"The US Cannot Realistically Defend Taiwan"

"The US Cannot Realistically Defend Taiwan"

by Chris Black

"Reanimated corpse Pelosi becomes highest ranked US official to visit Taiwan. Just like with the Ukraine-Russia situation, Taiwan is part of the Chinese empire for hundreds of years, its population is 99% ethnic Chinese, and, most importantly, the country is thousands of miles away from the US, which makes logistics in case of China invades quasi-impossible.

Basically, you cannot fight China on its own turf, short of using nuclear weapons. The Chinese army in 2022 is not the Chinese army in the nineties. Any military expert can tell you that the Chinese military is incapable of being used offensively. It is specifically designed to quickly repel a US attack on its soil or immediate surroundings.

So the US engaging China in the South China Sea means attacking them where they are the strongest. They will sink every aircraft carrier to the bottom of the ocean.

No, the U.S. cannot defend Taiwan. End your delusions please.

pic.twitter.com/UrEekVDuiM

- Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.substack.com (@JordanSchachtel) August 2, 2022

Also, what the media doesn’t tell you is that a big chunk of the Taiwanese population wants reunification with China. The same thing is basically happening with Ukraine, with Eastern Ukraine being basically 90% ethnic Russian and looking to reunify with Russia.

These people are lying to you on purpose in the most absurd possible ways, telling you that Taiwan is somehow a separate country than China. I’m not really surprised that Nancy didn’t announce the Taiwan visit and then went anyway. Or at least, I shouldn’t be surprised.

This is a joke government. This administration and DEMs are worried about drag shows and pronouns with our military and then this drunk goes and screws around with China? We own this however, as anyone who voted for this drunk is crazy. We need term limits, stop congress trading in stocks, address post service lobbying, stop family lobbying “Hunter” etc.

Committee positions in Congress also need to be addressed; sorry, but Nancy can’t sit on that committee for 20 years and RINO’s and DEMs can’t be allowed to own committee appointments like they do today. None of this will really happen though, we can’t even get accurate fair elections. The people who run the USA regime have enjoyed world hegemony since 1989, which means they consider every corner of the globe within their “sphere of influence” (which is, hypocritically, a concept officially rejected by NATO).

Ukraine is to Russia as Mexico is to USA, and Puerto Rico is to USA as Taiwan is to China. USA wouldn’t like Russian or Chinese activity in Puerto Rico or Mexico for the same reason Russia/China don’t like USA right up in their sh*t. The difference is, the people who run the USA regime still think of themselves as global hegemon in a unipolar world.

Russia calling NATO’s bluff is an indication the people who run USA are losing their world hegemonic status and we are transitioning to a multipolar world. Nancy Pelosi is trying to assert that old unipolar energy and say “not so fast.” Bottom line, if they really wanted to send Nancy to invade, they could have just announced it. Instead, they refused to announce it – then sent her jet on a bizarre course, flying all the way around the Philippines for no reason. I’ve never seen anything remotely similar to this situation. These people just invent new confounding behavior patterns daily. No good. No good."

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com

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Related:

“'Those Who Play With Fire Eventually Get Burned',

 Xi Tells Biden On Taiwan"

"We Were Specifically Warned About This Coming War 

With China All The Way Back In The 1990s"

Bill Bonner, "A Phony Façade"

"A Phony Façade"

Amid soaring debt and falling income, 

the feds propose a $739 billion dollar lie.

by Bill Bonner

Baltimore, Maryland - "With 100 million Americans under heat advisory, President Biden promises executive action." ~ A headline at Deseret News.

We’ve been following what we believe is the crack-up of American family finance. Real wages are falling. Mortgage rates are rising. House prices are beginning to go down. The NY Fed Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit adds detail: "Household Debt Rises to $16.15 Trillion Amid Growth in Housing and Non-Housing Balances." "Mortgage balances - the largest component of household debt - climbed $207 billion and stood at $11.39 trillion as of June 30. Credit card balances saw their largest year-over-year percentage increase in more than twenty years, while aggregate limits on cards marked their largest increase in over ten years."

And here’s the latest from UPI: "Job openings plunge in June to lowest level since 2021." "The biggest drop in available jobs was in retail with 343,000 fewer openings in June. Larger companies also offered fewer jobs, while the number of jobs offered by smaller employers went up."

Unable to refinance at lower and lower rates… Unable to get a ‘cash-out’ mortgage loan… Unable to earn enough to keep up with inflation…how does a family keep its head above water? It cuts back on spending. Which is why Walmart and other retailers are reporting fewer sales… and rising inventories. And it’s why the US economy is in recession.

Fantasies and Foolishness: Normally, the Fed might toss out some life preservers – in the form of lower interest rates. But not his time. The Fed is trapped. It is ‘inflate or die.’ And for now, the Fed will let businesses and households die. Meanwhile, it’s been a hot summer. People are calling on the president to take action.

What action can an executive take? Can he command the wind to give us a gentle breeze? Can he order the clouds to shade us from the sun? No? We didn’t think so. But maybe he can reduce inflation?

Reading the news is like wading into a swamp. You don’t know what’s under the surface. And soon you are up to your neck in fantasies and foolishness… with deadly snakes nipping at your fingers. The cause, we believe, is a cynical collusion between government, academics and the media. One makes news. The others egg it on… and lie about it to the masses.

And so it came to pass last week, the Democratic Establishment unveiled legislation supposedly designed to help “hard working American families” and advertised as the “Inflation Reduction Act.” We admire bald-faced lying as much as anyone. If we could get away with it, we’d probably do it too.

Still, it is shocking how brazenly dishonest the feds can be. The deal struck between Senators Manchin and Schumer could be honestly described in many different ways. It is a pot-pourri of graft, corruption, giveaways, bribes, waste… counterproductive tax increases… green energy boondoggles… subsidies to pill poppers… a few billion here… and a few billion there…all $739 billion dollars worth!

