MY BOOK, “The Financial Jigsaw”, is published at my academic network. Scroll for full view: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358117070_THE_FINANCIAL_JIGSAW_-_PART_1_-_4th_Edition_2020 Email for a free PDF at: [email protected]
A 12 SECOND FLASH is sometimes that rare spark of light illuminating the true meaning of the universe. This F**K YOU gesture by a Minister, Andrea Jenkyns, tells what our ruling elite think of us commoners and ‘deplorables’. The choice of glittering yellow apparel belies the shrouded and damaged ego: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkWkL1wVZaY
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: Should our youngest be given the Covid Jab? This is what your government is doing to you. It is unforgivable that the NHS should use coercive propaganda against helpless children who obviously will be excited to be part of the ‘cartoon superhero’ group and submit to the toxic jab. The poor dears know no different.
AND this GBNews clip from Neil Oliver reveals Sajid Javid recommending more ‘improved’ jabs by colluding with Moderna. We might remember this when/if he is in the new Cabinet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rdyy0r1fFI AND in this 4 minute video, Dr. Clare Craig, co-chair of the HART group, explains the clinical trial that was used to justify jabbing our kids. She was appalled. https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/this-4-min-video-should-be-mandatory
From OffG (Protector of Truth & Free Press): “All told a pretty hectic week for the new normal crowd, and we didn’t even mention the UK government admitting they have a “disinformation unit” which “works with” social media companies to remove “inappropriate content”, Pfizer and Moderna’s upcoming “future framework” or Glastonbury’s annual indoctrination festival.” Do you trust the HM Government to do the right thing?
BREAKING NEWS: “Free market capitalism is a dead duck. The welfare state and socialist values are viewed as ideals.” So says Doug Casey: “Why? The economic system in the West at this point is actually pure fascism. It’s state capitalism, a “partnership” between the State and large corporations. Both terms were actually invented by Mussolini. And it’s the way economies are structured these days.
International Man: What will be the impact of all this be? An economic depression?
Doug Casey: Yes. The best definition of a depression is “a period of time when most people’s standard of living drops significantly.” You can also say it’s “a period of time when major distortions and misallocations of capital are liquidated.” That implies bankruptcies, high unemployment, and a stock market collapse. The economic consequences of an economic depression are unpleasant. But the political, social, and military consequences can be worse. But it’s not as if you’re helpless. There are plenty of things you can do” I will be offering more in future postings: https://internationalman.com/articles/doug-casey-on-the-ridiculous-policies-for-addressing-inflation-and-rising-prices/
LEADERSHIP RACE MONITOR: The ‘horses’ lined up for the start of the big race on Wednesday; jostling in the hustings as we prepare to be bored to death for the next two months with interminable blustering, slandering and back-stabbing. They will all advertise their ‘unique brand of stick and carrot ably assisted by the BBC and the British Captured Press. Many Brits are not that interested as they scrape a living and struggle to balance food and heating whilst their ‘government-that-was’ is on hold and paralysed by Boris’s psychosis, drifting aimlessly amongst the debris of damaged reputations and failed policies.
This political rot feeds on itself. This week’s events clearly show these “Tory civil wars” suck oxygen out of any debate on the country’s long-term survival; stagflation is the name of the game. BUT – this could be a seminal moment for Britain as maybe the baton of power is finally passed to the younger Gen Xers with surprise entrants. They are all in their 40s but surprisingly Penny Mordaunt is the eldest at 50 next year but looks the youngest.
UPDATES: THE’RE OFF! This exciting race (for some) is 3 furlongs over hurdles with hard going at the Westminster racecourse. Of the 11 hopefulls, 3 failed to qualify, leaving a field of 8 hammering into the first furlong and 2 hopefuls fell badly at the first fence; 6 thundered on:
- The favourite, Sunak, a palomino stallion led the field with 88 committed supporters
- In second is a beautiful, roan filly outsider belying her age, Mordaunt, sniffing at the stallion’s heels with 67 back-bench sponsors but not giving way to the next runner?
