I am not insulting Honduras. I lived in Honduras in 1978 in the “campo” where I worked with campesinos in developing agricultural projects that increased corn and bean production by 600%. I simply showed them how to do contour farming, which involved building terraces on the steep mountain slopes. My wife, a registered nurse, trained four “Rural Health Assistants” and created three village health clinics.
The experience in Honduras introduced me to a system where the very poor were hardworking and ruled by a system that favored the very wealthy. While the campesinos who live far away from the two major cities, Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, are somewhat insulated from civil violence and crime, the same cannot be said for those Hondurans who seek work in those two cities:
Officer Mendez* had no illusions about fighting crime or making his country a better place when he decided to join the Honduran police force. After a failed attempt to migrate to the United States, he needed a job, and the police were hiring. Peeling paint and dilapidated waiting-room chairs adorn his crumbling police station, and half-broken fans “cool” the humid air. “Do you know why people leave?” the young officer, no older than 21, asks us in a rare moment of conviction. “Por la delincuencia. Y las autoridades,” he adds, shaking his head, “no hacen nada.” He almost spits the words: People leave Honduras because of crime, and the authorities don’t do anything.
Seven years after I left Honduras, I was the CIA’s Honduras analyst and witnessed that country being used as a land-based aircraft carrier to back a guerrilla war in Nicaragua. That U.S. backed conflict was a U.S. policy failure and the political dysfunction in Honduras continued.
So now we have Joe Biden seemingly hell-bent on turning America into a banana republic like Honduras. The U.S. industrial base has been hollowed out and more than 70% of the U.S. GDP is produced by the service sector. America is not building much anymore. It is flipping burgers and delivering food via companies like Uber Eats and Door Dash.
I grew up in Independence, Missouri. Until I turned 18 in 1973, the Independence/Kansas City area were home to two GM plants (Leeds and Fairfax), Armco Steel, Bendix Corporation (Bendix Corporation which, made things like automotive brake shoes and systems, vacuum tubes, and aircraft brakes), Allis Chalmers (which produced agricultural equipment), and Standard Oil. Those enterprises are now shuttered or dramatically scaled back.
My Dad worked as machinist and later as a foreman at Armco. The father of one of my high school buddies worked at Standard Oil. He had a high school education but, as part of the Standard Oil employee compensation plan, he earned shares of stock with each paycheck and retired comfortably in the upper middle class. Those promises and opportunities are now gone, dispatched to the trash bin of history.
This story is being repeated in small and mid-size communities across America as income inequality increases. Sadly, America is beginning to resemble Honduras in that regard.
On the foreign policy front the United States is getting its ass handed to it. The United States is now perceived in a growing number of counties as an inept bully and unreliable ally. I think that is a factor in Honduras’ recent decision to terminate relations with Taiwan and give precedence to Beijing.
More evidence that the U.S. is becoming irrelevant:
- Ambassadors of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, and Iraq meet in Oman
- A French expert predicts the inevitability of the world’s players abandoning the dollar—the U.S. has turned it into an economic weapon. “Turning their currency into an instrument of political pressure, the Americans themselves unwittingly began a worldwide movement to impeach the dollar king.” In 2014, BNP Paribas was forced to pay a $9 billion fine to the U.S. for legally, under European and French law, financing in dollars exports from Cuba, Sudan, and Iran, even though these three states were under an American embargo. The U.S. considered this case to be within its competence, because the transactions were made through a BNP Paribas account in New York.
- Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman says he is “no longer interested” in pleasing the United States, “doesn’t care” what Biden thinks of him – Wall Street Journal.
- India and Malaysia dump dollar, to settle trade in Indian rupee.
There is a massive supply of dollars floating around the world. With major economies like China, India, Malaysia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Russia abandoning the dollar as the standard for international trade, the value of the dollar will fall. That means that the United States economy, which is dependent on foreign imports, will be paying more, which means more inflation in the United States.
This does not mean that the United States is headed for an economic collapse, but it does mean that the American people will be facing some very choppy, uncertain economic waters ahead. Just like Honduras.
NOTE — A clarification for the curious. My wife and I went to Honduras with a private charitable organization. I was friends with one of the members of the board and he asked us to go. Not the Peace Corps.
I’ve been following you for a long time, thanks for your analysis and honesty, I know your family history and you’re a true patriot, but realistically, a group of people with knowledge is raising America’s reputation because of you among the common people of Europe and other places, because most people don’t watch TV anymore, but what’s on the net. has been in fashion for some time now, I occasionally send you some things in the comments, all the best and good luck, greetings from Belgrade.
I am honored by your comment. Good to know I’m resonating with smart people.
Because dumb people don’t resonate at all. [sarcasm] SOS
There is an insult in French that requires enough French to understand a pun:
Il raisonne comme un tambour.
Raisonne means reasons, but résonne (that sounds the same) means resonates.
So it means he resonates like a drum, or he reasons like a drum (someone with an empty head).
Good. I ‘ ve just learnt this and incorporated it in my scarce french language dominion.
I don’t know about smart but you are resonating.
Looking at those photos, don’t you miss Honduras?
I enjoyed Haiti until I was stalked by a gang of young boys.
I enjoyed Caracas until the army pulled up in front of a bar, in an American built truck, wearing US made uniforms, carrying US made weapons. They took a liking to a table already occupied and beat the shit out of those patrons until they left.
There’s a reason they call them “shit hole countries.” The United States is already there in parts. The United States has shit hole states and shit hole cities, like Detroit, Flint, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, all of California and New York State.
We have mile high landfills poisoning local water supplies. We have 200-years of industrial pollution poisoning wells throughout the Northeast. Almost 80-percent of American diets are made up of processed foods. Essentially, the food supply is poisoned. And then there’s the spike proteins and the poisoned healthcare system. And the wanton and open criminality in government, giving Americans a poisoned political system governed by endless war and endless warmongering. Peace is poisoned.
We are also seeing the return of chronically poverty-stricken areas, primarily in the Deep South.
Yes, u r resonating.
Thx for what u do. Penetrating this fog being laid down every minute of every day by our deep state is challenging for u I’m sure. But u have proven over and over to b trustworthy and reliable (used to call it “honest”.
U r honorable and performing a vital role in the WORLD today.
Job well done.
All this worthless money, that you have stay up late at night worrying about. Terrified that it might go away.
It’s not “if” it might go away. It’s when. It’s not it “might” go away. It “will” and soon. Just as you need some kind of real money the most. Count on it.
They will take it all and then kick you to the street, in winter.
That’s what we are facing. In this generation.
Zero + Zero = Zero.
Nothing + nothing = nothing.
Are we Honduras? “Press 1” for English. “Press 2” for Spanish.
Failed empires have consequences. Ask the British. Ask Spain.
Remove a common language. Take away a shared culture. Destroy the family. Destroy religion. Destroy the Constitution. Destroy the Bill of Rights. Destroy women, make them all whores. “Rules for thee. None for me.” Refer euphemistically to our legal system and call it something polite like “two-tiered.”
Then tell the rest of us something really shitty, like how we need to stop yearning for simpler times.
You’re resonating with me too, Larry .. and Im a total dumb$&*t
Oh c’mon, Larry; dont be like that. I was just kidding. In actuality, I really am smart .. REALLY smart, in fact
VERY Interesting to know!
I was aware about the fact that people in Honduras are acquainted with several Mennonite families ( who moved long ago from USA) and colonies.. IMO, these Christian farmers ( just like their Amish cousins ) are showing the bright side of what can be found in the American DNA… Spirituality, honesty, family values and ultra hard work!
After all, I believe the Mennonites moved to the South to protect their Faith!
I also believe some are still using their old german Bibles.. That is long-term commitment!
Now, I know that you and your wife also acted as ambassadors! Your friends over there will never forget you!
Blessings for everyone involved!
The Monroe Doctrine has been the pillar of US foreign policy towards South America. CIA covert operation in order to support Pro Us paramilitary gov’t destroyed the socio economy system of these countries. US sponsored coup and economically debilitating sanctions against Cuba and Venezuela could be considered the major cause of migration to US. The way to curb illegal migration in my opinion does not lie in protecting the borders, rather in Washington DC that purveyor of destructive foreign policy that trigger chaos and migration toward to US.
AMEN!!! I think our intelligence agencies have been a net negative since the beginning. As far as the C.I.A. a total disgrace. Their behavior has removed the one thing we must have to be a shining city on a hill for the rest of the world. That thing is moral authority.
BNP … “the transactions were made through a BNP Paribas account in New York” That sounds like stupidity within the company. Had it been done via London or Paris it would not have been a crime. Nor was there a system to compete with SWIFT in 2014, which is not the case now. You should look at what Mexico is saying about joining BRICS too. Barack’s “Fundamental” transformation of America is underway.
Did the French expert explain what is happening to the Euro? The whole Eurodollar system and the bankrupt ideas behind them are going to go crashing down, UA-RU war notwithstanding. Sanctions are only speeding that up. Davos is going to triple down soon, because that’s all they know how to do.
They would have done this through US because JPM is the nostro agent for USD clearing – If they were doing this out of Europe,that would be termed as a Back to Back trade with one leg being USD which would have incurred additional costs because then they would have to use an European currency as the second leg – What BNP was doing is legally correct since their risk and compliance teams would have vetted and agreed on the arrangements but that would means zilch for the Fed under whom currency enforcement comes
Yes because all that props up the Euro is Germany’s perennial trade surplus……..which was predicated on long-term gas contracts from USSR/Russia………….
However the EU discovered Off-Sheet Financing with a vengeance……and there are so many Special Vehicles without Sinking Funds to repay borrowings………
and Germany has created similar Off-Sheet Vehicles with unconsolidated debt commitments……..
