In the first three parts (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) of this disheartening look back at a century of central banking, income taxing, military warring, energy depleting and political corrupting, I made a case for why we are in the midst of a financial, commercial, political, social and cultural collapse. In this final installment I’ll give my best estimate as to what happens next and it has a 100% probability of being wrong. There are so many variables involved that it is impossible to predict the exact path to our world’s end. Many people don’t want to hear about the intractable issues or the true reasons for our predicament. They want easy button solutions. They want someone or something to fix their problems. They pray for a technological miracle to save them from decades of irrational myopic decisions. As the domino-like collapse worsens, the feeble minded populace becomes more susceptible to the false promises of tyrants and psychopaths. There are a myriad of thugs, criminals, and autocrats in positions of power who are willing to exploit any means necessary to retain their wealth, power and control. The revelations of governmental malfeasance, un-Constitutional mass espionage of all citizens, and expansion of the Orwellian welfare/warfare surveillance state, from patriots like Julian Assange, Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden has proven beyond a doubt the corrupt establishment are zealously anxious to discard and stomp on the U.S. Constitution in their desire for authoritarian control over our society.
Anyone who denies we are in the midst of an ongoing Crisis that will lead to a collapse of the system as we know it is either a card carrying member of the corrupt establishment, dependent upon the oligarchs for their living, or just one of the willfully ignorant ostriches who choose to put their heads in the sand and hum the Star Spangled Banner as they choose obliviousness to awareness. Thinking is hard. Feeling and believing a storyline is easy.
A moral society must be inhabited by an informed, educated, aware populace and governed by honorable leaders who oversee based upon the nation’s founding principles of liberty, freedom and limited government of, by and for the people. A moral society requires trust, honor, property rights, simple just laws, and the freedom to succeed or fail on your own merits. There is one major problem in creating a true moral society where liberty, freedom, trust, honor and free markets are cherished – human beings. We are a deeply flawed species who are prone to falling prey to the depravities of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. Men have always been captivated by the false idols of dominion, power and wealth. The foibles of human nature haven’t changed over the course of history. This is why we have 80 to 100 year cycles driven by the same human strengths and shortcomings revealed throughout recorded history.
Empires rise and fall due to the humanness of their leaders and citizens. The great American Empire is no different. It was created a mere 224 years ago by courageous patriots who risked their wealth and their lives to create a Republic founded upon the principles of freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; took a dreadful wrong turn in 1913 with the creation of a privately held central bank to control its currency and introduction of an income tax; devolved into an empire after World War II, setting it on a course towards bankruptcy; sealed its fate in 1971 by unleashing power hungry psychopathic elitists to manipulate the monetary and fiscal policies of the nation to enrich themselves; and has now entered the final frenzied phase of pillaging, currency debasement, war mongering, and ransacking of civil liberties. Despite the frantic efforts of the financial elite, their politician puppets, and their media propaganda outlets, collapse of this aristocracy of the moneyed is a mathematical certainty. Faith in the system is rapidly diminishing, as the issuance of debt to create the appearance of growth has reached the point of diminishing returns.
Increase in Real GDP per Dollar of Incremental Debt
“At the root of America’s economic crisis lies a moral crisis: the decline of civic virtue among America’s political and economic elite. A society of markets, laws, and elections is not enough if the rich and powerful fail to behave with respect, honesty, and compassion toward the rest of society and toward the world.” – Jeffrey Sachs
Five Stages of Collapse
The day of reckoning for a century of putting our faith in the wrong people with wrong ideas and evil intentions is upon us. Dmitry Orlov provides a blueprint for the collapse in his book – The Five Stages of Collapse – Survivors’ Toolkit:
Stage 1: Financial Collapse. Faith in “business as usual” is lost. The future is no longer assumed to resemble the past in any way that allows risk to be assessed and financial assets to be guaranteed. Financial institutions become insolvent; savings wiped out and access to capital is lost.
Stage 2: Commercial Collapse. Faith that “the market shall provide” is lost. Money is devalued and/or becomes scarce, commodities are hoarded, import and retail chains break down and widespread shortages of survival necessities become the norm.
Stage 3: Political Collapse. Faith that “the government will take care of you” is lost. As official attempts to mitigate widespread loss of access to commercial sources of survival necessities fail to make a difference, the political establishment loses legitimacy and relevance.
Stage 4: Social Collapse. Faith that “your people will take care of you” is lost, as social institutions, be they charities or other groups that rush to fill the power vacuum, run out of resources or fail through internal conflict.
Stage 5: Cultural Collapse. Faith in the goodness of humanity is lost. People lose their capacity for “kindness, generosity, consideration, affection, honesty, hospitality, compassion, charity.” Families disband and compete as individuals for scarce resources. The new motto becomes “May you die today so that I can die tomorrow.”
The collapse is occurring in fits and starts. The stages of collapse do not necessarily have to occur in order. You can recognize various elements of the first three stages in the United States today. Stage 1 commenced in September 2008 when this Crisis period was catalyzed by the disintegration of the worldwide financial system caused by Wall Street intentionally creating the largest control fraud in world history, with easy money provided by Greenspan/Bernanke, fraudulent mortgage products, fake appraisals, bribing rating agencies to provide AAA ratings to derivatives filled with feces, and having their puppets in the media and political arena provide the propaganda to herd the sheep into the slaughterhouse.
The American people neglected their civic duty to elect leaders who would tell them the truth and represent current and future generations equally. They have neglected the increasing lawlessness of Wall Street, K Street and the corporate suite. The American people have lived in denial about their responsibility for their own financial well-being, willingly delegating it to a government of math challenged politicians who promised trillions more than they could ever deliver. The American people have delayed tackling the dire issues confronting our nation, including: $200 trillion of unfunded liabilities, the military industrial complex creating wars across the globe, militarization of our local police forces, domestic spying on every citizen, allowing mega-corporations and the financial elite to turn our nation from savings based production to debt based consumption, and allowing corporations, the military industrial complex, Wall Street, and shadowy billionaires to pick and control our elected officials. The civic fabric of the country is being torn at the points of extreme vulnerability.
“At home and abroad, these events will reflect the tearing of the civic fabric at points of extreme vulnerability – problem areas where, during the Unraveling, America will have neglected, denied, or delayed needed action. Anger at “mistakes we made” will translate into calls for action, regardless of the heightened public risk. It is unlikely that the catalyst will worsen into a full-fledged catastrophe, since the nation will probably find a way to avert the initial danger and stabilize the situation for a while. Yet even if dire consequences are temporarily averted, America will have entered the Fourth Turning.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe – 1997
Our Brave New World controllers (bankers, politicians, corporate titans, media moguls, shadowy billionaires) were able to avert a full-fledged catastrophe in the fall of 2008 and spring of 2009 which would have put an end to their reign of destruction. To accept the rightful consequences of their foul actions was intolerable to these obscenely wealthy, despicable men. Their loathsome and vile solutions to a crisis they created have done nothing to relieve the pain and suffering of the average person, while further enriching them, as they continue to gorge on the dying carcass of a once thriving nation. Despite overwhelming public outrage, Congress did as they were instructed by their Wall Street masters and handed over $700 billion of taxpayer funds into Wall Street vaults, under the false threat of systematic collapse. The $800 billion of pork stimulus was injected directly into the veins of corporate campaign contributors. The $3 billion Cash for Clunkers scheme resulted in pumping taxpayer dollars into the government owned union car companies, while driving up the prices of used cars and hurting lower income folks.
