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The Ideological Battle Behind the U.S. Debt Crisis

The Ideological Battle Behind the U.S. Debt Crisis

The U.S. national debt is at 34.7 trillion dollars. If you laid that many dollar bills end-to-end, it would wrap around the Earth 134,599 times. That’s enough to travel to the sun and back 17 times. Suffice it to say, we’re in a pickle.

America is slowly approaching the precipice of debt default. This is no minor dilemma. A default could cause approximately 8 million jobs to be lost. In other words, the bill would come due.

For many politicians, the debt crisis is not a pressing concern. At least not enough to take measures to fix it. The Biden administration passed a 1.2 trillion-dollar infrastructure bill in 2021, adding 256 billion dollars to the budget deficit over the next ten years. Biden has also forgiven 167 billion dollars in student loans during his tenure, which was financed through increased government spending. Despite already being one of the most indebted countries in the world, politicians continue to dig the U.S. into an even deeper hole. The problem is not simply a monetary one. There is an ideological battle underlying our descent into debt.

The ideas that have caused America’s current debt crisis were birthed during the Great Depression. In 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a series of spending measures that were intended to stimulate economic activity in what was called the “New Deal.” FDR spent over 950 billion (inflation-adjusted) dollars on the program while being touted as an economic “savior.” The deal was promoted as what released America from the bonds of the recession. In reality, it made the problem worse.

A study conducted by two UCLA economists found that the New Deal actually extended the Great Depression by seven years. By artificially increasing wages while unemployment remained rampant and below projected recovery rates, FDR’s program harmed economic health. Simply pumping money into the economy wasn’t the fix-all solution it was advertised to be.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

False Flag On The Horizon? The Strange Case Of The Destroyed Russian Nuclear Radar

False Flag On The Horizon? The Strange Case Of The Destroyed Russian Nuclear Radar

If we accept the fundamental truth that Ukraine is nothing more than a proxy battleground between Russia and the west, then you might say WWIII has already begun. The powers-that-be have been content to keep the situation contained primarily to Ukraine so far, but a recent event suggests things are about to change. There’s something very strange happening on the nuclear front between NATO and Russia and I believe it might be time to consider the possibility that a false flag threat is in the works.

In the past two weeks Ukraine has taken credit for at least two separate strikes on peculiar targets – Russian “over the horizon” radar stations using drones with an impressive flight range of at least 1200 miles. Until this point, long range attacks into Russian territory have been exceedingly rare. So, why these specifics radar stations?

The Voronezh-DM stations were positioned outside the city of Orsk and the region of Krasnodar (Armavir); far away from the front lines in Ukraine. The strikes are being hailed as the furthest Ukraine has attacked into the heart of Russia, but the corporate media has ignored the wider implications of the situation.

It is likely that the drones used were of US or European origin. NATO has (until the past couple of days) enforced tight restrictions on how their weapons can be used by Ukraine. Long range drones and cruise missiles hitting targets deep in Russia invites major blowback, including the threat of a nuclear response.

That said, it’s not so much the weapons used that concerns me, it’s the specific targets that Ukraine supposedly chose.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ukraine Biolab Watchtower

Ukraine Biolab Watchtower

An attempt to triangulate something approximating truth about Ukraine and Biolabs

This was first published in March 2022. It has withstood the test of time. It is helpful to look back at the early days of the Ukrainian hot war and remember that this all started with a series of USG lies. –

“No reason to get excited”

The thief, he kindly spoke

“There are many here among us

Who feel that life is but a joke

But you and I, we’ve been through that

And this is not our fate

So let us not talk falsely now

The hour is getting late”

Buckle up. This is going to be a long one, but I think the topic deserves a deep dive.

What a mess. Are there any grownups in the house?  This is what happens in a world in which no one trusts anyone anymore, integrity is treated as an obsolete concept, both information and legacy media have become weaponized to such an extent that what passes for official reality becomes just a funhouse hall of mirrors, and the experience, intellect and maturity of those entrusted to manage these matters is just not up to the task.

Yesterday I published a substack article titled “All Along the Watchtower”, which posed the question “Would the Russian invasion of Ukraine be justified if it were for biodefense?”.

Since then, we have had a flood of new information drop:

1)    Testimony of Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to Senator Marco Rubio, in which she admits that Ukraine has biological research facilities.

