Wednesday, August 17, 2022

"Supply Chain Shock Triggers Perfect Storm At US Ports As Shipping Disruptions Break The System"

Full screen recommended.
"Supply Chain Shock Triggers Perfect Storm At US Ports
 As Shipping Disruptions Break The System"
by Epic Economist

"Port congestion remains a huge hurdle for the U.S. supply chain as billions of dollars of products are at anchor or landlocked, and a shift from West Coast ports to East Coast ports is creating new pressures and a series of chokepoints in the system. Millions of U.S. businesses are panicking with the extended shipping delays, soaring costs of materials and commodities, and spiking shipping rates amid a drastic sales slowdown. Consumers are about to get shocked by the coming wave of price increases as grocers and retailers announce plans to raise costs of essential goods up to 30 percent. The current outlook is extremely gloomy, and industry giants are telling us to brace for some serious shockwaves as peak shipping season begins for volatile supply chains.

In a repeat of 2021’s supply chain chaos, U.S. ports are now handling a deluge of imports while hundreds of ships are still waiting offshore and thousands upon thousands of empty containers are piling up everywhere, worsening congestion at both coasts. The record volume of imports – which is also clogging up other key US container ports such as Los Angeles and Savannah, Georgia – is one of the main reasons why logistics experts remain cautious about the state of the US supply chain. With capacity still tight, there’s no room for error in the system. But new problems continue to surface very quickly, resulting in severe disruptions and causing shippers a lot of pain.

The offshore traffic jam is once again as bad as it’s ever been. As more container ships from China continue to arrive at the U.S. coast, it is estimated that the number of waiting vessels reached 201 on Monday. Delivery delays can easily become a financial burden to many shippers. Time is money, and a vessel or container at rest takes both out of the supply chain. “Global shippers should be prepared for volatility in the coming quarters,” warned Peter Sand, chief shipping analyst at ocean and air freight research firm Xeneta. With disruptions and uncertainty sweeping across every facet of the worldwide supply chain, the vast majority of companies are in panic mode, and executives expect current conditions to continue or even worsen by the end of the year, a new report shows.

A fresh study by QIMA, a global quality control, and compliance service provider, uncovered that nearly two-thirds of global businesses with international supply chains see these disruptions remaining unchanged or worsening by the year’s end. That number jumps to 81 percent for U.S. firms. The study notes that U.S. companies are experiencing a broad array of issues. But of course, these problems are not only causing shortages. For grocers and food retailers, they mean that food inflation is set to hit between 15 and 20% this year. When supply chains get choked up like that and farmers can’t make ends meet, food becomes expensive, fast.

This summer, Kraft Heinz announced plans to hike prices by as much as 30%, and other companies are expected to follow the same move while U.S. consumers cope with rising costs for housing, energy, and more. The issues we are seeing now reveal that most businesses are not adequately ready to cushion against the global supply shocks. Unfortunately, there’s no going back from the extensive disruptions we’ve seen so far, and U.S. companies are bracing for more shockwaves as the situation at ports aggravates. The supply chain breakdown is set to reach catastrophic levels during this peak shipping season, and the distortions we're witnessing right now are just a hit of what's coming next."

CanadianPrepper, "Worldwide EMERGENCY! Stockpiles Dwindling"

CanadianPrepper, 8/17/22:
"Worldwide EMERGENCY! Stockpiles Dwindling"
"The dominoes continue to fall as countries 
hoard grain to prepare for what's coming."
Comments here:

"Target Stores Crushed By Inflation; Prepare For An Economic Crash Now"

Jeremiah Babe, 8/17/22:
"Target Stores Crushed By Inflation; 
Prepare For An Economic Crash Now"
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: Chuck Wild, Liquid Mind, “Dream Ten”

Chuck Wild, Liquid Mind, “Dream Ten”

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Galaxies of the Virgo Cluster are scattered across this deep telescopic field of view. The cosmic scene spans about three Full Moons, captured in dark skies near Jalisco, Mexico, planet Earth. About 50 million light-years distant, the Virgo Cluster is the closest large galaxy cluster to our own local galaxy group. Prominent here are Virgo's bright elliptical galaxies from the Messier catalog, M87 at the top left, and M84 and M86 seen (bottom to top) below and right of center.
M84 and M86 are recognized as part of Markarian's Chain, a visually striking line-up of galaxies vertically on the right side of this frame. Near the middle of the chain lies an intriguing interacting pair of galaxies, NGC 4438 and NGC 4435, known to some as Markarian's Eyes. Of course giant elliptical galaxy M87 dominates the Virgo cluster. It's the home of a super massive black hole, the first black hole ever imaged by planet Earth's Event Horizon Telescope."

"Weaponizing the Bureaucracy: Who Will Protect Us from the Government’s Standing Army?"

"Weaponizing the Bureaucracy: 
Who Will Protect Us from the Government’s Standing Army?"
by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead

“A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive
will not long be safe companions to liberty.”
 - James Madison

"The IRS has stockpiled 4,500 guns and five million rounds of ammunition in recent years, including 621 shotguns, 539 long-barrel rifles and 15 submachine guns.

The Veterans Administration (VA) purchased 11 million rounds of ammunition (equivalent to 2,800 rounds for each of their officers), along with camouflage uniforms, riot helmets and shields, specialized image enhancement devices and tactical lighting.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) acquired 4 million rounds of ammunition, in addition to 1,300 guns, including five submachine guns and 189 automatic firearms for its Office of Inspector General.

According to an in-depth report on “The Militarization of the U.S. Executive Agencies,” the Social Security Administration secured 800,000 rounds of ammunition for their special agents, as well as armor and guns.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) owns 600 guns. And the Smithsonian now employs 620-armed “special agents.”

This is how it begins. We have what the founders feared most: a “standing” or permanent army on American soil. This de facto standing army is made up of weaponized, militarized, civilian forces which look like, dress like, and act like the military; are armed with guns, ammunition and military-style equipment; are authorized to make arrests; and are trained in military tactics.