Ben Bernanke has peddled the false paradigm of quantitative easing (code for printing money and airlifting it to Wall Street) as benefitting Main Street. Nothing could be further from the truth. He bought $1.3 trillion of toxic mortgage backed securities from his Wall Street owners. He has pumped a total of $2.8 trillion into the hands of Wall Street since September 2008, and is singlehandedly generating $5 billion of risk free profits for these deadbeats by paying them .25% on their reserves. Drug dealer Ben continues to pump $2.8 billion per day into the veins of Wall Street addicts and any hint of tapering the heroin causes the addicts to flail about. Ben should be so proud. He should hang a Mission Accomplished banner whenever he gives a speech. Bank profits reached an all-time record in the 2nd quarter, at $42.2 billion, with 80% of those profits going to the 2% Too Big To Trust Wall Street Mega-Goliath Banks. It’s enough to make a soon to retire, and take a Wall Street job, central banker smile.
“The money rate can, indeed, be kept artificially low only by continuous new injections of currency or bank credit in place of real savings. This can create the illusion of more capital just as the addition of water can create the illusion of more milk. But it is a policy of continuous inflation. It is obviously a process involving cumulative danger. The money rate will rise and a crisis will develop if the inflation is reversed, or merely brought to a halt, or even continued at a diminished rate. Cheap money policies, in short, eventually bring about far more violent oscillations in business than those they are designed to remedy or prevent.” – Henry Hazlitt – 1946
Any serious minded person knew Wall Street had too much power, too much control, and too much influence in 2008 when they crashed our economic system. When something is too big to fail because it will create systematic collapse, you make it smaller. Instead we have allowed our sociopathic rulers to allow these parasitic institutions to get even larger. Just 12 mega-banks control 70% of all the banking assets in the country, with 90% controlled by the top 86 banks. There are approximately 8,000 financial institutions in this country. Wall Street will be congratulating themselves with record compensation of $127 billion and record bonuses of $23 billion for a job well done. It is dangerous work making journal entries relieving loan loss reserves, committing foreclosure fraud, marking your assets to unicorn, making deposits at the Fed, and counting on the Bernanke Put to keep stocks rising. During a supposed recovery from 2009 to 2011, average real income per household grew pitifully by 1.7%, but all the gains accrued to Bernanke’s minions. Top 1% incomes grew by 11.2% while bottom 99% incomes shrunk by 0.4%. Therefore, the top 1% captured 121% of the income gains in the first two years of the recovery. This warped trend has only accelerated since 2011.
The median household income has fallen by $2,400 to $52,100 since the government proclaimed the end of the recession in 2009. Real wages for real people continue to fall. A record 23.1 million households (20% of all households) are receiving food stamps. After four years of “recovery” propaganda, we are left with 2.2 million less people employed (5 million less full time jobs) and 22 million more people on SNAP and SSDI. A record 90.5 million working age Americans are not working, with labor participation at a 35 year low. Ben’s money has not trickled down, but his inflation has fallen like a load of bricks on the heads of the middle class. Bernanke’s QE to infinity constitutes a transfer of purchasing power away from the middle class to the bankers, mega-corporations and .1%. This Cantillon effect means that newly created money is neither distributed evenly nor simultaneously among the population. Some users of money profit from rising prices, and others suffer from them. This results in a transfer of wealth (a hidden tax) from later receivers to earlier receivers of new money. This is why the largest banks and largest corporations are generating the highest profits in history, while the average person sinks further into debt as their real income declines and real living expenses (energy, food, clothing, healthcare, tuition) rise.
Ben works for your owners. Real GDP (using the fake government inflation adjustment) since July 2009 is up by a wretched 5.6%. Revenue growth of the biggest corporations in the world is up by a pathetic 12%. One might wonder how corporate profits could be at record levels with such doleful economic performance. One needs to look no further than Ben’s balance sheet, which has increased by 174%. There appears to be a slight correlation between Ben’s money printing and the 162% increase in the S&P 500 index. With the top 1% owning 42.1% of all financial assets (top .1% own most of this) and the bottom 80% owning only 4.7% of all financial assets, one can clearly see who benefits from QE to infinity.
The key take away from what the ruling class has done since 2008 is they have only temporarily delayed the endgame. Their self-serving exploits have guaranteed that round two of the financial collapse will be epic in proportion and intensity. This Fourth Turning Crisis is ongoing. The linear thinkers who control the levers of power keep promising a return to normalcy and resumption of growth. This is an impossibility – mathematically & socially. Fourth Turnings do not end without the existing social order being swept away in a tsunami of turmoil, violence, suffering and war. Orlov’s stages of collapse will likely occur during the remaining fifteen years of this Crisis. We are deep into Stage 1 as our national Detroitification progresses towards bankruptcy, with an added impetus from our trillion dollar wars of choice in the Middle East. Commercial collapse has begun, as faith in the fantasy of free market capitalism is waning. The race to the bottom with currency debasement around the globe is reaching a tipping point, and the true eternal currencies of gold and silver are being hoarded and shipped from the West to the Far East.
Monetary Base (billions of USD)
When the financial collapse reaches its crescendo, the just in time supply chain, that keeps cheese doodles and cheese whiz on your grocery store shelves, Chinese produced iGadgets in your local Wal-Mart Supercenter, and gasoline flowing out of gas station hoses into your leased Cadillac Escalade, will break down rapidly. The strain of $110 oil is already evident. The fireworks will really get going when ATM machines run dry and the EBT cards stop functioning. Within a week riots and panic will engulf the country.
“At some point we are bound to hear, from across two oceans, the shocking words “Your money is no good here.” Fast forward to a week later: banks are closed, ATMs are out of cash, supermarket shelves are bare and gas stations are starting to run out of fuel. And then something happens: the government announces they have formed a crisis task force, and will nationalize, recapitalize and reopen banks, restoring confidence. The banks reopen, under heavy guard, and thousands of people get arrested for attempting to withdraw their savings. Banks close, riots begin. Next, the government decides that, to jump-start commerce, it will honor deposit guarantees and simply hand out cash. They print and arrange for the cash to be handed out. Now everyone has plenty of cash, but there is still no food in the supermarkets or gasoline at the gas stations because by now the international supply chains have broken down and the delivery pipelines are empty.” – Dmitry Orlov – The Five Stages of Collapse
We are witnessing the beginning stages of political collapse. The government and its leaders are being discredited on a daily basis. The mismanagement of fiscal policy, foreign policy and domestic policy, along with the revelations of the NSA conducting mass surveillance against all Americans has led critical thinking Americans to question the legitimacy of the politicians running the show on behalf of the bankers, corporations and arms dealers. The Gestapo like tactics used by the government in Boston was an early warning sign of what is to come. Government entitlement promises will vaporize, as they did in Detroit, with pension promises worth only ten cents on the dollar. Total social and cultural collapse could resemble the chaotic civil war scenarios playing out in Libya and Syria. The best case scenario would be for a collapse similar to the Soviet Union’s relatively peaceful disintegration into impotent republics. I don’t believe we’ll be this fortunate. The most powerful military empire in world history will not fade away. It will go out in a blaze of glory with a currency collapse, hyper-inflation, and war on a grand scale.
