http://www.globalresearch.ca/unemployment-collapsing-infrastructure-an-incompetent-social-political-economic-system-americas-is-on-the-road-to-the-third-world/5485602
Unemployment, Collapsing Infrastructure, An Incompetent Social-political-economic System: America is “On the Road to the Third World”
On January 6, 2004, Senator Charles Schumer and I challenged the erroneous idea that jobs offshoring was free trade in a New York Times op-ed. Our article so astounded economists that within a few days Schumer and I were summoned to a Brookings Institution conference in Washington, DC, to explain our heresy. In the nationally televised conference, I declared that the consequence of jobs offshoring would be that the US would be a Third World country in 20 years.
That was 11 years ago, and the US is on course to descend to Third World status before the remaining nine years of my prediction have expired.
The evidence is everywhere. In September the US Bureau of the Census released its report on US household income by quintile. Every quintile, as well as the top 5%, has experienced a decline in real household income since their peaks. The bottom quintile (lower 20 percent) has had a 17.1% decline in real income from the 1999 peak (from $14,092 to $11,676). The 4th quintile has had a 10.8% fall in real income since 2000 (from $34,863 to $31,087). The middle quintile has had a 6.9% decline in real income since 2000 (from $58,058 to $54,041). The 2nd quintile has had a 2.8% fall in real income since 2007 (from $90,331 to $87,834). The top quintile has had a decline in real income since 2006 of 1.7% (from $197,466 to $194,053). The top 5% has experienced a 4.8% reduction in real income since 2006 (from $349,215 to $332,347). Only the top One Percent or less (mainly the 0.1%) has experienced growth in income and wealth.
The Census Bureau uses official measures of inflation to arrive at real income. These measures are understated. If more accurate measures of inflation are used (such as those available from shadowstats.com), the declines in real household income are larger and have been declining for a longer period. Some measures show real median annual household income below levels of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Note that these declines have occurred during an alleged six-year economic recovery from 2009 to the current time, and during a period when the labor force was shrinking due to a sustained decline in the labor force participation rate. On April 3, 2015 the US Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that 93,175,000 Americans of working age are not in the work force, a historical record. Normally, an economic recovery is marked by a rise in the labor force participation rate. John Williams reports that when discouraged workers are included among the measure of the unemployed, the US unemployment rate is currently 23%, not the 5.2% reported figure.
In a recently released report, the Social Security Administration provides annual income data on an individual basis. Are you ready for this?
In 2014 38% of all American workers made less than $20,000; 51% made less than $30,000; 63% made less than $40,000; and 72% made less than $50,000.
The scarcity of jobs and the low pay are direct consequences of jobs offshoring. Under pressure from “shareholder advocates” (Wall Street) and large retailers, US manufacturing companies moved their manufacturing abroad to countries where the rock bottom price of labor results in a rise in corporate profits, executive “performance bonuses,” and stock prices.
The departure of well-paid US manufacturing jobs was soon followed by the departure of software engineering, IT, and other professional service jobs.
Incompetent economic studies by careless economists, such as Michael Porter at Harvard and Matthew Slaughter at Dartmouth, concluded that the gift of vast numbers of US high productivity, high value-added jobs to foreign countries was a great benefit to the US economy.
In articles and books I challenged this absurd conclusion, and all of the economic evidence proves that I am correct. The promised better jobs that the “New Economy” would create to replace the jobs gifted to foreigners have never appeared. Instead, the economy creates lowly-paid part-time jobs, such as waitresses, bartenders, retail clerks, and ambulatory health care services, while full-time jobs with benefits continue to shrink as a percentage of total jobs.
These part-time jobs do not provide enough income to form a household. Consequently, as a Federal Reserve study reports, “Nationally, nearly half of 25-year-olds lived with their parents in 2012-2013, up from just over 25% in 1999.”
When half of 25-year olds cannot form households, the market for houses and home furnishings collapses.
Finance is the only sector of the US economy that is growing. The financial industry’s share of GDP has risen from less than 4% in 1960 to about 8% today. As Michael Hudson has shown, finance is not a productive activity. It is a looting activity (Killing The Host).
Moreover, extraordinary financial concentration and reckless risk and debt leverage have made the financial sector a grave threat to the economy.
The absence of growth in real consumer income means that there is no growth in aggregate demand to drive the economy.
Consumer indebtedness limits the ability of consumers to expand their spending with credit. These spending limits on consumers mean that new investment has limited appeal to businesses. The economy simply cannot go anywhere, except down as businesses continue to lower their costs by substituting part-time jobs for full-time jobs and by substituting foreign for domestic workers. Government at every level is over-indebted, and quantitative easing has over-supplied the US currency.
This is not the end of the story. When manufacturing jobs depart, research, development, design, and innovation follow. An economy that doesn’t make things does not innovate. The entire economy is lost, not merely the supply chains.
The economic and social infrastructure is collapsing, including the family itself, the rule of law, and the accountability of government.
When college graduates can’t find employment because their jobs have been offshored or given to foreigners on work visas, the demand for college education declines. To become indebted only to find employment that cannot service student loans becomes a bad economic decision.
We already have the situation where college and university administrations spend 75% of the university’s budget on themselves, hiring adjuncts to teach the classes for a few thousand dollars. The demand for full time faculty with a career before them has collapsed. When the consequences of putting short-term corporate profits before jobs for Americans fully hit, the demand for university education will collapse and with it American science and technology.
The collapse of the Soviet Union was the worst thing that ever happened to the United States. The two main consequences of the Soviet collapse have been devastating. One consequence was the rise of the neoconservative hubris of US world hegemony, which has resulted in 14 years of wars that have cost $6 trillion. The other consequence was a change of mind in socialist India and communist China, large countries that responded to “the end of history” by opening their vast under-utilized labor forces to Western capital, which resulted in the American economic decline that this article describes, leaving a struggling economy to bear the enormous war debt.
It is a reasonable conclusion that a social-political-economic system so incompetently run already is a Third World country.
Friday, October 30, 2015
Sunday, October 25, 2015
SC131-1
http://peakoil.com/consumption/global-trade-is-collapsing-as-the-worldwide-economic-recession-deepens
Global Trade Is Collapsing
When the global economy is doing well, the amount of stuff that is imported and exported around the world goes up, and when the global economy is in recession, the amount of stuff that is imported and exported around the world goes down. It is just basic economics. Governments around the world have become very adept at manipulating other measures of economic activity such as GDP, but the trade numbers are more difficult to fudge. Today, China accounts for more global trade than anyone else on the entire planet, and we have just learned that Chinese exports and Chinese imports are both collapsing right now. But this is just part of a larger trend. As I discussed the other day, British banking giant HSBC has reported that total global trade is down 8.4 percent so far in 2015, and global GDP expressed in U.S. dollars is down 3.4 percent. The only other times global trade has plummeted this much has been during other global recessions, and it appears that this new downturn is only just beginning.
For many years, China has been leading the revolution in global trade. But now we are witnessing something that is almost unprecedented. Chinese exports are falling, and Chinese imports are absolutely imploding…
Growth of exports from China has been dropping relentlessly, for years. Now this “growth” has actually turned negative. In September, exports were down 3.7% from a year earlier, the “inevitable fallout from China’s unsustainable and poorly executed credit splurge,” as Thomson Reuters’ Alpha Now puts it. Most of these exports are manufactured goods that are shipped by container to the rest of the world.
And imports into China – a mix of bulk and containerized freight – have been plunging: down 20.4% in September from a year earlier, after at a 13.8% drop in August.
This week it was announced that Chinese GDP growth had fallen to the lowest level since the last recession, and that makes sense. Global economic activity is really slowing down, and this is deeply affecting China.
So what about the United States?
Well, based on the amount of stuff that is being shipped around in our country it appears that our economy is really slowing down too. The following comes from Wolf Richter, and I shared some of it in a previous article, but I think that it bears repeating…
September is in the early phase of the make-or-break holiday shipping season. Shipments usually increase from August to September. They did this year too. The number of shipments in September inched up 1.7% from August, according to the Cass Freight Index.
But the index was down 1.5% from an already lousy September last year, when shipments had fallen from the prior month, instead of rising. And so, in terms of the number of shipments, it was the worst September since 2010.
It has been crummy all year: With the exception of January and February, the shipping volume has been lower year-over-year every month!
The index is broad. It tracks data from shippers, no matter what carrier they choose, whether truck, rail, or air, and includes carriers like FedEx and UPS.
What major retailers such as Wal-Mart are reporting also confirms that we are in a major economic slowdown. Wal-Mart recently announced that its earnings would fall by as much as 12 percent during the next fiscal year, and that caused Wal-Mart stock to drop by the most in 27 years.
And of course this is going to have a huge ripple effect. There are thousands of other companies that do business with Wal-Mart, and Reuters is reporting that they are starting to get squeezed…
Suppliers of everything from groceries to sports equipment are already being squeezed for price cuts and cost sharing by Wal-Mart Stores. Now they are bracing for the pressure to ratchet up even more after a shock earnings warning from the retailer last week.
The discount store behemoth has always had a reputation for demanding lower prices from vendors but Reuters has learned from interviews with suppliers and consultants, as well as reviewing some contracts, that even by its standards Wal-Mart has been turning up the heat on them this year.
“The ground is shaking here,” said Cameron Smith, head of Cameron Smith & Associates, a major recruiting firm for suppliers located close to Wal-Mart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. “Suppliers are going to have to help Wal-Mart get back on track.”
Similar things are going on at some of the other biggest companies in America as well.
For instance, things have gotten so bad for McDonald’s that one franchise owner recently stated that the restaurant chain is “facing its final days”…
“McDonald’s announced in April that it would be closing 700 ‘underperforming’ locations, but because of the company’s sheer size — it has 14,300 locations in the United States alone — this was not necessarily a reduction in the size of the company, especially because it continues to open locations around the world. It still has more than double the locations of Burger King, its closest competitor.”
However, for the franchisees, the picture looks much worse than simply 700 stores closing down.
