Jeremiah Babe,
“The Damage Is WorseThan I Thought;
Economic Carnage Piles Up; People Aren’t Laughing Now”
Full screen highly recommended.
So, we rise from the rubble...
Sunday, January 17, 2021
"As Tech Companies Purge Users, Here Are Some Alternatives"
"As Tech Companies Purge Users,
Here Are Some Alternatives"
By Simon Black
"By now you’re probably aware of the various purges taking place across tech platforms and social media. Major companies have used the events of January 6th at the US Capitol as an excuse to delete users and deplatform businesses. But the scope of the purge has gone much further than removing calls for violence.
For example, 147 members of Congress are being blacklisted by banks, insurance providers, and hotel companies because they objected to certifying the results of the election. The entire social media company Parler was shut down when Amazon banned it from its servers, while Apple and Google dropped the app from their stores. Twitter executed over 70,000 accounts.
PayPal cut ties with the US President, as well as a Christian website that raised funds to send protesters to DC. Shopify removed accounts “associated” with Trump, and payment processor Stripe joined in the purge as well. Facebook even suspended Ron Paul’s account for a time, before claiming it was a mistake. Ron Paul, keep in mind, has been an outspoken critic of this administration's defense and monetary policies.
The message is clear: your access, your data, and potentially your livelihood is not safe in the hands of the biggest tech companies, which we have been conditioned to rely on. Express the wrong opinion, and you may be the next casualty. (Might even have your blog deleted, hmm... -CP) What this means: The good news is there are alternatives, and the purge has been a major driving force for people to move to alternative platforms."
View this complete article, including alternative sites and links, here:
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Related:
"Blue State Economies Will Soon Crumble – But Will They Take Red States With Them?"
"Blue State Economies Will Soon Crumble –
But Will They Take Red States With Them?"
by Brandon Smith
"Over the past six to eight months, the U.S. has seen perhaps one of the largest migrations of people based on economic and ideological concerns in almost a century. Not since the Great Depression has there been so many Americans relocating in search of a better life. Today, however, those who relocate seem to be largely conservatives and moderates. There is a very good, multifaceted, reason for this.
One of the best recent explanations for the conservative migration is visible in the near-180-degree turnaround by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on his draconian lockdown mandates. All of a sudden, Cuomo has announced that New York simply cannot stay closed any longer and that businesses need to reopen quickly.
What could have possibly forced the thick-skulled Cuomo to finally see the light? I think it has a lot to do with the fact that New York has attempted to distribute millions of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and they have only been able to give out 30% of them. This means that around 70% of people eligible to get the vaccine in New York are apparently refusing to take it (a smart move in my opinion considering the highly experimental and untested nature of the cocktail). Surprisingly, at least 30% of NY healthcare workers are also refusing to take the vaccine. Cuomo has resorted to threatening hospitals with fines if they do not distribute the vaccines fast enough.
In his latest statement Cuomo is trying to send a message that New Yorkers need to take the vaccine so that a reopening can begin. In other words, “take the vaccine or the economy will collapse”. I don’t believe Cuomo is mending his totalitarian ways, but at least for now, I think he is realizing what most of us in the alternative economic field have been saying for the past year: Blue state economies are dying because they are oppressive and this stifles trade and business.
Beyond the business factor and the restrictions on people’s daily movements and activities, the lockdowns and subsequent financial crisis have triggered rising crime levels across the country, but predominantly in blue states and democratic controlled cities.
According to the U.S. Postal Service, New York City alone saw over 300,000 residents pick up everything and leave from March to October. This is an unprecedented spike, an exodus the likes of which New York has not seen in a long time.
On the other side of the country, California is witnessing its own exodus, and it started well before the pandemic struck. In 2019, California saw over 653,000 residents escape the state’s suffocating bureaucracy and high taxes. In 2020, the state has hit its lowest population growth rate in history, even after accounting for babies born. More than 200,000 people left the state than moved in in the past year, and before anyone claims that these people are “liberals” invading red states, even the California media admits they are mostly conservatives seeking to escape the socialist sinkhole.
U-Haul, one of the largest moving companies in the nation, has compiled data on the top states which Americans are moving to during the pandemic. The list is loaded with well-known conservative strongholds and red states, with Tennessee, Texas and Florida at the top.
