The following clip encapsulates the chaos that is starting to unfold in the West as a consequence of the United States and Europe trying to crush the Russian economy. I am inclined to see the United States as Oliver Hardy and Europe as Stan Laurel, except in this case it is Europe chiding the United States with the Laurel and Hardy tagline, “Another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.” But I welcome your views on which comedian best embodies the foilbles of the United States and Europe.
The worm is definitely turning in terms of Western solidarity in backing Ukraine. The Politico just published a story with this telling headline, Europe accuses US of profiting from war:
Nine months after invading Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is beginning to fracture the West.
Top European officials are furious with Joe Biden’s administration and now accuse the Americans of making a fortune from the war, while EU countries suffer.
“The fact is, if you look at it soberly, the country that is most profiting from this war is the U.S. because they are selling more gas and at higher prices, and because they are selling more weapons,” one senior official told POLITICO.
https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-war-europe-ukraine-gas-inflation-reduction-act-ira-joe-biden-rift-west-eu-accuses-us-of-profiting-from-war/
Amazing. The Politico authors blame Putin for what the United States and Europe did to themselves. I can hear Europe’s lament, “It is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into America.”
I am amused by the European official’s complaint that the United States is profiting at Europe’s expense. When I was working at the CIA as an analyst, we had a phrase for this kind of Captain Obvious moment — we called it “No Shit Analysis”, NSA for short. The coming days and weeks will see the recriminations and resentment towards the United States grow and spread throughout Europe. This will make it more difficult for Europe to support the war in Ukraine at the very time that Ukraine’s needs for foreign aid and military support will increase.
While Europe correctly perceives that some sectors of the U.S. economy are raking in profits at the expense of Europe, the economy of the United States is showing clear signs of a retracting economy on multiple fronts.
Sundance, at the Conservative Tree House, has an excellent piece on the anemic start to the Christmas shopping season in the United States — The Consumer Economy Has Completely Collapsed – “It’s a Ghost Town” for Holiday Shopping Everywhere. In years past, eager consumers would queue up in the early morning on Black Friday (i.e., the day after Thanksgiving) outside stores like Best Buy. Here’s what it looked like in 2020 notwithstanding Covid lockdowns:
Now, two years later, we have this:
Sundance quotes a Reuters piece that succinctly buttresses the video:
Reuters – […] About 166 million people were planning to shop from Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday through this coming “Cyber Monday,” according to the National Retail Federation, almost 8 million more than last year. But with sporadic rain in some parts of the country, stores were less busy than usual on Black Friday.
“Usually at this time of the year you struggle to find parking. This year, I haven’t had an issue getting a parking spot,” said Marshal Cohen, chief industry adviser of the NPD Group Inc.
“It’s a lot of social shopping, everybody is only looking to get what they need. There is no sense of urgency,” Cohen added, based on his store checks in New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia.
At the American Dream mall in East Rutherford, New Jersey, there were no lines outside stores. A Toys ‘R’ Us employee was handing out flyers with a list of the Black Friday “door buster” promotions. (read more)
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/11/26/the-consumer-economy-has-completely-collapsed-its-a-ghost-town-for-holiday-shopping-everywhere/
It is not just Christmas shopping that is suffering. Purchases of Recreational Vehicles (i.e., “campervans” and “motorhomes” in Europe) is faltering as well. This piece, RV Boom Over? Monthly Shipments Plunge As Dealerships Overflow With Campers, provides some concerning details:
There are dozens of recreational vehicle dealerships lining highways up and down the US East Coast. As of the Thanksgiving holiday week, driving down Interstate 95 and 85 from the Mid-Atlantic region into the Deep South, RV dealerships are overflowing with inventory, a massive change from the empty parking lots when RVs were in high demand during the pandemic.
RV Industry Association’s October 2022 survey of manufacturers shows total RV shipments ended the month with 32,652 units, a massive decline of 43.7% compared to the 57,971 units shipped in October 2021. Through October, RV shipments are down 12.2% compared with the same period last year, with 448,246 wholesale shipments.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/rv-boom-over-monthly-shipments-plunge-dealerships-overflow-campers
Remember the dire prediction in early November that the United States was running out of diesel? Well, looks like that warning was wrong. Good news, right? Nope. Read this — The Diesel Crunch Is Finally Causing Demand Destruction
Earlier this autumn, U.S. distillate stocks slumped to their lowest level for this time of the year since 1951, just as the heating season started and a few months ahead of the EU embargo on Russian oil product imports, which goes into effect in February.
Now signs have emerged that weaker demand in the past weeks may have slowly started to rebuild diesel inventories, contrary to seasonal trends. Distillate inventories in the U.S. rose by 3 million barrels in the six weeks to November 18, according to estimates by Reuters’ senior market analyst John Kemp based on EIA data.
In products supplied – a proxy of implied demand – distillate fuel product supplied averaged 4.0 million bpd over the past four weeks, down by 3.5% from the same period last year, the EIA data showed.
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/diesel-crunch-finally-causing-demand-destruction
When you are building inventory because demands has dropped, you should realize that the economy is troubled and moving in the wrong direction.
What better way to start the holiday season than to lose your job. This news out of Mississippi is not an isolated event.
A former United Furniture Industries employee claims the furniture manufacturer, headquartered in Tupelo, Mississippi, violated federal law by failing to give 60 days’ notice of its abrupt shutdown to nearly 2,700 employees and truck drivers, who found themselves without jobs two days before Thanksgiving.
Former UFI employees, operating under the Lane Furniture brand name, were blindsided early Tuesday morning after receiving either an email or text message instructing them not to report to work that day because their jobs were being immediately terminated “due to unforeseen business circumstances.”. . .
In late July, the furniture manufacturer closed its plants in Winston-Salem and High Point, North Carolina, resulting in more than 270 workers losing their jobs, according to WARN Act notices filed at the time with the North Carolina Department of Commerce.
Another 220 jobs were eliminated in late July at the company’s plant in Amory, Mississippi. “The new leadership had been working extremely hard to put new processes in place,” the former employee told FreightWaves. “There was too much effort being put in for anyone to really know they would close overnight.”
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/former-employee-sues-united-furniture-industries-over-mass-firing?j=222218&sfmc_sub=44175902&l=256_HTML&u=4576196&mid=514011755&jb=29003&sfmc_id=44175902
When people are buying new homes they usually spring for some new furniture as well. That demand appears to have dried up and United Furniture Industries is retrenching. Maybe they will shift these jobs overseas, but it does not appear that the current demand is sufficient to justify expanded production.
At the start of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union, despite suffering early losses, dramatically ramped up production of weapons, aircraft, ships, tanks and ammunition needed to fight the Nazis and Japan. Today, as the war in Ukraine grinds on, the West is busy begging for military supplies from any country with a stored surplus and dusting off out dated weapons systems and sending them off to Ukraine. No sense of emergency and no significant ramping up of production. In contrast to the agility of U.S. manufacturing during World War II (e.g., the United States built one air craft carrier a month), timelines for U.S. defense contractors who are being tasked to produce replacement weapons and ammunition is counted in months and, sometimes, years. I suppose this is Putin’s fault as well.
It might be worth having a look at what the global capitalists think of the situation.
Below I show percentage movements in various stock market indices.
The first is the % the 2022 low was below the 12 month high.
The second is the % the current level is against the 2022 low.
The third is the % that the current level is below the 12 month high.
(The last 12 month highs were generally the highest recorded ever except for the Niki which peaked in the 1980s, before it lost out to south east Asia and then China as the goto supplier of preference.)
S&P -27, +16, -16
Niki 225 -20, +16, -8
F&T 100 -13, +12, -2
DAX -17, +23, -11
CAC 40 -24, +19, -9
It seems global capital is not as traumatized about the future as The Durans and Larry are.
The markets have recovered strongly from their recent lows and are not far off their all time highs. (I guess they are just drunk with all that champagne they have purchased with the profits of the war.)
And Ukraine is winning, right?
Absolutely. Was there ever any doubt?
But the prize…ah, that’s the head scratcher.
Thanks to the madness of financialization and the modern version of the Plunge Protection Team, Stock Markets are no longer representative of national economic trend. It’s a case of a fabricated asset, like paper gold, that can massively influence (by depressing) the tangible bullion price. My guess is that the days of financialization are numbered along with a return to bona fide (tangible) assets.
Why not throw another trillion on our <debt fire? It’s taxpayers on the hook… at bankers’ usury.
In St. Jerome we trust.
National governance falls into two categories: Those that control banks. And those controlled by banks.
Yep… and Jerome Powell is killing the economy. Apparently he, and the rest of the Arch-Villians at the Fed, have never heard of supply side economics. We need More labor, nationally and globally to put supply back on track, to reduce inflation. Instead, Powell is crushing employment instead of enabling it. Driving US into yet another unnecessary Recession. Meanwhile, the US has the lowest Inflation around the World. And the strongest currency by far… which unfortunately hurts our exports. The FED is 0-11 in Not causing recessions… I think we need a different system….
