So, we rise from the rubble...
Wednesday, July 28, 2021
"Mission Disaster"
"Mission Disaster"
By Bill Bonner
NORMANDY, FRANCE – "We’re exploring the Brave New World ahead. In preview, we don’t think you’re going to like it. You’ll recall that a free economy does what individuals, families, businesses, and investors want it to do. It responds to these billions of different private purposes, aggregating them into the “economy” that we see. A “mission economy” is a different thing. It does what it is told – by the elite few who control the government. Inevitably, the mission is a disaster.
Big and Bold: In his many speeches in the 1930s, Adolf Hitler laid out a “big and bold mission” for Germany. He was prefiguring economist Mariana Mazzucato (author of "Mission Economy") – along with le president de la France, Emmanuel Macron… the president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde… as well as The Atlantic editor David Frum…and assorted members of the U.S. Democratic Party – by nearly a century.
Hitler made it clear that the purpose of an economy was to serve the interests, not of the individual, but of “the Volk,” whose collective desires were channeled by Nazi Party chiefs, the Reich, and most importantly, himself. The economy thus became the servant of the elite who controlled the German government… and of their “mission.”
Of course, Hitler was far from alone. Earlier in the century, the Soviets had put their economy to work on a collective mission, too – to destroy capitalism and build a workers’ paradise on the debris. That worked about as well… but with an even higher body count. Yet, comparing anybody with Hitler… or any other government program with his monstrous mission… is considered not just bad taste, but a sin worthy of de-platforming or defenestration.
And as far as we know, neither Ms. Mazzucato, Emmanuel Macron, Joe Biden, or Christine Lagarde have begun to grow a mustache. The only thing they have in common with the Fuhrer is an idea. That is the idea we were wondering about as we sat in a café in Paris on Saturday…
False God: Nature Magazine lauded Ms. Mazzucato’s book, "Mission Economy," because it “put public purpose first.” The problem with the “public purpose” is, however, that it is not of the public’s choosing. Did the German public see its mission as invading Poland, the Soviet Union, France, Greece, and North Africa? Did the Russians want 70 years of crushing Soviet central planning? Did Americans really want to spend 20 years and $2.3 trillion getting their butts kicked in Afghanistan?
And isn’t that the Big Bamboozle… the false god who stabs us in the back, over and over…? The Bonaparte who rallies his troops on the banks of the Rhine… or the Hitler on the banks of the Oder… for a great campaign of conquest? Isn’t that the Vladimir, the Che, the Hugo, or the Mao who reorganize society completely (for the benefit of the people, of course)? Or the Oliver Cromwell, Pope Urban, or Osama bin Laden… who make it their mission to destroy the infidels… and be done with the non-believers?
And isn’t it the darkness settling over the planet once again… its shrouds laid out by the woke and the witless… who are ready to depress, deport, and de-platform anyone who gets in their way?
New Contagion: Getting in their way now are the unvaccinated. And here, The New York Times snuffs a few more candles: "As Virus Cases Rise, Another Contagion Spreads Among the Vaccinated: Anger". "As coronavirus cases resurge across the country, many inoculated Americans are losing patience with vaccine holdouts who, they say, are neglecting a civic duty or clinging to conspiracy theories and misinformation even as new patients arrive in emergency rooms and the nation renews mask advisories.
The country seemed to be exiting the pandemic; barely a month ago, a sense of celebration was palpable. Now many of the vaccinated fear for their unvaccinated children and worry that they are at risk themselves for breakthrough infections. Rising case rates are upending plans for school and workplace reopenings, and threatening another wave of infections that may overwhelm hospitals in many communities."
Yes, here they are again – good versus evil. The obedient people take their medicine. And the hold-outs… the non-conformists… do not. They are beyond the pale… beyond reason… pariahs… outcasts… to be shunned and dissed. Tomorrow, what happens to dissenters when the economy gets into mission mode. Stay tuned…"
"Clear Focus Ambient Space Music for Concentration - Isochronic Tones"
"Clear Focus Ambient Space Music for Concentration -
Isochronic Tones"
by Jason Lewis - Mind Amend
"Ambient electronic space music with low-intensity beta and alpha wave tones for clear focus. Headphones are NOT required for this video. You can listen to this track with your eyes open while studying, reading or doing other activities which require a good level of concentration.
This is a brainwave entrainment music track using isochronic tones combined with music. The music has also been embedded with amplitude entrainment effects, where the music is subtly distorted and vibrates in unison with the same frequency of the isochronic tones. This helps to add further strength to the entrainment effect. If brainwave entrainment is a new concept for you, there is some information about it here: https://www.mindamend.com/
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This works, as simple as that, and might give you an understanding edge in surviving what's happening, which will get much, much worse. There is no escape. Prepare yourself... - CP
"The Danger of Forgetting the Lessons of the Past"
"The Danger of Forgetting the Lessons of the Past"
By Bill Bonner
"We refer to Planet Earth, 2021. It is not even safe for cats! Think of all we’ve discovered. Over many, many centuries… in hundreds of very disturbing and illuminating real-world experiments… and with millions of people suffering lives of poverty and early death to carry them out… we must have learned something.
