Tuesday, December 15, 2020

"A Nation Divided Shall Surely Fall"

"A Nation Divided Shall Surely Fall"
by Michael Snyder

"It is often said that a house divided will surely fall, and the same thing can now be said for the United States as a whole. If there is anything that this election has made clear, it is the fact that there is little hope of healing the very deep divisions that exist in our country. Most of those on the political left absolutely hate those on the political right, and most of those on the political right absolutely hate those on the political left. But it isn’t as if the two opposing sides are even united. The radical left is absolutely disgusted with “moderate Democrats” such as Joe Biden and is very much looking forward to the day when their “progressive revolution” finally triumphs in America. Meanwhile, the right is hopelessly divided into countless political, religious and economic factions, and there is endless conflict between “conservatives” that are pro-Trump and those that are anti-Trump. Over the past 30 years, not much has actually gotten done in D.C., but what little has been accomplished has almost always involved more spending, more debt and more socialism.

One of the reasons why the United States became such a great nation is because originally we were united by a core set of values and principles. In the beginning, everything was about faith, family and freedom. Our notions of right and wrong were defined by the Christian faith, the family was the most important institution in our society, and early Americans were desperate for freedom after experiencing deep oppression over in Europe.

But now we have completely abandoned all of that. The Christian faith has been relentlessly pushed to the fringes of public life, the traditional family unit is mocked while rampant sexual immorality is celebrated all over America, and with each passing day our freedoms are being eroded even more.

At this point, our Constitution has essentially been relegated to being “just a piece of paper” that sits in the National Archives. It has been trampled on over and over again in recent years, and the courts do not seem to care.In fact, much of the time it is the courts that are doing the trampling.

We have now gotten to a point where our nation is almost ungovernable. When Barack Obama first entered the White House, millions upon millions of Americans did not consider him to be a legitimate president. Then when Donald Trump won the election in 2016, even more Americans did not recognize the legitimacy of his presidency. Of course that trend is only going to intensify now that Biden is being installed as president. According to one brand new survey, a whopping 82 percent of all Trump supporters do not believe that Biden is the “legitimate winner of the 2020 election”…

A strong majority of Donald Trump supporters reject the legitimacy of Joe Biden as President-elect, with many citing election irregularities and the most pervasive censorship campaign in American history in support of Biden on the part of Big Tech companies. A poll released Sunday by CBS News reveals that 82% of self-identifying Trump supporters do not recognize Biden as the “legitimate winner of the 2020 election.”

Of course if the election results were reversed and Donald Trump was given another four years, a similar percentage of Democrats would almost certainly not be willing to recognize the legitimacy of Trump’s victory.

No matter who is in the White House from now on, tens of millions of Americans are not going to accept that individual as being legitimate. And thanks to the events of the past several weeks, the election fraud that has been going on for decades in this country has now been exposed for everyone to see. From this point forward, a very high percentage of Americans will not have any faith that our elections are fair. If people don’t believe in the system, it is just a matter of time before it completely fails.

John Adams once made the following statement: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." Today, the American people are neither moral nor religious. Instead, we have evolved into an “idiocracy” that is dominated by power-hungry control freaks.

If you go back and read the extremely eloquent things that our founders had to say in their time, you will quickly realize that the way that we speak and write today is completely different. If they could have traveled to our time and interacted with us, we would have seemed like cavemen to them. Most of us can barely hold conversations with others, and when we do it is mostly just a bunch of unintelligible gibberish. But even though we have been dramatically “dumbed down” over the decades, if we could at least try to get along with one another we could still have a functional society.

Sadly, I have never seen more hatred in our country than I am seeing now, and it just keeps on growing. You would think that Democrats would have an interest in at least trying to pull the country together, but instead they just keep rubbing their “victory” in the faces of their enemies. For example, just consider something that Debra Messing just said: "The “Will & Grace” star - one of Hollywood’s most vocal Trump critics - expressed a desire for the president to “live a long life in prison” in a tweet to her more than 677,000 followers last week. She called Trump “a weak, scared, stupid, inept, negligent, vindictive, narcissistic, criminal” before writing she hoped he became “the most popular boyfriend to all the inmates.”

Can you feel the love in those words? Yes, let the healing begin.

More blood was spilled on the streets of D.C. over the weekend, and the left and the right will continue to go after one another in the weeks and months ahead. We have now entered a period of semi-permanent civil unrest in this country, and what we have experienced so far is just the beginning.

If we would return to the values and principles that our nation was founded upon, our future could be very different. But that is not what the American people seem to want. So we will continue to steamroll toward oblivion, and there is no future for our nation if we stay on the road that we are currently on."

"This Friday (December 18th) Will Be One Of The Most Important Days Of This Country’s History"

"This Friday (December 18th) Will Be One Of The 
Most Important Days Of This Country’s History"
by IWB

"As many of you may already know, Trump signed an executive order back on September 12, 2018 that allows sanctions in the event of foreign interference in the election. There’s been a lot of chatter recently of the possibility of Trump invoking the insurrection act to take control in the event that the court failed to enforce accountability and uphold the Constitution. What’s the written deadline for this particular EO? Answer: December 18, 2020.

Now ask yourselves what happened on December 18th the year before that? Answer: Trump delivered his important national security address.

"Needs to be confirmed but the Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe is alleged to be making an announcement this Friday which 'It’s going to blow the mind of every citizen; there might not be a Joe Biden administration.' I know Trump met up with him this week."
Source: David Atherton, @DaveAtherton20 December 15, 2020

And yet so many of you actually think that Trump will go quietly into the night? I wouldn’t count on it. Have your supplies stocked by December 18th. Things are going to get bumpy. REALLY bumpy."
A MUST Read:

Musical Interlude: Genesis, "Land of Confusion"

Genesis, "Land of Confusion"

"How It Really Is"

"The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion." 

