Prepper News 12/12/25
"Alert! Oil Tanker War Explodes!
Trump Warns Putin"
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So, we rise from the rubble...
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Friday, December 12, 2025
Thursday, December 11, 2025
"Israel is Digging It's Own Grave as IDF Collapses on All Fronts"
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, 12/11/25
"Israel is Digging It's Own Grave as
IDF Collapses on All Fronts"
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Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 12/11/25
"Scott Ritter: American Killers"
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"Crazy People Refuse To Pay Their Bills And It's Spreading All Over America"
Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 12/11/25
"Crazy People Refuse To Pay Their Bills
And It's Spreading All Over America"
"Americans are refusing to pay their bills and the reasons might shock you. From rent and student loans to credit cards and healthcare, millions are simply walking away from their debt. But who's actually struggling and who's just making terrible decisions? In this video we break down real stories of people skipping rent while keeping their cars, celebrating evictions as "beating the system," and even committing fraud to escape student loans. We also look at hardworking families who do everything right but still can't afford groceries or heat.
When two incomes aren't enough to survive and the real poverty line is four times what the government says, something is deeply broken. The consequences are everywhere from locked up store shelves to organized food theft. What do you think is really going on? Drop your thoughts in the comments below. If this opened your eyes, subscribe for more real talk about what's happening in America."
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"Christmas Is Cheaper But America Is Broke - This Proves It!"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 12/11/25
"Christmas Is Cheaper But America
Is Broke - This Proves It!"
"Christmas trees are cheaper this year, but no one's buying! In today's video, I explore the struggle retailers like Home Depot are facing to sell festive trees, even with lower prices. From towering 10-foot noble furs to tiny Charlie Brown trees, the holiday season is feeling the crunch - not in spirit, but in spending. It's not just Christmas trees; businesses across industries are shutting down, food prices are soaring, and $20 minimum wages are disrupting everything from pizza places like Piology to fast-food franchises like Hardee's. Plus, shocking news on SNAP benefits, Instacart pricing scandals, and major cuts by PepsiCo are shaking things up as we head into 2026."
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Musical Interlude: Adiemus, "Adiemus"; "In Caelum Fero"
Full screen recommended.
Adiemus, "Adiemus"
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Adiemus, "In Caelum Fero"
"A Look to the Heavens"
“The beautiful Trifid Nebula, also known as Messier 20, is easy to find with a small telescope in the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. About 5,000 light-years away, the colorful study in cosmic contrasts shares this well-composed, nearly 1 degree wide field with open star cluster Messier 21 (top right).
Trisected by dust lanes the Trifid itself is about 40 light-years across and a mere 300,000 years old. That makes it one of the youngest star forming regions in our sky, with newborn and embryonic stars embedded in its natal dust and gas clouds. Estimates of the distance to open star cluster M21 are similar to M20's, but though they share this gorgeous telescopic skyscape there is no apparent connection between the two. In fact, M21's stars are much older, about 8 million years old.”
Chet Raymo, “The (Unattainable) Thing Itself”
“The (Unattainable) Thing Itself”
by Chet Raymo
“Clear water in a brilliant bowl,
Pink and white carnations. The light
In the room more like a snowy air,
Reflecting snow. A newly-fallen snow
At the end of winter when afternoons return.
Pink and white carnations- one desires
So much more than that. The day itself
Is simplified: a bowl of white,
Cold, a cold porcelain, low and round,
With nothing more than the carnations there.”
"Simplicity. Morning. Forty minutes till sunrise. Coffee. An English muffin. Sit on the terrace. The sky a deep violet. Then rose. Then gold. Simplicity. The senses fill to overbrimming, displacing thought. The moment is sweet and pure. Distilled. The shackles of conscience fall away. One simply is.
“Say even that this complete simplicity
Stripped one of all one's torments, concealed
The evilly compounded, vital I
And made it fresh in a world of white,
A world of clear water, brilliant-edged,
Still one would want more, one would need more,
More than a world of white and snowy scents.”
Now I wait with my eyes fixed on that place along the horizon where the Sun will rise. The sky itself holds its breath, anticipates the flash of green. I try, I try to empty myself, Zenlike, to become an empty vessel for nature to fill. A gathering vessel, brilliant edged. To exist entirely in the moment, outside of time, this moment, just now, now, as the disk of the Sun bubbles up on the sea horizon, that orb of of molten gold.
“There would still remain the never-resting mind,
So that one would want to escape, come back
To what had been so long composed.
The imperfect is our paradise.
Note that, in this bitterness, delight,
Since the imperfect is so hot in us,
Lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds.”
It's no use, of course. No way to obviate the conscious mind. Perhaps a Zen master might do it, a mystic in transport, a drunken sailor who walks into a lamppost. Even as the Sun's disk inflates, swells, unaccountably huge, the mind parses, frames, construes. I close my eyes to shut out thought and the words fill up the space behind my eyelids. The thing itself is out of reach, the moment adulterated by mind. The blessing of consciousness. And the curse."
