Air Force Confirms Uniformed Active Duty Member Self-Immolated In Front Of Israeli Embassy In D.C.

Via ZeroHedge

The US Air Force late in the day Sunday confirmed that one of its own active duty members was the man who set himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC in order to protest the Gaza war.

While in military uniform, the man was heard saying he “will no longer be complicit in genocide” and then self-immolated, an act recorded in live-streamed video which has since been removed from his Twitch channel. The US Air Force issued a statement through a spokesperson saying “I can confirm an active duty Airman was involved in today’s incident.”

Screengrab of the uniformed service member on fire in front of the Israeli embassy.

The man has not been officially identified, but he was heard saying that his name is “Aaron Bushnell”. He had also been recorded as saying that what he’s about to do was minimal compared with the suffering and plight of the Palestinians, according to CNN.

Continue reading “Air Force Confirms Uniformed Active Duty Member Self-Immolated In Front Of Israeli Embassy In D.C.”

BEST ELECTION SLOGAN: AT LEAST YOU DON’T LIVE IN BULGARIA

Woman Sets Herself On Fire In Front Of Presidency Of Europe’s Poorest Country

Tyler Durden's picture

With French youth revolting, Spanish regions seeking secession, and GREXIT back on the cards, Europe’s social unrest concerns are starting to rise once again to troubling levels. However, it is in Europe’s poorest nation, Bulgaria that the message of dissatisfaction is loudest. As The BBC reports, a woman has set herself ablaze near the presidency building in the Bulgarian capital Sofia. There were six similar self-immolations in Bulgaria last year, amid anger over chronic poverty and alleged corruption.

 

When it comes to this, you know there is a problem (Warning: Graphic)

 

As The BBC reports,

A woman has set herself ablaze near the presidency building in the Bulgarian capital Sofia and is now in hospital being treated for severe burns.

 

 

It is not yet clear why the 38-year-old woman doused herself in a flammable liquid and torched herself.

 

She was engulfed in flames before bystanders managed to put out the blaze and load her into an ambulance.

 

There were six similar self-immolations in Bulgaria last year, amid anger over chronic poverty and alleged corruption.

 

Last month Bulgaria’s centre-right GERB party won a snap parliamentary election but failed to get an overall majority. The party led by former Prime Minister Boyko Borisov is trying to form a new ruling coalition with smaller parties.

 

Last year Bulgaria, the poorest country in the EU, was rocked by weeks of protests over low living standards, a banking crisis and allegations of high-level government corruption.

*  *  *

Maybe she should have bought stocks in US small caps? or the Alibaba IPO?

Colorado High School Cafeteria Self-Immolation

With family, school and work I don’t have much time to post on here like I would but, I thought this story might have slipped through the cracks of the MSM and TBPers might have missed it.  When will we actually have an open honest discussion about our YOUTH, the education system, pharmacology, medicine, endemic gratuitous violence in the media and personal responsibility and accountability?  Instead we sell labels as explanations and causes to much more complex and interconnected factors.  We have been brainwashed by the 20-minute sitcom plot resolution and conditioned to look for the quickest and easiest response or answer to much more dire and severe influencing factors.  I will not speculate as to whether or not this kid’s parents had him on any anti-depressants; but I must admit, the thought did cross my mind.  Many of school shooters were taking prescription medications like anti-depressants…Like many TBPers have mentioned before, this is rarely discussed on the MSM.  Hopefully Nett, pulls through and recovers!  Maybe then he might find a voice and tell us what would push a 16-year old boy to that point.

Godspeed on your recovery  and God Bless!

 

Teen who torched himself in Colorado school burned over 80% of his body

The 16-year-old boy who set himself ablaze inside a packed cafeteria at a Colorado high school in an apparent suicide bid was being treated for burns over 80% of his body, officials said.

Vince Nett remained in critical condition Tuesday, a day after he drank a water bottle filled with bleach and doused himself with a gallon of fuel before he lit himself on fire inside Standley Lake High School in Westminster, just north of Denver, KUSA-TV reported.

Nett reportedly left a suicide note on Facebook, saying his death was “not someone’s fault. I had this planned for years.” He also apologized for the way the school would smell after he roasted himself in his bid to publicly kill himself.

“If anyone says that they know why I did this…nobody knows and nobody will,” he wrote, the TV station reported.

 

…..

2013 – DENSE FOG TURNS INTO TOXIC SMOG

In mid-January of this year I wrote my annual prediction article for 2013 – Apparitions in the Fog. It is again time to assess my inability to predict the future any better than a dart throwing monkey. As usual, sticking to facts was a mistake in a world fueled by misinformation, propaganda, delusion and wishful thinking. I was far too pessimistic about the near term implications of debt, civic decay and global disorder. Those in power have successfully held off the unavoidable collapse which will be brought about by their ravenous unbridled greed, and blatant disregard for the rule of law, the U.S. Constitution and rights and liberties of the American people. The day to day minutia, pointless drivel of our techno-narcissistic selfie showbiz society, and artificially created issues (gay marriage, Zimmerman-Martin, Baby North West, Duck Dynasty) designed to distract the public from thinking, are worthless trivialities in the broad landscape of human history.

The course of human history is determined by recurring cyclical themes based upon human frailties that have been perpetual through centuries of antiquity. The immense day to day noise of an inter-connected techno-world awash in inconsequentialities and manipulated by men of evil intent is designed to divert the attention of the masses from the criminal activities of those in power. It has always been so. There have always been arrogant, ambitious, greedy, power hungry, deceitful men, willing to take advantage of a fearful, lazy, ignorant, selfish, easily manipulated populace. The rhythms of history are unaffected by predictions of “experts” who are paid to spin yarns in order to sustain the status quo. There is no avoiding the consequences of actions taken and not taken over the last eighty years. We are in the midst of a twenty year period of Crisis that was launched in September 2008 with the worldwide financial collapse, created by the Federal Reserve, their Wall Street owners, their bought off Washington politicians, and their media and academic propaganda machines.

I still stand by the final paragraph of my 2013 missive, and despite the fact the establishment has been able to fend off the final collapse of their man made credit boom for longer than I anticipated, they have only insured a far worse outcome when the bubble bursts:              

“So now I’m on the record for 2013 and I can be scorned and ridiculed for being such a pessimist when December rolls around and our Ponzi scheme economy hasn’t collapsed. There is no disputing the facts. The economic situation is deteriorating for the average American, the mood of the country is darkening, and the world is awash in debt and turmoil. Every country is attempting to print their way to renewed prosperity. No one wins a race to the bottom. The oligarchs have chosen a path of currency debasement, propping up insolvent banks, propaganda and impoverishing the masses as their preferred course. They attempt to keep the masses distracted with political theater, gun control vitriol, reality TV and iGadgets. What can be said about a society where 10% of the population follows Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga on Twitter and where 50% think the National Debt is a monument in Washington D.C. The country is controlled by evil sycophants, intellectually dishonest toadies and blood sucking leeches. Their lies and deception have held sway for the last four years, but they have only delayed the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. They will not reverse course and believe their intellectual superiority will allow them to retain their control after the collapse.”

The core elements of this Crisis have been visible since Strauss & Howe wrote The Fourth Turning in 1997. All the major events that transpire during this Crisis will be driven by one or more of these core elements – Debt, Civic Decay, and Global Disorder.

“In retrospect, the spark might seem as ominous as a financial crash, as ordinary as a national election, or as trivial as a Tea Party. The catalyst will unfold according to a basic Crisis dynamic that underlies all of these scenarios: An initial spark will trigger a chain reaction of unyielding responses and further emergencies. The core elements of these scenarios (debt, civic decay, global disorder) will matter more than the details, which the catalyst will juxtapose and connect in some unknowable way. If foreign societies are also entering a Fourth Turning, this could accelerate the chain reaction. At home and abroad, these events will reflect the tearing of the civic fabric at points of extreme vulnerability – problem areas where America will have neglected, denied, or delayed needed action.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe

My 2013 predictions were framed by these core elements. After re-reading my article for the first time in eleven months I’ve concluded it is lucky I don’t charge for investment predictions. Many of my prognostications were in the ballpark, but I have continually underestimated the ability of central bankers and their Wall Street co-conspirators to use the $2.8 billion per day of QE to artificially elevate the stock market to bubble level proportions once again. If I wasn’t such a trusting soul, I might conclude the .1% financial elite, who run this country, created QEternity to benefit themselves, their .1% corporate CEO accomplices and the corrupt government apparatchiks who shield their flagrant criminality from the righteous hand of justice.

Even a highly educated Ivy League economist might grasp the fact that Ben Bernanke’s QEternity and ZIRP, sold to the unsuspecting masses as desperate measures during a crisis that could have brought the system down, have been kept in place for five years as a means to drive stock prices and home prices higher. The emergency was over by 2010, according to government reported data. The current monetary policy of the Federal Reserve would have been viewed as outrageous, reckless, and incomprehensible in 2007. It is truly a credit to the ruling elite and their media propaganda arm that they have been able to convince a majority of Americans their brazen felonious disregard for the wellbeing of the 99% is necessary to sustain the .1% way of life. Those palaces in the Hamptons aren’t going to pay for themselves without those $100 billion of annual bonuses.       

