Tuesday, October 19, 2021

"The Empire of Lies Breaks Down: Ugly Truths the Deep State Wants to Keep Hidden"

"The Empire of Lies Breaks Down:
 Ugly Truths the Deep State Wants to Keep Hidden"
by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead

“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, 
but because of those who look on and do nothing.”
 - Albert Einstein

"America is breaking down. This breakdown - triggered by polarizing circus politics, media-fed mass hysteria, racism, classism, fascism, fear-mongering, political correctness, cultural sanitation, virtue signaling, a sense of hopelessness and powerlessness in the face of growing government corruption and brutality, a growing economic divide that has much of the population struggling to get by, and militarization and militainment (the selling of war and violence as entertainment) - is manifesting itself in madness, mayhem and an utter disregard for the very principles and liberties that have kept us out of the clutches of totalitarianism for so long.

In New York City, for example, a 200-year-old statue of Thomas Jefferson holding the Declaration of Independence will be removed from the City Council’s chambers where it has presided since 1915. Despite Jefferson’s many significant accomplishments, without which we might not have the rights we do today, he will be banished for having been, like many of his day, a slaveowner. Curiously, that same brutal expectation of infallibility has yet to be applied to many other politically correct yet equally imperfect and fallible role models of the day.

In Washington, DC, a tribunal of nine men and women spoke with one voice to affirm that the government and its henchmen can literally get away with murder and not be held accountable for their wrongdoing. The Supreme Court’s latest rulings are yet another painful lesson in compliance, a reminder that in the American police state, “we the people” are at the mercy of law enforcement officers who have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to ‘serve and protect.”

All across the country, from California to Connecticut and every point in between, men and women who have worked faithfully and diligently at their jobs for years are being terminated for daring to believe that they have a right to bodily integrity; that they should not be forced, against their conscience or better judgment, to choose between individual liberty and economic survival; and that they - and not the government, or the FDA, or the CDC, or the Corporate State - have dominion over their bodies. Conveniently enough, this COVID-19 pandemic has created yet another double standard in how “we the people” navigate this country: while “we the middling classes” are subjected to vaccine mandates and denied even the right to be skeptical about the origins of the COVID virus, let alone the efficacy of the so-called cure, the government, corporations and pharmaceutical companies have been shielded from liability with blanket immunity laws that ensure we are little more than guinea pigs for their questionable experiments.

And then in Pennsylvania, a man traveling on a commuter train harassed, assaulted and then raped a woman over the course of 40 minutes and more than two dozen train stops while fellow travelers, watching and filming the attack, did nothing. Not a single witness called 911. Not a single bystander intervened to help the woman. Despite the fact that the man was outnumbered and could have been overwhelmed by those on the train, no collective effort was made to ward off the attack. Only when it was too late, when the damage had been done and the train had pulled into its last stop, did police show up to intervene.

There is an allegory here for what is happening to our country and its citizens, who have also been waylaid by a madman (the Deep State), stripped of their safety nets (their rights undermined and eroded), and savaged out in the open by a fiend (the American Police State and its many operatives - the courts, the legislatures and their various armies) that is devoid of humanity while those not in the immediate crosshairs watch safely from a distance without making a move to help.

This is madness, yet there is a method to this madness. This is how freedom falls and tyranny rises. Remember, authoritarian regimes begin with incremental steps: overcriminalization, surveillance of innocent citizens, imprisonment for nonviolent - victimless -crimes, etc. Bit by bit, the citizenry finds its freedoms being curtailed and undermined for the sake of national security. And slowly the populace begins to submit.

No one speaks up for those being targeted. No one resists these minor acts of oppression. No one recognizes the indoctrination into tyranny for what it is.

Historically this failure to speak truth to power has resulted in whole populations being conditioned to tolerate unspoken cruelty toward their fellow human beings, a bystander syndrome in which people remain silent and disengaged - mere onlookers - in the face of abject horrors and injustice.

We can disassociate from such violence. We can convince ourselves that we are somehow different from the victims of government abuse. We can continue to spout empty political rhetoric about how great America is, despite the evidence to the contrary. We can avoid responsibility for holding the government accountable. We can zip our lips and bind our hands and shut our eyes.

In other words, we can continue to exist in a state of denial. Yet there is no denying the ugly, hard truths that become more evident with every passing day.

We cannot remain silent in the face of the government’s ongoing overreaches, power grabs, and crimes against humanity. Evil disguised as bureaucracy is still evil. Indeed, this is what Hannah Arendt referred to as the banality of evil.

As I make clear in my book "Battlefield America: The War on the American People" and in its fictional counterpart "The Erik Blair Diaries," such evil happens when bureaucrats (governmental and corporate) unquestioningly carry out orders that are immoral and inhumane; obey immoral instructions unthinkingly; march in lockstep with tyrants; mindlessly perpetuate acts of terror and inhumanity; and justify it all as just “doing one’s job.”

Such evil prevails when good men and women do nothing. By doing nothing, by remaining silent, by being bystanders to injustice, hate and wrongdoing, good people become as guilty as the perpetrator. It works the same whether you’re talking about kids watching bullies torment a fellow student on a playground, bystanders watching someone dying on a sidewalk, passengers on a train filming a fellow traveler be raped without intervening to help, or citizens remaining silent in the face of government atrocities.

