Economic collapse
What could happen in 2023…
- 1. Increase in oil prices to $ 150 per barrel and gas prices to $ 5,000 per 1,000 cubic meters.
- 2. The return of the UK to the European Union.
- 3. The collapse of the European Union after the return of the UK and the abolition of the euro as the currency of the former EU.
- 4. The seizure by Poland and Hungary of the western regions of the former Ukraine.
- 5. The creation of the Fourth Reich on the basis of Germany and the satellites that joined it (Poland, the Baltic countries, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, the Kiev Republic, etc. marginals).
- 6. The war between France and the Fourth Reich. The partition of Europe, including the new partition of Poland.
- 7. Separation of Northern Ireland from the Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and accession to the Republic of Ireland.
- 8. The Civil War in the USA, the separation of California and Texas into independent states. Creation of the union State of Texas and Mexico. The subsequent victory of Elon Musk during the US presidential election in some of the states assigned to the Republicans after the Civil War.
- 9. Transfer of all major stock exchanges and financial activity from the USA and Europe to Asia.
- 10. The collapse of the Bretton Woods financial system, including the collapse of the IMF and the World Bank. Abandoning the euro and the dollar as world reserve currencies. The return of the gold standard. Transition to the active use of digital fiat currencies.
Those that have been waiting for the U.S. economy to implode can stop waiting because an economic implosion has officially arrived.
BY TYLER DURDEN
TUESDAY, DEC 27, 2022
Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
Economic conditions just keep getting worse. As we prepare to enter 2023, we find ourselves in a high inflation environment at the same time that economic activity is really slowing down. And just like we witnessed in 2008, employers are conducting mass layoffs as a horrifying housing crash sweeps across the nation. Those that have been waiting for the U.S. economy to implode can stop waiting because an economic implosion has officially arrived.
The following are 15 facts that prove that a massive economic meltdown is already happening right now…
#1 Existing home sales have now fallen for 10 consecutive months.
#2 Existing home sales are down 35.4 percent over the last 12 months. That is the largest year over year decline in existing home sales since the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
#3 Homebuilder sentiment has now dropped for 12 consecutive months.
#4 Home construction costs have risen more than 30 percent since the beginning of 2022.
#5 The number of single-family housing unit permits has fallen for nine months in a row.
#6 The Empire State Manufacturing Index has plunged “to a reading of negative 11.2 in December”. That figure was way, way below expectations.
#7 In November, we witnessed the largest decline in retail sales that we have seen all year long.
#8 Even the biggest names on Wall Street are starting to let workers go. In fact, it is being reported that Goldman Sachs will soon lay off approximately 4,000 employees.
#9 The Federal Reserve is admitting that the number of actual jobs in the United States has been overstated by over a million.
#10 U.S. job cuts were 417 percent higher in November than they were during the same month a year ago.
#11 A recent Wall Street Journal survey found that approximately two-thirds of all Americans expect the economy to get even worse next year.
#12 A newly released Bloomberg survey has discovered that 70 percent of U.S. economists believe that a recession is coming in 2023.
#13 Inflation continues to spiral wildly out of control. At this point, a head of lettuce now costs 11 dollars at one grocery store in California.
#14 Overall, vegetable prices in the United States are more than 80 percent higher than they were at this same time last year.
#15 Thanks to the rapidly rising cost of living, 63 percent of the U.S. population is now living paycheck to paycheck.
In a desperate attempt to get inflation under control, the Federal Reserve has been dramatically increasing interest rates.
Those interest rate hikes are what have caused the housing market to crash, but Fed officials insist that such short-term pain is necessary in order to tame inflation.
But meanwhile, our politicians in Washington are busy creating more inflation by borrowing and spending money at a rate that is absolutely unprecedented in our entire history.
This week, an abominable 1.7 trillion dollar omnibus spending bill is being rammed through Congress, but not a single member of Congress has read it.
The bill is 4,155 pages long, and U.S. Senator Rand Paul just held a press briefing during which he wheeled it out on a trolley…
After the grossly bloated $1.7 trillion Omnibus spending bill advanced in the Senate by a vote of 70-25, GOP Senator Rand Paul held a press briefing during which he wheeled in the “abomination” on a trolley and demanded to know how anyone would be able to read it before the end of the week.
Paul, along with the only other dissenting Senate Republicans Mike Braun, Ron Johnson, Mike Lee, and Rick Scott highlighted how ludicrous the fast tracking of the bill has been.
Unfortunately, this absurd spending bill has broad support on both sides of the aisle, and that just shows how broken Washington has become.
Our system of government has failed time after time, and our politicians continue to spend money on some of the most ridiculous things imaginable.
The following examples that were pulled out of the 1.7 trillion dollar omnibus spending bill were discovered by the Heritage Foundation…
- $1.2 million for “LGBTQIA+ Pride Centers”
- $1.2 million for “services for DACA recipients” (aka helping illegal aliens with taxpayer funds) at San Diego Community College.
- $477k for the Equity Institute in RI to indoctrinate teachers with “antiracism virtual labs.”
- $1 million for Zora’s House in Ohio, a “coworking and community space” for “women and gender-expansive people of color.”
- $3 million for the American LGBTQ+ Museum in New York City.
- $3.6 million for a Michelle Obama Trail in Georgia.
- $750k for “LGBT and Gender Non-Conforming housing” in Albany, New York.
- $856k for the “LGBT Center” in New York.
And have you noticed that our politicians often prefer to push these types of bills through just before major holidays when hardly anyone is paying attention?
No matter who we send to Washington, the story remains the same.
As long as our politicians are borrowing and spending trillions of dollars that we do not have, Fed officials won’t be able to win their war against inflation.
The Fed can send interest rates into the stratosphere, but inflation will continue to remain high because our politicians insist on showering the nation with giant mountains of cash.
We should all be deeply, deeply offended by what is happening, but most Americans simply do not know enough to care.
