"Grand Crusades and Deep State Clusters"
How war and inflation are dragging
the US Empire to rack and ruin
by Bill Bonner
"For the first time in US history, an ex-president described the heavy hand of the “Deep State” on America’s main institutions, and denounced the sinister influence of the war lobby on the situation in the Ukraine."
~ France Soir
San Martin, Argentina - "The market is mostly calm. The general thinking seems to be that the Fed will muddle towards higher rates and the economy will muddle towards adjusting to them. No crash yet! But investors are slowly getting the message: don’t fight the Fed.
Cluster Incoming: As we saw yesterday, when you look at stocks priced in gold, the whole boom of the last 22 years disappears. And now, with more debt than ever before…more inflation than we’ve seen in 40 years (which doesn’t seem to be going away)…higher deficits, higher stock prices, lower earnings, less productivity, and more quackery, incompetence and nonsense than ever…and now that the Fed is no longer supporting the stock market…and both stocks and bonds seem to have entered a new Primary Trend…both downward…you could easily come to the conclusion that the foreseeable future is not likely to be a picnic for investors.
That is the investment outlook as it is today. But wait…there’s more. And here is where the ‘cluster’ comes into view. For while the stock market gets whacked by an unpleasant spell of financial reckoning, there are other things ready to whack the economy and the whole nation.
One is, of course, the Great Crusade to ‘save the planet.’ The planet is in absolutely no danger. But many of the people who live on it – particularly, the elite who control its major governments, media, and universities – believe that we would be better off if we stop ‘global warming’ before we are all burned to a crisp.
Whether there is a real problem or not is open to some question…as is the cost…and the benefit. China’s Great Leap Forward cost some 50 million lives. The Covid lockdowns cost unknown trillions in lost output. How much collateral damage this Green Crusade will inflict, we will find out anon. Today we will look at another part of the cluster, that is: the decline and fall of the US empire.
Graceless Indignity: All empires must die. In our view, the US is now in decline, and has been losing muscle mass since 1999. Of course, a national renewal is not out of the question; a few major policy changes – major cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, and the Pentagon, balanced budgets, a solid dollar, honest interest rates, and a more modest foreign policy – could restore real growth and prosperity. But for now, if there’s one thing our elites all agree about, it’s that no major changes are urgently needed. They like the system as it is. No redistribution of power…or money…required.
All of us eventually get feeble. The best we can hope for is that we are able to do it with grace and dignity. Empires are no different. As long-term sufferers know, we are no fans of Donald Trump. When in office, we often used the words of his own subordinates to mock him as a ‘moron’ or a ‘jackass.’ And while we don’t recant, we recognize that sometimes the fool is the wisest of all.
No, we are not joining the Trump Worshippers…nor have we been infected with Trump Derangement Syndrome. But Trump has just said something important. And if we relied exclusively on the US mainstream press we wouldn’t even know it.
It was only a couple of weeks ago that the press drowned the biggest story to come along in many years: Sy Hersh reported that the Biden team had pulled off the most reckless, irresponsible, and lawless caper in US history. It blew up the Nord Stream pipeline. Was Hersh right? The feds have made no attempt, so far, to put Hersh in prison with other whistleblowers – after all, he claimed to have revealed their most sensitive, super classified information – for an obvious reason. They’d have to admit he was right.
War Be With You: We bring it up, because the complicity of the press is a big part of the cluster story. Here’s a report from a Knight Foundation survey: "…findings from the American Views 2020 report showed that Americans were “very concerned” about increasing political bias in news coverage and the perception that news organizations “push an agenda.”
Do they have an agenda? You bet. None of the major media dare to challenge the empire’s ‘war and inflation’ agenda. None cared to investigate Sy Hersh’s charges more carefully…or even mention them. Nor do they bother to present a balanced, impartial view of the Ukraine conflict. And now, they join in with the imperial jingo-buskers to designate China as the Next Big Enemy.
Even someone as dim as Donald Trump can see that this program will be a disaster. But when he gave one of the most important foreign policy rants of any president since Dwight Eisenhower…we didn’t see a word about it…except in the French press, via American journalist Gilbert Doctorow.
In an amazing tweet, Trump goes on the attack…against the Deep State, the Pentagon, the globalists, NATO, Victoria Nuland, the warmongers and the “America Last” politicians.
From a political perspective, Trump – whose instincts for popular sentiment are as keen as anyone’s – is betting that a large segment of the US population agrees with him. The warmongers have spent trillions, getting us into unwinnable, dangerous wars. ‘The People’ may be getting sick of paying for them.
But most likely, with the collusion of the press…almost no opposition in Congress…and the irresistible lobbying power of the military/industrial complex…a contrary point of view will never even get a hearing…and the dangerous cluster will develop…unmolested.
To make our point of view clear…we believe that just as the powers-that-be will not permit the Fed to stop inflation…nor will they allow the US to take its place among the world’s peaceful nations. Too much of their money, reputations and status depends on war and inflation. War keeps the money headed to their main industries. Inflation is how they pay for it. And the mainstream press – a vital part of the elite – keeps quiet. More to come..."