War brings out so much propaganda.Japan did not disclose the results of Midway naval battle. Hitler kept repeating Germany would win as Berlin was bombed. The US used death counts of Viet Cong to assure the public all was good-until it clearly was not.
I am convinced US will report Ukraine won if Russia settles for anything than all of Ukraine. It might be a tough sell(maybe not) if Russia is on Polish border.
Hell Russia could take all of Ukraine along with rest of the world right up to the US borders of Canada and Mexico. The West would still propagandize its brainwashed citizens into believing the lie Putin lost. Obviously I am being facetious, but at this point the gullible Western Civilian would buy anything that keeps their fragile beliefs alive for just another moment longer. I can tell you who it won’t work on and that’s other countries/govts (mostly not in W Civ). Everybody likes a winner and I believe more and more will follow Russia and/or China away from the unipolar (West dominated) world. The less they control of other countries wealth the less power they shall have. I suspect this is what really keeps them up at night.
Totally agree. Only ungrateful and retired officials are permitted to suggest some US “losses, in theory. As for Russia, as long as US defines what victory is, Russia will never “win”. Since the beginning, we’ve been told that “Russian has already ‘strategically’ lost”. It’s surprising how much effort has to be infused into already won conflict, but I’m not an expert.
I like using the Home Depot index. (to hell with McD’s).
This Black Friday in FL, a usually $5-600 Dewalt 12″ sliding miter without the $200 stand was at $399 WITH the stand. That matches the best I’ve seen in the last ten years. Pretty big discounts on other >$100 items too.
What’s it mean? It means HD starts slimming down inventory prior to downturns. same as it did around 2008. It’s my narrow interest take on shopping anyway.
By using freshly printed money you can make your markets look like they are more or less fine, as long as you don’t get in hyperinflation ,which is still not the case.
On the other hand, when shops are empty on Black Friday, or people are loosing money, you cannot say that anyone is pretending…
They won’t even need to print anything.
After it bought the company, paid its debts and invested heavily to upgrade Britain’s biggest chip maker, Newport Wafer Fab, the British government ordered China’s Nexperia to sell its shares
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/uk-orders-chinas-nexperia-sell-204829824.html
When you fire-sale a somewhat unique company in a somewhat narrow if not niche market – good luck finding a buyer who would pay the real price.
Buy the dip … rinse … repeat. Rising stock prices either means confidence in the future or lemmings running over a cliff. hard to tell which is which without a crystal ball. Buying the dip worked before … roll the bones.
Pump and dump, rinse and repeat.
Hmm. Rech the Economist would seem to be as penetrating and prescient as Rech the Political and International Relations analyst. Just as he believes Wunderwaffen are the key to winning a war and that the Kagan/ Nuland crowd are deep thinkers, so he sees stock markets as indicators of economic and financial health. Any refuge in a storm, I guess.
7 to 20 Trillion government printed dollars has been sloshed around in the markets. They had nowhere to go but up. But the stock market is not the economy. 47% of small business owners could not pay rent last month. Americans do not generically save. They think they have money when their house goes up. And with rising interest rates, we are looking at a 20 to 30% fall in housing values. Speaking of that, the remaining pension plans are all heavily underfinanced. They have in their synopsis that they will self-finance by “planning” on making 8% a year to infinity. The Republicans will pass no further stimmy checks. They want to destroy the economy before 2024. As Larry said, the stores are empty. Car lots are filling back up again. People cannot afford the average buying cost of 45k at 7% interest over 7 years. Oil is going down even with the Russian sanctions because demand is dying. The markets will melt up into a Santa Claus rally before years end. Jerome Powell will rise 50 basis points in December and 25 in January. And then wait. And then the Gates of Hell open. 2023 is probably due for about a 20% fall in equities. Which of course when the middle class has been fleeced in the Wall Street Casino again? J Powell cuts rates and starts buying securities again. And we have another fictitious market based solely on government printing. Good times.
yesterday Jim Rickards said “Since 2020 the fed has printed more money than in the 200 plus years before”.
Richards states the obvious. He is a learned study of economics. There has not been the growth in GDP to sop up that print either… hence the inflation.
Ukraine, besides being a den of thieves… a laundry mat for printed US $s… to be redistributed to networks like FTX or WEF friends… is the center 4 squares of the currency chess board. At one time the center may of been Saudia Arabia and that oil reserve that Kissenger so deftly attached to US SWIFT bank transfer system to back the buck.
Now..with Russia on line for oil/gas/mining raw materials as well as the ag… US has to have Russia/China/India…and the Islamic nations..who all prefer the gold backed Dinar..to still trade in our paper.
All wars are banker wars. https://www.bank-codes.com/?q=ukraine
What’s a trillion seconds? Over 30,000 years..isn’t it?
It always comes down to calories. A man can dig all day long with a pick and shovel..and that’s about 1 table spoon worth of crude oil energy. Oil is agriculture, oil is transportation. Drums of oil can be converted to a solar panel or a wind turbine… and your luck to get calorie return that just pure oil provided. The equity markets can crash, the grid can be unreliable…. you can do your own food… all the comms can go down…
But…
…if you don’t have oil/gas/propane delivery to the masses…it’s zombie land. A mass casualty event in the offing. The dense urban hives are only 4 days of no trucks to total chaos. The system currently works amazingly well.
We hope “they” don’t break it.
lmao. Protecting the global capitalists’ monopolies is the reason we’re in this situation in the first place. Who gives a damn what they think?
Rando,
Its global capital that’s laughing its arse off.
Inflation per se is good for equity markets.
It is only the high real interest rates that always used to come as part of inflation battling that was negative, and which offered bonds as a much safer investment priced to offer more than inflation.
So right now we have inflation without the high bond yields or debt costs.
As a one time bond dealer (1980s UK gilts) I have a hard time trying to get my head around 8% inflation and bond yields at 3% rather than 12%.
If and when 12% comes (or more if they wait too long) then both bond and equity markets will collapse. But at present at least equities look better than bonds.
Various commentators have mentioned the Plunge Protection Team and quantitative easy as factors holding markets up.
In 2022, the markets fell around 20% from the all time highs. Huge drop. If the PPT was in operation it was not doing its job very well.
In the US, the FED stopped QE in late 2021. It has reversed policy and is now reducing its balance sheet – quantitative tightening.
Just the final and last, greatest ever massive wealth transfer to finalize 2008s beginning…Central Bankers don’t care which Nations they profit from or what Nations fall. Whether EU, US or China. They got theirs and will continue to do so ad infinitum….
Chappelle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DLuALBnolM
-30-
The story with the US is class divisions. These days the people buying expensive trucks, RVs, trailers etc. are the mobile overlords – software engineers, traveling nurses, “nomadic movement” crowd that lives off social media, Youtube, Instagram etc. This is why Twitter is such a big deal and why they are so upset about Musk taking over it. Also there are boatload of people who made a boatload of money on the stock market and crypto in the last few years. The other day I had a guy come out to give me a quote to take down a few very tall oak trees that were too close to my barn and he gave me a (uninvited) lecture on crypto. When I used to work in the financial industry, we used to joke that when your cab driver starts telling you what stocks to pick, it is time to get out.
In any case – here is the thing: all of America is complicit in the (neo)colonial way of life. The whole country, from poor to rich (for different reasons) depends on our dominant position in the world – we extract, push, prod, threaten, dominate, invade, sanction – do everything possible to keep the machine of exploitation going and slaves churning junk out that we can consume. If this machine stops, even for a month, rich or poor in USA will realize that being dependent on McDonalds, Amazon, Target, Kroger, Walmart and whatever else (Tik-Tok, twitter, facebook blah blah) will not feed you, clothe you or keep you warm. Most people do not even have the skills these days to grow a garden, let alone fix things in their homes or God forbid make things. At that point, people could realize what Karl Marx was always talking about is actually true – that the workers need to own the means of production and that the proletariat does matter, not the CEOs and managers. Combine this with massive debt and the massive amount of USD in circulation and now you understand why this Russia thing is an existential fight for America. If we let our eye off the ball for just one second – we are done as in people roaming hungry in gangs looking for food.
This was the message Putin had for the west when he said (paraphrased): “you cannot eat social media and you cannot heat with dollar bills”.
Didn’t Putin also say that the “West must learn to live within its means?”
How dare that guy lecture the lecturers?
The solution is regulation. And it’s nothing new! Oddo himself begins to write these days… I assume he wasn’t born with Marx in the 19th century. But nothing against. Just say that it’s not necessary to stop the means of production. Just regulation. Especially in financial markets! For whom nation states are the ultimate obstacle! And it’s also important to say that Putin is not a nationalist as many claim. Putin was the most pro-European leader to reach the Kremlin. He is at most a great patriot. Hence my hope as a European in restoration gas pipelines in the Baltic.
I think you missed my point by a bit. There is no longer any production to stop because for the most part skills are gone and so are the factories. This is what I meant by owning the means of production. These days to even get into production is so prohibitive in costs of machinery, knowledge, wages and regulation-incurred costs (think OSHA imposed worker protections etc.) that only the wealthy can do it – meaning proletariat does not even have a shot.
As for regulation – who is going to produce it when they are all bought and sold?
