The nexus between politics and the monetary system

Subsequent governments of the left and the right run budget deficits year in and year out.

Budget deficits must be compensated with debt and taxes.

Debt pays interest.

Electoral politics guarantees that deficits only expand.

As deficits expand, debt must compensate.

As debt expands, interest payments rise.

As interest payments rise, tax revenue must keep pace.

So then, regulation is brought to bear in order to boost tax revenue.

But electoral politics guarantees debt expansion and, too, regulation requires regulators. So deficits expand.

As tax revenue declines anyway, the regulatory environment expands.

Increasing regulation promotes the expansion of the security apparatus.

As productive industries are pushed offshore they are replaced by financial services that can easily evade regulation and taxes.

Eventually the fiscal burden falls predominantly on individuals and small companies.

But government and the constellations of institutions that feed from it keep expanding

So now you have erected a political/administrative/military edifice that can no longer be sustained by the underlying economy.

What do you do?

Enter Public Private Partnership!

So now private/corporate capital enters public policy. Initially it is targeted and selective.

As deficits and debt continue to expand however, the criteria for PPP become looser.

In time, private capital becomes the only source that props up bankrupt institutions.

By now, you have a runaway security apparatus and private interests driving public policy.

The ascendency of the security apparatus goes hand in hand with the rise to office of politicians and regulators that are morally compromised. The official acceptance of private capital in public institutions reinforces this symbiotic relationship.

All along, the Social Contract undergoes changes that, though superficial at the outset, eventually render it completely one sided.

The process of bankruptcy of the state and the penetration of private capital in public policy goes through stages of acceptance and denial. The key is the management of perception.

Perception is managed through narratives. Hence the importance of allowing official channels of communication to be taken over by interests that are protected and facilitated by the state and the security apparatus, 

By 2000, the hegemon had a good handle on mass media and by 2002 with the implementation of the Patriot Act, information was fully controlled globally.

Enter the internet; the Gutenberg moment of the 21st Century.

Just as it happened in the 15th Century, the advent of the internet lowered the barriers to entry in mass communication and effectively blew up the model of perception management.

Though initially thought of as an asset in order to bring about certain realities especially in overseas theatres, soon the two-edged sword nature of independent mass communication became a problem for a bankrupt hegemon.

Suddenly, in an environment where news reporting has become capillary and independent from the state, the cost of managing perceptions increased geometrically.

Deficits and debt exploded in lockstep.

No amount of interest rate manipulation can put the genie back in the bottle today.

So, what do you do?

You have no choice but to do exactly the same thing. So you double down. 

Your institutions are bankrupt. Governments stumble from one emergency funding package to the next. Pension plans have blown up. Healthcare is reaching third world levels of quality. Education has been downgraded to the lowest common denominator. Infrastructure is decaying at a quick pace. Job insecurity is rising and wages are not keeping pace with inflation.

And, to top it all, other countries are quickly rising in economic and military power and are now running circles around you.

As debt spirals out of control, your domestic policies become more authoritarian and your military adventures more blatant. Political discourse becomes more strident and convoluted and the stratagems to corral the population more flagrant and therefore, more vicious.

If anyone today still believes that Covid was anything but theater, they are either driving an agenda or are truly intellectually captured.

As if the Patriot Act was not sufficient, new regulation and laws that are currently being debated are deliberately catchall, vague and designed to allow wide nets to be cast in order to tamp down on dissent. Journalists that do not toe the line and whistleblowers are thrown into solitary confinement and sentenced to terms that even rapists are not subject to; their families harassed and their livelihoods destroyed.

The UK, Canada and the USA have already destroyed the lives of many who stood up and spoke against the creeping totalitarianism that is gradually being implemented by an elite that is as tone deaf as they are desperate.

With the latest adventure in Ukraine, the elites have finally bitten off more than they can chew.

In 30 years of avid sacking, plundering and devastating countries that could not put up a significant fight, they set their sights on one of the wealthiest countries in the world thinking it was a disorganized, technologically inferior and fragmented opponent. There was a whole lotta chop licking going on as they had wet dreams about conquering vast mineral wealth and getting their hands on the central bank.

The country that was looting chips from refrigerators and washing machines in order to sustain their war fighting capabilities and that was variously running out of munitions and missiles, has, in two years, exhausted the megre industrial capabilities of Europe. A direct result of years of deindustrialization and grift.

Doubling down conforms to the law of diminishing marginal utility. You double down enough till all you have left is the ultimate solution.

Build resilience in your families. If you are able to, leave the main land of the USA or Europe for smaller countries where the population density is lower.

Something nasty this way cometh

About AI

It seems to me that rather than being left behind, older workers will greatly benefit from the adoption of AI.

Whereas till recently one would have been well advised to teach their children programming skills, AI renders that skill obsolete.

AI will allow everyday people to create anything they want and even build it without necessarily being an engineer.

In my opinion, the new skill to learn would be the ability to interact with AI. Ergo, in my opinion, today you would be well advised to come up to speed in logic, philosophy and rhetoric rather than programming.

A warning

We are mere minutes from the clock striking midnight.

The globalists are losing ground.

For one, Bashar Al Assad is still in office.

But, more recently:

The Taliban too are still there and laughing all the way to the bank. 

Most people now know the US had biological “research” facilities in Ukraine.

Elections in the West are not going according to plan.

The Covid emergency has been discredited and uncomfortable questions are being asked.

Covid vaccines are being refused.

The EU’s seven year budget was depleted in two years.

Tax revenue is collapsing.

In Europe, attempts at expropriating farmers are faltering.

By their own admission, the mainstream press has lost relevance and their plan to frighten the public has been exposed.

In Europe, it is now acknowledged that the USA/UK have blown up Nord Stream

Yemen is a country of mostly Bedouin farmers that never made the transition to modernity. The USA and the UK have bombed Yemen mercilessly and indiscriminately for over ten years. Whatever infrastructure there may have been was mostly destroyed. Famine and cholera are rampant. Yet, today, Yemen is getting in the face of the UK and US navies in the Red Sea thereby reducing “Prosperity Guardian” to the level of a Three Stooges routine.

Ukraine is in retreat on all fronts. They have suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties. Those who could, got out of the country. Now Ukraine is not only press ganging random individuals in the street but they are also clearing officially registered invalids for military duty. Zelensky may have overplayed his hand and may be looking at mutiny. 

————

The globalists feel and are, cornered. 

And you know about cornered animals.

If you think our governments overreached during a fake pandemic, you have seen nothing yet!

It now appears that the most powerful elected position in the world is not going the way the globalists would prefer. This is a game worth Trillions of Dollars.

Build some resilience in your life. Safeguard your family to the best of your ability.

Something nasty this way cometh. Sooner rather than later.

