Apr 052023
 


Albert Cuyp Cows in a river 1650

 

Trump Condemns Arrest In Mar-a-Lago Speech (RT)
The Fall Of America’s Benevolent Empire (Fazi)
The Tragic U.S. Choice to Prioritize War Over Peacemaking (NC)
US General Points To Risk Ahead Of Next Big War (RT)
Ministers of 9 NATO Countries Ask US To Strengthen Borders With Ukraine (Az.)
Russian Top Spy Warns Of Polish Land Grab (RT)
Russia To Respond To Finland’s Accession To NATO In Due Time (TASS)
Finland Has Lost Its ‘Special Status’ – Moscow (RT)
Russia’s Silent Opposition At War With Own People – Medvedev (TASS)
Russia Has Military Resources, Willpower To Defend Sovereignty – MFA (TASS)
A Credit Crunch Is Inevitable (Lacalle)
Joe Biden Moved and Stored Unguarded Classified Documents in China Town (GP)
Brook Jackson To Appeal As Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Alleging Pfizer Fraud (CHD)
RSF Barred From Vetted Prison Visit To Julian Assange (RSF)

 

 

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
– Albert Einstein

 

 

 

 

Tucker Trump
https://twitter.com/i/status/1643406886887211009

 

 

 

 

3rd term

 

 

Hilton

 

 

TikTok Ban

 

 

Jesse Jackson

 

 

LAVROV: “…how to stop this conflict should not be addressed to Iran, Russia, or China, but to those Western figures…which say daily…it is impossible… …Mr. Blinken recently said that…a ceasefire should not be allowed. What’s the basis for such shallow analysis?”

 

“Having turned their currency into an instrument of political pressure on other states, the Americans, unwittingly, launched a worldwide movement to overthrow the dollar king. Complete de-dollarization will not happen overnight, but this is clearly an irreversible movement,” – Le Figaro columnist, expert in geopolitics, Renaud Girard.

 

 

 

 

Note: The judge did *not* issue a gag order but “requested” he stay off social media.

Trump Condemns Arrest In Mar-a-Lago Speech (RT)

In a speech from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, former President Donald Trump railed against New York prosecutors after pleading not guilty to 34 criminal counts, also accusing Democrats of political persecution and “fraudulent investigations.” Trump delivered the address to a live audience on Tuesday night, insisting there is “no case” against him after returning home from New York, where he was arraigned on charges of falsifying business records earlier in the day. “I never thought anything like this could happen in America… The only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it,” he said, adding that the latest case is part of an “onslaught of fraudulent investigations” brought by Democrats.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1643411071829520385

Trump argued that since his rivals “can’t beat us at the ballot box,”they have tried to “beat us through the law,” reiterating some of his previous claims of widespread election fraud in the 2020 presidential race. He rejected the charges against him as “fake,”saying their purpose is to “interfere with the upcoming 2024 election”and should be “dropped immediately.” Taking the tone of a presidential candidate, the former leader went on to fire a litany of criticisms at Democrats and President Joe Biden, slamming them for high inflation “crippling” the US economy, “raging crime statistics” and “open borders” immigration policies. He warned that Biden could lead the country into “an all-out nuclear World War III,” apparently referring to US involvement in the conflict in Ukraine.

The Manhattan’s District Attorney’s office has accused Trump of arranging a hush-money payment to adult film actress Daniels in order to keep her from going public about an alleged affair, and later attempting to cover up the transfer through falsified records. Prosecutors also claim he knowingly tried to conceal other crimes using the falsified documents, providing a basis for felony charges rather than misdemeanors. Trump has denied all wrongdoing, calling the indictment a “witch hunt” and “political persecution” by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who he described as a “radical left George Soros-backed prosecutor” during his speech on Tuesday night. The DA’s office has said it expects to produce most of its evidence for discovery in the next 65 days, while Trump’s defense has until early August to file any motions against the case. Though Judge Juan Merchan has scheduled the next in-person hearing for December 4, attorneys for Trump say they hope to get the case dismissed before it can go to trial.

Watters

Read more …

Feels like the fall of Europe comes first.