We need to stop being silent bystanders. It’s time to stand up for truth - for justice - for freedom - not just for ourselves but for all humanity. Tomorrow may be too late."

"Bezzle, Bezzle, Boil and Bubble"

"Bezzle, Bezzle, Boil and Bubble"
By Bill Bonner

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – "What a marvelous time to be alive… with a front-row seat to watch a great empire stumble and fall! It only happens once every hundred years or so… So pull up a chair and enjoy the show.

Here’s the big news, from Bloomberg: "U.S. Factory Output Falls in Fresh Supply-Chain Warning." "Production at U.S. factories fell by the most in seven months in September, in part reflecting a sharp pullback in the manufacturing of motor vehicles as well as broader backlogged supply chains and materials shortages. Supply chain? What’s happening is much more than just a weak link. Adjusted for inflation, real industrial production has been going down for half a century and now is only a third of its 1968 level."

Falling Apart: The U.S. enjoyed a fake prosperity for the last 30 years – but only because China picked up the burden of manufacturing and sold goods to Americans at discount prices, keeping inflation in check. And now, the U.S. no longer has the good jobs, the infrastructure, or the know-how to make things Americans want. Instead, appliances and geegaws are shipped across the Pacific Ocean – at enormous cost – while the discounts disappear. China’s raw materials costs – metals, fuel, etc. – are going up. So are its wages. It can no longer offset America’s money-printing with cheap products.

Yes, here in the U.S., “inflation” is now out in the open… and the whole scam is coming apart. CBS News reports: "A perfect storm of high demand and low supply is sending fuel prices through the roof. Driving your car is costing a lot more – and heating your home this winter could, too.
[…]
The national average for a gallon of regular unleaded gas this week is $3.27 – a seven-year high. According to GasBuddy, a price tracking service, the price of a gallon nationwide has gone up more than five cents in a week.

Meanwhile, benchmark crude oil prices have risen above $80 a barrel for the first time since 2014. As a result, Chicago-area utilities are projecting that heating bills will be up to 50% higher this winter. The New York Department of Public Service warned residents last week that their home heating bills could jump 21% compared to last winter."

On the Case: But don’t worry. The Biden team is on the case. Spotted on Bloomberg last week: "Biden Seeks to Spearhead New Attack on Supply-Chain." "President Joe Biden will turn his focus to supply-chain transportation bottlenecks on Wednesday, as the congested Port of Los Angeles will announce a 24 hours a day, seven days a week effort to confront the squeeze on goods. But is the president really doing Americans a service by making it easier for them to buy Chinese products? 

Both the Trump and Biden administrations share the same COVID-19-fighting strategy – close up U.S. businesses, but give Americans money so they can shop for Made-in-China goods. Here’s the Asia Times: "Gobbling China’s Exports, US Sinks into Dependency." "China’s exports rose 28% in September from the year-earlier level, more than the analyst consensus had forecast. More important is that China’s exports to the United States have risen by 31% since January 2018, when President Trump imposed tariffs on a wide range of US imports from China. At a seasonally adjusted annual rate, the US is buying $635 billion of Chinese goods, equal to a staggering 27% of US manufacturing Gross Domestic Product."

Fraudfest: As we’ve been saying… the whole thing is a fraudfest. From the most basic premises – that wise guys in Washington can make decisions better than consumers, producers, and investors…that American “democracy” follows the “will of the people”… and adapts to its needs…that elected officials know how to run a shipyard better than people who’ve been doing it all their lives… people with skin in the game and real brains in their heads…that you can spend more than you earn, year after year, and cover the deficits with “printing press” money…and that this fake money actually “stimulates” the economy – it’s a “bezzle.” From start to finish. Dishonest. Corrupt. Incompetent.

Fake Prosperity: You can’t “print” prosperity. You can’t make an economy work with five-year plans. And “democracy” does not mean that the majority always gets what it wants. Nope. It gets whatever bone the elites toss its way. But while tossing out scraps was easy when the economy was growing, of late, it’s become much more difficult.

The U.S. squandered trillions on its misbegotten wars and social programs. Now, it’s got a $3 trillion deficit – even without a recession. And this week, Republicans and Democrats consider the next trillion-dollar-plus programs… while the printing presses run hot to pay for them. More to come…"

The Daily "Near You?"

Springtown, Texas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"We Are Living in a Chaotic Economy - There is No End in Sight"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAlllegedly, 10/19/21:
"We Are Living in a Chaotic Economy - 
There is No End in Sight"
"It does not matter where you live. From Los Angeles to New York City to Great Britain, it is all Chaotic as far as the global economy is concerned. There is no end in sight to the madness."

"Many Thorns..."

“In a word, there are many thorns, but the roses are there too.”
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Full screen recommended.
Tchaikovsky, “1812 Overture”
The story:
“On September 7, 1812, at Borodino, 120 km (75 mi) west of Moscow, Napoleon’s forces met those of General Mikhail Kutuzov in a concerted stand made by Russia against the seemingly invincible French Army. The Battle of Borodino saw casualties estimated as high as 100,000 and the French were masters of the field. It was, however, ultimately a pyrrhic victory for the French invasion.

With resources depleted and supply lines overextended, Napoleon’s weakened forces moved into Moscow, which they occupied with little resistance. Expecting capitulation from the displaced Tsar Alexander I, the French instead found themselves in a barren and desolate city, parts of which the retreating Russian Army had burned to the ground.