Godspeed

How to spot a globalist: look for anyone that regurgitated the phrase “build back better”

Ruminations from the island

I am often told that it is impossible that people in positions of influence should all, simultaneously and in agreement, allow what I describe in these pages, to happen. 

A passing historical review of government malevolence should, one would think, suffice to, at the very least, awaken people to the potential threat posed by civic/security institutions that either by political mandate or by administrative usurpation, have been given irrevocable power over the lives of individuals.

Once again I will begin at an arbitrary point in time: the closing phases of WWII and the Nuremberg trials.

The narrative of the past 80 years amounts to: 

1 – Nazi = Bad 

2 – Soviets = Badder 

3 – The West is the bastion of freedom, democracy and, apparently, justice.

The above premises have shaped Western socio/cultural/political development of the past 80 years.

We will limit ourselves to facts that are known by the public and are publicly documented.

The “leader” and wealthiest country of the “free” world, dropped 2 weapons of mass destruction over civilians in Japan. We note here that in the 40s, for people in the West, Japan was an esoteric country of legend and fables. Most people at the time would be unable to point at Japan on a map. So the question arises. Had the Nazis not been defeated, would the USA have nuked Germany?

Mere months following the end of the occupation of France by mean, cruel Nazis, France, the land of Existential Philosophers, found nothing better to do than to, once again, go invade Indo-China. Indeed, at a time when the French were still reeling from the devastation and the cruelty suffered under the oppression of an occupying force, they went to try and occupy a country of “lesser” people in a far away land. This happened during the Nuremberg trials.

In 1945, the OSS, the then nascent CIA, went about recruiting Reinhard Gehlen, a career Nazi Intelligence officer. Gehlen was brought onboard with all his acolytes to carry on doing exactly what he was doing for the Nazis. Gehlen was subsequently folded into the government of the new Federal Republic of Germany that eventually played a leading role in NATO.  

From 1950 and for the following twenty-five years, the leader of the “free world” went on to fight two more wars; one in Korea and, ironically, one in Indo-China where the French were unable to subdue the natives. So the USA thought that with more fire power and a total disregard for human rights, they would prevail over the lesser people of that corner of the world. Using the fake Gulf of Tonkin event as an excuse, the USA ventured into a war of “liberation”. Despite the millions of tons of Agent Orange, despite Mai Lai, despite the millions of dead, tortured, mutilated and raped civilians, the war was stretched out for years to then end in apparent total humiliation for the exponents of the civilised free world. I say apparent because the usual suspects made away with Billions in pilfered and unaccounted funds. The Viet Nam war lasted till well after the Nuremberg trial and served as template for all following wars until Covid.

When all the above was going on, we remember here the various “health” and “medical” studies performed on lesser people in the USA like the Tuskegee Study or the forced sterilization of women. Eugenics as a “science” held sway in the USA and in Europe (mostly Sweden) from the 20s till the mid 70s. US foundations carried out dozens of mass sterilization programs in South America and Africa in many cases without consent of the victims. These programs lasted from the 20s well into the 70s and in some cases are still going on today. That is to say, some of these programs lasted well after the Nuremberg trials.

We also remember here the various medical scandals that could have been prevented or, at least, that once evidence of problems emerged, could have been stopped sooner rather than obfuscating the truth. Most notably the Swine Flu vaccine of the mid 70s in the USA and the contaminated blood scandal of the mid 70s in the UK; blood obtained from the USA. 

In 1986, legislation was passed in order to protect the pharmaceutical industry from liability. This law stands to this day.

Younger readers will remember the more recent war that was precipitated by a country accused to be in possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Iraq was a country of sandal wearing, donkey riding, tribal and religious zealots that, like all Arabs, are fragmented and fractious an only pose a threat to themselves. But, the civilized West had spent years financing an elite of Iraqis showering them with weapons and military toys to fight a war with Iran. Suddenly in 1990 the West had a change of heart and the new mantra was that Iraq posed a threat to the civilised world, therefore, Iraqis had to be liberated. Apart from the logical fallacy, the rest is history. Millions of dead, maimed and displaced civilians for what turned out to be adventurism for the purpose of a grand sack of public funds.

In no particular order we remember too the various and ongoing scandals involving “humanitarian” organizations like the UN (Anders Kompass book is a good primer on this but there is plenty of well documented abuse we could discuss) or Oxfam.

Even though well documented and exposed, instances of systematic and planned abuse of children and women are far too numerous to relate. Thousands of children go missing every year in Europe and the USA alone. This is all well documented.

The leader of the free world in collaboration with the UK also relocated entire populations of sundry islands in order to, variously, set up military bases or detonate nuclear devices. The people that have been displaced were never compensated. One presumes they should be grateful they were removed prior to their homes being nuked by the civilised West. This all happened well after the Nuremberg trias.

We come now to the more recent instances of government prevarications and abuse.

The Balcan War, Iraq II and the abuse and torture of civilians and prisoners, Afghanistan, Libya, the Patriot Act, Enron, Arthur Andersen, the €Billion Green Energy scandals in Europe, the Pentagon’s audit and the EU’s budget. Shall we spare a thought too for the priests, royalty and politicians still buggering children? And for TARP and Ukraine? And, dulcis in fundo ….. Covid.

This and more is well documented history. 

The sums pilfered, sacked and appropriated arbitrarily from the public treasury in order to perpetrate these crimes are astronomical. Few if anyone at all has ever been held accountable for anything.

There are of course, many more rather unsavory events that are not as well known or discussed by the public but that are nonetheless well documented. The SIGAR or the UNODC yearly reports of the past few years make for enlightening reading. Both reports are in the public domain for anyone to peruse. The well documented history of the West’s support for sanguinary military regimes in South and Central America or, indeed, in Africa and the Middle East is well documented too.

Your take away

The only constant in human history is war. Humans that either are put in charge or take charge to lead and organize society, at any level, eventually will corrupt the system. From the arithmetical point of view, those that will corrupt the system will eventually gain the upper hand till the moment the whole system comes crashing down.

Throughout history, elected and un-elected individuals that are given power to enact laws and create regulations by fiat will do just that. When you’ve created enough regulation and enacted enough laws to stifle society, you need to expand the security apparatus. This process continues till enough people have been disenfranchised and divested of the means to make a living that they will have nothing to loose to revolt.

The bastion of freedom, democracy and justice was merely a temporary interlude. It was that bastion of freedom, democracy and justice that whilst mollifying the domestic public with panem et circenses precipitated hardship, famine, war and devastation upon people in far away lands in Central and South America, Africa and South East Asia in order to pilfer Trillions in wealth.

Eventually however, the cows must come home. The sheer amount of public debt guarantees that what has been perpetrated on lesser people in faraway lands, must eventually be perpetrated at home.