Mind you, this de facto standing army of bureaucratic, administrative, non-military, paper-pushing, non-traditional law enforcement agencies may look and act like the military, but they are not the military. Rather, they are foot soldiers of the police state’s standing army, and they are growing in number at an alarming rate.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the number of federal agents armed with guns, ammunition and military-style equipment, authorized to make arrests, and trained in military tactics has nearly tripled over the past several decades. There are now more bureaucratic (non-military) government agents armed with weapons than U.S. Marines. As Adam Andrzejewski writes for Forbes, “the federal government has become one never-ending gun show.”

While Americans have to jump through an increasing number of hoops in order to own a gun, federal agencies have been placing orders for hundreds of millions of rounds of hollow point bullets and military gear. Among the agencies being supplied with night-vision equipment, body armor, hollow-point bullets, shotguns, drones, assault rifles and LP gas cannons are the Smithsonian, U.S. Mint, Health and Human Services, IRS, FDA, Small Business Administration, Social Security Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Education Department, Energy Department, Bureau of Engraving and Printing and an assortment of public universities.

Add in the Biden Administration’s plans to grow the nation’s police forces by 100,000 more cops and swell the ranks of the IRS by 87,000 new employees (some of whom will have arrest-and-firearm authority) and you’ve got a nation in the throes of martial law. The militarization of America’s police forces in recent decades has merely sped up the timeline by which the nation is transformed into an authoritarian regime.

What began with the militarization of the police in the 1980s during the government’s war on drugs has snowballed into a full-fledged integration of military weaponry, technology and tactics into police protocol. To our detriment, local police - clad in jackboots, helmets and shields and wielding batons, pepper-spray, stun guns, and assault rifles - have increasingly come to resemble occupying forces in our communities.

As Andrew Becker and G.W. Schulz report, more than $34 billion in federal government grants made available to local police agencies in the wake of 9/11 “have fueled a rapid, broad transformation of police operations across the country. More than ever before, police rely on quasi-military tactics and equipment. Police departments around the U.S. have transformed into small army-like forces.”

This standing army has been imposed on the American people in clear violation of the spirit - if not the letter of the law - of the Posse Comitatus Act, which restricts the government’s ability to use the U.S. military as a police force.

A standing army - something that propelled the early colonists into revolution—strips the American people of any vestige of freedom. It was for this reason that those who established America vested control of the military in a civilian government, with a civilian commander-in-chief. They did not want a military government, ruled by force. Rather, they opted for a republic bound by the rule of law: the U.S. Constitution.

Unfortunately, with the Constitution under constant attack, the military’s power, influence and authority have grown dramatically. Even the Posse Comitatus Act, which makes it a crime for the government to use the military to carry out arrests, searches, seizure of evidence and other activities normally handled by a civilian police force, has been greatly weakened by exemptions allowing troops to deploy domestically and arrest civilians in the wake of alleged terrorist acts.

The increasing militarization of the police, the use of sophisticated weaponry against Americans and the government's increasing tendency to employ military personnel domestically have all but eviscerated historic prohibitions such as the Posse Comitatus Act. Indeed, there are a growing number of exceptions to which Posse Comitatus does not apply. These exceptions serve to further acclimate the nation to the sight and sounds of military personnel on American soil and the imposition of martial law.

Now we find ourselves struggling to retain some semblance of freedom in the face of administrative, police and law enforcement agencies that look and act like the military with little to no regard for the Fourth Amendment, laws such as the NDAA that allow the military to arrest and indefinitely detain American citizens, and military drills that acclimate the American people to the sight of armored tanks in the streets, military encampments in cities, and combat aircraft patrolling overhead.

The menace of a national police force - a.k.a. a standing army - vested with the power to completely disregard the Constitution, cannot be overstated, nor can its danger be ignored. Historically, the establishment of a national police force accelerates a nation’s transformation into a police state, serving as the fundamental and final building block for every totalitarian regime that has ever wreaked havoc on humanity.

Then again, for all intents and perhaps, the American police state is already governed by martial law: Battlefield tactics. Militarized police. Riot and camouflage gear. Armored vehicles. Mass arrests. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Batons. Strip searches. Drones. Less-than-lethal weapons unleashed with deadly force. Rubber bullets. Water cannons. Concussion grenades. Intimidation tactics. Brute force. Laws conveniently discarded when it suits the government’s purpose.

This is what martial law looks like, when a government disregards constitutional freedoms and imposes its will through military force, only this is martial law without any government body having to declare it. The ease with which Americans are prepared to welcome boots on the ground, regional lockdowns, routine invasions of their privacy, and the dismantling of every constitutional right intended to serve as a bulwark against government abuses is beyond unnerving.

We are sliding fast down a slippery slope to a Constitution-free America. This quasi-state of martial law has been helped along by government policies and court rulings that have made it easier for the police to shoot unarmed citizens, for law enforcement agencies to seize cash and other valuable private property under the guise of asset forfeiture, for military weapons and tactics to be deployed on American soil, for government agencies to carry out round-the-clock surveillance, for legislatures to render otherwise lawful activities as extremist if they appear to be anti-government, for profit-driven private prisons to lock up greater numbers of Americans, for homes to be raided and searched under the pretext of national security, for American citizens to be labeled terrorists and stripped of their rights merely on the say-so of a government bureaucrat, and for pre-crime tactics to be adopted nationwide that strip Americans of the right to be assumed innocent until proven guilty and creates a suspect society in which we are all guilty until proven otherwise.

All of these assaults on the constitutional framework of the nation have been sold to the public as necessary for national security. Time and again, the public has fallen for the ploy hook, line and sinker. We’re being reeled in, folks, and you know what happens when we get to the end of that line? We’ll be cleaned, gutted and strung up."

