Jul 152022
 


Pablo Picasso Guernica [Study] III 1937

 

Old Way, New Way (Dmitry Orlov)
Russia Continues To Earn More By Exporting Less Oil (ZH)
Germany To Halt Russian Coal Imports Next Month (ZH)
Lithuania To Allow Rail Transit Of Russian Goods To Kaliningrad (ZH)
Three More Countries Set To Join BRICS (RT)
Two More Gone (CTH)
Macron’s Minority Government Defeated on Vaccine Passports (SN)
Don Lemon: Republicans Must Be Treated As Danger To Society By Media (Fox)
Donald Trump on 2024: ‘I’ve Already Made That Decision’ (NYMag)
“Disgruntled” Chinese Homebuyers Refuse To Pay Their Mortgages (ZH)
High Inflation Figure Masks Even Higher Cost Hikes Of Necessities (ET)
Long Lines Are Back At US Food Banks (AP)
Dutch State Broadcasters Attack Coverage Of The Dutch Uprising (TCS)
It’s About Globalism, Stupid (Maajid Nawaz)
US Public Health Agencies Aren’t ‘Following the Science,’ Officials Say (CS)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Health care

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Syria, which refused to get the message too, asked the Russians for help. The Russians helped Syria, and now nobody is afraid of the US any more. Meanwhile, the US became spoiled by all this free money, grew fat, lazy, degenerate and weak and amassed the hugest pile of “debt”…”

Old Way, New Way (Dmitry Orlov)

The hardest part of living through a time of wrenching change is that nobody particularly bothers to inform you that the times have changed and that nothing will be the same again. Certainly not the talking heads on TV, who are often the last to know. You have to figure it out for yourself if you can. But I am here to help. It all has to do with energy. Not with technology—that’s incidental; not with military superiority—that’s fleeting and largely imaginary; certainly not with any sort of political or cultural self-righteousness—that’s delusional. There is no substitute for energy. If you run low, you can’t switch to running your industrial economy on fiddlesticks. It just shuts down. What’s worse, energy sources are not even particularly substitutable for each other. If you run low on gas, you can’t just switch to coal or to dried dung, even if you are up to your neck in it.

Modern industry runs on oil, natural gas, and coal, in that order, and they can be substituted for each other in very limited ways. Furthermore, energy has to be very cheap. Oil has to be about the cheapest liquid you can buy—cheaper than milk; cheaper even than bottled water. If energy isn’t cheap enough, then all the energy-hungry industry that runs on it becomes unprofitable and shuts down. That’s the stage at which we are now in much of the world. So, what happened? Once upon a time the US produced most of the oil in the world. But then the prolific wells in West Texas ran out and Saudi Arabia took over as the biggest oil producer. But the US wasn’t about to take that sitting down and hatched an ingenuous plan: Saudi Arabia will sell its oil for printed US dollars, then take most of those dollars and give them back to the US by “investing” it in US “debt”.

Everybody else who needed oil had to figure out a way to earn US dollars to buy it, and any US dollars they had left over after buying oil also had to be used to buy up US debt just because: “Nice economy you have there! Now we wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to it, would we?” Indeed, a few people didn’t get the message (Saddam of Iraq, Qaddafi of Libya) and got their countries bombed. And a whole lot of other defenseless countries got bombed just to keep the others scared. But then Syria, which refused to get the message too, asked the Russians for help. The Russians helped Syria, and now nobody is afraid of the US any more. Meanwhile, the US became spoiled by all this free money, grew fat, lazy, degenerate and weak and amassed the hugest pile of “debt” (in quotes because there is no question of ever repaying it) in all of human history.

In the meantime Russia, being the largest energy-producing country in the world, decided that it has had enough. Under the old scheme, Russia exported its resources cheaply, spend 1/3 of the revenue on imports and allowed 2/3 to leak out of the country, quite a lot of it also used to buy US “debt”. It couldn’t do anything about this right away, and so it spent the last decade developing its military to a point where now the US/NATO are afraid to go near it and its economy to a point where it doesn’t need much of the imports, at least not for a few years. And then a silly thing happened: the US confiscated Russia’s holdings of US “debt,” making everyone in the world take notice and start dumping it—even the Japanese!—sending the entire financial scheme into a tailspin.

Meanwhile, Russia has started to switch from selling its energy exports for dollars and euros, which then leave the country, where they can be confiscated, to selling them for rubles, which stay inside the country. Do you want to buy some Russian energy? Well, figure out how to earn some rubles! And if your own anti-Russian sanctions prevent you from doing so—well, la-di-da, whose fault is that? Also, given that there is now a worldwide energy shortage, the Russians asked themselves: Why sell lots of oil and gas for a little money when you can sell less of them for more money?

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As Dmitry writes: “Do you want to buy some Russian energy? Well, figure out how to earn some rubles!”

Russia Continues To Earn More By Exporting Less Oil (ZH)

Russian export revenues in June rose by $700m to the $20 billion mark, despite that oil exports fell by 250k b/d m/m to 7.4m b/d, the lowest since August 2021, Bloomberg’s Sherry Su reports citing the IEA’s latest Oil Market Report. Compared to a post-war peak level in April, total Russian oil exports in June were down 530k b/d, Or 7%, but export revenues were up by $2.3 billion, or 13%. Crude oil exports were down by 250k b/d in June to just above 5m b/d, still slightly higher than the pre-war average level according to Su. Shipments to the EU fell below 3m b/d for the first time since November 2020, bringing the EU share of Russian oil exports to 40%, compared to 49% in January-February.


Crude oil loadings to EU destinations fell 190k b/d m/m to 1.8m b/d, partly because of lower offtake on the Druzhba pipeline due to maintenance at a Hungarian refinery in June. Meanwhile, product loadings to the European Union fell by 135k b/d to 1.13m b/d, the IEA said. The fall in crude oil volumes came mostly from lower loadings on the Black Sea, as Rosneft’s 240k b/d Tuapse refinery reportedly came back online in June after a three-month shutdown. Total product exports out of Russia were relatively unchanged in June. Diesel exports increased slightly m/m to 825k b/d, 300k b/d lower than the pre-war average. Diesel Loadings to EU countries ticked up to 650 kb/d, returning to January-February average levels.

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Assisted suicide.

Germany To Halt Russian Coal Imports Next Month (ZH)

Germany will stop importing Russian coal from August 1 and crude oil from December 31, the country’s deputy finance minister, Joerg Kukies said today, as quoted by Reuters. “We will be off Russian coal in a few weeks,” Kukies said at the Sydney Energy Forum, which is taking place this week. “Anyone who knows the history of the Druzhba pipeline, which was already a tool of the Soviet empire over eastern Europe, ridding yourself of that dependence is not a trivial matter, but it is one that we will achieve in a few months,” he added. Kukies admitted, however, that replacing Russian hydrocarbons, not only in Germany, will be no easy task, citing the fact that together, the United States and Qatar could only supply some 30 billion cu m of natural gas equivalent to Europe, which imports more than 150 billion cu m of Russian gas annually.

Despite the challenge, Germany is in a rush to build LNG import terminals so it can replace at least part of Russian gas imports with liquefied gas from abroad. The problem here is, however, tightening supplies, with Freeport LNG in the U.S. offline until at least September, and Shell’s Prelude in Australia shut down amid industrial action. Demand for gas in Germany and Europe as a whole remains strong as governments seek to fill up their gas storage caverns ahead of the next heating season. Germany, specifically, is also on edge after Gazprom stopped the flow of gas via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline this week for regularly scheduled maintenance. Fears are that it will not turn the taps back on once the maintenance is done.


The suspension of coal and oil purchases from Russia is a result of sanctions the EU placed on Moscow earlier this year, providing buyers of the commodities with a temporal cushion of six months for each, so they could stock up on coal and oil before the respective embargos kicked in.

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The European Commission has a tail between its legs.

Lithuania To Allow Rail Transit Of Russian Goods To Kaliningrad (ZH)

It seems that saner minds are prevailing after ratcheting rhetoric coming from Moscow threateningly elevated Lithuania’s effective blockade of all overland trade and goods to an ‘act of war’ by the West… as the European Union is now refusing to back the full extent of Lithuania’s sanctions enforcement measures. The European Commission issued its legal guidance on the standoff Wednesday, which had over the past month resulted in some one million Russian citizens in the exclave remaining cut off from products brought by rail and road. “The transit of sanctioned goods by road with Russian operators is not allowed under the EU measures. No such similar prohibition exists for rail transport,” the European Union executive said, specifying that Russian goods should continue to be allowed by train.

