- Brazil's Banana Scoundrels Will Now Win Their Olympics
Authored by Pepe Escobar via Stratgic-Culture.org,
The Rio Olympics are gone – Bolt, Phelps, Neymar, the green pool, the Ugly American Lochte and all – but a global audience may have been spared a shameful last act.
Mediocre incompetent opportunist, corrupt coward traitor, and certified political usurper, interim President Michel Temer, refused to go to the closing ceremony, afraid of being booed out of a packed Maracana stadium. According to the latest polls, 79% of Brazilians want Temer The Usurper out. Now.
Thus Temer The Usurper was not able, according to protocol, to pass the baton (for Tokyo in 2020) to visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Team Temer offered a meeting later on in the capital, Brasilia. Japanese diplomats flatly refused; who wants your Prime Minister to meet a coward in hiding?
Former President Lula lobbied hard to bring the Olympics to Rio, and preparations went on under President Dilma Rousseff. Coupled with Temer The Usurper’s primal fear of being booed just as in the Olympics opening ceremony, which led to his subsequent diplomatic humiliation, a noxious, pathetic political propaganda campaign was deployed right to the end of the games, trying to diminish or even extinguish Lula’s and Dilma’s role. Quite a few Brazilian athletes with great performances at the games benefited from government-supported sport programs.
Now the Scoundrel Games are back in Brazil – with a parliamentary junta disputing gold medals with an institutional racket involving big banks, big business, corporate media and sectors of the Judiciary and the Federal Police. The farce is being sold as a trial in the Senate of President Rousseff, accused – without proof – of financially embellishing the state budget.
Unlike the cowardly usurper, Rousseff is going to the Senate to stare all 81 members in the face; these are the people who by the end of this month will for all practical purposes save or bury Brazilian democracy for good. Rousseff, in case of – miraculously – not being impeached, proposes a referendum leading to new elections.
As it stands, it does not look good. The late, great Jean Baudrillard – a great lover of Brazil – would characterize Rousseff’s impeachment drive as a simulacrum, obliterating the real crime; the parliamentary/institutional coup orchestrated by a notorious bunch of scoundrels, Temer included.
The multi-layered coup, with modified Hybrid War elements, comes with a prearranged finale. It does not matter that even Brazilian Public Ministry experts have repeatedly admitted there’s no juridical basis for Rousseff’s impeachment. Even the federal prosecutor on the case concluded a few weeks ago that she did not commit a crime – «responsibility» or otherwise.
The prosecutorial gang includes two of every three members of the Brazilian Congress who are facing an array of scandals. The overall institutional farce points to the Legislative, the Judiciary and the Public Ministry dragging their feet on indicting the legislative scoundrels while accelerating the procedure against Rousseff. That’s the definition of organized crime.
The endgame, from the point of view of the coup plotter galaxy, is to criminalize and finish off with the Workers’ Party for good – from Lula and Rousseff downwards – under an upcoming barrage of hazy «obstruction of Justice» allegations.
And the Obama administration loves it.
The president of construction company giant Odebrecht, incarcerated for months now, accused Temer The Usurper of pleading for – and receiving – undeclared «electoral help», in cash, for his party, the PMDB. Temer has already been convicted for violating election finance laws and banned from running for office for eight years.
Interim Foreign Minister Jose Serra also received «electoral help» for his presidential campaign in 2010; part of the loot was paid overseas, something that properly investigated could lead his party, the PSDB, to lose its registration.
In these past few weeks, Temer The Usurper took no prisoners to turbo charge the impeachment timetable farce, at the same time preventing Dilma to mount a detailed defense. His excuse; he needs to go to Hangzhou, China, for the G20 summit starting on September 4. And he needs to go as president-in-charge – not as «leader» of an unelected caretaker government acting like they’ve earned their mandate in the polling booth.
The real reason for the rush, though, is that Temer feared the serious Odebrecht corruption charge like the plague. Other charges may be imminent. Yet he’s protected – at least for now; the Mob – as in the Goddess of the Market, Brazil’s big banking and their shills in corporate media – is on his side.
Brazil remains totally paralyzed by the political/institutional farce. The 8th largest economy in the world, second largest exporter of food products, and largest industrial platform in the developing West is bleeding, badly. Oil workers are accusing the Mob for 1.5 million lost jobs. Huge infrastructure projects are stalled. Large construction companies are virtually broke; Odebrecht by itself fired over 70,000 workers.
