Thursday, January 20, 2022

"Doug Casey on the Rise of China... And What it Means for the World"

"Doug Casey on the Rise of China... 
And What it Means for the World"
by International Man

"International Man: Lee Kuan Yew, the former leader of Singapore, once said: "The size of China’s displacement of the world balance is such that the world must find a new balance. It is not possible to pretend that this is just another big player. This is the biggest player in the history of the world." What is your take?

Doug Casey: China has united 1.4 billion people into a single political entity, so of course they have a lot of weight. But simply having masses of people under your political control doesn't mean as much as it used to. China would still be a poverty-stricken non-entity if it hadn't been for the reforms that Deng Xiaoping made starting in 1980. Masses of uneducated, desperately poor peasants are more of a liability than an asset in the modern world. Deng transformed China’s economy into something that functions pretty much like those in the West. But now, Xi Jinping seems to be returning to the philosophy of Chairman Mao, with much more centralized control. That’s very negative for the country.

Secondly, China’s demographics are horrible. The average woman today only has 1.4 children. Low reproduction rates are to be expected when a society urbanizes. But China also had a draconian one-child policy starting in 1980 that only ended in 2015. That, and the fact the Chinese prefer males for cultural reasons, compounded the phenomenon.

Few people in the West realize that as a result of these things, the Chinese population is in steep decline. UN projections - which aren’t worth much but are still interesting - find that by the end of this century, their population could collapse to 600 or 700 million. And they’ll mostly be old people, so it’s not going to bounce back quickly.

I have real questions about whether China’s economic miracle of the last 40 years will continue. Perhaps it will even go into reverse. That’s because China’s huge transformation is the result of its adoption of some aspects of Western Civilization, which made the United States and Western Europe different from, and better than, any other countries in world history.

I think there are at least 12 characteristics that are underpinned the West. They are free thought, free speech, free markets, property rights, limited government, individualism, rationality, personal liberty, the concept of progress, privacy, the rule of law, and entrepreneurialism. Humans everywhere understand their value and adhere to them sporadically, of course; without them civilization is impossible. But only the West made them integral to itself, as principles. They’re what made us unique.

There’s a great deal more I’d like to say about this. I’ve given several speeches on it, and how Western Civilization itself is being washed away, but I have never written an article about it. I’ll do so soon.

International Man: Since 2013, China has been working on its Belt and Road Initiative, which stretches from East Asia to Europe. It’s primarily a trade network of seaports and railroads controlled by Beijing, reminiscent of the ancient Silk Road. So far, over 100 countries have signed on to the massive trade and infrastructure initiative. What are its geopolitical and economic implications?

Doug Casey: In the short run, it's resulted in a lot of profits for Chinese corporations and employment for the Chinese workers who are building these things. Locals are hired mostly for coolie labor - which I find amusing and ironic.

Everyone in the West seems to think the Chinese are going to take over the world. While I acknowledge China’s hyperbolic rise over the last 40 years, I question whether the Belt and Road won’t be a huge overreach. It could backfire for several reasons.

Number one, the benefits of the Belt and Road initiative are primarily political. It’s planned and run on the basis of politics, much more than economics. It’s basically a government boondoggle - about the biggest in history. Building infrastructure in unstable third-world countries is generally a sucker bet for lots of reasons; it’s likely to be shockingly unprofitable. It may lead to the bankruptcy of a lot of Chinese banks and corporations that are involved with it.

Number two, a lot of countries are starting to see it as Chinese neocolonialism. I think the natives are going to find the Chinese much more unpleasant colonial masters than the Europeans. Among other things, massive numbers of Chinese people are immigrating to Africa. It’s a guaranteed formula for conflict.

I suspect it's going to end badly for the Chinese politically and economically, especially in Africa, which produces nothing but raw materials and poor people. When Europeans and Americans stop shipping billions in capital, technology, and food to the Dark Continent, the progress it’s made will go into reverse because its political and cultural mores are hopeless. That’s why the infrastructure in most places south of the Sahara - railroads, roads, waterways, utilities, you name it - have collapsed in the years since the Europeans left despite trillions in aid and investment. You can see it happening now in South Africa, which is by far the most advanced country on the continent. The Chinese will be even less successful than the Europeans.

The local political nomenklatura profited mightily from bribes and corruption in the early stages of Belt and Road projects. Once they’re thrown out of office one way or another, retiring to mansions in France or Switzerland, the new governments will be unhappy with table scraps and one-sided Chinese ownership. They’ll try to teach the Chinese a lesson, and the Chinese will have to teach them a counter-lesson.

The Chinese could end up getting involved in lots of brushfire wars as a result. I expect you’ll see the Red Army acting the way the US Marines did in Central America and the Caribbean. Of course, the US will pointlessly stick its nose into the mix, increasing the odds of a global conflagration.

International Man: Since the end of World War II, the US has been the dominant power in the world. Will the US hegemony in the world continue?

Doug Casey: The answer is no. Perhaps the biggest reason is that there’s been a radical change, a degradation, of American culture. The US is not the country it once was. It’s become a multicultural domestic empire, which is intrinsically unstable and dysfunctional. The US has been transformed from a beacon of freedom into a highly taxed and regulated political dumpster fire. I hesitate to say it’s a police state - yet. But it’s moving in that direction.

In other words, the things that made the US different and great are vanishing. The twelve things I listed earlier are vanishing. At this point, it's little better than any of the 200 other nation-states that cover the face of the globe like a skin disease.

About the only thing that the US government has that still more or less works is its military. But the US military is in steep decline. And nobody likes or even respects a country that bases much of its power on the military.

We're generating hate all over the world. It used to be that everybody loved America. With troops and active "intelligence" operations in perhaps 100 countries around the world, that’s changed. The world has come to dislike and disrespect the US government. Americans seem to think it’s still Paris after D-Day. Far from it.

Meanwhile, the US government itself is facing bankruptcy, as are many of its citizens. The situation has been papered over, so to speak, by printing trillions of dollars - especially in the last couple of decades. The international acceptance of the US dollar has been critically important for US economic domination. Exporting over a trillion of them a year in exchange for real wealth has artificially raised the national standard of living a huge amount.

But the dollar has become just another irredeemable fiat currency. When it collapses, it’s going to create a whirlwind of hate and chaos everywhere. So, all the dominoes are aligned in the wrong way.