Potemkin Production: There must be hundreds of possible ways to describe it fairly. But “inflation reduction” is not one of them. Nor will the bill help the typical household, add jobs, save lives, reduce deficits (by 2027!) or increase GDP, as supporters allege.

Prices are determined by balancing the supply of money (demand) against the goods and services it is meant to buy (supply). When government uses money for jackass purposes, it reduces supply. Naturally, prices rise. Richard Vigilante explains: "Inflation is 'always and everywhere' a result of the government constricting and displacing the real economy with its Potemkin version of phony production, phony work, and the phony money they pay for it."

Second, subsidizing ‘green’ power, is inherently inflationary. Green power is more expensive (otherwise, it wouldn’t need subsidies). More costly energy leads to higher prices for just about everything else. Says Vigilante: "The energy will appear affordable only because it will be paid for twice, once by taxpayers and once by consumers."

Of course, that is the discreet charm of the ruling class. It gets to lie, cheat, and steal without ever having to say it’s sorry. But the glory of the IRA is that it manages to pack so much mendacity into a single piece of legislation. Will the bill reduce inflation? No. Increase GDP? Not a chance. Reduce deficits? Almost certainly not. Will it add jobs? Not in a meaningful way. (You can always hire people to dig ditches and fill them up again.) Will it save lives? More likely, it will cost lives. For all the ‘pollution’ caused by the industrial age, life expectancies have INCREASED from under 40 years to over 80 years. Raising the cost of energy will make people poorer and probably reduce life spans too."

Joel’s Note: BPR’s resident macro analyst, Mr. Dan Denning, sent on this handy chart yesterday afternoon, depicting the rising total debt balance for American households. Take a look…

Among the contributors to the rising debt levels were, mortgage balances, up $207 billion during Q2, 2022; credit card balances, up $46 billion since the first quarter; and auto loan balances, up $33 billion in Q2. “Other” balances - which include retail cards and other consumer loans, were up $25 billion. Meanwhile, outstanding student loans stand at a whopping $1.59 trillion. As you can see, when it comes to the bedrock of America’s economic woes, it’s debt, debt and more debt… all the way down."

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

"The Very, Very, Very, Last Time..."

We're simply incapable of not provoking Russia and China, aren't we?

The degree of absolute incompetence and stupidity is incomprehensible...

And all we ever get is this...

And yet, despite it all, despite knowing better, we still hope...

“What happens to people living in a society where everyone in power is lying, stealing, cheating and killing, and in our hearts we all know this, but the consequences of facing all these lies are so monstrous, we keep on hoping that maybe the corporate government administration and media are on the level with us this time. Americans remind me of survivors of domestic abuse. This is always the hope that this is the very, very, very last time one’s ribs get re-broken again.”

- Inga Muscio

"A Matter Of Life And Death: Tens Of Millions Of Americans Will Be Without Medicine Once Trade With China Stops"

"A Matter Of Life And Death: Tens Of Millions Of Americans

 Will Be Without Medicine Once Trade With China Stops"

by Michael Snyder

"If you are against a war with China, you need to make your voice heard while you still can. Because once the bullets start flying, it will be too late. Once a war with China starts, our current standard of living won’t just be interrupted. The truth is that our current standard of living would end. There are thousands upon thousands of products that we currently get from China that would very quickly disappear from store shelves. They simply would not be available any longer. And Taiwan produces more of our microchips than anyone else in the world by a very wide margin. When the microchips stop flowing our whole economy will come to a crashing halt. So the stakes are incredibly high, and most people don’t seem to realize this.

Nancy Pelosi knew that her visit to Taiwan would absolutely enrage the Chinese, but she did it anyway…"Pelosi and the rest of her delegation disembarked from a U.S. Air Force transport plane at Songshan Airport in downtown Taipei after the nighttime landing on a flight from Malaysia to begin a visit that risks pushing U.S.-Chinese relations to a new low. They were greeted by Taiwan’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu, and Sandra Oudkirk, the top U.S. representative in Taiwan.

Her arrival prompted a furious response from China at a time when international tensions already are elevated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. China considers Taiwan part of its territory and has never renounced using force to bring it under its control. The United States warned China against using the visit as a pretext for military action against Taiwan."

China is warning that there will be a military response, and the whole world is waiting to see what that will be. If the Chinese don’t do anything more than they have already done, it will look like a big victory for Nancy Pelosi and the United States. There is no way that Xi Jinping is going to allow that to happen, and what happens next could change everything.

It is being reported that Chinese forces are gathering near the coast for a potential invasion, but I don’t think that China will launch a full-blown invasion of Taiwan quite yet. Instead, I think that it is far more likely that China could grab a couple of the small islands right off the Chinese coast that currently belong to Taiwan. If that happens, I believe that the Biden administration would feel compelled to respond very forcefully. Of course if both sides keep raising the stakes it could escalate into a full-blown war in the Pacific very rapidly. And once a conflict begins, our trading relationship with China will halt. Are you prepared for that?

Needless to say, this would hurt us very badly in countless ways. For example, very little of our medicine is actually made here in the United States, and that is an enormous problem.

According to a statement posted on the official website of U.S. Representative Mike Gallagher earlier this year, 80 percent of the drugs that Americans use come from overseas, and China is the largest supplier…“The Chinese Communist Party has threatened to withhold lifesaving drugs from the U.S. once and we’d be crazy to think they won’t attempt to do so again,” said Rep. Gallagher. “Congress needs an aggressive plan to protect our critical pharmaceutical supply chains and end our reliance on China. This is a national security imperative and to many Americans, a matter of life and death.”

“The United States must end our reliance on China for lifesaving drugs and critical medical equipment,” Stefanik said. “We have become far too dependent on China’s supply chain, and their malign regime represents too great a threat to our national security for us to be at their mercy. I am proud to sponsor this legislation to equip our domestic pharmaceutical and medical manufacturers to be able to efficiently produce these items here in the United States. Through this effort, Americans can have better peace of mind regarding who they rely on for their own personal health needs,” said Conference Chair Elise Stefanik.