“History offers even more sobering warnings: Armed confrontation usually occurs around the climax of Crisis. If there is confrontation, it is likely to lead to war. This could be any kind of war – class war, sectional war, war against global anarchists or terrorists, or superpower war. If there is war, it is likely to culminate in total war, fought until the losing side has been rendered nil – its will broken, territory taken, and leaders captured.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe – 1997
In Whom Do You Trust?
“Use of money concentrates trust in a single central authority – the central bank – and, over extended periods of time, central banks always tend to misbehave. Eventually the “print” button on the central banker’s emergency console becomes stuck in the depressed position, flooding the world with worthless notes. People trust that money will remain a store of value, and once the trust is violated a gigantic black hole appears at the very center of society, sucking in peoples’ savings and aspirations along with their sense of self-worth. When those who have become psychologically dependent on money as a yardstick, to be applied to everything and everyone, suddenly find themselves in a world where money means nothing, it is as if they have gone blind; they see shapes but can no longer resolve them into objects. The result is anomie – a sense of unreality – accompanied by deep depression. Money is an addiction – substance-less and unreal, and sets itself up for a severe and lengthy withdrawal.” – Dmitry Orlov – The Five Stages of Collapse
Our modern world revolves around wealth, the appearance of wealth, the false creation of wealth through the issuance of debt, and trust in the bankers and politicians pulling the levers behind the curtain. The entire world economic system is dependent on trusting central bankers whose only response to any crisis is to create more debt. The death knell is ringing loud and clear, but people around the globe are desperately clinging to their normalcy biases and praying to the gods of cognitive dissonance. It seems the only things that matter to our controllers are stock market levels, the continued flow of debt to the plebs, continued doling out of hush money to those on the dole, and of course an endless supply of brown skinned enemies to attack. With every country in the world attempting to the same solution of debasing their currencies, we are rapidly approaching the tipping point. India is the canary in the coal mine.
Government, Household, Financial & Non-Financial Debt (% of GDP)
An exponential growth model built upon cheap plentiful energy and debt creation has its limits, and we’ve reached them. With the depletion of inexpensive, easily accessible energy resources, higher prices will continue to slow world economies. Demographics in the developed world are slowing the global economy as millions approach their old age with little savings due to over consuming during their peak earnings years. Bernanke has already quadrupled his balance sheet with no meaningful benefit to the economy or the financial well-being of the average middle class American. Financial manipulation that creates nothing has masked the rot consuming our economic system. The game has been rigged in favor of the owners, but even a rigged game eventually comes to an end. Americans and Europeans can no longer maintain a façade of wealth by buying knickknacks from China with money they don’t have. The US and Europe are finding that their credit is no longer good in the exporting Far East countries. This is a perilous development, as the West has depended upon foreigners to accommodate its never ending expansion of credit. Without that continual expansion of debt, the Ponzi scheme comes crashing down. As China, Japan and the rest of Asia have balked at buying U.S. Treasuries with negative real yields, the only recourse for Ben has been to monetize the debt through QE and inflation. The doubling of ten year Treasury rates in a matter of three months due to just talk of possibly slowing QE should send shivers down your spine.
We are supposedly five years past the great crisis. Magazine covers proclaimed Bernanke a hero. If we are well past the crisis, why are the extreme emergency measures still in effect? If the economy is growing and jobs are being created, why do we need $85 billion of government debt to be monetized each and every month? Why are the EU, Japan, and China printing even faster than the Fed? The answer is simple. If the debt was not being monetized, it would have to be purchased out in the free market. Purchasers would require an interest rate far above the 2.9% being paid today. The debt levels in the U.S., Europe and Japan are so large that a rise in interest rates of just a few points would explode budget deficits and lead to a worldwide financial collapse. This is why Bernanke and the rest of his central banker brethren are trapped by their own ideology of bubble production. Just the slowing of debt creation will lead to collapse. Bernanke needs a Syrian crisis to postpone the taper talk. Those in control need an endless number of real or false flag crises to provide cover for their printing presses to keep rolling.
There are a couple analogies that apply to our impending doom. The country is like a 224 year old oak tree that has been slowly rotting on the inside due to the insidious diseases of hubris, apathy, selfishness, dependence, delusion, and debasement. The old oak gives an outward appearance of health and stability. Winter has arrived and gale force winds are in the forecast. One gust of wind and the mighty aged oak will topple and come crashing to earth. I think an even more fitting analogy is the sandpile with grains of sand being added day after day. Seven out of ten Americans receive more in government benefits than they pay in taxes. Goliath corporations and the uber-wealthy use the tax code and legislation to syphon hundreds of billions from the national treasury every year. We spend $1 trillion per year on past, current and future wars of choice. Annual interest on the debt we’ve racked up in the last few decades already approaches $400 billion per year. The entire Federal budget totaled $400 billion in 1977. The sandpile grows ever higher, while its instability expands exponentially. One seemingly innocuous grain of sand will ultimately cause the pile to collapse catastrophically. Will it be an unintended consequence of a missile launch into Syria? Will it be a spike in oil prices? Will it be the collapse of one of the EU PIIGS? Will it be an assassination of a political figure or banker? No one knows. But that innocuous grain of sand will trigger the collapse of the entire pile.
Worried people are looking for solutions. They often get angry at me because they don’t think I provide answers to the issues I raise about our corrupt failing system. They want easy answers to intractable problems. Sadly, I’ve come to the conclusion that our system and majority of citizens are too corrupted to change our course through the ballot box or instituting policies along the lines of those proposed by Ron Paul and many other thoughtful liberty minded people. We are experiencing the downside of a representative democracy. Once a person is democratically elected a gulf is created between the electors and the person they elected, as the representative becomes corrupted and bought by moneyed interests. Elected officials become a class unto themselves. The political class grows to be puppets that resemble human beings but are nothing but cogs in a vast corporate run machine, pawns in an enormous game of chess played by powerful vindictive immoral men.
There are no cures for our disease. It’s terminal. Anyone telling you they have the answers is either lying or trying to sell you something. More people and organizations are on the take than are playing by the rules. The producers are being overrun by the parasites. The barbarians are at the gate. An implosion of societal trust is underway. The next stage of this crisis, which I believe will materialize within the next twelve months will try the souls of the weary.
