Jul 192022
 
 July 19, 2022  Posted by at 7:36 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,


Piet Mondriaan Trafalgar Square 1939-43

 

Operation Z – Don’t Interrupt (Larry Johnson)
Gazprom Declares Force Majeure, To Halt Gas Flows To Germany Indefinitely (ZH)
Russian Economy Expected To Thrive By Year’s End (RT)
Germany’s Energy Crisis About To Get Worse As Rhine Water Levels Plummet (ZH)
Staged Incidents As The Western Approach To Doing Politics (Lavrov)
Germany and France ‘Killed’ Minsk Agreements – Lavrov (RT)
Ukraine Treated Donbass People As Sub-humans, Making Peace Impossible (Ugolny)
Canadian Energy Firm Declares Force Majeure On Keystone Pipeline (ZH)
The Recession May Already Be Here (Lacalle)
House Democrats Push Bill To Add Four Seats To Supreme Court (JTN)
Novak Djokovic US Open Row Escalates (Exp.)
The Last Days of “Joe Biden” (Kunstler)

 

 

 

 

Makary

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..you should never interrupt your enemies when they are making a mistake..”

Operation Z – Don’t Interrupt (Larry Johnson)

One of Napoleon’s observations is that you should never interrupt your enemies when they are making a mistake. Russians know this, not least because they were careful not to interrupt Napoleon himself in 1812. Putin and his team have had plenty of opportunities to meet NATO’s leaders, observe them, negotiate with them and assess them. It’s unlikely they’re very impressed. But when they started their “special military operation” in Ukraine they could never have dreamed how self-destructive NATO would be. What mistakes? First, the West has not shot itself in the foot with its economic sanctions – Hungary’s Viktor Orban is right when he observes that it has put a slug into its lungs.

One can still limp along with a broken foot, but a shot to the lungs is pretty serious. Second, who in Moscow could have imagined that NATO would shovel its ammunition and weapons stockpiles into the Ukrainian black hole in the expectation that if they can get the latest wonderwaffe to General Steiner they’ll be in Moscow by Christmas. A good reason for Moscow to take it slowly – let the mistakes develop, compound and metastasize. It’s happening by itself. Naturally, inevitably, logically. No outside effort required. An unexpected bonus. Don’t interrupt.

Consider Germany, “the engine of Europe“. It stands on one thing – the reputation of German engineering and quality – Mercedes/Miele/Bosch, they may cost more but they’re cheaper in the long run because they’re so well made. No Western country manufactures much these days but Germany still does. In fact, only South Korea and China have a bigger share of their economies in manufacturing. (America, the colossus of former times, is half Germany!) But manufacturing needs energy. German energy comes from Russia – not all of it – about 20%. But coal is 40% and nuclear 10% and they have to reduce these because Greta wants them to which means they need more gas which is cheaper and “cleaner” and which mostly comes from Russia which requires another pipeline to be built. But then they decide that Ukraine is The Big Moral Issue and close the pipeline and step up coal which they’re going to get rid of altogether in 2030 thanks to more wind energy.

And what about the nukes? Unicorn wings flapping. Hard to be green and hate Russia too. And let’s ban potash from Russia and Belarus. That’s about a third of world production. Ban Russian wheat (it is the number 1 exporter) and oil (it is the number 2 exporter). Oh, and by confiscating Russian assets they’ve shown the whole world that only an idiot would keep his wealth in NATO currency in a NATO bank. And all this for a country they lied to about NATO membership. Don’t interrupt.

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The turbine is on its way.

Gazprom Declares Force Majeure, To Halt Gas Flows To Germany Indefinitely (ZH)

Already days before the July 22 European “Doomsday” when the scheduled Russian 10-day maintenance of the crucial Nord Stream pipeline to Germany is slated to end – but which was thrown into deep doubt given Gazprom recently said it can no longer guarantee its “good functioning” due to crucial turbines being previously held up in Canada related to sanctions – the Russian energy giant has declared Force Majeure to one major European customer. Simply put, Gazprom declared extraordinary and extreme circumstances to void itself from all contractual obligations to this customer, thus the gas will stop flowing indefinitely, as Reuters reports in a breaking development Monday, “Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom has declared force majeure on gas supplies to Europe to at least one major customer starting June 14, according to the letter seen by Reuters.”

The letter is dated July 14. “It said the force majeure measure, a clause invoked when a business is hit by something beyond its control, was effective from deliveries starting from June 14,” writes Reuters. As we’ve been detailing, German authorities have of late taken unprecedented steps in anticipation of an enduring Russian gas halt, essentially dimming the lights across the country – which has included everything from limiting hot water, to shutting down swimming pools, to quite literally dimming city street lights as it entered “alarm” stage over dwindling supply.

And as demonstrated in the Monday morning oil price spike, the bid for oil will remain strong the longer the force majeure holds, given utility companies and the manufacturing sector are likely to seek transition to oil from gas… It seems this letter declaring its legal release from supply obligations going back to June 14 is in preparation for definitive action on July 22, namely that the pipeline’s operations are likely to remain suspended past the scheduled reboot/supply back online designated date. In an analysis from earlier this month (available to pro subscribers), UBS economists laid out a detailed vision of what they see happening if Russia halts gas deliveries to Europe: It would reduce corporate earnings by more than 15%.

The market selloff would exceed 20% in the Stoxx 600 and the euro would drop to 90 cents. The rush for safe assets would drive benchmark German bund yields to 0%, they wrote. “We stress that these projections should be seen as rough approximations and by no means as a worse-case scenario,” wrote Arend Kapteyn, chief economist at UBS. “We could easily conceive economic disruptions that lead to more negative growth outcomes.” To be sure, markets are already pricing in some of the damage beginning with the euro which starting this month traded at a fresh two-decade low and touched parity with the dollar, something it hasn’t done since 2002.

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The only one.

Russian Economy Expected To Thrive By Year’s End (RT)

The Russian economy is expected to show positive developments by the end of the year, Maksim Oreshkin, economic adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said during a speech at a youth forum on Saturday. “The wheels of our economy are building momentum step by step, lending volumes are increasing, and interest rates are falling. We see that the loan portfolios of banks are already growing, while during the most difficult periods in April-May, they were declining. All this indicates that the wheels of the economy have started to work. And by the end of the year, we should see positive developments,” Oreshkin said. The presidential aide noted that the situation is improving in retail sales, which are showing growth compared to last year, boosting business revenue.

Oreshkin also said Russia’s key task is to build a “sovereign economy” which would be “confident in its abilities, working with any partners, but at the same time does not depend on them and is invulnerable.” His remarks echo the view of the Russian Minister of Industry and Trade, Denis Manturov, who said earlier this week that Russia should strive to reach “technological sovereignty” and focus the economy on prioritizing domestic needs, while continuing to increase export potential. In early June, President Vladimir Putin said Russia would not close off its economy, despite Ukraine-related Western sanctions. Speaking at the SPIEF forum, the president called openness one of the key principles of Russia’s new economic policy, and said the country has no wish to retreat behind an iron curtain comparable to the Soviet era.