Do you think the 170% increase in the S&P 500 has been accidently correlated with the quadrupling of the Federal Reserve balance sheet or has Bernanke just done the bidding of his puppet masters? Considering the .1% billionaire clique owns the vast majority of stock in this corporate fascist paradise, is it really a surprise the trickle down canard would be the solution of choice from these sociopathic scoundrels? Of course QE and ZIRP have impacted the 80% who own virtually no stocks in a slightly different manner. Do you think the 100% increase in gasoline prices since 2009 was caused by Bernanke’s QEternity?  

Do you think the 8% decline in real median household income since 2008 was caused by Bernanke’s QE and ZIRP policies?  

Click to View

Do you think the $10.8 trillion stolen from grandmothers and risk adverse savers was caused by Bernanke’s ZIRP?

Was the $860 billion increase in real GDP (5.8% over five years) worth the $8 trillion increase in the National Debt and $3 trillion increase in the Federal Reserve balance sheet? Was it moral, courageous and honorable of the Wall Street plantation owners to syphon the remaining wealth of the dying middle class peasants and leaving the millennial generation and future generations bound in chains of unfunded debt to the tune of $200 trillion?

My assessment regarding unpredictable events lurking in the fog was borne out by what happened that NO ONE predicted, including: the first resignation of a pope in six hundred years, the military coup of a democratically elected president of Egypt – supported by the democratically elected U.S. president, the rise of an alternative currency – bitcoin, the bankruptcy of one of the largest cities in the U.S. – Detroit, a minor terrorist attack in Boston that freaked out the entire country and revealed the Nazi-like un-Constitutional tactics that will be used by the police state as this Crisis deepens, and revelations by a brilliant young patriot named Edward Snowden proving that the U.S. has been turned into an Orwellian surveillance state as every electronic communication of every American is being monitored and recorded. The Democrats and Republicans played their parts in this theater of the absurd. They proved to be two faces of the same Party as neither faction questions the droning of innocent people around the globe, mass spying on citizens, Wall Street criminality, trillion dollar deficits, a rogue Federal Reserve, or out of control unsustainable government spending.

My predictions for 2013 were divided into the three categories driving this Fourth Turning CrisisDebt, Civic Decay, and Global Disorder. Let’s assess my inaccuracy.

Debt

  • The debt ceiling will be raised as the toothless Republican Party vows to cut spending next time. The political hacks will create a 3,000 page document of triggers and create a committee to study the issue, with actual measures that slow the growth of annual spending by .000005% starting in 2017.

The government shutdown reality TV show proved to be the usual Washington D.C. kabuki theater. They gave a shutdown and no one noticed. It had zero impact on the economy. More people came to the realization that government does nothing except spend our money and push us around. The debt ceiling was raised, the sequester faux “cuts” were reversed and $20 billion of spending will be cut sometime in the distant future. Washington snakes are entirely predictable. I nailed this prediction.

  • The National Debt will increase by $1.25 trillion and debt to GDP will reach 106% by the end of the fiscal year.

The National Debt increased by ONLY $964 billion in the last fiscal year, even though the government stopped counting in May. The temporary sequester cuts, the expiration of the 2% payroll tax cut, the fake Fannie & Freddie paybacks to the U.S. Treasury based upon mark to fantasy accounting, and the automatic expiration of stimulus spending combined to keep the real deficit from reaching $1 trillion for the fifth straight year. Debt to GDP was 104%, before our beloved government drones decided to “adjust” GDP upwards by $500 billion based upon a new and improved formula, like Tide detergent. I missed this prediction by a smidgeon.

  • The Federal Reserve balance sheet will reach $4 trillion by the end of the year.

The Federal Reserve balance sheet stands at $4.075 trillion today. Ben is very predictable, and of course “transparent”. This was an easy one.

  • Consumer debt will reach $2.9 trillion as the Feds accelerate student loans and Ally Financial, along with the other Too Big To Control Wall Street banks, keep pumping out subprime auto loans. By mid-year reported losses on student loans will soar and auto loan delinquencies will show an upturn. This will force a slowdown in consumer debt issuance, exacerbating the recession that started in 2012.

Consumer debt outstanding currently stands at $3.076 trillion despite the fact that credit card debt has been virtually flat. The Federal government has continued to dole out billions in loans to University of Phoenix wannabes and to the subprime urban entitlement armies who deserve to drive an Escalade despite having no job, no assets and a sub 650 credit score, through government owned Ally Financial. It helps drive business when you don’t care about being repaid. Student loan delinquency rates are at an all-time high, as there are no jobs for graduates with tens of thousands in debt. Auto loan delinquencies have begun to rise despite the fact we are supposedly in a strongly recovering economy. The slowdown in debt issuance has not happened, as the Federal government is in complete control of the non-revolving loan segment. My prediction has proven to be accurate.

  • The Bakken oil miracle will prove to be nothing more than Wall Street shysters selling a storyline. Daily output will stall at 750,000 barrels per day and the dreams of imminent energy independence will be annihilated by reality, again. The price of oil will average $105 per barrel, as global tensions restrict supply.

Bakken production has reached 867,000 barrels per day as more and more wells have been drilled to offset the steep depletion rates of the existing wells. The average price per barrel has been $104, despite the frantic propaganda campaign about imminent American energy independence. Tell that to the average Joe filling their tank and paying the highest December gas price in history. My prediction was too pessimistic, but the Bakken miracle will be revealed as an over-hyped Wall Street scam in 2014.

  • The home price increases generated through inventory manipulation in 2012 will peter out as 2013 progresses. The market has been flooded by investors. There is very little real demand for new homes. Young households with heavy student loan debt and low paying jobs will continue to rent, since the oligarchs refused to let prices fall to a level that would spur real demand. Mortgage delinquencies will rise as job growth remains stagnant, leading to an increase in foreclosures. Rent prices will flatten as apartment construction and investors flood the market with supply.

Existing home sales peaked in the middle of 2013 and have been in decline as mortgage rates have jumped from 3.25% to 4.5% since February. New home sales remain stagnant, near record low levels. The median sales price for existing home sales peaked at $214,000 in June and has fallen for five consecutive months by a total of 8%. First time home buyers account for a record low of 28% of purchases, while investors account for a record high level of purchasers. Mortgage delinquencies fell for most of the year, but the chickens are beginning to come home to roost as delinquent mortgage loans rose from 6.28% in October to 6.45% in November. Rent increases slowed to below 3% as Blackrock and the other Wall Street shysters flood the market with their foreclosure rental properties. My housing prediction was accurate.

 

  • The disconnect between the stock market and the housing and employment markets will be rectified when the MSM can no longer deny the recession that began in 2012 and will deepen in the first part of 2013. While housing prices languish 30% below their peak levels of 2006, the stock market has prematurely ejaculated back to pre-crisis levels. Declining corporate profits, stagnant consumer spending, and increasing debt defaults will finally result in a 20% decline in the stock market, with a chance for losses greater than 30% if Japan or the EU begin to crumble.

And now we get to the prediction that makes me happy I don’t charge people for investment advice. Facts don’t matter in world of QE for the psychopathic titans of Wall Street and misery for the indebted peasants of Main Street. The government data drones, Ivy League educated Wall Street economists, and the obedient corporate media propaganda apparatus declare that GDP has grown by 2% over the last four quarters and we are not in a recession. If you believe their bogus inflation calculation then just ignore the collapsing retail sales, stagnant real wages, and rising gap between the uber-rich and the rest of us. Using a true measure of inflation reveals an economy in recession since 2004. Whose version matches the reality on the ground?

 

Corporate profits have leveled off at record highs as mark to fantasy accounting fraud, condoned and encouraged by the Federal Reserve, along with loan loss reserve depletion and $5 billion of risk free profits from parking deposits at the Fed have created a one-time peak. The record level of negative earnings warnings is the proverbial bell ringing at the top.

negative earnings

I only missed my stock market prediction by 50%, as the 30% rise was somewhat better than my 20% decline prediction. Bernanke’s QEternity, Wall Street’s high frequency trading supercomputers, record levels of margin debt, a dash of delusion, and a helping of clueless dupes have taken the stock market to another bubble high. My prediction makes me look like an idiot today. I’m OK with that, since I know facts and reality always prevail in the long-run. As John Hussman sagely points out, today’s idiot will be tomorrow’s beacon of truth:

“The problem with bubbles is that they force one to decide whether to look like an idiot before the peak, or an idiot after the peak. There’s no calling the top, and most of the signals that have been most historically useful for that purpose have been blazing red since late-2011. My impression remains that the downside risks for the market have been deferred, not eliminated, and that they will be worse for the wait.”