“We are in the throes of a deep depression, and nothing is changing,” a franchise owner wrote in response to a financial survey by Nomura Group. “Probably 30% of operators are insolvent.” One owner went as far as to speculate that McDonald’s is literally “facing its final days.”
Why would things be so bad at Wal-Mart and McDonald’s if the economy was “recovering”?
Come on now – let’s use some common sense here.
All of the numbers are screaming at us that we have entered a major economic downturn and that it is accelerating.
CNBC is reporting that the number of job openings in the U.S. is falling and that the number of layoffs is rising…
Job openings fell 5.3 percent in August, while a 2.6 percent rise in layoffs and discharges offset a 0.3 percent gain in hires. Finally, the amount of quits — or what Convergex calls its “take this job and shove it” indicator because it shows the percentage of workers who left positions voluntarily — fell to 56.6 percent from 57.1 percent, indicating less confidence in mobility.
And as I discussed the other day, Challenger Gray is reporting that we are seeing layoffs at major firms at a level that we have not witnessed since 2009.
We already have 102.6 million working age Americans that do not have a job right now. As this emerging worldwide recession deepens, a lot more Americans are going to lose their jobs. That is going to cause the poverty and suffering in this country to spike even more, if you can imagine that.
Just consider what authorities discovered on the streets of Philadelphia just this week…
Support is flooding in for a homeless Philadelphia family whose two-year-old son was found wandering alone in a park in the middle of the night.
Angelique Roland, 27, and Michael Jones, 24, were sleeping with their children behind cardboard boxes underneath the Fairmount Park Welcome Center in Love Park when the toddler slipped away.
The boy was found just before midnight and handed over to a nearby Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority police officer, who took him to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
He was wearing a green, long sleeve shirt, black running pants and had a diaper on, but did not have shoes or socks.
Could you imagine sleeping on the streets and not even being able to provide your two-year-old child with shoes and socks?
These numbers that I write about every day are not a game. They affect all of us on a very personal level.
Just like in 2008 and 2009, millions of Americans that are living a very comfortable middle class lifestyle today will soon lose their jobs and will end up out in the streets.
In fact, there will be people that will read this article that this will happen to.
So no, none of us should be excited that the global economy is collapsing. There is already so much pain all around us, and what is to come is beyond what most of us would even dare to imagine.
Global Trade Is Collapsing
When the global economy is doing well, the amount of stuff that is imported and exported around the world goes up, and when the global economy is in recession, the amount of stuff that is imported and exported around the world goes down. It is just basic economics. Governments around the world have become very adept at manipulating other measures of economic activity such as GDP, but the trade numbers are more difficult to fudge. Today, China accounts for more global trade than anyone else on the entire planet, and we have just learned that Chinese exports and Chinese imports are both collapsing right now. But this is just part of a larger trend. As I discussed the other day, British banking giant HSBC has reported that total global trade is down 8.4 percent so far in 2015, and global GDP expressed in U.S. dollars is down 3.4 percent. The only other times global trade has plummeted this much has been during other global recessions, and it appears that this new downturn is only just beginning.
For many years, China has been leading the revolution in global trade. But now we are witnessing something that is almost unprecedented. Chinese exports are falling, and Chinese imports are absolutely imploding…
Growth of exports from China has been dropping relentlessly, for years. Now this “growth” has actually turned negative. In September, exports were down 3.7% from a year earlier, the “inevitable fallout from China’s unsustainable and poorly executed credit splurge,” as Thomson Reuters’ Alpha Now puts it. Most of these exports are manufactured goods that are shipped by container to the rest of the world.
And imports into China – a mix of bulk and containerized freight – have been plunging: down 20.4% in September from a year earlier, after at a 13.8% drop in August.
This week it was announced that Chinese GDP growth had fallen to the lowest level since the last recession, and that makes sense. Global economic activity is really slowing down, and this is deeply affecting China.
So what about the United States?
Well, based on the amount of stuff that is being shipped around in our country it appears that our economy is really slowing down too. The following comes from Wolf Richter, and I shared some of it in a previous article, but I think that it bears repeating…
September is in the early phase of the make-or-break holiday shipping season. Shipments usually increase from August to September. They did this year too. The number of shipments in September inched up 1.7% from August, according to the Cass Freight Index.
But the index was down 1.5% from an already lousy September last year, when shipments had fallen from the prior month, instead of rising. And so, in terms of the number of shipments, it was the worst September since 2010.
It has been crummy all year: With the exception of January and February, the shipping volume has been lower year-over-year every month!
The index is broad. It tracks data from shippers, no matter what carrier they choose, whether truck, rail, or air, and includes carriers like FedEx and UPS.
What major retailers such as Wal-Mart are reporting also confirms that we are in a major economic slowdown. Wal-Mart recently announced that its earnings would fall by as much as 12 percent during the next fiscal year, and that caused Wal-Mart stock to drop by the most in 27 years.
And of course this is going to have a huge ripple effect. There are thousands of other companies that do business with Wal-Mart, and Reuters is reporting that they are starting to get squeezed…
Suppliers of everything from groceries to sports equipment are already being squeezed for price cuts and cost sharing by Wal-Mart Stores. Now they are bracing for the pressure to ratchet up even more after a shock earnings warning from the retailer last week.
The discount store behemoth has always had a reputation for demanding lower prices from vendors but Reuters has learned from interviews with suppliers and consultants, as well as reviewing some contracts, that even by its standards Wal-Mart has been turning up the heat on them this year.
“The ground is shaking here,” said Cameron Smith, head of Cameron Smith & Associates, a major recruiting firm for suppliers located close to Wal-Mart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. “Suppliers are going to have to help Wal-Mart get back on track.”
Similar things are going on at some of the other biggest companies in America as well.
For instance, things have gotten so bad for McDonald’s that one franchise owner recently stated that the restaurant chain is “facing its final days”…
“McDonald’s announced in April that it would be closing 700 ‘underperforming’ locations, but because of the company’s sheer size — it has 14,300 locations in the United States alone — this was not necessarily a reduction in the size of the company, especially because it continues to open locations around the world. It still has more than double the locations of Burger King, its closest competitor.”
However, for the franchisees, the picture looks much worse than simply 700 stores closing down.
“We are in the throes of a deep depression, and nothing is changing,” a franchise owner wrote in response to a financial survey by Nomura Group. “Probably 30% of operators are insolvent.” One owner went as far as to speculate that McDonald’s is literally “facing its final days.”
Why would things be so bad at Wal-Mart and McDonald’s if the economy was “recovering”?
Come on now – let’s use some common sense here.
All of the numbers are screaming at us that we have entered a major economic downturn and that it is accelerating.
CNBC is reporting that the number of job openings in the U.S. is falling and that the number of layoffs is rising…
Job openings fell 5.3 percent in August, while a 2.6 percent rise in layoffs and discharges offset a 0.3 percent gain in hires. Finally, the amount of quits — or what Convergex calls its “take this job and shove it” indicator because it shows the percentage of workers who left positions voluntarily — fell to 56.6 percent from 57.1 percent, indicating less confidence in mobility.
And as I discussed the other day, Challenger Gray is reporting that we are seeing layoffs at major firms at a level that we have not witnessed since 2009.
We already have 102.6 million working age Americans that do not have a job right now. As this emerging worldwide recession deepens, a lot more Americans are going to lose their jobs. That is going to cause the poverty and suffering in this country to spike even more, if you can imagine that.
Just consider what authorities discovered on the streets of Philadelphia just this week…
Support is flooding in for a homeless Philadelphia family whose two-year-old son was found wandering alone in a park in the middle of the night.
Angelique Roland, 27, and Michael Jones, 24, were sleeping with their children behind cardboard boxes underneath the Fairmount Park Welcome Center in Love Park when the toddler slipped away.
The boy was found just before midnight and handed over to a nearby Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority police officer, who took him to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
He was wearing a green, long sleeve shirt, black running pants and had a diaper on, but did not have shoes or socks.
Could you imagine sleeping on the streets and not even being able to provide your two-year-old child with shoes and socks?
These numbers that I write about every day are not a game. They affect all of us on a very personal level.
Just like in 2008 and 2009, millions of Americans that are living a very comfortable middle class lifestyle today will soon lose their jobs and will end up out in the streets.
In fact, there will be people that will read this article that this will happen to.
So no, none of us should be excited that the global economy is collapsing. There is already so much pain all around us, and what is to come is beyond what most of us would even dare to imagine.
Saturday, October 17, 2015
SC130-15
http://guymcpherson.com/2015/10/the-founding-fathers-through-the-lens-of-empire-2/
The Founding Fathers, Through the Lens of Empire
I’ve pasted directly below, nearly verbatim, an essay I wrote for this space on 8 May 2014 titled, “Shadows and Lies” (I updated the original essay on 11 September 2015 with a link to the latest report from Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth). Directly below this essay, after an embedded song and a short paragraph, is an essay posted in this space on 13 September 2007. The snippets from 18 months ago update, and serve as a contrast with, my earlier view. The current essay bears the same title as the one from more than eight years ago.
I’ve two additional comments. First, if you read and understand the report regarding 9/11 and still disparage people by calling them “truthers,” then you have no grasp of evidence. Second, even a rudimentary understanding of Thomas Jefferson ought to include a single line expressing his foresight: “Indeed, I tremble for my planet, when I reflect that Nature is inflexible: that her response to our abuse cannot sleep forever.”
When you’re dead, you don’t know you’re dead. People around you feel it, though. It’s the same when you’re stupid.
My promotion of a gift economy seems stupid because it doesn’t involve the pursuit of money. As a result, I receive gifts, especially when I travel. Books and shirts are among the most popular items I receive, and the latter often contain witty historical expressions. Among my tee shirts is one with a phrase from Benjamin Franklin: “It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.”
Most people I encounter clearly do not agree, at least in practice. In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is. Still, I’m astonished at the prevailing mentality among the American citizenry I encounter. Apparently we are so afraid to question authority, so willing to believe blatant lies, that we willingly capitulate to liars and thieves dressed as CEOs and politicians.