Deprived of winter stores, Napoleon had to retreat. Beginning on October 19 and lasting well into December, the French Army faced several overwhelming obstacles on its long retreat: famine, typhus, frigid temperatures, harassing Cossacks, and Russian forces barring the way out of the country. Abandoned by Napoleon in November, the Grande Armée was reduced to one-tenth of its original size by the time it reached Poland and relative safety.”

"Unthinkable Thoughts"

"Unthinkable Thoughts"
by Josh Mitteldorf

"This is not what I enjoy writing about, but as I find dark thoughts creeping into my consciousness, perhaps it is better to put them on paper with supporting logic and invite my readers to help me clarify the reasoning and, perhaps, to point a way out of the darkness.

Already in January, 2020, two ideas about COVID were emerging. One is that there were people and institutions who seemed to have anticipated the event, and were planning for it for a long time. Gates, Fauci, the World Economic Forum, and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine were among the prescient. (I credit the (now deleted) videos of Spiro Skouras.) Second was the genetic evidence suggesting that COVID had a laboratory origin. Funders of the scientific establishment have lost their bid to ridicule this idea, and it has now leaked into the mainstream, where it is fused with the classical yellow peril propaganda: “China did it!”. I have cited evidence that America is likely equally culpable.

The confluence of these two themes suggests the dark logic that I take for my topic today: Those who knew in advance, not only that there would be a pandemic but that it would be a Coronavirus, were actually responsible for engineering this pandemic.

Immediately, I think: How could people capable of such sociopathic enormities be occupying the most powerful circles of the world’s elite? And what would be their motivation? I don’t have answers to these questions, and I will leave speculation to others. But there’s one attractive answer that I find less compelling: that it’s a money-maker for the large and criminal pharmaceutical industry. The new mRNA vaccines are already the most profitable drugs in history, but I think that shutdown of world economies, assassinations of world leaders, deep corruption of science, and full-spectrum control of the mainstream narrative imply a larger power base than can plausibly be commanded by the pharma industry.

Instead, I’ll try to follow the scientific and medical implications of the hypothesis that COVID is a bioweapon.

The Spike Protein: The spike protein is the part of the virus structure that interfaces with the host cell. SARS 1 and SARS 2 viruses both have spike proteins that bind to a human cell receptor called ACE-2, common in lung cells but also present in other parts of the body. Binding to the cell’s ACE-2 receptor is like the wolf knocking at the door of Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother. “Hello, grandmama. I’m your granddaughter. Please let me in.” The virus is a wolf wearing a red cape and hood, pretends to be an ACE-2 enzyme molecule seeking entrance to the cell.

In order to enter the cell, the virus must break off from the spike protein and leave it at the doorstep, so to speak. This is an important and difficult step, as it turns out. Unique to the SARS-CoV-2 virus is a trick for making the separation. Just at the edge of the protein is a furin cleavage site. Furin is an enzyme that snips protein molecules, and it is common in our bodies, with legitimate metabolic uses. A furin cleavage site is a string of 4 particular amino acids that calls to furin, “hey — come over here. I’m a protein that needs snipping.”

The most compelling evidence for a laboratory origin of COVID is that coronaviruses don’t have furin cleavage sites, and until last year, this trick has never evolved naturally.
Click image for larger size.

How we think about natural disease: The classical understanding of a viral or bacterial disease is this: A parasite is an organism that uses the host’s resources for its own reproduction. It is evolved to reproduce efficiently. If it has co-evolved with the host, it may be evolved to spare the host’s health, or even to promote it, because this is the optimal long-term strategy for any predator or parasite. But newly-emerged parasites can do well for awhile even if they disable or kill their hosts, and this is the kind of disease that is most damaging to us. The damage is done because the (young) virus’s strategy is to reproduce rapidly and disperse itself into the environment where it can find new hosts. The virus has no interest in harming the host, and was not evolved to this end, but this is a side-effect of commandeering the body’s resources for its own reproduction.

How engineered diseases can be different: A bioweapon virus is designed to cause a certain kind of harm. 

* What kind of harm? It depends on the projected use for the weapon.
* Doesn’t the virus have to reproduce? Probably, for most weapon applications; but a bioweapon is not necessarily designed for rapid reproduction. A bioweapon can be designed as a “sleeper” to remain dormant for months or years, or to cause incremental disability over a long period.

If COVID had evolved naturally, we would expect that its spike protein would be adapted to mate well with the human ACE-2 receptor. There’s no reason to suspect it being otherwise biologically active. But if COVID is engineered, it may be that the spike protein itself has been designed to make us sick.

One reason this is significant is that the vaccines have all been designed around the spike protein, assuming that the spike protein were metabolically neutral. If the virus had been naturally evolved, this is a reasonable assumption. But if it came from a laboratory (whether it leaked or was deliberately released) the spike protein might be actually be the agent of damage. There are several reasons to suspect that this is the case.