But once economic conditions get even worse than they were in 2008 and 2009, the majority of the U.S. population will become extremely angry.
Of course, things could have turned out much differently if we had made better decisions during the years leading up to this crisis.
Unfortunately, we have run out of time to change course, and that means that a tremendous amount of pain is ahead for all of us.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported today that teenage overdoses increased 109 percent over the two years. Deaths caused by fentanyl alone increased 182 percent.
Michael Snyder
Dec 18, 2022
The largest cities in the United States are becoming cesspools of crime, drugs, violence and homelessness, and no matter what “solutions” our politicians come up with the problems just continue to get even worse. Sadly, this is even happening in the wealthiest cities in the whole country. New York City is the financial capital of the entire globe, and over the past two decades, San Francisco has been swimming in giant mountains of tech industry money. But today the streets of both cities look like something out of a post-apocalyptic horror movie. If things are this bad while economic conditions are still relatively stable, what will those streets look like two years from now when economic conditions are far worse?
New York City has seen some pretty rough times in the past, but the Big Apple has never had as many homeless people sleeping in shelters than it does right now…
New York City’s homeless problem does not appear to be getting any better.
According to the Coalition for the Homeless, the numbers have actually hit an all-time high. They claim the average number of people sleeping in a shelter every night climbed to nearly 66,000 in October.
It is far more preferable to sleep in a shelter than it is to sleep in the streets because violence in NYC has escalated to very frightening levels…
Fatal stabbings and slashings are up an alarming 37% in the Big Apple this year.
The NYPD has logged 96 blade-involved killings so far in 2022, compared with 70 for the same period in 2021, according to department stats obtained by The Post.
Stabbings and slashings overall are up 10% in 2022, with 4,344 compared to 3,954 last year, the stats show.
Meanwhile, the downward spiral that we are witnessing in San Francisco is incredibly alarming.
I recently watched footage of what downtown San Francisco currently looks like, and afterwards, I was truly at a loss for words.
Have things really gotten this bad?
Part of the problem is that the office buildings downtown are much less occupied these days thanks to the “work at home revolution” that began during the early stages of the pandemic…
Today San Francisco has what is perhaps the most deserted major downtown in America. On any given week, office buildings are at about 40 percent of their prepandemic occupancy, while the vacancy rate has jumped to 24 percent from 5 percent since 2019.
Another major factor is drug addiction. Right now we are witnessing the worst drug crisis in the history of the United States, and it just keeps intensifying every year.
In fact, the number of drug overdose deaths among our teens actually “doubled from 2019 to 2021”…
Drug overdose deaths among US teens doubled from 2019 to 2021 – even as use of illicit substances declined – as fentanyl fueled a nationwide crisis.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported today that teenage overdoses increased 109 percent over the two years. Deaths caused by fentanyl alone increased 182 percent.
Once upon a time, the United States was such a lovely place to be.
But now our communities are degenerating into rapidly decaying hellholes and our streets are filled with violent predators.
Have you heard about a new trend called “jugging”?
From coast to coast, predators are patiently watching potential victims and they strike as “they juggle smartphones and car keys in parking lots or at home”…
A new crime trend is targeting the distracted and the elderly, with police warning about it from Alabama to California.
The big picture: Jugging involves thieves staking out unsuspecting victims at banks or retail stores before following and robbing them while they juggle smartphones and car keys in parking lots or at home.
But of course, not all predators will be satisfied with just robbing you.
When a 20-year-old pregnant woman was taken in by a 36-year-old man after being kicked out of her home, she was initially relieved to have a place to stay.
But that sense of relief didn’t last long…
A 20-year-old pregnant woman was kicked out of her house around Thanksgiving. Her luck appeared to be make a holiday rebound when a stranger offered her a warm meal and a place to stay. However, this was anything but charity.
Michael Barajas, 36, is accused of subjecting the young woman to unimaginable depravities over the course of three weeks.
It turns out that this particular predator actually had his teeth filed down into sharp points.
He literally looks like he is insane, and Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson is describing him as “a monster”…
According to the Tri-County Times, Barajas has been charged with human trafficking, kidnapping, first-degree criminal sexual conduct, possession of methamphetamine, assault with a dangerous weapon, assault with intent to do great bodily harm, and felony possession of a firearm.
“This guy is a monster,” said Swanson. “If you look at the teeth that are filed down and the threats of ripping out a throat, I will say no more.”
Anyone with any sense would never have gone with him.
But other predators can look completely innocent.
For example, one 33-year-old man recently thought that he was pulling over to help a woman that was in trouble on the side of the road.
But once he got out of his vehicle, two men jumped out from their hiding spots and viciously attacked him…
Shortly before 11 p.m. on Wednesday, an unnamed 33-year-old man was driving along near the intersection of Hutchinson Road and South George Washington Boulevard, a rather rural area just outside Yuba City, about 40 miles north of Sacramento, when he spotted a woman standing near a black SUV on the side of the road. She flagged the man down, indicating that she was in some kind of distress.
The man pulled over and exited his vehicle to see how he could help. However, once he left his vehicle, two seemingly armed men jumped out of the woman’s SUV. One appeared to have a gun, the other had a knife. Under threat of violence, they zip-tied the driver’s legs together and stole his wallet and car keys. The three con artists then poured gasoline all over the victim and lit him on fire before they left, driving away in their own SUV and taking the victim’s car too.
This is what our country has become.
We are rapidly evolving into a “Mad Max society”, and that is because we have rejected the values that this nation was founded upon.
And if we stay on the path that we are currently on, things are only going to get worse.
Ignoring what is happening is not going to make it go away.
Social decay is systematically eating away at the foundations of our civilization, and at this point, America’s decline is really starting to accelerate.
In an age when information has never been more easily accessible, the world is awash in lies.
Political speech was also censored through the collaborative efforts of the FBI and more than 50 intelligence community agents in violation of the First Amendment. In each case, the “narrative” proved to be either misleading propaganda or an outright lie. Yet they were created and sustained by online communication platforms that pushed the lies and excluded the truths.
