So, we rise from the rubble...
Friday, May 27, 2022
Gregory Mannarino, "What You Are Seeing Is Real - More Lies, More Propaganda"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/27/22:
"What You Are Seeing Is Real - More Lies, More Propaganda"
"In Stunning Shift, WaPo Admits Catastrophic-Conditions, Collapsing-Morale Of Ukraine Front-Line Forces"
"In Stunning Shift, WaPo Admits Catastrophic-Conditions,
Collapsing-Morale Of Ukraine Front-Line Forces"
by Tyler Durden
5/27/22: "With Russia's war in Ukraine now in its fourth month, mainstream media consumers have been treated to seemingly endless headlines and analysis of Russia's extensive military losses. At the same time Ukrainian forces have tended to be lionized and their battlefield prowess romanticized, with essentially zero public information so far being given which details up-to-date Ukrainian force casualties, set-backs, and equipment losses.
But for the first time The Washington Post is out with a surprisingly dire and negative assessment of how US-backed and equipped Ukrainian forces are actually fairing. Gone is the rosy idealizing lens through which each and every encounter with the Russians is typically portrayed. WaPo correspondent and author of the new report Sudarsan Raghavan underscores of the true situation that "Ukrainian leaders project an image of military invulnerability against Russia. But commanders offer a more realistic portrait of the war, where outgunned volunteers describe being abandoned by their military brass and facing certain death at the front."
As many careful and less idealistic observers suspected the whole time, a steady stream of both wartime propaganda and one-sided social media feeds where it seems the only tanks being blown up are Russian ones has served to present a very skewed portrayal of the battlefield to the Western public. While it's perhaps easier to get sucked into this pro-Ukraine bias based on the innumerable so-called open source intelligence self-anointed 'experts' on Twitter, this is less so if one wades into Telegram, where a flood of uncensored videos from both sides gives a truer picture, as the fresh report seems to also suggest.
The Washington Post report belatedly admits the avalanche of propaganda based in a pro-Kiev, pro-West narrative from the outset: "Videos of assaults on Russian tanks or positions are posted daily on social media. Artists are creating patriotic posters, billboards and T-shirts. The postal service even released stamps commemorating the sinking of a Russian warship in the Black Sea."
The report then pivots to the reality of an undertrained, poorly commanded and equipped, rag-tag force of mostly volunteers in the East who find themselves increasingly surrounded by the numerically superior Russian military which has penetrated almost the entire Donbas region. "Ukraine, like Russia, has provided scant information about deaths, injuries or losses of military equipment. But after three months of war, this company of 120 men is down to 54 because of deaths, injuries and desertions," the report reads as it follows one particular battalion.
The report's sources speak out despite threat of being court-martialed amid a heavily controlled information flow: “War breaks people down,” said Serhiy Haidai, head of the regional war administration in Luhansk province, acknowledging many volunteers were not properly trained because Ukrainian authorities did not expect Russia to invade. But he maintained that all soldiers are taken care of: “They have enough medical supplies and food. The only thing is there are people that aren’t ready to fight.”
"First major US media I've seen to report catastrophic condition of Ukrainian forces, collapsing Ukrainian morale on the front. Seems obvious we should know the truth about a war our government is so deeply invested in." https://t.co/sYYwdm1p62
- Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) May 26, 2022
The report references a video widely circulating online this week wherein a group the size of a platoon declares they simply can't fight for lack of weaponry, ammunition, food and proper command support:
Full screen recommended.
“We are being sent to certain death,” said a volunteer, reading from a prepared script, adding that a similar video was filmed by members of the 115th Brigade 1st Battalion. “We are not alone like this, we are many.” Ukraine’s military rebutted the volunteers’ claims in their own video posted online, saying the “deserters” had everything they needed to fight: “They thought they came for a vacation,” one service member said. “That’s why they left their positions.” In the wake of the video, the Ukrainian troops featured are being accused of 'desertion'.
Additional videos have surfaced that are similar: units complain even of being left to fight in already impossible conditions with WWI and WWII-era rifles, which can do little up against Russia's far superior firepower.
The stunning WaPo report further documents volunteer groups of men who were previously oil well technicians, salesmen, or other ordinary jobs like farmers being sent to front line positions in the south and east - even though they thought they were first bound to simple security posts in much less intense environs like Lviv. “We shot 30 bullets and then they said, ‘You can’t get more; too expensive,’” one volunteer described. And more: “When we were coming here, we were told that we were going to be in the third line on defense,” Lapko said. “Instead, we came to the zero line, the front line. We didn’t know where we were going.”
The situation has gotten more dire as even water is in short supply amid the most intense Russian push to surround Ukrainian positions in the Donbas to date: "And in recent weeks, he said, the situation has gotten much worse. When their supply chains were cut off for two days by the bombardment, the men were forced to make do with a potato a day. They spend most days and nights in trenches dug into the forest on the edges of Toshkivka or inside the basements of abandoned houses. “They have no water, nothing there,” Lapko said. “Only water that I bring them every other day.”
Meanwhile the very noticeable shifting rhetoric issued from prominent officials and pundits of late has strongly suggested not all is well for Ukraine's military...
Notice the rhetoric shift: "Now both the NY Times Editorial Board and Henry Kissinger at the WEF are both calling for a negotiated peace for Ukraine even it it means ceding territory to Russia."
- Davos Detainee Poso (@JackPosobiec) May 24, 2022
The WaPo further includes the following devastating testimony and assessment: “Many got shell shock. I don’t know how to count them,” Lapko said. The casualties here are largely kept secret to protect morale among troops and the general public. “On Ukrainian TV we see that there are no losses,” Lapko said. “There’s no truth.”
Many of the casualties suffered by the above referenced volunteer unit were due to lack of logistics available to transport the wounded to hospitals behind the front lines. The report emphasizes that the entirety of the catastrophic conditions of frontline forces has led to officers and enlisted increasingly refusing to follow orders from higher command.
With this fresh and unexpected Washington Post report, the mainstream seems to now belatedly be admitting what only weeks ago could get a person banned from Twitter..."Western mainstream media has, for three months now, fed its audience a never-ending clown car parade of utterly clueless "expert military analysts" who have spun fairy tales of super-hero Ukrainian "freedom fighters" and comically inept Russian conscripts."
