"How We Stumbled to the Edge of the Cliff"

"How We Stumbled to the Edge of the Cliff"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"Now that we're teetering on the edge of the cliff, it might be a good idea to retrace how we stumbled down to this crumbling, precarious ledge. As I've discussed for the past 15 years, there are a handful of systemic forces that have taken us to the point of no return.

1. Demographics have reversed from tailwinds to headwinds. All sorts of extravagant promises could be made back when there were 10 workers paying taxes to support each retiree/state dependent. Now that we're down to less than 2 full-time workers for each retiree/state dependent, the promises are impossible to keep, with the one exception of printing the trillions of dollars that were anticipated to be paid in taxes - that is, creating near-infinite sums of funny-money out of thin air and hoping the rest of the world will continue to accept it. History doesn't have any examples of that working, but hey, we're special and this time it's different.  Oh, right... (Links are active, Blogger's being uncooperative..."

"The Narrative Of Inflation Amid Depopulation"

"Just Charts of Demographics" (Econimica)

2. The fuel of postwar prosperity, oil, is no longer cheap enough or abundant enough. A great many people are delighted to put their faith in renewables (actually replaceables, as Nate Hagens has described) but as Tim Morgan has explained, the era's secular stagnation that so puzzled conventional economists can be traced back to the decline in cheap energy available per capita: "Mapping the economy:" "The cost element is known here as ECoE (the Energy Cost of Energy), which has been rising relentlessly over an extended period. Whilst ECoE remained low, its omission mattered much less than it does now. This is why conventional, money-based economic modelling appeared to work pretty well, until ECoE became big enough to introduce progressive invalidation into economic models. This process can be traced to the 1990s, when conventional interpretation noticed – but could not explain – a phenomenon then labelled 'secular stagnation'."

I addressed the relationship between hydrocarbons and stagnation in "Oil and Debt: Why Our Financial System Is Unsustainable." (2/25/21)

3. The balance between labor and capital has collapsed. $50 trillion in earnings has been transferred to the Financial Aristocracy from the bottom 90% of American households over the past 45 years. This is the reality that must be obscured by any means available, but alas, there's data and facts: "Trends in Income From 1975 to 2018."

The status quo response to stagnation was to push financialization and globalization, both of which reward those who own capital and control the market forces (heh) of rigged "markets." Given the incentive structures of financialization and globalization, the best way to maximize profits by any means available has been to offshore production (costly, risky, low profit in a world of excess capacity, get rid of it) and generate obscene profits by financial speculation (clean, easy and guaranteed because The Fed has our back).

This is how the nation has been hollowed out, financially and morally.

4. The nation's leadership elite no longer trusts the citizenry. The entire purpose of what passes for leadership now in the U.S. is to bamboozle, lie, prevaricate and obscure how the nation's resources are being squandered globally and domestically. The nation's leadership elite continues to assume that the resources and money available are essentially limitless, and so there's no Endless War (tm) that can't be extended indefinitely, no corporate welfare that can't be increased, and now that the populace is restive, no limit on how many trillions (pocket money, we're America! We can do anything!) can be distributed in bread and circuses to increase the voters' dependence on The Savior State. (Be a good little debt-serf or tax donkey and everything will be just fine.)

When it gets serious, you have to lie, and now it's serious every single second of every day.

5. The central bank's magic does not work forever. If you look at the fine print on the bottom of the Federal Reserve's magic lamp, it warns that lowering interest rates stops working when the rate is zero, and that creating trillions out of thin air and giving it to banks, cartels and super-wealthy financiers only works to inflate speculative asset bubbles for 20 years. So let's see, 2000 plus 20 equals 2020... oops. Looks like the Fed's magic (and our luck) have finally run out.

Just a thought, but removing the blindfold might be a good idea here. The edge is crumbling and the bottom is a long way down."

- https://www.oftwominds.com/

"The Most Daring Liars..."

“The men the American people admire most extravagantly

are the most daring liars; the men they detest most

violently are those who try to tell them the truth.”

- H.L. Mencken

"Doug Casey on Food Riots and 'Inflation Lockdowns'"

"Doug Casey on Food Riots and 'Inflation Lockdowns'"

by International Man

"International Man: Recently, we've seen people riot over rising prices—especially food prices—in Sri Lanka, Peru, and other countries. What is going on here?

Doug Casey: Commodity prices have generally gone up close to 100% in the last year. Soybeans ($17), wheat ($11), and corn ($8) are all at or near all-time highs - and they're not coming down. Why not? Mainly because of the trillions of currency units printed by central banks in the last year or so. Their prices are now at a new equilibrium level. But there are other reasons besides money printing.

Wheat, soybeans, and corn are basic for feeding people and animals around the world - certainly in the Western world. They've become much more expensive to produce. In today's era of industrial agriculture, fertilizer is of critical importance. All of the main fertilizers - nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium compounds - have tripled or more.

It's unlikely that they're going to come down anytime soon because Russia and the Ukraine are two of the world's largest fertilizer producers. Even if the Ukraine war ends soon, there will still be import/export restrictions on Russia. Availability from Ukraine will be limited because of war-related difficulties producing and shipping fertilizer abroad - on top of the fact actual grain production has collapsed. The world seems to have forgotten that from the 20s to the 80s, there was consistent and widespread hunger in Ukraine and Russia. Since then, they've transformed into two of the world's biggest exporters - but that can change overnight.

And it's not just fertilizer, planting, and transport. Fuel is critical for running tractors and processing everything. Oil is over $100 a barrel right now - also about double recent levels. I think it's going to stay there and probably go higher because of the Green mania gripping the world. Large oil companies like Shell and BP, run by PC suits, intend to get out of the oil business. Their boards have been infiltrated with ESG types, and their hiring practices bow to diversity and inclusion. We're looking at a situation where actual oil production is headed down at the same time that costs have gone up.