What exactly? That you can’t get rich by spending more than you earn. That you can’t just “print” fake money without distorting and destroying the real economy. That if you want to be prosperous, you must respect property rights and contracts… and keep taxes, inflation, and government under control…That capitalism – which is really nothing more than accumulated experiments condensed into a vernacular of rules, customs, and institutions – works. Central planning, on the other hand – with major capital allocation and distribution decisions made by people with no “skin in the game” – does not. When you forget these basic lessons, you risk destabilizing your society and setting off a runaway chaos that makes you poorer and less safe.
Painful Lessons: But despite their treasure of experience and insight, people try hard to forget. And in last month’s issue of The Bonner-Denning Letter, our coauthor Dan Denning described a world gripped by a major bout of amnesia. [Paid up Bonner-Denning Letter subscribers can catch up here. To subscribe, click here.]
It has forgotten where it came from and how it got to where it is. And now, it is condemned to relearn thousands of years’ worth of painful lessons. Its money is fake. Its interest rates are determined by bureaucrats and experts, not by buyers and sellers of credit. Its governments spend far more than they can afford. Its leading economists and politicians live in a fantasy world, where they think they can command markets to do whatever they please. And its world-improvers are bound and determined to remake our whole society according to their own claptrap ideas.
Prepare to suffer! Your earnings (both from selling your time and saving your money) will be repressed, says Dan. Your costs, meanwhile, will rise mercilessly.
Clumsy Ideologues: Want to know what it might be like? Just look at Venezuela. Once the richest people of Latin America, desperate Venezuelans have been reduced to gnawing on cats and dogs, by some accounts. The Miami Herald reports: "In the city’s dump, more evidence of hunger-driven desperation: dismembered dogs, cats, donkeys, horses and pigeons have been found since last year, all skinned or plucked, with signs of having been eaten, according to the city’s garbage teams. “Sometimes we only find the animal’s heads, guts and legs. We used to see this very little in the past, but this practice is now out of control and on the rise,” said Robert Linares, who works in waste disposal at the dump for the city."
And now… despite the compiled wisdom of generations’ worth of trial and error… and the example of Caracas, right in front of our eyes… much of the modern, developed world seems to want to re-run the experiment.
Coming soon, to garbage dumps near you, is more proof of what we know already – that money and economies are too delicate to be manhandled by clumsy ideologues. Yes, we are a long way from feline fricassée in the U.S. But looking ahead, we may want to begin sharing recipes."
"Of All Tyrannies..."
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals. "
- C.S. Lewis
Gregory Mannarino, AM/PM 7/28/21
Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/28/21:
"Today Is FED Day, And The Big Secret
That You Are Not Supposed To Know"
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Gregory Mannarino, PM 7/28/21:
"Freefall: The FED To Maintain Emergency
Monetary Policy For Foreseeable Future"
“The Paradox Of Time”
“The Paradox Of Time”
“Time goes, you say? Ah no!
Alas, Time stays, we go;
Or else, were this not so,
What need to chain the hours,
For Youth were always ours?
Time goes, you say? – ah no!
Ours is the eyes’ deceit
Of men whose flying feet
Lead through some landscape low;
We pass, and think we see
The earth’s fixed surface flee -
Alas, Time stays, – we go!
Once in the days of old,
Your locks were curling gold,
And mine had shamed the crow.
Now, in the self-same stage,
We’ve reached the silver age;
Time goes, you say? – ah no!
Once, when my voice was strong,
I filled the woods with song
To praise your ‘rose’ and ‘snow’;
My bird, that sang, is dead;
Where are your roses fled?
Alas, Time stays, – we go!
See, in what traversed ways,
What backward Fate delays
The hopes we used to know;
Where are our old desires?
Ah, where those vanished fires?
Time goes, you say? – ah no!
How far, how far, O Sweet,
The past behind our feet
Lies in the even-glow!
Now, on the forward way,
Let us fold hands, and pray;
Alas, Time stays, – we go!”
- Henry Austin Dobson
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“Time passes in moments. Moments which, rushing past, define the path of a life, just as surely as they lead towards its end. How rarely do we stop to examine that path, to see the reasons why all things happen? To consider whether the path we take in life is our own making, or simply one into which we drift with eyes closed? But what if we could stop, pause to take stock of each precious moment before it passes? Might we then see the endless forks in the road that have shaped a life? And, seeing those choices, choose another path?”
- Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully, “The X-Files”
Musical Interlude: Simon & Garfunkel, "The Boxer"; "Sounds Of Silence"; "Bridge Over Troubled Water"
Simon & Garfunkel, "The Boxer"
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Simon & Garfunkel, "Sounds Of Silence", 1966
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Simon & Garfunkel, "Bridge Over Troubled Water"
Tuesday, July 27, 2021
Greg Hunter, "Complete Collapse of Everything"
"Complete Collapse of Everything"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"Analyst, financial writer and professional trader Rick Ackerman points out that you cannot underestimate the extreme amount of debt and money printing propping up the economy. Ackerman thinks, “It’s an inflationary bubble, and that’s why I think it’s going to bust. I think it’s going to last as long as the bull market lasts. Companies go out and borrow money to buy back their own shares. It feels like a perpetual motion as far as a bull market in stocks, but even that ends. It’s created a bubble, and bubbles only pop.”
Ackerman warns, “The inflationary juggernaut is going to eventually unwind. The biggest one is a derivatives market with a conservatively estimated value of $2 quadrillion. Any way you cut it, it’s probably around ten times the size of trade in goods and services. So, the question is why do you need a financial machine of that size to support real goods and services that is only 10% of that? The obvious answer to that is because the business of planet earth is not making things and selling services, it’s shuffling paper. So, we’ve leveraged everything to death, and where does that go? Eventually, it has to collapse. When it collapses and we wipe quadrillions of dollars of phony inflated financial wealth off the books, what kind of inflation are we going to have then? It’s a complete collapse of everything, yes, everything.”
