48 larly – and I’m not predicting this because I don’t know enough about German politics to know whether or not he is going to go this way – if he is successful in reaching out to the Alternative for Deutschland Party and certain elements of the SDP. Where Germany goes, Europe is going to go and so he is the person to watch here. I do think that there were deep, deep philo- sophical divisions between him and Merkel. Fitts: What is very interesting about him is, if you go back and look at his history from the beginning, this person understands nuts and bolts. This is a guy who can re-engineer the train tracks of power because he knows where all the switches are, he knows where all the lines are, and he has walked the lines. He is not only an experienced politician, but also a master bureaucrat, and a master negotiator of financial transactions. Farrell: The other thing that it demon- strates is that her coalition is very weak, and she is losing her grip on her cabinet. He was very outspoken, even as a Cabinet Minister, as was her Foreign Minister at the time, Steinmeier and she booted him. In other words, she has completely rear- ranged her cabinet from the people who were there, and the people who were there were the relatively sane people in the group. Who knows what we have and now we have Macron. He’s not a member of the German Cabinet, but I’m very serious. We’re going to see the same situation of these factions that we’re seeing maneuvering to fight it out in Europe. I suspect that it is going to proceed in Europe a bit faster than we’re seeing it in the U.S. Fitts: Remember this: Many of these people came up in 2.0. Farrell: Yes, they did. Fitts: The shift to 3.0 is throwing them for a loop, too. Farrell: It is, and Merkel has not a clue, she just hasn’t. Fitts: Even though she’s a physicist? Farrell: Her degree is in quantum chem- istry, and there has even been some flap in Germany over whether or not she wrote her thesis. Fitts: Oh no! Farrell: We don’t know. Fitts: There was one piece that we pub- lished during the 3rd Quarter that was about ‘The 20 Things you Need to Know about New Technology’ and it went into all of the changes that are going to come in the next four or five years, such as driverless cars. One subscriber read it, and she wrote, “You’ve been talking about this shift to 3.0, but sitting down and looking at all of these things, I realized I’m not mentally ready for this.” I really, really want our subscribers and listeners to get ready for this. If you go back and look at when we switched from an agricultural economy to an industrial economy, one minute you have 80-90% of the population working on the land farming, and then in a relatively short period of time, everybody is in the city doing industrial, and you have complete chaos. This one is going to go faster; it is going much faster. I’ve never lived through the shift from Global 2.0 to 3.0, but I will tell you this: If they are able to abrogate all of the contracts in Global 2.0 as they are talking about trying to do – and I don’t know if that is just a plan to keep the young people entertained and busy, or doing what they want to make them organized and malleable, or whether they are serious about that – I don’t know the extent to which they are planning on abrogating, but most people in America are depending on cash flows from Global 2.0. Who knows how Global 2.0 evolves, im- plodes, or whatever, but I want to encourage people to think about what the difference scenarios are that could happen to Global 2.0. How do you make sure that you are thinking about how you make the switch? Farrell: I believe the key is going to be to be in control of your information as much as possible. I think that shows like this one are going to survive and probably thrive. I think what people need to start thinking about is doing a similar thing on the scale that they can do it and build up information outlets for local issues and alike. I think that is very critical because we don’t have that. I think that you are the only one out there talking in terms of locality. Fitts: No. There are others. Farrell: There are others, but if people were to start publishing information on the web, doing websites and podcasts and so on about local and regional issues, that would help. Fitts: We had Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns on. I’m excited about what he is doing. Dr. Skidmore is looking at state and local government finance. He teaches county commissioners and other people. We recently put up a great article by Gary Heckman, who is a retired City Manager in Michigan, on going local. There are many great people. I think that what you and I are saying is that we all need to focus on actionable intelli- gence. We don’t have time for fake news anymore. Farrell: Right, and it needs to be done. We need local versions of Solari Report and so on. We need these types of things to be done by people on the ground where they are to get information out. Fitts: Everyone can get together. I keep saying, “Get together. Call it a club or a circle or whatever you want. Sit down and use it to collect information about what is happening, and then take action.” People say, “I can’t afford organic food.” Yes you can. Get ten people together, and once a week one person goes to the terminal market and obtains cartons of wholesale organic food for everybody. Farrell: The other thing is to start building up social circles again. Get together and play cards and discuss all of these things and do things that we used to do. Fitts: Get a nurse practitioner into the circle that can teach you how to take care of your health. Get an attorney who can teach you how to do the simple things. Get a banker who can make sure that you’re banking at the local bank and that you’re okay. Farrell: There is another thing that I think that people need to be aware of that is VI. News Trends & Stories with Dr. Joseph Farrell