When the price of food and fuel go up radically, the planet's poor are disproportionately affected. They're going to riot. They don't know who's at fault. But since they've been taught their governments are cornucopias, they'll blame the rich.

We'll soon see financial chaos, which will lead to economic chaos, political chaos, and social chaos. What we're hearing about in Sri Lanka and Peru is just the beginning. The US won't be immune. Americans who drive everywhere in giant SUVs and pickups will also feel the pinch, especially with their food bills up 30%.

International Man: How has the response to the ongoing Covid hysteria affected the situation?

Doug Casey: I've said many times in the past that COVID should have been considered as no more than a bad flu season. People forget that the annual seasonal flu typically kills 30,000-50,000 Americans. The media, the "health" establishment, and governments turned COVID into a hysteria, verging on mass psychosis. The facts are that no one other than the obese, the sick, and the elderly were in any real danger. Those people should have used precautions. Instead, the whole world was locked down like a prison.

The hysteria surrounding COVID shut down a good part of the world's production, made transportation nationally and internationally much slower and more expensive - the cost of shipping a container from China to the West Coast went from $3000 to $25,000. The public was encouraged to run around as if their hair was on fire. It wasn't COVID itself but the insanity surrounding it that greatly compounded the situation.

What I'm afraid of is that there's going to be a COVID 2.0, and then COVID 3.0, and then something else. That augurs poorly for price stability and social stability in the future. Before it's over, I don't doubt that the hoi polloi will clamor for a "Great Reset" like that the World Economic Forum is promising them.

International Man: The food riots seem to be occurring in Third World countries. Could they spread to North America and Europe? What do you think that would look like?

Doug Casey: Yes, they could. In the case of Americans, it's said that half of the country has no savings at all. Instead, they have loads of mortgage, credit card, auto, and student loan debt. So, if they need to lay their hands on even an extra $500 or $1,000, half of the people in the country couldn't do it.

Americans are basically living paycheck to paycheck, and worse than that, they're maintaining their standard of living with second mortgages and their credit cards. With interest rates headed up from today's all-time lows, they're going to be squeezed. The low-interest rates of the last decade have disguised the fall in the standard of living by making it possible to borrow more.

The same people who can't buy a car without seven-year financing or afford the $6 gas it takes to run it are generally the ones who don't own but rent a place to live. Rents have gone up 30% in the last year or two as well. It's not just Third Worlders - our natives are going to get restless too.

International Man: Thanks to the Covid madness, governments have normalized the use of lockdowns. It's a new tool in their toolbox. For example, there have been whispers about governments implementing lockdowns to address so-called climate change. Could we see governments impose "inflation lockdowns" as prices soar?

Doug Casey: It's critical to remember that the prime directive of all living things, whether we're talking about an amoeba, an individual, a corporation, or a government, is to survive. That's rule number one.

Let's look at governments, which actually produce nothing and serve little useful purpose. Their main gifts to humanity are wars, pogroms, persecutions, proscriptions, inflation, taxes, and regulations. It's as if the whole planet suffers from Stockholm Syndrome. I promise you governments will do whatever they think necessary to survive. Their citizens - subjects is a more honest word - are really just means to their ends. Governments believe they should manage their populations, viewing them as cattle in a feedlot. Of course, they'd prefer the cattle to be healthy and even happy. But that's not the prime directive. It's that the government itself survives.

A perfect example of this is what's going on in Shanghai now. It's actually unbelievable - but true - that the Chinese government has a city of 25 million people locked in their apartments. They can't even leave to get food. Rotten vegetables are dispensed to them like prisoners or captive animals. Hundreds of thousands more have been placed in gruesome facilities, packed in like cattle if they're suspected of having COVID. In many cases, people's pets are being slaughtered. It's criminally insane.

But what's even more insane is that 25 million people are accepting this just because they're told to. Why don't the Shanghaiese grab meat cleavers, swarm out into the streets, and take care of business, pursuing the chain of command as far as it will go? The answer is that they know the CCP would send in the Red Army. I suppose it's understandable that they'd rather cringe on their knees like slaves because that offers at least a chance of survival, no matter how degraded. Americans would likely bow to their government the same way. So, yes, I think we're going to see lots more of that type of thing in the world.

International Man: What are the personal freedom implications of all this?

Doug Casey: I hate to use the hackneyed phrase "a perfect storm." For the rest of this decade, we're looking at a perfect storm because of all the things we've talked about so far. It's important to remember that Americans in 2020 elected the most economically, politically, and socially radical regime in all our history - by a long margin. Some say the election was stolen. I wouldn't doubt it. But Americans also elected and re-elected Obama - and the country has gone a lot further left since then.

The Bidenistas are going to be in office for at least the next three years. They'll do everything in their power to cement themselves in office. Every idea they have is intended to change the very character of the US. Their roots and basic philosophy are identical to those of the Jacobins in France in 1789 or the Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917. As a result, during this decade, the US is likely to have the most serious set of crises since the country's founding. Hold onto your hat."

- internationalman.com

"Bad Things Have Happened... Please Don't Make This Mistake"

Canadian Prepper, 4/20/22:

"Bad Things Have Happened... Please Don't Make This Mistake"

"Something has happened that is very concerning and the implications are quite scary. We are on the brink of World War III."

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"It is dangerous to be right in matters on which 

the established authorities are wrong"

- Voltaire

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The referenced video...