I'm afraid the US is going to continue on its present path - certainly for the next three years, while actual Jacobins are in power in Washington DC, trying to accelerate these trends, not turn them around.

International Man: What is the US going to do about China’s rise?

Doug Casey: Let’s also ask: What should the US do about the fact the sun is going to rise tomorrow morning? A couple of years ago, a concept called the Thucydides trap became a meme based on a book written by Graham Allison. His basic historical premise was that declining powers usually attack rising powers while they still can, while they're still strong, and can still win.

The US is definitely declining. The Chinese are still rising. Although, as I said before, I think it’s very questionable how long that trend will persist. In addition to Belt and Road problems, their banking system is on the ragged edge of collapse, along with their bubble economy built on exports and real estate speculation. It could all come unglued, even as Xi becomes the world hegemon. Twenty years from now, we could see China devolve into a half-dozen satrapies run by warlords, the way it was only 100 years ago.

My guess is that the big danger is US/Chinese confrontation in the South China Sea. It doesn’t matter that it’s none of our business; Washington feels it has to show Beijing who’s boss. A second danger is China trying to capture Taiwan, although I discount that since they have a lot to lose and relatively little to gain. Again, it’s none of our business. In the long run, Africa will be a battleground.

Even if there’s not a hot war, the US will likely use trade barriers to punish the Chinese. If the Chinese are unable to export to the US and countries it controls, they're going to have a real economic crisis on their hands. They'll feel forced to react.

Trade wars are very dangerous. Look at World War II. The Japanese didn’t attack Pearl Harbor because they wanted a war with the US, but because the US, which was its major supplier of petroleum and other raw materials, cut them off. They felt they had no alternative but to attack while they still could. A version of that could happen with the Chinese.

Add the fact that when things get tough within a country, governments always like to find a foreigner to blame in order to unite the people and distract from internal problems. Either or both countries could do that.

It looks grim for both countries. But probably worse for the US. A hot war would be fought near China, and they’d have a huge home-field advantage - read a bunch of sunken US aircraft carriers. All the while, China is winning overwhelmingly in cyberspace, with both surreptitious cyber attacks and the use of social media for psychological war. Platforms like TikTok are directed via artificial intelligence to subtlety inculcate destructive values in the US but constructive values in the Chinese at home. The Chinese are famous for playing the long game. They understand that good times make for soft men, and hard times make for hard men.

International Man: China has made huge advances in technology, trade, and more. Much of this has happened on the back of easy money and sky-high debt. How much better off is China than the declining US empire?

Doug Casey: A lot of the answer may come down to timing. As I said before, China under Xi is moving away from the policies that gave it so much prosperity over the last 40 years. I hasten to point out that "Communist" China is not, in fact, communist. And it hasn’t been for 40 years. Its economic system is state corporatism, or fascism, very much on Mussolini’s model. It’s surprisingly similar to our own system, although with much more authoritarian, top-down control. Unfortunately, we’re moving in their direction, further from real capitalism - even as Xi is trying to make himself into a new Mao.

To sum up, financing the Belt and Road initiative, building cities in the middle of nowhere could destroy the Chinese banking system. The Chinese banking system has been built by a billion Mr. and Mrs. Wus, saving 50% of their incomes. If China gets massive unemployment, which it certainly will if there’s a trade war, Mrs. Wu is not going to save, she's going to withdraw. And she’ll be most unhappy if she either doesn’t get her yuan or if they’re worthless due to inflation.

I’m betting the medium-term future for China is grim. In fact, maybe even more grim than that of the US, which is saying something. We just don't realize it yet, partly because reporting out of China is sketchy and very politically controlled and partly because we’re so preoccupied with our own very serious problems."

"Choose One, But Only One: Defend the Billionaire's Bubble or the U.S. Dollar and Empire"

"Choose One, But Only One: Defend the 
Billionaire's Bubble or the U.S. Dollar and Empire"
by Charles Hugh Smith

"One of the most enduring conceits of the modern era is that the Federal Reserve acts to goose growth and therefore employment while keeping inflation moderate (whatever that means - the definition is adjustable). This conceit is extremely handy as PR cover: the Fed really, really cares about little old us and expanding our ballooning wealth. Nice, except it doesn't. The Fed's one real job is defending the U.S. dollar, which is the foundation of America's global hegemony a.k.a. The Empire.

One thing and one thing alone enables global dominance: being able to create "money" out of thin air and use that "money" to buy real stuff in the real world. The nations that can create "money" out of thin air and trade it for magnesium, oil, semiconductors, etc. have an unbeatable advantage over nations that must actually mine gold or make something of equal value to trade for essentials. The trick is to maintain global confidence in one's currency. There is no one way to manage this, as confidence in a herd animal such as human beings is always contingent. Once the herd gets skittish, all bets are off.

The herd is exquisitely sensitive to movements on the edge of the herd, where threats arise. There are various tricks one can deploy to maintain confidence: pay a higher rate of interest on bonds denominated in one's currency, so global capital flows into your currency; treat this capital well with a transparent set of tax laws and judiciary / regulatory oversight, maintain a deep pool of liquidity so capital can enter and exit without stampeding the herd, and having at least a semi-productive, diverse economy that generates goods, services and income streams to support the currency.

There is a mechanism for calming the herd, and it's called the market. Narrative control (i.e. propaganda) may work on the weak-minded in the herd, who are subsequently picked off by hungry predators, but natural selection favors those who look for cues from what cannot be manipulated or glossed over - an unfettered market.

Markets are only trustworthy to the degree they are unfettered. Currency pegs and other contraptions can be changed overnight, so they are intrinsically untrustworthy. What makes markets trustworthy are: transparency, liquidity (i.e. being able to buy and sell instruments in virtually unlimited quantities without stampeding the herd) and the price discovery of risk, as risk is the key determinant of the herd's movement.

Turning to global dominance - let's ask one question and one only: which nation pegs its currency to another's currency, and who owns that currency? Does the U.S. peg its dollar to the mighty RMB? No, it's the other way around: China pegs its RMB to the the USD. China's ability to create "money" out of thin air is based on its peg to the U.S. dollar, not because the value of its bonds and currency have been discovered by unfettered global markets.

To unpeg its currency, China would have to relinquish control of its sovereign bonds and currency and let the market discover its price and risk structure. This is the tradeoff: if you want to earn the confidence of the herd, you must relinquish control to the unfettered global market. Otherwise, the herd will always be skittish because risk is opaque and therefore safety is elusive.

