Thursday, May 9, 2024

"Welcome to the Warfare State"

"Welcome to the Warfare State"
by Doug Casey

"War is one of the few things that only the State can do. Indeed, as Randolph Bourne said, "War is the health of the State." Let’s briefly discuss the nature of the State to see why World War 3 is on the way.

The State is like any other living entity: its prime directive is to survive and grow. Bear in mind that the State - the government - is not at all the same thing as the country or society, even though it claims to be. It’s not "We the People"; it’s a distinct entity with its own discrete interests. And that’s actually too mild an assertion. While individuals and companies prosper by providing goods and services to others through voluntary exchange, the State specializes in coercion.

There’s nothing voluntary about the State. Its main products have always been pogroms, persecutions, confiscations, taxation, inflation, censorship, harassment, repression - and war. The State is not your friend.

Mass murder and wholesale destruction are bad enough in themselves. But in wartime, the State enables them with new taxes, new debt, draconian controls, and new bureaucracies. These things linger long after the war is over.

Worse yet, the State does these things with the sanction of the victim; the typical citizen has been taught that almost anything is justified by "national security." Anyone who would normally protest these depredations in peacetime soon learns to dummy-up when there’s a war for fear of being lynched for sympathizing with the invariably demonic enemy.

After the war - assuming a victory, of course - the State’s debt, taxes, regulations and general size never return to pre-war levels. They ratchet up to ever higher plateaus, requiring the State to do more of the same to justify its existence. Government programs, of whatever description, are almost never pulled out by their roots. At most, they’re trimmed, which has the same effect as pruning a plant, i.e., they’re encouraged to grow back bigger and stronger.

Why am I saying these scary things? Because we’re clearly heading towards a big war.

A Clear and Present Danger: I want to make a point in this article that many will find unpalatable, perhaps even incredible: In today’s world, the US military is nearly useless in countering potential threats from abroad. It’s actually a positive danger. And it’s not ready for a real war. If you’re looking for a comforting mainstream analysis, I don’t have much. Let’s start with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

NATO is a US government program that’s taken on a life of its own. Its original purpose was to defend against the Warsaw Pact. But although the Soviet Union and its allies ceased to exist as a military threat in the early 1990s, NATO has continued to grow. Despite agreements with Russia, it’s grown right to their border, even adding traditionally neutral states like Finland and Sweden.

Even if you assume that NATO doesn’t provoke WW3 over the Ukraine (setting aside a discussion of who’s right or wrong and who really started it), the Chinese are likely next on the dance card. They can only see the allied Western states as pointing a gun in their direction. To them, NATO is a provocation to a cultural/racial war. NATO encourages them to make building their military a high priority.

So much for the "End of History." As long as nation-states exist, there will be violent conflict between them. But the way I see it, the nature of war, and even the nation-state itself, is going to change radically over the next 20 years. And, as has been the case throughout history, a prime mover is going to be technology.

Weaponry & Strategy: It’s an old saying: "Generals always fight the last war." That’s not because they’re (necessarily) stupid. But by the time a man gets a bunch of stars on his epaulets, you’re only assured of a competent bureaucrat with good political skills, not someone with a great military mind. Bureaucrats are not daring innovators; they do things by the book. That gives them CYA excuses and plausible deniability if things go wrong.

Apart from simple inertia, fighting the last war makes sense. For one thing, it’s what they know. For another, the equipment and tactics in question have been tested. For another, the weapons exist, and when a war starts, you basically have to "run what you brought."

Whether they can get away with fighting the last war depends mainly on whether there has been a significant change in technology. Up to early industrial times, one change in a lifetime was a lot. After all, how often do major innovations like the stirrup or gunpowder come along? But since the advent of industrialized warfare with the American conflict of 1861-1865, changes have been very rapid, and the rate of change is accelerating at warp speed.

The military is not unaware of this; as I said, they’re not stupid. In fact, today’s officers are highly educated; almost all are college graduates, for what that’s worth. Most field grade officers have done graduate work as well. That’s one reason the US emphasizes high-tech weaponry.

The military is throwing ever greater amounts of money on larger, more complex, and vastly more expensive pieces of equipment. The idea is to stay technologically ahead of any potential enemies. Maybe the US can maintain its lead as long as it’s a simplistic scenario of our tanks, planes, and ships against theirs. But the chances of things staying that simple are close to zero. The whole paradigm is about to change.

This is true for several reasons: today’s "hi-tech" weapons (F-35 fighters, Abrams tanks, aircraft carriers) are already obsolete. They’re certainly a nightmare to maintain and keep personnel competent. New drones, missiles, and torpedoes are both superior to and vastly cheaper than conventional weapons. Biological and cyber weapons obviate them all. If they’re deployed in earnest, it’s "Game Over".

Projecting force worldwide with 800 bases, $100 million aircraft, and carrier fleets, is ruinously expensive, especially for a bankrupt government that’s "on tilt". But that’s the essence of American doctrine. The concept of "defense" itself is obsolete for a nation-state. Let’s look at this in a bit more detail.

1. Today’s "Hi-Tech" Weapons Are Obsolete: Starting with a blank piece of paper, during World War II, the US developed one of the conflict’s finest fighters, the P-51 Mustang, in 117 days and produced it for $50,000 a copy - say about $500,000 in today’s dollars. It’s true that the F-35 is considerably more complex, but relative costs should have been dropping because of advances in materials, techniques, computers, robotics, and such, not escalating over 100-fold in real terms. A friend who knows about these things tells me that every hour of operating time on an M-1 Abrams requires 8 hours of maintenance. For a F-16, it’s 20 hours. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that only 30% of F-35’s are flyable at any given time.

Unsustainable runaway costs are apparent everywhere. When you’re paying upwards of 15 billion dollars for an aircraft carrier (without any aircraft or auxiliary ships), $500 million for a B-2, and $7 million for a tank, you can’t afford to buy very many of them. And you absolutely can’t afford to lose any. Apart from the costs, it takes many months or years to produce more.

On the other hand, despite sophisticated defense armaments, a swarm of cheap sea-skimming missiles might sink a carrier and its 5000-man crew - not to mention a single hypersonic missile. A hit with a cheap shoulder-fired missile can bring down any low-flying aircraft, and at $10,000 a copy, the battlefield can be peppered with them. Fire-and-forget missiles transform tanks into expensive iron coffins; ultra-cheap commercial drones can drop explosives anywhere. Cheap, accurate, small, and numerous missiles are the modern equivalent of Sam Colt’s six gun, which not only made the little guy equal to the big guy, but superior - because big guys are big targets. Drones the size of bumblebees will seek out highly trained and very expensive infantrymen.

Like a small person who knows he shouldn’t fight a giant on his own terms, US adversaries will use the military equivalent of Aikido, turning the opponent’s own might against him. The Houthis in Yemen recognize that it costs the Americans millions to blow up a mud hut, which is, in popular parlance, "unsustainable." In addition to creating more enemies. They see themselves as the under-gunned rebels in Star Wars when they destroy the Empire’s Death Star, substituting daring and cleverness for the enemy’s overwhelming physical capital.

2. Today’s Conventional Weapons Will Soon Be Totally Obsolete: This whole discussion will be completely academic in a generation when nanotechnology becomes practical. The idea is the creation of machines and supercomputers atom by atom. The essence of the technology is making things larger from a molecular level rather than trying to miniaturize them.