Gonzalo Lira, Coach Red Pill,

"My Trip From Kiev to Kharkiv Last Night"

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete 

when everything the American public believes is false." 

- William J. Casey, CIA Director

The Daily "Near You?"

Pierrefonds, Quebec, Canada. Thanks for stopping by!

Bill Bonner, "Enough Rope"

"Enough Rope"

by Bill Bonner

San Martin, Argentina - "Bloomberg reports: “White House tightens Russian sanctions.” What, exactly, does the US hope to get from the sanctions war? What evidence is there that it will work? Meanwhile, Canada, which is rapidly getting a reputation for being an even bigger dope than the US, is sanctioning Russia’s top banker. Bloomberg again: "Canada sanctioned Russian central bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina and 13 other “close associates of the Russian regime” in a fresh round of penalties related to the war in Ukraine."

It marks one of the first instances where Nabiullina has shown up on a country’s sanctions list since Russia’s invasion of its neighbor in February. Australia previously sanctioned her and the central bank itself has been sanctioned. Not that we have any interest in the war… or the sanctions. But today, we puzzle over what people think they know that ain’t so.

Little or Nothing: Americans, in general, know little or nothing about the long and complicated history of the Eurasian steppe. Yet they believe they know exactly where the border between Russia and the Ukraine should be. And they’re willing to fight to the last drop of Ukrainian blood to keep it where Stalin put it.

Do Canadians think Ms. Nabiullina has done something wrong? What is the charge? Where is the evidence? Where is the judge and jury? What then is the basis for punishing her? They must think that it will somehow force Mr. Putin to change course. In effect, she has been taken hostage… now, they vow to cut off her fingers until the Kremlin complies with Ottawa’s demand.

Do the Canuck feds or their American counterparts know what Russia is doing and why; are they really such evildoers? And how about the Ukraine? Is it really a valiant defender of liberty and democracy… or a bunch of neo-Nazi thugs eagerly egged on by the west’s warmongers? How do the feds know which side is right? Is either side right?

And how about sanctions themselves? Do they actually achieve the intended results? Good? Bad? How do they know? By our reckoning, the sanctions are backfiring on the US. They raise US consumer prices (by cutting off supplies of Russian energy and grains.) The global commodities index (Bloomberg) is up 33% so far this year. Oil is up 42%. Wheat and corn are up 43% and 32% respectively.

Higher prices reduce purchasing power, leading to a recession. Russians may get poorer, but Americans get poorer too. And using the US-dominated financial system as a weapon is forcing Russia, China, India and others – the most populous countries in the world – to speed up their search for alternatives. The US has enjoyed an “exorbitant privilege” since WWII. At almost no cost, it gets to ‘print’ a currency that the rest of the world accepts as real money.

But now, the sanctions signal to everyone that the US dollar comes with conditions attached; you have to do as the Yankees tell you. Already, the dollar is in decline in international transactions. China is the world’s leading exporter, not the US. And Russia is the largest single exporter of energy. It won’t be long before they find a way to bypass the dollar completely. But maybe the feds know something that we don’t?

The Pretense of Knowledge: One of the most remarkable phenomena of the 21st century is the growth of fake or useless knowledge. We know more and more… but the quality of what we know declines. The common citizen may get the “420” weed joke, for example, (made famous by Elon Musk’s buyout offer for Twitter), but have no idea how to shuck an oyster or gut a deer.

During our lifetimes, we have watched the evolution of our own automobiles from something mechanical, that we could more-or-less see and understand, to something that is beyond our ken. In the 1960s, young men could take off the carburetor… clean it, change the points, adjust the float, and make it work better. Now, there’s no point in opening the hood. We have no idea how the ‘electronics’ work. But turn the key; they start up. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t buy them. The people who design and build them know what they are doing. The automakers have to give real value to get real profits. If they don’t, they will go out of business – along with the bad chef, the tone-deaf singer and the accident-prone electrician.

But what about public policies? Where is the market discipline? Turn the key on sanctions; what happens? So far this century, major public policies have failed to start.

War on Terror – big mistake – $8 trillion down the drain

Bailout Wall Street – terrible policy – another $8 trillion.

Covid Panic – unnecessary – $5 trillion more, gone with the wind.

Sanctions? Have they finally gotten a major policy decision right? What are the odds?"

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

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"Dare..."

 

MUST WATCH! "Several More Economic Warnings - Oil Could Be Headed to $185 a Barrel"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, 4/20/22:

"Several More Economic Warnings - 

Oil Could Be Headed to $185 a Barrel"

"Another day another two warnings. The first one is from the IMF. The international monetary fund is warning that the global GDP will drop by 2%. The second one is that oil could get to $185 a barrel. Inflation and supply chain problems are destroying the world economy right before our eyes. Gasoline could easily hit $15 a gallon."

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"EU To Impose Full Embargo On Russian Oil Next Week, 

Will Send Price Above $185 According To JPMorgan"

“'World War Three' Is About To Escalate To A Dangerous New Level"

"Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war..."

“'World War Three' Is About To Escalate 

To A Dangerous New Level"

by Michael

"The dogs of war have been released, and many fear that our planet will never be the same again as a result. From the very outset of this article, I want to make it exceedingly clear that I am pro-peace, because I am extremely concerned about what a global war would mean for America. If we eventually get to a point where nuclear weapons are used, billions of people could die. That is a scenario that we should be trying to avoid at all costs. Even now, countless innocent civilians in Ukraine are being ruthlessly sacrificed as politicians on both sides engage in a reckless game of global domination. If the politicians that start wars were forced to actually fight in them, there would be a whole lot less military conflict all over the globe.