The consensus seems to be that the Fed's only real job is maintaining the Billionaire's Bubble in stocks. But from the point of view of maintaining global hegemony, the Billionaire's Bubble was a sideshow of hucksters and carnies. The real policy goal was funding the empire's vast spending and not allowing the USD to rise too much or too quickly, as this tends to demolish weaker currencies, stampeding the herd.

But now it's time to suck in global capital by raising rates, and let nature cull the herd. The number of pundits announcing that the Fed will never raise rates, that the Fed can't raise rates because the precious Billionaire's Bubble would burst and the Fed would never, ever, ever let its precious Billionaire's Bubble burst, is legion. But they're wrong, alas, for the Fed's job isn't to enrich billionaires, it's to maintain the confidence of the herd in the USD.

The precious Billionaire's Bubble is already bursting, and all those profiting from the bubble expanding are pawing the ground nervously, afraid of being picked off by lurking predators.

Choose one, but only one: you can't defend the Billionaire Bubble and the USD / Empire. Come on, it's not that difficult a decision, is it? What matters more, maintaining global hegemony or phantom wealth? The Empire is striking back, protecting what really counts, and the Billionaire Bubble sideshow is folding its tents. Best to take your prizes home before it rains."

"In Praise of Plan B"

"In Praise of Plan B"
by Bill Bonner

Normandy, France - "We were on our way back to Ireland. But we have been delayed. It’s wintertime in the North Atlantic. The sea is rough and the crossing – 18 hours on the ferry – would probably make us very sick. A change of plan was necessary; we’ll wait until tomorrow, when the waves are expected to calm down. For now, we are comfortably lodged in an old farmhouse. Built in the 18th century, it has been renovated, but it retains much of its charm. Here, for example, is the fireplace.
Note also that the mantle on our fireplace here is oak beam. It is far enough above the flames that it doesn’t catch fire itself. But this construction probably wouldn’t be allowed in most places in the US.

The open fire is delightful. We are sitting in front of it now… working on our laptop computer. But it is not very practical. If you sit close enough, you can warm yourself; most of the heat goes up the chimney.

Your editor is a connoisseur of fireplaces. Wherever he goes, he takes note of how they are constructed… whether they are handsome or ugly… and how much heat they provide. Most fireplaces in America are too small… and typically, too deep. The fire is tucked away… and then masked by screens to keep the occasional ember from landing on the carpet. For heating purposes, a wood stove is much better. It’s more efficient. The stove can be brought out into the room, and if it has a large glass door in front, you can still get much of the feeling of an open fire.

The Great Transition: “What’s your Plan B?” we asked a friend yesterday. He had permanently sealed off his fireplace to keep the cold air from coming down the chimney. “When the electricity fails, how are you going to heat?” we followed up.

In the Great Transition ahead, from traditional, market-based fossil fuels… to new, ‘green’ energy, heavily subsidized by the government… we take it for granted that the power is going to go out. Probably at the worst possible time, when people most need it. Plan B may be useful. A wood stove is a simple, inexpensive precaution… especially in the kitchen. There, you can keep at least one room warm. And don’t forget to keep on hand a good stack of dry firewood.

Enough gratuitous comment on fireplace design! Let’s return to connecting the dots… by looking more closely at where we are likely headed – Argentina. Yes, we study the pampas…and hope to learn something. And what we’ve learned so far: you need a Plan B.

Argentina may be the most ‘European’ country in the world – in the sense that it has gotten very few immigrants from Africa or Asia. But the European Family Tree has many branches. “If you want a high interest rate, lend to people who drink wine. If you want to get paid back, lend to the beer drinkers.” This was the advice of bankers in the Old World. Their experience told them that the beer drinkers – in Britain, Germany, Denmark, for example – were better credits than those in the wine regions. The Germans paid their bills. The Italians… well… sometimes. The Argentines drink wine. And in this, as in many other things, they resemble their Sicilian cousins.

Typically, Plan B, for foreign creditors means lending in dollars, not pesos. This makes it impossible for the wine drinkers to inflate away their foreign debt. They don’t control the dollar. They can’t print more of them. But the Argentines have a Plan B too. They just don’t pay. Nine times since independence from Spain, Argentina refused (or has been unable) to pay its government loans.

As for local transactions, Argentine households and businesses need a Plan B, Plan C, and Plan D, too. Welfare payments, salaries, unemployment benefits and pensions – even though they are ‘adjusted for inflation’ their real values go down. And consumer prices go up so fast clerks have a hard time keeping up with them.

Beyond Plan Z: During the 1980s, inflation averaged about 300% per year. It was clocked at a record of 5,000% in 1989. By then, the gauchos were running out of alphabet. ‘When the money goes, everything goes’ is a Diary Dictum. And when the money went in Argentina, it led to a military takeover, a domestic ‘dirty war’ that left some 30,000 ‘disappeared’ people, and a war with the UK over the Malvinas (aka the Falkland) islands. It was a war that neither country needed, but that served politicians on both shores well enough. Jorge Luis Borges, Argentina’s most famous writer, said it was like “two bald men fighting over a comb.”

It was then that a new president, Carlos Menem decided it was time to break the cycle of debt, deficit, chaos, money-printing and inflation. The nation was fed up. Exhausted. It was time for a new plan. That’s when the “peg” appeared. No more cheating. No more nonsense. Henceforth and for all eternity, an Argentine peso would be redeemable for a US dollar. One to one. No questions asked.

But when we met Mr. Menem, in the late ‘90s, we had a question. In the few years in which the ‘peg’ was in place, the Argentines had already done what they did best – borrow and spend. And now, it had spent too much. And with more and more money to pay back, Argentina needed more and more dollars. Lenders wanted higher and higher interest rates to protect themselves from the risk of default.

Argentina was caught in a very familiar “inflate or die” trap. Either it broke the peg, stiffed its creditors, and printed more currency to keep the party going. Or it kept the peso-dollar peg, reckoned with its debts in an honest way… and swallowed the resulting investment losses, defaults, and period of recession and austerity. Oh, and the ruling party would almost certainly lose the next election, too.

Inflate or die? Which way would it go? We asked the energetic man, with lifts in his shoes and dye in his hair, in front of us. “Sooo… Will you be able to maintain the ‘peg?” we wanted to know. “Of course,” came the ready answer. “We realize that the peg is critical… crucial… to our economic success. We will never abandon it.”