But what does this mean for leftist states in economic terms? First, a huge loss of tax revenue, and this is dangerous for blue states in particular. California was projecting a $5.6 billion surplus in January of last year, only to face a $54 billion deficit by August. The state’s net tax revenue fell by 42% from March to May year-over-year, far outpacing losses in the rest of the country. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom begged Congress for $14 billion in federal aid, claiming that the government has a “moral and ethical obligation to help the states”. And this seems to be exactly how states like California are surviving, by stealing tax dollars from people in other states that have been more responsible in caring for their economies.
We often hear about states like California and New York as having GDPs comparable to entire countries. We hear about all the manufacturing and agricultural production, and a couple of years ago, there were even calls for secession in California on the grounds that “orange man bad” and that the state could fiscally support itself “easily.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. What leftist cheerleaders often refuse to mention is the deep and insidious debt problems and deficits blue states suffer from. Looking at a list of the most indebted states in the U.S. in terms of total assets and liabilities, you will find that the vast majority of them are Democrat controlled.
Furthermore, blue states tend to have the highest levels of unfunded pension liabilities. In other words, their public pension obligations are only partially funded and are suffering a net loss. California, Connecticut and Illinois top the list and the only red state that comes close in terms of percentages is Alaska. Red states top the list in terms of the best funded pensions and the lowest debt per capita.
These debts are caused by irresponsible spending policies and endless socialist welfare measures, and as with most socialist systems, they always end up spending more money than they can bring in. They also end up wasting money more than they effectively spend money. This translates to much higher taxes, as blue states refuse to admit policy errors and fix their mistakes. Instead, they punish the citizenry with increased taxation. A list of the highest personal income taxes across the country is dominated by blue states. Blue states like Illinois also stack the list of highest property taxes.
One might assume that with such high taxation that social welfare programs would be in place to help the needy and to reduce poverty, but this is not the case. California and New York have the highest population of homeless people by far (151,278 in CA and 92,091 in NY). The next highest homeless population is in a red state, Florida, with only 28,000.
Add to this the fact that blue states have been the most lockdown-happy during the pandemic despite the fact that the lockdowns have done nothing to stop the spread of COVID-19, and now you know why people are leaving these places en masse.
This dynamic has led to red states outperforming blue states across the board in terms of economic recovery. Job recovery in red states far outpaces blue states, along with recovery in GDP. As a result, a call has been rising for a “Blue State Bailout”, and with Biden ostensibly entering the White House they may very well get what they are asking for.
The problem is, the amount of bailout money that would satiate the hunger of blue states would have to be in the multi-trillions. As more and more people and businesses leave these places for more free states, it’s inevitable that tax revenues will dry up. And, as leftists raise taxes to cover the deficit even more people will relocate. It is a vicious cycle that will lead to complete dependency on federal dollars for blue states to survive.
Red states, on the other hand, will not be enforcing strict lockdown mandates. In fact, I suspect that even if Biden tries to institute a Level 4 federal lockdown that many red states will defy him and carry on with business as usual while blue states quickly bow and submit. The only practical option is for blue states to ignore the lockdowns and fully reopen, not just for a couple of months, but permanently. Will they do this? I doubt it.
It is also important to consider at a fundamental level the types of people that make up the populations of red states versus blue states. Blue states have built a culture of dependency and the majority of leftists have no useful skill sets that would allow them to adapt to an economic crisis. Meanwhile, red state culture encourages independence, self-reliance and productivity.
The most likely reaction among blue states or the federal government under Biden will be to try to “redistribute” the wealth and stability from red states to blue states. This could happen in the form of stimulus measures that unfairly benefit blue states. The resulting dollar devaluation and price inflation might hit red states harder because they would not be receiving bailouts to offset the higher costs. In the worst-case scenario, in which a full spectrum financial collapse occurs, we may even see the federal government attempt to redistribute production and manufacturing from red states to blue states in the name of “national emergency.”
There could also be an attempt to stop people from moving away from blue states entirely. We have already seen a beta test for this in California, where legislators are attempting to pass a bill which would legally require former residents to continue paying taxes to the state for years after they leave.
Of course, this would lead to severe resistance from conservatives, but that is a discussion for another time. The bottom line is this: the economic and pandemic policies of blue states have failed miserably. Their only option is to see the error of their ways, become fiscally responsible and remove totalitarian lockdown measures, or, attempt to leech success from the red states like parasites. Which one do you think they will choose?"
