"State law holds that stealing merchandise worth $950 or less is just a
misdemeanor, which means that law enforcement probably won't bother to investigate."
So, we rise from the rubble...
Tuesday, August 13, 2024
"Who Owns America? Oligarchs Have Bought Up the American Dream'
"Who Owns America?
Oligarchs Have Bought Up the American Dream'
By John & Nisha Whitehead
George Carlin, "The American Dream"
Strong Language Alert!
"Who owns America? Is it the government? The politicians? The corporations? The foreign investors? The American people? While the Deep State keeps the nation divided and distracted by a presidential election whose outcome is foregone (the police state’s stranglehold on power will ensure the continuation of endless wars and out-of-control spending, while disregarding the citizenry’s fundamental rights and the rule of law), America is literally being bought and sold right out from under us. Consider the facts.
We’re losing more and more of our land every year to corporations and foreign interests. Foreign ownership of U.S. agricultural land has increased by 66% since 2010. In 2021, it was reported that foreign investors owned approximately 40 million acres of U.S. agricultural land, which is more than the entire state of Iowa. By 2022 that number had grown to 43.4 million acres. The rate at which U.S. farmland is being bought up by foreign interests grew by 2.2 million acres per year from 2015 to 2021. The number of U.S. farm acres owned by foreign entities grew more than 8% (3.4 million acres) in 2022.
We’re losing more and more of our businesses every year to foreign corporations and interests. Although China owns a small fraction of foreign-owned U.S. land at 380,000 acres (less than the state of Rhode Island), Chinese companies and investors are also buying up major food companies, commercial and residential real estate, and other businesses. As RetailWire explains, “Currently, many brands started by early American pioneers now wave international flags. This revolution is a direct result of globalization.” The growing list of once-notable American brands that have been sold to foreign corporations includes: U.S. Steel (now Japanese-owned); General Electric (Chinese-owned); Budweiser (Belgium); Burger King (Canada); 7-Eleven (Japan); Jeep, Chrysler, and Dodge (Netherlands); and IBM (China).
We’re digging ourselves deeper and deeper into debt, both as a nation and as a populace. Basically, the U.S. government is funding its existence with a credit card, spending money it doesn’t have on programs it can’t afford. The bulk of that debt has been amassed over the past two decades, thanks in large part to the fiscal shenanigans of four presidents, 10 sessions of Congress and two wars. The national debt (the amount the federal government has borrowed over the years and must pay back) is more than $34 trillion and will grow another $19 trillion by 2033. Foreign ownership makes up 29% of the U.S. debt held by the public. Of that amount, reports the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, “52 percent was held by private foreign investors while foreign governments held the remaining 48 percent.”
The Fourth Estate has been taken over by media conglomerates that prioritize profit over principle. Independent news agencies, which were supposed to act as bulwarks against government propaganda, have been subsumed by a global corporate takeover of newspapers, television and radio. Consequently, a handful of corporations now control most of the media industry and, thus, the information dished out to the public. Likewise, with Facebook and Google having appointed themselves the arbiters of disinformation, we now find ourselves grappling with new levels of corporate censorship by entities with a history of colluding with the government to keep the citizenry mindless, muzzled and in the dark.
Most critically of all, however, the U.S. government, long ago sold to the highest bidders, has become little more than a shell company, a front for corporate interests. Nowhere is this state of affairs more evident than in the manufactured spectacle that is the presidential election. As for members of Congress, long before they’re elected, they are trained to dance to the tune of their wealthy benefactors, so much so that they spend two-thirds of their time in office raising money. As Reuters reports, “It also means that lawmakers often spend more time listening to the concerns of the wealthy than anyone else.”
In the oligarchy that is the American police state, it clearly doesn’t matter who wins the White House, because they all work for the same boss: a Corporate State that has gone global.
So much for living the American dream. “We the people” have become the new, permanent underclass in America. We’re being forced to shell out money for endless wars that are bleeding us dry; money for surveillance systems to track our movements; money to further militarize our already militarized police; money to allow the government to raid our homes and bank accounts; money to fund schools where our kids learn nothing about freedom and everything about how to comply; and on and on.
This is no way of life. It’s tempting to say that there’s little we can do about it, except that’s not quite accurate. There are a few things we can do (demand transparency, reject cronyism and graft, insist on fair pricing and honest accounting methods, call a halt to incentive-driven government programs that prioritize profits over people), but it will require that “we the people” stop playing politics and stand united against the politicians and corporate interests who have turned our government and economy into a pay-to-play exercise in fascism.
Unfortunately, we’ve become so invested in identity politics that label us based on our political leanings that we’ve lost sight of the one label that unites us: we’re all Americans. The powers-that-be want us to adopt an “us versus them” mindset that keeps us powerless and divided. Yet as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the only “us versus them” that matters is “we the people” against the Deep State."
"Disaster Approaches"
"Disaster Approaches"
Different elites fight for control of the government, by taking
wealth from one group and giving it to another. With control of the
machinery, they use it to move even more wealth in their direction.
by Bill Bonner and Tom Dyson
“As resources committed to benefits decline,
resources committed to control must increase.”