- Will Schryver (@imetatronink) May 23, 2022
"Lapko and his men have grown increasingly frustrated and disillusioned with their superiors. His request for the awards has not been approved," the report finds. "His battalion commander demanded that he send 20 of his soldiers to another front line, which meant that he couldn’t rotate his men out from Toshkivka. He refused the order."
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Related:
Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times, 5/27/22:
"Russia Pounds Ukrainian Targets With 2S7M Malka;
World’s Most Powerful Gun In Action"
"Russia's defense ministry has now released an undated video of world's most powerful guns pounding Ukrainian targets. The video shows modernized 2S7M Malka 203mm in action. The video does not mention the location of the firing. The 2S7 howitzer combines a 203 mm 2A44 gun with a tracked chassis featuring all-welded steel armor. The design came from the Kirov Factory in the 1960s and it entered service with the Soviet army in 1976. Russia has used this gun twice before during the war in Ukraine. "
"The War Can Only End With More War"
"The War Can Only End With More War"
by The Good Citizen
"The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting
each other – instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.”
- Edward Abbey
"The youngbloods cry out with screams of mercy while prone in the sunflower fields of Lugansk. “The Cauldron is forming and soon we’ll be surrounded! When does it end!?” The big blue sky above ignores them. A nearby Azov officer hears them ask to surrender. Two by two the screamers get taken to the shallow side of a slope and shot in the back of the head. Final thoughts while gazing out to the horizon to take in their last breath: my death is happening because it was entirely preventable.
The entirely preventable war can only end with more war. The entirely preventable deaths can only end with more death. NATO’s orders. It was always going to end the way we know it will end. With more war.
The only thing they’re trying to prevent now is any narrative that undermines their aims to prevent it from ending. They say World War One was fought for reasons nobody really knows. The death and devastation were so unfathomable, so inconceivable, it was to be the war to end all wars. As long as people believe only war can end wars, then the war will only end with more war.
This war is being fought for reasons nobody with a functioning brain really believes. Democracy? Freedom? Insert all the laughing, crying, rolling on the muddy death fields of Ukraine emojis in the digital universe, plus all the facepalms, and pregnant men facepalms.
Forget the Nazis, the Oligarchs, the cocaine comic, the NATO clowns, the American empire war complex, the district of corruption, the demented diapered one, the EU tyrants begging for economic and energy catastrophes a la carte.
They all stand to gain from the blood of young Ukrainians, from their sacrifice for a set of conditions that were never going to be met even when all the world knew it before a single shot was fired. They played Russian roulette with a country and most people celebrating its sacrifice for global evil can’t point to it on a map. They all cry out in unison like one mindless drone across the earth: “Keep dying youngbloods! The war will only end with more war!”
Now we can see the wave rising at the border of Poland and Ukraine, on the horizon set for a prearranged destiny that nobody wants besides those with nothing to risk. All their instruments of war crossing the border will ensure that the war will surely end with more war.
You can see the wave of youngbloods across the muddy fields. They wore their boots out running for the Oligarchs safely in London. They were there in late February, forced to stay and fight. The young men in cheap nylon ski jackets, trapped in their national prison, kicked off the trains, stopped at the borders, told to go and die for the Oligarchs safely on their yachts in Monaco.
“Putin is evil young man, don’t you know that?” The youngbloods nod in agreement and move their gaze toward the ground utterly disgusted with themselves for nodding and not asking, “Why?”
The baby-faced boys of Kyiv fresh from their gaming chairs and Uber Eats delivery routes. Once giddily bouncing from school classes to casual conversations at cafes that young people have. A rifle stuffed into their hands, three days of performative training, and a swift shove to the meat grinders. Forcibly conscripted into the NATO death machine.
The war must continue and will only end with more war. Five hundred million for more war. Seven hundred million. Do I hear eight hundred million? Do I hear nine hundred? 44 billion?
There’s money to wash through the national laundering operations pouring forth from the U.S. Department of treasury like a fire hose plugged into the central bank of the fourth most corrupt country on earth. Too many pockets need lining before the youngbloods can be called back home from the fronts.
All wars really end with a negotiated peace. Not this one. The word peace is forbidden. So is the word diplomacy.
Even when Russia has mopped up the final villages for liberation in the Donbas and taken Odessa in the south, and the final Ukrainian Nazis are rounded up for trials and detention and a decade henceforth after all regions are flying the Trikolor flag, the Americans will be finding more weapons to send and demanding the comic find more youngbloods to sacrifice.
Their mothers and sisters sit in Polish and German refugee shelters, waiting for news. That dreaded news that no mother ever wants. It’s the waiting that’s most painful. The mothers know the Oligarchs agreed to the war. And the mothers know that western powers created the war. And the mothers know that the cocaine comic who ran on a peace mandate acquiesced to the war before showing his bloody fangs to the parliaments of the world begging for more weapons of war and more money and more cocaine and claimed “democracy” was at stake, as he was told.
And the mothers know it will be their sons who die for the Oligarchs, the western war powers, and the cocaine comic. They all dreamed of riches that could be justified by making Russia suffer and turning half of Ukraine into a post-apocalyptic hellscape. The mothers know their sons will be the ones to make their dreams come true.
And if they don’t know all this now, they will know it very soon one day after they get that call. And start asking questions. Why did my son have to die for this? Didn’t his dreams ever matter? How about my dreams for him?
It’s been two years in the fields, on the trucks, in the bombed-out concrete ruins of old brutalist apartment blocks, now gone forever. The only silver lining of the war. Thousands of youngbloods are already dead. (600,000 dead Ukrainian troops, 80,000 dead Russians.)
The living youngbloods are skinny, thirsty, tired. Their boots are worn down at the toes and heels. They haven’t showered for weeks. An American colonel yells orders at them with a southern drawl they can barely understand.
Soon the war will heat up. The eastern cauldrons will form. The Russians will surround them. The supply lines will grow thin and then stop and even with no water, food, or ammunition left to fight, the commands will come over the radios to the youngbloods of Ukraine, “The war will only end, with more war. Hold your positions.”
