Gregory Mannarino, AM 12/8/21:
"The Federal Reserve WILL Do
The Opposite Of What Everyone Expects"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Wednesday, December 8, 2021
Greg Hunter, "Dollar Has Stage 4 Cancer"
"Dollar Has Stage 4 Cancer"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"Macroeconomic analyst Rob Kirby has long predicted Fed money printing would have to go “on a vertical curve where money has to be added to the system to keep the system from crapping out and imploding.” Kirby said this more than a year ago. Massive money printing can no longer be hidden, and it has disastrous and dire implications for the dollar. Kirby explains, “They are not hiding it. It’s too big. If you have an elephant under your carpet in the living room, you can’t say ignore the bump. Elephants are hard to hide. It’s also hard to hide $150 billion in daily turnover in cryptos. That translates into a $54 trillion annual run rate. That means trade settlement. This is admitting there is trade settlement in dollars, and that amount is growing. The dollar is on this exponential growth curve. More dollars are being pushed into the world market every year, and fewer of them are being used in trade settlement. What happens when dollars are not used in trade settlement? They return home. The dollars are returning home, and that’s why the price for everything in America is going up. That’s why the equity markets are higher when fundamentals say the equity markets should be down. We have a huge swath of the economy in America that is still shuttered from this supposed pandemic.”
Kirby contends we are getting closer to a dollar crash. Kirby says, “Until it gets so tall that it looks like the World Trade Center, and you know what happens when things get that tall? They come down in a heap, and that’s what’s going to happen with the dollar. It’s going to come down in a heap just like the World Trade Center. It’s going to be fast, and it’s going to be brutal. That’s where we are headed, and the powers that be know it. That’s what they are keeping from us. That’s why we have the censorship on social media. That’s why people who talk authoritatively about reality are censored and cut off because we are in trouble. They don’t want us to know, and I think they want a lot of us eliminated.”
Does that mean gold and silver have lost their shine to crypto currency? No way, and Kirby predicts, “Metal prices are suppressed. There is going to come a day when metal prices will free itself from the shackles it is currently engaged with. When that occurs, precious metals, in my view, will exceed what we have seen in the crypto universe. What we have seen in crypto currency in the last year or two, I think we could see that in spades in precious metals. The dollar has stage 4 cancer right now. Best you have insurance to cover yourself when the dollar does what it is destined to do.”
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble One-on-One with analyst Rob Kirby, founder of KirbyAnalytics.com. (There is much more in the 33 min. interview.)
"The Great Realignment: Countless More Americans Will Be Moving From Blue States To Red States In 2022"
"The Great Realignment: Countless More Americans
Will Be Moving From Blue States To Red States In 2022"
by Michael Snyder
"We are rapidly becoming two very different nations with two very different cultures. At one time we truly were the “United” States of America, but now we have been split into two opposing camps that deeply hate one another. As a result, in recent years we have watched millions of Americans relocate for ideological reasons. This has caused “red states” to become even redder and “blue states” to become even bluer. At this point, there are just a handful of “purple states”, and it is in those states where our presidential elections are determined. It is really not healthy for just a few states like Pennsylvania and Michigan to have such power, but that is a topic for another article. In this article, I want to discuss why the mass exodus from blue states to red states is actually going to accelerate in 2022.
Right now, there is no issue in the United States that is more divisive than the COVID vaccine. Most conservatives want to be able to have the freedom to choose whether to take the injections or not, while many on the left want to use the power of government to compel people to get injected. It has truly been frightening to watch many on the left embrace authoritarianism so eagerly, and many leftist politicians just continue to tighten down the screws.
For example, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio just decided to impose a very strict vaccine mandate on all private employers in his entire city…"Mayor Bill de Blasio announced what he called a first-in-the-nation vaccine mandate for private companies Monday. He said the combination of the Omicron variant and holiday gatherings forced him to take “bold” steps. He’s giving businesses just three weeks to make sure their workers are vaccinated. If you don’t get the jab, you won’t be allowed to keep your job."
There will not be a “testing option” under this new mandate, and so anyone that refuses to comply will be kicked to the curb two days after Christmas…"De Blasio said the city will release specific rules on Dec. 15, before the mandate takes effect Dec. 27. He said it will apply to in-person employees, but would not provide any details about enforcement. He also said there will not be a weekly testing option."
This is complete and utter lunacy, but of course we are witnessing lots of that in blue states these days. We are being told that this new mandate will apply to approximately 184,000 businesses, and that means that vast numbers of New Yorkers will soon be forced to search for greener pastures.
One of them is a woman named Cynthia. She told a reporter that this mandate gave her yet another reason “to get the hell out of New York”…"Cynthia, an employee at a Midtown marketing firm who refused to share her last name due to fear of blowback, told the Post that the new requirement is ‘another reason’ to leave the city. ‘Just terrific. Bill de Blasio just gave me another reason I need to get the hell out of New York, or at least find a job that lets me work remotely,’ she said."
