to review Webb’s background, and how he came to the discoveries he made. In summary, financial regulators have created a way, through the custodian system, of robbing 100% of the security assets as a senior creditor, most likely through a default of derivatives.
Austin Fitts is not overly concerned about this, though, because while Webb believes a legal pathway has been created through the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), Austin Fitts and her experts don’t think it’ll stick. “We are still looking for a UCC expert who can figure this out,” she says.
What Webb has proven, however, is that there has been an extraordinary effort by the financial regulators to assert control of ALL collateral. Austin Fitts believes this was done to keep the financial bubble going.
“The reason I’m not worried about a grab of the securities in the near future is because I think the way you grab assets is by getting financial transaction control to the banking system,” she says. “Once you have that, you can do everything. You can take 100% of the assets, including securities. So, I think financial transaction control is coming faster.
I think in terms of sequencing, a grab of all the securities is not near. What David would say is, if they get themselves in a corner, they have to do it. My feeling is they have so many ways out of a corner, it’s not necessary. What they’re going to do is what I’ve seen them doing, which is pushing for financial transaction control.
But here’s what’s great about David’s research. No one goes through the bother of doing what they’ve done if there’s integrity in the system. I think David has proven, yet again, that the financial system is lacking integrity and is engineered to benefit a few at the expense of the many.
The other thing I thought was very good about his book was, he describes the game in terms of insiders and outsiders to the banking system through the Great Depression — how your bank could fold; you lose your deposits, but you’re still liable for your mortgage.
And of course, that’s how you get people’s real estate. You abrogate your income obligations to them, but then you hold them accountable for their debts.”
There’s No Safe Harbor for Anyone
It’s telling that Webb started this journey because he was trying to figure out how to protect his own family’s wealth only to, in the end, realize there is no safe harbor, not even for a financial insider like himself. The system is completely rigged from every angle. The sober realization is that there’s no getting away from this Great Taking.
We must face it head on, and do the work necessary to change the system so that it protects everyone. Part of that work is to make our political representatives understand what is happening, and that it is in their own self-interest to protect financial freedom.
Many of them are extraordinarily wealthy, and they too stand to lose everything if they don’t take action. They’re not insulated from this Great Taking. Like Webb discovered, there’s no safe harbor for them either. Webb’s contention is that the situation is salvageable, but we do need some kind of reset.
Just not The Great Reset the globalists have planned. One possibility would be to implement a small tax on digital transactions, like a fraction of 1%. The revenues generated from that transactional fee could fund the government, doing away with income taxes, provided we don’t have to engage in international wars.
Top Three Financial Drains
According to Austin Fitts, the top three things that are draining our wealth are:
- Tyranny
- The use of environmentally damaging processes like industrial farming instead of regenerative farming, the hardware required for the control grid and the electromagnetic field radiation that goes with it
- The control of innovation, which prevents cost savings
All three of these are alterable. We can eliminate these financial drains, but we can’t start there. First, we need to secure our financial transaction freedom, because everything basically hinges on that. If we lose that, we’ve already lost everything else.
Three Basic Action Items
Again, be sure to download Solari’s financial transaction freedom memo. It details the problems, and the solutions. “Do what you’re comfortable doing,” Austin Fitts says.
“One is using cash. And when you use cash, start talking with local businesses and find ways of interacting locally that will give you more local resilience. And of course, the big one is food, because I don’t know a way of getting food that is safe, other than knowing where it’s coming from and knowing the people who are producing it …
The third thing you can do is to bring transparency, and this is really important. If you go to Solari, we’ve put together a list of short videos on CBDCs and financial transaction freedom. The first one is the one-minute video of the head of the BIS basically saying we can make the rules centrally and enforce them centrally with CBDCs.
The second one is Neel Kashkari, head of the Minneapolis Fed, one of the 12 Fed banks, saying ‘I can see why the Chinese would want this because it gives you complete surveillance and control. But why would Americans ever let this happen?’ If it’s so bad that one of the Fed presidents is telling you you don’t want it, that’s very helpful.
Then we have Bo Li [deputy managing director of the] IMF talking about the programmability of money, so if they decide you can only eat bugs and no pizza, your money will only buy bugs. And then the last one is Richard Werner talking about a top central banker telling him that CBDCs, ultimately, will be a chip that they want to put in your hand.
We need to tell people what’s going on and help them understand how serious this is, because it’s hard for many to fathom that somebody would want that kind of complete control. With AI and software, you can deliver that kind of complete control.
With a very short video, one minute or less, people get it. And that’s the point at which you can turn to your state legislators and your state banking association and say, ‘OK, what are you guys going to do to make sure I don’t end up like the Tennessee truckers?’
What’s very interesting … the states have the power to assert complete sovereignty over the money and the cash flows within their area, and to protect them. Now, they haven’t done it. And one of the reasons they haven’t done it is the Treasury and the central banks have been very good at making it financially attractive to buy into the federal system.
[Eventually], it’s going to be more important to be sovereign and free than to get another $2 billion in education — an education that requires you to teach your kids how to be sex slaves.
So, one of the things you can do bring transparency, but start working with your bankers, with your State Bankers Association, your state legislators, and encourage them to take the steps. And if you look at the Financial Transaction Freedom memo, we list all the different things that a federal legislator can do.”
Why We Need Sovereign State Banks
North Dakota already has a sovereign state bank, and the Florida State Legislature is getting ready to introduce legislation for state banking in the state of Florida. Tennessee is looking at ways to create independent payment systems, and is in the process of starting a Bullion Depository and authorizing their treasurer to start buying gold and silver.
These are just some of the strategies that can, and need, to be implemented by all states. As noted by Austin Fitts, “The only way I can protect my individual sovereignty is if my state protects my financial sovereignty.” And states can do that by implementing sovereign state banks that are not tied to the central banking system.
“If you have a sovereign state bank, what that means is, your citizens are paying taxes into your accounts, and you have the ability, working with the state banks and credit unions and financial institutions, to keep the transactions going so that the Treasury or the central bank can’t lock you down or shut you down.
I mean, that is amazing. If you also have a bullion depository, then you’ve got gold and silver reserves and that makes it easier for other people in the state to have a depository they can trust, and that means they can start doing transactions with gold and silver, particularly if you take the sales tax off.
Tennessee has taken the sales tax off golden and silver. And there’s a big squabble now — several states have put in bills making gold and silver legal tender, but do it in a way where the Feds can’t charge capital gains, so that you can use gold and silver as currencies locally. It’s a great way to start a local currency.”
A Building Wealth Reset
In conclusion, what we need to do, first and foremost, is to regain and safeguard our control of our financial transactions. Next, we need what Austin Fitts refers to as a “building wealth reset,” a reset of the financial system that allows us to build both living equity (health) and financial equity.
And we can do that. While it may seem as though we’re on a speed train headed for a brick wall, and that we have no way to get off, that may simply be an illusion. We probably have far more choice than we think.
“During my litigation [against the government], I had many different attorneys, and they would surround me and say, ‘You have to do this, you have no choice,’” Austin Fitts says.
“And I would say ‘I refuse. I’m not going to do that.’ That’s a choice. And then, what would happen? Suddenly, an option would open up that wasn’t there before. In other words, my refusal to go down the pathway that I had no choice created a new choice.”
Remember that as you move forward. Refusing to be part of the system may seem impossible, but the very act of making the choice to refuse may be the very thing that opens up brand new possibilities and options. Certainly, there are paths to victory, beginning with getting state leadership to get onboard with sovereign state banking.
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