I didn’t miss Otto’s point. As an academic economist, I follow the US economy as I follow the economy of the rest of the world! And like Otto, I also lived through the era of industrial capitalism when the US was a great economic power and today I live through the era of financial capitalism. Who hates all the good points of capitalism such as competition that makes all companies better or workers’ rights as in the Amazon monopoly where only now in the 21st century – after destroying millions of jobs in traditional publishers and book stores – for order of a Court there will be the first Union. It is the uberization of the deregulated labor market without rights.
Financial capitalism whose sole aim of neoliberalism and deregulated markets is to steal the world several times. Over and over again. Every year they take away from the real global economy and from all of us millions and millions that belong to us! And we all knew this 100 years ago. Marx already knew in the 19th century! Neoliberalism is always the quickest road back to feudalism. When less than 1% of the world’s population own all the wealth in the world. And we’ve been further. Today we already have many economic indicators of the 19th century! Several financial vulture funds today have the power to bring down countries overnight with slight changes in debt interest. And then they do to that country’s resources what vultures do! From natural resources to the best companies and pension funds. Everything for the Casino. This is what Globalism is!
And I also know that the US doesn’t like taxes at all. In fact, the only part of the world that I know of that doesn’t despise taxes is northern Europe. because they feel its benefits every day. The problem is often the various stages of the economy to reach the stage of the northern European economies.
Let’s see if we explain this quickly. State machines with everything people appreciate like security cost a lot of money and the less they contribute the more pain! Why does Otto think that the de-instrumentalization of the US happened? The outsourcing of the economy? Because the only objective of the companies and the financial funds that own them is no longer their product or the customer but their capitalization in the financial markets in the short term. Today no patriot should buy a share in a multinational.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/03/microsoft-irish-subsidiary-paid-zero-corporate-tax-on-220bn-profit-last-year
Microsoft, Google and so many others who, in addition to having fled the US, do not even pay taxes in Ireland! And the dividends go straight to a tax haven. Only here steals how many times the US? Business taxes due, employment and employment taxes, and dividend taxes. Which are soon on their way to another tax haven in Bermuda. And no single country is currently solving a fiscal problem of this size. Where is Biden’s 15% global corporate tax?
Or since we are also talking about war why did the US in the past make some of the best fighterjets in the world and today neither fighterjet nor more importantly capable air defense systems? The Patriots have sucked for 30 years! The F-22 after 30 years of development quickly went out of production and the F-35 is lucky when it lifts without software problems. Or why NASA needs engines from Russia – which hit the bottom 30 years ago – and Elon Musk to go to the moon? Because the last technological revolution that the US led was the computer revolution 50 years ago! And in economics everything is connected! Without good universities there are no leading companies and without great companies there are no great universities!
The time when the American middle class bought shares of the largest American companies with with national and social concerns and held those shares for decades is over! Because the only objective of companies today is the short term! Your market capitalization in the virtual economy! Companies whose shareholder structure is often unknown. FDR fought this virtual stock economy after the crash of 1929. And when they did away with the Glass–Steagall Act came the subprime crash of 2008! This is all to say that financial markets have to be regulated. Namely investment banking. No state can be hostage to financial power as is the case today with the US and the world in general.
But it will no longer be the US to solve a world problem that the US created but a NWO! And I know that in the US people still discuss the loss of values in today’s society more than financial deregulation. But it’s all connected. As Fellini and Scola showed very well in Italian realism with families in the era of crisis. Because home or society where there is no bread… And just to finish, Putin himself only opened his eyes in Russia with the sanctions. In my country there is a popular saying that says that necessity sharpens ingenuity. What the US needs a lot to get back to being the great economic power it once was. Instead of plundering the entire world’s resources! Because they realized a long time ago that they cannot survive on a fiat currency without the material and financial resources of the rest of the world! Until a while ago they only made dollars and guns and today they only make shitty dollars and guns. Good luck!
The biggest mark of neoliberalism in the last 40 years in the US, in addition to deindustrialization and job losses, are the frozen wages for 40 years! With many Americans today needing multiple jobs for the same standard of living with 1 job in the 70’s! And the great fortunes of a dozen oligarchs that we speak today of the financial markets. Therefore, there is no longer any distribution of income, but now there is a monumental concentration of wealth via financial markets in dozens or two of large oligarchs with a lot of power. Who govern the US! In short, the end of the American dream. Which in global terms is called globalism. Which in Europe, for example, manifests itself in the attack on the social state, namely on areas such as public health care and public pension funds that should never leave the public sphere for reasons of security in the future that the financial Casino never guarantees .
And it is enough to think of free public health care, as provided for in the Charter of Human Rights, as opposed to private health care, which today is one of the biggest financial holes in the American administration, to understand how free health care can also be important in a process of reindustrialization as the US needs insofar as it allows for lower wages on the part of entrepreneurs. And the same with the public school and the regulation of access to housing. Everything we need most in life, that State regulation by preventing financial speculation guarantees lower prices, more social justice and can also be decisive in the real economy! In a market economy the role of the state is not to own the means of production but to regulate financial and labor markets. Of course, neoliberalism looks at the health care and housing we all need only as major sources of revenue and opportunities to speculate on prices. People cannot lose access to healthcare and housing when they lose their jobs! But unfortunately they even lose their pensions in financial market crashes. What besides being human is not progress! In the thirteenth century it was lucky to work in the kitchen of a Mr. Feudal. To have a roof and food every day. Unfortunately, in the 21st century, we also lose quality of life every day. And with conflict worse.
War brings out so much propaganda.Japan did not disclose the results of Midway naval battle. Hitler kept repeating Germany would win as Berlin was bombed. The US used death counts of Viet Cong to assure the public all was good-until it clearly was not.
I am convinced US will report Ukraine won if Russia settles for anything than all of Ukraine. It might be a tough sell(maybe not) if Russia is on Polish border.
Wondering if thousands will keep new cars when they can’make payments. I could see cops refusing to confront blacks on this. The risk is too great. Tesla, BMW, Porsche. Go get them. Reparations baby!!
Here in the South, many 20’something blacks are driving around in brand new Mercedes’. They’re a very enterprising class. There’s hope for America to pull out of its economic maelstrom yet.
…all of America is complicit in the (neo)colonial way of life. The whole country, from poor to rich (for different reasons) depends on our dominant position in the world… — Oddo
Well said Oddo.
Sundance has also been posting quite a few articles about the WEF, FED, Central banks, & their US political puppets intentionally destroying the US economy. Since “they” are trying to force us to use less energy to match the diminished economy, I doubt the US will start domestic production of weapons, etc etc at any point in the future. Their hopes is that we’ll then go along with their Great Reset, own nothing & be happy, & eat bugs. NOT!
As the author of another great website, https://www.2ndsmartestguyintheworld.com/, says at the end of every article: “DO NOT COMPLY”.
Here’s one of the best articles I’ve read so far as to why we don’t want to be eating insects.
“Exactly What Is Behind The UN & WEF Insects As Food Agenda? [Updated]”
https://www.2ndsmartestguyintheworld.com/p/exactly-what-is-behind-the-un-and
great info
thanks for sharing
Ignore the blog; read the book the blog links to.
Also Massive cricket-processing facility comes online in London, Ont.
..so you feed the crickets to your pet dog then you eat the dog, what’s your problem with that?
I thought cricket was a game where the Brits try to knock their balls into someone elses country and knock the natives’ balls out with the help of some Yankee grease.
I eat insects regularly and I haven’t had any problems. However I wouldn’t force anyone else to eat them any more than I would want anyone to force their dietary preferences on me.
I like scorpions myself, esp their tails in a tangy cocktail sauce. Very spicy.
Anyone with a clear head knew it was only a matter of time! Nobody can fool everyone all the time! Especially when we are talking about numbers. How does a Government hide its population from the self-destruction of its economy? With factories closed and unemployed people with no money to eat? Only an airhead like Baerbock could say it didn’t care about its constituents because it had unlimited subsidies. Analena who doesn’t know how to add!
And the division did not start now. It is only now starting to be reported given the difficulty of explaining the lie to the population! France and Germany have been fixing positions to fight the US LNG price and the Inflation Reduction Act since late summer. Biden passed the Inflation Reduction Act to seduce European Industry in August. The trade war is there. As a response to the RAND Corporation plan “Saving America, Weakening Germany”. And Scholz’s trip to China with a delegation of the biggest German businessmen is already part of it. Only the results of this trip are not yet known!
Putin himself launched the SMO waiting for this day and this division. And anyone who thinks that the timing of war has always been purely military or that Russia needs an extraordinary mobilization to send a few thousand more men to Ukraine has no idea of the size of Russia and its armed forces!
And we are still only talking about the fall of the first layer of the lie. That the US is making money from the conflict. The day will also come when everyone will realize that the US provoked the conflict in Ukraine to break up Russia and Germany and pick up the pieces.