"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe."  
- Frederick Douglass

"Market Fantasy Updates PM 12/15/20"

"Market Fantasy Updates PM 12/15/20"
Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
"The more I see of the monied classes, 
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
Gregory Mannarino, AM 12/15/20:
"US Economic Crash Worsening Plus Market Updates"
Updated live.
Daily Update (Dec. 14th to 15th)
Insanity... 
And now... The End Game...

Gregory Mannarino, "Well That Actually $ucked... Congress AGAIN Fails The American People"

Gregory Mannarino,
"Well That Actually $ucked... 
Congress AGAIN Fails The American People"

"If We Falter..."

 

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. 

The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic 

feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse."

- John Stuart Mill

Monday, December 14, 2020

"If You Thought 2020 Was Bad, Watch What Happens In 2021"

"If You Thought 2020 Was Bad, 
Watch What Happens In 2021"
by Epic Economist

"If you are thinking that the chaotic 2020 narrative will end after the year is over, we are sorry to inform you that the collapse has just begun. The coming year will be marked by the consequences of the disastrous response to the health crisis, which has shut down businesses economic activity throughout several rounds of government-mandated lockdowns. The damages caused will not be undone overnight. Not even a miraculous vaccine will help us get out of the economic rock bottom our country has fallen into.

The truth is that the scarring done in the job market, the apocalyptic wave of businesses bankruptcies, the astronomical level of accumulated debt in the housing market, and the expiration of federal aid will jeopardize the U.S. economic growth for much longer than one can imagine. Furthermore, with a stock market highly based on speculative stimulus projections, we are about to see much more turmoil in the financial markets over the next months. So, if you think 2020 was bad, wait until you see what's going to happen in 2021. 

Many are under the impression that as we turn the 2020 page, the whole history of a year that went wrong will be left behind us. Unfortunately, this is not the case. When we take a quick look at our economic wounds and our social scenario, it becomes quite evident that there's no way around it. Eventually, our reckoning day will arrive and the many crises that were triggered during this year will have to be faced head-on. 

While the mainstream media is selling us the idea that as soon as the health crisis is under control and a vaccine is widely distributed everything will come back to normal, economists, market strategists, and scholars have been all alerting that the "new normal" will include an unprecedented level of surveillance, government dependency, repression and economic deterioration. In short, nothing will ever be "normal" again. World leaders realized what great opportunity the outbreak was to silently advance their agenda and finally enforce a global financial reset. To do so, they have been counting on policy-makers, who have been issuing measures that expressly contribute to the destruction of the current financial system. 

The "Great Reset" as the World Economic Forum calls it, has started to develop years ago, but never in history, the global population has been so desperate they could promptly accept any solution to ease the financial burden provoked by the current recession. That's why several analysts have warned that the catastrophic economic events of early 2021 will also be used by globalists to justify a shift to a system where almost every aspect of our lives will be unrecognizable. 

The economic and financial downturn we are experiencing could have been completely avoided if more effective action were taken since the start of the crisis. But most of the regulations enacted led businesses to die, people to lose their jobs and fall into poverty. All evidences are there, and yet they chose to do nothing to prevent a major calamity. This indifference to people's suffering isn't a result of harsh circumstances. In fact, it gives us a clear picture of how the intentions of both the elites and governments around the world are perfectly aligned. 

They will continue to push us over the edge. They will continue to crush businesses with lockdowns, and therefore, push millions more out of their jobs, leading many to accumulate debt so that they become inevitably attached and reliant to the system. Moreover, they are letting a hunger and homelessness crisis ravage the lives of our citizens, and in a sense, they are even enabling a potential third wave of contagion knowingly just to get us at our most vulnerable state. Additionally, the stock market is set to crash in the coming months. And when things go south on the stock markets, it is a clear indication that things in the real economy pretty much went from bad to worse. 

At this stage, we're closer to a double-dip recession than to some sort of recovery. In 2020, our most worrying financial problems were unemployment and growing debt, but by early 2021 it can become poverty, famine, and homelessness for millions of us. These three agents combined will be far more fatal than the current virus. What's more, the occurrence of a massive financial crash will cause much more chaos than what we've seen this year. The biggest question is: will mass poverty succeed where the health crisis failed in convincing Americans to give up their liberties in exchange for some stability? That's exactly what the global elites are waiting for. Are you ready for this battle?"

"Time To Heel – Or Fight"

"Time To Heel – Or Fight"
by Jim Quinn

"In Part 1 of this article I discussed how our country has devolved from Huxley’s Brave New World of distraction and irrelevancy into Orwell’s world of Big Brother surveillance and Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago. Now I will make the case for joining the fight against the Great Reset. As more than half the country sleep-walks into the clutches of Marxism and tyranny, they fail to heed the wisdom of those who experienced the cruelty, oppression, and degradation after a similar revolution in the last century.

“A revolution never brings prosperity to a nation, but benefits only a few shameless opportunists, while to the country as a whole it heralds countless deaths, widespread impoverishment, and, in the gravest cases, a long-lasting degeneration of the people.” 
– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Dangerous Chuck Schumer: "Now we take Georgia then we change the world!" – Shore News Network. Schumer’s slip of the tongue about changing the world and then putting on his mask (to push the masks work narrative) and declaring he will change the country when they win the two Georgia Senate seats reveals the global nature of this ongoing coup attempt by the global elites and the Deep State. I was highly suspicious of the engineered hysteria for this China flu back in March when I wrote "P for Pandemic" and stand by my conclusions reached nine months ago:

“As this incomprehensible national shutdown extends into April, tens of thousands of small businesses will be forced to close their doors for good. Local restaurants, hair salons, delis, hardware stores, and thousands of other small businesses will be involuntarily shuttered for good. The national chains will collect their government largess, produce PR campaigns to pat themselves on the back, and abscond with the profits of the now deceased small businesses. The corporate fascists will become ever more powerful. Why are we letting this happen?”