An Absolute Must-Watch! "Celente and the Judge Podcast - August 17, 2022"

Full screen recommended.
"Celente and the Judge Podcast - August 17, 2022"
Gerald Celente and Judge Andrew Napolitano 
discuss current events and circumstances.
Comments here:

Gregory Mannarino, "Expect Another 'Crisis' To Hit! Much Bigger Than Anything Before... Here's Why"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 8/17/22:
"Expect Another 'Crisis' To Hit! 
Much Bigger Than Anything Before... Here's Why"
Comments here:

"Doug Casey On The (Domestic) War on Terror 2.0"

"Doug Casey On The (Domestic) War on Terror 2.0"
by International Man

"International Man: Previously, Big Tech companies like Twitter and Facebook de-platformed the sitting president of the US. These companies have censored and de-platformed others for deviating from the mainstream message on their platforms. Are we seeing the beginning of widespread censorship in the country? What comes next?

Doug Casey: A friend of mine sent me a quote from Ayn Rand the other day. Rand was without doubt one of the greatest intellectuals of the 20th century. In fact, people’s reaction to her and her ideas acts as a litmus test for how they feel about almost everything in life.

Rand said, "Once a country accepts censorship of the press and of speech, then nothing can be won without violence. Therefore, so long as you have free speech, protect it. This is the life and death issue in this country: do not give up the freedom of the press, of newspapers, books, magazines, television, radios, movies, and every other form of presenting ideas. So long as that’s free, a peaceful intellectual turn is possible."

She’s 100% correct. Media platforms and Big Tech are overreaching at this point. By doing so, they’ve brought the whole situation to a head. It’s going to go one way or another and probably wind up with violence, especially as the economy falls apart, and inflation gets out of control. Or we will have catastrophic deflation. Or both.

It could evolve into a situation similar to that of Germany in the early 1920s when right-wing and left-wing groups were fighting in the streets. As I’ve been saying for several years, a police state is a near certainty, and some form of civil war is a real possibility. The best solution is secession, a peaceful breakup. But that seems impossible for any number of reasons.

International Man: You once said, "In the US, politics has become a contest of who gets to impose their will on the rest of the country." With the midterm elections just a few months away, what do you think will happen if the Dems get unchecked power?

Doug Casey: Every country across space and time has the same assortment of people, by character anyway. We have the same kind of people in the US as did the French in 1789 or the Russians in 1917. Our own versions of Robespierre, Napoleon, Lenin, and Trotsky are coming out of the woodwork, and they can see that this is the moment to act. They’re much more interested in power than anything else.

Our own versions of those types are coming to the fore. The average American is confused and rolling over - he doesn’t have any philosophy or ideology to counter them. So, we could have a variation of what happened in France or Russia. That possibility is abetted by communication platforms like Facebook, Amazon, Google, and others. They’re extremely important because the average person spends many hours a day, sometimes all day, on his electronic device.

These people control all medias of communication. It’s Mussolini’s dream given reality on a grand scale. He described fascism as a system wherein the corporations and the State act in concert. Corporations create wealth (which the State is incapable of), and the State controls the power. It’s a natural thing that money and power would work together - they can reinforce each other. That’s what we’re getting here in the US, now more than ever. It’s just going to crush all the little people.

International Man: After the September 11th attacks, politicians initiated the Forever War on Terror. The government gave us the TSA, the Patriot Act, and all kinds of permanent restrictions, surveillance, and curtailments of civil liberties. Now, we’re hearing loud calls about creating a War on Terror 2.0, this time focused on so-called domestic terrorists, referring to Trump supporters and others. The mainstream media is already heavily promoting the "domestic terrorism" narrative. What are your thoughts on this?

Doug Casey: It amazed me how after the 9/11 disaster, they were able to come out with the 600-page Patriot Act in a couple of weeks. How is that possible? The Patriot Act is as thick as a telephone book. How could it be composed within days and then approved within hours? Of course, none of the Congress critters read it. That’s proof of how utterly corrupt and irresponsible they are.

This event on January 6th could be equivalent to the Reichstag fire in 1933, which Hitler used as an excuse to pass lots of emergency laws and effectively take control of the reins of the state. These people make no bones about it, saying things like, "Never let a good crisis go to waste." From their point of view, this crisis isn’t just good; it’s fantastic.

I’m sure that Congress will pass a draconian domestic terrorism law. It will suppress the "deplorables" and other opposition, who will no longer be able to communicate or organize effectively. If they gather in large enough groups, these laws will quash them as a public danger, as insurrectionists. That, combined with the lockdowns from the Covid hysteria and the oncoming economic collapse, means we’ve entered a new stage of American history.

International Man: If the government launches a War on Terror 2.0 - as it seems it will - where does it ultimately go? Recall the conviction of Bernard Von NotHaus in 2011, who the government accused of committing "a unique form of domestic terrorism" for circulating warehouse receipts for gold and silver. Given all that we’ve talked about today, what can the average person do to protect themselves?

Doug Casey: In researching my next novel, which will be called "Terrorist", I discovered that there are over a hundred separate definitions of terrorism used by various government agencies - and I’m sure that there are going to be more. They’re going to broaden the definition of terrorism.

Nobody thinks terrorism is a good thing - although it’s actually just a tactic, like artillery barrages or frontal assaults. But if you can convince somebody that the enemy is a terrorist, it’s really all over for them.

We’re in a situation pretty much like Martin Niemöller described in Germany of the 1940s. He famously said, "First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist. Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me."

It’s an accurate statement, except it seems to imply the National Socialist Workers Party - the so-called Nazis - weren’t socialists. That said, the smartest thing to do, if you’re identifiable as somebody in the enemy camp, is to make yourself scarce. In "Gone With The Wind", when the War Between the States started, Rhett Butler could see that it was going to turn into a disaster. So rather than stick around and be washed away by the tidal wave that he saw coming, he spent most of the war in England as a blockade runner.