In parallel Temer The Usurper’s «government» has already started to enact its masterplan – straight from disaster capitalism’s playbook. One of the key «policies» is to sell out Petrobras – and the pre-salt reserves – to foreign, as in US corporate, interests. Lula correctly identified the pre-salt reserves – the largest oil discovery in the 21st century so far – as the privileged source for a new development drive for Brazil.
But there are way more disasters in store; selling out indigenous Brazilian industrial development via hardcore privatization, abandoning the defense of Brazilian engineering know-how; severe cuts on education, health, science and technology; «flexibilization» of workers’ rights, as in attacking them on all fronts; a regressive attack on pensions; and sabotaging Mercosur – the South American common market – to the benefit of vassal subordination to US interests.
The – legitimate – Uruguayan Foreign Minister, Rodolfo Nin Novoa, was even compelled to denounced the – illegitimate – Brazilian Foreign Minister, the lowly Serra, for trying to buy Montevideo’s help to prevent Venezuela from stepping up to the temporary presidency of Mercosur. In a little over three months, Serra managed to reduce Brazilian diplomacy to a heap of rotten bananas.
And then, of course, there’s the cherry in the cheesecake; the lame duck Obama administration’s full support for the coup and the impeachment farce.
Obama did not have the balls to say it upfront. That came in the form of Secretary of State John Kerry meeting with the repellent Serra in a trip to Brazil in early August. Kerry even issued a long statement – for all practical purposes legitimizing the coup.
Kerry did not have the balls to meet Temer The Usurper. So what; the whole Global South now knows where Washington stands. Parliamentary / institutional regime change is of course OK. As long as it prevents BRICS integration and Chinese trade/commercial advance in Latin America.
Move on, nothing to see here – as Washington proceeds to the serious business of negotiating two crucial military bases with Argentina’s neoliberal vassal Mauricio Macri; one in resource-rich Patagonia, the other smack into the Brazil / Argentina / Paraguay triple border, right by the largest aquifer on the planet.
And there’s all that pre-salt oil about to go to Chevron! How not to love the smell of regime change in the morning? Definitely smells like victory. And you don’t even need to send the Marines for it.
- What Life Will Be Like After An Economic Collapse
Submitted by Megan Stewart via SurvivalSullivan.com,
If you have been waiting for a public announcement or news headline to let you know that an economic collapse has begun, you are in for the surprise of your life. If history in other countries and in Detroit, Michigan is any indication, there won’t be an announcement. An economic collapse tends to sneak up on a city, region, or country gradually over time. In some cases, the arrival of an economic collapse is so gradual that most people living in it aren’t even aware of it at first.
Things just get gradually worse, often so gradually that people and families adjust as best they can until one day they actually realize that it’s not just their home or their neighborhood that has been hit so hard financially, it’s everyone. By that time, it’s often too late to take preventative action.
In March of 2011, Detroit’s population was reported as having fallen to 713,777, the lowest it had been in a century and a full 25% drop from 2000. In December 2011, the state announced its intention to formally review Detroit’s finances. In May of 2013, almost two years later, the city is deemed “clearly insolvent” and in July of 2013, the state representative filed a Chapter 9 bankruptcy petition for Motor City. Detroit became one of the biggest cities to file bankruptcy in history.
So we have only to look at what happened in Detroit, Michigan post-bankruptcy, to get an indication of what might soon be widespread across the United States and what is already widespread in countries like Brazil and Venezuela.
Increased and Widespread Hunger
Grocery stores and other businesses will fail one by one or be shut down from the riots and looting. In Detroit, the economic collapse left less than 5 national grocery stores for over 700,000 people. Imagine the lines even if food was still being shipped in on trucks. Small independent corner stores and family owned stores become the most convenient place to shop. These are stores with already high prices who make most of their profit from beer, wine, lottery, and cigarettes.
Now imagine that shipping schedules have been affected by the economic crisis, this would mean longer lines with less certainty that any food would even be available once you got into the store to shop. People in Venezuela are actually dealing with government-run grocery stores and are limited to two days per week they can shop. They still face long lines and total uncertainty of what, if any food, will be left once it’s their “turn” to shop.
One of the ways for you to prepare for an economic collapse and increase the likelihood that your family will be well-fed regardless of what is available in the grocery stores is to grow your own food. For further protection, consider planning and planting a hidden survival garden rather than a traditional garden that would be obvious to neighbors and looters. In addition, you can learn how to identify, harvest, and consume wild edible plants to supplement your food supply.