————-

I like to portray the history of human development to a breathing system. That is, it is subject to alternating cycles of concentration and decentralisation of power . Neither force is ever vanquished thoroughly and definitively. They merely alternate.

I argue that in the West, from the Black Plague till about the early 1900s, humanity went through the last great phase of decentralization of power. This is a period of time where society emerged culturally, scientifically and religiously from the dark ages. It was a time of turmoil and bloodshed to be sure. But the gradual mental and physical unshackling of the masses also enabled men and women to do the heavy lifting in culture, philosophy, science and technology that brought us directly to where we are today. 

Too this is the time during which some of the greatest historical fortunes in the world were created. 

Significantly, it was also the time when the first ever mass transfer of wealth occurred by government mandate. The Homestead Act of 1862 drove the settlement of the American West and like all government programs, it arbitrarily took from some to give to others. This is the illustration of government picking champions and it is a favorite tactic that is still used today; quite liberally I might add and, contrary to the first transfer of wealth that benefited the masses, is today quite concentrated and selective.

From the early 1900s, we have entered a phase of concentration of power. I arbitrarily put the date at 1913 or, unsurprisingly if you know me, at the moment the Federal Reserve was created. Like all compounding dynamics however, things really got going in 1971 with the abrogation of Bretton Woods.

It is the introduction of the Patriot Act of 2002 however that put in place the foundations to allow the coalescing of a constellation of public, private and security institutions to allow both elected, but, more so, un-elected, officials to wield immense power that is manifestly not consistent with, neither presumed “democratic values”, nor the spirit of the law nor, indeed, the law. The United Nations are a particular case in point.

—–

We are living the tail end of this phase of concentration of wealth and power. 

The state and all the institutions that surround it and that feed from it are bankrupt.

The individuals leading the corporations that have been designated as allies of the system, the champions, are mopping up all the wealth. This allows them to finance politicians of their choice as well as those bankrupt institutions that, in turn, will do their bidding. The UN is, once again, a particular case in point.

In successive waves of legislation that is at  best, absurd but that is criminal under many aspects of the law, the population is being corralled, hemmed in.

The security apparatus is running amock creating narratives and fashioning perceptions of realities that cannot and do not stand up to scrutiny.

Escape is a luxury that the majority cannot afford. Most will be thrown into the grinder.

Today, if you still believe the Covid emergency was anything other than a charade, you are likely incapable to understand the foregoing.

For those of you that know history, think of Russia 1905. I find interesting parallels with that period of time. Revolution brewing at home brought about by a system that is oppressive and exploitative. At the same time, war is brewing at the border.

A note about the Saudi desert project NEOM

In the following post, I arbitrarily pick France to give an idea of scale.

Saudi Arabia

Size – 4 x the size of France

General Population – 36 million or half the population of France

Population of Saudi Nationals – 20 million or, 1/3 the population of France

Population density – 12 per square Km or less than 10% the density of France

Country area that is suitable for habitation – less than 30%

NB: I have to note here that in recent years, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has spearheaded an effort to separate religion from the state in Saudi Arabia. What follows therefore though still largely true may have changed to some degree.

Saudi Arabia is a very wealthy desert country. The desert expanse is dotted by a handful of gleaming cities as well as several less remarkable towns separated by hundreds of kilometers of arid, desolate desert.

A privileged fraction of the population of Saudi Arabia studies overseas. A somewhat larger proportion of still wealthy Saudis study in local private institutions where they are taught by foreigners, mostly Westerners. This is particularly the case for women of wealthy families because the tribe would frown upon a female member of the tribe travelling unsupervised outside the borders of the country.

The vast majority of Saudis are schooled in local public institutions featuring a curriculum steeped in religious doctrine. Girls are generally not put through the same curriculum as boys. 

All resident non Muslim foreigners live in segregated compounds of various degrees of luxury and comfort. If you are a Bangladeshi labourer your compound will consist of a bunch of shipping containers fenced off and guarded in a corner of the desert. If you are the Country Representative for Boeing, your compound will consist of villas, supermarkets and swimming pools. The reason foreigners are segregated from the rest of Saudi society is two fold. On one hand, the Saudi leadership does not want Saudis to be exposed to mores and customs of other cultures that could corrupt the morals of Saudi society. On the other hand, the behaviour of freely roaming foreigners may well fall foul of the sensitivities of the locals or, even, the religious police, resulting in very unpleasant consequences that may well turn out to be life terminating. Once again, punishment is, to a large extent, dependent on who you are.

Generally speaking, if you are a foreigner residing in Saudi Arabia, your passport will be held by the authorities. Once again, this rule varies depending on who you are. 

Other than oil, Saudi Arabia produces nothing that is economically viable. 

Although economical, oil is not, strictly speaking, produced by Saudis.  

Saudi Intellectual output consists of Islamic Sunni theology.

Other than some Islamic theological disquisitions, book publishing in Saudi Arabia is non-existent. In fact, even merely moving personal books through Saudi Arabia is forbidden. This causes not few difficulties when individuals need to relocate across the Arabian Peninsula from, say, the UAE to Jordan.

What intellectual or material output there is, comes about strictly through exogenous input. Hence the native-to-expatriate population ratio skew.

Saudi Arabia does not recognize any religion other than Sunni Islam. Worship of any other religion is not allowed and, if caught flouting this rule, the result can go as far as death by execution for heresy.

Unmarried women are not allowed to enter Saudi Arabia. Married women can only enter Saudi Arabia if accompanied by either their husbands, or brothers or fathers.

Although an effort has been initiated in recent years to boost tourism, spontaneous tourism does not exist in Saudi Arabia. Till recently, one could only enter the desert Kingdom upon invitation.

Although there is a secular framework of laws complete with a veneer of lawyers, judges and courts of law, the legal environment is dominated by Sharia law that supersedes everything else.

Online information about Saudi Arabia is heavily managed thus hampering objective research. But, Saudi Arabia’s climate is extreme and although an internet search will indicate balmy temperatures in the high 30 Celsius, the reality is that from March to November day temperatures will reach as high as 48 and in some areas, will exceed 50 Celsius.

Saudi Arabia is the largest sponsor of Salafi / Wahhabi mosques around the world.

Geographically speaking, Saudi Arabia is located in one of the most politically and religiously volatile and unstable regions in the world.

——-

In this environment, NEOM will build the city of the future that will house 9 million individuals.

Pause for reflection.

The project hits all the buzzwords of the modern zeitgeist: zero emissions, five minute city, sustainable and presumably, desirable.

The idea is to carve a 200m wide, 170km long trench, in a straight line, from the coast on the Red Sea, towards the East, straight into the desert and erect a mirror clad, 500m tall prism within. 

Ergo, the plan consists in building a 200m x 170km x 500m terrarium. In the desert. In Saudi Arabia.