(The three stanzas are Wallace Stevens' "The Poems of Our Climate.")
"A Single Lesson..."
"Your thoughts, opinions, beliefs, and worldviews are based on years and years of experience, reading, and rational, objective analysis. Right? Wrong. Your thoughts, opinions, beliefs, and worldviews are based on years and years of paying attention to information that confirmed what you already believed while ignoring information that challenged your preconceived notions. If there’s a single lesson that life teaches us, it’s that wishing doesn’t make it so."
– Lev Grossman
"Remember: Your Mission Isn’t Done"
"Remember: Your Mission Isn’t Done"
by John Wilder
"One winter, while hunting elk up on Wilder Mountain, we had, well, an issue. We were about fifteen or twenty miles in from the nearest pavement, and headed home. It was overcast. It was lazily spitting snow, with a breeze that was slowly picking up. Looking to the west, where there should be a resplendent sunset, the sky was dark, heavy, and pendulous with brooding storm clouds that blotted out even a hint of the winter Sun.
That was when the problem hit. Pa Wilder, while driving over a “road” that was little more than a common path cut by four-wheel-drive vehicles over the course of decades of hunting and firewood gathering, drove over a small branch that had fallen in the road. Not a problem, right? Well, it was a problem. In this case, the branch had the stem of a broken off limb, sticking straight up. Pa drove the GMC Jimmy® right over that sharp shard of limb. In the span of a dozen or so feet, we had lost not one, but two tires. It penetrated the center of each tire, poking a hole the size of a half-dollar coin in each.
Amazingly, we had lost another tire already that day, already. We now had a four-wheel drive with five tires and three flats. In winter. As a blizzard approached and night was setting in. And all of this was in country where it could easily hit - 40°F as night descended.
I bring this up to say that we had a mission. Our mission at that point in time was to get home. There were several challenges, and I’m pretty sure if most people were in the backcountry as a blizzard was descending that the last person they would choose would be a 12-year-old boy to be a guy on the team. Which is sad.
Children can have missions. Children can face danger. Children can do important things. We forget that because we’re in a society that doesn’t give children important things to do, mostly. Midshipmen in the Royal Navy were as young as 14. To be clear: Midshipmen in the Royal Navy were 14. A midshipman is an officer. If you were unaware, the Royal Navy wasn’t a social club, and often those boys fought in wars. As officers. So we forgot that boys can be given real, substantial responsibility. But there’s also the chance that we forget something else: that each of us is on a mission. And each of us has a role to play.
We currently are in a place where freedom is an increasingly precious and rare commodity. It’s not just in the United States – Trump may have said, “Make America Great Again” but down under they seem to be following the “Make Australia A Prison Again” plan. And Canada? I love our Canadabros that come by regularly (Canada is the second-largest readership here), but Canada seems to be determined to become the Soviet Above the 49th Parallel, led by that Tundra Trotsky, Trudeau.
It seems like in this day and age we all have a mission. Just like 12 isn’t too young, 80 isn’t too old. Frankly, we need all hands on deck. The size of the mission is the largest on the North American continent since 1774. I almost wrote that the idea was to preserve the Constitution and the Republic. Seriously, I’d love nothing more than to write that.
I’d love for that to happen. I’d love for us to come together. I’d settle for the laws to look like they did 90 years ago. Heck, even 70 years ago. That would be preferable to today. A reversion, sadly, is impossible. Whatever will come from tomorrow will not look like the past. It may be a shadow. The Holy Roman Emperors weren’t Roman. And the Holy Roman Empire wasn’t the Roman Empire. Or it may be something entirely different. I think it will be entirely different.
And that’s where you come in. Yes, you. You have a mission to create a new nation here. It won’t look like what we have today – it simply cannot, since we have created a situation that is at the far end of stability. I assure you, you play a part. The initial conditions of what happens are crucial to the final outcome. If George Washington had wanted to be King? If Thomas Jefferson had been a Martian Terminator Robot like the one that keeps triggering my motion detector lights at night even though the sheriff won’t believe me?
Things would be entirely different. And you are important. Your actions in the next decade are critical to the creation of what will come after. Do we want a nation that will be based on slavery, control, and that eternal boot stamping on a human face? I’d vote no. If you’re a regular here, I’m betting that’s your vote, too.
If so, let me shout as loudly as I can: You Are Not Done. This is Not Over. What is it that you can do to create a world where freedom beats slavery? What can you do to create a world where children can run free from the indoctrination of an all-powerful, all-regulating state?
There’s a lot. Our nation was, thankfully, built on the consent of the governed. Most things that local government provides, we want. To quote Python, Monty: "But apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"
To be clear: the Federal government does very little to make anything in the list above better, and often does a lot to make them worse. Except for the interstate highways. Those are actually pretty cool.