Sporadic Public Services
Public services, including the school system experience frequent strikes that shut them down for days at a time. Power issues and outages become more frequent and roadways become filled with potholes and other signs of disrepair as preventative measures are shoved aside. The water from the tap, that you pay for monthly, begins to smell funny, so you start filtering it before using it. Garbage collection service is sporadic and you begin to see increased trash along the streets and sidewalks.
Your cell phone is certainly not something you can rely on since you can’t predict when the signal will be available. Although you pay for high-speed internet, actually getting that service on a daily basis is a matter of sheer luck. Increased littering in the streets and lack of regular garbage collection services becomes an issue because the litter now clogs storm drains every time it rains.
In order to prepare for the sporadic and possible shutdown of public utility services, you can research alternative methods for getting what you need. Consider solar or wind power energy, digging a well or installing a rainwater catchment system. Invest in a composting toilet in the event that public septic systems are overloaded or malfunctioning.
Social Unrest
This is another one of those things that just tends to sneak up gradually. Initially, protests warrant our attention because it’s new and different and out of the ordinary. But as the protests become more and more frequent, people stop caring why the protests are happening. You learn to avoid areas where protests are likely to occur. You start taking an alternate route to work or entering your office building through a back door.
Violence and vandalism begin to accompany the protests and roadblocks become part of your everyday routine. Like rush-hour traffic r, you plan enough time to get to work based on the knowledge that the road may be blocked due to a car or building being set on fire the night before. More people will be armed when in public, tempers will be short, there will be increased knife fights and shootings. This will put a huge strain on emergency services personnel such as police, fire, and EMS.
Streets, yards, and even homes are flooding more often now. In addition to the litter, the metal storm drains and even copper pipes from abandoned homes are being stolen for cash. Before long you start to notice that the historic plaques are missing from city monuments, statues come up missing, even doorknobs, anything metal that can be scrapped is fair game for looters and thieves.
One way to prepare for the next wave of riots is to move out of the city to a more rural location. If you can’t do that right now, then it will help to be intimately familiar with your city roads and other transportation routes. Make sure that you have several planned routes to/from work or your child’s school and any nearby grocery stores. In addition to planning alternative routes for daily travel, you should plan and practice several different bug out routes in case you need to leave your home quickly. Consider not only roads but also railroad tracks, subway tunnels, sewer tunnels, and power line easement roads as possible alternative routes.
Transportation
Daily travel is fraught with angry mobs and requires using alternative routes which result in everything just taking longer. Travel by bus, subway, and airline are unpredictable due to increased strikes. Roads go unrepaired as a result of striking workers or budget constraints. Increased bottlenecks on the roads lead to more frequent carjacking and muggings as thieves learn where people will be forced to stop.
More people are forced to travel by bus, subway, or train due to skyrocketing gas prices, thus public transportation services are overwhelmed. There are increased train accidents, bus and subway breakdowns due to lack of investment, corruption, and politics getting in the way of doing things correctly. Strikes, protests, and roadblocks make everything worse. Soon the only way to get anything done involves “paying a little extra” or suffering long and uncertain delays.
Plan for long delays in transportation by not only keeping your car gas tank full of gas at all times but also by stockpiling as much gas as you can safely store. Keep your car well-maintained, keep spare parts and engine fluids stockpiled, and perform preventative repairs. You can also consider an alternate form of transportation such as a motorcycle, foldable bicycle, or even a motorized scooter or boat if your situation warrants it.
Criminal Activity
When an economic crisis is in the making, you will definitely see an increase in criminal activity. People will become desperate to feed themselves and their families. More people will be more willing to cross the line into criminal activity to get what they need. Initially, you will hear about more incidents of violence, looting, robberies, and muggings.
Your neighbor or a family member will be mugged and you will respond by taking additional safety precautions. You’ll check your car before getting into it, you’ll avoid dark areas, carry your keys in your hand. As reports become more frequent, you’ll start to travel only in groups and never alone.
You’ll hear that the woman down the street had someone break into her house while she was sleeping. So you may nag your husband to reinforce the deadbolts and add security bars on the windows. When the neighbor is robbed, your husband will buy several guns and you both will learn to use them. You’ll teach your kids about gun safety and maybe create a plan of action for a home invasion.
Before long, getting mugged or being a victim of some type of crime is as unpredictable and as common as a car accident. You’ll realize everyone in the neighborhood has now beefed up security on their homes. All your family, friends, and coworkers have experienced a mugging, carjacking, or worse.