In Europe, the governments in office will all follow the path of Mario Draghi. And even the Government of Taiwan has already started to lose local elections. The good news is the contribution of division to the earlier end of the conflict than many conceived. The bad thing is the opportunity that this type of crisis opens up to all kinds of populist nationalisms in Europe! Again! And why do I say this? Because unfortunately I heard few European politicians and in particular smarter Germans in the Bundestag in the last year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x854EgMnZ_o
In any case, I remain convinced that the conflict could end before Christmas. And that China and Russia will not let Europe fall! I very sincerely hope that it will be possible to resolve many wounds that opened up with the EU’s monstrous Russophobic campaign with the new Governments. Preferably without EU!
Europe Begins Openly Attacking US for Using Ukraine War to Make Money | Russia Ukraine War:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyuLI8oUbOs
France’s Angry Outburst Against the US: Trade War on the Cards? | USA Europe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLOUApL2stk
I also suspect that once the news of the level of corruption & money laundering starts spreading from person to person, because most likely MSM isn’t going to be reporting on the huge kraken-like FTX Ponzi fraud, fiasco & bankruptcy. This was another way the US was making LOTS & LOTS of money, & it wasn’t going to Main Street nor the American citizens.
Millions & billions disappeared into “thin” air… it went to Ukraine, they “invested” in TX & it came back to the US, mostly Democrats but some Republicans too. SBF/FTX spent some of on the 2020 & 2022 elections, covid “research” to discourage people fro taking natural remedies like HCQ & Ivermection, Vitamin D, zinc, quercitin, etc.
Exactly. And before long – even the most apathetic Americans will begin to understand they got rooked.
That is when TSHTF
The EU wants to self-destruct, it seems. 8 rounds of sanctions against Russia are not enough!! Punish her more by buying less.
“the EU embargo on Russian oil product imports, which goes into effect in February.”
If push came to shove Russia could survive with minimum hassle for a good while, cutting off all EU exports and letting the Turks, Indians and Chinese handle the resales as they go stratospheric. The EU, on the other hand, would probably crumble within 6 months.
The West are really lousy poker players.
The solution is regulation. And it’s nothing new! Oddo himself begins to write these days… I assume he wasn’t born with Marx in the 19th century. But nothing against. Just say that it’s not necessary to stop the means of production. Just regulation. Especially in financial markets! For whom nation states are the ultimate obstacle! And it’s also important to say that Putin is not a nationalist as many claim. Putin was the most pro-European leader to reach the Kremlin. He is at most a great patriot. Hence my hope as a European in restoration gas pipelines in the Baltic.
That would be more regulation by the RICO members in power in most countries. I’m sure that will work out well for the rest of us.
US corporations and banks are regulated now… How’s that working out?
Does Wall Street control the nation, or does the nation control Wall Street?
Regulated in what way? After they undid Glass-Steagall regulation of the large financial institutions effectively ended.
The regulations we have in place now are designed to crush the little guy.
My point exactly… but, arguably under US law, all large financial institutions are regulated nonetheless. Yet, Paulo argues regulation solves everything.
How’s that working out?
The solution is regulation. …Just say that it’s not necessary to stop the means of production. Just regulation.
The economy’s financial sector is up to its eyeballs in regulation. Most larger companies have an officer at the vice-president level whose full-time job is to ensure compliance.
But a lot of it is the wrong kind of regulation. Too much is unnecessary or unnecessarily complicated. What’s needed are regulations that limit risky-crazy behavior by financial institutions playing with investors’ (other people’s) money. Stronger guard rails are called for especially for companies involved in new kinds of enterprise (e.g., crypto). Mergers that reduce the number of competitors should be subject to neo-antitrust laws, the old ones largely pro forma these days.
Regulation, instead of being a blunt instrument, needs to become more attuned to modern pitfalls as well as the age-old ones.
Without MEW (Mortgage Equity Withdrawal), GDP growth is significantly impaired, especially prices for residential RE. The Dallas FED has published a report demonstrating its expectation for a nationwide decline of 20% for real estate prices, see https://www.dallasfed.org/research/economics/2022/1115
Declines in prices for assets (RE, stocks, bonds) reverse the propensity to spend from the positive wealth effect for households when prices are rising.
The future price for crypto might well be zero, destroying that source of phony money to drive up prices for assets.
An expected decline for asset prices, combined with rising prices for consumption of food, heat and energy, healthcare, property insurance and real estate taxes, make for a crushed household.
And its a mystery as to why Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas shopping in general are impaired ….
Yes Larry, its another fine mess the western leadership has gotten us into this time ….
The massive and impressive expansion of weapons, ship, tank and aircraft production didn’t happen by magic. It happened in accordance with years of pre-war planning and preparation.
Today, it seems there has been no planning, no preparation of the industrial base. Russia expends more artillery shells in a day than the US can manufacture in 3 months, yet reportedly it would take 4 or 5 years to increase US production: expand existing/build new factories, manufacture the manufacturing machinery, recruit and train labour, test and commission. Wonder where the bottleneck is.
These problems seem to apply across the board, and that is a good thing.
As it dawns on the military leadership how utterly unprepared US and NATO forces are for high intensity warfare, they will educate the slow learners in political office
In the previos years I have seen a lot of planning and preparation of the industrial base, in Russia and China. US and NATO has moved on to media warfare and are winning decisively.
Ollie has to be the US, while Stanley represents the intellectual EU elite that developed the ideological/theoretical/political EU superstructure during the 19/20th centuries. Ursula Van Der Leyen could then be a modern Stanley.
I always interpreted the 1989 Berlin Wall collapse as when the USSR and the West reached political equality so that the two political systems could merge, Thatcher and Reagan notwithstanding. The West didn’t win but descended into political parity with the USSR. It is much like having two adjacent political concentration camps, demolishing the common wall/fence between them, and calling that ‘freedom’.
We seem now to be experiencing another 1989 moment.
One begins to seek consolation. The old old stories that have survived many wars and collapses even of whole civilisations. Stories of the life and way of the Buddha and his Dharma teachings to ameliorate suffering and find freedom. Stories of Confucius, Mencius and Lao Tze. The prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. Stories of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the holy spirit. The resurrection after the crucifixion. How to keep ourselves and our communities together.
Yes, thank you.
What survives over time is worth attention
Larry- You’re a Floridian with a sense of humour.
Any chance of working Dr Hugo Hackenbush into one of your articles ?
No, Dr. Hackenbush wasn’t in Florida. You’re thinking of Mr. Hammer, the auctioneer in The Cocoanuts. (And whenever I feel a twinge of anti-Americanism, thinking of some of their great inventions — like the Marx Bros. — certainly helps.)
It’s all by design.
It’s all made up.
It’s all kabuki.
We are being played for fools.
They have our number.
They are the mad wizard’s apprentices.
We are their lab rats.
“Hey! . . . You know what we should do?! . . . Give them a war!! . . . Occupy their idiotic minds while we finish shackling them . . . Give them something to chase among the ruins . . . like a cat toy . . . but they are not cats . . . of course not, cats are intelligent . . . don’t worry, humans are not . . . look at where we’ve got them!! . . . Something to blame so they don’t blame us . . . Distract them with bullsh!t while we kill their world . . . women can have penises . . . play the ‘national emergency’ while we destroy their civilization . . . Ooohhh . . . look! . . . nuclear war is around the corner!! . . . according to afrocentric feminist epistemology the moon is made of ice cream . . . supply chain issues . . . get ready!! . . power outages!! . . . contamination!! . . . women don’t lie! . . . radioactivity!! . . . what to do if . . . if what?!! . . . if this . . . if that . . . if the other thinga . . . make them eat bugs . . . why? . . . so they get used to be treated like bugs . . . look Trump is running!! . . . reality doesn’t exist . . . humans are a pathogen . . . don’t you hate mean tweets?!! . . . queer theory . . . call them ‘racists’!! . . . they hate that . . . your free speech is violence, my violence is free speech . . . we’ve got them . . . men can have periods . . . but we have to stretch it a little more until we can digitize the currency . . . critical bullsh!t theory . . . destroy the currency so they won’t see what happens when we offer the cashless society as a ‘solution’ . . . what if the trucks stop running?!! . . . and bring about total surveillance and dependency and enslavement . . . do it for the children . . . pedophilia is just another something, something. . . everything is a social construct . . . scamdemic!! . . . was that somebody sneezing?! . . . OOOHHHH MYYYYY GOOOOOOODDDDDD!!!!!!! . . . WE ARE LL GONNA DIIIIEEEEE!!!!! . . . don’t let them think . . . there are 201 genders . . . let’s count them! . . . gender queer, gender fried, gender cooky, gender ginger . , . go on! keep counting genders!! . . . Soylent Green . . . triple masks!! . . . make them run . . . social distancing!! . . . where? . . . around in circles . . . make them panic . . . tell them its their fault . . . climate change!!! . . . look!! . . . the polar bears are dying!! . . . where’s the baby formula?!! . . . we have 12454.342 seconds left before something something happens!!! . . . or it doesn’t!!! . . . HOW DARE YOU?!!! . . . famines!! . . . look, a refinery is burning!! . . . give up hydrocarbons!! . . . I saw a dead fish . . . give up capitalism!!! . . .”