But I will tell you – you are the seed of the future of this country. You are the seed of the future of this continent. You are the seed of the future of this world. It doesn’t matter how old you are. The time is coming, and coming quickly where great injustices will be attempted. And you are the seed to make what comes after better for humanity. Would the world rather live in 1950’s America or 1930’s U.S.S.R.?
The choice is stark. Your mission is clear. How will you act to make your county, your state, your country one where free men can walk? It’s up to you.
Back to the mountain. For me, it was a game. That’s the advantage of being 12. Pa Wilder and my older brother (also named John due to a typographical error) and I wheeled the tires so we had two good ones in front. We locked in the hubs on the four-wheel drive.
I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to drive up a mountain path in a car with only two tires in a snowstorm as it got darker every minute. It doesn’t work very well. The flat back wheels couldn’t push the Jimmy® up the hill. That’s where I came in. It was my job to take the winch cable, run up the hill, and loop the cable up the base of a tree. Pa would then use the combination of the winch and the two front tires to pull the Jimmy© up. Tree by tree, cable length by cable length, we worked pretty flawlessly as a team to get the Jimmy™ to the top of the hill. Thankfully, for the most part it was downhill from there. Although Pa was driving on the rims, we got it home.
Was there danger? Certainly, there always is. We had snow, so we had water. Ma would have called the Sheriff not too long after dusk, and even though the mountains were a labyrinth of roads, people had seen us. We also had matches, hatchets, wool blankets, gasoline, and a mountain’s worth of firewood to keep us warm. But we also had a mission. Each of us served our purpose, and we got home.
Pa was a bit raw about having to buy two new rims and three new tires for a day’s worth of not seeing any elk, though. For the record, I never saw a single elk when hunting with Pa. I’m telling you, that man knew how to hunt. Finding? Sometimes I think he just wanted a good drive in the woods and hike with his boys, teaching them about living. Teaching them about missions, and the part that they play, whether they know it or not.
In this life, we all have a mission, and we all play a part in it. I can assure you that your part is not done, because you’re above ground, breathing, and reading this. I hate to repeat something so trite, but in this case, it’s true: you are not done. This is not over. And the whole world depends...on you. It’s up to you. You will create the future.
So, go do it."
The Poet: Margaret Atwood, “The Moment”
“The Moment”
“The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,
is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can’t breathe.
No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.”
- Margaret Atwood,
“Morning in the Burned House”
"Life Explained in 26 Minutes"
Full screen recommended.
The Psyche, 12/10/25
"Life Explained in 26 Minutes"
"What if everything you believe about life - your identity, your limitations, your fears, and even your dreams - is only a small fraction of a much deeper reality? In this video, we explore the profound insights of Aldous Huxley, a thinker who challenged human perception and revealed how conditioning, society, and unconscious narratives shape the way we live. This is not just a philosophical reflection. It is a journey into the hidden forces behind your thoughts, behaviors, relationships, and emotional struggles. Through Huxley’s ideas - and supported by psychology, neuroscience, and timeless philosophical wisdom you’ll discover:
• Why your mind filters reality.
• How your identity is shaped by unconscious conditioning.
• Why suffering often comes from internal stories, not events.
• The power of awareness and self-observation.
• How modern society distracts you from your true potential.
• Why awakening is the purpose of life - and how to begin.
Huxley believed that the real prison is unconsciousness. When you learn to observe your thoughts, question your beliefs, and expand your awareness, everything changes: your relationships, your decisions, your emotional resilience, and the meaning you give to every experience. If you’ve ever felt lost, overwhelmed, stuck, or disconnected from yourself, this video will offer clarity, depth, and a new way of seeing life. Stay until the final insight - it is the key that ties everything together and has the power to transform how you understand your existence."
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"Never, Ever Forget..."
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"Never, ever forget that nothing in this life is free. Life demands payment in some form for your "right" to express yourself, to condemn and abuse the evil surrounding us. Expect to pay... it will come for you, they will come for you, regardless. Knowing that, give them Hell itself every chance you can. Expect no mercy, and give none. That's how life works. Be ready to pay for what you do, or be a coward, pretend you don't see, don't know, and cry bitter tears over how terrible things are, over how you let them become."
- Ernest Hemingway, "For Whom the Bell Tolls "
"I'd Still Swim..."
"If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told
the nearest land was a thousand miles away, I'd still swim.
And I'd despise the one who gave up. "
- Abraham Maslow
"15 Common Dynamics Of SHTF Collapses"
"15 Common Dynamics Of SHTF Collapses"
by Fabian Ommar
When it comes to how we see and prepare for SHTF, thinking in terms of real and probable rather than fictional and possible can make a big difference. Even though SHTF has many forms and levels and is in essence complex, random, diverse and unsystematic, some patterns and principles are common to the way things unfold when it hits the fan. With Toby and Selco’s "Seven Pillars of Urban Preparedness" as inspiration, I came up with a different list of the 15 dynamics and realities of collapses.