“As the Crisis catalyzes, these fears will rush to the surface, jagged and exposed. Distrustful of some things, individuals will feel that their survival requires them to distrust more things. This behavior could cascade into a sudden downward spiral, an implosion of societal trust. This might result in a Great Devaluation, a severe drop in the market price of most financial and real assets. This devaluation could be a short but horrific panic, a free-falling price in a market with no buyers. Or it could be a series of downward ratchets linked to political events that sequentially knock the supports out from under the residual popular trust in the system. As assets devalue, trust will further disintegrate, which will cause assets to devalue further, and so on.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe – 1997
As a nation we have squandered our inheritance, born of the blood of patriots. A freedom loving, liberty minded, self-responsible, courageous people have allowed ourselves to fall prey to selfishness, apathy, complacency and dependency. Once we allowed our human appetites of greed, power seeking, and control to override the moral responsibility for our own lives and the lives of future unborn generations, collapse was inevitable. The danger now is what happens after the unavoidable collapse. Will the millions of dependency zombies beg for a strong dictator to protect them, provide for them and lead them into further bondage? Or will the spark of liberty and freedom reignite, allowing citizens to throw off the shackles of banker and corporate control? I believe most of the people in this country are good hearted. We are merely pawns in this game of Risk being played by those seeking power, wealth and world domination. We are all trapped in our own forms of normalcy bias. Have I cashed out my retirement funds, sold my suburban house and built a doomstead in the mountains? No I haven’t. Do I second guess myself sometimes? Yes I do. But even the aware have families to support, jobs to go to, bills to pay, laundry to do, lawns to mow, and lives to live. I can’t live in constant fear of what might happen. We only get 80 or so years on this earth, if we’re lucky. The best we can do is leave a positive legacy for our children and their children. A drastic change to our way of life is coming, but most of us are trapped in a cage of our own making.
Each living generation will need to do their part during this Crisis if we are to survive the coming storm. Since no one knows the nature of how the next fifteen years will unfold, it would be wise to at least make basic preparations for food, water, heat and protection. This is easier for some than others, but you don’t have to star on Doomsday Preppers in order to stock up on items that can be purchased at Wal-Mart today, but won’t be available when the global supply chain breaks down. Make sure you have neighbors and family you can rely upon. A small community of like-minded people with varied skills is more likely to succeed in our brave old world than rugged individualists. With no financial means to maintain our globalized world, living locally will take on a new meaning. After much turmoil, chaos, violence, and likely mass casualties the best outcome would be for the Great American Empire to break into regional republics, incapable of waging global war, led by law abiding moral liberty minded individuals, and willing to trade freely and honestly with their fellow republics. Daily life would revert back to a simpler Amish like time. Would that be so bad?
This Fourth Turning could end with a whimper or a bang. There are enough nuclear arms to obliterate the world ten times over. There are enough hubristic egomaniacal psychopathic men in power, that the use of those weapons has a high likelihood of happening. It will be up to the people to not allow this horrific result. I love my country and despise my government. The Declaration of Independence clearly states that when a long train of abuses and usurpations lead toward despotism, it is our right and duty to throw off that government and provide new guards of liberty. My family comes first with my country a close second. I will fight with whatever means necessary to protect my family and do what I can to influence the future course of our country. Time is running out. Will we have the courage, fortitude and wisdom to make the right decisions over the next fifteen years? Will we choose glory or destruction? The fate of our nation hangs in the balance. Are you prepared? Are you ready to fight for your family and your rights?
The Fourth Turning could spare modernity but mark the end of our nation. It could close the book on the political constitution, popular culture, and moral standing that the word America has come to signify. The nation has endured for three saecula; Rome lasted twelve, the Soviet Union only one. Fourth Turnings are critical thresholds for national survival. Each of the last three American Crises produced moments of extreme danger: In the Revolution, the very birth of the republic hung by a thread in more than one battle. In the Civil War, the union barely survived a four-year slaughter that in its own time was regarded as the most lethal war in history. In World War II, the nation destroyed an enemy of democracy that for a time was winning; had the enemy won, America might have itself been destroyed. In all likelihood, the next Crisis will present the nation with a threat and a consequence on a similar scale. – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe – 1997
IT’S OUR CHOICE.
The answer, corporately and individually, is captured in the those side-by-side pictures at the end of the article: does the nation sink pridefully on its feet or rise prayerfully on its knees?
A great piece of work. Thank You
The seven deadly sins, the first Incrementum chart especially, Orlov collapse, Hazlitt, the Fourth Turning, and more … and the clear message that it’s now up to The People, all bases covered.
You’ve built that in great prose … the rest is in the lap of the gods.
Regardless of how this 4th turning plays out, we humans need to start thinking and planning in terms of centuries and longer or we don’t have a prayer.
I myself look forward to simpler times but the vast majority still believe the unstoppable growth and good times of 2006 is just around the corner. When their anti-depressants, pain killers, SNAP, EBT and run out, the real fun will start.
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” Albert Einstien
“Thinking is hard. Feeling and believing a storyline is easy.”
I’m stealing this one.
“Sadly, I’ve come to the conclusion that our system and majority of citizens are too corrupted to change our course through the ballot box or instituting policies along the lines of those proposed by Ron Paul and many other thoughtful liberty minded people. We are experiencing the downside of a representative democracy.”
True dat, Admin.
I’ve come to that conclusion, as have many of my Tea Party pals. We’re re-tooling – focusing on educating the younger generation – and throwing in the towel on the political side.
Time to hunker down and prepare for the crash. You’ve helped many of us get a grip on the enormity of America’s demise. Now it’s time to prepare….
Thank you!
Absolutley brilliant. Admin, You are a gifted writer and thinker, we are all so very fortunate to have you. I am happy you are alive and thank you so very much for your website and your ongoing efforts to inform and educate.
“A drastic change to our way of life is coming, but most of us are trapped in a cage of our own making. Daily life would revert back to a simpler Amish like time.”
There’s your answer. Voluntarily step out your oh so well built cage, drop out of the rat race, convert your assets into lasting tangibles, position yourself as best you can in a somewhat remote farming environment, and start learning to live a simpler life. Getting a jump on the masses fleeing the more populated areas will serve you well.
It’s pointless to try to figure out now how the next society is going to run, that will sort itself out when the time is ripe. Of most value would be to set an example for others to steer by, live a life built on nurturing a good life from the ground up. Build a respectful and honorable community around you by doing.
The cage is mostly built of fear. Fear of the unknown, fear built from the brainwash effect of societal influence. Drop out, quit your job, stop feeding the beast.
That said, I’ve got to run. I”ve only just got started on putting up the garden bounty, plenty more to go.
When the World went mad by JJ3
Wall Street’s gambling with our 401ks,
The Fed’s manipulating markets by fixing interest rates,
Congress is perfecting a perfect police state ,
There making money worthless with a mandate to inflate,
All guided by a greed that they’ll never satiate,
So many see the problem, but it just may be too late,
Inevitable ending, we don’t have long to wait.
Politicians promise that things are gonna change,
Unfortunately they are, mentally deranged.
The lessor of two evils is all were left to choose,
As they divide and conquer those falling for their ruse,
No leader wants to fix our culture of corruption,
Inevitable ending – societal eruption
CHORUS:
Where were you when the world went mad?
Were you armed up on the roof protecting all you had?
Where were you when the lights went out?
When your full faith in the system quickly turned to doubt?
Where were you when you finally broke the chains,
Placed on you by a system that cannot be sustained?