You’ll have no choice but to accept this new way of life and count on basic safety measures (a form of passive denial) or further learn to defend yourself and remain in a constant state of alert (a very stressful state over time). It’s difficult emotionally, mentally, and physically to remain on high alert 24/7 for any length of time. Most people will revert to a form of passive denial until the next incident happens to them or a family member.
Take time now to learn self-defense moves and make sure you and all family members know how to use both non-lethal and lethal weapons. Keep weapons where you can reach them quickly but where they are safe from curious child fingers. Learn and consider putting into practice some of these 10 deceptive strategies for preppers so you can avoid becoming a target for criminals.
Housing
Streets that used to have a house on every lot, morph into desolate patches of houses as people lose their homes to banks or abandon their homes to move in with family or friends due to lack of finances. Houses fall into disrepair, lawns are overgrown, pests and rodents thrive in empty buildings.
Abandoned homes that aren’t torn down or maintained by the city may be taken over by squatters, some with the best of intentions to clean it up, others who just need a place to sleep, or who are in between drug or alcohol binges. Squatters will modify heating systems to get them to work or customize DIY heating sources which can result in increased house fires and even explosions when things go wrong. As the housing conditions worsen, more people will become ill from prolonged exposure to the elements, to poor living conditions, and to increased insect and rodent infestations.
The best way to ensure that housing for you and your family is stable is to keep up with needed repairs and do what you can to reduce your overall housing expenses. If you can pay ahead on your house payments or pay down on the principal amount, or even pay off your house, you stand a better chance of keeping control of it when things start to collapse.
Unemployment
More and more people you know will experience job loss or layoffs. It may seem easy enough to get another job at first, but as more and more people are displaced, finding a job will become almost impossible. Teenagers will be displaced from jobs that are now being taken by adults.
This means instead of working for the summer and after school, more teenagers will be out on the streets without anything worthwhile to do. The neighborhood might just seem “rowdier” at night and then during the day too. But before long, boredom, frustration, and even anger will set in and the unemployed will join the ranks of the protestors and looters.
Prepare for possible unemployment by saving up an emergency fund and stockpiling food and other supplies so that you can manage through several weeks or even months without steady income. Reduce your monthly expenses as much as possible so you can live on less when money gets tight.
Healthcare
This is one of the areas that many people don’t really consider when they think about an economic collapse but it’s probably one of the most important when it comes to human life and survival. This is especially true for those people who may take daily medications in order to treat a chronic life-threatening condition. Initially healthcare appointments may become more difficult to schedule. It may take longer to get in to see a doctor because quite frankly, more people are getting sick and needing care.
Illnesses from poor diet, from low-quality water, or food that spoiled due to power issues will be more frequent. There will also be more injuries as a result of the looting, rioting, and increased criminal activity. You can expect increased incidents of domestic violence as family relationships are strained and crack under the stress of poor living conditions. Many people will lose access to their healthcare when they lose their jobs, and this will place a strain on public services such as free clinics and emergency rooms.
To prepare for a shortage or lack of accessible healthcare, you can create and learn to use your own first aid kit and learn how to identify and use wild plants and natural remedies to treat minor illnesses and diseases.
There’s really no way to predict the timing of an economic collapse with any certainty and in most cases, an economic collapse will occur gradually without much warning unless you are paying close attention to activity and events going on around you and around the world. The best way to be prepared when it does happen is to start changing your lifestyle now, in the ways discussed above, so that you and your family can survive hard times in the future.
- Minimum Wage Claims Its Latest Victims – Ashley Furniture Slashes 840 Jobs In California
A few weeks back we pointed out a couple of the reasons that businesses are fleeing California by the 1,000's ("3 Simple Charts That Help Explain Why 9,000 Businesses Have Left California In Just 7 Years"). Clearly the implementation of a State-wide $15 minimum wage hasn't helped "lure" business owners.
On Friday, Ashley Furniture's 840 employees working in the company's production and warehouse facility in Colton, California became the latest victims of California's minimum wage hike. Ashley announced they would be leaving open their retail store in Colton, but would be relocating the production facility that accounts for most of the location's jobs. Per the San Bernadino Sun, Ashley Furniture released the following statements about the closure:
We thank our employees for all their hard work, but closing these plants on Oct. 25 and rebalancing our manufacturing mix strengthens production capability and cost structure and will help ensure Ashley’s continued ability to compete effectively long-term in the global marketplace from a U.S. base.
The majority of production in Colton will move to U.S. plants in Wisconsin, Mississippi and North Carolina.
By shifting the majority of Colton production to other U.S. facilities we will create more efficiency and better use of existing capacity in our manufacturing network.