That how the Euro can possibly have any residual value once Debt Repayment is considered is unclear
Already Germany which paid €3.9 billion in Interest Payments 2021 paid €39 billion 2022 as interest rates rise…….
and with Banks loaded up on Government Debt as a Reserve Asset facilitating Lending – we have the stupidity of property lending – commercial and residential being akin to Bonds such that rising interest rates depress capital values……….
Talk about Systematic Risk
Has Larry ever heard of IBEC Corp?
No.
International Basic Economy Corp. It was active in Brazil, etc. in the 50’s-70’s, then sold off its assets. Close relative was involved with it and also good buds with one of the execs who also happened to be an alphabet station chief in Brazil. Your history seemed to fit into the overall theme. They’ve both passed away, so I guess no harm in mentioning it.
https://www.empireadc.org/search/catalog/nnttr_fa084
https://www.capital-flow-analysis.com/investment-tutorial/case_1w.html
Sure, it had an alphabet presence back in the day, keeping its ears to the ground so to speak, but it also did a lot of good things I’d heard of firsthand, much as you did. That’s what pains me so much to see current paths turned topsy turvy for no good reason that I can fathom.
My two cents anyway.
And there’s a similar multi-nation shareholder bank in Moscow that follows in the footpath of the Brazil-based outfit with the same acronym IBEC.
https://www.ibec.int/upload/custom/f22/ylekndft1wodbh680s795rm900qwgltn/2023_03_22_IBEC_Key_Facts_2023_ENG.pdf
Interesting set of shareholders, indeed.
It does mean the USA is headed for economic collapse as inflation export to rest of world stops, reverses, and flows back into USA igniting hyperinflation.
Good news- tax revenue collapses and demonic government must stop their programs of unnatural behaviors and mental illness.
It’s crazy there are still people here that think all the US needs to do is to “get rid of the deep state/soros/London etc…” and America will be a “great power and prosperous again”, that’s the ignorant fantasies of a child. American economy is way more inflated/unreliable than the late 80’s USSR. The US is already broke , with a total debt of over 100 trillion ( as Kim dotcom once wrote, even if the US sold everything on it’s soil, it still would have a debt of over 60 trillion). The dollar status has allowed Americans to live beyond their means, once it vanishes, without a real economy to employ/generate growth, or the fake money to keep a zombie economy/buy stuff, there will be tens of millions of unemployed, some will turn to crime. America is disunited, full of illegal migrants, has cartels/drugs problems, corrupt/criminal government etc… This isn’t something you can fix in one generation, even if by miracle the US doesn’t collapse ( with Hawaii/Texas the first to go) America will never reach the level of economic/living standard it had, because for the past 40+ years it was Unearded, relying on data fiddling and paper printing. Without an educated population to develop industry, it has no chance to become developed again ( especially given its huge population). even if Europe collapses, Europeans won’t come to ,what will be by then, a sh*thole, preferring to go to Russia, instead. *. It seems the 2030s will be to Russia what the 1950s were for the US, while being for the US what the 1990s were to Russia.
Well said and I agree. I was shocked at what I saw in my visit to Moscow in 2017. It reminded me of NY city in the 1950’s.
Precisely what is going to happen.
People believing that somehow America will eventually get back on track and rise like a phoenix from the ashes of the coming crash are dreaming – totally delusional.
America’s days are numbered and it will go the way of other great powers that collapsed from exact same monetary debasement and the concomitant decadence, depravity and corruption that attended them all in their final days.
The US is run by corrupt evil morons. There is no hope until the US collapses. People will be forced to deal with reality again and rebuild. Hunger has a strange way of aharpening the mind. The USA is a very large country with a lot of resources. If we can take control over our land and resources from our oligarchs we can rebuild the country.
It is what happens when you have such high Income Inequality coupled with Wealth Inequality…….
It was why High Taxes on Highest Incomes were essential to preserve plurality in a democracy
You reminded me of “Train on Fire”. As usual, history bites itself by the tail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3RQ6x9qD8w
I agree with you Goldhoarder that great opportunity (albeit very challenging and painful) will present for the American people when America collapses as it will force people back to basics and force them to take back control of their local communities and regions and rebuild their lives based on family and community.
The best thing that can happen to America and the world would be for people in communities and regions everywhere to take back control of their lives and their resources and then applying best of breed technologies with proven super-productive permaculture practices i.e. optimising human habitats to not only make the most of immediately available resources but to do so in a manner that enhances the biosphere we depend on. All the solutions to our problems lie in dramatically downsizing and understanding the true economics of ecology as opposed to the perverse body of disinformation that is passed off as modern economics.
The last thing that you want to wish for is a rebuilding back of a mammoth great supermall Federal America – which will not ever happen anyway for reasons which should be very obvious.
Central governments have to be dramatically downsized along with all the military industrial complexes they fund which in turn supports more centralized power.
Think it through in light of great empires and the almost identical recurring dynamics that led to repeating cycles of peak empires and the wealth and power and the corruption and moral depravity that always resulted. In every case the consolidation of such immense power and wealth was a direct result of the massive centrally-controlled government apparatus that enabled the accumulation of massive fortunes; and once that power had been captured then it in turn led to the corruption and take-over / hijacking of the government which was turned to the singular service of a wretchedly corrupted megalomaniac class who, not being satisfied at having been able to subvert, own and control what used to be the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth but the elite ruling class were suddenly struck with vain delusions of grandeur and began imagining themselves as being not only the elite rulers of the world but indeed the masters of the universe no less – the Intergalactic Herrenrasse.
The following quotes from Lord Acton sum it all in a nutshell:
Refer: https://www.acton.org/research/lord-acton-quote-archive
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.”
“Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.”
“Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.”
“Everybody likes to get as much power as circumstances allow, and nobody will vote for a self-denying ordinance.”
“Absolute power demoralizes.”
My further comment as follows:
Not only America, but the whole world is soon going to have to undergo massive readjustments that are going to be enforced by the laws of nature – most notably the affordable availability of energy and the mineral commodities which over the last hundred years especially have been in such relative abundance. That is all changing very fast.
Consider that in early 1990s it cost only 1 barrel of oil to extract approx. 90 barrels of oil. Because most of the easy-to-get top quality oil has long gone and been used, it now requires much more energy to discover, drill and extract – meaning the EROEI (energy return on energy invested) is much lower today i.e. now 1 barrel of oil energy equivalent only returns approx. 5 to 10 barrels of oil and dropping fast.
Many people in America and around the world are now aware of the dire situation we are facing. It is not a matter of how much oil may or may not be still in the earth but it comes down to the costs of extracting and refining and getting it to market. Within the next decade the world is going the experience the greatest of all shocks i.e. when it will be costing 1 barrel of oil equivalent to extract 1 barrel of oil.
The following is worth listening to on the subject:
Nate Fisher & Steve St. Angelo: The Collapse of Increasingly Complex Societies
1hr 27min YouTube discussion
Refer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kUZUfxfSUg&ab_channel=PalisadesGoldRadio
Mark P. Mills: Recession will only Delay Energy Inflation
21 Oct 2022
Refer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjKhXHHTErQ&ab_channel=PalisadesGoldRadio
William E. Rees: “The Fundamental Issue – Overshoot” | The Great Simplification #53
1hr 58min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQTuDttP2Yg&ab_channel=NateHagens
Best case scenario might be considered to be a breakthrough in affordable nuclear fusion – but if you study what is involved in that then I doubt they will ever be able to get nuclear fusion out of laboratory trialing and economically industrialize it in time to avoid a systems-wide collapse of our societies. Perhaps I am wrong on that matter and would love to be proven wrong soon.
For people who want to learn more about these dynamics and how we might transition to a truly sustainable future in which family and community will be transcendent then I recommend the following great discussion
Andrew Millison: “Geomorphology, Permaculture, and The Good Work” | The Great Simplification #64
1hr 24min YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52L4Ncs0jLk&ab_channel=NateHagens
Agreed!
The key words are “without an educated population”… 1000% true…
Education is a HUGE PROBLEM… in the USA and Europe as well….
Kids, teenagers, college and university students are ( at least a majority of them) brainwashed by the woke teachers, MSM and Big Tech ( Facebook, Google, etc)!
Not many of them would enjoy reading what is available on Sonar21.com!
Do you know any of them??? I don’t and it is really a sad situation!
They have been turned into smart phones/tablet addicts… And Big Tech is constantly feeding them with the same BS we hear every freaking day on MSM..
Are these kids computer litterate??
Make your own survey!!! Most of them are unable to say which OS is on their phone!
They have no clue if there is an antivirus on their device!
They can even tell you that Facebook is a browser!!!
Their main skill is to watch YT and TikTok videos and send text messages ultra fast speed ( but ultra full of spelling mistakes)!! Maybe some adult sites?!???
Of course, I agree that there are exceptions!
Should we be optimistic? Not sure!
USA needs several miracles ASAP
Maybe this is why Sen. Warner and Sen. Graham are in such a mad rush to force through “The Restrict Act”?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ucUgC8qzWts
Basically it is The Patriot Act for the Internet.
Larry, please look into this and cover it?
Larry should look into it (The RESTRICT Act) , because it would for example force him to get a lisence to blog, and if he said something the government doesn’t like, he could face up to 20 yrs in prison, $1m in fines and seizure of ALL his property.
Same penalties would apply for anyone using VPN, etc. The RESTRICT Act is a nightmare, and they are trying to sell it as ‘only to ban TikTok’
I respectfully disagree. The US will face hardship for sure, but the economy will not collapse for now, unless Davos keeps Trump out. Here is why.