I provide few links in this essay. Evidence for each of the following claims is abundant and easily obtained. If you’ve not grasped these tidbits by now, additional evidence will remain unconvincing. I suspect your ignorance is willful, your inability to see a direct result of eyes sealed tightly shut.
Most notable is the inability of nearly everybody I know to pursue radicalism. For starters, most people I’ve met cannot distinguish between a radical and an extremist, despite the clear difference.
If it’s unclear I’m writing about you, ask yourself this question: “What have I done recently that runs counter to the status quo?” If you don’t have a significant response, you’re likely to squirm while reading this essay.
Plunging down a rabbit hole — any rabbit hole — apparently makes one likely to pursue radicalism on additional topics. Fortunately for governments, few citizens are willing to look deeply into any topic, no matter how important. The shadows in the cave are far too comfortable to risk facing reality head-on.
And then there are the Strong Suggestions of Thermodynamics Laws of Thermodynamics. The official story of 9/11 violates the Laws of Thermodynamics, yet few people I know are willing to question the official narrative (consider, for example, the 11 September 2015 report from Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (Beyond-Misinformation-2015), controlled demolition of WTC building 7, and the admission of an inside job by Dubya’s chief economist). After all, doing so would adhere to Franklin’s maxim, a notion foreign to the typical modern ‘murican. The Orwellian absurdity continues with the disparaging term applied to those who question the impossible official narrative: “truther.”
A few additional examples are presented below. They provide an opportunity for me to launch a too-infrequent rant into the void. Ergo, my latest attempt to combine reality with its common partner, absurdity.
Civilization is not the only way to live. Indeed, humans lived without civilization for more than two million years. We’ve lived within the shackles of civilization for a few thousand years. Civilization clearly is omnicidal. Few notice. Even fewer care.
Civilization is an expression of patriarchy. The current version of industrial civilization benefits a few Caucasian men at the expense of every other living being. Most civilized people believe this set of living arrangements is wonderful.
If you are reading these words, you benefit from imperialism. American Empire is real, and it covers the globe. There is no escape.
The two dominant political parties in the United States represent twin cheeks on the same, corporate ass. If you believe the next person to occupy the Oval Office will improve the situation for the masses, then you do not understand the issue. Elizabeth Warren, or any other “progressive” candidate (i.e., contemporary neo-conservative) — the next great hope of many forgetful Democrats — will prove as disappointing as the current president to these deluded, die-hard dims Dems. Warren, by the way, is worth about $14.5 million, owns a $5 million mansion in Cambridge, was paid $350,000 to teach just one class at Harvard, and has the audacity to say that “the system is rigged to benefit the rich.”
The United States is dominated by a corporate government and corporate media. When greed is your only god, sociopaths assume control. We’re there, fully embedded within patriarchal fascism. The standard response of my fellow citizens: “I want more. I deserve more.” Apparently I occupy the land of the me and home of the crave.
The big banks have run this country for a very long time. They orchestrate everything from laundering drug money to cracking down on any form of resistance. They’ve been in charge for a very long time. Few notice, and even fewer care.
Working on behalf the big banks is the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, which has ruled the country and world with an iron fist since World War II. The myriad agencies within the executive branch, including the National Security (sic) Agency, feed the machine. NSA whistle-blower Bill Binney, who worked for the NSA for 30 years before resigning because of concerns he had regarding illegal spying on U.S. citizens in 2001, provides an apt summary: “The Ultimate Goal is Total Population Control.”
The American system of public education is designed to “dumb down” the populace. Critical thinking belongs to a bygone era. Nearly every one of the so-called, self-proclaimed teachers I know refuses to acknowledge reality on this issue. And most other matters, for that matter. These teachers are paid to think, and also to teach others how to think. They have overwhelmingly failed, and they continue to fail.
The prison-industrial complex, like almost every other aspect of American culture, is designed to enrich the wealthy and enslave the poor. Some people claim the system isn’t working. Au contraire: It’s working as planned, as indicated by the beneficiaries of American Empire.
Monogamy and the marriage-industrial complex are part and parcel of patriarchy. The dominant paradigm is not superior to other ways of living. Deep down inside, you surely understand.
We cannot sustain the unsustainable, including civilization. Nor should we attempt to do so. Civilization requires tremendous violence. Industrial civilization is the most violent version yet.
American exceptionalism is a myth. American military power, largely supported by willfully ignorant taxpayers, is necessary to maintain American lifestyles, including grid-tied electricity, the modern banking system, and all that follows.
Abrupt climate change is under way. Global climate change causes suffering and death of humans and other organisms. There is no escape.
Net energy decline is under way and soon will contribute to the early death of most humans on Earth. Fossil fuels have peaked and the Age of Expansion has been replaced with the Age of Contraction. The Age of Conquest has nearly reached its overdue end.
Collapse of industrial civilization is under way and will be complete soon. When collapse is complete, the world’s remaining nuclear power plants will melt down catastrophically, thus shortening the lives of many humans and other organisms. There is no escape.
The interaction between anthropogenic climate change and collapse of industrial civilization affects every aspect of human life in the industrialized world. There is no politically viable approach to addressing either issue, much less the interaction between them.
Many centuries ago, Plato presciently wrote a line that resonates strongly with me: “Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed by the masses.” Indeed, we’ll disparage them by, paradoxically, referring to them as “truthers.” We will therefore remain in the shadows of our cave of blissful ignorance.
The Founding Fathers, Through the Lens of Empire
I’ve pasted directly below, nearly verbatim, an essay I wrote for this space on 8 May 2014 titled, “Shadows and Lies” (I updated the original essay on 11 September 2015 with a link to the latest report from Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth). Directly below this essay, after an embedded song and a short paragraph, is an essay posted in this space on 13 September 2007. The snippets from 18 months ago update, and serve as a contrast with, my earlier view. The current essay bears the same title as the one from more than eight years ago.
I’ve two additional comments. First, if you read and understand the report regarding 9/11 and still disparage people by calling them “truthers,” then you have no grasp of evidence. Second, even a rudimentary understanding of Thomas Jefferson ought to include a single line expressing his foresight: “Indeed, I tremble for my planet, when I reflect that Nature is inflexible: that her response to our abuse cannot sleep forever.”
When you’re dead, you don’t know you’re dead. People around you feel it, though. It’s the same when you’re stupid.
My promotion of a gift economy seems stupid because it doesn’t involve the pursuit of money. As a result, I receive gifts, especially when I travel. Books and shirts are among the most popular items I receive, and the latter often contain witty historical expressions. Among my tee shirts is one with a phrase from Benjamin Franklin: “It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.”
Most people I encounter clearly do not agree, at least in practice. In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is. Still, I’m astonished at the prevailing mentality among the American citizenry I encounter. Apparently we are so afraid to question authority, so willing to believe blatant lies, that we willingly capitulate to liars and thieves dressed as CEOs and politicians.
I provide few links in this essay. Evidence for each of the following claims is abundant and easily obtained. If you’ve not grasped these tidbits by now, additional evidence will remain unconvincing. I suspect your ignorance is willful, your inability to see a direct result of eyes sealed tightly shut.
Most notable is the inability of nearly everybody I know to pursue radicalism. For starters, most people I’ve met cannot distinguish between a radical and an extremist, despite the clear difference.
If it’s unclear I’m writing about you, ask yourself this question: “What have I done recently that runs counter to the status quo?” If you don’t have a significant response, you’re likely to squirm while reading this essay.
Plunging down a rabbit hole — any rabbit hole — apparently makes one likely to pursue radicalism on additional topics. Fortunately for governments, few citizens are willing to look deeply into any topic, no matter how important. The shadows in the cave are far too comfortable to risk facing reality head-on.
And then there are the Strong Suggestions of Thermodynamics Laws of Thermodynamics. The official story of 9/11 violates the Laws of Thermodynamics, yet few people I know are willing to question the official narrative (consider, for example, the 11 September 2015 report from Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (Beyond-Misinformation-2015), controlled demolition of WTC building 7, and the admission of an inside job by Dubya’s chief economist). After all, doing so would adhere to Franklin’s maxim, a notion foreign to the typical modern ‘murican. The Orwellian absurdity continues with the disparaging term applied to those who question the impossible official narrative: “truther.”
A few additional examples are presented below. They provide an opportunity for me to launch a too-infrequent rant into the void. Ergo, my latest attempt to combine reality with its common partner, absurdity.
Civilization is not the only way to live. Indeed, humans lived without civilization for more than two million years. We’ve lived within the shackles of civilization for a few thousand years. Civilization clearly is omnicidal. Few notice. Even fewer care.
Civilization is an expression of patriarchy. The current version of industrial civilization benefits a few Caucasian men at the expense of every other living being. Most civilized people believe this set of living arrangements is wonderful.
If you are reading these words, you benefit from imperialism. American Empire is real, and it covers the globe. There is no escape.
The two dominant political parties in the United States represent twin cheeks on the same, corporate ass. If you believe the next person to occupy the Oval Office will improve the situation for the masses, then you do not understand the issue. Elizabeth Warren, or any other “progressive” candidate (i.e., contemporary neo-conservative) — the next great hope of many forgetful Democrats — will prove as disappointing as the current president to these deluded, die-hard dims Dems. Warren, by the way, is worth about $14.5 million, owns a $5 million mansion in Cambridge, was paid $350,000 to teach just one class at Harvard, and has the audacity to say that “the system is rigged to benefit the rich.”
The United States is dominated by a corporate government and corporate media. When greed is your only god, sociopaths assume control. We’re there, fully embedded within patriarchal fascism. The standard response of my fellow citizens: “I want more. I deserve more.” Apparently I occupy the land of the me and home of the crave.
The big banks have run this country for a very long time. They orchestrate everything from laundering drug money to cracking down on any form of resistance. They’ve been in charge for a very long time. Few notice, and even fewer care.