#1 SHTF is nuanced and happens in stages: Thinking about SHTF as an ON/OFF, all-or-nothing endgame is a common mistake that can lead to severe misjudgments and failures in critical areas of preparedness. Part (or parts) of the system crash, freeze, fail, or become impaired. This is how SHTF happens in the real world. And when it does, people run for safety first, i.e., resort to more familiar behaviors, expecting things to “go back to normal soon.”
By “normal behaviors,” I mean everything from hoarding stuff (toilet paper?) to rioting, looting, and crime, and yes, using cash – as these happen all the time, even when things are normal. But no one becomes a barterer, a peddler, a precious metals specialist in a week. Society adapts as time passes (and the situation requires). That’s why preppers who are also SHTF survivors (and thus talk from personal experience) insist that abandoning fantasies and caring for basics first is crucial. This is not a coincidence. It is how things happen in the real world.
Recently I wrote about black markets and the role of cash in SHTFs, emphasizing these things take precedence except in a full-blown apocalypse – which no one can say if, when, or how will happen (because it never has?). Now, I don’t pretend to be the owner of the truth, but those insisting changes in society happen radically or abruptly should check this article about the fallout in Myanmar.
#2 Everything crawls until everything runs: Number two is a corollary to #1. SHTF happens in stair-steps, but most people failing to prepare and getting caught off-guard is evidence of the difficulty of the human brain to fully grasp the concept of exponential growth. It bears telling the analogy of the stadium being filled with water drops to illustrate this.
Let’s say we add one drop into a watertight baseball stadium. The deposited volume doubles every minute (i.e., one minute later, we add two more drops, then four in the next minute, eight in the next, then sixteen, and so on). How long would it take to fill the entire stadium? Sitting at the top row, we’d watch for 45 minutes as the water covered the field. Then at the 48-minute mark, 50% of the stadium would be filled. Yes, that’s only 3 minutes from practically empty to half full. At this point, we have just 60 seconds to get out: the water will be spilling before the clock hits 49 minutes.
This is an important dynamic to understand and keep in mind because it applies to most things. Another example: it took over 2 million years of human prehistory and history for the world’s population to reach 1 billion, and less than 250 years more to grow to almost 8 billion.
#3 The system doesn’t vanish or change suddenly: Based on history, the Mad Max-like scenario some so feverishly advocate is not in our near future. The Roman Empire unraveled over 500 years. We may not be at the tipping point of our collapse or the last minute of the flooding stadium, as illustrated in #2 above. But time is relative, and those 60 seconds can last five, ten, fifteen years. Things are accelerating, but there’s no way to tell at which point in the curve we are.
That doesn’t mean things will be normal in that period. A lot has happened to people and places all over the Roman empire during those five-plus centuries: wars, plagues, invasions, droughts, shortages, all hell broke loose. Our civilization has already hit the iceberg, and the current order is crumbling. There will be shocks along the way, some small and some big. But SHTF is a process, not an event.
#4 History repeats, but always with a twist: That’s because nature works in cycles, and humans react to scarcity and abundance predictably and in the same ways. Also, we’re helpless in the face of the most significant and recurring events. But things are never the same. Technology improves, social rules change, humankind advances, the population grows. This (and lots more) adds a variability factor to the magnitude, gravity, and reach of outcomes.
What better proof than the COVID-19 pandemic just surpassing the 1918 Spanish Flu death toll in the US? It’ll probably do so everywhere else, too. Even if we don’t believe the official data (then or now), we’re not yet out of this new coronavirus situation.
#5 SHTF is about scarcity: A shrink in resources invariably leads to changes in the individual’s standard of living or entire society (depending on the circumstances, depth, and reach of the disaster or collapse). Then it starts affecting life itself (i.e., people dying). Essentially, when things really hit the fan, abundance vanishes, and pretty much everything reverts to the mean: food becomes replenishment, drinking becomes hydration, sleeping becomes rest, home becomes shelter, and so on. Surviving is accepting and adapting to that.
#6 The consequences matter more than the type of event: I’ll admit to being guilty of debating probable causes of SHTF more often than I should, mainly when it comes to the economy and finance going bust. That’s from living in a third-world country, with all the crap that comes with it. It’s what I have to talk, warn, and give advice about. I still find it essential to be aware and thoughtful of the causes. But it’s for the consequences that we must prepare for: instability, corruption, bureaucracy, criminality, inflation, social unrest, divisiveness, wars, and all sorts of conflicts and disruptions that affect us directly.
#7 Life goes on: Humankind advances through hardship but thrives in routine. We crave normalcy and peace, and over the long term, pursue them. Contrary to what many think, life goes on even during SHTF. And things tend to return to normal after the immediate threats cease or get contained. At least some level of normal, considering the circumstances. For example, in occupied France, the bistros and cafés continued serving and entertaining the population and even the invaders (the Nazi army). It was hard, as is always the case anywhere there’s war, poverty, tyranny – but that doesn’t mean the world has ended.