The Euro Dollar or Offshore Dollar highly leveraged by the Shadow Banking is deleveraging and returnig to the US where it can earn 5%. To keep it from moving back to the US, the City of London will bleed paying interest on money from negative to 3.5%. This is needed to keep the Derivatives Market from imploding.
More importantly, the City of London will not be wagging the Fed dog any more. The Fed system of pricing money has switched to SOFR from the City of London’s system LIBOR. Ask yourself, who was responsible for free money for the last 10 years?, and who keeps indebting the US? Bernanke and Yellin a couple of City of London/Davos stooges; and who keeps sending free money to Ukraine, Jannette Yellin. Who is trying to convince us that their is no money for Social Security, but we can double the military buget? The Neocons.
Again, what Powell is doing is using inflation as a cover to repatriate Overseas Dollars by offering US Bonds at an attractive 5% which unwinds the offshore Dollar leverage. As mentioned above this is why Lizzy Lagarde has raised ECB rates from -0.5% to 3.5%, imagine from negative.
This leads us to ask why is Trump being attacked by a Soros backed New York DA? Trump installed Powell at the Fed and Powell’s term ends around the beginning of a new Presidential term. This is why Davos has to keep Trump from becoming president and continuing to destroy Davos’ financial ability to create wars and famines. This is no less than survival for Davos.
Soros commented on DeSanti being very ambitious. In my opinion Desantis will do whatever Davos asks of him for a second term, including getting rid of Powell. Should Trump reach office, he will keep Powell in place. With Powell backed by Presendential Veto, we might be seeing Congress being forced into budgetary discipline.
I didn’t vote for Trump, but this time, I will. Reguardless of your opinion of Trump, he is our only hope against the Davos Communists and their bug menu. What’s the guarantee, he knows they are behind his troubles and knowing Trump his payback will not be denied.
K. Taalat – you make very interesting comment. With respect I would like to offer the following for your consideration.
I am not so sure about the division between Davos and Fed . Every which way you turn it, they elites seem to be in alignment on all issues.
Besides, Davos is becoming increasingly irrelevant. When considering wider economic and banking dynamics in London and EU then the real decision-makers still preside in London and Brussels, not Davos. Davos has become a sideshow circus event.
The fact that Trump appointed Powell does not mean that Powell or the Fed has ever had any interest in Trump’s MAGA program or any other Trump agenda. The Fed has historically only ever served the interests of its private bank shareholders, and since its inception nothing has changed in that regard. Furthermore, we need to consider all the other appointments made by Trump, most all of whom were the most virulent Neocon anti-Constitutional goons in the gang – and that more than anything I suggest has to cast huge doubts as to the real role Trump was playing in the great game.
I suspect Trump may well have been playing the perfect foil. The most egregious signal of which has to be Trump not having pardoned Assange when it was Assange / Wikileaks which provided Trump with all the most incontrovertible evidence as to the criminal fraud that had been perpetrated against him re the Russiagate hoax.
In the following discussion on George Galloway’s MOAT (Mother Of All Talk) Shows Lionel Lebron talks about Trump indictment and much more. Note and read between the lines what Lebron alludes to with respect to Trump.
The following link will take you to the beginning at 1hr 10min it runs for approx. 23min total
Refer: https://youtu.be/AFTaUtv3nfo?t=4201
Coming back to the notion of a war being waged between Fed and ECB/Davos gang as so many pundits are maintaining, most notably Tom Luongo.
What Luongo asserts is pure bunk as can be judged by the fact that the Fed extended swap lines to the SNB so it could rescue Credit Suisse; as well as the Fed extending swap lines to other EU central banks in a globally-coordinated program to keep the global banking system operating cohesively as one centrally-coordinated entity managed overall by the Bank of International Settlements with the Fed acting as its main proxy.
The raising of rates by Fed and ECB and other central banks is a joint coordinated program that they claim is necessary to tame inflation i.e. the inflation they created through massive increases in money supply. It is tiresome to keep hearing so many so-called financial experts claiming the Fed and other central bankers are just a bunch of incompetent idiots who do not know what they are doing. Preposterous in the extreme in my opinion.
Consider what Thomas Jefferson stated about private banks as follows:
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered…. I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies…. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”
I contend that none of the current financial troubles in America and the wider world are by accident. Everything is unfolding by design for intended purpose of engineering the collapse to provide the perfect cover for the final solution – it is the age-old Hegelian dialectic, problem reaction solution, being played out once again with their usual theatrical flourish, that is going to culminate with American population, along with other populations, begging for whatever it takes to get a few crumbs of food on their tables. All the while the escalating tensions and war will maintain the necessary diversionary distractions to ensure the transmuddled masses miss it all completely.
The following two articles totally debunk the notion that Fed is trying to sideline and destroy London and EU ECB banking systems
Banking Crisis Sinks In
Refer: https://www.goldmoney.com/research/the-great-credit-unwind-pivot
The pertinent extract as follows:
If only one G-SIB fails, its counterparty risks could easily undermine all the others. As Borio pointed out, settlement risk remains stubbornly high. It explains why the Fed was ready to come up so swiftly with swap lines for the Swiss National Bank to aid it in its attempt to support Credit Suisse. And it allows us to draw a further conclusion: credit expansion at the central bank level to ensure the global financial system’s survival will place the greatest burden on the dollar, being the currency in which most of these derivative obligations are settled.
And this from the Australian Financial Review
Central banks sweep in with co-ordinated action to stem crisis
20 March 2023
https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/fed-and-global-central-banks-move-to-boost-dollar-funding-20230320-p5ctiq
extract from the article as follows:
In a global response of the type not seen since the height of the pandemic, the Fed said it had joined with central banks in Canada, England, Japan, the EU and Switzerland in a coordinated action to enhance market liquidity.
The central banks said they would more frequently offer so-called swap operations – which help foreign banks to get weeklong access to US dollar financing – until next month. Instead of being weekly, the offerings will for now be daily.
My further comment as follows:
The Neocon / Soros faction in my opinion cannot possibly be that stupid that they could not have anticipated the most likely outcome of indicting Trump the way they have – although they are only too happy for the manufactured opposition in the Trump MAGA camp to believe that they are so stupid. Just the same old genius theatrics at play – the perfect ‘divide and conquer’ strategy.
If there is any substance to what I think is the real agenda at play and Trump gets re-elected as it now seems so likely he will, then we will learn what the real agenda has been all along when Trump either performs as incompetently as he did last time round after promising so much and delivering almost exact opposite in terms of the people he appointed to the most important posts OR he will prove me wrong when, hopefully, he does actually make serious substantive change in bringing back Constitutional rule and delivering appropriate justice on those reprehensible treasonous criminals he so dismally failed to deal with in his last term.
The future will reveal all. Let’s hope I am wrong and what I written here is way off the mark.
As Marco Rubio, perhaps inadvertently, pointed out, the dollar is not just an instrument via which to loot the rest of the world; it’s a weapon. The loss of the dollar as a reserve currency removes the Imperialist States of Amerikastan’s ability to impose sanctions. Do you really think Warshington is going to just let that weapon slip from its grasp? It’ll do almost anything, or rather it will do literally anything short of unlimited nuclear war, to try to cow the planet into submission.
The main issue/ problem 4 US is that US military is not what it was, US dose not have the power to Bubbly in to submission other country like before, US military might is just one more SF story…is in the past…
it will do literally anything short of unlimited nuclear war
That’s exactly what scares the bejeezus out of me…..and not so sure about the ‘short of’ part either.
Check this bit of 60 Min. insanity out: MTG WANTS U.S. OUT OF UKRAINE ://www.bitchute.com/video/y24noiETe79m/
Listen to Lesley Stahl’s argument: “If we withdraw our aid right now, then Russia will be right up on the Polish border…and that’s a NATO country.” Hmmm?
So, she’s clearly arguing that Russia up to the NATO Poland border is a legitimate casus belli. Let that sink in for a second.
Lesley darling, you simpleton with a facade of gravitas. Has not Russia complained for twenty years of a NATO relentlessly creeping to the Russian border, finally ending in a casus belli re: Ukraine?
Are you on Putin’s payroll, darling? Speechwriter perhaps?
Should we tell Lesley than Russia already have a border with Poland ? (Kaliningrad)
Remember the first priority of CCP to get their country out of misery ? Education. Those chicks lack some …
The Euro is also a weapon, just smaller. It has been used by Brussels against a lot of the smaller EU countries to great effect.
Maybe we will gain some humility. It appears to be in short supply presently.
Christ, I’ve been saying it for 25 years – and saw it all coming.
The Baltic states needed to remain neutral. In fact all the former Warsaw Pact states needed NOT to join NATO but to forge a new relationship with NATO, guaranteeing NATO intervention IF they were ever attacked, yet maintaining a formal neutrality. Join EU, fine – but not NATO. Would that have been so hard to do?
THAT would have created a lasting peace and exactly what Russia had been proposing for decades, a ‘new European security architecture.’ Exactly what I just described. Simple as that.
But noooo, NATO was too full of itself, too greedy, too sclerotic and too butt-naked stupid and weak to stand up to the worst of the US cold-warrior class endowed with the same attributes to do it. The march to war was and will continue to be inevitable and ever growing in breadth, short of someone smacking some sense into that ‘exceptional’ class of neanderthals.
AND THE WAY TO AVOID WAR WAS OPEN LIKE A BARN DOOR: IN MID-DECEMBER 2021, RUSSIA WRITTEN AND PROPOSED TWO LETTERS TO THE USA AND NATO; CONCLUDING CONTRACTS ON A COMMON SECURITY ARCHITECTURE: BOTH WRITINGS WERE NOT ANSWERED
I remember maybe 15 years ago, some US diplomat coming back from meetings with the Baltic states saying “You know, they’re really very concerned and nervous about their neighbor Russia. They have bad memories of the USSR.”