That’s the situation that we’re moving into today. It’s going to be hot and heavy if you’re not part of the ruling class in the US. This has happened in so many countries in the world’s history, not just France, Russia, and Germany. It happened in China in 1947 and Vietnam in 1975. For reasons I’ve detailed elsewhere, now it’s the US’ turn on the dance card.

Among other many things, a huge number of Americans are graduates of higher education indoctrination camps. They really want to see radical changes in the US, and they’re going to try to make it happen."
And just who do you think all this is for? YOU!

"How Many of Biden’s New IRS agents Will Be Packing Heat -
And How Many Of Us Will They Target?"

Excerpt: "An audit notice from the IRS is scary. Up to 87,000 more IRS agents in the “Inflation Reduction Act” President Joe Biden signed Tuesday is troubling. And the IRS stockpile of 4,600 guns and 5 million rounds of ammunition is downright unnerving. How many of the new agents will be packing heat? Democrats won’t say.

The IRS arsenal of 4,600 guns includes 3,282 pistols, 621 shotguns, 539 rifles, 15 fully automatic weapons and four revolvers. It’s unclear who agents plan to shoot at. A recent IRS job posting says applicants must “be willing to use deadly force.”

Democrats voted in lockstep to take $80 billion from taxpayers to supersize the IRS. A possible 87,000 new agents are a force larger than the combined personnel on all 11 US aircraft carriers. Four times the number of Border Patrol agents. Enough to fill every seat in Madison Square Garden four times. Why does the IRS have guns and play police officer?"
View complete article here:
Related:

The Daily "Near You?"

Dysart, Iowa, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"A Person Who Has Remained A Person..."

"A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet for sale, who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing, cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity." - Erich Fromm

And so, sometimes, we all get like this...
Full screen recommended.
Pet Shop Boys, "Numb"

So...
"I think of the trees and how simply they let go, let fall the riches of a season, how without grief (it seems) they can let go and go deep into their roots for renewal and sleep. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go." - May Sarton

Then...
"Be like the sun for grace and mercy. Be like the night to cover others' faults. Be like running water for generosity. Be like death for rage and anger. Be like the Earth for modesty. Appear as you are. Be as you appear." - Rumi

"Will Nuclear War Be The End Of Our Civilization?"

"Will Nuclear War Be The End Of Our Civilization?"
by Michael Snyder

"Can we please not have a cataclysmic nuclear war which would result in most of the population of the world starving to death? I don’t think that is an unreasonable request. There are nine guys that collectively control virtually all of the nuclear weapons on the planet. If something goes wrong and some of them start firing their weapons, billions of people could end up dead. In fact, a brand new study that was just published on Monday came to the conclusion that approximately two-thirds of the entire population of the globe could starve to death if there is a nuclear war between the United States and Russia. So that is definitely something that we should try to avoid at all costs.

Unfortunately, Joe Biden and his all-star team of warmongers have been relentlessly provoking both Russia and China ever since Biden first entered the White House. Now we have a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, and thanks to Nancy Pelosi’s recent antics we are now dangerously close to a war with China over Taiwan.

Of course Russia and China both have nuclear weapons, and a major conflict with either one of them would bring us to the brink of the unthinkable. Most Americans assume that if a nuclear war ever happened most of the population would be instantly blown to bits and would not need to worry about what comes afterwards. But that isn’t true at all.

Yes, if you live near a military base, a missile silo or some other strategic target you will probably be immediately wiped out by a nuclear blast. However, as I have discussed in previous articles, other studies have determined that only about 20 percent of the U.S. population would die right away if there is a nuclear war with Russia. That doesn’t mean that most of the population would survive. In the end, starvation would kill far more people than anything else.

And that is precisely what this brand new study is saying. A nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia would result in massive amounts of soot being sent into the atmosphere, and all of that soot would partially block the sunlight coming in for many years. According to the study, global temperatures would be reduced “by more than 58ºF” in the aftermath of a full-blown nuclear conflict… "The largest scenario examined, a week-long war involving 4,400 weapons and 150 Tg, or 330.6 billion pounds, of soot – such as one that would occur between the U.S., its allies and Russia – would kill 360 million people directly – and more than 5 billion from starvation, the study said. The density of the soot would reduce global temperatures by more than 58ºF."

It would truly be a “nuclear winter”, and very little would be grown for years. Things would be particularly nightmarish in the northern hemisphere. Almost everyone north of the equator would be facing starvation, but meanwhile those south of the equator would fare relatively better…"In the most extreme situation studied, every country aside from Australia, Argentina, Uruguay, Oman, Brazil, Paraguay and few others, would starve. “The first time I showed my son the map, the first reaction he had is, ‘let’s move to Australia,’” Xia said."

If you are considering moving south of the equator, now is probably the best chance you are going to get. Because our world is only going to get crazier and crazier in the years ahead. Once the nukes start flying, it will be too late to relocate, and even if you are able to survive you will suddenly find yourself in a society that will be unrecognizable. The following comes from an excellent opinion piece in the Connecticut Mirror…"Think of everything our ancestors created and passed down to us… incinerated. Think of all the art, literature, music, poetry that humans created through the millennia…up in smoke. The genius of Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Beethoven… destroyed. Think of everything you worked for, planned for, hoped for… gone."

We must do all that we can to avoid such a fate. Unfortunately, our leaders just can’t help themselves. On Sunday, U.S. Senator Ed Markey and other members of Congress visited Taiwan. This new visit came just 12 days after Nancy Pelosi’s infamous trip to Taiwan, and once again the Chinese are responding furiously. The following comes from Zero Hedge"China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) started fresh drills around Taiwan on Monday in response to a congressional delegation that visited the island.