#8 SHTF pileup: Disasters and collapses add instability, volatility, and fragility to the system, which can compound and cause further disruptions. Sometimes, unfavorable cycles on various fronts (nature and civilization) can also converge and generate a perfect storm. It’s crucial to consider that and try to prepare as best we can for multiple disasters happening at once or in sequence, on various levels, collective and individual – even if psychologically and mentally. And if the signs are any indication, we’re entering such a period of simultaneous challenges.
#9 Snowball effect: Daisy based her excellent article on the 10 most likely ways to die when SHTF on the principle of large-scale die-off caused by a major disaster, like an EMP or other. This theory is controversial and the object of endless discussions. Some say it’s an exaggeration. But in my opinion, that’s leaving a critical factor out of the equation.
Consider the following: according to WPR and the CDC, before COVID-19, the mortality rate in the US was well below 1% (2.850.000 per year, or about 8.100 per day). If the mortality rate increases to just 5%, this alone would spark other SHTFs, potentially more serious and harmful than the first. That five-fold jump in mortality would result in more than 16 million dead per year or 44.000 per day. That’s 5% we’re talking about, not 20 or 30. If there’s even a protocol to deal with something like that, I’m not aware. It would be catastrophic on many levels over a shorter period (say, a few months).
Early in the CV19 pandemic, some cities had trouble burying the dead, and the death rate was still below 1%. Sure, other factors were playing. But the point is, things can snowball: consequences and implications are too complex and potentially far-reaching. Think about the effects on the system.
#10 SHTF is a situation, but it’s also a place: Things are hitting the fan somewhere right now. Not in the overblowing media but the physical world: the Texas border, third-world prisons, gang-ruled Haiti, in Taliban-raided Afghanistan, in the crackhouse just a few blocks from an affluent neighborhood, under the bridges of many big cities worldwide, in volcano-hit islands. There are thousands of places where people are bugging out, suffering, or dying of all causes at this very moment. If you’re not in any SHTF, consider yourself lucky. Be grateful, too: being able to prepare is a luxury.
#11 Choosing one way or another has a price: Being unprepared and wrong has a price. However, so does being prepared and wrong. Though some benefits exist regardless of what happens, the investment in terms of time, finance, and emotion to be prepared could be applied elsewhere or used for other finalities (career, a business, relationships, etc.) rather than some far-out collapse.
Since so much in SHTF is unknown and open, and resources are limited even when things are normal, survival and preparedness are essentially trade-offs. We must read the signals, weigh the options, consider the probabilities, make an option, and face the consequences. That’s why striving for balance is so important.
#12 SHTF is dirty, smelly, ugly: This is undoubtedly one of the most striking characteristics of SHTF: how bad some places and situations can be. Most people have no idea, and they don’t want to know about this. Those who fantasize about being in SHTF should think twice. Abject misery and despair have a distinct smell of excrement, sewage, death, rotting material, pollution, trash, burned stuff, and all kinds of dirt imaginable. And insects. The movies don’t show these things. But bad smells and insects infest everything and everywhere, and it can be maddening.
During my street survival training, I get to visit some really awful places and witness horrible things. The folks eventually going out with me invariably get shocked, sometimes even sickened, when they see decadence up and close for the first time. Even ones used to dealing with the nasties – it’s hard not to get affected.
For instance, drug consumption hotspots are so smelly and nasty that someone really must have to be on crack just to stand being there. It’s hell on earth, and I can’t think of another way to describe these and other places like third-world prisons, trash deposits, and many others. Early on, being in these places would make me question why I do this. It never becomes “normal.” We just adapt. But seeing these realities changes our life and the way we see things.
#13 The Grid is fragile: It’s baffling how this escapes so many. Most people I know are in constant marvel with modern civilization. They look around, pointing and saying, “Are you crazy? Too big to fail! There’s no way this can go away! Nothing has ever happened!“
We have someone to take our trash, slaughter, process our food, treat our sick, purify our water, treat our sewage, protect us from wrongdoers and evil people (and keep them locked), control the traffic, and defend our rights. Peeking behind the curtains is a red pill moment. What keeps The Grid up and running is not something small, but it’s fragile. The natural state of things is not an insipid, artificially controlled environment. On the positive side, it makes us feel more grateful, humble, and also more responsible.
#14 The frog in the boiling water: That’s you and me and everyone around us. There’s no other way around it. We’re the suckers who get squeezed and pay the bill whenever something happens, anywhere and everywhere. It’s always our freedom, rights, money, and privacy that gets attacked, threatened, stolen.
Not only because the 1% screws us at the top, but because we’re the big numbers, the masses. And only those who work and produce something can bear the brunt of whatever bad happens to society and civilization. Make no mistake: whenever the brown stuff hits the fan, it will fall on us. It’s no reason to revolt but to acknowledge that, ultimately, we’re responsible for ourselves.
