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War on Cash: The Next Phase

April 14, 2021

War on Cash: The Next Phase

With so much news about an economic reopening, a border crisis, massive government spending and exploding deficits, it’s easy to overlook the ongoing war on cash.

That’s a mistake because it has serious implications not only for your money, but for your privacy and personal freedom, as you’ll see today.

Cash prevents central banks from imposing negative interest rates because if they did, people would withdraw their cash from the banking system.

If they stuff their cash in a mattress, they don’t earn anything on it; that’s true. But at least they’re not losing anything on it.

Once all money is digital, you won’t have the option of withdrawing your cash and avoiding negative rates. You will be trapped in a digital pen with no way out.

What about moving your money into cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin?

Governments Won’t Surrender Their Monopoly Over Money

Let’s first understand that governments enjoy a monopoly on money creation, and they’re not about to surrender that monopoly to digital currencies like Bitcoin.

Libertarian supporters of cryptos celebrate their decentralized nature and lack of government control. Yet, their belief in the sustainability of powerful systems outside government control is naïve.

Blockchain does not exist in the ether (despite the name of one cryptocurrency), and it does not reside on Mars.

Blockchain depends on critical infrastructure, including servers, telecommunications networks, the banking system, and the power grid, all of which are subject to government control.

But governments know they cannot stop the technology platforms on which cryptocurrencies are based. The technology has come too far to turn back now.

So central governments don’t want to kill the distributed ledger technology behind cryptos. They’ve been patiently watching the technology develop and grow — so they could ultimately control it.

Anyone who controls the money controls political power, the economy, and people’s lives.

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

The Political Theater of Absurdity

March 30, 2021

The Political Theater of Absurdity

Do we have to wonder just how long will the press allow this complete farse to continue? Journalists have no sense of honor, for what they are allowing to take is devastating their own families’ future. Truthfully, if my children were a journalist selling this BS, I would disown them. The CDC has even reduced the social distancing from 6 ft to 3 ft. Then Fauci has come out and said that you can hug other family members if you are vaccinated. So here we have politicians, who Yellen has become, wearing masks when their own savior of the world, Dr. Antony Fauci, has said it is not necessary when people are vaccinated and they no longer need 6ft of social distancing.

This is all a propaganda agenda because what is coming is nothing but job losses and higher taxes, which will not be just the “rich.” Reliable sources are talking about putting a tax per mile driven as part of the Infrastructure Bill. They will say they need that to pay the $1 trillion cost, but in truth, this is what the real intent of lockdowns was — end commuting. There is no reason for Biden and Yellen to be sitting there with masks. This is all theater counting on the stupidity of the majority of Americans to believe whatever the government tells them.

Stanley Milgram, an American social psychologist, did research that peeled back the surface of humanity, which he called “Obedience to Authority.” In one of his famous studies, an assistant stepped out onto a busy street in New York City and stared upward into the sky. At first, people just walked around him and did not bother to look up…

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

martin armstrong, authority, government, armstrong economics, stanley milgram, obedience, journalism, belief

Sorry Cranky Conservatives! Carbon Pricing Wins the Day

March 29, 2021

Sorry Cranky Conservatives! Carbon Pricing Wins the Day

The Supreme Court ruling is good news for anyone invested in a habitable planet. But fixing the climate is going to take more.

‘There’s no court we can appeal this to,’ Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said on Thursday, before vowing to continue his fight. What taxpayer-funded mischief will Canada’s conservative leaders get up to next? Photo by Sean Kilpatrick, the Canadian Press.

Canadians worried about the survival of the country had cause for relief Thursday morning with news the Supreme Court of Canada had ruled 6-3 the federal government is entitled to impose a national carbon-pollution pricing system — in other words, to act like the government of Canada.

Had the court done what a cabal of climate-change-denying provincial Conservative premiers had hoped to achieve, one almost wonders what the point would have been of remaining a confederation.

Thursday’s ruling settles that question for a generation, if not longer, at least as far carbon pricing goes. Quite possibly for a lot more than that, too.

Even Alberta Premier Jason Kenney crankily admitted at a morning news conference that “there’s no court we can appeal this to,” while vowing, naturally, to make a political fight of it.

It remains to be seen how that will work out, but it seems likely “The Resistance,” as Canada’s conservative leaders used to like to think of themselves back when they were riding a little higher, will try to think up more taxpayer-funded mischief as long as there is a Liberal government in Ottawa.

