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Harvest at Chez Cog

September 1, 2020

HARVEST AT CHEZ COG

It became obvious to Mrs. Cog and I by early February of this year (2020) that the next phase of socioeconomic crumble/chaos was being implemented both here in the USA as well as throughout the world. The rabbit hole just got deeper. Or more accurately, the deeper rabbit hole was just revealed.

Regardless of whether one believes the COVID-19 pandemic is real or not (we fall into that vast gray area in-between, which we are confidently informed by the mainstream media doesn’t actually exist) what is extremely hard to deny is the pandemic is being used politically to further enrich the already obscenely rich while turning the little people screws even tighter.

Case in point….27 million people remain unemployed (with more to follow as we enter the next stage of Great Depression 2.0) while the personal wealth of Jeff Bezos just passed $200 Billion…essentially doubling in less than 7 months.

For those of you who are like me and have a hard time with large numbers (I’m lost after counting 10 fingers and 10 toes) 200 billion is 200,000 times one million dollars. One billion is a thousand million. 200 billion is two hundred thousand million.

Clearly Bezos doesn’t need to sweat the rent or mortgage.

What this all meant to us back in February was we needed to accelerate our plans to install a greenhouse, along with other final touches to our little homestead we call home sweet home. While the capital improvements are never finished, the greenhouse was the last major building block we’d planned for many years.

Like busy beavers trying to beat the rising creek, we have been going non-stop since spring. Not only did I personally build and install the greenhouse on top of the contractor assisted leveled and graveled building pad (I also trenched in water and electric) but we also expanded the tilled portion of our fenced in garden by about 30%. This was all above and beyond the ‘normal’ things that need to be done in order to maintain our semi self sufficient lifestyle.

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

Venezuela collapse: looting, hunger, blackouts

December 26, 2019

Venezuela collapse: looting, hunger, blackouts

Looted grocery store in San Cristobal, Venezuela

Preface. Venezuela is experiencing a double whammy of drought and low oil prices, which has lead to blackouts and inability to import food, ultimately due to their oil production peaking in 1997.  The same fate awaits the U.S. someday when oil declines.

Related posts:

And Mexico may be the next to collapse, as you can read here.

***

2019. Venezuela’s Water System is Collapsing. New York Times.

In Venezuela, a crumbling economy and the collapse of even basic state infrastructure means water comes irregularly — and drinking it is an increasingly risky gamble. Scientists found that about a million residents were exposed to contaminated supplies. This puts them at risk of contracting waterborne viruses that could sicken them and threatens the lives of children and the most vulnerable.

The risks posed by poor water quality are particularly threatening for a population weakened by food and medication shortages. 

Electrical breakdowns and lack of maintenance have gradually stripped the city’s complex water system to a minimum. Water pumps, treatment plants, chlorine injection stations and entire reservoirs have been abandoned as the state ran out of money and skilled workers

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

Selco’s Guide to Looting and Scavenging When the SHTF

August 30, 2018

Selco’s Guide to Looting and Scavenging When the SHTF

Through the media, we have gotten a picture of scavengers, so there are movies and book about guys who ride motorcycles while wearing helmets with horns. These guys are looting and scavenging after the SHTF. And then, in this fantasy, there are good guys who do not do that, except maybe to get some interesting book or similar.

The interesting thing is the fact that guys who “scavenge” somehow through all those movie and book cliches are understood as bad guys and psychos. Through the news, we see folks who loot as a mindless mob who drag out big screen plasma TVs while floods are coming.

It would be cool if we could try to form our opinion and adopt some knowledge and strategies without those images from above.

It is nearly impossible, but let’s try.

Let’s try to form our strategies about looting and scavenging through the following topics.

First, remember that curiosity killed the cat.

One of my favorite sayings is that “curiosity killed the cat” and I think I survived many times during my SHTF situation thanks to the fact that I kept it on my mind all the time.

We are living in the times where we simply we “want to see and understand”, or even better where we want to have that feeling of “amusement”, moments of excitements.

We read about how people get killed or injured just because they want to check how dangerous something is, or just because they wanted to have selfie photo in some dangerous place.

Horse playing has become our culture, and a lot of people do stupid things just because “it looks cool”.