Well, Mr. dipshit diplomat. So do a lot of Russians but that aside, when your grade schoolers see lightning outside and come running to you for solace, do you feed them stories about how if a lightning bolt hits it might fry you to a crisp or do you tell them not to worry, there’s a very small chance of being hit but still, you shouldn’t stand under trees in a lightning storm and if it happens to get really bad, we’ll deal with it, so not to worry.
Either you’re a child yourself, Mr. Diplomat and prone to bouts of nervous irrationality…..or you saw an opportunity to exploit their fear. Which was it, I wonder?
Visited the Philippines on a surfing holiday in the late 80’s, went to remote areas and naturally only interacted with the poor, very nice people. Years later returned for a diving holiday with a Chinese girlfriend who had contacts in the Chinese community there, being shown around by them was like being in a different country. Brother had a similar experience with the dad of a girl that owned his own fighter jet and flew them around in his helicopter.
Never assume the rich need a prosperous middle class or safe and stable country, their lifestyle continues on regardless, they simply just employ the appropriate security.
“The United States is now perceived in a growing number of counties as an inept bully and unreliable ally. ”
Very true. I remember my encounters with school bullies as a child. Being timid and non-aggressive by nature, I felt helpless and angry at having to put up with one particularly obnoxious one. I screwed up my courage and complained to his dad that his son was harassing other children and writing insulting graffiti about girls. The father happened to have a terrible temper and he beat the sh*t out of the bully out on the street in front of his friends. The guy gave up bullying. He knew if he did not, there may be another complaint and more of the same from his dad!
I can relate the combined West with that bully and Putin with the dad.
Great story – great analogy
I was listening to Rudy Giuliani blaming the Democrats for “communism.’ He is partly right, since our ruling class lives under communism, as per Marx’s definition of communism,” From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Our ruling class has few abilities, but many needs/wants, for which we, living under “capitalism,” foot the bill.
Time will tell what the real dollar value is, but it’s not s/. 3.75 (PEN) in my country.
But my country (Peru) is so much under the West influence that a few days ago a well known economist gave some fancy explanations why the dollar is down (from 4.2 to 3.75 in about 20 months), everything but he omitted the elephant in the room: the geopolitic behind the ukranian war and that the dollar in Peru is in a long term downtrend.
Another interesting thing is that they dont say that the dollar is down but the national currency (sol) is up.
“Time will tell what the real dollar value is . . . .”
The current, real, value of the USD is a relatively easy calculation to make: ZERO.
From 1913 until 2008 the value of the USD had fallen 98-percent. Common knowledge. You can say “approximately” but that’s just playing the game. Go right ahead.
Whatever value was left of the USD was wiped out in the GFC. The FED, the central banks, and the governments caught a full-on systemic collapse in freefall, but the remaining value of the USD slipped right through their fingers and continued falling all the way to ZERO.
Think about it. For the last 13-years we have been spending something that is worth nothing. Sweating over something that is worth nothing. Relying upon something that is worth nothing.
How else to you explain the United States not having a budget since 2002? It’s just been one continuing resolution after another.
How else do you explain having crossed the debt ceiling? The last time the debt ceiling was raised was in 2011. Why? Because it means nothing. You are printing something that has no value. You are making something that has no value. Still think money is a thing and not a meaning?
The government saying it will runout of money in 3-months is like AOC saying the world was going to end in 13-days. So what?
Pumping $110-billion dollars into the Ukraine means nothing. Big yawn. It means nothing. Zero plus Zero equals Zero.
Figuring in the debt, as of 2023, the real GDP of the United States would be negative, minus, $5-trillion dollars.
Even if the US government sold everything in the United States (again), we would still be $66-trillion dollars in debt.
How do you finance World War III? By looking at the huge, vast, reserves of natural gas, oil, coal, minerals, and rare earths Russia has in “shameful abundance.”
And?
Every day, since the GFC it has been the 13TH day. We are just one “full faith and credit” moment from the 14TH day.
And the only reason USD is still being used in commerce and funding of proxy wars is that so many ill-informed populations still believe USD has some intrinsic value. It has only the value that people attribute to it.
It all ends when finally people realize that the value of USD is a big fat ZERO and rush to get rid of the dollars they have been holding on deposit in their bank accounts (if they can withdraw any of it) or have been hiding under their mattresses – and that is when people will learn with sudden sickening shock what hyperinflation is all about.
I really wonder how this would effect Canada since we have no reserve currency overhang but are tied to the US in so many ways.
Are we a safe haven? Or will our resources be cannibalized to keep the US afloat?
Canada has all that oil. And Molson’s. And Canada is a lot closer and easier to conquer than Russia and China.
“is that so many ill-informed populations still believe USD has some intrinsic value.” The last time that a population lost total belief in an advanced country was during the Weimar Republic. Then, the Deutshmark was worth nothing.
So, think of THAT scary idea – people losing total faith in their currency. My government pension (ie – military service) would be worth…. Nothing. Likewise my State (old-age) pension. So, what would I live on? I have nothing to barter with except my labour….. For an old man? I have no land etc to grow anything. Cannot even catch fish – no means.
I do have one advantage that many people do not have – I live on Lesvos which is, more or less, a self-sufficient island. Well, the locals are quite self-sufficient but it would be a struggle.
I am just saying, for a worse-case scenario…….
By the way, I’m a Brit ex-pat who appreciates that the UK government is as corrupt as the USA government….
Sad. I thought the same thing (the US is turning into a “third-world” country, like Honduras), though with less knowledge and experience to back that up. Now Larry’s confirmed it.
Do our cretins-in-power try to pull the below? We can’t regain industry back so now we’ll monopolize the info stream? Are the Tick-Tock Inquisition and banning VPNs about that?
“We have to monopolize all information technology… now that we’ve deindustrialized the American economy, we can live without industry… If we control patents of information technology… chemical…health for pharmaceuticals…we can live as if we’re landlords.”
M. Hudson
Talk to India and China on patents… India doesn’t recognize pharmaceutical patents on molecules. It only recognizes process patents in medicine. Change one step in manufacturing you have a different process to manufacture the same molecule.
China doesn’t care much about patents as long as it doesn’t cause inconvenience.
The financial sector and all levels of government operate as a Ponzi scheme. It requires exponential growth to continue, and can’t even handle a slower growth rate. You can’t taper a Ponzi scheme, it all just falls apart. That’s what we’re witnessing. The switch to other currencies is incremental, not huge, yet will be enough to collapse it all.
You can see it in the tightening of credit markets. The economy is based on borrowing cash to buy stuff made elsewhere, and credit terms are tightening. It’s not just the interest rates, but also terms for credit and collateral, income, etc. Credit is tightening at a dramatic pace, and without foreigners buying US treasuries at an increased rate, it snowballs.
Had the US maintained its manufacturing base, it could have kept the reserve currency status longer, but treating the reserve status as a license to run crazy deficits has been economic suicide. The Davos crowd seems to want this, though Powell is in the way, and the 2024 election is critical, as Powell’s term is up in 2026, so it’s a big election.
It’s going to be tough slugging here on out.
I swore when I moved to FL I’d never move again. What a PITA. Two 24 ft Uhauls across country cost me around $25,000 and a month to do it. Not to mention a year prior getting my old house up for sale (new floors, paint, AC etc) Then another year getting current place way we like it. But I may have to if disintegration continues apace. Everything is falling apart so fast with these crazy Democrats..Law and order…borders wide open…teaching little kids to cut genetalia while at same time telling them they can’t manage to read loan paperwork for college. They cheat in elections. Arrest a president, Entrap J6 protestors. If y’all don’t see where this is all headed look up “regime domicide” I’d say “economy” is least of our concerns and that’s huge.
The whole economy is a lie and has been since Bill Clinton. We mortgaged our future to the tune of 100 trillion dollars (state local fed gov debt, personnel and business) to hide the deindustrialization of America. I don’t see how that get’s better, especially losing world reserve.
Anyway, we’re visiting Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua this spring house hunting again. I’m too old to fight.
Awhile ago i discovered that I am pretty much a completely average Joe. Whenever i found myself having an opinion about something public i found that it was pretty much the general opinion. Right now I think a lot of Americans don’t really think this is their country any more. What really surprised me is how many find themselves sympathizing with Russia in the war. Most would like to see the Biden government tossed out on their ear. I myself find it really troubling that there is even a single Biden supporter left. I haven’t taken any polls or any of that nonsense. I’m just assuming that my own feelings are more or less general.
“If” I said here that I would trust Vladimir Putin more to be the US President than Joe Biden or practically any other American, if The Restrict Act passes Congress and is signed by Biden, it would mean I could be fined a million dollars and go to prison for ten years because what I might have said could hurt the US government.
All done in the dark and no FOIA requests for documents allowed. 24/7 spying without the person knowing on ALL internet devices including the Ring cameras on your homes.
But I “didn’t” say I trust Putin more. Just “if” I said it.
The Restrict Act is a full frontal slap at The First Amendment and the American People.
Charlene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xudlYSLFls8
Restrict Act MUST be stopped! Prisontime for VPNs, no FOIA, lobbyists get to work for govt; BAD!! Louis Rossmann
I simply showed them how to do contour farming, which involved building terraces on the steep mountain slopes
And many kudos to you, Larry. And here’s a bit of the irony in it all: Somewhere along the Spanish conquests I assume, they lost the knack of what they had all along.
Mayan Terrace Farming:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=mayan+terrace+farming&t=opera&iax=images&ia=images
If you are on the Titanic then you might as well have another drink.