Big banks are busted but their too big to fail,
They’ll gladly pay their fines so that no one goes to jail,
Financial Armageddon if we don’t bail them out,
Extortion of the people is what’s it’s all about,
It’s easy to make money when the Federal Reserve,
Lends you tons of money and let’s you set the curve.
A new world order is changing all the rules,
Their central banking system plays us all for fools,
They create the problems then offer up solutions,
To get the sheep to follow their dastardly delusions,
They say you shouldn’t worry if you’ve done nothing wrong,
Until they put you in a prison just for singing a song.
Here’s the thing for me, Jim:
I have long ago come to the same conclusions you consistently reach, although, not in the same way. That is to say, I don’t have the same grasp on the numbers, graphs, and charts you post. In my mind, I don’t need to know to the nth degree the various facts and figures you post to come to the same endpoint:
We’re fucked. There’s a storm coming, whether the world’s population is ready for it, or not. I am trying to keep my radar open for signs of the Black Swan, or just a natural devolution that we see coming.
There’s so many internet resources out there for survival and preparedness, it’d be hard for me to begin to post anything like an authority on these subjects. But a thumbnail sketch is: growing food, developing skillsets, developing alternative income, etc.
Thank you for all the work you do, and for keeping us posted to a wide range of relevant topics. I think your site is the best free site, in terms of understanding the overall gestalt of where we’re at and where we’re headed. I can scan the headlines every day, and get a good sense of the condition our condition is in.
Thanks
I think you could write your own book on these topics, referencing others like in your articles, but please don’t, that takes time and effort.
I’m still waiting for you to tell me how to stay sane in an insane world (per your title). Just kidding. Sanity is an inside job, given normal neurochemistry. I use faith, meditation and prayer, and it works for me. Most of the time I’m an observer, which is a lot less stressful than being a participant. Even with the comments and posts I make, I try to stay detached. That doesn’t mean I’m apathetic, but my being and spirit aren’t tied to the actions of others. And it is the actions of others where every and all problems lie.
It seems to me we will be destroyed by incompetence as much as anything else. Yes, the seven deadly sins; they are revered and held up to praise in this country, and practiced by all. Same as it ever was. But socialism, “equal rights”, liberal progressiveness, “diversity”, political correctness, gender equality, and ever other false religion tries to equate things that are never and will never be equal. Some people are intelligent, honest, work hard, and are just and moral, and some people are not. Yet, our society rewards people based on their sex or their skin color, not on their intelligence, merit, work ethic, or morals. We reward people with no morals or values, we reward the lazy, the incompetent. When this happens, societal collapse is a given. Ayn Rand until now, it’s the same story, and will end the same way.
Evil has to be violently rooted out, just like throughout history. That’s where we’re at now. It’s obvious the evil we face. Something will have to happen that results in the violent rooting out of this evil, and like throughout history, the criminals in power will be hanging from the gallows; but maybe not until we destroy ourselves first. Syria has shown the result of incompetent people running the world, and the evil that is clearly present.
We’re a stone’s throw away from utter nuclear destruction. Just having the nukes available probably means we will some day use them. Other fourth turnings ended in violent removal of fascists, and we are being lead by Obama the fascist now. WW2 was ended with a nuke. WW3 will be ended by many nukes. There doesn’t seem to be any way to stop it. It’s inevitable. Which goes back to faith, meditation and prayer. Put your trust in a higher power, and turn the results over to him. Don’t turn your will over to what is happening in this world. It matters little.
A true joy to read.
I tend to think the American Empire got its jumpstart a touch earlier…
The American Empire started during the Civil War. President Lincoln would use the singular “is” rather than the plural “are” when referring to the USA, with good reason. Prior to this war we were more like a loose confederacy, working together but still distinctly separate. Lincoln changed all that, and through the late 1800s we saw the result, with Imperialistic actions all over the globe.
This centralization of powers stripped both the states and the people of their rights and handed them wholesale to the Federal Government, and led to the centrally planned mess we enjoy today.
“A moral society must be…”, there is no requirement that a society must be moral. The constitution rests on the inalienable rights bestowed upon man of life, liberty, and property/pursuit. We then have the bill of rights and seventeen other amendments to the constitution.
Society, then, is based upon the concept of rights, and of protection. Rights are easy to define, one person’s rights end where another person’s right begins, e.g. Roe v Wade.
It was a philosophical argument that the inalienable rights are defined the way they are. The bible talks about sonship rights, which are righteousness, sanctification, redemption, justification, and the ministry of reconciliation. We can’t exercise rights which we don’t claim.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23, ESV)
I submit a moral society is based upon respecting the rights of others, and the constitution is designed to define and protect our rights.
Most people are good hearted until you reach the 4/5 stage.Then most people become heartless and it’s just a matter of who dies first.Based on first hand accounts of people who have lived in these conditions and made it out.It really is survival of the fittest…….good job Jim.
Admin, would you shoot me an email please? Thanks in advance.
great series jim,
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@AWD – “I use faith, meditation and prayer, and it works for me. Most of the time I’m an observer, which is a lot less stressful than being a participant. Even with the comments and posts I make, I try to stay detached. That doesn’t mean I’m apathetic, but my being and spirit aren’t tied to the actions of others. And it is the actions of others where every and all problems lie.”
You should write an article on just that, AWD. Jim’s series completely fails to provide me any ways to Stay Sane in an Insane World. You should do a response 🙂
As for me, I use meditation, and really try to enjoy the little things. 5-10 minutes everyday I find an excuse to get outside, and just enjoy the weather. Hot or cold, rain or shine, enjoy every second of it.
Real apples. A fresh salad. The way my wife laughs when I tell a joke actually worth laughing at. How I feel when I improve our little foreclosure house.
A million little things that make my life worth living, and no matter what the hell happens in this country, nobody will take those little things from me.
Government is God’s way of punishing mankind for their transgressions.
Sorry, the Bible says otherwise. A time of trouble NEVER before seen in the world. A very curious but very ominous statement.
And when one takes a look around and imagine the BIG FOUR, chemical, nuclear, biological or cosmic disaster. The Bible has made, indeed, a very ominous prediction.
“Exploitation and manipulation produce boredom and triviality; they cripple man, and all factors that make a man into a psychic cripple turn him also into a sadist and a destroyer.”
Erich Fromm
I know I’m two-pid…..how can I get all four parts in one email?
I mean, not four sections or links, one long piece? Is this a book? A post? Etc.
Yep, didn’t think you’d get around a big pile of skulls.
I put out a bit more hope in that our founders put in a big reset clause, Article V. When things gets bad enough, things will localize especially financially and politically, and states will start behaving like states rather than stepping stones of the two-party system.
A convention will eventually be called and my guess NY and CA and IL will not like what comes out of it; but it’s one state one vote to ratify. I would agree that if held right now the process would be corrupted, but after things start collapsing and gallows start going up, that will be much less of an issue. What will come out of a convention at that point is a wholesale curtailment of federal powers as the pendulum swings the other way, and then some.
Then I see a final inevitable crisis where the DC/WallStreet/Fed gang try to subvert the process and perhaps the Supreme Court falls on their side when taking it up (once can imagine amendments that recognize and do something the failures of the Judicial system.) If it comes to that the skull pile will be very large indeed, and who knows what will come out the other end.