The Spike Protein as an Active Pathogen: Back in February, 2020, this article noted that the spike protein was not perfectly optimized to bind to human ACE-2 and put this forward as an proof that “SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus.” But if someone were designing the virus to cause harm, the spike protein would be a convenient locus for the damage vector, so the spike might have been designed with twin purposes in mind, binding and toxicity. The spike protein appears in many copies around the “crown” of the coronavirus. Since each copy has a furin cleavage site at its base, many spike proteins will break off into the bloodstream. We now have several reports and hypotheses concerning the spike protein as an active agent of damage. The spike protein is suspected of causing blood clots, of inducing long-lasting neurological damage, and of causing infertility. Many anecdotes describe injuries to un-vaccinated people who have been in close proximity to vaccinated, prompting speculation about “shedding” the spike protein.

“Individuals with COVID-19 experience a vast number of neurological symptoms, such as headaches, ataxia, impaired consciousness, hallucinations, stroke and cerebral hemorrhage. But autopsy studies have yet to find clear evidence of destructive viral invasion into patients’ brains, pushing researchers to consider alternative explanations of how SARS-CoV-2 causes neurological symptoms….

If not viral infection, what else could be causing injury to distant organs associated with COVID-19? The most likely culprit that has been identified is the COVID-19 spike protein released from the outer shell of the virus into circulation. Research cited below* has documented that the viral spike protein is able to initiate a cascade of events that triggers damage to distant organs in COVID-19 patients.

Worryingly, several studies have found that the spike proteins alone have the capacity to cause widespread injury throughout the body, without any evidence of virus. What makes this finding so disturbing is that the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines manufactured by Moderna and Pfizer and currently being administered throughout the U.S. program our cells to manufacture this same coronavirus spike protein as a way to trigger our bodies to produce antibodies to the virus.” [Global Research article, Feb 2021]

Note: the Astra-Zeneca and J&J vaccines are also based on the spike protein, and cause the spike protein to be created in the vaccinated person.

* “Research cited below” refers to this study in Nature which reports that the spike protein, injected into mice, crosses into the brain, where it causes neurological damage.

Bigger news came just this week from a study in which researchers from California’s Salk Institute collaborated with Chinese virologists. They have found that the bare spike protein without the virus (injected in mice) can cause damaged arteries of the kind that lead to heart disease and strokes in humans. The original paper was published in Circulation Research, and the Salk Institute issued a news report describing the research.

One of the most credible dangers of the spike protein involves fertility. None of the vaccines were tested in pregnant women, and yet many government and other authorities are recommending it as safe for pregnant women. VAERS has reported 174 miscarriages to date after COVID vaccination. VAERS is notoriously underreported. I find the anecdotes less concerning than the fact that no one is taking this seriously, and research is being actively discouraged in the best-respected science journals.

There is a credible mechanism, in that the spike protein is partially homologous to syncytin. Syncytin, in fact, was originally a retroviral protein, inserted into the mammalian genome many aeons ago, and evolved over the ages to play an essential role in reproduction, binding the placenta to the fetus. An immune response that attacks syncytin might be expected to be impose a danger of spontaneous abortion. In any ordinary times, this would be a subject that medical researchers would jump on, with animal tests and field surveys to assess the danger. But these are no ordinary times, and the risk is being dismissed on theoretical grounds without investigation. This is especially suspicious in the context of history: a Gates Foundation vaccination program in 1995 was allegedly promoted to young women, causing infertility. (Yes, I know there are many fact-checkers eager to “debunk” this story, but I don’t find them convincing, and some of these fact-checkers are compromised by Gates funding.)

Even doing what the spike protein is supposed to do — tying up ACE2 — can be a problem for our lungs and arteries, which are routinely protected by ACE2.

The most dangerous possibility, suspected but not verified, is that the spike protein causes a prion cascade. Prions are paradoxical pathogens, in that they are misfolded proteins that cause misfolded proteins. Their evolutionary etiology is utterly mysterious, so much so that it took Stanley Prusiner a decade after describing the biology of prions before the scientific community would take prion biochemistry seriously. But prions make potent bioweapons, which laboratories can design outside of natural evolutionary dynamics. The possibility of prion-like structures in the spike protein was noted very early in the pandemic based on a computational study. This recent review combines theoretical, laboratory, and observational evidence to make a case for caution. Once again, I find it disturbing that this possibility is being dismissed on theoretical grounds rather than investigated in the lab and the field.

Where did the idea come from that all vaccines are automatically safe? Why do so many journalists dismiss the suggestion that vaccines should be placebo-tested individually, like all other drugs? Why has it become routine to ridicule and denigrate scientists who ask questions about vaccine safety as politically-motivated luddites, or “anti-vaxxers”? How did we get to a situation where the “precautionary principle” means pressuring young people who are at almost no risk for serious COVID to accept a vaccine which has not been fully tested or approved? I don’t have answers, but I do know who benefits from this culture.

Putting together all the evidence:
• Knowledge beforehand.
• Suppression of treatments and cures.
• Toxicity of the spike protein which, if it had been made by nature, should have been benign.
• Inclusion of the toxic spike protein in the vaccines that are supposed to protect us.
• Heavy promotion of these scantily-tested vaccines and
• Censorship of scientists and doctors who question the vaccines’ safety.

