Wayland, Michigan, USA. Thanks for stopping by!
So, we rise from the rubble...
Wednesday, June 14, 2023
"Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 6/14/23"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 6/14/23
"Ukraine War & Nukes Moving Around - Col. Doug Macgregor"
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o
Full screen recommended.
Firstpost, 6/14/23
"Putin: Ukraine's Losses "Catastrophic",
Who Has the Edge in the War?"
"Russian President Vladimir Putin made some claims to the press about the war in Ukraine. He says Ukraine's losses are catastrophic. He claims Russia has lost 10 times less than Ukraine in terms of ratio. But Putin admits that Russia has lost more in real numbers. What's going on at the battlefield? Is Ukraine being pushed back? Palki Sharma tells more."
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"At Last..."
“At last, the answer why. The lesson that had been so hard to find, so difficult to learn, came quick and clear and simple. The reason for problems is to overcome them. Why, that’s the very nature of man, I thought, to press past limits, to prove his freedom. It isn’t the challenge that faces us, that determines who we are and what we are becoming, but the way we meet the challenge, whether we toss a match at the wreck or work our way through it, step by step, to freedom.”
- Richard Bach, “Nothing by Chance”
"This Is Why Nobody Will Do Anything Until It's Too Late"
"This Is Why Nobody Will
Do Anything Until It's Too Late"
by Charles Hugh Smith
"OK, I get it: we all like Hollywood endings: the superhero saves the world, the evil conspiracy is uncovered and the villains get their just desserts and the impossible romance overcomes all the odds. This is why there are Hollywood endings: we are hard-wired to thrill to happy endings and a successful conclusion to the Hero's/Heroine's Journey. We will tolerate a Tragic Hero/Heroine or the occasional Anti-Hero/Heroine, but there is still a moral victory of some sort to cheer.
The real world doesn't follow a storyline, it operates according to the dictates of systems: inputs are taken up by processes which then generate outputs. If the outputs and processes don't change, the outputs don't change either.
One prevalent manifestation of human hubris is the idea that getting someone to agree with us about something or other is some sort of victory, as if human opinions matter. They don't, unless they change either inputs or processes in extremely consequential ways. Tweaking inputs or policies might make us feel warm and fuzzy ("I'm part of the solution!") but they are too modest to change the system's inputs and processes. The net result is the outputs remain the same.
Put another way: labeling something or other a hoax or an existential threat doesn't change anything in the systems that generate consequences. Whatever is going to happen as output is going to happen regardless of what humans label it or their opinions about it ("El Nino really sucks!").
Existing processes constrain our choices. This is why it's difficult to be an environmentally-sustainable saint. Let's say we're concerned about climate change and the destruction of the planet's biosphere. Let's say we want to lower our carbon footprint and "do the right things" to reduce the negative impact of our consumption and lifestyle.
This is where we substitute Hollywood endings for reality. We like to think that recycling matters. Sorry, it really doesn't change the inputs or processes enough to change the outputs in any consequential way. For example, the percentage of lithium batteries and electronic waste that are currently recycled is near-zero because the batteries and electronics aren't manufactured to be recycled in a cost-effective manner, and nobody in the system pays for costly recycling. So the really important recycling isn't being done.
I still recycle cardboard because that seems like a better choice than dumping it in the landfill, but in terms of total lifecycle costs and resource consumption of recycling versus landfill, I don't have any data. The system isn't set up to measure total lifecycle costs and resource consumption of goods, services and processes, and since we only manage what we measure, we're flying blind: the system is set up to measure "growth" (GDP) and profits, not total lifecycle costs and resource consumption.
Sorry, there's no Hollywood ending until we change the inputs (stop manufacturing lithium batteries) and/or the processes (require 99% recycling of all electronics, batteries, vehicles, etc.). This will require changing the entire manufacturing and resource supply chain systems from the ground up, globally. If we don't do that, the output can't possibly change in any consequential way.
The Hollywood ending is electric vehicles will "save the planet." Too bad this is Hollywood, not reality. Most of the consumption of resources and damage to the planet occur in the mining, smelting and manufacture of the vehicle, regardless of its fuel. Due to their massive consumption of minerals, electric vehicles consume far more of the planet's resources than an ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicle. All vehicles are manufactured (mining, smelting, transport, factories, etc.) with hydrocarbons. There's no difference between vehicles except electric vehicles use even more hydrocarbons in their fabrication.
Then there's the source of the fuel. An electric vehicle manufactured by burning coal and charged with electricity generated by burning coal is in fact a coal-burning vehicle. Calling it "electric" fits the happy story, but it's not actually factual: a coal-burning vehicle is an environmental disaster, regardless of labels, our opinions or the happy-ending PR. In the real world, the least destructive choice of vehicle is a small, light, old ICE vehicle that is well-maintained to conserve fuel and driven only rarely. Hey, look at me, I only drove my old 40-mile-per-gallon Civic 3,000 miles last year--I'm a saint!
Unfortunately, the real world isn't a Hollywood (or Bollywood) movie, and so I don't get to be a saint once we look at the world as a system rather than a movie. The fertilizers I use to grow food in my yard come from afar, and even the organic ones consume huge quantities of hydrocarbons in their processing, bagging and shipping. The "organic" fruit or vegetable shipped from afar is an environmental disaster compared to the organic fruit or vegetable from your own yard, but even those require inputs that are part of the system.
I stepped on airliners a few times in the past year, one long-haul and two short flights, and there is really nothing environmentally saintly about consuming immense resources by jetting around the world. Electric aircraft won't "save the world," either. They're resource-hungry, small, slow, their range is modest and their batteries are no more recyclable or long-lasting than all the vehicle batteries destined for the landfill. And alternative fuels for jet aircraft are incapable of being produced at the scale necessary to replace jet fuel. Sorry, no Hollywood ending.
To really reduce one's consumption of the planet's resources, we would have to grow our own food, get around on our own feet or zero-fuel transport (motorless bicycle or skateboard or boat) and not buy / own / use large resource-consuming devices such as vehicles, aircraft, etc. The system as currently configured makes it nearly impossible to do this. Even growing much of your own food requires delivery of fertilizers (organic or chemical, they still weight a lot). Very few places are bike-skateboard friendly. The world is set up for large, mass-produced fueled vehicles. Outside of a few cities, public transport is incapable of getting people where they need to go in any sort of time-efficient manner.