Working on behalf the big banks is the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, which has ruled the country and world with an iron fist since World War II. The myriad agencies within the executive branch, including the National Security (sic) Agency, feed the machine. NSA whistle-blower Bill Binney, who worked for the NSA for 30 years before resigning because of concerns he had regarding illegal spying on U.S. citizens in 2001, provides an apt summary: “The Ultimate Goal is Total Population Control.”
The American system of public education is designed to “dumb down” the populace. Critical thinking belongs to a bygone era. Nearly every one of the so-called, self-proclaimed teachers I know refuses to acknowledge reality on this issue. And most other matters, for that matter. These teachers are paid to think, and also to teach others how to think. They have overwhelmingly failed, and they continue to fail.
The prison-industrial complex, like almost every other aspect of American culture, is designed to enrich the wealthy and enslave the poor. Some people claim the system isn’t working. Au contraire: It’s working as planned, as indicated by the beneficiaries of American Empire.
Monogamy and the marriage-industrial complex are part and parcel of patriarchy. The dominant paradigm is not superior to other ways of living. Deep down inside, you surely understand.
We cannot sustain the unsustainable, including civilization. Nor should we attempt to do so. Civilization requires tremendous violence. Industrial civilization is the most violent version yet.
American exceptionalism is a myth. American military power, largely supported by willfully ignorant taxpayers, is necessary to maintain American lifestyles, including grid-tied electricity, the modern banking system, and all that follows.
Abrupt climate change is under way. Global climate change causes suffering and death of humans and other organisms. There is no escape.
Net energy decline is under way and soon will contribute to the early death of most humans on Earth. Fossil fuels have peaked and the Age of Expansion has been replaced with the Age of Contraction. The Age of Conquest has nearly reached its overdue end.
Collapse of industrial civilization is under way and will be complete soon. When collapse is complete, the world’s remaining nuclear power plants will melt down catastrophically, thus shortening the lives of many humans and other organisms. There is no escape.
The interaction between anthropogenic climate change and collapse of industrial civilization affects every aspect of human life in the industrialized world. There is no politically viable approach to addressing either issue, much less the interaction between them.
Many centuries ago, Plato presciently wrote a line that resonates strongly with me: “Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed by the masses.” Indeed, we’ll disparage them by, paradoxically, referring to them as “truthers.” We will therefore remain in the shadows of our cave of blissful ignorance.
Sunday, October 11, 2015
SC130-14
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43076.htm
Lies and Truth – Obama’s UNGA Speech Dissected
To those who bothered to listen to President Obama’s UN General Assembly speech without falling asleep like Secretary John Kerry clearly wished to do, there was a stark contrast to that speech which followed from the Russian President. First before Barack Obama completed his first sentence we could feel his emotion. It was projecting a contempt and arrogance of a special variety: “We have the biggest, baddest military; we call the shots, you peons of the nations of the world.”
Going through the official Obama text it’s difficult to find even one sentence where he speaks honestly. It’s an example not of grey propaganda but black. I cite several of the most egregious instances.
Near the start after the usual pious homage to the 70-year history of the United Nations, Mr. Obama says, “the United States has worked with many nations in this Assembly to prevent a third world war — by forging alliances with old adversaries; by supporting the steady emergence of strong democracies accountable to their people instead of any foreign power.”
I am challenged to think of one single strong democracy accountable to their people that US interventions of the past years have supported. On the contrary look at the actual record since the US invasion and destruction of Afghanistan in 2001 and then Iraq in 2003. Then we have seen the US State Department’s launching, under Hillary Clinton, of the NGO and social media-steered Arab Spring destabilizations under the false flag of installing democracy. ThenWashington went on to the destruction of Africa’s most stable, peaceful state, Qaddafi’s Libya. And in 2013 the US-directed Maidan coup d’etat to install a neo-nazi band of hooligans in Kiev to try to destabilize Russia. Every covert and overt US intervention has brought the world a giant step closer to World War III. The latest move in that direction is US insistence on placing the most advanced nuclear bombs on German soil making a major destabilization of the current status quo between NATO and Russia.
Further on in the Obama speech, after nice sounding words about the wonderful principles of the UN Charter, “collective endeavor,” and of “diplomatic cooperation between the world’s major powers,” he inserts a bizarre non-sequitur: “I lead the strongest military that the world has ever known, and I will never hesitate to protect my country or our allies, unilaterally and by force where necessary.” A kind of modern cover version of the 1970’s Jim Croce song that might be titled, “You don’t mess around with Barack…” So much for the UN Charter. Here is the mailed fist under the velvet glove that all too often these last decades is the substance of US foreign political and military policy.
Then Mr. President goes on to speak of dictators and tyrants. Trying to deflect accusations that the US creates regime change via NGOs, Barack Obama declares, “It is not a conspiracy of US-backed NGOs that expose corruption and raise the expectations of people around the globe; it’s technology, social media…” The truth is just that of US-backed NGOs as most in the UN audience know from personal experience with US-Congress financed NGOs like National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House, and the Soros Open Society Foundations. It is precisely this Washington regime change by “US-backed NGOs that expose corruption,” via the “weaponization of democracy and human rights,” which is toppling legitimate regimes that refuse to bow to Washington’s agenda, from Brazil to Syria. As the recent Snowdon and other revelations confirm, precisely the US-based social media such as Facebook, Twitter and others are tied to or work closely with the CIA, State Department, NSA, and facilitate the NGO regime change.
Now comes a whopper. The President of the United States states, “No matter how powerful our military, how strong our economy, we understand the United States cannot solve the world’s problems alone. In Iraq, the United States learned the hard lesson that even hundreds of thousands of brave, effective troops, trillions of dollars from our Treasury, cannot by itself impose stability on a foreign land.”
With due respect, Mr President, if you learned that hard lesson after wasting “trillions of dollars,” not from your Treasury, but from US taxpayers and Chinese and others invested in your US Treasury bonds, to finance that debacle called the Iraq War, why are you in Syria today? What are you doing training the Ukraine military today? Why are you meddling all over the world to stir people up? Why are you building military bases on every piece of dirt around the world where you can dig a hole to plant the American flag? You even admit it was a total fiasco. There is a significant reality disconnect in Washington today.
Finally the US president hits the real point of his current discontent: Russia. “Consider Russia’s annexation of Crimea and further aggression in eastern Ukraine. America has few economic interests in Ukraine…we cannot stand by when the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a nation is flagrantly violated. If that happens without consequence in Ukraine, it could happen to any nation gathered here today. That’s the basis of the sanctions that the United States and our partners impose on Russia.” This statement skillfully ignores the reality of the Ukraine events of 2013-2014.
It is a documentable matter of record that it was a Washington-sponsored Color Revolution that launched the November, 2013 Maidan Square protests against the legal, elected government of corrupt-but-legitimate President Viktor Yanukovich. It was ignited by US-backed NGOs of George Soros and others within seconds after a tweet from US-backed now Ukraine Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, calling for “EuroMaidan” protests against the legitimate decision of the Yanukovich cabinet to accept an offer, a very economically attractive one, from Russia to join their emerging Eurasian Economic Union, receive a reduction of Russian gas costs of 30% and an offer to buy $15 billion of Ukraine state debt.
It was neo-conservative Assistant State Secretary, Victoria “Fuck the EU” Nuland (who says Washington today has forgotten the fine art of diplomacy?), who, together with Vice President Joe Biden and US Ambassador in Kiev, Jeffrey Pyatt, and droves of CIA agents, who made what George Friedman, US CEO of Stratfor, termed “the most blatant coup in history,” in Ukraine in February 2014. Washington has gone on to hand-pick the Ukraine government, even placing an American citizen, a US State department veteran as Finance Minister, and named the son of Vice President Biden to the board of the Ukraine state gas company and other such “US interests.”
The Syrian Fraud
Finally Barack Obama comes directly to Syria, the issue that Russian diplomacy has recently exposed to world scrutiny. President Obama states, “Nowhere is our commitment to international order more tested than in Syria. When a dictator slaughters tens of thousands of his own people, that is not just a matter of one nation’s internal affairs — it breeds human suffering on an order of magnitude that affects us all. “
First it has never been established that Assad has killed “tens of thousands” of Syrian citizens. Secondly, it’s a sly way to attempt to justify an insidious idea, “Responsibility to Protect,” (RTP) that was used by Washington in Libya in 2011 to destroy that country. RTP is a direct violation of the UN Charter. Washington’s “coalition” bombing of Syria allegedly to destroy IS is also in violation of the UN Charter, as it is bombing a sovereign nation without being invited officially by their government as required in the Charter Washington drafted in 1944 at Dumbarton Oaks.
Moderate Syrian Opposition?
The Washington game is first to force elected President Assad out, at the same time it claims it wants to destroy ISIL (or IS or ISIS or DAESH depending on your choice of the many names). Russia’s position is clear: The only organized force in Syria today capable of destroying terrorist Salafists, all terrorist Salafists, is Bashar al Assad’s government and the Syrian National Army and intelligence services that remain loyal to him.
The Obama speech talks of the US support for “moderate” opposition rebels. Yet as far back as April 2013, when ISIS was called Al-Qaeda in Iraq and Syria, and run now by Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, the US-trained lieutenant of the late Osama bin Laden, the New York Times, quoting numerous US officials, documented that virtually all of the rebel fighters in Syria are hardline Islamic terrorists. There are no “moderate” oppositionists fighting today. The so-called “moderate” Free Syrian Army has also signed a non-aggression pact with ISIS since 2014.
On September 16, 2015, almost two weeks before the Obama UN speech, Gen. Lloyd Austin III, head of the US “war against ISIS,” during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Syria, admitted that the military program intended produce 5,400 trained fighters a year has so far only resulted in “four or five” who still remain on the ground and active in combat. The rest have all joined ISIS or Al Nusra Front of Al Qaeda, the US-backed “moderate opposition” to ISIL. At the same Senate hearings, Christine Wormuth, the Pentagon Undersecretary responsible for the Syrian war confirmed recent Russian statements, noting that Assad’s military “still has considerable strength,” adding, “it’s still the most powerful military force on the ground. The assessment right now is the regime is not in imminent danger of falling.”