"Chinese Lockdowns Trigger 'Chaos And Panic' At Grocery Stores As Prices Soar 50%"
"Chinese Lockdowns Trigger 'Chaos And Panic'
At Grocery Stores As Prices Soar 50%"
by Epic Economist
"Chinese citizens started to rush into the stores in order to stockpile goods in face of the new round of forced confinement, and panic buying and hoarding tendencies are sparking chaos in grocery chains all over the country. In some locations, prices jumped by 50%, and experts are warning that food price inflation could probably trigger much more civil agitation and riots in months ahead. That's what we expose in this video.
According to a recent Reuters report, China has put 28 million people in lockdown amid an unexpected surge in viral cases in several major cities. The widespread shutdown of businesses and consumers confinement is putting strains on the Chinese economy. However, the Chinese official state-run press agency is warning that government officials should not “cry wolf” and be too quick to affirm that they are entering “wartime mode” because that could spark "unnecessary panic and affect normal production".
But the warning seemed to have arrived a little too late since panic-buying tendencies have already been resumed and are already compromising the amount of available supplies. According to TruthAbtChina, strict government measures to keep citizens in lockdown are scaring the population and causing the exact opposite effect officials have been trying to avert. "People have been escaping quarantined communities in the recent lockdowns in China. In response, the CCP is putting a seal on the door of each apartment. The stickers say: If the seal is broken, there will be legal consequences," disclosed the account.
Just as we've seen multiple times in America, the idea of a generalized confinement and the threat of legal repercussions inevitably generate panic amongst the population. And, of course, in China, things haven't been different. TruthAbtChina divulged last Saturday that "people are hoarding food in the wake of the forced lockdowns all over China. In an attempt to keep food on the shelves, grocery stores have more than tripled the price of many food items. This has only amplified the chaos and panic in grocery stores". Moreover, the Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily unveiled that grocery prices in Shijiazhuang, in northern China, have soared by 50% since lockdowns were reinstituted.
The National Bureau of Statistics informed that in December, the consumer price index rose more than economists predicted, at 0.2 percent on-year, with prices surging the most in fresh produce and meats ahead of Chinese nationwide holidays. For the full year of 2020, consumer prices increased 2.5 percent on-year.
As the nation is largely reliant on international imports to keep up with demand, and global food prices are going up, China won't be spared. Although Chinese government agencies do not make the real numbers public, analysts are alerting the growing global food prices will likely have a major impact on food security in Asian countries. The Food and Agriculture Organization's Food Price Index found that world food prices rose for a seventh consecutive month in December. Last month, global food prices hit a six-year high, and economists are forecasting that this upward trend in prices will continue to rise in 2021.
As a result, food inflation is about to add much more pressure on the population, as hunger crises are emerging throughout the world. In a recent statement, the senior economist at the FAO, Abdolreza Abbassian maintained that “Food inflation is a reality. While people have lost income, they are as we speak going through a tremendously difficult hardship. The real impact is the access to food. People have lost their income. There are a lot of unhappy people and this is a recipe for social turbulence.”
Although prices have not yet reached the same levels seen in 2008, analysts say that this spike in prices for basic food staples should be seen as a red flag since it potentially has revolutionary implications amid a growing social, economic and political crisis of global dimensions. As Abbassian outlined: “if [people] realize the vaccine won’t solve the problems in the near term and they don’t have food, then things could get out of control".
That is to say, if authorities don't act to reverse this situation soon enough, we are likely to see a dangerous rise in social tensions and civil instability in 2021, in proportions that could lead to a widespread social destabilization and incite much more chaos all over the world."
Coming soon to a neighborhood near you! Yes, you...
And I'm not hearing that idiotically delusional chant of
"Oh, that could never happen here!" anymore...
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Point your telescope toward the high flying constellation Pegasus and you can find this expanse of Milky Way stars and distant galaxies. Centered on NGC 7814, the pretty field of view would almost be covered by a full moon. NGC 7814 is sometimes called the Little Sombrero for its resemblance to the brighter more famous M104, the Sombrero Galaxy.
Both Sombrero and Little Sombrero are spiral galaxies seen edge-on, and both have extensive central bulges cut by a thinner disk with dust lanes in silhouette. In fact, NGC 7814 is some 40 million light-years away and an estimated 60,000 light-years across. That actually makes the Little Sombrero about the same physical size as its better known namesake, appearing to be smaller and fainter only because it is farther away. A very faint dwarf galaxy, potentially a satellite of NGC 7814, is revealed in the deep exposure just below the Little Sombrero.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap131025.html
"I Don't Pretend..."
“I don't pretend we have all the answers.