Wu Qian, a spokesman for China’s Defense Ministry, said the military exercises were a “resolute counterstrike and solemn deterrence to the consecutive provocations by the US and Taiwan that undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said it detected five PLA vessels in the area and 30 PLA aircraft, including 15 that crossed the median line that separates the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. China used to avoid crossing the median line, but since Pelosi visited Taiwan on August 2, PLA aircraft have regularly breached the unofficial barrier."

Senator Markey knew that his visit would make tensions in the region even worse. So why did he do it? We can be tough with the Chinese without constantly provoking them. Even if a military conflict with China did not go nuclear, it would still have consequences that would be absolutely horrific for our nation.

We need to find a peaceful way out of this mess before a line is crossed that will never be able to be uncrossed. And thanks to the foolish policies of our leaders, we are now deeply engaged in a proxy war in Ukraine that could have easily been avoided. A diplomatic solution was available before the war started, but our politicians refused.

During the four years that Trump was in the White House, we were never on the brink of a major war. Now we find ourselves facing the possibility of fighting both Russia and China at the same time. And if someone decides to use nuclear weapons, billions of people could end up dead. Sadly, we are now closer to nuclear war than we have been in decades, and that should deeply alarm all of us."

"Your Pension and Social Security Could Be Gone"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 8/17/22:
"Your Pension and Social Security Could Be Gone"
"You’re starting to see that there have been trillions of dollars lost in people's retirement and 401(k) accounts. This is getting exponentially worse by the month. Will Social Security be there when we retire? Homebuilders are about to go bankrupt all around us."
Comments here:

"How It Really Is"

 
American compassion and concern at it's finest, until the new 
reality viciously slaps the stupid smug smile from their faces...
And it will.

"Strange Day At Walmart! Crazy Prices, And Someone Drives Car Through The Front Door!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 8/17/22:
"Strange Day At Walmart! Crazy Prices, 
And Someone Drives Car Through The Front Door!"
"In today's vlog we are at Walmart and are noticing massive price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and a giant hole where someone had driven their car through the front entrance of Walmart on purpose!"
Comments here:

Gregory Mannarino, "Global Inflation Continues To Surge With No End In Sight"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 8/17/22:
"Global Inflation Continues To Surge With No End In Sight"
Comments here:

"Every Generation..."

"Every generation of humans believed it had all the answers it needed, except for a few mysteries they assumed would be solved at any moment. And they all believed their ancestors were simplistic and deluded. What are the odds that you are the first generation of humans who will understand reality?"
 - Scott Adams, "God's Debris: A Thought Experiment"
Of course, everyone has their own unique perspective...
Full screen recommended.
Steve Cutts, "Man"
"Don't worry about saving the earth. The earth will be fine. 
However, humans will probably become extinct and no 
longer habitate the earth. Which is probably a good thing." 
- Blake Newman

"The Economy – At Seneca’s Cliff?"

"The Economy – At Seneca’s Cliff?"
by John Wilder

"It would be some consolation for the feebleness of our selves and our works if all things should perish as slowly as they come into being; but as it is, increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid."
- Lucius Anneaus Seneca, "Letters to Lucilius", n. 91

"I have written before about Ugo Bardi’s (Living Italian Economist) theory that he called Seneca’s Cliff. Seneca’s Cliff is a restatement of something Seneca (Dead Roman Dude) philosophized about. It was a simple idea: stuff gets built only slowly. But when it comes down? It comes down all at once, like falling off of a cliff, hence Bardi calling it Seneca’s Cliff.

A house is a good example of Seneca’s Cliff. A house is built over time – in most cases it takes several months to build one. But if there’s a fire, that same house can be burned to the ground in a manner of minutes. There are exceptions, of course: in a Mexican neighborhood in Canada, the house might be saved by a hose, eh.

So, that’s Seneca’s Cliff. I wrote about it myself back in the day, when I was trying to write a novel. It started, “The world had been a web...” This is a metaphor that has always stuck with me – the web of interconnections required to maintain society as we know it.

The world is a web. As I write this, I’m writing it on a laptop that was built halfway around the world, with components and materials sourced on nearly every continent. Dude, I got a Dell®, but the Dell™ came from everywhere. When everything works, that’s great. People communicate with each other through price and supply and demand and produce things like computers and cars and wedding rings and beer and PEZ® and the burrito that Amber Heard ate before she left a “grumpy” in the bed.

Unfortunately, we’ve been working at a world that’s based in efficiency, too. Efficiency is nice if you’re a company that’s trying to put together a lot of iPads® or Funko Pops©, but in reality efficiency sucks. Why do you have two lungs? Two kidneys? Two bellybuttons? Because those are really, really important. I have a buddy who lost 90% of his lung capacity in one lung due to the flu back in ’92. Guess what? He conducts a full life like it never happened. He coached a wrestling team, and rides bicycles long distances.

When something is important, you don’t want an efficient system, you want an inefficient system. This is why the water department can make more water than it needs to. But our global systems, at the top level, are efficient. We don’t produce 10% extra oil. We don’t have that capacity. In spring and fall we generally have plenty of excess electricity generation, but tell me how summer looks? Lots of spare capacity?

No, not so much. Sure, there are substitutes for lots of things – we can have Wheaties® instead of Rice Krispies™. But in the end, we have to produce enough food to feed 7.96 billion people, and enough energy to grow the food and move it from place to place as well as make clothes and iPods© and pantyhose.

But this means that we’re in a world where there is simply less food because there is less energy, and also because war took out production of a significant amount. This was added to by the Biden sanctions on Russia. They are strange sanctions, indeed. So far their result is that it actually resulted in more cash going to Russia every month. Oh, higher prices on energy mainly to Europe and the United States. The shortages we’re seeing now in food, which will soon become much worse will have an even larger impact.

It has already created stress in the developed world. But in fragile places, like most of the Middle East and all of Africa, food prices will increase to the point where many of the poorer governments will simply cease to exist as the revolutions start. The last time this happened, mass migration into Europe was the result. It’s possible that this time, violence will be exported to Europe, as well.