I’m infuriated every time I see an Applebees, Wal-Mart, or Amazon commercial touting their bravery and fortitude during these troubled times. These mega-corporations, with powerful lobbying departments and unlimited financial resources, have reaped tremendous profits and seen their stock prices soar to all-time highs, while hundreds of thousands of small restaurants and retailers have closed for good. Somewhere between one-third and one-half of all small businesses in America have closed or will close permanently.

The bullshit slogan “We are all in this together” has been beaten to death by the propaganda media, while our wealthy elite overlords work remotely in their multi-million-dollar mansions, doing their daily Peleton workouts, sending their kids to expensive private schools and dining on white truffles and caviar at the French Laundry for $1,200. We are not in this together.

It’s us and THEM. You know who THEY are. The millions of formerly middle class and poor are lining up at foodbanks because authoritarian governors like Newsom, Cuomo, Whitmer, Murphy, and Wolf have shutdown small businesses without any science to back up their dictatorial actions, while allowing Wal-Mart, Costco, Lowes, and other favored companies to remain open. Political donations appreciated.

As the months of idiotic government tyranny have gotten worse, I couldn’t help but experience an Inspector Finch moment while pondering the confluence of events surrounding this pandemic/plandemic/scamdemic. “I felt like I could see everything that happened, and everything that is going to happen. It was like a perfect pattern, laid out in front of me. And I realized we’re all part of it, and all trapped by it.” – Finch – "V for Vendetta"

The purposeful destruction of the US and EU economies through unnecessary, unwarranted and un-Constitutional lockdowns of citizens and small businesses; mandatory masking for a virus that can easily penetrate a mask, with a survival rate of 99.5% for those under 70 years old; using the virus to steal a presidential election though mail-in ballot fraud, social media manipulation, and Dominion software vote switching; and now the rollout of a vaccine in nine months that is supposedly 95% effective, when the regular flu vaccine is only 40% effective after decades of study, and no one has a clue regarding any long-term consequences of the vaccine, is all part of the plan.

We also know the drug companies have legal immunity from whatever terrible side effects might arise. Whenever confronted with a confusing sequence of events and baffling governmental measures, it is always a safe bet to just follow the money. Leftist ideology is only a means for evildoers to justify the destruction of our society.

“Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

If you drive 50% of small businesses into insolvency, all those sales and profits must gravitate to the connected mega-corporations, as we have already seen. They then payoff politicians to enforce regulations and mandates to keep the profits flowing and small businesses from competing. By stealing the presidential election and accomplishing the same result in the Georgia Senate races, the Marxist loving global elite will change the world.

By packing the Supreme Court with four leftists, abolishing the filibuster rule and making Washington DC and Puerto Rico states, the coup will be complete. America as we know it will cease to exist and those not connected to the oligarchs will sink into impoverishment and slave-hood status. The oligarchs will reap the riches, while they retain control through an iron fist and sophisticated technological surveillance.

The “miraculous” Gates/Fauci Covid vaccine, which is currently being marketed by the MSM talking heads, will become mandatory to work, travel, shop, or enter sports venues. Big Pharma is already reaping billions in profits, while being shielded from liability when it goes wrong – as designed. By acquiescing to the demands of these evil totalitarians we are sentencing future generations to a digital gulag – with the threat of a real gulag for dissenters.

“In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand-fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn


“Big Brother is home. He is installed in the item you just dragged home from the Apple store.” ― Julian Assange

Even though all “scientific” studies, prior to the pandemic, by the CDC, WHO, prestigious universities, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the recently published Danish mask study all concluded masks do not protect anyone from viruses, our totalitarian overlords saw the opportunity to impose their will upon the masses as a test to see how far they could go before meeting resistance.
Fauci, the Surgeon General, and the head of the CDC weren’t lying in March when they all told the public, masks didn’t protect them. They have been lying since then. The scientific proof can be easily observed by looking at a chart of cases in states with mandatory masking. The cases have skyrocketed (due to the purposely faulty PCR test) despite mask mandates and lockdowns. I guess the manufacturers of these masks are telling the truth.

The masks have not been about health, they’ve been about control and conditioning the population for further restrictions of liberties and rights – in the name of safety and security. Knowing the ignorance and lack of critical thinking skills of at least half the population, those in control of the pandemic narrative are weaponizing that ignorance to invoke fear and loathing among the pliable populace.

By dehumanizing us as nothing more than germ carrying super spreaders, their plan is to drastically reduce interaction by like minded people who might resist and create suspicion and distrust among neighbors and families. And it is working beyond their wildest expectations, as a nation of Karens are on the lookout, reporting non-compliance to the authorities. Big Brother now wears a mask, along with recording every electronic communication you make and tracking your every movement. This isn’t Orwellian fiction. It is a modern-day version of Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago.

“Always eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or bed—no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters in your skull.” – George Orwell, "1984"

“A network of informants saturated the population. Secrecy and distrust permeated the people, so much so that any overt activity was perceived as a provocation. How many denunciations there were against one’s own close relatives or against friends who had fallen under the sword!” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Our world is descending into darkness, but it is not the Dark Winter narrative being spewed by the vacuous bimbo faux journalists on the boob tube at the behest of their corporate chieftains. The ramping up of fear using fraudulent statistics, while withholding the truth regarding the minuscule danger to healthy people under the age of 70, is essential for the global elite to successfully achieve their Great Reset, where you will own nothing and be happy.

For decades they have been slowly chipping away at the foundations of our society: family, faith, personal responsibility, honesty, hard work, community standards, good will towards your fellow man, the freedom to make your own choices, and adherence to agreed upon societal rules. Today we have drag queen story hour at the library for five year olds, Epstein and his cadre of rich celebrity elites practicing pedophilia, and men pretending to be women as health experts and women athletes. Now they are ready for the final destruction of our foundational values.

You will eat bugs and fake meat, to preserve the planet. You will be denied fossil fuels, for the planet. You will be provided just enough digital currency to survive. You will do menial jobs and be thankful to your overlords. You will dutifully take your vaccination boosters without question or face the gulag. You will gladly agree to being chipped and electronically monitored. You will only consume government messaging and will not be allowed to contemplate contrary views.