  • Japan is still a bug in search of a windshield. With a debt to GDP ratio of 230%, a population dying off, energy dependence escalating, trade surplus decreasing, an already failed Prime Minister vowing to increase inflation, and rising tensions with China, Japan is a primary candidate to be the first domino to fall in the game of debt chicken. A 2% increase in interest rates would destroy the Japanese economic system.

Abenomics has done nothing for the average Japanese citizen, but it has done wonders for the ruling class who own all the stocks. Abe has implemented monetary policies that make Bernanke get a hard on. Japanese economic growth remains mired at 1.1%, wages remain stagnant, and their debt to GDP ratio remains above 230%, but at least he has driven their currency down 20% versus the USD and crushed the common person with 9% energy inflation. None of this matters, because the .1% have benefitted from a 56% increase in the Japanese stock market. My prediction was wrong. The windshield is further down the road, but it is approaching at 100 mph.

  • The EU has temporarily delayed the endgame for their failed experiment. Economic conditions in Greece, Spain and Italy worsen by the day with unemployment reaching dangerous revolutionary levels. Pretending countries will pay each other with newly created debt will not solve a debt crisis. They don’t have a liquidity problem. They have a solvency problem. The only people who have been saved by the actions taken so far are bankers and politicians. I believe the crisis will reignite, with interest rates spiking in Spain, Italy and France. The Germans will get fed up with the rest of Europe and the EU will begin to disintegrate.

This was another complete miss on my part. Economic conditions have not improved in Europe. Unemployment remains at record levels. EU GDP is barely above 0%. Debt levels continue to rise. Central bank bond buying has propped up this teetering edifice of ineptitude and interest rates in Spain, Italy and France have fallen to ridiculously low levels of 4%, considering they are completely insolvent with no possibility for escape. The disintegration of the EU will have to wait for another day.

Civic Decay

  • Progressive’s attempt to distract the masses from our worsening economic situation with their assault on the 2nd Amendment will fail. Congress will pass no new restrictions on gun ownership and 2013 will see the highest level of gun sales in history.

Obama and his gun grabbing sycophants attempted to use the Newtown massacre as the lever to overturn the 2nd Amendment. The liberal media went into full shriek mode, but the citizens again prevailed and no Federal legislation restricting the 2nd Amendment passed. Gun sales in 2013 will set an all-time record. With the Orwellian surveillance state growing by the day, arming yourself is the rational thing to do. I nailed this prediction.

  • The deepening recession, higher taxes on small businesses and middle class, along with Obamacare mandates will lead to rising unemployment and rising anger with the failed economic policies of the last four years. Protests and rallies will begin to burgeon.

The little people are experiencing a recession. The little people bore the brunt of the 2% payroll tax increase. The little people are bearing the burden of the Obamacare insurance premium increases. The number of employed Americans has increased by 1 million in the last year, a whole .4% of the working age population. The number of Americans who have willingly left the labor force in the last year because their lives are so fulfilled totaled 2.5 million, leaving the labor participation rate at a 35 year low. The anger among the former middle class is simmering below the surface, as Bernanke’s policies further impoverish the multitudes. Mass protests have not materialized but the Washington Navy yard shooting, dental hygenist murdered by DC police for ramming a White House barrier, and self- immolation of veteran John Constantino on the National Mall were all individual acts of desperation against the establishment.  

  • The number of people on food stamps will reach 50 million and the number of people on SSDI will reach 11 million. Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein, and Jeff Immelt will compensate themselves to the tune of $100 million. CNBC will proclaim an economic recovery based on these facts.

The number of people on food stamps appears to have peaked just below 48 million, as the expiration of stimulus spending will probably keep the program from reaching 50 million. As of November there were 10.98 million people in the SSDI program. The top eight Wall Street banks have set aside a modest $91 billion for 2013 bonuses. The cost of providing food stamps for 48 million Americans totaled $76 billion. CNBC is thrilled with the record level of bonuses for the noble Wall Street capitalists, while scorning the lazy laid-off middle class workers whose jobs were shipped to China by the corporations whose profits are at all-time highs and stock price soars. Isn’t crony capitalism grand?

  • The drought will continue in 2013 resulting in higher food prices, ethanol prices, and shipping costs, as transporting goods on the Mississippi River will become further restricted. The misery index for the average American family will reach new highs.

The drought conditions in the U.S. Midwest have been relieved. Ethanol prices have been flat. Beef prices have risen by 10% since May due to the drought impact from 2012, but overall food price increases have been moderate. The misery index (unemployment rate + inflation rate) has supposedly fallen, based on government manipulated data. I whiffed on this prediction.

  • There will be assassination attempts on political and business leaders as retribution for their actions during and after the financial crisis.

There have been no assassination attempts on those responsible for our downward financial spiral. The anger has been turned inward as suicides have increased by 30% due to the unbearable economic circumstances brought on by the illegal financial machinations of the Wall Street criminal banks. Obama and Dick Cheney must be thrilled that more military personnel died by suicide in 2013 than on the battlefield. Mission Accomplished. The retribution dealt to bankers and politicians will come after the next collapse. For now, my prediction was premature. 

  • The revelation of more fraud in the financial sector will result in an outcry from the public for justice. Prosecutions will be pursued by State’s attorney generals, as Holder has been captured by Wall Street.

Holder and the U.S. government remain fully captured by Wall Street. The states have proven to be toothless in their efforts to enforce the law against Wall Street. The continuing revelations of Wall Street fraud and billions in fines paid by JP Morgan and the other Too Big To Trust banks have been glossed over by the captured mainstream media. As long as EBT cards, Visas and Mastercards continue to function, there will be no outrage from the techno-narcissistic, debt addicted, math challenged, wilfully ignorant masses. Another wishful thinking wrong prediction on my part.   

  • The deepening pension crisis in the states will lead to more state worker layoffs and more confrontation between governors attempting to balance budgets and government worker unions. There will be more municipal bankruptcies.

Using a still optimistic discount rate of 5%, the unfunded pension liability of states and municipalities totals $3 trillion. The taxpayers don’t have enough cheese left for the government rats to steal. The crisis deepens by the second. State and municipal budgets require larger pension payments every year. The tax base is stagnant or declining. States must balance their budgets. They will continue to cut existing workers to pay the legacy costs until they all experience their Detroit moment. With the Detroit bankruptcy, I’ll take credit for getting this prediction right.   

  • The gun issue will further enflame talk of state secession. The red state/blue state divide will grow ever wider. The MSM will aggravate the divisions with vitriolic propaganda.

With the revelations of Federal government spying, military training exercises in cities across the country, the blatant disregard for the 4th Amendment during the shutdown of Boston, and un-Constitutional mandates of Obamacare, there has been a tremendous increase in chatter about secession. A google search gets over 200,000 hits in the last year. The divide between red states and blue states has never been wider. 

  • The government will accelerate their surveillance efforts and renew their attempt to monitor, control, and censor the internet. This will result in increased cyber-attacks on government and corporate computer networks in retaliation.

If anything I dramatically underestimated the lengths to which the United States government would go in their illegal surveillance of the American people and foreign leaders. Edward Snowden exposed the grandest government criminal conspiracy in history as the world found out the NSA, with the full knowledge of the president and Congress, has been conspiring with major communications and internet companies to monitor and record every electronic communication on earth, in clear violation of the 4th Amendment. Government apparatchiks like James Clapper have blatantly lied to Congress about their spying activities. The lawlessness with which the government is now operating has led to anarchist computer hackers conducting cyber-attacks on government and corporate networks. The recent hacking of the Target credit card system will have devastating implications to their already waning business. I’ll take credit for an accurate prediction on this one.   

Global Disorder 

  • With new leadership in Japan and China, neither will want to lose face, so early in their new terms. Neither side will back down in their ongoing conflict over islands in the East China Sea. China will shoot down a Japanese aircraft and trade between the countries will halt, leading to further downturns in both of their economies.

The Japanese/Chinese dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands has blown hot and cold throughout the year. In the past month the vitriol has grown intense. China has scrambled fighter jets over the disputed islands. The recent visit of Abe to a World War II shrine honoring war criminals has enraged the Chinese. Trade between the countries has declined. An aircraft has not been shot down, but an American warship almost collided with a Chinese warship near the islands, since our empire must stick their nose into every worldwide dispute. We are one miscalculation away from a shooting war. It hasn’t happened yet, so my prediction was wrong.

  • Worker protests over slave labor conditions in Chinese factories will increase as food price increases hit home on peasants that spend 70% of their pay for food. The new regime will crackdown with brutal measures, but the protests will grow increasingly violent. The economic data showing growth will be discredited by what is happening on the ground. China will come in for a real hard landing. Maybe they can hide the billions of bad debt in some of their vacant cities.

The number of worker protests over low pay and working conditions in China doubled over the previous year, but censorship of reporting has kept these facts under wraps. In a dictatorship, the crackdown on these protests goes unreported. The fraudulent economic data issued by the government has been proven false by independent analysts. The Chinese stock market has fallen 14%, reflecting the true economic situation. The Chinese property bubble is in the process of popping. China will never officially report a hard landing. China is the most corrupt nation on earth and is rotting from the inside, like their vacant malls and cities. China’s economy is like an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 coming in for a landing at SF International.