“Eighty percent of the drugs that Americans depend on come from overseas,” said Rep. Bill Posey. “China, whose pharmaceuticals have been subject to numerous recalls, is the largest manufacturer. As a result of this reliance, the U.S. has not produced basic medicines like in the case of penicillin since 2004.”

Are the pills that you take every day made in China? You might want to check. And once war with China starts our supply of antibiotics will also dry up very, very rapidly…"Right now, the U.S. has virtually no capacity to manufacture antibiotics. That’s because China currently controls roughly 90% of the global supply of inputs needed to make the generic antibiotics that treat bronchitis, pneumonia, pediatric ear infections, and life-threatening conditions such as sepsis.

At the peak of last year’s COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S., these generic antibiotics -including azithromycin - were urgently needed to treat secondary bacterial infections. However, the U.S. faced a potential shortage, since the key materials for azithromycin and other drugs are supplied by China."

We should have never allowed ourselves to become so dependent on one of our primary global rivals. All of the experts could see a scenario like this coming, but nothing was ever done. Two years ago, there was a major article about this in the New York Times…“If China shut the door on exports of core components to make our medicines, within months our pharmacy shelves would become bare and our health care system would cease to function,” said Rosemary Gibson, a senior adviser with the Hastings Center and an author of “China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine.”

Read that quote again. If this thing with Taiwan gets out of control and we go to war, our health care system “would cease to function” for the duration of such a conflict. So what would we do then? Does anyone out there have an answer for that?

If people can’t get their pills, many of them will go absolutely insane. Never has there been a population that is more dependent on pharmaceutical drugs than we are…"Almost 70 percent of Americans take at least one prescription medication, and more than half take at least two, according to a new study by researchers at the Mayo Clinic. The most common prescriptions are for antibiotics, antidepressants and opioid painkillers. One-fifth of Americans are taking five or more prescription drugs, CBS Atlanta reports."

As I have been warning for years, a full-blown war with China would be absolutely unthinkable. But our leaders are provoking one anyway. I wish that I had the words to express what I am feeling. We are so close to a truly cataclysmic conflict, and if it happens it will be far more horrifying than any Hollywood movie studio could ever imagine."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

○

Related:

"20+ PLA Jets Cross Median Line Over Taiwan Strait 

As Chinese Drills Encircle Island"

"China Summons US Ambassador Overnight,

 Says Washington 'Must Pay The Price'"

"Strange Prices At Dollar General! This Is Crazy!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 8/3/22:

"Strange Prices At Dollar General! This Is Crazy!"

"In today's vlog we are at Dollar General, and are noticing massive price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "Watch For A Debt Market MELTDOWN While 'The Government' Gives BILLIONS To Corporations"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 8/3/22:

"Watch For A Debt Market MELTDOWN While 

'The Government' Gives BILLIONS To Corporations"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"The Circus – A Chicken – And The Human Spirit"

"The Circus – A Chicken – And The Human Spirit"

by Ray Jason

"For several years I have been haunted by a simple photograph that I saw only one time. The image itself is not complicated, and yet its deeper meaning has eluded me and taunted me – like a riddle inside a dream.

In the photo we see a few children waiting in line at the ticket booth of a traveling circus. But instead of paying with money, each of the youngsters is offering something of real value. One has a basket of eggs, another a loaf of bread, and the third child is holding a live chicken. The reason these kids are not buying their tickets with cash, is because they are trapped in the hyperinflation nightmare of Weimar Germany in the 1930s. We have all seen the black and white pictures of fathers pushing wheelbarrows full of Deutchmarks to the store with the hopes of feeding their families.

I just spent many hours on various search engines trying to locate that circus photo, but I failed. However, is it not the writer’s task to paint a word picture as vividly as real life? So here is what I saw in that sepia-frozen moment in time.

A Big Top Amid The Ruins: The joy on the faces of the children is almost beatific as they wait their turn to present their offering like the Magi of old. From the benevolent smile of the woman in the booth, I suspect that she accepted every item – no matter how humble. In a matter of minutes they would be inside the mighty tent with joy swelling within them as the Ringmaster made his entrance. For two sublime hours they could escape the trauma of daily lives shattered by the decrees of far away gray old men, who would never have to share their suffering.

The performers and their audience were bound together under the Big Top in a sort of dilapidated symphony to the Human Spirit. The tattered circus -barely scraping by from town to town, and the common folk who did their best to support them, refused to lose faith in the dream of a brighter tomorrow. After all, if the men on the flying trapeze would risk their lives for a common, backyard chicken then hope must not be extinguished.

The Circus Of Today: In the 1930s a circus would have been one of the highlights of the year for an ordinary family. Today a young person is bombarded with a huge array of distractions disguised as attractions. Sitting together on the hardwood benches beneath the Big Top was a bonding experience. But slouching around in the living room, with everyone fixated on their own Hypno-screens, isolates people.

The children in the old photo had real life skills. They could raise the chicken and fetch the eggs and bake the bread. What can their modern counterparts do? Tweet and twerk? However, what is even more disturbing about these vapid, meaningless substitutes for real living, is their implication for human flourishing. The designers of these devices know that they are “control devices.” They are deliberately addictive. They consume their consumers. They have become almost the only source of information. And so, the people who control the messaging on the screen, create the dominant perceptions.

These are not good people. I call them our Malignant Overlords, because they are not just content with obscene wealth and immense power. Instead, their sense of superiority and entitlement is so psychotic that they believe that they should manage every detail of the average persons life.The plans that they have for our futures are beyond grim. The best simple description of it is a High-Tech Neo-Feudalism.