And the youngbloods who were conscripted into the NATO-CIA meat grinder will one day find themselves on some godforsaken pile of unfarmed dirt. They will look to their right flank and see Nazi hooligans that bullied and beat them at school and threatened to shoot them in the back if they deserted. Then to their left flank and see the pink flicking uvula of a screaming American Colonel they cannot comprehend, and in that moment of chaos and confusion and inevitable madness that they were forced into, they will grab their unloaded rifles and charge the Russian line.
A newfound burst of energy propels their skinny legs forward directly to the phalanx of Chechen warriors, eager to get their bayonets into Azov hearts. The youngbloods are racing, they’re in it, they’re moving now, they’re getting there. They haven’t felt more alive since they were told to die.
Their faces light up with smiles as they confront the inevitable, which finally makes sense as they meet it on their own terms, in their own way. As they hear the first cracks of Russian bullets overhead they turn to one another with the only sane weapon they have left and burst out in fits of raucous laughter. As youngbloods do."
"Russia, China Give World a Glimpse of What WWIII Could Look Like"
"Russia, China Give World a Glimpse
of What WWIII Could Look Like"
by Gerald Celente
"Russia and China are not natural allies and some geopolitical observers say it is remarkable that the countries have developed such a close relationship in such a relatively short amount of time. On Tuesday, in a remarkable show of unity, the two countries flew strategic bombers over the Sea of Japan - just outside Japanese and South Korean air defense zones - in what Reuters called a “pointed farewell to U.S. President Joe Biden as he concluded a trip to Asia.”
One U.S. official tried to use the joint exercise as an example of why India should not rely on Moscow. “It also shows that Russia will stand with China in the East and South China Seas, not with other Indo-Pacific states,” the official told The Financial Times. Japan said it scrambled fighter jets due to the security threat.
A Russian Tu-95 strategic bomber takes off during Russian-Chinese
military aerial exercises. (Russian Defense Ministry)
Russia said in a statement that the bombers - Tu-95MS strategic missile carriers and Chinese H-6 bombers - did not break international law. Japan’s Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said during a news conference that “the fact that this action was taken during the Quad summit makes it more provocative than in the past.”
“As the international community responds to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, the fact that China took such action in collaboration with Russia, which is the aggressor, is cause for concern. It cannot be overlooked,” he said. Japan and South Korea said they scrambled fighter jets after at least four Chinese and four Russian warplanes in response.
A Chinese H-6 bomber flies over the East China Sea on 24 May.
(Defense Ministry of Japan)
(The Quad summit is held among the U.S., Australia, Japan, and India…and its mission is to counter China in the Pacific region. Biden, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and Australia’s Anthony Albanese, met in Tokyo on Tuesday.)
Despite the weeks of pressure from the U.S. and European countries, Beijing has refused to criticize Russia and has, instead, blamed the West for having set the stage for the war. China said in March that it would like to bring its relationship with Russia to “a higher level.”
“The Ukrainian issue… is not only the outbreak of the long term accumulation of security conflicts in Europe but also the result of the Cold War mentality and group confrontation,” Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, said at the time. “In the long run, we should learn the lessons of the Ukraine crisis, respond to the legitimate security concerns of all parties based on the principles of mutual respect and indivisibility of security.”
China is Russia’s top trade partner with total trade last year jumping 35.9 percent to a record $146.9 billion. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited China in March and described a new “world order.” “We, together with you [China], and with our sympathizers will move towards a multipolar, just, democratic world order,” Lavrov said in a video statement.
A senior U.S. official told Reuters that the exercise, which was the first since the 24 February invasion of Ukraine, is likely a message from China that it will not walk away from Russia. “Instead, the exercise shows that China is ready to help Russia defend its east while Russia fights in its west,” the official said.
Gerald Celente, the publisher of The Trends Journal, spoke with Gordon Chang in April and the China-expert said Beijing gave the green light for Russia to invade Ukraine, and supported Russia’s war effort with “elevated commodity purchases.”
Japan, like Taiwan, is watching the events in Ukraine unfold while considering their neighbor China and their own security if Beijing ever decides to act militarily in the region. Fumio Kishida, the Japanese prime minister, summed up his government’s fears a few weeks ago during a visit in London with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. He told reporters that Ukraine could very well be “East Asia tomorrow.” Tokyo is trying to get a read on what the Biden administration would do if China invades. Japan has been more vocal about its support of Taipei in recent years.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told the Associated Press late last year that there will be no concessions when it comes to China’s security and “no one should underestimate the strong determination, firm will and strong ability of the Chinese people to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Beijing to help Chinese President Xi Jinping kick off the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics was viewed by many in the media as an effort by the two to show a united front against the West.
Robert Daly, the director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, at the Wilson Center in Washington, told The New Yorker that the pledge between the two countries illustrates that they will stand “shoulder to shoulder against America and the West, ideologically as well as militarily.” “This statement might be looked back on as the beginning of Cold War III,” he said."
"WW3 To Start in Black Sea: Trump Predicts Nuclear War!"
Canadian Prepper, 5/26/22:
"WW3 To Start in Black Sea: Trump Predicts Nuclear War!"
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Related, must watch:
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We're just begging for a nuclear war...
Thursday, May 26, 2022
Musical Interlude: Disturbed, "The Sound Of Silence"
Full screen recommended.
Disturbed, "The Sound Of Silence", Studio
Singer David Draiman
810,964,155 views...
Full screen recommended.
Disturbed, "The Sound Of Silence", Live
131,148,403 views...
I've listened to this 100 times, and I still cry.
There's "something" here,
And if there are words for it I don't know them...
Gerald Celente, "Trends In The News 5/26/22"
Full screen recommended.
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, "Trends In The News 5/26/22"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in these increasingly turbulent times."
"It's Going To Get Much Worse; Everything Bubble Will Burst; Dollar Stores Boom; Foreclosure Wave
Jeremiah Babe 5/26/22:
"It's Going To Get Much Worse; Everything Bubble Will Burst;
Dollar Stores Boom; Foreclosure Wave"
"30 Facts About The National Debt That Should Set America On Fire With Rage"
Full screen recommended.