Ackerman contends other areas that will also collapse are “Social Security, pension funds and health care.” Ackerman goes on to say when it comes to pensions, for example, like the bankrupt pensions from the State of Illinois, Ackerman says, “You are not talking about inflating financial assets. You are talking about sending out millions of checks every month to every single State of Illinois employee. That truly is money from trees. You’ve got to ask yourself, how long can that go on? That’s real money. That’s not bull twaddle money pumping up stocks. It’s checks being mailed out every month. When Illinois gets bailed out, you’re going to have another 22 states in almost as bad of shape coming with their hands out saying where’s ours? It can’t happen. It can’t happen politically, it can’t happen monetarily, it simply just can’t happen. So, what you have in the pension system, and this applies to Social Security too, you have this enormous deflator. It basically means we are not going to get paid all the benefits that we paid into.”
What should the common person invest in? Ackerman says, “Take the things everyone hates, and set one against the other. I like Treasury bonds (cash) and gold. Any disaster scenario or even a bullish scenario is not going to hit gold and bonds both. In all scenarios, it’s hard to see a way for both of those to crash, and I think you have good upside potential with gold and Treasuries going up at the same time. You have to have bullion in your portfolio I think.” In short, not losing in a severe market meltdown is a big win when everybody else is being destroyed. Ackerman likes silver, too."
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with analyst
Rick Ackerman, who is a professional trader famous for “Ricks Picks.”
"Economic Growth is Completely Fake - Imminent Collapse Coming"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, PM 7/27/21:
"Economic Growth is Completely Fake -
Imminent Collapse Coming"
"Things are very precarious in this fake market right now. Bad news does not mean a thing anymore. People need to get ready because the stock market cannot continue at the pace that is going. They collapse is imminent. I am in Laguna Niguel California right now."
Gerald Celente, "The Trends Journal": "Idiot's Delight - Duh! I do what they tell me."
Full screen recommended.
Gerald Celente, "The Trends Journal":
"Idiot's Delight - Duh! I do what they tell me."
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over hype and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in the increasingly turbulent times ahead."
"Financial Experts Are Clueless As US Declines Rapidly; Economy Will Shut Down"
Jeremiah Babe, PM 7/27/21:
"Financial Experts Are Clueless As US Declines Rapidly;
Economy Will Shut Down"
Musical Interlude: Cesar Benito, “Tema de Sira”
Full screen recommended.
Cesar Benito, “Tema de Sira”
"Memories, important yesterdays, were once todays.
Treasure and notice today."
- Gloria Gaither
"A Look to the Heavens"
“First came the trees. In the town of Salamanca, Spain, the photographer noticed how distinctive a grove of oak trees looked after being pruned. Next came the galaxy. The photographer stayed up until 2 am, waiting until the Milky Way Galaxy rose above the level of a majestic looking oak.
From this carefully chosen perspective, dust lanes in the galaxy appear to be natural continuations to branches of the tree. Last came the light. A flashlight was used on the far side of the tree to project a silhouette. By coincidence, other trees also appeared as similar silhouettes across the relatively bright horizon. The featured image was captured as a single 30-second frame and processed to digitally enhance the Milky Way.”
"Huxley vs. Orwell"
"Huxley vs. Orwell"
by Neil Postman
“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one...
Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism...
Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance...
Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy...
As Huxley remarked in 'Brave New World Revisited', the civil libertarians and the rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In '1984,' Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In 'Brave New World,' they are controlled by inflicting pleasure...
In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us."
Huxley was quite obviously correct...
The Poet: David Wagoner, "Getting There"
"Getting There"
"You take a final step and, look, suddenly
You're there. You've arrived
At the one place all your drudgery was aimed for:
This common ground
Where you stretch out, pressing your cheek to sandstone.
What did you want to be?
You'll remember soon.
You feel like tinder under a burning glass,
A luminous point of change.
The sky is pulsing against the cracked horizon,
Holding it firm till the arrival of stars
In time with your heartbeats.
Like wind etching rock, you've made a lasting impression
On the self you were,
By having come all this way through all this welter
Under your own power,
Though your traces on a map would make an unpromising
Meandering lifeline.
What have you learned so far? You'll find out later,
Telling it haltingly like a dream,
That lost traveler's dream under the last hill
Where through the night you'll take your time out of mind
To unburden yourself
Of elements along elementary paths
By the break of morning.
You've earned this worn-down, hard, incredible sight
Called Here and Now.
Now, what you make of it means everything,
Means starting over:
The life in your hands is neither here nor there
But getting there,
So you're standing again and breathing, beginning another
Journey without regret
Forever, being your own unpeaceable kingdom,
The end of endings."
~ David Wagoner
“Your Whole Life Is Borrowed Time”
“Your Whole Life Is Borrowed Time”
by David Cain
“I can’t remember if this is a real movie plot, or if I just want it to be. A man with a boring job is on his way to work when his attention is caught by some unexpected detail in his otherwise familiar routine – a peculiar insect, a pattern in the concrete, a cryptic slogan on a t-shirt. This detail seems extremely significant to him, but he doesn’t know why.