Tangential thought. The structure will be 100m taller than the Empire State Building.

——-

Interesting factoid. A high speed rail is planned within this structure that will shuttle residents from one end of the prism to the other in a staggering 20 minutes apparently…. 170km in 20 minutes, all in, from acceleration at one end to deceleration at the opposite end… someone smarter than me should calculate the top speed required in order to achieve this….

So, then, what of it?

My very first thought was that this project should be managed by Micky Mouse @ Disney. This is not meant as sarcasm. Some of you will no doubt be familiar with Disney’s forey in creating a planned town for real living with the creation of Celebration in the late 1990s in Florida.

That notwithstanding, linear cities are not new. At least the idea is not new. Since antiquity, planned cities have been discussed and sometimes even built. The common thread is that planned cities always and everywhere are the expression of the desire of an elite that wishes to impose “order” from above. All planned cities to date have failed of course.

Also, just like the political adventures in Afghanistan of incumbent bien pensants, the mere track record of linear cities should give one pause. Just like all Western failed political adventures of the past two centuries in Afghanistan however, that is obviously not a deterrent for the current crop of investors and politicians.

Moving swiftly along.

Saudi Arabia is, by a wide margin, the most conservative society in the world bar none. Although their wealth allows the elite to buy a lot of material bling, the customs and mores of Saudi culture are alien to most non Muslims and, in some cases, can be abhorrent to other cultures, especially Western. Once again, I must reiterate that in the recent past there have been efforts to move the country into modernity. The jury is still out as to whether or not this will yield desirable results.

So this futuristic project is plonked down in the midst of one of the least populated areas in the world, in a climatically hostile environment, within a society that is only just attempting to emerge from an imposed cultural dark age, in a country where religious diversity is harshly punished and where other than Sharia Law, the rule of law in the Western sense of the word, does not exist and all this, in a region that is politically unstable since antiquity. I may be forgetting some other interesting characteristics I am sure but you get the jist.

Not to worry however. The solution to the foregoing, apparently, is that NEOM will be a duty free, independent jurisdiction.

Another interesting factoid. The price tag has been updated to US$1Trillion which happens to be 100% higher than the initially estimated US$500B of a few years ago.

For purposes of comparison, the GDP of France is US$3Trillion.

So then, who will inhabit this world? Why would anyone want to live in this world?

How and why are 9 million individuals going to travel to this remote and, for all intents and purposes, desolate corner of earth to take up residence in complete isolation in a terrarium?

Assuming that all of the 3 million Saudi elite will take up residence in this structure, that still leaves 6 million spots available. 

Who for? Why?

The rationale for NEOM seems to borrow from the “success” of Dubai.

Quite aside from comparisons between the two countries, we are talking here about a part of the world where violent political and social change is always lurking around the corner. 

These are countries where civic institutions, to the extent that they exist at all, have a tenuous hold on society. We are talking about shooting confrontations between individuals and/or tribes here. We are talking about shooting wars between countries. We are talking about coups that, though bloodless as was the case in Bahrain in the recent past, are nonetheless a permanent possibility with potentially violent ramifications. We are talking about overnight total social change as was the case in the Emirate of Sharja in the early 80s. 

We are talking about large degrees of instability here. Instability that is overt and visible as I type this.

The Countries of the Arabian peninsula have been created by Western hands in the past 100 years. Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Oman and Yemen were carved out by the hands of Western politicians to satisfy their own geopolitical and economic ambitions.

Although dormant to various degrees, political, territorial and tribal resentment between people and amongst sovereigns in the Middle East is always palpable and flares up at the slightest perceived provocation. Tribal blood feuds are still rampant in the region. Saudi Arabia or Bahrain are prime candidates to be the next Yemens. Religious zealotry is on the rise especially in countries that till recently seemed to have achieved a greater degree of separation between Mosque and state (key words here are “greater degree”) as is the case in Jordan.

So, in this politically fragile and volatile chunk of desolate, arid, desert, sitting within the boundaries of some of the most conservative, tetchy and warring societies in the world, someone will apparently invest One Trillion US Dollars to create a Super Duper Disneyland.

A note about Covid19 and our governments’ actions

To the extent that a respiratory virus has been circulating, this is something that is empirically evident and not at all uncommon.

I argue that our governments’ reaction to an ostensible novel virus has been more lethal and destructive than the virus itself.

It was intended to be so.

The reasons I can say this, are clear for all to see. 

The purported novel virus to which humanity, presumably, had no natural immunity and that would decimate the global population just as the plague did 500 years ago, turned out to be nothing of the sort.

Here is why.

First and most notable. Tissue sample analysis demonstrates that whatever SARS-Cov2 may have been, it was already circulating in the summer of 2019. Yet, in the intervening 6 months till our governments declared an emergency in February 2020, no mass casualties resulted.

Populations that had no access to the vaccine, notably in Africa and India, were not wiped out en masse. 

The +50K individuals that were aboard the cruise ships, war ships and commercial ships where SARS-Cov2 had been detected in the early days of the crisis, did not succumb en masse to the virus.

Addendum – February 2024: Belarus did not impose mandatory vaccination or masks. Vaccine take up was around 20%. Yet the population of Belarus has not succumbed en masse to the virus.

Allowing BLM demonstrations during the pandemic because protesting racism was more important than stopping the spread of Covid did not result in mass deaths amongst the protesters.

The millions of migrants that are allowed to enter the USA and Europe are not vaccinated, are not requested to wear masks and are not requested to show proof of vaccination either. They have not died en masse.

In the West, the millions of individuals that refused to take the vaccine, did not succumb en masse to the virus and the presence of millions of unvaccinated migrants has made no difference at all to Covid mortality.

In the West, the hundreds of millions that are refusing the 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th doses of the vaccine, are not dying en masse.

The fact that the most strident proponents of total segregation were caught flouting their own draconian directives, shows that the purported danger was not so.

The two hospital ships sent to New York and Los Angeles to expand bed capacity, lay idle and unused.

If you have empirical evidence to the contrary, I am happy to consider it.

On the other hand, India suffered millions of casualties when destitute and desperate labourers were ordered to travel back to their native villages due to a declared pandemic. Many of the wretched souls that attempted the journey on foot, without food or water, succumbed along the way.

In the West, millions died lonely deaths, millions more lost livelihoods and were displaced and families have been fractured.

During the crisis, politicians claimed their actions were aimed at saving society from a deadly virus.

However, despite the fact that Covid was described as a Corona virus, politicians mandated that patients should be placed in elderly homes in order to make space in public hospitals. The elderly of course are well known to be the most susceptible to Corona viruses. The resulting hecatomb in assisted living facilities was predictable thus preventable.