The Russian economy has been put under intense pressure by Western sanctions, introduced in response to Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. Moscow has been prevented from conducting many international transactions, with businesses and individuals sanctioned, while half of Russia’s foreign currency reserves have been frozen abroad, and many international companies have quit the Russian market. Nevertheless, Moscow says Western policies have failed to destabilize the country’s economy.

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When it rains…

Germany’s Energy Crisis About To Get Worse As Rhine Water Levels Plummet (ZH)

What has already been a year from hell for Germany, which is suffering energy hyperinflation as a result of Europe’s sanctions on Russia, and which is “facing the biggest crisis the country has every had” according to the president of the German employers association, is about to get even worse as the declining water level of the Rhine river, which has historically been a key infrastructure transit artery across Germany, continues to fall and as it does, the flow of commodities to inland Europe is starting to buckle threatening to make an already historic crisis even worse. The alarming lack of water is contributing to oil product supply problems in Switzerland and preventing at least two power plants in Germany from getting all the coal they need, and what’s more, the continent’s sizzling summer temperatures are forecast to climb even higher in the coming week, leading to even lower water levels.

The 800-mile (1,288-kilometer) Rhine river runs from Switzerland all the way to the North Sea and is used to transport tens of millions of tons of commodities through inland Europe. But with water levels at their lowest for the time of year in 15 years, there is a limit how much fuel, coal and other vital cargo that barges can carry up and down the river. Low water levels on the Rhine River mean that barges hauling middle distillate-type oil products – typically gasoil/diesel – past Kaub in Germany, are limited to loading about 30% of capacity, according to maritime brokerage services firm Riverlake.

A barge loading in the energy hub of Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (or ARA), which can haul 2.5k tons when fully laden, is restricted to taking on about 800 tons if sailing to destinations beyond Kaub. As shown below, the water level at Kaub has fallen in recent days and is at its lowest on a seasonal basis since at least 2007. According to Riverlake, further decreases in loading volumes for barges hauling middle distillates from ARA to inland destinations beyond Kaub are expected in coming days.

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s op-ed in Izvestia.

Staged Incidents As The Western Approach To Doing Politics (Lavrov)

February 2014, Ukraine – the West, represented by the German, French, and Polish foreign ministers, de facto forced President Viktor Yanukovich into signing an agreement with the opposition to end the confrontation and promote a peaceful resolution of the intra-Ukrainian crisis by establishing a transitional national unity government and calling a snap election, to be held within a few months. This too turned out to be a fraud: the next morning, the opposition staged a coup guided as it was by anti-Russia, racist slogans. However, the Western guarantors did not even try to bring the opposition back to its senses. Furthermore, they switched immediately to encouraging the coup perpetrators in their policies against Russia and everything Russian, unleashing the war against their own people and bombing entire cities in the Donbass region just because people there refused to recognise the unconstitutional coup. For that, they labelled the people in Donbass terrorists, and once again the West was there to encourage them.

At this point, it is worth noting that, as it was soon revealed, the killing of protestors on the Maidan was also a staged incident, which the West blamed either on the Ukrainian security forces loyal to Viktor Yanukovich, or on the Russian special services. However, the radical members of the opposition were the ones who were behind this provocation, while working closely with the Western intelligence services. Once again, exposing these facts did not take long, but by that time they already did their job. Efforts by Russia, Germany, and France paved the way to stopping the war between Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk in February 2015 with the signing of the Minsk Agreements. Berlin and Paris played a proactive role here as well, proudly calling themselves as the guarantor countries.

However, during the seven long years that followed, they did absolutely nothing to force Kiev to launch a direct dialogue with Donbass representatives for agreeing on matters including the special status, amnesty, restoring economic ties, and holding elections, as required by the Minsk Agreements which were approved unanimously by the UN Security Council. The Western leaders remained silent when Kiev took steps which directly violated the Minsk Agreements under both Petr Poroshenko and Vladimir Zelensky. Moreover, the German and the French leaders kept saying that Kiev cannot enter direct dialogue with the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, and blamed everything on Russia, although Russia is not mentioned in the Minsk agreements even once, while remaining basically the only country that kept pushing for the agreements to be implemented.

If anyone doubted that the Minsk Package was anything but yet another fake, Petr Poroshenko dispelled this myth by saying on June 17, 2022: “The Minsk Agreements did not mean anything to us, and we had no intention to carry them out… our goal was to remove the threat we faced… and win time in order to restore economic growth and rebuild the armed forces. We achieved this goal. Mission accomplished for the Minsk Agreements.”

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“Zelensky’s presidency gave an initial boost to the peace process, but stalled after a series of protests by right-wing radicals..”

Germany and France ‘Killed’ Minsk Agreements – Lavrov (RT)

Germany is demanding that Russia guarantee Ukraine’s territorial integrity, but such a deal was previously signed, only to be “killed” by Berlin and Paris, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday. “When [German Chancellor] Olaf Scholz demands that Russia should be compelled to sign an agreement granting Ukraine guarantees of territorial integrity and sovereignty, all his attempts are in vain. There was already such a deal – the Minsk agreements – which was killed by Berlin and Paris. They were shielding Kiev, which openly refused to comply,” he wrote in an op-ed for the Russian newspaper Izvestia. Russia, Germany and France brokered the 2015 Minsk agreements between Ukraine and Donbass, which were designed to put an end to hostilities. But according to Lavrov, Berlin and Paris failed to ensure Kiev’s compliance.

[..] The Minsk agreements included a series of measures designed to rein in hostilities in Donbass and reconcile the warring parties. The first steps were a ceasefire and an OSCE-monitored pullout of heavy weapons from the frontline, which were fulfilled to some degree. Kiev was then supposed to grant a general amnesty to the rebels and extensive autonomy for the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. Ukrainian troops were supposed to take control of the rebel-held areas after Kiev granted them representation, and otherwise reintegrate them as part of Ukraine. Poroshenko’s government refused to implement these portions of the deal, claiming it could not proceed unless it fully secured the border between the breakaway republics and Russia.

He instead endorsed an economic blockade of the rebel regions, initiated by Ukrainian nationalist forces. Zelensky’s presidency gave an initial boost to the peace process, but stalled after a series of protests by right-wing radicals, who threatened to depose the new Ukrainian president if he tried to deliver on his campaign promises. Kiev’s failure to implement the roadmap, and the continued hostilities with rebels, were among the primary reasons cited by Russia when it attacked Ukraine in late February. Days before launching the offensive, Moscow recognized the breakaway Ukrainian republics as sovereign states, offering them security guarantees and demanding that Kiev pull back its troops. Zelensky refused to comply.