But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.”
- Arthur C. Clarke
Musical Interlude: "Super Intelligence - Binaural Beats Concentration Music for Work and Focus"
Greenred Productions, "Super Intelligence -
Binaural Beats Concentration Music for Work and Focus"
"Super intelligence music with binaural beats for concentration and focus.
Use this studying music to improve alertness and concentrate for daily tasks."
○
A Comment: Look folks, whether you want to know it or not we're literally in the fight of our lives, and for our lives, as the economy totally collapses all around us, and it's only beginning. I for one will take any edge available to improve understanding how and why it's all happening, and surviving the very grim consequences that are coming. You should too. From my own experience these binaural beats videos work, simple as that, and I recommend you use them, too. God help us all, and good luck. Stay strong!
- CP
"Stimulus Check Update: FIND MISSING STIMULUS PAYMENT - SSI, SSDI VA CHILD SUPPORT"
"Stimulus Check Update:
FIND MISSING STIMULUS PAYMENT - SSI, SSDI VA CHILD SUPPORT"
Jan 17, 2021: This is your Second Stimulus Check update, stimulus package update, $1400 Checks, $1400 Payment and stimulus check 2 update and daily show for news today. Biden Says $2000 Checks Will "Go Out the Door". Here’s what Biden calls for:
• Direct payments of $1,400 to most Americans, bringing the total relief to $2,000, including December’s $600 payments.
• Increasing the federal, per-week unemployment benefit to $400 and extending it through the end of September.
• Increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour.
• Extending the eviction and foreclosure moratoriums until the end of September.
• $350 billion in state and local government aid.
• $170 billion for K-12 schools and institutions of higher education.
• $50 billion toward Covid-19 testing.
• $20 billion toward a national vaccine program in partnership with states, localities and tribes.
• Making the Child Tax Credit fully refundable for the year and increasing the credit to $3,000 per child ($3,600 for a child under age 6).
LINKS:
• USPS:
• IRS FREE 2020 Tax Form - 1040/1040-SR:
• IRS - TAX TRANSCRIPT (CREATE ACCT):
• IRS GET MY PAYMENT:
If you didn’t get any payments or got less than the full amounts, you may qualify for the credit, even if you don’t normally file taxes. For more information:
• IRS NON FILERS TOOL: The tool is closed and it will not be available for other payments including the second Economic Impact Payment or the Recovery Rebate Credit. Economic Impact Payments were an advance payment of the Recovery Rebate Credit. You may be eligible to claim the credit by filing a 2020 1040 or 1040-SR for free using the IRS Free File program. These free tax software programs can be used by people who are not normally required to file tax returns but are eligible to claim the credit.
• IRS Stimulus Check toll-free phone number you need is 800-919-9835
"Do Not Live..."
"Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you."
- Christopher Hitchens
"The Minds Of Men..."
"The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level, the fire of genius was extinguished. The name of Poet was almost forgotten; that of Orator was usurped by the sophists. A cloud of critics, of compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste. This diminutive stature of mankind was daily sinking below the old standard."
- Edward Gibbon,
"The Decline And Fall of The Roman Empire"
"You hear all this whining going on, 'Where are our great writers?'
The thing I might feel doleful about is: Where are the readers?"
- Gore Vidal
"The Gray Curtain Descends," Part 2
"The Gray Curtain Descends," Part 2
by Robert Gore
"It's secession or war... Four days after the election, a woman calling herself OHMama posted “I Am Done” on The Burning Platform website. It was the site’s most read article of 2020. SLL and many other websites reposted it. It was raw, explosive anger and a profoundly moving lament; OHMama was clearly at the end of her rope. The closing paragraph packed a wallop.
"I was raised to be a lady, and ladies don’t curse, but f*ck these motherf*ckers to hell and back for what they’ve done to me, and mine, and my country. All we Joe Blow Americans ever wanted was a little patch of land to raise a family, a job to pay the bills, and at least some illusion of freedom, and even that was too much for these human parasites. They want it all, mind, body and soul. Damn them. Damn them all."
OHMama gave voice to what’s beneath the surface for so many of us - abject disgust, barely contained fury, and dread of what’s to come. She claimed her own life to live it as she sees fit, and damn them, damn them all, who presume to rule us.
That anger surfaced in Washington on January 6. The protest and raid of the Capitol were illuminating in several ways. They defined the two sides: the government, its string-pullers, and its allies versus those who despise and oppose them.