Having said all that, let me give you an update on some of the latest developments. Violence has been erupting in Jerusalem for days, and ABC News is admitting that Israel and Hamas could soon “once again go to war”…"Days of violence in Jerusalem and an exchange of fire in Gaza overnight have raised the possibility that Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers will once again go to war, as they did less than a year ago under similar circumstances."

Let us hope that such a conflict can be delayed for as long as possible, because it could easily develop into a major regional war. In the aftermath of the recent rocket attack that came from Gaza, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz warned that the Israeli military is ready to do whatever is necessary… “The IDF is ready with a wide range of means and targets, to ensure that peace and stability will continue,” Gantz warned. “If the incitement and [rocket] fire continue, the terror organizations will be severely harmed, as will the residents of Gaza, who are currently benefiting from the moves we have taken to develop the economy,” Gantz added.

On the other side, fighters in Gaza have been feverishly constructing new tunnels in anticipation of the coming conflict…"The underground passageways leave no trace on the surface. But in a wooded area near Khan Yunis, seven masked men in military fatigues carried a collection of machine-guns and grenade launchers into a tunnel entrance discretely tucked into the foot of a small hill. The fighters wear headbands of the Al-Quds Brigade, the armed branch of Islamic Jihad which is the second-largest armed faction in Gaza, after the Hamas Islamist movement that rules the territory."

A full-blown war would be absolutely horrible for both sides, but it is just a matter of time before such a war erupts.

Of more immediate concern is the conflict in Ukraine. On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that the second stage of Russia’s “special military operation” has now begun…"Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that Moscow was starting a new stage of what it calls its special military operation in Ukraine which he predicted would be a significant development. “Another stage of this operation (in eastern Ukraine) is beginning and I am sure this will be a very important moment of this entire special operation”, Lavrov said in an interview with the India Today TV channel."

Unfortunately for the Ukrainians, the Russians are striking with a ferocity that is shocking much of the globe. Just check out what Politico journalist Christopher Miller is reporting…"A Ukrainian army lieutenant on the frontline in Donetsk region tells me he and his soldiers are being hit as we speak with Russian howitzers, mortars, and MLRS “at the same time.” They endured a similar bombardment earlier today “plus two Su-25… and our day became hell.”

Can you imagine being right in the middle of that? I can’t. In another tweet, Miller reported that one of his contacts in the Ukrainian military is claiming that his troops are literally being fired upon “14 hours a day”… "I just spoke to a Ukrainian commander on the frontline near Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, who said their positions are being hit by Russian airstrikes and heavy artillery 14 hours a day. They are “desperate” for more help, he said, outgunned, and running low on ammunition."

After weeks of fighting, the situation for Ukrainian troops in eastern Ukraine is becoming increasingly desperate. At this point, getting new ammunition and fuel to those forces has become exceedingly difficult…"Nearly all of the Ukrainian ammunition and fuel supplies have been bombed and destroyed. What is trickling in through its western borders has difficulties to reach the eastern front and is anyway not enough to supply an actively fighting and maneuvering army."

And it turns out that the western powers were not prepared for a conflict of this nature. In fact, in some cases NATO countries are literally running out of stuff to send to Ukraine…"Germany has declined to transfer tanks to Ukraine on grounds that it simply cannot spare them. Canada quickly ran short on rocket launchers and other equipment that the Ukrainians desperately need. The U.S. has provided one-third of its overall stockpile of Javelin anti-tank missiles. It cannot easily deliver more without leaving its own armories badly depleted — and it may take months or years to significantly ramp up production."

The Ukrainians are being asked to fight a proxy war for us that they can’t possibly win. Meanwhile, the remaining Azov fighters that are trapped at the Azovstal factory in Mariupol are about to be bombed into oblivion…"The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) on Tuesday released a purported communications intercept of a Russian ground unit commander, who said Russian aircraft were planning to “level everything to the ground” around Azovstal, the steel factory that is a redoubt of Ukrainian defenders in the besieged port city of Mariupol.

The audio recording released Tuesday purports to feature the voice of the leader of a Russian platoon four kilometers (or about 2.5 miles) from Azovstal. The man’s voice says, “We are expecting ‘surprises’ from Russia here.” “What kind of surprises?” a woman’s voice replies. “Three-ton ones, from the sky,” the man replies, adding that his command “said to level everything to the ground.”

Many Americans aren’t paying too much attention to the conflict in Ukraine because they believe that it will never affect them personally. But they should be paying attention, because this war has very serious implications for all of us.

The Russians fully recognize that a proxy war between the United States and Russia has begun, and Russian television presenter Olga Skabeyeva recently used the term “World War Three” to describe what the battle for Ukraine has become…"She justified the unanticipated length of the “special operation” by claiming it had expanded into a much greater conflict. “What [the war in Ukraine has] escalated into can safely be called World War Three,” going on to insist, “that’s entirely for sure.” She added, “Now we’re definitely fighting against NATO infrastructure, if not NATO itself. We need to recognize that.”

Sadly, she is right on target. World War Three has arrived, and politicians in the U.S. just keep on talking about escalating things. In fact, Joe Biden’s closest ally in the U.S. Senate has announced that he actually supports sending U.S. troops into Ukraine. This isn’t going to end well, but most of you already knew that."

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

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Related:

"Oh S#!%... "SATAN" Nuclear Missile is Being Prepared"

"The Trouble With Most People..."

"The trouble with most people is that they think with their

hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds."

- Will Durant

"The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. 

The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think.

The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; 

he confuses it with feeling."

- Thomas Sowell

"It takes considerable knowledge just to 

realize the extent of your own ignorance."