"30 Facts About The National Debt That Should
Set America On Fire With Rage"
by Epic Economist
"The United States is in the middle of the biggest debt bubble in history. In the past year, the U.S. national debt has surpassed the 30 trillion dollar mark, and now America has become the most indebted nation on the entire planet. But most people don't even realize how this gigantic debt load can jeopardize our economic system.
If things don't go exactly as we plan, and the U.S. loses its dominant position as the world's wealthiest country, we will be forced to start paying off the enormous debt we accumulated. It goes without saying that we simply do not have that kind of money. This is leaving our country in an extremely fragile position relative to the rest of the world, particularly considering that many other countries hold our debt in the form of Treasury-backed securities.
Thirty years ago, the U.S. was already experiencing a horrific debt crisis, and our monetary decay was getting out of control. If only we had persisted in trying to solve that crisis during that period, then today things wouldn't be so bad. If we had dealt with it before it became this big, then maybe we could have done things differently. But now, the national debt is 15 times larger than it was a decade ago, and we're still adding more than a trillion dollars to that pile every single year.
In other words, all of this sense of prosperity we created is based on an illusion. It's a false prosperity that has been bought by the biggest mountain of debt the world has ever seen. In fact, as if we weren't in enough trouble already, Congress is planning to pass another 1.4 trillion dollar bill this year. Did you know that if you added up all forms of debt in the United States and divided it up equally every single family in the country would owe nearly $700,000? We must face the fact that we are a part of a nation that is absolutely addicted to debt, and the U.S. debt crisis is threatening to destroy the nation built by our forefathers.
We simply cannot fix this debt bubble under the current monetary system. What we are doing to the future of our children and our grandchildren is completely devastating. We are literally stealing from future generations. Conditions are rapidly shifting in our country, and a massive amount of financial pain is on the horizon. Now, more than ever, it is time for Americans to wake up, and take action while they still can. It is time for Americans to get extremely angry. Our future has been destroyed and the future of the next generations has also been destroyed. Enjoy this false sense of prosperity while you still can, because it is not going to last for much longer. Debt is a very cruel master, and our day of reckoning is right on the corner.
Today, we decided to compile some shocking figures that expose just how alarming the U.S. debt bubble really is."
Musical Interlude: Gary Jules, “Mad World”
Full screen recommended.
Gary Jules, “Mad World”
Sometimes it feels like the whole damned world has lost its mind; words like “insane” and “crazy” just don’t work anymore. Something like this:
“We work in the dark. We do what we can to battle with the evil that would otherwise destroy us. But, a man’s fate is defined as not a choice but a calling. Yet sometimes the weight of this burden causes us to falter, breaching the fragile fortress of our mind, allowing the monsters without to turn within and we are left alone, staring into the abyss… into the laughing face of madness.”
- David Duchovny as “Fox Mulder”, “The X Files”
If you've dealt long enough with this “Mad World”, as we all have been forced to, after years of unimaginably relentless economic destruction, pandemic terror, and murderously homicidal insanity maybe you're feeling it too, and if you're not very, very careful, you’ll wind up like this… listen to the words...
Full screen recommended.
Pet Shop Boys, “Numb”
You do not want to go there…or maybe we all do.
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud by chance has assumed this recognizable shape. Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula, it is some 1,500 light-years distant, embedded in the vast Orion cloud complex.
About five light-years "tall", the dark cloud is cataloged as Barnard 33 and is visible only because its obscuring dust is silhouetted against the glowing red emission nebula IC 434. Stars are forming within the dark cloud. Contrasting blue reflection nebula NGC 2023, surrounding a hot, young star, is at the lower left. The gorgeous color image combines both narrowband and broadband images recorded using three different telescopes.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100513.html
"A Long March..."
"The life of Man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long. One by one, as they march, our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent Death. Very brief is the time in which we can help them, in which their happiness or misery is decided. Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection, to strengthen failing courage, to instill faith in times of despair."
- Bertrand Russell
Must Watch! "The Shocking Truth About What's Happening"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 5/26/22:
"The Shocking Truth About What's Happening"
"The Culture of Devaluation and Destruction"
"America Has Amnesia"
by Brian Maher
"As we have claimed before - citing Chesterton: Civilization “decays by forgetting obvious things.” Yet we are absentminded. And we have forgotten that obvious lesson. Today it is time to remember… again. It is time to remember, for example, that the free lunch has no existence…That a nation hopelessly indebted is a nation hopelessly enchained…That money and wealth are not synonyms…That savings form the granite foundations of wealth…And that a man must produce before he can consume.
In reminder, Mr. John Tamny, editor of RealClearMarkets: "Savings and investment, not consumption, are the true drivers of economic growth. Entrepreneurs cannot innovate, and companies can’t grow or be founded without savings first. There’s no getting around this truth…"
Just don’t expect to hear this simple truth from most any economist. Deep believers in the religion that is consumption, they can’t see that the latter is the easy part. That what really powers growth is the capacity to save the fruits of one’s production so that workers can produce (and ultimately consume) even more. It is obvious. Yet the nose on a man’s face is obvious. He forgets it nonetheless.
Let us recall - once again - Say’s Law. Say’s Law is the iron law of economics demonstrating that supply creates its own demand. “Products are paid for with products,” argued Jean-Baptiste Say over two centuries ago. His law has yet to be overturned, despite the fevered efforts of Lord Keynes and his countless disciples.
Consider a familiar example: One man produces bread. Another produces shoes. Let us assume the baker bakes a baker’s dozen - 13 loaves of bread. Three of them go upon his dinner table, then into his family’s bellies, consumed. The remaining 10 loaves represent his savings. He can hold them out against other goods he needs… shoes in our little example.
Meantime, the cobbler cobbles together 13 pairs of shoes. He places one new pair upon his blistered and aching feet. He places two additional pairs upon his children’s growing feet. This fellow “consumes” three pairs of shoes, that is. The remaining 10 constitute his savings. Like our baker, he can exchange his shoes - his savings - for other goods he requires. In our example he requires bread. Each exchanges money to fetch him his goods - direct barter is primitive. But we invite you to lean in for a closer examination, to squint your eyes a bit, to concentrate your attention.