Take a step back and look at all this bullsh!t.
Look at 800 private jets flying somewhere so they can get together and tell us we can’t have cars and eat meat because pollution. And then they all fly their 800 private jets back to their palaces with 244 rooms and an army of servants none of which pollute because they are blameless. They are different from you and me . . . they are . . . feudal lords.
Who is doing all of this? Normal people? Nope.
Why are they doing it? It is all PSYOPS. They are distracting us.
There must be something they don’t want us to focus on while they bring it about. Cause they never stop working.
Everything they attempt works for them as it ruins us.
Our ruin and misery are their objectives so we’ll be easier to enslave.
They seek the destruction of human civilization and the enslavement of the surviving humans to turn us into ants in an ant-hill with them as the queen.
They are perfecting a nose ring made of bullshit to lead us around into their version of The Matrix. Not strictly like in the movie. But the basic notion will be there. A world where humans are cattle. A world with humanity reduced to about 6% of what we are today. And all slaves.
They are not hiding it. But people are playing the three wise monkeys because it is easier than having to gird our loins and do what’s right.
The three wise monkeys don’t have to get up from their hunches and go to work.
And, who knows? Maybe somebody will throw them a banana.
I think it is more likely they’ll get thrown some Zyklon B. Or its modern equivalent, the poison vaxx NottaVaccine genetic bioweapons.
Try to see the big picture. You’ll see more clearly. You’ll see somebody is taking us for lab rats. Or ants . Or slaves. But never as free human individuals with inalienable rights. (“That’s so old fashioned!! . . . Grow up!!”)
I think we have to be shown the verified “sticking places”, so that we can screw our courage to them!
This is disturbing to read because there is no way to ignore the aggregate. What can we do now other than live lives of honesty and integrity? Love God, pray for strength to endure the battle as it worsens. It has become obvious that there is no help from ‘man’, from no politician or pope, general or false prophet. Read Solzhenitsyn in some of his articles and speeches given in the 70s. He knew what he was talking about as he examined the West through the eyes of one who suffered from raw power. When I see what our poor Prime Minister here in Canada gets up to I see here and now more exercise of raw, naked power. Pray for the strength not to succumb to despair.
So, it’s a great time to buy an RV, as long as you don’t plan to drive it anywhere.
Joe Biden: “I did that! … no, wait! Putin did that!”
Remember the move Stripes, which featured the EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle, which was basically an armoured and armed RV? This is an idea whose time has come. The US can offload all of its surplus RVs to the Ukies, and they can use them to teach the Russkies a lesson, or maybe just to flee to Western Europe.
Keep an RV fuels ed and ready as a bug out vehicle…have distant spot picked to hunker down in. You might have to be there awhile so bring survival stuff.
Europe , except for Germany, that is. Next monday , the eco-stalinist german government is going to shutdown two Diesel raffinieries, by cutting off russian oil flow. No replacements.
This is going to make the logistic industry as well as farmers very happy, I guess. And a lot of Amazon shoppers too.
We handed Europe the noose. But they stuck their head in. And have been for a while. Their socialist nanny states are expensive. Except for Germany and marginally France, they are all PIGS. And now the cash cow Germany is dying. They have no children due to their advanced state of degeneracy. So, they thought they would bring Muslims in. Nice plan. Except the free welfare ghetto is nicer than where they came from. So, they don’t work. Add a little “Green” lunacy. We are going to power damp and dark Germany with Solar!! A perfect storm. And then the noose of supporting genocidal US foreign policy is handed them. And they insert their head. I avoid draconian statements because life always surprises. But Europe dies this winter. I see no way for Germany to survive without cheap Russian oil and gas. That is what their economy was built on. And the EU needs the wallet of Germany to carry on. It will not be quick. Or dramatic. There will be infighting. Many of the current leaders will be forced from power. Their handpicked successors will of course supplant them. But they too will pay the cost. When Russia creates a land bridge to Hungary? They leave the EU first. And that starts the land rush. Because if the EU has no money to buy loyalty? Why does Poland stay? It could not happen to a nicer bunch of idiots in all truth. Oh, and in closing. Ben Wallace, the UK Defense Secretary announces due to financial cuts? The British “Army” now numbers 72,500. Which he says is good for “tootling” around the UK.
Germany is doing fine.
Pre covid they had a few debt ridden towns. One of the main covid vax hub was in one of those towns. They literally made billions daily pulling entire areas out of debt and making money hand over fist .
People forget how much money the vaccines make and Germany was a big beneficiary.
Yes it has a few economic issues but nothing massive. This idea Germany is going to collapse and is destitute because of Russian oil or gas or sanctions is just puff.
Markets are actually stabilising oil wise as new trade routes settle in, Venezuela oil also on market in limited way.
Covid was a far bigger economic hit.
US already had big issues and inflation and consumer confidence sliding before Russia and sanctions. So this would have been similar in any event. In fact if anything the war has helped the US to slow it’s decline. So the impact of the war is not negative on the US it’s positive in many ways.
What will hurt though is panic and consumer confidence. Consumer confidence is going down 4sure. How that will play let’s see.
The corps are richer than ever, the rich are richer than.ever. the economic declines people see were going to happen anyway.
What is happening in the West is the the feudal and class systems are coming back in many countries. A small group will run stuff, and everyone will know their class.
The expectation is a down until Q3 2023 then growth. Unless ofcourse, events…
Ash, You always talk a lot of shit but this latest meandering from facts is just astounding.
They are buying diesel from India.
Congratulations to all the Germans who voted this Government in!
All Germans can then blame Putin for their problems! Maybe the government will throw a few cents their way to help them buy a few beers to drown their sorrows in…
I hear Mittal is going to clean up, with all the metal scrap lying around in Ukraine.
There’s still a chance the US could get out of this. Pull all foreign based troops back to the continental US. All of them, excepting Canada, the UK, Australia and NZ. Then, they could all learn to make nice, or they could descend into their own chaos.
The world would get along just fine without any military bases far from home.
The obscenity of the bio-labs has to stop.
I dream.
But wouldn’t it be grand.
No reason to keep any bases in the other four 5 Eyes. Most global problems emanate the the 5 Eyes and there is no reason to consolidate it.
Watching a few matches of the World Cup made me appreciate and understand Russia’s war efforts more clearly.
Football, or soccer, is not war of position. It is not American football, where moving the chains is the path to victory.
It is war of movement or maneuver, where the team with the ball is often happy to move in all directions, including backwards, to reset the offensive and maintain overall control. Sometimes, playing defense is warranted, as a means to exhaust the enemy and prepare a counter-attack.
This is probably all NSA for the experts here. But American popular understanding, even “expert” understanding, of the war could be greatly enhanced just by watching a World Cup match.
Over 10 months of bloody fighting, according to information from publicly available sources alone, more than 1.2 thousand people(soldiers of the Polish army who acted under the guise of PMCs and volunteers) were killed in Ukraine.Polish citizens, including soldiers and veterans 16. PDZ. The number of wounded and maimed is also several thousand people.-Polish media(polish people claim it is Russia-owned site)
Original version https://dziennik-polityczny.com/2022/11/23/niechlubny-koniec-najemnicy-ktorzy-zgineli-na-ukrainie-zostana-pochowani-w-amerykanskich-grobach/
English version
https://translated.turbopages.org/proxy_u/pl-en.en.5f6d124b-6384a73d-e7b35d7c-74722d776562/https/dziennik-polityczny.com/2022/11/23/niechlubny-koniec-najemnicy-ktorzy-zgineli-na-ukrainie-zostana-pochowani-w-amerykanskich-grobach/
Stockpiles running low and graveyards filling up?
Apparently, some European nations decided to help Putin denazify and demilitarize NATO and Europe…
No sympathy for the US and Europe, considering what they are doing to Ukraine.
Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom are full-blown police states with no freedom of speech, religion, press, peaceful assembly, right to keep and bear arms, right to jury trial, freedom from warrantless search and seizure…
A couple years ago the London police arrested a black minister for reading the King James Bible aloud on an sidewalk.
You absolutely nothing to do with the other Anglophone countries. Nothing.
100% Agree. We should stop trying to make this Anglosphere thing happen. It’s dead.
Liberating Canada from the clutches of the British is another matter entirely.
You cant re-industrialize if you’re $31 trillion in debt. We were able to finance the WWII industrialization because there was no debt. Also, men*were willing to do the hard and boring and sometimes dangerous industrial jobs because it was “for our boys overseas” It also gave them back their pride which had been shattered by a decade of 25% unemployment
We have none of this now. Kids nowadays cant change a tire and demonize blue collar workers and every virtue that allowed us to destroy the fascist menace, while striving for the ultimate goal of being a “social influencer”
*(And women, dont forget those ladies. y’all)
Any parent bellyaching about how lazy their kids are should jolly well be looking closely in the mirror for the reason.
“We” didn’t “destroy the Fascist menace,” which was already a total systemic infection in the US, pre- and post-WW II. Recall the Cold War pitch that Comm-yanism was a potential Invasion of the Pod People, also treated like an infection which required fire to bar and burn out of the Body Politic (since it threatened the power of the wealthy.) Let’s remember that the Soviets did the heavy lifting in defeating the German military. Now it looks like the disease of fascist capitalism is about to explode and kill the host.