“The Commission underlines the importance of monitoring the two-way trade flows between Russia and Kaliningrad … to ensure that sanctioned goods cannot enter the EU customs territory,” it added, emphasizing further that the rail exception doesn’t apply to weapons or munitions. The ban on transit still exits for freight brought by road, however. The EU said further this should be done through “targeted, proportionate and effective controls and other appropriate measures.” There was the additional caveat to the ruling that EU trade sanctions would not apply as long as Russia’s transport volumes do not exceed averages of the last three years, according to the “the real demand for essential goods at the destination.” It remains that food and humanitarian goods were reportedly never subject to the sanctions, nor was travel of citizens back-and-forth.


Lithuania’s government soon after the EU legal advice was issued said that it would adhere to it, albeit perhaps grudgingly: “Lithuanian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday the previous trade rules, which blocked many sanctioned cargos from transport between mainland Russia and Kaliningrad, were “more acceptable”. “Kaliningrad transit rules may create an unjustified impression that the transatlantic community is softening its position and sanctions policy towards Russia”, the statement said. On Monday Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko during a phone call agreed to a “possible joint response” to the blockade of transit to Kaliningrad by Lithuania. Without elaborating on details, but sounding ominous given threat of near future action, a Kremlin statement said of the call, “Emphasis was placed on the situation relating to the illegal restrictions imposed by Lithuania on the transit of goods to the Kaliningrad Region. In this context, some possible joint steps were discussed.”

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As western governments fail and fall, “the other side” unites.

Iran, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt add another 350 million people to the 3.2 billion already in BRICS.

Three More Countries Set To Join BRICS (RT)

Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt plan to join BRICS, and their potential membership bids could be discussed and answered at next year’s summit in South Africa, Purnima Anand, the president of the organization, told Russian media on Thursday. “All these countries have shown their interest in joining [BRICS] and are preparing to apply for membership. I believe this is a good step, because expansion is always looked upon favorably; it will definitely bolster BRICS’ global influence,” she told Russian newspaper Izvestia. The BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) account for over 40% of the global population and nearly a quarter of the world’s GDP. The bloc’s stated purposes include promoting peace, security, development, and cooperation globally, and contributing to the development of humanity.


Anand said the issue of expansion was raised during this year’s BRICS summit, which took place in late June in Beijing. The BRICS Forum president said she hopes the accession of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt will not take much time, given that they “are already engaged in the process,” though doubts that all three will join the alliance at the same time. “I hope that these countries will join the BRICS quite shortly, as all the representatives of core members are interested in expansion. So it will come very soon,” Anand added. The news of the three nations’ plans to join BRICS comes after Iran and Argentina officially applied for membership in late June, with Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh touting the bloc as a “very creative mechanism with broad aspects.”

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Italian president has refused Draghi’s resignation. Here’s why:

“President Sergio Mattarella cannot accept the prime minister’s resignation without himself departing. Mattarella only agreed to remain so long as the Draghi coalition would stand….”

Two More Gone (CTH)

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned. Days later, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated. A few days passed and both the President and Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, resigned and fled the country. Today, with their ruling governments in a state of turmoil, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi have both tendered their resignations. The collapse of each of these national leaders is not necessarily connected; however, the global political system is reverberating with tremors directly connected to the post-pandemic economic turmoil. It would be naïve not to see these governing issues as consequences. The legitimacy of the governing class is slipping; perhaps it would be fair to say, some have ‘lost’ their legitimacy altogether.

Estonia is part of the EU and a member of NATO. Italy is a member of the G7, a part of the EU and a member of NATO. The parliamentary coalitions are fracturing. New alliances are being formed. One recent example that stunned everyone in the EU was the far-right and far-left in the French parliament joining forces to defeat the coalition government of Emmanuel Macron as he tried, and failed, to extend emergency COVID rules. The COVID rules in France are set to expire on July 31st. The first parliamentary goal for President Macron was to extend the COVID emergency and keep his powers. However, the legislative effort was rejected by 219 votes to 195, destroying the goals of Macron. Both populist groups joined forces to defeat the Macron coalition.


Yes, amid all of the economic damage created by western leaders and their Build Back Better efforts, the geopolitical world is having spasms as the rulers are being rejected by the ruled. In the parliamentary systems, the voices of the angry people are rising up. Those shouts are entering the halls of government through the direct representatives closest to the people. The ruling coalitions are no longer able to hold together as the people demand change. That is the connective tissue behind these resignations and departures. Western government leaders like Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau, Emmanuel Macron, Boris Johnson and Jacinda Ardern have the audacity to stand atop a two-year mountain of unilateral fiats, rules, regulations and mandates and then decry “autocracy” and threats to the “global order.” All of them have destroyed their own legitimacy by pretending to represent western democracy while carrying out two years of totalitarian power.

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Little man just got a little littler..

Macron’s Minority Government Defeated on Vaccine Passports (SN)

French President Emmanuel Macron suffered a humiliating setback in parliament after his vaccine passport scheme was defeated. Macron’s minority government wanted to extend the policy whereby anyone entering France has to show proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test. However, the right-wing populist National Rally (RN), the hard-left La France Insoumise (LFI) and the right-wing Republicains (LR) all united to vote against the policy. Macron’s government lost the vote by a margin of 219 votes to 195. “The bill’s defeat was met with wild cheering and a standing ovation from opposition lawmakers, in footage that was widely circulated on social media,” reports the Telegraph. The bill was one of the first put to parliament by the new minority government, highlighting how Macron will find it incredibly difficult to get new laws passed in the country.


Elisabeth Borne, the French Prime Minister, condemned the vote. “The situation is serious. By joining together to vote against the measures to protect the French against Covid, LFI, LR and RN prevent any border control against the virus. After the disbelief on this vote, I will fight so that the spirit of responsibility wins in the Senate,” she tweeted. As we previously highlighted, the French Minister of Health admitted that vaccine passports are a “disguised” form of mandatory vaccines, despite President Macron claiming vaccine mandates “will not be compulsory.” On the first day the new program was in place, police in Paris were visibly patrolling bars and cafes demanding customers show proof they’ve had the jab. It later emerged that many businesses were refusing to enforce the scheme.

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He’s calling it out over himself.

Don Lemon: Republicans Must Be Treated As Danger To Society By Media (Fox)

Appearing on CNN’s New Day Thursday morning, Don Lemon once again urged the media to hold Republicans to a different standard than Democrats in their media coverage. The primetime host tied the GOP to the threat of “growing extremism” on the right. He warned journalists to not give a “false equivalence” to both sides, and instead acknowledge Republicans were endangering America. “We sit around and we talk about these things and we want to give this false equivalence to Democrats and Republicans. That is not where we are right now. Republicans are doing something that is very dangerous to our society and we have to acknowledge that. We have to acknowledge that as Americans, we must acknowledge that as journalists because if we don’t, we are not doing our jobs,” Lemon declared.

A Pew survey of nearly 12,000 journalists found that a majority of journalists, 55%, reject the idea that both sides “always deserve equal coverage.” Lemon was referring to Republicans who continue to support former President Trump after the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol, as well as the recent Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade. “They have to answer for those questions if they come here on CNN, they must answer for that. If they go on MSNBC, they must answer for that. If they go on ABC, they must answer for that. And they cannot expect to be coddled when they go on to a news organization or if they step in front of a crowd of supporters or voters or Americans.” He made a similar plea in June, saying, “we cannot pretend as journalists” that both sides are “equal.”


Lemon referred to an interview he did with a former spokesperson for the Oath Keepers saying Republicans had become associated with “extremists.” He rejected any Republican opposition to that belief. “You have the inmates running the asylum basically. You have the extremists because I know there are Republicans sitting out there going, ‘Don Lemon that’s not what we are.’ Maybe it’s not what you are but it’s what party has become and what you have allowed to happen,” he lectured.

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Excuse me?! “..the House Select Committee on January 6 (whose hearings are the runaway TV-ratings hit of the summer)..”

The runaway TV-ratings hit that nobody watches…

Donald Trump on 2024: ‘I’ve Already Made That Decision’ (NYMag)

Donald Trump was impeached twice, lost the 2020 election by 7,052,770 votes, is entangled in investigations by federal prosecutors (over the Capitol insurrection and over the mishandling of classified White House documents and over election interference) and the District of Columbia attorney general (over financial fraud at the Presidential Inaugural Committee) and the Manhattan district attorney (over financial fraud at the Trump Organization) and the New York State attorney general (over financial fraud at the Trump Organization) and the Westchester County district attorney (over financial fraud at the Trump Organization) and the Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney (over criminal election interference in Georgia) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (over rules violations in plans to take his social-media company public through a SPAC) and the House Select Committee on January 6 (whose hearings are the runaway TV-ratings hit of the summer), yet on Monday, July 11, he was in a fantastic mood.

