Paris, France - "What’s Paris like now? Poor Mr. Macron – Chief of the French tribe – is one of the bright stars of the new rising generation of shameless technocrats. His administration was advertised as the standard bearer for equality, justice and net-negative carbon emissions. But now two of his cabinet ministers have been accused of rape. “Sexual violence,” is the charge, which probably eases the burden of proof for the accuser.
Meanwhile, Covid restrictions have been lifted. No more masks… no more ‘sanitary pass’ – life is returning to normal in the French capital. Everything ever written about Paris is true. We don’t need to add to it. It is a beautiful city, especially in May. The sun shines on the sidewalk cafes. Luxury brands gleam from the shop windows. And tourists are once again blocking our way on the sidewalks.
A Class Apart? Prices are rising, too. And the elite class – the leftish techno-snobs who run the country – are getting bolder. Their program: make life more and more miserable for the common man as they pursue their own jackass goals. “The citoyen will have to get used to living with less,” we quote no one in particular, “and following orders; so we can reduce our carbon output.” “It’s time for de-growth,” they add. “And if the costs fall disproportionately on the common man, well, too bad.”
The educated, enlightened, well-off Parisian believes the world would be a better place if the uneducated, unenlightened, struggling yokels were kept in their place. Specifically, he wants them to use less energy, to stay at home, turn down the heat and not to make a fuss about rising prices. In France, as in America, the deciders are a class apart. They have their agenda… their hopes… their schemes and fantasies. And they don’t want ‘the people’ to get in the way.
In the US last week came evidence that ‘the people’ are stumbling. The big retailers – Costco, Walmart and Target – were hit hard. Earnings were disappointing, leading to the steepest stock market falls since Black Monday of 1987. As Dan reported on Friday, Target had its worst day in 35 years.
Counting Costs: Adding to their costs is a big increase in fuel prices. These companies spend hundreds of millions on energy. As the price of energy – especially diesel fuel – goes up, their margins are squeezed.
And the available evidence shows the customer – the salt of the earth – is less and less able to afford to live in the manner to which he recently became accustomed. The gimmie/stimmies are running out. Wages are supposed to be rising at a 5% rate. But consumer prices are rising even faster. Gasoline, for example, is up over 30% in the last 12 months. Basic expenses – food, shelter, and fuel – are going up so fast, households have less and less left over for “discretionary” spending, which leaves the big box retailers with a lot of unsold product in the box.
And today we feel their pain – the misery… desolation… and anguish of the working classes, both at home and abroad. These are the guys and gals with chainsaws and workbelts… with 18 wheelers to edge into a tight spot… with a night shift to complete without falling asleep… with croissants to bake or laundry to wash. These are the people who made the world what it is. They fell on the Normandy beaches… built the Brooklyn Bridge… put down the hardtop roads… baked the cookies… and delivered the mail.
And now they are still the people who add the most real value to our lives. Not the hedge fund managers, influencers, or policymakers… but autoworkers, farmers, UPS drivers, cooks, baristas and waiters… carpenters, plumbers and masons.
And here’s the gist of our story: the masses have been cheated, deleted and mistreated. And it’s going to get worse. In a nutshell… while the wealth of the crème de la crème was teased up by the feds… the working class – which is most of us – got nothing. The top 1% added $36 trillion in wealth since 1999 – or about $3 million per person. The bottom 50% added wealth too, but only about $13,000 each. Each person at the tiny top got 230 times more money than those at the broad bottom.
But all that froth came at a cost. The feds had no extra money, so they pushed down interest rates, borrowed… and printed money to cover the extra costs. The result was $50 trillion worth of debt added to the US economy since 1999. Who will pay for it? We ‘the people,’ of course. That is what the ‘inflation tax’ is all about. More to come…"
Approaching the End of The First U.S. Bubble Extravaganza:
Housing, Equities, Bonds, and Commodities"
"In a bubble, no one wants to hear the bear case. It is the worst kind of party-pooping. For bubbles, especially superbubbles where we are now, are often the most exhilarating financial experiences of a lifetime. I participated in a wonderful micro-cap fireworks display from 1968 to 1969, in which I made a small fortune (7 times the then full cost of a year at business school). My main stock, American Raceways, tripled while I was on vacation – $7 to $21 – then went to $100 by Christmas, only to lose it all even quicker by the following June, as almost all the fireworks exploded and crashed. This taught me a lesson, and it helped make me cautious. The experience also makes it easy for me to sympathize with the view that bearish advice in bubbles always comes from old fogeys who “just don’t get it,” because I received that old fogey advice back then and just didn’t listen. I doubt speculators in the current bubble will listen to me now; but giving this advice is my job and possibly the right thing to do. So, once more unto the breach, dear friends.
Today in the U.S. we are in the fourth superbubble of the last hundred years. Previous equity superbubbles had a series of distinct features that individually are rare and collectively are unique to these events. In each case, these shared characteristics have already occurred in this cycle. The checklist for a superbubble running through its phases is now complete and the wild rumpus can begin at any time."