Similarly, despite a presumed public health crisis, politicians, not doctors, not scientists, but politicians, decided that availability of vaccines was strictly a political issue. Russian and Chinese vaccines were not to be allowed in Europe.

On the other hand, Europe relied exclusively on test kits and procedures developed in China. 

Too, the disparity of price in the administration of tests varied greatly between countries. The same Chinese manufactured rapid test could be had for €5 in Cyprus with no prior appointment and the provision of results within 15minutes whilst in Milan the cost was €70 with mandatory appointment sometimes amounting to more than a week and results provided in 48 hours.

Why was the standard and globally accepted definition of vaccine suddenly altered without warning or debate?

Why were legal contracts for the provision of “life saving’ vaccines necessary between pharma and governments?

Why are the contracts that were signed between governments and pharma not available for public scrutiny?

Why were safety trials neutralized by vaccinating the placebo group?

Why is safety trial data not available to the public for 75 years?

Finally, and most puzzling.

Why impose “life saving” vaccines that have been developed by a person who openly admits to want to reduce the world population?

—-

Whatever the crisis of 2020/2021 was, it was not a health crisis much less was it a medical emergency.

So then, how do we analyze what happened?

The key, as usual in the history of mankind, is, as it always was, money and power.

The Trillions that are taken out in debt on the back of the population are distributed to unaccountable individuals and entities.

The law of diminishing returns however, dictates that for the system to keep going, ever greater amounts of money and credit must be created and expended. 

For a group of people that orchestrated the kidnapping of the global population and very nearly succeded in the total subjugation of the world, nothing is sufficiently ambitious. 

As of December 2023, US debt is standing at US$34’000’000’000’000.00. 

That is US$34Trillion.

With the Trillions that are unaccounted for due to the pandemic, the Trillions more that are unaccounted for at the Pentagon, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, with the Trillions that the EU burns through in mere months and, now, with Ukraine, the next “emergency” will be commensurately sized.

I know that some of you reading this blog are old acquaintances. Many of you are in the employ of or derive your living from the same actors that are perpetrating this charade.

Unless you have reason to believe you will be granted a role to play in the world that this group of people are trying to bring about, this would be the time to take a stand.

As a by the by. Not that the point needs to be belabored but, this is why it takes decades to develop a vaccine. This from Moderna “scientists”:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41573-023-00859-3

How did we get here? (The update)

Following a long hiatus, I can only confirm that, globally, the vast majority have yet to even begin to realize our predicament.

My timeline for the final denouement was wrong obviously. But everything that was clearly shaping up fifteen years ago, has, in large part, come to pass and, today, fires are raging everywhere in politics, society and the economy.

We are now only awaiting the flashover.

Let’s start at the beginning; the theme of this blog. Very succinctly.

Within the context of a debt based monetary system that is at once, arbitrary AND imposed by law, the end is dialled in. The only variable is time.

In this context, what is referred to as “democracy” can only result in the bankruptcy of the system. 

Debt conforms to the law of diminishing returns. Ergo, the quantity of debt required to obtain a given result, increases exponentially. Exponential dynamics eventually go critical.

Since George Washington and the inception of the USA, the modern Western monetary system entered the critical phase in 2009:

Total US debt: (Trillions have 12 zeros)

2009: $5.8Trillion

2017: $11.9Trillion

2023: $34Trillion

In other words:

It took 200 years for the USA to accumulate debt worth $5.8Trillion 

It took 8 years for the USA to double that amount to $11.9Trillion 

It took 5 years to triple it to $34Trillion

The USA has accomplished this feat by subsuming other economies along the way. On its way to becoming the global hegemon, countries around the world tied their fates to the US$ and used the USA as a safe haven for their financial affairs.

From the arithmetical point of view however, there is no difference between the monetary management as practiced by Mugabe in Zimbabwe vs that practiced by the USA. The arithmetic is exactly the same. The only difference is scale, thus time.

Mugabe was never able to entice other countries to adopt his money. In contrast, the USA has a global reach. Much bigger scale, much longer lead times. Same result.

In a debt based monetary system that is imposed by the force of law, the increasing amounts of outlays required to service the debt have direct consequences at all levels; political, economic, health and cultural.

Exponential dynamics run into inflection points. These are junctures in the dynamic where something changes drastically and suddenly, and the progression enters a new, more acute, phase. 

Inflection points manifest as crisis.

Regardless of whether a crisis is genuine or manufactured, it is an inflection point that is exploited in an attempt at perpetuating the status quo. This is because the individuals at the heart of the system do not wish their lives and their power base to implode.

——

This is the reason that when debt goes critical, a number of things become gradually more evident and scandals become not only more frequent but also more egregious, perverse and blatant.

—–

This is how it works.

Addendum – dynamic editing as of February 22nd, 2024

In a debt based monetary system, the sums required to service the debt increase exponentially. As debt service becomes more cumbersome, more fiscal income must be generated.

This is has many ramifications.

On one hand, greater fiscal pressure drives business and industry away to other countries. In time, therefore, not only does the fiscal burden fall ever more on the shoulders of small business and individuals but a number of other unpleasant realities develop in order to support the expanding fiscal needs of the state.

Financialization of the economy – As labor and capital intensive industries are pushed to other countries to seek lower operation costs, the activity that used to take place in their home country is replaced by financial gimmickry. The poster child of this strategy was General Motors that for many years was unable to generate a profit from their core activity but largely compensated this through their financing arm GMAC which, in turn, imploded spectacularly during the GFC of 2008.

Picking champions – As the fiscal health of the state deteriorates, the system requires allies in the form of “champions” that will support the construct politically and, therefore, economically. Hence the reason why in order to satisfy certain preferred political outcomes, certain corporations are picked as champions to be supported despite the fact they are not economically viable. GM was certainly a typical case in point but, like it, there were many others like American Airlines for example.

The strengthening or rise of ostensible “civic” or “democratic” institutions – As the general population and business must be more forcefully coerced to provide income to the state, their activities must progressively become more regulated and regimented. This is brought about by the creation of narratives and the fostering of corporate structures that are disguised as civic or even private institutions but that are, in fact, vehicles designed to facilitate and protect the business of corporate champions both domestically and in far away lands. The main stream press is the typical example of this process at work. If you wonder how it is possible that news outlets around the world, despite differences in language and national priorities, appear to sing from the same hymn book, you are witnessing this process at work. Although more obscure but nonetheless immensely powerful, amongst the legions of institutions and systems of dubious democratic value, I note here the international Investor State Dispute Settlement system which may help explain a few things. Here I am forced to note too that NGOs and the UN are not what they purport to be either.

