Great Taking Update: Tragedy & Hope

Some Important Updates Regarding The Great Taking

Hey everyone,

Over the past two weeks, there have been several developments related to the Great Taking that I want to share. First, a quick FYI: the book’s author, David Rogers Webb, recently sat down with Daniela Cambone for an interview, where he provided an update on the current status of the Taking and shared how his thinking is evolving as we head into Spring 2026. This interview followed my late-2025 article titled Europe Prepares To Cross The Rubicon - Risking EU Wide Financial Collapse, which explained how Europe’s plan to seize frozen Russian assets was directly linked to the Great Taking.

This transpired when something patently obvious, but completely overlooked by us all, hit me smack in the face. Those assets could only have been frozen at all because Russia chose to hold them in dematerialized form at Euroclear. In other words, Russia stepped directly into the Great Taking trap — and effectively set it for themselves. To put it another way, despite Russia’s obvious collision course with the West being charted long ago, it still chose to hold 60% of its foreign reserves at Euroclear—foreign sovereign debt—fully knowing this would effectively erase its property rights over those assets. The question I posed was: why would they do that?

For those who still believe the East offers a genuine alternative — not merely the opposing side of a Hegelian dialectic — consider the following. Russia placed its sovereign assets, and the assets of its citizens, with a foreign CSD without altering the ownership structure to secure full legal control. Why would they do that, knowing the West was likely to move against those assets at some point? But wait, the plot thickens further still...

For the first time, I can reveal that the Great Taking also exists in Russia. Yes, my friends, Russia’s own CSD — the National Settlement Depository (NSD) — operates under the exact same legal framework as Western depositories. Russian citizens’ assets are also pooled and held as security entitlements, not true ownership.

According to a 2021 Market Profile Russia document issued by the NSD:

—99.9% of securities in Russia are already held in dematerialized, book-entry form.

—The actual investor — the person or entity that buys the shares — holds only a beneficial interest, not direct title.

—NSD uses the concept of a nominee (nominal) holder: the depository itself (or a registered nominee) is listed as the “owner” on the official register.

—Purchasers of securities receive the same inferior “beneficial ownership” offered in the West.

—Parallel Mike, Are They Going To Use Seized Russian Assets to Trigger the Great Taking?

Of course, the entire “will-they-won’t-they” saga around the proposed plan to seize and outright confiscate Russia’s frozen assets to backstop relatively minor loans to Ukraine revealed a great deal to the public. It was certainly more than just kabuki theater. It’s a part of the systematic dismantling of the old system, ahead of collapse. The narrative also had embedded within it the elephant in the room: that nobody truly owns their securities anymore. When they’re held in dematerialized form at a Central Securities Depository like Euroclear, they can be taken at any point—legally. Because you don’t really own them; they do.

In my article I speculated that much of the drama surrounding Russia’s assets was designed to intentionally weaken the system itself by massively eroding trust at the sovereign in CSDs—the fallout from which is only just beginning. Beyond this, it was also revelation of the method. It was a quiet announcement that we can and will seize assets. And if they can do that to a sovereign nation who actually legal protections, what chance do we have when we have zero legal protections? In fact, legally speaking, the system has been wired for the exact opposite: not only to not protect you, but to ensure that when the time comes, all assets can be taken — and those who do the taking will be protected from YOU.

The reality is this: you will have absolutely zero legal recourse — save for litigating against your broker, who themselves don’t have the assets and never did. What Europe and the U.S. have done with Russian assets is relevant precisely because it is a dry run of the Great Taking itself. But returning to David’s interview, it was the aforementioned articles that spurred his recent updates, though David discusses much more than just the situation with Russian assets. I highly recommend checking it out if you’re interested in his thoughts on what is happening.

The second thing I wanted to alert you all to is the ongoing pushback against the Great Taking at the state level in the U.S. So far, a number of state legislators have sponsored and progressed bills seeking to reform the UCC, specifically Article 8. Don Grande is doing a great job heading the small legal team that is helping to drive forward these bills. On this front we have some good news: just last week, with the help of Representative Cody Maynard, Oklahoma passed a bill in committee by a 6-1 vote. Idaho is up later this week, followed by Tennessee and Utah, with those dates yet to be confirmed. All it takes is one single state to successfully enact reforms and a domino will be pushed that leads to a nationwide recognition of the subversion at play.