2)    Epoch times’ report “US State Department Denies Russian Allegations of Biological Weapons in Ukraine”.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

CEO Of Russia’s Second-Largest Bank Warns: “US Is Inevitably Headed For A Serious Economic Crisis”

CEO Of Russia’s Second-Largest Bank Warns: “US Is Inevitably Headed For A Serious Economic Crisis”

Last September, we told readers that the US national debt was skyrocketing at a staggering $1 trillion every three months—roughly every 100 days.

Since then, the debt spending has gotten worse.

Out-of-control spending has delayed the US economy’s day of reckoning in this year’s presidential election cycle. But it has become very evident an economic crisis looms in the years ahead.

One River Asset Management CIO, Eric Peters, recently said, “I have a growing conviction that in the coming 2-5 years, we’re going to face a US debt sustainability crisis, sparking a major global market event.”

BofA CIO Michael Hartnett recently noted what we said previously about the unsustainable debt explosion

And now, fresh comments from Andrey Kostin, CEO of Russia’s second-largest bank, have emerged—comments that Western mainstream media dare not share with their audiences. Why is that? … Well, the Washington censorship blob wouldn’t allow it.

Russian state-owned news agency TASS cited Kostin’s interview with the Fontanka publication, who warned if it wasn’t for the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency, a sovereign debt crisis would’ve already been underway in the US. No matter what, he warned the US economy is on the verge of an economic crisis.

“I am thoroughly convinced that America is inevitably headed for a serious economic crisis. The amount of debt currently held by the US today has reached inconceivable, astronomical levels. And the dollar’s monopoly on the global stage is the only thing enabling the Americans to maintain such a level of debt. If the Chinese or the Arabs took their money out of the US, a complete collapse would ensue for the financial sector and the government,” he said. 

Kostin added:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

There’s More to China’s U.S. Debt-Dumping Rush Than Meets the Eye

There’s More to China’s U.S. Debt-Dumping Rush Than Meets the Eye

Unprintable Alternative to Debt, De-Dollarization, Not Just China, Leaving the West for the East

“Gold is money. Everything else is credit.”
~ J. P. Morgan

Earlier this week, I told you how China has accelerated its de-dollarization efforts with rapid-fire sales of U.S. debt.

The country offloaded $53.3 billion worth of U.S. Treasuries and U.S. agency bonds. This is the largest single sale of U.S. debt in its history.

But, as I explained, even U.S. allies like Belgium and Switzerland have recently dumped an impressive $20 billion and $43 billion worth of Treasuries, respectively.

If this trend keeps up, it could be a big problem for the U.S. government. That’s because about one-third of its debt, or $8 trillion, is held by foreign countries.

The Unprintable Alternative

Now, the main reason foreigners own such a large portion of U.S. debt is simple: the U.S. dollar is the world’s primary reserve currency.

Currently, central banks hold about 58% of their foreign reserves in U.S. dollars. To earn returns on all this cash, they invest it in U.S. Treasuries, which are considered the safest assets in the world.

There’s just no alternative… or is there?

Well, China certainly seems to think so.

Just take a look at the next graph showing China’s holdings of U.S. Treasuries and gold as a percentage of its foreign reserves since 2015.

The chart above shows that as China cut back on U.S. debt, it ramped up its gold purchases. This inverse relationship between China’s gold and U.S. debt holdings became really noticeable around 2018, when the trade war with the U.S. kicked off. And as I mentioned in my last essay, by 2019, China had given up its spot as the biggest holder of U.S. debt to Japan.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

From COVID-19 to Campus Protests: How the Police State Muzzles Free Speech

“Politicians of both parties want to use the power of government to silence their foes. Some in the university community seek to drive it from their campuses. And an entire generation of Americans is being taught that free speech should be curtailed as soon as it makes someone else feel uncomfortable.”—William Ruger, “Free Speech Is Central to Our Dignity as Humans

The police state does not want citizens who know their rights.

Nor does the police state want citizens prepared to exercise those rights.

This year’s graduates are a prime example of this master class in compliance. Their time in college has been set against a backdrop of crackdowns, lockdowns and permacrises ranging from the government’s authoritarian COVID-19 tactics to its more recent militant response to campus protests.

Born in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, these young people have been raised without any expectation of privacy in a technologically-driven, mass surveillance state; educated in schools that teach conformity and compliance; saddled with a debt-ridden economy on the brink of implosion; made vulnerable by the blowback from a military empire constantly waging war against shadowy enemies; policed by government agents armed to the teeth ready and able to lock down the country at a moment’s notice; and forced to march in lockstep with a government that no longer exists to serve the people but which demands they be obedient slaves or suffer the consequences.

And now, when they should be empowered to take their rightful place in society as citizens who fully understand and exercise their right to speak truth to power, they are being censored, silenced and shut down.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

An Empire Self-Destructs

An Empire Self-Destructs

Empires are built through the creation or acquisition of wealth. The Roman Empire came about through the productivity of its people and its subsequent acquisition of wealth from those that it invaded. The Spanish Empire began with productivity and expanded through the use of its large armada of ships, looting the New World of its gold. The British Empire began through localized productivity and grew through its creation of colonies worldwide—colonies that it exploited, bringing the wealth back to England to make it the wealthiest country in the world.

In the Victorian Age, we Brits were proud to say, “There will always be an England,” and “The sun never sets on the British Empire.” So, where did we go wrong? Why are we no longer the world’s foremost empire? Why have we lost not only the majority of our colonies, but also the majority of our wealth?

Well, first, let’s take a peek back at the other aforementioned empires and see how they fared. Rome was arguably the greatest empire the world has ever seen. Industrious Romans organized large armies that went to other parts of the world, subjugating them and seizing the wealth that they had built up over generations. And as long as there were further conquerable lands just over the next hill, this approach was very effective. However, once Rome faced diminishing returns on new lands to conquer, it became evident that those lands it had conquered had to be maintained and defended, even though there was little further wealth that could be confiscated.

The conquered lands needed costly militaries and bureaucracies in place to keep them subjugated but were no longer paying for themselves…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

China Just Dumped the Largest Amount of U.S. Debt in History

China Just Dumped the Largest Amount of U.S. Debt in History

Dropping It Like a Hot Potato, the Lowest level of U.S. Debt Ownership in Decades, Not Just a “China-Leaning” Countries Problem

At this point, the government is completely and totally bankrupt. It’s like Wile E. Coyote that’s walked off a cliff, but doesn’t really realize it yet.
~ Doug Casey

We just learned that China has accelerated its de-dollarization efforts with record sales of U.S. debt.

Turns out, China dumped a staggering $53.3 billion worth of U.S. Treasuries and U.S. agency bonds in the first quarter of this year.

Interestingly, the Chinese government announced the sale right after issuing a joint statement with Russia, where both nations emphasized their resolve to keep moving away from reliance on Western countries.

No doubt, this will seriously dent the appeal of U.S. debt on the international market. But let’s take a closer look to see exactly why.

Yes, It Is a Big Deal... 

Now, this isn’t the first time China has unloaded a portion of the U.S. debt it owns. For example, the country sold $21 billion in U.S. Treasuries and agency bonds in late 2023.

But what makes this latest dump stand out is that it’s the first time China has shed such a big chunk of debt so quickly.

The move brings the nation’s holdings of U.S. government debt to around $767 billion. That’s the lowest level of ownership in decades.

It’s quite something when you think about it… Just a few years back, China was leading the pack in investing in U.S. debt. Things changed around 2018 though, when the trade war with the U.S. began. By 2019, China ceded the position to Japan as the biggest holder of U.S. debt.


…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Hoot of the Day: No One Wants Green Energy if It’s Too Cheap

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wants the EU to hike tariffs on China just as the US did.

Curbs on Cheap Chinese Exports

The Guardian reports Janet Yellen urges EU to join US in curbs on cheap Chinese exports

Janet Yellen, the US treasury secretary, has urged the EU to intervene urgently to dampen the growing export levels of Chinese cut-price green technology including solar panels and wind turbines, pushing European leaders to move to a full-scale trade war.

At the same time she urged German bank executives on Tuesday to step up efforts to comply with sanctions against Russia and shut down efforts to circumvent them to avoid potential penalties themselves that could see the US cut them off from dollar access.

Her remarks, in Frankfurt, come just hours after the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, gave her strongest hint yet that the EU would join the US and impose tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles after a soon-to-be completed investigation into alleged state subsidies into the automotive industry in China.

Wind turbine manufacturers in the EU have protested that Chinese rivals are undercutting them by 50% in a move that is appealing to cash-strapped state and regional authorities facing targets in reductions of greenhouse gases.

China has signaled it will retaliate against any tariffs with potential duties on French brandy, EU wine and dairy products.

Von der Leyen said Europe would take a different approach to the US. While an increase in tariffs is expected, they are unlikely to match the rate imposed by the US.

Von der Leyen told the Financial Times that China had “massive overcapacity” that was “flooding” the EU market with “artificially cheap products”.

She said she expected the investigation into alleged Chinese state subsidies launched last September and due to be finished by 5 June, to conclude there were “excessive production subsidies”.

Wind Power

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

David Stockman on Why Washington DC is the War Capital Of The World

David Stockman on Why Washington DC is the War Capital Of The World

War Capital Of The World

Ultimately, there is no mystery as to why the Forever Wars go on endlessly. Or why at a time when Uncle Sam is hemorrhaging red ink a large bipartisan majority saw fit to authorize $95 billion of foreign aid boondoggles that do absolutely nothing for America’s homeland security.

To wit, Washington has morphed into a freak of world history—a planetary War Capital dominated by a panoptic complex of arms merchants, paladins of foreign intervention and adventure and Warfare State nomenklatura. Never before has there been assembled and concentrated under a single state authority a hegemonic force possessing such unprecedented levels of economic resources, advanced technology and military wherewithal.

Not surprisingly, the world’s War Capital is Orwellian to the core. Its endless pursuit of war is always and everywhere described as the promotion of peace. Its jackboot of global hegemony is gussied-up in the form of alliances and treaties ostensibly designed to promote a “rules-based order” and collective security for the benefit of mankind, not simply the proper goals of peace, liberty, safety and prosperity within America’s homeland.

Unfortunately, the whole intellectual foundation of the enterprise is false. The planet is not crawling with all-powerful would-be aggressors and empire-builders who must be stopped cold at their own borders, lest they devour the freedom of all their neighbors near and far.

Nor is the DNA of nations infected with incipient butchers and tyrants like Hitler and Stalin. They were one-time accidents of history and fully distinguishable from the standard run of everyday tinpots which actually do arise periodically. But the latter mainly disturb the equipoise of their immediate neighborhoods, not the peace of the planet.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

China Shock II Is Coming, the EU Will Be Hit Hard, Then the US

China Shock

Eurointelligence discusses China shock in its article Technology Is Why We Are Losing.

We are not sure that the effect of high tariffs on Chinese electric cars will work quite as intended. We are also skeptical of hydraulic theories of global trade flows – of Chinese goods suddenly starting to swamp European markets.

The much bigger problem at least for German industry has nothing to do with trade policy, but with China crowding in on previously monopolistic and oligopolistic markets dominated by German firms.

Handelsblatt alerts to research just published by the economics team of Allianz that in our view comes much closer to explaining the current dynamics. Previously, the partnership between Germany and China was complementary. The Germans built the factories and the Chinese made the consumer products. Or the Germans specialized in fuel-driven cars, and the Chinese in electric cars. China is now challenging Germany in areas Germany dominated previously. These are the largest parts of the German industrial economy: machines, chemical and electrical engineering. The study says that in many segments of the market, the Chinese are more successful than the Germans. Ludovic Subran, the Allianz chief economist, predicts that the China boom will be followed by a China shock.

We see this similarly. In our own research on the shifting nature of German competitiveness, we find that the most important issue is not trade, but technology. Digital technologies are encroaching on classic engineering. Apple’s latest commercial of a large steel press crushing a whole bunch of analogue devices caused a lot of criticism. Apple apologized, but the commercial is a good visualization of what is currently happening to parts of the German economy…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Truth or CONsequences?

Truth or CONsequences?

When your government cons you daily with its statistical “facts,” it’s hard to keep your balance. Conned-sumers are feeling the cognitive disconnect from reality.

For years, I’ve been saying it appears the BLS (Bureau of Lying Statistics) publishes fake labor statistics. The numbers always look like the seasonal adjustments are used by each administration to try to make the numbers look better, which means we are operating our country on delusions, not on facts. Ultimately that cannot possibly be as good for the nation as seeing reality as it is and dealing with it together.

Never, however, have the numbers looked so blatantly fake as they have under the Biden administration, and I’ve been pushing that point for months now. Then along came a major mainstream publisher (CNBC) who finally said (first I’d ever heard from the mainstream financial press), “These numbers look rigged.” And now, at last, comes a US congresswoman who tells the head of the BLS she should lose her job if she cannot come up with real numbers, pointing out, as I have for some time now, that it seems a bit too convenient that the numbers always come out initially looking great for her Boss, #NoMoJo Biden, and then get revised down to a more dismal reality later in the year when practically no one is looking … and that this happens EVERY SINGLE MONTH and ALWAYS IN THE SAME DIRECTION!

The fluctuating statistics have finally caught the attention of lawmakers in Congress. Last week, Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., grilled Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su about her Biden-friendly reports.

“I pressed the Biden Administration on why their jobs numbers are consistently wrong and quietly revised downward after they are announced. What is going on at BLS?…”

— Rep. Mary Miller (@RepMaryMiller) May 3, 2024

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tornadoes strike across 7 states with more severe weather on the way

Tornadoes strike across 7 states with more severe weather on the way

Severe weather is forecast for Thursday across the entire South.

The threat for tornadoes continues Thursday following an outbreak of deadly storms throughout the Midwest and South over the past few days.

As of Thursday afternoon, at least 17 tornadoes had been reported in the previous 24 hours across seven states. There have been nearly 100 reported or confirmed tornadoes across 18 states since Monday.

Over 30 million Americans, from Texas to South Carolina, are in the storm zone and can expect to see severe weather Thursday night into early Friday. The tornado threat is lower than it has been during the multiday outbreak — damaging winds and large hail will be the main threat with these storms Thursday — though a couple of tornadoes will still remain possible.

PHOTO: Severe storms remain a threat for the South.
Severe storms remain a threat for the South.
ABC News

Damaging winds up to 70 mph, scattered hail and a couple of tornadoes will all be possible as a cluster of thunderstorms with a history of producing tornadoes moves through southern Georgia, heading south and east through the evening.

A tornado watch has been issued for South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Florida until 9 p.m. ET Thursday. The cities located in that tornado watch include Jacksonville, Florida; Savannah, Georgia; and Charleston, South Carolina.

In Texas, a cluster of storms is expected to fire up Thursday afternoon and evening then progress west across the Gulf Coast states through the overnight hours. The main threats are significant wind gusts to 85 mph and very large hail up to 4 inches, though a couple of tornadoes cannot be ruled out.

A tornado watch has also been issued for parts of Texas, including Dallas, Waco and Abilene, through 9 p.m. CT Thursday.

PHOTO: John Bernhardt searches for his belongings outside his storm-damaged home Thursday, May 9, 2024, in Columbia, Tenn.
John Bernhardt searches for his belongings outside his storm-damaged home Thursday, May 9, 2…
George Walker IV/AP
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Weekend reads: The American press gets its groove back

Weekend reads: The American press gets its groove back

U.S. media is ‘dragging itself back from the brink.’ Will Canada follow?

Bettmann/Getty Images

A story broke last weekend that I’ve been waiting a long time to see. In an interview with Ben Smith at Semafor, Joe Kahn, the executive editor of The New York Times, effectively announced the return of journalism to its pre-Trump era standards, stating that the role of the news media “is not to skew your coverage towards one candidate or the other.” Kahn pushed back on the activist ethos in newsrooms, blasted journalists that expect their work to be a reflection of personal politics, and acknowledged the Times went “too far” in 2020 and is now re-establishing norms in the wake of these “excesses.”

It was a stunning moment.

Speaking about the story on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Ben Smith described the Grey Lady as being “focused on dragging itself back from the brink.” He said that “what’s happening inside the New York Times is a sense that, during particularly the summer of 2020, they aligned themselves too much with particularly the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.” And that Khan considers it his job to pull the institution back.

The context for Kahn’s stance is ongoing tensions between the Times and the White House (in part because the President won’t grant the paper a sit-down interview), and comments from podcaster and former Obama aide Dan Pfeiffer in particular. The Pod Save America co-host recently complained in a Substack post that the Times is “often too worried about seeming balanced to truly articulate the danger of Trump.” And that journalists “do not see their job as saving democracy or stopping an authoritarian from taking power.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A Concise History of the Global Empire

A Concise History of the Global Empire

Like all past empires, the Global Empire has gone through its parable of growth and glory and is now starting to decline. There is not much we can do about it; we must accept that this is how the universe works.

For everything that exists, there is a reason, and that’s true also for that gigantic thing that we sometimes call “The West” or perhaps “The Global Empire.” To find that reason, we may examine its origins in an older but similar empire: the Roman one.

As someone might have said (and maybe someone did), “Geography is the mother of Empires.” So, the Romans exploited the geography of the Mediterranean basin to build an empire based on maritime transportation. Rome was the center of a hub of commerce that outcompeted every other state in the Western region of Eurasia and North Africa. It was kept together by a “Lingua Franca,” Latin, and by a financial system based on coinage, in turn based on the availability of gold and silver mined from the Empire’s mines in Spain. More than all, it was based on a powerful military system created by the Roman wealth.

Like all empires, the Roman one carried inside the seeds of its own destruction: the limited amount of its mineral resources. Roman gold and silver were used to pay not just for the legions but also for expensive commodities coming from China that the Empire couldn’t produce in its territory. As long as the Romans could keep producing precious metals, the amounts lost to China to pay for silk and spices didn’t matter so much…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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