From Brandon Smith
In a recent interview with Bloomberg, the executive vice president of UPS asserted that “regionalization” of the supply chain is critical to economic stability in a world where geopolitical conflicts continue expanding.
The word “regionalization” is basically another way to describe decentralization, a concept which the UPS representative obviously did not want to dive into. Almost every trade expert and industry insider admits that supply chain problems are going to persist into the foreseeable future, and some are starting to also admit (in a roundabout way) that localized production and trade models are the key to economic survival.
Think globally, source locally
Localized production and trade are two challenges I and many other alternative economists have been talking about for a decade or more. The globalist dynamic of interdependency is a disaster waiting to happen, and now it’s happening.
Without decentralized mining of raw materials, local manufacturing, locally sourced goods, local food production and locally integrated trade networks there can be no true stability. All it takes for the system to implode is one or two crisis events, and the economy’s ability to meet public demand stagnates. The system doesn’t completely stop, but it does slowly shrivel and degrade.
We’ve seen examples of this recently…
Image CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Who can forget the saga of the Ever Given which halted traffic through the world’s most vital chokepoint for six days?
More recently, the war in Ukraine has been the scapegoat for supply chain disruptions, but these issues started long before that. Years of central bank stimulus and fiat money creation have triggered the inevitable landslide of inflation/stagflation that alternative economists have been warning about. Price inflation is a direct contributor to production declines and supply chain disruptions because costs continually rise for manufacturers. Also, wages of workers cannot keep up with rising prices, inspiring many employees to quit and look for work elsewhere. All of this leads to less supply, or slower production and thus, even higher prices.
We were right, the mainstream media was wrong. Or they lied.
Malice or incompetence?
When he finally admitted that he was wrong on inflation, Paul Krugman claimed that “no one saw this coming.”
Sound familiar?
This is the same thing mainstream economists said after the credit crash of 2008. It was a lie back then and it’s a lie now.
Plenty of people saw it coming; we’ve been repeating our warnings for years, but they didn’t want to listen or they did not want us to be heard.
Krugman is perhaps the worst and most arrogant liberal economist mouthpiece in the US, and though he belatedly acknowledged the inflation and supply chain threat after arguing for the past two years that it was “transitory,” he now claims that the traditionally accepted indicators of recession “don’t matter” anymore and that there is no downturn.
How many times can this guy be proven ignorant and still keep his job?
It’s this kind of disinformation that keeps the public in the dark on what is likely to happen. Maybe it’s because of stupidity and ego, or maybe it’s a deliberate attempt to keep the population docile (I say it is deliberate). In either case the American people are being put in great danger when it comes to the false narrative on inflation and the supply chain. The longer they are led to believe the disaster will simply go away on its own, the less time they have to prepare.
Prepare how, though? I’ve covered that extensively here. It’s up to you to ensure the security and wellbeing of yourself and your family. Eliminate dependencies where you can, source locally where you can’t. Making sure your financial security isn’t completely dependent on the whims of the Federal Reserve is a good consideration, as well. Since the days of the Roman Empire, high-value, easily-portable physical precious metals which are also untraceable, uninflatable and don’t rely on a first-world infrastructure to retain their value, have been seen as the ultimate safe havens. I doubt that will ever change.
The bottom line is this: Things are only going to get worse from here on. Maybe slowly, or maybe quickly depending on a handful of factors.
Here’s what to watch
Most of the world right now is focused on Taiwan and China’s persistent threats to invade. Nancy Pelosi’s widely publicized plan to visit the island nation (yes, CCP, it is a nation) is a bizarre act of non-discretion that is clearly meant to instigate wider tensions between the US and China. Why would Pelosi do this now? Well, she’s not doing it on her own and it’s certainly not the dementia-addled Joe Biden’s idea. There are clearly other hands and other interests involved.
The supply chain crisis is going to accelerate into winter as stagflation persists. Price inflation will remain high. The US is indeed officially in a recession today. Two consecutive negative GDP prints is a recession. This is a fact that no one can change, including Joe Biden, Paul Krugman or Wikipedia. Reality does not answer to these people.
The system is breaking, and certain people greatly benefit.
A regional conflict with China could be the perfect smokescreen for a financial and supply chain collapse that was going to happen anyway.
But when the mainstream media talks about the triggers and culprits, they’ll never mention central banks and political corruption, they will only talk about Russia and China.
As I have noted in the past, the “Great Reset” agenda of the World Economic Forum, International Monetary Fund, the Bank of International Settlements and other globalist organizations requires an extensive destabilization of the existing order.
In other words, they need a controlled demolition of certain pillars of the economy. To frighten the public into accepting new collectivist and authoritarian models like the “Shared Economy” (where you will own nothing and like it), they will need a large and semi-chaotic disaster. People would have to be threatened with the loss of certainty, unsure each day whether they’d be able to get necessities like food and fuel when they need them.
This level of uncertainty drives calls for solutions, and the globalists will be there to offer their pre-planned objectives and “save the day.”
