- The War Against Globalism
Authored by Philip Giraldi via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
We are the Little Folk—we!
Too little to love or to hate.
Leave us alone and you’ll see
How we can drag down the State!
A Pict Song, Rudyard Kipling
Belgium has joined the list of countries that are rebelling against their elected leadership. Over the weekend the Belgian government fell over Prime Minister Charles Michel’s trip to Morocco to sign the United Nations Migration Agreement. The agreement made no distinction between legal and illegal migrants and regarded immigration as a positive phenomenon. The Belgian people apparently did not agree. Facebook registered 1,200 Belgians agreeing that the Prime Minister was a traitor. Some users expressed concern for their children’s futures, noting that Belgian democracy is dead. Others said they would get yellow vests and join the protests.
The unrest witnessed in a number of places is focused on some specific demands but it represents much broader anger. The French yellow vests initially protested against proposed increases in fuel taxes that would have affected working people dependent on transportation disproportionately. But when that demand was met by the government of President Emmanuel Macron, the demonstrations continued and even grew, suggesting that the grievances with the government were far more extensive than the issue of a single new tax. Perhaps not surprisingly, the French government is seeking for a scapegoat and is investigating “Russian interference.” The US State Department inevitably agrees, claiming that Kremlin directed websites and social media are “amplifying the conflict.”
Some commentators looking somewhat more deeply at the riots in France have even suggested that the real issue just might be regime change, that the Macron government had become so disconnected with many of the voters through both its policies and the rhetoric justifying them that it had lost its legitimacy and there was no possibility of redemption. Any change would have to be an improvement, particularly as a new regime would be particularly sensitive to the sentiments of those being governed, at least initially. One might suggest that the prevailing sentiment that a radical change in government is needed, come what may, to shake up the system might well be called the “Trump phenomenon” as that is more-or-less what happened in the United States.
The idea that republican or democratic government will eventually deteriorate into some form of tyranny is not exactly new. Thomas Jefferson advocated a new revolution every generation to keep the spirit of government accountable to the people alive.
Call it what you will – neoliberalism, neoconservatism or globalism – the new world order, as recently deceased President George H.W. Bush once labeled it, characteristically embraces a world community in which there is free trade, free movement of workers and democracy. They all sound like good things but they are authoritarian in nature, destructive of existing communities and social systems while at the same time enriching those who promote the changes. They have also been the root cause of most of the wars fought since the Second World War, wars to “liberate” people who never asked to be invaded or bombed as part of the process.
And there are, of course, major differences between neoliberals and neoconservatives in terms of how one brings about the universal nirvana, with the liberals embracing some kind of process whereby the transformation takes place because it represents what they see, perhaps cynically, as the moral high ground and is recognized as being the right thing to do. The neocons, however, seek to enforce what they define as international standards because the United States has the power to do so in a process that makes it and its allies impossible to challenge. The latter view is promoted under the phony slogan that “Democracies do not fight other democracies.”
The fact that globalists of every type consider nationalism a threat to their broader ambitions has meant that parochial or domestic interests are often disregarded or even rejected. With that in mind, and focusing on two issues – wholesale unwelcome immigration and corrupt government run by oligarchs – one might reasonably argue that large numbers of ordinary citizens now believe themselves to be both effectively disenfranchised and demonstrably poorer as rewarding work becomes harder to find and communities are destroyed through waves of both legal and illegal immigration.
In the United States, for example, most citizens now believe that the political system does not work at all while almost none think that even when it does work it operates for the well-being of all the citizens. For the first time since the Great Depression, Americans no longer think of upward mobility. Projections by sociologists and economists suggest that the current generation growing up in the United States will likely be materially poorer than their parents. That angst and the desire to “do something” to make government more responsive to voters’ interests is why Donald Trump was elected president.
What has been occurring in Belgium, France, with Brexit in Britain, in the recent election in Italy, and also in the warnings coming from Eastern Europe about immigration and European Union community economic policies are driven by the same concerns that operated in America. Government itself is becoming the enemy. And let us not forget the countries that have already felt the lash and been subjected to the social engineering of Angela Merkel – Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece. All are weaker economies crushed by the one size fits all of the EURO, which eliminated the ability of some governments to manage their own economies. They and all their citizens are poorer for it.
There have been windows in history when the people have had enough abuse and so rise up in revolt. The American and French revolutions come to mind as does 1848. Perhaps we are experiencing something like that at the present time, a revolt against the pressure to conform to globalist values that have been embraced to their benefit by the elites and the establishment in much of the world. It could well become a hard fought and sometimes bloody conflict but its outcome will shape the next century. Will the people really have power in the increasingly globalized world or will it be the 1% with its government and media backing that emerges triumphant?