- Thomas Sowell

Gregory Mannarino, "SHoCkER! JP Morgan Warns 'The Energy Crisis Will Require TRILLIONS In Funding'"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 4/20/22:

"SHoCkER! JP Morgan Warns

 'The Energy Crisis Will Require TRILLIONS In Funding'"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Have It Done..."

"Never explain. Never apologize.

Have it done and let them howl."

- Winston Churchill

"Things Are Bad Now, But You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet"

"Things Are Bad Now, But You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet"

by Michael Snyder

"At this moment, food prices all over America are at incredibly low levels. I know what many of you must be thinking. You must be thinking that I have lost my mind, because food prices have been rising at a very rapid rate all over the country. But when I say that food prices are at “incredibly low levels”, I am not comparing them to where they were in the past. Rather, I am comparing current prices to where they will be in the future. Yes, things are bad now, but food prices will be much higher a year or two from now.

The global fertilizer crisis certainly isn’t going anywhere. If anything, it is only going to intensify. The same thing could be said about the war in Ukraine. Peace talks are absolutely dead, and so it looks like fighting between two of the most critical breadbaskets in the world will continue for months to come. Meanwhile, the bird flu pandemic continues to wipe out millions of chickens and turkeys all over the globe.

We have never seen a “perfect storm” quite like this, but of course some of the factors that will be driving up food prices are entirely self-inflicted.

For example, the Chinese government didn’t need to lock down nearly 400 million people in a desperate attempt to prevent the spread of COVID. The past two years have provided ample evidence that such lockdowns are quite foolish, but the Chinese went ahead anyway.

As a result, there are now hundreds of commercial ships waiting impatiently off the coast of Shanghai.

MAP: Commercial ships waiting offshore after Shanghai strict lockdown pic.twitter.com/m0qST4v92Y

- Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) April 19, 2022

Those are giant cargo ships that bring stuff across the Pacific Ocean to us. If the Chinese don’t loosen up, many of our store shelves will become quite empty in the months ahead.

And it isn’t just commercial ships that are sitting idle… "Shanghai is one of the largest manufacturing centers in China, with heavy concentrations of automotive and electronics suppliers. It is home to the largest container port in the world and a major airport that serves inbound and outbound air cargo. Exports produced in Shanghai account for 7.2% of China’s total volume and about 20% of China’s export container throughput moves through the port there, according to the BBVA report."

Most warehouses and plants are closed, nine out of 10 trucks are sidelined, the port and airport have limited function, shipping units are stranded in the wrong places, and freight is piling up. Needless to say, many of our major retailers simply could not operate without the goods that they import from China. So we better hope that this potential nightmare gets resolved very soon.

Here in the United States, food prices have been moving higher for months. Just check out these numbers…"The average price of butter grew 11.9% in the last year. Meat has been especially affected by supply chain issues, with 100% meat frankfurters jumping 35.2% since March of 2021 to an average price of $5.18 per pound. Ground chuck, pork chops, and whole chicken showed year-over-year price increases of 11.3%, 15%, and 11.7%, respectively."

Those figures may look bad to you, but the truth is that they only represent the very early chapters of this crisis. Things are going to get much worse, and here in April anecdotal reports seem to indicate that food price increases seem to be accelerating.

Earlier today, my attention was drawn to a thread on a popular Internet forum where people were discussing recent price increases that they had seen at their local stores. The following are a few examples that I pulled out of that thread…

• “$10. for 1 lb. Bacon”

• “5.19 for one pound of Land o Lakes butter”

• “a 34 oz can of coffee was $6.99 now is $9.99”

• “$1.09 for a single avocado”

• “$2.31 for a head of iceberg lettuce”

• “I shop for my elderly parents they buy Butterscotch Krimpets every week. Were 2.49 a box now 4.49.”

• “I saw 15.99 per pound for ribeye steak at a grocery store in northeast Tennessee.”

• “Paid $12.95 for a pack of raw chicken thighs a few days ago. Normally they are $3.00 – $4.00”

And thanks to the horrifying bird flu pandemic which is sweeping the nation, the price of eggs is going completely nuts…"The losses to egg-laying flocks have led to producers desperately racing to meet market demands for eggs and egg products, with egg prices increasing as a result. The average price of a dozen eggs is now close to $3.00, up from $1.60 at the beginning of the year, according to the USDA’s national egg report."

If you think that these prices are wild, just wait until they double from their current levels.

All over the world, a great battle for food resources has begun. The Chinese saw this coming in advance, and so they have been engaged in the largest stockpiling program that any of us have ever seen. I wrote about this back in December, but back then most people didn’t understand the true significance of that article. At that time, the amount of food that the Chinese had already accumulated was already extremely impressive…"Less than 20% of the world’s population has managed to stockpile more than half of the globe’s maize and other grains, leading to steep price increases across the planet and dropping more countries into famine."

The hoarding is taking place in China. Has the U.S. been doing something similar? Of course not. When things get really bad in this country, you will be on your own. So I hope that you have been preparing for that.

Since the war in Ukraine started, nation after nation has started to implement export restrictions, and a global scramble for agricultural commodities has steadily pushed up prices. Nobody wants to be caught empty-handed when the music stops, and so there is a race to secure precious supplies while it is still possible to do so.

Sadly, the poorest parts of the world will end up suffering the most as the wealthy countries grab what they can. The dramatic spike that we will soon see in global hunger will be absolutely heartbreaking. But nobody can say that we weren’t warned in advance. This sort of collapse has been coming for a long time, and now it has arrived.

I would encourage you to stockpile food at these “relatively low prices” while you have the opportunity to do so, because they are only going to go higher from here."