2025ish or thereabouts, when the oil slope on the other side starts getting much steeper.
I can envision some day in the not to distant future a small crowd of surviving humans finding a stash of preserved papers among the rubble of what was once our present day society. And those papers contain the four articles “Trying To Stay Sane In An Insane World”, parts 1 – 4. This small crowd reads out load from these papers. When finished reading there is silence for some time. Then one person makes a statement and follows with a question “Some knew what was going on before the BIG BANG”! How could this have happened to us when they knew ?
Nice conclusion Jim.
Just one question here.
“Orlov’s stages of collapse will likely occur during the remaining fifteen years of this Crisis. “-JQ
This seems to imply the crisis will be over in 15 years. However, in other articles you have mentioned the Deficits being racked up here which our Grandchildren would be paying off. How are these issues resolved in 15 years?
RE
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The debt will be defaulted on when the financial system collapses. The future generations will just be living with a much lower standard of living than their parents and grandparents. Resolved doesn’t necessary mean solved. Resolved could be nuclear annihilation or the deaths of 7 billion.
Admin’s article now up on ZH.
Admin needs to put out a contract on David Pierre and a few of the other nutjobs. I’m sure there’s a few wiseguys in Philly that need the work.
SEVEN MILLION WILL DIE!!!!
And then another seven million… and another…and another…and another… about 800-1000 times.
🙂
Thanks Admin great work.
I can’t stand the thought of being a victim, that’s why I have prepared like I have. It has been tough telling your wife and kids we have to sacrifice now in order to survive a coming storm that’s some where out in the future. At times I know they did not understand, for example my move to this rural location made it impossible for the children to participate in sports, and to make matters worse we had much work to be done, out buildings for the animals needed built, repairs to barn etc,etc.
Now the work’s done, kids are grown and on their own, but they have a fall back position they helped create. I just purchased 6 month supply of baby formula for new grand child it will be added to our store of goods, I try and cover every angle. I question myself everyday, what have I missed, what do I need?
This may sound strange but after the collapse is when I get to rest.
I not only plan on surviving the coming collapse, I plan on prospering after the dust settles.
Jim Quinn writes well and does his homework (though some argue he hasn’t bought every plank of the mandatory party platform). That being said, what else is there to say?
There’s no more meat on the bone. All that can be said has been said, and we’ve all become just like the middle aged guy in the bar who retells the same tired tale about the touchdown he scored a thousand years ago in a meaningless high school championship game. We need new meat. Or maybe we should go vegan.
We’re all waiting for something that at best is coming at a glacial pace. How many ‘any second now’ crashes have we all predicted? How many dozens of the last zero Middle East wars have we guaranteed? How many times have we paid full fare “to da moon” for PMs, when the rocket keeps blowing up on the pad? How many have already passed on to the next Earthly iteration, or to some country club in the sky, or just become worm food, all prepped and ready for Financial or Social or Biblical Armageddon, and then departed somewhere between disappointed or contrite because, like the millions of The End is Near predictions our species has made since Eden, none has come true?
Perhaps—maybe I’ll just speak for myself—it would be a good idea to ignore the next thousand or so graphs that tell us nothing we don’t already know or nothing upon which we can make a concrete prediction with respect to time, and instead just go about enjoying a few of the all too brief moments of existence.
Everybody has been proven wrong. One would think after that experience, contrition, and maybe a little humility, would be the norm, rather than absolute certainty of belief that expresses itself in anger and bitterness.
I remember two things from my days doing the financially lucrative but socially meaningless job of trader: Early is wrong, and eventually the market discredits everybody, at least everybody who stays too long. A wise trader takes his chips when the pile is sufficient, and walks away. Perhaps there is a way for everyone to do the same thing, which might be like that old adage hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Is it useful to hope for the worst because that’s what we’ve prepared for and that’s what we’ve invested our ego in?
The system is wildly complex. Few or none can sift through all the noise and capture the key elements that will drive future events. To be consumed by fear or bitterness or anger, either because it’s all not fair, or because it hasn’t fallen apart at the speed and in the manner one guaranteed anyone who would listen, seems to be a waste of that aforementioned all too brief existence.
Maybe staying sane in an insane world is taking time to find something—other than schadenfreude—to enjoy. If bitterness and anger have become the sole source of joy and satisfaction, even addiction, then we have lost game, set and match.
I would rather be ready five years early than one day late.
” Resolved could be nuclear annihilation or the deaths of 7 billion.”-JQ
Jim! You have joined the Full Doom Camp at last! Welcome aboard! 🙂
RE
Man has proven throughout all of history that he cannot govern himself, sans God. God’s plan is pretty simple: [Love your Creator above all things]; Love your neighbor as yourself. This IS the only solution, folks.
Excellent article, which was refreshingly honest in the degree to which it faced the social facts.
However, I feel that it was TOO PSYCHOLOGICAL, AND NOT ECOLOGICAL ENOUGH. Of course, I feel that way about almost everything I have ever read … Anyway, my point is that the psychological and social habits are due to schedules of reinforcement. The DRIVER has been LIES, BACKED BY VIOLENCE. The paradox is final failure from too much “success” from being able to do that.
Lots of good people attempted to make better choices, at every “turning point” in the past. However, those were systematically short-circuited by the methodical application of the methods of organized crime, which were able to use bribery, intimidation, and assassination, in order to gradually accomplish building the now entrenched and well-established systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence. There was a runaway positive feedback, where the profits from fraud were able to be reinvested in more frauds, through the funding of the political processes, including paying for the crucial assassinations of the politicians that could not be bribed or intimidated. Lots and lots of people in the past attempted to make better choices … However, they then found that their political opponents tended to have way more funding in their political campaigns than they did. Moreover, in the few cases where some successful politicians became capable of changing the political path that we were on, then they were discredited or destroyed by dirty tricks.
To more fully face those social facts tends to go through a profound paradigm shift in political science. Tragically, I think it is nostalgic nonsense to count on miraculous magic words, pumped through psychologies, to resolve the deeper real problems. We are going to have to go through significant changes in the combined money/murder systems. We ARE going to develop new death controls, one way or another, sooner or later. WE SHOULD FACE THE FACTS THAT GOVERNMENTS ARE NECESSARILY ORGANIZED CRIME, AND ONLY THROUGH BETTER ORGANIZED CRIME MIGHT THERE EVENTUALLY BE SOME BETTER EVOLUTION OF OUR ECOLOGIES.
We ARE headed through the social equivalents of ecological successions, whose real schedules of reinforcement will effectively change the frequencies of the kinds of psychological and social habits. That might be catalyzed by a greater use of information, as the operational definition of higher consciousness. The “fourth turning” can not be a return to the past. There is no merit in going backwards. I reject all those kinds of reactionary revolutions. Rather, I continue to promote intellectual revolutions, with paradigm shifts in the philosophy of science being implemented, especially in our political science, and most of all in the ways that we think about militarism, or the death controlling murder systems.
