Webb's prologue links Cleveland's industrial decline to his trading career. His thesis follows: decades of legal change have prepared a deliberate, worldwide dispossession, timed to a debt crisis.
Dematerialized shares become security entitlements, pooled through chains of intermediaries. For Webb, cross-border harmonization, collateral reuse, bankruptcy safe harbors and concentrated clearing give secured creditors first claim when intermediaries fail. Webb links this to the 1933 bank closures, forecasts debt deflation and digital currency control, and urges nonviolent exposure and legal accountability.
The custody vulnerability is documented; the intent rests on inference. New York's UCC section 8-503 gives entitlement holders a pro rata property interest protected from the intermediary's general creditors, 8-504 requires the holder's agreement before the intermediary pledges, and 8-511's exceptions favor secured creditors with control and clearing corporations' secured creditors. Webb's own appendix records these limits. The exceptions show where losses could fall; a deliberate worldwide seizure requires evidence beyond custody chains and contingency plans.
The author's official page hosts the text, useful to readers studying custody and creditor priority who separate documentation from interpretation.