There is a Russian joke currently making the rounds in Moscow. Russia’s Putin arrives back in the Kremlin after his September New York meeting with President Obama on Syria and other topics. A trusted aide asks how the talk with Obama went. Putin tells his aide that, in a bid to lower the temperature and calm the nerves before turning to grave topics like the wars in Syria and Ukraine, the Russian president proposed they first sit down to a game of chess. Putin tells his aide what it’s like playing chess with Obama. “It’s like playing with a pigeon. First it knocks over all the pieces, then it shits on the board and finally struts around like it won.”
Lies and Truth – Obama’s UNGA Speech Dissected
To those who bothered to listen to President Obama’s UN General Assembly speech without falling asleep like Secretary John Kerry clearly wished to do, there was a stark contrast to that speech which followed from the Russian President. First before Barack Obama completed his first sentence we could feel his emotion. It was projecting a contempt and arrogance of a special variety: “We have the biggest, baddest military; we call the shots, you peons of the nations of the world.”
Going through the official Obama text it’s difficult to find even one sentence where he speaks honestly. It’s an example not of grey propaganda but black. I cite several of the most egregious instances.
Near the start after the usual pious homage to the 70-year history of the United Nations, Mr. Obama says, “the United States has worked with many nations in this Assembly to prevent a third world war — by forging alliances with old adversaries; by supporting the steady emergence of strong democracies accountable to their people instead of any foreign power.”
I am challenged to think of one single strong democracy accountable to their people that US interventions of the past years have supported. On the contrary look at the actual record since the US invasion and destruction of Afghanistan in 2001 and then Iraq in 2003. Then we have seen the US State Department’s launching, under Hillary Clinton, of the NGO and social media-steered Arab Spring destabilizations under the false flag of installing democracy. ThenWashington went on to the destruction of Africa’s most stable, peaceful state, Qaddafi’s Libya. And in 2013 the US-directed Maidan coup d’etat to install a neo-nazi band of hooligans in Kiev to try to destabilize Russia. Every covert and overt US intervention has brought the world a giant step closer to World War III. The latest move in that direction is US insistence on placing the most advanced nuclear bombs on German soil making a major destabilization of the current status quo between NATO and Russia.
Further on in the Obama speech, after nice sounding words about the wonderful principles of the UN Charter, “collective endeavor,” and of “diplomatic cooperation between the world’s major powers,” he inserts a bizarre non-sequitur: “I lead the strongest military that the world has ever known, and I will never hesitate to protect my country or our allies, unilaterally and by force where necessary.” A kind of modern cover version of the 1970’s Jim Croce song that might be titled, “You don’t mess around with Barack…” So much for the UN Charter. Here is the mailed fist under the velvet glove that all too often these last decades is the substance of US foreign political and military policy.
Then Mr. President goes on to speak of dictators and tyrants. Trying to deflect accusations that the US creates regime change via NGOs, Barack Obama declares, “It is not a conspiracy of US-backed NGOs that expose corruption and raise the expectations of people around the globe; it’s technology, social media…” The truth is just that of US-backed NGOs as most in the UN audience know from personal experience with US-Congress financed NGOs like National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House, and the Soros Open Society Foundations. It is precisely this Washington regime change by “US-backed NGOs that expose corruption,” via the “weaponization of democracy and human rights,” which is toppling legitimate regimes that refuse to bow to Washington’s agenda, from Brazil to Syria. As the recent Snowdon and other revelations confirm, precisely the US-based social media such as Facebook, Twitter and others are tied to or work closely with the CIA, State Department, NSA, and facilitate the NGO regime change.
Now comes a whopper. The President of the United States states, “No matter how powerful our military, how strong our economy, we understand the United States cannot solve the world’s problems alone. In Iraq, the United States learned the hard lesson that even hundreds of thousands of brave, effective troops, trillions of dollars from our Treasury, cannot by itself impose stability on a foreign land.”
With due respect, Mr President, if you learned that hard lesson after wasting “trillions of dollars,” not from your Treasury, but from US taxpayers and Chinese and others invested in your US Treasury bonds, to finance that debacle called the Iraq War, why are you in Syria today? What are you doing training the Ukraine military today? Why are you meddling all over the world to stir people up? Why are you building military bases on every piece of dirt around the world where you can dig a hole to plant the American flag? You even admit it was a total fiasco. There is a significant reality disconnect in Washington today.
Finally the US president hits the real point of his current discontent: Russia. “Consider Russia’s annexation of Crimea and further aggression in eastern Ukraine. America has few economic interests in Ukraine…we cannot stand by when the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a nation is flagrantly violated. If that happens without consequence in Ukraine, it could happen to any nation gathered here today. That’s the basis of the sanctions that the United States and our partners impose on Russia.” This statement skillfully ignores the reality of the Ukraine events of 2013-2014.
It is a documentable matter of record that it was a Washington-sponsored Color Revolution that launched the November, 2013 Maidan Square protests against the legal, elected government of corrupt-but-legitimate President Viktor Yanukovich. It was ignited by US-backed NGOs of George Soros and others within seconds after a tweet from US-backed now Ukraine Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, calling for “EuroMaidan” protests against the legitimate decision of the Yanukovich cabinet to accept an offer, a very economically attractive one, from Russia to join their emerging Eurasian Economic Union, receive a reduction of Russian gas costs of 30% and an offer to buy $15 billion of Ukraine state debt.
It was neo-conservative Assistant State Secretary, Victoria “Fuck the EU” Nuland (who says Washington today has forgotten the fine art of diplomacy?), who, together with Vice President Joe Biden and US Ambassador in Kiev, Jeffrey Pyatt, and droves of CIA agents, who made what George Friedman, US CEO of Stratfor, termed “the most blatant coup in history,” in Ukraine in February 2014. Washington has gone on to hand-pick the Ukraine government, even placing an American citizen, a US State department veteran as Finance Minister, and named the son of Vice President Biden to the board of the Ukraine state gas company and other such “US interests.”
The Syrian Fraud
Finally Barack Obama comes directly to Syria, the issue that Russian diplomacy has recently exposed to world scrutiny. President Obama states, “Nowhere is our commitment to international order more tested than in Syria. When a dictator slaughters tens of thousands of his own people, that is not just a matter of one nation’s internal affairs — it breeds human suffering on an order of magnitude that affects us all. “
First it has never been established that Assad has killed “tens of thousands” of Syrian citizens. Secondly, it’s a sly way to attempt to justify an insidious idea, “Responsibility to Protect,” (RTP) that was used by Washington in Libya in 2011 to destroy that country. RTP is a direct violation of the UN Charter. Washington’s “coalition” bombing of Syria allegedly to destroy IS is also in violation of the UN Charter, as it is bombing a sovereign nation without being invited officially by their government as required in the Charter Washington drafted in 1944 at Dumbarton Oaks.
Moderate Syrian Opposition?
The Washington game is first to force elected President Assad out, at the same time it claims it wants to destroy ISIL (or IS or ISIS or DAESH depending on your choice of the many names). Russia’s position is clear: The only organized force in Syria today capable of destroying terrorist Salafists, all terrorist Salafists, is Bashar al Assad’s government and the Syrian National Army and intelligence services that remain loyal to him.
The Obama speech talks of the US support for “moderate” opposition rebels. Yet as far back as April 2013, when ISIS was called Al-Qaeda in Iraq and Syria, and run now by Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, the US-trained lieutenant of the late Osama bin Laden, the New York Times, quoting numerous US officials, documented that virtually all of the rebel fighters in Syria are hardline Islamic terrorists. There are no “moderate” oppositionists fighting today. The so-called “moderate” Free Syrian Army has also signed a non-aggression pact with ISIS since 2014.
On September 16, 2015, almost two weeks before the Obama UN speech, Gen. Lloyd Austin III, head of the US “war against ISIS,” during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Syria, admitted that the military program intended produce 5,400 trained fighters a year has so far only resulted in “four or five” who still remain on the ground and active in combat. The rest have all joined ISIS or Al Nusra Front of Al Qaeda, the US-backed “moderate opposition” to ISIL. At the same Senate hearings, Christine Wormuth, the Pentagon Undersecretary responsible for the Syrian war confirmed recent Russian statements, noting that Assad’s military “still has considerable strength,” adding, “it’s still the most powerful military force on the ground. The assessment right now is the regime is not in imminent danger of falling.”
There is a Russian joke currently making the rounds in Moscow. Russia’s Putin arrives back in the Kremlin after his September New York meeting with President Obama on Syria and other topics. A trusted aide asks how the talk with Obama went. Putin tells his aide that, in a bid to lower the temperature and calm the nerves before turning to grave topics like the wars in Syria and Ukraine, the Russian president proposed they first sit down to a game of chess. Putin tells his aide what it’s like playing chess with Obama. “It’s like playing with a pigeon. First it knocks over all the pieces, then it shits on the board and finally struts around like it won.”
SC130-13
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43092.htm
Empire of Disaster
At what point does the ability of an empire to mask the imbecility of its operation to its own subjects become impossible? When, if ever, does its capacity to conceal, deny, or falsify the reality of its policies and actions simply break down and fail?
It may not. And it doesn’t seem to matter.
Louis XVI kept a hopeful public face nearly to the scaffold. Churchill vowed not to preside over the demise of the British Empire, but then did it, orating earnestly as it crumbled around him. Hitler kept the Nazi invincibility myth vital as Russians lustily tore the guts out of it from Stalingrad to Berlin.
Is it possible that the wildly out of control Smash and Destroy program of the American Empire–hayseed parochial, resolutely world-ignorant, and jejeunely conceited–can continue its undirected idiot thrashing indefinitely?
The evidence indicates it can. Having inflicted rape and degradation on Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and now Syria, American hubris has strung end to end a succession of the most disastrous military adventure failures–on any terms one chooses–in the history of the world.