Our real problems are due to the runaway triumph of the principles and methods of organized crime building Neolithic Civilization, and that manifesting in the ways the United States of America actually developed. A deeper appreciation of that process leaves us muddling through the madness that human realities are ALWAYS organized lies, operating organized robberies, and what we need, which is actually possible, is to evolve better ecologies of the dynamic equilibria of those different systems of organized lies, operating organized robberies. We need to move past the biggest bullies’ bullshit social stories, that promote false fundamental dichotomies, and related impossible ideals, that always backfire badly, and actually make the opposite happen in the real world. We should start using more unitary mechanisms in the ways that we understand politics, and resolve political problems.
Brilliant and Soooo informative as usual Jim. We thank you for your incredible ability to assemble and bring these facts and truths to our attention.
I am so weary of the prolonged end that needs to come. America is fighting so hard to stop this president from starting this war with Syria when in reality Obama needs to go ahead and touch it off. The sooner we get in the thick of the 4th Turning, the sooner we can have a minute chance of a rebirth to reality. To have this current horror show drag out for another 15 years will only compound our agony and make reckoning day much worse.
What was once great has long since been stolen from us. Our Republic has been slowly destroyed starting in the early 70s. That job is done. Another good analogy would be trying to live in an old wood frame house that has a rotten foundation that is beyond repair. Our current foundation has now become too dangerous. Our American house is rotten to the core from its foundation up and the best direction from here on out would be to tear it completely down and start over.
Trying to Stay Sane in an Insane World: At World’s End
now UP on the Diner Blog!
http://www.doomsteaddiner.net/blog/2013/09/12/trying-to-stay-sane-in-an-insane-world-at-worlds-end/
Awesome series by the Admin over here.
All for ONE, and ONE for ALL. Collapse Musketeers UNITE!
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RE
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Five Years Later: 18 Dollars Of Debt For Every Dollar Of GDP; Total G7 Debt/GDP: 440%
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/12/2013
With everyone focused on the 5th anniversary of the Lehman failure, we are taking a quick look at how the world’s developed (G7) nations have fared since 2008, and just what the cost to restore “stability” has been. In a nutshell: the G7 have added around $18tn of consolidated debt to a record $140 trillion, relative to only $1tn of nominal GDP activity and nearly $5tn of G7 central bank balance sheet expansion (Fed+BoJ+BoE+ECB).
In other words, over the past five years in the developed world, it took $18 dollars of debt (of which 28% was provided by central banks) to generate $1 of growth. For all talk of “deleveraging” G7 consolidated debt has been at a record high 440% for the past four years. So in the G7, which is a good proxy for the developed world, debt continues to increase whilst nominal growth remains extremely low thus ensuring that the deleveraging process has yet to start. As Deutsche Bank states, “at best we’re stabilising the ratio at or around record highs.”
Some of this is bullshit.
Quoting Straus & Howe, “In World War II, the nation destroyed an enemy of democracy that for a time was winning; had the enemy won, America might have itself been destroyed.”
You’re shitting me, right?
Stalin won WW2. The International Socialists beat the National Socialists and 68 years later we’re ALL socialists. At Potsdam FDR handed half of Europe to the greatest mass murderer in human history.
American mythology is so pervasive that even critics accept it as fact. And you wonder why no one has a clue?
This cycle is normal. Too much trust led to totalitarianism in the West. It allowed an entire civilization to mortgage its future. There will be consequences. Trust will turn to its opposite, and the afterglow of yesterday’s prosperity will give way to realization of ruin. Most will suffer, living standards will collapse and Stupid Political Tricks will go global. This is supposed to be news?
Embrace your family.
Enjoy the sunsets.
Lay in what small preparations you can (invest in your social sphere, too).
Look for consistency and coherence in the analysis you trust. (e.g., the “hyperinflationists can’t explain the trend to lower commodity prices, so their position does not square with experience.)
Life’s an adventure. Embrace it, and accept that some challenges are inevitable and will require you invest some effort in scaling them.
Credit (a right to access money) and cash = money.
Credit grew too large. Too many people have been promised the right to access money (or better, multiple people have been promised access to the same pieces of money or assets).
Credit (from Latin for trust) has to collapse.
How much of what you THINK you own is actually credit? How wealthy are you if the credit (right to access money) evaporates?
Whose wealth is mostly credit? The Wealthy. This is why they took the brunt of the collapse in value during the last two head-fakes down.
Who will be CRUSHED when the third downturn is the Real Thing? The Wealthy.
The Global Elite own title to STUFF (land, buildings like CASTLES, controlling investments in businesses like BP) but the layer below them, the Wealthy, are going to be Wiped Out because most of their wealth is actually credit, debt securities, or equity ownership shares.
Most of us however have far less to lose. Of course, we also are much closer to the poverty line to begin with, so small losses hurt more.
Oh well.
Without variation there can be no organic growth. All trends have counter-trends. NOTHING in nature grows unidirectionally, consistently, without interruption.
We’ve capped a centuries-long rally…actually did so at least 13 years ago (and possibly back in the 1960’s, given that the entire rally since then was built on mortgaging everything in sight).
It’s LONG past time for a corrective phase. Let us hope we’re not correcting the entire period going back to the lows following the collapse of the Roman Empire, and that we’re just correcting the rally since the late 1700’s.
The fundamental rot of the last 30 years is far worse than the rot preceding the Great Depression. We are guaranteed an economic debacle at least an order of magnitude larger than that calamity.
BUT, remember that every one of our ancestors lived through worse than this.
Only survivors count.
American colonists enjoyed an extraordinarily high standard of living. So why fight?
By Bob Stokes | August 30, 2013
Who do you think enjoyed the higher standard of living: the average American in 2010, or the average American colonist in 1770?
Answer: In constant dollars (adjusted for inflation), the per capita wealth of the average American colonist in 1770 was higher — by far!
The just-published August 2013 issue of the monthly Socionomist provides the details and this insight:
“American colonists in the 18th century enjoyed what is believed to be the highest standard of living in the world—higher even than their British Isle counterparts.”
– The Socionomist, August 2013
Since the colonists had such a high standard of living, what is the real reason that “the shot heard ’round the world” was fired on April 19, 1775 in the Battle of Lexington, the first battle of the Revolutionary War?
Taxes? Onerous treatment of the colonists by the British? The latest Socionomist answers those questions head on. When you read the issue, you’ll learn why neither appears to be the real reason for the War of Independence. No, a simple recitation of what students hear in history class does not seem to offer a satisfying answer after you read what the latest Socionomist has to say.
History shows that negative social-mood trends, as indicated by bear markets in stocks, unfold in down-up-down Elliott wave patterns. But within such patterns, the first and second downtrends tend to produce qualitatively different types of social actions.
– The Socionomist, February 2012
I’m not selling Socionomist subscriptions: I wish to point out that there are non-intuitive explanations for events as they unfold. The Revolutionary War took place after over 50 years of bear market on the London Stock Exchange. The bursting of the South Sea Bubble in 1720 led to decades and decades of bear market, and the Revolution occurred during the SECOND big decline in stocks for that period.
Imagine if 2000-2003 was the first decline (NASDAQ down 80% and still today nowhere near that 2000 high), and the 2003-2007 rally, 2007-2009 decline, and 2009-2013 rally were all part of a LARGER corrective (three wave) rally? The next decline would thus be the SECOND BIG DECLINE IN OUR EVOLVING COLLAPSE.