Consider the foundation of our lifestyle, the financial system. The story is "debt doesn't matter," because we can outgrow rising debt forever. Our bag of financial engineering tricks is bottomless, and there will always be another financial rabbit we can pull out of the hat. This is of course a fantasy. Debt eventually eats the system alive. So do fixed costs, entitlements, demographics and declining productivity. The inputs and processes can't be changed in any material way because they have to remain in their current scale and configuration or the financial system collapses under its own weight.
This brings us to the incentives to keep the inputs and processes exactly as they are, with minor tweaks for PR purposes. The system is set up such that elites and self-serving interests have most of the wealth and political power, and if even the tiniest bit of their skim is diminished, they will instantly devote the entirety of their resources to reversing this outrage, for they all know how power works: if others manage to cut 1% from your skim, they'll sense weakness and come back for 10%.
The only incentive that counts in our stripmined world is maximizing profits and the private gains of the entrenched and powerful. To cloak this reality, the Powers That Be promote public-relations propaganda that depicts their pillage, looting, fraud and destruction as a Hollywood story we can all consume and love, just as we love our servitude once it's been properly packaged into a Hero / Heroine's Journey or a Love Story.
This is why nobody will do anything until it's too late. It's only when we run out of essential inputs and/or essential processes decay and collapse that we'll awaken to the fact that since the global system's inputs and processes materially changed, the outputs we need and love all went away.
By the time inputs and processes have materially changed, it's too late to reverse the process and go back in time. Once resource extraction processes break down, inputs are no longer available in the needed quantities to feed all the processes of globalized, industrialized production and transport. Since all these processes are tightly bound systems, that is, interconnected, the breakdown of any one supply chain or process quickly topples dominoes throughout the system.
In addition to confusing happy stories with systems, human hubris manifests in another way: we like to think that minor tweaks here and there that don't inconvenience us will magically change the negative outputs (resource depletion, environmental ruin, etc.). This is why we love the Hollywood stories about electric aircraft (our very own electric helicopter--yowza!), electric vehicles, recycling the carboard boxes from FedEx, UPS and Amazon, and so on: we get all the comforts and conveniences we're accustomed to, and we get to be environmentally-sustainable saints, too: it's all sustainable and ecological and warm and fuzzy. Except it isn't. That's a fairy tale, not a system. If you question the Hollywood ending, you're dismissed as a doom and gloomer, a discontent who grumbles about happy endings and techno-marvels.
I see this as confusing a story with a system. The story operates by its own rules: here are the obstacles and powerful villains, here are the Hero and Heroine, outmatched and under pressure, but then, against all odds, the villains lose their grip, justice is served and love triumphs.
Systems work by their own implacable rules. There are inputs and processes that generate outputs. The only way to change the outputs in a consequential fashion is to change the inputs and/or processes in a consequential fashion. Little face-saving PR tweaks are too small in scale to materially change either inputs or processes, and so the outputs won't change and indeed, can't possibly change, because that's how systems work.
So by all means, ignore all warnings and run the ship at full speed through an ice field. All too predictably, the ship collides with an iceberg and only then does anyone respond: OK, where's the Hollywood story of brave engineers saving the ship and noble passengers helping each other onto lifeboats? What do you mean, the ship will sink regardless of what's done?
Doesn't our happy-ending story map reality? Unfortunately, no. The current system is sinking and nobody will do anything other than more of what's failed until it's too late. I like a rousing story as much as anyone else, but systems aren't stories, and confusing the two won't actually fix what's not sustainable in the current system's configuration.
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This confusion of story with system will generate consequences and opportunities which I discuss in my books "Global Crisis, National Renewal" and "Self-Reliance in the 21st Century."
Bill Bonner, "The Great and the Good"
"The Great and the Good"
Examining a crucial historical pivot in recent American history...
By Bill Bonner
"Sagest in the council was he, kindest in the hall.
Sure we never won a battle – ‘twas Owen won them all.
Had he lived – had he lived – our dear country had been free;
But he’s dead, but he’s dead, and ‘tis slaves we’ll ever be…"
"Lament for the Death of Owen Roe O’Neill", By Thomas Davis
Youghal, Ireland - On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy was shot. He died soon after. Much of the world went into mourning. Never before or since has Washington seen such a gathering of dignitaries…nor so many common folk…all who came to pay their respects.
Jack Kennedy had made many friends. His New Frontier was widely applauded. At home, he lowered the top marginal tax rate from 91% to 65%. Abroad, he sought peace. He explained in a speech at American University that his kind of peace was “not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave.
And yet, after his death, American weapons were soon at work…creating a world, not at peace, but almost constantly at war. Before his assassination, JFK had sent out an order, bringing US troops back from Vietnam. That order was quickly forgotten. The new president, LBJ, had another program, much more to the liking of the ‘military industrial complex.’ Over the next 11 years, 2.7 million American soldiers would go to fight a war that Johnson had promised would be a war for the Vietnamese to fight. By the time the last US helicopter escaped from the US embassy roof in 1975, 58,000 Americans had died and a trillion dollars had been spent. More importantly, the good had given way to the great.
An Historical Pivot: We are reviewing a ‘pivot’ in recent American history. It was the moment when the military/industrial/spook/Congressional complex – the most powerful industry in the world – took control of US politics...and the empire took on a life of its own.
Specifically, we are recalling the history of the 1960s – aided by the recollections and research of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. – and our own personal history. Bob Dylan, the Doors, Aretha Franklin…marijuana…the Rolling stones…bell bottoms – and the hope of a better world – it is all coming back into focus. We were not born cynical, dear reader; it took many fads, rascals, bear markets and political campaigns to make us what we are today.
One clear memory…It was a summer evening in 1967. We had gone with a friend to the banks of the Chesapeake. Percy Sledge’s great hit – ‘When a man loves a woman’ – was on the radio. We were back from college, regaling each other with our adventures. But Tommy had dropped out. He set his sights on a different life – simpler, more local. He had read Faulkner and Hemingway. His goal was success at home…not abroad. It was success as a person he wanted, not as captain of industry nor of infantry. “Aren’t you worried about getting drafted?” “No…I’m going to sign up. Get it over with.” “Aren’t you worried about getting killed? And what’s the point, anyway? The war seems like a waste.” “Yeah…but otherwise, I’ll have to listen to my mother complaining about me dropping out of college.” That was the last time we saw Tommy. .