  • Violence and turmoil in Greece will spread to Spain during the early part of the year, with protests and anger spreading to Italy and France later in the year. The EU public relations campaign, built on sandcastles of debt in the sky and false promises of corrupt politicians, will falter by mid-year. Interest rates will begin to spike and the endgame will commence. Greece will depart the EU, with Spain not far behind. The unraveling of debt will plunge all of Europe into depression.

Violent protests flared in Greece and Spain throughout the year. They did not spread to Italy and France. The central bankers and the puppet politicians have been able to contain the EU’s debt insolvency through the issuance of more debt. What a great plan. The grand finale has been delayed into 2014. Greece remains on life support and still in the EU. The EU remains in recession, but the depression has been postponed for the time being. This prediction was a dud.

  • Iran will grow increasingly desperate as hyperinflation caused by U.S. economic sanctions provokes the leadership to lash out at its neighbors and unleash cyber-attacks on Saudi Arabian oil facilities and U.S. corporations. Israel will use the rising tensions as the impetus to finally attack Iranian nuclear facilities. The U.S. will support the attack and Iran will launch missiles at Saudi Arabia and Israel in retaliation. The price of oil will spike above $125 per barrel, further deepening the worldwide recession.

Iran was experiencing hyperinflationary conditions early in the year, but since the election of the new president the economy has stabilized. Iran has conducted cyber-attacks against Saudi Arabian gas companies and the U.S. Navy during 2013. Israel and Saudi Arabia have failed in their efforts to lure Iran into a shooting war. Obama has opened dialogue with the new president to the chagrin of Israel. War has been put off and the negative economic impacts of surging oil prices have been forestalled. I missed on this prediction.

  • Syrian President Assad will be ousted and executed by rebels. Syria will fall under the control of Islamic rebels, who will not be friendly to the United States or Israel. Russia will stir up discontent in retaliation for the ouster of their ally.

Assad has proven to be much tougher than anyone expected. The trumped up charges of gassing rebel forces, created by the Saudis who want a gas pipeline through Syria, was not enough to convince the American people to allow our president to invade another sovereign country. Putin and Russia won this battle. America’s stature in the eyes of the world was reduced further. America continues to support Al Qaeda rebels in Syria, while fighting them in Afghanistan. The hypocrisy is palpable. Another miss.

  • Egypt and Libya will increasingly become Islamic states and will further descend into civil war.

The first democratically elected president of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi, was overthrown in a military coup as the country has descended into a civil war between the military forces and Islamic forces. It should be noted that the U.S. supported the overthrow of a democratically elected leader. Libya is a failed state with Islamic factions vying for power and on the verge of a 2nd civil war. Oil production has collapsed. I’ll take credit for an accurate prediction on this one.   

  • The further depletion of the Cantarell oil field will destroy the Mexican economy as it becomes a net energy importer. The drug violence will increase and more illegal immigrants will pour into the U.S. The U.S. will station military troops along the border.

Mexican oil production fell for the ninth consecutive year in 2013. It has fallen 25% since 2004 to the lowest level since 1995. Energy exports still slightly outweigh imports, but the trend is irreversible. Mexico is under siege by the drug cartels. The violence increases by the day. After declining from 2007 through 2009, illegal immigration from Mexico has been on the rise. Troops have not been stationed on the border as Obama and his liberal army encourages illegal immigration in their desire for an increase in Democratic voters. This prediction was mostly correct.

  • Cyber-attacks by China and Iran on government and corporate computer networks will grow increasingly frequent. One or more of these attacks will threaten nuclear power plants, our electrical grid, or the Pentagon.

China and Iran have been utilizing cyber-attacks on the U.S. military and government agencies as a response to NSA spying and U.S. sabotaging of Iranian nuclear facilities. Experts are issuing warnings regarding the susceptibility of U.S. nuclear facilities to cyber-attack. If a serious breach has occurred, the U.S. government wouldn’t be publicizing it. Again, this prediction was accurate.

I achieved about a 50% accuracy rate on my 2013 predictions. These minor distractions are meaningless in the broad spectrum of history and the inevitability of the current Fourth Turning sweeping away the existing social order in a whirlwind of chaos, violence, financial collapse and ultimately a decisive war. The exact timing and exact events which will precipitate the demise of the establishment are unknowable with any precision, but there is no escape from the inexorable march of history. While most people get lost in the minutia of day to day existence and supposed Ivy League thought leaders are consumed with their own reputations and wealth, apparent stability will morph into terrifying volatility in an instant. The normalcy bias being practiced by an entire country will be shattered in a reality storm of consequences. The Crisis will continue to be driven by the ever growing debt levels, civic decay caused by government overreach, and global disorder driven by resource shortages and religious zealotry. The ultimate outcome is unpredictable, but the choices we make will matter. History is about to fling us towards a vast chaos.

“The seasons of time offer no guarantees. For modern societies, no less than for all forms of life, transformative change is discontinuous. For what seems an eternity, history goes nowhere – and then it suddenly flings us forward across some vast chaos that defies any mortal effort to plan our way there. The Fourth Turning will try our souls – and the saecular rhythm tells us that much will depend on how we face up to that trial. The saeculum does not reveal whether the story will have a happy ending, but it does tell us how and when our choices will make a difference.”  – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

NOTHING TO LOSE

Does anyone else see a pattern? Do you realize many of the events that are occurring in our society on a regular basis are connected? Six weeks ago a young man killed 12 people at the Washington DC Navy Yard. He was clearly angry at the government for discharging him from the military. The MSM declared him mentally ill. A couple weeks later a dental hygenist from Connecticut tried to drive her car past White House guards and was shot dead. She was distraught by the actions of the government. The MSM declared her mentally ill. John Constantino, a 64 year old military veteran, self immolated on the National Mall a few days later as a protest against the government. The MSM barely covered the story, but declared him mentally ill. His neighbors begged to differ. Earlier this week a 20 year old man went on a shooting spree at LAX, killing a TSA agent. He specifically wanted to kill government employees. The MSM will declare him mentally ill in the near future. Last night another 20 year old man went on a shooting spree at the Garden State Plaza Mall and eventually killed himself. The MSM is blaming it on drugs.

The MSM propaganda machine is in the business of propping up the status quo. They are part of the status quo. The existing establishment is getting rich from the existing dynamic in this country. What we are witnessing is young people who are being driven off the deep end by the injustice, corruption, and lawlessness of our system. The acts of all these people are acts of hopelessness. Their “mental illness” is brought on by a culture of greed, materialism, and pillaging by the people controlling the levers of power. The MSM and Obama will blame guns for the problem, because they sense the rising anger in the country and want to disarm those who can see clearly what is happening. The scent of revolution is in the air.

These are not isolated instances. They are connected. There are 317 million people in this country and there are millions of young, disillusioned, angry people who are losing hope. When people have lost everything and have nothing more to lose, they lose it. This is a Fourth Turning. The mood of the country darkens by the minute. The instances of seemingly random violence will increase. I wouldn’t be going to any malls in the near future. They are such inviting targets for someone who wants to produce mass casualties.

The American sheeple respond well to fear and propaganda. But, if they start fearing malls, the existing establishment will crumble quickly. They need people to spend money they don’t have to keep this Ponzi scheme going. If you want to contribute to the downfall of the establishment, stop shopping. Today is election day. Don’t vote. Withdrawal all your support from the existing paradigm. If you have money withheld from your paycheck, increase the number of exemptions on your W-4 and reduce their tax revenues. Barter. Conduct cash transactions with people. Spread discontent whenever possible. Point out the corruption and evil of those in charge to anyone who will listen. It’s time for a little anarchy.

“Remember, remember, the Fifth of November, the Gunpowder Treason and Plot. I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot… But what of the man? I know his name was Guy Fawkes and I know, in 1605, he attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. But who was he really? What was he like? We are told to remember the idea, not the man, because a man can fail. He can be caught, he can be killed and forgotten, but 400 years later, an idea can still change the world. I’ve witnessed first hand the power of ideas, I’ve seen people kill in the name of them, and die defending them… but you cannot kiss an idea, cannot touch it, or hold it… ideas do not bleed, they do not feel pain, they do not love… And it is not an idea that I miss, it is a man… A man that made me remember the Fifth of November. A man that I will never forget.”

Evey Hammond

Garden State Plaza Mall Shooting Ends With Gunman Taking His Life

Tyler Durden's picture

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/05/2013 07:09 -0500

Last’s night latest mass shooting event, just three days after a comparable situation at LAX airport, and this time just minutes away from New York City, is over with the alleged gunman, Richard Shoop, 20, taking his life.

ABC reports.

The gunman who opened fire inside a sprawling New Jersey mall was found dead inside the mall early this morning with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said.

Authorities identified the suspect as Richard Shoop, 20, of Teaneck, N.J., and said his body was found in a back area of mall around 3:20 a.m.