BY TYLER DURDEN
SATURDAY, DEC 17, 2022
Authored by J.B.Shurk via The Gatestone Institute,
The heavy perils we face today include centralized governments micromanaging society, the growing prospect of global war, the growing prospect of forced surrender, and the replacement of reasoned debate and free speech with state-sanctioned “narratives” and censorship: totalitarian governance seems not far behind. This is a new kind of war against civilians for control of their minds.
The torrents engulfing us appear to be potentially catastrophic. In a few short years, the world has endured the COVID-19 pandemic, forced government lockdowns, extreme economic volatility, commodity shortages, and the World Economic Forum’s attempts to exploit this cascade of crises as an excuse to usher in a structural “Great Reset” in which global food and energy consumption can be strictly regulated according to the “climate change” goals of an unelected cabal. Governments are relying increasingly on controlling public “narratives” and vilifying dissent.
While health bureaucrats and politicians claimed to be “following the science,” mandatory compliance with unilateral rule-making precluded reasoned, good-faith debate. The predictable result: the lethal consequences of the Wuhan Virus were exacerbated by the lethal consequences of misguided public policies imposed to fight the virus. Students whose schools were shuttered now suffer the lifelong effects of learning loss. Patients whose timely diagnoses and preventative care were forestalled now suffer the debilitating outcomes of untreated disease. Small businesses unable to endure prolonged closures are gone for good. Middle class savings once reserved for unexpected “rainy day” funds or children’s future educations have dried up. Credit card debt is on the rise, while more and more people struggle to survive on less. The “safety nets” of government welfare programs have ballooned to leave nation states more indebted than ever but have also proved too perforated with leaky holes (often draining needed resources straight into the bank accounts of corporate campaign donors, interest group lobbyists, and foreign hackers) to keep society’s most vulnerable afloat. Governments’ justifications for reckless fiscal, monetary, and credit policies during short-term emergencies have weakened nations’ prospects for long-term solvency and the likelihood that they will be capable of preserving stable currencies. Still, for all the harms their actions have caused, governments have issued no apologies for enforcing such life-altering policies while silencing critics. It is as if “narrative engineers” have adopted an official position that they are incapable of being wrong.
Geopolitical conflict is wrenching the post-WWII international order apart. While America’s and the European Union’s “climate change” policies have already inflated the costs of energy, food and much else, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has only added to ordinary Europeans’ financial pain and jeopardizes the continent’s security more broadly. China’s territorial ambitions threaten peace in Taiwan, Japan, across Southeast Asia and beyond. The United States’ efforts to enlarge NATO’s European membership, while expanding its mission objectives into the Indo-Pacific, all but ensure that the U.S., China and Russia remain on a collision course.
Policymakers cannot help seeing parallels to the quickly falling geopolitical dominoes that ushered in WWI and WWII over the course of a few fateful weeks. They cannot help looking at the unsustainable accumulation of government debt around the world and the avalanche of investment derivatives balancing unsteadily upon fragile currencies unmoored from any real value in gold or silver and fearing the risks of a severe depression. They cannot help seeing Russian revanchism and Chinese territorial expansion as signs that the Great Powers have set course down a dangerous path. The more nervous about the future policymakers are, the more committed they seem to enforcing a standard “narrative” they can control.
It was the detonation of two nuclear warheads over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of course, that brought combat in the Pacific Theater to a close and ended WWII with an exclamation point.
Now we stand on a new kind of battlefield. Just as with nuclear weapons, civilians have nowhere to hide from this war’s effects. Weapons systems are spread out across the Internet, deployed on mobile phones and active on every computer chip, tracking, sharing, and pushing digital information throughout the world. Instead of explosives and bullets, we have competing “narratives” whizzing past. The breadth of the campaign to control what information we see, how we process that information, and ultimately what we think and say makes even the most effective psychological operations of the past look antiquated and rudimentary. Whereas “mutually assured destruction” has so far succeeded as a deterrent against nuclear war, the tantalizing opportunities for governments to use programs of mass digital surveillance and communication to spread lies, manipulate opinion, and affect human behavior have created a kind of mutually assured dystopia, “where people lead dehumanized, fearful lives.”
In the 1930s, Adolf Hitler spoke with boisterous energy and theatrical gesticulation before tens of thousands of stormtroopers, Hitler Youth, and Nazi Party faithful. Today, the dictator’s raised stage has been replaced with Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and anywhere else a pop-up online audience can be found. The visual stimuli that enthralled Hitler’s crowds are now reproduced with the release of pleasure-causing endorphins rushing to the brain after every “politically correct” online statement is “rewarded” with approval from strangers providing instant fame. Online “influencers” have become the goose-stepping middlemen for campaigns of mass propaganda that touch more humans in a day than a decade of Hitler’s speeches. In an age when information has never been more easily accessible, the world is awash in lies.
Instead of encouraging public debate and rational argument, governments push the constant drumbeat of the “narrative” above all else. A citizen either obediently accepts the government’s vast and intrusive COVID-19 rules, or that person is labelled a “COVID denier.” A citizen either obediently accepts the government’s vast and intrusive “climate change” rules, or that person is labelled a “climate denier.” A citizen either accepts Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell” as “Russian disinformation”, or that person is labelled a “Russian sympathizer.” Daring to say otherwise could get one banned from social media, professionally sanctioned, or even fired from a job. Except none of these established “narratives” has proved true.
In hindsight, it is clear that lockdowns unleashed more health, educational and economic problems than they solved. As Europe faces an expanding energy crisis that leaves its populations vulnerable to the cold, it is clear that “climate change” policies can kill those they are purportedly meant to protect. And as Elon Musk’s recent release of internal Twitter communications proves, Hunter Biden’s laptop was not only real news censored from the public during a presidential election. Political speech was also censored through the collaborative efforts of the FBI and more than 50 intelligence community agents in violation of the First Amendment. In each case, the “narrative” proved to be either misleading propaganda or an outright lie. Yet they were created and sustained by online communication platforms that pushed the lies and excluded the truths.