- Joseph Tainter
Poitou, France - "We’re trying to get to the bottom of it. Why do so many policy decisions turn out to be mistakes? Why are the mistakes not random, but always erring in one direction? And what can we expect next? To frame the question in cartoonish form: Why don’t they hit the brakes before driving off a cliff?
We have seen that the political system is a fraud. We don’t have a real democracy; we have a DINO... democracy in name only. Our elected representatives do not really represent us; they represent the special interests who provide them campaign money (and jobs... speaking fees... etc). It is not a government ‘by the People,’ in other words... it is one of elites, competing to control our political system.
Today, we’re looking at how it got that way and where it likely leads. In today’s news, Politico reports: "Harris, Trump see votes in not taxing tips." All citizens are to be treated equally, or so it says in the Civics textbooks. But today, politicians bid openly for votes by promising... what else?... other peoples’ money. Any taxes not paid on tips will have to be made up by taxes (including the inflation tax) on others. College loans, too, when not repaid by the borrower, will have to be paid by someone else.
Different elites fight for control of the government. They do it, largely, by taking wealth from one group and giving it to another. Then, with control of the machinery, they use it to move even more wealth and power in their direction.
Over time, they become more brazen. Ripping off the voters becomes more routine, more accepted. Resources are put to use not to increase benefits (by investing in new factories and so forth), but to control the distribution of existing benefits (by making campaign contributions, etc.) Then, it is not just the individuals who are corrupt... but the system itself. And as disaster approaches... the elites are paid not to see it coming. Why else has no major candidate - Kamala, Walz, Trump or Vance - mentioned that the US is going broke?
You might think that the feds make ‘errors.’ What else could you call George W. Bush’s $8 trillion War on Terror? Or how about Donald Trump’s $1.9 trillion tax cut (with no corresponding cut in spending... it simply increased the nation’s debt... passing along the bill to the next generation)... and what about all those ‘stimmy’ checks? When did it ever make sense to shut down the real economy and pass out trillions in printed-up credit money?
Congress and the Fed err consistently. Congress has produced only four balanced budgets in the last fifty-six years. And the Fed errs too. Pricing credit too low, it causes debt to grow from just $1.4 trillion in 1968 (the last year you could change your dollars for gold at a fixed rate)... to over $94 trillion today.
These mistakes aren’t random. Congress doesn’t underspend sometimes and overspend others. Instead, for every annual surplus since 1968, there were thirteen deficits. And for every dollar of surplus there were seventy eight dollars of deficit.
Why the lopsidedness in the nation’s most important ledger? Why not balance out the spending/borrowing with taxes, surpluses and budget cuts? Wouldn’t ‘we, the people’ be better off if we were debt free? The US now spends more on interest on the national debt than on defense; wouldn’t we all be better off if that money were available to meet today’s challenges, rather than paying for the errors of the past?
Gold Medal Spenders: Of course, politicians favor spending rather than saving. But so do the voters. At home, it means more money for pensions and medical care. Abroad, it means the US team rides roughshod over adversaries; voters’ hearts swell as if they had won an Olympic medal themselves.
Democrats and Republicans have both pledged not to cut transfer payments (pension and medical care, primarily) ‘by a single penny.’ And both promise more money to Ukraine and to Israel. It’s not hard to see why. Giving away money buys votes. And the firepower industry and Israel have the richest, most powerful lobbies in the country.
The ‘political caste’ uses its resources to control the distribution of wealth. As it becomes more powerful, the society becomes more corrupt... with more and more wealth going to favored groups. The top 1% makes out, well, like bandits. Since 1990, when the Fed began backstopping the stock market, the wealth of the top 1% of US households has increased by $31 million each... 680 times more than the wealth increase for the bottom half of all households.
Even in real estate, the tippy top of the wealth pyramid sees most of the benefits. In the ten years, 2010-2020, those with average household income of $180,000 gained $6 trillion in housing ‘investment.’ Those with average incomes of $29,000 gained only $330 billion - not even enough to keep up with inflation during that period.
But wait... there’s more. Why let them wreck the nation’s finances... load up the next generation with debt... practically guarantee inflation... and make almost everyone poorer? What perverse madness is this? Stay tuned."
Market Note, by Tom Dyson: "Important recession indicators are starting to light up. We've been covering the Sahm Rule, which triggered two weeks ago, and the yield curve recession indicator, which is on the verge of being tripped, in our BPR columns for paid readers. Here's another one: the credit spread recession indicator.
When the economy is booming, lenders aren't fussy about who they lend their capital to. Risky borrowers get access to capital on almost the same terms as the safest borrowers. But as the economy moves into the bust phase, and bankruptcies multiply, and liquidity tightens, lenders become far more cautious.
In the markets, this caution manifests as a higher interest rate spread between rates that riskier borrowers pay and rates that safer borrowers pay. This chart shows this credit spread. We can now add last week's dramatic widening of the credit spread to our list of flashing recession indicators..."
Click image for larger size.
Dan, I Allegedly, "This is a Con Job - You Can't Escape It!"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 8/13/24
"This is a Con Job - You Can't Escape It!"