Read more …

Vladislav Ugolny is a Russian journalist based in Donetsk

Ukraine Treated Donbass People As Sub-humans, Making Peace Impossible (Ugolny)

No Ukrainian politicians were saints, and neither were the people of Donbass – not that anyone had asked them to be, though. The fact of the matter is that every escalation of violence was aimed at them. It was the Ukrainians who kept upping the ante, and nobody cared. The miners have always died, you know. Why should anyone feel sorry for them? They’re ‘dumb slaves’, they wear no balaclavas. Back then, in 2014, balaclavas were seen as a symbol of superior people, while the ‘stupid miners’ from Donbass (led by Valery Bolotov) and their volunteer supporters from Russia (led by Igor Strelkov) deliberately spurned them. The lives of the residents of impoverished mining towns cost less than the lives of those living in prosperous towns near the Carpathian Mountains. The air in Donbass stinks of soot and is full of coal dust and industrial emissions, so people die of cancer there, whereas the mountain air in Galicia is fresh and fragrant, and the wind of freedom blows in from Poland.

Children were killed in Donbass. Nobody gave a damn, except Russia and the repressed Russians in the rest of Ukraine. It was rather amusing for the other side – people scraping their dead children off the asphalt and saying: ‘We’re being bombed, we’re scared, our children are dying!’ Ukrainians thought it was funny, a just punishment for those dehumanized earth-diggers. They called their children ‘Colorado beetle larvae’, because the stripes of the Colorado potato beetle resemble the St. George’s ribbon, which became the symbol of the uprising in Novorossiya.

All of this convinced Donbass it had the moral high ground, which allowed it to stand tall and weather eight years of incredible hardship. The Ukrainians were granted the chance to reach a political settlement with the Minsk agreements, if they agreed to treat Donbass as a sovereign region within Ukraine. Had they done this, Donbass would have lost interest in politics, returned to its industrial roots, and left policymaking in the hands of western Ukraine again in a few years’ time. But they wouldn’t do this, even for the sake of stopping the war. Recognizing the sovereignty of Donbass was a red line for Ukraine, and so was dialogue with Donbass.

The Ukrainian leadership stuck to those red lines even after Russia said it was going to put an end to the ongoing slaughter at its doorstep. So, what we now have is a new season of war, which has been going on for Donbass since 2014. The two people’s republics’ armies are storming Ukrainian fortifications as the Ukrainian military continues to bomb residential areas in Donetsk. People in Donbass stopped wondering “what they are capable of.” Now they know that the Ukrainian army and government are capable of anything – bombing cities, torturing people, and trying to pass off Donetsk people that they killed for Kiev residents, supposedly killed by Russian missile strikes. The only thing they can’t do is admit that the citizens of Donbass are people just like them, people who have their own interests and are prepared to fight for them until they win or die in battle.

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Force majeure is popular…

Canadian Energy Firm Declares Force Majeure On Keystone Pipeline (ZH)

Just hours after Gazprom declared force majuere with a number of its European clients – implicitly cutting off NatGas supply to the continent; Canadian energy firm TC Energy has declared force majeure on some crude shipments on the Keystone pipeline after a power failure at a pump station in South Dakota. The power failure was reportedly driven by the extreme temperatures spreading across the US (it was reportedly around 20 degrees above normal at around 100 degrees). The pipeline “is operating at a reduced rate due to damage to the third-party power utility,” according to a statement by the company. Notably this is affecting shipments from Canada to the United States, according to the company.

As a reminder, the pipeline runs from Hardisty, Alberta into North Dakota, through South Dakota to Steele City, Nebraska, where it splits – one arm running east through Missouri for deliveries into Wood River and Patoka, Illinois and the other running south through Oklahoma to Cushing and onward to Port Arthur and Houston, Texas Bloomberg reports that the discount at which Cold Lake crude for August delivery trades to benchmark futures along the Gulf Coast narrowed by more than 8% to $8 a barrel, according to Link Data Services. Perhaps most notably, Cold Lake crude is a type of heavy oil mined from the oil-sands region of northern Alberta and favored by some Texas and Louisiana refiners equipped to turn it into gasoline, diesel and other products. For now there is no reaction in RBOB prices.

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“Negative real wage growth, weakening consumption, decade-low consumer confidence and collapsing investment..”

The Recession May Already Be Here (Lacalle)

The debate about recession risk is pointless. We are already in a recession. Real GDP in the United States declined at an annual rate of 1.6% in the first quarter. The Atlanta Fed Nowcast shows a 1.5% contraction in the second quarter. But the underlying figures are scarier. According to the Atlanta Fed, “the GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2022 is -1.5% on July 15, down from -1.2% on July 8”. That is an enormous negative change, -0.3% of GDP, in one week. They go on to say that “the nowcast of second quarter real personal consumption expenditures growth and real gross private domestic investment growth decreased from 1.9% and -13.7%, respectively, to 1.5% and -13.8%, respectively”.

Investment is collapsing, consumption is barely kept alive and if we look at other components, imports are soaring while exports rise less than expected. This is the backlash of massive stimulus packages. An artificial boost to GDP in one year from two trillion US dollars of excessive spending generated a non-structural rise in GDP that immediately leads to a contraction. However, the debt increase remains, and the structural problems are evident. The labor market is only strong in headlines. In June, the number of long-term unemployed was unchanged at 1.3 million. This is 215,000 higher than in February 2020. Labor force participation rate was 62.2%, employment-population ratio 59.9%. Both remain below February 2020 levels (63.4% and 61.2%) according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Meanwhile, inflation eats any wage rise and real median wage increase is negative in 2022. Real average hourly earnings decreased 3.6 percent, seasonally adjusted, from June 2021 to June 2022, the BLS reports. Negative real wage growth, weakening consumption, decade-low consumer confidence and collapsing investment means we are already in recession and the massive stimulus plans have created nothing but debt.


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Won’t fly.

House Democrats Push Bill To Add Four Seats To Supreme Court (JTN)

House Democrats on Monday demanded legislation to add four seats to the Supreme Court in hopes of moving the judicial body away from its current conservative slant. The lawmakers made their push at a press conference hosted by the Take Back the Court Action Fund on Monday. Their demands follow rulings from the high court handing conservatives major wins on both abortion and gun rights. The court in late June overturned the landmark abortion precedent in Roe v. Wade, returning the right to regulate the procedure to the states. One day prior, it struck down a New York law restricting the issuance of concealed carry permits
The Supreme Court is “making decisions that usurp the power of the legislative and executive branches,” said Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., according to The Hill.


Some preemptively addressed detractors who would call the effort “court-packing” saying the Republicans did so first. “The nightmare scenario of GOP court-packing is already upon us,” said Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.). “That’s how they got this far-right 6-3 majority in the first place.” The Court’s 6-3 conservative slant is in part due to President Donald Trump’s appointment of three associate justices to the bench. Neil Gorsuch replaced Antonin Scalia, while Brett Kavanaugh replaced Anthony Kennedy, and Amy Coney Barrett replaced Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Congress has previously changed the number of justices on the court seven times, The Hill noted. The measure is unlikely to become law as Democrats will likely be unable to clear the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold in the Senate in the face of stiff Republican opposition.