Certainly, it's not surpurprising that Ashley would choose to relocate their California prodcution capacity to Wisconsin, North Carolina and Mississippi given that they each sport minimum wages that are a mere 52% lower than California's proposed $15 floor.
But, as per the norm, misinformed politicians rarely seem to take the heat for their reckless policies as Ashley employees prepared to protest the layoffs in Colton.
“We cannot let companies like Ashley bleed the American dream,” Naja said. “It’s not only the employees, but the families, the kids, the wives. They’ve got wives with medical situations and things like that. There’s no way a huge company like Ashley’s can shut down the doors.”
“We’re going to be here making a protest and we’re calling everybody that can come to please support us and find out what they did to us,” Zuniga said. “Come and support all the hard-working employees and parents that take income to their house. I’m the only one supporting my family. I’m the only one paying a mortgage.”
Might we kindly suggest the better place to hold your protest would be in front of Jerry Brown's office in Sacramento.
- What If Only Taxpayers Voted?
If “pay-to-play” is good enough for Hillary’s State Department, then why not the nation?
- "If This Does Not Disqualify Hillary For The Presidency, It's Hard To Know What Will"
Even the traditionally 'establishment' Wall Street Journal is waking up to the utter incredulity of an American media (and citizenry) which appears capable of cognitive dissonance on an epic scale when it comes to Hillary Clinton. As Kimberly Strassel explains the latest emails show that State and the foundation were one seamless entity.
This is the week that the steady drip, drip, drip of details about Hillary Clinton’s server turned into a waterfall. This is the week that we finally learned why Mrs. Clinton used a private communications setup, and what it hid. This is the week, in short, that we found out that the infamous server was designed to hide that Mrs. Clinton for three years served as the U.S. Secretary of the Clinton Foundation.
In March this column argued that while Mrs. Clinton’s mishandling of classified information was important, it missed the bigger point. The Democratic nominee obviously didn’t set up her server with the express purpose of exposing national secrets—that was incidental. She set up the server to keep secret the details of the Clintons’ private life—a life built around an elaborate and sweeping money-raising and self-promoting entity known as the Clinton Foundation.
Had Secretary Clinton kept the foundation at arm’s length while in office—as obvious ethical standards would have dictated—there would never have been any need for a private server, or even private email. The vast majority of her electronic communications would have related to her job at the State Department, with maybe that occasional yoga schedule. And those Freedom of Information Act officers would have had little difficulty—when later going through a state.gov email—screening out the clearly “personal” before making her records public. This is how it works for everybody else.
Mrs. Clinton’s problem—as we now know from this week’s release of emails from Huma Abedin’s private Clinton-server account—was that there was no divide between public and private. Mrs. Clinton’s State Department and her family foundation were one seamless entity—employing the same people, comparing schedules, mixing foundation donors with State supplicants. This is why she maintained a secret server, and why she deleted 15,000 emails that should have been turned over to the government.
Most of the focus on this week’s Abedin emails has centered on the disturbing examples of Clinton Foundation executive Doug Band negotiating State favors for foundation donors. But equally instructive in the 725 pages released by Judicial Watch is the frequency and banality of most of the email interaction. Mr. Band asks if Hillary’s doing this conference, or having that meeting, and when she’s going to Brazil. Ms. Abedin responds that she’s working on it, or will get this or that answer. These aren’t the emails of mere casual acquaintances; they don’t even bother with salutations or signoffs. These are the emails of two people engaged in the same purpose—serving the State-Clinton Foundation nexus.
The other undernoted but important revelation is that the media has been looking in the wrong place. The focus is on Mrs. Clinton’s missing emails, and no doubt those 15,000 FBI-recovered texts contain nuggets. Then again, Mrs. Clinton was a busy woman, and most of the details of her daily State/foundation life would have been handled by trusted aides. This is why they, too, had private email. Top marks to Judicial Watch for pursuing Ms. Abedin’s file from the start. A new urgency needs to go into seeing similar emails of former Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills.
Mostly, we learned this week that Mrs. Clinton’s foundation issue goes far beyond the “appearance” of a conflict of interest. This is straight-up pay to play. When Mr. Band sends an email demanding a Hillary meeting with the crown prince of Bahrain and notes that he’s a “good friend of ours,” what Mr. Band means is that the crown prince had contributed millions to a Clinton Global Initiative scholarship program, and therefore has bought face time. It doesn’t get more clear-cut, folks.