You will no longer hide behind the safety of the U.S. Constitution, as a new world order supplants that outdated scrap of parchment. They want billions of obedient automatons with the same face and thoughts, adhering to their mandates and proclamations. Once these Marxists seize power of our government, they will never relinquish it. This battle is for all the marbles. If we lose, we will be subjugated and punished. Orwell understood the mindset of totalitarians.

“We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.” – George Orwell – 1984

It is time to fight. Not time to heel. The enemy and their tactics have been laid bare to all who choose to acknowledge reality and realize a battle for the soul of our civilization is underway. Being trapped in a normalcy bias bubble is not a viable strategy. You can’t sit out a Fourth Turning. This Fourth Turning has followed the expected path, as the initial financial crisis has now entered the violent upheaval stage, where the future of our country hangs in the balance.

Trump’s team seems to have exhausted all legal means to reverse this travesty of an election. The Deep State is powerful and ingrained at all levels of the government bureaucracy. Hoping for the cavalry to arrive in the nick of time to save the day is naïve and dangerous wishful thinking. The future will be determined by individual acts of bravery and courage. Setting an example for others by courageously speaking the truth and standing up to those intent on enslaving us through lies, in their Great Reset dystopian future, is how this war will be won.

If you think we have time to fight at a future date, you are badly mistaken. As we have seen during the four-year attempted coup against a non-cooperative president and this stolen election, these Marxist globalists will resort to anything to prevail. And once they gain complete control, they will not relinquish their power. That is when retribution against Trump supporters will commence. If we do not take the fight to these evildoers now, we will burn in the camps later. Heel or fight. The time has arrived.

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation… We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

"An Expert Military Analysis of War with China"

"An Expert Military Analysis of War with China"
by Fred Reed

"The Correlation of Armed Forces: U.S. goods and services trade with China totaled an estimated $634.8 billion in 2019. Exports were $163.0 billion; imports were $471.8 billion. The U.S. goods and services trade deficit with China was $308.8 billion in 2019. Trade in services with China (exports and imports) totaled an estimated $76.7 billion in 2019. Services exports were $56.5 billion; services imports were $20.1 billion. The U.S. services trade surplus with China was $36.4 billion in 2019.

There is talk within the Washingtoniat of a possible war with China. Steve Bannon, who apparently was dropped on his head as a child, actually favors such a war. We hear the usual shoo-the-boobs alarm about how the Chinese are doing something terrible and we must gird our loins and American values and show them what for, bow wow, woof. The danger is that the current game of who-blinks-first in Asian waters might actually provoke a shooting war. You know the kind of thing: One warship refuses to get out of the way of another, a collision ensues, some retard lieutenant who signed up on waivers opens fire, and we’re off and running. It is not a good idea to let children play with matches.

The said war is discussed either in emotional terms by idiots or in purely naval terms by those familiar with such things, so we hear of the First Island Chain and the Second Island Chain and whose missiles against the other’s missiles and so on. This would be appropriate if we were fighting World War Two again. Which we aren’t. Let’s take a quick-and-dirty look at how such a war might go.

To begin the war, America would overestimate itself and underestimate China. This is doctrine in the Pentagon. There is probably a manual on it. Inside the DC Bubble, fern-bar Napoleons would assure us that it would be a short war, a cakewalk, a matter of days, not weeks. You know, like Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria. When it turned out that the Chinese had other ideas, among which surrendering was not, and the months dragged on, various fascinating things would happen.

Rand, a think tank wholly owned by the Pentagon, at least mentally, has wargamed both the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, concluding that the war could be both very long and a loss for America. We no longer live in 1960.

OK, the war: On day one, all the multitudinous American factories in China shut down. Example: Apple loses its factories, products from those factories, and the Chinese market of 1.4 billion consumers. Its stores close. Tim Cook’s gratitude will know no bounds. American auto manufacturers sell googolplexes of cars in China (or at least lots), mostly made in China. Overnight they will lose factories, cars, and Chinese customers. Overall, China buys many more cars than does the US. This analysis, if anything so obvious may be called analysis, can be repeated for industry after industry after industry. Goodbye, business vote.

Within weeks, Walmart’s shelves go bare. Walk down the aisles and read the “Made in” labels. We are not talking only plastic buckets and mops but chain saws, pharmaceuticals, motorcycles, and blood-pressure cuffs. So much for the blue-collar vote. The US buys 472 billion in goods annually from China, high-tech, low-tech, consumer goods, manufacturing components. No more.

China buys over $163 billion annually in American goods: petroleum, semiconductors, airline engines, soybeans, airliners, on and on. No more. It is hard to underestimate the joy this will cause in influential boardrooms. And of course the American workers who would have produced these things for China will be laid off. As electoral politics, this will prove suboptimal.

China produces a great majority of the rare earth elements crucial to the manufacture of electronics, such as semiconductors. No quick substitute is in sight. Just about everything in America uses these, to include the computers that run the electrical systems of cars. Though I haven’t checked, it is quite possible that the computers themselves are made in China. If you want a new and deeper understanding of the word “hostile,” check the influential CEOs of businesses on their second chipless day.

In a real war, it is likely that China, having thought of the foregoing, would (intelligently) destroy Taiwan’s semiconductor fabs, notably those of TSMC, as well as other factories of electronics. This would hardly be difficult since the Taiwan Strait is only a hundred or so miles wide. Losing these industries would be exceedingly painful for the US since its high-end chips come from Taiwan. It would take America years to replace this capacity domestically. Some of the necessary equipment, extreme ultraviolet lithography machines, is not made in America and in any event cannot be stamped out like beer cans.