And I thought that when I enlisted in the Army in 1966, I was “defending freedom” and “defeating Comm-yanism” in Vietnam. “Supporting and defending the Constitution,” and all that.
There’s no way that the Empire, ruled by greedy idiots, will pull back those 800+ imperial outposts and tend to making the US a better place to live for the
slaves deplorablescitizens. The ruling idiots also know this is a zero-sum game and will never relent.Some days I wake up glad that I am getting old…
Some folks are starting to realize that this is indeed an end-game zero-sum for Russia and the world outside the diseased states of the West under the Empire. It won’t be enough to defeat Ukraine on the ground, and suck up all the weapons and wealth of NATO as they currently exist — so much of which is going into the pockets of the elite, to fund more adventures in domination and despair. The Evil Empire will just go to work on a more competent Death Star, they’re already building it, the contracts have already been inked. Not sure Russia, for all its resources and energy and head start, will have the endurance to defeat that level of malevolence. And China? So many balls in play — will China pair up with Russia to effectively gut the Combined West? Or will Putin’s hope that free, sovereign nations will have the space and time to establish a truly global, interdependent system of trading partners, abiding by a true rule of law, pursuing their individual interests (as defined by their individual ruling elites, of course) turn out to be just another pipe dream?
Given the evidence of the nature of human nature, I’d not be betting on a happy outcome…
The RV thing is something I witnessed first hand this summer driving across Canada, The big diesel push RV was few and far between as opposed to previous years. Noticed more smaller tiny trailers in tow. Also the usual summer rental RV that one would normally see when Europeans rent to travel across Canada seemed to be non existent. Which is a good thing for all the self righteous mentally challenged climate cult. They deserve to freeze for being so damn stupid. You will know by spring how bad it is when the Ukrainian Women brides sites get competition from France, Germany, England etc. Mail order bride biz could get crowded.
Excellent comparison with Oliver Hardy’s film. However, I see more of the relationship between the US and England, with this sketch by Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse, Oliver Hardy being the US and Stan Laurel being England. My apologies if the video offends, but I think it’s funny:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXEKb7-Bkwg (Laurel and Hardy in… Brokeback Mountain)
You’re right. Quite offensive and hilarious!. Thanks.
In non-Soviet Ukraine every day is black friday. You can stand in line in the dark anytime you want.
Europe should be angry, Germany in particular. It seems as if someone went and dusted off the Morgenthau Plan, updated it, and made it official US policy. I can’t tell if the ghost of the British Empire is driving US policy or if the US has simply adopted it completely. But the antagonism towards Russia and the whole Eurasian mess seems to be nothing more than an updated version of The Great Game and the weakening of Germany appears to be very similar to the old British foreign policy of always opposing the strongest European power whether it be France or Germany.
One gets the sense that it is almost London calling the shots instead of Washington. And the Russians sometimes seem to echo that as that they seem reserve especial vitriol for London over and above Washington.
“One gets the sense that it is almost London calling the shots instead of Washington.”
Maybe, but which London are we talkin’ about? London proper, or the City of London? Big difference! If it is the former, I think it’s very much under the US thumb, but the latter, takes orders from no one.
Or almost no one. Lmao …
Who IS calling the shots? That’s the question that seems to be the greatest mystery of them all. The World Economic Forum is certainly getting all the pub recently, and perhaps rightfully so, but me personally, I consider the WEC only as a minor subdivision of the tried and tested Bilderbergers, its main purpose to do the recruiting, and grooming, of the young and promising globalists of the future.
And for all I know, the hardened veterans of the Bilderberger Group are simply taking orders from the Bank of International Settlements. How the BIS remains under the Conspiracy Theory radar is beyond me. If central banks rule the world,* which they do, and they all meet in Basel to decide on the best way to divy up the world’s most important resource, its money supply, how is it that we are not talking about it?
“I can’t tell if the ghost of the British Empire is driving US policy or if the US has simply adopted it completely. ”
Good stuff.
*The Western world that is. Again, this is were I point out, that China has its own banks, which means, if this comes down to a competition between nation-states, then sovereign China vs the privatized, neo-liberal west, is a like a hungry tiger in a slaughter pen filled with succulent lambs.
I can’t tell if the ghost of the British Empire is driving US policy or if the US has simply adopted it completely. — Totilla
It’s interesting to note that the core of western empire is defined by Institutes of International Affairs (IIA and RIIA; for example, Chatham House in London) and Counsels on Foreign Relations (USA, France, Germany), which were founded and endowed by Rhodes who aimed to establish Crown rule over the world. And Rhodes Scholarships.
The cross pollination in the rabbit holes run deep! For instance, if you’re not a card carrying member of the Bilderberg Group, the Council of Foreign Relations, and the World Economic Forum simultaneously, you’re a nobody!
Also, while ruminating on the globalist agenda, I’d like to give a big shout out to the Chicago School of Economics! If there is a common thread that ties all the globalist rabbit holes together, it is undeniably the Chicago School, for if you are not a long standing and unfaltering adherent, you will never be invited to any of the shindigs thrown by these globalists clubs, and under no circumstances, will you EVER be allowed to join.
… if you are not a long standing and unfaltering adherent, you will never be invited to any of the shindigs thrown by these globalists clubs, and under no circumstances, will you EVER be allowed to join. — Max424
You’re misinformed. But I need to consider if I should explain why for two reasons — a full explanation would be long, and some of that explanation includes personal experience.
Suffice it to say, there are thirty-eight regional Committees on Foreign Relations organized under the New York City based Council on Foreign Relations. The Chicago CFR is prominent and the University of Chicago closely associated — Rockefeller founded both (i.e.: Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan founded the national Counsel on Foreign Relations (Pratt House, NYC) in 1921 shortly after the Versailles Treaty Conference.)
Hilary Clinton was a partner in the Rose Law Firm, in Little Rock, Arkansas, during Bill’s years as state governor. A firm senior partner was also chairman of the Little Rock CFR. Bill attended Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship…
Europe is a peninsula on Asia where the US held a beachhead since 1945. Time to pack up with the barbarians start crossing the Rhine. Don’t leave anything useful behind…
“At the start of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union, despite suffering early losses …”
At the start of WWII the USA suffered no losses, being neutral.
The USSR suffered some losses as it and its ally, Nazi Germany, conquered Poland – but surely their losses were pretty modest? I assume they didn’t lose much conquering the Baltic states or defeating Romania either. Did they have to wait for their invasion of Finland before their losses became non-negligible?
“The USSR suffered some losses as it and its ally …”
You correct someone, but add some of your own bullshit. The only thing missing is claim that Stalin was worse than Hitler.
Stalin Vs Hitler, who was worse? How does one gauge that?
Stalin is responsible for more deaths.
Stalin vs Hitler question is the easiest way to find Nazi symphatizers on the Internet. They just can’t resist to show themselves (you know you couldn’t). It’s like putting a child in front of Biden.
So, how does Churchill stack up then?
Dear ignorant,
Did you know that Poland also concluded a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany on the eve of WWII? Does it also make Poland an ally of Nazi Germany? Only those who never heard Hitler announcing who was his main enemy throughout the 1930s can think of an alliance between Moscow and Berlin in WWII. The other possibilities are to be an absolute retard or to eat the West’s current Russophobic campaign by the spoonful. After years of common celebrations for the victory in the WWII.
It’s not just ignorance, but hate towards Russians and all the other “unermensch”.
Almost all European countries have sent soldiers to invade USSR/Russia back in the day. They do not celebrate victory in the WWII, because they lost. Nowdays they are combined in NATO, and are supporting discount Nazis with the same goal. History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Western world invades, and Russians obliterate them while retreating and waiting winter. The only difference is that Hitler and Napoleon went all the way to Moscow, and Zelensky got all the way to Kherson.
When I was in the Czech Rep, we were driving near the Polish border and the Czechs pointed out, “There are the lands Poland once stole from us with Hitler’s help”.
Poles are their own little regional hegemon and not held in high regard by much of the neighborhood. Heard similar things from the Lithuanians, like Poles wanting to rename streets in Polish in Vilnius. True or not, it reflects a perceived mindset.
Deputy of the Latvian Parliament, Alexander Kirsteins posts:
“There is no Russian nation. Russian language appeared as a dialect when Mongol-Tatars tried to speak Ukrainian!” (1)
This is the level of idiocy of one of the busy tails that wag the US and EU dogs.
How can we lose with such as these driving our foreign policy?
Never underestimate what passes for the intellectual underpinnings accompanying fascist revivals in the Baltic States and Ukraine.
Mr Johnson, a companion piece to your linked article. well written sir.
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-hits-emergency-button-to-save-european-industry/
“Amazing. The Politico authors blame Putin for what the United States and Europe did to themselves. I can hear Europe’s lament, “It is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into America.””
So similar to the claims that Russia caused the great social divide in US through the Internet Research Agency’s $100k spend on anti-Trump and anti-Hillary ads. Before the IRA the US was a united country.