Where will thousands upon thousands of displaced New Yorkers like Cynthia go? One conservative member of Congress that represents New York fears that many of them will head to “the free state of Florida”… ‘Mayor de Blasio can’t leave fast enough. He has crushed small business, the economy and quality of life. How many more New Yorkers does he want to see move to the free state of Florida?’ said US Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, who represents Staten Island and Brooklyn." So New York is going to get even bluer in 2022, and Florida will be getting even redder.
Down in Massachusetts, hundreds of hospital workers were just ruthlessly canned because they refused to comply with a vaccine mandate…"About 200 UMass Memorial Health employees are out of a job because they missed the health care system’s COVID vaccination deadline. UMass Memorial announced the mandate over the summer with a deadline to get vaccinated or receive an exemption by November 1. Employees were let go on December 1 if they did not get the vaccine. Many of those displaced health workers aren’t going to be able to find similar work in Massachusetts, and so they will head to red states."
As for UMass Memorial Health, I am not sure exactly what they plan to do. You can’t just pull people off the streets to be medical professionals. They will probably be short-handed for a long time to come, and that is just going to hurt the people that they are supposed to be serving.
In Oregon, a different sort of mandate has people thinking that it may be time to relocate. If you can believe it, officials in Oregon are actually thinking of making their indoor mask mandate permanent…"The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) assembled a Rules Advisory Committee (RAC) earlier this week to address a permanent indoor mask mandate in the state. Oregon is one of a few states that still retain one nearly two years into the pandemic. The committee included several community stakeholders, including representatives from the hospitality industry, the business sector, and faith communities, according to local ABC affiliate KATU."
I cannot understand why any rational decision maker would want to do such a thing, but apparently they are quite serious. There are a whole lot of very conservative people that live in eastern Oregon, and I think that even more of them are going to be moving over the border into Idaho in 2022.
Before I end this article, I want to mention what Canada has just done. Beginning November 30th, all unvaccinated individuals are now banned from using any form of public transportation… "In Canada, any travelers older than 12 years old must show proof of full vaccination to take any form of public transportation including domestic and international flights as well as trains. “Starting November 30 at 3:01 am EST, vaccination will be required for travel within and to depart Canada,” the Canadian travel website states. “A valid COVID-19 molecular test will no longer be accepted as an alternative to vaccination unless you’re eligible for one of the limited exemptions.” Trudeau and his minions have completely gone off the deep end, and I feel so sorry for freedom-loving Canadians that are deeply suffering under his regime.
Of course the Biden administration is considering something similar for domestic travel inside the United States. Let us hope that they never pull the trigger on such a move. All over the globe we are seeing governments become more authoritarian, and that certainly sets the stage for some of the things that I warned about in my latest book.
Here in the U.S., countless numbers of freedom-loving Americans are fleeing to red states as they seek to escape the oppression that they have been experiencing in blue states. Unfortunately, blue state tyrants have no intention of backing down, and this is going to create a tremendous amount of tension in our nation as we head into 2022 and beyond."
Tuesday, December 7, 2021
"Get Your Money Out Of The Bank, Outages Coming; Buybacks Prop Up Markets; Maxing Out Credit Cards"
Jeremiah Babe, PM 12/7/21:
"Get Your Money Out Of The Bank, Outages Coming;
Buybacks Prop Up Markets; Maxing Out Credit Cards"
Peak Prosperity, Dr. Chris Martenson, "1200 Dead in First 90 Days"
Peak Prosperity, Dr. Chris Martenson 12/7/21:
"1200 Dead in First 90 Days"
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Related:
This is shocking and extremely disturbing.
Consider the implications and draw your own informed conclusions.
"Harrison Smith breaks down a shocking report of a German scientist named Dr. Andreas Noack who was reportedly murdered after revealing that a stable carbon compound called graphene hydroxide was found in the Covid injection that acts as thousands of tiny razor blades within the cardiovascular system."
○
"The data suggests that we may currently be witnessing
the greatest organized mass murder in the history of our world."
Gerald Celente, "Play Scramble - Omicron = Moronic"
Full screen recommended.
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 12/7/21:
"Play Scramble - Omicron = Moronic"
Musical Interlude: Moby, "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad" (Ben-E.dit)
Full screen recommended.
Moby, "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad" (Ben-E.dit)
"China's Commercial Real Estate Crash And Housing Bubble Burst On The Horizon As Evergrande Collapses"
Full screen recommended.
"China's Commercial Real Estate Crash And Housing
Bubble Burst On The Horizon As Evergrande Collapses"
Full screen recommended.
by Epic Economist
"Global markets are in panic mode since the Chinese property developer Evergrande admitted that it's running out of money to pay off its gigantic billion dollar debt, and it doesn't have enough funds to finish thousands of construction projects that it had previously started. Market watchers around the world are sounding the alarm for a global financial crash as the debt-burdened property giant revealed that at least $24 billion in international bonds may not be refunded to bondholders this week, raising fears of bankruptcy and threatening to spark a real estate crash in China, which would then trigger a cascade of systemic failures and depress global markets in the process. Global market insiders revealed that Evergrande has already missed five deadlines for bond interest repayments and warned that the collapse of the property giant is about to send shockwaves throughout the global financial system.