A real SHTF event has much higher stakes, so you need to have the thought constantly in your mind that says: “Do I really need to do that?”

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

The Disaster Myth Narrative: No One Panics, No One Loots, No One Goes Hungry

October 11, 2017

The Disaster Myth Narrative: No One Panics, No One Loots, No One Goes Hungry

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”  ~ George Orwell

A few years back, I was doing some research about the aftermath of some natural disasters that took place here in America. I was shocked to find that the articles I was looking for – ones that I had read in the past – were pretty hard to find, but articles refuting the sought-for pieces were rampant.  Not just one event, but every single crisis aftermath that I looked up, had articles that were written after the fact stating in no uncertain terms that the hunger, chaos, and unrest never happened.

Apparently we, the preparedness community, are all wrong when it comes to the belief that after a disaster, chaos erupts and civic disorder is the rule of the day. That is only a disaster myth, and the public narrative belies it all.

Listen to the “experts” and they will confirm, it never happens.

looters2

Panic?  What panic?

According to newspaper articles written after Superstorm Sandy devastated the East Coast and after Hurricane Katrina caused countless billions in damage in New Orleans, people were calm, benevolent and peaceful.  Heck, they were all standing around singing Kumbayah around a campfire, sharing their canned goods, calming frightened puppies, and helping the elderly.

Apparently, studies prove that the fear of anarchy, lawlessness, and chaos is nothing but the “disaster myth”.  Reams of examples exist of the goodness and warmth of society as a whole after disaster strikes. All the stories you read at the time were just that – stories, according to the mainstream media:

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

Hurricane Harvey Looters Targeting Fuel Tanks As Google Searches For “How To Siphon Gas” Soar

September 1, 2017

Hurricane Harvey Looters Targeting Fuel Tanks As Google Searches For “How To Siphon Gas” Soar 

Texas resident Joe Roan woke up to a rather unpleasant surprise yesterday morning as he discovered the remnants of a would-be thief attempting to steal gasoline from his Jeep Wrangler tank.  Unfortunately, as a local CBS affiliate pointed out last night, with refinery outages resulting in growing gasoline shortages, this is becoming a rather common occurrence for Texas residents.

Joe Roan didn’t witness the crime, but he found the evidence in his driveway.

“I came outside this morning and found this water hose was sticking out,” he said, holding the hose a thief left hanging out of his Jeep’s tank.

On the ground sat a gas tank.

“Instantly I knew someone was trying to steal my gas,” he said. “Maybe a car drove by when they were doing it and they ran? I don’t know.”

Roan said the thief didn’t even manage to get any fuel.

Meanwhile, Google searches for “how to siphon gas” have soared as criminals have been forced to hone their skills before taking to the streets.

Siphon

Of course, the rampant onset of gasoline thieves is the result of fuel shortages which are often exacerbated by the pure panic of people trying to keep their tanks topped off. As we’ve reported several times in recent days, long lines at gas stations have become a common sight from the Texas shores up to Dallas.

Meanwhile, one seasoned energy trader warned this is “only just beginning” as the hangover from Hurricane Harvey flows downstream toretail gas prices…

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

Houston Reeling Amid Outbreak Of Looting, Armed Robberies; Vigilantees Emerge

August 30, 2017

Houston Reeling Amid Outbreak Of Looting, Armed Robberies; Vigilantees Emerge

Inevitably every major metropolitan crisis brings out the best and worst of what humanity has to offer.  While hundreds/thousands of people have rushed into Houston following the epic destruction of Hurricane Harvey to help in any way possible, others have once again predictably chosen to exploit the misery of others by looting abandoned shopping centers, robbing empty homes and even breaking into the Houston Apple Store (by shooting through the front door).

The Venture @EGMNVenture

The doors to a flooded @Apple Store in appear to have been shot at with a firearm. Looters have been rampant.

In fact, just last night Houston’s Mayor was forced to impose a strict midnight to 5am curfew amid “an outbreak of looting and armed robberies“, in order to prevent property crimes against evacuated homes in the city.  As Reuters notes, the curfew came after, among other things, reports surfaced of people impersonating police officers all so they could tell residents to evacuate their homes and then promptly rob them blind.