The Saul Alinsky line was crossed, setting an important precedent. His acolytes insist their enemies live by their own rules while exempting themselves from any rules other than those that secure power. Playing by the rules when the opposition doesn’t is a guaranteed loser. Caring what they think of you is craven. Cowering when they call you hypocrites is unilateral surrender. Going forward, Alinsky’s acolytes may face an opposition that plays by the same rules they do - those necessary to secure power.
The Capitol raid scared the crap out of uniparty politicians, witness the hysterical overreaction. Given what they and their accomplices have done to Americans and people around the world, they should live in perpetual, mortal terror. Unfortunately, their cowardice outruns their brains. Instead of responding to the message they’ll shoot the messenger and clamp down harder.
Legacy media was filled with paeans to our “sacred” government and its “temples,” deploring the “sacrilege” of those who “desecrated” and “defiled” them. What absolute tripe! Washington is a Corruptocracy, a moral cesspool. Anything sacred would have been vandalized or torn down by the mobs allowed to run riot last year. They would have toppled the Washington Monument if they could have figured out how.
Americans who build businesses or pursue careers honestly producing goods and services for voluntary trade are engaging in activities far more sacred than anything that goes on in the capital. Millions of parents instill moral principles in their children, only to see those principles defiled daily by the government. Washington delenda est - if it were leveled and sown with salt America and the world would be better for it.
The corruptocrats’ ability to shore up the debt-riddled global financial and economic systems with ever more debt has astounded skeptics, among them SLL. The debt load is many times annual global production and debt service is sucking up that production like a tapeworm sucks up its victim’s meals. Every financial asset is a debt or equity claim, and virtually every income stream and real asset - factories, real estate, houses, warehouses, inventories, office buildings, malls, etc. - has been pledged or mortgaged, often several times over.
We saw the global daisy chain unravel in 2008 and 2009 and the system is daisy-chainier now. If you’re looking for canaries in the coal mine, watch the yields on sovereign debt. Once they really start to climb it’s game over. The devastation will be unprecedented and epic.
Collapse will decimate over-indebted, non-productive governments that have made promises they can’t keep to millions of their citizens. That may be part of a plan to destroy national governments and generate clamor for totalitarian global government. Yet, every tyranny confronts the question: who is going to host its predation and parasitism if the disobedient but productive (there is a correlation) have been imprisoned or executed? Slavery is notoriously unproductive.
Globo-government will be in the same position as the national governments it supersedes—bankrupt, bereft of resources, and unable to produce anything other than fiat debt instruments. Dispensing a steadily depreciating universal basic income will be problematic. Not that it will bother globo-government if billions of its wards die of poverty and starvation. The bigger concern will be securing the resources necessary for surveillance and suppression of the remaining enslaved.
Enfeebled or failed governments of any stripe engender both chaos and opportunity. Collapse and chaos will be huge blows to governments, the perpetual enemies of liberty, but could be a game changer for the liberty-minded, who are well-advised to wait for the bubble to burst.
Chaos will require preparation by those who want to capitalize on the opportunity. Many alternative media sites stress personal preparation and establishing local networks, and offer valuable strategies and advice. Readers are invited to list their favorites in the comments section. No one can prepare for every contingency, but if you haven’t prepared for the most obvious ones - grid down, lack of access to food and water, etc. - now is the time to do so.
If governments are the enemy and are destined to collapse, then the opposition should do everything possible to hasten that collapse. In the US, twenty-five million people, about a third of Trump’s voters, simultaneously withdrawing their financially intermediated assets would spread panic across our massively over-leveraged, inextricably interconnected globe. (For more, see "Revolution in America," Robert Gore, SLL, January 7, 2015.)
There’s a powerful inducement for preemptive withdrawal: the front of the line is the best place to be during a bank run (other than not being in line at all). The bank run is inevitable, the question is whether or not you want to be its victim. This strategy is legal, effective, nonviolent, and hits governments where they are weakest - their insolvency and inability to produce.
Our opponents have clearly defined goal - absolute power - and they are absolutely committed to subjugating or eliminating anyone who stands in their way. Until recently most of those on our side didn’t even realize we were at war. Before such a war goes kinetic (the modern term for old-fashioned war where people get killed) and in the hope that it doesn’t, we need a clearly defined goal and a strategy to achieve it. The goal is the fundamental right of every human: the liberty to peaceably live one’s own life and pursue one’s own happiness. The strategy is more complicated.