The next time we visited, in the early 2000s, the peso was trading at 3 to 1. The peg had been discarded. And today, the black market exchange rate is 210 pesos to one US dollar. But wait. Comes a message from a friend in Salta, Argentina: “Bill, our #1 Plan B was always to keep our money in dollars. But now that you Americans are acting like Argentines and inflating the dollar, how are we going to protect ourselves?”

Tomorrow… what do Americans drink? Beer or wine?"

"How It Really Is"

 

"Food Prices Are Soaring At Krogers! Empty Shelves Everywhere!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 1/20/22:
"Food Prices Are Soaring At Krogers! 
Empty Shelves Everywhere!"
"In today's vlog we visit Kroger and witness a lot of soaring prices, and an obvious food shortage. With stores struggling to get in products we are also dealing with another issue of empty shelves everywhere."

"This Economy is Not the Happiest Place on Earth"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, AM 1/20/22:
"This Economy is Not the Happiest Place on Earth"
"Things are getting worse by the day. The Economy will not be able to run away from inflation. It will eventually be swallowed up by this. I am at Downtown Disney Today."

Gregory Mannarino, "The Economic Nosedive Worsens"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 1/20/22:
"The Economic Nosedive Worsens"

Wednesday, January 19, 2022

"Banks Keep Shutting Down - Is Your Cash Safe? Stock Market Begins To Panic"

Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 1/19/22:
"Banks Keep Shutting Down - Is Your Cash Safe? 
Stock Market Begins To Panic"

"Big Pharma’s Siege of America"

"Big Pharma’s Siege of America"
by Jim Rickards

"Remember this time last year when the vax bandwagon really got rolling? The vax had been announced in November 2020 and was fast-tracked through the approval process (on an experimental basis at the time). But it took a while to get to doses shipped and distributed and for people to become aware of where they could get it. That played out over December 2020, but by January 2021, the effort was in full swing.

The first thing those getting jabbed learned was they would have to return in a few weeks for the “second dose.” That was understood and widely accepted, although the Janssen vaccine is different and only requires one shot. Janssen is not nearly as available as the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. The bandwagon continued through 2021 to the point that about 70% of the U.S. population is now fully vaccinated.

So Much for the “Pandemic of the Unvaccinated”: But by September 2021, doubts arose about the efficacy of the vaccines. They never did stop infections and don’t stop the spread of the virus, but the public was led to believe otherwise. As the Delta variant raged in August and September, followed by the Omicron variant in November, the entire vax story started to fall apart. The elites who have blamed earlier outbreaks on the “unvaxxed” and those who are fully vaxxed themselves began to get COVID by the millions. They belatedly realized that this was not a pandemic of the unvaxxed but was a pandemic where everyone is vulnerable. As I’ve said all along, the virus goes where it wants.

Big Pharma Doubles Down: Still, Moderna and Pfizer came forward with a “booster” shot, which is really just another dose of the same vaccine as a solution. Tens of millions lined up for their boosters in the fall of 2021, only to get the Omicron variant of COVID when it ran out of control in December. So the booster didn’t work either. In fact, there was some evidence that the vaxxed and boosted are more vulnerable to Omicron than the unvaxxed because we have “taught” the virus to evade the vaccines by giving people so many injections.

There’s also some evidence suggesting that repeated vaccination weakens the immune system overall, making people more vulnerable to other diseases. Since these vaccines are experimental, it’ll take years to fully understand their effects. But rather than admit failure or at least offer a note of caution, Big Pharma is at it again.

Big Pharma Triples Down: The CEO of Moderna says a fourth dose of his vaccine will be needed by this fall. He doesn’t call it a fourth dose; he calls it a second “booster.” But it’s the same thing. What this really means is that the effects of the vaccine wear off after three–six months and you’ll have to get “boosters” the rest of your life and take your chances with serious side effects, including heart failure and even death.

I can understand why the drug companies favor that. I don’t understand why everyday Americans would. Maybe we should all look to Israel…"96.2% Vaccinated Israel Swamped With COVID." When it comes to vaxxing the entire population, no country is more aggressive than Israel. They acquired large quantities of imported vaccines and recently began an effort to manufacture their own vaccines in order not to rely on imports.

Beginning in December 2020, Israel vaccinated 14% of their population in a mere three weeks. Today, the rate of fully vaccinated Israelis is 96.2%, the highest in the world. Israel was also aggressive when it came to boosters and is already working on plans for a fourth shot (or second booster). But this vax campaign has not really helped Israel. They had huge outbreaks last summer and another wave from Delta and are now swamped with new cases from the Omicron variant.

All of this is consistent with the best research that shows the vaccines do not prevent infection and do not stop the spread of the disease. However, they do reduce severe cases and fatalities, at least until they lose their potency after a period of months.

Scientists Want Government to Admit Vaccine Failure: Now serious scientists and clinicians in Israel are calling upon the government to admit that the vaccines don’t work as expected and to work on other ways to control the virus, including effective treatments instead of ineffective vaccines. The letter is addressed to the Israeli government, but it’s equally accurate as applied to vaccine mandates anywhere in the world, including the U.S.

As I stated earlier, it looks like we’re at the point where the vaccines may be doing more harm than good by, in effect, training the virus to mutate in ways that defeat the vaccines. The irony of this is that the unvaccinated may have better natural immunity than the vaccinated against Omicron since the virus has mutated in order specifically to defeat the spike proteins produced by the vaccines.

Mounting Evidence of Serious Side Effects: More evidence is emerging about the side effects of the vaccines, including heart failure among otherwise healthy men under 40 and reproductive damage to women of childbearing age. In addition, the number of young, otherwise healthy professional athletes who have died or suffered serious cardiac events is alarming. The number of incidents greatly exceeds what can be expected by chance, based on previous years’ data.

It’s unlikely the Israeli government will admit to any of these failures; they have taken an all-or-nothing approach to the vaccines, much like U.S. public health authorities like Dr. Fauci. Unfortunately, this means the vax mandates and endless boosters will continue for now. Still, the rest of the world is wresting with the same issues. Lockdowns, quarantines and mandatory vaccines are not free. They destroy economies. Let’s hope the vaccine madness ends before the economy is run into the ground.