Further to all of the above, this process goes hand in hand with the simultaneous creation and fostering of a runaway security apparatus in the form of secret entities that, due to the restrictions inherent in democratic structures, must, inevitably, distance themselves from the control of the civilian government.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/top-secret-america/2010/07/19/hidden-world-growing-beyond-control-2/

The inexorable expansion of the security apparatus engenders the rise to positions of power of those individuals that are morally and financially compromised, in government, in agencies and in business. Eventually, it is the security apparatus that dictates foreign policy and, in time, domestic policy.

The war in Syria was a particular case in point where the US State Department and the CIA were often on opposing sides of the conflict, sometimes even shooting at each other.

The fiscal health of the hegemon deteriorates at the same rate that title to property, wealth and power accumulate in the hands of the business, political and security elites. 

Just in the recent past for example, the sacking and pillaging of Iraq was not a coincidence.

The sacking and pillaging of Afghanistan was not a coincidence.

The sacking and pillaging of Syria and Libya were not coincidences.

The Great Financial Crisis was not inevitable and the resolution did not have to involve public funds.

What these events all have in common is that vast sums of public money were redistributed to certain individuals and entities with no accountability required. The object is never to “win” a war or to “solve” a crisis. The goal is merely to churn credit and redistribute vast sums of money.

This is just one example amongst many.

The Inspector General Report that is published yearly is damning. Trillions US$ cannot be accounted for just in Iraq.

The Special Inspector General Afghanistan Reconstruction’s report is just as bad as it details Trillions more that cannot be accounted for.

The forensic analysis of the Great Financial Crisis clearly indicates that public funds were, at best, misallocated on nothing but numbers plucked from thin air by individuals that had been appointed to office on the spur of the moment.

—–

The gradual corruption of the system is brought about by compromising certain individuals that are then aided in rising to positions of power. Compromising men and women that are then shoehorned into positions of power, always takes the same form: money and sex.

Jeffrey Epstein, Jimmy Saville, pedophilia in the church, the department of child services in the USA, the UN”s questionable role around the world, the Dutroux Affair in Belgium, Boys Town in Franklin Nebraska and the thousands of migrant children that go missing every year, are not coincidences.

The money laundering scandals that periodically shake the banking industry are not coincidences. The fact that land under cultivation for the production of opium in Afghanistan increased from 2000Ha in 2003 to 360000Ha in 2016, is not a coincidence. The fact that MF Capital should have pilfered US$3B and the CEO John Corazine should have never seen a day in jail, is not a coincidence.

The thorough corruption of the health and medical establishments are not coincidences.

The intellectually and medically obtuse response to Covid was as scientifically wrong as it was deliberately perverse and the Trillions of public funds that have been misallocated during this manufactured tragedy are not coincidences.

The fact that the EU should have run through a 7 year budget in 2 years is also not a coincidence.

—–

Everything begins and ends with the fiscal health of the hegemon. It was so for the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the French, the British and, today, the USA.

Few will remember what happened on September 10th, 2001. This was the day when then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfled announced that the Pentagon could not account for US$2.3Trillion. 

Back in 2001, the word Trillion was unfathomable for most people. At the time, US$2T was the equivalent of 25%US GDP or 40% Europe’s GDP. It was an incomprehensible sum. A Trillion has 12 zeros.

Subsequent to the events of September 11th, 2001 however, the previous’ day announcement never amounted to anything.

2016 was the very first time the Pentagon was audited. “In the sober judgement of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) of the Congress, this vast military budget is year after year UNAUDITABLE” however.

Since 2016, the Pentagon has failed every, single, audit to date and the funds that it cannot account for, range in the dozens of Trillions.

——-

Similar to the period of the Roman Empire marked by the increasing influence of the Praetorians on domestic and foreign policy, today we have a sprawling security apparatus that when it does not drive domestic and foreign policy, it wields great influence to steer both. 

Now! In a “democracy”, if incumbent governments of the left or the right both engage in deficit spending, the result will be the same. The landscape may change somewhat along the way, but the end is dialled in.

Today, “democracy” or elections cannot and will not result in any palpable change that would improve the lot of the many. It is arithmetically impossible.

Arguing about the ostensible merits of left wing or right wing candidates is counterproductive. By and large, those candidates that are allowed to ascend to office, be they exponents of the left or right, are compromised. Candidates that are not compromised and that appear to make headway with the public, will face the full wrath of incumbents in government, the press and, of course, the security apparatus. They will be smeared and maligned and, should they slip through the cracks anyway, evidence of malfeasance will be manufactured in collusion with high level actors and wild accusations will be aired and amplified by the media.

At this stage, arguing over ideology is idiotic. But it is at this stage that pushing ideological narratives guarantees the fracturing of society to the benefit of the security apparatus and the elites in positions of power.

Politics and the “democratic” process have broken down. These mechanisms no longer serve to climb out of this hole.

The problem, our problem, is that the elite are aware they have reached the end of the road. The reaction of the elites, their stratagems, are becoming increasingly perverse and violent. 

The ostensible climate emergency, spurious pandemics and the money pit that is Ukraine are the manifestations of a situation that is rapidly spinning out of control leading us to the Flashover.

You cannot make this up: https://www.kyivpost.com/post/26961

It was already clear a decade ago where our bien pensants were planning to take us:

“NATO must prepare to launch operations outside its border after Afghanistan“

---

So what does this mean for you?

TBC

A new form of government – A proposal

Current economic and political discourse pitting proponents of the left and right in violent confrontation highlights a fundamental misunderstanding in what ails our societies. Arguing about the desirability of electing candidates of the left or right indicates ignorance of the underlying issues.

Let us premise that within the context of the political continuum, when paired with a centralized monetary system, both right and left ideologies will result in the centralization of power therefore the concentration of wealth and, inevitably, attempts at instituting a one world government.

There are no exceptions. The only variable is time.

If successive incumbent governments of the right or the left engage in perpetual deficit spending, the result will be the same. The landscape along the way may vary but the result will be, invariably, the same.

The enabler is the monetary system.

If a monetary reform were possible, life as we know it would be significantly altered, arguably, for the better.

Monetary reform alone however, is not sufficient. 

Here is what else is needed in order to improve life for the many on a sustainable basis.

• Politician as a profession must be abolished. Government and public administration must be run by individuals that have an occupation and a proven track record in fulfilling their duties in their daily job.
• The ability administrators to declare war must be contingent on the administrators that vote for war to participate directly and personally in the operational aspect of the conflict, with their immediate family.

• Abolition of diplomatic immunity. No immunity, diplomatic or otherwise, accorded to any public official, local or foreign. No immunity is expected when public officials travel or reside in foreign countries.

• Creation of a unit of exchange that is sanctioned and recognized by the state but, crucially, is not imposed.

That’s it.

How you get there? This is what I would suggest:

The overarching theme of the solution hinges on two fundamental concepts.