It’s likely to be the most important event in human history, including the conquest of fire. It will change the very essence of life itself totally, irrevocably, and unrecognizably - including the nature of armed conflict. An excellent, albeit conservative, description of a nanotechnic future is offered by Neal Stephenson in "Diamond Age," which I highly recommend. Nanotech weapons will be available to everyone after a delay, much as gunpowder was in the 15th century. That assumes, of course, that the cyber and bioweapons now available to everyone don’t obviate the whole question.

In the meantime, the trend to miniaturization will continue apace. Microchips and other computer components are commercially available everywhere, and they’re cheaper and more powerful every day. The next generation of weapons will be highly miniaturized robots, weighing at most a few pounds apiece, probably designed with running or flying insects as models. Construction will be facilitated by the use of off-the-shelf electronic products. That's in addition to full-size Terminator-style robots, AI-piloted and armored vehicles.

A $50 billion fleet can be devastated by a few score missiles; a formation of soldiers wouldn’t stand a chance against an attack by thousands of very cheap microbots. Just as a hundred tiny ants can easily overwhelm a scorpion, cheap and tiny machines will turn current military behemoths into useless artifacts. Any country will be able to have a truly formidable military for a fraction of today’s costs.

3. Overextension as a Formula for Disaster: Fighting a war next door is one thing; doing so on the other side of the world is something else again. Fuel, materials, and troops are very costly to transport and maintain at the end of a 10,000 mile airlink. Doing so is likely to result in what has been called "imperial overstretch"; if you try to cover all the bases, you become overextended, vulnerable, and bankrupt. The US currently maintains a military presence of some description in about 100 countries, and almost all of those emplacements are an active provocation to somebody.

Question: If social spending cannot or will not be cut, with $1 trillion in interest that must be paid each year, debt growing at $2 trillion per annum, and money already being created by the trillions annually, what is going to give when times get tough? Will the government get involved in yet another serious foreign military adventure? Of course. They see it as a solution, not a problem.

A poor country can fight a war using human capital - like Korea in the 1950s or Vietnam in the 1960s. But a country like the US is almost forced to use financial and technological capital because human life has a high price tag for us. That makes for a problem when we don’t have the financial resources to maintain a military that’s both very expensive and ineffective.

Can the US afford to fight a continuous war in the alleged search for continuous peace? The experience of previous empires, from the Romans on, suggests the answer is no.

America’s best defense is a strong economy with lots of technological innovation, not an overweening military. If the US government, with its taxes, regulations, currency inflation, and welfare, were to disappear, the country would experience the greatest and most genuine boom in world history. In a decade, even China would appear as relatively insignificant as Nigeria today. It would be almost impossible to threaten a genuinely advanced America.

It’s equally important not to give any government or group a reason to launch an attack. People the world over love the idea of America; they love the culture, the cars, the food, the freedom, you-name-it. They like the good things American corporations used to make. They don't mind good-natured, free-spending American tourists.

What they don’t like is US boots on the ground or in their airspace, fomenting coups to install "democracy." If Washington DC ceased to exist, the other 96% of the planet’s population would have no more incentive to strike America than Costa Rica.

Of course, I may be anachronistic in that view. Over the last 50 years, while the US was building an arsenal to fight Russia and China, a different threat has been building. The Muslim world, which has been in what amounts to a Forever War with the West for 1400 years, is cyclically on the march again. They have two very important weapons.

One is firm and fanatical beliefs. The West, on the other hand, has lost all confidence; it’s flaccid and believes itself to be evil. As Napoleon said, in warfare, the psychological is to the physical as three is to one. The prognosis for America and Europe is not good. They’ll be conquered both psychologically and by migration. America’s bloated military will be useless.

Islam’s second weapon is many hundreds of millions of young Mohammedans. From a military viewpoint, they are infiltrating the demographic and political structure of the West and changing it. And if things ever go kinetic, scores of millions of young fighters are cheaper and more effective than expensive hi-tech hardware. There’s much more to be said on the topic of the Forever War with Islam.

Where this is Going: As a reader, I presume you agree with me on some of the above or are at least willing to listen to the argument with an open mind. I suspect that’s not the case with most Americans, however. They view the military as a national treasure or even an icon.

On one level, I can understand this atavistic attachment. As a kid I wanted to go to West Point - but was cured of the temptation by four years of military high school. In college, during the Vietnam War, I was signed up for the Marines PLC program (yes, I was a slow learner). But then I simultaneously drew 365 of 366 in the draft lottery (it was a leap year) and was medically rejected as 1-Y because I had broken my right leg in 17 different places only a year before. At that point, I figured the cosmos was trying to send me a message like, "If you really want to go to Vietnam, do you really need the government to pay your way?"

American’s warm feelings toward the military are largely misplaced. And I speak as someone who likes soldiers. Whatever its star-spangled history, the US military no longer serves much of a useful purpose because of the ongoing evolution of technology. Worse, it’s become an active danger. What’s left of its esprit de corps is being eroded by DEI, LGBT, and anti-whiteism. Soldiers’ first loyalty is naturally to each other - although that’s been weakened by Wokism. Their next loyalty is to their employer, who they trust less and less. Their third loyalty is to those they supposedly protect and serve, but they have less and less in common with them.

Combine those problems with others I’ve listed, and it’s no wonder the militaries of Western countries are becoming less and less reliable and effective. Not good; at the very time their governments are provoking war with Russia, China, and smaller counties.

Let me sum things up. US foreign policy is putting this country on a collision course with any number of other countries. The US military is in a position to fight the last war, but not the next one, because the weapons the US is loading up on are basically dinosaurs. And like dinosaurs, they’re unbelievably expensive to feed. The likely bankruptcy of the government during the next economic downturn will make feeding them near impossible.

When the next conflict occurs, it’s likely to do extensive damage in the US itself. It will be hard to insulate yourself from World War 3. It makes the Southern Hemisphere look better all the time.

Your first line of defense, of course, is common sense survivalist stuff. You know the drill: buy gold, silver, and get a survival retreat with a year’s supply of food, fuel, and ammunition. Keep gaining skills and knowledge. Try to become self-employed. Surround yourself with reliable, like-minded associates. Keep a low profile with the authorities. And, I might add, enjoy yourself; don’t take things too seriously. We’re dealing with the human condition."

The Daily "Near You?"

Shawnee, Oklahoma, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Judge Napolitano, "Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: 'We Are On A Path To WWIII."

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 5/9/24
"Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: 'We Are On A Path To WWIII."
Comments here:

"The Constancy of Change"

"Heraclitus," by Johannes Moreelse, 1630
"The Constancy of Change"
Political tension, creative destruction and the time for freedom.
by Joel Bowman

Melbourne, Australia - "Is the west ready to embrace free market capitalism? How about America? The UK? Canada? Australia? We’ll come back to that question in a moment. First, we probe a little deeper...

Darkness and light... goodness and evil... freedom and The State. The world is animated by powerful forces. Seen and unseen alike, they drive markets... politics... civilization itself... in opposing directions. A seller aims to capture the highest price for his good or service... a buyer, meanwhile, is on the hunt for bargains (and alternatives). He threatens to “take his money elsewhere” if he doesn’t get satisfaction. The market weighs, measures... and takes notes.

One candidate offers voters security, cradle to grave welfare, a “social safety net” and other unicorn treats... his opponent promises only to leave them alone, free to enjoy “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” after their own fashion. The people look, listen... and scratch their heads.

An experienced generation advises caution, patience and quiet adherence to reliable tradition... the youth have discovered a “new” way forward, a shinier trinket, a quicker, cheaper thrill. “This time is different,” they boldly declare, minds untroubled by the pangs of doubt.