According to a recent report published by Reuters, the Guangdong government will send a working group to oversee Evergrande's risk management, internal controls and operations. A quite desperate move and an attempt to spot any potential risks that may spark a chain reaction of failures within the company or a sudden meltdown that could end up collapsing the country's entire property market. Evergrande said that it's currently assessing how severe the financial damages are going to be and also trying to find offshore creditors to create a restructuring plan and prevent bankruptcy.
Once the main catalyst of China's property boom, Evergrande has now become the most indebted property company in the whole planet, with a debt load of around $300billion. Even the U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve, is warning that China's looming real estate market crash can compromise global economic growth for years to come. Property accounts for a third of China's GDP, and the company's collapse would cost at least the equivalent of 2 percent of Chinese GDP because it would consequently spark the bankruptcy of several smaller firms in the sector.
Evergrande's meltdown already had a huge impact in the nation's real estate sector. On Monday, a smaller developer, Sunshine 100, defaulted on $179million of debt and interest payments that had been due on Sunday. The default occurred because of “liquidity issues arising from the adverse impact of a number of factors including the macroeconomic environment and the real estate industry”, the company said in an exchange filing. Sunshine 100 has repeatedly failed to meet its debt obligations this year and also defaulted on a bond repayment in August. The company has $385million of outstanding dollar notes, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Investors are also worried about a potential default by Kaisa Group Holdings, which faces a staggering $400million bond maturity this week since it failed to secure a debt swap that would have bought it crucial time to pay back some of its bonds. The group has the second-highest debt with foreign bondholders, just after Evergrande, accounting approximately $12billion. Meanwhile, already paralyzed by its massive debt, Evergrande is now threatening Chinese growth. The developer has more than 1,300 unfinished construction projects across China, as well as several financial products, such as electric cars, livestock, bottled water and even a football club, now left without financial support.
Over the past decade, the property giant has been piling on debt to finance its activities. But since the Chinese government decided to change criteria for borrowing, real estate companies were hard-hit by the new policies. Today, Evergrande has no cash to complete any of its projects, and thousands of buyers still have no idea if they will ever get the home they paid for. Some are calling the company's downfall as 'China's Lehman moment,' referencing the bankruptcy of former U.S. bank Lehman Brothers that helped to fuel the 2008 global financial crisis. Economists have been warning that over a third of China's developers could face a similar crisis. Considering that the country’s inflated housing market is stagnating, property values are about to go down, which will wreak further havoc on these firms' balance sheets.
The situation is raising widespread alarm on global financial markets, especially because China's property market is essential for the country's GDP and is valued at $55trillion, about four times larger than the rest of its economy. For global markets, a slight slump in the Chinese real estate market could result in a liquidity crunch and a major retraction. This turn of events couldn't be happening at a worse possible time for the global economy, given that fears of the new virus variant have sparked an overreaction in stock markets worldwide and economic conditions in the global economy."
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Sweeping through northern predawn skies, on November 24 Comet Leonard (C/2021 A1) was caught between two galaxies in this composite telescopic image. Sporting a greenish coma the comet's dusty tail seems to harpoon the heart of NGC 4631 (top) also known as the Whale Galaxy. Of course NGC 4631 and NGC 4656 (bottom, aka the Hockey Stick) are background galaxies some 25 million light-years away.
On that date the comet was about 6 light-minutes from our fair planet. Its closest approach to Earth (and even closer approach to Venus) still to come, Comet Leonard will grow brighter in December. Already a good object for binoculars and small telescopes, this comet will likely not return to the inner Solar System. Its perihelion, or closest approach to the Sun, will be on January 3, 2022."
"Man's Nature..."
"Man has one name, and many more than two natures.
But the essential two are these:
that he shall strive to impose order on chaos,
and that he shall strive to take advantage of chaos…
A third element of man's nature is this:
that he shall not understand what he is doing."
- John Brunner
"Lessons From Pearl Harbor"
"Lessons From Pearl Harbor"
by Jim Rickards
"Today’s the 80th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which thrust the U.S. into World War II. While the actual attack was a shock to many Americans, it was the culmination of a series of policy decisions years in the making.
The most immediate catalyst came when the U.S. froze Japanese assets and imposed an embargo on oil shipments to Japan in the summer of 1941, after Japan rejected U.S. demands that it withdraw from China. Japan received over 80% of its oil from the U.S., so the embargo backed Japan into a corner. It could either submit to the U.S. demands, or it could launch an attack to secure the oil-rich territories of the Dutch East Indies (presently Indonesia).
It chose the latter. But a move against the Dutch East Indies would be vulnerable to attack from the Philippines, which was a U.S. commonwealth with a U.S. military presence. That threat would have to be neutralized, so a Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies would inevitably mean war with the U.S. Most policy experts expected any Japanese attack on U.S. forces would take place in the Philippines. But they first attacked the naval base and airfields at Pearl Harbor.