- Skyscraper Construction: Nobody Comes Close To China In 2018
With 143 buildings 200 meters tall (660 feet) or higher constructed across the globe, 2018 was another hugely impressive year for skyscraper construction.
As Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, according to The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, the total height of those buildings comes to 35,246 meters – exceeding the length of Manhattan Island if they were laid end-to-end.
China is at the forefront of the boom in skyscraper construction, building 88 in total this year.
You will find more infographics at Statista
The Citic Tower in Beijing was the tallest building completed anywhere in the world in 2018. At 528 meters tall (1,732 feet), with 108 floors above ground, it’s now the eighth-tallest building worldwide and the fourth the tallest in China. The second-tallest skyscraper of 2018 was the 469.5-meter-tall (1,540 feet) Vincom Landmark 81 in Ho Chi Minth City, Vietnam while another Chinese building comes third. The 452 meter high (1,483 feet) Changsha IFS Tower T1 was built in the city of Changsha.
After China, the U.S. comes a distant second in the 2018 skyscraper league with 13 completions while the UAE comes third with 10.
Due to China’s skyward ambitions, Asia is the global hub of skyscraper construction, accounting for 76.2 percent of all completions this year. North America had an 11.2 percent share of the total while the Middle East and Africa had 9.1 percent.
- Scientists Will Begin Geoengineering Experiment And Try To Block The Sun
Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,
Scientists have decided to publicly attempt a geoengineering experiment. The researchers from Harvard University are going to attempt to use particles to block out the sun in an attempt to save humanity from global warming, and cool the planet.
According to Popular Mechanics, this incredibly bad-sounding idea seems like it stemmed from an actual event. In 1991, the volcano Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines, sending millions of tons of ash and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. This layer of particulates actually lowered global temperatures by almost a full degree Fahrenheit for the following two years.
Researchers speculated that by filling the atmosphere with a similar level of particulates that were shot into the sky during the 1991 eruption, while skipping the lava and explosions, they might be able to reduce global temperatures enough to halt or delay some of the more severe consequences of “climate change.”
But even the most left-leaning of human beings are not on board with attempting to alter the global climate artificially. After all, isn’t that what the tyrants and political elitists the peons continue to vote for keep telling us was the problem in the first place? Any small mistake could radically and permanently destroy the delicate ecosystems and global climates for centuries.
In particular, one study published last year found that spraying particulates into the atmosphere around the Gulf of Mexico could trigger droughts in sub-Saharan Africa. But scientists are attempting to assure everyone that their test won’t have any major effect on the climate.
The test allegedly consists of a high-altitude balloon that will fly several miles into the atmosphere and release less than a pound of calcium carbonate (a less harmful alternative to the sulfur dioxide produced by volcanoes) and then spend about a day flying through the resulting cloud to measure its effects. The purpose of this test is to figure out exactly how the substance behaves in our air so scientists can build more accurate simulations.
Of course, others have gathered a wealth of evidence suggesting that climate manipulation is already occurring right under our noses. Dane Wigington has an entire website titled GeoengineeringWatch.org in which he publishes all of the evidence he’s collected proving that governments have been manipulated the weather for a long time. In fact, they might be responsible for the very “climate change” they blame on the general public and make us all pay for.
- "Sellers Have Gotten Greedy": Metro NY Leads Nationwide Trend Of Tumbling Housing Prices
The signs of a housing slowdown are starting to reach across New York City and the metro area. For instance, a new Bloomberg article talks about a home in Long Island that recently sat idly on the market until its taxes and its price were both moved lower. As we have already written about earlier this year, buyers in places like Connecticut are looking to rent houses – sometimes even for $10,000 a month – before buying them. Real estate brokers in the metro area and places like Hoboken are noticing business slow down.
Greg Heym, chief economist of Terra Holdings, told Bloomberg:
“Brokers ask me, ‘When is it going to get better? ‘Better’ for this market, in this area, is lower prices.”
It doesn’t matter whether it’s high-rises in the city or homes in the suburbs: years of price appreciation, combined with caps on property tax deductions and rising rates are all guiding prices lower and slowing the market down.
And this is indicative of a broader slowdown that’s occurring across the country. While home prices in other parts of the country haven’t slowed down tremendously, the rate of appreciation is starting to slip, especially in the metro New York area. Prices in the 12 counties including and surrounding New York City grew at only 4% in the third quarter compared to an overall price increase of 4.8% across the United States.
The $10,000 limit on deductions for state and local taxes could be one of the reasons that New York is worse off than the rest of the country. 9 of the 10 US counties with the highest tax obligations are in New York, New Jersey or Connecticut.
Daren Blomquist, Attom’s senior vice president stated:
“Housing in general has quite a few headwinds right now, but the New York area is feeling the brunt of the headwinds. Counties with the slowest appreciation are the ones that tend to have the highest prices and the highest taxes.”