Change as Constant: Occasionally, these opposing forces are evenly matched. Buyer and seller agree on a price, for example. Warring tribes broker a peace deal. A husband and wife set aside their differences... and agree to get a divorce. But stasis is not in nature’s nature. “Change is the only constant,” observed the pre-Socratic philosopher, Heraclitus (c. 535 – c. 475 BC). Everything remains in flux.

A price, for example, is settled in the moment, at the very point of exchange. But it is not eternal. Like a Polaroid snapshot, it represents the world as it is in an instant, before any number of swirling variables, both known and unknown – sentiment, momentum, volume... trends, obsolescence, regulatory interference etc. – conspire to tilt the scales, in favor of buyer or seller, from one day to the next. (Incidentally, this is why sustained price controls never... ever... ever... work: price discovery is a process, not a product. And as a process, it is particularly adept at resisting arrest.)

Similarly, over in the murky political realm, where we’ve lately been observing the Greatest Experiment of Our Age, myriad forces connive to push and pull in opposite directions. On the one side, the free market is the purest expression of the will of the people, unforced, unbound, unihbibited. A man remains at liberty to say, do and imagine whatever lunatic fantasy his heart desires... provided he does not interfere with his neighbor’s right to do likewise.

Standing guard against such rough and raw liberty, state actors relentlessly harass and harangue, corral and cajole, browbeat and bully... terrorizing one and all on the absurd pretense that civil society would collapse without their ceaseless vigilance and selfless service.

Two-Way Road: But like price discovery, politics is more “process than product.” The weight of the state under which man labors depends on whether liberty or tyranny is in the ascendency. Mostly heavy as a stone... rarely light as a feather... the burden is seldom constant. Rather, there is a tension between the two opposing forces; freedom on the one side, coercion on the other.

In dialectics, this phenomenon is known as a “unity of opposites,” wherein two antagonistic forces are considered both dependent on, and acting against, one another in a given field of tension. The nature of the political realm remains the same – the squabbling, the infighting, the politicking – even as its expression bubbles and boils, in a state of constant unrest.

Heraclitus illustrates the basic idea using the following aphorism: “The road up and the road down are the same thing.” But why is this important? And how is it relevant today, two and a half millennia after that clever ol’ Ephesian traipsed the ancient agora?

First, because change is still the only constant, all these years on... and second, because far from being cause for concern, much less lamentation, tension is not merely part of the process, but fundamentally necessary for any change at all. Indeed, it is often during periods of extreme pressure, mounting stress and unrelenting strain that we witness the most revolutionary breakthroughs.

Adversity builds character, say the old timers. No pain, no gain, coaches tell their athletes. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, reckoned Nietzsche (himself a great admirer of Heraclitus).

Whether in the biological world (evolution through adaptation and natural selection)... in economics (Schumpeter’s creative destruction)... or in the dark arts of politics (revolutions, revolts and rebellions since time immemorial)...crises have a way of inspiring our very boldest ideas, accelerating our sharpest innovations, catalyzing the conditions required for unimaginable quantum leap. (Even if it is simply that we may begin the whole process over again.)

Pressure mounted for almost three quarters of a century down in Argentina before the citizens there finally embraced the concept of liberty. And now, folks around the world are putting their fingers to the breeze and sensing freedom, even if the winds are only faint. Which brings us all the way back, full circle, to our opening line of inquiry...

Libertarian Leanings: Given Javier Milei’s rise down in Argentina, might we begin to see a shift toward libertarian, free market principles elsewhere, in the US... the UK... across the west? US presidential candidate, RFK, Jr., is sounding dangerously libertarian of late. Here he was a couple of months back, when some were speculating he might even make his run on a libertarian ticket: “I’ve actually been aligned with the libertarians on a lot of issues for all of my career [...] My record on environmental issues going back forty years has been a market-based approach.

We don’t have free market capitalism in our country. We have corporate crony capitalism...and that’s what’s destroying the environment. True free markets promote efficiency, efficiency means the elimination of waste. Pollution is waste. In a true free market, a true free market would require us to properly value our resources. And it is the undervaluation of those resources that causes us to use them wastefully.

In a true free market you can’t make yourself rich without making your neighbors rich and without enriching your community. What polluters do is they make themselves rich by making everyone else poorer and they do that by escaping the discipline of the free market and forcing the public to pay their production cost, by externalizing their cost. On this issue and many other issues I am very aligned with libertarians.”

And now, just last week, we learned that Donald Trump has accepted an invitation – and a challenge – to appear at the Libertarian Party’s National Convention later this month. “Libertarians are some of the most independent and thoughtful thinkers in our country, and I am honored to join them in Washington, DC, later this month,” said The Donald. “We must all work together to help advance freedom and liberty for every American...”

The theme for the 2024 Libertarian National Convention is “Become Ungovernable.” According to the party’s statement: “This was chosen following the previous years of unconscionable authoritarian actions by the United States Federal and State governments, which saw citizens confined, indoctrinated, lied to, and inoculated against their will. The citizens of these United States must become ungovernable to regain their basic rights and freedoms.”

Whether or not one believes Messers. Kennedy, or Trump, whether they believe their own words, the simple fact that two of the country’s leading candidates for presidency are even addressing the “libertarian fringe” tells you something about where they sense voters are headed...and the change that is in the air."

“What was scattered
gathers.
What was gathered
blows away.”
~ Heraclitus

"A Realistic Attitude..."

"It was the essence of life to disbelieve in death for one's self, to act as if life would continue forever. And life had to act also as if little issues were big ones. To take a realistic attitude toward life and death meant that one lapsed into unreality. Into insanity. It was ironic that the only way to keep one's sanity was to ignore that one was in an insane world or to act as if the world were sane."
- Philip José Farmer

Bill Bonner, "All Of The Biggies Want Inflation"

"All Of The Biggies Want Inflation"
The US owes $34.7 trillion. What if debt holders realized that 
the Fed was not really going to fight inflation...and that 
they were just going to ‘print up’ trillions in pieces of green paper?
by Bill Bonner

Dublin, Ireland - "Like a depressed person at an open window, yesterday, we left an important question unanswered: ‘Why can’t we just muddle through the debt problem? Why does it have to end in crisis and disaster?’ Talk about muddled! The question was put to Jared Bernstein, Joe Biden’s top economic advisor. In an interview, painful to watch, he seemed to be doing an impersonation of Leslie Nielson’s inimitable Frank Dribben:

"The US government can’t go bankrupt because we can print our own money... The government definitely prints its own money. The government definitely prints money and lends that money... The government definitely prints money...It then lends that money by selling bonds. Is that what they do? They sell bonds and then people buy the bonds and lend the money. Yeah...”

Yeah, that’s what they do. But why? Stephanie Kelton, proponent of Modern Monetary Theory, wonders: ‘Why does the federal government have to borrow its own money?’ A talk show host, interviewing her, leaped to the obvious absurdity: "Why don’t we just print up $1 trillion coins? We give one to China. One to Social Security, etc. We just pay off our debts in one fell swoop. Heck, we print the money anyway."

It seems like a no-brainer. Debt problem solved. Stamp the invoice PAID... and move on. This is not just a ‘theoretical issue.’ Here’s the head of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Maya MacGuineas:

"We’re less than a decade away from a massive solvency crisis that would slash benefits for over 67 million seniors and severely limit their access to health care soon after. But instead of running to fix this problem, our politicians are running away from it. Social Security’s retirement trust fund will be insolvent when today’s 58 year-olds reach the normal retirement age and today’s youngest retirees turn 71." Note to Kelton, Bernstein et al: Retired people don’t eat paper.

Right now, the Fed is balancing itself on the ledge. It wants inflation... to stir animal spirits and repress the real level of US debt. But it would be suicide to jump off and lower rates immediately, with the whole world watching.