It was a beautiful day in Bedminster, New Jersey, where the former president maintains a golf club and private estate to which he decamps when the Palm Beach humidity and the habits of snowbirds shut down Mar-a-Lago for the Mother’s Day–to–Labor Day summer season, and it had been a beautiful weekend, too, one he said affirmed the choice he had made about his own future, the future of the Republican Party, and — whether he wins this time or if he loses as sorely as before — the future of the American experiment. At a rally in Alaska on Saturday, he told me by phone, his fans were adoring. “More love,” in his words, “than I’ve ever had before.” His voice was humming with excitement. He was still in awe.

After all of this time, after so many rallies, so many crowds, so many winding speeches and chants of “Lock her up” and “USA” and “Build the wall” and the familiar sounds of “Tiny Dancer” and “Memory” (from Cats) and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and “YMCA” and that goofy little dance and the delusion and the fervor so great that it built up to an attack on the Capitol and the democratic process at the center of the Republic itself, the novelty of this had not faded. As a technical matter, the Anchorage event was on behalf of Sarah Palin and Kelly Tshibaka, Trump-endorsed candidates for the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, respectively, but like all such endeavors, it was for its star a means of discerning through a vibe check what traditional polls could not so reliably or completely tell him.

And what it told him this time, he said, is that his voters — a portion of the electorate that he insists amounts to a majority of the country, though it does not — want to, and will, bring him back to power. “Look,” Trump said, “I feel very confident that, if I decide to run, I’ll win.”

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The Chinese didn’t buy real estate as an investment, but as an insurance. Xi must beware.

“Disgruntled” Chinese Homebuyers Refuse To Pay Their Mortgages (ZH)

While US snowflakes are all too happy to talk the talk (which remains free, even despite Biden’s hyperinflation), Chinese residents are increasingly walking the walk. First, it was the violent outcry against mandatory covid vaccines that put an end to Beijing’s desire to forcibly innoculate all Beijing residents in just 48 hours – a feat not all of America’s armed militias have been able to achieve, and now it’s a grassroots push for what appears to be a debt jubillee as millions of homeowners suddenly stop paying their mortgages, a shocking move that has sent shockwaves across China’s capital markets and has sparked panic within China’s political leadership circles.

As Bloomberg reports overnight, a rapidly increasing number of “disgruntled Chinese homebuyers” are refusing to pay mortgages for unfinished construction projects, exacerbating the country’s real estate woes and stoking fears that the crisis will spread to the wider financial system as countless mortgages default. According to researcher China Real Estate Information, homebuyers have stopped mortgage payments on at least 100 projects in more than 50 cities as of Wednesday, up from 58 projects on Tuesday and only 28 on Monday, according to Jefferies Financial Group Inc. analysts including Shujin Chen. “The names on the list doubled every day in the past three days,” Chen wrote in a note published Thursday.


“The incident would dampen buyer sentiment, especially for presold products offered by private developers given the higher risk on delivery, and weigh on the gradual sales recovery.” What’s behind this grassroot movement to halt mortgage payments altogether? Negative equity: “Analysts believe that a drop in home values may be another driver for the refusal to meet mortgage payments. “Investors are concerned about the spread of mortgage payment snubs to buyers, simply due to lower property prices, and the impact on property sales,” Chen wrote. According to Citi analysts, average selling prices of properties in nearby projects in 2022 were on average 15% lower than purchase costs in the past three years. Meanwhile, it’s only getting worse as China’s home prices fell for a ninth month in May, with June figures set for release Friday.

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Here comes Sri Lanka.

High Inflation Figure Masks Even Higher Cost Hikes Of Necessities (ET)

The June inflation figure of 9.1 percent, up half a percentage point from May and the highest since 1981, doesn’t tell half the story of how expensive life has become for Americans. The overall figure hides the fact that not all prices have risen uniformly and that products that have become especially expensive also happen to be the ones people usually can’t do without, such as food, fuel, and energy, according to Consumer Price Index data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Among foodstuffs, margarine and egg prices hiked the most over the 12 months ending in June, up more than 34 and 33 percent, respectively. Trailing behind were butter (up more than 21 percent), flour (up more than 19 percent), and chicken (up more than 18 percent). Milk and coffee were up about 16 percent.

Regular gasoline hiked more than 60 percent, diesel about 76 percent, and fuel oil, which many Americans use to heat their homes, nearly doubled in price. Natural gas went up more than 38 percent and electricity nearly 14 percent. The White House, through President Joe Biden’s Twitter account, on July 13 called the inflation figures “not acceptable” but “outdated,” noting that the average gasoline price had declined about 40 cents per gallon (about 8 percent) over the past 30 days. The products with the most prominent price hikes tend to also suffer supply issues. Gasoline production is constrained by the policies of the Biden administration and the financial elites more generally as part of their efforts to curb carbon emissions.

Egg production has been constrained by the avian flu outbreak that cut the number of laying hens by about 8 percent in recent months. Grain production has been hit with sky-high fertilizer prices and herbicide shortages. Higher grain prices, in turn, show up not only in bakery goods and flour, but also in the cost of animal feed, which then hits meat and milk prices, too. Normally, consumers respond to higher prices by tightening their belts—consuming less—which in turn leads prices down. But because of the lavish federal spending packages during the COVID-19 pandemic, consumer demand has been artificially boosted. Prices will have to go up relatively steeply for another year or two before the productivity of the economy catches up with all the newly printed money, some economists have predicted.

Some prices, it appears, have already peaked. Beef steaks, for instance, hiked by more than 30 percent between October 2019 and October 2021 but are down about 5 percent since then. Similarly, car and truck rental prices went up more than 70 percent from July 2020 to July 2021 but have since dropped by about 11 percent.

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Those lines will get much longer.

Long Lines Are Back At US Food Banks (AP)

Long lines are back at food banks around the U.S. as working Americans overwhelmed by inflation turn to handouts to help feed their families. With gas prices soaring along with grocery costs, many people are seeking charitable food for the first time, and more are arriving on foot. Inflation in the U.S. is at a 40-year high and gas prices have been surging since April 2020, with the average cost nationwide briefly hitting $5 a gallon in June. Rapidly rising rents and an end to federal COVID-19 relief have also taken a financial toll. The food banks, which had started to see some relief as people returned to work after pandemic shutdowns, are struggling to meet the latest need even as federal programs provide less food to distribute, grocery store donations wane and cash gifts don’t go nearly as far.

[..] The Phoenix food bank’s main distribution center doled out food packages to 4,271 families during the third week in June, a 78% increase over the 2,396 families served during the same week last year, said St. Mary’s spokesman Jerry Brown. More than 900 families line up at the distribution center every weekday for an emergency government food box stuffed with goods such as canned beans, peanut butter and rice, said Brown. St. Mary’s adds products purchased with cash donations, as well as food provided by local supermarkets like bread, carrots and pork chops for a combined package worth about $75.

Distribution by the Alameda County Community Food Bank in Northern California has ticked up since hitting a pandemic low at the beginning of this year, increasing from 890 households served on the third Friday in January to 1,410 households on the third Friday in June, said marketing director Michael Altfest. At the Houston Food Bank, the largest food bank in the U.S. where food distribution levels earlier in the pandemic briefly peaked at a staggering 1 million pounds a day, an average of 610,000 pounds is now being given out daily. That’s up from about 500,000 pounds a day before the pandemic, said spokeswoman Paula Murphy said.

Murphy said cash donations have not eased, but inflation ensures they don’t go as far. Food bank executives said the sudden surge in demand caught them off guard. “Last year, we had expected a decrease in demand for 2022 because the economy had been doing so well,” said Michael Flood, CEO for the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. “This issue with inflation came on pretty suddenly.” “A lot of these are people who are working and did OK during the pandemic and maybe even saw their wages go up,” said Flood. “But they have also seen food prices go up beyond their budgets.”

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Well, Rutte says in the Davos video at the bottom that he wants to buy the press.. Sorry the other video is mostly in Dutch.

Dutch State Broadcasters Attack Coverage Of The Dutch Uprising (TCS)

In a video entitled “The Great Reset: the recurring fabrications,” Nieuwsuur, a program produced by government broadcasters, claims that Bexte travelled to the Netherlands to perpetuate supposed conspiracy theories, saying that the WEF has “absolutely nothing” to do with the “nitrogen crisis” — by which they mean the nitrogen policy to cut emissions by 50% and destroy farmers’ livelihoods. “These bloggers from far-right websites have travelled to the Netherlands especially to see that image confirmed,” the host says before playing a clip of Bexte talking about the WEF’s support for the career-destroying nitrogen policy being protested. “But the WEF has absolutely nothing to do with the nitrogen crisis,” he continues. “It was the highest judge who ordered the Netherlands to comply with the nitrogen standards of the European Union.”