"The global calamity continues to grow. Now we are here: we only have a little over 70 days of supply. Wait is running out. The economy is being destroyed around the world and there really is no end in sight."
"Massive Price Increases At Dollar General! What's Next?"
"In today's vlog we are at Dollar General and are noticing massive price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and a massive baby formula shortage! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
"In the featured video, Chris Martenson, Ph.D., reviews why he’s giving up on the idea that our leaders in charge are going to get a clue and maybe navigate our way to a better outcome.
Many are now starting to realize that we’re facing a multitude of catastrophes, sort of pancaked on top of one another. Gas prices are skyrocketing, thanks to President Biden’s decision to shut down U.S. oil production, yet when confronted with the price hikes, he blames it on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - an odd choice, considering Russia accounts for a mere 3% of U.S. crude oil imports.
The crypto market recently cratered. Bitcoin lost about a quarter of its value and Luna, an algorithmic stablecoin, lost nearly all of its $40 billion value. It is likely this was precipitated by Blackrock and Vanguard as crypto is an existential threat to the financial markets. The crypto market in its entirety has lost more than half its value since November 2021, and Reddit forums are reportedly flush with suicide discussions.
The stock market is also starting to cave, and inflation is starting to careen out of control, thanks to the U.S. government borrowing (read printing) trillions of dollars from the Federal Reserve which, by the way, is not federal but a privately-owned corporation. The reason we pay federal taxes is because we have to pay interest on the money the federal government borrows from this private lender.
Ditching this central bank, i.e., the Federal Reserve, and printing our own U.S. currency would keep inflation at bay, since the central bank system only has a life span of about a half-century. Then, it collapses under the weight of the accrued debt. The interest is simply too great to ever be paid off. So, it’s important to realize that the collapses of energy and finance we’re about to experience are not accidental. Parts are intentional and fabricated, and other parts are unavoidable thanks to relinquishing our national currency creation to a central bank.
Uncontrolled Crash Appears Inevitable: We’re now faced with nothing but painful options. As reported by Spanish economist and investment manager Daniel Lacalle: “After more than a decade of chained stimulus packages and extremely low rates, with trillions of dollars of monetary stimulus fueling elevated asset valuations and incentivizing an enormous leveraged bet on risk, the idea of a controlled explosion or a ‘soft landing’ is impossible.
The first problem of a soft landing is the evidence of the weak economic data, both the labor participation and employment rate have been stagnant for almost a year. Real wages are down, as inflation completely eats away the nominal wage increase. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, real average hourly earnings decreased 2.6%, seasonally adjusted, from April 2021 to April 2022. The change in real average hourly earnings combined with a decrease of 0.9% in the average workweek resulted in a 3.4% decrease in real average weekly earnings over this period.
The second problem of believing in a soft landing is underestimating the chain reaction impact of even allegedly small corrections in markets. With global debt at all-time highs and margin debt in the US alone at $773 billion, expectations of a controlled explosion where markets and the indebted sectors will absorb the rate hikes without a significant damage to the economy are simply too optimistic.
However, the biggest problem is that the Federal Reserve wants to curb inflation while at the same time the Federal government is unwilling to reduce spending. Ultimately, inflation is reduced by cutting the amount of broad money in the economy, and if government spending remains the same, the efforts to reduce inflation will only come from obliterating the private sector through higher cost of debt and a collapse in consumption.
There is no easy solution. There is no possible painless normalization path. There are only two possibilities: To truly tackle inflation and risk a financial crisis led by the US dollar vacuum effect or to forget about inflation, make citizens poorer and maintain the so-called bubble of everything. [Federal reserve chairman Jerome] Powell will have to choose between the risk of a global financial meltdown or prolonged inflation.”
World Economic Forum Has Told Us Their Plan: In 2016, the World Economic Forum (WEF) published several “predictions” for the future, a sort of summary agenda to let people know the direction of the globalists’ plans. This was done in two formats. One was a video which was also discussed in greater detail on the WEF’s website, the other was an article written by an unnamed WEF contributor, published in Forbes magazine.
Topping the WEF’s list of “predictions” for 2030 was that “you will own nothing and be happy.” As noted by Martenson, if you own nothing, that means you’ll be renting everything you need. And if you’re renting, that means you’re renting it FROM someone (and note they didn’t say “we” will own nothing). While the WEF didn’t spell out who the owner of everything would be, it’s clear they foresee a future in which ownership of everything is restricted to a few “elite” individuals - the richest of the rich, and the most powerful of the powerful.
This is what The Great Reset, “Building Back Better” and the Green New Deal are all about. It’s about wealth transfer, from you to them. It’s about stripping property rights from the people. It’s about controlling the masses, and possibly eliminating a few along the way to ensure the “useless eaters” don’t gobble up “their” resources.