The US owes $34.7 trillion. What if debt holders (and retirees) realized that the Fed was not really going to fight inflation... and that they were just going to ‘print up’ trillions in pieces of green paper?

All the people who put their faith in the Fed and the US dollar with their lifetime wealth... what would they think? The Fed is supposed to be guarding the value of America’s IOUs — from its venerable 30-year Treasury bonds... to its green walking around money, in 1s, 5s, 10s... and more.

Even our own housekeeper in Argentina, who lives in a mud hut up in the Andes mountains, a six-hour hike from our house, keeps her savings in green paper. It was an easy way to protect it from the Argentine peso. What if she knew that the US officials were no more reliable than their own jefes at the Banco Central de la Republica Argentina?

The Banking Cartel: So far, bondholders think they can trust the Fed to protect their money. Good luck. The Fed is a cartel of Big Banks. Its main purpose is to make sure the banks have enough money. If they run short, the Fed will swindle your children - with inflation - to give them more. All of the biggies want inflation:

• Big Government needs inflation to reduce the real value of its current debt... and allow it to continue confiscating the wealth of the nation.
• Big Money wants inflation because it owns the nations’ assets; ultra-low interest rates and deficits cause inflation, but they increase prices for their stocks and bonds.
• Big Business, too, thrives on inflation. Upstart competitors can’t get funding. Small businesses go broke. Big Businesses get bailouts.
• Even Big Media prefers inflation to ‘austerity.’ Inflation is a way to fund the wars and boondoggles that it loves so much.

All of them want to survive and grow... concentrating wealth and power in the big, here and now, institutions of the entrenched elites. But the real key to the feds’ embrace of inflation is this: They have no other choice. TINA. Politically, There Is No Alternative. These powerful groups would never accept the drastic cutbacks needed to reduce US debt (budget surpluses!)

You can’t muddle through a debt crisis. As in a train wreck or old age, muddling through won’t take you to the other side. The adventure has to end before a new one can begin. Social Security and Medicare are going broke. US debt is rising faster than inflation can cut it down. In another spell of high inflation, the Fed would be unable to raise rates sufficiently to bring it under control.

The feds’ only option is inflation... more inflation... sustained inflation at levels high enough to reduce the real value of US debt. Wait for it."

"A Simple Choice..."

"It comes down to a simple choice, really. 
Get busy living or get busy dying."
- "Andy Dufresne", "Shawshank Redemption"

"How It Really Is"

 

Dan, I Allegedly, "Are Things Really That Bad?"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 5/9/24
"Are Things Really That Bad?"
Is the economy really in bad shape? How do you feel? 
Do you think things are going to improve? Or do things get worse from here?
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"Wars And Rumors Of War: The Middle East"

Full screen recommended.
Scott Ritter, 5/9/24
"Warning: Israel and Iran's Escalating 
Conflict Threatens Middle East Explosion"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Times of India, 5/9/24
"Iran-Linked Fighters Bomb IDF Barracks In Golan Heights; 
Back To Back Missiles Barrage"
"Hezbollah launched drones and missile attacks at military installations in Al Metula, Shlomi, and Manara.Sirens were sounded across golan heights to warn of imminent threat from Hezbollah's drones. Israeli media reports casualties and significant damage to military personnel and installations. Major fatalities were reported in Malikieh and Avivim military barracks."
Comments here:

Col. Douglas Macgregor states that Hezbollah has 200,000 missiles...
o
Full screen recommended.
Oneindia News, 5/9/24
"Hezbollah Takes Revenge For Rafah: 
Israeli Army Suffers Massive Blow In New Missile Blitz"
"Hezbollah launched coordinated strikes on Israeli targets in Northern Palestine, including barracks and military buildings, in support of Gaza and retaliation for Israeli attacks on southern Lebanese villages. The clashes have caused casualties and displacement on both sides, with Hezbollah vowing to continue until Israel halts aggression against Gaza."
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Times Of India, 5/9/24
"'Will Hit Israel...': Iran's Big Nuclear Threat 
After Khamenei's 'Call For Action' Over Gaza"
"Iran will have to “change” its nuclear doctrine if its existence is threatened by Israel, says an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Kamal Kharrazi, raising renewed concerns about an Iranian nuclear program that Israel and others say has been focused for decades on producing an atomic weapon anyway."
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Scott Ritter, 5/9/24
"Israel has Breached Camp David Accords 
and Declared War. Will Egypt Respond?"
Comments here:

Adventures With Danno, "Kroger Items Everyone Should Be Buying This Week! Saving Big Money!"

Adventures With Danno, AM 5/9/24
"Kroger Items Everyone Should Be Buying This Week! 
Saving Big Money!"
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Gregory Mannarino, "Alert! My Strongest Warning To Date!"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/9/24
"Alert! My Strongest Warning To Date!"
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"The Pig Farmer"

"The Pig Farmer"
by John Robbins

"One day in Iowa I met a particular gentleman - and I use that term, gentleman, frankly, only because I am trying to be polite, for that is certainly not how I saw him at the time. He owned and ran what he called a “pork production facility.” I, on the other hand, would have called it a pig Auschwitz. The conditions were brutal. The pigs were confined in cages that were barely larger than their own bodies, with the cages stacked on top of each other in tiers, three high. The sides and the bottoms of the cages were steel slats, so that excrement from the animals in the upper and middle tiers dropped through the slats on to the animals below.

The aforementioned owner of this nightmare weighed, I am sure, at least 240 pounds, but what was even more impressive about his appearance was that he seemed to be made out of concrete. His movements had all the fluidity and grace of a brick wall. What made him even less appealing was that his language seemed to consist mainly of grunts, many of which sounded alike to me, and none of which were particularly pleasant to hear. Seeing how rigid he was and sensing the overall quality of his presence, I - rather brilliantly, I thought - concluded that his difficulties had not arisen merely because he hadn’t had time, that particular morning, to finish his entire daily yoga routine.

But I wasn’t about to divulge my opinions of him or his operation, for I was undercover, visiting slaughterhouses and feedlots to learn what I could about modern meat production. There were no bumper stickers on my car, and my clothes and hairstyle were carefully chosen to give no indication that I might have philosophical leanings other than those that were common in the area. I told the farmer matter of factly that I was a researcher writing about animal agriculture, and asked if he’d mind speaking with me for a few minutes so that I might have the benefit of his knowledge. In response, he grunted a few words that I could not decipher, but that I gathered meant I could ask him questions and he would show me around.

I was at this point not very happy about the situation, and this feeling did not improve when we entered one of the warehouses that housed his pigs. In fact, my distress increased, for I was immediately struck by what I can only call an overpowering olfactory experience. The place reeked like you would not believe of ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and other noxious gases that were the products of the animals’ wastes. These, unfortunately, seemed to have been piling up inside the building for far too long a time.

As nauseating as the stench was for me, I wondered what it must be like for the animals. The cells that detect scent are known as ethmoidal cells. Pigs, like dogs, have nearly 200 times the concentration of these cells in their noses as humans do. In a natural setting, they are able, while rooting around in the dirt, to detect the scent of an edible root through the earth itself. Given any kind of a chance, they will never soil their own nests, for they are actually quite clean animals, despite the reputation we have unfairly given them. But here they had no contact with the earth, and their noses were beset by the unceasing odor of their own urine and feces multiplied a thousand times by the accumulated wastes of the other pigs unfortunate enough to be caged in that warehouse. I was in the building only for a few minutes, and the longer I remained in there, the more desperately I wanted to leave. But the pigs were prisoners there, barely able to take a single step, forced to endure this stench, and almost completely immobile, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and with no time off, I can assure you, for holidays.