That proved too little for county officials who set up their own location as an outbreak of looting and armed robberies prompted the city to order an indefinite curfew from midnight to 5 a.m. (0500 to 1000 GMT).

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said late Tuesday individuals impersonating police officers knocked on doors in at least two parts of the city telling residents to evacuate their homes.

Sylvester Turner ✔@SylvesterTurner

Imposing curfew from 10 pm to 5 am to stop any property crimes against evacuated homes in city limits.

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

Corrupt Elites and the Looting Machine

May 16, 2016

Corrupt Elites and the Looting Machine

Can corruption be controlled by reform or is it so much the essential fuel sustaining political elites that it will only be ended – if it ends at all – by revolutionary change?

The answer varies according to which countries one is talking about, but in many – particularly those relying on the sale of natural resources like oil or minerals – it is surely too late to expect any incremental change for the better. Anti-corruption drives are a show to impress the outside world or to target political rivals.

The anti-corruption summit in London this week may improve transparency and disclosure, but it can scarcely be very effective against politically well-connected racketeers, busily transmuting political power into great personal wealth.

This is peculiarly easy to do in those countries in the Middle East and Africa which suffer from what economists call “the resource curse”, where states draw their revenues directly from foreign buyers of their natural resources. The process is described in compelling detail by Tom Burgis in his book, The Looting Machine: Warlords, Tycoons, Smugglers and the Systematic Theft of Africa’s Wealth. He quotes the World Bank as saying that 68 per cent of people in Nigeria and 43 per cent in Angola, respectively the first and second largest oil and gas producers in Africa, live in extreme poverty, or on less than $1.25 a day. The politically powerful live parasitically off the state’s revenues and are not accountable to anybody.

Burgis explains the devastating outcome of a government acquiring such great wealth without doing more than license foreign companies to pump oil or excavate minerals. This “creates a pot of money at the disposal of those who control the state. At extreme levels the contract lootingmachinebetween rulers and the ruled breaks down because the ruling class does not need to tax the people – so it has no need for their consent.”

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

Watch Venezuela, Because Food Shortages, Looting And Economic Collapse Are Coming To America Too

May 16, 2016

Watch Venezuela, Because Food Shortages, Looting And Economic Collapse Are Coming To America Too

Venezuela Economic CollapseThe full-blown economic collapse that is happening in Venezuela right now is a preview of what Americans will be experiencing in the not too distant future.  Just a few years ago, most Venezuelans could never have imagined that food shortages would become so severe that people would literally hunt dogs and cats for food.  But as you will see below, this is now taking place.  Sadly, this is what the endgame of socialism looks like.  When an all-powerful government is elevated far above all other institutions in society and radical leftists are given the keys to the kingdom, this is the result.  Food shortages, looting and rampant violent crime have all become part of daily life in Venezuela, and we all need to watch as this unfolds very carefully, because similar scenarios will soon be playing out all over the planet.

The funny thing is that Venezuela actually has more “wealth” than most countries in the world.  According to the CIA, Venezuela actually has more proven oil reserves than anyone else on the globe – including Saudi Arabia.

So how did such a wealthy nation find itself plunged into full-blown economic collapse so rapidly, and could a similar thing happen to us?

The president of Venezuela has declared a 60 day state of emergency in a desperate attempt to restore order, but most people don’t anticipate that it will do much good.  Social order continues to unravel as the economy systematically implodes.  The Venezuelan economy shrunk by 5.7 percent last year, and it is being projected that it will contract by another 8 percent in 2016.  Meanwhile, inflation is raging wildly out of control.  According to the IMF, the official inflation rate in Venezuela will be somewhere around 720 percent this year and 2,200 percent next year.

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

Do Any of the Current Rallies Pass “The Sniff Test”? No.

March 10, 2016

Do Any of the Current Rallies Pass “The Sniff Test”? No.

But you can’t tame the monster of speculative, legalized looting and financialization.

Everything from iron ore to copper to the Baltic Dry Index to stocks to bat guano is rallying. The problem is not a single rally passes “the sniff test:” is the rally the result of changing fundamentals, or is it merely short-covering and/or speculative hot money leaping from one rally to the next?