The strange sight wakes him up from the autopilot-mode by which he has been living his life. He is suddenly aware, for the first time, how complex and interesting his local high street is, and he stops to take it in. Around him pass hundreds of distinctly different people, each a unique individual, driven by some unseen personal motivation. Shops are filled with thousands of trinkets, tools, snacks, and books. Delivery trucks roll past, music plays from somewhere, buildings rise above him. The scene is miraculous to him.
As he surveys the street, he witnesses something surreal: another version of himself is walking away from him, towards his usual bus stop, evidently not having had this same moment of self-awareness. For reasons he is never told, at that moment his life had apparently split in two. However, his double does not make it onto the bus: as he waits, an air conditioning unit falls from a window above, killing him instantly. In a very unexpected and unstorylike way, his life ends.
The man has no idea what has happened, and never receives an explanation. The authorities never identify the person beneath the air conditioner, and the man never tells anyone what he witnessed because nobody would ever believe it. There is nothing to do but carry on with his life. But he is a changed man.
Every morning he is amazed to find another whole day awaiting him. Every meal, every phone call, every greeting from his doorman feels like an undeserved gift, as though he’d mistakenly been given the honeymoon suite at a hotel. He feels grateful even for his problems.
None of the details of his life have changed, except one thing. He now lives with an awareness that he was never truly entitled to be alive; he just happened to be, and still is. His ability to breathe, see, feel, and make choices now seems to him like an unearned, arbitrary status- one that he may freely enjoy, but which can be revoked at any time without explanation. He hopes he never loses this sense that his life is essentially a bonus round, consisting entirely of borrowed time, not just from the day of his strange experience, but from the beginning.
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I once attended a networking event for entrepreneurs, in Toronto. The host had booked a private room beneath a restaurant in Greektown. I was early, so I spent some time in a nearby park, then checked out the shops and restaurants on Danforth Avenue. I stopped in front of a church to tie my shoe. I remember being nervous about meeting a bunch of new people. Of course, it went fine and I had a good time. I had interesting conversations with entrepreneurs in all sorts of spaces: fitness, web development, beard grooming, venture capital. The food was excellent.
The experience was distant enough from my normal routine that, during the event, I was struck by how easily we find ourselves in moments we could not have pictured. For all the certainty we feel when we plan for (or ruminate about) the future, life unfolds in ways that are ultimately unpredictable. We just end up places. Two weeks after that event, a deranged man with a gun walked down the same stretch of Danforth Avenue and shot fourteen people at random, then shot himself.
I don’t mean to sound dramatic. It wasn’t a close call, at least for me. I’m sure a hundred thousand people walked down that stretch of road in the weeks surrounding the incident. There are people who literally dodged the bullets. But when I watched videos of eye-witness accounts, including some in front of the church where I tied my shoes and the corner where I nervously loitered, it gave me a vital bit of perspective: I happen to be alive, and there’s no cosmic law entitling me to that status. Being alive is just happenstance, and not one more day of it is guaranteed.
This thought instantly relieved me of any angst over that particular day’s troubles: technical issues on my website, an unexpected major expense, an acute sense that I’m getting old. Those problems remained, and they are real problems. But they immediately became only relatively important. They lost their sense of absolute importance. In fact, any personal problem I could think of now seemed to be a small, aesthetic complaint about the grand, mysterious gift of being randomly, unfairly alive that day.
This perspective made it easy to tackle the problems I could, and live at peace with the others, all with a breezy sense that this is just a bonus round anyway. Despite the awful news, it was a productive and enjoyable day, and I would like to live all my days that way. That was a few weeks ago. Not surprisingly, the breezy feeling now comes and goes – too many years of seeing my latest dilemma as absolutely important, rather than just relatively important.
This “I could be dead” perspective isn’t a sentimental thinking exercise. I think it’s a more honest view of our ever-tentative situation, one that respects the impersonal, flippant way in which fate handles our lives. The shooting just forced me to see my day in that way, but a random crime is only one of many possible (and still possible) endings. There are always speeding cars, rare diseases, gas explosions, and treacherous stairwells. And none of these events, when they do happen, are negotiable.
The universe is not at all sentimental – aliveness is always going to be an arbitrary status that can be revoked at any time. No recourse, no due process.
Equally mysterious is that our lives began at all. As my favorite philosopher, Douglas Harding, tried to remind us before he died: “It’s the very last thing, isn’t it, that we feel grateful for: having happened. You know, you needn’t have happened. You needn’t have happened. But you did happen.”
And we needn’t still be happening. But we are. I suppose the trick is to remember that fact even in the throes of our worst moods and toughest dilemmas. Maybe I’ll get a reminder tattooed on my wrist, for whenever my complaints start to seem absolutely important: This is borrowed time, all of it. Would you rather give it back?”
"I Don't Pretend..."
“I don't pretend we have all the answers.
But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.”
- Arthur C. Clarke
Gregory Mannarino, AM/PM 7/27/21
Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/27/21:
"The Economy Continues To FREEFALL...
Stay On The Right Side Of This"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 7/27/21:
"Must Watch! The IMF Warns Again;
Be Ready For Another Economic Shutdown"
"America Is Only One Step Away From A South African-Style Social Implosion"
"America Is Only One Step Away From A
South African-Style Social Implosion"
by Brandon Smith
"On the global news front I have been watching one event with special attention, mainly because it seems like almost no one else is – I am speaking of course about the social and economic collapse in South Africa that has been escalating over the past couple weeks. What is strange to me is that certain parallels between South Africa and the US are being summarily ignored. Basically, the South African situation is a more exaggerated version of what is happening in America, and we need to consider if it is merely a preview of future events as the extra financial protections in the US begin to fall away.