That’s highlighted by the Associated Press’s extraordinary finding this week that of the 154 outside people Mrs. Clinton met with in the first years of her tenure, more than half were Clinton Foundation donors. Clinton apologists, like Vox’s Matthew Yglesias, are claiming that statistic is overblown, because the 154 doesn’t include thousands of meetings held with foreign diplomats and U.S. officials.
Nice try. As the nation’s top diplomat, Mrs. Clinton was obliged to meet with diplomats and officials—not with others. Only a blessed few outsiders scored meetings with the harried secretary of state and, surprise, most of the blessed were Clinton Foundation donors.
Mrs. Clinton’s only whisper of grace is that it remains (as it always does in potential cases of corruption) hard to connect the dots. There are “quids” (foundation donations) and “quos” (Bahrain arms deals) all over the place, but no precise evidence of “pros.” Count on the Clinton menagerie to dwell in that sliver of a refuge.
But does it even matter? What we discovered this week is that one of the nation’s top officials created a private server that housed proof that she continued a secret, ongoing entwinement with her family foundation – despite ethics agreements – and that she destroyed public records. If that alone doesn’t disqualify her for the presidency, it’s hard to know what would.
- Shoulda Called Huma…
- What Preppers haven't Prepped for – the big gaping hole
Reading stories about Preppers is often more inspiring than reading about startups. Preppers dedicate their entire life to their new way of life, as it were. Take for example this recent article in the Washington Post about the American Redoubt:
Those migrating to the Redoubt are some of the most motivated members of what is known as the prepper movement, which advocates readiness and self-reliance in man-made or natural disasters that could create instability for years. It’s scenario-planning that is gaining adherents and becoming mainstream in what Redoubt preppers described as an era of fear and uncertainty. They are anxious about recent terrorist attacks from Paris to San Bernardino, Calif., to Orlando; pandemics such as Ebola in West Africa; potential nuclear attacks from increasingly provocative countries such as North Korea or Iran; and the growing political, economic and racial polarization in the United States that has deepened during the 2016 presidential election.
Although the reasons for prepping are extremely varied, most dedicated preppers share several axioms of their prepping philosophy, such as:
- Being ‘off the grid’ or self-reliant, for food, power, medical needs, and any needs or wants
- Living in a secure, remote area
- DIY mentality (Do It Yourself)
- 6 month – 2 year supply of food and other supplies
- Gold & Silver for if/when the financial system collapses
Before exposing the big gaping hole in the prepper’s main doctrine, let’s give uber-credit to this ‘movement’ if you want to call it that. Although many preppers are fueled by irrational fears, and some based on a low probability, high impact event statistic (for example, a meteor several miles wide can strike the Earth, causing widespread volcanoes, earthquakes, and other end of days scenarios, but the chance of this happening in next 100 years is very low, probably 1 in 100 million); their approach towards life is very American, in fact it was this type of survivalist gusto that made America what it was originally. The land was untamed, there were ‘terrorists’ (called in those days, American Indians) and Americans had to be self-reliant because well, there was no DHS to call. If your village was attacked by Indians or the British you had to defend yourself. There was also the chance of a lifetime – live in the West in the most beautiful property in the world basically for free – but you must do all yourself. Pioneers, Homesteaders, Tradesmen, Industrialists, all thrived and made America what it was. This essence seems to have been lost by the baby boomer generation that was convenience and consumer oriented (but of course, not completely). Anyway, preppers have ushered in a new age of Americanism based on their self-reliant approach. And many good lessons come with ‘preparing’ such as self-defense, making a robust plan (such as any organization, business or military should have), and keeping a stockpile of supplies in case of shortages. The previous generation, mostly not with us anymore, would appreciate all these values. During the war, they lived without many things. They ‘prepped’ because of war. Many preppers today will say that we are at war, it’s just an information war, or assymetric war, or potential war. Being a prepper in many ways is being smart in today’s world. Who knows what will happen tomorrow.
The big gaping hole: FINANCIAL PREPPING
Preface this by saying that – of course – like with anything – it’s not 100%. But generally speaking, preppers have prepared for everything except for their finances.
Preppers are NOT financially prepared!
Keeping physical gold and silver is a good idea – but it isn’t a panacea. Also there are many risks associated with spending Gold and Silver such as theft, loss, and acceptance. Maybe in certain scenarios – no one would want silver, but they may want a beer?
Yes, that’s right. If you want a real currency to use in an end times scenario, stock up on cheap whiskey and gin. Growing Marijuana will be easy in such times (the reason it has the nickname ‘weed’ is because it grows like a weed), but making a still requires knowledge, time, a place which is safe and suitable, dedication, and materials. That’s just one example. You can elaborate on this scenario with this lateral thinking.