You will now see the transaction in its true aspect. You will see that money merely throws an illusory veil across the exchange. You will see that the baker ultimately purchases his shoes with the bread he has baked and that the cobbler ultimately purchases his bread with the shoes he has cobbled.
Concludes Monsieur Say: "Money performs but a momentary function in this double exchange; and when the transaction is finally closed, it will always be found that one kind of commodity has been exchanged for another."
We must conclude that there can be no excess of savings. Savings equal stored wealth. To argue that savings injure society is to argue that wealth injures society. Only an economist from the Ivy League can argue it. And savings spring from production as the fruit springs from the seeds.
Yet the consumptionists would turn Say’s law upon its head. They sob not about a lack of production but a “lack of demand.” They believe government must race the printing press to make the shortage good, to furnish the lack. But no new production accompanies the blitz of money. The additional money merely chases the existing stock of goods. That is, the money-printers place the wagon cart of consumption before the draft horse of production. Yet the horse must go in front. The cart does not tug the horse.
In brief, Say’s Law will not be stricken from the economic law books. And as we have also argued before…When society saves, it is not eliminating consumption. It is merely delaying it. It represents a future bird in a future hand. The demand that is supposedly lost is not lost at all. It is simply shifted away from the present… and toward the bountiful future.
By reducing consumption today… society consumes more tomorrow. By increasing consumption today, society consumes less tomorrow. It devours the seed corn. Or according to Henry Hazlitt, author of the classic "Economics in One Lesson": “Saving, in short, in the modern world, is only another form of spending.” More from whom: "From time immemorial proverbial wisdom has taught the virtues of saving, and warned against the consequences of prodigality and waste."
We have forgotten this immemorial wisdom. It is time to remember…Below, Jeffrey Tucker shows you how inflation wrecks the foundations of a sound economy, and how it poisons society. Read on..."
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"The Culture of Devaluation and Destruction"
By Jeffrey Tucker
"On February 3, 2020, the M2 money supply stood at $15.3T. As of March 2022, it stood at $22T. That’s a 43.7% increase in a mere two years. And contrary to what is being advertised, there is no real evidence of a current tightening beyond some small perfunctory moves. This is a monetary experiment we’ve not seen in the US since colonial times, when worthlessness was measured against the most worthless thing of all, the Continental currency.
What the Fed did in 2020-21 is truly beyond belief, straight out of the crudest medieval playbook on how to expand the state by depreciating the currency. It was no better than coin clipping. It went as follows.: Governments smashed economic activity. When that happens, the result is: economic activity is smashed. It creates an artificial and pretty-well instantaneous depression. That’s exactly what happened, but the administrative state and the politicians didn’t want to face this reality. So they turned to the magic of redistribution.
In other words, they just wrote legislation that spent $1.7T, then more, then more, then $6T at least, and, by some estimates, more than twice that amount overall. Obviously, that money was not in the US Treasury, so what to do? Well, obviously: issue debt. Nothing unusual about that. Same thing happened in 2008, without obvious damage to the average person.
What was radically different this time (I’m not sure anything like this has happened in US history) is that the Congress authorized the money to be dropped helicopter-style straight into the bank accounts of businesses, nonprofits, and consumers. You probably saw this and wondered why the heck they were doing this. It was all about keeping up the appearances of prosperity even as economic activity was being crushed. Now we’re seeing the results.
The current inflation crisis is every bit as bad as it was in 1979-1980. The circumstances are slightly different, of course, but the underlying causes are similar. Back then we had price controls that exacerbated price pressure. Today we have post-lockdown supply-chain breakages that are artificially reducing the availability of goods.
Still, in the end, it’s all about the money. The notion that this ends smoothly is utterly ridiculous. What’s more, at this point, the Fed is not necessarily in control. Velocity statistics show there is tremendous potential for far more inflation in our future. Banks don’t control that. People do.
And we are already starting to see a shift in spending patterns. The savings rate keeps falling as consumers and businesses spend down the assets they socked away for two years. Gross private savings is lower today than before lockdowns. Personal savings is running 6.2% from a high of 33%. The money is running out and now personal debt is on the rise: a large increase of the trend in 2021 and following.
Now, you could say that maybe this is smart: take out the loan and pay it back in cheaper dollars due to inflation. Perhaps, but more likely this is too clever by half. The actual reason is more simple: people need the money to sustain a lifestyle in the face of growing pressure from all ends. It’s not absolutely crazy to speculate on the worst possible outcome: the death of paper money.
We’ve been there before, many times and many places. We can look back at the historical cases and marvel at the stupidity of the money masters for having allowed such a thing. And yet, it is not obvious to me that we have brighter bulbs at the helm in the U.S. and the EU today.
What these people have done is utterly crazy. In an important sense, it’s the sign of a civilization that’s forgotten where its prosperity originated.
All societies are born desperately poor, fated to live off foraging and just getting by. Prosperity is built through the construction of capital, which is the institution that embodies forward thinking. To make capital requires the deferral of consumption: you have to give up some today in order to make tools that enable more consumption tomorrow. This means discipline and a future orientation. And it means, above all, savings that can be invested in productive projects. Only through that path can societies grow rich.
A key component of this concerns the stability of the medium of exchange. And not just stability: a currency that rises in value over time incentivizes saving and thus investing for the long term. The late 19th century provided a good example of this. Under the gold standard, money grew more valuable over time, thus rewarding long term thinking and instilling that outlook in the culture at large.
Inflation has the opposite effect. It punishes saving. It forces a penalty on economic behavior that is future oriented. That means also discouraging investment in long-term projects, which is the whole key to building a complex division of labor and causing wealth to emerge from the muck of the state of nature.
Every bit of inflation trims back that future orientation. Hyper inflation utterly wrecks it. Living for the day becomes the theme. Taking what you can get now is the method and the theme. Grasping and spending. You might as well because the money is only going down in value and goods are in ever shorter supply. Better to live hard and short and forget the future. Go into debt if possible. Let the devaluation itself pay the price.