Life is full of casualties. Some are more tragic and pointless than others. Tommy was one of them.
America the Great? What the Kennedys seemed to be aiming for was a government that practiced restraint and reduced the casualties. A good nation does not tax too heavily, does not spend too much, treats people with respect (even those with whom it doesn’t agree) and only fights when it has to. But after Kennedy was assassinated, the US took a different course. Lyndon Johnson promised action…activism…empire. Bombs and bamboozles. Attila was great. Alexander was great. Caesar was great. Napoleon was great. Why not Lyndon? Why not Ronald…Donald…or Joe?
“The People” took the cue. The masses always come to think what they must think when they must think it. Americans were no different. Flattered by the best military money could buy, they came to believe that they were an exceptional race. Madeleine Albright, then Secretary of State, must have reached some apotheosis of conceit when she proclaimed that “if we use force, it is because we are America. We stand tall….we see further into the future.”
We have argued that there are patterns to markets (the Primary Trend)…and patterns to history. A normal man is held in check by his friends, his wife, and his children. When he makes a jackass of himself, they are quick to let him know. So too is a humble nation held in check by its neighbors, its resources and its own people. It may be good or bad. But sometimes – with the wind at its back – the lust for greatness takes over. A nation seeks not just to get along, but to dominate…and control; it becomes an empire. But the Kennedys stood in the way.
Concrete Boots: First, Robert Kennedy took on the mobsters. Appointed Attorney General by his brother, RFK had a ‘Manichean approach’ to law enforcement. There were good guys and bad guys. He wanted to put the bad ones in jail.
At the time, the mafia was gaining power…and corrupting the US justice system (suborning witnesses, bribing judges…). He aimed to put them out of business. In Senate hearings, he brought in Anthony “Tony Ducks” Corallo; Joe “Little Caesar” DiVarco; Carlos “The Little Man” Marcello…and dozens of other colorful mobsters. In his first three years as Attorney General, RFK filed 673 indictments against organized crime figures.
The mafiosos didn’t forget. And didn’t forgive. What’s more, they felt betrayed. They believed that the Kennedys would protect them, not prosecute them. There are several competing stories to explain it. One tells us that Joe Kennedy had made a deal with the mob; if they helped deliver the votes in Chicago… he would tell his sons to lay off them. Another story is that the Kennedy boys were connected to the mob on their own. Their sister, Pat, was married to Peter Lawford, one the famous “Rat Pack,” along with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. Sinatra installed a heliport at his residence in Palm Springs so the president could come to visit. Jack Kennedy may even have shared a mistress – Judith Campbell Exner – with Sinatra’s mafia pal, Sam Giancana.
Whatever the origins of the story, the mob felt betrayed when Bobby Kennedy went after them with a vigor they had never seen before. “Livarsi na petra di la scarpa,” said Carlos Marcello in 1962. The old Sicilian curse has an English variant, said to have been invoked by Henry II: “Will no one rid me of that turbulent priest?” In another documented exchange, mobster Santo Trafficante assured Cuban exile leader Jose Aleman that he needn’t worry about President Kennedy: “No, Jose, he is going to be hit.”
An Empire Unchallenged: Another group that didn’t like the Kennedys was the aforementioned War Industry. Their business, too, was being severely hampered by the Kennedys’ desire to give peace a chance…and their general distrust of both the military and the spies. By this time, the CIA and the mobsters were working together. Their target was supposed to be Fidel Castro. The mafia had its connections in Cuba. The CIA’s mission was to assassinate Fidel, at which, it failed.
The assassination of JFK, however…like the murder of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury in 1170… was a shocking success. Who did it? Did the CIA aim for Castro and hit Kennedy? Did the mafia settle its score with the Kennedy family? Or was it a ‘lone gunman,’ as the Warren Commission concluded? We don’t know. But since then, no president has ever seriously challenged the empire’s agenda. More to come…"
o
And so...
“We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world - a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us.... No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we’ll kill you.
Well, sh*t on that dumbness. George W. Bush does not speak for me or my son or my mother or my friends or the people I respect in this world. We didn’t vote for these cheap, greedy little killers who speak for America today - and we will not vote for them again. Ever.
Who does vote for these dishonest sh*theads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us - they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. F*ck them.”
- Hunter S. Thompson,
"High Trust, Low Trust, And The Coming Breakdown"
"High Trust, Low Trust,
And The Coming Breakdown"
By John Wilder
"One of the places we vacationed once upon a time was Branson, Missouri. It’s absolutely a tourist town. One of the places we went was Silver Dollar City®. It’s like one of the large theme parks you’d find almost anywhere. It’s also a nice place to go, not like that theme park that discriminates against the blind – Seaworld®.
I was walking there with The Mrs., The Boy, and Pugsley when we were all a decade younger than we are today. All of a sudden, a young blonde man who looked like a fullback ran up to me. He was probably 19 or so. “Sir, sir, sir! You dropped this!” He handed me two $20 bills – they’d been in my pocket after getting change from buying sodas for the family. They’d fallen out. I was... stunned. I couldn’t see this happening in most places that I’d been. I thanked the young man, shook his hand, and he loped off to catch back up with his girlfriend.
That is the example of a high trust society. People do things like that because they’re the right thing to do. They get enjoyment out of doing them. When I was surprised by behavior, like I was by that kid handing me cash, it made me feel great. It gave me hope for society. It was also a lesson for The Boy and Pugsley on how to behave. Here is a person who could easily have walked away with $40, but who did the right thing and returned it. No one would have ever known except for him and his girlfriend. But, I’m betting, he didn’t want to have to live with being the type of person who didn’t live his life virtuously. I think it also made the kid feel great to do something nice. He got a great story to tell people about the goofy man with the little kids who dropped forty bucks out of his pocket.
Trust is crucial for a really high-functioning group of any type, from a family to a state to a country. Trust provides a glue that keeps people together, and gives them common ground to collaborate. People who trust each other tend to reciprocate, cooperate, and take care of each other. It’s like the Mafia, but with fewer people being “taken care of”.
Trust also leads to prosperity. Trust plays a huge component in how easy transactions are. In a society where people keep their word, contracts aren’t as important because honor is important.
Trust leads to greater governmental stability. While there have always been awful people in government who were only out for themselves, I think we’ve reached the bottom in having awful people at all levels of government. There are some good ones, but the FBI is generally pretty good at having them transferred to Fairbanks.