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

David Climenhaga , TheTyee.ca, carbon tax, government, canada, conservative party, climate change, carbon pricing, supreme court of canada, alberta, jason kenney

US Democracy is a Façade: There Are No Effective Constraints on Elites’ Behavior

March 26, 2021

US Democracy is a Façade: There Are No Effective Constraints on Elites’ Behavior

“Do you remember ’36, we went our separate ways
You fought for Stalin, I fought for freedom

You believe in authority, I believe in myself
I’m a molotov cocktail, you’re Dom Perignon”

-Against Me

How did the cat get so fat?

When I was a public schoolboy, bright-eyed, we sang the anthem every day.

I believed there was some entity, some unseen guardian angel, that made the literal and figurative trains run on time. I really believed there was some incorruptible backstop to prevent the bottom from falling out.

It’s taken years of watching upper-crust decadence and depravity – in the vein of Caligula — to realize the truth: there is no bottom to the barrel. The elites just do what they want and if they decide they want to hurt you, either through malice or indifference or graft, they will.

This is when “defenders of democracy” – increasingly, from the ostensible, self-positioned “left” — will jump in with the well-trodden refrain: “We choose our leaders to represent us – we have a choice!”

You have no meaningful choice. As George Carlin, patron saint of calling out neoliberal bullshit, RIP, put it:

“Americans are led to feel free through the exercise of meaningless choices. There are only two political parties. There is a reduction of the number of media companies. Banking has been reduced to only a handful of banks. Oil companies. These are important, and you’re given very little choice…. You know what your freedom of choice in America is? Paper or plastic.”

High society is “a big club – and you ain’t in it.”

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

Ben Bartee, the daily bell, democracy, ruling class, propaganda, lies, con, government, government policy,

The Puppet Masters: Is There Really a Deep State?

March 20, 2021

The Puppet Masters: Is There Really a Deep State?

The danger posed by the Deep State is that it wields immense power but is unelected and unaccountable, Phil Giraldi writes.

As a former intelligence officer, I find it amusing to read articles in the mainstream media that blithely report how the latest international outrages are undoubtedly the work of CIA and the rest of the U.S. government’s national security alphabet soup. The recurring claim that the CIA is somehow running the world by virtue of a vast conspiracy that includes the secret intelligence agencies of a number of countries, using blackmail and other inducements to corrupt vulnerable politicians and opinion makers, has entered into the DNA of journalists worldwide, frequently without any evidence that the current crop of spies is capable to doing anything more complicated than getting out of bed in the morning.

One problem with the theory about total global dominance through espionage is the sheer logistics of it all. Directing political and economic developments in two hundred nations simultaneously must require a lot of space and a large staff. Is there a huge office hidden in Langley? Or the Pentagon? Or in the White House West Wing itself? Or is it in one of the secure facilities that have been popping up like mushrooms just off of the Dulles Toll Road in Herndon Virginia?

To provide evidence that intelligence agencies extend their tentacles just about everywhere, the other claim that is nearly always made is that all former spooks are part of the conspiracy, as once you learn the secret handshake to join CIA, NSA or the FBI you never stop being “one of them.” Well, that might be true in some cases but the majority of former spooks are quite happy to be “former,” and one might also observe that many voices in the anti-war movement, such as it is, come from intelligence, law enforcement or military backgrounds…

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

Philip Giraldi, strategic culture foundation, deep state, united states, cia, central intelligence agency, fbi, federal bureau of investigation, nsa, national security agency, government, journalism,

War Is A Rich Man’s Game: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

March 16, 2021

War Is A Rich Man’s Game: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

War is always powerful people making up fake reasons for poor people to kill each other.

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Capitalism is working great if you ignore how it’s about to destroy our ecosystem and kill everything.

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Socialism is the collective’s best self-defense against sociopaths.

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In the old days the rulers would kill those who criticized the dominant power structure. Now they just make sure such people never ascend to prominent platforms or positions of influence.

And, if that fails, they kill them.

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Most of what gets called journalism today is really just advertising. Advertising imperialism, capitalism, status quo politics, status quo mindsets. All this fuss about journalists leaving for Substack and stuff is really just outrage over people leaving the advertising industry.

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Imperialists see the American people as nothing more than local fauna who need to be kept from interfering in the business of the empire. That’s why keeping Americans poor and ignorant has so much institutional support; it keeps the local fauna away from the gears of the machine.

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Supporters of western imperialism are always wrong because the western empire is always wrong. The western empire is always wrong because imperialism itself is immoral and requires the perpetration of great evils to maintain. It’s really a lot simpler than people make it seem.

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The only way to justify support for western interventionist foreign policy is to believe that western interventionism is ever actually humanitarian in nature. The only way to believe western interventionism is ever humanitarian in nature is to be an intellectual infant.