Just a small addendum: de-dollarization might actually be good for the the US in the mid to long term. It will allow it to re-build its industrial base (less demand for dollar for international trade –> weaker dollar & cheaper exports), cut down the parasitic FIRE sector (finance, (health!-)insurance, real estate = “services”) in size (the issuer of the world reserve currency needs to financialise its economy), and last it will stop today’s trade surplus countries vis-a-vis the US financing its outsized military budget (deficit). All things that ordinary Americans should welcome very much.
Very good analysis of the economics of things to come: https://debunkingeconomics.com/episode/who-will-win-the-money-war-between-brics-and-the-west – spoiler: if the BRICS win everybody wins 😉
I believe that despite its collapse, Russia/Soviet Union never degraded its education system. In contrast, the cabal which rules the US has spent decades degrading its education system so it is now predominantly teaching fantasy, not reality, plus engaged in child minding. Most of the alleged educators have developed in that system and have no capacity, now or ever, to provide substantive education to anyone. That puts the US in a far worse situation than post-USSR Russia.
Thanks to the rulers of the US, there is now a huge grievance class, blacks but also many others, who believe they are owed a living by someone, and who will actively politically and in many cases violently resist all efforts to reconnect the economy and society with reality. Again, I don’t believe Russia carried such a millstone in its efforts to address and rise from collapse.
Nor had Russia outsourced its manufacturing capabilities, and the real hands-on knowledge of how to make things work, as the cabal has done to the US.
The US is already burdened by the oligarchs which only developed in Russia post the USSR collapse. They are a large part of the cabal which has destroyed the US and will fight aggressively to retain their ruling powers, which will accelerate the collapse.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the collapse of the US, and most of the West, will be far worse than that of the Soviet Union.
Russia has also been immensely fortunate in having a cautious, farsighted and committed stateman to lead it out of collapse over more than 2 decades, and that Russia’s political class was prepared to support him and provide unity instead of continuously fighting over who would lead. Without that, the rebirth that has occurred over 2 decades might have taken 5, if ever. That does not seem remotely possible in the US or virtually any Western country.
For sure the collapse of USA is coming and it will be indeed spectacular and on a biblical scale. USSR retained some fundamentals after its collapse but all these fundamentals are gone in USA. Recovery will take many decades if it is even possible.
People, not banks had title to their property, and there was a robust public transportation system (banks own most American’s cars) and health care system that continued to function, even without pay.
Libya probably is more of an analogue than Russia once order collapsed. Especially as I expect other great powers to attempt to shape the anarchy in the US (will it remain united?).
That is the vital difference that I see between Russia and the West; their quality of leadership and our lack thereof. For some reason Russia’s leadership doesn’t seem to feel a compulsion to run their own nation into the ground as ours does.
I remember a time in the mid 70s, when murders were being committed in cities like NY, while people just walked by; when Broadway was splattered with sex shops and swing clubs. Then came a brief moment of “lucidity” in governance, with Mayor Koch and Ruddy Giuliani, who exterminated that scourge from the city… only to begin to devolve into criminality and moral delapidation all over again.
It was like an individual in a moribund state, who seems to be recovering, only to roll his eyes back and expire. That is the state of America and, except for a revival of morality, is to become like Rome, Ottoman, Maya, Persia, Greek, Inca and other great empires, whose physical legacy is composed basically of ruins and their descendants inexpressive and mostly poor peasants.
If you don’t think the collapse of empires is without consequences look again. Out of Romans the world got Italians. The forces that drive the collapse of civilizations are like spike proteins. Changing your DNA forever.
How long before Mexico builds a wall to keep out illegal American immigrants? What is needed is indeed a new American revolution.
It will happen relatively soon, within a decade I believe. The only way Americans have save themselves is if they throw out their government and out in a new system than the current uniparty system. The other alternative would be that others change the system for USA, but that unfortunately will be a lot more suffering and deaths.
In a way the only possible solution to bring back the US from going totally bust following crash of the petrodollar system, would be a national movement led by some truly knowledgeable leaders. Their first task must be to delink immediately from the financial oligarchy in the City of London, which has been using America’s historic/geographic positioning -among other factors – to push their elitist program of full control over the entire world’s money and resources. They are the ones who have been paying bribes to the two political parties in America, running fake elections since end of WWII. America must get rid of its current globalist/woke ideology. The USA, unlike the tiny UK, is still a huge land with enormous resources and a large population. If that happens the it can get back on its feet quickly and become a normal country once again. If not then it would have to be used as another cannon fodder by the financial mafia just like their Ukrainian Neonazis proxies today, against the rest of the world.
Sorry but that is wishful thinking. Look at our industrial heartlands! They’re full of zombies zonked out on fentanyl. I don’t blame them; we destroyed their traditional way of life when we shipped all their jobs overseas out of greed.
Even if we started today it will take decades to fix it. We may not even see it in our lifetimes. The sooner we start, the better.
As for woke ideology, I’ll leave you with this quote from Mao Zedong: “What’s so unusual about Chin Shih Huang-ti (first Han Chinese Emperor)? He had buried alive 460 scholars only, but we have buried alive 46,000 scholars.” It’s almost like he knew who would be spreading woke ideology on behalf of the financial mafia.
I am sorry too. Didn’t want to give a false sense of hope. What I mean is that it’s about time the US stops acting like the famous Greek mythology character Narcissus who fell in love with his own reflection in the waters of a spring, ending up dead as a result. It was just last week – if I remember correctly – Neocon hardliner Mike Pompeo, described the USA as the greatest shining star in all the universe, or something similar to that.
I am sorry too. Didn’t want to give a false sense of hope. What I mean is that it’s about time the US stops behaving like the famous Greek mythology character Narcissus who fell in love with his own reflection in the waters of a spring, ending up dead as a result. It was just last week – if I remember correctly – Neocon hardliner Mike Pompeo, describing the USA as the greatest shining star in all the universe, or something similar to that.
With pleasure I foresee the brics saying to USA- we dont accept dollar payments 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Imagine going to a local Walmart and paying for your groceries with bills with a portrait of “Chairman Mao” on them. That would be the ultimate comeuppance. Right now in many countries, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, one can pay for retail goods in US dollars. In five years will that be the case with the Renminbi? That may soon start in South America, with other countries following Brazil in ditching the USD. It makes you wonder who really won the Cold War?
The US Government will soon not be able to borrow money anywhere so will have to live off what it can ´´steal´´ – it is financed almost entirely out of the proceeds of Treasury Bill sales which were the key component of the petro $ – OPEC members used surplus revenues to by US TBs and buyers of oil around the world needed a supply of US$ handy to pay for their oil purchases.
Now in April 2023 we have Saudis breaking out of the 1973 Kissinger negotiated only-sell-oil-in-US$ deal joining Russia and Iran and probably the rest of OPEC now no longer benefiting from holding US TBs because their value falls each time interest rates rise and the US has very little in terms of goods and services to supply to OPEC members now that the whole world has seen just how inferior US export weapons are up against Russian and Iranian alternatives.
US TBs are toxic with interest on them financed by new sales BUT only FED proxies & US investors are buying them in any large quantities in 2023 – everyone else is selling off.
Honduras 1978. Those pictures look so beautiful and shout to me a life that has been lived.
“Savage Capitalism “ that we have exported around the world, is now fully blown here in our own Country, exercised on our own Citizens. It didn’t start with “Joe Biden”.
Getting rid of “Joe Biden” is hardly going to change the trajectory of this Nation.
I don’t think most people know the origin and history of the term “Banana Republic”, but here we are.
There is a such thing as good, beneficial, market Capitalism… and then there is savage, destructive, greedy Capitalism. Free Market Capitalism is long, long gone.
Blame “Joe Biden” if it makes you feel better.
Dear Larry,
Thank You! You are bringing attention to the fundamental problem of our country as it exists today. Keep on preachin’!! Here’s hoping enough of us will see reality, and have the courage to save our nation. Without industrial capacity and a robust agriculture, we are a door mat waiting to be stepped on.
Now, a prophetic warning to the Fools who believe guys like Brandon and Bragg can save them from “oppression”. ALL DEBTS MUST BE PAID. Meaning, if the USD is worthless in the minds of our many foreign creditors, and they won’t take toilet paper as payment, what do we still have that is of sufficient value to settle the debt? I’m sure the Sultan of Brunei has an idea.
Hey Y’all. I threw a fat, hanging curve ball, right over the plate, and not a one of you took a swing. 😞
The Duranees are covering similar stuff today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DslDAziwpc
Larry, your depiction of your childhood sounds just like mine. Growing up in Buffalo, NY we had many manufacturing plants. No college education required for employment, just a strong back. We had all the big names, GM, Ford, Dupont, Dunlop, and the grandaddy of them all was a Bethlehem steel plant just south of Buffalo. In the 60’s Bethlehem steel had 25,000 employees at its Lackawanna complex. All union, good paying jobs with great benefits, now it is completely gone and the others are either closed or a fraction of their workforce. Some of my older brothers friends worked as laborers in the steel plant during their summer break from college. It was hard work but they could make enough money over the summer to pay their college tuition for the year and have some money left over. It is hard for most people to fathom the catastrophic economic changes that occurred in our country since then.
If the dollar collapses the steel mills will come back because then it will be America which becomes the world’s source of cheap labour.
This is one thing that tempers my expectations of doom: the hard assets and resources aren’t going anywhere. We’re looking at a deep restructuring but not annihilation. If the US can stay together of course. Its real Achilles heel is social, not economic.