The Fall Of America’s Benevolent Empire (Fazi)

In spite of the largesse and generosity usually associated with the European Recovery Program, as it was officially called, between 1948 and 1951 the funds actually only amounted to about 3% of the combined GDP of the recipient countries, accounting for a direct increase in GDP growth of less than 0.5%. Some authors have credited the Marshall Plan with having a much larger indirect effect on the recovery, through the promotion of a macroeconomic environment conducive to growth, but such analyses are largely speculative. Overall, its contribution to Europe’s recovery was relatively modest. Much of the money also flowed back to the US in the form of purchases of American goods and services, including oil, while many of the materials and equipment used to rebuild Europe were supplied by American companies, creating jobs and profits for American businesses.

Regardless of the actual economic impact of the Marshall Plan, there is no doubt that it was a resounding political success for America — to the extent that it secured US geopolitical influence and control over Western Europe. Part of the logic was that more prosperous societies would be less amenable to communist and Soviet influence — though, as we have seen, it’s questionable whether the programme had much of an impact on economic and social gains during the post-war boom. An arguably more important channel through which the Marshall Plan consolidated US influence was through the funds it channelled to those European centre-right parties which stood to gain from being integrated into the nascent American empire. This included covert CIA funds to ensure their electoral success — especially in Italy and France — at the expense of communist rivals. As the historian Sallie Pisani shows in her book The CIA and the Marshall Plan, under the guise of the Marshall Plan, the US used “massive foreign aid and non-military covert operations to reshape war-torn Europe in the image of the US”.

Just as crucially, the Marshall Plan was also a key catalyst for the formation of Nato, through which the US exerted its military control over Western Europe — in addition to dozens of military bases, especially in the defeated nations, many of which still exist today. The Marshall Plan also played an important role in fostering European integration, by creating new intergovernmental institutions to administer and coordinate the programme. These included the OEEC, the precursor to the OECD, and most importantly the Schuman Plan, which led to the European Coal and Steel Community, then the European Economic Community and ultimately the European Union. The Americans also played a crucial role in promoting, also financially, the cause of European federalism through the American Committee on United Europe (ACUE), founded in 1948, whose first chairman was the former head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) William Joseph Donovan. The vice-chairman was Allen Welsh Dulles, who would later become the head of the CIA.

Read more …

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, the authors of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict.

The Tragic U.S. Choice to Prioritize War Over Peacemaking (NC)

For the past 25 years, administrations of both parties have caved to the “crazies” at every turn. Albright and the neocons’ exceptionalist rhetoric, now standard fare across the U.S. political spectrum, leads the United States into conflicts all over the world, in an unequivocal, Manichean way that defines the side it supports as the side of good and the other side as evil, foreclosing any chance that the United States can later play the role of an impartial or credible mediator. Today, this is true in the war in Yemen, where the U.S. chose to join a Saudi-led alliance that committed systematic war crimes, instead of remaining neutral and preserving its credibility as a potential mediator. It also applies, most notoriously, to the U.S. blank check for endless Israeli aggression against the Palestinians, which doom its mediation efforts to failure.

For China, however, it is precisely its policy of neutrality that has enabled it to mediate a peace agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and the same applies to the African Union’s successful peace negotiations in Ethiopia, and to Turkey’s promising mediation between Russia and Ukraine, which might have ended the slaughter in Ukraine in its first two months but for American and British determination to keep trying to pressure and weaken Russia. But neutrality has become anathema to U.S. policymakers. George W. Bush’s threat, “You are either with us or against us,” has become an established, if unspoken, core assumption of 21st century U.S. foreign policy. The response of the American public to the cognitive dissonance between our wrong assumptions about the world and the real world they keep colliding with has been to turn inward and embrace an ethos of individualism. This can range from New Age spiritual disengagement to a chauvinistic America First attitude.

Whatever form it takes for each of us, it allows us to persuade ourselves that the distant rumble of bombs, albeit mostly American ones, is not our problem. The U.S. corporate media has validated and increased our ignorance by drastically reducing foreign news coverage and turning TV news into a profit-driven echo chamber peopled by pundits in studios who seem to know even less about the world than the rest of us. Most U.S. politicians now rise through the legal bribery system from local to state to national politics, and arrive in Washington knowing next to nothing about foreign policy. This leaves them as vulnerable as the public to neocon cliches like the ten or twelve packed into Albright’s vague justification for bombing Iraq: freedom, democracy, the American way of life, stand tall, the danger to all of us, we are America, indispensable nation, sacrifice, American men and women in uniform, and “we have to use force.”

Orban

Read more …

They’re prepping us: We’re in terrible danger, so spend, spend, spend!