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Don’t buy into the narrative that Democrats are resisting leftward movement in order to appease Republicans. It’s so much worse than that: they’re not appeasing Republicans, they’re appeasing their own donors.

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

BC Promised to Protect Old Growth. How Is It Doing?

March 15, 2021

BC Promised to Protect Old Growth. How Is It Doing?

Greens and environmental groups criticize lack of progress, but others defend efforts to make big changes.

Logged old-growth red cedar in Kwagu’ł First Nation territory in northern Vancouver Island. Photo by TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance.

Six months after releasing a major report on managing and protecting old-growth forests, British Columbia is either at a turning point, a standstill or both, depending who you ask.

Katrine Conroy, the minister responsible, says change is underway but takes time. Environmentalists give the progress so far a failing grade.

One of the report’s authors, Garry Merkel, captures the uncertainty when asked if there has been noticeable change. “‘Yes’ is the short answer, but ‘no,’ depending how you look at it.”

Merkel is a professional forester with 45 years of experience and a Tahltan Nation member. He and Al Gorley, a professional forester whose similarly wide experience includes a stint as chair of the B.C. Forest Practices Board, wrote A New Future For Old Forests: A Strategic Review of How British Columbia Manages for Old Forests Within its Ancient Ecosystems.

In the report they made 14 recommendations that would totally overhaul the management of old-growth forests, starting with grounding the system in a government-to-government framework involving both the provincial and Indigenous governments.

Their second recommendation was to “prioritize ecosystem health and resilience” so that the health of forests comes first. It would mean a shift from seeing forests primarily through a financial lens where ecosystem health is viewed as a “constraint.”

Building on that base, other recommendations included protecting more old forests, improving the information available to the public about forest conditions and trends, and planning for an orderly transition of the industry away from a reliance on old growth.

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

Andrew MacLeod, TheTyee.ca, british columbia, government, old growth forests, logging,

What’s really behind the Ford government’s push to pave protected wetland in Pickering

March 10, 2021

What’s really behind the Ford government’s push to pave protected wetland in Pickering

Rival developers competing to host Canada’s biggest retail warehouse, which sources say is for Amazon

Roughly half of this property in Pickering, owned by Triple Group, is classed as a protected wetland. If approved for development, commercial real estate analysts say it would skyrocket in value, potentially to more than $100 million. This view looks northwest from the corner of Bayly Street and Squires Beach Road. (Patrick Morrell/CBC)

Moves by Premier Doug Ford’s government to grant special permission to pave over a protected wetland in Pickering have generated headlines, but behind the controversy, there’s an untold story.

That story involves a battle between rival developers and rival municipalities to get the chance to build what would become the largest retail warehouse in Canada, a project worth hundreds of millions of dollars that multiple sources say is for Amazon.

The battle is playing out just east of Toronto near Highway 401, on two pieces of property less than one kilometre apart: one in the city of Pickering on a provincially designated wetland, the other in the town of Ajax on a golf course.

Whichever site clears all of its legal and zoning hurdles first will be in the driver’s seat. The landowner’s property value will skyrocket and the project will bring at least $50 million in new tax and development revenue to one of the municipalities.

While the Toronto Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) has vigorously objected to plans to build on the wetland in Pickering, it is not opposed to the plan for the golf course in Ajax.

However the Ford government has gone to great lengths to smooth the way for the warehouse to go on the Pickering wetland. That property belongs to the Triple Group of Companies, owned by the Apostolopoulos family, backers of the nearby Durham Live casino complex.

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

The End of Paper Money – the Digital Revolution

March 5, 2021

The End of Paper Money – the Digital Revolution

The assumption in governments has always been that WE ARE THE PROBLEM – not them! They have really believed that if they could tax the underground economy they would have balanced budgets. We all know that in reality, no matter how much money they collect, they will always spend more. This idea that digital currency will wipe out crime is rather absurd. I was talking to a young person who buys their weed, like so many these days. They make a phone call, it is dropped off in their mailbox, and they pay by some cash transfer application. So they never even see the person anymore. So the move toward digital transactions has not eliminated the underground economy, it has actually improved it making it more efficient.

Meanwhile, the criminals have to learn now how to code in order to hack into systems. It seems that this trend is forcing criminals to become much more professional in their endeavors.

‘A Monstrous Monument to Greed and Stupidity’: Critics React to Site C Decision

March 2, 2021

‘A Monstrous Monument to Greed and Stupidity’: Critics React to Site C Decision

BC Liberals accuse NDP of mismanagement; Greens warn public to brace for higher costs.