Yes, but where did the “nitrogen standards” of the European Union come from? The nitrogen policy that was introduced is just one of many policies being brought forth by the EU to better align with the UN’s radical Sustainable Development Goals to cut all emissions, which is itself part of the UN’s Agenda 2030. According to the European Commission’s website, “Sustainable development is a core principle of the Treaty on European Union and a priority objective for the Union’s internal and external policies. The United Nations 2030 Agenda includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) intended to apply universally to all countries.” Moreover, in an EU briefing entitled “European policies on climate and energy towards 2020, 2030 and 2050,” the European Parliament states the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals will impact European policy, specifically regarding climate policy:

“Within the framework of the commitments laid down in the Paris Agreement, in November 2018, the European Commission published a new long-term strategy which confirms Europe’s commitment to lead on global climate action and to achieving net-zero GHG emissions by 2050, through a socially fair transition in a cost-efficient manner… The strategy does not intend to launch new policies, nor does the European Commission intend to revise the 2030 targets. It is rather meant to set the direction of transition of EU climate and energy policy, and to frame what the EU considers as its long-term contribution to achieving the Paris Agreement temperature objectives, in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which will further affect a wider set of EU policies.”

Now, who has been a core contributor in shaping the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals? Why, the World Economic Forum, of course. In 2019, the WEF and UN signed a strategic partnership “to accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.” “The new Strategic Partnership Framework between the United Nations and the World Economic Forum has great potential to advance our efforts on key global challenges and opportunities, from climate change, health and education to gender equality, digital cooperation and financing for sustainable development,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres at the time.


So, yes. If the Netherlands is abiding by the EU’s climate policies, and the EU’s climate policies are based on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and the WEF signed a partnership with the UN to control what these goals are, I think it’s safe to say that the WEF absolutely has something to do with the nitrogen policy being protested right now.

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People observe and interpret. Be careful with that.

It’s About Globalism, Stupid (Maajid Nawaz)

1) Framing is Everything – i) It is No Longer About Brexit – Contrary to what you will read, the UK leadership race is no longer about Brexit. Brexit is done. It will not be undone. Even Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has told his party that Brexit will not be reversed. This is not to say that Brexit is no longer relevant. It is relevant. It is to say instead that Brexit is not the main impetus for the domestic palace coup that has just unfolded against outgoing PM Boris Johnson.

ii) It is No Longer About Covid – This leadership challenge is also no longer about Covid. The Covid control mechanisms of emergency legislation, supply-chain disruption and the weaponisation of Big Pharma have already served their purpose. As with Brexit, the UK is unlikely to go backwards on Covid policy. Any intervention now from the authorities about Covid will again only serve to keep opponents stuck fighting our last battle, just as the state launches its next psychological war against its own population. This is not to say that Covid policy is no longer relevant. It is relevant. Rather, it is to say again that Covid is not the main impetus for the domestic palace coup that has just unfolded against outgoing PM Boris Johnson.

iii) It is No Longer About War in Ukraine – The UK leadership contest is also not about the war in Ukraine. A keen observer will already notice corporatist media spin turning against deeper involvement, as well as the establishment-liberal US outlets turning sour on Biden. The Ukraine war has served its purpose. Billions have been laundered. Global food and gas shortages have been precipitated. This is not to say that Russia and Ukraine are no longer relevant. They are relevant. This is to say instead that war in Ukraine is not the main impetus for the domestic palace coup that has just unfolded against outgoing PM Boris Johnson. And so what exactly is going on in Britain? Arriving at an answer is only possible if the globalist playbook is understood first.

2) The Global Uprising: Centralisation vs Decentralisation: – Division has been sown after Brexit. Civil norms has been crushed after Covid. The ‘means of production’ have been disrupted after war in Ukraine. What comes next is the purpose they all served: the Great Reset. Combined, these cumulative crises of monumental fiscal suicide, unprecedented supply chain disruption and food and energy shortages are in danger of causing the collapse of the global financial system, sparking truly unprecedented global uprisings. In fact, we are already witnessing this.

[..] The collapse of the global financial system now appears inevitable. It actually collapsed in 2008. What has proceeded since then is merely the execution of a carefully planned, if not vicious, controlled demolition. The demolition is orchestrated by WEF establishment globalists so that their own controlled opposition may steer this global reset towards further centralised tyranny, as opposed to allowing it to enable decentralised democracy. Popular resistance will now be used as a pretext to clamp down and suspend liberty by rolling out militarised forces to subjugate the very conveniently rebelling citizens. [..] This is how the global financial establishment seeks to ride the current global revolution in order to retain their power. We are at the end of a natural generational cycle: a historic turning. We are witnessing the ‘reset’ part of Klaus Schwab’s Great Reset. They have told us what they plan to do. After the reset they will seek to ‘Build Back Better’ in order to create their New World Order.

Read more …

Marty Makary M.D., M.P.H. and Tracy Beth Høeg M.D., Ph.D.

“I can’t tell you how many people at the FDA have told me, ‘I don’t like any of this, but I just need to make it to my retirement.’”

US Public Health Agencies Aren’t ‘Following the Science,’ Officials Say (CS)

The calls and text messages are relentless. On the other end are doctors and scientists at the top levels of the NIH, FDA and CDC. They are variously frustrated, exasperated and alarmed about the direction of the agencies to which they have devoted their careers. “It’s like a horror movie I’m being forced to watch and I can’t close my eyes,” one senior FDA official lamented. “People are getting bad advice and we can’t say anything.” That particular FDA doctor was referring to two recent developments inside the agency. First, how, with no solid clinical data, the agency authorized Covid vaccines for infants and toddlers, including those who already had Covid. And second, the fact that just months before, the FDA bypassed their external experts to authorize booster shots for young children.

That doctor is hardly alone. At the NIH, doctors and scientists complain to us about low morale and lower staffing: The NIH’s Vaccine Research Center has had many of its senior scientists leave over the last year, including the director, deputy director and chief medical officer. “They have no leadership right now. Suddenly there’s an enormous number of jobs opening up at the highest level positions,” one NIH scientist told us. (The people who spoke to us would only agree to be quoted anonymously, citing fear of professional repercussions.) The CDC has experienced a similar exodus. “There’s been a large amount of turnover. Morale is low,” one high level official at the CDC told us. “Things have become so political, so what are we there for?” Another CDC scientist told us: “I used to be proud to tell people I work at the CDC. Now I’m embarrassed.”

Why are they embarrassed? In short, bad science. The longer answer: that the heads of their agencies are using weak or flawed data to make critically important public health decisions. That such decisions are being driven by what’s politically palatable to people in Washington or to the Biden administration. And that they have a myopic focus on one virus instead of overall health. Nowhere has this problem been clearer—or the stakes higher—than on official public health policy regarding children and Covid. First, they demanded that young children be masked in schools. On this score, the agencies were wrong. Compelling studies later found schools that masked children had no different rates of transmission. And for social and linguistic development, children need to see the faces of others.

Next came school closures. The agencies were wrong—and catastrophically so. Poor and minority children suffered learning loss with an 11-point drop in math scores alone and a 20% drop in math pass rates. There are dozens of statistics of this kind. Then they ignored natural immunity. Wrong again. The vast majority of children have already had Covid, but this has made no difference in the blanket mandates for childhood vaccines. And now, by mandating vaccines and boosters for young healthy people, with no strong supporting data, these agencies are only further eroding public trust. One CDC scientist told us about her shame and frustration about what happened to American children during the pandemic: “CDC failed to balance the risks of Covid with other risks that come from closing schools,” she said. “Learning loss, mental health exacerbations were obvious early on and those worsened as the guidance insisted on keeping schools virtual. CDC guidance worsened racial equity for generations to come. It failed this generation of children.” An official at the FDA put it this way: “I can’t tell you how many people at the FDA have told me, ‘I don’t like any of this, but I just need to make it to my retirement.’”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Morales
https://twitter.com/i/status/1547604089705353218

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle July 15 2022

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 41 total)
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  • #111572

    Pablo Picasso Guernica [Study] III 1937   • Old Way, New Way (Dmitry Orlov) • Russia Continues To Earn More By Exporting Less Oil (ZH) • Germany
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle July 15 2022]

    #111573
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    New York State’s COVID-19 measures that required people infected with or exposed to highly contagious communicable diseases to quarantine are a violation of state law, a judge ruled. The New York Isolation and Quarantine procedures, known as Rule 2.13, were enacted in February.

    New York Quarantine Measures Ruled Unconstitutional and Illegal

    More than 260,000 Troops Not Fully Vaccinated, Many Face Discharge Under Biden Administration Mandate

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/07/13/more-260000-troops-not-fully-vaccinated-many-face-discharge-under-biden-administration-mandate/

    #111574
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    Most Democrats Believe the Constitution Is Racist and Sexist

    Democrats, specifically, believe the founding document is rooted in racism — 57 percent. Most Republicans (84 percent) and independents (60 percent) disagree that the Constitution is rooted in racism.