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“How many jabs did Fauci get? Banning Djokovic would be equally stupid.”

Novak Djokovic US Open Row Escalates (Exp.)

Two more political figures have thrown support behind Novak Djokovic as he remains unable to play the US Open as an unvaccinated traveller. The United States currently bans any unvaccinated foreign nationals from entering the country but one of Donald Trump’s former aides has become the latest to criticise the rules and put pressure on Joe Biden, with a Senator echoing his calls. Djokovic is still in doubt to play the final Grand Slam tournament of the year with unvaccinated travellers unable to enter the United States. The world No 7 has already confirmed he does not intend to get vaccinated just to compete and will find himself banned from the country unless the rules change.

Several American politicians have condemned the ban already and called for the Serb to be allowed into the country to compete, and now two more have ridiculed the policy of stopping unjabbed visitors from entering the United States. “Let @DjokerNole play in the @usopen! The U.S. Open cheapens itself when it bans one of the best players in the world,” Richard Grenell tweeted. The former politician was picked by Donald Trump to be the U.S. Ambassador to Germany in 2017 and the U.S. Acting Director of National Intelligence in 2020. He was also the Special Presidential Envoy for Serbia and Kosovo Peace Negotiations for 15 months from October 2019, linking him to the Serb’s home country. And current Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson has now echoed Grenell’s words, slamming the idea of keeping Djokovic out of the country as “stupid”.

He tweeted: “RichardGrenelli is 100% correct on this. “Has anyone noticed the vaccines are NOT preventing infection and transmission? The mandates are idiotic, pointless and destructive. How many jabs did Fauci get? Banning Djokovic would be equally stupid.” Johnson and Grenell’s tweets come after two other US politicians criticised the ban on Djokovic and other unvaccinated travellers. Texas State Senator Drew Springer and Senator for Kentucky, Rand Paul pressured Biden over the issue last week. “Biden is banning Novak Djokovic from coming to USA to play the US Open but allows millions of unvaccinated illegals to flood across the border. Hey Joe, what’s one more unvaxed person?!?! Springer tweeted last Sunday, before Paul said: “Hooray for heroic stances for medical freedom by Wimbledon champ Novak Djokovic. Boo for unscientific policy of banning visitors to US that already have natural immunity.”

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“The Russians end up with control of the Black Sea and probably the Ukraine bread-basket as well. So, now, Europe will starve and freeze.”

The Last Days of “Joe Biden” (Kunstler)

It’s like our country is trapped on one of those swirling carnival rides beloved of the county fairs… only, the felonious mutt who runs the ride has nodded off in a fentanyl delirium with the motor running at maximum speed… and the children-of-all-ages locked in the pods of this infernal machine shriek and vomit with each sickening rotation… as the half-century-old swing arms groan and wobble from metal fatigue on their squealing pivots… and suddenly comes a deafening crunch of gnashed gears, the smell of burning oil, and the pathetic whimpering of the nearly dead. That’s us. Some terrible midsummer accident-of-state has befallen the USA Carnival, and most are too dazed to know it. Whose idea was it to send the wind-up doll president called “Joe Biden” to Saudi Arabia?

I can just imagine what went on in the chamber in private with “JB” and MBS (Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman), virtual autocrat of the oil-soaked desert land. The American visitor muttered something about wanting an ice-cream cone before dropping into a catatonic thousand-yard stare. “How does this thing work?” MBS asks his chief vizier, the foreign minister (in Arabic, of course), gesticulating disdainfully at the ghostly figure sunk in the plush camel-hair armchair yards away. “Joe Biden” sits motionless. Someone has forgotten to rewind him, some “aide” who carries the president’s Adderall. Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud tells the boss, “We’ll make up some camel-dung for release to CNN and friends. They’ll fall for anything.” It’s like a crime scene where the forensic experts have entered. The Saudi leader and his entourage only hang around the room for three minutes until the US State Department shoots enough photos to prove that “JB” was there and not stuffed in the basement of his Delaware beach house for the weekend, as usual.

The American news media gets briefed: Saudi Arabia graciously agrees to bump up its oil production somewhere in the 2025-2027 time-frame — a triumph for US diplomacy, the networks are informed. Air Force One wings home through clouds of despair. The White House team members spend the flight updating their resumés. I think we have witnessed “Joe Biden’s” final appearance at any world-stage event. He can do no more for the Party of Chaos. It has done what it can to wreck the joint with him as the pretend head-of-state. The Ukraine gambit is a bust, a foolish miscalculation that was obvious from the start. All it accomplished was to reveal the pitiful dependence of our European allies on Russian oil and gas, leaving their economies good and truly scuppered without it. The Russians end up with control of the Black Sea and probably the Ukraine bread-basket as well. So, now, Europe will starve and freeze.

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Emmanuel Todd Lopez
https://twitter.com/i/status/1548832312741208071

 

 

 

 

Kung fu

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle July 19 2022

Viewing 36 posts - 1 through 36 (of 36 total)
  • Author
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  • #111738

    Piet Mondriaan Trafalgar Square 1939-43   • Operation Z – Don’t Interrupt (Larry Johnson) • Gazprom Declares Force Majeure, To Halt Gas Flows To
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle July 19 2022]

    #111739
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    The Russians end up with control of the Black Sea and probably the Ukraine bread-basket as well. So, now, Europe will starve and freeze.

    #111740
    oxymoron
    Participant

    I got a feeling that the most powerful peeps in the west are not blundering in Russia but happily a part of the West’s demise. Larry is looking at it from the point of organised western democracies. He is wrong to look through that lens I believe.

    #111741
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Oh! We hve our format back…WONDERFUL!!!! 😉 😉

    Salvador Dali The hand 1930

    Late to the party; but I was intrigued by that Dali…at a loss for words…
    The visuals are rich and plentyful…the left hand especially…the female to the right is fascinating as well…

    #111742
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “A lone suspect entered the food court area of the Greenwood Park Mall, located on Highway 31 on the south side of Indianapolis, around 1800 local time. The suspect was armed with a rifle and several magazines of ammunition and immediately began firing.

    A law-abiding citizen with a permit to carry a handgun responded in seconds and was able to shoot and kill the suspect, ending the rampage.”

    When seconds count, police are just 77 minutes and 19 dead children away. The first responder is YOU. Quite probably the only responder.

    Los Angeles DA Stops Notifying Victims Of Attacker’s Parole Hearings

    “This systematic and pervasive violation of victims’ rights appears to be motivated by one goal: to release as many murderers, child molesters and rapists as possible from prison,”

    Yes they clearly are, and why?