One of the things about cities is that they tend to breed anonymity. In Modern Mayberry, we ignore gunshots and get concerned when we hear sirens. In most cities, they ignore sirens and get concerned when they hear gunshots.
A high trust society requires rule of law instead of rule of men or rule of The Party. It’s that trust that the judicial system is impartial and does its best to send guilty folks to jail (or worse) and let innocent folks go free, no matter who they are. There hasn’t ever been a perfect justice system, but if the people feel that it’s as good a system as people can create, it does the trick. So, that’s what it’s like living in Heaven. What does a low trust society look like?
• High levels of apparent corruption,
• Low confidence in public institutions,
• High crime rates,
• Political polarization,
• Lack of any sort of sense of a coherent society, or common goal, and
•Social unrest.
It’s clear that, as a nation, we’re closer to a low trust society than a high trust society. Rather than just being a social or philosophical question – it’s one that costs money and determines what services are available. An example is the new Walgreen’s® store in Chicago. Apparently, Walgreen’s© got tired of having urban hunter-gatherers wander in and loot the store in broad daylight with little fear of any sort of legal jeopardy. Walgreen’s© has closed nearly 30 stores in just San Francisco alone.
Walgreen’s™ decided to build a store with no shelves, just a little kiosk where people can pick products from a digital tablet. The idea of wandering down the shelves, shopping leisurely, comparing one product against another is dead in this store. Pick the Preparation H™ and some clerk will wander to a shelf in the back room and pull a tube down and stick it in a bag. Then, after the customer pays, they’ll hand them the stuff. Walgreen’s© used to trust customers in Chicago. Now, they don’t. Their revenues will go down (nobody ever goes to the store to buy cashews, but when you walk by them...) and their costs of having to have people run to get products will go up. Why? Stores are being looted on a regular basis.
Meanwhile, you could walk into Wal-Mart® here in Modern Mayberry and see every towel neatly stacked, all of the shelves full, and nobody stealing anything. Yeah, they check my receipt as I walk out the door now, but the lady at the door only pretends to look at it.
Wal-Mart™ makes money here. The Walgreen’s© in Chicago doesn’t. San Francisco, plagued by a new breed of criminals that the police won’t arrest (or if they are arrested, the DA won’t charge) systematically loot store after store of products when they’re not busy pooping in the streets. San Francisco is now low trust. This is spreading. I wonder where it will end up next? Oh."
"The US Is In Steep Decline, On The Brink Of War"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 6/14/23
"The US Is In Steep Decline, On The Brink Of War"
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MUST VIEW! "Get Your Food Now! Shortages Coming!"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 6/14/23
"Get Your Food Now! Shortages Coming! Part 1"
"We just found out that the Kansas week crap is going to be the worst production in almost 60 years. Corn is in short supply as well. There’s so many things wrong with the economy."
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 6/14/23
"Get Your Food Now! Part 2"
"When I uploaded the original video I deleted part of the video inlay when I was describing the 11 things wrong with the economy. I re uploaded the video with that so you could see it how it was intended. I would’ve just deleted the original video and done this, but so many people liked it that I just kept it up. I hope you enjoy."
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"Strange Prices At Walmart! This Is Ridiculous! Not Good!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 6/14/23
"Strange Prices At Walmart! This Is Ridiculous! Not Good!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Walmart and are noticing some strange price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
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Tuesday, June 13, 2023
"15 Things That Became Priceless For The Average American Families, with Clayton Morris"
Full screen recommended.
Investing Future, 6/13/23
"15 Things That Became Priceless For The
Average American Families, with Clayton Morris"
"Once upon a time, the average U.S. household could afford more than the bare minimum. But as the inflation monster was unleashed, pushing the value of our dollars downhill, the sole goal of most of our society became surviving month by month. As the things that made life a little more livable became way too expensive for us to have, it is actually insane to think how much the cost of living has gone up in just a few years. We went from on the path to prosperity to on the verge of a cliff alarmingly fast. Today, most people have little to no money left to spend after they pay all their bills, and no matter how much we work, it seems that it's never enough to achieve a comfortable living.
In today's video, we've decided to gather some goods and services whose prices are soaring well above what most of us can pay. Before moving on, we kindly ask you to support our work with a thumbs up, and don't forget to subscribe to our channel. Without further ado, let's check this list.
1. Computers and electronics, including cameras, smartphones, TVs, video doorbells, and even electric toothbrushes, need semiconductor chips to function. But the shortage of microchips is still plaguing the industry and driving the price of all products that depend on these tiny devices to soar. Over the past two years, the electronics category has seen overall prices rise by 30 percent, with some large TVs more than doubling in price since 2021. Experts predict that the chip shortage will last for another year or two, especially because severe storms caused a slowdown in production in Taiwan, which produces 65 percent of the semiconductors we use. In other words, expensive prices for electronics are going to stay with us for quite some time.
2. Rental cars: If you are planning to take a road trip this year, you may have to reevaluate your plans because the average cost to rent a car in 2023 is 73.5 percent higher than a year ago. This massive surge was largely caused by the sudden drop in demand during the pandemic when no one was traveling. Rental car companies reported declining revenues, and many of them were forced to sell off large chunks of their fleets to stay afloat. The stunning increase in car prices that followed over the next two years made it difficult for them to purchase new vehicles to rebuild their inventories. So, demand for rental cars continues to outstrip the available supply, making them a less viable alternative for those who are looking to save some money.
3. Gas: Even after falling almost one dollar fifty after its five-dollar peak in June 2022, gas prices are still 42.7 percent higher than they were in 2019. This led 56 percent of Americans to drive less in December compared to the same time a year prior. Our domestic production of gasoline remains below historical levels, and in many parts of the country, supplies are already dwindling. Extreme weather events also shut down nine refineries, which are just now resuming operations, and we're seeing this being reflected at the pump. In recent days, just a week ago, the national average was 3.27 cents per gallon. Today, it reached 3.48 per gallon, which is an increase of 21 cents in just seven days. Also, refinery maintenance season will soon be in full force, putting upward pressure on prices. On average, gasoline prices rise between 35 and 85 cents per gallon between March and Memorial Day.
4. Clothing: Even as major retailers mark down prices to get rid of excess inventory, apparel prices rose by almost a percent in January and were 5.2 percent higher than in January 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Demand has stayed strong, with Walmart reporting a 6.5 percent increase in apparel sales in the last quarter."