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/07/14/most-democrats-believe-the-constitution-is-racist-and-sexist/

    Most Top Biden Officials Have 0 Years Of Business Experience

    https://www.dailywire.com/news/most-top-biden-officials-have-0-years-of-business-experience

    Tesla Asks Texans To Limit Charging Cars During Heat Wave As Wind Power Slows

    https://www.dailywire.com/news/tesla-asks-texans-to-limit-charging-cars-during-heat-wave-as-wind-power-slows

    #111575
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    #111576
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Whew; a long read today Ilargi; but as usual, worth every word read; thank you…

    Pablo Picasso Guernica [Study] III 1937

    Picasso’s art is amazing, given he was there for the slaughter…
    It’s truly beyond my ken to fully grasp the tragedy of Guernica…but it’s obviously legion in scope…
    The infant in that picture struck me hard…

    #111577
    Neal
    Participant

    Not sure of the table showing material used per unit of electricity is accurate. For example many hydro dams have little concrete being made of earth or rock. Also is the table showing energy produced over the life of the dam, solar farm etc or annual production? If annual then as windmills and solar farms last 20 years, nuclear plants 50 years and dams offer 100+ then that also alters the results.

    #111579
    Red
    Participant

    “Food bank executives said the sudden surge in demand caught them off guard. “Last year, we had expected a decrease in demand for 2022 because the economy had been doing so well,” said Michael Flood, CEO for the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank.”

    Wow, looks like they’ve been into the “Kool Aid”, followed by:
    “This issue with inflation came on pretty suddenly.”

    Something else that comes on suddenly: ” Forests preceed us, deserts follow”. That should be obvious to those in California. I suppose that because desert was already there, just add water and poof greenery. Take away the water and “aw oh” no greenery, what’s up with that?

    I attended a seminar put on by our local agricultural college with Joel as headliner, back in the ’80’s I believe. Some good info on farming within the means of your particular piece of geography.

    “Salatin is an agrarian gladiator who enjoys sharing his expertise. But watch out: the man brooks no tolerance for conventional agricultural “wisdom.”

    Instead, he’s here to show small farmers how to make a profit from their land while maintaining healthy, sustainable practices.”

    Sustainable Farming: Making a Living on the Homestead with Joel Salatin

    #111580

    Neal,

    It’s about energy units (terawatt), irrespective of time units.

    #111581
    Red
    Participant

    “The supply destruction that is going on behind the scenes as corporations shut down operations and scrap equipment, machinery and vehicles will only come to public prominence when governments declare the pandemic to be over. Only then, when key fuels and resources are no longer available to us in the quantities required will we fully understand the folly of shutting down economies in a failed attempt to halt the spread of a not particularly dangerous virus. But the consequences of that third wave, which will give rise to evils from third world debt defaults and increased poverty and hunger to trade and resource wars, will be beyond our capacity to resolve. Lacking the energy and resources even to develop a steady-state economy, the global economy which emerges out of the pandemic response can only collapse; most likely rapidly.”

    The great unravelling

    “Unlike 2008, there won’t be any states left standing to bail the system out. And with western leaders seemingly determined to drive the emerging Eurasian/BRICS bloc into setting up an alternative system which disadvantages the west, the prospect for a rapid descent into economic, political and social chaos looks inevitable. Little wonder Herr Schwab and his buddies are keen to erase the WEF’s role in it.”

    #111582
    Red
    Participant

    “The guilt for the mass murder is solely that of the political leaders….. I accuse the leaders of abusing my obedience. At that time obedience was demanded, just as in the future it will also be demanded of the subordinate. Obedience is commended as a virtue.” —Adolph Eichmann, Nazi, at his trial

    Early in the declared Covid19 Pandemic, America’s medical community — and this included America’s pharmacies — coalesced around a system of outlawing medicines known to be effective, safe and inexpensive, notably ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine In time, it became obvious that withholding early treatment was crucial for the pharmaceutical industry’s project to vaccinate the world against a claimed Covid19 virus.

    Had the effectiveness of inexpensive and available medicines been widely seen, the pretext for ‘Emergency Use Authorization’ of a warpspeed-produced experimental product would have vaporized. With a trillion dollar global vaccination project at stake, that couldn’t be allowed, so the lies of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine being toxic were authoritatively enforced.

    The policy descended (and continues to descend) from administrative networks within the Department of Health and Human Services, (notably CDC and NIAID) to the states. These networks are part of, and fed by, an international complex involving the World Health Organization, itself under the control of international pharmaceutical interests focused primarily on vaccines, as well as on gene manipulations sold under the deceptive banner of “vaccine”.

    This multi-pronged, vaccine-focused universe now includes research universities and medical schools, medical societies and fraudulent medical journals showcasing ghost-written “scientific” articles. A key player is the discipline of Public Health, a politicized field posing as objective science, enforcer of official narrative and hurler of the “misinformation” epithet at dissenters. And of course there is the compliant media. And money, endless rivers of it.

    At hospital level, commands from this complex flow through desk-bound administrators, with doctors and nurses induced to follow those commands for fear of losing needed hospital access. Failure to mind can even result in suspension of license to practice medicine. This control system extends to state medical boards under the umbrella of the Federation of State Medical Boards, the guidelines of which require practitioners to use treatments “… supported by the best available scientific evidence or prevailing scientific consensus”. But officially accepted “best available scientific evidence” is now so tightly controlled that one is literally forced toward the “prevailing scientific consensus”.

    The “consensus” referred to is a rigidly enforced story, and divergence from it is immediately attacked from all corners of officialdom as “misinformation”. A key branch of the army protecting the official, lie-riddled storyline has been the burgeoning fact-check industry, succinctly nailed by Dr. Bryan Ardis “Fact checking is to divert you from the truth and take you back to the narrative you’re being sold worldwide.”

    You doctors who have been obedient to an industry-inspired, governmentally-driven protocol have abdicated the doctor-patient relationship. And what is true for doctors in this respect applies to nurses as well. By withholding available treatments and sending sick people home; by injecting a trusting public with an experimental gene-altering technology that has potentially devastating long-range, even trans-generational impacts; by not seeing immediately the criminal idiocy of injecting children, for whom the claimed virus is known to be benign, you have made your patients de facto lab animals.

    FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover once wrote “The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists.” The Covid19 Pandemic, set up as justification for a global project to inject humanity with a gene-altering death-dealing technology, is certainly monstrous enough to handicap anyone, at least for a time. It is murderous on a scale so immense as to be unbelievable on first exposure. And that alone may have posed too great a barrier for most of the multitude to even want to take a closer look.

    But you medical professionals cannot claim ignorance at this late date, when mere minutes of online search can reveal that outstanding medical figures all over the world have been struggling against censorship and mainstream media vomitings to expose the lie-riddled Covid19/“vaccine” project ( 1, 2, 3…) For their troubles, of course, they continue to be attacked by the media network long known to be rotten to the core. Has your choosing to be obedient within this long nightmare been simply to hold on to a job? Or have you just been too lazy to search out censored information? Or too uncaring? Or are you just stupid? Only you would know for sure.

    Josef Mengele, like yourselves, was a medical doctor. At Auschwitz concentration camp, his grisly medical experiments won him a place in history as Todesengel, “The Angel of Death”. He is supposed to have said “The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.” Does that seem familiar, and do your patients still trust you? In any case, you medics who have been so obedient to the vaccine industry’s merciless global project might want to get to know Dr. Mengele. There are even books on the man. After all, he was a soul mate of yours, as you have, eyes wide open, made yourselves, whether by omission or commission, his medical heirs.

    https://www.globalresearch.ca/america-new-angels-death/5786216

    #111583
    Dr. D
    Participant

    So AOC says Capitol Police opened the doors and let Jan 6 in. No kidding… But, this means we can now take it as official, widespread reality? And also, WHO let them in? Is AOC so dense, so out of the loop, so dumb that she doesn’t realize it’s Nancy Pelosi and that’s WHY there’s no investigation of them? Or of Ray Epps?

    Well, take victory where you can. Let’s all line up in Congress and ask. WHY were the 5,000 pound Columbus doors opened from the security booth inside? What does that mean for the accused who shook hands and took selfies with police?

    Speaking of investigations, can we have a list of prominent people who’ve had Covid for the 2nd or 3rd time after being vaxxed? Let me start: Fauci. Trudeau. Elmo. (but I repeat myself).

    Can we have a list of prominent people since 4th of July? Rajapaksa. Bojo. Abe. Kallas. Draghi. (Mrs.) Trump.

    Deutsche Bank Now Modeling German Households Chopping Wood to Keep Warm This Winter”

    There’s not enough wood in the general sense. And wood burned this year can’t be burned in the next. These things are possible, but it would take a lot of forward lead time, change in locations, setting up extensive forays into hauling dead wood, and changing to kindling. Then how do the ashes get back to avoid depletion?