As global events increasingly threaten Western stability, governments have demonstrated no inclination to entertain a diversity of viewpoints or discussions along the way. Instead, the more serious the issue, the more committed to a single, overarching “narrative” they seem to become. Dissent is despised. Reasoned argument is lampooned. A citizen is expected to blithely accept government-approved messaging disseminated online, or risk the wrath of the technocracy.
This war for eight billion minds means that citizens must be more vigilant than ever in processing and evaluating what they see and read. Whether they like it or not, they are under attack at all times from those who seek to manipulate and control them. As in the last century, we are surrounded by totalitarian propaganda routinely disguised as “the truth.” In this century, though, the reach and scale of mass indoctrination seems endlessly expanding.
This is beyond obscene and people accept it without question.
Beijing has accused Washington of “abusing” export controls amid reports the US plans to curb tech sales to China
Sanctions are merely tools of war and the US started this.
FILE PHOTO: Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin gestures during a press conference at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, China. © AFP / Noel Celis
China has condemned the US government following reports that it plans to place dozens of Chinese technology firms on a trade blacklist that would bar them from buying certain American parts and components, dubbing the move “blatant economic coercion.”
Asked about Washington’s scheme to penalize some 36 tech companies, first reported earlier this week by Bloomberg and the Financial Times, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the decision would severely undermine trade relations between the two countries.
“The US has been stretching the concept of national security, abusing export control measures, engaging in discriminatory and unfair treatment against enterprises of other countries, and politicizing and weaponizing economic and sci-tech issues,” Wang told reporters on Wednesday, adding: “This is blatant economic coercion and bullying in the field of technology.”
READ MORE: US to blacklist more Chinese firms – Bloomberg
Under the US plan which, according to Bloomberg, could take effect as early as this week, the Commerce Department would place the Chinese firms on the so-called ‘Entity List,’ prohibiting them from purchasing some US-made goods unless they obtain a special export license. China’s leading chip-maker, Yangtze Memory Technologies, is set to be included on the list
According to the Financial Times, the move is part of a broader effort by Washington to “target Chinese technology companies that it believes threaten its security,” having already imposed strong export controls earlier this year which made it far more difficult for Chinese firms to obtain semiconductors and equipment used to manufacture computer chips.
Wang was also asked to comment on a new bill introduced in the US Congress this week that aims to cut off Chinese tech firms from American banks, saying that Washington is abusing its powers to “wantonly hobble Chinese companies” while vowing to protect the rights of local businesses.
“Undermining international rules will eventually backfire on the US itself,” Wang added.
Since taking office, President Joe Biden has pursued many of the same hostile policies toward China as his predecessor, Donald Trump. In addition to continuing a low-level trade war largely targeting technology companies, Biden has sent American warships through contested waters off China’s coast on a near-monthly basis, while also ignoring repeated warnings by Beijing to cease all direct diplomatic contacts with Taiwan, which China considers to be part of its sovereign territory.
Several European countries called for an end to sending money to Ukraine and bankrolling Kyiv’s ongoing war effort against Russia.
by: Ramon Tomey
Tuesday, November 15, 2022
Several European countries called for an end to sending money to Ukraine and bankrolling Kyiv’s ongoing war effort against Russia.
Hungary led the charge by blocking €18 billion ($18.6 billion) in financial aid the European Commission planned to send. This threw a wrench into the plans of Brussels, as the money cannot go to Kyiv without the full approval of all 27 European Union member countries as per budget rules.
“We will certainly not support any kind of joint EU borrowing in this field,” Hungarian Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Peter Szijjarto told a newspaper in his home country. According to the minister, it had already spent hundreds of millions of euros to support health, education and cultural institutions in Ukraine. Szijjarto added that Budapest earlier supported the EU’s joint borrowing during the pandemic.
In response, leaders of various EU nations joined Brussels in denouncing Budapest. Mainstream media outlets also pointed their fingers at Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who they accused of repeatedly neglecting EU norms and attempting to woo Russian President Vladimir Putin in the past.
Hungary is not the only nation opposing further funding to Ukraine.
An estimated 100,000 Italians protested in the capital Rome, calling on the government of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to stop sending weapons to Ukraine. Numerous Catholic associations, trade unions and peace groups reportedly organized the demonstration.
In Greece, workers in the capital Athens went on a day-long strike to denounce soaring inflation and skyrocketing energy prices as a result of sanctions imposed by the West on Moscow. The laborers in Athens were backed by unions such as the General Confederation of Greek Workers and ADEDY, which represents civil servants.
Meanwhile, in the Czech Republic, around 70,000 people took to the streets to denounce Prague for its role in the energy crisis. The participants called on the government to maintain direct gas contracts with Russia to solve the ongoing energy crisis. (Related: 70,000 protesters swarm Prague in protest of energy crisis: “Europe on the brink.”)
Even the GOP is tired of sending money to Kyiv
Professor Joe Siracusa, an expert on American politics at Curtin University in Western Australia, said the Hungarians and Italians “have every right” to voice their opposition to continued funding toward Ukraine.
“There’s going to be more of it,” he remarked. “I think every nation in Europe is going to do what they think they have to do to survive the winter and to get on with life.”
But according to Siracusa, Republican lawmakers in the U.S. – set to take control of the House of Representatives in January 2023 – are also tired of allocating huge amounts of money for Kyiv. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said the GOP won’t give a “blank check” to Kyiv. The expert remarked that McCarthy, who is gunning for the House speaker position, will have a “very, very important” role.
“Republicans will win the House of Representatives. They’re in control of the purse – and they can make sure that the House, where all money bills originate, will not give Ukraine another penny,” he said.