Westchester County is number one on the list of high tax areas. In that county, single-family home sales were down for the fifth quarter in a row. Purchases in the Long Island suburbs were down for two of the last three quarters, including in Nassau County. Bergen County, New Jersey, which has the fourth highest tax burden in the country, showed a 6% drop in third-quarter sales contracts. Buyers used to be OK with paying the higher taxes as a result of having better school districts, but now they are starting to second-guess the extra expense.
Matthew Lenner, a broker with Keller Williams in Long Island, told Bloomberg:
“One of the first questions buyers ask is, ‘Have the owners grieved their taxes?”’
It’s a question that refers to an appeals process with the county’s assessment office that will sometimes allow property taxes to be lowered.
Last month for example, a four bedroom home in Plainview that was listed since June 2017 saw its price cut nearly $100,000 to $899,999 and also had its taxes reworked to try to lower the $28,500 annual tax bill. As they were able to lower the taxes about 20%, interest in the property has increased.
In New Jersey, the new tax law didn’t seem to be a problem – at least until mortgage rates started to creep higher. At that point, it became obvious that “sellers were getting greedy” and that prices would have to adjust.
Jeffrey Otteau, who runs a property valuation firm, stated:
“Sellers have gotten greedy. It’s easier to say ‘blame tax reform’ than to say ‘we need to take an honest look at the price you expect to get for your house.’ Sellers don’t get it.”
Buyers who now believe themselves to have the upper hand are getting creative with deals, including asking for concessions that even ask some sellers to rent homes before they buy them. Three buyers in the New Canaan area set up lease arrangements with sellers, putting down 10% and paying the rest off in a rent-to-own style arrangement that would allow them to duck out of the purchase at any point.
Sharon Shahinian, a Halstead broker in Hoboken summed it up:
“All the agents are saying to each other, ‘Are you busy?’ Someone will say, ‘Oh my God, it’s so slow, and someone else will say, ‘I’m glad it’s not just me.”
- The Real Reason Western Media & CIA Turned Against Saudi's MbS
Authored by Darius Shahtamasebi,
Forces are aligning against Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, lead by elements within the CIA and strong players in the mainstream media. But what is really behind this deterioration in relationship, and what are its implications?
Following the brutal murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, western media and various entities, including the CIA, appear to have turned their back on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS). In response to the scandal, the Guardian released a video which its celebutante, Owen Jones, captioned “Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest threats on Earth. Time to stop propping up its repulsive regime.”
The Guardian was not alone in its condemnation.
“It’s high time to end Saudi impunity,” wrote Hana Al-Khamri in Al-Jazeera. “It’s time for Saudi Arabia to tell the truth on Jamal Khashoggi,” the Washington Post’s Editorial Board argued. Politico called it “the tragedy of Jamal Khashoggi.”
Even shadowy think-tanks like the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Atlantic Council released articles criticising Saudi Arabia in the wake of Khashoggi’s death.
A number of companies began backing away from Saudi money after the journalist’s death, including the world’s largest media companies such as the New York Times, the Economist’s editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes, Arianna Huffington, CNN, CNBC, the Financial Times, Bloomberg, Google Cloud CEO, just to name a few.
The CIA concluded that MBS personally ordered Khashoggi’s death, and was reportedly quite open in its provision of this assessment. Antonio Guterres, secretary-general of the UN, also took time out of his schedule to express concern over Saudi Arabia’s confirmation of the killing.
At the time of the scandal, former CIA director John Brennan went on MSNBC to state that the Khashoggi’s death would be the downfall of MBS. Furthermore, the US Senate just voted in favour of ending American involvement in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen (a somewhat symbolic victory, though this is a topic for another article), but nonetheless was a clear stab at MBS personally.
The only person who appeared to continue to uphold America’s unfaltering support for MBS, even after all the publicly made evidence against MBS, was the US president himself. So after years of bombarding Yemen, sponsoring terror groups across the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific and beyond, why is it only now that there has been mounting opposition to Saudi Arabia’s leadership? Let’s just bear in mind that western media had spent years investing in a heavy PR campaign to paint MBS as a “reformer.”
Former national security adviser under Barack Obama’s second term, Susan Rice, wrote an article in the New York Times, in which she called MBS a “partner we can’t depend on.” Rice concludes that MBS is “not and can no longer be viewed as a reliable partner of the United States and our allies.” But why is this? Is it because MBS is responsible for some of the most egregious human rights abuses inside his own kingdom as well as in Yemen? Is it because of MBS’ support for groups such as ISIS and al-Qaeda? No, according to Rice, we “should not rupture our important relationship with the kingdom, but we must make it clear it cannot be business as usual so long as Prince Mohammad continues to wield unlimited power.”