Putting together all this evidence, it is difficult to escape the inference that powerful people and organizations have engineered this pandemic with deadly intent."
Related, Must Read! 
"Everyone Vaccinated For Covid Will DIE, Warns French Virologist"

"There is no chance of long-term survival for anyone who received a Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) injection, according to leading French virologist Luc Montagnier. Everyone who is getting jabbed for the Chinese Virus will die, he reportedly stated during a recent interview, which you can watch at Brighteon.com. “There is no hope and no possible treatment for those who have already been vaccinated,” Montagnier stated plainly during the segment. “We must be prepared to cremate the bodies.” After studying at length the ingredients contained in the injections and what they do, Montagnier came to the conclusion that every single person who gets the shot will eventually die from antibody-dependent enhancement, or ADE. “That is all that can be said,” he added."
Full article here:
"The prestigious Salk Institute, founded by vaccine pioneer Jonas Salk, has authored and published a bombshell scientific article revealing that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is what’s actually causing vascular damage in covid patients and covid vaccine recipients, promoting the strokes, heart attacks, migraines, blood clots and other harmful reactions that have already killed thousands of Americans (source: VAERS.hhs.gov)."

Critically, all four covid vaccine brands currently in widespread use either inject patients with the spike protein or, via mRNA technology, instruct the patient’s own body to manufacture spike proteins and release them into their own blood. This floods the patient’s body with the very spike protein that the Salk Institute has now identified as the smoking gun cause of vascular damage and related events (such as blood clots, which are killing many people who take the vaccines). "Put simply, it means the vaccines were designed to contain the very element that’s killing people."
Full article:

Excerpt: “Executives are having their HR staff and their managers, superintendents, floormen, etc., go through and look at the staff that have received the vaccines, and they’re planning on having to replace them all within the next three years. What does that say to you?” The woman does not name herself, but does claim that she runs a company that works in succession planning. We are taking her word for it, but it does resonate with what French virologist and Nobel Laureate Luc Montagnier recently admitted about what will happen to jabbed people within the next few years. View Brighteon video in article.

“It’s got some of these guys literally in tears as they’re going through the company and literally checking off all of these individuals who have taken the vaccine, knowing that most likely within the next three years they’re going to have to replace that person,” the woman adds. “This is a really big thing in the industry that I’m in. These massive gas and oil companies are looking to have to replace thousands of personnel.”

Gregory Mannarino, "AM/PM 10/19/21"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 10/19/21:
"And Again The Freak Show Just For Freakier! 
Critical Must Know Updates"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 10/19/21:
"Epic! Goldman Sachs Warns On The Economy. 
The Fed: "Economy Is In Contraction." And Stocks Gain!"

"Now We Are Being Warned That A “Recession” Could Be Coming During The “Dark Winter” That Is Ahead"

"Now We Are Being Warned That A “Recession” 
Could Be Coming During The “Dark Winter” That Is Ahead"
by Michael Snyder

"We are just coming out of “the COVID recession”, and now we are being told that another recession could be just around the corner. Thanks to overly harsh pandemic restrictions, widespread shortages and millions of workers that appear to have disappeared from the system somehow, economic activity is slowing down once again. We just learned that U.S. industrial production has fallen for a second month in a row, and the production of motor vehicles and parts is falling at a pace that is extremely alarming. After adding trillions upon trillions of dollars to the national debt, all our politicians were able to buy us was a short-term economic sugar high and rampant inflation. I hope that you enjoyed the sugar high while you could, because the months ahead are looking rather bleak indeed.

You may have noticed that officials are starting to use the term “dark winter” again. Here is one example… "The nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, says the U.S. could be facing another “dark winter,” though this can be avoided if Americans get vaccinated to a “very high degree” in the coming months."

And as we head toward the winter months, the word “recession” is increasingly starting to pop up in the mainstream media. In fact, one prominent economist made headlines when he warned that he believes that the U.S. has already entered a new recession… "America has already slipped into a recession that could be as bad as the 2008 financial meltdown according to key consumer data, a Dartmouth College professor has warned. David Blanchflower, of Dartmouth, and Alex Bryson, of University College London, say that every slump since the 1980s has been foreshadowed by 10-point drops in consumer indices from the Conference Board and University of Michigan."

Unfortunately, we already surpassed both of those benchmarks long ago. At this point, the declines are of a similar magnitude to what we witnessed just before the financial crisis of 2008… "The Conference Board has measured a 25.3-point drop in 2021, while UM has recorded an 18.4-point slump. This compares to a 19-point and a 21-point dip for the indices respectively ahead of the 2008 global financial crash."

That doesn’t mean that another recession is guaranteed. Our politicians in Washington could borrow and spend several trillion more dollars, and that would likely buy us a little bit more time. But right now the immediate future does not look good, and most Americans are clearly not prepared for any sort of a major downturn… "As the new recession dawns, many Americans are not prepared to weather bad economic stagnation. As of late last year, nearly two-thirds of families lived paycheck to paycheck, and more than half have less than three months’ worth of savings. A quarter have effectively none at all."

Are you prepared for economic pain in 2022? I hope so. Even now, economic conditions continue to deteriorate and shortages continue to get worse all over the nation. The following is what one local NBC News reporter found during surprise visits to some local retailers…"News4Jax visited Target and Publix in the San Jose area. Typically where shoppers can find snacks, canned goods, and pet food, the shelves were bare and nearly empty. In Target, fruit snacks were limited, protein bars were nearly gone too, and Lunchables were low in stock. We saw the least amount of available frozen foods at Publix and snack foods like beef jerky were running low."