On the global news front I have been watching one event with special attention, mainly because it seems like almost no one else is – I am speaking of course about the social and economic collapse in South Africa that has been escalating over the past couple weeks. What is strange to me is that certain parallels between South Africa and the US are being summarily ignored.
Basically, the South African situation is a more exaggerated version of what is happening in America, and we need to consider if it is merely a preview of future events as the extra financial protections in the US begin to fall away.
Cultural Marxism And Social Unrest (The Reparations Con): South Africa’s government under the ANC (African National Congress) was already going full communist in 2018-2019 before the covid pandemic. Under proposed amendments to the constitution, they demanded that “reparations” be taken from white farmers in the form of land grabs, which would then be redistributed to black citizens. This is the classic critical race theory argument – That because colonialism once existed, all beneficiaries and their supposed descendants owe dues to the descendants of indigenous people who lost their lands. The problem is, only the descendants of WHITE colonists are required to pay dues.
This is exactly the same path that socialists/Marxists in the Democratic Party are pursuing in the US, with some states and cities demanding reparations for blacks be written into law because of slavery nearly 200 years ago. The reparations movement is tiny, but like all other social justice initiatives it is gaining power because politicians and corporations are supporting it artificially. Why? That’s easy: It’s all about divide and conquer.
I think my take on it is simplified, but I feel this needs to be said because CRT and social justice lunatics tend to over-complicate issues in order to distract from certain fundamental realities. Black and brown people invaded each other’s lands and enslaved their neighbors for thousands of years before white people ever showed up on the scene. White people were made slaved within certain civilizations for many centuries as well, and yes, it was just as bad for them as it was for black slaves in America. Slavery and colonialism has NEVER been relegated to only one race or ethnicity. This is historic fact.
But, that’s all forgotten in the bizarre justifications of critical race theorists. Why are white people the only people that are supposed to pay reparations when the whole world has been killing each other for land and resources since the beginning of recorded history?
Frankly, if your ancestors lost a bunch of land centuries ago to colonists, then perhaps they should have fought harder for it. You don’t get to suddenly wave your hand and magically claim it back centuries later by default through government enforced eminent domain just because your ancestors sucked at self defense. Go back in time and tell your great-great-great-grandparents to “Get Good.”
Of course, today’s communists don’t really fight for anything, at least not directly. I might respect them a little if they did. Rather, they loudly whine that they are “victims” even though they are not, and then demand they be given free stuff for life even though they never earned it. And, since free stuff has to be taken from somewhere, the people that have things are attacked through color of law even when they did nothing wrong and earned every cent they own.
Communists steal from others through government proxy and by claiming victim group status. They work hand-in-hand with the very politicians and corporate oligarchs they say they despise. The governments and corporations do it because they can use the Marxist mob as a social weapon to strike fear in their ideological adversaries (conservatives), and the SJWs do it because they can feed on the scraps from the big boy’s table and use government to forcefully redistribute wealth into their own pockets. It’s kind of a win-win, at least for a while. Eventually the low level commies get nailed to a wall or sent to a gulag when they are no longer useful, but that’s a tale for another time…
As international outrage developed over the proposed land confiscation mandates and accusations of reverse racism started to spread, the ANC dialed back their rhetoric and adjusted legislation to confiscate land that was “abandoned, unused or posed safety risks”. Let’s set aside the fact that these requirements are arbitrary and could still be abused by the government to take away land from white owners; for now we just need to acknowledge that racial tensions were high in a country which has been working hard to deal with its recent segregationist history. The social justice communists made things much worse, not better, as is always the case.
As we saw last summer with the $1 Billion in damages caused by the “mostly peaceful” BLM riots, racial conflict is an effective weapon for the elites to create chaos. After all, BLM received most of its initial funding through the Ford Foundation and George Soros’ Open Society Foundation. They are a fabricated movement built around false critical race theory claims, but they are enough of a movement to enact violence on a nationwide scale.
Covid Lockdowns And Vaccine Totalitarianism: The South African government’s response to covid is brutal and ongoing. The lockdowns are some of the most strict in the world with curfews, zero gatherings indoors or outdoors, alcohol bans and restrictions on travel through certain areas. A large majority of the population has been blocked from participation in the normal economy. The public has been awaiting economic relief for over a year, but the hype and fear mongering around the “Delta variant” has dashed all hope. Lockdowns returned in full force in June.
There is NO EVIDENCE that the Delta Variant is as deadly or more deadly than the original iteration of covid, and covid’s overall IFR (Infection Fatality Rate) is a paltry 0.26% according to the CDC and other independent studies. Meaning, draconian lockdowns are still being implemented over a virus that 99.74% of people will easily survive.
Riots in Johannesburg and elsewhere erupted, with over 200 dead and billions in property damage and theft. In this case, it is hard to outright condemn the looting because the government continues to block citizens from earning a living in the name of stopping covid.
Full screen recommended.
This is on top of South Africa’s already high poverty level and the fact that, unlike the US with its world reserve currency, South Africa does not have the same ability to print stimulus checks from thin air to placate the masses and hide the damage.