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

"Massive Price Increases At ALDI! What's Next? - What's Coming?"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 4/20/22:

"Massive Price Increases At ALDI! 

What's Next? - What's Coming?"

"In today's vlog we are at Aldi and are noticing massive price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

"How It Really Is"

"At The Approach Of Danger..."

“At the approach of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal force in the heart of man: one very reasonably tells the man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of avoiding it; the other, even more reasonable, says that it is too painful and harassing to think of the danger, since it is not a man’s power to provide for everything and escape from the general march of events; and that it is therefore better to turn aside from the painful subject till it has come, and to think of what is pleasant. In solitude a man generally yields to the first voice; in society to the second.”

- Leo Tolstoy, “War and Peace”

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A little light reading from Tolstoy… 
Freely download “War and Peace”, by Leo Tolstoy, here:
- https://www.planetebook.com/

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“All our mortal lives are set in danger and perplexity: one day to prosper,

and the next – who knows? When all is well, then look for rocks ahead.”

- Sophoclese, “Philoctetes”

Freely download “Seven Tragedies of Sophocles- Philoctetes” here:

- https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/

Greg Hunter, "7 Different Patented Poisons in CV19 Injections"

"7 Different Patented Poisons in CV19 Injections"

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Karen Kingston is a biotech analyst and a former Pfizer employee who has researched and written about many aspects of the so-called CV19 vaccines. It was never intended to cure anything, and the paperwork proves it at Big Pharma and the CDC. Kingston explains, “We are being lied to at such a level it is difficult for people to comprehend. The American people and global citizens were told the injections were vaccines. In fact, when you look at the patents, they call them bioweapons. They call them ‘toxins,’ they call them ‘agents of chemical biowarfare’. Specifically, there is a 2017 patent related to what they are calling a ‘vaccine.’ The patent is titled ‘Vaccine Nanotechnology.’ It is owned by the NIH, and when you read this nanotechnology patent in section 9, it clearly states in some embodiments, the small molecule is a toxin, a toxin from a chemical weapon, an agent of biowarfare. What they call a ‘vaccine’ in the patent, they say we are going to inject people with bioweapons.”

More stunning information is being uncovered by Kingston’s research and analysis of both government and vaccine maker documents. It appears the vaccine is more than one of several possible treatments all in one injection. Kingston explains, “We are told the mRNA produces just a small sequence of the spike protein. Through my research, I found separate patents for the spike protein. There are seven different spike proteins in the actual patents. This should all be part of the SARS COV II patent. It should not have a separate patent. They all do different things per the patent and per the research.”

So, instead of getting one experimental mRNA injection, could people be injected with a cocktail of separate and different spike proteins? Kinston says, “I am hypothesizing based on the spike proteins having separate patents and separate licensing deals. The scientists say they jimmied the spike protein independent of the mRNA viral sequence. What I am saying, in some of what they are calling vaccines, yes, people are being injected with mRNA producing spike proteins. They can also be injected directly with spike proteins made separately and frozen separately. These spike proteins do have their own patents, they do have their own separate licensing agreements. So, the spike proteins could be made separately and frozen separately, these poisons, and then encapsulated and stuck in the formulation. That is what I am saying. Keep in mind, in the world patent it says in some embodiments can include a delivery device, and that can deliver an agent or a toxin over a period of hours, days, weeks, months or years. This is important for a legal reason because every lawsuit says people were injected with mRNA, which produces a toxin, which is a spike protein. But it turns out, the toxin was in there independent of the mRNA. It’s not a vax. It’s just a direct bioweapon.”

Kingston says all kinds of problems are coming from the CV19 shots and the different patented spike proteins in them. She says some of these spike proteins cause extreme and aggressive cancers, some cause heart disease, still others cause autoimmune disease and some even mimic snake venom. That is just to name just a few of the diseases that are showing up in the real world data. In closing, Kingston says, “It’s demonic what is in these vials, and it needs to stop.” (There is much more in the 58 min interview.)

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with biotech analyst Karen Kingston as she talks about the demonic injections being forced on people worldwide. 

- https://rumble.com/

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Related:

"The Vaccine Death Report"

by David John Sorenson and Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, MD

"Purpose: The purpose of this report is to document how all over the world millions of people have died, and hundreds of millions of serious adverse events have occurred, after injections with the experimental mRNA gene therapy. We also reveal the real risk of an unprecedented genocide.

Facts: We aim to only present scientific facts and stay away from unfounded claims. The data is clear and verifiable. Over one hundred references can be found for all presented information, which is provided as a starting point for further investigation.

Complicity: The data suggests that we may currently be witnessing the greatest organized mass murder in the history of our world. The severity of this situation compels us to ask this critical question: will we rise to the defense of billions of innocent people? Or will we permit personal profit over justice, and be complicit? Networks of lawyers all over the world are preparing class-action lawsuits to prosecute all who are serving this criminal agenda. To all who have been complicit so far, we say: There is still time to turn and choose the side of truth. Please make the right choice."

Freely download "The Vaccine Death Report" here:

- https://www.stopworldcontrol.com/

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"Unthinkable Thoughts"

- https://coyoteprimeblog2.blogspot.com/

"20 Shocking Facts Which Prove The Middle Class In America Is Dying"

Full screen recommended.

"20 Shocking Facts Which Prove 

The Middle Class In America Is Dying"

by Epic Economist

"You probably already heard about the decline of the US middle class. Over the past decades, incomes have been dropping steadily, workers' net worth has been going down, the quality of our jobs is decaying, and yet the cost of living just keeps going up. With each passing week, more price increases are announced, more shortages emerge and more supply chain disruptions occur, adding further pressure on the inflation outlook, and impacting our buying power and our ability to make ends meet. As a result of all these factors, more Americans are falling off their comfortable middle-class lifestyles and living in poverty.