Beware of globalists offering to help
Generally, inflation and shortages lead to price controls, government rationing, government “aid” with strings attached (Universal Basic Income), and eventually nationalization of all production as well as the attempted confiscation of supplies from prudent people who prepared ahead of time.
Redistribution will be the name of the game. Maybe not this year, maybe not next year, but inevitably.
The limited corporate calls for “regionalization” or “slowbalism” are too little too late, just as the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes are too little too late. They all know it, and they don’t care. These actions are only designed to make it appear as if they tried to stave off crisis and provide plausible deniability of their involvement in the crisis.
Stagflation and supply chain shortages are going to become the all-encompassing issues of our era.
They will be terms that are spoken about daily at every dinner table in America and probably through most of the world. These are dangers that were predicted extensively by the liberty media well ahead of time. They are NOT a surprise. And, there are plenty of institutions, corporate and government, that could have done something about them, but they chose not to.
It’s important for people to accept the fact that this is not a product of stupidity; it is a product of malicious motive. You have been warned – it’s not too late to prepare, but it’s later than you think.
After 8 long years of ultra-loose monetary policy from the Federal Reserve, it’s no secret that inflation is primed to soar. If your IRA or 401(k) is exposed to this threat, it’s critical to act now! That’s why thousands of Americans are moving their retirement into a Gold IRA. Learn how you can too with a free info kit on gold from Birch Gold Group. It reveals the little-known IRS Tax Law to move your IRA or 401(k) into gold. Click here to get your free Info Kit on Gold.
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There aren’t going to be any shortages. 20 years and counting, the doom and gloom is only for those falling behind economically.
And if I remember correctly, LLPOH says that would be about 70% of Americans.
“They” are going to make sure LLpoh’s figure is way too generous by forcing 95% into the Falling behind category.
Trust not your silver and gold. Build faith now while there is time and store your treasures in Heaven where the Schekel Schysters can’t get to it.
So, we’re in agreement…kinda. Yeah, I look around and it looks bad to me. To my 20 something year old daughters? Not a care in the world.
I am guessing your daughters do not have children dependent on infant formula? Or autos dependent on imported chips?
My kids are feeling the stress. It hurts me to see their pain.
Glock, better sped a little more time with them. Suicides, drug abuse, sexual abuse, dismal career prospects and the f’ing unsocial media is madness at the fingertips.
No way do they not have a care.
Well, they’re 20 somethings. You know what that means. It means work and have fun.
My 23 year old just moved out 2 weeks ago. I think, for her education level, she’s in a good job…management at a Harris Teeter grocery store. Store managers make over 6 figures + yearly bonus. She already has $10k in her 401k.
My 26 year old is married to a trust funder. The family owns a REIT. They own commercial space, a hotel and apartment buildings and complexes in several states…mostly east coast. She REALLY lucked out because she was on a very bad road right out of HS. Her and her husband have my 2 grandchildren. As far as I can tell, they will not ever worry about money.
Daughter of a friend of ours married a Ukrainian oligarch. A billion plus. Talk about not ever worrying about money again. She is really pretty.
I had an amazing discussion with my US Army dental technician, retired from the Army and now retired from private dentist practice come September 2.
While he was cleaning the tartar and coffee stain off my teeth, I asked him to tell me his opinion on a few things. It always amazes me that Joe understands the words in spite of his having his hands and utensils in my mouth, torturing me while we chat. At one point, I said, “You’re filling my mouth with grit!” and he said, “And, there’s gonna be more to remind you to brush and floss better! I’m retiring you know.”
I complained no more. Joe is the single best dental technician I’ve ever had, bar none.
When I left, I handed him a card with our phone number and he said he would call and come see the place. Joe restores old vehicles! He’s a fabulous friend to retain.
I literally said (out loud) that there are very few people around here my husband can stand and I’m not willing to let one go so easy.
Oh, yeah… the amazing discussion: He told me he fully expects civil unrest that divides rural from urban in a more distinct way than black and white. He told me so many things I already knew, it was almost a God thing. He said he could finally speak frankly and thinks we will see local militias forming soon out of necessity.
The looters are beginning to surveil the countryside outside suburbia.
They’re going to stave you. Want food? Get the jab. If not, die. So the outcome is the same. FYI…. in Canada they are going after people with backyard gardens.
And the NYT talks — tongue-in-cheek? or for real? — about cannibalism as a future … it’s apparently quite ‘big’ in books and media … the seeming ultimate destruction of our humanity by the radical left …
As someone once told me — coming events cast their shadows before —
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/23/style/cannibalism-tv-shows-movies-books.html
Media normalization of this taboo is for non-obvious depopulation agenda. Because most bush meat is now infected with Fauci’s designer COVID spike protein either via respiratory transmission in 2020 or vaxx-19. This pathogen may very well be a prion or prion precursor to initiating CJD (Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease) in those who have prior exposure and those who, out of desperation, eat human road-kill in the coming darkness.