"We're seeing layoffs left and right, and the American consumer is finally fed up with the skyrocketing inflation. From the absurdity of student loan forgiveness being blocked to the insanity of how people can't even afford basic necessities like gas and rent, we're breaking it all down."
Comments here:
Adventures With Danno, "Ohio's Largest Farmers Market! This Place Has Everything!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 8/13/24
"Ohio's Largest Farmers Market!
This Place Has Everything!"
"In today's vlog, we travel to Jungle Jim's International Market in Fairfield, Ohio,
to visit the largest farmers market in Ohio and the craziest grocery store
experience in the world! I invite you to join me as we explore this enormous spectacle!"
Comments here:
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Meanwhile, elsewhere...
Full screen recommended.
Travelling with Russell , 8/13/24
"Russia's Largest Shopping Mall
After 900 Days of Sanctions"
"What does Russia's largest shopping mall look
like inside after 900 days of intense sanctions?"
Comments here:
Monday, August 12, 2024
"Alert! Prepare For 'Day X', Iran, Russia, China, N. Korea Are Preparing For The End Game"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 8/12/24
"Alert! Prepare For 'Day X', Iran, Russia, China,
N. Korea Are Preparing For The End Game"
Comments here:
"Beware, WW3 Is Closer than You Think; Small Businesses Under Siege; Families And Dreams Crushed"
Jeremiah Babe, 8/12/24
"Beware, WW3 Is Closer than You Think;
Small Businesses Under Siege; Families And Dreams Crushed"
Comments here:
"A Look to the Heavens"
"These three bright nebulae are often featured in telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius and the crowded starfields of the central Milky Way. In fact, 18th century cosmic tourist Charles Messier cataloged two of them; M8, the large nebula left of center, and colorful M20 on the right. The third, NGC 6559, is above M8, separated from the larger nebula by a dark dust lane. All three are stellar nurseries about five thousand light-years or so distant.
The expansive M8, over a hundred light-years across, is also known as the Lagoon Nebula. M20's popular moniker is the Trifid. Glowing hydrogen gas creates the dominant red color of the emission nebulae, with contrasting blue hues, most striking in the Trifid, due to dust reflected starlight. The colorful skyscape recorded with telescope and digital camera also includes one of Messier's open star clusters, M21, just above the Trifid. "
"Dead Romans Agree: Don’t Let The Small Stuff Bother You"
"Dead Romans Agree:
Don’t Let The Small Stuff Bother You"
by John Wilder
"I woke up this morning just irritated. No particular reason. In all fairness, it was entirely an internal feeling, and I imagine most people never noticed. I was nice and polite to nearly everyone I interacted with. And why not? None of them were my ex-wife. I wasn’t irritated with them, I was just irritated. There were no issues. I wasn’t in pain. No one around me was in particular trouble. Thankfully I’m not an electrician – people might dislike me not being positive at work.
As I thought about it, what was irritating me? I couldn’t quite put a finger on it. There was no rational reason at all. During a conversation lat night, though, I had a reason to quote Marcus Aurelius: “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
Sure, Marcus Aurelius’ kid was an utter tool, but when you become Caesar at 18, well, it might tend to go to your head – think of Commodus as Miley Cyrus, 180 A.D. Back to Marcus, though. Marcus genuinely did his best for the Roman Empire. As near as I can tell, Marcus was a pretty good leader. And that little quote above wasn’t written for you and me. It was written for Marcus, by Marcus. He was reminding himself that the external things in the world had only the power he gave them. He was giving himself a pep talk.
Marcus Aurelius was right. In the conversation I was having lat night, the person was very upset (most of you don’t know the person, though specific readers in California and Indiana do – hi guys!). The reason she was upset? Nothing rational at all. So I quoted a dead Roman emperor. Did it help? I don’t know. I’m beginning to see a pattern where crying people don’t stop crying when I quote dead Roman emperors. I’m beginning to see why the kids call The Mrs. when they want actual human sympathy.
My irritation (I think) came from the same place. Nowhere. I felt fine (except for my right knee which is much better now) and the day generally went fairly well. I realized that the advice I gave was meant just as much for me as for the person I was talking to. I was just being irritated because I let myself be irritated.
Once I was done and realized I didn’t have to be irritated? My irritation disappeared. I know that the way I feel is (generally) my choice. I can choose how I feel: salty, Wednesday, or even drunk. The only reason that I’m not happy every morning is if I choose not to be happy on some particular morning.
Are there actual reasons why I might have different feelings? Sure. If I had mental problems (other than an unseemly affection for awful jokes and a desire to consciously be able to make my fingernails grow absurdly fast) that might be a reason to have a feeling other than what I choose.
Don’t know. I do know that there are people with actual mental problems. There’s proof: some people actually voted for Biden. But, going back to Marcus, that’s not external. Being sick or goofy enough to vote for Biden isn’t external.
Physical pain also is an internal source that can destroy moods. I once (for a few months) had sciatica. I was irritable enough every morning to chew nails and spit bullets. Then I discovered that I could work out for a few hours on an elliptical trainer to make the pain go away. A week later? I was fine. My irritation vanished along with my sciatica, never (hopefully) to return. That was nearly 15 years ago. Sure, I’ve felt pain since then, but most of it was the good pain from a hard workout. Heck, most days the worst thing that happened was the crisp morning breeze running through my back hair.