Premier John Horgan confirmed today that construction of the Site C dam will once again go ahead. ‘I know there are a lot of British Columbians who have never accepted this as an appropriate way for BC Hydro to go,’ he said. Photo via the BC government.

Premier John Horgan’s announcement today that the government will continue with the Site C dam despite massive budget increases and delays brought criticism from opponents and supporters of the project.

“We’ve seen mismanagement of this file,” said Tom Shypitka, the BC Liberal critic for energy, mines and low carbon innovation. “It’s a sad day for the taxpayers, but it’s a good thing to see Site C proceed for the future of British Columbians.”

Horgan announced the government will continue with the project even though the budget has grown to $16 billion, an increase he blamed largely on unexpected geotechnical issues and delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is now expected to be in service in 2025.

The Site C budget was $7.9 billion in 2010. When the NDP decided to continue construction in 2017 they increased the budget to $10.7 billion.

Shypitka said the cost of the dam has doubled since the NDP came to government and that the oversight committee it put in place in 2018 has clearly failed. “Under their watch, this project has gone off the rails. That’s on the NDP government.”

He rejected the idea the BC Liberals should have been more diligent before starting the project. It’s unclear how much of the delay and cost escalation can be blamed on the pandemic and how much was due to the NDP’s mismanagement, he said.

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

Jerome von Havenstein: Inflation Or Bust

February 27, 2021

Jerome von Havenstein: Inflation Or Bust

This week brought forth new evidence that – to be perfectly frank – we’re all screwed.

On Thursday, the yield on the 10 year Treasury note topped 1.55 percent. Subsequently, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, after hitting an all-time high on Wednesday, dropped 559 points. Wall Street must not be listening to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

Earlier in the week, Powell, in testimony to the Senate Banking Committee, confirmed that the central bank would keep the federal funds rate near zero until maximum employment is achieved. In addition, the Fed, in its recently released semiannual Monetary Policy Report, confirmed it would continue to create credit from thin air to buy $80 billion per month of Treasuries and $40 billion per month of mortgage backed securities (MBS).

What’s more, the Report specified the Fed’s purchases of Treasuries and MBS “…will continue at least at this pace until substantial further progress has been made toward its maximum employment and price stability goals.” The operative words being, “at least.”

What to make of it…

Central banking is a form of central planning. And central planning is a form of state control. And state control, as practiced in the United States, pertains not so much to the economics of producing income; but, rather, the methods for redistributing it.

State control, through inflationism, takes money saved and earned by individuals and covertly redistributes it to the central authority – i.e., Washington. There it is consumed by ever expanding government social programs and colossal pentagon budgets. What remains is wasted away by the endless array of bureaucracies and agencies.

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

Who Bought the $4.5 Trillion Added in One Year to the Incredibly Spiking US National Debt, Now at $27.9 Trillion?

February 19, 2021

Who Bought the $4.5 Trillion Added in One Year to the Incredibly Spiking US National Debt, Now at $27.9 Trillion?

Someone had to buy every dollar of this monstrous debt. Here’s Who. The Fed isn’t the only one. But China continues to unwind its holdings.

Driven by stimulus and bailouts, and fired up by the tax cuts and by grease and pork, the Incredibly Spiking US National Debt has skyrocketed by $4.55 trillion in 12 months, to $27.86 trillion, after having already spiked by $1.4 trillion in the prior 12 months, which had been the Good Times. These trillions are all Treasury securities that form the US national debt, and someone had to buy every single one of these securities:

So we’ll piece together who bought those trillions of dollars in Treasury Securities that have whooshed by over the past 12 months.

Tuesday afternoon, the Treasury Department released the Treasury International Capital data through December 31 which shows the foreign holders of the US debt. From the Fed’s balance sheet, we can see what the Fed bought. From the Federal Reserve Board of Governors bank balance-sheet data, we can see what the banks bought. And from the Treasury Department’s data on Treasury securities, we can see what US government entities bought.

Share of foreign holders falls to 25% for first time since 2007:

In the fourth quarter, foreign central banks, foreign government entities, and foreign private-sector entities such as companies, banks, bond funds, and individuals, reduced their holdings by $35 billion from the third quarter, to $7.04 trillion. This was still up from a year ago by $192 billion (blue line, right scale in the chart below). But their share of the Incredibly Spiking US National Debt fell to 25.4%, the lowest since 2007 (red line, right scale):

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

Governments are Creating Horror Scenarios for Lockdowns to Retain Power

February 14, 2021

Governments are Creating Horror Scenarios for Lockdowns to Retain Power

Magdalena Martullo-Blocher: “The federal government has introduced a dictatorship. He switched off democracy »

The entrepreneur Magdalena Martullo-Blocher, a Swiss billionaire, businesswoman, Swiss People’s Party politician, the CEO of Ems-Chemie, and the daughter and an heiress of former Swiss Federal Councillor Christoph Blocher has come out and called for an end to the partial lockdown in Switzerland. The social and financial costs for the measures are far too high, and the benefits are far too low. She says: “The federal government governs with horror scenarios so that it can retain power.”