US General Points To Risk Ahead Of Next Big War (RT)

The ‘just-in-time’ supply chain that provides the parts used to make America’s F-35 fighter jets could jeopardize the ability of US forces to keep the aircraft in service during the country’s next major war, the officer in charge of the program has reportedly claimed. The F-35 program will need “a more resilient supply chain to ensure the military can keep it flying in a future, highly contested war,” Defense News reported on Monday, citing comments by US Air Force Lieutenant General Michael Schmidt. Speaking at the Navy League’s Sea Air Space conference on Monday in Maryland, Schmidt warned that parts shortages could lead to disaster in a major conflict.

“When you have that [just-in-time] mentality, a hiccup in the supply chain, whether it be a strike . . . or a quality issue, becomes your single point of failure,” the program chief said. “We need to look at, what does ‘right’ look like in the future, to give us more resilience in a combat environment.” ‘Just in time’ refers to a distribution strategy used by businesses to maximize profitability by keeping inventory costs to a minimum. The idea is to have supplies ready and in place just when they’re needed, rather than being set aside in a warehouse for future use. Such a system works well in the private sector, Schmidt said, but for a military fighting a war in “highly contested environments,” it can have disastrous consequences.

Bridget Lauderdale, general manager of the F-35 program for defense contractor Lockheed Martin, said the company has focused more on forecasting demand for the jet so it can anticipate its parts needs more accurately. “A lot of those materials take lead time to prepare, even when you do have funding and even when you have repair capacity,” she said. Schmidt predicted that there will be between 500 and 600 F-35s operating in Europe within the next few years, and fewer than 100 will belong to the US military. “What a huge opportunity that is to leverage each other’s logistics and maintenance environments.”

Maintenance is a key concern for America’s latest fighter jet, given the Pentagon’s struggles to keep the aircraft in service. Schmidt acknowledged last week that on any given day in February, an average of just 29% of the US F-35 fleet was “fully mission capable.” Just last month, the Pentagon’s F-35 Joint Program Office ordered a global recall for the aircraft to fix an engine problem linked to at least one crash. US lawmakers have estimated that it will cost $1.3 trillion to sustain the nation’s F-35 fleet, partly because of poor reliability.

Read more …

America moves east with NATO.

Ministers of 9 NATO Countries Ask US To Strengthen Borders With Ukraine (Az.)

Ministers from nine NATO countries have called on the US to strengthen its borders with Ukraine by sending them air defense systems, Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu said on the NTV channel, Report informs. “We must work to increase the US presence in our region on the eastern flank in terms of troops and equipment,” he said. Ministers from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia called on the US to strengthen its border territories.

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“Once Kiev is ultimately defeated by Moscow, Poland could grab the lands that it lost to the Soviet Union in the 1940s..”

Russian Top Spy Warns Of Polish Land Grab (RT)

Warsaw’s military assistance to Kiev is a secret plan aimed at destroying Ukrainian statehood, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, said on Tuesday. Once Kiev is ultimately defeated by Moscow, Poland could grab the lands that it lost to the Soviet Union in the 1940s, he suggested. “Seizing control of the western territories of modern Ukraine, the so-called Kresy [‘borderlands’ in Polish], is the coveted dream of the Polish nationalists,” Naryshkin claimed. The Polish government cannot simply drop this element of its national ideology, he added. Warsaw sees “the collapse of Ukrainian statehood after a military defeat as a condition for implementing this idea,” the official said. ‘Kresy’ is the name of certain territories that historically belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The Russian Empire gained control of some parts of Poland during the 18th century partitions, but its collapse after the Russian Revolution allowed Warsaw to regain independence. During World War I, the British proposed the so-called Curzon Line as a Russian-Polish border, but Warsaw rejected the idea and took control of some lands to the east of the proposed demarcation. Decades later, the line served as the basis of the post-World War II settlement, with Poland gaining some German lands as compensation for ceding territory to the Soviet Union. These lands are currently controlled by Ukraine and Belarus. The Polish government “opposes peaceful settlement [of the conflict in Ukraine] and assures that it will provide steady military assistance to the Kiev regime” because of its territorial aspirations, Naryshkin stated. “This situation certainly worsens the conditions for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.”