Every one of these rallies is bogus, a travesty of a mockery of a sham of price discovery, supposedly the core function of markets. What shift in fundamentals drove this rally? Higher profits? No, profits are declining, especially once the phony adjustments are stripped away. Is the global economy strengthening? Don’t make us laugh!

As Chris Martenson and many others have noted, “price discovery” is a joke now, as markets are either propped up by central bank “we got your back” guarantees or outright asset purchases, or driven up and down by speculative hot money flows.

Even the recent (and overdue) run-up in gold has a speculative-fever feel. Whatever the market, the game is the same: traders goose the markets higher with futures purchases, pile on with buying that attracts latecomers, who are then sold the rally at the top and left holding the bag when the rally inevitably deflates, once the speculative hot money exits.

This is not capitalism, or a functioning market: this is the end-game of legalized looting and financialization. What’s the value of real estate? If interest rates are pushed negative, then that gooses housing demand, as the cost of interest on a mortgage declines to near-zero in real terms.

What would the value be at 5% mortgage rates? What would the interest rate be in a truly private mortgage market, one that wasn’t dominated by government agencies and central banks? Nobody knows.

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

 

The Public Is Being Looted By Privatization And Deregulation

February 23, 2016

The Public Is Being Looted By Privatization And Deregulation

The privatization movement and the deregulation movement have turned out to be failures.

Privatization in Britain under the Thatcher government had its origin in the belief that the absence of incentivized managers and shareholders with a stake in the bottom line resulted in nationalized companies operating inefficiently, with their losses covered by government like the big private banks’ losses today. Thatcher’s government believed that privatizing socialized firms would reduce the UK budget deficit and take pressure off the British pound.

Today privatization is a way that governments can reward cronies by giving them valuable public resources for a low price. When the UK government privatized the postal system, there were news reports that one postal property in London alone was worth the purchase price of the entire postal service.

Privatization is also a way that conservatives, who object to social pensions and national health, can stop “taxpayer support of welfare.” In the US conservatives want to privatize Social Security and Medicare. In the UK conservatives want to privatize the National Health System.

It looks like the UK Conservative government is taking a step in the direction of privatizing the national health system, one of the great social reforms in British history. https://www.rt.com/uk/333270-nhs-professionals-privatized-deloitte/ 

In the US there are advocates of privatizing the national forests. In some ways the forests are already privatized as private timber companies are allowed to “harvest” the trees at favorable prices, and often the government even builds the roads for them.

In the US deregulation has resulted in high prices and poor service. When airlines were regulated, they competed on service. They had spare equipment so that mechanical problems did not mean cancelled flights. Stopovers did not involve additional costs.

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

Central Banks Are Trojan Horses, Looting Their Host Nations

February 12, 2016

Central Banks Are Trojan Horses, Looting Their Host Nations

A Nobel prize winning economist, former chief economist and senior vice president of the World Bank, and chairman of the President’s council of economic advisers (Joseph Stiglitz) says that the International Monetary Fund and World Bank loan money to third world countries as a way to force them to open up their markets and resources for looting by the West.

Do central banks do something similar?

Economics professor Richard Werner – who created the concept of quantitative easing – has documented that central banks intentionally impoverish their host countries to justify economic and legal changes which allow looting by foreign interests.

He focuses mainly on the Bank of Japan, which induced a huge bubble and then deflated it – crushing Japan’s economy in the process – as a way to promote and justify structural “reforms”.

The Bank of Japan has used a heavy hand on Japanese economy for many decades, but Japan is stuck in a horrible slump.

But Werner says the same thing about the European Central Bank (ECB).  The ECB has used loans and liquidity as a weapon to loot European nations.

Indeed, Greece (more), Italy, Ireland (and here) and other European countries have all lost their national sovereignty to the ECB and the other members of the Troika.

ECB head Mario Draghi said in 2012:

The EU should have the power to police and interfere in member states’ national budgets.

***

“I am certain, if we want to restore confidence in the eurozone, countries will have to transfer part of their sovereignty to the European level.”

***

“Several governments have not yet understood that they lost their national sovereignty long ago. Because they ran up huge debts in the past, they are now dependent on the goodwill of the financial markets.”