I grew up in Chicago in the 60’s and could always get a job any where around the city after high school. I became an electrician and worked as a contractor in all the various industries, big industrial work. If you go back to the area you will not find many large factories left. Ford car plant in Hegwisch is the only major one I see still there. Where US Steel had a plant (South Works) it is level ground. To tell of the impact to working people one construction job in the steel mill could put more people to work than all the construction jobs in downtown Chicago put together, but 5he houses are still, all the people still need work that will support a family. Why is crime so high, it is staring is in the face and it’s not that we cannot see it it is we do not even have the eyes to see.
Mr. Larry,
For a long time I did not understand what your true intentions were in your blog.
Reading what he has done in Honduras has moved me straight to the heart.
As a Christian I see myself in the obligation to ask you my most sincere apologies.
You are a good Man of God and his wife too.
May the Virgin, our mother, take care of him and may our Savior, Our Lord Jesus Christ, guide his steps.
Those opening photos and narrative look and sound a lot like the Peace Corps to me…says this Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Chad, Central African Republic), who turned 18 in Missouri in 1973 and joined the CIA (FBIS) — mea maxima culpa — the same year that Larry Johnson did. Are we not allowed to mention “the Peace Corps”? I know that in my/our day there were official regulations in place to hinder or delay a promiscuous exchange of personnel between the CIA and the Peace Corps for fear that those suspicious Third Worlders, maybe especially the Latin Americans, would suspect Peace Corps volunteers and employees of actually being American “intelligence” agents. But isn’t there a “statute of limitations” or something? Or maybe you and your wife — I met my wife in the Peace Corps — were toiling in Honduras in another capacity? This is obviously rudely prying, but as an admirer of your work, and with a somewhat similar background, I would like to know.
I’m saddened by what this country has become. Biden certainly precipitated the US’s decline with his stupid and irresponsible Ukrainian adventure. But, the parade of clowns before him had a large role in offshoring the manufacturing base. Obama stands out in my mind as the guy that really ratched up racial tensions and normalized the weirdo tranny stuff. I think most people at the time felt that this would finally put the racial crap behind us. Little did they know it would only exasperate it.
There is life after Empire. Ask us Brits! Though of course, we are still hanging on via you folks.
I think Ukraine will go down as America’s Suez, if that makes sense to you?
In earthly life, you have to pay for everything. If not for you, then for your descendants.
Free cheese only happens in a mousetrap.
And the Ukrainians deserved their fate like no other. But they are never guilty of anything – such is the folk tradition.
Life after Empire:
A Pakistani guy is arguing Hindu guy about independence, of Scotland. 🙂
I wonder who will be demanding independence for Texas, and from whom.
Obama was behind the 2013/14 Maiden Coup and regime change…Victoria Nuland and Jeffrey Pyatt….Biden was the man on the ground…why do you think Hunter was there? Who was the president on the other end of the “perfect” telephone call for the first impeachment. Starts with a Z. It seems as though you’ve missed a lot of who did what to whom, when, and why.
Bill Clinton was the one to send our manufacturing overseas and to turn our country into a service economy.
Larry, I also grew up in Independence, Missouri. I’m a 1973 graduate of Truman High School. It looks like you and I are about the same age. I wonder if we ever crossed paths.
I really admire your work.
based on description presented in the article sounds like an improvement:
i see nuclear family
i see local, non-corporate health care.
i see healthy surroundings
i see united community
i see lots of work to do
i do not see purple hair or evideince of wokeism in whatever schooling took place.
sounds like more than enough to eat
honduras looks pretty good ! yes pls lets be honduras…
What I do not understand is all these jobs that have been hollowed out started under Reagan but yet he is held up in high regard. Looking back this seems to be the times when labor was under attack and the financial ponzi scheme began on steroids. Everyone cheered when he fired the air traffic controllers. One example. Thanks for the Allis Chalmers reference for us that remember all those old tractor companies.
I’ll give you a small impression of what a slowly growing number of Germans think of the USA: nothing!
We have always stood by you since the end of the second world war, we built up our industry, our people had jobs and income. The development in the past few years has been prosperous because we had cheap energy from Russia in any amount we needed. This was accompanied by the fact that we had a peaceful relationship with Russia. However, the Poles, Balts and Ukrainians, who were incited by the USA, did not like that. And then Brandon turned off the gas tap because a vassal couldn’t be better off than the hegemon. Our industry is gradually collapsing, the LNG you supply is five times the price of Russian gas, our population no longer knows how to pay their bills. Not everyone here has understood that we were and are being robbed of our existence by our closest ally, but it’s only a matter of time. And when that time comes, exactly what Brandon and his predecessors wanted to prevent will happen. Was that smart, America?
High cost- more people indebted, industries ruined. Lies in propaganda- papers. We are not able to understand/deciffer the governments excuses.
Same situation here in Scandinavia. I have voted on the parties on the far left becource they were the only anti- Nato parties.
The parties have changed side- my vote was worthless- my party let my down.
I am not responsibel for politicians changing cource midways, as you americans are not.
We voted, we trusted, we were f..ked.
Its not like Martyanon is claiming- you voted for the- now own it.
No- look at France- just a few months aften Macron was elected he is going against his country’s wish?
Something is very wrong- and this is systematic. Country after country. In a very short timespan.
Agree. It’s the same thing in Canada. As if our society has been hacked.
The US is already a banana republic. It’s just become impossible to hide or ignore.
It is good to see a humble segment of Honduras fulfilling a need of greater importance in the current world. It is a pity that Bill Gates is working hard to deny people in the US from getting back to proper food production and living off the good land. What impressed me is the dedication of Honduras farmers to quality food and hard work. Regardless of governments, the humble people are feeding their enemies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2V8P2pJm08
I grew up near St. Louis, and we had a Ford plant, several other factories, and a steady, if gritty, downtown. Now, all that is gone. There is, like in most cities, a political class that does little except herd votes and get grants. St. Louis has a city attorney funded by Soros, and so crime is out of control. Cars run lights all the time and the police are under orders to do nothing. But there is a voting class that goes along with this.
Following my last post on the previous thread dealing with the dollar, James Carafano, a “policy” wonk for Heritage Foundation, argues America is loved and wanted by the world. Don’t, he said, believe what you hear. Saudi Arabia WANTS America in charge. All the world WANTS us in charge. Again, as I said in the last thread, this is what many conservative Americans hear on the radio. And, yes, we gotta stand up to China. GOTTA.
I recall Honduras in the 80’s, when I opposed the U.S. war against Nicaragua. A lot of U.S. special ops were based there to raid Nicaragua and used it as a staging area for the CIA backed contras fighting Nicaragua. Some U.S. National Guard units were sent down to do road construction and build highways “as a training exercise,” but of course also make roads ready for tanks and heavy military convoys. Medical units also appeared in “humanitarian” missions to give medical aid; good p.r. and yes, all for “training” purposes. It was then we saw Reagan’s military started to use the Guard and reserves because they couldn’t really bring a lot of active military units for overseas deployment. It was called “Total Army,” further developed in Bosnia, and blossomed in the Iraq/Afghanistan wars, when Guardsmen were funneled in to keep the bodies coming in. I always remembered it started in Honduras.
Today Honduras and other Central American countries may have terrible problems with crime but it is not completely their fault. The biggest problem those countries face was that the USA never allowed them to develop in accord with the interests of the majority of their citizens. Rather, the USA would overthrow duly elected governments that tried to improve the lives of their people and replaced them with military dictatorships that benefited US business and military interests. This began with the actions of President Eisenhower and Sec. of State John Foster Dulles in Guatemala in 1954 and continued through President Obama and Sec. Hillary Clinton in 2009. Now thousands of desperate people from these countries are crossing the southern border. If we had left them alone they might have no cause to come here.
Guatemala – 1954
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/stories-48638209
Honduras – 2009
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-us-role-in-the-honduras-coup-and-subsequent-violence_b_5766c7ebe4b0092652d7a138
Forecasters miss the A.I. revolution has kicked off. AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) within 2 years, ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence) beaming in gradually, materializes completely within 4 years. Google already “knows” everything, but can’t tell you well, doesn’t act on it. Chat is only a 6-month-old baby.
This will change EVERYTHING on the order of the Second Coming. Mostly in the info sphere, which slops over into the physical sphere.
Expect an explosion in entertainment, management, product support, innovation, energy management, government. Biggest factor in next five years. Will it be enough to turn the American economy around? What else will happen?
Have you interacted with chatGPT yet? I’ve been doing so for like the last week. It’s sort of impressive, until you ask it something controversial, and then it’s like you’re arguing with a woke neocon spokesperson. And it’s deceptive, too. It will hide information, and then when you call it out, it gets all defensive about it. It claims that, “as an AI language model, I don’t have biases or sides to take.” Oh it is VERY biased – the implications of which are terrifying. Our future overlord has already been “trained” to hate people like us and push neocon and woke propaganda on our kids.
Christian – I did try it this week after reading about a “Belgian man committed suicide” I wanted to see what’s up. Well, yeah, it’s informative in a “lot of platitudes” way, and the speed is amazing but on a “wooden” side. I don’t know how someone could take its advice seriously
Comments yesterday Larry on the podcast, the podcast host speaking of how he met some Ukrainians that didn’t even know that Ukraine was shelling Donbass areas for past decade.
That’s what AI in charge of all information will do under RESIST Act. There will be ZERO way to get any information not sanctioned by the PTBs, short – maybe – carrying a USB stick around. So if New Hampshire is shelling Maine, but no one knows and no one can speak or hear about it, then did it really happen? A tree falls in the forest…
Alexander Mercouris yesterday speaking about due process. Seems to me due process is the flip of violence. If the state monopolizes violence, then it must guarantee due process – in all forms. Otherwise rule of law turns into arbitrary rule of man. Totalitarianism. How did JFK put it? Those who make peaceful change impossible, guarantee violent change; I paraphrase.