#15 People can make things worse: Just have a look around and see what’s happening. Selco himself will tell you that the most dangerous thing about the SHTF is other people.
Conclusion: Sometimes, the mechanics, brutality, and harshness of SHTF end up in the background of personal narratives and emotional accounts. Being more knowledgeable and cognizant of some general aspects of collapses may allow flexibility, creativity, improvisation, adaptation, resiliency, and other broad and effective strategies. Or, simply provide material for reflection and debate, really.
Either way, even those who haven’t been through collapse can still learn from history, from others’ experiences, from human behavior, from the facts. Just be sure to see the world for what it is and not from what you think. Because it will go its own way, and reality will assert itself all the same.
What are your thoughts about the dynamics of an SHTF scenario? Are there any you want to add? Does this match up with your personal expectations? Let’s discuss it in the comments."
"How It Really Is"
Well, for most of us anyway...
Food stamp balance $13,401.82
Cash balance $4,498.85
And how are YOU doing, Good Citizen?
Bill Bonner, "Fiddle, Burn, Repeat"
Rome on Fire
"Fiddle, Burn, Repeat"
by Bill Bonner
Baltimore, Maryland - "The oval office is no place for a decent man. Instead, ‘ruthlessness’ is the key to a successful politician, said UK prime minister Harold MacMillan. That is probably why so many people regard Jimmy Carter as a ‘weak’ president, and Donald Trump as a ‘strong’ one. Insulting reporters...ordering assassinations...threatening invasions...trading pardons for cash...calling whole groups of people ‘garbage’ - the strongman Trump is ruthlessly indecent.
He is also willing to stab his own team in the back. You’d think that, if you were charged by Pam Bondi and Kash Patel with rigging the bidding on a $375 million stadium, a pardon from their boss would be out of the question. But no. Hire former Congressman Trey Gowdy to play golf with POTUS. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal both tell us that after the game, Trump asked Gowdy if there was anything he could do for him. Gowdy mentioned his client. A few days later, the pardon came through.
It was Alan Greenspan who first gave Wall Street a ‘put option.’ In case of a sell-off, the Fed would come to investors’ aid with lower interest rates. Now, Donald Trump seems to provide a safety net for rascals. If they get in trouble with the law, he’ll pardon them.
But corruption begets corruption. And it wasn’t Donald Trump who begat all of today’s rampant grifting. Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, was implausibly paid a lot of money for serving on the board of a big Ukrainian energy company. What he was really selling was probably not his insights into the oil business. It was influence. Donald Trump has merely continued along the downhill path of a declining empire…and picked up speed.
Washington Monthly: "From February through the first week of December, Trump issued 61 pardons and commutations. Nearly half, 27, benefited white-collar criminals who had committed securities fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, tax evasion, and similar offenses. Two of these clemencies were granted to corporations, not individuals, an unprecedented act. An additional 14 were about political corruption." (Nine others were given to drug dealers and traffickers, some of whom I highlighted in a column last week.)
Then, there are cases such as that of Justin Sun. The crypto billionaire was charged by the SEC with multiple counts of fraud. But after the 2024 election, he ‘invested heavily,’ according the Washington Monthly report, in Trump’s World Liberty Financial. The SEC then lost interest in his case. Maybe a coincidence. And here’s another one: As reported by The New York Times, in December, World Liberty Financial bought $5 million in cryptocurrency from Ethena Labs. A few months later, one of Ethena’s investors - BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes - was pardoned by Trump.
Apart from those who are widely regarded as shady characters, there are those upon whom the sun never seems to set. Successful...and well connected, they don’t need a pardon. They’ve done nothing illegal. Here’s an example: Some of the biggest names in finance saw an opportunity when the feds bailed out Fannie and Freddie in 2008. John Paulson, Bill Ackman, Carl Icahn and Bruce Berkowitz loaded up on their shares at ‘pennies on the dollar.’ Now they are set to make billions as the two mortgage lenders are returned to private hands. David Stockman: "It’s an out-and-out gift to a handful of billionaire speculators and nothing more. It amounts to a crony capitalist stink bomb."
And here we have an illustration of the general rule: The more the feds fiddle with the economy, the worse the economy gets...and the more opportunities it presents for rip-offs. The set up came in the mortgage finance bust of 2008, which was caused by the Fed’s artificially low lending rates. In the crisis, house prices were falling and Fannie and Freddie were running out of money. The feds came to the rescue, committing to invest as much as $200 billion in each enterprise, in exchange for a controlling interest in the businesses.
It was an insider deal from the get-go. The mortgage lenders traded on federal credit guarantees...and scraped a huge profit from the narrow difference between wholesale borrowing (selling bonds to Wall Street) and retail lending (mortgage lending to ordinary people). That profit should be returned to its real source — the US government and its taxpayers. But the way it works now is for the gains to go into private pockets while the losses get put to taxpayers. The four billionaires (and others) saw how they could get their hands on the profit.