Continued in video.
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"15 Grocery Shortages That Will Make Americans Freak Out This Summer"
Full screen recommended.
"15 Grocery Shortages That Will Make
Americans Freak Out This Summer"
by Epic Economist
"Whenever people start noticing that a major shortage is unfolding or may be ahead, they rush to the stores to hoard their favorite items before they completely disappear. And in 2023, things will be no different. 2022 was a very complicated year for food production, and now we're seeing how this is affecting the availability of certain products at our local supermarkets. Getting ready in advance is key. Now is the time to check out your pantry and list what's missing so that next time you go grocery shopping, you know exactly what to get to and which shortages to expect.
For instance, if you’re long waiting to eat some corn with your barbecue this summer, you should probably go to the stores and buy some while it’s still available because supplies are getting tight. Everything started when the world lost one of the leading providers of corn, Ukraine, which hasn’t been exporting grain since the conflict with Russia broke out in February 2022. On top of that, other major corn producers like Mexico and Brazil have been reporting lower corn yields, and the countries are deciding to keep most of their supplies on hand instead of sending them to US markets. American corn producers have also dealt with their fair share of challenges in recent years, especially as extreme weather devastated millions of acres of crops, and many farmers faced issues getting enough fertilizer to grow the grain. These factors are likely to contribute to major shortages at stores, not only of corn itself, but a series of corn-based products, like oils, syrups, and snacks. Certainly, prices won’t be the same as they were last summer, so if that’s a staple in your household, don’t forget to stock up your pantry before shelves get barer.
This is the season for some ice-cold beer while we gather with our friends and family and watch our favorite sports game. But for a third consecutive year, a global shortage of carbon dioxide is reducing the supply of this beloved beverage at grocery stores. The bubbling agent is also harder to obtain than it was a few years ago. According to Axios, carbon dioxide is a solid form of dry ice, which was heavily utilized for the shipping of COVID-19 vaccines. Already stymied, the carbon dioxide supply chain suffered more damage when a major production facility in Mississippi became contaminated by a nearby volcano in September of 2022.
Consumers are noticing that Diet Coke has been harder to find this year. Just as for beer, the production of the soda has been rocked by a double whammy of shortages in aluminum - used to make cans - and carbon dioxide. Last year Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey said the industry had experienced an 'earthquake'.And it seems unlikely shortages will soon ease. The drink has a very low-calorie count.,and it is very popular in the United States in the world. Diet Coke uses ingredients, such as aspartame and acesulfame potassium instead of sugar. This gives it a sweet taste without adding extra calories. But these artificial sweeteners are also facing supply shortfalls, that’s why we can still see the traditional version of Coke on store shelves, while the sugar-free beverage continues to disappear.
But what we've seen so far is just the begininng. Seasonal demand is about to squeeze grocery supplies even further during the summer months, and we should start preparing for the chaos at stores in the best way we can. Many more products can vanish from our local supermarkets before year's end, and you can keep tuned with our channel to know what shortages are coming next and how to prepare for the challenges that are ahead of us. For that reason, today, we listed several foods that will likely be in short supply in the coming weeks and months so you can stock up before shelves are wiped clean."
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"Buying Preps At Costco; FED Has Defeated Inflation? Malls Are Defaulting, Investors Get Screwed"
Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 6/13/23
"Buying Preps At Costco; FED Has Defeated Inflation?
Malls Are Defaulting, Investors Get Screwed"
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Gerald Celente, "Only Believe Zelensky"
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 6/13/23
"Only Believe Zelensky"
"Gerald Celente, renowned trend forecaster, is back with an in-depth analysis of today's trends in the news. Get a sneak peek into the new Trends Journal issue, learn how to discern valuable information in a sea of irrelevant headlines, and understand why Gerald says, "Thinking for yourself is the best trend to follow." The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Find out more here: https://trendsjournal.com
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"A Look to the Heavens"
“What strange world is this? Earth. In the foreground of the featured image are the Pinnacles, unusual rock spires in Nambung National Park in Western Australia. Made of ancient sea shells (limestone), how these human-sized picturesque spires formed remains unknown. In the background, just past the end of the central Pinnacle, is a bright crescent Moon. The eerie glow around the Moon is mostly zodiacal light, sunlight reflected by dust grains orbiting between the planets in the Solar System.
Click image for larger size.
Arching across the top is the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy. Many famous stars and nebulas are also visible in the background night sky. The featured 29-panel panorama was taken and composed in 2015 September after detailed planning that involved the Moon, the rock spires, and their corresponding shadows. Even so, the strong zodiacal light was a pleasant surprise.”
Chet Raymo,"Seeing"
"Seeing"
by Chet Raymo
"There was a moment yesterday evening when the elements conspired to evoke these few lines, spoken by Macbeth:
"Light thickens,
And the crow makes wing to the rooky woods,
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse."
The fading light. The crows gliding down the fields to the trees in Ballybeg:
"Light thickens,
And the crow makes wing to the rooky woods,
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse."
It's all there, in those few lines - the mysterious power of poetry to infuse the world with meaning, to anoint the world with a transforming grace. One could spend an hour picking those lines apart, syntax and sound, sense and alliteration. The t's of light thickening, tongue against the teeth. The alar w's making wing. The owl eyes of the double o's. The d's nodding into slumber - day, droop, drowse.
The poet Howard Nemerov says of poetry that it "works on the very surface of the eye, that thin, unyielding wall of liquid between mind and world, where somehow, mysteriously, the patterns formed by electrical storms assaulting the retina become things and the thought of things and the names of things and the relations supposed between thing." It works too in the mouth, in the physical act of speech - tongue, teeth, those d's gliding deeper into the darkness of the throat.
I stand in the gloaming garden and the black birds glide, down, down to Ballybeg, and I marvel that with so few syllables Shakespeare can - across the centuries - teach me how to see."
The Poet: Joy Harjo, "Remember "
"Remember "
"Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the stars stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is. I met her
in a bar once in Iowa City.
Remember the suns birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother's, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe. I heard her singing Kiowa war
dance songs at the corner of Fourth and Central once.
Remember that you are all people and that all people are you.
Remember that you are this universe and that this universe is you.
Remember that all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember that language comes from this.
Remember the dance that language is, that life is.
Remember. "
- Joy Harjo
"Bonhoeffer‘s Theory of Stupidity":
Full screen recommended.