The man who ran the place was - I’ll give him this - kind enough to answer my questions, which were mainly about the drugs he used to handle the problems that are fairly common in factory pigs today. But my sentiments about him and his farm were not becoming any warmer. It didn’t help when, in response to a particularly loud squealing from one of the pigs, he delivered a sudden and threatening kick to the bars of its cage, causing a loud “clang” to reverberate through the warehouse and leading to screaming from many of the pigs. Because it was becoming increasingly difficult to hide my distress, it crossed my mind that I should tell him what I thought of the conditions in which he kept his pigs, but then I thought better of it. This was a man, it was obvious, with whom there was no point in arguing.

After maybe 15 minutes, I’d had enough and was preparing to leave, and I felt sure he was glad to be about to be rid of me. But then something happened, something that changed my life, forever - and, as it turns out, his too. It began when his wife came out from the farmhouse and cordially invited me to stay for dinner. The pig farmer grimaced when his wife spoke, but he dutifully turned to me and announced, “The wife would like you to stay for dinner.” He always called her “the wife,” by the way, which led me to deduce that he was not, apparently, on the leading edge of feminist thought in the country today.

I don’t know whether you have ever done something without having a clue why, and to this day I couldn’t tell you what prompted me to do it, but I said Yes, I’d be delighted. And stay for dinner I did, though I didn’t eat the pork they served. The excuse I gave was that my doctor was worried about my cholesterol. I didn’t say that I was a vegetarian, nor that my cholesterol was 125.

I was trying to be a polite and appropriate dinner guest. I didn’t want to say anything that might lead to any kind of disagreement. The couple (and their two sons, who were also at the table) were, I could see, being nice to me, giving me dinner and all, and it was gradually becoming clear to me that, along with all the rest of it, they could be, in their way, somewhat decent people. I asked myself, if they were in my town, traveling, and I had chanced to meet them, would I have invited them to dinner? Not likely, I knew, not likely at all. Yet here they were, being as hospitable to me as they could. Yes, I had to admit it. Much as I detested how the pigs were treated, this pig farmer wasn’t actually the reincarnation of Adolph Hitler. At least not at the moment.

Of course, I still knew that if we were to scratch the surface we’d no doubt find ourselves in great conflict, and because that was not a direction in which I wanted to go, as the meal went along I sought to keep things on an even and constant keel. Perhaps they sensed it too, for among us, we managed to see that the conversation remained, consistently and resolutely, shallow. We talked about the weather, about the Little League games in which their two sons played, and then, of course, about how the weather might affect the Little League games. We were actually doing rather well at keeping the conversation superficial and far from any topic around which conflict might occur. Or so I thought. But then suddenly, out of nowhere, the man pointed at me forcefully with his finger, and snarled in a voice that I must say truly frightened me, “Sometimes I wish you animal rights people would just drop dead.”

How on Earth he knew I had any affinity to animal rights I will never know - I had painstakingly avoided any mention of any such thing - but I do know that my stomach tightened immediately into a knot. To make matters worse, at that moment his two sons leapt from the table, tore into the den, slammed the door behind them, and turned the TV on loud, presumably preparing to drown out what was to follow. At the same instant, his wife nervously picked up some dishes and scurried into the kitchen. As I watched the door close behind her and heard the water begin running, I had a sinking sensation. They had, there was no mistaking it, left me alone with him. I was, to put it bluntly, terrified. Under the circumstances, a wrong move now could be disastrous. Trying to center myself, I tried to find some semblance of inner calm by watching my breath, but this I could not do, and for a very simple reason. There wasn’t any to watch.

“What are they saying that’s so upsetting to you?” I said finally, pronouncing the words carefully and distinctly, trying not to show my terror. I was trying very hard at that moment to disassociate myself from the animal rights movement, a force in our society of which he, evidently, was not overly fond. “They accuse me of mistreating my stock,” he growled. “Why would they say a thing like that?” I answered, knowing full well, of course, why they would, but thinking mostly about my own survival. His reply, to my surprise, while angry, was actually quite articulate. He told me precisely what animal rights groups were saying about operations like his, and exactly why they were opposed to his way of doing things. Then, without pausing, he launched into a tirade about how he didn’t like being called cruel, and they didn’t know anything about the business he was in, and why couldn’t they mind their own business.

As he spoke it, the knot in my stomach was relaxing, because it was becoming clear, and I was glad of it, that he meant me no harm, but just needed to vent. Part of his frustration, it seemed, was that even though he didn’t like doing some of the things he did to the animals -cooping them up in such small cages, using so many drugs, taking the babies away from their mothers so quickly after their births - he didn’t see that he had any choice. He would be at a disadvantage and unable to compete economically if he didn’t do things that way. This is how it’s done today, he told me, and he had to do it too. He didn’t like it, but he liked even less being blamed for doing what he had to do in order to feed his family. As it happened, I had just the week before been at a much larger hog operation, where I learned that it was part of their business strategy to try to put people like him out of business by going full-tilt into the mass production of assembly-line pigs, so that small farmers wouldn’t be able to keep up. What I had heard corroborated everything he was saying.

Almost despite myself, I began to grasp the poignancy of this man’s human predicament. I was in his home because he and his wife had invited me to be there. And looking around, it was obvious that they were having a hard time making ends meet. Things were threadbare. This family was on the edge. Raising pigs, apparently, was the only way the farmer knew how to make a living, so he did it even though, as was becoming evident the more we talked, he didn’t like one bit the direction hog farming was going. At times, as he spoke about how much he hated the modern factory methods of pork production, he reminded me of the very animal rights people who a few minutes before he said he wished would drop dead.

As the conversation progressed, I actually began to develop some sense of respect for this man whom I had earlier judged so harshly. There was decency in him. There was something within him that meant well. But as I began to sense a spirit of goodness in him, I could only wonder all the more how he could treat his pigs the way he did. Little did I know that I was about to find out. . .

We are talking along, when suddenly he looks troubled. He slumps over, his head in his hands. He looks broken, and there is a sense of something awful having happened. Has he had a heart attack? A stroke? I’m finding it hard to breathe, and hard to think clearly. “What’s happening?” I ask. It takes him awhile to answer, but finally he does. I am relieved that he is able to speak, although what he says hardly brings any clarity to the situation. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, “and I don’t want to talk about it.” As he speaks, he makes a motion with his hand, as if he were pushing something away.

For the next several minutes we continue to converse, but I’m quite uneasy. Things seem incomplete and confusing. Something dark has entered the room, and I don’t know what it is or how to deal with it. Then, as we are speaking, it happens again. Once again a look of despondency comes over him. Sitting there, I know I’m in the presence of something bleak and oppressive. I try to be present with what’s happening, but it’s not easy. Again I’m finding it hard to breathe. Finally, he looks at me, and I notice his eyes are teary. “You’re right,” he says. I, of course, always like to be told that I am right, but in this instance I don’t have the slightest idea what he’s talking about. He continues. “No animal,” he says, “should be treated like that. Especially hogs. Do you know that they’re intelligent animals? They’re even friendly, if you treat ’em right. But I don’t.”

There are tears welling up in his eyes. And he tells me that he has just had a memory come back of something that happened in his childhood, something he hasn’t thought of for many years. It’s come back in stages, he says. He grew up, he tells me, on a small farm in rural Missouri, the old-fashioned kind where animals ran around, with barnyards and pastures, and where they all had names. I learn, too, that he was an only child, the son of a powerful father who ran things with an iron fist. With no brothers or sisters, he often felt lonely, but found companionship among the animals on the farm, particularly several dogs, who were as friends to him. And, he tells me, and this I am quite surprised to hear, he had a pet pig.