While the first item on the WEF’s wish list is disconcerting, Martenson is even more troubled by No. 8 on the list, which states that by 2030, “Western values will have been tested to the breaking point.” Just what are “Western values”? Martenson suggests cornerstones include things like individualism, liberty, democracy, science and progress, the bond between parent and child, family values and the idea that there is objective truth based on shared, common understanding of facts.
Certainly, the idea of objective truth has been stretched to near-breaking over the past two years. Martenson notes he can’t even have conversations with some colleagues anymore because they can no longer agree on the common interpretation of common data. “We don’t share objective reality anymore,” he says.
Whodunit? Now, if the WEF claims they’re going to do something, and it then happens, is it not reasonable to suspect the WEF had a hand in it? Martenson certainly believes so. The fact that we’re now experiencing the destruction of Western values on every front suggests the WEF and its global allies are, in fact, carrying out their plan.
Here’s another example: Also included in the WEF’s 2030 “wish list” is the declaration that “You’ll eat less meat.” This too is now coming to pass. And, by the way, meat shortages, which are bound to become far more severe over the next several months and years, are largely the result of intentional actions by national and international leadership.
Martenson points out that we’re now seeing plenty of evidence of “enemy action,” meaning, what we’re experiencing is not the result of mere incompetence but, rather, intentional malevolence. “There are people out there INTENDING to destroy the country,” he says. “And like Maya Angelou, the poet, said, ‘When people tell you who they are, believe them the first time.’ It’s a really good life tip.”
The Hubris of Wealth: Martenson goes on to note that one of the things that strikes him about “the WEF crowd” is that their superiority complex appears to be rooted in their wealth. Because they’re wealthy, they believe they’re smarter than the rest of us and worthier of life than we are. However, their wealth has also shielded them from the realities that face the rest of us, so many actually have only the flimsiest understanding of how things work. “They’ve never had to cook a meal, bang a nail or run a production process,” Martenson says. Yet these are the people who now want to micromanage the lives of every person on the planet.
The Looming Energy Crisis: But what is it about the year 2030? Why do all of the globalist plans converge on 2030? What’s the urgency, the ticking clock that has them so intent on reaching certain goals by that time? “Wander with me over to the big world of resources and I’ll think you’ll see what the big ticking clock is,” Martenson says.
Basically, the short story is that the resources of the world have been grossly mismanaged under the leadership of these globalists, and we’re coming up on very real shortages. Up until about 1930, farming was a net positive exercise. Today, it’s a net negative process. We’re using more energy in the production of food than we get out of it.
To give you a bit of background, Martenson is the founder of a website called Peak Prosperity, and he’s the author of a book and corresponding course called “The Crash Course.” It lays out a systems-level view that connects economy, energy and environment into a holistic whole. You cannot squeeze any one of these without causing ramifications in one or both of the others, and we’re starting to see very clear examples of this now.
However, rather than admit their mistakes, and the mistakes of their forefathers, the globalist cabal members are now trying to manipulate the world into a system of governance that will allow them to maintain their power and privilege while the rest of us are told to “take cold showers and eat bugs,” Martenson says.
The NOPEC Bill: You’ve likely heard about OPEC, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, an intergovernmental organization of 13 countries founded in 1960. The U.S. Senate judiciary committee recently passed the NOPEC bill, which paves the way for lawsuits against OPEC members for market manipulation - an action that OPEC energy ministers warn could drive oil prices to $300 per barrel. That would basically be the death knell for the U.S. economy. Many companies would simply go out of business. It’s important to realize that for all the talk about green energy, oil is the engine that drives economies and food production.
U.S. leaders are now cutting the U.S. off from oil, while having no reasonable alternative, while Saudi Arabia is forming alliances with Russia and China. Martenson believes the power structure of the world will dramatically change over the next decade, and he who has the oil will rule the roost.
It’s not an unintended consequence if you can predict the future based on certain data, and Martenson predicts the NOPEC bill will open the door for OPEC to retaliate in kind and find new trading partners who aren’t so eager to sue them. If that happens, and the U.S. economy tanks as a result, it’s hardly an unintended consequence but a predictably negative outcome, based on the intentional actions of our leadership.
Energy Is the Economy: Martenson goes into a number of other details that explain why and how we’re heading toward a global energy shortage, but that’s the final verdict: The countries of the world will not have the energy they need to maintain rates of production, which includes food production.
Data clearly show that consumption of primary energy (hydropower, nuclear energy, gas, coal, oil) and the real gross domestic product (GDP) is so tightly intertwined as to be indistinguishable. They go together and cannot be separated. If you want more units of a given product, you have to consume the same number of units of primary energy. So, “energy is the economy,” Martenson says. Take away the energy and the economy vanishes. You’d be hard-pressed to find a single item in your home that ended up inside your house without the use of a primary energy source, and oil in particular.