"Bonhoeffer‘s Theory of Stupidity":
"Dietrich Bonhoeffer argued that stupid people are more dangerous than evil ones. This is because while we can protest against or fight evil people, against stupid ones we are defenseless - reasons fall on deaf ears. Bonhoeffer's famous text, which we slightly edited for this video, serves any free society as a warning of what can happen when certain people gain too much power."
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"And, If We're Lucky..."
“Maybe we accept the dream has become a nightmare. We tell ourselves that reality is better. We convince ourselves it’s better that we never dream at all. But, the strongest of us, the most determined of us, holds on to the dream or we find ourselves faced with a fresh dream we never considered. We wake to find ourselves, against all odds, feeling hopeful. And, if we’re lucky, we realize in the face of everything, in the face of life the true dream is being able to dream at all.”
- Dr. Meredith Grey, "Grey's Anatomy"
"The Stock Market Has Gone Full-On Completely Insane! Nothing Matters Anymore"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 6/13/23
"The Stock Market Has Gone Full-On Completely Insane!
Nothing Matters Anymore"
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o
“All the money you make will never buy back your soul. ”
- Bob Dylan
"Better Take A Closer Look..."
"Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous
by letting the government take care of him,
better take a closer look at the American Indian."
- Henry Ford
"11 Signs That Our Economic Problems Are Accelerating A Lot Faster Than Most People Were Anticipating"
"11 Signs That Our Economic Problems Are Accelerating
A Lot Faster Than Most People Were Anticipating"
By Michael Snyder
"A lot of the “experts” have been telling us that economic conditions are likely to really start deteriorating later in the year, but here we are in June and the economy is beginning to unravel a lot quicker than most of them had anticipated. The housing bubble is imploding, existing home sales are plunging all over the nation, foreclosures are surging, manufacturing numbers have fallen into contraction territory and jobless claims are rising. We are building up a tremendous amount of momentum in the wrong direction, and just about everyone agrees that the outlook for the remainder of 2023 is not promising. So if things are this bad now, what will they look like in six months?
For a long time, the U.S. economy was “remarkably resilient”, but now things have started to change in a major way. The following are 11 signs that our economic problems are accelerating a lot faster than most people were anticipating…
#1 We just learned that foreclosure-related filings were up 14 percent last month compared to the same period a year ago…"As the cost of living in the U.S. continues to climb, foreclosures are also on the rise. May foreclosure-related filings, which include default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions, were up 7% from April and up 14% from a year ago, to 35,196 properties, according to the real estate data group ATTOM."
#2 We are being warned that foreclosure filings are on an “upward trajectory” which suggests “heightened activity” in the months ahead…“The recent increase in foreclosure filings nationwide indicates a trend that has been observed throughout the year, and what we have expected to occur,” Rob Barber, ATTOM’s CEO, said in a statement. “This upward trajectory suggests the possibility of continued heightened activity, and with foreclosure completions seeing the largest monthly increase this year, we will continue to monitor the potential impacts this may have on the housing market.”
#3 As the housing bubble bursts, sales of existing homes are falling all over the nation. For example, sales of existing homes in central Indiana have now declined for 16 months in a row…Sales of existing homes in central Indiana dropped 14.8% in May - the 16th straight month that sales have decreased on a year-over-year basis. Closed sales of existing homes in the 16-county area in May totaled 2,901, down from 3,406 in the same month of 2022, according to the latest monthly data from the MIBOR Realtor Association.
#4 One recent study found that a whopping 8 million Americans currently live in a household that is behind on paying rent. Many are just barely surviving from month to month like this single mother that was recently profiled in the Los Angeles Times…"Evelyn Arceo holds down a full-time job as a baker at Universal Studios Hollywood, earning $19 an hour. But even when she gets a few hours of overtime at the theme park, the single mother of four can barely afford the rent of her one-bedroom apartment in Panorama City. On her salary, buying a home is out of the question. Already, her monthly rent of $1,300 is “just too expensive at this point,” Arceo said, with late fees of $40 to $50 compounding her financial plight. “I don’t think I’ve ever been on time on my rent.”
#5 The most epic commercial real estate crisis in U.S. history has begun, and we are being warned that the two massive defaults in San Francisco that recently made headlines all over the world could just be the tip of the iceberg…"News of Park Hotels & Resorts’ plan to surrender ownership of two of San Francisco’s largest hotels is the beginning of what could potentially become a mass exodus of hotels from the city as 30 additional properties are facing massive loans due over the next two years. The company behind the hotels announced Monday it had stopped making payments on its $725million loan that is due in November for the Hilton San Francisco Union Square and Parc 55 hotels."
#6 Major corporate bankruptcies are happening at the fastest pace that we have seen since 2010…"US corporate bankruptcies crept higher in May over the prior month as higher interest rates and a slowing economy are pushing many companies over the edge. S&P Global Market Intelligence recorded 54 corporate bankruptcy filings during May, a slight rise from 52 April. In the first five months of the year, 2023 has recorded more filings than any comparable period since 2010."
#7 Initial jobless claims just rose to their highest level in almost two years…"Initial jobless claims surged last week to 261k (up from 233k prior and well above the 235k exp) – its highest since Oct 2021."
#8 According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, during the first five months of this year the number of announced job cuts was up 315 percent compared to the same five months last year.
#9 U.S. manufacturing has now fallen into contraction territory…"S&P Global data showed that the US manufacturing sector fell into contraction territory in May. A similar survey released by the Institute for Supply Management showed the industry contracted for the seventh consecutive month in May, at a faster pace than in the prior month."
#10 European manufacturing has also dropped into contraction territory…"Among manufacturers in the Eurozone, production, new orders and backlogs all fell in May as the sector contracted at a faster pace that month, according to S&P Global figures. The 20-nation currency area’s industrial production fell sharply in March, mostly due to a plunge in Ireland. The indicator measures the output of manufacturers, miners, and utility companies."
#11 It is being reported that new numbers show that the EU “entered a recession in the first quarter of this year”… The Eurozone entered a recession in the first quarter of this year, and economists are not optimistic for the coming months. The 20-member bloc reported gross domestic product of -0.1% for the first quarter, according to revised estimates from the region’s statistics office, Eurostat, released Thursday.
What I have just shared with you is certainly quite a bit of bad news. But if I am correct, conditions will continue to deteriorate throughout the rest of this year and into 2024. We live at such a critical moment in human history, and those that have been waiting for life to “return to normal” can stop waiting. The pace of change is picking up speed with each passing month, and most of us are simply not prepared for the craziness that is ahead."