As he proceeds to tell me about this pig, it is as if he is becoming a different person. Before he had spoken primarily in a monotone; but now his voice grows lively. His body language, which until this point seemed to speak primarily of long suffering, now becomes animated. There is something fresh taking place. In the summer, he tells me, he would sleep in the barn. It was cooler there than in the house, and the pig would come over and sleep alongside him, asking fondly to have her belly rubbed, which he was glad to do.

There was a pond on their property, he goes on, and he liked to swim in it when the weather was hot, but one of the dogs would get excited when he did, and would ruin things. The dog would jump into the water and swim up on top of him, scratching him with her paws and making things miserable for him. He was about to give up on swimming, but then, as fate would have it, the pig, of all people, stepped in and saved the day. Evidently the pig could swim, for she would plop herself into the water, swim out where the dog was bothering the boy, and insert herself between them. She’d stay between the dog and the boy, and keep the dog at bay. She was, as best I could make out, functioning in the situation something like a lifeguard, or in this case, perhaps more of a life-pig.

I’m listening to this hog farmer tell me these stories about his pet pig, and I’m thoroughly enjoying both myself and him, and rather astounded at how things are transpiring, when once again, it happens. Once again a look of defeat sweeps across this man’s face, and once again I sense the presence of something very sad. Something in him, I know, is struggling to make its way toward life through anguish and pain, but I don’t know what it is or how, indeed, to help him.

“What happened to your pig?” I ask.
He sighs, and it’s as though the whole world’s pain is contained in that sigh. Then, slowly, he speaks. “My father made me butcher it.”
“Did you?” I ask.
“I ran away, but I couldn’t hide. They found me.”
“What happened?”
“My father gave me a choice.”
“What was that?”
“He told me, ‘You either slaughter that animal or you’re no longer my son.’”

Some choice, I think, feeling the weight of how fathers have so often trained their sons not to care, to be what they call brave and strong, but what so often turns out to be callous and closed-hearted. “So I did it,” he says, and now his tears begin to flow, making their way down his cheeks. I am touched and humbled. This man, whom I had judged to be without human feeling, is weeping in front of me, a stranger. This man, whom I had seen as callous and even heartless, is actually someone who cares, and deeply. How wrong, how profoundly and terribly wrong I had been.

In the minutes that follow, it becomes clear to me what has been happening. The pig farmer has remembered something that was so painful, that was such a profound trauma, that he had not been able to cope with it when it had happened. Something had shut down, then. It was just too much to bear. Somewhere in his young, formative psyche he made a resolution never to be that hurt again, never to be that vulnerable again. And he built a wall around the place where the pain had occurred, which was the place where his love and attachment to that pig was located, which was his heart. And now here he was, slaughtering pigs for a living - still, I imagined, seeking his father’s approval. God, what we men will do, I thought, to get our fathers’ acceptance.

I had thought he was a cold and closed human being, but now I saw the truth. His rigidity was not a result of a lack of feeling, as I had thought it was, but quite the opposite: it was a sign of how sensitive he was underneath. For if he had not been so sensitive, he would not have been that hurt, and he would not have needed to put up so massive a wall. The tension in his body that was so apparent to me upon first meeting him, the body armor that he carried, bespoke how hurt he had been, and how much capacity for feeling he carried still, beneath it all.

I had judged him, and done so, to be honest, mercilessly. But for the rest of the evening I sat with him, humbled, and grateful for whatever it was in him that had been strong enough to force this long-buried and deeply painful memory to the surface. And glad, too, that I had not stayed stuck in my judgments of him, for if I had, I would not have provided an environment in which his remembering could have occurred.

We talked that night, for hours, about many things. I was, after all that had happened, concerned for him. The gap between his feelings and his lifestyle seemed so tragically vast. What could he do? This was all he knew. He did not have a high school diploma. He was only partially literate. Who would hire him if he tried to do something else? Who would invest in him and train him, at his age? When finally, I left that evening, these questions were very much on my mind, and I had no answers to them. Somewhat flippantly, I tried to joke about it. “Maybe,” I said, “you’ll grow broccoli or something.” He stared at me, clearly not comprehending what I might be talking about. It occurred to me, briefly, that he might possibly not know what broccoli was.

We parted that night as friends, and though we rarely see each other now, we have remained friends as the years have passed. I carry him in my heart and think of him, in fact, as a hero. Because, as you will soon see, impressed as I was by the courage it had taken for him to allow such painful memories to come to the surface, I had not yet seen the extent of his bravery.

When I wrote "Diet for a New America," I quoted him and summarized what he had told me, but I was quite brief and did not mention his name. I thought that, living as he did among other pig farmers in Iowa, it would not be to his benefit to be associated with me. When the book came out, I sent him a copy, saying I hoped he was comfortable with how I wrote of the evening we had shared, and directing him to the pages on which my discussion of our time together was to be found. Several weeks later, I received a letter from him. “Dear Mr. Robbins,” it began. “Thank you for the book. When I saw it, I got a migraine headache.”

Now as an author, you do want to have an impact on your readers. This, however, was not what I had had in mind. He went on, though, to explain that the headaches had gotten so bad that, as he put it, “the wife” had suggested to him he should perhaps read the book. She thought there might be some kind of connection between the headaches and the book. He told me that this hadn’t made much sense to him, but he had done it because “the wife” was often right about these things.

“You write good,” he told me, and I can tell you that his three words of his meant more to me than when the New York Times praised the book profusely. He then went on to say that reading the book was very hard for him, because the light it shone on what he was doing made it clear to him that it was wrong to continue. The headaches, meanwhile, had been getting worse, until, he told me, that very morning, when he had finished the book, having stayed up all night reading, he went into the bathroom, and looked into the mirror. “I decided, right then,” he said, “that I would sell my herd and get out of this business. I don’t know what I will do, though. Maybe I will, like you said, grow broccoli.”

As it happened, he did sell his operation in Iowa and move back to Missouri, where he bought a small farm. And there he is today, running something of a model farm. He grows vegetables organically - including, I am sure, broccoli - that he sells at a local farmer’s market. He’s got pigs, all right, but only about 10, and he doesn’t cage them, nor does he kill them. Instead, he’s got a contract with local schools; they bring kids out in buses on field trips to his farm, for his “Pet-a-pig” program. He shows them how intelligent pigs are and how friendly they can be if you treat them right, which he now does. He’s arranged it so the kids, each one of them, gets a chance to give a pig a belly rub. He’s become nearly a vegetarian himself, has lost most of his excess weight, and his health has improved substantially. And, thank goodness, he’s actually doing better financially than he was before.

Do you see why I carry this man with me in my heart? Do you see why he is such a hero to me? He dared to leap, to risk everything, to leave what was killing his spirit even though he didn’t know what was next. He left behind a way of life that he knew was wrong, and he found one that he knows is right.

When I look at many of the things happening in our world, I sometimes fear we won’t make it. But when I remember this man and the power of his spirit, and when I remember that there are many others whose hearts beat to the same quickening pulse, I think we will. I can get tricked into thinking there aren’t enough of us to turn the tide, but then I remember how wrong I was about the pig farmer when I first met him, and I realize that there are heroes afoot everywhere. Only I can’t recognize them because I think they are supposed to look or act a certain way. How blinded I can be by my own beliefs.