Right now, the middle-class dependence on government assistance programs has exploded to unprecedented levels, and a weaker middle-class means that wealth disparity and income inequality are getting significantly worse in our country. We've been left in a very vulnerable position, and as working conditions continue to deteriorate, middle-income workers will continue to suffer. Stagnant incomes, falling wages, and lower purchasing power mean that fewer Americans are growing up to be better off than their parents. Upward mobility was once the almost-universal experience among America’s Youth, but that’s no longer the case.

We can all agree that our generation has a huge problem on their hands. Decades of reckless government decisions have driven us to the edge of a financial cliff. Today, the largest share of Americans who file for bankruptcy are in the middle class. In fact, the vast majority of middle-income workers are one unexpected healthcare bill away from falling into poverty. The newer generations are experiencing a level of financial insecurity only seen before during the Great Recession, and most of them will have to wait longer than their parents to start building their own wealth, buying a home, or owning a new car.

For America to have a healthy middle class, first, we need an economy that produces lots of middle-class jobs, and that's not the case. More than half of all jobs produced in the United States are low-paid. Meanwhile, entrepreneurship is declining at an alarming rate as millions of small businesses struggle to stay afloat amid the rising costs of everything. At the same time, we continue to outsource our production and ship millions of middle-class jobs out of the country every year, and until we start doing things differently, we are going to continue to get the same results, and the middle class will just keep getting smaller and smaller and smaller. Today, we compiled another round of stats that expose the dire state of America's middle class."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

"Banks Will Slash Credit Card Limits; Surge Of Defaults Coming - Crushed By Debt"

Jeremiah Babe, PM 4/19/22:

"Banks Will Slash Credit Card Limits; 

Surge Of Defaults Coming - Crushed By Debt"

"The US Consumer Is Starting To Fail & This Will Near-Guarantee A Recession"

Wealthion, Adam Taggart, 4/19/22:

"The US Consumer Is Starting To Fail & 

This Will Near-Guarantee A Recession"

"Right now, the world’s focus is on how hot inflation is running right now. And that’s completely understandable. But in terms of where we should be placing our concern, we may be getting distracted from the true threat. Which, hard as it may be to believe right now, is much more on the deflationary side of things.

If you’ve watched the recent videos on this channel, you’ve heard many of our recent expert interview guests paint the picture of the many storm clouds gathering on the macroeconomic horizon. But there’s a concept you haven’t heard them mention yet, called “debt saturation”.

I was first introduced to this concept over a decade ago by my good friend Charles Hugh Smith who runs the excellent website OfTwoMinds.com. Debt saturation was a significant factor in triggering the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, and now once again, it looks poised to potentially pull today’s economy into recession within the year ahead. I recorded this video to explain its importance."

Gregory Mannarino, "Again! The IMF Downgrades Global Growth...And The Stock Market Takes Off"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 4/19/22:

"Again! The IMF Downgrades Global Growth...

And The Stock Market Takes Off"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Gerald Celente, "Ukraine War Sanctions Are Killing Average Americans, Coons Wants to Fight, He Should Lead Charge"

Full screen recommended.

Very strong language alert!

Gerald Celente, 4/19/22:

"Ukraine War Sanctions Are Killing Average Americans, 

Coons Wants to Fight, He Should Lead Charge"

- https://trendsresearch.com/

As only Gerald can do...

Musical Interlude: Loreena McKennitt, "Mummers Dance"; "Dante's Prayer"

Loreena McKennitt, "Mummers Dance"

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Loreena McKennitt, "Dante's Prayer"

"A Deep Look to the Heavens"

 

Full screen highly recommended.

"Deep Field: The Impossible Magnitude of Our Universe"

"Eric Whitacre's "Deep Field: The Impossible Magnitude of Our Universe" is a unique film and musical experience inspired by one of the most important scientific discoveries of all time: the Hubble Telescope's Deep Field image."

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"In this galaxy, there's a mathematical probability of 3 billion Earth-type planets. And in all of the universe, 20 trillion galaxies like this. And in all of that... and perhaps more, only one of each of us."

- "Dr. Leonard McCoy"

“Your Whole Life Is Borrowed Time”

“Your Whole Life Is Borrowed Time”

by David Cain

“I can’t remember if this is a real movie plot, or if I just want it to be. A man with a boring job is on his way to work when his attention is caught by some unexpected detail in his otherwise familiar routine – a peculiar insect, a pattern in the concrete, a cryptic slogan on a t-shirt. This detail seems extremely significant to him, but he doesn’t know why.

The strange sight wakes him up from the autopilot-mode by which he has been living his life. He is suddenly aware, for the first time, how complex and interesting his local high street is, and he stops to take it in. Around him pass hundreds of distinctly different people, each a unique individual, driven by some unseen personal motivation. Shops are filled with thousands of trinkets, tools, snacks, and books. Delivery trucks roll past, music plays from somewhere, buildings rise above him. The scene is miraculous to him.

As he surveys the street, he witnesses something surreal: another version of himself is walking away from him, towards his usual bus stop, evidently not having had this same moment of self-awareness. For reasons he is never told, at that moment his life had apparently split in two. However, his double does not make it onto the bus: as he waits, an air conditioning unit falls from a window above, killing him instantly. In a very unexpected and unstorylike way, his life ends.

The man has no idea what has happened, and never receives an explanation. The authorities never identify the person beneath the air conditioner, and the man never tells anyone what he witnessed because nobody would ever believe it. There is nothing to do but carry on with his life. But he is a changed man.