Laurel and Hardy? But that is the wrong way around as again and again we see the Brit/European (Laurel) causing harm to the American (Hardy).
I wish we Europeans could be more like Jerry to the US Tom.
A good analogy would be the US Wild E. Coyote to the Russian and Chinese Road Runner (just thing of the role out of OBOR or the Chinese rail system).
And as a Brit I have to admit our real role in the world.
Muttley to the US Dick Dastardly
“I wish we Europeans could be more like Jerry to the US Tom.”
You already are by default due to your ineptitudes, but more mauled than Jerry was.
I think the US is now more like Walter White as he tried to solve his financial problems and the EU, the zombies that followed him.
Beware the falling debris.
“Beware the falling debris.”
A relevant question from inception in 1969 was “How to drown a drowning man with the minimum of blowback ?” since blowback can never be avoided, but can be minimised partly as functions of drowning men’s hopes and tempos.
This in part informed strategies from 1969 to date including perhaps the Special Military Operation over various “stages”.
How to do that? Take the lesson from medieval times and incorporate the sanctified ritual that if the man drowns, he is free of sin and if he floats, then possessed by the devil and slated for burning.
Very simple. I believe our MSM and Western inquisitioners indulge in something very similar.
re Laurel and Hardy; John Lovitz; HIs character on SNL that always reacted by having the idea first when someone told him something new. “yeah, that’s the ticket” describes the clueless currently running the S. Show.
Watch EU nations; We are going to hear that one or more countries are already printing new units of currency. Most nations have some gold to back it with. Nations will start leaving the EU for violation of charter that they have ignored. They can’t afford to any longer. All nations can default without shame or anyone interfering. The debts of the Euro are for the belgian mafia and the US to deal with. Europe will get back to dealing with one another no matter how much they hate each other.
What choice do they have if they wish to survive?
Mr. Johnson- i agree with your column. i think we are reaching a tipping point
definition of insanity below
https://republicbroadcasting.org/news/cambridge-dean-goes-full-woke-claims-jesus-could-have-been-transgender/
https://republicbroadcasting.org/news/new-visa-card-features-personal-carbon-emissions-tracker/
clownworld
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/size-british-army-hit-200-year-low-only-sufficient-stay-home-tootle-around-warns-secdef
This is an interesting take on the possible resolution of the Ukraine mess: I do not think helmer is on the Christmas card list of the two Andreis’ for unknown reasons but here it is:
http://johnhelmer.org/ukraine-armistice-how-the-udz-of-2023-will-separate-the-armies-like-the-korean-dmz-of-1953/
The hottest sales items in the state of Oregon are guns. Probably empty out some smaller dealers by December. Oregonians by the slightest of margins passed a measure to require a person to obtain a “gun purchase permit” to be able to buy a gun. The measured goes into effect the second week of December I believe. Record number of background requests (no waiting period currently) for recent purchases. To get the permit is a multiple step process some of which can be infinite loops of bureaucratic nonsense. Good luck to citizens of Oregon.
“To get the permit is a multiple step process…”
The law is SPECIFICALLY designed to NOT be possible to get… You have to
pass a range test with your gun BEFORE buying the gun. Think about
that one 8) Sheriffs in Oregon say it will be two years before any of these
‘permits’ are ever issued either. Frankly, I don’t see anyone buying a gun
here legally in Oregon at this point…it will all be black market or 3D printed.
Same for the standard capacity magazine ban…
We all remember about how there was only 25-days of diesel left. That was like 90-days and 3-months ago. So, like, we never ran out of diesel. The trucks are still running.
Some lame ass excuse covering how we could have been SO-O-O-O WRONG had to be proffered. And we were. And we are. SO WRONG. About the whole running out of diesel thing.
“Yeah, well, it was demand destruction. In diesel. Not demand destruction of the fear porn about running out of diesel — in 25-days!
“Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come.” ― Haruki Murakami
Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the United States to run out of diesel.
mr. johnson i forgot this.
this is a transcript of the meeting that putin had with the mothers of serviceman. people can say what they want but when is the last time a leader of the west did the same in their country to explain why their sons are going to war and what he is doing to help them win.
http://thesaker.is/meeting-with-mothers-of-servicemen-participating-in-the-svo-transcript/
of course this is the wests spin on this . my comment is i wonder whom is funding the Members of the Council of Mothers and Wives. Also if there is no free speech in russia this group would not be allowed to have a telegram channel.
https://www.newsweek.com/mothers-russian-soldiers-shameful-putin-meeting-1762406
there is nothing like the below in the west either. in the global homo west the award would probably be for the mothers that have had their children transgendered.
https://libertysons.org/putin-will-give-mothers-16k-who-have-10-children/
when i see this i this i think our countries are lost without revelation 20 kjv divine intervention. what the hell has happened to the men- 2 short vids and an article below.this is the envy of sodom and gomorrah
Why you don’t answer dog walker needed ads in Portland…we live in hell
https://www.bitchute.com/video/8F0VxvA7AI9I/
https://www.bitchute.com/embed/8F0VxvA7AI9I/
Situational Awareness Lesson #14
https://www.bitchute.com/video/3icetXFVm9Rk/
https://www.bitchute.com/embed/3icetXFVm9Rk/
https://republicbroadcasting.org/news/cambridge-dean-goes-full-woke-claims-jesus-could-have-been-transgender/
regards,
ralph
European officials complaining about the United States profiting at Europe’s expense in the arms shipments to the Ukraine is hysterical.
If Europe had any significant manufacturing capability set aside for the manufacturing of arms then they could complain, but they don’t, so they can’t.
Even the United States doesn’t have any significant manufacturing capability set aside for the manufacturing of arms. Somebody else makes it, then it gets imported into the United States, where everything gets put together and assembled. Look at Boeing, a major arms merchant; not a manufacturer, and the fiasco with their jetliners being built piece meal, and coming from, everywhere.
And the claims about the United States and profiteering. Again. Please. If Europe had done anything about having a self-sufficient economy then I might listen, but Europe is just like Japan now. They have to import everything — natural gas, oil, coal, minerals and rare earths — just to survive.
Europe needs to figure out “Who’s their Daddy now.” Is it Russia, China, or the United States? Can’t be the United States, who is also running out of all the things it needs to survive, too.
You cannot use shopping mall traffic as a proxy for overall health of “the American economy”. Malls and much of office real estate have lost their a great deal of their value because the United States has made a fundamental change as the result of the folly of Covid lockdowns. Why go to the mall and endure the hassles of traffic, parking and random crime when you can do the shopping online? Why have all of your workers commute downtown to sit in front of a computer when you can have them work longer hours by allowing them to stay at home? So, 8 million fewer people go to the malls; and office rents for Class B and C property continue to fall; and the Atlanta Fed’s latest number for GDP Now for the 4th quarter is 4.3%.
https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow
The EU promised the Europeans they will grow up and be an adult in the room one day… No it is in it’s 60 and it still craps its pants when an adult country speaks a bit loud. Even within the EU.
Abandon all hopes for the EU , when a 60 year old behave like a four month toddler , you can’t fix the guy anymore.
More like Red Friday for those with at least two critical thinking brain cells left.
We didn’t “rescue the Ukrainians” and no Europe won’t come out stronger!
In February of this year, in the weeks leading up to the entry of Russian troops into Donbass, newspapers and talk shows discussed possible prospects.
To those who invited to consider as sensible, and indeed convenient, the renunciation of Ukraine’s entry into NATO, the acceptance of a statute of neutrality, and the concession of a degree of administrative autonomy to the Russophone provinces (as per the Minsk agreements II) – again within the ambit of the Ukrainian state, the experts of the regime angrily retorted to these that it was an unacceptable prospect, that Ukrainian sovereignty was at stake, that a state should have the right to choose its own military alliances. (NB: the administrative autonomy of Alto Adige is motivated by the presence of 69% of the German-speaking population; in the areas of Donetsk and Lugansk the Russian-speaking population before the war exceeded 90%).
And still in the aftermath of the invasion, there were those who recommended starting peace talks as quickly as possible instead of sending arms, because this would have prolonged the conflict indefinitely, and this would have been paid hard by the Ukrainians in the first place and by the Europe all in second place.
To these the same spring experts replied angrily that it was a question of sovereignty, that there was an aggressor and one attacked, that it was not the time for negotiations, that Europe would come out stronger than before (I have a distinct memory of a well-known journalist and a former ambassador at a television studio who vehemently supported these theses in response to yours truly.)
Today, nine months later, Ukraine is starting to look like a frozen pile of rubble and 6 million Ukrainian refugees have already arrived in the European Union (the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since 1945) and at least as many are preparing.
For the current year alone, the estimated out-of-pocket costs for European hospitality amount to 43 billion euros. The dead at the front are in the order of magnitude of hundreds of thousands.
The colossal supply of arms by NATO (three times the Russian annual budget) has largely taken the route of the black market, where surface-to-air missiles, mortars, heavy machine guns, etc. are now available at bargain prices. (organized crime will benefit from it for decades).