Peacefully splitting the US into two or more countries when it is so irretrievably and irreconcilably riven is almost breathtaking in its common sense. You go your way and we’ll go ours appeals to both logic and justice. What could be fairer than to give people a choice?
Our side should never stop advocating for a peaceful split and our own territory. This does not mean advocating for insurrection and revolution, which would imply replacing the current government with one of our own. Why would we want to take possession of a cesspool government and rule over so many who hate us? Secession and liberty, not insurrection and revolution, are the goals. Leave the present government to the corruptocrats, their minions, and their dependents.
Most productive people would opt for liberty. Absolute power would have to feed, subjugate, and terrorize masses of subsistence-level slaves. It would be counting on enslaving the productive without reckoning on what replacing incentives with fear and coercion would do to their willingness to produce or their desire to stay. The totalitarians cannot allow a free alternative to coexist just across the border. Unfortunately, peaceful secession is a remote possibility, which means contemplating the alternative.
The government’s many senseless wars have demonstrated the effectiveness of guerrilla warfare against forces superior in every conventional metric: manpower, firepower, and technology. Among tens of millions of potential secessionists, many of them well-armed, there are members or veterans of the military with counterinsurgency experience. They’ve gone to school on guerrillas and their tactics. They’ll likely provide secessionist military leadership once the totalitarians’ war (and they will start it) goes kinetic.
Modern, decentralized technologies and weaponry will be a key component of secessionist strength. The war will be won more with brains and creativity than troop strength or bravado. Teams that can design and assemble weaponized drones and robots, experts in artificial intelligence, remote-control munitions specialists, and computer hackers will be more important military assets than platoons of AR-15 toting commandos.
These technologies will be essential to counter the opposition’s surveillance capabilities, infrastructure, and command and control systems. Secessionists who ignore next-generation technologies, believe they won’t be deployed against them, or fail to realize their offensive potential will be fighting the last war…and they will lose. These technologies are relatively cheap compared to traditional superpower weaponry; their biggest expense is the brainpower they incorporate. It’s a safe bet that among 70 plus million Trump voters and otherwise disaffected that kind of brainpower can be found.
Don’t assume that those within the present power structure, or the emerging globalist one, won’t use every weapon in their arsenal to preserve their hold on power, even at the cost of their own and humanity’s extinction. While the police and military may refuse to fire on their own kin and countrymen, it’s impossible to overestimate the suicidal depravity of the so-called humans issuing their orders. Thus, while conventional armaments, remote technologies, committed secessionists, and guerrilla warfare will be important and essential when kinetic war breaks out, they won’t, in and of themselves, guarantee victory. Too much faith that they will could in fact lead to the opposite outcome.
Along with a straightforward assessment of the opposition’s weaknesses and strengths and a realistic strategy for capitalizing on the former and neutralizing the latter, it’s time to convert current rage into a full-scale political movement. That doesn’t mean the pound-your-head-against-the-wall strategy of trying to win rigged elections. It does mean informing, persuading, and recruiting - the nitty gritty of building a political movement. Much of that building will have to be underground as public dissidence is canceled, corrected, and punished. One of the Viet Cong’s key assets was its political arm, the National Liberation Front, to which they gave much of the credit for their success in the Vietnam war.
Most of the necessary technical brainpower will be found among the young. Right now, the average secessionist is over sixty, voted for Trump, owns plenty of firearms, and has vague notions of a mass movement of the like-minded either miraculously defeating the government or going out in a bolt-hole blaze of glory. That’s not a strategy, it’s a death wish.
It’s easier to carp about snowflakes and SJWs than it is to reach out and educate the open-minded among the young (yes, they are out there) to show them that they will be the primary victims of totalitarianism. The gray curtain is descending over their futures. They have to be inspired by the vision of something far better - their own freedom - if that gray curtain is not to become their gray shroud. You can do worse than give them copies of the "Declaration of Independence", "The Road to Serfdom", and "Atlas Shrugged."
It’s not necessary to change the thinking of every member of Generations X, Y, and Z, or even a majority. What’s essential is to make connections and form alliances with some of the best, brightest, and bravest, to inspire their commitment to their own freedom and future. Start with your own children and grandchildren, and remember that listening is a big part of persuasion. To be understood one must first understand.
Nothing will be fair about the coming fight. It’s no use whining about the other side’s lack of principles, its lies, hypocrisy, unfairness, ruthlessness, and control of virtually every important institution. They’re evil totalitarians, what the hell do we expect? Their principle is absolute power and they’ll do whatever is necessary to acquire and keep it.