The Elites will waddle about in luxury in their gated and guarded communities, while the rest of us will barely scrape by. Meat will become a rare treat and our normal “food” will be goo made from insects or lab grown Frankenfood. Current middle class pleasures like owning a house or car or taking an overseas vacation, will become distant memories. The surveillance grid will become almost inescapable with kitchen appliances monitoring and reporting our behavior. Wouldn’t want to exceed one’s carbon footprint.

Cash will be banned and every electronic transaction will be logged and evaluated. Enemies of the State will see their bank accounts vaporized. All will fear Big Brother. Or will it soon be Big TransBro?

These predictions are not outlandish conspiracy emissions. Their plans can easily be found with a little online research. White papers from The World Economic Forum, the United Nations and the Rockefeller Foundation are great examples of this.At mid-year of 2022, it seems obvious that they have now transitioned from beta-testing to actual implementation of their tyrannical game plan.

Food shortages and supply chain disruptions are rampant all around the globe. Celebrities are doing slick commercials raving about the joys of insect protein. Gasoline prices are making driving a luxury that will soon be affordable for far fewer people.

Worldwide inflation is driving up food prices leading to mass famine. The “people on TV” are talking about digital currencies as though it is already a done deal. The media is full of stories about the benefits of living in tiny dwellings. The World Health Organization is trying to seize the right to decree when any human must “get their next shot.”

These are their near-term plans. Their long-range desires are even more despicable. Since robots and Artificial Intelligence will make most human beings “surplus to demand” or no longer necessary. The population will be radically reduced. The Malignant Overlords will claim that this is to Save the Planet. In actuality, it is to save the planet for themselves. That way they will no longer have to share the beautiful locations with the riff-raff. The best spots will be their private Club Med. Thinking of it as their personal Club Earth is probably an accurate image. The few humans that they will allow to continue will be implanted with micro-chips that will control them and transform them into docile, obedient cyborgs.

The Circus Of The Future: Sometime in the not too distant future, when the whole world seems hopelessly digitized and sanitized and homogenized, a rumor might circulate about a strange troupe of performers that have been hiding out in the Forbidden Forest beyond the reach of the security drones. That same rumor mentions that on the next full moon they will perform an old-style circus on the edge of the forest for all who would dare to attend.

They will not accept digital currency for their performance, but instead they request that the audience members bring “something useful.” And so I am reminded of the Weimar Children, who long ago entered the magical Big Top, in exchange for some eggs, some bread and a chicken. Since I am a Sea Gypsy, I will bring a freshly-speared fish."

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

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For more of Ray’s work please visit The Sea Gypsy Philosopher

○

Hat tip to The Burning Platform for this material.

Musical Interlude: Disturbed, "The Sound Of Silence"

Full screen recommended.

Disturbed, "The Sound Of Silence"

2002, "Land of Forever"

2002, "Land of Forever"

"A Look to the Heavens

“What makes this spiral galaxy so long? Measuring over 700,000 light years across from top to bottom, NGC 6872, also known as the Condor galaxy, is one of the most elongated barred spiral galaxies known. 

The galaxy's protracted shape likely results from its continuing collision with the smaller galaxy IC 4970, visible just above center. Of particular interest is NGC 6872's spiral arm on the upper left, as pictured here, which exhibits an unusually high amount of blue star forming regions. The light we see today left these colliding giants before the days of the dinosaurs, about 300 million years ago. NGC 6872 is visible with a small telescope toward the constellation of the Peacock (Pavo).”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160426.html 

"You May Know..."

"Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard - the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money - the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law - men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims - then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed."

- Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged”

"15 Signs That A Day Of Reckoning Has Arrived For The U.S. Auto Industry"

Full screen recommended.

"15 Signs That A Day Of Reckoning 

Has Arrived For The U.S. Auto Industry"

by Epic Economist

"Over the past decade, the U.S. auto industry has significantly boosted sales by pushing people to take on auto loans they cannot actually afford. That's been particularly true for auto loans made to consumers with subprime credit. In recent years, these loans have been accounting for an increasingly larger percentage of the market. But when you make loans to people that should not be getting them, at some point, a lot of those loans are going to start to go bad, and that is exactly what is happening now. At the same time, automakers and dealers are starting to panic as sales have begun to fall and production continues to be stalled by an ongoing shortage of semiconductors, raw materials, and workers. If you remember the last recession, then you probably recall how horrible things became for the auto sector. Now that we're entering another downturn, conditions are set to be even worse. Back in the old days, the auto industry was very resilient due to the economic strength of average U.S. consumers.

But some of the long-term economic trends that our leaders in Washington D.C. have consistently ignored led the American middle class to be systematically hollowed out, and now the purchasing power of the average American has been steadily dropping as a consequence of rampant inflation. We have become a nation of economic extremes. In the past two years, the number of millionaires exploded, and now we have more people in the top 5% of income earners than ever before. Meanwhile, poverty rates are rising at an alarming pace.

Many communities across the nation are witnessing a massive surge in the number of people living on the streets. In fact, as a recent Gallup survey showed, an all-time record high percentage of Americans is extremely worried about hunger and homelessness these days. "Over the past two years, an average of 67% of lower-income U.S. adults, up from 51% from 2019, have worried “a great deal” about the problem of hunger and homelessness in the country. Concern has also increased among middle- and upper-income Americans," the report highlights.

Those who are financially secure and have a cushion to fall back on may not be paying attention to the country's rising food and housing insecurity. But for those who are just scraping by from month to month, having enough food and a place to sleep at night are top priorities. As Gallup noted, "U.S. households at all income levels are expressing rising concern about soaring food inflation and declining housing affordability. That is the top worry among lower-income Americans, who are most likely to struggle to pay for adequate food and housing."