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

The West Is Reduced To Looting Itself

January 31, 2016

The West Is Reduced To Looting Itself

Myself, Michael Hudson, John Perkins, and a few others have reported the multi-pronged looting of peoples by Western economic institutions, principally the big New York Banks with the aid of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Third World countries were and are looted by being inticed into development plans for electrification or some such purpose. The gullible and trusting governments are told that they can make their countries rich by taking out foreign loans to implement a Western-presented development plan, with the result being sufficient tax revenues from economic development to service the foreign loan.

Seldom, if ever, does this happen. What happens is that the plan results in the country becoming indebted to the limit and beyond of its foreign currency earnings. When the country is unable to service the development loan, the creditors send the IMF to tell the indebted government that the IMF will protect the government’s credit rating by lending it the money to pay its bank creditors. However, the conditions are that the government take necessary austerity measures so that the government can repay the IMF. These measures are to curtail public services and the government sector, reduce public pensions, and sell national resources to foreigners. The money saved by reduced social benefits and raised by selling off the country’s assets to foreigners serves to repay the IMF.

This is the way the West has historically looted Third World countries. If a country’s president is reluctant to enter into such a deal, he is simply paid bribes, as the Greek governments were, to go along with the looting of the country the president pretends to represent.

When this method of looting became exhausted, the West bought up agricultural lands and pushed a policy on Third World countries of abandoning food self-sufficiency and producing one or two crops for export earnings.

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

Capitalism Has Devolved Into Looting

June 30, 2015

Capitalism Has Devolved Into Looting

In the Western World Capitalism Has Devolved Into Looting

…when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you–when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice–you may know that your society is doomed.   –  Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged”

There’s no such thing as markets anymore – only interventions.  –  Chris Powell, co-founder and Treasurer of GATA

Ayn Rand is a pariah among those who believe that government is our benefactor. There are times and conditions when government can be a benefactor of the people. But not in the Western world at the present time. As Michael Hudson and I agree, Western central banks refuse to create money to finance economy recovery. Money is created only for the benefit of the oligarchs’ banks in order that the oligarchs can continue to control the governments.

In the US for the past seven years the Federal Reserve has provided cheap bank reserves for the banks to lend at a markup or to speculate with. Banks are no longer suppliers of capital for productive investments and employment. Instead banks invest in speculation, arbitrage, derivatives, financing corporate takeovers and stock buybacks. The Fed has made it unnecessary for banks to pay for deposits. Instead, the banks get free money and charge consumers with negative interest rates for making deposits. For seven years Americans have, thanks to the utterly corrupt Federal Reserve and US government, been deprived of interest on their savings. In the Western world today, savers are penalized, not rewarded.

In Greece and Europe the banks are the oligarchs’ method of control just as the Federal Reserve is in the US and the Bank of England in the UK and the European Central Bank in the EU. The same in Canada, Australia, and Japan.

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

 

 

‘It’s our money’ podcast: be educated on monetary/credit reform or continue looting by oligarchs

April 16, 2015

‘It’s our money’ podcast: be educated on monetary/credit reform or continue looting by oligarchs

Human beings are looted by asset-hole oligarchs literally by the trillions every year.

These lying sacks of spin are the .01% banksters, and “leaders” of government and corporate media.

Human beings will either continue being looted and lied-to, or earn voices for justice from basic education that includes how to create what we use for money:

Debt-free money is creating money as a positive number, while public credit creates what we use for money as a negative number. Both are useful tools for good-faith experimentation to manage an economy’s money supply.

The following podcast from the Public Banking Institute’s It’s our money includes this basic education required for economic freedom:

http://itsourmoney.podbean.com/e/they-own-you-040815-1428939237/

If the public cannot, or will not, demand control over money then freedom is not possible because the only freedom possible is slavery to those who command money creation as we witness today:

 

The UK Guardian is Earth’s third most-read on-line newspaper. In a revealing article with rare admittance of the central facts, The truth is out: money is just an IOU, and the banks are rolling it in, the author explains what the Bank of England and US Federal Reserve admit (when you press for the truth):

What we use for money is created as debt by private banks.

This system is like adding negative numbers forever. The aggregate debt only gets larger, and will never be repaid because this is what we use for money. Also, as we see today, the interest and debt total become so tragic-comic we can’t get close to affording to pay.

 

…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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