Once this attitude becomes instilled in a prosperous society, what we call civilization gradually devolves. If inflation persists, this kind of short-term thinking can wreck everything. This is why inflation is not just about rising prices. It’s about declining prosperity, the punishing of thrift, the discouragement of financial responsibility, and a culture that gradually falls apart.
Another factor in reducing time horizons is legal instability. This was my first concern when the lockdowns began 28 months ago. Why would anyone start a business if governments can just shut it down on a whim? Why plan for the future when that future can be wrecked by the stroke of a pen?
There is a connection here with the huge rise in petty theft and real crime across the country. Stealing and hurting others reflects short time horizons. It is about getting something now, regardless of decency and morality. In that way, monetary devaluation has a relationship to the rise in crime.
Brent Orrell reports on the economic literature: Enter criminologist Richard Rosenfeld - a professor emeritus at the University of Missouri-St. Louis who has spent the better part of the last decade researching explanations for U.S. crime trends. In 2014, Rosenfeld proposed a new answer to the “Great Recession paradox” that focused not on unemployment or inequality but on inflation.
Similar to the recession of 2008-10, the Great Depression saw an increase in unemployment and a drop in crime rates in the context of steep deflation. By contrast, in the 1970s, when inflation and unemployment took hold at the same time - the era of “stagflation” - crime rates rose. Inflation, not general economic hardship, appeared to be the culprit behind rising crime.
Rosenfeld’s follow-up research on inflation and crime has supported his initial conclusion. In 2016, he found that only inflation had consistent and robust short- and long-term effects on national property crime rates. In 2019, he reported that those results could be extended to the city level, once again confirming that inflation has significant effects on property crime rates. And this year, he published a new paper showing a significant association between inflation and homicide rates, especially in more economically disadvantaged communities.
Many people had assumed that this new path would be short lived. Surely the politicians would wise up and stop the madness. Surely! Tragically, it got worse and worse. The spending and printing began and ramped up over time. It was a perfect storm of sheer madness, and now we are paying the highest possible price. To realize a brighter future, we must remember our past."
"Never More Frightening..."
"Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than
when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right."
~ Laurens van der Post
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“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.
It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”
- Mark Twain
Gregory Mannarino, "Be Ready For A BIG Move In The Stock Market... Keep Your Eyes On These Few Things"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 5/26/22:
"Be Ready For A BIG Move In The Stock Market...
Keep Your Eyes On These Few Things"
Bill Bonner, "To Get Poor is Glorious"
"To Get Poor is Glorious"
How your sacrifices can make a better world...
for your elite overlords.
by Bill Bonner
"You can’t always get what you want."
~ The Rolling Stones
Paris, France - “I can’t believe it, there’s no mustard in the shops,” said Elizabeth this morning. “Huh? No moutarde… en France?” “I don’t know… but the shopkeeper told me that since the government outlawed pesticides… and with the higher price of fuel… they can’t afford to make mustard anymore.” The explanation wasn’t very satisfying. But a lot of things don’t add up.
Here’s another voice from the elite ‘Davos Summit.’ CNBC: "Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told CNBC on Wednesday that "you cannot help everyone so ... we in the West will be a bit poorer because of the high inflation, the high energy costs."
Inflation hit 9.6% in the Netherlands in April, according to the Dutch statistics body CBS. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Rutte told Steve Sedgewick that the Dutch government would help people on lower and lower-middle class incomes with their rising energy bills. However, he added that "you cannot help everyone so ... we in the West will be a bit poorer because of the high inflation, the high energy costs."
Inflation and high energy costs didn’t rise on their own. They were pushed up by public policies – shutdowns, war, and money-printing. But don’t fret, poverty will be good for you. The Hill: "Is the spike in gas prices good for America?" "…in the long run, an inflated price for gasoline is, I would argue, good for the environment. It may encourage people to take carpools to work, to bicycle and walk more. This will improve health and welfare."
The price spike may further spur the development of battery-driven cars. Both Ford and General Motors have said they will be manufacturing all-electric fleets by 2030. I never thought I would live to see the day.
Hallelujah…we won’t have any mustard. And we’ll all be poorer. But in a good way.
Beginning to Buckle: As expected, those once-sturdy legs of the American middle class – jobs (for earnings) and houses (for net wealth) – are beginning to buckle. MarketWatch: "Sales of new homes in the U.S. fell in April for the fourth month in a row to the lowest level since the pandemic owing to high prices and soaring mortgage rates. New sales slowed to a 591,000 annual rate from 709,000 in the prior month, the government said Tuesday."
Mortgage rates have nearly doubled in the last 6 months. And house prices are much higher. So fewer people can afford to buy. Also, many homeowners have locked-in mortgages at the lowest rates in history. They’re lucky. But they can’t afford to sell! Fewer new home sales mean fewer commissions for real estate agents, less money for movers, fewer remodeling jobs for builders, and less work for the people who make refrigerators, carpets, beds and all of the other items people want when they buy a new house. Altogether, it means fewer jobs, less income, a smaller GDP and more poverty.
And here comes even more good news from 24/7 Wall Street: "The microchip shortage that has battered the industry prompted Toyota to say it will cut global manufacturing by 100,0000 down to 850,000. That will affect company earnings and the financial health of dealers, and it may push consumers to put off new car purchases for months, if not years." Two years ago, it was unimaginable that a global car company would cut production.
And Business Insider: "A wave of layoffs is sweeping the US. Lately, we’ve been kvetching about the plight of the working class. Who will bear the brunt of the coming stagflation? Who will lose their jobs? Who will have to change their summer vacation plans? Who will switch from sirloin to hamburger?"
No Room for Error Will President Biden announce that he’s going to fire a few empty suits? Will the Fed cull its 400+ Ph.D. economists… perhaps those that told us that inflation would not go over 2% this year? Or, how about the generals who botched a 20-year war in Afghanistan? Or Dr. Anthony Fauci… whose plan for dealing with the Covid 19 turned out to be medically ineffective and economically catastrophic; or any of the 2 million other federal employees – some more useless than others?