Ashli Babbitt’s death, if it is to mean anything at all, should be the cold slap of reality across the faces of those who haven’t grasped the nature of what we face. To ignore the risk that breaching an Imperial Sanctum would be met with violence was pure foolishness. The demonstrators who entered the Capitol could have been murdered en masse. Any expectation that their murderers would receive justice from the Corruptocracy would be delusional naiveté.
No more foolishness or naiveté. Any supposedly peaceful protest will be infiltrated by agent provocateurs bent on making trouble for our cause (including the protests being advertised for next week). The totalitarians will do what they do until they’re completely defeated. This is war, which calls for the unremitting exercise of cold, ruthless rationality. We will administer justice and show mercy when appropriate, but we will expect or receive neither from the other side.
Let’s get on with it."
"And That's Why..."
"Life is painful and messed up. It gets complicated at the worst of times, and sometimes you have no idea where to go or what to do. Lots of times people just let themselves get lost, dropping into a wide open, huge abyss. But that's why we have to keep trying. We have to push through all that hurts us, work past all our memories that are haunting us. Sometimes the things that hurt us are the things that make us strongest. A life without experience, in my opinion, is no life at all. And that's why I tell everyone that, even when it hurts, never stop yourself from living."
- Alysha Speer
"Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."
"Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."
- Steve Jobs,
Commencement Speech, Stanford University, 2005
"When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true...
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called "The Whole Earth Catalog", which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of "The Whole Earth Catalog", and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now I wish that for you. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."
Musical Interlude: Justin Hayward, “Forever Autumn”
Justin Hayward, “Forever Autumn”
From Jeff Wayne’s “The War Of The Worlds”
Full screen highly recommended.
(Letting auto-play continue would be sweet... ;-))
"War of the Worlds"
"War of the Worlds"
by Nomi Prins
"In 'The War of the Worlds', H.G. Wells evokes a species - humanity - rendered helpless in the face of a force greater than itself and beyond its control. His depiction of the grim relationship between the Martians and the humans they were suppressing (meant to remind readers of the relationship between British imperialists and those they suppressed in distant lands) cast an eerie light on the power and wealth gap in Great Britain and around the world at the turn of the twentieth century.
The book was written in the Gilded Age, when rapid economic growth, particularly in the United States, bred a new class of “robber barons.” Like their twenty-first-century counterparts, they also made money out of money, while the economic status of workers slipped ever lower.
It was an early version of a zero-sum game in which the spoils of the system were increasingly beyond the reach of so many. Those at the top ferociously accumulated wealth, while most of the population barely got by... or drowned.
A crisis of inequality had been sparked by the Industrial Revolution, which started in England and then crossed the Atlantic. By the late nineteenth century, America’s “robber barons” were insanely wealthy. According to economist Thomas Piketty, there was a steeper increase in wealth inequality during the Gilded Age than ever before in American history. In 1810, the top 1% of Americans held 25% of the country’s total wealth; between 1870 and 1910, that share leapt to 45%. Today, the top 1% of Americans possess more wealth than the whole of the middle class, a phenomenon that has held true since 2010.
By 2018, about 75% of the $113 trillion in aggregate U.S. household assets were financial ones; meaning, they were tied up in stocks, ETF’s, 401Ks, IRAs, mutual funds, and similar investments. The majority of nonfinancial assets in that mix were in real estate.
Even before the pandemic, only the richest 20% of American households had recovered fully (or, in the case of the truly wealthy, more than fully) from the financial crisis. That was because fewer households had participated in the stock market or owned real estate since the crisis, so they didn't have a chance to capitalize on increases in the values of either.
Much of the appreciation in the stock market and real-estate values has been directly or indirectly related to the Fed’s actions. By the end of December 2020, its balance sheet had increased by $3.164 trillion, reaching a total of $7.35 trillion, 63% more than its book at the height of the decade following the 2008 disaster. Its ultra-loose policies made it cheaper to borrow money, but not as attractive to invest in low-interest-rate, less risky securities like Treasury bonds. As a result, the Fed incentivized those with extra money to grow it through quicker, often riskier investments in the stock market or real estate.
That’s not free market capitalism at all. It’s more like a casino where the games are rigged. The Fed is doing the rigging.
By 2020, urbanities were engaging in cash-only bidding wars for suburban homes that would provide refuge from coronavirus-stricken cities. These all-cash offers were beyond the reach of most traditional buyers.