So enormous, so abysmal, have these disasters been–for the poor violated victim peoples as well as for morally torpid, braindead Americans whose money and future have been wasted in exercises in state mass murder–that official mouthpieces rarely mention them, as if countries, effectively destroyed, no longer exist. The whole world knows this gigantic failure.
But that’s the real deception. This series of bloody farces has been an unqualified success for the interests that own the Empire, for whose
benefit the appalling mayhem was devised and executed. America’s War Machine has profited to an extent that no victorious imperial army in history ever approached, financed by the fleecing of our stupid, spellbound citizenry.
Schumpeter described this phenomenon best long ago: “Created by the wars that required it, the machine now creates the wars it requires.”
There has been no disaster, only enrichment, for the owners of the system.
That’s why the Empire can weasel, stammer and lamely alibi the rocketing and murder of a hospital full of Doctors Without Borders and their bedbound patients while whiningly admonishing the Russians for punishing “moderate” jihadi throatcutters in such a violent and effective manner.
It’s also why Obama–in a patented piece of pratfall comedy–can attempt to persuade a bemused, sophisticated diplomatic audience at the UN, that he has any actual policy in Syria at all, and that he–steeped and reeking in noisome, signature fraud–represents the moral center of the human universe.
Absurd and repulsive as he is, it doesn’t matter to his owners, in the War Machine and the dummy government it operates. He’s their boy, and his “folks” are doing mighty fine, thank you. Nothing in war profiteering has succeeded like failure.
Besides, why fret about exposure when accountability is never demanded? And who would demand it? The Exceptional, The Indispensable People..? LOL, as they say on their iphones: We’re Number One!
Empire of Disaster
At what point does the ability of an empire to mask the imbecility of its operation to its own subjects become impossible? When, if ever, does its capacity to conceal, deny, or falsify the reality of its policies and actions simply break down and fail?
It may not. And it doesn’t seem to matter.
Louis XVI kept a hopeful public face nearly to the scaffold. Churchill vowed not to preside over the demise of the British Empire, but then did it, orating earnestly as it crumbled around him. Hitler kept the Nazi invincibility myth vital as Russians lustily tore the guts out of it from Stalingrad to Berlin.
Is it possible that the wildly out of control Smash and Destroy program of the American Empire–hayseed parochial, resolutely world-ignorant, and jejeunely conceited–can continue its undirected idiot thrashing indefinitely?
The evidence indicates it can. Having inflicted rape and degradation on Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and now Syria, American hubris has strung end to end a succession of the most disastrous military adventure failures–on any terms one chooses–in the history of the world.
So enormous, so abysmal, have these disasters been–for the poor violated victim peoples as well as for morally torpid, braindead Americans whose money and future have been wasted in exercises in state mass murder–that official mouthpieces rarely mention them, as if countries, effectively destroyed, no longer exist. The whole world knows this gigantic failure.
But that’s the real deception. This series of bloody farces has been an unqualified success for the interests that own the Empire, for whose
benefit the appalling mayhem was devised and executed. America’s War Machine has profited to an extent that no victorious imperial army in history ever approached, financed by the fleecing of our stupid, spellbound citizenry.
Schumpeter described this phenomenon best long ago: “Created by the wars that required it, the machine now creates the wars it requires.”
There has been no disaster, only enrichment, for the owners of the system.
That’s why the Empire can weasel, stammer and lamely alibi the rocketing and murder of a hospital full of Doctors Without Borders and their bedbound patients while whiningly admonishing the Russians for punishing “moderate” jihadi throatcutters in such a violent and effective manner.
It’s also why Obama–in a patented piece of pratfall comedy–can attempt to persuade a bemused, sophisticated diplomatic audience at the UN, that he has any actual policy in Syria at all, and that he–steeped and reeking in noisome, signature fraud–represents the moral center of the human universe.
Absurd and repulsive as he is, it doesn’t matter to his owners, in the War Machine and the dummy government it operates. He’s their boy, and his “folks” are doing mighty fine, thank you. Nothing in war profiteering has succeeded like failure.
Besides, why fret about exposure when accountability is never demanded? And who would demand it? The Exceptional, The Indispensable People..? LOL, as they say on their iphones: We’re Number One!
Saturday, October 10, 2015
SC130-12
http://www.globalresearch.ca/on-the-brink-of-war-and-economic-collapse/5419685
On the Brink of War and Economic Collapse
On occasion a reader will ask if I can give readers some good news. The answer is: not unless I lie to you like “your” government and the mainstream media do. If you want faked “good news,” you need to retreat into The Matrix. In exchange for less stress and worry, you will be led unknowingly into financial ruin and nuclear armageddon.
If you want to be forewarned, and possibly prepared, for what “your” government is bringing you, and have some small chance of redirecting the course of events, read and support this site. It is your site. I already know these things. I write for you.
The neoconservatives, a small group of warmongers strongly allied with the military/industrial complex and Israel, gave us Granada and the Contras affair in Nicaragua. President Reagan fired them, and they were prosecuted, but subsequently pardoned by Reagan’s successor, George H.W. Bush.
Ensconced in think tanks and protected by Israeli and military/security complex money, the neoconservatives reemerged in the Clinton administration and engineered the breakup of Yugoslavia, the war against Serbia, and the expansion of NATO to Russia’s borders.
Neoconservatives dominated the George W. Bush regime. They controlled the Pentagon, the National Security Council, the Office of the Vice President, and much else. Neoconservatives gave us 9/11 and its coverup, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the beginning of the destabilizations of Pakistan and Yemen, the U.S. Africa Command, the invasion of South Ossetia by Georgia, the demise of the anti-ABM Treaty, unconstitutional and illegal spying on American citizens without warrants, loss of constitutional protections, torture, and the unaccountability of the executive branch to law, Congress, and the judiciary. In short, the neoconservatives laid the foundation for dictatorship and for WW III.
The Obama regime held no one accountable for the crimes of the Bush regime, thus creating the precedent that the executive branch is above the law. Instead, the Obama regime prosecuted whistleblowers who told the truth about government crimes.
Neoconservatives remain very influential in the Obama regime. As examples, Obama appointed neoconservative Susan Rice as his National Security Advisor. Obama appointed neoconservative Smantha Power as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Obama appointed neoconservative Victoria Nuland as Assistant Secretary of State. Nuland’s office, working with the CIA and Washington-financed NGOs, organized the U.S. coup in Ukraine.
Neoconservatism is the only extant political ideology. The ideology is “America uber alles.” Neoconservatives believe that History has chosen the United States to exercise hegemony over the world, thereby making the U.S. “exceptional” and “indispensable.” Obama himself has declared as much. This ideology gives neoconservatives tremendous confidence and drive, just as Karl Marx’s conclusion that history had chosen the workers to be the ruling class gave early communists confidence and drive.
This confidence and drive makes the neoconservatives reckless.
To advance their agenda neoconservatives propagandize the populations of the U.S. and Washington’s vassal states. The presstitutes deliver the neoconservatives’ lies to the unsuspecting public: Russia has invaded and annexed Ukrainian provinces; Putin intends to reconstitute the Soviet Empire; Russia is a gangster state without democracy; Russia is a threat to the Baltics, Poland, and all of Europe, necessitating a U.S./NATO military buildup on Russia’s borders; China, a Russian ally, must be militarily contained with new U.S. naval and air bases surrounding China and controlling Chinese sea lanes.
The neoconservatives and President Obama have made it completely clear that the U.S. will not accept Russia and China as sovereign countries with economic and foreign policies independent of the interests of Washington.
Russia and China are acceptable only as vassal states, like the UK, Europe, Japan, Canada, and Australia.
Clearly, the neoconservative formula is a formula for the final war.
All of humanity is endangered by a handful of evil men and women ensconced in positions of power in Washington.
Anti-Russia propaganda has gone into high gear. Putin is the “new Hitler.”
Daniel Zubov reports on a joint conference held by three U.S. think tanks.
The conference blamed Russia for the failures of Washington’s foreign policy. Read this article: to see how neoconservatives operate in order to control the explanations. Even Henry Kissinger is under attack for stating the obvious truth that Russia has a legitimate interest in Ukraine, a land long part of Russia and located in Russia’s legitimate sphere of influence.
Since the Clinton regime, Washington has been acting against Russian interests. In his forthcoming book, The Globalization of War: America’s Long War against Humanity, Professor Michel Chossudovsky presents a realistic appraisal of how close Washington has brought the world to its demise in nuclear war. This passage is from the Preface:
“The ‘globalization of war’ is a hegemonic project. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The US military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.
“Under a global military agenda, the actions undertaken by the Western military alliance (US-NATO-Israel) in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, Ukraine, Syria and Iraq are coordinated at the highest levels of the military hierarchy. We are not dealing with piecemeal military and intelligence operations. The July-August 2014 attack on Gaza by Israeli forces was undertaken in close consultation with the United States and NATO. In turn, the actions in Ukraine and their timing coincided with the onslaught of the attack on Gaza.
“In turn, military undertakings are closely coordinated with a process of economic warfare which consists not only in imposing sanctions on sovereign countries but also in deliberate acts of destabilization of financial and currency markets, with a view to undermining the enemies’ national economies.
“The United States and its allies have launched a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity. As we go to press, US and NATO forces have been deployed in Eastern Europe. US military intervention under a humanitarian mandate is proceeding in sub-Saharan Africa. The US and its allies are threatening China under President Obama’s
‘Pivot to Asia’.
“In turn, military maneuvers are being conducted at Russia’s doorstep which could lead to escalation. “The US airstrikes initiated in September 2014 directed against Iraq and Syria under the pretext of going after the Islamic State are part of a scenario of military escalation extending from North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean to Central and South Asia.
The Western military alliance is in an advanced state of readiness.
“And so is Russia.”
As I have often remarked, Americans are an insouciant people. They are simply unaware. Suppose they were aware, suppose that the entire population understood the peril, could anything be done, or have the insouciant Americans fallen under the control of the police state that Washington has created?