One will observe that the latter segment of Rice’s article almost mirrors former CIA director Brennan’s word on MSNBC word for word who stated that:
“I think ultimately this is going to come out. And it’s very important for us to maintain the relations with Saudi Arabia. And if it’s Mohammed bin Salman who’s the cancer here, well, we need to be able to find ways to eliminate the cancer and to move forward with this relationship that is critical to regional stability and our national interests.”
In reality, this is probably the issue that western media and government advisors have taken up with MBS. Aside from the fact he allegedly held a huge hand in the brutal murder of one of their own establishment journalists (Saudi Arabia reportedly tortured and killed another journalist not long after Khashoggi, but western media was eerily silent on this incident) MBS is not opposed for his reckless disregard for human rights. With insight into Rice’s mindset, we actually learn that if the US were to punish MBS, he would be likely to “behave more irresponsibly to demonstrate his independence and exact retribution against his erstwhile Western partners.”
You see, the problem with MBS isn’t that he is a mass murdering war criminal, it is that he is too “independent” for the United States’ liking.
Last week, Saudi Arabia and the other major oil producers met in Vienna at the year’s final big OPEC meeting of the year. As Foreign Policy notes, Saudi Arabia remains the largest oil producer inside OPEC but has to contend with the US and Russia who are “pumping oil at record levels.” Together, the three countries are the world’s biggest oil producers, meaning any coordinated decision made between these three nations can be somewhat monumental.
However, it appears that one of these three nations will end up drawing the short end of the stick as the other two begin forming a closer alliance. As Foreign Policy explains:
“But Saudi Arabia has bigger game in mind at Vienna than just stabilizing oil prices. Recognizing that it can’t shape the global oil market by itself anymore but rather needs the cooperation of Russia, Saudi Arabia is hoping to formalize an ad hoc agreement between OPEC and Moscow that began in 2016, a time when dirt-cheap oil also posed a threat to oil-dependent regimes. That informal agreement expires at the end of the year, but the Saudis would like to make Russia’s participation with the cartel more permanent.”
Russian officials have been signalling their intention to formalise this agreement for quite some time now. Given the hysteria in western media about any and all things Russian, it is not too much of a stretch to suggest that this is the kind of news that is not sitting too well with the powers-that-be.
Earlier this year, Russia and Saudi Arabia announced that it would “institutionalize” the two-year-old bilateral agreement to coordinate oil production targets in order to maintain an edge on the global market.
While US president Trump has been supportive and incredibly defensive of MBS during this “crisis”, the truth is that the US only has itself to blame. It was not all too long ago that Trump announced that he had told Saudi King Salman that his kingdom would not last two weeks without US support.
Saudi Arabia is learning for themselves quite quickly that, ultimately, it may pay not to have all its eggs in one geopolitical superpower basket.
Saudi Arabia has been increasingly interested in Moscow since King Salman made a historic visit to Moscow in October 2017. While Trump has openly bragged about his record-breaking arms deals with the Saudis, the blunt truth is that the $110 billion arms agreements were reportedly only ever letters of interest or intent, but not actual contracts. As such, the US-Saudi arms deal is still yet to be locked in, all the while Saudi Arabia is negotiating with Russia for its S-400 air defence system. This is, as the Washington Post notes, despite repeated US requests to Saudi Arabia for it disavow its interest in Russia’s arms.
The economic threat that an “independent” Saudi Arabia under MBS’ leadership poses to Washington runs deeper than meets the eye and may indeed have a domino effect. According to CNN, Russia and Saudi Arabia “are engaged in an intense battle over who will be the top supplier to China, a major energy importer with an insatiable appetite for crude.”
The unveiling of China’s petro-yuan poses a major headache for Washington and its control over Saudi Arabia as well.According to Carl Weinberg, chief economist and managing director at High-Frequency Economics, China will “compel”Saudi Arabia to trade oil in Chinese yuan instead of US dollars. One must bear in mind that China has now surpassed the US as the “biggest oil importer on the planet,” these direct attacks on the US dollar will have huge implications for its current world reserve status.
If Saudi Arabia jumps on board China’s petro-yuan, the rest of OPEC will eventually follow, and the US might be left with no choice but to declare all of these countries in need of some vital freedom and democracy.
Therefore, ousting MBS and replacing him with a Crown Prince who doesn’t stray too far from the tree that is US imperialism may put a dent in pending relationships with Saudi Arabia and Washington’s adversaries, Russia and China.
Once we get over the certainty that the US media and the CIA are not against MBS for his long-list of human rights abuses, the question then becomes: why – why now, and in this manner, have they decided to put the spotlight on MBS and expose him exactly for what he is.
Clearly, the driving force behind this media outrage is a bit more complex than first meets the eye.