These are the conclusions if things go well, based on where we are now. From everything I’ve seen, we’re not on the trajectory of things going well. The capital markets are slowly failing in the West. Why? All the spending from the decision to print all the cash to paper over the previous holes in the economy that were caused from all the cash printed to paper over the holes before that is a game we can’t play anymore. The holes are too big.
The delicate web that keeps goods moving is stressed now, and strands are missing, putting a greater strain on the whole web. It took hundreds of years to build up this economy. How fast will it fall down Seneca’s Cliff?"
Related, highly recommended:
by Ugo Bardi
Freely view "Moral Essays," by  Lucius Anneaus Seneca, here:
Freely download "Seneca's Letters to Lucilius" here:

Tuesday, August 16, 2022

Greg Hunter, "Radical Drought Caused by Military Weather Weapons"

"Radical Drought Caused by Military Weather Weapons"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com.

"Last month, climate engineering researcher Dane Wigington predicted “40 million in West would be without water in 2023.” Looks like the U.S. government is just as worried as Wigington about the extreme drought conditions. The Bureau of Reclamation just announced a first-ever forced water cut plan as the Colorado River dwindles to a trickle in Western America. Wigington contends the severe drought in the West and around the world is not a natural event but caused by man-made weather modification called geoengineering. Wigington explains, “What do we see around the globe? It’s not just Europe and not just the Western U.S., but South America also. We are seeing radical protracted drought that is crushing crops everywhere while Las Vegas is being deluged in an engineered scenario. This is all technology. They control the spigot, period. We have said this at GeoEngineeringWatch.org for a decade and a half. Everything is manifesting itself. What are we seeing? While Vegas is being flooded, we are seeing in the bread basket in the Midwest and California 110 degree temperatures, single digit humidity in some places, and crops are virtually imploding here.”

Who is responsible for the biggest drought in the last 1,200 years? Wigington says documents show it is the U.S. military. Wigington says, “Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor to Presidents Johnson and Carter, stated on the record that climate modification operations were the exceptional covert weapon of the U.S. military to make countries and their populations more compliant. Climate modification is the Crown Jewel weapon of the Military Industrial Complex. It’s not just for foreign adversaries, but for their own populations. They can bring them to their knees without them ever knowing they are under assault. Think how absurd this is when we have climate modification operations cutting off precipitation to tens of millions in the U.S., and nobody seems to have a clue. Nobody is willing to acknowledge this elephant in the sky.”

The military is also using forest fires as a weapon. Wigington says, “We have found a document that is titled ‘Forest Fires as a Military Weapon.’ (Wigington also has produced a video with the same title.) It actually names the processes or road map to prepare for intense incineration. What is most damning about this document is it specifically cites not only many locations in the U.S., including Mount Shasta where I live, it also cites the ‘prime burn windows’ for other U.S. allies that are on fire now such as Portugal, Spain and Greece. How much more damning can a document be? This is business as usual for the U.S. military. Think about the insanity of this. You incinerate forests as a military weapon and inflict damage on your own citizens.”

Wigington says there is a short window to fully wake people up to stop geoengineering, but the most important group is the U.S. military. Wigington says, “Our military personnel are unknowingly participating in this. They are being told they are doing something for the greater good. It’s something that is saving the planet when it is, in fact, killing the planet.”

Wigington talks about all the contaminated rain water, nuclear war, nano lipid particles, aluminum in your body and how much time we have left before the entire ecosystem implodes because of man-made weather modification called geoengineering. There is much more in the 36 min interview."

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with climate researcher Dane Wigington, founder of GeoEngineeringWatch.org, with an update to the ongoing global drought calamity.
After the interview:
There is vast and totally free data and scientific information on GeoEngineeringWatch.org.


CanadianPrepper, "Very Bad Things are About to Happen..."

CanadianPrepper, 8/16/22:
"Very Bad Things are About to Happen..."
"We are weeks if not days away from a major nuclear disaster. "
Comments here:

"Clear Focus Ambient Space Music for Concentration - Isochronic Tones"

Full screen recommended.
Jason Lewis - Mind Amend,
"Clear Focus Ambient Space Music for Concentration - 
Isochronic Tones"
Ambient electronic space music with low-intensity 
beta and alpha wave tones for clear focus.

Headphones Are Not Required

How does it work? This is a brainwave entrainment music track using isochronic tones combined with music. The music has also been embedded with amplitude entrainment effects, where the music is subtly distorted and vibrates in unison with the same frequency of the isochronic tones.  This helps to add further strength to the entrainment effect.

What does this track do? A soft house upbeat study music mix with beta wave isochronic tones. Designed to produce a deep focus mental state while studying or working. This session stimulates Beta, SMR and Alpha, alternating in 2 minute increments to help keep the user relaxed and engaged. Note: SMR (sensorimotor rhythm) relates to the frequency range between 12 – 15Hz. It’s associated with sensory processing and motor control. Stimulating this can result in relaxed focus and improved attention. This session is meant to speed up the brain while keeping the left hemisphere dominant (good for attention, concentration and reducing emotional response and hyperactivity). ADD and similar disorders are often characterized by “slow-wave” EEG patterns, particularly in the left frontal region. As such, this session stimulates the left brain hemisphere with Beta frequencies and the right with SMR.

Can it be used to help with studying and if so, when should you listen to it? Yes, it can be helpful to use while studying, and if you read through the many comments about this track, you’ll see that many people have successfully used it for studying. You can either listen to it while you are studying, to get your brain into a good mental state when you need it. Or if you are someone that gets a bit distracted by music while studying, listen to it just before you begin.

How Loud Should The Volume Be? There is varying advice and opinions on the impact of volume with brainwave entrainment, with some saying the louder it is the more impact it has. From my own experience, my advice is to play it at a volume level you feel comfortable with. The main thing to consider is that it should be loud enough to hear the repetitive isochronic tones, so you don’t want it so quiet you can hardly hear them. But you also don’t want it so loud that its uncomfortable for you. Somewhere in the middle is my recommendation.