“If you don’t control the House, and all you need is 218 votes, you don’t need a red wave. You don’t need a 30- [or] 40-seat majority. All you need is one vote, and they got 218. Winning the House is more important than winning the Senate.”
While Siracusa pointed out that the GOP was “hesitating before the [midterm] election,” he continued that there is only so much Washington can give to Kyiv before the former’s arsenal becomes empty.
The expert ultimately referenced remarks by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who said that “as far as she … and a number of Republicans are concerned, Ukraine is not an ally and Russia is not an enemy.”
WWIII.news has more stories about the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
Watch Stew Peters urges the GOP to fulfill their promise of ending further funding for Ukraine when they take control of the House.
https://www.brighteon.com/embed/2a684bd7-3b48-463d-bee6-729e83173c70
This video is from the Leona Wind channel on Brighteon.com.
More related stories:
Hungary says no to EU’s Russian oil embargo sanction.
Czechs protest in Prague demanding neutrality, government action over energy crisis.
Pentagon: Ukraine has received more than ONE MILLION artillery rounds from the US.
Sources include:
“Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.” Kissinger
by: Ethan Huff
Tuesday, November 15, 2022
The latest report from the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) indicates that the global aggregate of food import costs has reached nearly $2 trillion in 2022 due to runaway inflation.
The FAO’s “Food Outlook” explains that the cost of importing wheat, rice, maize, vegetable oils, and pretty much all other farm goods will soon reach an all-time high, topping the previous record high that was reached in 2021 by at least 10 percent.
As food prices increase and other currencies besides the United States dollar depreciate, the FAO does expect some degree of demand destruction. Still, the poorest countries could face mass starvation as food prices soar out of reach. (Related: Even “First World” countries like the United Kingdom are crumbling under the pressure of inflation.)
Developing countries that heavily rely on food imports will be hit the hardest, especially as they face insurmountable and ever-rising debt. Many such nations are rapidly burning through their dollar stockpiles – faster than in the past two decades, we are told.
The money changers that control the U.S economy and its Federal Reserve Note currency Ponzi scheme have ensured that other currencies can no longer compete against it, which is impoverishing other countries lower on the totem pole at an astounding rate.
“Falling emerging market currencies means the purchasing power of importing has declined,” reports Zero Hedge. “It comes as global food prices remain at lofty levels.”
Is a day of reckoning coming for the United States once the collapse hits our shores?
In the report, the FAO’s Markets and Trade Division warns that “[t]hese are alarming signs from a food security perspective, indicating importers are finding it difficult to finance rising international costs, potentially heralding an end to their resilience to higher international prices.”
Perhaps the most known example of this is Sri Lanka, which has been in an economic free-fall ever since it outlawed the use of crop fertilizer a few years back. Earlier this year, Sri Lanka ran out of reserves while at the same time defaulting on its overseas bonds, leaving it with no money to import basic necessities like food and fuel.
This sparked widespread rioting and social upheaval, a phenomenon that has since spread like a contagion – you might even say like a virus – to other countries that are similarly very low on the food chain.
The more things unravel, the worse things are going to get for the world’s poorest countries. However, after those are decimated, richer countries will follow suit in ways many cannot even fathom.
The Titanic itself, the United States corporation, will finally and justifiably inherit the consequences of the mess its leaders have made by raping and pillaging not only the world but its own citizens, all so the “elite” could capture limitless power and financial gain.
For the time being, the U.S. and other top-dog nations are still siphoning the cream of the crop. The best of what the world has to offer continues to be imported while the developing world is lucky to even just get staples – but it will not stay like this forever.
Keep in mind that fertilizer costs continue to skyrocket, up 48 percent this year compared to last. This will, once again, hit poorer countries the hardest, at least at first. Eventually, though, it will catch up with everyone, including Mystery Babylon herself.
“Global unrest, inflation flood of illegal immigration, soaring energy costs … no wonder the market is soaring,” joked one commenter about how fake and ridiculous the U.S. financial system is.
Another quoted Henry Kissinger who once said:
“Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.”
Want to learn more about the ongoing collapse of the global economic order? Visit Collapse.news.
Sources for this article include:
https://thenewamerican.com/analyst-united-states-will-cease-to-exist-by-2032/
Martin Armstrong
Nov 7, 2022
Donald Trump has the American public wondering whether he will soon declare another bid for the presidency, but will the nation as we know it even make it to 2024?
According to one economic forecaster, America’s days as we know it are numbered. Martin Armstrong, who previously predicted major events like the 2008 global financial crisis, said during a recent interview that “the United States will not exist after 2032” and that there may not even be an election in 2024 — pointing to widespread electoral fraud, corruption, and a loss of faith in the system.
Armstrong made his remarks during an appearance on Greg Hunter’s USA Watchdog.
“The cheating in the midterm election next week is going to be so great that it is almost impossible to make a prediction…. In a fair midterm election, the Republicans would win the House and the Senate,” Armstrong asserted in reference to the November 8 midterm elections.
“Where this ends up, who knows? It’s just so corrupt, it is over the top. It doesn’t matter who wins. Nobody is going to accept this thing, and that is the problem,” he added.
Armstrong claimed to have received emails from individuals living in Canada who have received ballots intended for Pennsylvania.
He believes that whichever side loses the midterms will not accept the election results, resulting in a total breakdown of the system.
“The United States will not exist after 2032. After 2028 and 2029, we are going to have to redesign a government from scratch. America is being destroyed,” he concluded.
More words here:
https://thenewamerican.com/analyst-united-states-will-cease-to-exist-by-2032/
It’s either war with Russia and China to stop BRICS+ or the financial collapse of the US, EU, and the entire Debt and money printing circus. It was never about the people of Ukraine. Ukraine is a sideshow. The main event is yet to come. The two options are poverty or nuclear war.
What’s the root cause of the US proxy war in Ukraine? Most people don’t have a clue. Let me explain. It all started after the 2007-2008 financial crisis that originated in the US. The reliability of the US Govt as a partner in global financial affairs was destroyed.