Auto parts are in really short supply too. If you need to get a vehicle fixed, I would do it now, because things are really starting to get crazy out there. In some cases, consumers are having to wait weeks just for one part to come in… "The challenge of finding spare parts as mundane as oil filters or carpeting has forced repair shops to hoard inventory, find workarounds and plead with customers for patience until a shipment comes in. Typical delays of a day or two have stretched into weeks in some cases, shop owners say."

I have heard from a number of industry insiders in recent weeks, and one theme that I keep hearing is that our supply chains were under a great deal of stress even before the pandemic came along. Now we are witnessing epic supply chain breakdowns all over the globe, and there aren’t going to be any easy fixes.

In fact, Moody’s Analytics is ominously warning us that things “will get worse before they get better”… "Computer chip shortages. Epic port congestion. And a serious lack of truck drivers. The world’s delicate supply chains are under extreme stress. The supply chain nightmare is jacking up prices for consumers and slowing the global economic recovery. Unfortunately, Moody’s Analytics warns supply chain disruptions “will get worse before they get better.”

When I used to warn my readers that “the system is failing”, a lot of people thought that I was just being overly dramatic. But I wasn’t being overly dramatic at all. On a very basic level, our economic infrastructure is failing us, and the politicians that are now running the show are utterly clueless.

The empty suits in Washington can continue to throw giant mountains of money at our problems, but that isn’t going to make them go away. At best, it will just give us a few more months when people have money in their pockets to spend. It took decades for America to reach this stage, and a day of reckoning is fast approaching.

Just today, I received an email from an industry insider that warned that 2022 could be “unthinkable” if our supply chain problems are not properly addressed. So I would very much encourage you to stock up now while you still can, because the coming “dark winter” could potentially lead into an entire year that will be filled with economic nightmares."

"A Point of No Return..."

”There is a point of no return, unremarked at the time, in most lives.”
- Graham Greene
“When swimming into a dark tunnel, there arrives a point of no return when you no longer have enough breath to double back. Your only choice is to swim forward into the unknown… and pray for an exit.”
- Dan Brown
“And it was pointless… to think how those years could have been put to better use, for he could hardly have put them to worse. There was no recovering them now. You could grieve endlessly for the loss of time and for the damage done therein. For the dead, and for your own lost self. But what the wisdom of the ages says is that we do well not to grieve on and on. And those old ones knew a thing or two and had some truth to tell… for you can grieve your heart out and in the end you are still where you were. All your grief hasn’t changed a thing. What you have lost will not be returned to you. It will always be lost. You’re left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is to go on or not. But if you go on, it’s knowing you carry your scars with you.”
- Charles Frazier
“Never be ashamed of a scar.
It simply means you were stronger than whatever tried to hurt you.”
- Unknown

"Ambient Music - Chilled Sounds For Meditation, Sleep, Study and Deep Relaxation"

Full screen recommended.
Orion Philosophy, 
"Ambient Music - Chilled Sounds For Meditation, 
Sleep, Study and Deep Relaxation"
"Press play and relax with these chilled ambient sounds and ambient music designed to help with sleep, reflection, meditation, focus, study or just to play in the background to help de-stress."

"How It Really Is"

 

"Courage"; "Inner Strength"; "Life Changing Poems for Hard Times"

Full screen recommended.
RedFrost Motivation, "Courage"
Read by Chris Lines
Poems:
"The Proof of Worth" - Edgar Albert Guest
"The Victor" - C.W. Longenecker
"The Man in The Glass" - Dale Wimbrow
Full screen recommended.
RedFrost Motivation, "Inner Strength"
Read by Chris Lines 
Poems:
"See It Through" - Edgar Albert Guest
"Good Timber" - Douglas Malloch
"Equipment" - Edgar Albert Guest  
Full screen recommended.
RedFrost Motivation, "Life Changing Poems for Hard Times"
Read by Shane Morris
Poems:
 "Defeat" by Khalil Gibran
 "A Psalm of Life" by H. W. Longfellow
"If" by Rudyard Kipling
 "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley
 "Desiderata" by Max Ermann

Monday, October 18, 2021

"Goodbye Middle Class; US Workers Are Broke; Serious Financial Problems"

Jeremiah Babe, PM 10/18/21:
"Goodbye Middle Class; US Workers Are Broke; 
Serious Financial Problems"

"Goodbye Middle Class: 50 Percent Of All U.S. Workers Made $34,612.04 Or Less Last Year"

Full screen recommended.
"Goodbye Middle Class: 50 Percent Of All 
U.S. Workers Made $34,612.04 Or Less Last Year"
by Epic Economist

"The U.S. middle class is shrinking at an alarming rate and if inflation keeps soaring while wages stagnate, soon we won't have much of a “middle class” at all. For decades, economists have been writing about the millions of "working poor" Americans that have gone through so many financial difficulties. But now, most of the nation is seemingly falling into the “working poor” category. Even though wages have been going up little by little with each passing year, the rise wasn't enough to cover all basic living expenses. All over the U.S., the cost of living has been absolutely soaring. But it is safe to say that paychecks haven't similarly soared, and wages have been struggling to keep up with rampant inflation, and this has been gutting the middle class. Now, the vast majority of our society is in constant “survival mode” financially, and there's no end in sight for this situation.