I don’t think there is much hope from the American people. The American people cannot tell genuine from fake leadership, and the ruling private elites will not permit real leaders to emerge. Moreover, there is no organized movement in opposition to the neoconservatives.
The hope comes from outside the political system. The hope is that the House of Cards and rigged markets erected by policymakers for the benefit of the One Percent collapses. David Stockman regards this outcome as a highly likely one. The collapse that Stockman sees as being on its way is the same collapse about which I have warned. Moreover, the number of Black Swans which can originate collapse are even more numerous than the ones Stockman correctly identifies. Some financial organizations are worried about a lack of liquidity in the fixed income (bonds) and derivatives markets. Barbara Novack, co-chair of Black Rock, is lobbying hard for a derivatives bailout mechanism.
David Stockman’s article is important. Read it until you understand it, and you will know more than most everyone. http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/12/david-stockman/duck-and-cover%E2%80%A8/
Many will ask: If the wealth of the One Percent is vulnerable to economic collapse, will war be initiated to protect this wealth and to blame the Russians or Chinese for the hardships that engulf the American population? My answer is that the kind of collapse that I expect, and that David Stockman, Nomi Prins, Pam Martens, Dave Kranzler, and no doubt others expect, presents government with such social, political, and economic insecurity that organizing for a major war becomes impossible.
Whereas the political impotence of the American people and the vassalage of the Western World impose no constraints on Washington, economic collapse brings revolutions and the demise of the existing order.
As hard as collapse would make it for people to survive, the chances for survival are higher than in the event of nuclear war.
On the Brink of War and Economic Collapse
On occasion a reader will ask if I can give readers some good news. The answer is: not unless I lie to you like “your” government and the mainstream media do. If you want faked “good news,” you need to retreat into The Matrix. In exchange for less stress and worry, you will be led unknowingly into financial ruin and nuclear armageddon.
If you want to be forewarned, and possibly prepared, for what “your” government is bringing you, and have some small chance of redirecting the course of events, read and support this site. It is your site. I already know these things. I write for you.
The neoconservatives, a small group of warmongers strongly allied with the military/industrial complex and Israel, gave us Granada and the Contras affair in Nicaragua. President Reagan fired them, and they were prosecuted, but subsequently pardoned by Reagan’s successor, George H.W. Bush.
Ensconced in think tanks and protected by Israeli and military/security complex money, the neoconservatives reemerged in the Clinton administration and engineered the breakup of Yugoslavia, the war against Serbia, and the expansion of NATO to Russia’s borders.
Neoconservatives dominated the George W. Bush regime. They controlled the Pentagon, the National Security Council, the Office of the Vice President, and much else. Neoconservatives gave us 9/11 and its coverup, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the beginning of the destabilizations of Pakistan and Yemen, the U.S. Africa Command, the invasion of South Ossetia by Georgia, the demise of the anti-ABM Treaty, unconstitutional and illegal spying on American citizens without warrants, loss of constitutional protections, torture, and the unaccountability of the executive branch to law, Congress, and the judiciary. In short, the neoconservatives laid the foundation for dictatorship and for WW III.
The Obama regime held no one accountable for the crimes of the Bush regime, thus creating the precedent that the executive branch is above the law. Instead, the Obama regime prosecuted whistleblowers who told the truth about government crimes.
Neoconservatives remain very influential in the Obama regime. As examples, Obama appointed neoconservative Susan Rice as his National Security Advisor. Obama appointed neoconservative Smantha Power as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Obama appointed neoconservative Victoria Nuland as Assistant Secretary of State. Nuland’s office, working with the CIA and Washington-financed NGOs, organized the U.S. coup in Ukraine.
Neoconservatism is the only extant political ideology. The ideology is “America uber alles.” Neoconservatives believe that History has chosen the United States to exercise hegemony over the world, thereby making the U.S. “exceptional” and “indispensable.” Obama himself has declared as much. This ideology gives neoconservatives tremendous confidence and drive, just as Karl Marx’s conclusion that history had chosen the workers to be the ruling class gave early communists confidence and drive.
This confidence and drive makes the neoconservatives reckless.
To advance their agenda neoconservatives propagandize the populations of the U.S. and Washington’s vassal states. The presstitutes deliver the neoconservatives’ lies to the unsuspecting public: Russia has invaded and annexed Ukrainian provinces; Putin intends to reconstitute the Soviet Empire; Russia is a gangster state without democracy; Russia is a threat to the Baltics, Poland, and all of Europe, necessitating a U.S./NATO military buildup on Russia’s borders; China, a Russian ally, must be militarily contained with new U.S. naval and air bases surrounding China and controlling Chinese sea lanes.
The neoconservatives and President Obama have made it completely clear that the U.S. will not accept Russia and China as sovereign countries with economic and foreign policies independent of the interests of Washington.
Russia and China are acceptable only as vassal states, like the UK, Europe, Japan, Canada, and Australia.
Clearly, the neoconservative formula is a formula for the final war.
All of humanity is endangered by a handful of evil men and women ensconced in positions of power in Washington.
Anti-Russia propaganda has gone into high gear. Putin is the “new Hitler.”
Daniel Zubov reports on a joint conference held by three U.S. think tanks.
The conference blamed Russia for the failures of Washington’s foreign policy. Read this article: to see how neoconservatives operate in order to control the explanations. Even Henry Kissinger is under attack for stating the obvious truth that Russia has a legitimate interest in Ukraine, a land long part of Russia and located in Russia’s legitimate sphere of influence.
Since the Clinton regime, Washington has been acting against Russian interests. In his forthcoming book, The Globalization of War: America’s Long War against Humanity, Professor Michel Chossudovsky presents a realistic appraisal of how close Washington has brought the world to its demise in nuclear war. This passage is from the Preface:
“The ‘globalization of war’ is a hegemonic project. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The US military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.
“Under a global military agenda, the actions undertaken by the Western military alliance (US-NATO-Israel) in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, Ukraine, Syria and Iraq are coordinated at the highest levels of the military hierarchy. We are not dealing with piecemeal military and intelligence operations. The July-August 2014 attack on Gaza by Israeli forces was undertaken in close consultation with the United States and NATO. In turn, the actions in Ukraine and their timing coincided with the onslaught of the attack on Gaza.
“In turn, military undertakings are closely coordinated with a process of economic warfare which consists not only in imposing sanctions on sovereign countries but also in deliberate acts of destabilization of financial and currency markets, with a view to undermining the enemies’ national economies.
“The United States and its allies have launched a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity. As we go to press, US and NATO forces have been deployed in Eastern Europe. US military intervention under a humanitarian mandate is proceeding in sub-Saharan Africa. The US and its allies are threatening China under President Obama’s
‘Pivot to Asia’.
“In turn, military maneuvers are being conducted at Russia’s doorstep which could lead to escalation. “The US airstrikes initiated in September 2014 directed against Iraq and Syria under the pretext of going after the Islamic State are part of a scenario of military escalation extending from North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean to Central and South Asia.
The Western military alliance is in an advanced state of readiness.
“And so is Russia.”
As I have often remarked, Americans are an insouciant people. They are simply unaware. Suppose they were aware, suppose that the entire population understood the peril, could anything be done, or have the insouciant Americans fallen under the control of the police state that Washington has created?
I don’t think there is much hope from the American people. The American people cannot tell genuine from fake leadership, and the ruling private elites will not permit real leaders to emerge. Moreover, there is no organized movement in opposition to the neoconservatives.
The hope comes from outside the political system. The hope is that the House of Cards and rigged markets erected by policymakers for the benefit of the One Percent collapses. David Stockman regards this outcome as a highly likely one. The collapse that Stockman sees as being on its way is the same collapse about which I have warned. Moreover, the number of Black Swans which can originate collapse are even more numerous than the ones Stockman correctly identifies. Some financial organizations are worried about a lack of liquidity in the fixed income (bonds) and derivatives markets. Barbara Novack, co-chair of Black Rock, is lobbying hard for a derivatives bailout mechanism.
David Stockman’s article is important. Read it until you understand it, and you will know more than most everyone. http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/12/david-stockman/duck-and-cover%E2%80%A8/
Many will ask: If the wealth of the One Percent is vulnerable to economic collapse, will war be initiated to protect this wealth and to blame the Russians or Chinese for the hardships that engulf the American population? My answer is that the kind of collapse that I expect, and that David Stockman, Nomi Prins, Pam Martens, Dave Kranzler, and no doubt others expect, presents government with such social, political, and economic insecurity that organizing for a major war becomes impossible.
Whereas the political impotence of the American people and the vassalage of the Western World impose no constraints on Washington, economic collapse brings revolutions and the demise of the existing order.
As hard as collapse would make it for people to survive, the chances for survival are higher than in the event of nuclear war.
Friday, October 9, 2015
SC130-11
http://peakoil.com/generalideas/why-are-the-imf-the-un-the-bis-and-citibank-all-warning-that-an-economic-crisis-could-be-imminent
Why Are The IMF, The UN, The BIS And Citibank All Warning That An Economic Crisis Could Be Imminent?
The warnings are getting louder. Is anybody listening?
For months, I have been documenting on my website how the global financial system is absolutely primed for a crisis, and now some of the most important financial institutions in the entire world are warning about the exact same thing. For example, this week I was stunned to see that the Telegraph had published an article with the following ominous headline: “$3 trillion corporate credit crunch looms as debtors face day of reckoning, says IMF“. And actually what we are heading for would more accurately be described as a “credit freeze” or a “credit panic”, but a “credit crunch” will definitely work for now. The IMF is warning that the “dangerous over-leveraging” that we have been witnessing “threatens to unleash a wave of defaults” all across the globe…
Governments and central banks risk tipping the world into a fresh financial crisis, the International Monetary Fund has warned, as it called time on a corporate debt binge in the developing world.
Emerging market companies have “over-borrowed” by $3 trillion in the last decade, reflecting a quadrupling of private sector debt between 2004 and 2014, found the IMF’s Global Financial Stability Report.