What this means for our immediate future is that we’re at a point that requires painful trade-offs, but our leadership simply aren’t willing to do it, or don’t have the experience to realize that trade-offs are necessary. The dire conclusion Martenson presents is that our energy economy is in a nose dive. Importantly, it’s not just about quantity. Even if we were able to extract more energy, such as oil, on a global level, which we can’t, it still might not solve the problem, and here’s why:
Energy Return on Investment: The graph above was taken from Martenson’s video above. It shows the energy return on investment over the past several decades. Energy is required to bring energy to market. Energy is required to pump oil out of the ground, for example. The energy required by the energy industry itself is the red part in the graph.
In the 1930s, we’d invest one barrel of oil into an oil extraction venture, and get 100 barrels back. The green part of the graph shows the surplus energy available to society. With that surplus, society can do whatever it wants. This surplus is what has allowed for air travel, massive gas-guzzling SUVs, vacations, a home filled with electronics and much more.
We’ve now gone over what’s called ‘the energy cliff,’ and at the bottom of this cliff, there’s no surplus energy left over for society. But as you can see, the energy invested in more recent years ballooned, which means the surplus energy available to society has shrunk, but it didn’t shrink linearly. In 2000, when energy production required the input of one barrel to extract 10 (or one unit of energy to produce 10 units of energy), there was still a lot of surplus. It wasn’t noticeably different from the 1970s, really.
But look where we are today. We’ve now gone over what’s called “the energy cliff,” and at the bottom of this cliff, there’s no surplus energy left over for society, because it takes one unit of energy to produce a unit of energy. Today, the energy to produce oil is about one unit for every 3.8 units, leaving only 2.8 units for society. Tar sands and oil shale have about the same returns. Needless to say, as energy becomes in short supply, prices will rise.
To understand these concepts better, I recommend viewing Martenson’s video. So, in the final analysis, it appears only the foolish will ignore the signs of the times and hang their hopes on the fantasy that, somehow, all of this will just sort itself out and life will return to normal. That hardly seems likely. As noted by Martenson, there’s a reason why the global cabal are pressing forward with 2030 in their sights. They know we’re on the energy cliff and where we’re headed.
The question is, how do we make it through the coming energy and financial crises? The answer is to work on your own resiliency. Learn to grow your own food. Start now, because it can take some time to master. Pick up tips from preppers who can instruct you on long-term food storage and the like, and pick up a bit extra right now.
Consider how you might power some of the essentials in your home if there are rolling blackouts. Identify sources of potable water and so on. Like Martenson warns, I believe things will get far worse before they get better, and making things better again may require new forms of energy that haven’t even been invented yet, or at the least released into the public domain."
Success Attraction, Peter Schiff Interview, 5/23/22:
"We Tried And We Failed!"
"Peter Schiff latest interview on economy, money printing, taxes, inflation and more. With these Peter Schiff clips on the Peter Schiff latest interview on inflation, economy, federal reserve, dollar, economy, news, inflation 2021, money printing, and more.
Welcome to Success Attraction, the number one place for educational, motivational and business content. Our mission is to improve people's lives through motivation, inspiration and education, from the high achievers of the world. In this channel you will find the best speeches for motivational videos, best motivational speeches, inspirational videos, success video motivation and best interviews from the top entrepreneurs."
"20 Signs That The Collapse Of Society Is Accelerating"
by Epic Economist, 5/23/22:
"The collapse of society is rapidly accelerating. Global events are escalating at an alarming pace. We’re now witnessing conflicts erupting all over the world. At the same time, global production is declining, supply chain problems are getting bigger, and our economic woes are getting worse. In fact, according to a new reassessment of a report released by a team of MIT scientists in 1970, human society is right on track for a collapse in the next two decades if there isn't a serious shift in global priorities. The report was published in the bestselling book "The Limits to Growth" (1972), in which the experts argued that industrial civilization was bound to collapse if corporations and governments continued to pursue the idea of infinite economic growth, no matter the costs.
The researchers forecasted 12 possible scenarios for the future, most of which predicted a point where natural resources would become so scarce that further economic growth would become impossible, and quality of life would sharply drop all over the planet. The report's most infamous scenario predicted that the global economic growth would be brought to a halt around the 2040s, when most economies in the world would face a massive meltdown, along with the global population, food availability, and natural resources.
However, this imminent "collapse" wouldn't be the end of the human race, but rather a societal turning point that would see standards of living free-falling around the world for decades, the team wrote. The decline of the civilization as we know it would include dramatic disruptions to trade routes, shifts in supply and demand, disease, environmental degradation, and extreme political dysfunction. In such an apocalyptic scenario, “you can see that the basic needs of society are not being met, or cannot be accomplished,” explained Bar-Oz, an archaeologist at the University of Haifa. “Losing food security, losing basic security, everyone agrees this is a way to measure collapse.”