First, effect a gradual shift in order to make individuals responsible for a greater portion of their welfare and wellbeing rather than reliance on government.

Second, is to move away from a society where nothing is allowed unless expressly allowed by law, to create a society where nothing is forbidden unless expressly forbidden by law.

The plan:

• Immediate freeze in public hiring and spending. All individuals that have been hired up till the previous year will retain the salary and benefits they were promised. The salaries and benefits of recent hires that happened during the past 12 months will be assessed and reviewed. 

• No new hiring till the public sector has been resized to an economically sustainable level.

• Abolition of income tax in favor of tiered Sales Taxes.
• Abolition of all interest payments on debt owed by citizens. Citizens will be responsible to payback the principle however.
• Immediate halt to UN contributions. Immediate review/freeze of contributions to sundry NGOs. Immediate review/freeze in infrastructure spending. 

• Immediate review/termination of several government branches. Education comes to mind as a first candidate.

• Immediate review of healthcare needs and restructuring of the healthcare sector in order to achieve capillary geographic reach and boost research and development.

• Immediate review of internal and external security requirements and restructuring in order to return overall command under the civilian government.

• Review and restructuring of the public transportation and road network sectors in order to achieve a capillary geographic reach.

• Orphanages to be fully funded, cleaned up, protected and brought into public discourse. Where possible, parents must be traced for assessment and potential resolution. A framework worked out in order to take charge of lost/abandoned children in order to, where possible, bring about a workable solution involving the parents or, if necessary, ensure the safety and education of the children in the absence (desired or factual) of the parents.
• Devolution of power to regions and, in some cases, to cities
• Introduction of Direct Democracy
• No public funds for political parties. All contributions to political parties to be centralized and monitored by an independent body of foreign accountants that are randomly picked and rotated periodically.

By and large, this is the entirety of the plan. I reserve the right to add to it as I see fit.

How did we get here?

This post follows on from my Tic Toc posts of 10 years ago.

Although it took longer than I expected, here we are.

Just to be clear, you must remember the following:

In the West, every single piece of “Emergency” legislation enacted since 2001 is still law.

Mull that for a moment. Emergency legislation that should be temporary in nature to just flatten some sort of presumably undesirable socio/economic or health outcome, is still law.

Flatten the curve.

The 2001 date is arbitrary of course. We have been on track for this outcome since at least 1971 in Europe. But 2001 was the catalyst that allowed largely unelected officials to really burn down the barn with legislative cover extended by self serving and/or incompetent elected officials; I am not sure which is worse. “Follow the money” is, as it always was, the way to understand what is happening. In particular, follow money from the public purse.

With that in mind, here is the uncomfortable truth.

It is not Russia that:

• evicted the entire population of an archipelago in the Indian Ocean to create a military base

• that instigated the vatican and the UN to abuse children around the globe

• that bankrolled and protected Jeffrey Epstein, Harvey Weinstein or Jimmy Savile and many others (so we have Gislaine Maxell in custody and yet, other than the opportune demise of other witnesses the investigation seems to be going nowhere)

• started the Balkan war, killed thousands and created a statelet of people that were ostensibly oppressed. This without bothering to wait for, at the very least, the fig leaf of a UN resolution.

• perpetrated 9/11 or that instigated the Patriot Act and its ramifications like FATCA

• caused Trillions of US$ to disappear from the Pentagon’s budget (50 at last count)

• invaded Afghanistan where, simultaneously, opium production has increased x200 times since and the Inspector General has reported Trillions in missing funds disbursed for “reconstruction” (Trillions with a T).

• invaded and destroyed Iraq on frivolous excuses causing a humanitarian crisis of biblical proportions both inside and outside the country and where the Inspector General reported on Trillions in missing funds. Ibid.

• invaded and destroyed Syria.

• is arming, training and abetting the Saudi army in their now going on 10 years war on an impoverished nation of subsistence farmers that is Yemen. The war is costing Trillions in spent hardware sold to Saudi by the West. The West also enforces a blockade on Yemen that is costing thousands of lives due to famine and disease. The UN is providing “aid” of course whilst taking Billions in “contributions” from Saudi Arabia. Ask me about the UNICEF report of 2016.

• keeps getting busted laundering drug money through their major banks and yet nobody goes to prison

• awarded hundreds of Billions of taxpayer $ to failing banks and insurance companies when their speculative schemes blew up in 2008

• bombed Libya to smithereens creating 3 major competing power centres and dozens of smaller fiefdoms thereby causing another humanitarian crisis inside and outside the borders of the country and dozens of thousands casualties.

• employs snipers to kill Palestinians at a distance and is suffocating Gaza with a total blockade. Of course the UN are lending assistance to “alleviate” the plight of the people.

• (this one is a doozy) claims overpopulation is a civilizational threat yet takes Billions of public money to impose ostensibly life saving vaccines with government and UN enforcement. Nice one.

• carried out banned research on Coronaviruses that went on to cause a pandemic

• destroyed the livelihood of millions in an ostensible effort to counter said pandemic

• deliberately introduced SARS-Cov2 into nursing homes thereby causing a hecatomb

• misinformed the public repeatedly on the effectiveness of masks and confinements whilst allowing the elites to disregard those same draconian rules they impose on the populace

• misinformed the public repeatedly on the effectiveness of the vaccines

• spent Trillions to keep people shuttered in whilst destroying the national economies of many countries thereby raising the cost of energy and staples as a result

• caused critical infrastructure to move offshore

• allows the elites that have a hand in crafting policy to buy and sell stocks and options before the general public is made aware of new legislation

• elected Saudi Arabia to chair the panel that appoints investigators in cases of human rights abuse whilst appointing Mugabe as International Tourism Ambassador

• pushed the debt to GDP ratio well past 100% and, in at least one case, to 270% in the West and allied countries

• has repeatedly manipulated interest rates lower thereby plundering pension funds and effecting the greatest transfer of wealth known to man

• forced the shut down of traditional power generation infrastructure in favour of new untested technologies

This is merely a non exhaustive list of the political and economic aberrations of the past 20 years that bring us to where we are today. A large number of the above are related and cross the bounderies of the economy and politics. Finger pointing at ostensible foes outside our borders is theatre.

Now pay attention. What I am about to tell you, once again, is no longer in the realm of possibilities as it was when we were first discussing these issues whilst enjoying a glass of wine By The Lemon Tree ten years ago. What I speculated then, has now become reality. This is the end game.

You may cheer as the self righteous demonize in equal measure the Canadian truckers or the Russians. If you are however, you are missing the forest for the trees.