According to data just released by the Social Security Administration, the final wage statistics for 2020 were extremely alarming. Nationwide, 50 percent of all workers had "net compensation less than or equal to the median wage, which is estimated to be $34,612.04 for 2020," which means that half of our entire population has lived with less than $3,000 a month over that past year, and that is without adding taxes to that equation. Living with that kind of income in any major U.S. city is not easy, especially in today's economic environment. These days, the median wage can cover expenses needed for your survival, but that's pretty much it. Decades ago, this same amount would be more than enough to live nicely because the cost of living used to be much lower. Back in the 60s, you would be able to buy a lovely home in a middle-class neighborhood having that income. But today, you probably wouldn't be able to make a down payment on a one-bedroom apartment with that money.

As the price of everything will jump by several hundred percent - or much, much more - over the next decade, this means that pre-outbreak prices are gone forever. So your savings, investments, retirement, purchasing power, and the quality of life that you’ve spent a lifetime planning and working for will be shredded. In contrast, we have millions of jobs now available in the U.S. But why no one applies for them? Because people know they will pay “working poor” wages, which means they will not be able to afford housing, groceries, and other basic expenses having that income, especially if they have kids.

Just as economists have been warning over the years, more and more of our population is living paycheck to paycheck. And when people are in that position, it only takes one bad break to push them right into financial distress. Unfortunately, conditions are going to get even worse for ordinary Americans in the coming months because inflation continues to soar dramatically. Many experts argue that real inflation is in double-digit territory, somewhere between 11 and 14 percent compared to the same period last year. The official numbers actually greatly understate what we are facing at the stores. It seems like the sort of inflation Americans faced during the Jimmy Carter era is here again.

Sadly, our politicians don't seem to care about this issue, and their recent policies and restrictions are only speeding up the demise of the middle class. Vaccine mandates are pushing more and more Americans out of decent-paying jobs and they are also creating critical staff shortages. For instance, a local report described that at a hospital in Lewiston, Maine, where the vaccination policy demanding all employees to take the vaccine was enacted last week, more than 250 employees refused to comply and all of these employees were subsequently fired. And the same scenario is playing out in several industries all over the country right now. If the government fails to look after its people, the people will simply not trust the government. That is to say, the more the new administration forces people to get the vaccine, the more people will be inclined to refuse it, even if that decision may cost their jobs.

Let's just hope that we don't have to face yet another wave of virus cases this winter because our healthcare system is critically understaffed and it would become overwhelmed very rapidly. These are incredibly ominous times for our economy, our workers, and our nation as a whole. The outlook for the months ahead includes more inflation, more shortages, and definitely more questionable decisions made by our leaders. Events are truly starting to spin out of control, and America will never return to 'normal'. It is time to face that things will never be the same ever again."

Musical Interlude: Vangelis, "Alpha"

Vangelis, "Alpha"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Why isn't this ant a big sphere? Planetary nebula Mz3 is being cast off by a star similar to our Sun that is, surely, round. Why then would the gas that is streaming away create an ant-shaped nebula that is distinctly not round?
Clues might include the high 1000-kilometer per second speed of the expelled gas, the light-year long length of the structure, and the magnetism of the star visible above at the nebula's center. One possible answer is that Mz3 is hiding a second, dimmer star that orbits close in to the bright star. A competing hypothesis holds that the central star's own spin and magnetic field are channeling the gas. Since the central star appears to be so similar to our own Sun, astronomers hope that increased understanding of the history of this giant space ant can provide useful insight into the likely future of our own Sun and Earth.”

"A Little Late In The Game..."

 

"When a Train Wreck Is No Accident"

"When a Train Wreck Is No Accident"
by Jeff Thomas

"In spite of all the rhetoric, we will go deeper in debt, the Fed will print more money, and the value of the dollar will continue to plummet." – Ron Paul

"Never in history have the economic and political structures been so manipulated by those who are responsible for their safekeeping; never has so much been at stake, in so many countries, and facing collapse, all at the same time.

The great majority of people in the First World recognize that the world is passing through an economic crisis. However, most are under the impression that there are some pretty smart fellows running the show and all they need to do is tweak the system a bit more and we’ll return to happy days. Not so. The "smart fellows" who are in charge of fixing the problem are in fact the very same people who created it.

Understandably, this a hard concept for most people to even consider, let alone accept, as the very idea that those in charge of the system might consciously collapse it seems preposterous. So, we might wish to back up a bit here and present a very brief history of the system itself, in order to understand that the eventual collapse of the economic system was baked in the cake from the very beginning.

Creating a Central Bank: From the very earliest days of the formation of the American republic, bankers (along with inside help from George Washington’s secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton) sought to create a banking monopoly that would create the country’s currency and become the central banking system.

The first attempt at a central bank was a failure, and strong opponents, including Thomas Jefferson, prevented a second central bank for a time. Later, further attempts were made by bankers and their political cronies, and each central bank was either short-lived or defeated in its planning stages.

Then, in 1913, the heads of the largest banks met clandestinely on Jekyll Island, Georgia, to make another try. Having recently lost yet another bid to create a central bank, due to the public’s understandable concern that the big bankers were already too powerful, a new spin was placed on the idea. This time, they decided to present the idea as a government body that would be decentralized and would have the responsibility of restricting the power of the banks. However, the new bill was in fact the same old bill, with a new title and some minor changes in wording. But this time, it would be presented by the new president, who was a liberal.