Use this session in the morning or afternoon, to train your brain for better cognition, such as clearer and faster thinking. You can either sit somewhere quiet and comfortable with your eyes closed and give your brain a nice workout, or you can also listen to this while doing an activity that requires a boost in concentration, like studying.

How long should you listen for to get a good effect? It takes around 6 minutes for your brainwaves to fall in step with the tones and become entrained. It then takes time to be guided along the frequency range used in the track. Listening to about half way through is the minimum in my opinion, but 30 minutes is the optimum and preferred length to listen for.

IMPORTANT RECOMMENDATIONS:
• Drink some water – Make sure you are well hydrated before listening to brainwave entrainment.
WHY? Your brain is made up of around 75% water, so it needs plenty of water to function well. When you stimulate your brain in this way, you’re increasing electrical activity and blood flow in the brain and giving your brain a good workout, so it can be a good idea to drink before listening, so that your brain can fire on all cylinders.

• It is not recommended to listen to this while driving or operating machinery.
WHY? Brainwave entrainment involves a process of stimulating your brainwaves and changing your mental state. While this is safe to do and use in normal situations, it can sometimes zone you out during the track, as you focus in on the sound of the tones. This could result in you being distracted temporarily, which is not a good thing while you’re driving or operating machinery. Some people also experience tingling and other sensations from the stimulation. While that might feel quite nice sitting in a comfortable chair at home, it could cause you to be distracted while driving and result in an accident.

• It is not recommended to listen to this while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or any mind altering substance.
WHY? When your brain is under the influence of drugs or alcohol it’s not operating to it’s full capacity, and you react differently to stimulation and situations, compared to when you are sober. So as a precaution and because I don’t know how you will react in that situation, I recommend you do not use it in that situation.

• Who should NOT listen to this audio? Those who should not listen to this video/audio include: Those who are prone to or have had seizures, epilepsy, pregnant or wear a pacemaker should NOT listen to this video/audio.
WHY? There is insufficient research data in this area, so as a precaution, if you are among the categories listed above, I would recommend you consult a doctor or medical professional before listening to this video/audio.”
Comments here:
Whether you want to know it or not we're all in the fight of our lives, for our lives. Some of you reading this will not survive, and I may not either, so I for one will take any edge I can get, and so should you. This works, I suggest you use it.
- CP

"We Are Not The First Civilization To Collapse, But We Will Probably Be The Last"

"We Are Not The First Civilization To Collapse,
 But We Will Probably Be The Last"
by Chris Hedges

"I am standing atop a 100-foot-high temple mound, the largest known earthwork in the Americas built by prehistoric peoples. The temperatures, in the high 80s, along with the oppressive humidity, have emptied the park of all but a handful of visitors. My shirt is matted with sweat.

I look out from the structure - known as Monks Mound - at the flatlands below, with smaller mounds dotting the distance. These earthen mounds, built at a confluence of the Illinois, Mississippi and Missouri rivers, are all that remain of one of the largest pre-Columbian settlements north of Mexico, occupied from around 800 to 1,400 AD by perhaps as many as 20,000 people.

This great city, perhaps the greatest in North America, rose, flourished, fell into decline and was ultimately abandoned. Civilizations die in familiar patterns. They exhaust natural resources. They spawn parasitic elites who plunder and loot the institutions and systems that make a complex society possible. They engage in futile and self-defeating wars. And then the rot sets in. The great urban centers die first, falling into irreversible decay. Central authority unravels. Artistic expression and intellectual inquiry are replaced by a new dark age, the triumph of tawdry spectacle and the celebration of crowd-pleasing imbecility.

“Collapse occurs, and can only occur, in a power vacuum,” anthropologist Joseph Tainter writes in "The Collapse of Complex Societies." “Collapse is possible only where there is no competitor strong enough to fill the political vacuum of disintegration.”

Several centuries ago, the rulers of this vast city complex, which covered some 4,000 acres, including a 40-acre central plaza, stood where I stood. They no doubt saw below in the teeming settlements an unassailable power, with at least 120 temple mounds used as residences, sacred ceremonial sites, tombs, meeting centers and ball courts. Cahokia warriors dominated a vast territory from which they exacted tribute to enrich the ruling class of this highly stratified society. Reading the heavens, these mound builders constructed several circular astronomical observatories - wooden versions of Stonehenge.

The city’s hereditary rulers were venerated in life and death. A half mile from Monks Mound is the seven-foot-high Mound 72, in which archeologists found the remains of a man on a platform covered with 20,000 conch-shell disc beads from the Gulf of Mexico. The beads were arranged in the shape of a falcon, with the falcon’s head beneath and beside the man's head. Its wings and tail were placed underneath the man’s arms and legs. Below this layer of shells was the body of another man, buried face downward. Around these two men were six more human remains, possibly retainers, who may have been put to death to accompany the entombed man in the afterlife. Nearby were buried the remains of 53 girls and women ranging in age from 15 to 30, laid out in rows in two layers separated by matting. They appeared to have been strangled to death.

The poet Paul Valéry noted, “a civilization has the same fragility as a life.”

Across the Mississippi River from Monks Mound, the city skyline of St. Louis is visible. It is hard not to see our own collapse in that of Cahokia. In 1950, St. Louis was the eighth-largest city in the United States, with a population of 856,796. Today, that number has fallen to below 300,000, a drop of some 65 percent. Major employers - Anheuser-Busch, McDonnell-Douglas, TWA, Southwestern Bell and Ralston Purina - have dramatically reduced their presence or left altogether. St. Louis is consistently ranked one of the most dangerous cities in the country. One in five people live in poverty. The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department has the highest rate of police killings per capita, of the 100 largest police departments in the nation, according to a 2021 report. Prisoners in the city’s squalid jails, where 47 people died in custody between 2009 and 2019, complain of water being shut off from their cells for hours and guards routinely pepper spraying inmates, including those on suicide watch. The city’s crumbling infrastructure, hundreds of gutted and abandoned buildings, empty factories, vacant warehouses and impoverished neighborhoods replicate the ruins of other post-industrial American cities, the classic signposts of a civilization in terminal decline.