I’ll begin by reiterating practical advise. As I suggested to you all along, you should not keep any more money than you must in banks or any financial institution. Not in the USA and most certainly not in Europe. Specifically in Europe, the Bank Recovery & Resolution act of 2016 effectively gives banks legal power to do with your savings what they will. Beyond that however, Canada has just demonstrated exactly what the state can and will do to you if it deems you to be a “threat”. This is the end game. The members of the yearly Davos meeting have already told us plainly: “you will own nothing and be happy”.

If, like me, you feel that the right to private property, the right to free speech, the right to assemble and the right to demand transparency in government actions are desirable features of a modern society, what is now developing in the West should concern you greatly.

Remember those emergency powers?

As Canada has very ably demonstrated, since 2001 the definition of what or whom is a threat has become ever more fluid and the ability of a state to declare emergency powers has become ever more trivial.

Your savings are only one aspect of your life that can be used to apply leverage to get you to conform. Like vaccination passports, digital currencies will make you fully subject to the decrees and the whims of the state. The UK already tipped its hand by openly, if unwittingly, declaring that digital currencies will allow the state to program exactly how much and for what purposes money can be spent by the citizen.

Whereas in Canada the government was unable to convince the populace to go along with their schemes, two recent episodes where government prevarication was successfully foisted upon large swathes of the population illuminate how you can be marginalised and your life destroyed should you be deemed undesirable. The first was brought about by mask mandates. The second by Russia and Russian hysteria.

If you, for whatever reason, should fall foul of the prevailing narrative and deemed a threat, the “me too” crowd will amplify and hasten your demise. Think of schools banning your children or service providers refusing to serve you. Think of neighbours harassing your family in the street or vandalizing your car and home. Think of the grocer refusing to sell goods to you. Think of utilities cutting your home off the grid and the internet and banks seizing your savings.

The beauty of this whole boondoggle is the sheer ignorance of those individuals that are instigating and wilfully participating in this boondoggle. Despite the wonton destruction they are precipitating, whether wittingly or not, all revolutions eventually eat some of their own as Robespierre eventually found out. Of course, we will all pay for our political complacency. But some will pay more than others.

You may think you are not a target today. Maybe you are in a position of influence and you supported and took part in implementing legislation you genuinely thought was good and necessary. Maybe you did not support or partake in aberrant policies but did not denounce them or resigned in protest. Maybe you are completely oblivious to what is going on and since your livelihood comes from the public purse, you don’t really feel the effects of what is happening. Maybe so.

What recent events demonstrate however, is that nobody is safe.

Today, we are all on notice. Even if you feel you are protected from the machinations of state because, whether passively or actively, you are going along with the flow, eventually, when this whole boondoggle turns into a white hot conflagration, the people may feel differently.

The West is bankrupt. Pension funds have been ransacked. Banks are walking dead. Scandals in politics and the economy are becoming ever more egregious (where is Fauci?). The cost of living is soaring. The cost of education is off the scale yet, the quality has steadily deteriorated over the years. Youth unemployment has been persistently high and is now the highest it has ever been. Salaries no longer suffice to make ends meet resulting in children having to move back in with their parents. Healthcare is at best precarious in most countries and, even then, some regions of presumably wealthy countries can only offer basic services, if at all, and often in appalling conditions. Infrastructure from electricity distribution to road and bridge maintenance is lacking and disasters are increasing in frequency.

Today, the only individuals that may still feel relatively untouched (perhaps oblivious) to what is going on are those employed by the state and by the constellation of organizations that, like the state, subsist on public money. In the private sector, the members of companies that enjoy state favours too may feel they are safe.

The reality however, is that today, whomever you are, we are all at risk of losing it all. And Russia has nothing whatsoever to do with anything that is about to befall us.

A bon entendeur salut!

• The Edelman Trust Barometer

https://www.edelman.com/trust/2022-trust-barometer

Update number 1 – March 16th, 2022

As details of the LME’s boondoggle emerge, we find out the reason the exchange took such egregious action. To no one’s surprise, a major bank is implicated in this latest scheme. JPMorgan. The same JPMorgan that other than getting busted on a regular basis for financial “misconduct” also had its vessels impounded because they were caught by port authorities to be loaded to the gills with drugs. You know, usually drugs are smuggled into concealed compartments of rusty old tubs. But when it was busted, this brand spanking new, high tech ship was found to be literally loaded to the gills with cocaine with no effort made to conceal the cargo. Anyway, there was so much of the stuff that concealment was not an option. Read the article carefully. See who is being held up for questioning and who will likely take the fall. And so it goes, yet again.

Addendum March 14th – This is important

• You will remember the Canadian government seizing the funds of citizens that contributed to the trucker’s fund and criminalizing their actions retroactively. Retroactively! This is the stuff of banana republics! If you don’t understand the implications, you are not paying attention.
• Western banks proceeded to confiscate Russia’s foreign reserves to the tune of 350Billion
• Now, following a trade gone spectacularly wrong, the London Metal Exchange has frozen all trades in Nickel. A Chinese Tycoon was caught on the wrong side of a trade in nickel and was unable to meet $8Billion in payments. In response, the LME indiscriminately suspended all trades of ALL participants thereby effectively seizing Billions in funds to give time to the Chinese tycoon to come up with the funds. Now. This should be bad enough but, the Chinese tycoon has expressed the desire to maintain his trade in nickel; he is doubling down! Once again, like in 2009/2010, the moral of the story here is that a financial institution that is entrusted with the stewardship of capital has unilaterally and arbitrarily short circuited all known laws and regulations that govern its operations in order to protect one individual at the expense of thousands of others. This individual now has the equivalent of a “get out of jail free card”. If he loses, the LME will cover for him. If he wins, he walks away a very much richer person at the expense of thousands of others that will have had their trades impaired. Moreover, in the event that the trade should once again blow up in the tycoon’s face (a high probability), the LME will have burned to the ground the entire construct upon which global finance is predicated and will have bankrupted thousands of unsuspecting traders. This boondoggle will have unpredictable repercussions that will touch everything from pension funds to government finance and undermines the traditional role of the West as a safe haven governed by the rule of law.

Events are accelerating in frequency and becoming ever more costly not only in material terms but also in terms of lives sacrificed in order to maintain an ever diminishing gang of elites in power.

The Chinese Debt Dilemma… Ta Daaaah!

And here you go (talking to an empty room):

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1191977.shtml

Relevant excerpt:

“[…] Within the FOCAC framework, China will cancel the debt of relevant African countries in the form of interest-free government loans that are due to mature by the end of 2020. […] Fourth, we must stay committed to taking China-Africa friendship forward. The world is undergoing profound changes unseen in a century. Given the new opportunities and challenges we face, closer cooperation between China and Africa is needed, more than ever. On my part, I will stay in close touch with all of you, my colleagues, to consolidate our friendship and mutual trust, support each other on issues involving our respective core interests, and advance the fundamental interests of China and Africa and, for that matter, of all developing countries. […]”