In 2009 Russia hosted the first BRICS summit to establish a better international financial system with China, India, Brazil, and South Africa, and later with future BRICS+ partners. In short a new “multipolar order”. BRICS is challenging the US Dollar reserve currency status.
That started a new Cold War with Russia and China. US National Debt is now at $31 trillion, total US Debt is at $92 trillion and total US unfunded liabilities are at $172 trillion, and all of that without any US Govt surplus to pay for any of it. Only more Debt and money printing.
The US Govt knows that without the reserve currency status it is bankrupt. Without money printing on the backs of other nations, it’s simply Game Over for the US. But not just for the US. The EU and most western democracies followed the US model of endless Debt and money printing.
That’s why they stand with the US and support the escalating actions that seem totally illogical to most people. Why is the EU sacrificing prosperity for a US proxy war in Ukraine? Because if the US is collapsing they collapse too. Their alliance is glued by the fear of failure.
BRICS+ was on track to launch its new global financial system by 2030. Ukraine is the tool for conflict with Russia and Taiwan is the tool for conflict with China. Eventually, the US and NATO will be at war with Russia and China. They simply don’t seem to have another choice.
It’s either war with Russia and China to stop BRICS+ or the financial collapse of the US, EU, and the entire Debt and money printing circus. It was never about the people of Ukraine. Ukraine is a sideshow. The main event is yet to come. The two options are poverty or nuclear war.
When it comes to oil partnerships, China has been told that Saudi Arabia is its “most reliable partner and supplier of crude oil.” The U.S., meanwhile, is “just another one of its partners,” to quote senior FX trader and salesman Simon Watkins.
by: Ethan Huff
Thursday, November 03, 2022
A core agreement between the United States and Saudi Arabia that has persisted since 1945 is being upended as communist China rises to the top of the Saudi regime’s oil empire.
When it comes to oil partnerships, China has been told that Saudi Arabia is its “most reliable partner and supplier of crude oil.” The U.S., meanwhile, is “just another one of its partners,” to quote senior FX trader and salesman Simon Watkins.
For primarily security considerations, the U.S. will remain a meaningful partner of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s (MbS) kingdom. But for economic purposes, China is now top dog, it would seem. (Related: Remember when the FBI “mistakenly” revealed that Saudi Arabia was involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks?)
Russia will remain a key partner of Saudi Arabia on energy matters, but the U.S. has been relegated a few steps down on the list. Here is what Aramco chief executive officer Amin Nasser said at the recent annual China Development Forum in Beijing:
“Ensuring the continuing security of China’s energy needs remains our highest priority – not just for the next five years but for the next 50 and beyond.”
Notice that nowhere in that sentence is the U.S. even mentioned. This marks a major shift in the relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, which has soured tremendously under the leadership of Joe Biden.
It was reported recently that MbS refused to even take a telephone call from Biden, who was attempting to ask for help in bringing down sky-high energy prices. Biden also wanted to discuss the recent collective cuts in OPEC oil production, though that did not happen either.
The world has lost respect for the U.S. under Biden
The way that MbS cut off the 1945 core agreement between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. demonstrates that the latter has lost even more preeminence and respect at the hands of the Biden regime, which has set the country on a crash course to total failure.
Biden likes to talk a big game, having recently promised “some consequences” for Saudi Arabia’s actions, but it is doubtful that the Pedophile-in-Chief actually has a legitimate plan in place that will not demote our country even further into economic oblivion.
“I’m not going to get into what I’d consider and what I have in mind,” Biden went on to ramble. “But there will be – there will be consequences.”
Just prior to Biden’s speech, National Security Council (NSC) spokesman John Kirby suggested that the U.S. “review the bilateral relationship with Saudi Arabia and take a look to see if that relationship is where it needs to be and that it is serving our national security interests … in light of the recent decision by OPEC and Saudi Arabia’s leadership [of it].”
Despite all this, Saudi Arabia is forging ahead in its partnership with China, having indicated plans to continue “close communication and strengthen[ed] cooperation to address emerging risks and challenges,” according to a joint communique from Saudi Energy Minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman and Beijing’s National Energy Administrator, Zhang Jianhua.
Between January and August of this year, according to Chinese Customs data, 1.76 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil were shipped to China. This marks an increase in market share to 17.7 percent from 16.9 percent last year.
Saudi Arabia is also said to be working on joint integrated refining and petrochemical complexes with China, as well as on plans to expand the use of nuclear energy.
There is also word that Saudi Arabia is manufacturing its own ballistic missiles with the help of China, which only adds to U.S. fears that several key states in the Middle East are expanding their nuclear capabilities.
More of the latest news coverage can be found at Collapse.news.
Sources for this article include:
Western punditry is rife with op-eds arguing that the US needs to vastly increase military spending because a world war is about to erupt, and they always frame it as though this would be something that happens to the US like its own actions would have nothing to do with it.
If World War 3 does indeed occur, it will be because the drivers of the US-centralized empire continued accelerating towards that horrific event while refusing every possible diplomatic off-ramp due to their inability to relinquish their goal of unipolar planetary domination.
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/capitalism-has-failed-as-badly-as
Nov. 2, 2022
It’s (capitalism) literally killing us. It’s brought us to the brink of extinction by environmental collapse or nuclear armageddon. That’s literally the worst failure that any system could possibly achieve. When your back is against the wall and your choices are between radical change and extinction, you’ve no other options but to try radical change. That’s the juncture we’re at right now.
“No no you don’t understand, this US war is completely different from all the other US wars. See, the US is intervening in Ukraine for humanitarian reasons. We’re fighting a bad guy who is an evil dictator that loves war crimes and genocide. Not like all those other interventions.”
If the US proxy war in Ukraine was meaningfully different from other US wars they would be justifying it using different arguments, not the exact same ones.
The war propaganda is airing reruns.