The man is one of my heroes because he reminds me that we can depart from the cages we build for ourselves and for each other, and become something much better. He is one of my heroes because he reminds me of what I hope someday to become. When I first met him, I would not have thought it possible that I would ever say the things I am saying here. But this only goes to show how amazing life can be, and how you never really know what to expect. The pig farmer has become, for me, a reminder never to underestimate the power of the human heart.

I consider myself privileged to have spent that day with him, and grateful that I was allowed to be a catalyst for the unfolding of his spirit. I know my presence served him in some way, but I also know, and know full well, that I received far more than I gave. To me, this is grace - to have the veils lifted from our eyes so that we can recognize and serve the goodness in each other. Others may wish for great riches or for ecstatic journeys to mystical planes, but to me, this is the magic of human life."

"It Is Only When..."

"Happily men don't realize how stupid they are, or half the world would commit suicide. Knowledge is a will-of-the-wisp, fluttering ever out of the traveller's reach; and a weary journey must be endured before it is even seen. It is only when a man knows a good deal that he discovers how unfathomable is his ignorance. The man who knows nothing is satisfied that there is nothing to know, consequently that he knows everything; and you may more easily persuade him that the moon is made of green cheese than that he is not omniscient."
- W. Somerset Maugham
“It takes considerable knowledge just to
realize the extent of your own ignorance.”
- Thomas Sowell

"Putin Doesn’t Bluff"

"Putin Doesn’t Bluff"
by Jim Rickards

"Two weeks ago, the Congress passed (and President Biden signed) four key pieces of legislation related to national security. Three of the bills provided assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. They received the most attention. The one that got the least attention was a mixed bag of provisions, such as a forced divestiture of TikTok.

Included in that bill was something called the REPO Act that authorizes the president to steal any Russian assets, including U.S. Treasury securities, that come under U.S. jurisdiction. The impact of the REPO Act is limited by the fact that only about $10 billion of Russian sovereign assets are actually under U.S. jurisdiction. Yet the act contemplates that this theft will be a down payment on a much larger theft to be conducted by NATO allies in Europe. $290 billion of Russian sovereign assets are being held in Europe. The act says that the assets stolen by the U.S. will be contributed to the Common Ukraine Fund.

No doubt, the U.S. will be the most powerful voice in the administration of the $290 billion common fund. The U.S. goal is to use the G7 summit in Apulia, Italy on June 13–15 as a platform for getting the other G7 members to go along with the Common Ukraine Fund and to steal any Russian assets under their jurisdiction. So these people think that Russia will simply accept this act of theft without retaliating?

“Mirror Imaging”: One of the persistent problems in intelligence analysis is what experts call “mirror imaging.” This is jargon for an analytic flaw in which the analyst assumes that his beliefs and preferences are shared by an adversary. Instead of looking at the adversary as he actually is, the analyst is looking in a mirror while assuming he is looking at the adversary. This is an extremely dangerous flaw.

You may be rational, but the mullahs who rule Iran are not. You may believe that leaders want economic growth, but Communist Chinese leaders elevate the party over all other considerations including the well-being of their people. You may assume that Houthi rebels in Yemen want to avoid attacks by the U.S., but they don’t care - they live in caves anyway, so you can’t bomb them into the Stone Age because they’re already there.

Nowhere is this flaw more apparent today than in the U.S. intelligence analysis of Vladimir Putin. In 2008, President Bush said that Ukraine and Georgia should join NATO. A few months later, Putin invaded Georgia, annexed part of its territory and destroyed Georgia’s chances of joining NATO.

Putin Doesn’t Bluff: In 2014, the U.S. backed a coup d’état in Ukraine that deposed a duly elected leader. Three months later, Putin annexed Crimea from Ukraine and made it part of the Russian Federation. In 2021, NATO began formal processes to admit Ukraine as a member. In February 2022, Russia began a special military operation that’s resulted in 600,000 dead Ukrainian soldiers. Some estimates are even higher. Ukraine’s chances of joining NATO are now zero.

In every case, U.S. analysts did not believe Putin would take the steps he did because they thought it might somehow weaken Putin or Russia. That’s mirror imaging at its worst. The truth is Putin doesn’t bluff. When he says he will do something, he does. When he says he will react to some Western act, the reaction takes place.

Putin said if the West steals Russian assets, Russia will retaliate by seizing billions of dollars of direct foreign investment in Russia owned by major European companies such as Siemens, Total, BP and others. And sure enough, just days after Biden signed legislation to authorize the theft of Russian assets, a Russian court ordered $440 million be seized from JPMorgan.

The escalation in the asset seizure war has begun. Putin will win in the end. Unfortunately, escalation is also increasing on the geopolitical front. The U.S. and some of its European allies are becoming increasingly desperate about Ukraine’s ability to hold off Russia on the battlefield.

Short on Weapons, Short on Men: The recent $61 billion aid package for Ukraine (about two-thirds of which will go to U.S. defense companies) won’t be nearly enough to reverse the tide. The U.S. and its NATO allies have already given just about all they can afford to give Ukraine without jeopardizing their own security. The problem isn’t a lack of money but a lack of weapons and ammunition. Before the aid package was approved, critics complained that Ukraine was losing because the U.S. was withholding desperately needed materiel. But that’s not really true.

The Europeans could have simply bought the weapons from the U.S. and delivered them to Ukraine. They didn’t. Why? Because the weapons simply weren’t there. Yes, there will always be a supply of weapons flowing to Ukraine - they’re not going to run out completely. But Ukraine won’t have nearly enough weapons and ammunition to undertake meaningful offensive operations against the Russians. They’ll just have enough to keep them in the fight, which is the goal of NATO.

Unfortunately for Ukraine, the problems run much deeper than a lack of equipment. They’re also running out of trained manpower. Former commander Valeriy Zaluzhny has suggested Ukraine needs an extra 500,000 troops. But they’re having trouble finding new volunteers. An estimated 650,000 fighting age men have fled Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Russian army is even larger than it was before the invasion, and Russian industry is churning out weapons and ammunition at astonishing rates.

Will France Cross the (Dnieper) Rubicon? When you add up Ukraine’s lack of equipment and manpower shortages, you understand why the West is becoming increasingly desperate.

France’s Emmanuel Macron is continuing to say he might send French troops to Ukraine. Just days ago, he reaffirmed that he wouldn’t rule out sending troops if Russia broke through Ukrainian front lines and Ukraine requested it. Well, it’s only a matter of time until Russia breaks through Ukraine’s remaining primary defenses east of the Dnieper River. Of course Ukraine is going to request French troops since Macron himself made the offer.

Would they be sent to western Ukraine in order to free up Ukrainian soldiers stationed there to go to the front? Or would they send French troops to the front, thinking that Russia wouldn’t fire on them out of fears of starting a war with France? France is a nuclear power. It has a limited nuclear arsenal (mostly consisting of four ballistic missile submarines). So France might believe it can deter Russia from advancing.

But Russia has already targeted French “mercenaries” in a missile strike some months back (they were likely Ukrainian and Russian members of the French Foreign Legion). And Russia has warned France that it will attack French soldiers if it sends them to Ukraine. Remember, Putin doesn’t bluff. But it’s not just France suggesting a willingness to send troops to Ukraine.

Countdown to Nuclear War: I’ve been warning about the dangers of escalation since the U.S. committed itself to Ukraine’s defense. Unfortunately, it’s playing out exactly as I predicted.

On "60 Minutes" last night, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “We can’t let Ukraine fall because if it does, then there’s a significant likelihood that America will have to get into the conflict - not simply with our money, but with our servicewomen and our servicemen.”