If so, the upcoming bear market decline should end with conditions that set off spasms like the Revolutionary War.
dc – Great rants, I have a few comments. We don’t have money; we have legal tender which allows the transfer of wealth to the top.
I think The Fourth Turning is formulating a theory and finding data which supports that theory. The Fourth Turning is US centric while these cycles affect the whole world. WWl is not included because it doesn’t fit the time frame; WWll was a continuation of WWl which started in 1936 as the Spanish Civil War where the National Socialists beat the International Socialists. Very fitting, the US sent the Lincoln Brigade of volunteers to help the International Socialists.
The Spanish Civil War was a proxy war. The Germans used the war to test their weapons and tactics. The Treaty of Versailles restricted the size of the German Army so the German Army was almost all officers. They had the top of the hierarchy and filled in the bottom of the pyramid and had a large army ready to go.
The coming collapse will be the last turning due to depletion of fossil fuels which will cause famine and a great reduction in population.
1979 EXECUTIVE ORDER 12148 created the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that is to interface with the Department of Defense for civil defense planning and funding. Per Harry Martin, “an emergency czar was appointed. FEMA has only spent about 6 percent of its budget on national emergencies; the bulk of their funding has been used for the construction of secret underground facilities to assure continuity of government in case of a major emergency, foreign or domestic.” There is a modifying Executive Order, that is even heavier handed. EOs are used by the president to bypass the Constitutional requirement that Congress should create ALL legislation {pdf}
These underground facilities are not for Girl Scout sleepovers but are Biblical in nature, as in Noah’s Arc. There is no room reserved for you, me or Jim.
World Press did it to me again when I transfered from Word to Submit Comment.
“NOTHING in nature grows unidirectionally, consistently, without interruption”
Not exactly ture: See welfare, disability, and food stamp spending and participation
This is 2011, welfare alone is more than $1 trillion per year now, up 45% since Obama took office.
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@ AWD
The interruption will happen when the FSA discovers the government teat they have been suckeling is a synthetic rubber pacifier. It will not be televised.
Roy,
Everything informs me that behind all the window-dressing we see on CNN et.al., there is NOTHING but multiple factions of organized crime battling each other for control of the looting. Every war, every political change, every assassination, indictment, witch hunt, etc. is just part of the struggle between these various factions.
Everything also informs me that these people are not smarter than me. Better organized, better placed to be sure, but smarter?
No.
They can no more predict the future than can I. They no more can centrally plan all of life than a group of toads can make a No. 2 pencil from scratch.
Their plans will run headlong into nature’s laws and be shattered thereby. This may not mean I win and they lose, far from it, but I do not think my situation (and that of my family) is hopeless by any measure.
We live in a chaotic, complex world, a world that often punishes arrogance and hubris in ways we cannot fathom.
We are, today, ruled by SCUM. The larger the social organism, the scummier the rulers. Big has reached apogee, and the vehicle of the Global Elite’s mad rise to power, the Nation-State, has outlived its usefulness. The times are changing, and small/local is likely to serve people far better as time passes.
Enjoy the things that arise from massive economies of scale. I think their days are numbered.
I do not think Orwell, or Huxley, had it right. They posited a stable, permanent totalitarian system, but stasis is FICTION. No living thing nor system made of them is static. Stasis is death, and last I checked, we’re not dead yet.
That’s my hope, my story, and I’m damn well sticking to it. (grin)
@ Roy and AWD
The milk in that tit is already toilet water. Look at the lifestyles of those getting welfare. From where I sit they appear to be in free-fall.
The music still plays and every subunit of society still dances. When the music finally ends (soon, I’d guess) then the struggle for the very few chairs left in this musical game will be EPIC.
Once the battles between political constituencies pit all the criminals against each other, and the blood is washing across the dance room floor, then the panic will be to escape.
Last I looked, most of the exits are chained closed in order to keep dancers paying “their fair share” to the House (IRS).
Lest we forget, the greatest mass murder of modern times in the USA was perpetrated with a can of gasoline.
Its easy to make things complicated but hard to keep things simple.
The band played on while the Titanic was sinking. Will the band continue to play when the FSA goes feral?
Our civilization is collapsing because our government, economic, corporate and social systems are to big to control. One world order simply does not work. The cast of characters and their self interests are too great to manage. And the people that make up the general public; working under this great system of burden to them, no longer know who they are.
Get ready for the great reset.
The future is going to become the past. Humanity does not evolve but rather goes through cycles of recurrence because we never learn from our past; so we have to live it over again.
Look at the war mongering going on right now with our leaders? It reminds me of the time leading up to WW1.
This country has not experienced an internal war since the great civil war where hundreds of thousands died and cities were destroyed. If our citizens had a memory of this war then those that call for us to interfere in the Syrian civil war and strike them with missiles would be called insane. Those politicians, senators, and congressmen calling for a military strike on Syria should be immediately removed from office. They are putting our military and nation in great danger. Never mind the vast armada of Russian War ships in the Med and the Chinese War ships in the Red sea; not even to mention the Iranian war ships on alert in the gulf. The media is careful not to mention these facts to the public. Many think we are invincible. Let me remind those people not to underestimate the opposition and the insanity of thought that occurs in people when the drums of war increase in their beat.
Many in our old generation are becoming brain dead and our young generation will have the task of putting this country back together again when the great reset happens. Right now the dead still rule this country. What I mean by dead is “brain dead.” They are the ones that have kept the corrupt politicians in office at all government levels.
The old people who have kept their brain alive by learning new things and accepting new ways will have to pass their understanding of knowledge on to the young who will be inheriting this country. This will have to be done because our educational system has only taught the young knowledge but not understanding of the knowledge taught. This is the primary reason our government run education system has failed us. Knowledge without understanding is useless. This is the reason so many college graduates can’t get a job in their field of study.
Another thing that has to be done after the great reset is the large corporations have to be busted up into many smaller corporations. The government has not been enforcing anti-trust laws. The large monopoly corporations are the primary reason the unemployment rate is so high and the wages for the average workers are so low.
Small business is not the local Burger King or any of the thousands of franchise business establishments owned by investment funds (golden calves) that have advantage over independent owners.
And government has to get out of code enforcement. Many codes are obsolete and arbitrary. Let the banks hire private contractors if they want code enforcement for their loans.
Bring back the common law courts to try criminal offences. The commercial courts do not bring justice but rather support a prison business system that thrives on the misery of people. The commercial courts are most suited for contract law; not criminal justice.
When the great reset comes all these issues can be dealt with.
Until then enjoy the ride. Perhaps during this recurrence of the past our grandchildren will get it and change their ways. Our children are going to experience the collapse in surprise. They don’t see it coming because they are now identified with money, pride, and vanity.
For those that see; may the force be with you.
Your writing blew me away the first time I ever came to this site, a long time ago, now….and it still does. I consider you to be like a brother..except I promise I won’t ever try to borrow money from you.
Carry on, fight the good fight. You’re a Great American, Jim.
Eddie
Where have you been? We miss your input.