My mood depends on me. My attitude depends on me. Does that mean that I can’t see the actual situation we’re in? Of course not. I see a nation tearing itself apart. It’s worse: it’s not just a nation, Western Civilization seems to be happily thrashing about as it marches down a path to extinction.
Is that good? Of course not. Does it mean that I should walk around every day being sad? Of course not. I am doing, I assure you, everything I can think of to stave off that darkness. I mean, those memes won’t make themselves. And I am doing it cheerfully. I laugh every day. I smile because I know that most of the things that I worry about can have no power over me unless I give them that power.
Make your choices, and understand that while you might wake up irritated – it’s your choice if you wish to stay in that mood for a minute or an hour. Me? I like being happy, so I choose that, even in moments where it might not be appropriate. I might even need to stop high-fiving people at funerals.
So, I got started late typing this after a day I chose to just be irritated. And, I’m going to choose to end now. With a smile on my face. Go and have a great day. Most of the time, having a great day is just a choice. Choose wisely."
○
"The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable,
or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same. "
- Carlos Castaneda
Chet Raymo, "Asperges Me, Domine "
"Asperges Me, Domine "
by Chet Raymo
"Our earliest mammalian ancestors were presumably nocturnal - to escape the predations of dinosaurs - but for most of human history we have been afraid of the dark, huddling in caves around stuttering fires, curled together in darkness like mice in a burrow. Night belonged to animals with big, dark-adapted eyes and sharp teeth, to footpads and graverobbers, to werewolves and vampires. Ironically, it was with the coming of electric illumination that it became reasonably safe to go out and about at night, even as the illumination erased the best reason to do so.
William Blake called day Earth's "blue mundane shell... a hard coating of matter that separates us from Eternity." At night we peer into infinity, awash in a myriad of stars. We creep to the door of the cave and look up into the Milky Way and catch a glimpse of divinity - everlasting, all-embracing, utterly unknowable. Night - that cone of shadow, that wizard's cap of spells and omens - is the chink in Earth's shell through which we court Ultimate Mystery the way Pyramus courted Thisbe.
Which is why, I suppose, that whenever I think of "the porch" of people who visit here, I imagine Carolina rockers on a southern summer verandah, far from city lights, Vega, Deneb and Altair swimming in the Milky Way, fireflies flickering on the lawn. At some point the conversation ceases and we simply sit, rock, and listen to the sounds of the night- the whippoorwill, the bullfrog, the cricket and the owl - and let starlight fall upon our heads like a sprinkling of holy water."
"Asperges Me, Domine"
"Wash me, Lord. Sprinkle me with hyssop and I shall be clean."
- The Catholic Mass
"Ah, You Miserable Creatures!"
"Ah, You Miserable Creatures!"
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great!
You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything!
Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
- Frederic Bastiat
_sjw.jpg)
How much more evidence do you need to
realize we as a society have lost our collective minds?
"Wars And Rumors Of War, 8/12/24"
Full screen recommended.
Danny Haiphong, 8/12/24
"What Putin Just Did to Israel is Shocking as
Hezbollah's Russian Missiles Swarm IDF, Iran Looms"
Vladimir Putin just sent a major warning to Israel that has Netanyahu on red alert as Russia's aid to Hezbollah and Iran begins to pay major dividends. Bombshell events over the last 24 hours have revealed something huge about what Hezbollah and Iran is readying for the IDF.
Comments here:
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Larry C. Johnson, 8/12/24
"Israel’s Epic Struggle vs. Iran -
Russia's Devastating Blow to Ukraine's Army!"
Comments here:
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Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 8/12/24
"Ray McGovern:
Ritter’s Courage, Israel’s Moral Crisis"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Times Of India, 8/12/24
"Israeli Military Shuts Down Southern Regions
As Iran Could Strike Anytime From Now"
"With tensions escalating, the Israeli Defense Forces have shut down southern regions ahead of Tisha B’Av, a major Jewish holiday. Amid growing fears of a possible Iranian attack, the closures are part of efforts to safeguard civilians, especially as large prayer gatherings are expected."
Comments here:
"What Did $6.5 Trillion in Money Printing Achieve?" (Excerpt)
"What Did $6.5 Trillion in Money Printing Achieve?"
by David Stockman
Excerpt: "Here we go again. The Fed has spent the last 16 years fueling the mother of all financial bubbles on Wall Street. And by way of spillover effects on the mortgage market, it has also fostered parallel bubbles in commercial and residential real estate assets alike, across the length and breadth of the land.
Now these bubbles are once again bursting, of course, under the inexorable force of economic gravity (i.e. unsupportable debt and absurd valuation multiples), meaning that both ends of the Acela Corridor will be soon bleating loudly for another round of bailouts and frenetic money printing. But before the powers that be are able to rekindle yet another monetary rinse-and-repeat episode, the question recurs as to what has been accomplished since August 2008 by the $6.5 trillion increase in the Fed’s balance sheet over that interval?