Reason for Hope: And today, there’s new reason for hope. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has just announced that England will be lifting requirements for COVID passes, ending mask mandates and canceling work-from-home requirements. “As COVID becomes endemic, we will need to replace legal requirements with advice and guidance, urging people with the virus to be careful and considerate of others,” Johnson said.

In other words, the virus is here to stay and we’re just going to have to learn to deal with it, like we deal with annual flu outbreaks. We should protect the most vulnerable (the elderly and those with serious comorbidities), but the rest of society needs to function as normally as possible. Were you listening, President Biden?"

"China's Property Sector Is Crashing Again And It Has Reached The Country's Biggest Developer"

Full screen recommended.
"China's Property Sector Is Crashing Again And 
It Has Reached The Country's Biggest Developer"
by Epic Economist

"China’s crashing housing and commercial real estate markets are making the headlines once again as the country’s biggest property developer has been hit by a liquidity crunch and is now at risk of collapsing. Since last year, the slow collapse of the nation’s second-biggest developer, Evergrande, is keeping investors worldwide on edge as they fear the company’s bankruptcy is going to have a knock-on impact on China’s entire real estate sector and send the world into a financial crisis. And now that Country Garden Holdings – the largest investment-grade developer in the country – is in major trouble with international bondholders, it seems that we’re one step closer to a global financial meltdown.

The company was one of the few remaining large, better-quality private developers that had been unscathed by the liquidity crunch, even while other big groups, such as Shimao, faced dramatic reversals in their credit ratings. In December, Shimao’s implosion was viewed as “more devastating than debt crisis at Evergrande and Kaisa”. And now it seems like Country Garden is the final and most visible property giant for contagion risk, as extraordinary levels of stress in the offshore bond market threaten to drag credit ratings down.

Just as Evergrande and every other developer peer that relied on debt to fuel growth, Country Garden needs access to funding in the offshore credit market to pay for its projects. But given that the Chinese government has recently shut that door, the company is now coping with a debt load to the tune of US$11.7 billion, representing its total outstanding US dollar bonds, as Bloomberg reported.

According to Bloomberg, the main risk plaguing the developer right now is its limited access to funding. “Any sign of doubt in the firm's capacity to weather liquidity stress risks may prompt a widespread repricing of other higher-quality developers,” analysts wrote. In other words, if the company doesn’t prove that it’s capable to obtain financial support to finish its projects, it may end up downgrading the credit ratings of its peers and triggering a sizable crash in the nation’s housing prices.

With over 3,000 housing projects spread across every single Chinese province, Country Garden's financial health has enormous economic and social consequences, far greater than Evergrande. Even more worrying, if the group starts showing signs of weakness, it will dramatically damage the already fragile investor and homebuyer confidence, compromising China's economy and even social stability. Experts argue that’s when China's Lehman moment will finally emerge.

Now, investors are paying close attention to Country Garden's capacity to raise funding from a variety of channels, especially considering that the offshore credit market remains effectively closed to most developers. The company must repay or refinance about US$1.3 billion on bonds this year, the majority of which are dollar notes. Its next bond maturity is a US$425 million bond due on January 27. Any indication of default can make the situation far more complicated.

Keeping in mind that investor confidence is at historic lows, and the dollar bond market is essentially shut for developers, the sector currently has very limited refinancing options, which increases the risk of companies failing to pay the debt on time. “Risks across the Chinese property sector are rising, evident from difficult refinancing conditions for even the most well-regarded firms,” said Wei Liang Chang, a macro strategist at DBS Bank. “Greater clarity on the disclosure of liabilities as well as asset sales are crucial to shore up confidence,” he added. Bloomberg estimates also point out that at least seven Chinese developers have defaulted on dollar bonds since October. And this crisis is about to hit a whole new level as the very foundation of the property market loses financial support.

If you’re wondering why does all of this matters, the truth is that as investor and consumer confidence evaporates in China, the inevitable collapse of these massive companies will hamper at least 25 percent of the Chinese GDP and set off a tsunami of bankruptcies this year, leaving a dent on global financial markets and slowing down the global economy.

In the best-case scenario, Beijing will have a recession on its hands. In the worst-case scenario, a depression may follow, which will leave the world’s central banks scrambling to bail out the second biggest economic superpower on the planet. Regardless of the outcome, the impacts are going to be very painful. In short, this means that we’re heading to an era of credit tightening while inflation continues to soar and eats up a larger share of our purchasing power with each passing month."

Celente and the Judge, "Perilous Times, Disagree with “Authorities”, Go To Jail"

Full screen recommended.
Celente and the Judge, 
"Perilous Times, Disagree with “Authorities”, Go To Jail"

Tucker Carlson, "We’re Watching Civilization Collapse In Real Time"

Full screen recommended.
Tucker Carlson, 
"We’re Watching Civilization Collapse In Real Time"

We have indeed lost our collective sanity...

Gregory Mannarino, "Zero Chance Of Inflation Slowing Down, Going From Very Bad To Much Worse"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 1/19/22:
"Zero Chance Of Inflation Slowing Down,
 Going From Very Bad To Much Worse"

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Courting the Moon"

Full screen recommended. Beautiful!
2002, "Courting the Moon"
"This song is from our latest album, 'Hummingbird.' A Mayan legend says that the hummingbird is actually the sun in disguise, and he is trying to court a beautiful woman, who is the moon."

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Large galaxies and faint nebulae highlight this deep image of the M81 Group of galaxies. First and foremost in the wide-angle 12-hour exposure is the grand design spiral galaxy M81, the largest galaxy visible in the image. M81 is gravitationally interacting with M82 just below it, a big galaxy with an unusual halo of filamentary red-glowing gas.
Around the image many other galaxies from the M81 Group of galaxies can be seen. Together with other galaxy congregates including our Local Group of galaxies and the Virgo Cluster of galaxies, the M81 Group is part of the expansive Virgo Supercluster of Galaxies. This whole galaxy menagerie is seen through the faint glow of an Integrated Flux Nebula, a little studied complex of diffuse gas and dust clouds in our Milky Way Galaxy."

"It Was Ironic..."