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Western punditry is rife with op-eds arguing that the US needs to vastly increase military spending because a world war is about to erupt, and they always frame it as though this would be something that happens to the US, like its own actions would have nothing to do with it.
If World War 3 does indeed occur, it will be because the drivers of the US-centralized empire continued accelerating towards that horrific event while refusing every possible diplomatic off-ramp due to their inability to relinquish their goal of unipolar planetary domination.
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Pointing out the various flaws in historical attempts at communism does not address the problem that if we don’t move from competition-based models to collaboration-based ones we’re going to destroy all life on this planet in short order. We’ve still got to find a way to change.
Have issues with Stalin and Mao? Okay. Cool. Our competition-based models are still destroying our biosphere and shoving us toward nuclear war. Our survival still depends on moving toward collaboration with each other and with our ecosystem toward the thriving of all beings. Babbling about Stalin and Mao doesn’t magically change the fact that we can’t keep doing this thing where human behavior is driven by profit and competition.
Leaving aside that many problems with communism have been wildly exaggerated and others are the direct result of sabotage and economic warfare by the capitalist empire, those criticisms never address the problem that capitalism has no solutions for our current existential crises. So we need systems which can address those existential crises. I see no models with any hope of sustainability that don’t involve a radical transition from competition to collaboration at every level. We will either accomplish that transition or we will go extinct. It really is that simple.
People tell me, “Capitalism isn’t perfect, but it’s the best system we’ve seen.”
It’s literally killing us. It’s brought us to the brink of extinction by environmental collapse or nuclear armageddon. That’s literally the worst failure that any system could possibly achieve. When your back is against the wall and your choices are between radical change and extinction, you’ve no other options but to try radical change. That’s the juncture we’re at right now.
The status quo political establishment has failed as spectacularly as anything could possibly fail. We could have a world of peace, equality, justice, health and harmony, but instead we’re marching toward dystopia and extinction. It is entirely within the reach of human potential to have a collaboration-based civilization where everyone works together toward human thriving. Our rulers have delivered only competition-based systems which do the exact opposite. They failed the test. Time for something new.
It doesn’t get any more fail than “Yeah we’ve competed ourselves into a situation where there might be a nuclear war that ends literally everything any minute now.” That’s the most fail you can have while still being alive enough to acknowledge the failure. The facts are in. They failed.
A system that fails to that extent does not deserve to exist, and should not exist. There are a whole lot more of us than there are of them, and if we can just shake each other awake from the propaganda-induced coma we’re all in we can force the creation of much better systems.
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Mass media propagandists work so hard to discredit The Grayzone because they know that tomorrow it could be their own emails getting published revealing corrupt collusion with western officials and intelligence insiders.
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Let yourself be happy. If you can’t do it for you then do it for the world. Refusing to let yourself be happy is just keeping that much happiness out of the world. It’s making it a worse place to live. Be happy.
Refusing to let yourself be happy just deprives the world of that much happiness. Refusing to let yourself be loved just deprives the world of that much love. Refusing to let yourself be at peace just deprives the world of that much peace.
Be happy. Not because you “deserve” it or any of that empty narrative fluff, but because the world is a hard place and any spark of happiness is sorely needed.
Western sanctions against Russia have been considered a powerful foreign policy tool by the US and the EU to paralyze Moscow back to the ‘stone age.’ Though sanctions against Moscow have entirely backfired, sparking the worst cost-of-living crisis for Europeans in a generation.
In early September, we first noticed a wave of discontent sweeping across Europe as tens of thousands of people took to the city streets to protest soaring electricity bills and the worst inflation in decades. Some countries delivered relief packages to citizens to tame the anger, while other countries did not have the financial capacity to hand out checks.
Tens of thousands of people have marched across metro areas in France, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Germany — many of them are fed up with sanctions on Russia that have sparked economic ruins for many households and businesses — but also very surprising, support for NATO’s involvement in Ukraine is waning.
There has been increasing awareness and dissent among Europeans about their countries’ leaders prioritizing NATO’s ambitions in Ukraine over their own citizens. The prioritization has been in the form of sanctions against Moscow, sparking energy hyperinflation and supplying weapons to Ukraine, which has made Moscow displeased with any country that does so. Some Europeans are now demanding NATO negotiate with Moscow to end the war so that economic turmoil can abate.
Here are the latest protests across Europe of tens of thousands of people (if not more) frustrated with high inflation and crying out anti-NATO slogans.
It’s time for the Global Majority to take their rightful place at the top table
The West will simply lose the opportunity to plunder the rest of the planet and it will have to shrink a bit. They will have to live within their means.
The global meaning of the fight in Ukraine is the return of freedom, dignity, and autonomy to the non-West (and we propose to call it by another name – the Global Majority, which was previously suppressed, robbed, and culturally humiliated). And, of course, a fair share of the world’s wealth.
https://www.rt.com/russia/565676-karaganov-new-world-order/
Oct 31, 2022
By Professor Sergey Karaganov, honorary chairman of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and academic supervisor at the School of International Economics and Foreign Affairs Higher School of Economics (HSE) in Moscow
The crisis did not start in 2022, it started in the mid-1990s – just as the Second World War really began with the post-First World War Treaty of Versailles, which was unfair and laid the foundations for what later transpired.
But perhaps the main thrust of the offensive from the perspective of world history, not just Russian history, is the struggle for the final liberation of the planet from the 500-year-old Western yoke, which has suppressed countries and civilizations and imposed unequal terms of engagement on them. First by simply plundering them, through colonialism, then neocolonialism, and later through the globalist imperialism of the last 30 years.
The conflict in Ukraine, like many events of the last decade, is not only about shattering the old world, it is also about creating a new, freer, fairer, more politically and culturally pluralistic, and multi-colored world.