Well, when it comes to measuring the bread and butter output of the US economy—manufactured goods, energy, mining and gas, electric, and other utilities—the answer is pretty much nothing. The industrial production index today stands hardly a tad above its August 2008 level. To be exact, the index has gained just 0.15% per annum during the last 16 years.
That’s an abrupt comedown from the prior trend. As it happened, between 1950 and 2008, the industrial production index rose by 3.50% per year. That is to say, unprecedented money-pumping and the resulting diminutive level of interest rates generated an industrial output growth rate equal to only 4% of its historic level, and not for a year or two but the better part of the first quarter of the Twenty-First century.
Our Keynesian monetary central planners, however, would say the flatlining of industrial production makes no nevermind because they have managed to keep total GDP expanding at an arguably respectable rate. Thus, between Q2 2008 and Q2 2024 real GDP rose from $16.9 trillion to $22.9 trillion or by 1.91% per annum, according to the official statistics. That was well short of the 3.41% per annum growth rate over the same 1950 to 2008 interval, but at 56% of its historic average, it wasn’t macroeconomic chopped liver, either.
Except, except. When you look at the internals, the real GDP woodpile is heavily populated by statistical skunks - most especially when it comes to the inflation indexes used to deflate the nominal data for spending and output. And, if you materially undercount inflation you can easily turn a macroeconomic sow’s ear into the semblance of a silk purse.
As reported, for instance, the goods component of real GDP rose from $3.37 trillion in Q2 2008 to $5.45 trillion in Q2 2024. That $2.08 trillion gain computes to a fulsome growth rate of 3.05% per annum, thereby lifting the top-line real GDP figure considerably."
Full, highly recommended article is here:
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"Do You Believe..."
“Do you believe,’ said Candide, ‘that men have always massacred each other as they do today, that they have always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates, brigands, idiots, thieves, scoundrels, gluttons, drunkards, misers, envious, ambitious, bloody-minded, calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, hypocrites, and fools?”
“Do you believe,” said Martin, “that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they have found them?”
- Voltaire
"And Never, Never To Forget..."
“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”
- Arundhati Roy, "The Cost of Living"
Travelling with Russell, What is the Future of Russian Transport: Moscow 2030"
Meanwhile, in a sane, civilized society...
Full screen recommended.
Travelling with Russell, 8/12/24
"What is the Future of Russian Transport:
Moscow 2030"
"What does the future of Russian Transport look like? Join me at Moscow2030 to discover what Transport will be like in Russia. This expo is part of a larger event detailing future exploits of the Russian Transport industry. From trains to buses and from cars to trams."
Comments here:
"Disaster and Opportunity"
"Disaster and Opportunity"
by Jeff Thomas
"The Mandarin word for "crisis" is weiqi. But weiqi is actually two words – the first, "wei," meaning disaster and the second, "qi," meaning opportunity. For thousands of years, the Chinese people have understood that disaster and opportunity come in the same package. Whenever a period of dramatic change is unfolding, the Chinese people recognise that change, in addition to potentially bringing disaster, also presents opportunity.
To the western mind, crisis is a negative condition only, and as people wish to escape negativity as quickly as possible, westerners tend to support whatever leaders promise to make the problem go away quickly. Of course, what this really leads to is a society in which those leaders who are the most trusted will be those who promise the easiest solution, regardless of how unrealistic it may be. So we have a culture of people who support the papering-over of problems. The catch is that, whilst we can get away with papering-over as a temporary fix, when systemic problems have developed, papering-over only puts off the inevitable, as well as ensuring that, when the problem is finally addressed, it will be far greater.
For decades, westerners, particularly in the US, have voted for those candidates who promise "Hope and Change" and "Make America Great Again." Of course, these are paper-thin slogans that do not in any way bear scrutiny. In them, there is not even a suggestion of an actual plan. All that’s really being provided is a new face on the government, whilst the same people remain in charge behind the scenes.
Somehow, American voters seem to be more interested in the latest cardboard-cutout of a leader than in those who actually rule, and whether there is an actual plan. But once the election party is over and all the bunting has been taken down, it would be hoped that the leaders would dedicate themselves to problem-solving. However, in the West, this is rarely the case. What we tend to see instead is endless posturing, which accompanies four years of continued papering-over.
Of course, this can’t continue forever. At some point, the flimsy structure topples and the crisis must be dealt with. We have recently entered one such crisis. And so, in the West, we can count on the political class to do the one thing they know how to do: keep papering. They will create far greater deficits, debt and entitlements, and on the other side of the leger, far greater taxation and, eventually, confiscation.
Until now, what we have been seeing is a fragile edifice that has been papered-over countless times and will soon collapse. Once the dust has settled on that collapse, we can expect the political class to busy themselves applying paper to the rubble that remains. Historically, this is the way empires die.
And to be fair to the US, they are not the only structure that will topple. The EU, UK, Canada and quite a few others that have, until now, been regarded as the First World have, over the last seventy-five years, thrown in their lot with the US. They too have used the same philosophy as to crisis and will experience the same outcome.
So, is that it? The whole world will collapse? Well, no, not at all. Historically, whenever one empire has hit the skids, there have always been others in the wings, ready to rise, and that is just as true today. The political world abhors a vacuum, and whenever one country falls, there is always another ready to fill the gap.