"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

“Thucydides in the Underworld”

“Master, what gnaws at them so hideously their lamentation stuns the very air?”
“They have no hope of death,” he answered me…”
- Dante Alighieri, “The Inferno”

“Thucydides in the Underworld”
by J. R. Nyquist

“The shade of Thucydides, formerly an Athenian general and historian, languished in Hades for 24 centuries; and having intercourse with other spirits, was perturbed by an influx into the underworld of self-described historians professing to admire his History of the Peloponnesian War. They burdened him with their writings, priding themselves on the imitation of his method, tracing the various patterns of human nature in politics and war. He was, they said, the greatest historian; and his approval of their works held the promise that their purgatory was no prologue to oblivion.

As the centuries rolled on, the flow of historians into Hades became a torrent. The later historians were no longer imitators, but most were admirers. It seemed to Thucydides that these were a miserable crowd, unable to discern between the significant and the trivial, being obsessed with tedious doctrines. Unembarrassed by their inward poverty, they ascribed an opposite meaning to things: thinking themselves more “evolved” than the spirits of antiquity. Some even imagined that the universe was creating God. They supposed that the “most evolved” among men would assume God’s office; and further, that they themselves were among the “most evolved.”

Thucydides longed for the peace of his grave, which posthumous fame had deprived him. As with many souls at rest, he took no further interest in history. He had passed through existence and was done. He had seen everything. What was bound to follow, he knew, would be more of the same; but after more than 23 centuries of growing enthusiasm for his work, there occurred a sudden falling off. Of the newly deceased, fewer broke in upon him. Quite clearly, something had happened. He began to realize that the character of man had changed because of the rottenness of modern ideas. Among the worst of these, for Thucydides, was that barbarians and civilized peoples were considered equal; that art could transmit sacrilege; that paper could be money; that sexual and cultural differences were of no account; that meanness was rated noble, and nobility mean.

Awakened from the sleep of death, Thucydides remembered what he had written about his own time. The watchwords then, as now, were “revolution” and “democracy.” There had been upheaval on all sides. “As the result of these revolutions,” he had written, “there was a general deterioration of character throughout the Greek world. The simple way of looking at things, which is so much the mark of a noble nature, was regarded as a ridiculous quality and soon ceased to exist. Society had become divided into two ideologically hostile camps, and each side viewed the other with suspicion.”

Thucydides saw that democracy, once again, imagined itself victorious. Once again traditions were questioned as men became enamored of their own prowess. It was no wonder they were deluded. They landed men on the moon. They had harnessed the power of the atom. It was no wonder that the arrogance of man had grown so monstrous, that expectations of the future were so unrealistic. Deluded by recent successes, they could not see that dangers were multiplying in plain view. Men built new engines of war, capable of wiping out entire cities, but few took this danger seriously. Why were men so determined to build such weapons? The leading country, of course, was willing to put its weapons aside. Other countries pretended to put their weapons aside. Still others said they weren’t building weapons at all, even though they were.

Would the new engines of destruction be used? Would cities and nations be wiped off the face of the earth? Thucydides knew the answer. In his own day, during an interval of unstable peace, the Athenians had exterminated the male population of the island of Melos. Before doing this the Athenian commanders had came to Melos and said, “We on our side will use no fine phrases saying, for example, that we have a right to our empire because we defeated the Persians, or that we have come against you now because of the injuries you have done us – a great mass of words that nobody would believe.” The Athenians demanded the submission of Melos, without regard to right or wrong. As the Athenian representative explained, “the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.”

The Melians were shocked by this brazen admission. They could not believe that anyone would dare to destroy them without just cause. In the first place, the Melians threatened no one. In the second place, they imagined that the world would be shocked and would avenge any atrocity committed against them. And so the Melians told the Athenians: “in our view it is useful that you should not destroy a principle that is to the general good of all men – namely, that in the case of all who fall into danger there should be such a thing as fair play and just dealing. And this is a principle which affects you as much as anybody, since your own fall would be visited by the most terrible vengeance and would be an example to the world.”

The Athenians were not moved by the argument of Melos; for they knew that the Spartans generally treated defeated foes with magnanimity. “Even assuming that our empire does come to an end,” the Athenians chuckled, “we are not despondent about what would happen next. One is not so much frightened of being conquered by a power like Sparta.” And so the Athenians destroyed Melos, believing themselves safe – which they were. The Melians refused to submit, praying for the protection of gods and men. But these availed them nothing, neither immediate relief nor future vengeance. The Melians were wiped off the earth. They were not the first or the last to die in this manner.

There was one more trend that Thucydides noted. In every free and prosperous country he found a parade of monsters: human beings with oversized egos, with ambitions out of proportion to their ability, whose ideas rather belied their understanding than affirmed it. Whereas, there was one Alcibiades in his own day, there were now hundreds of the like: self-serving, cunning and profane; only they did not possess the skills, or the mental acuity, or beauty of Alcibiades. Instead of being exiled, they pushed men of good sense from the center of affairs. Instead of being right about strategy and tactics, they were always wrong. And they were weak, he thought, because they had learned to be bad by the example of others. There was nothing novel about them, although they believed themselves to be original in all things.

Thucydides reflected that human beings are subject to certain behavioral patterns. Again and again they repeat the same actions, unable to stop themselves. Society is slowly built up, then wars come and put all to ruin. Those who promise a solution to this are charlatans, only adding to the destruction, because the only solution to man is the eradication of man. In the final analysis the philanthropist and the misanthrope are two sides of the same coin. While man exists he follows his nature. Thucydides taught this truth, and went to his grave. His history was written, as he said, “for all time.” And it is a kind of law of history that the generations most like his own are bound to ignore the significance of what he wrote; for otherwise they would not re-enact the history of Thucydides. But as they become ignorant of his teaching, they fall into disaster spontaneously and without thinking. Seeing that time was short, and realizing that a massive number of new souls would soon be entering the underworld, the shade of Thucydides fell back to rest.”

"Binaural Beats Happiness Frequency Brainwave Music - Serotonin, Dopamine, Endorphin Release Music"

Full Screen recommended.
"Binaural Beats Happiness Frequency Brainwave Music -
Serotonin, Dopamine, Endorphin Release Music" 

"Brainwave Power Music dedicates ourselves to creating original sound therapy music, using unique Musical Compositions, Binaural Beats and Isochronic Tones as our primary sound elements mixed with different instruments and soundscapes to create a relaxed audio environment. We have one main goal: To help others through our music, be it for physical, emotional, mental or spiritual purposes. We constantly upload new music, and continue to work hard to provide new quality music for everyone."