    Universal Health Care: They need to start the video a little earlier, where you can’t get an appointment for 9 months. Then a few years after when like Britain the entire system collapses because no system feedback = spiraling costs and waste.

    Also, obviously it’s not free. Canada has eye-wateringly high taxes, 15% GST and PST. We also pay but it’s through the insurance system. Canadians then come here and say “I’ve got free health care”. Really? What are you doing in Florida then? “Oh, the cost of living is so much lower here.” No kidding! I wonder why? And aside from a whole industry of going to American hospitals because Canada will schedule in your surgery a few months after you’re dead.

    Now I’m going to say despite all that, Americans still have the worst care at the highest price worldwide. However, it also essentially makes everything said in that video false. Despite unthoughtful uninformed chatter, our problems are the same as everybody else: deep corruption, no feedback in the medical system. We don’t cut out the poor in our paid-for system. We don’t provide free services UNLESS you are poor. In which case you get all the care you want. It’s only if you’re productive that you can’t get care.

    “There is no substitute for energy. If you run low, you can’t switch”

    Yes, we can. We must waste like 50-75% of our energy on sheer nonsense. We just WON’T do it. Even in a “war” (What war is that, Mr. Biden?) there is no diversion, no rationing. Driving 30 miles to work then 10 miles to soccer practice every day is standard. A/C and heat is in every room. Lights are never shut off. We blow the power of a whole nation just to have street lights at night when no one’s on the street. We are not a serious nation, and made of not-serious clown people. We are about to starve for using our diesel on empty, $60,000, double-long suburban pickups instead of for harvesters and grain silos, but suit yourself. Nothing gets through, so you have to learn your own way.

    What happens then? Prices revert to reality. True price discovery. You’ll find out which is valuable, food or McMansions and leather-lined pickups that can’t withstand a raindrop.

    Yes, amid all of the economic damage created by western leaders and their Build Back Better efforts, the geopolitical world is having spasms as the rulers are being rejected”

    They’re front men and puppets. I want the guys behind the rulers. With cold fury of the people they just won’t leave alone.

    “Macron’s Minority Government Defeated on Vaccine Passports (SN)”

    NY was also ended. There is no legal authority for lockdowns. That took almost 3 years to get your rights back and still they ignore it (like the USSC gun ruling). Apparently it doesn’t matter what the courts say. Does that mean we need to send the army to remind them?

    “[..] The Phoenix food bank’s main distribution center doled out food packages to 4,271 families”

    Is that soup line long enough for you? Are the tent cities in every major city not enough like Hoovervilles because they’re not in black and white? That’s what they thought/printed in the paper in 1930 too. “Green Shoots!” “Just around the corner!” “Stock market doubles!” “The Sun’ll come out tomorrow!”

    But we’ve improved from then. 1921 took 1 year. 1929 took 10 years. Now we’ve got it up to 25 years: these Hoovervilles started under George Bush in 2000. #Helping! Don’t worry, just like last time, when they write the history books, all these government programs will have worked wonders despite poverty increasing every year, income disparity increasing every year, hunger increasing every year, and inflation from stimulus checks increasing every year out of control. Just like last time, when the Green New Deal worked perfectly…except for the part that the economy never budged for 10 years straight until we blew up every other factory on planet dirt.

    What’s the solution? Honest money, honest markets, honest law and property rights. All three would make the rich lose their corrupt, unearned power so they will never happen … voluntarily. Nature bats last though. Math isn’t fooled.

    “I can’t tell you how many people at the FDA have told me, ‘I don’t like any of this, but I just need to make it to my retirement.’”

    …Showing they are the dumbest people in the room, dumber than Zippy the Pinhead. YOU’RE NOT GOING TO GET YOUR RETIREMENT. Ever. From anyone. You morons. But you’re ESPECIALLY not going to get it if you kill every (working) American, all kids 25-40 and collapse the entire U.S. economy. You think we’re really-really a’gonna pay you then? For the service you just provided? Hell. No.

    Greg Hunter has this on USA Watchdog: “I’ll give you info as ex-government, ex-CIA/ex-military guy, but I can’t come on record because I need my pension”. AYFKM? You’re not going to collect your pension, moron. If you don’t speak up the government itself will collapse, probably past-tense. What pension? You’re defending NOTHING. You sold out your country by not speaking FOR NOTHING, you AWOL traitor derelict of duty.

    Hey, you get what you get. You bought it with these actions; now live with it, the lot of you. Cowards and fiends, avarice, love-of-money as god. You know people are being murdered and you want your PENSION? And you think we will give it to you?

    If you all spoke up and all left, they’d have to stop. Then you’d get re-hired in a reformed system and get your pension back.

    “Democrats, specifically, believe the founding document is rooted in racism — 57 percent.”

    And I was just in a discussion as to why oh why people think that Democrats aren’t patriotic. “They stole R flag from us!” Whut? You burn the flag proudly at every opportunity. But go ahead, be patriotic and take it back: you’re not a victim of the Right, the Patriots. Oh wait, yes you are: that’s the purpose of that sentence, to blame, accuse, and be a victim of the nebulous they’r everywher Right for not doing a thing you yourself are in control of. Really, it’s pathological.

    #111584
    Red
    Participant

    Energy isn’t free. Whenever energy is accessed for our use, some of that energy is always consumed in the access process.

    This ‘consumed in access’ component – known here as the Energy Cost of Energy, or ECoE – has been rising relentlessly, mainly because depletion is forcing up the costs of oil, natural gas and coal.

    This rise in ECoEs reduces the surplus (ex-cost) energy that is coterminous with prosperity. This equation reflects the fact that surplus energy determines the availability of all products and services other than energy itself.

    Because ECoEs are rising, prosperity is decreasing.

    At the same time that surplus energy prosperity is deteriorating, the costs of essentials are rising. This is happening because most necessities – including food, the supply of water, housing, infrastructure, the transport of people and products, and, of course, energy used in the home – are energy-intensive.

    The material components of this equation – energy itself, supply costs, prosperity and the essentials – are translated, using the SEEDS economic model, into the financial language that, by convention, is used in economic debate.

    #235. The affordability crisis

    #111585
    kolya
    Participant

    The electric car gets a higher diversity and inclusion score, a rainbow of elements. I ordered a hybrid more than 12 months ago, and they still haven’t scheduled it for production. Capitalism where are you? I never liked you much, but now you’re gone I see your true beauty.

    State media in allied Australia loves Trump news, we are hoping to finally find the smoking gun that was promised all those years ago. Then Trump can be locked up and that will stop him from giving us anxiety induced heart problems in 2024.

    #111586
    kultsommer
    Participant

    Universal health care. Replies worth of reading.
    “10k replies on tiktok, nearly all of them Americans bending over backwards to defend our health care system”.
    Potion of “Stalin, Mao and P-Pot” in the mix and daily fed to the pop does wonders.

    In addition to studies, real painting gave him a good run of struggle. Revisions are documented in series of photos that Dora Maar took in his studio. At the end Picasso won.

    #111587
    Oroboros
    Participant

    • Old Way, New Way (Dmitry Orlov)

    Ouch Dmitry, that message burns like a bitch

    hahahaha

    The Empire of Lies is not run by ‘humans’ anymore.

    They are ‘warm blood’ and could also be classified as ‘mammals’.

    But they have the brains of reptiles.

    Reptiles lay there eggs and abandon their young and would vax them if they knew how.

    Reptiles also have very simple reaction circuits. They always double down on a losing strategy because they have no reverse gear in their primitive brains.

    So the ‘leaders’ of the Empire of Lies are not human, they are some new amalgamation of mammal and reptile.

    Yes, they are in deed some type of ‘life form’, but definitely not ‘human’.

    They are are not ‘sub-human’ but rather ‘trans-human’

    So the Empire of Lies is guided by Trans-humans who always double down when they lose, have no reverse gear and conduct medical experiments on their abandoned offspring.

    Check

    Here is a Mongoose dealing with a reptile.

    The reptile has a simple ‘thrust’ strategy. The Mongoose times the length the periodicity of the reptile thrust and waits until the reptile is fully extended, then kills it.

    Russia is the Mongoose

    The Empire of Lies is the Black Mamba

    #111588
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    I don’t know, Dr. D. (Figure of speech)

    To call it, you got to be able to see it.
    Very few can see it and the very best are dissuaded from their vision by propaganda (placard for gaslighting) and money (placeholder for personal avarice).

    Said Dr. D to reformed CIA pensioner: “If you all spoke up and all left, they’d have to stop. Then you’d get re-hired in a reformed system and get your pension back”
    There’s quite a few steps in that prescription but they can’t stop anymore than Con-man can give up the Con. Notice how this antidote leaves the perpetrators free rather than subject to annihilation, a perfect segue to citizenx’s invocation of Solzhenitsyn.