- The second favourite, a younger grey mare, Truss, falling behind the leaders on the hard going with 50 admirers yelling wildly in the stands.
- The pack at the rear was barely led by a last-minute, little known dark horse entrant, Badenoch, with 40 supporters quietly waving their programmes
- Jostling for last place was an inexperienced gelding, Tugendhat, with 37 backers and 32 for the chestnut Braverman entrant both battling against the rails.
In the second furlong Braveman was left behind, jockey takes to the air on refusing the fence, and this one is down and out. As they crash through the second marker, the favourite, Sunak, is leading with cheering supporters (101) but Mordaunt (83) gained a head (+3) on the leader as she battles to pull away from Truss (64), the struggling mare galloping on but losing ground (-2) and showing signs of tiring. The perky dark horse, a last minute entrant, Badenoch (49) has lost some distance from the leaders (-5) but her supporters remain confident. Bringing up the rear is Tugendhat, a strong ex-military gelding (32) but having fallen back badly; it is unlikely he has the stamina to stay the distance. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2022/jul/13/tory-leadership-election-full-results The race will continue next week and is expected to reveal the leading two by Wednesday after which a stewards’ enquiry will determine the winner on 5th September 2022.
A SOUTH AFRICAN’S ASSESSMENT of living in Britain for two years on assignment, (lightly edited from a recent article in the SA Daily Maverick by Tim Cohen).
“Boris Johnson’s success was defined by his long-standing desire to pull the UK out of the European Union (EU). But once he found “love”, he didn’t know what to do with it. And oddly enough, that tells you quite a lot about Britain, its foibles, its economic history and its future.
I was a foreign correspondent for Business Day, (interesting that “foreign correspondents” are unthinkable now for members of the SA press), in the UK for two years in the late 1990s, arriving just before the election of the new Labour government under Tony Blair – the last time in two decades that a Labour government has been elected. I arrived as an Anglophonic South African, convinced I was familiar with at least the bare outlines of British language and society. I could not have been more wrong. You travel to learn how ignorant you are and it’s never truer than when you actually live in a foreign country.
There were all kinds of undercurrents I just didn’t understand. These included ‘Fabianism’ – [Socialism to be established by gradual reforms within the law] – the real causes of Britain’s industrial decline in the 60’s & 70’s, and the unique oddities of its class structure, among many other things. For a country that produced Samuel Johnson who famously said “patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel”, the country is madly patriotic. I didn’t even understand the weather.
Here’s just one illustration. Like some other foreign correspondents, I had an office in the Financial Times building. After a few months, I decided to go and say ‘hi’ to the people on my floor, many of whom worked in an open-plan office for the analysis section of the FT. One person I marched up to almost jumped out of his skin when I greeted him. “It’s so kind of you to come and say hello because …” and then he faltered, “mostly people are introduced”.
I realised in an instant I had broken some deep, entrenched unwritten social rule, and that he had just ‘Britished’ me. Often when British people of a certain class say, “We really must have you around,” what they actually mean is “We would like it very much to never have you around, or even see you again”. When he said, “It’s so kind of you to say ‘hello’,” what he meant was, “go away and never come back”. To understand the difference, you have to understand the culture, and for an easy-going foreigner from the colonies, this was clearly going to be tougher than I thought.
Despite the general personal coldness compared to South African bonhomie, I gradually came to know and love Britain in ways I didn’t expect. My next-door neighbour in the office, a very renowned economist, Samuel Brittan, just exploded in laughter when he heard me relating to a colleague on the phone, through the thin office walls, that we were currently enduring “a season they describe here as ‘spring”.
Supper parties were always a joy: erudite guests, a deep culture of reading and knowledge, and humour always to the fore. Oddly, I found upper class Brits and working-class Brits just fabulous; the striving upper-middle, less so. [AP – But there can be deeply cutting ‘put-downs’ too. I remember being at a local morning drinks gathering in the 1980s when a guest introduced himself and commented with a smirk that he had heard I was a management accountant but that he was a Chartered Accountant. “Yes, I know” I said – I employ them. In polite British society you need to be properly prepared and know your place!]