FILE PHOTO: President Joe Biden attends a working session with G7 leaders on shaping international cooperation on multilateral and digital order, Tuesday, June 28, 2022, at Schloss Elmau in Krn, Germany. © Global Look Press / Official White House / Adam Schultz
At last week’s Valdai Forum, in Moscow I was invited to speak at a session entitled “The Crumbling World: Lessons for the Future from the Political-Military Crisis of 2022.” The event has become a leader in the international intellectual community in dealing with global affairs of the present and future. But the title of the session gave me doubts, even if I didn’t protest.
The crisis did not start in 2022, it started in the mid-1990s – just as the Second World War really began with the post-First World War Treaty of Versailles, which was unfair and laid the foundations for what later transpired.
Almost three decades ago, the West refused to strike a just arrangement with post-Soviet Russia. Instead, as it seemed to many at the time, it created a new domination system based on so-called “rules.”
Others later referred to it more accurately as global liberal imperialism. But it was built on sand. It contained a World War III landmine that would sooner or later explode. Veterans like me tend to store memories, often misremembered, but I have been on the record since 1996-1997 that a world based on NATO expansion and Western domination would lead to war.
US-led hegemony began to crumble in 1999 when, in a daze of impunity, the bloc violated Yugoslavia. The crumbling went further when, in euphoria, it went into Afghanistan, then into Iraq, and lost, devaluing it’s then military superiority and moral leadership. At the same time, two even more important processes were taking place. Russia became convinced – after Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty – that it was impossible to build a just and lasting peace with the West, and began to restore its military might.
Thus, once again, as Moscow had done in the past, it began to kick at the foundations of Western domination in the global economic, political and cultural spheres, which was based on military superiority. This dominance lasted for 500 years and began to crumble in the 1960s. In the 1990s, because of the fall of the USSR, it seemed to have returned, but now Moscow has started to shake its foundations again.
At the same time, the West missed the rise of China. In parallel, an even more surprising mistake was made. In the late 2000s, it began to restrain both China and Russia simultaneously, pushing them towards a single political-military bloc that combined their core interests.
A manifestation of this was the 2008 economic crisis, which took place against the backdrop of the aforementioned processes and undermined confidence in the West’s moral, economic and intellectual leadership.
Since the late 2000s, the West has been creating the conditions for a Cold War. But there was still a window of opportunity to agree with Russia and China on the terms of the new world. It existed somewhere between 2008 and 2013. But it wasn’t used. Since 2014, the US-led bloc has intensified its active policy of containment of China and Russia, including promoting a coup d’état in Kiev to prepare proxies to try and undermine Moscow.
The West – losing military, political and moral ground, and even its moral core (look at Western Europe’s move away from Christianity) – went on a hysterical counterattack. War was becoming inevitable, the question was where and when.
Covid was used as a substitute for two years. But once its effect had been diluted, a clash here or there became inevitable. Realizing this, Russia decided to strike first.
This operation had several aims: to prevent the West from creating a military offensive bridgehead on Russia’s borders, which was rapidly taking shape, and to prepare the country for the long-term effects of conflict and rapid change. This requires a different model of society and economy – one of mobilisation.
The next goal is to purge the elites of pro-Western and “comprador” elements.
But perhaps the main thrust of the offensive from the perspective of world history, not just Russian history, is the struggle for the final liberation of the planet from the 500-year-old Western yoke, which has suppressed countries and civilizations and imposed unequal terms of engagement on them. First by simply plundering them, through colonialism, then neocolonialism, and later through the globalist imperialism of the last 30 years.
The conflict in Ukraine, like many events of the last decade, is not only about shattering the old world, it is also about creating a new, freer, fairer, more politically and culturally pluralistic, and multi-colored world.
The global meaning of the fight in Ukraine is the return of freedom, dignity, and autonomy to the non-West (and we propose to call it by another name – the Global Majority, which was previously suppressed, robbed, and culturally humiliated). And, of course, a fair share of the world’s wealth.
Russia cannot fail to win this war, although it will be difficult. Many of us had not counted on such a strong willingness on the part of the West to fight militarily, and on such a determination from some Ukrainians – who had been transformed into the likeness of the German Nazis previously set against Moscow – to fight desperately, and at their level of armaments. Probably, given the general global trends and the global balance of power, we should have struck earlier. But I don’t know the level of readiness of our Armed Forces.
I think that in 2014 we definitely should have acted more decisively, abandoning hopes of an agreement.
We are living in a dangerous period, on the brink of a full-fledged third-world war that could end humanity’s existence. But if Russia wins, which is more than likely, and the hostilities do not escalate into a full-blown nuclear conflict, we should not look at the coming decades as a time of dangerous chaos (as most in the West are saying). We have been living in this period for a long time.
It will be, if we choose a world of constructive creation and the attainment of freedom, justice and dignity by peoples and nations.
The old system of institutions and regimes has already collapsed (freedom of trade and respect for private property). Meanwhile, institutions like the WTO, the World Bank the IMF, the OSCE, and the EU are, I am afraid, reaching their last years.
New bodies are beginning to emerge to which the future belongs. They are the SCO, ASEAN+, the Organisation of African Unity, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). The Asian Development Bank is already lending many times more than the World Bank. Not all new institutions will survive, and let us hope that a number of them will survive, especially in the UN system, which urgently needs reform to primarily represent the Global Majority in the secretariat, rather than the West.
The main thing is to prevent a losing West from stalling history or derailing it through a world war.
Not only Global Majority countries, but Western countries can live quite happily in this world. The West will simply lose the opportunity to plunder the rest of the planet and it will have to shrink a bit. They will have to live within their means.
I am afraid that this new world taking shape now will be created beyond my intellectual or physical life. But my young colleagues and certainly their children will see it.
But this beautiful vision has to be fought for, first of all by preventing a third world war, because of the attempted revenge of the West. Again, it was in Europe that the first two world wars were unleashed. Russia is now fighting, among other things, to ensure that the prerequisites for a third are not ripe. But conflicts will occur in an era of rapid change. So the struggle for peace should be one of the main themes of our intellectual community and the world at large.
Tales from the Conspiratum 