Folks, we’re in the fight of our lives, and for our lives, literally. I for one will take any edge I can get, and you should, too. This works, as simple as that. I hope you use it, as I do… Stay strong!
- CP

The Poet: Galway Kinnell, "Another Night in the Ruins"

"Another Night in the Ruins"

"How many nights must it take
one such as me to learn
that we aren't, after all, made
from that bird that flies out of its ashes,
that for us
as we go up in flames,
our one work is
to open ourselves,
to be the flames?"

~ Galway Kinnell

Free Download: Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"

"If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders - what would you tell him to do?"

"I... don't know. What could he do? What would you tell him?"

"To shrug."
- Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged "

"Learn to distinguish the difference between errors of knowledge and breaches of morality. An error of knowledge is not a moral flaw, provided you are willing to correct it; only a mystic would judge human beings by the standard of an impossible, automatic omniscience. But a breach of morality is the conscious choice of an action you know to be evil, or a willful evasion of knowledge, a suspension of sight and of thought. That which you do not know, is not a moral charge against you; but that which you refuse to know, is an account of infamy growing in your soul. Make every allowance for errors of knowledge; do not forgive or accept any break of morality."
- Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"
Freely download "Atlas Shrugged", by Ayn Rand, here:

"Just Look At Us..."

"Just look at us. Everything is backwards; everything is upside down. Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroy information and religions destroy spirituality"
- Michael Ellner

"Banks are Getting Worried about the Economy - No More Mortgages"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, PM 1/19/22:
"Banks are Getting Worried about the Economy - 
No More Mortgages"
"The Fed Money Printer is running overtime and about to overheat. Even banks are getting concerned about the economy and they want to sit this one out. There are banks that have made the decision that they are not going to write mortgages anymore."

The Daily "Near You?"

Overland Park, Kansas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Financial Hanky-Panky"

"Financial Hanky-Panky"
by Bill Bonner

Normandy, France - "In public policy, the cycles of learning and forgetting are very long. Napoleon attacked Russia in 1812. Three years later, the empire was wrecked and he was exiled to Elba. It took 131 years for memories of the grim war to fade. Then, in 1941, Hitler tried it again. Four years later, Russian troops were in Berlin and the führer was nothing more than a scattering of ashes and charred teeth.

Price controls must be the economists’ equivalent of a winter campaign in Russia. Always disastrous; they are among the things that fool some of the people all the time and the rest of them occasionally. Which is more than enough for most public policies.

Emperor, Diocletian, provided a ‘teachable moment’ in 301AD. His ‘Edictum de pretiis’ showed all the world that controlling prices doesn’t work. Goods disappear – making them more valuable, not less. And in the US, it’s been 60 years since Richard Nixon had a short and comic go at price controls. Maybe it is time to give it another try?

We take it for granted that most economists are morons, corporations are greedy and politicians lie. Economists have their moments of clarity. Politicians sometimes tell the truth. But businesses are always greedy. 24/7. Just like consumers. And members of Congress. But it’s not every day that the Fed adds $8 trillion in new money to the economy… and the federal government spends $23 trillion it doesn’t have. That’s what has happened since the 21st century began. It’s probably not a coincidence that prices are rising now.

Dishonest Prices: Another thing we take for granted is that if there is anything the Argentines don’t know about political corruption or financial hanky-panky… it is probably not worth knowing. So, we cast our eyes down across the broad, dark Rio de la Plata; maybe we’ll learn something.

In an honest economy, consumer prices should go down, not up. Corporations lower prices as they become more efficient and competition becomes more intense. From GlobalFinancialData: "Amazingly enough, the Nineteenth century was a period of deflation, rather than inflation. From the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 until the start of World War II in 1914, there was no inflation in most countries, and in many cases, prices were lower in 1914 than they had been in 1815."

Businesses only raise prices when they have to… or when they can get away with it. And in an honest economy they have neither the opportunity or the need. But now, consumer prices are rising at a 7% rate in the US. But business costs – as measured by the Producer Price Index – are rising even faster, at almost 10%. CGTN: "U.S. producer prices jumped 9.7% year-on-year in December 2021, to the highest level on record, according to figures released by the Labor Department on Thursday."

Bear in mind, these are the rates after they have been tortured by the government’s statisticians. If they calculated price increases the way they did back in the ‘80s, they would show consumer prices rising at a 15% rate… and producer prices soaring at around 20%.

This leaves businesses with little choice. They have to raise prices or lose money. It also leaves the deciders who run the government and print the money with a decision to make: stop the inflation… or lie about it. Naturally, they choose to lie. Who’s to blame for rising prices? Not the people who control the money! No… it’s corporate greed. Supply side disruptions. The COVID.

While all of these things have roles to play, they are like bit players in a bank heist. One drives the getaway car. One stands lookout. But the real work is done by the feds themselves – cracking the nation’s safe… adding trillions to the money supply… and spreading it throughout the economy via deficit spending. Then, as prices rise, they try to ‘talk them down’ with Whip Inflation Now buttons… they accuse corporations of ‘profiteering’… and in their dumbest and most harmful move, they try to control prices directly.

Lessons from Paris, North and South: Here, as with the ‘sanitary passes’, France’s president Emmanuel Macron leads the troops into Moscow. It’s a “war,” says the little corporal. Last month, he gave out the word that consumers can rest easy this winter; the government would prevent greedy energy companies from raising prices. This caused the shares of EDF, the large French electricity company to go almost into free fall… the stock has lost a third of its value over the last month.

This too is straight out of the Pampas Playbook. Our colleague, Joel Bowman, now in Buenos Aires, comments: "Jeez... these people need to send a fact-finding mission to the Paris of the South!"

Here, the populist Kirchnerista government subsidized utility prices for years as a kind of 'brioche for the masses.' Unsurprisingly, their once sound infrastructure soon fell into terrible disrepair. Nobody wanted to invest, given negative returns. Ergo, no investment... So, when rolling blackouts hit the city - around this time every year, as everyone cranks up the AC - the ‘Ks’ revert to their old playbook, blaming the 'evil companies' for price gouging, taking advantage of the poor.

Here's a photo of my bimonthly electricity bill (below), from Edenor. That's 2,431 pesos per two months. Even at official rates, that's about $24... total. Unofficially (exchanging dollars for pesos on the ‘blue’ - i.e. free - market) it's half that... or about $3/month.
(Source: Edenor. Translation: Consumo con subsidio del estado nacional - Consumption with subsidy from the national state.)