Police discovered his body more than six hours after they say Shoop entered the Westfield Garden State Plaza Mall Monday night and fired his weapon at least six times, Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said at an early morning news conference. The gun, described as a modified rifle, was owned lawfully by his brother, Molinelli said.

Police are still sweeping the 2.2-million-square-foot building in Paramus to make sure all shoppers and employees evacuated. About 400 people were still inside the mall when police ordered a lockdown of the entire building.

There have been no other reported injuries at this time.

Shoop, according to Molinell, has a history of drug abuse and is known to law enforcement in Bergan County. Molinell said Shoop’s drug of choice was MDMA, also known as “Molly.”

Police found a suicide note at Shoop’s home, but did not disclose what was written.

Bergan County spokeswoman Jeanne Baratta said the first call came in shortly after 9 p.m. that a gunman was inside the mall. Police initially responded to an “active shooter” alert after reports of multiple shots fired.

Baratta said SWAT teams and other police agencies converged on the mall. Authorities swept the mall because they were unsure whether the gunman was still inside. Paramus Mayor Rich LaBarbiera intially said police found one shell casing inside the mall.

Panicked shoppers raced toward the exits or hid inside the mall. Witnesses said they saw authorities running inside the mall with their weapons drawn. The mall was immediately placed on lockdown.

Multiple eyewitnesses said the shooter was armed with some kind of rifle, wearing a motorcycle-style helmet and black clothing.

WATCH: Police Respond to Shooting at New Jersey Shopping Mall

Mall restaurant employee Joseph Rivera said his co-workers saw the suspect “…in full body armor. He had a huge rifle and a helmet on.”

Eric Delgado, 20, was shopping with friends inside the mall when heard a gunshot and saw the gunman. After Delgado saw the gunman, he along with seven others hid in a dressing room for 45 minutes and heard a second gunshot.

“He didn’t seem that he wanted to kill anyone because he clearly could of because there were people two feet in front of him that he could have shot at, but he didn’t shoot at them. Instead he shot towards the ceiling…” Delgado said.

A staging area has been set up near Chili’s Grill & Bar for family members to be reunited with anyone inside the mall during the lockdown.

Law enforcement officials have been informed by management of the Garden State Plaza Mall that it will be closed today. No word on when it will re-open.

The Garden State Plaza Mall, about 25 miles west of New York City, features more than 300 retail stores including Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Lord & Taylor, Gucci and Louis Vuitton.

SNIPERS ON TOP OF OBAMA’S HOUSE AIMING AT VETERANS

Were you expecting this Fourth Turning to fizzle out? We are approaching the point where someone does something stupid and all hell will break loose. In the 1860s a citizen could walk into the White House. Today a citizen would be mowed down by the president’s mercenary army. Of course, we know DHS considers all veterans as potential domestic terrorists. The regeneracy moment has been delayed by the unprecedented actions taken by the corrupt corporate fascist establishment since September 2008. The massive money printing campaign by the Federal Reserve and Keynesian government debt financed spending only temporarily deferred our meeting with destiny.

I believe the revelations of mass spying on the American people by Edward Snowden is the trigger for the regeneracy. There are now a growing vocal number of Americans who no longer trust their government. The self immolation of John Constantino, a 64 year old black veteran, on the National Mall has been given the silent treatment by the MSM, as they are nothing but a propaganda mouthpiece for the establishment. The establishment is frightened and they will lash out when confronted.

The EBT system crashed yesterday. The Obamacare websites have been crashing for the first two weeks of its rollout. Financial systems have been going down for weeks as Wall Street attempts to pillage what is left of middle class wealth. The government is dysfunctional and broke. Politicians and Wall Street bankers have no credibility. The people despise them.

Today, veterans have torn down the barricades surrounding the WWII Memorial and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. They have now barricaded the White House. This symbolic gesture is the first volley in this coming war against the establishment. The regeneracy of this Fourth Turning is the people versus the government. The government started the war with their un-Constitutional mass spying on the people, their un-Constitutional search and seizure in Boston, and their blatant attempt to seize our guns and control the internet.

All efforts to defeat the government are now in play. Computer hackers should unleash their fury by crashing the EBT system, the Pentagon’s systems, Wall Street’s systems, and the NSA Utah Spy Center systems. Veterans are leading the charge in Washington. Truckers did their part yesterday in Washington. Shutting down commerce will bring the establishment down. Debt is their lifeblood and our chains. Cut your debt. Don’t use credit. The people can do their part by starving the system. Take your money out of the Wall Street banks. Reduce your expenditures and do not support the mega-corporations that control our economy. Barter with others, cutting out the government tax vampire. Starve the beast.

Do whatever you can to disrupt the government. They are your enemy. Future generations are depending upon us to do our part.

 

JOHN CONSTANTINO IS THE MAN WHO SELF IMMOLATED IN WASHINGTON DC – NOW WE NEED TO KNOW WHY

We now know the name of the man who committed the desperate act of self-immolation. We know where he lived. He was a senior citizen, so I’m sure he has family, friends and neighbors who can provide some insight into his life. He lived in Mount Laurel NJ, just outside of Philadelphia.

If he was just depressed over something, he could have committed suicide in his house. But he drove to the nation’s capital and committed a ghastly suicide in a spot where it would generate huge notice. He was making a statement. Of course, the MSM has been keeping an extremely low profile on this tragedy. If he was a white man who had shot a few black kids, I’m guessing the MSM would be all over it 24/7.

The MSM and the powers that be don’t want the American public to see how desperate people are becoming in this Greater Depression. It is their job to distract, mislead, and misinform.

This public hari kari on the National Mall was designed to send a message. This man surely left a manifesto describing why he did this. When will it be revealed? Or will the authorities cover it up? We’ll see.

N.J. man identified in National Mall fire suicide

 

MAN TRIED TO SELF IMMOLATE HIMSELF IN HOUSTON LAST WEEK

Stay focused on your iGadgets and latest episode of Duck Dynasty. Let all your Facebook internet friends know what you ate for breakfast and how you feel about those dastardly Tea Party terrorists. Your owners don’t want you to focus on the increasingly desperate acts of Americans across the country. All is well. People lighting themselves on fire isn’t a big deal. Focus on your fantasy football team and root for your favorite political party in the Debt Ceiling Super Boil. The Fourth Turning mood change isn’t real. Right?

THEY CAN’T IGNORE THIS SELF-IMMOLATION

Does this Fourth Turning appear to be picking up momentum? As the economy continues to spiral downward, Wall Street continues to loot and pillage, and Washington DC politicians continue to do nothing but posture and bloviate, people have begun to lose their minds. In the last week we’ve had a man lose it and kill 12 people in Washington DC. Yesterday we had a woman lose it and get gunned down by DC police. Today we have a man self-immolating on the Mall in Washington DC.

It seems they have the right place. The next step is likely to be people losing it and assassinating politicians and bankers.  

The MSM completely ignored the self-immolation of  Tom Ball in New Hampshire over a year ago. There was a complete MSM blackout on the story. Only the alternate truth telling media like TBP picked up the story:

http://www.theburningplatform.com/2011/06/20/nh-man-burns-self-at-courthouse-in-protest/

Not this time. When someone self immolates themselves on the National Mall during a government shutdown, it can’t be ignored. The self-immolation of a man in Tunisia started the Arab Spring revolutions in 2010. The Middle East has been ablaze in violence and revolution since then.

File:Mohamed Bouazizi.jpg

Is this past week of people going off the deep end in the nation’s capital the start of the American Spring? Are people across the country going to start losing it?

I know one thing for sure. Fourth Turnings never fizzle out. They grow in intensity and in violence.

Coming to a street corner near you.

Man Sets Himself On Fire On National Mall, Near White House

Tyler Durden's picture

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/04/2013 17:25 -0400

Yesterday it was a shooting at a runaway mom driver that shut down the Capitol area for hours. Today, while there have been no shootings in D.C.,  moments ago we just got news of a self-immolation in the middle of the National Mall, where a man allegedly doused himself in gasoline and set himself on fire, suffering life-threatening injuries according to the DC Fire Department.

NBC Washington reports that “Passersby on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., ripped off their shirts to help extinguish the flames after a man apparently tried to set himself on fire Friday, witnesses and authorities said. The man was conscious and breathing when he was flown by helicopter to Washington Medical Center, D.C. police said. There was no immediate report on his condition. The incident, which was reported at 4:24 p.m. ET, occurred on Seventh Street Southwest near the National Air and Space Museum, U.S. Park Police said. Witnesses told several media organizations, including NBC Washington, that they saw the man pour gasoline on himself from a red canister and then set himself ablaze. Police said they couldn’t confirm those reports. Nearby joggers stopped and ripped off their shirts to smother the flames, NBC Washington reported.”

The burned man was promptly carried off the Mall using a helicopter.

Politico adds:

A fire official says a man has been flown to the hospital after setting himself on fire on the National Mall.

 

Fire crews responded Friday afternoon to a report of a man on fire at 7th and Madison streets. A witness says she saw a man dump a red canister of gasoline on his head and then set himself on fire.