And of course, westerners do fear the rise of China, which has achieved perhaps the greatest growth of any country in history. From impoverished nation to world leader in just a few decades. But then, the Chinese do live by the principle that, in crisis, both disaster and opportunity are equally possible.
And in discussions with Chinese businesspeople, this is evident. Many are eager to get on with the crisis, as it means the opportunity to create new businesses and new markets and a whole new approach to prosperity. But in focusing on China as the great threat to Western hegemony, westerners almost invariably fail to understand that weiqi is not solely a Chinese concept; it’s a guiding principle for Asians in general.
In Korea, the concept is called "gihoe" and in Japan, it’s "kikai." But the underlying principle is the same. And in one Asian country after another, we can see the effects of this perception of opportunity as an integral part of any crisis.
In each country in Asia, we can take a drive and see hundreds of large, completed apartment blocks, as yet unused. If we ask our Asian companions why this anomaly exists, they seem surprised. They explain that, over the next five to ten years, even these won’t be enough to house the many people who will be moving to the city to handle the increase in production that’s anticipated, as Asia takes over the supply of goods to other parts of the world. Surely, westerners understand that such preparation is necessary if progress is to be swift?
Even those Asian locales that westerners tend to regard as war-torn casualties are in preparation mode. If we sit down for dinner with an industrialist in Viet Nam, he may talk of his present small portion of the market as perhaps being $100,000,000 per annum, but he is presently reinvesting his profits into expansion programmes so that, in the next decade, his company will cease to be such a small player.
Even the DMZ – the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, a location that the West remembers as an impenetrable minefield – is presently being carpeted with countless pre-engineered steel warehouses – a free-trade zone in which the two countries can expand their respective prospects in preparation for reunification in 2045.
It’s been said that the twenty-first century will be the Asian century, and that is quite so. If we examine an IQ map of the world, we find that the Asian IQ tends to be higher than on any of the other continents. Whilst we may not like to admit it, they have an intellectual edge, and more to the point, they are clearly using it. Whilst those in the West are seeing the wei – the disaster – Asians are also seeing the qi. They understand that they are entering a period of great opportunity. And the future will be primarily theirs to command."
Gregory Mannarino, "The U.S. Economic Meltdown Is Worsening Much Faster Than We Thought"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 8/12/24
"The U.S. Economic Meltdown Is Worsening
Much Faster Than We Thought"
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"How It Really Disgracefully Is"
41,000 homeless veterans in August, 2024
"Although national tracking of veteran suicide rates is unreliable at best, the VA
estimates that 22 veterans commit suicide each day. This means approximately
8,030 veterans kill themselves every year, more than 5,540 of whom are 50 or older."
o
Oh, but $150 BILLION For Ukraine...
And don't get me started on those Israeli monsters...
A Comment: On October 8,1968, I enlisted at 17 years old, with parental consent, into the United States Marine Corps, becoming an MOS 0311 Infantry Rifleman. I said these words..."I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God." - Oath of Enlistment. We took that oath because we believed in America, believed that it was good and decent and honorable, with freedom, that it really was the best place for everyone from everywhere to live your life. I was lucky and made it back; many of my buddies didn't. This is not the country I and they swore allegiance to then. I look now and have no pride or hope anymore, only anger and disgust with the shameful disgrace we've allowed our country and ourselves to become, and am glad I'm 72 years old and don't have to watch this horror unfold for too long. God help the young people for the future we've given them. I'd never say that oath now. I'm ashamed to be an American... - CP
Bill Bonner, "Ad Blues"
"Ad Blues"
The Fed has a huge bias in favor of errors that benefit powerful, moneyed groups... leading us to guess that its next error will be, once again, to under-price credit for privileged borrowers.
by Bill Bonner
"Тhey [Romans] were forced to debase the currency. Debasing the currency for them was the same as borrowing is for us. It basically shifts the cost of solving your problems on to the future. Now, you can do that if the future doesn’t have any problems of its own. And we know that never happens, right? So the future has to deal with its own problems plus the cost of the past problems that you’ve deferred the cost of. "
- Joseph Tainter
Poitou, France - "After our car blew up, we rented a Citroen van. All was well until a light flashed on, telling us to put in something called ‘AdBlue.’ It further informed us that if we didn't do so within thirty kilometers, the car would not start. Oh my... another thing to deal with.
Adblue? A French website told us that it is an “additive required by Europe intended to reduce harmful emissions from diesel engines. The additive goes into the exhaust system and converts toxic gas into water vapor.” Jeepers creepers. We were out in the country. Where could we get this ‘AdBlue?’ We hunted on the internet and found it at a filling station not too far away. But the exercise took time and attention away from other things.
“Tainter was right,” we said to Elizabeth. “Tainter who?” “Joseph Tainter. He explained why societies always go into decline. Each challenge brings a response. And each response takes energy. Rules and regulations are put in place... but rarely removed. So, people end up using energy for things that no longer matter. And rather than pay the full costs of the response, they borrow or print the money... so as to push the costs onto the future. Then, as the future happens, it is burdened by debts, rules, laws, and regulations that are relics of previous problem solving.”