Japan didn’t just wake up one day and decide it was a good idea to attack the U.S. It was faced with a limited set of policy options in the face of the U.S. embargo, and took what it believed was a necessary action. The point being, wars are the end result of policy decisions that take place long before the first shot is fired. If a nation believes its vital interests are severely threatened, it will often choose war, not necessarily because it wants war, but because it believes it has no recourse. Now fast forward to today…
Russia is massing troops and offensive mobility capabilities on its border with Eastern Ukraine. The U.S. is concerned that Russia will invade Ukraine to annex the Donbass region, which is populated with Russian ethnic citizens and pro-Russian militias.
The U.S. policy makers seem to forget that the entire fiasco in Ukraine began in 2014 when CIA and MI6 operatives launched a “color revolution” that led to the overthrow of a duly elected pro-Russian president. This was part of a larger effort to include Ukraine in NATO and the EU. It was also done in support of a lucrative kickback racket that supported Democratic politicians, including the Clintons and the Bidens.
The result was a de facto split of Ukraine into a pro-Western half centered in Kiev and a pro-Russian half in the Donbass and Luhansk regions. Western intervention in what was a somewhat neutral status quo ignored the fact that Ukraine is like a dagger aimed at the heart of Russia, and forms part of an arc from Ukraine to Estonia (which is a NATO member). This arc surrounds Moscow: parts of it lie east of Moscow. A NATO-member or even pro-Western Ukraine is an existential threat to Russia. Ukraine is a red line as far as Russia is concerned.
The U.S. should have realized this and left the status quo. Instead, people like Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan went too far under Obama. Now they’re back making the same mistake under Biden. Blinken says that if Russia intervenes, they will suffer enormous economic sanctions. But proposed sanctions include cutting off natural gas from Russia to Germany, which will hurt Germany worst of all. Besides, Russia has been under sanctions for over ten years, and it has not changed their behavior. Russia is not about to let Ukraine fall into the Western orbit over the threat of sanctions.
If a war breaks out, don’t just blame the Russians. Also blame Biden officials like Blinken and Sullivan, who should have left well enough alone. Don’t poke a bear in its own den. Below, I show you how elites derailed U.S.-Russian relations at a time when the U.S. needs Russia to help contain China. Let’s just hope it doesn’t lead to war. Read on."
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"Elites Have Destroyed a Possible
U.S. - Russia Alliance to Contain China"
By Jim Rickards
From Russia’s perspective, this was unacceptable. It may be true that most Americans cannot find Ukraine on a map, but a simple glance at a map reveals that much of Ukraine lies East of Moscow.
Putting Ukraine in a Western alliance such as NATO would create a crescent stretching from Luhansk in the South through Poland in the West and back around to Estonia in the North. There are almost no natural obstacles between that arc and Moscow; it’s mostly open steppe. Completion of this “NATO Crescent” would leave Moscow open to invasion in ways that Napoleon and Hitler could only dream. Of course, this situation was and is unacceptable to Moscow.
Ukraine itself is culturally divided along geographic lines. The Eastern and Southern provinces (Luhansk, Donetsk, Crimea and Dnipro) are ethnically Russian, follow the Orthodox Church and the Patriarch of Moscow, and welcome commercial relations with Russia. The Western provinces (Kiev, Lviv) are Slavic, adhere to the Catholic Church and the Pope in Rome, and look to the EU and U.S. for investment and aid.
Prior to 2014, an uneasy truce existed between Washington and Moscow that allowed a pro-Russian President while at the same time permitting increasing contact with the EU. Then the U.S. and UK overreached by allowing the CIA and MI6 to foment a “color revolution” in Kiev called the “Euromaidan Revolution.” Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych resigned and fled to Moscow. Pro-EU protestors took over the government and signed an EU Association Agreement. In response, Putin annexed Crimea and declared it part of Russia. He also infiltrated Donetsk and Luhansk and helped establish de facto pro-Russian regional governments. The U.S. and EU responded with harsh economic sanctions on Russia.
Ukraine has been in turmoil (with increasing corruption) ever since. U.S.-Russia relations have been ice-cold, exactly as the globalists intended. The U.S- induced fiasco in Ukraine not only upset U.S.-Russia relations, it derailed a cozy money laundering operation involving Ukrainian oligarchs and Democratic politicians. The Obama administration flooded Ukraine with non-lethal financial assistance.
This aid was amplified by a four-year, $17.5 billion loan program to Ukraine from the IMF, approved in March 2015. Interestingly, this loan program was pushed by Obama at a time when Ukraine did not meet the IMF’s usual borrowing criteria. Some of this money was used for intended purposes, some was skimmed by the oligarchs, and the rest was recycled to Democratic politicians in the form of consulting contracts, advisory fees, director’s fees, contributions to foundations and NGOs and other channels.