    “[Rhine] lowest for the time of year in 15 years,”

    In 15 years??? You really had me going there. That’s just normal low, not epic, end of Europe low. We’ll all be fine.

    “we can be sure it [$500 oil] won’t happen”

    You’re not wrong, but negative $40/bbl “happened”. It’s certainly capable of being there, but there are consequences. Yes, probably it hits that number but can’t do it for long.

    Repeating the problem is that $500 oil means that renewables are also 10x the price.

    Solar Panels Subsidized by California Are Winding Up in Landfills, Contaminating Groundwater with Toxic Metals”

    Sounds like we should cover all Dutch farmland with them. That’s green! And Chinese ones last 10 years, not 90 like the originals.

    However, we don’t have any problems since Iran, Russia and a few other places have a generation of oil at reasonable cost. It’s only the idiots in the West and depleted Saudi Arabia that have run out of easy stuff. …But still have near limitless at 30,000ft under the Gulf (clearly, it polluted three states) if we can figure out how to lift it.

    Of course that means only Russia and Iran and can field armies, and Europe can’t. “Liquid Hegemonic Power” so I’ve heard. The End.

    Pentagon Nears Deal with Lockheed for 375 F-35 Stealth Fighter Jets”

    Great, now we’re going to have to walk everywhere and shoot at the enemy with bows and arrows. But not in bad weather or lightning storms.

    “Russian Economy Expected to Thrive by Year’s End (RT)”

    Thus why it became illegal for us normal people to buy the Ruble and Russian stocks. Morgan and Citi can though!

    Looking for -20% on Eurostocks, Euro at 90, which makes the dollar “Strong”, and therefore BTC/metals “weak”. (in reality it’s all about bacon vs BTC) We’re not there yet, but the steps have been released exactly on time to hit the Sept/October crash, right on the election. However, that won’t help the election as they are going to so screw it 100 years from now we still won’t know who was elected. That’s the point. Adding chaos and lies is the whole PURPOSE, and it’s not that hard to do. The only way to prevent that is to add morality, self sufficiency, #Logos into the hearts of the people, who WANT truth and justice and will follow it if it kills them. Not there yet, obviously.

    “Ukraine Treated Donbass People as Sub-humans, Making Peace Impossible (Ugolny)”

    Don’t batter people until they are tough, determined, in the moral right, and have the cold fire of vengeance in every pore. You won’t beat them, but it will be ugly. Like half of America.

    “20 degrees above normal at around 100 degrees”

    100f in the Dakotas? In summer? Yeah, that’s perfectly normal. Maybe you should ask questions about why the grid has been so hollowed out for 30 years that it couldn’t handle the load. Same as Afghanistani and Ukrainian weapons: we the people pay for things, those things are stolen, written on a ledger, and don’t exist. Like improvements to transmission lines and power stations. Is theft, fraud, and no property rights, “capitalism”?

    “The debate about recession risk is pointless. We are already in a recession. Real GDP in the United States declined at an annual rate of 1.6% in the first quarter.”

    We’ve been in a Recession since 2001 except for a few quarters. They claim inflation is 1% when it’s 9% and therefore those 8% are “Growth”. This is what Socialists do: spread misery widely. Reduce the economy to subsistence level, and keep all the palatial estates for the Party Members, aka “The Club”.

    “House Democrats Push Bill To Add Four Seats To Supreme Court (JTN)”

    What do you say to a group where: everyone hates their platform so much, they can’t win anywhere, and instead of improving to “the Peoples’ Platform” just change the rules instead? Roe, M4A, Minimum wage, student loan relief.

    “The Supreme Court is “making decisions that usurp the power of the legislative and executive branches,”

    No, in Dobbs, they did the #Opposite. But in #OppositeLand, the #Opposite of the Opposite is the Opposite. That is: The Supreme Court HAD made a decision that usurped the power of the Legislative, and STOPPED doing that, wrote EXPRESSLY that’s what they did, and sending it BACK to the Legislative, at which time Biden and Pelosi did nothing. Therefore the only standing laws presently live at the State level, but don’t have to.

    The Court put YOU in charge. And they’re mad at it. I guess because they’re immensely ignorant, blindingly arrogant, and too pinheaded to read anything? Pass the law. It’s really that simple. But then they couldn’t whine and blame others. It’s always somebody ELSE’S fault we didn’t do our jobs for 50 years in a row.

    For my part, again, where is this authority written in the Constitution? I believe their argument is, you have a right to privacy, but not with warrants or vaccines, but only if you commit murder.

    AND the lies in Ohio this week, where they EXPRESSLY have a medical safety clause, but went to Indiana so they could protect a 30 year old child rapist illegal immigrant from jail. The doctor thought this was awesome and didn’t report anything. I guess the 10-year-old had immaculate conception or something? Why would you do that? Explain it to me in court.

    “How many jabs did Fauci get?”

    Yes, but getting the disease means the vaccine WORKS now. That’s #Logic! Or #FauciScience!

    “The Russians end up with control of the Black Sea and probably the Ukraine bread-basket as well. So, now, Europe will starve and freeze.”

    Following the expansion of Luongo, we have oligarchic power blocs, Davos vs Wall St. The Fed, and probably the Pentagon, are taking out the extraordinarily dangerous Davos crowd. That’s the war + the rates. LeGarde said, “Central Banks have to make it their mission to do Green New Deal/ESG lending exclusively. (and therefore kill 6B people)” Powell said, “No I don’t. My mandate is for employment + the economy. The U.S. Economy, NOT THE WORLD.” LeGarde had a mental meltdown on camera, realizing what that meant. Now these months later, Powell has very slowly and deniably been utterly destroying ECB with rates, even as the Pentagon has crushed all Europe (in cooperation with Russia), and now their head-monster, Germany. Lost war, dark winter. Collapse.

    So Powell, Wall St, and guess what? Probably Trump. So you can put him in the category, allied with Wall St, Jamie Dimon, the Pentagon, and they have their own interests. And what are they, in the biggest sense? Pro-Capitalism, ultimately. That is, not Soviet Socialism, as Europe is. And that doesn’t make them OUR friends and allies, but we attack first the coastline, THEN the mountains.

    If we take out WEF/Davos, I’ll be happy to pivot to Wall St and the non-Capitalism we have here, returning rule of law called the “Constitution”, and monopoly protections with honest elections here. But as Holland shows, our first line of business is EATING, which is what Davos is violently and intentionally shutting off worldwide.

    So the Russians are our allies right now (again), stopping Europe from going full Nazi, crushing them AHEAD of time, forestalling their usual “world” war cycle that goes back to Napoleon or even Charlemagne. Because WEF/Davos, and clearly BoJo, Merkel, and Macron are full Nazis among many others. Mooselini is the pet hamster-boy of actual Nazis. But the U.S. isn’t. Yet. It’s only half full-Nazi, with burning books, banning guns, and breaking windows of the untermensch (poor black neighborhoods and business owners, and gay Asian reporters).