The Russian official argued that Poland was not above an opportunistic land grab, recalling its role in the split of Czechoslovakia just before World War II. The 1938 Munich Agreement signed by the UK and France with Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy allowed Berlin to occupy large parts of Poland, which annexed the region of Trans-Olza in the process. Naryshkin has previously raised the possibility that Warsaw had designs on Ukrainian territory, but Warsaw has denied harboring any such plans and branded the Russian official’s claim an information warfare operation. The intelligence chief issued his new warning during a visit to Minsk, where he met President Alexander Lukashenko. The Belarusian leader voiced his own suspicions about Warsaw’s intentions for Ukraine and for his nation last May.

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“We will calmly disclose what we will do in response when the time is ripe.”

Russia To Respond To Finland’s Accession To NATO In Due Time (TASS)

Russia does not intend to hurry its response to Finland’s accession to NATO and it will make the countermeasures public in a calm manner and in due time, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on the Rossiya-24 TV channel on Tuesday. “We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves here. Why should we?” he said. “We will calmly disclose what we will do in response when the time is ripe.” Ryabkov pointed to what he described as “curious statements by official representatives in some Western media, including those in the US,” who “all of a sudden decided for some reason that there will be no reaction from the Russian side.” “They are deeply mistaken,” Ryabkov stressed. “A reaction will follow.”

Read more …

Finland became a minor NATO member without the possibility to influence any decisions. It has lost its ability to have a say in international affairs..”

Finland Has Lost Its ‘Special Status’ – Moscow (RT)

Helsinki’s decision to join the NATO alliance will have a “negative effect” on its ties with Russia, the Russian Foreign Ministry has said. On Tuesday, Finland finalized its accession process, becoming the 31st member of the US-led military bloc. The move will inevitably invoke Moscow’s response, the ministry said, adding that Russia continues to see the bloc’s expansion as a direct threat to its national security interests. “As we have warned on multiple occasions, the Russian Federation will have to respond with military-technical, as well as other measures in order to address national security threats arising from Finland joining NATO,” the ministry said in a statement.

So far, Moscow has refrained from announcing any concrete steps it will take in response to Finland’s NATO accession. The response will depend “on the specific terms on which Finland joins NATO, including the deployment of NATO’s military infrastructure and offensive weapons on its territory,” the ministry explained. The latest expansion of the bloc has greatly damaged the security situation in the whole of Northern Europe, which for decades “used to be one of the most stable regions in the world,” the ministry went on. “The line of contact between NATO and the Russian Federation’s border has more than doubled,” it added, referring to the length of direct land borders between Russia and NATO’s member-states.

Apart from that, Helsinki’s move has done harm to Finland’s own international stance, Russian diplomats asserted. By joining NATO, Finland “has given up on its unique identity and lost its independence,” forfeiting the “special status in international affairs” stemming from its decades-long policy of non alignment. “Finland became a minor NATO member without the possibility to influence any decisions. It has lost its ability to have a say in international affairs,” the ministry concluded. “Make no mistake, Finland’s accession to NATO will have a negative effect on the bilateral relations between Russia and Finland.”

Read more …

Medvedev uses language that Putin never would.

Russia’s Silent Opposition At War With Own People – Medvedev (TASS)

Members of Russia’s silent opposition are now engaged in terrorism, executing their fellow countrymen, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday. He made the statement as he was commenting on Telegram on the terrorist attack that took place in St. Petersburg on April 2. The official also said that it is the forces that the West had recently regarded as the best people of the time and the opponents of the “authoritarian regime,” the fearless knights of justice and fight against corruption that are engaged in terrorism. “Here’s the creme de la creme of our non-systemic opposition: It’s waging war on its own people, it’s engaged in explosions and assassinations,” Medvedev said.

According to the official, “these scum not only wish for Russia to be defeated,” but also “execute their countrymen.” Medvedev said members of the silent opposition murdered an unarmed reporter, wounded several dozens of innocent spectators at his event, opened fire on a car with children that were going to a village school, and blew up a car with a female reporter and a researcher. “History has come full circle. This swine has taken its final place in the chronicles of our country,” he said. The Security Council official called attention to the fact that the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks say they were used. “This is probably true,” he said.

But, he said, the perpetrators of terrorist attacks will be duly punished. “But, so far, the main scum who fed and financed the killers, who dictated their plans remain unpunished,” he wrote on his Telegram channel. “Various FBK (recognized as an extremist organization in Russia) and MBK (recognized as a foreign agent — TASS), the Navalny, Volkov, Ponomarev and Khodorkovsky outfits have become petty terrorists and murderers” and “have pledged their allegiance to evil and terror, along with the murderers of their kindred Kiev Nazi regime.” “There can be no talks with terrorists. They will be exterminated like rabid dogs foaming at the mouth. No need to sugarcoat it. As soon as possible. Even if it takes years. They deserve no mercy or forgiveness. This is what supreme justice is all about,” he said.