While there is a long road to go, it’s imperative that those of you in these states get behind the hearings wherever possible. You can do this by reaching out to your state representatives to alert them to your grave concerns and explain why this matters. If your state isn’t doing anything yet, pester them. Get on their radar. Beyond that, you need to be talking to your friends, family and local community. In fact, this is the most important thing and something we can all do. They need to understand what the Great Taking is, and what this means for their retirement accounts and encumbered property. Even if these legal fights don’t succeed, we should give those who are willing to listen the chance to prepare. With so much rot and corruption being showcased right now, I get the feeling people are becoming more receptive to hearing the truth about the financial system and its criminality.

Speaking of which, I wrote extensively on this in my third article in the Great Taking Revisited series, published last December, when I broached the question, “How can you protect yourself from the Great Taking?”. This is the most comprehensive guide available on the topic detailing what you need to do to prepare not just for a potential taking type even, but for a systemic collapse of the financial system more broadly. Something which I think many of us now feel is unavoidable at some point in the very near future. As such, if you haven’t read it, you should definitely take the time to explore it. The hour is late. And right now, we can see clearly how trust in the old system is being deliberately, systematically dismantled.

It appears right now they are weakening every pillar that holds the structure up so that when the plunger is finally pulled, the entire edifice collapses like a pancake — with zero resistance. I don’t need to remind any of you about the outrageous financial bubbles they’ve inflated while simultaneously burying the world in unpayable debt. The objective all along was to build a system so fragile, so grotesquely over-leveraged, that one precisely targeted shock would be sufficient to trigger a total meltdown. We saw a preview in March 2020. We saw it again during Trump’s first weeks in office, when the sovereign debt market — supposedly the most liquid market on earth — froze under stress. That should never happen. Yet it did. And in doing so, it exposed the hidden brittleness engineered into the system.

When this leverage finally unwinds, they don’t intend of saving the current system. Collapse is the goal and such a catastrophe will vaporize banks, the stock market, and potentially even central bank operations. This is not a loss for them, however, given it is precisely this kind of unwind that will trigger the Great Taking itself. After which they have all the chips at the poker table, and you walk away with nothing.

Beyond the intentional destabilization of the financial system, however, a more subtle vulnerability is now being deliberately put in place ahead of the Great Taking — and it is just as critical. Right now, trust itself is being shattered. The corruption, the hypocrisy, the graft, the two-tiered justice system — it’s all being paraded in plain sight. Public faith in governmental and financial institutions has cratered. This credibility crisis isn’t accidental. The more corruption is exposed, the more confidence drains from the entire structure. And that is the point.

Relentless instability and a constant barrage of negative headlines are meant to provoke panic, trigger irrational decisions, and fracture whatever confidence still remains. When a populace no longer trusts the economy, the government, its institutions, the justice system, or the media, there is nothing left to defend. At that point, society doesn’t need to be destroyed from the outside — it collapses from within. So no, this is not merely about destabilizing markets. It is about deliberately demolishing the very idea of a stable, fair society — clearing the psychological ground for what comes next.

Of course, nothing is set in stone. This strategy could backfire spectacularly. Raising awareness of the Great Taking is one of the most effective ways to snap people awake to what is truly at stake. It is also one of the most important ways of protecting those we care about so if you find this information valuable, please share it with those who remain unaware — people still have time not only to understand what is happening, but to act on it. At some point, that window of opportunity will close, however. For all of our sake, we need as many people as possible to be readied for the harder times ahead. If people wind up owning little to nothing, I can guarantee you, they won’t be happy. God help us all if that situation is where we wind up.

In closing, it’s a nice coincidence that I am writing this update today, because just this morning I literally said goodbye to David having spent the last two days with him. During the visit, we had plenty of conversations about the current trajectory of the financial system, what we foresee in the immediate future, the impact of AI, and, of course, the Great Taking itself. I look forward to sharing some of these insights in my upcoming audio newsletter, which will be released next week for paid subscribers.

Until the, I hope this finds you all well,

Mike

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