The president, Woodrow Wilson, had in fact been handpicked by the banks. The banks then scuttled their own conservative party’s candidate, got the Democrat Wilson elected, then installed a secretary of the Treasury whose job it would be to ensure that the Federal Reserve was created.

The bill was widely supported by the public, even though, in truth, it was not a federal agency, but a privately owned conglomerate, controlled by the banks. Neither was it a reserve. It was never intended to store money; it was intended to give the biggest bankers control of the economy. They followed the central principle of uber-banker Mayer Rothschild: "Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes the laws."

From the start, the new institution peddled itself as the protector of the people’s interests, but it was quite the opposite. Its purpose from its inception was to control the economy and the government by controlling the issuance of the currency. In addition, it was to be a system of taxation.

Typically, a population accepts a certain amount of direct taxation but has its limits of tolerance. Yet, the bankers understood that a less direct method of taxation was infinitely more profitable and infinitely safer from criticism.

Inflation as a Profit System: Inflation was not always the norm. At one time, prices were relatively static from one generation to the next. But the Federal Reserve touted the idea that "controlled" inflation was in fact necessary for a prosperous economy. Of course, the greater the debasement of the currency through inflation, the more the central bankers profited. But at some point, the currency would have lost virtually all its value and it would be time for a reset. The currency would need to collapse and a new one created.

And so, the Fed set about its hundred-year program of continuous inflation. Although there have been periods of lower inflation (and even deflation), the program stayed more or less on course, and now, its hundred-year life has all but ended: the dollar has been devalued almost 100%.

And so, we find ourselves at the day of reckoning. The economic crisis we are now facing (not only in the US; it will be felt, to a greater or lesser extent, worldwide) is not a mere anomaly that we need to "push past". It’s a systemic crisis. It’s been created by design and the system must collapse.

Of course, the central banks are in the process of protecting their interests, to make sure that, whilst this will be a major economic calamity, they themselves will continue to profit. The damage will be borne by the general public. This began in earnest in 1999, with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, allowing banks to create a massive, reckless mortgage spree. It was backed by the government’s "too big to fail" policy that guaranteed that, when the banks predictably became insolvent as a result of the loans, government would bail them out. (And by "government" we mean "the taxpayer"; it was he who picked up the bill for the banks’ recklessness.)

The next step in getting ready for the collapse is an all-out effort to confiscate the wealth of the public. This can be seen in the effort to push investors away from solid forms of wealth protection such as gold and silver and into stocks, bonds and bank deposits. More recently, we’ve seen the emergence of an effort to end the use of safe deposit boxes and a push to end the use of paper currency in making transactions.

The end objective is to force as much money as possible into deposits in banks, then take it. The US, EU and a few other countries have passed confiscation legislation, allowing the banks carte blanche to confiscate and/or refuse to release deposits. Of course a reset of these proportions will not be without its fallout. The public will be horrified at the outcome, at the realization that the very institutions they thought had been created to protect them had never been intended to serve their interests at all.

Once they realize that the world’s greatest Ponzi scheme has been foisted on them, they will be hopping mad and justifiably so. Those who had not had the foresight to internationalize themselves, to remove themselves as much as possible from the system, will most certainly want to get even in some way. And this makes clear why governments, particularly that of the US, are working so hard to create a police state. Unless a totalitarian state can be created, those who are presently taking the wealth may not be able to fully realize their objectives.

The coming train wreck is no accident. It has long been planned. That the "smart fellows in charge" will somehow save the day is therefore a vain hope indeed."

internationalman.com

Jethro Tull, "Locomotive Breath"

"I Asked Life..."

 

Free Download: Charles Mackay, "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds"

"Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds"

"Every age has its peculiar folly: Some scheme, project, or fantasy into which it plunges, spurred on by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the force of imitation. Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."
- Charles Mackay

"'Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" is an early study of crowd psychology by Scottish journalist Charles Mackay, first published in 1841. The book chronicles its subjects in three parts: "National Delusions", "Peculiar Follies", and "Philosophical Delusions". MacKay was an accomplished teller of stories, though he wrote in a journalistic and somewhat sensational style.

The subjects of Mackay's debunking include alchemy, crusades, duels, economic bubbles, fortune-telling, haunted houses, the Drummer of Tedworth, the influence of politics and religion on the shapes of beards and hair, magnetizers (influence of imagination in curing disease), murder through poisoning, prophecies, popular admiration of great thieves, popular follies of great cities, and relics. Present-day writers on economics, such as Michael Lewis and Andrew Tobias, laud the three chapters on economic bubbles. Scientist and astronomer Carl Sagan mentioned the book in his own discussion about pseudoscience, popular delusions, and hoaxes.

In later editions, Mackay added a footnote referencing the Railway Mania of the 1840s as another "popular delusion" which was at least as important as the South Sea Bubble. Mathematician Andrew Odlyzko has pointed out, in a published lecture, that Mackay himself played a role in this economic bubble; as leader writer in the Glasgow Argus, Mackay wrote on 2 October 1845: "There is no reason whatever to fear a crash."
Freely download "Extraordinary Popular Delusions 
and the Madness of Crowds", by Charles Mackay, here: