Home » Posts tagged 'fear' (Page 3)

Tag Archives: fear

Mainstream news outlets are already starting to use the phrase “economic collapse” to describe what is going on in some areas of our world right now. For many Americans this may seem a bit strange, but the truth is that the worldwide economic slowdown that began during the second half of last year is starting to get a lot worse. In this article, we are going to examine evidence of this from South America, Europe, Asia and North America. Once we are done, it should be obvious that there is absolutely no reason to be optimistic about the direction of the global economy right now. The warnings of so many prominent experts are now becoming a reality, and what we have witnessed so far are just the early chapters of a crushing economic crisis that will affect every man, woman and child in the entire world.

Let’s start with Brazil. It has the 7th largest economy on the entire planet, and it is already enduring its worst recession in 25 years. In fact, at the end of last year Goldman Sachs said that what was going on down there was actually a “depression“.

But now the crisis in Brazil has escalated significantly.

I want to share with you an excerpt from a recent article entitled “Brazil: Economic collapse worse than feared“. I know, that title sounds like it comes directly from The Economic Collapse Blog, but I didn’t write it.

It actually comes from CNN…

Amid political chaos, Brazil’s economic collapse is worse than its government once believed.

In the midst of rising calls to impeach President Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s central bank announced Thursday that it now expects the country’s economy to shrink 3.5% this year.

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

Why Investing In Silver Is Vastly Superior To Investing In Gold Right Now

March 21, 2016

Why Investing In Silver Is Vastly Superior To Investing In Gold Right Now

When panic and fear dominate financial markets, gold and silver both tend to rapidly rise in price. We witnessed this during the last financial crisis, and it is starting to happen again. Because I am the publisher of a website called The Economic Collapse Blog, I am often asked about gold and silver when I do interviews. In fact, just a few days ago I was sitting right next to Jim Rickards during the taping of a television show when this topic came up. Jim expressed his belief that investing in gold is superior to investing in silver, but I had the exact opposite viewpoint. In this article, I would like to elaborate on why I believe that silver represents a historic investment opportunity right now.

I should start out by disclosing that my wife and I have been able to put away a little bit of silver over the years. I wish that it could have been a lot more, but so often there are other priorities that need to be addressed. For example, I have always said that people need to take care of their emergency food storage first before even thinking about any kind of investments.

But if you have money left over after taking care of the basics, I am fully convinced that silver is a wonderful investment for the mid to long term. In this article, I am going to explain why this is the case. However, I have always warned that you have got to be ready for a rollercoaster ride if you get into precious metals. So if you can’t handle the ups and downs, you should probably avoid them altogether.

As I write this article, the price of gold is sitting at $1254.30 an ounce.

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

Gold Now?

February 24, 2016

Gold Now?

Gold never changes; it’s the world around it that does. Why is it that we see a renewed interest in gold now? And more importantly, should investors buy this precious metal?

Key attributes in a ‘changing world’ that may be relevant to the price of gold are fear and interest rates. Let’s examine these:

Gold & Fear
When referencing ‘fear’ driving the markets, most think of a terrorist attack, political uncertainty or some other crisis that impacts investor sentiment, and sure enough, at times, the price of gold moves higher when this type of fear is observed. While that may be correct, I don’t like an investment case based on such flare-ups of fear, as I see such events as intrinsically temporary in nature. We tend to get used to crises, even a prolonged terror campaign or the Eurozone debt crisis; whateveras the ‘novelty’ of any shock recedes, markets tend to move on.

Having said that, I believe fear is under-appreciated – quite literally, although in a different sense. Fear is the plain English word for risk aversion. When fear is low, investors may embrace “risk assets,” including stocks and junk bonds. A lack of fear suggests volatility is low; as such, investors with a given level of risk tolerance may understandably re-allocate their portfolios so that the overall perceived riskiness of their portfolio stays the same. While retail investors might do this intuitively, professional investors may also do the same, but use fancy terminology, notably that they may target a specific “value at risk,” abbreviated as VaR. Conversely, our analysis shows that when fear comes back to the market – for whatever reason – ‘risk assets’ tend to under-perform as investors reduce their exposure.

Assuming you agree, this doesn’t explain yet why gold is often considered a ‘safe haven’ asset when the price of gold is clearly volatile.

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

Can the UK Survive Brexit?

January 5, 2016

Can the UK Survive Brexit?

LONDON – The upcoming referendum on the United Kingdom’s continued membership in the European Union, almost certain to be held this year, could turn out to be yet another major catastrophe to hit Europe. If, as seems increasingly plausible, British voters chose to leave, the result would be a profoundly destabilized EU – and a shattered UK.

The problem is that, with the EU seemingly mired in perpetual crisis, the case for “Brexit” carries significant intellectual and emotional allure. Even before the eurozone’s debt problems emerged in 2009-2010, it seemed clear to many British that, in order to be resilient to shocks, a currency union requires greater integration, in particular, some form of fiscal union. In other words, Europe would need to act more like a nation-state. And that is one arrangement that the UK has never been willing to abide.

And, on an emotional level, fear of large-scale immigration, from both within and outside the EU, has fueled a populist backlash, which the recent refugee crisis has intensified. The populist response relies on the bizarre but evidently resonant argument that Europe – or, more specifically, Germany – is encouraging the refugee inflows.

Meanwhile, the defenders of Britain’s continued EU membership have made one mistake after another. Many have apparently pinned their hopes on the unrealistic expectation that they could renegotiate the EU treaties. In particular, they tried to present a case for weakening crucial elements of the European integration process, especially with regard to labor mobility.

Furthermore, the pro-EU camp has sounded the alarms over the economic shock that Brexit would cause. This may have seemed like a reasonable strategy, but fear is not rational; it may well drive voters toward the apparent certainties offered by the nation-state.

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

Does Fear Lead to Fascism? A Culture of Fear and the Epigenetics of Terror

December 10, 2015

Does Fear Lead to Fascism? A Culture of Fear and the Epigenetics of Terror

“No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.”—Edward R. Murrow, broadcast journalist

America is in the midst of an epidemic of historic proportions.

The contagion being spread like wildfire is turning communities into battlegrounds and setting Americans one against the other.

Normally mild-mannered individuals caught up in the throes of this disease have been transformed into belligerent zealots, while others inclined to pacifism have taken to stockpiling weapons and practicing defensive drills.

This plague on our nation—one that has been spreading like wildfire—is a potent mix of fear coupled with unhealthy doses of paranoia and intolerance, tragic hallmarks of the post-9/11 America in which we live.

Everywhere you turn, those on both the left- and right-wing are fomenting distrust and division. You can’t escape it.

We’re being fed a constant diet of fear: fear of terrorists, fear of illegal immigrants, fear of people who are too religious, fear of people who are not religious enough, fear of Muslims, fear of extremists, fear of the government, fear of those who fear the government. The list goes on and on.

The strategy is simple yet effective: the best way to control a populace is through fear and discord.

Fear makes people stupid.

Confound them, distract them with mindless news chatter and entertainment, pit them against one another by turning minor disagreements into major skirmishes, and tie them up in knots over matters lacking in national significance.

Most importantly, divide the people into factions, persuade them to see each other as the enemy and keep them screaming at each other so that they drown out all other sounds. In this way, they will never reach consensus about anything and will be too distracted to notice the police state closing in on them until the final crushing curtain falls.

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

False East/West Paradigm And The End Of Freedom

October 14, 2015

False East/West Paradigm And The End Of Freedom

People are desperate for leaders and heroes. This is an undeniable condition of human life and of human civilization. Some historians and social observers, however, seem to think it is enough to simply point out this condition and pretend as if they have made some grand declaration; as if they have come to the root of the problem of mankind. In their laziness, they have mistaken a symptom for the cause.

Why do people so often demand leaders and heroic figures? What drives the institutionalization of hierarchy, celebrity and geopolitical idolization? I believe this condition is caused by three factors – fear, ignorance, and apathy.

This is not to say that there are not people throughout history that are worth looking up to, or that looking up to a particular hero figure is wrong. Heroes and sometimes leaders can act as points of reference, helping us to aspire to greater personal accomplishment and extraordinary achievement. The problem is many historical figures labeled heroic are in fact monsters in masks paraded as saviors by history writers with agendas. Real heroes (in the past hundred years in particular) are most often unsung, and remain little known.

This is why the idolization of puppet leaders is so disturbing to those of us in the Liberty Movement. We witnessed the blind militancy of the so-called “right wing” in the support of George W. Bush after 9/11, only to be led into quagmire, economic despair, and a surveillance state based on numerous lies. We then had to witness the insane cult-like fervor of the so-called “left wing” as Barack Obama took office, only to continue and accelerate the same draconian policies of the Bush Administration while conjuring new methods for the division and destruction of American society and prosperity.

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

How Our Aversion To Change Leads Us Into Danger

October 9, 2015

How Our Aversion To Change Leads Us Into Danger

The deeply embedded, genetically determined aversion -or resistance- to change that we are all born with is an important survival tactic. Since change equals potential danger, our aversion to it keeps us out of danger.

We are ‘programmed’ to prefer familiar surroundings, to first look at what we recognize, and to ignore what we do not until we feel comfortable enough about what we do know.

Ironically, though, the aversion to change can also lead us into danger. Because it prevents us from preparing for change, and therefore preparing for danger.

Yes, people can adapt, they have that ability too, but we don’t fully adapt to change until and unless we’re forced to. And while it may not be too late then, it certainly tends to make adaptation much more difficult.

We prefer to focus on those things that stay the same, or seem to stay the same, ignoring those that don’t, even if they change in -comparatively- radical ways, until we no longer can. But by then we have most often missed a significant part of the time and the opportunity to adapt to them. Our resistance to change causes us to miss those changes that happen despite our efforts at keeping things the same.

The deeper problem, as every thinking human can recognize, is that things always change, life changes, the world does. Nothing ever stays the same. Change itself is the only constant. Life equals change. Without change, there would be no life.

And arguably -since time is perhaps not a constant-, changes come even faster today than they have historically, in the perception of our ancestors, both in human designed systems and in natural systems. And the faster the changes come, the more vulnerable our inborn aversion to change makes us. Which in turn reinforces that aversion all the more.

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

The Worst Part Is Central Bankers Know Exactly What They Are Doing

September 23, 2015

The Worst Part Is Central Bankers Know Exactly What They Are Doing

The best position for a tyrant or tyrants to be in, at least while consolidating power, is tyranny by proxy. That is to say, the most dangerous tyrants are those the people do not recognize: the tyrants who hide behind scarecrows and puppets and faceless organizations. The worst position for the common citizen to be in is a false sense of security and understanding, operating on the assumption that tyrants do not exist or that potential tyrants are really just greedy fools acting independently from one another.

Sadly, there are a great many people today who hold naïve notions that our sociopolitical dynamic is driven by random chaos, greed and fear. I’m sorry to say that this is simply not so, and anyone who believes such nonsense is doomed to be victimized by the tides of history over and over again.

There is nothing random or coincidental about our political systems or economic structures. There are no isolated tyrants and high-level criminals functioning solely on greed and ignorance. And while there is certainly chaos, this chaos is invariably engineered, not accidental. These crisis events are created by people who often refer to themselves as “globalists” or “internationalists,” and their goals are rather obvious and sometimes openly admitted: at the top of their list is the complete centralization of government and economic power that is then ACCEPTED by the people as preferable. They hope to attain this goal primarily through the exploitation of puppet politicians around the world as well as the use of pervasive banking institutions as weapons of mass fiscal destruction.

Their strategic history is awash in wars and financial disasters, and not because they are incompetent. They are evil, not stupid.

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

Now Is The Time – Fear Rises As Financial Markets All Over The Planet Start To Crash

July 28, 2015

Now Is The Time – Fear Rises As Financial Markets All Over The Planet Start To Crash

Can you feel the panic in the air? CNN Money’s Fear & Greed Index measures the amount of fear in the financial world on a scale from 0 to 100. The closer it is to zero, the higher the level of fear. Last Monday, the index was sitting at a reading of 36. As I write this article, it has fallen to 7. The financial turmoilwhich began last week is threatening to turn into an avalanche. On Sunday night, we witnessed the second largest one day stock market collapse in China ever, and this pushed stocks all over the planet into the red. Meanwhile, the twin blades of an emerging market currency crisis and a commodity price crash are chewing up economies that are dependent on the export of natural resources all over the globe. For a long time, I have been warning about what would happen in the second half of 2015, and now it is here. The following is a summary of the financial carnage that we have seen over the past 24 hours…

-On Sunday night, the Shanghai Composite Index plunged 8.5 percent. It was the largest one day stock market crash in China since 2007, and it was the second largest in history. The Chinese government is promising to directly intervene in order to prevent Chinese stocks from going down even more.

-Over 1,500 stocks in China fell by their 10 percent daily maximum. This list includes giants such as China Unicom, Bank of Communications and PetroChina.

-Ever since peaking in June, the Shanghai Composite Index has dropped by a total of 28 percent.

-Even Chinese stocks that are listed on U.S. stock exchanges are being absolutely hammered. The following comes from USA Today…

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

The First-World Fear That Makes Life Harder

May 24, 2015

The First-World Fear That Makes Life Harder

Here in the so-called First World, we give up a lot because of an exaggerated fear of a particular feeling.

It’s usually pretty subtle, but I see this fear made explicit whenever Mr Money Mustache or other early-retirement advocatesget national news coverage. The comment sections of these major publications are always vile, and I don’t recommend you read them, but if you do you will notice a trend. Even when Pete explains the shockingly simple math that proves early retirement is possible for people of average incomes, commenters insist they would prefer to leave their lifestyle costs unchanged than retire twenty years earlier but “live a life of deprivation”.

This unexamined fear of deprivation has a huge effect on our lives. Consumers go into debt because they’re afraid of going without something they’re used to. We eat too much because we’re afraid of being disappointed by small portions. We continue bad habits for years because the thought of disallowing ourselves to do something we enjoy feels oppressive. “We deserve it!” we tell ourselves. Or at least advertisers tell us to tell ourselves that.

The strange thing is that usually it’s not even real deprivation. These are all choices. The big purchase, the extra calories, and the indulgent habit are always available to you to take or leave.

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

HEAD of the FBI’s Anthrax Investigation Says the Whole Thing Was a SHAM

April 19, 2015

HEAD of the FBI’s Anthrax Investigation Says the Whole Thing Was a SHAM

Agent In Charge of Amerithrax Investigation Blows the Whistle

The FBI head agent in charge of the anthrax investigation – Richard Lambert – has just filed a federal whistleblower lawsuit calling the entire FBI investigation bullsh!t:

In the fall of 2001, following the 9/11 attacks, a series of anthrax mailings occurred which killed five Americans and sickened 17 others. Four anthrax-laden envelopes were recovered which were addressed to two news media outlets in New York City (the New York Post and Tom Brokaw at NBC) and two senators in Washington D.C. (Patrick Leahy and Tom Daschle). The anthrax letters addressed to New York were mailed on September 18, 2001, just seven days after the 9/11 attacks. The letters addressed to the senators were mailed 21 days later on October 9, 2001. A fifth mailing of anthrax is believed to have been directed to American Media, Inc. (AMI) in Boca Raton, Florida based upon the death of one AMI employee from anthrax poisoning and heavy spore contamination in the building.

Executive management at FBI Headquarters assigned responsibility for the anthrax investigation (code named “AMERITHRAX”) to the Washington Field Office (WFO), dubbing it the single most important case in the FBI at that time. In October 2002, in the wake of surging media criticism, White House impatience with a seeming lack of investigative progress by WFO, and a concerned Congress that was considering revoking the FBI’s charter to investigate terrorism cases, Defendant FBI Director Mueller reassigned Plaintiff from the FBI’s San Diego Field Office to the Inspection Division at FBI Headquarters and placed Plaintiff in charge of the AMERITHRAX case as an “Inspector.” While leading the investigation for the next four years, Plaintiff’s efforts to advance the case met with intransigence from WFO’s executive management, apathy and error from the FBI Laboratory, politically motivated communication embargos from FBI Headquarters, and yet another preceding and equally erroneous legal opinion from Defendant Kelley – all of which greatly obstructed and impeded the investigation.

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

The Anthrax Coverup Exposed

April 19, 2015

The Anthrax Coverup Exposed

Update: Both Senator Leahy and Senator Daschle were in positions capable of blocking
the neo-Nazi PATRIOT Act. Both senators had negotiated with the Bush regime changes in the act that made it less tyrannical. However, the changes were not in the final draft of the act sent to Congress. Consequently, Leahy and Daschle were resisting the rush to passage. I have often wondered if Leahy and Daschle understood the anthrax letters to be Washington’s warning: “Get out of the way of Tyranny or we will kill you.”

The Anthrax Coverup Exposed

Paul Craig Roberts

Graeme MacQueen’s 2014 book, The 2001 Anthrax Deception: The Case for a Domestic Conspiracy, has been vindicated by the head of the FBI’s Anthrax Investigation.

Four and one-half months ago I posted a review of MacQueen’s book.http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/12/02/2001-anthrax-deception-case-domestic-conspiracy/The hired government apologists, the despicable presstitute media, and the usual gullible patriots greeted the book with screams of “conspiracy theory.” In fact, MacQueen’s book was a carefully researched project that established that there indeed was a conspiracy–a conspiracy inside the government.

MacQueen’s conclusion stands vindicated by Richard Lambert, the agent in charge of the FBI anthrax investigation who has turned whistleblower.http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/04/head-fbis-anthrax-investigation-calls-b-s.html

It was obvious to any person familiar with the techniques that governments use to erode liberty by destroying the protection given to citizens by law that the purpose of the anthrax letters, especially the letters to senators Patrick Leahy and Tom Daschle, was to raise the fear level in order to guarantee the passage of the tyrannical PATRIOT Act.

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

There Is Hope In Understanding That A Great Economic Collapse Is Coming

December 21, 2014

There Is Hope In Understanding That A Great Economic Collapse Is Coming.

If you were about to take a final exam, would you have more hope or more fear if you didn’t understand any of the questions and you had not prepared for the test at all? I think that virtually all of us have had dreams where we show up for an exam that we have not studied for. Those dreams can be pretty terrifying. And of course if you were ever in such a situation in real life, you probably did very, very poorly on that test. The reason I have brought up this hypothetical is to make a point. My point is that there is hope in understanding what is ahead of us, and there is hope in getting prepared. Since I started The Economic Collapse Blog back in 2009, there have always been a few people that have accused me of spreading fear. That frustrates me, because what I am actually doing is the exact opposite of that. When a hurricane is approaching, is it “spreading fear” to tell people to board up their windows? Of course not. In fact, you just might save someone’s life. Or if you were walking down the street one day and you saw someone that wasn’t looking and was about to step out into the road in front of a bus, what would the rational thing to do be? Anyone that has any sense of compassion would yell out and warn that other person to stay back. Yes, that other individual may be startled for a moment, but in the end you will be thanked warmly for saving that person from major injury or worse. Well, as a nation we are about to be slammed by the hardest times that any of us have ever experienced. If we care about those around us, we should be sounding the alarm.

Since 2009, I have published 1,211 articles on the coming economic collapse on my website. Some people assume that I must be filled with worry, bitterness and fear because I am constantly dealing with such deeply disturbing issues.

But that is not the case at all.

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

ClubOrlov: The Only Way to Stop the Empire

November 25, 2014

ClubOrlov: The Only Way to Stop the Empire.

Dear friends,

The final days of US empire are fast approaching. Perhaps its end will pass slowly and gradually, or perhaps the event will unfold rapidly and catastrophically. Maybe chaos will break loose, or maybe its demise will be organized well and proceed smoothly. This nobody knows, but the end of empire is coming as surely as day follows night and sun follows rain. Overexpansion, overreach and over-indebtedness will take their toll—as all past empires have discovered. Empires are like bacteria in a Petrie dish; unthinking, unseeing, unfeeling, they expand until they run out of food or contaminate their environment with their waste, and then they die. They are automatons, and they just can’t help it: they are programmed to expand or die, expand or die, and, in the end, expand and die.

What does the empire feed on? It feeds on money and fear; your money and your fear, both obtained with your cooperation. It is bigger now than when it faced an actual adversary in the Soviet Union. Russia is no adversary; all it wants is to be a normal country, at peace with the world. But the empire won’t let it, will it? It must create enemies. Who are our enemies? According to the authors of endless war they are North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Islamic terrorists. Are any of them actually capable of threatening the US? Well, yes, but they are all quite easy to deter. But the plan of the authors of endless war is not to deter them; it is to back them into a corner with political instability and sanctions, while whipping up the population on both sides into fear-filled frenzy.

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

Government Lied About Pandemic Which Killed 50 Million People … Attempt to “Prevent Panic” Backfired Washington’s Blog

November 4, 2014

Government Lied About Pandemic Which Killed 50 Million People … Attempt to “Prevent Panic” Backfired Washington’s Blog.

Governments Have Suppressed the Dangers of Epidemics Before, Only Making Things Worse

The mainstream American press has agreed – at the request of the government – not to report on suspected Ebola cases.

Let’s provide some context …

The U.S. National Academies of Science noted in 2005 (starting on the bottom of p. 64):

In the United States, national and local government and public health authorities badly mishandled the [1918 “Spanish Flu”] epidemic [which killed up to 50 million peopleworldwide], offering a useful case study.

The context is important. Every country engaged in World War I tried to control public perception. To avoid hurting morale, even in the nonlethal first wave the press in countries fighting in the war did not mention the outbreak. (But Spain was not at war and its press wrote about it, so the pandemic became known as the Spanish flu).

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

Tag Archives: fear

Content

Post categories

Economic Links

Energy/Resource Links

Environmental Links

Geopolitical Links

Liberty Links

News Links

Other Links

Survival Skills

Post Archives by Category

Agent In Charge of Amerithrax Investigation Blows the Whistle

Governments Have Suppressed the Dangers of Epidemics Before, Only Making Things Worse

Post navigation

Latest Posts