The coast was clear during the first Trump administration. But the transaction – selling Fannie and Freddie back into the public markets -- “didn’t materialize because of the complexity,” said a CNBC report. Now that Trump is back, however, the opportunity is back on the table. The four mega speculators mentioned above have the expertise to cut through the complexity...and the money to take advantage of it.
The stock has already soared in anticipation of an IPO. David Stockman calculates that each of those billionaires will be about $3 billion richer...when the deal finally goes through. Then, other investors will have a chance to make more money from Fannie and Freddie...until it causes another crisis...When the losses will again be put to the taxpayers."
Adventures With Danno, "Shocking Prices at Kroger!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 12/11/25
"Shocking Prices at Kroger!"
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Full screen recommended.
Strong language alert.
Jay Reed, 12/11/25
"Walmart Has Lost Its Mind With These Insane Prices"
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"We Are Facing A 'Tourism Industry Apocalypse' As International Travelers Avoid The USA"
"We Are Facing A 'Tourism Industry Apocalypse'
As International Travelers Avoid The USA"
by Michael Snyder
"Why have major tourist destinations all over America been so depressingly quiet in 2025? Normally tourism accounts for close to 10 percent of U.S. GDP, and that makes it a critical pillar of the U.S. economy. We witnessed an enormous downturn during the early days of the COVID pandemic, but that was just temporary. Now we are witnessing a similar downturn, but this time we don’t have a pandemic to blame. Needless to say, the overall economy is steadily moving in the wrong direction, and that is certainly affecting tourism. But as you will see below, there are other factors that are very much within our control that are driving tourists away.
When I claim that the U.S. is experiencing a “tourism industry apocalypse”, I am not exaggerating at all. This summer, many of the country’s top tourist destinations were so empty that they resembled something out of “a dystopian novel”…Imagine walking into what was once America’s most vibrant tourist destinations and hearing nothing but the whisper of wind through empty corridors. This isn’t a scene from a dystopian novel - it’s the stark reality of US tourism in 2025.
The summer that was supposed to be bustling with laughter, excitement, and packed attractions has turned into a ghost town of economic uncertainty. Take Florida, once the entertainment paradise of America, where over 15,000 Walt Disney World employees now face the terrifying prospect of reduced hours or complete layoffs - right in the middle of peak tourist season. In the past, I have written about how a vacation to Disney World has become so ridiculously expensive that it is now out of reach for most middle class families.
But that doesn’t fully explain why international visitors to Florida fell by 38 percent in just one year…"The numbers are brutal. International visitors to Florida have plummeted by a staggering 38% in just twelve months. Hotel bookings from Orlando to Miami have nosedived by 27%, creating what experts are calling a “post-pandemic crisis without a pandemic”.
But this isn’t just about empty hotels and quiet theme parks. It’s about the human stories behind these statistics. Workers who built careers around tourism are now facing an uncertain future. The problem runs deeper than just fewer tourists - it’s about systemic vulnerabilities in tourism-dependent economies.
Many would argue that conditions in Las Vegas are even worse. There are thousands upon thousands of empty hotel rooms every night, and many casino floors are eerily empty these days…"Agitators in the city have attempted to document the deterioration by posting ominous images of barren casinos, conjuring the perception of a place hollowed out by economic armageddon. The reality is more nuanced, but it is true that practically every conceivable indicator tracking tourism to Las Vegas is flashing warning signs. Hotel occupancy has cratered. Rooms were only 66.7 percent full in July, down by 16.8 percent from the previous year. The number of travelers passing through Harry Reid International Airport also declined by 4.5 percent in 2025 during an ongoing ebb of foreign tourists, for familiar reasons. Canadians, historically one of the city’s most reliable sources of degenerates, have effectively vanished. Ticket sales for Air Canada jets flying to Las Vegas have slipped by 33 percent, while the Edmonton-based low-cost carrier Flair has reported a 62 percent drop-off. Those last data points have provoked the city’s mayor, Shelley Berkley, to engage in some emergency diplomacy. In September, she implored our neighbors from the north to make their prodigal return to the Strip. “I’m telling everyone in Canada, please come,” she said. “We love you, we miss you, we need you.”
We don’t like to admit it, but we are very dependent on our neighbors to the north. Canadians normally account for approximately 30 percent of all international visits to the U.S. each year. But this year it has been a completely different story…"From Washington state to northern New England, American businesses that have long depended on Canadian visitors are seeing traffic dry up - and with it, a crucial source of revenue.
A new report shared exclusively with Fortune by the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) – Minority, a congressional standing committee dating back to 1946 responsible for documenting the economic conditions of the U.S., details how a sharp drop in Canadian tourism is hitting every U.S. state along the northern border. For many border communities, maintaining a healthy level of visitors from Canada is a matter of economic survival. If there is a substantial drop in Canadian visitors, many businesses will simply cease to exist. If you live in a community near the Canadian border, you know exactly what I am talking about.