    Each hour the settlement Russia will put on Europe and Ukraine gets worse. As Kissinger said. Russia now will take everything to the river, ‘cause they feel like it. They will probably give Poland the West Galacia. And Hungary will get the Southwest. Leaving a tiny, desperate, pointless, irrelevant Ukraine city-state we can all point and laugh at as an example to others. And when they reform themselves, absorbed into one of the others, probably NovoRussia.

    If they wait longer, there will be ever less. Russia doesn’t care what NATO says from Kiev straight through to Canada and Seattle, because they, NATO, London, and the entire combined West have no power, no men, and no relevance, and would lie anyway. Russia is going to do whatever they want, as long as they want, and Europe is going to let them. If indeed there is a “Europe” left at all.

    #111743
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    #111744
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    #111745
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Anthropologists Call for an End to Classifying Human Remains by Gender and Ancestry

    by Jonathan Turley

    Anthropologists Call for an End to Classifying Human Remains by Gender and Ancestry

    Transgender skeltons, who whould-da thought.

    These trans-humans are truly insane

    .

    #111746
    Neal
    Participant

    I think there is a typo somewhere in one of the articles. It said stocks in Germany will fall 20% from their current value. Should read that stocks in Germany will fall to 20% of their current value. Seriously who would risk buying German shares knowing that the factories might be shut within weeks due to rising energy costs or ordered to shut due to rationing of energy. How many will not reopen ever come spring? How many will be bankrupt? How many banks will be kaput?
    1.5 trillion euro debt by European power companies…..and people think those companies will be able to keep price increases down? Can broke European governments come up with the cash to subsidise every household a few thousand euros just for the coming winter?

    #111747
    zerosum
    Participant

    Communication

    Propagandist better be careful
    I’m telling you why …

    You can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
    There are thousands of bloggers
    There are 10X that who are commentators
    There are 100X that who are readers of those blogs and those comments

    Peace/Food/energy/life are stronger motivator than propaganda.

    As a result, millions of people are on the move, immigrating like the tide, like the swarms of bees, of ants, of locust , like wild fire, like the wind, like a pandemic, like natural immunity
    ———–

    #111748
    Red
    Participant

    Opposite is the opposite of opposite? Wordsmith through that one Dr.D I’m too thick to get it.

    “We also stress the importance of continuing to inject and encourage investments in fossil energy and its clean technologies over the next two decades to meet the growing global demand, with the importance of assuring investors that the policies adopted do not pose a threat to their investments to avoid their reluctance to invest and to ensure that no shortage of energy supply would affect the international economy,” Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said in his address.

    “The Kingdom will do its part in this regard, as it announced an increase in its production capacity to 13 million barrels per day, after which the Kingdom will not have any additional capacity to increase production,” he added, as carried by the Saudi Press Agency.

    Last year, Saudi Arabia said it expects to have boosted its oil production capacity to 13 million bpd by 2027 from 12 million bpd now.

    https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Saudi-Arabia-Reveals-Oil-Production-Capacity-Limits.html

    Slower is better which is opposite of opposite or something like that, I guess. I don’t know anymore, I should have stayed in the wrong side of the bed.

    “If shipping is the beating heart of global trade, its pulse is about to get slower.
    Faced with uncertainty about which fuels to use in the long term to cut greenhouse gas emissions, many shipping firms are sticking with ageing fleets, but older vessels may soon have to start sailing slower to comply with new environmental rules.

    From next year, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) requires all ships to calculate their annual carbon intensity based on a vessel’s emissions for the cargo it carries – and show that it is progressively coming down.

    While older ships can be retrofitted with devices to lower emissions, analysts say the quickest fix is just to go slower, with a 10% drop in cruising speeds slashing fuel usage by almost 30%, according to marine sector lender Danish Ship Finance.

    “They’re basically being told to either improve the ship or slow down,” said Jan Dieleman, president of Cargill Ocean Transportation, the freight division of commodities trading house Cargill, which leases more than 600 vessels to ferry mainly food and energy products around the world.

    Supply chains are already strained due to a surge in demand as economies rebound from lockdowns, pandemic disruptions at ports and a lack of new ships. If older vessels move into the slow lane as well, shipping capacity could take another hit at a time when record freight rates are driving up inflation.

    At the moment, only about 5% of the world’s fleet can run on less-polluting alternatives to fuel oil, even though more than 40% of new ship orders will have that option, according to data from shipping analytics firm Clarksons Research.
    But the new orders are not coming in fast enough to halt the trend of an ageing fleet across all three main types of cargo vessels: tankers, container ships and bulk carriers, the data provided to Reuters by Clarksons Research shows.

    The average age of bulk carriers, which carry loose cargo such as grain and coal, had jumped to 11.4 years by June 2022 from 8.7 five years ago. Container ships now average 14.1 years, up from 11.6, while for tankers the average age was 12 years, up from 10.3 in 2017, according to the data.

    “Some ship owners have preferred to buy second-hand vessels because of the uncertainties around future fuels,” said Stephen Gordon, managing director at Clarksons Research.”

    Why shipping might be about to get a little bit slower

    #111749
    Red
    Participant

    The Real Policy Error Is Expanding Debt and Calling It “Growth”
    July 18, 2022

    Waste is not growth, and neither are the unlimited expansion of debt and speculative bubbles.

    The financial punditry is whipping itself into a frenzy about a Federal Reserve “policy error,” which is code for “if the music finally stops, we’re doomed!” In other words, any policy which reduces the flow of juice sluicing through the sewage pipes of the financial system (credit, leverage and liquidity–the essential mechanisms of financialization and globalization) endangers the entire rickety, rotten structure of phantom wealth that’s enriched the few at the expense of the many.

    The entire notion that central bank policy makes or breaks the economy is the original Policy Error #1. That is to say, whatever policy a central bank pursues is a policy error because every policy is an attempt to manipulate the self-organizing cycle of credit / economic expansion and contraction.

    The history of central banking is actually quite simple:

    1. Central banks act to protect the wealth and power of those who own / control most of the wealth. This is their core unstated reason to exist.

    2. To justify this absurdly transparent protection of the elite in the eyes of the public, central banks go through the motions of trying to extinguish the business / credit cycle, that is, trying to eliminate defaults and credit crunches which are the frequent but low-intensity fires that burn up the financial deadwood.

    This destruction of excessive credit, leverage and liquidity is necessary to protect the forest–the entire economy– from a much larger, out-of-control conflagration.

    Central banks sell this endless expansion of financialization to the public as “we’re getting rid of those horrible nasty recessions that hurt all you little folk,” but in letting the deadwood pile up ever higher, central banks are only guaranteeing the eventual conflagration will consume the entire forest.

    This is basically what happened in 2008-09: the deadwood caught fire despite the best efforts of central banks and almost burned down the entire forest.