Central Financial Planning: Last week, we saw that every Fed policy choice is an error. There are an infinite number of possibilities for the Fed Funds rate. Choosing just the right one at just the right time is very unlikely. The Fed is trying to do something that never works - central financial planning.
Each and every choice made by the Fed is an error; it cannot help but misprice credit. A rate that is too high prevents borrowers from getting the credit they need. A rate that is too low encourages them to borrow too much. Either way, the economy is distorted and enfeebled.
Each policy decision is an attempt to deal with a current problem. But the error causes problems downstream that then must be addressed with more policy choices, causing even more problems. The decade-plus of ‘zero’ interest rates, for example, 2009-2021, led to today’s inflation and $35 trillion in debt. So, the Fed is now trapped between ‘inflate or die’ - fighting inflation while also trying to prevent a debt meltdown.
We also saw that the Fed’s errors were not random. If they were sometimes too high and sometimes too low, they would average out to somewhere close to where they ought to be. Instead, the Fed chooses rates that are almost always too low, thus encouraging too much credit and setting the country up for a credit crisis.
In 1968, economists advising the Johnson administration thought they saw a problem. The nation needed more credit. It would be a simple and painless move, they believed, to cut the domestic dollar off from gold. Problem... solution! Since then, the amount of credit outstanding in the US has gone from $1.4 trillion to $94.5 trillion today. That’s a 66-times increase. US GDP, meanwhile, was around $1 trillion in 1968. Now, it’s $28 trillion. (We may have previously gotten these numbers wrong...)
In other words, credit has expanded three times faster than output. Corporate debt too has risen thirty-five times since the dollar became a ‘credit money.’ The cheap credit was what made possible the ‘financialization’ of the US economy - with much higher levels of capitalization, deal flow, debt and M&A activity.
So, imagine your family. In 1968, you owed $100,000. Now you owe $6.7 million. Imagine the good times you could have had - spending that extra $6.6 million that you never earned. Houses... cars... vacations... granite countertops... air-conditioned garages and in-ground pools - they may have exceeded your earnings... but not your credit.
You can imagine too how the local economy would have gotten a boost. Typically, people spend money from wages. So, in order to go into the local economy... money must first come out of the local economy. But this was not a real money boom, this was a credit money faux-boom. It is as if the money came like manna from Heaven... it gave your family and the whole community around you a big ‘stimulus.’
Making it Worse: But wait. Say your own income rose in step with GDP. You earned $10,000 in 1968. Now, you earn $280,000. Not to put too fine a point on it, but you are broke, busted... no bread... nuthin.’ You wouldn’t be able to keep up with the debt service, even if you devoted 100% of your pre-tax earnings (at 5% interest). But instead of recognizing the problem and correcting it, US authorities are making it worse... by pushing even more of today’s problems into the future (with $2 trillion annual deficits) and preparing to cut interest rates, (thereby making it easier to borrow more money).
Problems are sometimes real and important. And sometimes phony and convenient. AdBlue? We don’t know. But the Fed has a huge bias in favor of errors that benefit powerful, moneyed groups... leading us to guess that its next error will be, once again, to under-price credit for privileged borrowers. This will help solve the problems of recession/job slowdown/bear market on Wall Street/funding federal deficits... and so forth. It will also give rise to even bigger debt and inflation problems in the future. Like the Romans, the feds will be ‘forced to debase the currency.’ Let us hope that the future has no problems of its own."
o
Download "The Collapse of Complex Societies",
by Joseph A. Tainter, here:
Free Download: George Orwell, "1984"
“I’ve never heard her [Kamala Harris] say anything original or observant; at her best,
she simply recites the party line. At her worst, she’s too lazy to memorize the party line.”
- Lionel Shriver
she simply recites the party line. At her worst, she’s too lazy to memorize the party line.”
- Lionel Shriver
o
“Talking to her, he realized how easy it was to present an appearance of orthodoxy while having no grasp whatever of what orthodoxy meant. In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird.”
-George Orwell, "1984"
o
“What opinions the masses hold, or do not hold,
is looked on as a matter of indifference. They can be
granted intellectual liberty because they have no intellect.”
“To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself – that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word “doublethink” involved the use of doublethink.”
– George Orwell, “1984” (1949)
o
Freely download “1984″, by George Orwell here:
Jim Kunstler, "The Party Line Is a Mighty Squishy Line"
"The Party Line Is a Mighty Squishy Line"
by Jim Kunstler
“I’ve never heard her [Kamala Harris] say anything original or observant; at her best,
she simply recites the party line. At her worst, she’s too lazy to memorize the party line.”
- Lionel Shriver
"Does anybody know what this shape-shifting chimera passed off as “our democracy” actually is? I will tell you. Like everything else in the Democratic Party’s tool-bag these days, it’s the opposite of what it appears to mean, namely: You, the demos, give us, officialdom, the power to take whatever we like from you: your savings, your liberty, your stuff, your identity, and your posterity - because we are the boss-of-you, and don’t you forget it...and, by the way, the beatings will continue until morale improves.