Other items of value in end times include tools of all kinds, and specifically tools that don’t run with electricity, but those too. Dynamos, solar powered battery chargers, things like this – may be more valuable than gold or silver.
And as gun lovers like to say:
The only real currency if society breaks down is accelerated lead.
Preppers should beef up their knowledge and understanding of the financial system. If the system collapses, the new society will need bankers too. An economic system must evolve, eventually. Even if humans are living as savages, at some point as we rebuild, preppers and survivors will need bankers too.
(above: Camoflage as art, from ATL.)To learn more about the financial system as a whole, checkout Splitting Pennies – your pocket guide to becoming a financial wizard!
- The Deep State (And The Rise Of The Unspeakable)
"The state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight.
The pressure to conform to an authority figure or peer group can cause people to behave in shocking ways.
It is not too much to say that Wall Street may be the ultimate owner of the Deep State and its strategies, if for no other reason than that it has the money to reward government operatives with a second career that is lucrative beyond the dreams of avarice – certainly beyond the dreams of a salaried government employee.
The corridor between Manhattan and Washington is a well-trodden highway for the personalities we have all gotten to know in the period since the massive deregulation of Wall Street."
-Mike Lofgren
As we noted previously, the deep state seems to have grown, strengthened and tightened its grip. Can a lack of real money restrain or starve it? I once thought so, and maybe I still do. But it doesn’t use real money, but rather debt and creative financing to get that next new car, er, war and intervention and domestic spending program. Ultimately it’s not sustainable, and just as unaffordable cars are junked, stripped, repossessed, and crunched up, so will go the way of the physical assets of the warfare–welfare state.
Because inflated salaries, inflated stock prices and inflated ruling-class personalities are month to month, these should evaporate more quickly, over a debris field once known as some of richest counties in the United States. Can I imagine the shabbiest of trailer parks in the dismal swamp, where high rises and government basilicas and abbeys once stood? I’d certainly like to. But I’ll settle for well-kept, privately owned house trailers, filled with people actually producing some small value for society, and minding their own business.
Can a lack of public support reduce the deep state, or impact it? Well, it would seem that this is a non-factor, except for the strange history we have had and are witnessing again today, with the odd successful popular and populist-leaning politician and their related movements. In my lifetime, only popular figures and their movements get assassinated mysteriously, with odd polka dot dresses, MKULTRA suggestions, threats against their family by their competitors (I’m thinking Perot, but one mustn’t be limited to that case), and always with concordant pressures on the sociopolitical seams in the country, i.e riots and police/military activations. The bad dealings toward, and genuine fear of, Bernie Sanders within the Democratic Party’s wing of the deep state is matched or exceeded only by the genuine terror of Trump among the Republican deep state wing. This reaction to something or some person that so many in the country find engaging and appealing — an outsider who speaks to the growing political and economic dissatisfaction of a poorer, more indebted, and more regulated population – is heart-warming, to be sure. It is a sign that whether or not we do, the deep state thinks things might change. Thank you, Bernie and especially Donald, for revealing this much! And the “republicanization” of the Libertarian Party is also a bright indicator blinking out the potential of deep state movement and compromise in the pursuit of “stability.”
Finally, what of those pinpricks of light, the honest assessments of the real death trail and consumption pit that the deep state has delivered? Well, it is growing and broadening. Wikileaks and Snowden are considered assets now to any and all competitors to the US deep state, from within and from abroad – the Pandora’s box, assisted by technology, can’t be closed now. The independent media has matured to the point of criticizing and debating itself/each other, as well as focusing harsh light on the establishment media. Instead of left and right mainstream media, we increasingly recognize state media, and delightedly observe its own struggle to survive in the face of a growing nervousness of the deep state it assists on command.
Maybe we will one day soon be able to debate how deep the deep state really is, or whether it was all just a dressed up, meth’ed up, and eff’ed up a sector of society that deserves a bit of jail time, some counseling, and a new start. Maybe some job training that goes beyond the printing of license plates. But given the destruction and mass murder committed daily in the name of this state, and the environmental disasters it has created around the world for the future generations, perhaps we will be no more merciful to these proprietors of the American empire as they have been to their victims. The ruling class deeply fears our judgment, and in this dynamic lies the cure.