Everything suggests that it is not a question of if but when these events will happen. History has taught us that civilizations do not last forever. And recent trends show that our society is reaching an irreversible turning point. How quickly could these events become so drastic that they would spark an apocalyptic shift in society? Quicker than we think. In today’s video, we compiled several signs that expose a societal collapse has already begun and the downfall of our major institutions and infrastructures is gaining speed with each passing year.
On top of all the mentioned facts, it seems that another health emergency is looming on the horizon. A monkeypox outbreak seems to be spreading like wildfire. On May 7th, the very first case in the western world was confirmed. Now, less than three weeks later, more than 80 cases have been confirmed in 12 different countries and the number of suspected cases continues to rise, and that should greatly alarm all of us.
As the societal “apocalypse” approaches, the poorest will be the hardest hit, as they always do, while the wealthiest may be insulated - up to a certain point. As events develop, the pain will rapidly move up the global economic chain. And we'll see a catastrophic surge in political turbulence, humanitarian crises, instability, and geo-strategic rivalries across a hungry and devastated world. The challenges ahead are truly biblical. And the numbers exposed in this video are proof that things are rapidly running out of control."
“NGC 3199 lies about 12,000 light-years away, a glowing cosmic cloud in the nautical southern constellation of Carina. The nebula is about 75 light-years across in this narrowband, false-color view. Though the deep image reveals a more or less complete bubble shape, it does look very lopsided with a much brighter edge along the top.
Near the center is a Wolf-Rayet star, a massive, hot, short-lived star that generates an intense stellar wind. In fact, Wolf-Rayet stars are known to create nebulae with interesting shapes as their powerful winds sweep up surrounding interstellar material. In this case, the bright edge was thought to indicate a bow shock produced as the star plowed through a uniform medium, like a boat through water. But measurements have shown the star is not really moving directly toward the bright edge. So a more likely explanation is that the material surrounding the star is not uniform, but clumped and denser near the bright edge of windblown NGC 3199.”
"Because I've lost access to all my accounts and channels to the SBU (Ukraine's secret police), I don't have any way to promote my content - so please be so kind as to share this video with anyone whom you think might learn something." GL
"Some people are more observant than others. Some are more capable of thinking outside the box than others. Whether this is by nature or nurture is a moot point. When we are children, we tend to look upon the world in all its wonder. We are amazed at what exists and we absorb it like a sponge. Then, when we are in our teens, we begin our second wave of discovery. We begin to pay more attention to the things that we find confusing; we become absorbed in issues like world hunger, warfare and political strife. These situations seem senseless and we repeatedly ask, "Why should these things be?"
Typically, in our twenties, we have not yet found any solid answers and our mood turns from interest to anger. We tend to gravitate toward liberal philosophy, as liberal philosophy tells us what we would most like to hear; that these terrible things should not exist and that we should take every step available to us to end the injustices of the world – at whatever cost to ourselves and others.
Most of us continue in this approach for several years, but in our thirties we begin to recognize that, no matter how many steps are taken in this effort, the problems seem to be self-renewing and, at that point, a split occurs in philosophical outlook. Many people cease to grow at this point, as they do not want to live in a world where it is necessary to accept that suffering of one type or another is perennial. They may become increasingly stubborn in this view and, from this point on in life, tend to dig in their heels increasingly and fail to continue to grow in their understanding of the world.
However, there are others who decide that, no matter how unpleasant reality is, we will continue our pursuit of it. For those of us who do follow this (admittedly less pleasant) path, the true nature of life begins to unfold. Somewhere in our forties, it dawns on us that our thinking is no longer liberal. We may well find that our former liberal friends may treat us like traitors to the cause and we may even become pariahs to them. (Churchill said, "If you are not a liberal when you are twenty, you have no heart. If you are not a conservative when you are forty, you have no brain." A lot of truth in that.)
Somewhere in our fifties, if we have remained diligent in our study of mankind, it all begins to gel and we begin to have a real grasp of the interrelationship of business, politics, the haves and have-nots, the whole ball of wax. We begin to recognize that there will always be those who are inspired leaders, but that there will also be those who are uninspired usurpers. There will always be those who are eager to be producers and, likewise, there will always be those who would prefer merely to consume.
From this point on in our lives, we increasingly recognize that this state of affairs is perennial, that human nature will assure that the same verve that existed to create the Roman Empire exists today, just as the same waste and decadence that destroyed it also exists today.
When I was in High School, I read George Orwell’s "Animal Farm." I remember how impressed I was that he had set his novel in a farmyard and that his characters were farm animals. Orwell had consciously simplified an otherwise confusing world by boiling it down to the smallest format he could think of. In that book, when the animals gained their freedom from the "oppression" of the farmer, they were filled with high-mindedness. In order to forever remind them of what they stood for, they painted on the barn, "All animals are created equal."
The greatest revelation of the book, for me, was when the pigs, who had become the government, altered the sign under cover of darkness to say, "All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others." I remember thinking, "This is where the rot sets in. I must never forget this. For the rest of my life, I will need to be watching for this change in leadership approach."