This dangerous over-leveraging now threatens to unleash a wave of defaults that will imperil an already weak global economy, said stark findings from the IMF’s twice yearly report.
The IMF is actually telling the truth in this instance. We are in the midst of the greatest debt bubble the world has ever seen, and it is a monumental threat to the global financial system.
But even though we know about this threat, that doesn’t mean that we can do anything about it at this point or stop what is about to happen.
The Bank of England, the UN and the Bank for International Settlements have all issued similar ominous warnings. The following is an excerpt from a recent article in the Guardian…
The IMF’s warning echoes a chorus of others. The Bank of England’s chief economist, Andy Haldane, has argued that the world is entering the latest episode of a “three-part crisis trilogy”. Unctad, the UN’s trade and development arm, would like to see advanced economies boost public spending to offset the downturn in emerging economies. The Bank for International Settlements believes interest rates have been too low for too long, encouraging too much risk-taking in financial markets. All of them fear that the global financial system is primed for a crisis.
I particularly like Andy Haldane’s likening our current situation to a “three-part crisis trilogy”. I think that is perfect. And if you are familiar with movie trilogies, then you know that the last episode is usually the biggest and the baddest.
Citigroup economist Willem Buiter also believes that big trouble is on the horizon. In fact, he is publicly warning of a “global recession” in 2016…
Citigroup economist Willem Buiter looks at the world landscape and sees an economy performing substantially below potential output, which he uses as the general benchmark for the idea of a global recession. With that in mind, he said the chances of a global recession in 2016 are growing.
“We think that the evidence suggests that the global output gap is negative and that the global economy is currently growing at a rate below global potential growth. The (negative) output gap is therefore widening,” Buiter said in a note to clients. He added, “from an output gap that was probably quite close to zero fairly recently, continued sub-par global growth is likely to put the global economy back into recession, if indeed the world ever fully emerged of the recession caused by the global financial crisis.”
Usually when we are plunged into a new crisis there is some sort of “trigger event” that creates widespread panic. Yesterday, I wrote about the ongoing problems at commodity giants such as Glencore, Trafigura and The Noble Group. The collapse of any of them could potentially be a new “Lehman Brothers moment”.
But something else happened just yesterday that is also extremely concerning. Just a couple of weeks ago, I warned that the biggest bank in Germany, Deutsche Bank,was on the verge of massive trouble. Well, on Wednesday the bank announced a loss of more than 6 billion dollars for the third quarter of 2015…
Deutsche Bank’s new boss John Cryan set about cleaning up Germany’s biggest bank on Thursday, revealing a record pre-tax loss of 6 billion euros ($6.7 billion) in the third quarter and warning investors of a possible dividend cut.
Write downs, impairments and litigation costs all contributed to the loss, the bank said.
Cryan became chief executive in July with a promise to cut costs. The Briton is accelerating plans to shed assets and exit countries to shrink the bank and is preparing to ax about 23,000 jobs, or a quarter of the bank’s staff, sources told Reuters last month.
Keep an eye on Germany – the problems there are just beginning.
Something else that I am closely watching is the fact that major exporting nations such as China that used to buy up lots of U.S. government debt are now dumping that debt at an unprecedented pace. The following comes from Wolf Richter…
Five large purchasers of US Treasuries – China, Russia, Norway, Brazil, and Taiwan – have changed their minds. They’re dumping Treasuries, each for their own reasons that are now coinciding. And at the fastest rate on record.
For the 12-month period ended July, sales of Treasuries by central banks around the world reached a net of $123 billion, “the biggest decline since data started to be collected in 1978,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
China, the largest foreign owner of Treasuries – its hoard peaking at $1.317 trillion in November 2013 – has been unloading with particular passion. By July, the latest data available from the US Treasury Department, China’s pile was down to $1.241 trillion.
Yes, I know, the stock market went up once again on Thursday, and all of the irrational optimists are once again telling us that everything is going to be just fine.
The truth, of course, is that everything is not going to be just fine. Ever since I started the Economic Collapse Blog, I have never wavered in my belief that the greatest economic crisis that the United States has ever seen is coming, and I have written well over 1000 articles setting forth the case for the coming collapse in excruciating detail. Nobody is going to be able to say that I didn’t try to warn them.
Those that have blind faith in Barack Obama, Wall Street, the Federal Reserve and the other major central banks around the planet will continue to mock the idea that a major collapse is coming for as long as they can.
But when the day of reckoning does arrive and crisis coming knocking at their doors, what will they do then?
Why Are The IMF, The UN, The BIS And Citibank All Warning That An Economic Crisis Could Be Imminent?
The warnings are getting louder. Is anybody listening?
For months, I have been documenting on my website how the global financial system is absolutely primed for a crisis, and now some of the most important financial institutions in the entire world are warning about the exact same thing. For example, this week I was stunned to see that the Telegraph had published an article with the following ominous headline: “$3 trillion corporate credit crunch looms as debtors face day of reckoning, says IMF“. And actually what we are heading for would more accurately be described as a “credit freeze” or a “credit panic”, but a “credit crunch” will definitely work for now. The IMF is warning that the “dangerous over-leveraging” that we have been witnessing “threatens to unleash a wave of defaults” all across the globe…
Governments and central banks risk tipping the world into a fresh financial crisis, the International Monetary Fund has warned, as it called time on a corporate debt binge in the developing world.
Emerging market companies have “over-borrowed” by $3 trillion in the last decade, reflecting a quadrupling of private sector debt between 2004 and 2014, found the IMF’s Global Financial Stability Report.
This dangerous over-leveraging now threatens to unleash a wave of defaults that will imperil an already weak global economy, said stark findings from the IMF’s twice yearly report.
The IMF is actually telling the truth in this instance. We are in the midst of the greatest debt bubble the world has ever seen, and it is a monumental threat to the global financial system.
But even though we know about this threat, that doesn’t mean that we can do anything about it at this point or stop what is about to happen.
The Bank of England, the UN and the Bank for International Settlements have all issued similar ominous warnings. The following is an excerpt from a recent article in the Guardian…
The IMF’s warning echoes a chorus of others. The Bank of England’s chief economist, Andy Haldane, has argued that the world is entering the latest episode of a “three-part crisis trilogy”. Unctad, the UN’s trade and development arm, would like to see advanced economies boost public spending to offset the downturn in emerging economies. The Bank for International Settlements believes interest rates have been too low for too long, encouraging too much risk-taking in financial markets. All of them fear that the global financial system is primed for a crisis.
I particularly like Andy Haldane’s likening our current situation to a “three-part crisis trilogy”. I think that is perfect. And if you are familiar with movie trilogies, then you know that the last episode is usually the biggest and the baddest.
Citigroup economist Willem Buiter also believes that big trouble is on the horizon. In fact, he is publicly warning of a “global recession” in 2016…
Citigroup economist Willem Buiter looks at the world landscape and sees an economy performing substantially below potential output, which he uses as the general benchmark for the idea of a global recession. With that in mind, he said the chances of a global recession in 2016 are growing.
“We think that the evidence suggests that the global output gap is negative and that the global economy is currently growing at a rate below global potential growth. The (negative) output gap is therefore widening,” Buiter said in a note to clients. He added, “from an output gap that was probably quite close to zero fairly recently, continued sub-par global growth is likely to put the global economy back into recession, if indeed the world ever fully emerged of the recession caused by the global financial crisis.”
Usually when we are plunged into a new crisis there is some sort of “trigger event” that creates widespread panic. Yesterday, I wrote about the ongoing problems at commodity giants such as Glencore, Trafigura and The Noble Group. The collapse of any of them could potentially be a new “Lehman Brothers moment”.
But something else happened just yesterday that is also extremely concerning. Just a couple of weeks ago, I warned that the biggest bank in Germany, Deutsche Bank,was on the verge of massive trouble. Well, on Wednesday the bank announced a loss of more than 6 billion dollars for the third quarter of 2015…
Deutsche Bank’s new boss John Cryan set about cleaning up Germany’s biggest bank on Thursday, revealing a record pre-tax loss of 6 billion euros ($6.7 billion) in the third quarter and warning investors of a possible dividend cut.
Write downs, impairments and litigation costs all contributed to the loss, the bank said.
Cryan became chief executive in July with a promise to cut costs. The Briton is accelerating plans to shed assets and exit countries to shrink the bank and is preparing to ax about 23,000 jobs, or a quarter of the bank’s staff, sources told Reuters last month.
Keep an eye on Germany – the problems there are just beginning.
Something else that I am closely watching is the fact that major exporting nations such as China that used to buy up lots of U.S. government debt are now dumping that debt at an unprecedented pace. The following comes from Wolf Richter…
Five large purchasers of US Treasuries – China, Russia, Norway, Brazil, and Taiwan – have changed their minds. They’re dumping Treasuries, each for their own reasons that are now coinciding. And at the fastest rate on record.
For the 12-month period ended July, sales of Treasuries by central banks around the world reached a net of $123 billion, “the biggest decline since data started to be collected in 1978,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
China, the largest foreign owner of Treasuries – its hoard peaking at $1.317 trillion in November 2013 – has been unloading with particular passion. By July, the latest data available from the US Treasury Department, China’s pile was down to $1.241 trillion.
Yes, I know, the stock market went up once again on Thursday, and all of the irrational optimists are once again telling us that everything is going to be just fine.
The truth, of course, is that everything is not going to be just fine. Ever since I started the Economic Collapse Blog, I have never wavered in my belief that the greatest economic crisis that the United States has ever seen is coming, and I have written well over 1000 articles setting forth the case for the coming collapse in excruciating detail. Nobody is going to be able to say that I didn’t try to warn them.
Those that have blind faith in Barack Obama, Wall Street, the Federal Reserve and the other major central banks around the planet will continue to mock the idea that a major collapse is coming for as long as they can.
But when the day of reckoning does arrive and crisis coming knocking at their doors, what will they do then?
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