Cooking doesn’t kill prions, it isn’t alive, just deformed protein scaffolding. Takes about 5 years to brain mush somebody and a horrible death. Humans normally get it from infected, mad cow/ “downer” cattle so plenty of prior research for a typical bio-weapons outfit with a nice philanthropic/tax grant.
Reference please.
“Without decentralized mining of raw materials, local manufacturing, locally sourced goods, local food production and locally integrated trade networks there can be no true stability.”
Most places, at least those with substantial population per area, are completely unable to provide any of these things. That was by design, as is their fate.
Things are only going to get worse from here on.
That’s simply a matter of perspective. I think things are going to get progressively better. Families will begin to rely on one another for their daily needs rather than on corporations and government. People will actually have to work, to produce or repair or service things or systems rather than spend their lifetimes going from one meeting to another to endlessly digress over mundane bullshit. They’ll have to start producing their own food, or finding a way to be useful to people who do. The Oculus headsets and game controllers are going to be exchanged for shovels and hammers. Skill sets will replace pastimes, success will be measured by what you’ve accomplished rather than by how much you own.
The status quo is not something to inspire and lift up, but rather to be avoided or torn down and replaced with something better.
When we first started doing what we’re doing almost 15 years ago no one was interested. Our old friends and even some of our family thought we’d gone off the deep end and we were going to fail because we were- at least in their eyes- going backwards. Now we find ourselves surrounded by like-minded people excited about the prospects of creating something that is healthy, wholesome, invigorating, useful, significant, and valuable. Caring for the land rather than talking about it. Producing your own sustenance rather than being dependent upon someone else far away doing it for you and in ways that are at best suspect. We found out for ourselves how many other positive benefits arose simply from the doing, day in and day out the kinds of things that human beings have been doing since the dawn of time because that’s part of our purpose. We weren’t created to relax 24/7, to live off the fat of the land without putting anything back into it, we’re here for a reason and we have a purpose and that’s where we’ve been getting it wrong for so long. As much as I find guys like Yuval Hariri repugnant, he’s not wrong about how useless most of humanity has become. They are users rather than producers and they extract from the environment rather than build upon it. Not everyone is going to make this transition smoothly, but it is going to happen either way.
Continued dependence upon a broken system that negates your value, demeans your existence, considers you a burden is not an option for anyone with even a small degree of character and conscience. The challenge ahead of us is not insurmountable, it isn’t even a burden if the load is shared between us.
We can do this and as a consequence our lives will improve in ways we could never have imagined before.
This reset is the greatest opportunity of the last 100 years.
Remember the neighbor who, when the calf escaped, told you that you are not a “real” farmer? In the eyes of almost everyone here, you are more of a farmer than anybody they know personally.
What it is to be “farming” is going to enjoy a new definition. I like Joel Salatin’s idea of having neighborhood small operations for food production. He suggested to have small acreage right near a neighborhood of, say, 20-50 houses. You could have everybody contribute financially to buy some land and livestock, seeds, and pay someone to be a full time caretaker. At butchering time, everybody could come and help slaughter the 200-400 chickens or something, 2 times a year. Just small enough so as to not be an industrial operation, nearby so everybody sees and experiences where the food comes from, and large enough in scale and diversified in expertise so that some of the people can pursue other jobs, because, let’s face it, we will most likely not have a society where there are only farmers. For some people their interest and strengths are not in farming, and it should be possible for them to have other types of professions.
That neighbor did me a favor and he was right. Part of what it means to be a farmer is to accept responsibility for the things under your control. My fence line wasn’t secure and it impacted his property. I learned how to install better perimeter controls so I wouldn’t have to experience the disdain of the people around me. The better we get at what we do, the more we increase our value to the community.
And you’re right about the construction of these new communities. We need people with a mix of skill sets, some overlapping, others specialized in order to face whatever comes our way.
Loka,
Will regulations allow it? I’m thinking, no.
People follow regulations when it is “just” a dirty rag in front of their faces. If their lives depend on them, regulations become less meaningful, especially in less densely populated and patrolled areas.
HSF,
I wish I believed all of that. Will we be allowed to do these things? How can we work the land if it all becomes corporate owned? Or government owned. Isn’t that the goal of communism?
Your POV echoes one of today’s QOTD here on TBP: ‘The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.’ By William A. Ward …
I hope you and yours ‘Life long and prosper’, as Spock used to say …
Actual reality – TPTB confiscate your boat and gear for improper registration or license.
I am all for what hardscrabble farmer and others are doing regarding a worthwhile existence. Trying to do the same myself.
I just have great doubt that TPTB will allow it for much longer. TPTB are about TOTAL and ABSOLUTE control. Even questioning the logic, workability or sanity of their demands is an unacceptable offense to them. Remaining outside of the fences they erect is far worse and certainly will not be allowed. We have seen much of this daily for over 2 years now.
TPTB will never stop in their quest for total control while they still have any control.
This IS war, and we are losing. It is just a matter of how quickly now. I just hope it is slow enough that I die before they come for my “independent and therefore a threat to the collective” life.
Yep.