Every morning he is amazed to find another whole day awaiting him. Every meal, every phone call, every greeting from his doorman feels like an undeserved gift, as though he’d mistakenly been given the honeymoon suite at a hotel. He feels grateful even for his problems.

None of the details of his life have changed, except one thing. He now lives with an awareness that he was never truly entitled to be alive; he just happened to be, and still is. His ability to breathe, see, feel, and make choices now seems to him like an unearned, arbitrary status- one that he may freely enjoy, but which can be revoked at any time without explanation. He hopes he never loses this sense that his life is essentially a bonus round, consisting entirely of borrowed time, not just from the day of his strange experience, but from the beginning.

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I once attended a networking event for entrepreneurs, in Toronto. The host had booked a private room beneath a restaurant in Greektown. I was early, so I spent some time in a nearby park, then checked out the shops and restaurants on Danforth Avenue. I stopped in front of a church to tie my shoe. I remember being nervous about meeting a bunch of new people. Of course, it went fine and I had a good time. I had interesting conversations with entrepreneurs in all sorts of spaces: fitness, web development, beard grooming, venture capital. The food was excellent.

The experience was distant enough from my normal routine that, during the event, I was struck by how easily we find ourselves in moments we could not have pictured. For all the certainty we feel when we plan for (or ruminate about) the future, life unfolds in ways that are ultimately unpredictable. We just end up places. Two weeks after that event, a deranged man with a gun walked down the same stretch of Danforth Avenue and shot fourteen people at random, then shot himself.

I don’t mean to sound dramatic. It wasn’t a close call, at least for me. I’m sure a hundred thousand people walked down that stretch of road in the weeks surrounding the incident. There are people who literally dodged the bullets. But when I watched videos of eye-witness accounts, including some in front of the church where I tied my shoes and the corner where I nervously loitered, it gave me a vital bit of perspective: I happen to be alive, and there’s no cosmic law entitling me to that status. Being alive is just happenstance, and not one more day of it is guaranteed.

This thought instantly relieved me of any angst over that particular day’s troubles: technical issues on my website, an unexpected major expense, an acute sense that I’m getting old. Those problems remained, and they are real problems. But they immediately became only relatively important. They lost their sense of absolute importance. In fact, any personal problem I could think of now seemed to be a small, aesthetic complaint about the grand, mysterious gift of being randomly, unfairly alive that day.

This perspective made it easy to tackle the problems I could, and live at peace with the others, all with a breezy sense that this is just a bonus round anyway. Despite the awful news, it was a productive and enjoyable day, and I would like to live all my days that way. That was a few weeks ago. Not surprisingly, the breezy feeling now comes and goes – too many years of seeing my latest dilemma as absolutely important, rather than just relatively important.

This “I could be dead” perspective isn’t a sentimental thinking exercise. I think it’s a more honest view of our ever-tentative situation, one that respects the impersonal, flippant way in which fate handles our lives. The shooting just forced me to see my day in that way, but a random crime is only one of many possible (and still possible) endings. There are always speeding cars, rare diseases, gas explosions, and treacherous stairwells. And none of these events, when they do happen, are negotiable.

The universe is not at all sentimental – aliveness is always going to be an arbitrary status that can be revoked at any time. No recourse, no due process.

Equally mysterious is that our lives began at all. As my favorite philosopher, Douglas Harding, tried to remind us before he died: “It’s the very last thing, isn’t it, that we feel grateful for: having happened. You know, you needn’t have happened. You needn’t have happened. But you did happen.”

And we needn’t still be happening. But we are. I suppose the trick is to remember that fact even in the throes of our worst moods and toughest dilemmas. Maybe I’ll get a reminder tattooed on my wrist, for whenever my complaints start to seem absolutely important: This is borrowed time, all of it. Would you rather give it back?”

- https://www.raptitude.com/

"Reality Avoidance"

"Reality Avoidance"

by Morris Berman

"It’s quite amazing how the news is endlessly about filler, which is what I call it. Very little of this has anything to do with reality, which the Mainstream Media and the American people avoid like the plague. What then is real?

1. The empire is in decline; every day, life here gets a little bit worse; all our institutions are corrupt to varying degrees; and there is no turning this situation around.

2. A crucial factor in this decline and irreversibility is the low level of intelligence of the American people. Americans are not only dumb; they are positively antagonistic toward the life of the mind.

3. Relations of power and money determine practically everything. The 3 wealthiest Americans own as much as the bottom 50% of the population, and this tendency will get worse over time.

4. The value system of the country, and its citizens, is fundamentally wrong-headed. It amounts to little more than hustling, selfishness, narcissism, and a blatant disregard for anyone but oneself. There is a kind of cruelty, or violence, deep in the American soul; many foreign observers and writers have commented on this. Americans are bitter, depressed, and angry, and the country offers very little by way of community or empathy.

5. Along with this is the support of meaningless wars and imperial adventures on the part of most of the population. That we drone-murder unarmed civilians on a weekly basis is barely on the radar screen of the American mind. In essence, the nation has evolved into a genocidal war machine run by a plutocracy and cheered on by mindless millions.

Most Americans hide from these depressing, even horrific, realities by what passes for ‘the news’, but also by means of alcohol, opioids, TV, cellphones, suicide, prescription drugs, workaholism, and spectator sports, to name but a few. This stuffing of the Void is probably our primary activity. In a word, we are eating ourselves alive, and only a tiny fraction of the population recognizes this."

- https://morrisberman.blogspot.com/

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"There is only one basic human right, 

the right to do as you damn well please.

And with it comes the only basic human duty,

 the duty to take the consequences."

- P. J. O'Rourke