Tony Kevin
https://twitter.com/i/status/1643176170844741633

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“Because otherwise something may happen that for now can be discussed only hypothetically..”

Russia Has Military Resources, Willpower To Defend Sovereignty – MFA (TASS)

Russia has both the military potential and willpower to defend its sovereignty and ward off any threats, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on the Rossiya-24 TV channel on Tuesday. “We have – let me emphasize this – both the military resources and the political will. We have determination. Our society is consolidated on the platform of guaranteed protection of our sovereignty for warding off any threats and preventing encroachments on our territorial integrity,” he said. “As for the use of nuclear weapons, we have gone over this many times already. We are not mincing words here, either. Our adversaries simply have to be realistic about what is going on around them, and to refrain from any escalation or provocations against us. Because otherwise something may happen that for now can be discussed only hypothetically,” Ryabkov said.

He stressed that the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus was a natural response to the growing challenges and risks for Russian security. “There should be no illusions. Russia has a very wide range of forces and means to ensure its own security in any situation. Nuclear deterrence has always been and is still present in our system of military planning and in the general concept of deterring our adversaries,” Ryabkov said. According to the senior diplomat, the West ignored the opportunity for building a guaranteed system of global security.

“There has been much talk in recent years about Russia placing greater emphasis on so-called non-nuclear deterrence. But the US-led collective West has not just ignored all these warnings, signals, and calls for using the opportunities to build a guaranteed security system on a different basis. It has dismissed them outright,” Ryabkov continued. “Now we are in a situation of military confrontation. A hybrid war is being waged against Russia. And its forms are such that it is difficult to find parallels in the past. In some aspects they simply do not exist. We cannot be indifferent about this.”

Ukr Salaries

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“..capital destruction in the asset base of banks and private equity firms is between a 15% to 25% wipe-out..”

A Credit Crunch Is Inevitable (Lacalle)

Federal Reserve data shows $98 billion of deposits left the banking system in the week after the Silicon Valley Bank collapse. Most of the money went to money-market funds, as the Bloomberg data shows that assets in this class rose by $121 billion in the same period. The data shows the challenges of the banking system in the middle of a confidence crisis. However, as many analysts point out, this is not necessarily the main factor that dictates the risk of a credit crunch. Deposit flight is certainly an important risk. Many regional banks will have to cut lending to families and businesses as deposits shrink, but in the United States bank loans are less than 19% of corporate credit according to the IMF, while in the euro area it is more than 80%. What will generate a credit crunch is the destruction of capital in the asset base of most lenders.

The slump in mark-to-market valuations of all asset classes from loans to investments is what will ultimately drive an inevitable credit contraction. Credit standards have tightened significantly already, and the credit impulse of the economy, both in the US and euro area, has deteriorated rapidly, according to the respective Bloomberg indices. Both are below the March 2021 low. We must remember that credit standards’ tightening was already a reality before the Silicon Valley Bank demise. But the reality check of capital destruction in the financial system’s asset base is far from done. Start-ups will most likely see the most severe crunch in financing as the tech bubble burst adds to the asset base capital destruction in private equity and venture capital firms, who have delayed all they could the required write-downs and face a sobering reality check.

Our internal estimate of capital destruction in the asset base of banks and private equity firms is between a 15% to 25% wipe-out, which is consistent with the average decline in market value over the October 2021- March 2023 period. Real estate investments all over the US and Europe require a significant re-evaluation now that real estate has underperformed the market for eighteen months, according to Morgan Stanley. The optimistic valuations of real estate and corporate investments in banks’ balance sheets will require a significant analysis and subsequent write-off that leads to much tighter credit standards and stringent investment conditions.

Read more …

No, focus on Trump!