As for Ukrainian “sovereignty” which had to be defended at all costs, even the most inattentive know today that it was a fairy tale for some time: American support and support for the Maidan coup is well known, just as we know of the straight-leg revenues of the ex-President Biden on Ukrainian judges prosecuting son Hunter’s Ukrainian affairs.
As for the idea that “sovereign” Ukraine did not represent any threat and there was no concrete possibility of it becoming part of NATO, in the meantime it has calmly emerged that since the Minsk II agreements (2015) NATO has been training the Ukrainian army, supplying it with weapons, building fortifications, and that the signing of the agreements was only a ploy to buy time and allow Ukraine to strengthen itself militarily (direct testimony of former president Poroshenko, as well as several US officials).
Always with a view to protecting Ukrainian sovereignty, in the meantime Russia has stabilized in a large part of the conquered territories, Mariupol has even already been partially rebuilt, annexation referendums have been held, and the prospect that these territories will return to Ukrainian hands is considered laughable even by American leaders.
The conflict has now been explicitly characterized as a conflict between NATO and Russia, even if nobody wants this to be officially recognized because it would represent a global explosion. On Ukrainian territory, foreign “volunteers” are now fighting to an increasing extent, with NATO instructors, NATO armaments, funding from NATO countries. The regular Ukrainian army has long since lost the most “combat-ready” troops and is now only cannon fodder for periodic bloody sorties.
Meanwhile, Europe is in full stagflation, with the industrial sector planning new plants underway, which is already taking place outside Europe.
Indeed, the sharp political break with Russia has created a terminal crisis in the supply of energy and raw materials, as all the major players not directly subordinate to the US are enjoying for the first time the possibility of asserting their bargaining power suppliers of raw materials – bargaining power increased enormously with the quasi-blockade of supplies from Russia and Ukraine. Without energy and raw materials, Europe is a dying museum.
As foreseeable and foreseen by many since February, the road taken nine months ago is leading exactly where it was supposed to lead.
We have not “saved the Ukrainians”, but we have fueled and prolonged a process that is wiping out the country and killing tens of thousands of them.
We have not “saved Ukrainian sovereignty”, both because it was already almost non-existent (and today it is reduced to puppets and actors), and because the Ukrainian state has dissolved, a quarter of its population has migrated, and territorial losses will be almost certainly definitive.
On the other hand, we gutted what little was left of Europe, which is rapidly losing its only true competitive “asset”, i.e. its industrial transformation capacities (in the absence of abundant and cheap energy sources, this direction is without return ).
But maybe someone could hope that, after all, a meltdown often follows a palingenesis, and that maybe it will be the right time, right?
Except that putting the real tombstone on any hope of rebirth is the detection of the structural plug that blocks any possibility of awareness and renewal: the whole media circus of “experts” and “accredited”, the whole band of successful failures, of power matchmakers who create and shape the famous “public opinion” are there, firmly in the saddle, and will continue their action of poisoning, manipulation and deception indefinitely.
ANDREW ZHOK
Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Milan in L’ Anti Diplomatico on 27 Nov
https://www.lantidiplomatico.it/dettnews-andrea_zhok__non_abbiamo_salvato_gli_ucraini_e_no_leuropa_non_ne_uscir_pi_forte/39602_48020/
Very well written. Congratulations to you, Prof. Zhok. Would you consider running for POTUS?
No? I didn’t think so. What sane man would.
The news that Germany agreed to supply the Patriots to Poland but does not authorize the Patriots to be installed in Ukrainian territory yet, which would even make sense if the Patriots were worth some shit because they protected Ukraine and Poland from Russian missiles, says well of the how committed Europe remains to investing in the Kiev regime and the conflict in Ukraine.
Patriot system are more of an emotional support dog. It won’t protect you from anything, but it will make you feel safer with it’s presence (as long as no threat appears).
I agree. But Germany expressly prohibited Poland from installing them within the Ukrainian border. Which in a true union of wills made perfect sense. Missiles do not reach southeastern Poland – where the Ukrainian missile landed – without passing through Ukraine. It is mainly indicative that the wind has already started to change in Europe.
Like the argument used by Germany. Why is Ukraine not a NATO country?! But nothing bothered Germany NATO in Ukraine in the last 8 years! Or during the conflict to this day. Ukraine has always been treated like a NATO country when it comes to sending arms. Can’t install Patriots but can receive Gepard and Iris-T? The wind has definitely changed in Europe. And it is unmistakably related to Larry’s post.
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-to-deliver-15-gepard-tanks-to-ukraine-in-july/a-61880311
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-to-quickly-send-air-defense-systems-to-ukraine/a-63397544
The Deep State Banking Cabal can’t help itself. With their ability to manipulate their privately owned USD they flood the world with it, create asset bubbles and then they drive up interest rates, kill the bubble and buy up everything on the cheap. Rinse and repeat! They are out to steal all the 401k money and Larry Fink is trying to rob us of our last buck with his illegal ESG Program while GOP sits on its thumb, again.
A good definition of neoliberalism/globalism. Catch all the money in the world! Then just go back to naming some kings! Because there is no Democracy without free and independent journalism to scrutinize all the powers that be!
Viktor Orban had said in the first months: “With the sanctions against Russia, EU is shooting itself in its knees”.
Later he changed his mind: No it s not the knees, it ´ s the lung
Lung shot kills fast and foot shot is not deadly. It’s more of a belly shot. It’s deadly and painful, but kills slowly.
“Lung shot kills fast and foot shot is not deadly. It’s more of a belly shot. It’s deadly and painful, but kills slowly.”
You assume that the purpose is to kill perhaps as a function of projection, which may or may not been derived from experience.
Mr. Orban refers to knee-capping where if your shoot from behind the knee cap the receipient will be damaged and likely not be able to walk again, but will live to remember the reasons why another knee-capped her/him – an exercise in pour encourager les autres (to encourage the others) which like many such efforts failed.
This practice was popular in Northern Ireland and elsewhere during the 1970’s as appropriate punishment for informers.
It may have avoided your attention, but Mr. Orban is not “American” prone to over-act as a function of socialisation through encouragement of insecurities and consequential vindictiveness.
I don’t assume that the purpose is to kill or harm onself, quite the contrary. EU wanted to shoot someone else, but failed like Elmer Fudd.
I don’t speak Hungarian, so I don’t know what he exactly said. I use common English language phraseology. “Shooting yourself in the foot” is an expression used as a metaphor for someone harming oneself beacause of stupidity (i.e. EU). Someone extremely stupid might shoot some other body part and end up dying (like Darwin Award winners). EU might die because of this shot.
Kneecapping is done intentionally to someone else in order to cripple them. Ukros did it to captured Russians while filming it.
Many analysts said that EU shot “itself in the foot”, because it is pretty obvious. It may have avoided your attention that I was writing about metaphores and not Orban. I didn’t even mention his name in that post, so you are barking up the wrong tree. I have no idea what pushed your buttons, and I don’t care to know.
” I have no idea what pushed your buttons, and I don’t care to know.”
Ah you don’t care to know enough to write four paragraphs ?
Perhaps you were just saying ?
On the thing you don’t want to know, no buttons were pushed but opportunities were affored to use a coathanger upon which to hang prevalent behaviours in specific coercive social relations, not just saying.
Thank you for your service.
I tried being nice and explainig myself. Only after writing this I saw your comment in the other article. What is wrong with you? Do you think you know me from somewhere, and have some kind of beef with me? This BS seems surreal.
“Lung shot kills fast and foot shot is not deadly. It’s more of a belly shot. It’s deadly and painful, but kills slowly.”
You assume that the purpose is to kill perhaps as a function of projection, which may or may not have been derived from experience.
Mr. Orban refers to knee-capping where if your shoot from behind the knee cap the receipient will be damaged and likely not be able to walk again, but will live to remember the reasons why another knee-capped her/him – an exercise in pour encourager les autres (to encourage the others) which like many such efforts failed.
This practice was popular in Northern Ireland and elsewhere during the 1970’s as appropriate punishment for informers.
It may have avoided your attention, but Mr. Orban is not “American” prone to over-act as a function of socialisation through encouragement of insecurities and consequential vindictiveness.
”I can hear Europe’s lament, “It is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into America.”
In Russia there used to be such an anecdote:
– The adjutant cleans the vomited general’s tunic. The general (with a hangover), to somehow justify himself, says: – Yesterday I was walking near the barracks, and some rookie vomited from the window. So I put him under arrest for 5 days. The adjutant cleans and says: – You gave him little, he still shit in your pants.
Col MacGregor mentioned something about Polish soldiers in Ukrainian uniforms and Azov nasties/Nazis coming to blows in Bakhmut. Romanians involved – the Roms and the nasties/Nazis wanted to do something stupid. The Polish officers opened fire & killed the nasties/Nazis.
All very unclear – does anyone have info about this? True or fog of war BS?
With the international community, including EU and G7 cutting Russia off from SWIFT and seizing its gold and dollar reserves, the battle in Ukraine should have concluded with Russia’s collapse long ago. If Ukraine has been winning, how come the Russians are still taking territories?