 

D.C. Fire Department spokesman Tim Wilson says the man has life-threatening injuries.

 

His name and age weren’t immediately known.

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THE SOLUTION IS TO BAN SELF IMMOLATION

These dumb Europeans just need to learn from the American corporate/government fascist MSM. When an American man (Thomas Ball) self immolates on the courthouse steps in New Hamphire the MSM just doesn’t report it. Therefore, it never happened. Those who control the present, control the past.

2 + 2 = 5 or whatever the BLS says it equals.

Google Thomas Ball Self Immolation to see how many MSM outlets reported the story: ZERO

Two Spaniards Self-Immolate Due To Financial Problems

 
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Submitted by Tyler Durdenon 01/05/2013 11:39 -0500

First it was a German, then an Italian, and now, two months, later, the European self-immolation wave has spread to the country that many expect will be the next one to follow Greece into effective debt default. El Pais reports that an impoverished 57-year-old man who set himself on fire in Málaga Thursday, and subsequently died of his injuries at Carlos Haya hospital. He had third-degree burns on 80 percent of his body and suffered a multi-organ failure. The victim, thought to be of Moroccan origin, had worked in construction for years but was out of a job now, said people who knew him. In the last few months he had been scraping a living with the small change he made guiding cars into parking spaces near the hospital, an illegal practice that is usually overlooked by authorities. The police, who have not yet located his relatives, are not ruling out the possibility of an accident just as the man was lighting up a cigarette. Just two minutes before the event, he bought a pack of cigarettes from a local newsstand whose owner asked him how he was doing.

“I don’t even have enough money for food,” he replied. The man is thought to have been homeless at the present time, and seemed even more depressed than on other occasions, said the stand owner.

Several taxi drivers came to the rescue with their vehicles’ fire extinguishers when they saw the man go up in flames on a side street from the hospital. A few hours after being admitted into the emergency room there, he was transferred to a specialized burn unit in Seville, where doctors were unable to save his life.

He was the unlucky one – as BBC follows, another Spaniard also lit himself on fire on Thursday night, in the same city, but lived.

 
 

Another man is being treated in the same hospital apparently after setting himself alight in Malaga on Thursday.

 

The 63-year-old was found with serious injuries beside his burning car under a road bridge, police said.

 

No other details were given of that man but, according to Spain’s El Mundo newspaper, preliminary investigations indicated that the fire had been lit intentionally.

Spanish media have reported a number of cases in recent months of people facing poverty in the country’s recession killing themselves.

Considering it was an identical act of self-immolation in Tunisia that set off the Arab Spring in the winter of 2011, Europe has for shown far more resiliency to socio-economic collapse than many had expected, although this is not unexpected: after all, Europeans, and especially Spaniards, still have more to lose than gain by rising up against a reverse Robin Hood globalist system bent on taking from what’s left of the middle class and giving to the status quo banking oligarchy. Or so they think: the big strawman, is and for the past 150 years has been the welfare state myth.

Then again, now that Spain has almost drained its entire social security fund, and replaced it with worthless ECB repo material, i.e., Spanish bonds, will Spaniards finally wake up and realize that while they were snoozing, their government spent 90% of their pension and retirement money to prop up the Ponzi for one more year. And instead of committing suicide, or even patching up various symptomps, shouldn’t the people of Spain, and all of Europe, finally address the real underlying cause of their misery: a dysfunctional government, which contrary to indication, is merely a puppet in a banker-led globalist system?

If not, how many more people have to burn themselves to death before it becomes clear?

GERMAN PRESS ACTUALLY REPORTS SELF IMMOLATION

It’s good to see the foreign press isn’t totally in the capture of the ruling oligarchs. They actually reported a self immolation in front of the Reichstag. Only TBP and a few non-mainstream sites reported on the self immolation of Thomas Ball on courthouse steps in New Hampshire. The MSM pretended it didn’t happen. Here are links to the details:

http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=17240

http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=17395

Hundreds of tourists and Berliners on Saturday became eyewitnesses to a spectacular suicide in front of the Reichstag building.

A 32-year-old Berliner stabbed himself in the chest according to police at noon at the main entrance of the Reichstag. He then doused himself with a flammable liquid and set fire to himself. Passersby alerted the police and rescue workers. They tried in vain to resuscitate the man. He succumbed to his injuries on site yet.

 

THOMAS BALL’S REMAINS

DOUG CASEY DOES SELF IMMOLATION & OIL

Doug should have been reading TBP and he would have known about Thomas Ball the day after it happened. He has the same questions I had. Why was this story completely ignored by the MSM. This convinced me once and for all that the corporate MSM is in bed with the government and will report whatever they are told to report and coverup what they are told to coverup. It is up to sites like ours to report the truth.

Doug also agrees that oil prices are headed to $200 a barrel. I disagree with his unconcern with fracking. He assumes that corporations will do the right thing, follow proper safety guidelines, and be good corporate citizens. That is ridiculous. They only care about short term profits and will use their armies of lawyers to fight legitimate claims by the poor people being victimized by their greed and incompetence.

Doug Casey on Self Immolation – Individual and National

(Interviewed by Louis James, Editor, International Speculator)

L: Labas, “Dougas,” as we might say in Lithuania — sure is beautiful here! It’s 11:30 p.m. and the sun is below the horizon, but the sky is still smoldering. Where are you, and what’s on your mind this week?

Doug: It’s afternoon here in Aspen, a nice little communist town in the Rockies. From here the world seems to be turning as usual, but that’s only because the place is full of people who are so rich that they’re largely insulated from the real world, as are the parasites who live off them. We’ll have to talk about the politics and sociology of Aspen sometime. But out in the real world, the engines are grinding toward a halt on the American Titanic – but it’s still moving, so everyone thinks everything is fine. There are signs that the 2008 iceberg was bigger than the crew is telling us, however, for anyone paying attention. Did you hear about that man who set himself on fire in front of a courthouse in New Hampshire?

L: I did, but only through email from friends.

Doug: Yes, the same with me; we have the same friends. It’s truly shocking that a story like this got absolutely zero major media coverage, even though it went out on AP. In Tunisia, a fruit and vegetable street vendor sets himself on fire to protest his government making his life impossible, and it sparks a revolution that doesn’t even stop at his country’s borders. Something similar happens in the U.S. and no one even hears about it… at least not this time. In February 2010 there was a guy who crashed his plane into an IRS office: That did make the national news. But perhaps since then the word has gone out that these things shouldn’t be reported for fear of encouraging others, “national security,” or whatnot.

L: Thomas Ball wasn’t a fruit vendor, but a divorced man who apparently felt that the court system had put him in an impossible situation. [Editor’s note: Ball’s last statement is available online, subscription required.] I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but it defies belief that every single major news editor across the country decided on his own that such a striking story wasn’t news.

Doug: I know. Not a lot surprises me anymore, but this truly is shocking. In my entire life I can only remember two previous instances of self-immolation. The first was that of Buddhist monks during the Vietnam war. I didn’t know what to make of it at the time, but it sure caught everyone’s attention.

L: Why did they do it? U.S. troops on the temple steps?

Doug: No, they were protesting the rule of Ngo Diem in the south, who was Catholic and giving them a hard time. The U.S., of course, was supporting the terminally corrupt Diem regime. When, I’d like to know, has the U.S. ever supported anybody but the worst criminal available in Third-World countries? The second instance was the one in Tunisia earlier this year that touched off the Arab Spring – which is far from over, by the way. Thomas Ball is the first case of it in U.S. history – first one I’ve ever heard of, at any rate – and it received no press whatsoever, outside of acknowledgement in the local papers. The Internet picked it up, of course, but to me it seems extraordinarily serious that an event like this can transpire and not even get noticed. Instead, the headlines were dedicated to such urgent matters as that stupid congresscreature, Weiner.

L: So, are you saying that the powers that be censored the story?

Doug: If they didn’t, it’s certainly further proof of how degraded society has become in the U.S. that something like this could go unnoticed. It’s appalling – disgusting, actually. And scary, on a couple of levels.

But get this: When I was in Dubai a couple of weeks ago, a guide I’d hired to show me around had heard of the event. It was big news there that everyone heard about – it was in all the papers. So you could make the argument that the average Arab may know more about what’s happening in the U.S. than the average American does. That’s a turnaround…

L: What were you doing in Dubai?

Doug: It had been a while, and I wanted to see how things had changed since the crisis. I also went to Israel, Egypt, and Lebanon. I’ll have some articles on my findings in the Middle East in the next few issues of The Casey Report. Obviously, the area being prime oil hunting ground, I was thinking about energy-related speculations a great deal. In practical terms, energy really means oil, coal, gas, and nuclear – green energy is nice, but hydrocarbons and nuclear are the only forms of mass power that can satisfy any need, anywhere, anytime. Most particularly oil. Developments in oil affect the Middle East, and developments in the Middle East affect oil.