Unfortunately, it is a fact that the majority of people truly do not want to be bothered with this effort of continual reassessment of the governmental situation. In every country, in every era, the majority genuinely prefer leaders who make big promises, regardless of whether the promises will ever be delivered upon. Every country in every era has its "chicken in every pot" slogan to hang on to.
In the late eighteenth century, America became heated up over the "oppression" of King George (whose taxation, incidentally, was far lower that today’s taxes) and, eventually, openly rebelled. It has often been said by historians that, if there was a specific moment at which the move to become the United States truly began, it was when Patrick Henry stated in the House of Burgesses, "Give me Liberty or give me death."
As we all know, the American people gained their independence and, after a fair bit of stumbling, set forth on a course of prosperity, based upon excellent natural resources and an excellent work ethic. In the middle of the nineteenth century, a war was fought, not over slavery, but over who would control the economy of the future – the northern industrialists or the southern plantation owners. The north won and the latter half of the nineteenth century saw the greatest expansion the world had ever seen. In this period, America settled the entire continent and dramatically sped up the pace of the industrial revolution. This was done without income tax or a Federal Reserve, confirming that these factors are not necessary for progress and prosperity.
Then in 1913, the pigs rewrote the sign on the barn. A decade later, American bankers (with the support of the government) put into motion the largest scam ever to be perpetrated upon Americans. It was an unqualified success, with an unfortunate byproduct being the Great Depression. In 1999, the American bankers (again with the support of the government) put into place an almost identical scam, which has proven to be an even bigger success and (I believe) will ultimately result in an even more devastating depression.
In 1999, The Democratic US president, with the support of the Republican US Congress, repealed the Glass Steagall Act, which would allow the scam of the 1920’s to be repeated, only on a grander scale. The "pigs", in effect, rewrote Patrick Henry’s inspiring statement. From 1999 on, the slogan has, effectively, been, "Give me liberty or give me debt," and the governments, both democratic and republican, have encouraged and provided the latter.
On any given day, we can turn on our televisions and watch the news programs, which continually feature Republican political advisors and Democratic political advisors argue with each other over whether all the damage that has been done was done by the other side. Neither side gives an inch to the other. Americans watch this game of ping pong endlessly play out with no conclusion, yet, at election time, they must make a choice.
Most Americans today treat the two political parties the way they would treat sports teams. Just as no self-respecting sports fan would own both a Yankees and a Red Sox hat, so every American supports one political team or the other, and along the way, that support becomes so all-encompassing that there is no room for doubt. Blind conviction becomes the norm.
In 1787, Alexander Tyler, an Englishman, commented on the new US experiment as a democracy. He said, "A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship." His prediction has proven astonishingly accurate, with the last step yet to be played out.
The debt that crippled Rome two thousand years ago, and that crippled every major power since that time, is now crippling the US. Today, all Americans are aware of the problem, and almost all are hoping that, somehow, the problem will go away. It will not. In every country, in every era, it is not in the interests of the "pigs" to fix the problem. It is in their interest to allow the situation to play itself out until it ultimately crashes. Tyler was extraordinarily astute. He understood that all great powers have a shelf life. They also have a process by which they are created, then thrive, then become corrupted, then decline, then fall into ruin. This process is as perennial as the grass. The pundits will continue to rail with righteous indignation on television. The two political sports teams will continue to kick and gouge each other, but the outcome of the game is already cast in stone.
So, is this the end of the world as we know it? Yes and no. It is not the end of the world, just the end of the world as we know it. Whenever the leading power in the world falls, others are already in the wings, rising. And so it is today. Americans who are alive today have never known a situation in which their country was not the top dog in the world, and so it is hard to imagine a different world. For those who are not American and who do not reside in the US, it is easier to see a truer picture. With the collapse of the US (and Europe), there is still a very big world out there, waiting in the wings. Some second- and third-world countries are, admittedly, doing badly. However, others are getting by nicely. And still others are thriving.
We’re headed toward a monumental economic event unlike any we’ve seen before...It could be the most significant economic event of our lifetimes…Yes, there is a bright future ahead, but, sadly, not in America; at least not for many years. Those who were described in the first paragraph of this article as being more observant are already looking away from America into the future. For the first time since the eighteenth century, those who are pursuing the bright future are walking away from America, not toward it."
Youghal, Ireland - "Today, we continue our salute to the common man. We give thanks to truck drivers who deliver the goods… roughnecks who work on drill rigs… bar keeps who serve a glass of whiskey when we need it… and all the other drawers of water and hewers of wood who make life tolerable.