It’s really that simple, though the deceptions cooked up to hide it are convoluted to the max. Like: engineering the illegal entrance to the US of millions from other lands and then using procedural hocus-pocus such as motor-voter registration and public assistance applications (free money + automatic voter registration) to stuff the election drop-boxes with the ballots of non-citizens - who, get this, don’t even have to be the ones casting those ballots, which can just be harvested, like so many oven-ready pullets, by lowly hired shills. If you catch onto the ruse, you’ll be instructed that borders are arbitrary roadblocks to social justice thrown up by the old white male patriarchy, and that these are “free and fair elections.” And if you object loudly enough, you lose your job, your livelihood, your Facebook account, and maybe get thrown into solitary confinement for a year. Our democracy.
Meanwhile, we’re enjoying the spectacle of this evil party’s candidate selection tour with their joyful warriors/avatars, Harris and Walz - joyful because they laugh and laugh in the absence of articulating any actual views on the particulars of governance, and it’s infectious to witness all that mirth. There is, of course, an artificially strenuous air about all this hoopla. It rolls out in an alternative reality like one of those summer techno-pop raves where everyone is stoned on MDMA. The dream girl gets launched into center-stage by invisible forces and is joined by her prom king, and it’s just so heartwarming to get waved at by the grinning, hand-holding couple nobody voted for. This is your demos-free ticket!
Will anybody at the imminent Democratic National Convention notice how this all mysteriously came to be? And might there be any active consternation over it? Perhaps even a welling movement to pull the plug on this rave? You may be apt to wonder what is going on in the Chappaqua redoubt of She-Whose-Turn-Has-Been-(so far)-Thwarted, HRC, boss-of-all-girl-bosses, putatively retired from public life. She’s been awfully quiet since that night over a week ago when she was obliged on-stage somewhere to hug and air-kiss Ms. Harris, and made a face seconds after as if she had thrown up in her mouth.
Is she stewing in the broth of grievance but still and nonetheless tirelessly working her phone to canvas the delegates of that looming party meet-up? She might remind them that the DNC (that is, the Democratic National Committee, Inc), went broke in 2016 and got bailed out by the Clinton Foundation checkbook, and, Jeez, we can’t seem to find any repayment check from all’y’all. It seems maybe you owe us...something.
And, by the way, HRC could remind said delegates: you have allowed a laughing hyena who drinks her lunch to land at the head of the ticket for the worst reasons (viz., DEI) minus any votes from the party membership, and then managed to duct-tape a China-owned, Cluster-B head-case to her as the veep sidekick...and maybe when all the hee-hawing and hooting dies down, you’ll discover what a pair of losers you’ve allowed to be undemocratically implanted to (ha!) represent you. And also, by the way, I happen to be available as her capable-and-experienced replacement...whom you can actually vote for on the convention floor, if you manage to get your shit together...you know...our democracy, and all. Just sayin’.
That is, I’m just sayin’ what She might be thinkin’ (and sayin’). I am in no position to predict any actual outcome, but it’s hard to imagine any winning moves by the Harris & Walz team in actual play-by-play. In case you have forgotten amid all the week-long laughter and euphoria, there are important national issues to discuss about how to manage the malevolent leviathan the federal government has become, and many dilemmas and threats the people face. And there are very different records of each team’s views on these things, party by party.
Some of that discussion could happen in the (so far) one scheduled September 10 debate. If Mr. Trump can manage to be polite, he can press Kamala Harris to explain herself on things like the wide-open border, failure to negotiate with the Russians to end the Ukraine War, her party’s antipathy to public safety, her party’s promotion of gender identity insanity, its Gestapo-style lawfare operations, its endless hoaxes, and its disgraceful documented efforts to censor free speech. The record is pretty clear on all of that, and there’s a fair chance that Ms. Harris can’t possibly explain it away. Or laugh it off.
Mr. Trump has requested two more head-to-head debates, which Ms. Harris apparently wants to forego. Mr. Trump has come up with an excellent alternative: two “town hall” format appearances in which he fields questions from citizens, or from news reporters, or some combo of both. That would be much to his advantage, without Ms. Harris on stage to defend her positions - or, more likely, to dodge any coherent reply by repeating “racist racist racist,” and laughing her head off.
That is, if she even remains the nominee. Let’s see how it goes this week leading to the convention. For instance, if she and Mr. Walz can still weasel out of taking any questions from the news media. Or whether the White House (remember “Joe Biden” still lives there) and his blob compadres can engineer a major escalation into world war, to take everybody’s mind off the election race. Or if any tremors of apprehension emanate from the delegate corps packing their rolly-bags for the dreaded party confab in Chicago. You have to kind of wonder if they’re bringing any riot gear."
Dan, I Allegedly, "Banks are Now Warning Us - Is Your Money Safe?"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 8/12/24
"Banks are Now Warning Us - Is Your Money Safe?"
"Are bank runs imminent? What are they not telling you? In this eye-opening video, I dive deep into the current banking crisis, discussing the alarming increase in stories about uninsured bank deposits and the potential for catastrophic bank runs. With $7 trillion in uninsured deposits at stake, even a small percentage of people withdrawing their money could trigger unprecedented financial chaos. Why are they now warning us about this? Are the banks worried about bank runs?"
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