L: Hm. Speaking of nuclear, we haven’t talked about that since our conversation on Fukushima, and there’s been time for new market trends to become visible. What do you think?

Doug: Well, as we speak, I see that the price of uranium is $54.25 per pound. It was about $70 before Fukushima, dropped to about this level, bounced back to the high $50s, and is now fluctuating in the low $50s, so it’s definitely cheaper than it was before. But it was over $140 a pound in 2007, so it’s much cheaper than it has already been in this cycle. On the other hand, it’s still roughly six times what it was at the end of the 1990s, when it bottomed around $9. That’s pretty good performance for a commodity. Still, I’ve got to say that I think it has a lot of upside yet ahead – although keeping track of prices in dollar terms is becoming ever more tricky, as the dollar itself fluctuates wildly – mostly down – and the official CPI statistics become ever more unreliable.

The reason I’m still bullish on uranium is because, as we said before – and Fukushima notwithstanding – nuclear power is still the cleanest, safest, and cheapest type of mass power generation available. I find it quite ludicrous that the Germans have announced that they will phase out all of their nuclear plants over the next decade. Where are they going to get the power to replace the approximately 22% they get from nuclear now? Windmills aren’t going to do it. Solar doesn’t have a prayer in northern Europe. Are they going to burn more coal? That’d be great for their environment.

L: Aside from pumping sulfur into the air, coal plants emit C-14 too, and that’s radioactive. Nukes emit less. Maybe they plan to wear thicker coats and eat more cold food?

Doug: There’s a lot of radioactive material released from burning coal, including uranium. Geothermal would be nice, but Germany is not Iceland. Maybe they think they can burn more natural gas, but that’s a greenhouse issue – although the whole greenhouse gas/global warming hysteria has always impressed me as something in between a political scam, a fraud, and a new age religion. But we covered that in a prior conversation; no need to beat a dead horse. Anyway, it seems to me that the global warming hysteria actually peaked a few years ago, and will soon be just another idiotic embarrassment everyone will be anxious to forget. Especially when another hysteria catches their attention.

L: The Russians would love to see the Germans burning more natural gas.

Doug: Of course. And they wouldn’t be shy about demanding political concessions as well as higher prices when they can shut off the pipelines to Europe in the middle of the winter. The Germans will get what they deserve. But then, most everybody eventually does. I’ve got no sympathy for them; stupidity is its own reward.

L: That would literally be a cold war. No need for ballistic missiles. Looks like national self-immolation on the part of the Germans.

Doug: Right – the German reaction is clearly political grandstanding pandering to hysteria. I wouldn’t count on the policy ever being carried through to completion, and wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see it reversed after the first winter when there’s not enough power to go around. They really have no other practical alternative… though they might try to finesse it by importing electricity from France, which produces over 75% of its power from nukes.

Meanwhile, that hysteria is certainly going to slow down nuclear power in the U.S., but as we said in our conversation after the disaster in Japan, world demographic trends leave no choice but to employ more nuclear power. That makes the current relatively low prices an opportunity.

L: In that context, we should probably mention that there was a flood in the U.S. midwest, and the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant in Nebraska was flooded. A dike surrounding the plant was even breached, but there appears to be no sign of danger yet. Granted, the plant was shut down for maintenance at the time of the flood, but still, the thing seems to be taking the abuse as designed.

Doug: That’s right, and it bears reiterating that at this point, all of these operating plants are basically 40-year-old technology. Because of the hysteria and resultant government regulations, newer, better, and even safer designs have not been implemented. Almost all the reactors in use today are what are known as “Generation 2.” But there are probably two dozen Gen 3 and 3+ designs that could be deployed; and in a few years there will be Gen 4 units available. Some of these designs are extraordinary – from 10-50 megawatts, self-contained, with almost no moving parts, extremely small, low cost, and capable of being buried for a decade, until they need refueling.

L: So, buy uranium and uranium exploration stocks?

Doug: That’s one way to play it, and we do have a lot of exposure to uranium’s upside in our portfolio. Another, more ground-floor way to play it might be to look into thorium plays. As I understand it, thorium – element 90 on the periodic table – is actually better for power generation than uranium or plutonium. Nuclear scientists originally proposed it for power generation, but governments opted for uranium because it coincided with their weapons programs. As usual, government interference takes us down the wrong path.

L: [Chuckles] As usual. So, there’s an opportunity to invest in nuclear while it’s unpopular, and while it’s unpopular, that’s bullish for hydrocarbons.

Doug: Right. I subscribe to the peak oil theory. By that I do not mean that the world is running out of oil, but that the easy availability of conventional sweet, light crude is in decline. There’s plenty more oil to be found, but it’s a more expensive to process, heavy oil. Or it’s shale oil, or comes from tar sands, or it’s deep under the ocean, which has its own environmental issues and is neither cheap nor easy to produce.

Peak oil is a geological concept. It basically holds that all the low-hanging fruit has been picked. Now, philosophically, it rubs me the wrong way, in that I have total confidence that human ingenuity will find scores of ways to produce new hydrocarbon fuels – and lots of totally new energy sources in addition. Furthermore, the higher oil prices go, the more will be found – and the more it will be economized. So, in a free-market world, oil is a non-problem.

But we don’t currently live in that kind of world. In the meantime – let’s say the next 10-20 years – oil is an issue, for simple geological reasons. And also because, even though consumption has been basically flat in the advanced world for decades, consumption is going to grow radically in “Chindia” and the rest of the developing world. The biggest problem though is likely political, especially because of the increased political risk in the Middle East, where most of the world’s oil reserves are. You’ve got to be bullish on oil.

L: Even with the stuff at $100 a barrel?

Doug: Yes. I believe the odds favor it going to $200, even $250 a barrel before too long. I say that despite the fact I’m much more comfortable buying things when they’re manifestly cheap, and nobody wants them. But at the same time, it’s important to see the trend, and make the trend your friend. And I see no reason to believe this one is anywhere near an end.

L: Okay… But you’re also famous for predicting the coming – now started – Greater Depression. In a major, global economic reversal, wouldn’t energy consumption decrease, and hence prices drop?

Doug: That’s certainly a possibility, but China, India, and the rest of the Third World are marching, increasingly, to the beats of their own drums these days. The Greater Depression will definitely affect them adversely, but the enormous growth that has already gone on there won’t stop – despite the fact China has misallocated gigantic amounts of money in property. There could very well be a real revolution there in the next ten years. People forget that during one of the most turbulent periods in history, 1914-1946 – including, among other disasters, World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II – the world economy expanded by something like 1.8% annually. That trend will continue at one level or another, even if there’s a truly massive upset in the global economy – which I fully expect. The countries of the world will compete in using more oil; China will greatly increase its imports. India even more so. The price will necessarily rise.

So, sure, there could be a dip, especially if there’s a big financial crash, but that would not change the major underlying trend. Long-term energy demand is not dictated by speculators or other financial factors; at heart it’s based on demographic and technological trends, and those are not going to change easily nor soon. Oil in particular supplies very dense and convenient energy. It will be superceded, but not soon.

L: So if oil and gas stocks retreat on bad news, back up the truck for more?

Doug: Exactly. And it seems to me that in today’s world, in which nothing is cheap, one thing that is relatively cheap and a good value is natural gas. The reason it’s cheap is that previous high prices spurred technological developments, such as horizontal drilling and hydrofracking, that have made huge resources of shale gas economic. This vast increase in supply has made natural gas cheaper – and the time to buy commodities is when they are cheap. You have to be a contrarian, buy what’s unpopular, and sell when it’s the flavor of the day. It’s like my friend Rick Rule says: You’re either a contrarian or a victim. That’s natural gas right now – it’s cheaper, in BTUs per dollar, compared to oil, than it’s been for a very long time.

L: But there’s some risk too, especially with scare stories circulating about fracking causing gas leaks and problems on the surface. A political response could crush whole swathes of gas companies.

Doug: That’s true, and it would be true even if the scare weren’t completely unfounded hysteria, as I suspect it is. It’s mostly the same people who are so hysterically anti-nuclear who are anti new natural gas technologies. These stories about flames coming out of your water faucet have nothing to do with fracking. First, it’s freakishly rare. Second, it can and does happen naturally, for the same reason you see oil (and gas) coming to the surface all over the world, or even marsh gas bubbling up from swamps. Fracking generally occurs thousands of feet under ground; drinking water tables are close to the surface; it theoretically can have an effect, but as a practical matter does not. But I don’t want to get into a discussion of that here. Marin Katusa has covered that ground, from all points of view, as you can see here.

The technophobes of the world are a costly nuisance to everybody. But the good news is that they only drive prices up more, much to the benefit of the companies which are not affected. So, the way to play this is not with any kind of blanket approach, but with well-selected companies that should do well, based on where and how they produce their natural gas.

L: Very good. And this time I don’t have to ask you about investment implications.

Doug: Great. I love being off the hook. We’ll leave it at that, then. Talk to you next week.

L: Sure, Doug, thanks for the insights.

Doug: My pleasure.