But wait, first we should raise a glass to our leaders… to the people who rule us. We thought they were corrupt and incompetent. But it’s thanks to them that we now have a Baby Food Airlift. Bless their hearts; here’s The Daily Beast: "The first shipment of baby formula under President Joe Biden’s “Operation Fly Formula” initiative landed in the U.S. on Sunday; the airlift totals 78,000 pounds and will provide enough food to fill more than half a million baby bottles. The delivery of Nestlé formula - which was trucked from Switzerland to Germany and then flown to Indianapolis - is the first of multiple flights expected this weekend, which will import three different types of formula from Europe."
Operation Fly Formula! Thank God! It makes us all tingly with patriotic pride. We see the Stars and Stripes flapping in the breeze. And our soldiers snap to attention as the first liters (this is from Switzerland… it’s the metric system...) come down the ramp. In a real crisis, we can still count on our government to come through for us. But let’s not get distracted…
The Biggest Rip-off of All: We introduced Mr. Charles Stallworth last week; he’s a ‘blue collar’ worker with a chip on his shoulder. He thinks the suits show him no respect. He complains, for example, about the Biden Team’s plan to forgive college loans. He and his fellow laborers didn’t get any college loans. And now they will be expected to pay for the college educations of those who despise them – including 30 members of the Biden administration.
And what about all those working class kids who played the game fair and square… who worked nights and weekends in order to pay their college expenses? And what about those who skipped college but learned a valuable trade, on the job? They contributed to the wealth and happiness of others – parking their cars, serving their hamburgers, stocking their shelves; why should they have to pay for college for those who earn more than they do?
But Mr. Stallworth seems unaware of the biggest rip-off of all. Today, he and other ordinary citizens are paying nearly 10% of their incomes - the ‘inflation tax.’ It’s just the beginning of the huge bill they will have to pay for the expensive shenanigans… and wealth transfer programs… of the last 20 years.
The ‘system,’ put in place by suited up, college educated politicians and policymakers – and largely administered by an unelected group of bankers and economists at the Fed – has been catnip for the upper 10%. In the stock market alone, they gained some $30 trillion from the Fed’s rate rigging. But now working class incomes are being tapped to pay for it.
“What is the end game of this contempt?” asks Mr. Stallworth. “How much longer can you continue to rely on the labor of skilled tradesfolk while looking down your nose at them, explicitly or implicitly?” The poor man just doesn’t ‘get it.’ Disrespecting the deplorables is an essential part of the program.
Sliding College Doors: Had he gone to college, and been properly indoctrinated, he would see things differently. He would know, for example, that ‘climate change’ is not just a hypothesis; The Science is ‘settled,’ whatever that means. Had he the benefit of higher education, he would know too that babies are not born either male or female; gender is a ‘social construct’… or something like that. Had he sat through the coursework in politics and government, he could take more of an interest in the affairs of The Ukraine… he would know that a 2% inflation rate is idea… and of course, it would have been revealed to him that the problems of the Black community are all his fault.
And now… without the four years of heavy drinking, and occasional drugs – a real ‘college experience!’ – his head might be clear enough to notice that his ‘betters’ start wars that can never be won. They ‘stimulate’ the economy… and it runs more slowly. They promote ‘equality’… and the rich get richer than ever.
He may have had a hunch too, that the incompetence of the elite is of a very special sort; it comes as a punishment to the working man, but it has always been a boon to the policymakers themselves.
Working class kids came back from the Middle East missing arms or legs. But the suits in Northern Virginia’s ‘defense’ industries built bigger and bigger houses. Four million ordinary households lost their homes in the mortgage finance crisis of ’08-’09. But Wall Street honchos, who brought their companies to the edge of bankruptcy, still got million-dollar bonuses.
And who struck it rich in the Covid Panic? The millions of people who were locked in their homes, counting on handouts from the feds? Or the big pharma companies—Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna? Or how about Novavax, whose shares rose more than 1,000% in the 12 months following March 2020?
What to make of it? What we make of it is that Charles Stallworth is almost right. The government is no longer run “for the people” or “by the people.” It’s run by an elite… who scorn them. But not everybody with a white collar is a ‘gray-suited grafter.’ More to come…"
“Our laws make law impossible; our liberties destroy all freedom; our property is organized robbery; our morality an impudent hypocrisy; our wisdom is administered by inexperienced or mal-experienced dupes; our power wielded by cowards and weaklings; and our honor false in all its points. I am an enemy of the existing order for good reasons.”
“The acceptance of ambiguity implies more than the commonplace understanding that some good things and some bad things happen to us. It means that we know that good and evil are inextricably intermixed in human affairs; that they contain, and sometimes embrace, their opposites; that success may involve failure of a different kind, and failure may be a kind of triumph.”
- Sydney J. Harris
And, of course, the universal and inevitable excuse…
“A person who is going to commit an inhuman act invariably
excuses himself to himself by saying, “I’m only human, after all.”
“Totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere.”
- George Orwell
"The noose is dangling gently around our necks. Every day, they cinch it tighter. By the time we realize it’s strangling us, it will be too late. Those who – gradually and gleefully – sacrifice their freedoms, their autonomy, their individuality, their livelihoods, and their relationships on the altar of the “common good” have forgotten this is the pattern followed by every totalitarian regime in history.