In addition to the woes of the auto industry, the retail industry has just gone through the worst wave of store closings in modern American history, pension funds have started melting down all over the nation, and stocks are experiencing a crash of epic proportions. Unfortunately, most people are not paying attention to the warning signs. These same things happened just before the devastating financial crisis of 2008. All evidence that a huge meltdown was about to occur where there. Many experts repeatedly argued that a collapse could be averted if action was taken sooner. But given that it was a slow-motion crash, most people dismissed the alerts and let their guards down. Then, the fall of 2008 arrived and so did a day of reckoning. For that reason, today, we compiled facts and statistics that expose the decline of the U.S. auto industry."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

"The Good Times Are Over; Credit Card Debt Explodes; Face-Ripping Crash; FED Can't Save The Market"

Jeremiah Babe, 8/2/22:

"The Good Times Are Over; Credit Card Debt Explodes; 

Face-Ripping Crash; FED Can't Save The Market"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gerald Celente, "World Economy, Dragflation: Economy Dragged Down, Inflation Spiked Up"

Strong language alert!

Gerald Celente, "Trends Journal"

"World Economy, Dragflation: Economy 

Dragged Down, Inflation Spiked Up"

"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in these increasingly turbulent times."

- https://trendsresearch.com/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Canadian Prepper, "China's Moving Nukes..."

Canadian Prepper, 8/2/22:

"China's Moving Nukes..."

"Yep, everything's just fine and dandy."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Birmingham, United Kingdom. Thanks for stopping by!

"Doomsday..."

"Doomsday is quite within our reach, 

if we will only stretch for it.”

- Loudon Wainwright III

"This Is What Will Happen To The U.S. Economy When We Go To War With China"

"This Is What Will Happen To The U.S. Economy 

When We Go To War With China"

by Michael Snyder

"Nancy Pelosi knows exactly what she is doing. She knows that going to Taiwan without China’s permission will create a major international incident, but she is doing it anyway. It is being reported that Pelosi will arrive in Taiwan on Tuesday, spend the night in downtown Taipei on Tuesday night, and then potentially meet with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday. If she does meet with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, that will infuriate the Chinese even more. Pelosi is directly challenging China’s sovereignty over the island, and that is something that the Chinese will simply not tolerate.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is on the verge of a third term in office, and so he cannot afford to show any weakness right now. The following comes from Bloomberg…"Her travels come before China’s leadership usually heads to the seaside town of Beidaihe for an annual summer gathering. President Xi Jinping is just months away from a twice-a-decade Communist Party leadership reshuffle where he’s expected to secure a third term in office, increasing the political stakes." The timing means Xi can’t afford to look weak in response to what Beijing views as foreign interference in its affairs. China held live-fire military drills over the weekend off the coast of Fujian province, which is opposite Taiwan.

In recent days Chinese authorities have been warning us over and over again that China will respond very strongly if Pelosi goes ahead with her visit. On Monday, yet another very ominous warning was issued…“We would like to tell the US once again that China is standing by, and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army will never sit idly by. China will take resolute responses and strong countermeasures to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters, when asked about the fallout from Pelosi leading a congressional delegation to Taipei. “As for what measures, if she dares to go, then let’s wait and see,” Zhao added.

This is a threat that isn’t veiled at all. The Chinese are openly telling us that the People’s Liberation Army will take action if Pelosi goes through with her visit. And a video was just released on social media which definitely appears to have been intended to send a message…"A video by the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command, which showed scenes of military exercises and preparations and was posted on state media sites on Monday evening, urged troops to “stand by in battle formation, be ready to fight upon command, bury all incoming enemies.” If you have not seen it yet, you can find the video right here. If you have an understanding of Chinese culture, then you know that things like this are never done lightly.

Here in the United States, we are being told to disregard such “propaganda” and the “empty threats” that the Chinese are supposedly making. But are they really “empty threats”? What if they aren’t? What if the Chinese really mean what they say?

I think that something that Caitlin Johnstone tweeted sums things up quite well…"Russia: Don’t cross our red lines in Ukraine or we’ll take action. US politicians: They’re bluffing. Cross those red lines. *Russia invades.* China: Don’t cross our red lines in Taiwan or we’ll take action. US politicians: They’re bluffing. Cross those red lines."

Ultimately, the Chinese were probably planning to invade Taiwan fairly soon anyway, but Pelosi’s visit certainly has the potential to greatly accelerate matters. And even though Taiwanese officials are welcoming Pelosi’s visit, they are also preparing for war at the same time…"Taiwanese defense officials have canceled the leave of some soldiers and officers “to immediately prepare” for the chance of war in response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Asia this week, according to local reports."

Sadly, war with China is coming. It is just a matter of time. So what would such a conflict do to the U.S. economy? Well, for one thing it would absolutely devastate the pharmaceutical industry…"Consider that Chinese firms are said to supply more than 90 percent of US antibiotics, 70 percent of acetaminophen (that’s Tylenol), and almost half of the anti-coagulant heparin. “Are said to” because we struggle even to gather information on this because of the opacity of the Chinese market and state-dominated record keeping. Some studies suggest up to 80 percent of the basic ingredients in US drugs come from the PRC. China is also the second largest exporter of biologics and the prime source of medical devices per the FDA. In some cases, it appears that India is a prime source of a key import – generics, for example – but that masks the fact that India sources up to 75 percent of its own pharma ingredients from China."

The food industry would also be turned upside down. In fact, it is being reported that “it is almost impossible to have a diet with foods that were not produced in China”…"According to CNN.com, experts believe that it is almost impossible to have a diet with foods that were not produced in China. Products such as chips and garlic are produced in China. Spices and herbs such as ginger and garlic are grown in China and exported to foreign markets. Chinese factories make vegetarian meat products. Many canned foods on market shelves were manufactured in China."

Our ability to produce our own food would also be greatly affected, because China produces so much of our farm machinery…"Farm machinery such as tractors, egg incubators and harvesters are manufactured in China. Chain saws, wood chippers and shredders are also produced in the country. Elevators and bulldozers are also assembled in China."

Are you starting to get the picture? We should have never become so dependent on Chinese production, because it really is a major national security threat.