    Anything that constricts the expansion of financialization (credit, leverage and liquidity) constricts the expansion of the phantom wealth of elites, and so central banks are loathe to limit credit expansion. Central banks and economists need a cover story for this dynamic, and so they purposefully call debt expansion “growth”: hey, look, the economy is expanding, everybody’s getting richer, our policies are working!

    Nice, but this isn’t reality. The reality is the top few get much, much richer than the little folk. That’s the only possible output of financialization, which generates hyper-rewards for those few with the most expansive access to credit, leverage and liquidity: corporations, financiers and the super-wealthy.

    Every policy that protects the deadwood is a policy error, which means every policy of central banks is a policy error. The one and only useful role of central banks is to be a short-term lender of last resort in financial crunches in which the deadwood catches fire and excessive credit, leverage and liquidity is consumed.

    The deadwood burning greatly reduces the risk of the forest being destroyed, but some enterprises that are not overleveraged find that they’re no longer able to roll over their short-term debt due to lenders cutting off lines of credit. A credit crunch can burn down otherwise prudent enterprises, and so central banks can protect well-managed businesses that need short-term credit by being the lender of last resort.

    Credit panics don’t last long. Loans of 90 days are typically enough to tide over those firms who need credit lines to function.

    But instead of this limited role, central banks are always trying to expand credit, leverage and liquidity under the guise of “promoting growth”. All that they’re really doing is expanding financial deadwood by enabling the expansion of excessive waste and fraud. Thanks to central banks, the frivolous conspicuous consumption of the central-bank funded elite is glorified as “growth,” along with the complete waste of planned obsolescence and speculative bubbles that generate the illusion of capital expansion.

    Waste is not growth, and neither are the unlimited expansion of debt and speculative bubbles. Every policy of central banks is a policy error with the sole exception of short-term lending in standard business-credit cycles in which credit crunches cleanse the system of the deadwood of excessive credit, leverage and liquidity as a means of protecting the entire forest from destruction.

    When $100 trillion in global deadwood-debt burns to the ground, that merely returns global debt to the levels of 2012. Central bank policies guarantee the forest will be consumed by an uncontrolled conflagration. That’s the cost of claiming waste and debt are “growth” and protecting the phantom wealth of the few at the expense of the many.

    https://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html

    #111750
    zerosum
    Participant

    Grandma, with dementia, can be tracker with a cheap GPS Tracker, BUT multi-million $ equipment Cannot be tracked.
    https://www.rt.com/news/559250-canada-track-weapons-ukraine/
    Canada can’t track weapons it sent to Ukraine – media
    Meanwhile, Russia has warned that Western arms have been trafficked from Ukraine as far as the Middle East
    Canada has given Vladimir Zelensky’s military some $386 million worth of weapons, including anti-tank missiles, rifles, mortars, grenade launchers and armored vehicles.

    #111751
    WES
    Participant

    Right now the USD is considered strong as measured by the USD index.

    Most of the USD index consists of the Euro and the Yen.

    Both the Euro and Yen have fallen greatly as the US Fed has started raising interest rates above zero while the central banks of Europe and Japan are trying to keep interest rates below zero.

    Naturally the Euro and Yen have started falling being sacrificed by their central banks determination to prevent their interest rates from rising.

    Would you consider the USD to be strong, solely based upon the increased stupidity of other country’s central banks exceeding the US Fed’s own stupidity?

    Right now you can buy an ounce of paper gold for $1,700 USD, down from $2,000, and an ounce of paper silver for $18, down from $27.USD. Good luck trying to buy real gold or silver at these low paper prices!

    Obviously somebody doesn’t believe the USD is strong or they would gladly sell you their real gold.

    #111752
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    This is from link shared by oroboros:
    “ University of Kansas Associate Professor Jennifer Raff argued in a paper, “Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas,” that there are “no neat divisions between physically or genetically ‘male’ or ‘female’ individuals.””

    In the vast majority of humans there ARE “neat divisions,” both physically and genetically between males and females. There is a tiny minority where these physical and/or genetic traits are mixed. Why are we trying to pay homage to the preferred pronouns of deceased people? Especially long deceased about whom we know nothing – except maybe their physical/genetic traits, including gender and “race”? Isn’t it equivalently disrespectful to avoid gendering after death someone who in life was clearly male or female? Or to avoid information about physical appearance that corresponds to the concept of “race.”

    #111753
    TAE Summary
    Participant

    The House has passed a bill to degender names by replacing “son” with “kid” and “man” with “one” in all surnames in the US. The Senate is expected to overwhelmingly approve the bill and Pres. Biden has said he will sign it. Potentially renamed Senators Ron Johnkid and Rob Portone have threatened a filibuster to block the so-called Degender American Male Names or DAMN Act.

    #111754
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    @Dr D

    Appreciate how you connect the dots here….

    “Following the expansion of Luongo, we have oligarchic power blocs, Davos vs Wall St. The Fed, and probably the Pentagon, are taking out the extraordinarily dangerous Davos crowd. That’s the war + the rates. LeGarde said, “Central Banks have to make it their mission to do Green New Deal/ESG lending exclusively. (and therefore kill 6B people)” Powell said, “No I don’t. My mandate is for employment + the economy. The U.S. Economy, NOT THE WORLD.” LeGarde had a mental meltdown on camera, realizing what that meant. Now these months later, Powell has very slowly and deniably been utterly destroying ECB with rates, even as the Pentagon has crushed all Europe (in cooperation with Russia), and now their head-monster, Germany. Lost war, dark winter. Collapse.”

    The alignment of players: this makes sense…..

    “So Powell, Wall St, and guess what? Probably Trump. So you can put him in the category, allied with Wall St, Jamie Dimon, the Pentagon, and they have their own interests. And what are they, in the biggest sense? Pro-Capitalism, ultimately. That is, not Soviet Socialism, as Europe is. And that doesn’t make them OUR friends and allies, but we attack first the coastline, THEN the mountains.”

    With destruction/collapse of the Globalist agenda, bringing the focus home – shepherding in a re-alignment of VALUES across all fronts is something many can/will support..at last! THEN…

    “I’ll be happy to pivot to Wall St and the non-Capitalism we have here, returning rule of law called the “Constitution”, and monopoly protections with honest elections here.”

    The possibilities are worth holding on to/for.

    @ Red RE: “But in #OppositeLand, the #Opposite of the Opposite is the Opposite.” Crazy but true. Takes us directly into the Heart of the insanity.

    Reminds me of the closing mantra of the Prajnaparamita, the HEART Sutra (written in Sanskrit below):

    Gate gate paragate parasamgate, bodhi svaha.

    Translated as:
    Gone, gone, gone beyond and even the beyond and into enlightenment.

    Crazy but true. Takes us directly into the Heart of the solution.

    A Mantra for All.
    LOVE to All.