No? Alas, as you go down the socio-economic escalator, the pain rises. At the top, people can flub trillion-dollar programs and still live well (Ben Bernanke… who probably did more damage than any Fed chief other than Jerome Powell… is still quoted in the press as an authority on the economy!)… but at the bottom, there’s no room for error.
Higher prices and joblessness… those are problems for the working class, not the elite. But now we know. These are good things. We will make less and consume less. We will put on our sweaters, with holes in the elbows, and turn down our thermostats. We will go into our supermarkets, find the shelves half empty, and we will be happy. We will listen to our elites – speaking to us from Davos and Aspen – and nod our heads in agreement.
‘To get poor is glorious,’ they will tell us. And we will save the planet. Or… at least we will save the elite."
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Yeah, real glorious...
"This is Not the Bottom - People Don’t Want to Talk About Money Problems"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 5/26/22:
"This is Not the Bottom -
People Don’t Want to Talk About Money Problems"
"So many people have gotten themselves into financial difficulties. People would rather appear to have money and actually cut back and pay their bills off. The stock market goes up one day and down the next, but one thing is for sure and that is that this is not the bottom of the market yet."
"Inconsolable..."
"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time;
it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable."
~ Sydney J. Harris
"NATO vs Russia - What Happens Next"
"NATO vs Russia - What Happens Next"
by Pepe Escobar
"Three months after the start of Russia’s Operation Z in Ukraine, the battle of The West (12 percent) against The Rest (88 percent) keeps metastasizing. Yet the narrative – oddly – remains the same.
On Monday, from Davos, World Economic Forum Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab introduced Ukrainian comedian-cum-President Volodymyr Zelensky, on the latest leg of his weapons-solicitation-tour, with a glowing tribute. Herr Schwab stressed that an actor impersonating a president defending neo-Nazis is supported by “all of Europe and the international order.” He means, of course, everyone except the 88 percent of the planet that subscribes to the Rule of Law – instead of the faux construct the west calls a ‘rules-based international order.’
Back in the real world, Russia, slowly but surely has been rewriting the Art of Hybrid War. Yet within the carnival of NATO psyops, aggressive cognitive infiltration, and stunning media sycophancy, much is being made of the new $40 billion US ‘aid’ package to Ukraine, deemed capable of becoming a game-changer in the war. This ‘game-changing’ narrative comes courtesy of the same people who burned though trillions of dollars to secure Afghanistan and Iraq. And we saw how that went down.
Ukraine is the Holy Grail of international corruption. That $40 billion can be a game-changer for only two classes of people: First, the US military-industrial complex, and second, a bunch of Ukrainian oligarchs and neo-connish NGOs, that will corner the black market for weapons and humanitarian aid, and then launder the profits in the Cayman Islands.
A quick breakdown of the $40 billion reveals $8.7 billion will go to replenish the US weapons stockpile (thus not going to Ukraine at all); $3.9 billion for USEUCOM (the ‘office’ that dictates military tactics to Kiev); $5 billion for a fuzzy, unspecified “global food supply chain”; $6 billion for actual weapons and “training” to Ukraine; $9 billion in “economic assistance” (which will disappear into selected pockets); and $0.9 billion for refugees.
US risk agencies have downgraded Kiev to the dumpster of non-reimbursing-loan entities, so large American investment funds are ditching Ukraine, leaving the European Union (EU) and its member-states as the country’s only option.
Few of those countries, apart from Russophobic entities such as Poland, can justify to their own populations sending huge sums of direct aid to a failed state. So it will fall to the Brussels-based EU machine to do just enough to maintain Ukraine in an economic coma – independent from any input from member-states and institutions.
These EU ‘loans’ – mostly in the form of weapons shipments – can always be reimbursed by Kiev’s wheat exports. This is already happening on a small scale via the port of Constanta in Romania, where Ukrainian wheat arrives in barges over the Danube and is loaded into dozens of cargo ships everyday. Or, via convoys of trucks rolling with the weapons-for-wheat racket. However, Ukrainian wheat will keep feeding the wealthy west, not impoverished Ukrainians.
Moreover, expect NATO this summer to come up with another monster psyop to defend its divine (not legal) right to enter the Black Sea with warships to escort Ukrainian vessels transporting wheat. Pro-NATO media will spin it as the west being ‘saved’ from the global food crisis – which happens to be directly caused by serial, hysterical packages of western sanctions.
Poland goes for soft annexation: NATO is indeed massively ramping up its ‘support’ to Ukraine via the western border with Poland. That’s in synch with Washington’s two overarching targets: First, a ‘long war,’ insurgency-style, just like Afghanistan in the 1980s, with jihadis replaced by mercenaries and neo-Nazis. Second, the sanctions instrumentalized to “weaken” Russia, militarily and economically.
Other targets remain unchanged, but are subordinate to the Top Two: make sure that the Democrats are re-elected in the mid-terms (that’s not going to happen); irrigate the industrial-military complex with funds that are recycled back as kickbacks (already happening); and keep the hegemony of the US dollar by all means (tricky: the multipolar world is getting its act together).
A key target being met with astonishing ease is the destruction of the German – and consequently the EU’s – economy, with a great deal of the surviving companies to be eventually sold off to American interests. Take, for instance, BMW board member Milan Nedeljkovic telling Reuters that “our industry accounts for about 37 percent of natural gas consumption in Germany” which will sink without Russian gas supplies.
Washington’s plan is to keep the new ‘long war’ going at a not-too-incandescent level – think Syria during the 2010s – fueled by rows of mercenaries, and featuring periodic NATO escalations by anyone from Poland and the Baltic midgets to Germany.
Last week, that pitiful Eurocrat posing as High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, gave away the game when previewing the upcoming meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council. Borrell admitted that “the conflict will be long” and “the priority of the EU member states” in Ukraine “consists in the supply of heavy weapons.”
Then Polish President Andrzej Duda met with Zelensky in Kiev. The slew of agreements the two signed indicate that Warsaw intends to profit handsomely from the war to enhance its politico-military, economic, and cultural influence in western Ukraine. Polish nationals will be allowed to be elected to Ukrainian government bodies and even aim to become constitutional judges. In practice, that means Kiev is all but transferring management of the Ukrainian failed state to Poland. Warsaw won’t even have to send troops. Call it a soft annexation.