More and more people are starting to come out against these lockdowns which were all instigated by Imperial College’s Neil Ferguson after getting grants from Bill Gates who had to resign for breaking the lockdown he said was vital to impose so he could have sex with his married girlfriend on the side.

There is ABSOLUTELY no scientific evidence whatsoever that lockdowns work, but worse still, they have NEVER before ever been used in 6,000 years of history where a country has been locked down because of some disease. This entire thing is UNQUESTIONABLE a scam to further climate change which they already tried but failed after exploiting a 16-year-old girl Greta Thunberg.

This is the entire agenda and they are counting on the dishonesty of bribing doctors paying 100% if the patient had COVID but zero if they have the flu. They are counting on BigTech censoring everything that shows the truth even removing doctors from YouTube in testimony before Congress which is a public record. The corruption in BigTech is off the charts…

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

Critics Skeptical as Alberta Reverses Course on Open-pit Coal Mines

February 9, 2021

Critics Skeptical as Alberta Reverses Course on Open-pit Coal Mines

Five days after Kenney defended the province’s mining push, the government says it was all a big mistake.

Rancher Renie Blades says she’s glad that the Alberta government admitted its mistake in cancelling the Coal Policy, but calls her response ‘very guarded.’ Photo by Callum Gunn.

After months of ignoring a grassroots protest movement opposing plans to allow open-pit coal mining in Alberta’s Rockies, Energy Minister Sonya Savage said today the provincial government made a mistake and is now prepared to fix it.

In a brief news conference, Savage said the province would reinstate the 1976 Coal Policy, which prohibited open-pit mining on 1.5 million hectares of “Category 2” lands in the eastern slopes of the Rockies.

In addition, Savage said she had instructed the Alberta Energy Regulator that “no mountain top removal will be permitted” in the province and that all future coal exploration on the Category 2 lands will be paused indefinitely until public consultation is held.

Coal exploration by Australian miners on six existing leases in the foothills will not be paused.

Savage’s reinstatement of the Coal Policy directly contradicts statements from Premier Jason Kenney on Wednesday that the Coal Policy was a “dead letter” and obsolete.

The highly unpopular premier also characterized opponents of coal mining as urban snobs even though the majority of the opposition has come from his party’s angry base: ranchers, farmers, landowners and rural towns and municipalities.

The government’s abrupt change of course follows weeks of protests from hundreds of thousands of Albertans from all walks of life and all political parties.

They raised concerns about water security, selenium pollution (a legacy of open-pit coal mines), and the future of the province’s iconic eastern slopes.

Landowner and conservation groups greeted today’s announcement with skepticism.

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

A New Technology That Will Dangerously Expand Government Spying on Citizens

December 6, 2020

A New Technology That Will Dangerously Expand Government Spying on Citizens

If you’re worried about the capability of government to conduct surveillance of citizens engaged in political assembly and protest, or even just personal activity, then you should be aware the technological capability of government surveillance is about to expand exponentially.

The US Air Force’s Research Lab (yes, it has its own lab) has recently signed a contract to test new software of a company called SignalFrame, a Washington DC wireless tech company. The company’s new software is able to access smartphones, and from your phone jump off to access any other wireless or bluetooth device in the near vicinity. To quote from the article today in the Wall St. Journal, the smartphone is used “as a window onto usage of hundreds of millions of computers,s routers, fitness trackers, modern automobiles and other networked devices, known collectively as the ‘Internet of Things’.”

Your smartphone in effect becomes a government listening device that detects and accesses all nearby wireless or bluetooth devices, or anything that has a MAC address for that matter. How ‘near’ is nearby is not revealed by the company, or the Air Force, both of which refused to comment on the Wall St. Journal story. But with the expansion of 5G wireless, it should be assumed it’s more than just a couple steps from your smartphone.

One can imagine some scary scenarios with this capability in the hands of government snoops:

Not only would the government know your geographical location via the GPS signal to your cellphone. They’d know what you are doing. And with whom.

A political gathering would allow them to see all the owners of other cellphones in the vicinity of a protest or demonstration. How many are gathering at a particular street or location…

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

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