I left Britain enormously sad. If you live in a foreign country, you carry your nationality everywhere. It becomes, first and foremost, part of your identity. But after a time, people recognise you are beyond your outward characterisation and you they. But I also left, a tiny bit worried about Britain. That seems like an odd sensation for someone from a country so much more messed up than the sixth biggest economy in the world where unemployment is barely a feature. [South Africa has 35%+ unemployment].
But even then, the undercurrents were visible; Britain just did not know where it wanted to go and what it wanted to be: towards Europe or away from Europe; towards Thatcherism or away from it; towards re-industrialisation or towards the services sector; more modern or more traditional.
Fast forward now, you can see where it went. The FT’s economics editor Martin Wolf puts it succinctly citing the Resolution Foundation in its latest Living Standards Audit. The fifteen years between 2004 and 2019 were the weakest for growth in GDP per head in the UK since the years between the wars – 1919 to 1934. The period 1980 to 1995, median real disposable incomes (excluding pensioners) rose by an average 37%, but by 67% for the top decile and only 3% for the bottom.
There was a boom in median incomes between 1992 and 2007, but then in 2004 – 2019 median incomes rose by a mere 12%, with the top decile rising 11% and the bottom 2%. In other words, there was stagnation all round. Real median household disposable incomes since the financial crisis, adjusted for purchasing power, fell by 2% in the UK: over the same period, they rose 34% in France, 27% in Germany and 23% in the Netherlands, per the FT.
You can see this in the stock market too; I clearly remember the UK’s FTSE100 breaking through 6000 while I was working there. Twenty years later, it’s sitting just above 7000. The DAX at the time was also at 6000; it’s now sitting just under 13000. There was lots of innovation and renewal; life generally in the UK is fabulous compared to the chaotic and bumbling SA. But it wasn’t quite firing on all cylinders.
The key problem was, and remains, the decline in UK productivity, which caused a creeping sense of dislocation and disorientation that culminated in Brexit. But having achieved Brexit, Johnson’s flibbertigibbet politics didn’t provide a clear economic philosophical direction. He raised taxes as a recession approached. He was reduced to trying to renegotiate the treaty he originally negotiated, partly, I suspect, to try and rekindle past passions. And the British ruling class was not going to go there again.
Johnson’s Brexit slogan was “take back control”, but when he got it, he didn’t know what to do with it. That, at least partly, is because Brexit may be socially desirable for a bare majority of Brits, but I continue to believe its economic logic is deeply flawed.”
AP: Tim’s opinion of Brexit misses the point. Economies are failing everywhere, particularly the EU because as he says, even the flawed GDP statistic has reported recent no-growth and now negative growth going forward. Britain needed to be out of the EU for the very good reason that it is an unelected, socialist dictatorship that is racing headlong into a federation with horrendous unintended consequences.
The Ukraine conflict has exposed the EU’s raw nerves: “As the war has dragged on, European unity has collapsed and efforts to transform the European Union into a European superstate — a United States of Europe — have been exposed for what they are: delusions of grandeur.” https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18610/eu-superpower-delusion
COLLAPSE MONITOR: “There is an impending food shortage to complement the shortage of so much else. [Edited from: ‘The Daily Reckoning’]: We are less than three months away from an official declaration of recession, which means we are already in one. There is every reason to believe that inflation will accelerate by late summer. This will give us a combination of inflation, recession, blackouts, and food shortages. As economies wind down we could see a deflationary depression emerge in 2023/4.
This is a politically toxic mix, to say the least. And let’s add one more piece to the puzzle: weakened and falling financials. This terrible year seems ever less an aberration and more and more the beginnings of an enduring bear market in nearly everywhere.
This has even affected the crypto market, as large institutional investors have become squeamish about a technology they never understood but only embraced in hopes of high returns. On reflection, there is nothing surprising here. It’s a consequence of safety culture and a belief that powerful, rich, and intelligent people can manage the world better than free markets. We’ve been here many times in history, and it has always foreshadowed a long period of suffering.