Of course the Chinese also produce a lot of our clothes…"Chinese factories manufacture winter coats, gloves, mittens and hats for consumers around the world. These factories also produce maternity clothes and infant clothes as well as wedding dresses and tuxedos. Underwear, T-shirts and slips are among the items exported from China to consumers around the world. Sports caps are also produced in China as are belts and bras."

And it turns out that 70 percent of our shoes come from China too…"The United States sources 99 percent of shoes sold from overseas, with 70 percent of those coming from the PRC. Same with 72 percent of smartphones. The artificial sweeteners in Diet Coke. Toys, furniture, sports equipment … what you buy every time you go to Target."

The moment we go to war with them, the flow of cheap goods from China completely stops. In addition, once the Chinese invade Taiwan there will be an absolutely excruciating computer chip shortage. It was recently being projected that chipmakers in Taiwan would have a 66 percent share of the total global market by the end of 2023…"Taiwan’s contract chipmakers will expand their global market share to 66% by revenue this year, cementing the island’s dominant position in the chip supply chain, a new industry forecast shows."

As I have discussed previously, just about every industry in the United States relies on equipment that contains computer chips. If the flow of chips from Taiwan is eliminated, the entire global economy would come to a crashing halt. I am not just talking about a recession or a depression. I am talking about an economic collapse on a scale that most people would not be able to comprehend right now.

This is why I am so horrified by what Nancy Pelosi is doing. In a book that I published two years ago, I specifically warned that war with China would be coming. Now Nancy Pelosi has us right on the brink of such a conflict. I don’t even have the words to describe how reckless our leaders are being. Let us hope that cooler heads will prevail, because once war with China starts nothing in this country will ever be the same again."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

Don't forget Russia, who absolutely will get involved...

Gregory Mannarino, "UN Warns Of "Nuclear Annihilation'; China Threatens To Strike US Assets/Targets"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 8/2/22:

"UN Warns Of "Nuclear Annihilation'; 

China Threatens To Strike US Assets/Targets"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"It’s Worse Than Anyone Wants to Admit"

"It’s Worse Than Anyone Wants to Admit"

Jeffrey A. Tucker

"The news on July 28 was entirely consumed in the throes of another definition change. What everyone understood is that what it means to be in a recession has been suddenly changed by government edict. It’s not a recession, they say. Everything is going just great, they say, unless you are among the troglodytes who desire plentiful and low-priced energy, food, housing, and overall human thriving. Once you understand the beautiful world on the other side of the “transition” - to use the favorite word of the White House - you would see this suffering as actually beneficial in the long run. These broken eggs are making omelets.

We can argue all day about the definition of recession, but it doesn’t take us to the intellectual place we need to be. The bottom line is that what we are experiencing now includes anomalies from previous downturns precisely because it is much worse. Only a few months ago, many worried that we were going back to the 1970s. That box has been checked. Then, we worried we were going back to the 1930s. My fear is that we might wish that were true.

The White House talks about the low technical rate of unemployment without referencing the falling labor participation rates that never recovered from lockdowns because so many people just left the workforce. Millions of previously employed Americans are living off legacy largesse from families or tapping plentiful unemployment benefits just to get by month to month. Real wages and salaries have been slammed, savings rates are sinking, and credit card debt is exploding.

It’s all hard to put in a picture but we can try, nowhere more saliently expressed than the change in real wages and savings, versus savings as a percent of personal income. The stable public data here go back to 1960 and here we see just how shocking these times truly are. Personal savings is half what it typically was from the 1960s through the 1990s, and even as recently as 2012. Real disposable personal income is falling dramatically. You get a picture of a once-thriving nation being pummeled by pillaging public managers.

What is especially striking is how the hard times were preceded just before by one of history’s most duplicitous head fakes. Just after lockdowns, government flooded the frozen economy with trillions of dollars, pumped right into bank accounts around the country. It seemed like magic. We were never more prosperous, and we got that way doing nothing.

Here, we have one of the great lies in human history. Wise people among us always knew it couldn’t be true. You can’t close an economy up and cause everyone to be richer than ever. Plus it didn’t last that long. After less than a year, the astonishing bill came due. Inflation has taken a 9.1 percent bite out of savings, wages, and sages. It shattered business investment. It killed the long-term outlook of both producers and consumers. Now, nearly everyone is struggling against all odds to preserve the illusion of prosperity that is dying the death.

We were fed the biggest lie in economic history. Even now, many people believe it. More profoundly, the fake prosperity of 2020–2021 instilled a widespread public cynicism. It seemed for a time like the whole system is a racket. There are no limits to what Congress can spend and what the Federal Reserve can print. Money is just paper and there is an infinite supply. Why not go whole hog and spread it as far and wide as prosperity? Who needs work? Who needs savings? Who needs investment?

The devil himself couldn’t have constructed a better game to shatter all normal senses of reality, befuddle the population, and devastate the settled values of countless generations. The great head fake of 2020 took away our intuitive sense of cause and effect in the economic, social, and cultural realms. The whole system today has the feel of scammery, because that’s what it is.

The great economist Frédéric Bastiat in the 19th century emphasized that the real costs of policy-inspired destruction aren’t what you see but what you don’t see. It’s the investment that did not take place, the income we did not make, the savings we otherwise would have socked away but did not, the technologies that might have come into being, the jobs that would otherwise have been created, the art and music that never saw the light of day, the progress that would have defined our times that we never saw.

Bastiat called this the difference between what is visible and what is invisible. It takes some sense of abstraction, some perception that lives within the imagination, to gain a full sense of the cost of such devastation. We will never know the fullness of it but we know it is there. The invisible exists if only in unrealized hopes and dreams. The real economists, Bastiat said, must see what is unseen.

Just one quick example: whereas the Woodstock music festival took place during the 1968–1969 pandemic, most arts venues were brutally shut down during this one, some for as long as two years. Tanglewood, one of our nation’s most revered arts institutions, just shut down as if art and music didn’t matter. This vast enterprise worth hundreds of millions suddenly saw itself as unnecessary. Talk about a lack of confidence in culture!