In America it would quickly be discovered that the country is rather more dependent on China than some might think. If I may make up an example: The automotive industry finds that its sparkplugs come from China. While America could certainly make spark plugs, it turns out that a decade back the industry found that China could make them for forty percent less. In the cooperative commercial world pre-Trump, this was no problem. Not now. So much for sales of cars. And for the jobs of the workers who make them.

I will bet you all my diamond mines in South Africa and cattle lands in Argentina, that if you went through a parts list for, say, Boeing’s airliners, you would find lots of them made in China. Sure, the US could manufacture most of them, eventually. But companies need parts now, not eventually.

The effects on other countries of a large war against China would be catastrophic if not worse. Other countries also get many things, from China or Taiwan, such as semiconductors. Google on “country x largest trading partner.” A strong pattern quickly becomes clear: China is huge in trading with practically everybody. “Everybody” includes Germany, Japan, Australia, Russia, and South America as a whole. The world economy in its entirety would collapse.

How smart would this be? The United States is already in serious trouble, what with a currency rapidly being debased, a sinking middle class, businesses dying of Covid, jobs disappearing abroad, people living paycheck to paycheck, and social unhappiness resulting in continent-wide riots. Do you suppose the public will gladly support an unfathomably stupid war causing an instant, profound, and murderous economic depression? If so, you probably already have a collection of bridges.

This can be inflicted on the entire earth by a half-dozen loons in or circling around the White House unhindered by a worthless Congress. Six loons. Yes, I know, Trump is unlikely deliberately to start a Third world War, even as a publicity stunt. No, the generals in the Pentagon are not nearly stupid enough. (They might even refuse, pointing out that starting a war requires a declaration by Congress.) The problem is that for years America has been, if not actually looking for a fight, at least daring other countries to start one. For example, murdering Iranian officials, pulling out of arms-control treaties, pushing NATO ever closer to Russia, sanctioning countries far beyond anything that can be called a trade war, and playing chicken with China in the South China Sea. Under these circumstances you can get a fight without quite looking for one."

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 12/14/20"

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 12/14/20"

Dec. 14, 2020 

 Dec. 14, 2020 2:30 PM ET: 
The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 72,645,100 
people, according to official counts, including 16,477,271 Americans.
At least 1,616,700 have died.

"The COVID Tracking Project"
Every day, our volunteers compile the latest numbers on tests, cases, 
hospitalizations, and patient outcomes from every US state and territory.

Musical Interlude: The Alan Parsons Project, "Prime Time"

The Alan Parsons Project, "Prime Time"

"A Look to the Namibian Heavens

“Namibia has some of the darkest nights visible from any continent. It is therefore home to some of the more spectacular skyscapes, a few of which have been captured in the below time-lapse video. The night sky of Namibia is one of the best in the world, about the same quality of the deserts of Chile and Australia.

 We recommend watching this video at 
FULL SCREEN (1080p), with audio on.

Visible at the movie start are unusual quiver trees perched before a deep starfield highlighted by the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy. This bright band of stars and gas appears to pivot around the celestial south pole as our Earth rotates. The remains of camel thorn trees are then seen against a sky that includes a fuzzy patch on the far right that is the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy to the Milky Way. A bright sunlight-reflecting satellite passes quickly overhead. Quiver trees appear again, now showing their unusual trunks, while the Small Magellanic Cloud becomes clearly visible in the background. Artificial lights illuminate a mist that surround camel thorn trees in Deadvlei. In the final sequence, natural Namibian stone arches are captured against the advancing shadows of the setting moon. This video incorporates over 16,000 images shot over two years, and won top honors among the 2012 Travel Photographer of the Year awards.”

The Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke, "And Yet"

"And Yet"

"And yet, though we strain
against the deadening grip
of daily necessity,
I sense there is this mystery:
All life is being lived.
Who is living it then?
Is it the things themselves,
or something waiting inside them,
like an unplayed melody in a flute?
Is it the winds blowing over the waters?
Is it the branches that signal to each other?
Is it flowers
interweaving their fragrances
or streets, as they wind through time?"

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

"I Asked For, I Was Given..."

“In my youth I respected the world and life,
I needed nothing but peace of heart;
And yet I changed despite myself and believed in Iktomi's lies.
He seemed to know all the truth, he promised to make me happy.

He made me ask Wakan Tanka for wealth, that I might have power;
I was given poverty, that I might find my inner strength.

I asked for fame, so others would know me;
I was given obscurity, that I might know myself.

I asked for a person to love that I might never be alone;
I was given a life of a hermit, that I might learn to accept myself.

I asked for power, that I might achieve;
I was given weakness, that I might learn to obey.

I asked for health, that I might lead a long life;
I was given infirmity, that I might appreciate each minute.

I asked Mother Earth for strength, that I might have my way;
I was given weakness, that I might feel the need for Her.

I asked to live happily, that I might enjoy life;
I was given life, that I might live happily.

I received nothing I asked for, yet all my wishes came true.
Despite myself and Iktomi, my dreams were fulfilled,
I am richly blessed more than I ever hoped,
I thank you, Wakan Tanka, for what you've given me.”
- Billy Mills, Oglala Lakota (1938-)
"In Lakota mythology, Iktomi is a spider-trickster spirit, and a culture hero for the Lakota people. Alternate names for Iktomi include Ikto, Ictinike, Inktomi, Unktome, and Unktomi. These names are due to the differences in tribal languages, as this spider deity was known throughout many of North America's tribes. Iktomi can be compared to the African trickster figure Anansi, and to some extent, the transculturated Yoruba Ellegua, also depicted as a trickster disguised in red. Due to his nature as a Trickster as well as patronage of communication, Iktomi is also comparable to the Greco-Roman Hermes/Mercurius (Mercury)."

"In Native American mythology, Wakan Tanka (great mystery) is the supreme being and creator of the Lakota Sioux. Sometimes called Great Spirit, he is similar to the supreme beings found in the myths of many other North American peoples. According to Lakota myth, before creation Wakan Tanka existed in a great emptiness called Han (darkness). Feeling lonely, he decided to create companions for himself. First, Great Spirit focused his energy into a powerful force to form Inyan (rock), the first god. Next, he used Inyan to create Maka (earth) and then mated with that god to produce Skan (sky). Skan brought forth Wi (the sun) from Inyan, Maka, and himself. These four gods were separate and powerful, but they were all part of Wakan Tanka.