- Baltimore County Spends $147 Million On School Laptops; Four Years Later Test Scores Still Terrible
Four years ago Baltimore County began a $147 million program to put laptops in the hands of students from first through 12th grade in the hopes that access to technology would transform the way kids learn and boost the lowest standardized test scores in the state, according to a new report cited by the Baltimore Sun‘s Liz Bowie
Photo via Baltimore Country Public Schools Alas, the ambitious plan has failed to translate to an increase in achievement – as test scores are generally flat for students in grades three through eight, according to the Sun, which notes that many of those students have had the computers for at least three years.
An evaluation of the program by Johns Hopkins researchers found that third-grade results at 10 schools that have had laptops longest have shown some increase over four years, but it’s too soon to say if that will continue.
“The impacts of the [laptop program] on student achievement remain encouraging, but still indeterminate given the still relatively short duration of the initiative,” the report said.
Absent across-the-board increases in student achievement, some parents and teachers are questioning whether the computers are worth the investment. –Baltimore Sun
“These devices do not seem to be improving my kids’ school experience,” said parent Suzanne Persaud – whose three middle and high school boys have had access to the laptops. The school system is “giving them the hardware,” said Persaud, “but not the courses to advance beyond the devices.”
Photo via Baltimore Country Public Schools With the majority of the Baltimore County school board departing this month, it is unclear whether the new board will continue the program amid calls to end the laptop giveaway. Others have suggested not giving every student a laptop.
New county executive Johnny Olszwecki Jr. says that while he hasn’t taken a position on the program, his administration will give it serious consideration.
“I want to be a data-driven, evidence-based leader here for Baltimore County,” said Olszwecki. “Any program that’s not having the intended gains that we’re spending money on we need to re-evaluate. Especially if it’s compromising our ability to meet other priorities.”
Overall, Baltimore County students in grades three through eight scored 18th in the state for math and 19th in English, according to a State Department of Education analysis of Maryland’s 24 school districts.
In contrast, Baltimore City — where elementary and middle school students don’t have the same access to technology — saw significant achievement gains last year across nearly all grades and subjects on the state tests, though the percentage of city school students who passed them is still lower than in the county. –Baltimore Sun
The Baltimore County school district has countered critics, saying that the laptop program wasn’t solely intended to raise achievement – but rather to allow underpriveleged students access to technology they may not have at home, and whose families can’t afford internet service or computers.
Verletta White, Interim School Superintendent “It has never been about laptops increasing achievement,” said Interim School Superintendent Verletta White. “You have to take a look at all of the impacts and the levers that impact instruction.”
School system officials added that teachers may have had too little time to adapt their lesson plans to the new technology.
A 2016 analysis of 10 studies concluded that giving all students a laptop does not boost math, english, science or writing scores, however the authors from Michigan State and UC Irvine stress that computers alone don’t increase academic performance and must be accompanied by lesson plans conducive to the technology.
- Could America's "Deep Underground Seismic Scar" Be Re-Awakening?
Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,
Large earthquakes aren’t supposed to happen in Tennessee.
On Wednesday, the largest earthquake in 45 years hit eastern Tennessee, and it made headlines all over the nation. The magnitude 4.4 quake was so powerful that it was felt in portions of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Kentucky. Significant shaking was even felt as far away as Atlanta, and that was highly unusual. The original earthquake was rapidly followed by a magnitude 3.0 aftershock, and subsequently there were several other noteworthy aftershocks.
We live at a time when earthquakes are increasing in size and frequency, and many are concerned about what this may mean for our future. The recent earthquakes in Alaska were a shock, but at least they made sense since much of the coastline of Alaska sits directly along the Ring of Fire. But eastern Tennessee is not an area that has traditionally been prone to quakes. Could it be possible that the “seismic scar” that was created when the North American continent was formed is beginning to reawaken?
Prior to Wednesday, the last time that eastern Tennessee had experienced an earthquake of this magnitude or greater was on November 30th, 1973.
That was 45 years ago, and many of you that will be reading this article were not even alive at that time.
Some experts had regarded eastern Tennessee as one of the “safest” areas in the eastern half of the country, but after what we just witnessed they may want to reevaluate things. When the earthquake happened, the shaking was so violent that it actually woke people from their sleep all the way over in neighboring North Carolina…
“Felt it here in Arden off Brevard Rd for sure. Sitting on the couch at 4:15 am reading news on laptop and it felt like the house swayed back and forth for a few seconds. Weird…….” – Wayne Womble
“I felt the earthquake in Alexander, NC around 4:15 am. It woke me from my sleep.” – Megan S. Bottego
“We felt the earthquake in Marshall, Madison County, NC (just outside the Buncombe County line). It woke me up about 4:20am as it shook enough to cause items on dresser to shake and rattle. It only lasted about 5-10 seconds. ” – Paula Seay
But this isn’t the only earthquake that has happened in the region recently.