Hunter Biden and the Clinton Foundations were major recipients of this corrupt recycling. Other beneficiaries included George Soros-backed “open society” organizations, which further directed the money to progressive left-wing groups in the U.S. This cozy wheel-of-fortune was threatened when Donald Trump became president. Trump genuinely desired improved relations with Russia and was not on the receiving end of laundered aid to Ukraine.
Hillary Clinton was supposed to continue the Obama policies, but she failed in the general election. Trump was a threat to everything the globalists, Democrats and pro-NATO elites had constructed in the 2010s. The globalists wanted China and the U.S. to team up against Russia. Trump understood correctly that China was the main enemy and therefore a closer union between the U.S. and Russia was essential.
The elites’ efforts to derail Trump gave rise to the “Russia collusion” hoax. While no one disputes that Russia sought to sow confusion in the U.S. election in 2016, that’s something the Russians and their Soviet predecessors had been doing since 1917. By itself, little harm was done. Yet, the elites seized on this to concoct a story of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. The real collusion was among Democrats, Ukrainians and Russians to discredit Trump.
It took the Robert Mueller investigation two years finally to conclude there was no collusion between Trump and the Russians. By then, the damage was done. It was politically toxic for Trump to reach out to the Russians. That would be spun by the media as more evidence of “collusion.”
It represents an enormous lost opportunity. When future historians look back on the 2010s, they will be baffled by the lost opportunity for the U.S. to mend fences with Russia, develop economic relations and create a win-win relationship between the world’s greatest technology innovator and the world’s greatest natural resources provider.
It will seem a great loss for the world. Here’s the reality: Russia, China and the U.S. are the only true superpowers and the only three countries that ultimately matter in geopolitics. That’s not a slight against any other power. But all others are secondary powers (the U.K., France, Germany, Japan, Israel, etc.) or tertiary powers (Iran, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc.). This means that the ideal posture for the U.S. is to ally with Russia (to marginalize China) or ally with China (to marginalize Russia), depending on overall geopolitical conditions. The U.S. conducted this kind of triangulation successfully from the 1970s until the early 2000s.
One of the keys to U.S. foreign policy in the last 50 or 60 years has been to make sure that Russia and China never form an alliance. Keeping them separated was key. In 1972, Nixon pivoted to China to put pressure on Russia. In 1991, the U.S. pivoted to Russia to put pressure on China after the Tiananmen Square massacre. Unfortunately, the U.S. has lost sight of this basic rule of international relations. It is now Russia and China that have formed a strong alliance, to the disadvantage of the United States.
Ultimately, this two-against-one strategic alignment of China and Russia against the U.S. is a strategic blunder by the U.S. Russia is the nation that the U.S. should have tried to court and should still be courting. That’s because China is the greatest geopolitical threat to the U.S. because of its economic and technological advances and its ambition to push the U.S. out of the Western Pacific sphere of influence.
Russia may be a threat to some of its neighbors, but it is far less of a threat to U.S. strategic interests. Therefore, a logical balance of power in the world would be for the U.S. and Russia to find common ground in the containment of China and to jointly pursue the reduction of Chinese power. But thanks to the elites’ political games, it hasn’t happened. Let’s just hope their malfeasance doesn’t drag us into an unnecessary war."
Free Download: Henry Miller, "Tropic of Cancer"
“The monstrous thing is not that men have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other, they should want roses. For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured – disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui – in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable. And all the while a meter is running inside and there is no hand that can reach in there and shut it off.
All the while someone is eating the bread of life and drinking the wine, some dirty fat cockroach of a priest who hides away in the cellar guzzling it, while up above in the light of the street a phantom host touches the lips and the blood is pale as water. And out of the endless torment and misery no miracle comes forth, no microscopic vestige of relief. Only ideas, pale, attenuated ideas which have to be fattened by slaughter; ideas which come forth like bile, like the guts of a pig when the carcass is ripped open.
Somehow the realization that nothing was to be hoped for had a salutary effect upon me. For weeks and months, for years, in fact, all my life I had been looking forward to something happening, some intrinsic event that would alter my life, and now suddenly, inspired by the absolute hopelessness of everything, I felt relieved, felt as though a great burden had been lifted from my shoulders. At dawn I parted company with the young Hindu, after touching him for a few francs, enough for a room. Walking toward Montparnasse I decided to let myself drift with the tide, to make not the least resistance to fate, no matter in what form it presented itself.
Nothing that had happened to me thus far had been sufficient to destroy me; nothing had been destroyed except my illusions. I myself was intact. The world was intact. Tomorrow there might be a revolution, a plague, an earthquake; tomorrow there might not be left a single soul to whom one could turn for sympathy, for aid, for faith. It seemed to me that the great calamity had already manifested itself, that I could be no more truly alone than at this very moment. I made up my mind that I would hold on to nothing, that I would expect nothing, that henceforth I would live as an animal, a beast of prey, a rover, a plunderer. Even if war were declared, and it were my lot to go, I would grab the bayonet and plunge it, plunge it up to the hilt. And if rape were the order of the day then rape I would, and with a vengeance.