Not surprisingly the ANC refuses to acknowledge that the primary cause of the riots has been their own lockdown policies. Instead, they have blamed the the crisis on the arrest of former president Jacob Zuma for contempt of court charges as the trigger. This may have added gasoline to the fire, but it was not the cause. When the government is actively sabotaging the ability of millions of people to work and feed their families the only other option left for most is theft, or revolution.
Supply chains in the country have been completely disrupted and the only retail outlets with stock are those protected by the military or those protected by business owners armed with guns and baseball bats. Only 6% of the population is allowed to own firearms under South Africa’s gun control bureaucracy and red tape. The government has a near monopoly on force and it is unlikely that the mobs will change much in terms of policy, but they do make life hell for the rest of the population.
The civil unrest in this region is, in my opinion, a preview of what is to come in the US and other western nations. We have already seen riots in France, Italy and other parts of the western world over legislation that would make the experimental mRNA vaccines mandatory through vaccine passports. I would point out that the liberty media has warned OVER AND OVER that governments would try to enforce vaccine passports and make vaccines mandatory. We were called “conspiracy theorists” for this; now we are proven right once again.
Covid laws will lead to unrest in the US, just as they have led to unrest in South Africa. The Biden Administration continues to push for total vaccination of Americans despite all science running contrary to his initiatives and claims. As I outlined in my article ‘Biden’s Vaccine Strike Force Plan Stinks Of Desperation’, the facts on covid do not support vaccine mandates or passports, and this is why around half the US population continues to defy the restrictions and refuses to take the jab. The only reason why medical tyranny has been beaten back in the US is because around 50% of US households are armed. We are not yet South Africa because of our gun rights, so be thankful for the millions of gun owners out there creating a deterrent to tyranny.
The goals of the establishment will remain, however. They are going to continue to ignore the fact that Covid’s death rate is a mere 0.26% of those with confirmed infections. They are going to continue to ignore the fact that natural immunity is a part of herd immunity. They are going to continue to ignore the fact that covid infections and deaths dropped off a cliff in January of 2021 well before the vaccines were rolled out in the US. And, they are going to continue to ignore the fact that the experimental mRNA vaccines have no long term testing to prove they are safe for humans.
The science is unimportant to them. Covid is only a tool for gaining control. They do not care about public safety in the slightest.
Economic Decline And The Dark Cloud Of Inflation: There are some differences between the US and South Africa in terms of motivations and economy, but the gap is not as wide and some might think. The US is exhibiting similar signs of decline in terms of poverty, small business closures and inflation.
South Africa’s unemployment rate and poverty rate appears much higher, but the US has the ability to hide real poverty through temporary stimulus measures, welfare programs and eviction moratoriums. When the covid checks run out and evictions return, we are going to see a massive spike in poverty levels in the US once again. Furthermore, core price inflation has hit 30 year highs due to trillions in money printing and dollar devaluation, along with struggling supply chains. For now, increased demand created by covid checks is giving the illusion that the economy is in recovery, but just as home sales are now plunging after a short term spike, so too will demand in most sectors of the economy.
This does not mean that prices will fall with demand, however. For example, lumber prices are in decline as demand lessens, but after rising by 300% in some areas they have a long way to go and will probably never go back to their pre-pandemic levels. We are now seeing the same dynamic happening in housing sales vs. house prices. When demand is falling but price inflation continues to rise or remains high, this is a sign of a stagflationary crisis. And if this is the case, then the US economy will falter dramatically in the coming months, leading to poverty levels similar to South Africa. Money printing is a temporary fix that leads to longer term disasters.
It is also only a matter of time before a covid variant (like the Delta variant) is used as an excuse to bring back lockdowns across the country. And make no mistake, they will attempt harsher and harsher mandates similar to those in South Africa in order to intimidate people into submitting to the jab and the passports. At this stage, the US government will have not only mass riots on their hands, but also an armed rebellion. Undoubtedly, supply chains will crash if they have not already been disrupted by lockdowns or a related financial crisis.
The question at that point will be this: Who will rebuild? If it’s the elites and the covid cult, then freedom will disappear forever. If it’s liberty minded people, then there might be a chance to bring our civilization back from the brink. Everything depends on who is left standing after the chaos subsides.
South Africa is a warning to Americans: Do not get too comfortable. Do not get complacent. Be ready for the next shoe to drop. Prepare accordingly, and understand that a fight is coming. The establishment will place its bets that the unrest and economic disaster will create manufactured consent. They believe that the public will be sufficiently desperate and will beg for totalitarianism as a solution. Do not find yourself among the desperate, and if you can, organize your community to weather the storm.
Finally, always remember who the people are that caused this mess in the first place. Rioters and looters are going to be a problem, but they are not the true enemy. The people behind the curtain need to be dealt with if we are ever going to find peace again."
Monday, July 26, 2021
“Alarming Signs Point to Trouble; Unemployed Make $35 Per Hour; Housing Boom Cools Down, Crisis Next”
Jeremiah Babe, PM 7/26/21:
“Alarming Signs Point to Trouble; Unemployed Make $35
Per Hour; Housing Boom Cools Down, Crisis Next”
"The Bank Was Saved, and the People Were Ruined."