In fact, in the center of the United States there have been 27 significant earthquakes of magnitude 1.5 or greater within the last 7 days.
Eastern Tennessee is not in the New Madrid Seismic Zone, but it is not too far away either. And there are some that are speculating that the “deep underground scar” that was created during the formation of the North American continent may be awakening once again. The following is what Wikipedia has to say about the formation of that scar…
The faults responsible for the New Madrid Seismic Zone are embedded in a subsurface geological feature known as the Reelfoot Rift that formed during the breakup of the supercontinent Rodinia in the Neoproterozoic Era (about 750 million years ago). The resulting rift system failed to split the continent, but has remained as an aulacogen (a scar or zone of weakness) deep underground, and its ancient faults appear to have made the Earth’s crust in the New Madrid area mechanically weaker than much of the rest of North America.
This relative weakness is important, because it would allow the relatively small east-west compressive forces associated with the continuing continental drift of the North American plate to reactivate old faults around New Madrid, making the area unusually prone to earthquakes in spite of it being far from the nearest tectonic plate boundary.
As noted above, because of this scar the crust of our planet in that region is “mechanically weaker” and thus more vulnerable to shaking.
What that means is that earthquakes in that area could potentially be far more damaging.
According to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, any earthquakes that occur along the New Madrid fault could “shake and damage an area approximately 20 times larger than earthquakes in California”…
Due to the harder, colder, drier and less fractured nature of the rocks in the earth’s crust in the central United States, earthquakes in this region shake and damage an area approximately 20 times larger than earthquakes in California and most other active seismic areas. Even though large earthquakes occur much less frequently in the NMSZ than in California, the long term average quake threat, in terms of square miles affected per century, is about the same because of the approximately 20 times larger area affected in the central United States.
And even though most Americans don’t realize this, some of the worst earthquakes in all of U.S. history have happened right in the middle of the country.
In 1811 and 1812 three massive earthquakes struck directly along the New Madrid Seismic Zone, and the damage was off the charts. The following comes from a previous article…
Those earthquakes in 1811 and 1812 tore thousands of very deep fissures in the ground, they caused the Mississippi River to actually run backwards in some places, and they caused sidewalks to crack in Washington D.C. and church bells to ring in Boston.
In our time, the U.S. Geological Survey has admitted that the New Madrid fault zone has the “potential for larger and more powerful quakes than previously thought“, and we have seen the number of significant earthquakes in the middle part of the country more than quintuple in recent years.
There is a reason why I included a catastrophic New Madrid earthquake in The Beginning Of The End, and scientists assure us that it is only a matter of time before one takes place.
Giant earthquakes and huge volcanic eruptions are starting to happen with such frequency now that they almost immediately start receding from our memory after they happen. We have been witnessing one historic seismic event after another, and they are happening so fast that it is hard to keep up with them all. And when you throw in wildfires, floods, hurricanes and all other major disasters, what we have been witnessing is truly historic.
According to CNN, 2017 was the costliest year for natural disasters ever, and it looks like there is a good chance that we will break that record again this year.
Our planet is changing, and many believe that very dark days are ahead for all of us.
- Seattle Home Prices Plunge Again, Down 11% In Six Months
The West Coast has had one of the hottest real estate markets in the country over the last five to eight years, with Denver, San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, and Seattle led the way in home price appreciation.
However, the market has recently shifted and ultimately moved in the opposite direction with surging inventory, increased lending limits, and falling home prices, have triggered a possible housing market top.
The rapid deterioration in the housing industry is the most evident in King County, Washington, home to Seattle and the 13th-most populous region in the US. Home prices in the area have just recorded one of the most significant drops ever in the last six months.
King County’s median single-family home price plunged to $644,000 in November, all the way from $726,000 in early spring, according to a new report from Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
Mike Rosenberg, a Seattle Times real estate reporter, said Seattle home prices are falling at the fastest clip than anywhere in the country.
The plunge in prices equals about 11.3% over the last six months, and the last time a drop of this magnitude occurred, it was -14% during the housing bubble implosion of 2008.
Active inventory jumped 135% in the county from a year ago. The number of single-family homes more than doubled from 2017, rising from 1,879 to 4,020, while condos more than tripled, jumping from 355 active listings twelve months ago to October’s total of 1,221.
For condos, a sharp rise in inventory has sent prices lower by $61,000 from spring levels.
Sales have also collapsed, down 19% in the last 12 months. It was the second consecutive quarter that fewer people bought homes.
“It’s a little bit of a herd mentality,” Sabrina Booth, a Windermere broker in Seattle, told The Seattle Times, adding that “buyers were rushing to outdo each other by engaging in frantic bidding wars and signing away rights like inspection clauses. Now, they’re often taking their time, negotiating prices down and getting sellers to pay for fixes to their homes.”