Bill Bonner, "American Values, Revisited"
"American Values, Revisited"
A trip back to the ‘50s and ‘60s…and to a different world.
By Bill Bonner
"Honey Fitz can talk you blind
on any subject you can find,
Fish and fishing, motor boats,
Railroads, streetcars, getting votes."
~ Popular ditty in Boston, circa 1912
Youghal, Ireland - "We are reliving the Kennedy years. RFK, Jr. sent us his book – ‘American Values.’ It takes us back to the ‘50s and ‘60s…and to a different world. Today, we recall that era only dimly. But the thing we remember about it, reminded by Mr. Kennedy, is that it was a time of remarkable optimism…and naivete, bordering on delusion. In 1963, “a record 85% of Americans trusted that government by the people could be made to work for the people.”
“Ask not what your country can do for you,” said John Kennedy in his inaugural address. “Ask what you can do for your country.” Nobody snickered. We look back on those words and wonder: could anyone take them seriously? And what did they mean? Wasn’t the government meant to serve ‘The People.’ Not the other way around? How did the feds – who were supposed to be ‘public servants’ become their masters?
The Best and Brightest: Those heady, glory years were a time of great hope and faith. The federal government had won WWII and demonstrated the atomic bomb; it could do almost anything, even put a man on the moon. The best and brightest of America’s young people longed for ‘public service.’ Today, we realize that the feds can do much less than we thought. They could put a man on the moon…but when they tried to stop communists in Vietnam, or drug dealers at home, they failed miserably. Nor could they boost the economy with their new, post-1971, gold-free money.
As time went by, the failures mounted up. Laws were written by lobbyists and passed by Congress to benefit special groups, not ‘the people.’ GDP growth went down, not up – despite the biggest tech breakthroughs in decades. Inflation rose in the ‘70s. From 1975 to 2023, real wages were nearly stagnant. Vietnam was a failure. Iraq was a failure. Afghanistan was a failure. The war on poverty was a failure. Cars still don’t fly. Cancer still kills. We’re $32 trillion in debt (about 100 times more than when JFK was killed)…adding more at the rate of over $2 trillion per year. And our life expectancies are falling.
Frequently, in these pages, we lament the lack of cynicism among the voters. Where have they been for the last half century? Didn’t they notice the unkept promises…the fraud…the corruption…the failures? They still seem ready to believe the most outlandish things. Who would ever believe that you can stimulate an economy with fake money and fake interest rates? Or get rich by going into debt? Can we really put Americans back in high-wage jobs by prohibiting Mexicans from working for low wages? Can we really control the planet’s climate? The borders of the Ukraine?
Greater than Good? Of course, the Kennedy brothers – Jack and Bobby – wanted to win elections. They had a line of talk designed to get them where they wanted to go. They learned it from their grandfather, ‘Honey Fitz’ Fitzpatrick, the smooth-talking mayor of Boston and member of Congress. They learned political calculation too…perhaps from their other grandfather, Joe Kennedy. But there was something more. Rich, privileged, smart, handsome (and Jack was a war hero!) – did they aim higher, towards the good rather than the great?
Typically, world improvers are clever people. They are good salesmen, good at selling themselves and getting other people to do what they want them to do. Hitler practiced his gestures in front of a mirror. Napoleon let his actions – at the front of an army – speak for him, proving to the French that they were unstoppable as long as the Corsican was in charge. The two great men, separated by 130 years, were each able to unite Europe, by force…and re-model society, for a while. Bonaparte remained at the top for 10 years. The Third Reich lasted 12. But the Kennedys had a different idea. While Bobby took on the mafia, Jack set up the Peace Corps in 1961. The Special Olympics was founded by sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver in 1968.
Back Channel Diplomacy: Several of our friends joined the Peace Corps in the ‘60s and ‘70s. They lived in mud huts in Africa…or or rusty tin shacks in South America. Whether they did any good or not, we don’t know. But they believed they could do good.
But not everyone liked touch football, and not everyone wanted to play ball with the Kennedys. Jack and Bobby soon came to see America’s military/industrial/spook/Congressional complex in a new light. It was not helping to spread the real virtue of the American experiment, but to twist it into vice. Assassinating foreign leaders…instigating revolutions and coups d’etat – the war mongers were taking the US farther and farther away from the honest democracy America was meant to be.
In the Cuban Missile crisis, Kennedy ignored his military advisors (except Robert MacNamara). Instead of making a ‘first strike,’ with nuclear weapons against the Kremlin, he opened a back channel directly with Nikita Khrushev. The Russian president had his own hardliners, trying to push him into military action too. But somehow, Kennedy and Khrushev worked out a deal that was honorable for them both. The Russians removed their missiles; the Americans vowed not to invade the island. (Note that this was very much the mirror image of the proposal by Vladimir Putin on the eve of his invasion of the Ukraine. The Ukrainians, backed by their American advisors, rejected the deal.)
A Kind of Peace: Later, Kennedy worked out a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. In a famous speech, delivered 60 years ago this past Saturday, Kennedy explained what he was trying to do: “What kind of peace do we seek?” he asked.
“Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children - not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women - not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.”
“I speak of peace as the necessary, rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war - and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.”
“On October 11, 1963,” writes Robert Kennedy, Jr., “five weeks before his death, JFK bypassed his own National Security Council and issued National Security Action Memorandum 263, making official the withdrawal from Vietnam of ‘1,000 US military personnel by the end of 1963’; and the ‘bulk of US personnel by the end of 1965.’” But the desire for peace put the Kennedys at war with the most powerful industry in America, the one Dwight Eisenhower warned about in 1961, the aforementioned “military, industrial complex.” It turned out as a cynic might imagine. ‘Camelot’ came to a sudden end. More to come…"
"This Is Hard To Look At"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 6/13/23
"This Is Hard To Look At"
"Everything is right in front of us. People don’t want to look at the fact that the economy is getting worse. I am in Los Angeles today and the retail apocalypse is unbelievable. To say that it’s getting worse is the understatement of the year."
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Major Price Increases At Meijer! What Now? Not Good!"
Full screen recommended,
Adventures With Danno, 6/13/23
"Major Price Increases At Meijer! What Now? Not Good!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Meijer and are noticing massive price increases on groceries! This has become a complete nightmare as we are seeing yet another wave of price increases around the country and around the world."