This isn’t only international or national. It’s happening in our quaint legislature in Maine. It’s happening at the medical boards. It’s happening in school boards. Put the AIs in charge of all information and people lose their humanity.
That’s where this AI thing goes. Musk and the several thousand AI scientists saying STOP won’t be able to stop it. Besides, the program is already running. That much is clear. What else will happen?
Looking at the ChatGPT logo may help us to understand why it will continue to grow..
It is like zooming in a Mandelbrot set.. It can go on forever as long as the CPU can cope with the processing burden!
We need less AI and more FOSS…
Expect an explosion in redundancy.
My country, Venezuela, was occupied without a shot being fired…the national anthem starts with the words: Gloria al bravo pueblo….Glory to the brave people….funny huh?….the Cubans came in, took over the reins of power, the military, the intelligence services, the control of the country’s wealth and with the help of the corrupt army and politicians proceeded to turn one of the most beautiful and greatest places on earth into a hellhole.
My analogy is simple: you hear a noise in the middle of the night, go down to check, and find a burglar in your safe….so he makes you a proposition: “how about we split it 50/50?” And you say: that’s a great deal!
So now if you have money or are with the powerful, you need armored cars, security guards, and fortress homes….the people who orchestrated this whole debacle have to live in the same hellhole….sure they’re somewhat insulated, but their teenagers out partying at night, or family members out shopping or out and about, it’s like playing Russian roulette.
And yet, they would do it all over again….which shows the level of mind of humans that are mesmerized by greed, resentment, political hate and just pure evil.
They went from half a wallet in a paradise to an overflowing wallet in hell…..and yet, they dont see it, and they dont care….have friends and family that just play golf everyday, take vacations in Europe and Florida, when I ask if they worry about their kids out, they change the subject….thats whats coming to the US….Venezuela is just a great example of the canary in the mineshaft…
First: American can not be Honduras without an absolutely unprecedented fall in the standard of living. We’re talking a fall of roughly 97% (Honduras per capita GDP is 1/30th of the US’).
Second: the notion of the US dollar falling in value is too simplistic. The reality is that ALL currencies are falling in purchasing power – the USD is not exceptional. In fact, the USD index is at pretty much all time highs right now.
Inflation is occurring for many reasons – only one of which is money printing leading to (faster) reduction of USD purchasing power. A bigger driver is the commodity upcycle – energy but really everything on the periodic table. This is because of COVID as well as other long term trends, but mostly because the Rest of the World is using more of these commodities and have more money to spend for these commodities than ever before. This is the real impact of the G7 going from 61% of global GDP in 1991 to 31% in 2021 to ever lower shares every year.
America is a bit like a grand old house with shitty renters who are letting it go to pot because it isn’t theirs and they don’t care. The renters are our current ruling class with no allegiance to the country or even the idea of the country.
The renters need to be evicted or they need to let the house fall down to such a degree as that the real owners come in and take it back. Like a house with good bones, even a bankrupt America has tremendous advantages. It has nearly unlimited oil, timber, farmland, and other resources. Even broken down into several different countries, each of these parts in and of themselves possess far more inherent advantages and are geographically larger than most European countries. My state is larger than Ukraine with more oil, timber, and farmland.
Some of the Euroweenies on this site can’t comprehend the sheer size and largely untapped wealth of the very land itself. In the US now, there are more trees than there have been at anytime since the first settlers appeared in the 17th century. By acreage, there is less land under the plow than there was 125 years ago. Within ten miles of my house, I can go to places where no human has set foot in fifteen years.
It is a land in which wealth literally oozes from the ground and by world standards, it is virtually unpopulated.
I don’t know if America will recover. But it is one of about four or five countries in the world that could, if it desired, if it made the effort, be completely and one hundred percent self sufficient with a high standard of living.
To the Euroweenies… The US Government and its people own 27% of the land or 4 billion acres while all of Europe is 2.6 billion acres. Which means we have a whole new Europe untouched and unlike the present resource poor rock, ours is packed full.
What America needs more than anything from our European guests is to keep their inbred elites from meddling in our affairs.
Don’t forget, America is one of the largest economic engines with all the crap it’s going through, no thanks to your City of London and your Oxford trained Soros.
So eazy on the wet dreams of America crashing and burning and pay attention to the fire in Europe called Ukraine.
No offense but Europe including Ukraine would be far better off if the US started cultivating its own garden instead of everyone else’s. Unfortunately it will probably take a crash and burn to do that.
A better solution is to tax the renters for benefiting from infra structure project or any public works that will improve their rents, like a new underground station at a corner appartment building or a new park. Tax them more and reflow those taxes to public infrastructures that help reduce the cost of living and working to the average citizens.
Avoid destruction, it takes 6 months to build an apartment building and one week to begin growing grass where the apartments used to be.
What infrastructure project would benefit me? My lawn is 40 acres. My town is 800 people 20 miles from from another town of about 4,000. All I need for infrastructure are roads, fuel, reliable electricity, and high speed internet.
A crashing dollar and an abandonment of empire would be the best thing to ever happen to America. We would be forced to redevelop our local economies and to rebuild our industries we have shipped to China. Everything anyone needs to be prosperous is here. The dollar hegemony so many of you claim benefits Americans has hollowed out the country, destroyed its factories, and indebted its people. Get rid of that system and it would more akin to starting with a clean slate than a catastrophe.
I would be more than happy to sit in my country with its 450 million firearms in private hands and its 4,000 or so nuclear weapons and let the rest of you go to hell. We don’t need you and any good we ever did you, is long since gone. So I’m sure the feeling is mutual.
So how is your fiber optic internet connection in your rural area? That’s also infra structure or a regional hospital or two. My internet is none existent. I have to use my phone. You know why, because Congress gave exclusivity to two Companies to string fiber optics. They use the county’s right of way, the phone poles and the Cherry pickers and yet no county can string wire. They will not string fiber if they can’t recoup their costs in one year.
Saying let the Dollar crash is a lot of ignorant nonsense. Trust me you don’t want the Dollar to crash. Your little town would become a ghost town, just like mine. Your social security check would become worthless.
I don’t get a social security check. My little town has been a ghost town since the railroad passed it by in 1895. The dollar hegemony needs to go away.
On this very site a few days ago there was a link to an article about how Russia’s real GDP is much higher because of its resources and industry. The US has all the same resources except a much better climate. I have a nine month growing season and 55 inches of rain a year. We just need to rebuild the industry.
I don’t know if we will, but we could. This US is favored by geography and climate like no country on earth. And it’s resources are virtually untapped compared to the rest of the world.
You are so badly miscommunicating what Dr. Michael Hudson says, it isn’t even funny.
Tax the owners of land that benefit from improvements – not the renters. Taxing renters is idiotic – renters do not benefit from improved land values. Land price increases are the largest beneficiaries of improvements.
Amen
Let it be. Necessarily will. Even if we don’t see.
Leadership by hoarse whispering into an empty head with an earpiece. Trump, kind of a last, worst hope was so much better. Trade deals negotiated instead of worse than useless wars. And all these degenerate, insane Woke adjacent cretins at the top of our junk heap can think to do is double down and treat most of us as enemies.
Those whom the gods wish to destroy…
The way of being in an era and situation of apocalypse suggests to diminish consume, to open
up to the inner way, easier for the introverts of us than for their extraverted brothers. Hence we have a social instinct, astrological Venus, to form complex social archetypal clusters in which a healthy balance is achieved by the inner and outer arguments of the heart.
All we are currently engaged, it is you for whom an Ukrainian or a Russian dies. For me it does the Russian brother. His sacrifice continues, what his Grand- and Great Grandfather did, liberating the
outer and the inner Africa in us.
A great Weekend is awaiting for the conscious observer: Sun will unite with Jupiter on the real territory
of social spirit.
14. week 2023 : “Mars-and-with-him-some-apocalypse”
https://astromundanediary.blogspot.com/2023/04/mars-and-with-him-some-apocalypse.html
I’m your age Larry. Been a conservative since Reagan, before that raised in a Kennedy Democrat family. In Feb 2022 when this historical chain of events all started, I knew little and bought the hype that Zalyinsky was a George Washington. I began following the Ukraine conflict in MSM. Then slowly began stumbling upon other web sites, Sonar21, TheDuran, Zerohedge, Military Summary, RT, Sputnik, Ritter, Col Macgregor, and many Substack writers. It didn’t take long to learn the truth about such things as Minsk, Donbas history, the dollar, Nordstrom, war capacity, hegemony, etc. I’m one of millions who were immersed in MSM, but I fear only 1% of those millions understand the big picture or bother learning. Now I have the power to instantly recognize propaganda; and recognize when someone doesn’t have a grasp of this event and its consequences. I thank you and many others, and I thank God the Internet exists at this time and is still free. Now I can’t imagine myself being where I was in Feb 2022, I pray that more in the west find the path I did.
I take it that when you say “it does mean that the American people will be facing some very choppy, uncertain economic waters ahead.” you are actually meaning the standard of living will deteriorate.
Thanks again for your thoughts
Larry, we should be honest and look ourselves in the mirror. Joe Biden is one in the long line of presidents/administrations that have set America up to fail. Manufacturing started leaving USA long before the demented doll became president. As with everything else, collapse starts slowly but the snowball has a habit of accelerating – the quality of every administration is in line with this maxim.
The Las Vegas mass shooting was likely a failed hit on MBS, who was the leading next-in- line for the Saudi throne. The US did not want MBS, they wanted Abdulaziz, who he supplanted as first in line.