“Sellers are now more receptive to that,” Booth said. “They’re not happy about it. They feel just a little bit disappointed, and they feel their house will be the exception to the rule. But when that doesn’t happen they tend to be realistic and understand that the market has changed a bit.”
Compared to a year ago, home prices are up 2.1% in King County, as it was the smallest increase in over four years.
Just a few short years ago, the average year-over-year growth was pushing more than 10%. That has since come to a screeching halt.
Home prices in several Seattle neighborhoods have just entered into negative territory versus a year ago. Among these were Southeast Seattle, Sodo/Beacon Hill, the Capitol Hill/Central Seattle area, Queen Anne/Magnolia, the Ballard/Green Lake area and downtown, said The Seattle TImes.
Also, East Bellevue, the Eastside area south of Interstate 90, Richmond Beach-Shoreline, Jovita-West Hill Auburn and Renton-Highlands & Kennydale are other places where prices have contracted on a year-over-year basis in November.
“When compared to the peak spring period, median prices have fallen more than $100,000 in the Capitol Hill/Central Seattle area, Queen Anne/Magnolia, Richmond Beach-Shoreline, the Eastside south of I-90, East Bellevue and Redmond-Carnation.
The median price of a home in November hit $760,000 in Seattle and $885,000 on the Eastside, both down about $70,000 to $75,000 from their spring highs,” said The Seattle Times.
The recent slowdown has done very little to correct the affordability crisis, making the area still one of the priciest places in the country. In other words, many millennials are still priced out of the market and will not enter until prices come down significantly lower.
Prices have climbed 109% since reaching a trough in 2012. That is down from a peak six-year rise of 136% achieved in May.
There is an overwhelming consensus among brokers that the slowdown is temporary and could be blamed on seasonal trends.
“In absolute dollar terms, although not percentage-wise, the $82,000 price drop in King County over the last six months is easily the most ever for any half-year span, a function of how high prices have gotten,” said The Seattle Times.
From October to November, prices decreased $27,000, which is not a seasonal trend, due to this time of year prices remain flat. So, it might be wishful thinking that realtors think declining prices are seasonal, but instead, the entire industry reversing.
The cool-down is also starting to spread to the rest of the Puget Sound region, Snohomish County, and Kitsap County — inventory is way up, and sales are down.
An American housing bust is fully underway.
- Hopkins: "Nothing Scares The Identity Politics Left Like An Actual Working-Class Uprising"
Authored (satirically) by CJ Hopkins via The Unz Review,
The Indiscreet Charm of the Gilets Jaunes
So it appears the privatization of France isn’t going quite as smoothly as planned. As I assume you are aware, for over a month now, the gilets jaunes (or “yellow vests”), a multiplicitous, leaderless, extremely pissed off, confederation of working class persons, have been conducting a series of lively protests in cities and towns throughout the country to express their displeasure with Emmanuel Macron and his efforts to transform their society into an American-style neo-feudal dystopia. Highways have been blocked, toll booths commandeered, luxury automobiles set on fire, and shopping on the Champs-Élysées disrupted. What began as a suburban tax revolt has morphed into a bona fide working class uprising.
It took a while for “the Golden Boy of Europe” to fully appreciate what was happening. In the tradition of his predecessor, Louis XVI, Macron initially responded to the gilets jaunes by inviting a delegation of Le Monde reporters to laud his renovation of the Elysée Palace, making the occasional condescending comment, and otherwise completely ignoring them. That was back in late November. Last Saturday, he locked down central Paris, mobilized a literal army of riot cops, “preventatively arrested” hundreds of citizens, including suspected “extremist students,” and sent in the armored military vehicles.
The English-language corporate media, after doing their best not to cover these protests (and, instead, to keep the American and British publics focused on imaginary Russians), have been forced to now begin the delicate process of delegitimizing the gilets jaunes without infuriating the the entire population of France and inciting the British and American proletariats to go out and start setting cars on fire. They got off to a bit of an awkward start.
For example, this piece by Angelique Chrisafis, The Guardian‘s Paris Bureau Chief, and her Twitter feed from the protests last Saturday. Somehow (probably a cock-up at headquarters), The Guardian honchos allowed Chrisafis to do some actual propaganda-free reporting (and some interviews with actual protesters) before they caught themselves and replaced her with Kim Willsher, who resumed The Guardian‘s usual neoliberal establishment-friendly narrative, which, in this case, entailed dividing the protesters into “real” gilets jaunes and “fake” gilet jaunes, and referring to the latter fictional group as “thuggish, extremist political agitators.”