“Just as in the past, countries that are environmentally stressed, overpopulated, or both, become at risk of getting politically stressed, and of their governments collapsing,” Jared Diamond argues in "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed." “When people are desperate, undernourished and without hope, they blame their governments, which they see as responsible for or unable to solve their problems. They try to emigrate at any cost. They fight each other over land. They kill each other. They start civil wars. They figure that they have nothing to lose, so they become terrorists, or they support or tolerate terrorism.”

Pre-industrial civilizations were dependent on the limits of solar energy and constrained by roads and waterways, impediments that were obliterated when fossil fuel became an energy source. As industrial empires became global, their increase in size meant an increase in complexity. Ironically, this complexity makes us more vulnerable to catastrophic collapse, not less. Soaring temperatures (Iraq is enduring 120 degree heat that has fried the country’s electrical grid), the depletion of natural resources, flooding, droughts, (the worst drought in 500 years is devastating Western, Central and Southern Europe and is expected to see a decline in crop yields of 8 or 9 percent), power outages, wars, pandemics, a rise in zoonotic diseases and breakdowns in supply chains combine to shake the foundations of industrial society. The Arctic has been heating up four times faster than the global average, resulting in an accelerated melting of the Greenland ice sheet and freakish weather patterns. The Barents Sea north of Norway and Russia are warming up to seven times faster. Climate scientists did not expect this extreme weather until 2050.

“Each time history repeats itself, the price goes up,” the anthropologist Ronald Wright warns, calling industrial society “a suicide machine.” In "A Short History of Progress", he writes: "Civilization is an experiment, a very recent way of life in the human career, and it has a habit of walking into what I am calling progress traps. A small village on good land beside a river is a good idea; but when the village grows into a city and paves over the good land, it becomes a bad idea. While prevention might have been easy, a cure may be impossible: a city isn't easily moved. This human inability to foresee - or to watch out for - long-range consequences may be inherent to our kind, shaped by the millions of years when we lived from hand to mouth by hunting and gathering. It may also be little more than a mix of inertia, greed, and foolishness encouraged by the shape of the social pyramid. The concentration of power at the top of large-scale societies gives the elite a vested interest in the status quo; they continue to prosper in darkening times long after the environment and general populace begin to suffer."

Wright also reflects upon what will be left behind: "The archaeologists who dig us up will need to wear hazmat suits. Humankind will leave a telltale layer in the fossil record composed of everything we produce, from mounds of chicken bones, wet-wipes, tires, mattresses and other household waste to metals, concrete, plastics, industrial chemicals, and the nuclear residue of power plants and weaponry. We are cheating our children, handing them tawdry luxuries and addictive gadgets while we take away what’s left of the wealth, wonder and possibility of the pristine Earth."

Calculations of humanity’s footprint suggest we have been in ‘ecological deficit,’ taking more than Earth’s biological systems can withstand, for at least 30 years. Topsoil is being lost far faster than nature can replenish it; 30 percent of arable land has been exhausted since the mid-20th century. We have financed this monstrous debt by colonizing both past and future, drawing energy, chemical fertilizer and pesticides from the planet’s fossil carbon, and throwing the consequences onto coming generations of our species and all others. Some of those species have already been bankrupted: they are extinct. Others will follow.

As Cahokia declined, violence dramatically increased. Surrounding towns were burned to the ground. Groups, numbering in the hundreds, were slaughtered and buried in mass graves. At the end, “the enemy killed all people indiscriminately. The intent was not merely prestige, but an early form of ethnic cleansing” writes anthropologist Timothy R. Pauketat, in "Ancient Cahokia and the Mississippians." He notes that, in one fifteenth-century cemetery in central Illinois, one-third of all adults had been killed by blows to the head, arrow wounds or scalping. Many showed evidence of fractures on their arms from vain attempts to fight off their attackers.

Such descent into internecine violence is compounded by a weakened and discredited central authority. In the later stages of Cahokia, the ruling class surrounded themselves with fortified wooden stockades, including a two-mile long wall that enclosed Monks Mound. Similar fortifications dotted the vast territory the Cahokia controlled, segregating gated communities where the wealthy and powerful, protected by armed guards, sought safety from the increasing lawlessness and hoarded dwindling food supplies and resources.

Overcrowding inside these stockades saw the spread of tuberculosis and blastomycosis, caused by a soil-borne fungus, along with iron deficiency anemia. Infant mortality rates rose, and life spans declined, a result of social disintegration, poor diet and disease.

By the 1400s Cahokia had been abandoned. In 1541, when Hernando de Soto’s invading army descended on what is today Missouri, looking for gold, nothing but the great mounds remained, relics of a forgotten past.

This time the collapse will be global. It will not be possible, as in ancient societies, to migrate to new ecosystems rich in natural resources. The steady rise in heat will devastate crop yields and make much of the planet uninhabitable. Climate scientists warn that once temperatures rise by 4℃, the earth, at best, will be able to sustain a billion people. The more insurmountable the crisis becomes, the more we, like our prehistoric ancestors, will retreat into self-defeating responses, violence, magical thinking and denial.

The historian Arnold Toynbee, who singled out unchecked militarism as the fatal blow to past empires, argued that civilizations are not murdered, but commit suicide. They fail to adapt to a crisis, ensuring their own obliteration. Our civilization’s collapse will be unique in size, magnified by the destructive force of our fossil fuel-driven industrial society. But it will replicate the familiar patterns of collapse that toppled civilizations of the past. The difference will be in scale, and this time there will be no exit."