At this very moment, in the quiet dawn of a new day, was not the earth giddy with crime and distress? Had one single element of man’s nature been altered, vitally, fundamentally altered, by the incessant march of history? By what he calls the better part of his nature, man has been betrayed, that is all. At the extreme limits of his spiritual being man finds himself again naked as a savage. When he finds God, as it were, he has been picked clean: he is a skeleton. One must burrow into life again in order to put on flesh. The word must become flesh; the soul thirsts.
At this very moment, in the quiet dawn of a new day, was not the earth giddy with crime and distress? Had one single element of man’s nature been altered, vitally, fundamentally altered, by the incessant march of history? By what he calls the better part of his nature, man has been betrayed, that is all. At the extreme limits of his spiritual being man finds himself again naked as a savage. When he finds God, as it were, he has been picked clean: he is a skeleton. One must burrow into life again in order to put on flesh. The word must become flesh; the soul thirsts.
On whatever crumb my eye fastens, I will pounce and devour. If to live is the paramount thing, then I will live, even if I must become a cannibal. Heretofore I have been trying to save my precious hide, trying to preserve the few pieces of meat that hid my bones. I am done with that. I have reached the limits of endurance. My back is to the wall; I can retreat no further. As far as history goes I am dead. If there is something beyond I shall have to bounce back. I have found God, but he is insufficient. I am only spiritually dead. Physically I am alive. Morally I am free. The world which I have departed is a menagerie. The dawn is breaking on a new world, a jungle world in which the lean spirits roam with sharp claws. If I am a hyena I am a lean and hungry one: I go forth to fatten myself.”
- Henry Miller, "Tropic of Cancer"
Freely download "Tropic of Cancer", by Henry Miller, here:
The Poet: Arthur O’Shaughnessy, "Music and Moonlight"
"Music and Moonlight"
"We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone seabreakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world forever, it seems…
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Ninevah with our sighing,
And Babel itself in our mirth;
And o’erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world’s worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth."
- Arthur O’Shaughnessy
○
"The Dreamers Of Dreams..."
"The division of one day from the next must be one of the most profound peculiarities of life on this planet. We are not condemned to sustained flights of being, but are constantly refreshed by little holidays from ourselves. We are intermittent creatures, always falling to little ends and rising to new beginnings. Our soon-tired consciousness is meted out in chapters, and that the world will look quite different tomorrow is, both for our comfort and our discomfort, usually true. How marvelously too night matches sleep, sweet image of it, so nearly apportioned to our need. Angels must wonder at these beings who fall so regularly out of awareness into a fantasm-infested dark. How our frail identities survive these chasms no philosopher has ever been able to explain."
- Iris Murdoch
Gregory Mannarino, "ShOcKeR! US 3rd Quarter Production Craters As Inflation Rips Higher"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 12/7/21:
"ShOcKeR! US 3rd Quarter Production
Craters As Inflation Rips Higher"
"Mainstream Economists Are Struggling To Hide The Incoming Economic Collapse"
"Mainstream Economists Are Struggling
To Hide The Incoming Economic Collapse"
by Brandon Smith
"For many years now there has been a contingent of alternative economists working diligently within the liberty movement to combat disinformation being spread by the mainstream media regarding America’s true economic condition. Our efforts have focused primarily on the continued devaluation of the dollar and the forced dependence on globalism that has outsourced and eliminated most U.S. manufacturing and production of raw materials.
The problems of devaluation and stagflation have been present since 1916 when the Federal Reserve was officially formed and given power, but the true impetus for a currency collapse and the destruction of American buying power began in 2007-2008 when the Financial Crisis was used as an excuse to allow the Fed to create trillions upon trillions in stimulus dollars for well over a decade.
The mainstream media’s claim has always been that the Fed “saved” the U.S. from imminent collapse and that the central bankers are “heroes.” After all, stock markets have mostly skyrocketed since quantitative easing (QE) was introduced during the credit crash, and stock markets are a measure of economic health, right?
The devil’s bargain: Reality isn’t a mainstream media story. The U.S. economy isn’t the stock market. All the Federal Reserve really accomplished was to forge a devil’s bargain: Trading one manageable deflationary crisis for at least one (possibly more) highly unmanageable inflationary crises down the road. Central banks kicked the can on the collapse, making it far worse in the process.
The U.S. economy in particular is extremely vulnerable now. Money created from thin air by the Fed was used to support failing banks and corporations, not just here in America but also banks and companies around the world. Because the dollar has been the world reserve currency for the better part of the past century, the Fed has been able to print cash with wild abandon and mostly avoid inflationary consequences. This was especially true in the decade after the derivatives crunch of 2008.
Why? The dollar’s global reserve status means dollars are likely to be held overseas in foreign banks and corporate coffers to be used in global trade. However, there is no such thing as a party that goes on forever. Eventually the punch runs out and the lights shut off. If the dollar is devalued too much, whether by endless printing of new money or by relentless inflationary pressures at home, all those overseas dollars will come flooding back into the U.S. The result is an inflationary avalanche, a massive injection of liquidity exactly when it will cause the most trouble. We are now close to this point of no return.