Congress passed two much-needed Covid-related stimulus packages that extended unemployment benefits, offered two one-off payments, and instituted a Paycheck Protection Program to support smaller businesses. However, the impact of those acts paled in comparison to the tax breaks and investment power the stock market provided to the well-off and corporate kingpins.
While markets leapt to record highs, poverty in the United States also rose last year from 9.3% in June to 11.7% in November 2020. That added nearly eight million Americans to the ranks of the poor, even as America’s 659 billionaires held double the wealth of the 165 million poorest Americans.
The Martians Are Here: The gap between incoming and outgoing federal funds rose as well. The U.S. deficit increased by $3.3 trillion during 2020. The size of the public debt issued by the Treasury Department reached $27.5 trillion. Total federal revenue was $3.45 trillion, while the corporate tax portion was just $221 billion, or a paltry 6.4%.
And though many larger and mid-size corporations filed for bankruptcy protection due to coronavirus related shutdowns, the brunt of permanent closures affected smaller, local businesses the most. Restaurants, hair salons, and health and wellness shops were the hit hardest, only exacerbating economic disparity at the community level.
In other words, the real problem when it comes to inequality isn’t the total amount of taxes received versus money spent in a time of crisis. The greatest issue is that the composition of federal revenue is wildly out of whack (something the pandemic has only made worse).
Take the defense sector, for example. The U.S. government doled out $738 billion to the Pentagon for fiscal year 2020. The contracts to defense-related private companies in 2018, the most recent year for which data was available, totaled roughly 62% of a full defense budget of $579 billion, or $358 billion. Now imagine this: that amount alone dwarfed the total of all corporate taxes flowing into the U.S. Treasury in 2019.
Inequality is about the disparity between people and countries with respect to income, wealth, or power. There will never be perfect equality in a free society, and I’m not saying we should attempt to create it. That would be totalitarian, and it’s been a disaster wherever it’s been tried. But a strong middle class has been America’s backbone. When inequality reaches such extreme levels, it creates an unstable society and invites social unrest. And the more that corporations keep relative to their bottom line when compared with ordinary citizens, the more the stock market rises relative to the real economy. That just perpetuates the cycle.
The more that individuals, rather than corporations, shoulder the burden of tax revenues, the greater the inherent inequality in society. The more that financial assets appreciate and money seeks to multiply itself in the quickest way possible (think of it as like a virus), the greater the distortion created. It’s speculation, not investment in the productive economy.
The Fed can focus on its inflation-versus-full-employment dual-mandate all it wants. But if it continues pushing policies that distort the value of the real economy compared to financial assets, then we are headed for disaster. The reality is that the more those Fed-inflated assets grow relative to real ones, the greater the inequality gap. That’s plain math, and it’s the ugly essence of the United States of America as 2021 begins.
The market doesn’t care about politics. It’s a creature that acts in accordance with the goals of its largest participants. The real economy, on the other hand, requires far more effort -planning, prioritizing, and executing programs and projects that can produce tangible profits. We’re a long way from a world that puts investment in the real economy ahead of those soaring financial markets. That gap, in fact, might as well be like the distance between Earth and Mars. In the midst of a pandemic, as billionaires only grow richer and the markets soar, can there be any doubt that we’re experiencing something like a Martian invasion?"
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Nomi Prins is an American author, journalist, and public speaker. She is the editor of 'Nomi Prins' Dark Money Millionaire' and contributor of Jim Rickards' 'Strategic Intelligence.' She has worked as a managing director at Goldman-Sachs and as a Senior Managing Director at Bear Stearns, as well as a senior strategist at Lehman Brothers and analyst at the Chase Manhattan Bank.
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Theme related:
Jeff Wayne, "The War of the Worlds"
Richard Burton's narration.
"This is the Jeff Wayne musical version of "The War of the Worlds." I have edited out all of the songs in order to have the incredible voice of Richard Burton's narration of the story in one continuous flow." - Stuart Ward
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Jeff Wayne, "War of the Worlds" Complete
An astounding achievement! Highest recommendation!
Treat yourself, close your eyes, and unleash your imagination!
Please view on YouTube, with auto-play on, here:
"Never before in the history of the world had such a mass of human beings moved and suffered together. This was no disciplined march, it was a stampede, without order and without a goal, 6 million people, unarmed and unprovisioned, driving headlong. It was the beginning of the rout of civilization, of the massacre of mankind."
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