Joe Biden Moved and Stored Unguarded Classified Documents in China Town (GP)

Another day, another falsification. As The Gateway Pundit’s Brian Lupo reported earlier, Joe Biden’s former assistant as Vice President, Kathy Chung, testified today to the House Oversight Committee about the mishandling of classified documents by Joe Biden since his time as Vice President. Today we learned that as he left the White House, he took “boxes containing classified documents, vice presidential records, and other items” and had them stored in three separate locations throughout Washington D.C.: an office near the White House, an office in Chinatown, and, eventually, the Penn Biden Center. After Chung’s testimony today to the House Oversight Committee, Rep. James Comer put out the following statement:

“Today we learned that when Joe Biden left the vice presidency, boxes containing classified documents, vice presidential records, and other items were stored in three different locations around the Washington D.C. area, including an office near the White House, an office in Chinatown, and eventually the Penn Biden Center. At some point, the boxes containing classified materials were transported by personal vehicle to an office location. The boxes were not in a ‘locked closet’ at the Penn Biden Center and remained accessible to Penn Biden employees as well as potentially others with access to the office space. We need to find out who had access to these documents.” Later today House Oversight Chairman James Comer told Jesse Watters that Joe Biden was storing his boxes in China Town. What?

James Comer: We brought Kathy Chung in today for a transcribed interview, and I want to thank Ms. Chung puggleki for working and cooperating with our committee and answering questions. We learned a lot. First of all, we learned that the documents didn’t just start mysteriously moving around in December of 2022 or November of 2022, like the White House has alleged. She said this dates back to May of 2022, that the documents were moved from the vice presidency to at least three different locations in a personal vehicle. And why they were in three different locations, we don’t know. They weren’t stored behind any lock. One of the locations was in Chinatown. Another location was in the Penn Biden Center, which might as well have been Chinatown.

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“The Court does not opine on the likelihood of success with respect to asserting retaliation under a different statute.”

Brook Jackson To Appeal As Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Alleging Pfizer Fraud (CHD)

A federal judge in Texas has dismissed a lawsuit alleging Pfizer and two of its contractors manipulated data and committed other acts of fraud during Pfizer’s COVID-19 clinical trials. Brook Jackson, a former employee of the Ventavia Research Group — which conducted some of the clinical trials for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine — in January 2021 sued Pfizer, Ventavia and ICON PLC, another Pfizer contractor, alleging the companies committed numerous violations of the False Claims Act (FCA) during the clinical trials. According to Jackson’s complaint, the three companies “deliberately withheld crucial information from the United States that calls the safety and efficacy of their vaccine into question,” and as a result, they defrauded the U.S. government which purchased the vaccines.

The FCA allows the government or a party suing on its behalf, such as Jackson, to attempt to recover money for false claims made by parties in order to secure payment from the government. Those parties can be held liable under the FCA if they knowingly made a false claim or used a false record or statement in order to secure payment. Also under the FCA, whistleblowers can be rewarded for confidentially disclosing fraud that results in a financial loss to the federal government. In February 2022, the federal government declined to intervene in the lawsuit on Jackson’s behalf. In his March 31 ruling, U.S. District Judge Michael Truncale of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas-Beaumont Division ruled Jackson had not proved the companies violated the FCA.

However, in a footnote accompanying his decision, Judge Truncale left the door open for Jackson and her legal team to file an appeal, stating: “The Court observes, however, that while Ms. Jackson has failed to state a claim for retaliation under the FCA, she may be able to bring her claim under another statute. “The Court does not opine on the likelihood of success with respect to asserting retaliation under a different statute.” In a statement posted on Twitter, Jackson sharply criticized Truncale’s ruling, writing: “The dismissal of Pfizer’s case is a despicable & heinous betrayal of justice, a slap in the face to vaccine injured and whistleblowers, a blatant example of corruption, incompetence and cowardice, a declaration that the powerful are above the law.”

Jackson, who had over 15 years of experience working with clinical trials, claimed she “repeatedly informed her superiors of poor laboratory management, patient safety concerns and data integrity issues” during the approximately two weeks she was employed by Ventavia in September 2020. She also gave The BMJ a cache of internal company documents, photos and recordings highlighting alleged wrongdoing by Ventavia. Ventavia, which describes itself as the largest privately owned clinical research company in Texas, operated several sites where it conducted clinical trials on behalf of Pfizer.

Read more …

They work for Reporters Without Borders, everything’s been OK’d, and at the last minute the prison “received intelligence” that they were journalists, so no go.