Ukraine’s going to fall, one way or the other. It might not be this year or even next year, although those are possibilities. But it will happen. If Jeffries is correct that the U.S. will commit its military to confront Russia directly, then we’re signing ourselves up for a nuclear war because that’s where military confrontation will ultimately lead. Every major simulated war game between the U.S. and Russia ends up going nuclear in the end. Are we really prepared for that?"
o

"They Don't Always Do That..."

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

"The Only Animal..."

"Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is
struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be."
- William Hazlitt

"For Tomorrow We Die…"

"For Tomorrow We Die…"
by Brian Maher

"The United States savings rate runs to 3.20% - down from 3.60% one month prior. As history has it, 8.47% is par. Meantime, 36% of Americans carry more credit card debt upon their shoulders than emergency savings in their pockets.

Mainstream economists inform us it is not a symptom of economic distress. It is rather a symptom of economic vigor. For example, Ameriprise Financial’s Russell Price: "Consumers still have a lot of money left over to be able to spend, so the credit card data is often misinterpreted. The dollar value of credit card debt is at an all-time high, but so is population, employment and consumer income." Yet we are not half so-convinced.

The Centrality of Savings: If the United States savings rate jumped in tandem with its credit card debt, it would not fluster us. Our ears would be opened wide to this fellow’s belchings. Yet the United States savings rate has not jumped in tandem with its credit card debt. It is instead running the other way as debt gallops and gallops. And as we have argued before, savings form the granite bedrock of a sound economy.

Modern economics has waged warfare upon savings… and prudence. If all saved too much money a savage cycle would feed and feed upon itself… until the economy is devoured to the final crumbs. Consumption would dwindle to near-nonexistence. The gross domestic product would collapse in a heap. Waves of bankruptcies would wash through the national economic apparatus. All this owes to the recalcitrance of savers. They refuse to untie their purse strings - and spend for the greater good.

This paradox of thrift is perhaps the mother myth of economists in the Keynesian line. Yet as we have also argued, no paradox exists whatsoever. We maintain that saving is an unvarnished blessing - at all times - under all circumstances.

Say’s Law: “From time immemorial proverbial wisdom has taught the virtues of saving,” wrote Henry Hazlitt 78 years ago, “and warned against the consequences of prodigality and waste.” But to the anti-savers… prodigality and waste are near-virtues at times as these. They have forgotten their Say’s law - perhaps purposefully.

Say’s law holds that supply creates its own demand. “Products are paid for with products,” argued Jean-Batiste Say over two centuries ago. Production must precede consumption. One man produces bread. Another produces shoes. Let us say the baker bakes a baker’s dozen - 13 loaves of bread. He consumes two of them. The remaining 11 loaves represent his savings. He can peddle them for other goods - shoes in our little example.

The Cobbler: Meantime, the cobbler cobbles together 13 pairs of shoes. He requires one new pair for himself. He further sets aside two pairs for his blossoming children. This fellow “consumes” three pairs of shoes, that is. The remaining 10 constitute his savings. Like our baker, he can exchange his savings for goods. He did not plunge into deficit - debt - to acquire these goods. He has acquired them through honest toil. He has produced. And because he has produced, he can now consume. We must conclude that there can be no excess of savings. Savings equal stored wealth.

Putting the Cart Before the Horse: To argue that savings injure society is to argue that wealth injures society. And savings spring from production. Thus the saver is not a man to be condemned for his profligacy but applauded for his frugality. Yet he is the high villain of modern economics. He is a public menace, a saboteur of sorts, a rascal.

The enemies of savings rotate Say’s law upon its head. They sob not about a lack of production - but a “lack of demand.” That is, they place the wagon cart of consumption before the draft horse of production. The monetary authority must race the printing press to make the shortage good, to furnish the lacking demand. But no new production accompanies the flood of money. The additional money merely chases the existing warehouse of goods.

It is the pursuit of alchemy, of lead into gold, of the free lunch. It is the half-conscious belief that the print press is the spark plug of prosperity. It neglects production.

Saving Equals Investment: Yet there can be no investment without savings… as there can be no flowers without seeds. Explained the late economist Murray Rothbard: "Savings and investment are indissolubly linked. It is impossible to encourage one and discourage the other. Aside from bank credit, investments can come from no other source than savings… In order to invest resources in the future, he must first restrict his consumption and save funds. This restricting is his savings, and so saving and investment are always equivalent. The two terms may be used almost interchangeably."

The more accumulated savings in the economy… the more potential investment. An economy built atop a sturdy foundation of savings is a rugged economy, a durable economy. This economy can absorb a blow. The debt-based economy cannot absorb a blow. In the past we have cited the example of a frugal farmer to demonstrate the virtue of savings. Today we cite it again…

The Frugal Farmer: The frugal farmer defers present gratification. He conserves a portion of prior harvests… and stores in a full silo of grain. There this grain sits, seemingly idle. But this silo contains a vast reservoir of capital…This farmer can sell part of his surplus. With the proceeds he purchases more efficient farm equipment. And so he can increase his yield. Meantime, his purchase gives employment to producers of farm equipment and those further along the production chain. Or he can invest in additional land to expand his empire. The added land yields further grain production. This in turn extends Earth’s bounty in wider and wider circles - and at lower cost.

Surplus builds upon surplus. He further retains a prudent portion of his grain against the uncertain future and the wicked gods. There is next year’s crop to consider. If it fails, if the next year is lean, it will not clean him out. Because he has saved, he has plenty laid by. Thus his prior willingness to defer immediate gratification yields a handsome dividend. Without that savings base of grain… he is a man undone. We will call this man Farmer X. Contrast him, once again, with Farmer Y…

The Wastrel Farmer: This man enjoys rather extravagant tastes for a farmer. He squanders his surplus on costly vacations, restaurants, autos, etc. Thus he is the hero of the Keynesian economist. His lavishness sets in train a cycle of virtue that expands and multiplies prosperity. It is true, his luxurious appetites keep local business flush. But his grain silo perpetually runs low. That is, his capital stock runs perpetually low. That is, he has little savings. That is, he has little to invest.

He deprives the future so that he may gratify the present… and rips food from future mouths. And should next year’s crop fail, this Farmer Y is in a dreadful way. Assume next year’s crop does fail. The surplus grain that could have sustained him he has dissipated. He has no reserves to see him through. He is hurled into bankruptcy. He must sell his farm at a fire sale. And the local enterprises that had fattened upon his business go scratching… for they had enjoyed a false prosperity. If only this sybarite had saved.

The Lesson: Multiply this example by millions and the lesson is clear: A healthy economy requires a full silo of grain - of savings, that is. An empty silo means no investment in the future. Society has nothing stored against future perils. And when society saves in lean times, it is not eliminating consumption. It is merely postponing it.

The demand that is supposedly lost is not lost at all. It is simply shifted toward the future. Thus today’s savings are therefore tomorrow’s spending, tomorrow’s consumption. By reducing consumption today… society allows greater consumption tomorrow.

Says Hazlitt: “‘Saving,’ in short, in the modern world, is only another form of spending.” Thus the society that fails to save confronts a future of limited growth… slender prospects… and frustrated ambitions. This society - alas - is the American society."
Freely download "Economics in One Lesson", by Henry Hazlitt, here:

Wednesday, May 8, 2024

"Israel Invades Egypt-Gaza Border, Hands Control to US Contractor"

Full screen recommended.
Richard Medhurst, 5/8/24
"Israel Invades Egypt-Gaza Border, 
Hands Control to US Contractor"
Comments here:

"Israel is Evil personified. Israel is Evil embodied."
- Scott Ritter
What do you do with a viciously rabid mad dog?
So be it...