- One Striking Chart Shows Why, According to MS, The Next Global Recession Begins In China
Much has been said about China in the past year. Now, courtesy of Morgan Stanley’s Chetan Ahya, here is one additional data point revealing why China will be ground zero for the next global economic slowdown.
As Ahya notes in his Sunday Start note, “several large economies in the world including but not limited to the US, euro area, China, Japan and UK are facing the 3D challenge of demographics, debt and disinflation. Among these economies, we believe that China, which currently accounts for 18% of global GDP and 27% of global manufacturing and contributes 45% to global growth, will be the biggest drag towards lower nominal GDP growth and consequently lower expected returns.“
Surprisingly, unlike many other Chinese doomsayers, Morgan Stanley does not think the catalyst of China’s upcoming “hard landing” will be financial, or debt-related:
The key concern that investors have on China is that its debt build-up could result in a potential financial shock, which would be akin to the experience of the US in 2008 and emerging markets in the 1990s. However, we think that the macro set-up and policy preferences will mean that the risk of a financial shock in China is low. There are three key characteristics of China’s current macro set-up: i) Debt is being largely funded domestically, i.e., China is misallocating its own excess saving; ii) It remains a net creditor to the world (with a net international investment position of 14.7% of GDP) and it runs a current account surplus; and iii) It is facing significant disinflationary pressures, which will allow the central bank to inject liquidity to manage any potential risk-aversion in the domestic financial system. While there are non-performing loans in the banking system, policy-makers will likely have significant control of liquidity conditions to prevent a financial shock, in our view.
Ideally, a quick adjustment approach following our five-step process of accepting lower potential growth, cutting excess capacity/recognising non-performing loans, recapitalising banks, cutting real interest rates and stimulating consumption with fiscal transfers to households for education and healthcare is needed to transition to a new productive growth cycle.
That however, is unlikely for a country in which social tensions and rising unemployment are already the thing that keeps Beijing up at night: “However, considering the risks to social stability, a quick adjustment appears unlikely to us. Given its macro set-up and policy preference, we have long argued that the developments in China are more comparable to that of Japan in the 1990s.”
So in lieu of a quick adjustment, a “gradual adjustment approach” would leave us with the outcome of an extended period of excess capacity, disinflationary pressures and declining nominal growth and returns in the economy. At the current pace of new investment that China is taking up, the incremental return on capital employed will likely continue to deteriorate.
Morgan Stanley calculates that “although China has slowed its investment since 2012, we expect it to invest 41% of its GDP (US$4.7 trillion) in 2016. This compares with the 24% of GDP which China should have been investing if it were to maintain the same capital efficiency as it did between 2000 and 2007. China currently needs new investment of 6.4pp of GDP to achieve 1pp of GDP growth, compared with the average of 3.6pp between 2000-07.”
It is this unsustainable trend of relentless capex spending and investment that MS believes is the reason “why China will weigh on the trend in global growth and returns.”
In a globalised, integrated economy, the impact will extend well beyond China’s weight in the aggregates as it will also influence returns in other parts of the world via its role as a large market but, more importantly, as the marginal competitor.
And here is the chart revealing what may be the most unsustainable trend in China, one that is even more dramatic than China relentless debt growth: accounted for 26% of global annual capex in 2015, compared with 9% in 2006 and 5% in 2000. Hence, as China continues to invest with low return expectations, that this will continue to weigh on the global returns on capital employed.
* * *
So can the global economy grow out of China’s adverse impact like it did in the 1990s in the face of Japan’s structural slowdown then?
According to Morgan Stanley, such an outcome seems unlikely. Back then, none of the large economies ex-Japan suffered from the 3D challenge. Indeed, until recently, the emergence of China (with sustained high productivity growth) and its integration into the global economy was itself a key factor which had helped to sustain the global growth dynamic post the structural slowdown in Japan. However, the state of the global economy excluding China today is much weaker and, with no large emerging market ready to replace China as an engine of global growth in the near future, we could well be stuck in a lower nominal returns world.
Who will suffer the most when China’s plane if not crashes, then downshifts permanently?
The impact from China will be most keenly felt in the industrial segment and, indeed, economies in Europe, Japan and Korea, which have both a higher share of industrial activity in their economic output and also closer trade links with China, will be most exposed, in our view. The disinflationary pressures, coupled with the depreciating RMB, will also weigh on the inflation trend in the DMs, particularly in the US, and this is one of the key external factors keeping the Fed on hold and Treasury yields low.
Needless to say, should the Fed proceed to hike and spike the dollar some more, all these adverse dynamics will accelerate that much more.
Digest powered by RSS Digest
Saving...