    I read Solzhenitsyn as a 10 year old. Yeah I know that’s a sign of some sever isolation and possibly emotional impoverishment.
    However I’d rather read the occasional offerings from citizenx (last night), orobos and Veracious Poet for their concise recapitulation of the same. You see, I’ve never been sure whether Solzhenitsyn’s musings on ‘the unholy terror of the man who just wanted to be left alone” was descriptive, predictive or self-recognition. I suspect he was simply being hopeful.
    Alexander was describing something separate from unloosing the dogs of war.

    It bears repeating from citizenx last night:

    “Most here see the Empires patterns of madness and illness. Even fewer seem willing to fight it. “(January 6th was opportunity but too few smelled the trap and no I’m not saying Trump is the answer)

    ““The most terrifying force of death, comes from the hands of Men who wanted to be left Alone. They try, so very hard, to mind their own business and provide for themselves and those they love.
    They resist every impulse to fight back, knowing the forced and permanent change of life that will come from it. They know, that the moment they fight back, their lives as they have lived them, are over.
    The moment the Men who wanted to be left alone are forced to fight back, it is a form of suicide. They are literally killing off who they used to be. Which is why, when forced to take up violence,
    these Men who wanted to be left alone, fight with unholy vengeance against those who murdered their former lives. They fight with raw hate, and a drive that cannot be fathomed by those who are merely play-acting at politics and terror. TRUE TERROR will arrive at these people’s door, and they will cry, scream, and beg for mercy… but it will fall upon the deaf ears of the Men who just wanted to be left alone””
    Alexander Solzhenitsyn

    #111589
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    Bare not Bear

    #111590
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    I think that the “normalized materials “ graph needs more background information.

    For solar PV, it is including concrete…um…is that concrete for installations that are embedded in concrete? For the plant that made the PV? Rooftop Solar seldom involves concrete.

    Hydro…over how many years is the electrical generation being counted?

    Natural gas…is it counting only the materials for the nat gas plant, or also counting all of the resources/materials used to extract, store, and transport the nat gas?

    And so forth.

    There is value in creating something that passively generates electricity/energy year after year with few inputs and/or little maintenance after it is built. This value goes beyond monetary costs or resources used. (Note: electric cars do not passively generate electricity/energy…no, not even with energy recapture from braking.)

    When I had solar panels put on my roof, I was better off financially than I have now been for the past decade. When I ran the figures before getting the PV system, I determined that economically, it would be a wash for me — I would not save any significant money on my power bill, neither would it cost more — and I might save a little bit of money. I had been excited about solar PV since my teens, and I moved forward, making a down payment of a few thousand dollars to offset my monthly lease amount.

    Right now, I calculate my solar panels as saving me about $5/month in energy costs. However, another $25/month was paid 12 years ago, so that is $30 I don’t have to spend today. Considering the events of the last decade, the money paid down was a wise investment.

    There are some places/situations where bringing in fuel is not feasible or not desired. That is where electricity generated from non-fuel sources has great value.

    #111591
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    Bear not Bare

    #111592
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    US Constitution racist/sexist…
    I think that it is a glass half-full or half empty proposition.
    To those who see everything through the lens of racism and sexism, the fact that slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person and that women did not vote…sure, the document contains some racism/sexism. For that matter, it would be difficult to find documents and/or practices from the late 18th century that are not “racist” nor “sexist” based on current standards (especially if the new “woke” standards are the yardstick.)
    However, the US Constitution was grounded in the principles of the Enlightenment, and it could be easily argued that emancipation and women’s suffrage eventually came about because of the cultural seeds sown by the Enlightenment, and that the US Constitution was a remarkable document because it allowed for the possibility of such changes to be wrought when the country was ready for them. (Most late 18th century folks were not ready.)

    The answers of the survey have little relation to the US Constitution, but provide insight into the thought patterns of the respondents.

    #111593
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    I remember back when I was Mormon that I always felt a little uneasy about the religion’s emphasis on obedience as a virtue. Thanks to Red for mentioning the Eichmann quote. It goes a long ways towards explaining my unease with the concept of obedience.

    I think I’m better of with: “To thine own self be true.” (Thank you Shakespeare.)

    #111594
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    @ Dr D
    “ We don’t provide free services UNLESS you are poor. In which case you get all the care you want. It’s only if you’re productive that you can’t get care.”
    I take exception with that comment. People who are in poverty are very often very productive — they just don’t receive much monetary compensation for all of their productivity.

    #111595

    Wood in Russia from worldometer.

    #111596
    willem
    Participant

    @Neal is correct. Watts are a measure of instantaneous power consumption; in other words, the RATE of power, rather than the quantity. You need a time unit to do a comparison of this kind (as in Watt-HOURS). Knowing the lifetime of the facility is necessary so you can make this comparison a meaningful one.

    #111597
    Noirette
    Participant

    The article by Spradbury, prev. post, was chilling, but the content isn’t really new, it follows the path of the most alarmist commentators.

    Montagnier, btw, was a sincere and respected scientist in F and Europe generally, during his whole career.

    Of course *roughly* after 2000 the ‘medical / academic’ / regulatory’ scene in F began its transformation to profit-seeking (national health gradually dismantled, corp control of research, etc.) He could speak out because he was elderly, retired, beyond attack.

    Today, one top F prof., Christian Perrone, recently forced into retirement, someone who occupied the highests posts possible in top commissions, in the F med-gvmt-research-control apparatus, in the field of infectious diseases and vaccines, at the WHO as advisor, plus being a guarantor (times past) of ethics in medecine, and arbitrator of conflicts of interest, has given a vid interview to France Soir.

    He has been imho completely straight and honest about his opinions, stances, throughout (not the case for some seeming ‘rebels’) and he has now concluded that the COV19 pandemic was planned. (He didn’t think this before, though he never excluded any possibilities.) He doesn’t elaborate on this point. 11 July 2022.

    In F: https://www.francesoir.fr/videos-l-entretien-essentiel/ils-m-attaquent-car-ils-ont-peur-pr-christian-perronne

    Here is part 1 of an interview of Perrone, in Aug. 2020, in Eng. to give an idea why he was ‘cancelled’…

    J. Day posted: The big question to me is whether this will kill something like 2% of the injected, or more like 80%. I consider it unknowable for me until time passes. I am interested in expert opinions, but don’t see any of them as even possibly able to know how many will die from these injections this decade, or how many miscarrriages and birth defects there will be in this decade, or of what sorts.

    Yes, we don’t know, and have to wait to find out. But I reckon that some ppl at Pfizer – Moderna and many others have a rough estimate, they have all the results from the ‘trials’ that they ran themselves and then reported fraudulently in the sense of massaging, omissions, sneaky categorisation, and mostly just ‘dropping cases, info’, etc. / confusedly on purpose to hide things from stupid pols, corrupted regulatory bodies, and the public.

    A stab at a guess (from the present figures open to the public, early ‘unknown’ deaths, reports of all the young ppl collapsing, etc.) is that about 10%, maybe somewhat more, in a time span of 5 years AFTER the vax, will experience early ‘mysterious’ deaths, caused by the vax. This will be covered up by talk of ‘long covid’, ‘stress’, ‘new diseases’, ‘poverty’, etc. As for the damage to reproduction some stats are coming in, but there are so many factors affecting birth rate, it is too soon to say anything much. Of course it is way down in many countries…

    #111598
    Mr. House
    Participant

    @Dr. D Rich

    Thank you for the Alexander Solzhenitsyn quote, my feelings exactly!

    #111599
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    @ Mr. House

    Hat tip during TAE’s own ‘citizenx’ from late last night.

    #111603
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “This ‘consumed in access’ component – known here as the Energy Cost of Energy, or ECoE – has been rising relentlessly,… Because ECoEs are rising, prosperity is decreasing.”

    No. It’s rising HERE. WE are not pumping. WE are not drilling three coasts. WE are not importing from Iran.

    RUSSIA has no ECoE, THEIR prosperity is not falling. This is US only. Not the world. And for the moment because of what WE are doing, intentionally, knowing, purposefully, NOT because of physics. Those physics may be out there, but not for 40 more years in Russia, China , and Iran yet. Probably not 40 more years in the U.S. either.

    I’m sorry WE want to shut down pipelines and WE want to waste what we have and shut in our supplies. But that’s a choice.

    Yes Benton, that has many steps that won’t be done. But look at the key step: IF the people come home from work one day and say “This is immoral, I won’t be part” then the machine stops. The End. If they also say “I won’t be quiet” then others can’t run it instead.