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Monday, June 12, 2023
"Alert! WW3 May Start This Week! USA Plans To Evacuate 80,000 From Taiwan; NATO Preps For No-Fly Zone"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 6/12/23
"Alert! WW3 May Start This Week! USA Plans To
Evacuate 80,000 From Taiwan; NATO Preps For No-Fly Zone"
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Incomprehensibly insane. God help us...
"Looking Forward"
"Looking Forward"
by Jeff Thomas
"Since its inception, International Man has offered prognostications about what the future will bring – economically, politically and socially. The principle writers of the publication have been at this for decades. Each one began by studying world economics and politics in order to make the best choices as to where to live, where to invest, where to store wealth, etc. Over the years, each one got better at researching, better at reading the signs and, ultimately, better at predicting future events.
But, today, we’re approaching a worldwide crisis point and the study that we undertook decades ago has become important for literally hundreds of millions of people who, whether they realize it or not, will soon be impacted by events in a major way.
The foremost concern for readers of this publication is that the world’s leading governments have become decidedly fascist and are rapidly heading in a totalitarian direction. There are a number of facets to this development, all of them disturbing: The elimination of personal privacy, the creation of capital controls, confiscation of wealth, the conversion to electronic banking as the sole form of currency, international taxation standards and the creation of a police state. (There are many, many more facets, but these few tend to be at the core of concern.)
We can expect to see all of these concerns come closer to reality in the near future. The events that bring them about will increase in both frequency and magnitude as we get closer. (Historically, this is always the case, as governments that are in trouble race to get controls in place, as their continued ability to control events unravels.)
In these pages, we do our best to provide projections as to “where it’s all headed” and how it will affect the reader. In doing so, we generally discuss events that we believe will occur sometime soon (within a year or two). Often, we delay discussing events that we’ve anticipated many years previously, because they’d appear to most people as being so unlikely that their prediction would seem absurd.
However, we’re getting much closer to the crisis and, consequently, much of what once might have seemed absurd may now look quite possible to more people. But, even now, we tend to confine our prognostications to the international crisis itself. We rarely discuss what the world will look like after the market crashes have occurred, after the currencies have failed, after the governmental systems have broken down.
So, let’s have a snapshot look at what the overall landscape might look like after the dust has begun to settle. What will some of the greatest powers in the world look like in, say, five to ten years’ time?
To begin, we’ll assume that the more catastrophic events of economic collapse have taken place in the world and we’ll be observing the subsequent knock-on effects – the deterioration that would occur thereafter. Historically, any government that’s leading up to a collapse invariably tightens controls to the max, as it’s aware that, following a collapse, it will lose control, either entirely or in part.
Once markets have collapsed, we can expect a deflationary trend that governments will respond to by creating massive inflation, very possibly leading to hyperinflation. At some point, we can expect to see a collapse in currencies, as a result of the unsustainable debt load – the heroin that has kept them going for decades. This is particularly important with regard to the US, as the US presently possesses the world’s default currency. A collapse in the dollar will send other currencies into a tailspin.
Following a currency collapse, it will no longer be possible for governments to continue to expand their debt loads, as there will no longer be any takers. In addition, government income streams will be diminished. As businesses decline, the tax revenue will be greatly diminished. Whether they like it or not, for the first time in their careers, political leaders will be forced to cut costs, and cut them dramatically.
So, where will they cut? In the US, Social Security represents 15% of recurrent expenditure; Medicare and Medicaid represent another 15%; poverty entitlements are another 10% and a further 15% goes to “defense,” or more accurately, “foreign aggression.” Together, that’s 55%, yet, to diminish any of these (with the possible exception of foreign aggression) would make the blood of Americans boil.
Interest on national debt represents another 9%, but that would quickly be defaulted on. Next to be cut would be the “non-essentials” – the departments of Agriculture, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Immigration, plus prisons, drug control, conservation and national parks. Cuts in each of these would cause less civil unrest than diminishing the “big four” that make up 55% of the budget.
They would likely keep funding for Homeland Security, the IRS, and the Capitol Police and, in fact, would be likely to increase funding for all three. (Bear in mind that the Capitol Police is unlike any other police force; it is a virtual army, designed to protect legislators within the beltway from what will soon be classified as “domestic terrorism.”)
Along the way, those states that are net receivers of largesse from the federal government will find their allowances cut dramatically. This will mean that, for state and city governments, roads, garbage collection and departments such as Fire and Motor Vehicles, will all receive cuts, along with state and city police departments. This latter move will not only result in increased lawlessness, but will result in police themselves becoming more lawless, or a law unto themselves, sometimes acting in sympathy with the public against the central government, sometimes acting with aggression towards the public.
But these cuts will only be the beginning, as they will be insufficient to address the shortfall. Confiscations of bank accounts will take place, but they too will be insufficient. Cuts in Medicare and Medicaid will eventually be put into effect, along with cuts in Social Security (primarily through inflation). For the over 50% of people who are presently recipients of these mainstays of collectivism, the cuts will quickly create anger, unrest, then riots.
As stated above, veterans (some 10% of the population) will be unceremoniously dumped. They will react by joining those who protest the cuts. Those still employed in the armed forces and Homeland Security will be torn as to whom to side with. (Remember, the invasion of ancient Rome by the barbarians was made possible when the mercenary Roman soldiers simply walked away.)
In total, what we’re looking at is a government that will no longer have the level of control to operate an effective tax collection service, capital controls, or outbound migration, let alone to continue to aggress against other nations. The U.S., more than any other nation, is therefore most greatly at risk of holding itself together following a collapse. As stated in The Art of War, by Sun Tzu in the fifth century BC, “Those who are waging war should get rid of all the domestic troubles before proceeding to attack the external foe.” Essential advice today, as it was then.
It’s clear there are some ominous social, political, cultural, and economic trends playing out right now. Many of which seem to point to an unfortunate decline of the West. As space here is limited, we can only offer a thumbnail sketch of these events; however, it’s not essential that we labor over the fine details of conditions that will exist after the collapses have taken place. A sketch suffices to allow us to plan our own agenda – to locate ourselves geographically away from the hot spots and shift our investments into those things that might be likely to be more depression-proof. And we can move whatever wealth we might have to jurisdictions where its safety is most assured. Those concerns are more urgent than ever and the time remaining is decidedly uncertain."
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