So the fact that the number of vehicles crossing over the border from Canada has dropped so precipitously is extremely alarming…"From January to October 2025, the number of passenger vehicles crossing the U.S.-Canada border fell by nearly 20% compared with the same period in 2024, according to the JEC analysis, which draws on U.S. Customs and Border Protection travel statistics. In some border states, the decline reached 27%, a shift that local tourism agencies say is showing up in fewer tourists, more hotel vacancies, and weaker sales."
Other than during the early days of the pandemic, we have never seen anything quite like this. One woman that runs a gift shop in northern New Hampshire says that she can count the number of Canadian tourists that she has encountered this year on one hand…"In northern New Hampshire, the absence of Canadian license plates is especially stark. “Being only eight miles from the border, normally Canadians make up anywhere from 15-25% of visitors. Now, I can probably count the number of Canadian visitors on one hand. I’m just trying to plug along and keep my nose above the waterline,” said Elizabeth Guerin, owner of the Fiddleheads gift shop in Colebrook, New Hampshire."
Everyone knows what has happened to our relationship with Canada over the past year. And now the Canadians are showing us exactly how they feel about it. We need people to come here and spend their money. So it is important to be friendly.Unfortunately, we continue to implement even more measures that will make it even more difficult for foreign visitors to come to this country.
For example, it appears that millions of foreign visitors will soon be required to submit “five years of their social media history” before entering the United States…"The Trump administration is proposing to ask visitors from several dozen nations that enjoy visa-free travel to the U.S. to submit additional personal information before entering the country, including five years of their social media history, the Department of Homeland Security said in a notice this week.
Citizens of 42 countries enrolled in the visa waiver program can generally come to the U.S. for up to 90 days for tourism or business travel, without needing to apply for a visa at an American embassy or consulate, a process that can take months or even years. The list of countries in the visa waiver program includes many European nations like the United Kingdom, Germany and France, as well as some U.S. allies around the world, including Australia, Israel, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea."
The tourism industry is already in critical condition. Are they trying to finish it off? Of course even if we were as welcoming as possible, a lot of tourists would still shun us because of how expensive the U.S. has become to visit. When one author wrote that we have built “a tourism economy designed to extract maximum revenue from every interaction”, he was right on target…"America has become too expensive to visit, and the tourism industry refuses to admit it. We’ve turned travel – and living – into an extraction operation, and we’re surprised when people stop coming."
America has lost the plot. We built a tourism economy designed to extract maximum revenue from every interaction, and it’s backfiring spectacularly. We have priced ourselves out of our own welcome mat. What once felt like a promise to the world is now an obstacle course, a trip measured not in miles but in fees, surcharges, and the steady erosion of goodwill. I’ve spent nearly 15 years observing this industry at Skift, watching as we’ve collectively convinced ourselves that premium travel’s resilience somehow masks the fundamental rot beneath. But the cracks are showing, and they’re widening faster than anyone wants to admit. If we want tourists to visit, we need to stop ripping them off.
At this stage, the vast majority of America’s most prominent tourist destinations are only affordable for the wealthy and the ultra-wealthy. And the gap between the rich and the rest of us just continues to grow. According to one recent report, the top 0.001 percent of the world’s population has three times as much money “as the entire bottom half of humanity”…"Fewer than 60,000 people – 0.001% of the world’s population – control three times as much wealth as the entire bottom half of humanity, according to a report that argues global inequality has reached such extremes that urgent action has become essential.
The authoritative World Inequality Report 2026, based on data compiled by 200 researchers, also found that the top 10% of income-earners earn more than the other 90% combined, while the poorest half captures less than 10% of total global earnings. Wealth – the value of people’s assets – was even more concentrated than income, or earnings from work and investments, the report found, with the richest 10% of the world’s population owning 75% of wealth and the bottom half just 2%."
If you are at or near the top of the pyramid, life is good. But for those in the bottom half, things are really rough. History has shown us that when the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots” gets too large, really bad things can happen. We have already seen eruptions of civil unrest all over the globe throughout 2025, and I am convinced that this is just the beginning.
Reviving the middle class should be a priority for leaders all over the globe. And if we want to have a sustainable tourism industry, we need to make tourism affordable for the middle class again. Unfortunately, the tourism industry has become yet another example of the rampant greed that is now permeating our society, and I don’t expect that to change any time soon."
"What Is The Joy About?"
“There are meaningful warnings which history gives a threatened or perishing society. Such are, for instance, the decadence of art, or a lack of great statesmen. There are open and evident warnings, too. The center of your democracy and of your culture is left without electric power for a few hours only, and all of a sudden crowds of American citizens start looting and creating havoc. The smooth surface film must be very thin, then, the social system quite unstable and unhealthy. But the fight for our planet, physical and spiritual, a fight of cosmic proportions, is not a vague matter of the future; it has already started. The forces of Evil have begun their offensive; you can feel their pressure, and yet your screens and publications are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. What is the joy about?”
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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