The steamroller on the move: As it stands, the situation on the battlefield can be examined in this map. Intercepted communications from the Ukrainian command reveal their aim to build a layered defense from Poltava through Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhia, Krivoy Rog, and Nikolaev – which happens to be a shield for the already fortified Odessa. None of that guarantees success against the incoming Russian onslaught.
It’s always important to remember that Operation Z started on February 24 with around 150,000 or so fighters – and definitely not Russia’s elite forces. And yet they liberated Mariupol and destroyed the elite neo-Nazi Azov batallion in a matter of only fifty days, cleaning up a city of 400,000 people with minimal casualties.
While fighting a real war on the ground – not those indiscriminate US bombings from the air – in a huge country against a large army, facing multiple technical, financial and logistical challenges, the Russians also managed to liberate Kherson, Zaporizhia and virtually the whole area of the ‘baby twins,’ the popular republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Russia’s ground forces commander, General Aleksandr Dvornikov, has turbo-charged missile, artillery and air strikes to a pace five times faster than during the first phase of Operation Z, while the Ukrainians, overall, are low or very low on fuel, ammo for artillery, trained specialists, drones, and radars.
What American armchair and TV generals simply cannot comprehend is that in Russia’s view of this war – which military expert Andrei Martyanov defines as a “combined arms and police operation” – the two top targets are the destruction of all military assets of the enemy while preserving the life of its own soldiers. So while losing tanks is not a big deal for Moscow, losing lives is. And that accounts for those massive Russian bombings; each military target must be conclusively destroyed. Precision strikes are crucial.
There is a raging debate among Russian military experts on why the Ministry of Defense does not go for a fast strategic victory. They could have reduced Ukraine to rubble – American style – in no time. That’s not going to happen. The Russians prefer to advance slowly and surely, in a sort of steamroller pattern. They only advance after sappers have fully surveilled the terrain; after all there are mines everywhere.
The overall pattern is unmistakable, whatever the NATO spin barrage. Ukrainian losses are becoming exponential – as many as 1,500 killed or wounded each day, everyday. If there are 50,000 Ukrainians in the several Donbass cauldrons, they will be gone by the end of June.
Ukraine must have lost as many as 20,000 soldiers in and around Mariupol alone. That’s a massive military defeat, largely surpassing Debaltsevo in 2015 and previously Ilovaisk in 2014. The losses near Izyum may be even higher than in Mariupol. And now come the losses in the Severodonetsk corner.
We’re talking here about the best Ukrainian forces. It doesn’t even matter that only 70 percent of Western weapons sent by NATO ever make it to the battlefield: the major problem is that the best soldiers are going…going…gone, and won’t be replaced. Azov neo-Nazis, the 24th Brigade, the 36th Brigade, various Air Assault brigades – they all suffered losses of 60+ percent or have been completely demolished.
So the key question, as several Russian military experts have stressed, is not when Kiev will ‘lose’ as a point of no return; it is how many soldiers Moscow is prepared to lose to get to this point.
The entire Ukrainian defense is based on artillery. So the key battles ahead involve long-range artillery. There will be problems, because the US is about to deliver M270 MLRS systems with precision-guided ammunition, capable of hitting targets at a distance of up to 70 kilometers or more. Russia, though, has a counterpunch: the Hermes Small Operational-Tactical Complex, using high precision munitions, possibility of laser guidance, and a range of more than 100 kilometers. And they can work in conjunction with the already mass-produced Pantsir air defense systems.
The sinking ship: Ukraine, within its current borders, is already a thing of the past. Georgy Muradov, permanent representative of Crimea to the President of Russia and Deputy Prime Minister of the Crimean government, is adamant: “Ukraine in the form in which it was, I think, will no longer remain. This is already the former Ukraine.”
The Sea of Azov has now become a “sea of joint use” by Russia and the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), as confirmed by Muradov.
Mariupol will be restored. Russia has had plenty of experience in this business in both Grozny and Crimea. The Russia-Crimea land corridor is on. Four hospitals among five in Mariupol have already reopened and public transportation is back, as well as three gas stations.
The imminent loss of Severodonetsk and Lysichansk will ring serious alarm bells in Washington and Brussels, because that will represent the beginning of the end of the current regime in Kiev. And that, for all practical purposes – and beyond all the lofty rhetoric of “the west stands with you” – means heavy players won’t be exactly encouraged to bet on a sinking ship.
On the sanctions front, Moscow knows exactly what to expect, as detailed by Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov: “Russia proceeds from the fact that sanctions against it are a rather long-term trend, and from the fact that the pivot to Asia, the acceleration of reorientation to eastern markets, to Asian markets is a strategic direction for Russia. We will make every effort to integrate into value chains precisely together with Asian countries, together with Arab countries, together with South America.”
On efforts to “intimidate Russia,” players would be wise to listen to the hypersonic sound of 50 Sarmat state-of-the-art missiles ready for combat this autumn, as explained by Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin.
This week’s meetings in Davos brings to light another alignment forming in the world’s overarching unipolar vs. multipolar battle. Russia, the baby twins, Chechnya and allies such as Belarus are now pitted against ‘Davos leaders’ – in other words, the combined western elite, with a few exceptions like Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Zelensky will be fine. He’s protected by British and American special forces. The family is reportedly living in an $8 million mansion in Israel. He owns a $34 million villa in Miami Beach, and another in Tuscany. Average Ukrainians were lied to, robbed, and in many cases, murdered, by the Kiev gang he presides over – oligarchs, security service (SBU) fanatics, neo-Nazis. And those Ukrainians that remain (10 million have already fled) will continue to be treated as expendable.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir “the new Hitler” Putin is in absolutely no hurry to end this larger than life drama that is ruining and rotting the already decaying west to its core. Why should he? He tried everything, since 2007, on the “why can’t we get along” front. Putin was totally rejected. So now it’s time to sit back, relax, and watch the Decline of the West."
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