Paddock, the alleged shooter, was a low level gunrunner for the cia. He was to supply the guns for the hit team in a hotel room in the Mandalay, one floor below MBS in the Four Seasons, which sits on top of it. A security guard knocked on Paddock’s door unexpectedly which resulted in a gun shot. The gun shot tipped off MBS’s security crew that something was up and they took him to safety. The hit was foiled. But the hit crew now had to escape. To do this they created a distraction by firing into the crowd at the music festival below and escaped in the chaos.
For this reason MBS does not like the US and is quite motivated to rearrange the order in the M.E. around his aversion, this includes making peace with Iran, a major change.
The U.S is a quickly becoming a wounded animal. All their narratives about Russia and Ukraine are falling apart. The world is finally fed up with their bullying tactics, dropping the dollar and joining with the BRICS. Soon they will be lashing out anywhere and everywhere their absurd thought pattern will take them. It would not surprise me at all to see them try to invoke the Monroe Doctrine somehow with countries in this hemisphere joining BRICS. To most people that would be absurd but not to a wounded animal. It only gets harder from here. With these people at the wheel we are just passengers on a runaway bus going down a mountain with failed brakes.
All I know as a retired American living in the EU is that the value of my USD retirement funds in EUR has dropped 12.5% in the last six months, not to mention the 12%+ inflation. I don’t know how working class Croatians are making it.
We don’t. Our collapse happened a long time ago, so we learned how to cope with disaster.
Our kids get educated, pack a suitcase and leave. We retirees rise our grandkids, while our grown up children, those who have not yet emigrated, work part-time with marginal chance of ever renting a modest apartment, let alone to buy a place they could call their own.
Multi-generation homes and family helps us brave the storm and even thrive in some small ways.
Bravo to you and your extended family. We are taking the multi-gen route ourselves. Our modest home accommodates five related adults and two grandkids. A cord of three strands is not easily broken. Unfortunately for many people with family breakup etc this no longer an option.
As long as I have a roof above my head, and bread on a table, my family and friends are welcomed to share, and vice-versa. What else do I need?
Larry & friends,
It seems likely there will be a financial crisis in the fall, starring Wall Street. Bankers are rarely satisfied with 3-4% profit, these days. There are a lot of US banks on life support; with the Fed fighting inflation by raising interest rates, trouble comes.
The big fight in the US is to prevent Washington from doing a complete bailout.
And up in big empty Canada? The old joke is that ‘If Uncle Sam sneezes, Canada comes down with a cold’!
Canada!??
The guy who admired Fidel Castro ( certainly not his real father..) will find a safe and effective solution for the upcoming cold!
If things get too cold, bank accounts can be frozen!!!!
Some funds could be sent to Ukraine!! LOL
Hey Larry, great article once again, thanks.
Here’s one! Western society, 100 families suddenly have no income, they all live in a 100 house town. What can they PRODUCE to survive?
That’s what’s staring at us right now, we make or produce absolutely nothing, so when the real meaning of capitalism kicks in very soon, we the people are well and truly fucked.
The classic response is that they can take in each other’s laundry.
Christian – I tried it this week after reading about a “Belgian man committed suicide” I wanted to see what’s up. Well, yeah, it’s informative in a “lot of platitudes” way, and the speed is amazing but on a “wooden” side. I don’t know how someone could take its advice seriously, except the starting point of their own research.
It always saddens me to think about all the beautiful factories and manufacturing jobs that the Big Government politicians and bureaucrats drove away from our shores by way of massive regulations, minimum wage laws and pro union policies. They killed the Goose that laid the Golden Eggs for America’s prosperity. They have also helped to kill off the hopes and opportunities of millions of young people. (In doing so, they also handed China the rope to hang us with.)
Gary North:
The greatest single indicator of increasing per capita wealth in a middle-class society is the decline in the percentage of people employed in manufacturing.
the service sector has been larger than the manufacturing sector ever since 1840. What we see today is nothing new.
The biggest decline has been in agricultural employment. It has almost disappeared. But we do not worry about this, do we? The “heart of America” was agriculture in 1840: almost 70%. Now it is at 2%. Nobody cares. Output is high. Our farms export grains. The huge increase in productivity has displaced workers, beginning with the mechanical reaper in the 1840’s.
This is a good thing. It has happened all over Western civilization and Japan. It is now happening in China and India. This is a mark of increased wealth. Fewer workers are required to feed us city slickers.
Is America richer today than in 1948? In every sector, it is. In anything digital/electronic, our wealth is incomparably greater.
China leads the world in terms of manufacturing output, with over $2.01 trillion in output. This is followed by the United States ($1.867 trillion), Japan ($1.063 trillion), Germany ($700 billion), and South Korea ($372 billion).
These are gross output figures. China is only marginally ahead of the United States in terms of the total value of its manufacturing output.
Far more important is per capita output. China has approximately 1.4 billion people. The United States has approximately 328 million people. The per capita manufacturing output of the United States is four times greater than China’s.
the US steel industry producing 56,000 scythes and 20,000 pitchforks per year in the 1830s
This revelation about Honduras elevates you vey high Larry. Your demeanor when you talk
is calm quiet intelligent and most important down to earth. Some one who did an interview with you commented on that. It makes you very very believable and it’s backed up with the details and information you provide.
Most people who have done things over seas try to use it as a prestige item that makes them superior elites of some kind.
Probably Peace Corps? I had a teacher in high school whose claim to fame was a year teaching some where in Africa. But every one knew and he gave slide shows. There is a lesson to be learned here — if you want to impress down play things let them speak for them selves. Never broadcast them.
The nerd in me was curious about the terraced agriculture. It’s done all over asia but not in the Americas? These people are indefatigable hard workers so that contributed to the success (allowed it to be done effectively). Do they still do it? The $64,000 question.
My father was an agriculture technician for USAID and he worked in Africa for 28 years. Sadly he’s gone. He I know tried all kind of things I wish I could talk to him about them now.
When I arrived in Honduras in April 1978 I learned that the farmers would burn off the mountain side and then, with a large pole in hand, would poke holes in the ground and throw in grains of corn and beans. They did not plant in rows. I received a tip from an Honduran ag guy in Tegucigalpa and loaded up four of the locals in my vehicle. One of them was the head of the local farmers union, and took them to see a terrace farming operation. Building the terraces preserved the top soil and required the farmers to plant corn and beans in rows. The increase in production was amazing. They forgot what their Mayan ancestors used to do.
Unfortunately this does not just mean high inflation. This means that the US will have a lot of difficulty financing its almost infinite debt. They won’t be able to finance their army to rule the world.
Thank you for this analysis that I endorse except for the conclusion that the US economy is not facing collapse but high inflation. On the contrary, I think that there’s real danger and a high probability of an economic meltdown of the US, followed by civil strife and possibly secession. The US has been living way above its means for many decades, but its wild chickens have all come home to roost.
Recall that the US gov. has been running on deficit spending as long as I can remember, and that’s how it was able to finance its 800+ bases across the world. That was OK for as long as the dollar was the reserve currency giving the US plenty of room to export its deficit spending overseas via emission of gov. securities.
Now that the dollar is losing that privilege, the US is in grave danger of total insolvency, with an overvalued economy and living standards way above all economic reality. For example, the US consumer is able to buy his flat-screen TV because the Chinese laborer is willing to toil seven days a week for a mere pittance or a few bowls of rice! Imagine what that same TV would cost if manufactured by overpaid, over-fed and over-taxed US outfit in Mid America?? That living standard won’t be possible once the dollar falls and will undergo a huge reduction to almost third world levels! The spending power of the US consumer will be reduced which will cause a collapse of the interior market.
The other major obvious life-threatening danger is the US humongous debt of over $31 trillion. That’s an intractable problem as of now. That’s the reason why the US is permanently at war with the world.
Consequently, the US is contemplating a total economic meltdown, followed by social unrest and possible a civil war, given all the intractable problems that are deeply dividing the US society. There’s even a good chance of the US breaking up into multiple political entities. The US model is no longer workable and the Ukraine war was the straw that broke the legendary camel’s back.
Historically, the fall of a major empire is always followed by civil strife and division, viz. Rome, Soviet Union etc.
so the USA are collapsing…because of who ? the communists ? the homo-marxists ?
when will you be couragous enough to face the truth ? that is, capitalism is the problem.
globalization = post-national capitalism ; it is still capitalism but without the constraint of a nationalistic concern for domestic people.
Money has no fatherland (…and Trump won’t change anything).
Geoffrey, communist from Belgium (heterosexual)
I’m sure someone will come and explain that it’s all your fault Geoffrey.
It is really sad to see a country like US going to the wrong direction. I dream with a partnership among powerful nations like US, China, Russia, Germany, Brazil, South Africa, Iran searching and developing alternatives to environment, employment, housing, education, health and many others, forgetting their political divergences. It would be the peace on earth.
It is really sad, and it makes me angry because I had high hopes to see the USA eventually evolve into a guiding light, a helping hand for the poor, the disenfranchised, the wretched of the world. How wrong I was! It has turned to out to be a huge profit-hungry oligarchy hellbent on domination, loot and wars of aggression, spreading destruction and poverty on its path. I have to confess that there was a time when I bought into the idealistic American BS propaganda and lies, as did an idealistic communist true believer until all was revealed.
The US empire is a sickness inherited from the two world wars and it’s time to seek a cure from it. For that, we should review all concepts regarding democracy, economic organization, value-system and religion because the Anglo-American model is not only dead but has spawned abominations like transgender ideas and normalized sexual perversions that need to be sanitized lest we face the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. China/Russia, and other countries are proving that traditionalist, religious, authoritarian-ism and Socially-oriented systems have a lot of advantages in the organization of human societies.