Lenin failed just as Gates, Powell, Fauci, and Psaki have failed. Few things are more dangerous to the future of humanity than a failed and humiliated ruling class that still possesses power. They cannot and will not admit error, so their only plan is to double and triple down on failure. The term “scorched-earth” is usually used metaphorically. Maybe this time it will become real. Watch Sri Lanka for a clue to the near future – is it the canary in the coal mine? Ruling elites should take notice if they know what’s good for them.
THE NARRATIVE BATTLE: Putin is winning the narrative war with a speech last week: “Today we hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield, well, what can I say, let them try. We have heard many times that the West wants to fight us to the last Ukrainian – this is a tragedy for the Ukrainian people. But it looks like it’s all coming to this. But everyone should know that, by and large, we haven’t really started anything yet.” Worth reading full: https://thesaker.is/russia-and-china-havent-even-started-to-ratchet-up-the-pain-dial/
Putin went on to make the point clear: “They should have understood that they have already lost from the very beginning of our special military operation, because its beginning means the beginning of a radical breakdown of the World Order in the American way. This is the beginning of the transition from liberal-globalist American egocentrism to a truly multipolar world – a world based not on selfish rules invented by someone for themselves, behind which there is nothing but the desire for hegemony, not on hypocritical double-standards, but on international law, on the true sovereignty of peoples and civilizations, on their will to live their historical destiny, their values and traditions and build cooperation on the basis of democracy, justice and equality. And we must understand that this process can no longer be stopped.”
ALSO, as I mentioned last week, the Covid fear-mongering is revving up again with the WHO leading the pack “Tedros dusts off propaganda machine, preps the world for fresh lockdowns”: https://thecountersignal.com/who-recommends-masks-again-preps-world-for-global-lockdown-in-fall/ Tenacious little bastards aren’t they? BUT Steve Kirsch is on the case as the following article admits that few are taking any notice this time. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on YOU – WHO! https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/the-safe-and-effective-narrative?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
A PLEA FOR PEACE IN THE WORLD: “IF I DON’T KNOW – I CAN’T ACT” – Information and knowledge should be free to everyone. Those less fortunate, who are unable to pay, are often those most in need. MAKING A DONATION will spread knowledge and understanding far and wide and empower humanity to keep the peace: https://www.gofundme.com/f/fnahvp-free-book
UNTIL NEXT WEEK: Tell Your Truth to Power: PROTECT & SURVIVE: https://substack.com/profile/29503050-protect-and-survive?utm_source=user-menu ALSO SPREAD THE WORD: YOUR DAILY COVID NEWS (cmnnews.org)
Peter – Loved your description of the chase to replace Boris using horse racing terms. It will be interesting to see if a first generation Englishman will win. I also believe he made his fortune the old fashioned way, by marrying it.
Ms. Jenkyns gave the people the 21st century version of
Thanks TNP for your kind words – I thought it was the only way to get boring and crap info out in a readable form.
BTW, point of interest: He can’t be an ‘Englishman’ – he’s a first gen British man. “Englishman (plural Englishmen). A native or inhabitant of England; a man who is English by ancestry, birth and descent,” He’s an immigrant and he can’t obtain English heritage, only British nationality, by naturalisation (as my wife but she is of English descent) or by birth within the British Isles.
SO: If you hail from England, as an English citizen you are English. If your heritage is from any of the countries in the British Isles or the world even, you are British. This means that only the English, can be both English and British. If you are from Northern Ireland, you are British with the Northern Ireland heritage or say, from India with Indian heritage.
It’s what marks out the men from the boys! 🙂
Postscript: “If a child is born in the UK but their parents do not have British nationality, they may still be to register as a British citizen.”
Thanks for the clarification on English/British. My nephew has a daughter who was born at Lakenheath. When she was 10, she would tease her younger brother and sister in her best British accent that she was special because she was British AND American.
Edit – If he is selected to be the new PM and Kumswallow is elevated, both of our countries will be run by Indians, something I never thought would be a possibility.