    It’s really that simple. All the psychos and narccists have to do is create the plausible veneer of “I didn’t know”, of “it’s not my job” of “But I’m thinking of my family, really” and the people pounce on the excuse like a hungry mongoose. The excuse is both false, is does not excuse, AND they are going to not pay you and kill your family to keep you quiet. I don’t know why this is no complicated for people. Have they never worked with low lifes before? I can’t swing a cat without running into a hustling low life trying to compromise me, so I don’t know where they live.

    You can’t commit a felony. Then your co-felons blackmail you. You can’t hang around with people like that. They’ll drag you in, then your family. You just can’t, which is why your daddy said “don’t.” Not even once.

    Phoenix: There are many unproductive poor, but you are, of course, correct. There are a lot of unproductive rich too. I guess I phrased it that way because a nation, household, or any organization lives by the work of the members. Our plan here is to never help those who work, and always help those who don’t work. If you work, you are at 100% risk. If you stop working, your health is 100% covered. That’s like a $20,000 benefit. I can take a hint. So has everyone else. That communism: no work = you get all the benefits anyway. “Show me the incentives and I’ll show you the outcome.” Outcome = Collapse.

    #111604
    Armenio Pereira
    Participant

    So, according to Evo Morales, Mr. Assange is the only person holding all the pertinent info concerning the crimes committed against humanity – sheesh, what a way of running an organization.

    #111605
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    I take exception with that comment. People who are in poverty are very often very productive — they just don’t receive much monetary compensation for all of their productivity.

    #111607
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    Yes, we don’t know, and have to wait to find out.

    #111608
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    Have they never worked with low lifes before? I can’t swing a cat without running into a hustling low life trying to compromise me, so I don’t know where they live.

    #111609
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    NYPD stops testing police for pot use…
    The announcement comes as more than 1,500 police officers have left NYPD this year alone

    https://justthenews.com/government/local/nypd-stops-testing-police-pot-use

    DEA seizes million fentanyl-laced pills in record-breaking drug bust

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/crime/dea-seizes-1-million-fentanyl-laced-pills

    #111610
    aspnaz
    Participant

    A few days passed and both the President and Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, resigned and fled the country.

    You destroyed your country for WEF? Don’t worry, WEF will look after you, you will not have to take responsibility for your actions. Sri Lankans should have fixed this problem and sent both to join Abe in politician hell where they can continue to practice treachery on their countries and stabbing each other in the back for ever.

    #111611
    aspnaz
    Participant

    French President Emmanuel Macron suffered a humiliating setback in parliament after his vaccine passport scheme was defeated.

    After seeing the Uber papers you just know this scum bag is taking money from Big Pharma.

    #111612
    John Day
    Participant

    Good bunch of comments again last night and today.
    RED: Good content, but could you say “most doctors”?

    The big trio today (with Solzhenitsyn’s man-who-wanted-to-be-left -alone hovering overhead)
    looks like:
    Globalism 1: https://maajidnawaz.substack.com/p/its-about-globalism-stupid
    Globalism 2: https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2022/07/14/the-great-unravelling/
    Energy Affordability Crisis (which came to my inbox, too) https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2022/07/15/235-the-affordability-crisis/comment-page-1/?

    The lies cannot stretch anywhere near what people experience daily, so they are losing momentum. The globalist-liars need everybody to just go along, not break away, until the trap is snapped and they have the only keys to survival, if you do things their way, which is to be a cyborg-slave.
    That is doomed to failure, because it has too many expensive and inefficient layers of hierarchy, and not enough quick, local problem solving. Too much data over too much time and distance…

    The background condition is falling surplus-energy since mid 2018 (my educated guess).
    In a way I agee and disagree with Dr.D. I think there is oil in the US that CAN be pumped, especially in the Arctic, but it’s not-for-us.
    Like Tonto said to the Lone Ranger, “What you mean ‘we’, white man?”

    I am voluntarily going Malthusian, like the Archdruid always sort-of advises.

    The more efficient economy will be less hierarchical, with shorter supply chains, and more locally-added value, like Russia refines oil and makes plastic, the way texas does, for instance.
    Much more economy will be non-financial, like my vegetable gardens are slowly approaching.
    Like the solar installation, it’s a lot of expense and work up front, and drip watering and timers and repairs and upkeep to grow veggies in Texas. My way is not the only way. Black-eyed peas and sweet potatoes are basically invasive in an area, but also a lot of work to pick and dig out of the jungle they make, especially out of clay soil…
    Gonna’ eat all winter, too? You’d better have calories saved up, because collard greens only go so far.

    I read a newspaper interview from 80 years ago in the Yoakum paper. The oldest man in Lavaca county was a 106 year old freed-man, who moved with other slaves and a family of 7 when he was a toddler. They killed wild pigs and ate pig and cornbread, from corn they grew. They ate wild cattle and wild goats, too. They killed wild game and grew corn, and they built counties and towns. They lived by a river,or collected rainwater if they could. He remembered the day his Mistress told him “You are as free as I am. You can go wherever you want.” He stayed another year there before he could work anything else out. Al lot of Freedmen stayed and worked their own places, but it was never a slave economy.
    Mostly it was Czech (“Bohemian”) and German families, extended families, who fled war in Europe. Sink or swim in Texas…
    That was completely normal, all of it. I’m nowhere near that tough.
    Man do I have respect!

    #111613
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Egg production has been constrained by the avian flu outbreak that cut the number of laying hens by about 8 percent in recent months.

    Does WEF have its own security aparatus that releases these pandemics or do they use the US security aparatus to do the dirty work? Food processing plant explosions etc etc, I am sure the US security state allows this to happen, so are co-conspirators, but do they do it themselves. I am interested because I am wondering what the status of the army will be when things turn violent, will they work for WEF (like the US government) or will they work for the American people.

    #111614
    aspnaz
    Participant

    On the other end are doctors and scientists at the top levels of the NIH, FDA and CDC. They are variously frustrated, exasperated and alarmed about the direction of the agencies to which they have devoted their careers. “It’s like a horror movie I’m being forced to watch and I can’t close my eyes,” one senior FDA official lamented. “People are getting bad advice and we can’t say anything.” That particular FDA doctor was referring to two recent developments inside the agency. First, how, with no solid clinical data, the agency authorized Covid vaccines for infants and toddlers, including those who already had Covid. And second, the fact that just months before, the FDA bypassed their external experts to authorize booster shots for young children.

    People are so selfish, they pretend to care about other peoples’ children, they have the means to not be involved in the disabling or even killing of other peoples’ children, but for personal reasons they choose not to say anything and to go along with the crime.

    I am enjoying watching this because to me it is confirming what I already thought I knew: civilisation is just a veneer and humans are really just extremely violent animals that could not survive as a species without civilisation. Civilisation and social skills prevents us from destroying our own species, only those humans that adopted civilisation rather than outright hostility have survived, the others were Darwined.

    Our civilisation enables us to live together and survive by supressing our instincts, which are to oppress and kill each other. We think we are civilised, better than other animals, but actually we are worse than other animals because we will even eat our own species as food: our social skills have enabled us to survive, without them we would have gone the way of the Darwined individuals.

    I totally believe this because I am certain that the species at the top of the food chain naturally emerges to be super violent. It has probably happened before, some species emerged and then killed itself off by being too violent without sufficient brakes on its instinct to prevent self destruction. Sure, the known fossil record shows no such species, but that does not exclude the possibility.

    In this case it is remarkable how easily these government employees can forget their religion, their principles, their adherence to the law etc and go along with a crime that they are aware is happening. The Nazis did the same as, I am sure, have many human groups in the past. We are just one step away from causing our own destruction.

    #111616
    Redneck
    Participant

    The socialised medicine vid made me grin as it reminded me of a moment in the past where I was arguing with the cashier in an in-house pharmacy in a brand new clinic in Jakarta Indonesia. I had the shits real bad and had just seen a young doctor in a spotless white coat in this large shiny clinic and was paying for the enormous bag of various potients he had prescribed me. As the amount I paid at the pharmacy was only four Australian dollars I was adamant that I also needed to pay the doctor’s fee.The cashier was also adamant that I had paid for the drugs and the doctor but that just would not compute in my brain so I kept on insisting that I still needed to pay for the doctor as well. Finally I got it , the doctor’s fee was included in the amount and I walked out but still struggling with the concept of paying four dollars for the drugs AND the doctor. During that exchange I am sure the expression on my face must have resembled our actor in the vid , puzzlement and disbelief.
    So the knob-jockeys at WEF& Co. who after totally and unnecessarily fucking our economy, causing untold social misery death and the destruction of millions of folks immune systems around the globe now assume that we the people need and desire that they “Build Back Better”. Fuck them all , a pox upon them and their houses , we need a lot more Abe’n going on.

    #111618
    WES
    Participant

    I am still waiting for the US army to commit hari-kari by dismissing their unvaxxed soldiers while they are having trouble recruiting new soldiers.

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