    #111755
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    There is a perfectly logical reason and rationale compelling the Woke Left Cabal of Suicidal Idiocy to inject its ludicrous rules, delusions and doctrines into the World’s vital institutions. The cabalistas are intentionally seeking to break them as functioning institutions, intending to use them instead simply as a means of enforcing control over not only the institutions themselves, but everything else as well.

    Under the new regime modernized “institutions” (such as Science, Medicine, or Justice) would no longer serve their original purposes (like truth, health or fairness) but would instead serve the one and only allowable purpose left in existence: serving the Woke Left Cabal of Suicidal Idiocy.

    For the Cabal to continue in power it’s vitally necessary that it do just that. It must first BREAK any institution still capable of performing its duties, because institutions allowed to function properly would immediately and resoundingly remove the Woke Left Cabal of Suicidal Idiocy from every position from which it might still remain able to wreak further havoc. Try to imagine Anthony Fauci being made the head guy of anything by real scientists.

    Legitimate scientists in still-functioning institutions would never never ever have allowed any of the so-called “Covid-19 Pandemic” shenanigans, or any of the rest of it. (is cold blooded genocidal murder of children a “shenanigan”? Maybe we need a stronger word here.)

    Any institution which allows its workable truths and procedures to be replaced by falsehoods that are designed to make the institution utterly incapable of working toward its original purpose . . . . stopped being a real (still-functioning) institution and became a mere cult , long before things went that far, sank so low, or got that bad.

    So why the perversely ludicrous clownish buffoonery that seems almost prerequisite to the false rules, delusions and doctrines? Well, that’s because people can’t be punished for disagreeing until they perceptibly do disagree! Their opposition must must be visible in some way. Sullen resentful silence does not meet the standard. Therefore sometimes the level of bullshit sufficient to provoke openly expressed opposition has to be so far over the top (or below the bottom) that the victim finally realizes that they MUST disagree. Silence is no longer an option. As soon as they so so then BAM! The attempt is made to “cancel” them (silence, censor, fire or even kill . . . whatever it takes to remove them.)

    It doesn’t take too many such heads-on-pikes for the word to get around. And the more gruesomely unfair the better so far as pikes-on-heads are concerned. Fear is the whole idea.

    Looking around I don’t see any big institutions still standing. They’re pretty much gone. Looks like start over time to me, and of course that means a very big fight and lots of heads-on-pikes. One way or the other.

    An institution, by the very definition of “institution” , simply does not exist until it successfully asserts truth, work-ability, and moral justice over the field it lays claim to. Until then it’s just another protest group.

    #111756
    Bill7
    Participant

    oxymoron said:

    “I got a feeling that the most powerful peeps in the west are not blundering in Russia but happily a part of the West’s demise. Larry is looking at it from the point of organised western democracies. He is wrong to look through that lens I believe.”

    Bingo!, I think. Lots of misdirection around..

    #111757
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    #111758
    willem
    Participant

    @DBS: Very well articulated. The goal is definitely to break trust in all institutions as a first step.


    @oxymoron
    : Along the above lines about breaking trust, I agree also with your statement about the Western “elites” being happily along for the ride (at the very least) if not actively propelling it. In the US, for example, I think Tom Luongo expressed it well recently when he called the group of people behind Biden “vandals”, whose goal is just tearing down all of the nation’s institutions. Or like Matt Taibbi said awhile back, “It’s like these people went to anti-government school or something.”

    #111759
    kultsommer
    Participant

    Most of visible “elite” often have a secured phone call before they go to bed. Conversation on their part goes like this:
    ” I got the memo…I understand Sir…..Yes, will do…god night to you too, Sir”.

    #111760
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    Doctors give ‘gender card’ to children, offer to keep identifiers secret from parents…

    The “Gender Card” is being distributed by local pediatricians to children in the Greater Seattle area.

    The card has a section to fill out where the child can ask the doctor to call them by whatever name or pronoun they prefer.

    Additionally, multiple options for gender identity are given including “trans woman,” “trans man,” “agender,” “non-binary,” “genderqueer,” “questioning” and even has a line to fill in if none of the others apply.

    https://thepostmillennial.com/exclusive-doctors-give-gender-card-to-children-offer-to-keep-identifiers-secret-from-parents

    #111761
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz blames Dem-run cities for store closures

    Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said Democratic mayors and city councils have “abdicated their responsibility” in fighting crime and addressing mental illness, which has forced his company to shutter stores due to fears over employee safety.

    “Starbucks is a window into America,” Schultz said. “We are facing things in which the stores were not built for.”

    https://nypost.com/2022/07/18/starbucks-ceo-howard-schultz-blames-democrat-run-cities-for-store-closures/

    #111762
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    #111763
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://news.yahoo.com/historic-waves-high-20-feet-225805942.html
    ‘Historic’ waves as high as 20 feet tall send wedding guests in Hawaii running for cover

    #111764
    Red
    Participant

    So Bojo announces that there is a “deep state” in parliament that has been working to remove him.
    From the Sun I know:
    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/19243412/boris-johnson-deep-state-plot-brexit-reversed/

    However it was also run in the Huff:
    https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/boris-johnson-deep-state-overturn-brexit_uk_62d59250e4b0f6913032c504

    The Huffington went on to explain the deep state as:
    “The “deep state” is a term often used by conspiracy theorists to describe shadowy government officials who carry out secret acts unbeknown to the wider public.”

    Almost an admission there.

    #111765
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    #111766
    Red
    Participant

    The UK’s getting hot in more ways than one.

    Heatwave: Fires blaze after UK passes 40C for first time
    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-62217282

    The photos in these articles are distressing to say the least. Like the political fall out from brexit and the sanctions among other nasty shit over the last couple of years isn’t enough.

    https://news.sky.com/story/major-incident-declared-across-london-after-huge-surge-in-fires-on-uks-hottest-ever-day-12655061

    #111767
    Bishko
    Participant

    Russia has now become a force of Nature. Remember what Voltaire said: “Men argue, Nature acts.”

    #111768
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    #111769
    Kassandra
    Participant

    As someone who has lived in several places where the temperature regularly got above 100 degrees, and lived in places where it got as high as 120+ degrees, why are buildings catching fire in the London area from 104 degree weather?

    #111770
    Neal
    Participant

    TAE summary.
    I’m hoping that the post of yours was Babylon Bee type satire. What name would Charlie Manson be known by? Onekid? Or Nicole Kidman would become Kidone. Maybe Sonny and Cher would be Kidny and Cher?

    #111771
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    @ Susmarie108

    Thank you for that wonderful Heart Sutra video…
    Do you have a link to that?
    Also, the Diamond Sutra is another gem of Buddhism…

    #111772
    WES
    Participant

    Since the weather is nice and warm, Biden will use it to declare a climate emergency so he can stuff the ballot boxes in November again!

    Since Joe wants higher energy prices, why did he venture to the middle east to ask them to increase oil production? Afterall joe is doing his very best to shutdown US oil and gas production!

    #111773
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

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