Oh dear – you are so right – now we will be in real isht! Yes that’s very special but she should be careful when she grows up. USA is almost unique in taxing their citizens on their global income – UK doesn’t and has dual taxation arrangements with lots of countries. But of course she is very special anyway being a beautiful 10 year old.
“You travel to learn how ignorant you are and it’s never truer than when you actually live in a foreign country.”
– Austrian Peter
A breathtakingly accurate observation, sir.
Thank you for the continued clarity and insight of your despatches from Blighty.
You’re very welcome Auntie – it’s a pleasure to know I am appreciated. 🙂
There is some indication it’s not working everywhere….
Low demand for young kids’ Covid vaccines is alarming doctors
But they worry the low demand in states such as Alabama and Mississippi is a warning sign of the widening ambivalence among many parents about the benefits of vaccinating children against the virus and continuing politicization of health care.
“Never before have we had a vaccine available for young children that has been in billions of people before it was given to a young child,” said Kawsar Talaat, a vaccine expert at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “The distrust in government, the distrust in public health and the distrust in science is growing and is very, very worrisome.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/14/young-kids-covid-vaccines-low-demand-00045706
Thanks B_MC – yep it is ‘worrying’ but soon they are going to have a lot more to worry about – Sri Lanka might be the canary in the coal mine and this was ‘mainly peaceful’ – so far.
To understand what is happening, you have to understand the agenda. The agenda is to implement feudalism based on technology. A system where if you do not go along with the establishment, you will be penalized and life for you will be very hard.
For this to work, peoples current level of wealth must be reduced to the point where they are at least partly dependent upon government for their survival.
The method they will use to reduce wealth is massive recession in which asset prices will collapse destroying the value of assets while keeping debt levels in most cases above what the value of the assets are.
Governments will then give public handouts much like what we saw during COVID, with the exception that these hand outs will be conditional on your social credit score and compliance with government mandates.
By crashing stock markets and real estate, they can effectively wipe out most peoples net worth, making them dependent upon their respective governments for even basic survival.
If possible, my advice is to get out of debt as quickly as possible, even if that requires reducing your lifestyle considerably. It is time to exercise extreme frugality. If you are in debt, you are at the mercy of the people who will enslave you.
I would also consider relocating to a rural environment where food, water, and shelter are less expensive and abundant. This is clearly not the time to allow yourself to be deceived by normalcy bias. What is happening is clearly not normal, and clearly not in the best interests of the common people.
All wonderfully correct Jdog, thank you, but I fear that our younger element will not adapt well the frugality – it is totally alien to them as they have never been without, unlike my own generation after WW2. This is why I am writing my Financial Jigsaw Part 2 to help people adapt their thinking and attitudes to the new conditions.
https://austrianpeter.substack.com/p/the-financial-jigsaw-part-2-localisation?s=w
AND Ellen Brown spells out the econo-financial implications
https://scheerpost.com/2022/07/08/ellen-brown-achieving-self-funding-local-sovereignty-as-global-food-systems-collapse/#comment-39877
Happy days – we can and will be free.
Many will not adapt, and many will prove Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest. IMO too much emphasis is now being put on telling everyone to learn to produce food, with little attention being directed towards the learning of other necessary trades. While most of us can have supplemental home gardens, not all of us can be farmers, nor should we.
In order for us to survive outside the establishment, we will need skilled craftsmen in every trade. Very few young people today have any practical skills, and that is the real danger.
When I was growing up, most all men had basic skills in carpentry, plumbing, electrical, and mechanics. They could hunt, fish, and set a trap. They could weld metal, and had a basic understanding of metallurgy. Many were born prior to WW2 on farms and had to fend for themselves. Today, my estimate would be that the number of men in their 20’s and 30’s that have all or most of those skills would be as a percentage, in low single digits.
We still have time to gain much needed knowledge, and tools, to do the things we will not be able to pay to have done in the future.
Again I am with you Jdog. There are lots of training videos on Utube but by the time people realise the need they might not be accessible especially if we face the ultimate nuclear meltdown. I am hoping for a steady economic decline in a deflationary depression giving us time to adapt. A sudden shock would be catastrophic more like 536AD or 1357 AD.