The first four gods produced four companions - Moon, Wind, Falling Star, and Thunderbird - to help with the process of creation. In turn, these companions created various gods and spirits, including Whirlwind, Four Winds, Buffalo, Two-Legged Creatures (humans and bears), Sicun (thought), Nagi (spirit of death), Niya (breath of life), and Nagila (shadow). All of these beings were aspects of Wakan Tanka. Together, they created and oversee everything that exists."

Free Download: Jiddu Krishnamurti, "The Book of Life "

"You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. 
That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, 
that is why you must sing and dance, 
and write poems and suffer and understand, for all that is life."
- Jiddu Krishnamurti, "The Book of Life"

Freely download "The Book of Life" and many other works
 by Jiddu Krishnamurti, here:

"Three Things..."

“To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special. I just got one last thing... I urge all of you, all of you, to enjoy your life, the precious moments you have.”
- Jim Valvano

The Daily "Near You?"

Magee, Mississippi, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Must Watch! “Economic Crisis Is Worse Than You Think; Dollar Collapse; Hotel Crisis; Wall St Takeover”

Jeremiah Babe,
“Economic Crisis Is Worse Than You Think; 
Dollar Collapse; Hotel Crisis; Wall St Takeover”

"In All Seriousness..."



"Thomas Edison said in all seriousness: "There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the labor of thinking"- if we bother with facts at all, we hunt like bird dogs after the facts that bolster up what we already think- and ignore all the others! We want only the facts that justify our acts- the facts that fit in conveniently with our wishful thinking and justify our preconceived prejudices. As Andre Maurois put it: "Everything that is in agreement with our personal desires seems true. Everything that is not puts us into a rage." Is it any wonder, then, that we find it so hard to get at the answers to our problems? Wouldn't we have the same trouble trying to solve a second-grade arithmetic problem, if we went ahead on the assumption that two plus two equals five? Yet there are a lot of people in this world who make life a hell for themselves and others by insisting that two plus two equals five - or maybe five hundred!"
- Dale Carnegie

"Looking at Both Sides Now"

"Looking at Both Sides Now"
by Bill Bonner

"Bows and flows of angel hair,
And ice cream castles in the air..."
– "Both Sides, Now," by Joni Mitchell

WEST RIVER, MARYLAND – "In the news this morning comes word that this is “make or break” week for the checks. Said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on Sunday: "I am very hopeful that, next week, we will be able to act on substantial relief." Added Donald Trump: "Right now, I want to see checks – for more money than they’re talking about – going to people."

America has become a divided country, with the two parts separated by which castles they see in the air… and how much “relief” they get here on the ground. Billionaires have added $1 trillion to their wealth – a 25% increase – thanks to the feds’ relief measures this year. Others have gotten much more modest sums. Over the weekend, we saw both sides.

Old-Timer Talk: Back on the family farm… we return to our roots… This area was settled by farmers coming up from the Virginia colony early in the 1600s. Some of their descendants are still here… including your editor. Some still speak the way they did 300 years ago, a dialect derived from 17th-century England. We don’t hear it very often; there aren’t many people who still have the old tidewater accent. We lost it many years ago, when we went away to college. But we can retrieve it when we need to. To talk to the old-timers, for example. Talk like that with anyone else, and they just think you are stupid. But a cousin, a logger, came to visit on Saturday. It was a pleasure to chat with him.

(We try to reproduce the local dialect here, simply because it is vanishing fast. Considered by linguists to be a “southern” accent, it has its own peculiar cadence, rhythm, and vocabulary.)

“Yeah […] idn doin’ so good. He’s got so fat. He bin drivin’ that truck fo’ the las’ fify yeahrs. Iz the onliest thing he does. Now, the truck move right well… but he kin bahrely move hiself.”

“That’s a shame. But I guess it happens… sittin’ in a truck all day.”

“And [… ] He sold that fahrm on Route 2… moved back to his fahtha’s place. Think he’s livin’ in a trailer deyah.”

“Yeyah… thas what I huhrd, too. But he was getting’ a li’ul strange… you know, with a long, white beard.”

“Yeah… but I haven’t seen ‘im in a wile. I don’t see much of anybody. Iowno what happened to them. Guess, they eeva retired and moved off somewaya… or they died…

“I bin here all my life, but I doan know anybody any moah. All these people wuhk in Washnton. Or they preten to wuhk.

“I can’t find anybody to help cut the trees. They say theya’s all this unemployment… but I’m not seein’ it. Nobody wahnz to wuhk heeya anymo.

“And I can’t blame ‘em. This kind a wuhk is the most dangrous wuhk there is. Ever maunin, I tell the crew… ‘We got six men goin’ out… I want six men comin’ home.’”

He laughed… “And we doan wanna leave no body pahts in the woods, neeva.

“You know, I used to bring up some crews of the Amish from Chahrles county. They hahrd wuhkas. But they get careless, like evubody else. They get in a hurry to finish a patch of trees and doan pay attention. They loss three men – killed – last yea’ah.

“Always somethin’ goes wrong. You think you got it all figured out. You cut your notch [to make the tree fall in a given direction]… then you cut on the uhva side. And nuthin’ happens. An then you look up… and it’s fallin’ on you.

“I’ve had boys volunteer to go to Iraq… they thought they’d be safer. An they earned more money. Reckon they wuhr right. But at lease in the woods, you doan get that sickness.

“Wuddy you think about that? I figure iz all nonsense. You watch the TV and you think the wurld is comin’ to an end. But I figure iz no wurse than the flu. Iz prolly gonna kill us… but somethin’s gotta kill us.”