"The Bank Was Saved, and the People Were Ruined."
by Jeff Thomas
"The above quote is from William Gouge, commenting on the Panic of 1819. The panic had been caused when the First Bank of the United States had first expanded the money supply dramatically by offering loans, then contracted the money supply by tightening its requirements for new loans, causing a crash. This is a useful quote, as, in its simplicity, it states the very nature of crashes brought on by irresponsible banking practices. In every case in which this occurs, it is possible through the complicity of the government of the day.
The origin of this syndrome goes back to Mayer Rothschild, a very clever fellow who, in the late 18th century, offered financial benefits to politicians in Germany in trade for political support for whatever activities his bank might practice. Rothschild was a long-term thinker; his method involved the offering of regular emoluments to politicians without their having to provide him with anything immediately. Then, when he needed a large favor, he would call it in. Movie buffs may see a similarity between Rothschild’s method and the deals made by Don Corleone in The Godfather. "Some day – and that day may never come – I’ll call upon you to do a service for me."
Rothschild created boom-and-bust cycles which were highly profitable for his bank, but depended upon the support of the government when the "bust" part came along. As described above, the bank would offer loans to the public on generous terms, then suddenly rein in those terms on all future loans. The claim the bank would make would be that inflation was taking place and the bank was taking action to control that inflation. (Of course, Rothschild did not bother to mention that it was the bank itself that had caused the inflation.)
The net result would be a "panic," or, in today’s terms a "depression." Everyone involved would be harmed by the event except the politicians and the bank. This scheme was accurately and succinctly described by G. Edward Griffin in 1994: "It is widely believed that panics, boom-and-bust cycles, and depressions are caused by unbridled competition between banks; thus the need for government regulation. The truth is just the opposite. These disruptions in the free market are the result of government prevention of competition by the granting of monopolistic power to the central bank."
Mayer Rothschild’s five sons followed in his footsteps and would go on to control much of the banking in Europe. The Rothschilds are perhaps best known for the Bank of England, which is still in operation today as one of the world’s most powerful banks. So, let’s have a brief look at central banking in America.
In 1782, the Bank of North America was opened in America during the infancy of the United States. It was modelled after Rothschild’s Bank of England. It operated as a central bank and, as it was organized by Congressman Robert Morris, it was intended from the start to serve both its directors and the politicians of the day. The bank did indeed serve the bankers and politicians – at the expense of the depositors. Although the bank lost its charter in 1783, an effort was soon afoot to create a virtually identical bank, called, "The Bank of the United States." The proposal was backed by the Rothschilds, who intended to control it.
Having just seen, first hand, how much damage a central bank, with a fascist relationship to the government could do, a terrible (and ongoing) row took place within the Cabinet of President George Washington as to whether another potentially disastrous bank should be allowed. The main protagonist was Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, who said, "The system of banking [is] a blot left in all constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction… I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity…is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
On the other side, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton led the argument in favor of the creation of a second central bank. Incredibly, even though Congress had just seen what a disaster this could be, they approved the charter for the new bank in 1791. It opened with less than nine percent of the private funds required by its charter. A primary object of the bank was to provide fiat currency for the government, whilst collecting deposits from the public. Immediately, the new bank began to print money and to lend it, with predictable results. By 1811, it had closed its doors, having rewarded only its directors and some politicians, whilst the depositors lost their money.
This, surely, would be the end of the failed concept of a central bank, a fascist partnership between financiers and politicians. However, in 1816, Congress granted a charter to the second "Bank of the United States." Within three years, the bank had caused the Panic of 1819, as stated in the opening paragraph of this article and, again, as Gouge said, "the bank was saved and the people were ruined."
In 1832, President Andrew Jackson was up for re-election and he risked his success on a campaign to stop the renewal of the charter of the Bank of the United States. Although he won both his re-election and his bid to stop the renewal of the charter, both the Rothschild family and their American counterparts continued their efforts to create a central bank that would provide both bankers and politicians with wealth whilst using depositors as cash cows.
They succeeded marvelously in 1913 with the creation of the Federal Reserve, a more sophisticated relationship between bank and State that has operated ever since. In the boom-and-bust cycles it has created, the US dollar has been devalued by over 96% and, in 1999, the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act allowed bankers to create the Mother of All Loaning Sprees, resulting directly in the collapse of the real estate bubble in 2007 and the crash of the stock market in 2008.
But the system today is far more advanced than in the eighteenth century. It is no longer necessary to fold the banks involved, or at least not immediately. In the aftermath of the 2007/2008 crashes, Government has declared that the closing of the central banks would be the worst catastrophe that could befall the country and therefore, the country must borrow heavily to re-fund them. No requirement was made of the banks to actually offer these funds on loan, let alone to bail out the debtors. The banks have instead been able to absorb the funds, continuing the massive bonuses to the very directors who caused the disaster in the first instance.
The above history is a brief, thumbnail sketch of events relative to central banking in the US since the formation of the country. It is not meant to be all-encompassing and the reader is encouraged to study the subject further. But the sketch does have a purpose. Today, most of the First World is in the midst of an economic crisis that has been caused by debt. That debt has been the product of bankers and governments working together.
History shows us that the present situation is not an accident. It is the repetition of a very successful method by which bankers, with the complicity of governments, create boom-and-bust cycles; cycles that, whilst damaging for nearly all citizens of a country, are very profitable for those who create the cycles.
If we are to watch the evening news, there are, daily, politicians and pundits offering "solutions" – "Provide quantitative easing," "tax the one percent," or simply, "kick the can down the road." Through endless debate, viewers are encouraged to believe that somehow, the government and the directors of the banks and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve will come up with a solution to the problem.