The difference between a crisis and a real crisis: As I have said for some time, when inflation becomes visible to the public and their pocketbooks take a hit, this is when the real crisis begins. A Catch-22 situation arises and the Fed must make a choice:
• To continue with inflationary programs and risk taking the blame for extreme price increases.
• Taper these programs and risk an implosion of stock markets which have long been artificially inflated by stimulus. Without Fed support, stock markets will die. We had a taste of this the last time the Fed flirted with tapering in 2018.
My position has always been that the Federal Reserve is not a banking institution on a mission to protect American financial interests. Rather, I believe the Fed is an ideological suicide bomber waiting to blow itself up and deliberately derail or destroy the American economy at the right moment. My position has also long been that the bankers would need a cover event to hide their calculated economic attack, otherwise they would take full blame for the resulting disaster. The Covid pandemic, subsequent lockdowns and supply chain snarls have now provided that cover event.
Two years after the pandemic started and the Fed has pumped out approximately $6 trillion more in stimulus (officially) and helicopter money through PPP loans and Covid checks. On top of that, Biden is ready to drop another $1 trillion in the span of the next couple years through his recently passed infrastructure bill. In my article ‘Infrastructure Bills Do Not Lead To Recovery, Only Increased Federal Control‘, published in April, I noted that:
“Production of fiat money is not the same as real production within the economy… Trillions of dollars in public works programs might create more jobs, but it will also inflate prices as the dollar goes into decline. So, unless wages are adjusted constantly according to price increases, people will have jobs, but still won’t be able to afford a comfortable standard of living. This leads to stagflation, in which prices continue to rise while wages and consumption stagnate.
Another Catch-22 to consider is that if inflation becomes rampant, the Federal Reserve may be compelled (or claim they are compelled) to raise interest rates significantly in a short span of time. This means an immediate slowdown in the flow of overnight loans to major banks, an immediate slowdown in loans to large and small businesses, an immediate crash in credit options for consumers, and an overall crash in consumer spending. You might recognize this as the recipe that created the 1981-1982 recession, the third-worst in the 20th century.
In other words, the choice is stagflation, or deflationary depression.” It would appear that the Fed has chosen stagflation. We have now reached the stage of the game in which stagflation is becoming a household term, and it’s only going to get worse from here on.
Lies, damned lies and statistics: According to official consumer price index (CPI) calculations and Fed data, we are now witnessing the largest inflation surge in over 30 years, but the real story is much more concerning. CPI numbers are manipulated and have been since the 1990’s when calculation methods were changed and certain unsavory factors were removed. If we look at inflation according to the original way of calculation, it is actually double that reported by the government today. In particular, necessities like food, housing and energy have exploded in price, but we are only at the beginning.
To be clear, Biden’s infrastructure bill and the pandemic stimulus are not the only culprits behind the stagflation event. This has been a long time coming; it is the culmination of many years of central bank stimulus sabotage and multiple presidents supporting multiple dollar devaluation schemes. Biden simply appears to be the president to put the final nail in the coffin of the U.S. economy (or perhaps Kamala Harris, we’ll see how long Biden maintains his mental health facade). But how bad will the situation get?
“Collapse” is not too strong a word: I think most alternative economists have called the situation correctly in predicting a “collapse.” This is often treated as a loaded term, but I don’t know what else you could call the scenario we are facing. The covid lockdowns and the battle over the vax mandates have perhaps distracted Americans from an even larger danger of financial instability. That fight is important and must continue, but stopping the mandates does not mean the overarching threat of economic chaos goes away, and both serve the interest of central bankers and globalists.
Some of the key policies within the literature for the “Great Reset” and what the World Economic Forum calls “The 4th Industrial Revolution” includes Universal Basic Income (UBI), the “Sharing Economy” and eventually a global digital currency system using the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights basket as a foundation. Essentially, it would be a form of global technocratic communism, and if you enjoy individual freedom, being forced into total reliance on the government for your very survival does not sound appealing.
To obtain such a system would require a catastrophe of epic proportions. The Covid pandemic gets the globalists part of the way there, but it’s obviously not enough. Covid has not convinced many hundreds of millions of people around the world to give up their freedoms for the sake of security. But maybe a stagflationary collapse will accomplish what Covid has not?
Accelerated price spikes in necessities including housing and food will generate mass poverty and homelessness. There is no chance that wages will keep up with costs. The government might step in with more stimulus to help major corporations and businesses increase wages, but this would basically be the beginning of a universal basic income (UBI, or free money for everyone) and it would only cause more dollar devaluation and more inflation. They could try to freeze prices as many communist regimes have in the past, but this only leads to increased manufacturing shut downs because the costs of production are too high and the profit incentives too low.