In this case, it was just governments that did this to Tanglewood. The institution itself internalized its own worthlessness and kept itself closed for far longer than was even necessary. They imagined that they were being virtuous in keeping everyone safe. They only ended up betraying their benefactors and customers, to say nothing of the artists who depended on them to stay open even in hard times.

So it went for institutions all over the country. Small businesses, civic associations, churches, workers, savers and investors, and just about everybody but public health bureaucrats, were all made to feel worthless at best and toxic disease spreaders at worst.

In short, if this were merely a conventional recession, we would be very fortunate. What’s happening in the trendlines of every important metric is shocking. But the real devastation is in the realm of the invisible: the progress and freedom of which we were robbed. We know who did this to us. It’s the very people who made the desolation and now call it transition."

- https://www.theepochtimes.com/

"How It Really Is"

"What Will the Next Black Swan Event Be?"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 8/2/22:

"What Will the Next Black Swan Event Be?"

"What will the next black swan event be? Will it be real estate? Will it be health related? Will it be food related? Will it be banking? The stock market is always a hot one and it’s just a matter of time until the next one happens."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Bill Bonner, "All About the Money"

"All About the Money"

Jobs and housing are in trouble as the two legs of 

American middle class wealth begin to wobble.

by Bill Bonner

“When someone says, ‘it’s not about the money,’ it’s all about the money.”

~ Giants Manager, George Young

Baltimore, Maryland - "As we guessed last week, the two legs of American middle class wealth, income and houses, are both buckling. It’s still very early… but both seem to have begun downtrends. These are not isolated phenomena. Instead, they are among the many ‘dots’ that, when connected, look for all the world like Ursa Major… as in, a major bear market.

Yesterday, we explored the ‘primary trend.’ Once underway, it tends to last for decades. You can ignore it; you can fight it; you can deny it. But you can’t stop it. Stocks were in a primary downtrend from 1966 to 1982. Before that, the primary trend was up, from the bottom of the Great Depression until the mid-‘60s. The most recent bull market primary trend began in August of 1982 and continued until December of 2021. If a new, bear market primary trend has begun, we’ll see real values for stocks go down for many years. Few baby boomers will ever again see equities so richly priced as they were at the close of 2021.

Primary trends in the bond market are even longer. Bonds appear to have hit a major top in the summer of 2020, with the yield on the US 10-year bond down to 0.55%. The previous top occurred – get this – back in the late 1940s, 70 years ago.

A Relentless Trend: Markets move up and down all the time. Day to day… week to week… month to month. Often, there are countertrends that last for years. As we saw yesterday, it took four years of wiggling and waggling after 1980, before the primary trend – towards lower interest rates and higher stock prices – was clearly established.

But a primary trend is relentless. And now, after 4 decades of rising stocks and falling interest rates, have we just witnessed the beginning of a new one? Probably. Because, it’s about the money. The trend of the last 42 years was sustained by borrowing at lower and lower interest rates…with dramatic ‘saves’ by the Fed whenever a correction threatened. But those rescues are no longer possible.

Let’s look first at jobs and housing for a minute: Initial jobless claims have been rising since March and are now at a new high for the year. Shopify, 7-11, Tesla, Vimeo, Rivian, GoPuff, Remax, Redfin, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley – all have announced layoffs. The job market was never as great as advertised. The index of total hours worked in the US economy is now at 119… exactly where it was in March 2020, which means there has been no growth for the last two years. If there are more jobs, it just means that income is being divided among more workers. And hourly wages meanwhile just suffered their biggest decline in 15 years – with a 3.9% inflation-adjusted drop.

Home Sales Plummet: As for housing, the ‘affordability index’ is back down to levels that haven’t been seen in 14 years. It’s the combination of wages, prices and mortgage rates that determine how affordable a house is. And after spectacular increases in both prices and mortgage rates, houses are now as un-affordable as they were just before the last housing crisis – in 2007. Once again, the typical family cannot afford the typical house.

And now, the “dots” – showing a downturn in the real estate market – are coming together. NAHB’s ‘Housing Market Index’ just fell to a 2-year low. Builders say they are reducing prices to “limit cancellations.” Builders are becoming reluctant to put up new houses, with Housing Starts at a 14-month low in June (down 6% year-over-year). And new home sales are down 43% from their 2020 high. Existing houses, too, are no longer flying off the lots. Sales are at their lowest levels since June 2020.

Prices are still near record highs, up 40% since 2020. But the most recent reports tell us that they are beginning to sag. The median price of new houses dropped by 12% over the last two months. And it looks like a truce has been declared in the bidding wars. In January, nearly 7 out of 10 houses drew competing bids. In June, less than 50% did.

When jobs and housing give way, households need to crack open their piggy banks… borrow… or cut back. The evidence suggests they are doing all of the above. Savings rates are down. Debt is up. And inventories of unsold merchandise are piling up at Walmart. That is what happens in a recession. But what suggests to us that this is a primary trend, rather than a noisy, short-term feint, is this: for the first time in 30 years, the Fed can’t do anything about it.

Monetary Boosters: Since the switch to a pure paper dollar, in 1971, the Fed controls the money. And for the first time since Alan Greenspan came to Wall Street’s succor in 1987, the Fed is no longer able to salve investors’ hurts with easier credit. After the Crash of ’87, Greenspan cut rates. Not fast enough, according to then-president George H.W. Bush, who said the sluggish economy cost him the White House. Greenspan wouldn’t make that mistake again.

In the downturn of the early ‘90s, Greenspan got out his machete and hacked off 500 bps (500 basis points = 5%) from the Fed funds rate. Then, by the time the Nasdaq bubble collapsed, he was good at it. Between 2000 and 2002, he lopped off another 550 bps.