“An now, theya gonna give ehvabody that vaccine. An ehvabody gonna think they bin cured. An the sickness gonna go away, just like it always does. I’m not gonna take no damned vaccine created by the guvmint.”

Later that day, we went over to have dinner with old friends in “Washnton.” This was a whole different world. Driving around the beltway, through Northern Virginia, we saw sleek new office buildings, new apartment houses, new highways, and new malls. And different angel hair. But we’ll let our friends tell the story.

“This town is crazy. There was never any recession here. House prices just kept going up. Shops were always full. People just kept getting their checks. The government didn’t lay anyone off. But they didn’t have to go to work. So they went to Home Depot. No kidding. I’ve been over there a couple times in the last few months. It’s packed. I was trying to get a new refrigerator. But you can’t get a refrigerator… they’re all on back order.

Everybody is fixing up their houses. They’re at home all day and they notice improvements that they want to make. And in addition to their regular salaries, they got that extra $1,200… and some of them thought they didn’t have to pay their rent. There’s just so much money around. Everything is back-ordered.

I know my stocks are doing great. When the crash came in March, I just stuck with what I have. I knew there was no way the Federal Reserve was going to allow investors to lose so much money. And it didn’t. It just printed up the money it needed. And my stocks are up some 400%. It’s unbelievable. But the feds were right to intervene. Can you imagine what a mess the economy – and the whole country – would be in if they hadn’t? I know you don’t approve. But in the modern world, you can’t have millions of people without jobs. It would be a disaster.

But I’m so glad the election is over. And I’m so glad Trump lost. Can you imagine another four years with him in the White House? One good thing he did, though, was to get that Operation Warp Speed going. You could say that the government caused the economy to collapse by shutting everything down. But what choice did it have? And it looks like the feds are now going to save the economy, too. I know I’m going to take the vaccine as soon as I can. Then, I think we’ll start to get back to normal.”

"Regards,"
Since you insist...
Joni Mitchell, "Both Sides, Now"

"How It Really Is"

 

"When people pile up debts they will find difficult and perhaps even impossible to repay, they are saying several things at once. They are obviously saying that they want more than they can immediately afford. They are saying, less obviously, that their present wants are so important that, to satisfy them, it is worth some future difficulty. But in making that bargain they are implying that when the future difficulty arrives, they'll figure it out. They don't always do that." 
 - Michael Lewis, "Boomerang"

"Sometimes I Wonder..."

 

"The 'Hannibal Trap' Will Crush Global Wealth"

"The 'Hannibal Trap' Will Crush Global Wealth"
by Egon von Greyerz

"Hannibal was considered as one of the greatest military tacticians and generals in history. He was a master of strategy and regularly led his enemies into excruciating defeats. The trap that investors are now being led into has many similarities with Hannibal’s strategy in his victory over the Romans at Lake Trasimene in 217 BC. Hannibal was a general and statesman from Carthage (now Tunisia) who successfully fought against the Romans in the Second Punic War.

The Battle At Lake Trasimene: In 218 BC Hannibal took his troops, with cavalry and elephants, over the Alps and into Italy. Hannibal enticed the Roman Consul Flaminius, and his troops, in 217 BC to follow him to Lake Trasimene in Umbria. The Romans followed Hannibal’s troops into a narrow valley on the northern shores of the lake. When the Roman troops were inside the valley, they were trapped. They had the Carthaginians ahead of them, the lake on their right and hills on their left.

What the Romans didn’t know was that Hannibal had hidden his light cavalry and part of his army up in the hills. So once the Romans were locked into the valley, they were attacked from both ends with nowhere to escape. Over 15,000 Romans were killed and 10,000 captured in a catastrophic defeat. So what has Hannibal got to do with the present world? Well, it is pretty obvious. It is all about being led into a fatal trap without even being aware.

Covid Attacked An Already Weakened World: As we are approaching the end of an economic era in the world, anything that can go wrong will. The Coronavirus certainly fits that picture, since it could not have hit the world at a worse moment. Whether Covid-19 was accidentally or deliberately created by humans or just a product of nature, we will never learn.

What we do know is that Covid was like putting a match to a time bomb. The time bomb being a global financial system which is about to explode. Major businesses in retail, leisure, travel, airlines are closing by the day and most won’t open again. Globally, 100´s of thousands of small businesses have closed with devastating effects for their owners. The coming depression will affect all levels of society.

Billionaires Wealth Up 70% In Three Years: At the top of the global wealth pyramid, we have the biggest wealth trap in history. These are the 2,200 billionaires in the world. In the last three years their fortunes have swelled by a staggering 70% or $4.2 trillion. Their total wealth is now $10.2t. These billionaires are likely to lose at least 90% of their wealth, in real terms, in the next 5-10 years. But not a single one of them expects this to happen or prepares for it. As regards the number of millionaires in the world, the estimates vary between 13 and 46 million. Escalating house prices have clearly created a lot of extra millionaires.

Global Debt Fuels Global Wealth: Total global financial wealth is up almost 3x since 1990 from $80 trillion to $225t. But this massive wealth accumulation is resting on a very weak foundation of debt. It was only possible to treble wealth by, at the same time, more than trebling global debt from $80t in 1990 to $277t today.

Biggest Wealth Trap In History: So there we have it. The world hasn’t created any net wealth. Instead wealth has just been inflated artificially by credit creation and money printing of the same magnitude. I do realize that total global debt and global personal wealth is not quite like for like. Still it gives a very good indication how this additional wealth is created since 1990. Yes, it was created by just simply printing money to the extent of $200 trillion in the last 20 years!

This is clearly the biggest wealth trap in history. Hannibal couldn’t have done it better. Billionaires, millionaires and ordinary investors have all been sucked into a honeypot believing that they have real wealth based on sound foundations. What they don’t realize is that they will in the next few years be ambushed by what to them is an invisible enemy.