RSF Barred From Vetted Prison Visit To Julian Assange (RSF)

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Secretary-General Christophe Deloire and Director of Operations Rebecca Vincent have been barred access to visit Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange in Belmarsh prison despite receiving confirmation that a visit would be permitted. On 4 April, Deloire and Vincent were prevented from entering Belmarsh prison, despite having been vetted in advance and receiving confirmation that a visit with Julian Assange would be possible at 9:15 am. His wife, Stella Assange, was permitted to enter as scheduled. Prison officials told the RSF representatives that they had “received intelligence” that they were journalists, and would therefore not be allowed in, per a decision of Belmarsh Prison Governor Jenny Louis. The Governor did not respond to urgent requests to meet Deloire and Vincent or to otherwise intervene to allow their access.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1643323285332021251

“We are deeply disappointed by the arbitrary decision of the Belmarsh Prison Governor to prevent us from visiting Julian Assange, despite following all relevant prison procedures and rules. Julian Assange has the right to receive visitors in prison, and we are legitimate to visit him as a press freedom NGO. We call for an urgent reversal of this decision and to be allowed visitation access without further delay.” Christophe Deloire – RSF Secretary-General.“This is the latest in a long series of ludicrous obstacles that we have faced over the past three years in campaigning for the release of Julian Assange. At every level, British authorities have defaulted to secrecy and exclusion rather than allowing normal engagement around this case – from refusing to accept RSF petitions, to making it nearly impossible to access court, and now this. What do they have to hide? Regardless, we continue our campaign to #FreeAssange unabated.”: -Rebecca Vincent – RSF Director of Operations and Campaigns”.

RSF would have been the first NGO to gain access to Assange in Belmarsh prison, who has had only a handful of visitors beyond his immediate family during the nearly four years he has been incarcerated. Deloire and Vincent intended to assess Assange’s conditions and to speak with him about his case, as an NGO actively campaigning for his release – not as journalists. Deloire would have visited in his capacity as Secretary-General of the NGO, and Vincent as Director of Operations and Campaigns. Vincent has never worked as a journalist or held a press card. Deloire had previously visited Assange on three occasions during his period at the Ecuadorian embassy.

This move comes in the aftermath of RSF facing extensive barriers in monitoring each stage of the extradition proceedings against Assange in London courts, for precisely the opposite reason, as RSF’s representatives were attending as NGO observers, and were not permitted to register for accreditation, as journalists would. RSF therefore could access court only via the public gallery, and was the only NGO that fought for this access at every stage of proceedings from 2020 to 2022.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

G4S

 

 

 

 

Fosun
https://twitter.com/i/status/1643223084952846340

 

 

 

 

Wulong

 

 

Sleepy
https://twitter.com/i/status/1643494434405863431

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle April 5 2023

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  • Author
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  • #132798

    Albert Cuyp Cows in a river 1650   • Trump Condemns Arrest In Mar-a-Lago Speech (RT) • The Fall Of America’s Benevolent Empire (Fazi) • The Tragi
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle April 5 2023]

    #132799
    Germ
    Participant

    How many deaths were caused by the covid vaccines?

    “Conclusion

    With a minimal set of conservative and reasonable assumptions we estimate that, since the end of Dec 2020 approximately 16,000 people in the UK have died directly from covid vaccines, while in the USA the figure is approximately 120,000.”

    https://wherearethenumbers.substack.com/p/how-many-deaths-were-caused-by-the

    Norman Fenton is Professor of Risk Information Management in the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at Queen Mary University of London.

    TVASF (tick … tock … tick … tock …)

    #132800
    Germ
    Participant

    Fully Vaxxed Lose 25 Years of Life Expectancy, Study Shows

    “The latest Cleveland Clinic Data and the latest US data were analyzed by Josh Stirling, founder of Insurance Collaboration to Save Livess and former #1 ranked Insurance Analyst.

    Stirling’s study shows an incredibly disturbing trend.

    The damage to health caused by each vaccine dose does not lessen over time as it appears to continue indefinitely.”

    Fully Vaxxed Lose 25 Years of Life Expectancy, Study Shows

    ☠️☠️☠️

    TVASF (but Medicare solvency is now extended by a few years)

    #132801
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Feminists In Texas Frantically Research What People Do With Babies Other Than Killing Them “ –BBee

    Pelosi: ‘We Have to Convict Trump On the Charges to Find Out What Is In Them’ –BBee

    “Democrats Remind Everyone Trump Is Guilty Until Proven Guilty” –BBee

    Actually this last one was true. As a lawyer, Nancy Pelosi said Trump is guilty and “will have a chance to prove his innocence in court.”, demostrating her total unconcern and lack of knowledge of Federal Law. …Just before saying Hillary was President. …Do you know something we don’t?