By Sunday, the corporate media were insinuating that diabolical Russian Facebook bots had brainwashed the French into running amok, because who else could possibly be responsible? Certainly not the French people themselves! The French, as every American knows, are by nature a cowardly, cheese-eating people, who have never overthrown their rightful rulers, or publicly beheaded the aristocracy. No, the French were just sitting there, smoking like chimneys, and otherwise enjoying their debt-enslavement and the privatization of their social democracy, until they unsuspectingly logged onto Facebook and … BLAMMO, the Russian hackers got them!
Bloomberg is reporting that French authorities have opened a probe into Russian interference (in the middle of which report, for no apparent reason, a gigantic photo of Le Pen is featured, presumably just to give it that “Nazi” flavor). According to “analysis seen by The Times,” Russia-linked social media accounts have been “amplifying” the “chaos” and “violence” by tweeting photos of gilets jaunes who the French police have savagely beaten or gratuitiously shot with “less-than-lethal projectiles.” “Are nationalists infiltrating the yellow vests?” the BBC Newsnight producers are wondering. According to Buzzfeed’s Ryan Broderick, “a beast born almost entirely from Facebook” is slouching toward … well, I’m not quite sure, the UK or even, God help us, America! And then there’s Max Boot, who is convinced he is being personally persecuted by Russian agents like Katie Hopkins, James Woods, Glenn Greenwald, and other high-ranking members of a worldwide conspiracy Boot refers to as the “Illiberal International” (but which regular readers of my column will recognize as the “Putin-Nazis“).
And, see, this is the problem the corporate media (and other staunch defenders of global neoliberalism) are facing with these gilets jaunes protests. They can’t get away with simply claiming that what is happening is not a working class uprising, so they have been forced to resort to these blatant absurdities. They know they need to delegitimize the gilets jaunes as soon as possible — the movement is already starting to spread — but the “Putin-Nazi” narrative they’ve been using on Trump, Corbyn, and other “populists” is just not working.
No one believes the Russians are behind this, not even the hacks who are paid to pretend they do. And the “fascism” hysteria is also bombing. Attempts to portray the gilets jaunes as Le Pen-sponsored fascists blew up in their faces. Obviously, the far-Right are part of these protests, as they would be in any broad working class uprising, but there are far too many socialists and anarchists (and just regular pissed-off working class people) involved for the media to paint them all as “Nazis.”
Which is not to say that the corporate media and prominent public intellectuals like Bernard-Henri Lévy will not continue to hammer away at the “fascism” hysteria, and demand that the “good” and “real” gilets jaunes suspend their protests against Macron until they have completely purged their movement of “fascists,” and “extremists,” and other dangerous elements, and have splintered it into a number of smaller, antagonistic ideological factions that can be more easily neutralized by the French authorities … because that’s what establishment intellectuals do.
We can expect to hear this line of reasoning, not just from establishment intellectuals like Lévy, but also from members of the Identity Politics Left, who are determined to prevent the working classes from rising up against global neoliberalism until they have cleansed their ranks of every last vestige of racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, transphobia, and so on. These leftist gatekeepers have been struggling a bit to come up with a response to the gilets jaunes … a response that doesn’t make them sound like hypocrites. See, as leftists, they kind of need to express their support for a bona fide working class uprising. At the same time, they need to delegitimize it, because their primary adversaries are fascism, racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and assorted other isms and phobias, not the neoliberal ruling classes.
Nothing scares the Identity Politics Left quite like an actual working class uprising. Witnessing the furious unwashed masses operating out there on their own, with no decent human restraint whatsoever, Identity Politics Leftists feel a sudden overwhelming urge to analyze, categorize, organize, sanitize, and otherwise correct and control them.
They can’t accept the fact that the actual, living, breathing working classes are messy, multiplicitous, inconsistent, and irreducible to any one ideology. Some of them are racists. Some are fascists. Others are communists, socialists, and anarchists. Many have no idea what they are, and don’t particularly care for any of these labels. This is what the actual working classes are … a big, contradictory collection of people who, in spite of all their differences, share one thing in common, that they are being screwed over by the ruling classes. I don’t know about you, but I consider myself one of them.
Where we go from here is anyone’s guess. According to The Guardian, as I am sitting here writing this, the whole of Europe is holding its breath in anticipation of the gilets jaunes’ response to Macron’s most recent attempt to appease them, this time with an extra hundred Euros a month, some minor tax concessions, and a Christmas bonus.
Something tells me it’s not going to work, but even if it does, and the gilets jaunes uprising ends, this messy, Western “populist” insurgency against global neoliberalism has clearly entered a new phase. Count on the global capitalist ruling classes to intensify their ongoing War on Dissent and their demonization of anyone opposing them (or contradicting their official narrative) as an “extremist,” a “fascist,” a “Russian agent,” and so on. I’m certainly looking forward to that, personally.
Oh… yeah, and I almost forgot, if you were wondering what you could get me for Christmas, I did some checking, and there appears to be a wide selection of yellow safety vests online for just a couple Euros.
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