The next correction came on Ben Bernanke’s watch when the mortgage finance crisis hit. Bernanke knew how to play the game too; 525 bps were trimmed in 3 years. But then, Bernanke went further, with Quantitative Easing… then “Operation Twist.”

And when it was Jerome Powell’s turn, his response to the Covid Panic was almost automatic. Rates were cut down to zero. And the Federal government used its ‘printing press money’ as though it had been dropped from a helicopter. Stimmies, Payroll Protection, unemployment ‘boosters’ – it was great fun while it lasted. But then, consumer prices rose… and all of a sudden, it was a whole new ballgame. The Fed’s key lending rate was already near zero; how could it be cut further? And with inflation edging up towards the double digits, what kind of a fool would dare to cut interest rates now? That is what we wait to find out."

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

"More Empty Shelves At Meijer! This Is Crazy! What's Next?"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 8/2/22:

"More Empty Shelves At Meijer! This Is Crazy! What's Next?"

"In today's vlog we are shopping at Meijer only to find lots of empty shelves! Items are missing everywhere! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products. I have never seen Dollar Tree so empty!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "The Next New Crisis Is Now Upon Us; FED Warns On The Economy"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 8/2/22:

"The Next New Crisis Is Now Upon Us; 

FED Warns On The Economy"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Canadian Prepper, “Warning: My Most Important Video, The Stores Will Be Emptied”

Canadian Prepper, 8/1/22:

“Warning: My Most Important Video, The Stores Will Be Emptied”

“If this happens the stores will be EMPTY in a week.”

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Chuck Barone, "Misery Index at 12.7! But Will Get Much Worse!"

Chuck Barone, 8/1/22:

"Misery Index at 12.7! But Will Get Much Worse!"

"A wrap-up on today’s markets and a review of the crazy month of July. Also, predictions for the month of August with comments on the housing market, mortgage rates, cost of living, and the possible return of the 'Misery Index.'”

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Many U.S. Cities Are Resembling Post-Apocalyptic Cesspools As America’s Collapse Accelerates"

Full screen recommended.

"Many U.S. Cities Are Resembling Post-Apocalyptic 

Cesspools As America’s Collapse Accelerates"

by Epic Economist

"From coast to coast, many cities all across America are resembling post-apocalyptic cesspools as the collapse of our nation continues to accelerate. Urban centers are seeing a massive surge in the number of people living on the streets, becoming drug addicts, and engaging in serious criminal activities. The landscape of some of our most beautiful metropolitan areas is being ruined by endless piles of human and animal waste, trash and homeless encampments as more and more people face the dark side of the cost of living crisis that has been plaguing the U.S. No wonder why so many Americans are feeling unsafe and moving away from core urban regions.

LA was once considered one of the most beautiful cities on the entire planet, but things have drastically changed. Since the start of the year, LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva is being bombarded with complaints from local residents and store owners who are absolutely disgusted with the fact that politicians are bluntly ignoring the problems ravaging their neighborhood. Further north, in San Francisco, officials are confronting the worst wave of substance abuse ever recorded. One of the main consequences of having large numbers of addicts in a particular city is that criminality rates tend to increase accordingly. Dependents are always looking for ways to make more money for their next dose, and oftentimes, they resort to shoplifting.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, officers in the Atlanta area have started operating under new rules that restrict them from chasing offenders. “Given everything that's been going on here, it's getting worse and worse and worse,” one resident said in an interview with told Fox News. “The lack of leadership and the fact that nothing changing means that the insanity continues, that’s why we're demanding emergency hearings on our cityhood bills,” he continued. Up north, in New York City, filth is rapidly spreading everywhere. The Big Apple hasn’t seen this much degradation since the dirty days of the 1970s. A Daily News article uncovered that the city’s subway system is filled with trash, including cases of feces, vomit, and blood. An increase in used syringes is also being found amid growing drug use in the subway system, the report highlights.

Given that our major cities are degenerating into cesspools of addiction, delinquencies, and filth, millions of citizens are fleeing for greener pastures. In fact, North American Van Lines released a report which shows that the huge wave of migration over the past couple of years has been fueled by people’s desire to escape the chaos of urban centers. The rapid degradation of some of the wealthiest cities in the United States is a clear demonstration that our nation is falling apart. Our urban areas used to be a display of our economic prosperity, but now that things are going from worse to catastrophic in our country, they've become a reflection of our broken system. The post-apocalyptic scenario of some of our core urban areas will look gloomier and gloomier in the months ahead. A major economic downturn has already begun, and conditions will only get rockier from now on."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

"Americans Depend On The Dollar Store To Survive; Mortgage Crisis Coming"

Jeremiah Babe, 8/1/22:

"Americans Depend On The Dollar Store To Survive;

 Mortgage Crisis Coming"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Wait For Me"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Wait For Me"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Colorful NGC 1579 resembles the better known Trifid Nebula, but lies much farther north in planet Earth's sky, in the heroic constellation Perseus. About 2,100 light-years away and 3 light-years across, NGC 1579 is, like the Trifid, a study in contrasting blue and red colors, with dark dust lanes prominent in the nebula's central regions.

In both, dust reflects starlight to produce beautiful blue reflection nebulae. But unlike the Trifid, in NGC 1579 the reddish glow is not emission from clouds of glowing hydrogen gas excited by ultraviolet light from a nearby hot star. Instead, the dust in NGC 1579 drastically diminishes, reddens, and scatters the light from an embedded, extremely young, massive star, itself a strong emitter of the characteristic red hydrogen alpha light."

 - http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090130.html

"Life Is Difficult..."

“Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy. They voice their belief, noisily or subtly, that their difficulties represent a unique kind of affliction that should not be and that has somehow been especially visited upon them, or else upon their families, their tribe, their class, their nation, their race or even their species, and not upon others. Problems do not go away. They must be worked through or else they remain, forever a barrier to the growth and development of the spirit.”

- M. Scott Peck