Unfortunately, as the Argentines found out after years of price controls, subsidies and neglect, in the end, you get what you pay for. ‘No hay almuerzo gratis,’ as they say. But wait. There’s a big difference between Argentina and America. Different hemispheres. Different languages. And different money. Maybe the financial laws that doomed Diocletian and the Argentines, don’t apply to us?

Stay tuned..."

"Decide..."

“We're all going to die. We don't get much say over how or when, but we do get to decide how we're gonna live. So, do it. Decide. Is this the life you want to live? Is this the person you want to love? Is this the best you can be? Can you be stronger? Kinder? More Compassionate? Decide. Breathe in. Breathe out and decide.”
- “Richard”, “Grey’s Anatomy”

"Totalitarian Paranoia Run Amok: Pandemics, Lockdowns & Martial Law"

"Totalitarian Paranoia Run Amok: 
Pandemics, Lockdowns & Martial Law"
By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead

“Totalitarian paranoia runs deep in American society, and it now inhabits the highest levels of government.” - Professor Henry Giroux

"Once upon a time, there was a government so paranoid about its hold on power that it treated everyone and everything as a threat and a reason to expand its powers. Unfortunately, the citizens of this nation believed everything they were told by their government, and they suffered for it.

When terrorists attacked the country, and the government passed massive laws aimed at paving the way for a surveillance state, the people believed it was done merely to keep them safe. The few who disagreed were labeled traitors.

When the government waged costly preemptive wars on foreign countries, insisting it was necessary to protect the nation, the citizens believed it. And when the government brought the weapons and tactics of war home to use against the populace, claiming it was just a way to recycle old equipment, the people believed that too. The few who disagreed were labeled unpatriotic.

When the government spied on its own citizens, claiming they were looking for terrorists hiding among them, the people believed it. And when the government began tracking the citizenry’s movements, monitoring their spending, snooping on their social media, and surveying them about their habits - supposedly in an effort to make their lives more efficient - the people believed that, too. The few who disagreed were labeled paranoid.

When the government allowed private companies to take over the prison industry and agreed to keep the jails full, justifying it as a cost-saving measure, the people believed them. And when the government started arresting and jailing people for minor infractions, claiming the only way to keep communities safe was to be tough on crime, the people believed that too. The few who disagreed were labeled soft on crime.

When the government hired crisis actors to take part in disaster drills, never alerting the public to which “disasters” were staged, the people genuinely believed they were under attack. And when the government insisted it needed greater powers to prevent such attacks from happening again, the people believed that too. The few who disagreed were told to shut up or leave the country.

When the government started carrying out covert military drills around the country, insisting it was necessary to train the troops for foreign combat, most of the people believed them. The few who disagreed, fearing that perhaps all was not what it seemed, were shouted down as conspiracy theorists and quacks.

When government leaders locked down the nation, claiming it was the only way to prevent an unknown virus from sickening the populace, the people believed them and complied with the mandates and quarantines. The few who resisted or voiced skepticism about the government’s edicts were denounced as selfish and dangerous and silenced on social media.

When the government expanded its war on terrorism to include domestic terrorists, the people believed that only violent extremists would be targeted. Little did they know that anyone who criticizes the government can be considered an extremist.

By the time the government began using nationalized police and the military to routinely lockdown the nation, the citizenry had become so acclimated to such states of emergency that they barely even noticed the prison walls that had grown up around them.

Now every fable has a moral, and the moral of this story is: if it looks like trouble and it smells like trouble, you can bet there’s trouble afoot. Unfortunately, the government has fully succeeded in recalibrating our general distaste for anything that smacks too overtly of tyranny.

After all, like the proverbial boiling frogs, the government has been gradually acclimating us to the specter of a police state for years now: Militarized police. Riot squads. Camouflage gear. Black uniforms. Armored vehicles. Mass arrests. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Batons. Strip searches. Surveillance cameras. Kevlar vests. Drones. Lethal weapons. Less-than-lethal weapons unleashed with deadly force. Rubber bullets. Water cannons. Stun grenades. Arrests of journalists. Crowd control tactics. Intimidation tactics. Brutality.

This is how you prepare a populace to accept a police state willingly, even gratefully.

You don’t scare them by making dramatic changes. Rather, you acclimate them slowly to their prison walls. Persuade the citizenry that their prison walls are merely intended to keep them safe and danger out. Desensitize them to violence, acclimate them to a military presence in their communities, and persuade them that only a militarized government can alter the seemingly hopeless trajectory of the nation.

It’s happening already. This is psychological warfare at its most sophisticated. Almost every national security threat that the government has claimed greater powers in order to fight - all the while undermining the liberties of the American citizenry - has been manufactured in one way or another by the government.

What we’ve seen play out before us is more than mere totalitarian paranoia run amok. What has unfolded over the past few years has been a test to see how well “we the people” have assimilated the government’s lessons in compliance, fear and police state tactics; a test to see how quickly “we the people” will march in lockstep with the government’s dictates, no questions asked; and a test to see how little resistance “we the people” will offer up to the government’s power grabs when made in the name of national security.

Most critically of all, this has been a test to see whether the Constitution - and our commitment to the principles enshrined in the Bill of Rights - could survive a national crisis and true state of emergency.

We have failed the test abysmally. We have also made it way too easy for a government that has been working hard to destabilize to lockdown the nation. Suddenly, the events of recent years begin to make sense: the invasive surveillance, the extremism reports, the civil unrest, the protests, the shootings, the bombings, the military exercises and active shooter drills, the color-coded alerts and threat assessments, the fusion centers, the transformation of local police into extensions of the military, the distribution of military equipment and weapons to local police forces, the government databases containing the names of dissidents and potential troublemakers.

The government is systematically locking down the nation and shifting us into martial law. This is how you prepare a populace to accept a police state willingly, even gratefully. It’s time to wake up and stop being deceived by government propaganda."
Related:
"The Grim Fate That Could Be ‘Worse Than Extinction’"
"What would it take for a global totalitarian government to rise to power
 indefinitely? This nightmare scenario may be closer than first appears."

"The Monstrous Thing..."

"The monstrous thing is not that men have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other, they should want roses. For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured - disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui - in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable. And all the while a meter is running inside and there is no hand that can reach in there and shut it off."
- Henry Miller, “Tropic of Cancer”