I suspect that the establishment will bring back regular checks (like the Covid checks) for the public now struggling to deal with ever increasing expenses and uncertainty, but with strings attached. Don’t expect a UBI check, for example, if you refuse to comply with the vax mandates. If you run a business, don’t expect stimulus aid if you hire non-compliant workers. UBI gives the government ultimate control over everything, and a stagflationary crisis gives them the perfect opportunity to introduce permanent UBI.
The mainstream can no longer deny the fact that stagflation is happening and it is a threat, so hopefully those people that have not been educated on the situation will learn quickly enough to complete the preparations necessary to survive. Countering stagflation will require localized production, decentralization and a move away from reliance on the global supply chain, the institution of local currency systems, perhaps using state banks like the one in North Dakota as a model, barter markets and physical precious metals that rise in value along with inflationary pressures. There is a lot that needs to be done, and very little time to do it.
At bottom, the fight against economic collapse and the “Great Reset” starts with each individual and how they prepare. Each person caught by surprise and stricken with poverty is just another person added to the hungry mob begging the establishment for draconian solutions like UBI. Each properly-prepared individual is, as always, an obstacle to authoritarianism. It’s time to choose which one you will be."
"Winter Ends; the Nightmare Continues"
"Winter Ends; the Nightmare Continues"
by Bill Bonner
YOUGHAL, IRELAND –" News from home: “Baltimore is suffering another crime wave… with 600 people shot so far this year. In many neighborhoods, you’re more likely to get shot than to get COVID. A reporter interviewed a citizen on the street. ‘What do you think of the mayor’s Five-Year Crime Plan?’ he asked. ‘Five years from now, everybody be dead,’ replied the street-sage.”
But we’ve left Baltimore behind. After sufficient testing… certifying to the Irish authorities that your editor was not carrying the Plague… we’ve arrived back in Ireland. And we wrap up our history of America’s Nightmare Winter of 2033… or 2028… or 2025?
Recall that the feds are trying to do two dangerous things at once. First, they aim to reach net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2035. Second, they expect to pay for the “transition” to green energy – along with routine federal budget deficits and trillion-dollar boondoggles – with printing-press money. This was never going to end well.
So, we’ve been looking at what the end might look like. When we left you yesterday, the power grid had failed and mobs were looting stores for food. Thousands died in a few horrible weeks of sub-zero temperatures.
The Straw That Breaks the Camel’s Back: But now, after a thaw, the sun has come out and the juice is on. Can we return to normal? The answer is probably “no.” We remind readers that the “Great Freeze” is only one of many different possibilities. Already, the camel sags and staggers. We don’t know what the final straw will look like. It could be a breakdown in the power system on the 4th of July. Or a trial verdict that goes the “wrong” way… followed by rioting all over the country.
Or maybe just another crash in the housing market. Houses are rising in price three times as fast as the cost of living. People are once again “taking out” equity. As we reported last week, the median house price is now above $400,000. If you are aged under 30, the average down payment is only about 6%. That leaves the average young buyer under 30 with a $376,000 mortgage. As prices rise, so will mortgage rates. And each 1% increase in the mortgage rate adds $3,760 to the annual cost. How long before that camel’s back gives way?
Hell Breaks Loose: We remind dear readers, too, that things don’t “just happen.” The #7 ball hits the #3 ball… and drives the #10 ball into the side pocket. If you only see part of the scene, you might think that the #10 ball went in by itself. But there is always more to the story. How do you see it? Here’s a good place to start: Follow the money.
In the U.S. today, money is created by the banking system, which is run by the Federal Reserve, which is run by the government. “Printing” new money boosts up asset prices, which are owned primarily by the rich. The more dollars the Fed creates, the richer the rich get. And the more the movers and shakers think they have unlimited funds to do whatever they want, the more jackass programs they undertake… and the more real wealth they squander.
Investors back zombie businesses… and buy meme stocks and NFTs. Corporations borrow to do mergers and acquisitions… and buy back their own stock. The government spends on wars, “social infrastructure,” and climate control. Deficits and debts rise… the rich get richer and richer… and the elite becomes more and more corrupt… Prices go up… inflation gets worse and worse… and people get angrier and angrier…And then, the trigger – a cold winter… a hot July… a Lehman-style bankruptcy. Something suddenly snaps. And all Hell breaks loose.
Full-Scale Catastrophe: People lose faith – in their leaders… their neighbors… their money… their laws… their system of government and their institutions… And then, you don’t just have a financial problem on your hands. Not just a stock market crash, either. Nor just a recession/depression. You have a full-scale social and political catastrophe… chaos… and a Winter Nightmare. Like Russia in the winter of 1917… Germany in the winter of 1921… Argentina in the 1970s and 1980s… Zimbabwe 2005-present…and like Venezuela right now. Already, differences of opinion are barely tolerated. People are “gunning up” in anticipation of a showdown.
Imagine what it might be like when food disappears from the supermarket shelves… when people “shiver in the dark” and the gas pumps run dry… and when prices rise at a 50% rate. And that is where our “history” ends… The stage has been set. The actors have learned their parts. The orchestra is ready to play. The bar is closing. And the show must go on."
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