This will initially involve total debasement of the currency, whether it is dollars, euros, pounds or yen. No they can’t all go down together against each other. But they will all go down in real terms. Real terms means measured in the only money which has survived in history – gold.

The route there will not be straight forward. As currencies collapse, we will most likely first see hyperinflation. That could temporarily boost asset prices in nominal terms but certainly not in real terms. There will also be an implosion of both the debt bubble and the asset bubbles in stocks, bonds and property.

Robber Barons: Robber barons were feudal lords in medieval Europe who robbed travellers and merchant ships. The term Robber Barons was used from the 1860s for some of the entrepreneurs at the time. They used unscrupulous methods to acquire wealth, thus the term. Most of them started new industries that became dominant in their field. They included Rockefeller (oil), Vanderbilt (railroads), Carnegie (steel), Ford (cars), Morgan (banking), and Astor (real estate).

Major fortunes were created by these Entrepreneurs and Rockefeller is still considered the wealthiest man in the world ever, adjusted for inflation. Interestingly, the sectors these millionaires were in are all major industries today except for railways. The modern “Robber Barons” – Bezos, Gates, Musk, Zuckerberg and Buffet are in diversified areas like online retail, technology, car manufacturing and investments/finance.

Fantasy Valuations: The big difference between the Robber Barrons in the late 19th century and today is how their wealth is measured. 150 years ago valuations were conservative and price earnings ratios for public companies were normally below 10! Quick jump to today. Amazon has a p/e over 90, Microsoft & Facebook “only” in the 30s, and Tesla has a staggering p/e of 1,100! So on a historical basis, all of the biggest companies in the world today are grossly overvalued at p/e’s of 32 to 1,100 !!

This is what happens when governments and central banks primary economic strategy consists of creating money out of thin air and then these funds are used to support the stock market. A major part of the $150 trillion debt created since the Great Financial Crisis started in 2006 has stayed with the banks and not gone to consumers or industry. Conveniently the money has reached investors and been invested in asset markets. 

Stocks Are Driven By Liquidity – Not Value Investing: Thus it is debt based liquidity which is primarily driving up asset markets. This is creating fantasy p/e’s and valuations which has very little to do with the growth of industry and finance 150 years ago.

So back to Hannibal although he has been dead for 2200 years. We have major and potentially terminal problems in the financial system since September 2019. And we have a virus which has led to major parts of the world economy collapsing due to governments handling of this virus, But in spite of these massive problems, stock markets around the world are booming.

Hannibal Trap: We have probably not seen the end of the stock market explosion as I explained in a recent article on the coming Liftoff & Collapse. But at some point in the next few weeks or months, the market will burst. Before this burst every investor, big or small, who has any spare liquidity must be sucked into the market just before the top.

This is the Hannibal trap. Everybody must be hauled into the stocks at the top of the market. And then BANG! Just like Hannibal totally took the Romans by surprise, so will a violent stock market crash. But this time it won’t be like in March 2020 with a quick recovery. Yes, of course most investors will buy the dips. That will only increase the pain. Because the coming collapse will be the start of a secular bear market that could last 10 years or more. And just like Hannibal slaughtered the Romans, the coming bear market will slaughter investors. Investors could easily see all the bubble assets, stocks bonds and property decline by more than 90% in real terms. Again, real terms mean constant and stable purchasing power.

The Dow Will Lose 97% In Real Terms – Gold: The Dow/Gold ratio is today 15. In 1980 it was 1 to 1. The ratio topped in 1999 and the long term trend is now down as the chart below shows. The target for the ratio is 0.5 to 1. This means that the Dow will lose 97% against Gold in coming years. Few people believe this magnitude of decline is possible.

But remember the Dow in itself went down 90% from 1929 to 1932 and that it took 25 years before it recovered. This time the situation is drastically worse both from a debt point of view and overvaluation of stocks. So 95%+ is not unrealistic.

History Proves That Only Gold Preserves Wealth In Real Terms: Only gold fulfills the role of always holding its value in real terms. Again history proves it. One ounce of gold bought a good costume for a man in Hannibal’s days, 2200 years ago, just as it does today. Since investors have been saved by central banks for decades, they expect the same today. This is why they will stay invested and also buy every dip until they run out of money. Sadly very few investors will get out before the bottom.

Biggest Wealth Destruction: That is why we will see the biggest wealth destruction in history. Instead of the 2,200 billionaires currently, the world might have as little as 200 in 5-10 years time (in today’s money). All businesses will of course not disappear. But earnings will decline dramatically and p/e’s will collapse.

Let’s take a business with a share price of $300 today and earnings per share of $10. Thus the p/e is 30 (30x$10=$300).

If profits decline by 70% in a recession/depression and the p/e goes to 5 it will look as follows: Eps $3 x 5 p/e = $15 share price. So this company is still making a profit, albeit smaller. Still, the share price is down from $100 to $15 or by 95%.

P/e’s of 5 or less are not unusual during depressions/recessions. I experienced this in the 1970s. The same happened in the 1930s.

History, History, History: Again, as I often stress, the best lessons we learn are from history. Everyone thinks “It is different today” but I promise it isn’t. Almost everything we experience today has happened before. So vast fortunes will be wiped out in coming years. And other fortunes will be made in areas like hard assets and the resource industry. Precious metals will be an obvious major beneficiary.

Some of the shrewd Swiss private banks like Lombard Odier advised their clients to hedge their portfolios with gold earlier this year. Very few wealth managers are as clever as 200 year old Swiss banks. Precious metals mining stocks are likely to do spectacularly well in the coming currency collapse and so will gold and silver. But the ultimate wealth preservation in the next 10 years is physical gold and silver held outside the banking system as history confirms.

Remember that markets can always go higher even though they are massively overvalued. But when risk is at a maximum, investment is not about squeezing the last bit of profit out of your portfolio. Instead, it is all about protecting your profits. And you can’t do that by staying fully invested in overvalued assets. Remember that in a secular bear market everyone is a loser. The trick is to lose as little as possible."