However, a brief read of the history above suggests that there will be no "solution," as no solution is intended by those who have created the problem. The entire concept is to periodically hang the depositor out to dry. (It’s not done to be purposely unkind; it’s done because it’s so very profitable.)
If the reader has not yet been squeezed to the point that his net worth (value of assets, minus debt) is under water, he would be well advised to consider means by which his liquid assets can be removed from the banking system, a system that, if history repeats, may soon take those remaining assets, as the second half of the Great Unravelling unfolds.
Does this mean that the reader should run right down to the bank and withdraw his assets? Not necessarily. What it does mean is that it would be best to recognize that a clear pattern has existed for hundreds of years regarding boom-and-bust banking and the reader would be well-advised to ask himself some unpleasant questions. Here are a few:
• Will my bank be one of those that crashes?
• Will my savings be lost partially or entirely?
• How much time do I have before I should remove my deposits?
• Will my bank honor the agreement of the paper gold that they have sold me?
• Will I be able to take delivery of allocated gold that they "hold" for me?
• What do I do with my assets if I withdraw them from the bank?
• Will there be banks that will remain in business? Which ones?
The above questions should be asked periodically, as events unfold. Doing so may mean the difference between the retention or loss of assets that the reader now trusts his bank to hold for him."
"Supply Chain Crisis Dramatically Worsens & Food Prices Soar: Prepare Your Self For The Worst!"
Full screen recommended.
"Supply Chain Crisis Dramatically Worsens &
Food Prices Soar: Prepare Your Self For The Worst!"
by Epic Economist
"Global supply chains are nearing a breaking point yet again as a series of natural disasters, in addition to a new wave of virus outbreaks in Asia, and cyberattacks at key South African ports, have been threatening the flow of consumer goods, raw materials, and several other exports -- a situation that is alarming food retailers, economists, and shipping specialists; and making many of them believe that the world might suffer from prolonged product shortages and higher inflation for much longer than previously expected.
Catastrophic floods in Germany and China have further disrupted global supply lines that had been struggling to recover from the impact of the first wave of virus outbreaks. Now, global economic activity is at risk of slowing down significantly, and this is threatening to derail the economic rebound from the global recession that started last year, as trillions of dollars of goods were either destroyed or are still halted at ports.
According to Chinese officials, the disastrous flood is restricting the transportation of coal from mining regions at a time power plants desperately need fuel to meet peak summer demand. A similar situation is also happening in Germany, where road transportation of goods has been stalled due to the unexpected disaster. On top of all that, due to "a confluence of crises", the number of U.S. companies scrambling to free goods trapped in Asia and U.S. ports has simply skyrocketed, according to Nick Klein, the VP of logistics company OEC Group. However, port congestion isn't likely to be solved until 2022.
Meanwhile, most manufacturing industries are still impaired by shortages of products and parts. Automakers are among the hardest hit by the latest transportation crunch. For instance, this week, Toyota Motor Corp. announced that due to shortages of key parts the company is being forced to stop production at several plans in Thailand and Japan. Moreover, it seems that the woes faced by automakers are about to get worse, as a mysterious cyberattack has disrupted container operations at the South African port of Cape Town, and also at Durban, the busiest shipping terminal in sub-Saharan Africa. Both ports are largely responsible for the delivery of key auto parts across several countries. Local authorities are still investigating the origin of the attack, and they said it has created a major backlog at ports that could take months to be cleared.
Although consumer demand is at all-time highs, the supply chain crisis is severely affecting the economies of both the United States and China, which combined account for over 40 percent of global economic output. U.S. data released last Friday exposed that the third and fourth quarter economic outlook is rather bleak. Despite a booming second quarter, fueled by high consumer demand and vaccination efforts, for the second half of the year, experts predict a collapse of growth and rising prices for all manner of goods and raw materials.
For U.S. restaurants, the economic recovery isn't looking like a recovery at all. All across the industry, restaurant owners have been struggling with labor shortages, supply chain issues, inflation, and the rising cost of imported goods. And U.S. consumers are likely to see even more acute price hikes at both restaurants and grocery stores. According to the U.S. Food’s Farmer’s Report, several pantry staples are hitting record-high prices. Meat prices are also nearing all-time highs, with fresh jumbo wings, jumbo tenders, and boneless thigh meat prices spiking, and frozen chicken wing inventory at the lowest levels since 2012.
The relentless rise in meat prices is being attributed to the surging cost to feed farm animals, whose diets consist of corn and soybeans, two commodities that have seen price increases of roughly 50 percent this year. As those higher costs are being passed on to consumers and inflationary pressures continue to rise, extreme weather is definitely not helping the equation. Millions of acres of crops are being slammed all across the globe due to natural disasters, threatening to bring further food inflation at a time costs are already at the highest in almost a decade and hunger is on the rise.
The agricultural industry has become extremely globalized and this leaves food supply chains in a very precarious situation. When one extreme weather event occurs in one place it is bound to trigger a ripple effect everywhere. At this point, some of the poorest nations are already facing devastating hunger crises. In many cases, the lack of food sparks social and political tensions. In a nation with at least 24 million people facing some level of food insecurity, it's only a matter of time until we see widespread unrest ravaging America. The rapid pace of food price growth is an alarming sign of the troubles and the dark times that are coming for us."
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