NEW HAMPSHIRE SELF IMMOLATION DETAILS

THIS STORY NEEDS TO BE SPREAD BY THE ALTERNATE TRUTH TELLING MEDIA. THE GOVERNMENT/CORPORATE MSM IS MISSING IN ACTION.

Suicide by Self-Immolation in Keene – Confirmed

June 15, 2011 by Ian Freeman
Filed under: Copwatch, News, Personal Freedom, Police, Video 

Keene Police were not giving out much info, but there is a dead body out front of Cheshire Superior Court and a large amount of charring on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse. Police scanner recordings confirm this is a case of suicide by self-immolation. You can listen to the Keene police scanner here.

Makes you wonder what the court did to the poor guy/gal. More details as we learn them:

UPDATE: Here’s the Sentinel’s piece with comments from a witness.

UPDATE: Here’s audio from the police scanner feed after the man sets himself ablaze.

This isn’t going to just wash away.

June 16, 2011 by Ian Freeman
Filed under: Issues, News, Update 

This morning, locals report that government workers were spraying and scrubbing in an attempt to remove the evidence of yesterday’s apparent self-immolation in front of the Cheshire superior court. I stopped by early this morning to file some motions in another case and talk to the Sheriffs about yesterday and took a picture of the damage. Click the pic for a full size version.

It’s going to take more than a hose and brush to make this issue go away. People need to know who this man was and why he made this horrific choice.

More as it develops. Thus far, no return calls from Keene Police or Cheshire Sheriffs.

SHTF PLAN PICKS UP TOM BALL STORY

Gerald Celente’s description is fitting:

“When people lose everything, and they have nothing left to lose, they lose it.”

As the super rich powerful elite continue to ransack and pillage the remaining wealth of the middle class, we inch ever closer to people losing it en masse. 

Man Self Immolates in Protest of Courts, Federal Government and the Death of The Rule of Law

Mac Slavo
June 18th, 2011

Tom Ball of New Hampshire set himself on fire in front of a Cheshire County family courthouse on Wednesday. The story has received very little attention from the mainstream media, likely because Ball provided the reasons and justifications for his act in a 15 page letter to the New Hampshire Sentinel just prior to his death, in which he unleashed a tirade against the US court system, police, child protective services, the US justice system and its arrest policies, and the Federal government.

From what we are able to gather, his ordeal began in 2001 with what he claims was an accidental injury caused to one of his children when the child was misbehaving. Ball reportedly slapped the child after having warned her thrice and she ended up with a cut lip. The child was not permanently or severely harmed, but the mother called police at the (forced) urging of a mental health practitioner and the state got involved. Ball was eventually found not guilty, but the story doesn’t end there.

Among other things, Ball attempts to explain in his letter what happened that night, and the events that followed for the last ten years, finally leading him to self immolation.

By some he will be referred to as a domestic terrorist for his calls of violence, by others as a revolutionary for his actions and call to arms, others still will dismiss him as a head case. This is, however, an important event and the people, as well as government and their agencies, should take notice.

Some excerpts from his letter to the Sentinel:

There are two kinds of bureaucrats you need to know; the ones that say and the ones that do. The bridge between them is something I call The Second Set of Books. I have some figures of the success of their labors. You and I are in these numbers, as well as our spouses and children. But first let me tell you how I ended up in this rabbit hole.

My story starts with the infamous slapping incident of April 2001. While putting my four year old daughter to bed, she began licking my hand. After giving her three verbal warnings I slapped her. She got a cut lip. My wife asked me to leave to calm things down.

When I returned hours later, my wife said the police were by and said I could not stay there that night. The next day the police came by my work and arrested me, booked me, and then returned me to work. Later on Peter, the parts manager, asked me if I and the old lady would be able to work this out. I told him no. I could not figure out why she had called the police. And bail condition prevented me from asking her. So I no longer trusted her judgment.

After six months of me not lifting a finger to save this marriage, she filed for divorce. Almost two years after the incident, I was talking with her on the phone. She told me that night she had called a mental health provider we had for one of the kids. Wendy, the counselor told my then wife that if she did not call the police on me, then she too would be arrested.

Suddenly, everything made sense. She is the type that believes that people in authority actually know what they are talking about. If both she and I were arrested, what would happen to our three children, ages 7,4 and 1? They would end up in State custody. So my wife called the police on her husband to protect the children. And who was she protecting the kids from? Not her husband, the father of these children. She was protecting them from the State of New Hampshire.

This country is run by idiots.

So let us talk about those bureaucrats that do. These are the ones that actually carry out the evil deeds. I like call them the do-bies.

Any one swept up into legal mess is usually astonished at what they see. They cannot believe what the police, prosecutors and judges are doing. It is so blatantly wrong. Well, I can assure you that everything they do is logical and by the book. The confusion you have with them is you both are using different sets of books. You are using the old First Set of Books- the Constitution, the general laws or statutes and the court ruling sometime call Common Law. They are using the newer Second Set of Books. That is the collection of the policy, procedures and protocols. Once you know what set of books everyone is using, then everything they do looks logical and upright. And do not bother trying to argue with me that there is no Second Set of Books. I have my own copies at home. Or at least a good hunk of the important part of it.

I got my Second Set of Books when I sued the Jaffrey NH police department. Under the discovery rule, I write them with the material I wanted and it would arrive in the mail a few weeks later. I got the Police Academy Training Manual. I got the Department’s Policy and Procedure Manual. I got the no-drop protocol that the attorney general sent to all his or her prosecutors. I even got the domestic violence protocols for the court system, one hundred pages worth. Once you read it the material, then you will know what the police, prosecutors and judges will do. They are completely predictable once you know what set of books they are using.

I lost visitation with my two daughters when I got arrested. One was the victim-the other was the witness. After a not guilty, I expected to get visitation with my girls. But the divorce judge, Sullivan, decreed that counseling was in order and they would decide when we would reunite. I told the judge that the decision on whether these two girls had a father or a fatherless childhood was not leaving this courthouse.

On one hand we have the law. On the other hand we have what we are really going to do-the policies, procedures and protocols. The rule of law is dead. Now we have 50 states with legal systems as good as any third world banana republic. Men are demonized and the women and children end up as suffering as well.

So boys, we need to start burning down police stations and courthouses. The Second Set of Books originated in Washington. But the dirty deeds are being carried out by our local police, prosecutors and judges. These are the people we pay good money to protect us and our families. And what do we get for our tax money? Collaborators who are no different than the Vichy of France or the Quislings of Norway during the Second World War. All because they go along to get along. They are an embarrassment, the whole lot of them. And they need to be held accountable. So burn them out.

In the last 25 years they have arrested one in six adults in this country and forced 25% of the men, women and children into homelessness. In 50 years it will be one in three adults arrested and 50% of the men, women and children ending up homeless. Most of our kids will live to the age of 68 years old. As bad as it was for you, your children will have twice the odds of it happening to them.

Ball also cites the rise of the Tea Party as evidence that insurrection in America is growing, reasoning that one of the primary reasons for why this is occurring is because the middle class is being wiped out. He promotes direct action against agencies of the government, expanding on his call to “burn them out,” by providing details on Molotov cocktails.

And for a possible explanation of why this story did not get coverage across the popular news channels, we need only look at the following set of statements from his letter:

There will be some casualties in this war. Some killed, some wounded, some captured. Some of them will be theirs. Some of the casualties will be ours.

Now, nobody wants to get killed. But let us look at your life. You are broke after paying child support. She and the kids are not doing any better. None of you are middle class any more. You have no say in the kids education, their health treatment, you may not even have visitation with your sons and daughters. And everything you thought you knew to be true-the rule of law, the sanctity of the of the family, the belief that government was there to nurture your brood-all turned out to be a lie. Face it boys, we are no longer fathers. We are just piggy banks.

I only managed to get the main door of the Cheshire County Courthouse in Keene, NH. I would appreciate it if some of you boys would finish the job for me. They harmed my children. The place is evil. So take it out

Some where along the line I picked up the crazy notion that it is better to be dead as a free man than to live as a serf. The government needs to be a little more careful about what they teach in our schools.

Perhaps Tom Ball believed that his death would lead to a similar explosion of protests as those that occured in Tunisia after an act of self immolation by a street vendor whose livelihood was seized by police. Many point to this single act of desperation as the catalyst for the entire middle east movement of the last 6 months.

Whatever the case, Tom Ball’s experience was certainly not unique and he makes this clear in his statement to the world.

We are not advocating the violent activities being called for by Mr. Ball, yet we couldn’t help but think about a memorable trend forecast from Gerald Celente of the Trends Journal in which he said:

When people lose everything, and they have nothing left to lose, they lose it.

We saw this with the man who flew his plane into the IRS building in Austin, we saw it a couple days ago with Tom Ball, and we anticipate similar acts of protest and domestic violence in the future, likely with increasing frequency.

Hat tip Charlie, Zero Hedge, Activist PostNH Sentinel

Author: Mac Slavo
Date: June 18th, 2011
Website: www.SHTFplan.com