Everyone wonders how ordinary Germans could have been manipulated to participate or stand dumbstruck while their government was transformed into a genocidal juggernaut. This is how. Read Sebastian Haffner’s "Defying Hitler" memoir to see how this can happen anywhere - including here.
Everyone wonders how Russians could have permitted and even zealously reported fellow citizens for imprisonment and execution under "Article 58", the penal code invented to incarcerate anyone who dared express the slightest whisper of noncompliance under Stalin’s homicidal state. This is how. Read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s meticulously documented "The Gulag Archipelago" to witness this progression of authoritarian lunacy.
George Orwell wrote, "As far as the mass of the people go, the extraordinary swings of opinion which occur nowadays, the emotions which can be turned on and off like a tap, are the result of newspaper and radio hypnosis.”
Can you imagine what master propagandist Edward Bernays would have done with access to today’s mainstream media conglomerate combined with the global surveillance infrastructure of Big Tech? And you really think that’s not happening now - with another century of psychological, neurological, and technological research under their belts?
A textbook example of "Problem Reaction Solution", the current tsunami of worldwide hysteria is the latest and potentially most threatening example of mass control in history.
The recipe is simple. Take a naturally occurring phenomenon, say a seasonal virus, and exaggerate its threat far beyond every imagining - despite exhaustive evidence to the contrary. Suppress, silence, ostracize, and demonize every individual who dares present facts that expose the false mono-narrative.
Whip up a witches’ brew of anger, envy, and, most importantly, fear, escalating emotions to a boil so as to short-circuit our faculties of reason and logic.
Isolate us from one another, supplant real-world interactions with virtual feuds, label nonconformists as a threat to the group, and pump the public with a disinformation campaign designed to confuse and atomize. In essence, foster a cultlike mentality that shuts down thought to guarantee assent.
Cultivate and wield our cognitive biases - especially ingroup bias, conformity bias, and authority bias - against us in a comprehensive divide-and-conquer policy that keeps us too busy squabbling amongst each other to recognize and unite against those corralling us into a Matrix-like collective delusion that enables the powerful to extract our resources for their own gain.
This ideological mass psychosis is religion - not science. If this were about science, the Media–Pharmaceutical–Big-Tech complex would not be memory-holing every dissenting voice, vilifying every thought criminal, and censoring every legitimate inquiry in quest of the truth.
Mark Twain said, “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” He also said: “In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.”
The next time you’re watching the news, reading a social media post, listening to a friend repeat a scripted talking point, pay attention. Learn to identify the earmarks of propaganda, the clickbait used to trigger your emotions, the mechanisms employed to engineer your cognitive biases.
Don’t let your pride prevent you from seeing - and admitting - the Emperor is naked. We are losing our last sliver of opportunity to resist authoritarianism. This is not a partisan issue. Those who wish to control us have made it such because disunited lemmings are easier to steer than independent, critical thinkers.
This is a human issue. This is about crushing the middle class - the backbone of a democratic republic - and transferring trillions from the middle and lower classes to the ruling plutocracy. This is about demolishing the foundations of a free society and building it back - not better, but better-controlled.
I will close by recommending a series of illuminating videos on menticide (“the systematic effort to undermine and destroy a person’s values and beliefs … to induce radically different ideas”) throughout history by "Academy of Ideas." This analysis of mass psychosis is nonpartisan and of value to every thinking human being.
"Professor Mattias Desmet talks about his work that connects past historical episodes of what is called “Mass Formation” (aka Mass Psychosis) and current events. The risks are as grave as they come. Unless a few brave and courageous people are willing to stand up and say “I don’t agree!” history suggests that we will end up with a fully totalitarian outcome.
That is a dark path. It inevitably leads to mass casualties and atrocities. Eventually all totalitarian systems end in their own destruction.
My position is “it doesn’t have to be this way.” We can do better. Let’s avoid a future of atrocities and the complete destruction of our way of life. Unfortunately, those caught up in the Mass Formation event cannot see the larger or wider implications of their actions. They are very much like a hypnotized person with their field of view narrowed down to a singular threat or risk they have been told is the one-and-only threat they must conquer.
So all of their attention goes there. It focusses down. Nothing else matters. Eventually they transfer their anger and rage at that enemy – which is Covid today – upon a more relatable a nearby object. Perhaps their neighbor. Perhaps the unvaccinated. Perhaps immigrants who are stealing their jobs, or those who aren’t taking Climate Change seriously enough.
With that transference, the path has been laid to re-trod some of the most awful and inhumane periods of history. We’re there again and our own integrity demands that we do what we can to avoid going any further down that path.
In this episode Mattias tells us what can be done. We must never resort to violence. We must be courageous and speak up. We must hold everyone with compassion. But most of all, we must speak up."