    Arraignment (not Arrest, which means “stop”), what happens? As expected, as very, very long said, planned and released even years ago. 3-3, 4-4, on a Tuesday. But clearly had his speech pre-planned. So, it’s planned. What happens around the world? Well, nothing specific, nothing outstanding. Saudi continues on their way. Africa no longer fears us and smacks Harris in the sniffer. How about the rest? Gold rises $40, clean cracking of $2,000 round number already at $2,025.

    Silver rises $1. 30% since March 10. Them’s Crypto numbers.

    Remember I said it was going down, they’d blame all 10 White Supremacists for pulling their money out of the banks? Well it’s a battle of narratives. Here’s the other narrative: “The U.S. is now a Banana Republic, completely unsafe for money, no longer a 1st world nation.” They have no support overseas. They arrest leaders. Have no democracy. The arrest shows they have no rule of law: not just for the Breitbarts or Assanges of the world — they’re nobodies – but not even for the IMPORTANT people, Presidents, CEOs, corporations, foreign accounts.

    What does that mean? PULL YOUR MONEY. The Trump arrest demonstrates the U.S. is no longer safe for billionaires.

    Now, THIS IS WHAT DAVOS WANTED. Remember? They’re on a collapse, so they are trying to each get the world capital to go away from the other guy due to war and insanity, and come TO themselves. Well, this absolutely will get money to flow to Europe, right? They win.

    Not so fast. You start a run, you’re going to take out the WHOLE system, Europe included. Now they think they’ll put in Vax ID, CBDC, you know: technofascism. And surpass us with it. ‘Cause that all worked so well in Ukraine with their 21st century computer tracking system, lacking electric power. So they say “yes.”

    What’s the take back here, where the White Hats ALSO know the system has to go down, they ALSO want it to end? And end under BIDEN, must be under DNC total control.

    In that narrative, the Davos, DNC merger has caused the worldwide financial collapse. And with their childish, pointless shenanigans, not even for a real reason. What happens here? Well, no US$ means no Congressional-FBI complex. There’s food in the Red areas, not the Blue. The States have sovereignty for most issues. Nobody’s in the mood for an ID card. So…you’re going to install a CDBC/Digital ID here? Uh, no.

    If you can’t get it in Russia. If you can’t get it in America. If you can’t get it in Mexico. If you can’t get it in the Global South and parts of Asia. …You’ve got no “Get Ready for a World Currency”,(In 2018, published in 1989) you’ve got no UN/ICC “World Government” that can arrest India for “Civil Rights Violations”.

    Multipolar. Now that’s no fun for us, but dropping the US$ world currency was never going to be great on us, even if it works out. However, you still need to position so we build AMERICA afterwards, not what we were having. We are in that position, thanks to the revealing, and especially Covid.

    So here we are: Look for money to go, but not to Europe. Take out more banks, flows to real assets of which Silver is just one example. If we go down, DeutscheBank sure will. And without money for bribery and murder in SDNY and Riker’s, who cares what Pelosi and McConnell say? They’ll boot them from the legislature like they just did in Tennessee, and happened slower in Florida.

    Without that bribery and power, don’t people start popping up worldwide with Pfizer class action suits? Look into the books of the F-35 suppliers? Start publishing the Epstein list? People who shot themselves three times while tied to a tree? They may need blackmail and grab some, or they may be dissatisfied customers who want to get out, doesn’t matter to us. Like markets finding prices: Truth comes out. Why? Takes limitless money and energy to suspend and prevent reality. Money runs out = oppression runs out.

    So, here we are with the first little rattles of the avalanche. The two systems are so intertwined if one goes down the other will lock up in 48 hours. But everybody knows that. The question was always “What is built after?”

    Snowflakes: “Can local DA’s now arrest Federal Officials on whatever they can find?” Huh. Sounds okay. Sounds like “devolution”. Highwater of centralization and redistribution of the power to the local and states.

    “ViktorOrban: The West believes that it is right to support this war. But the rest of the world says it is not.”

    Alright: support it. I don’t care if that’s what you want, But you then need an Act of War. Of some sort, any sort. They “Support” the war without supporting it, fight it without having to admit and take the consequences of what is perfectly obvious. YOU declared war. It is YOUR war, YOU paid for. If you win, you’re a violent aggressor. If you lose, you’re a loser, a nation that has no power and makes dumb decisions. Either way, no one can talk to you, as indeed Saudi, India, Iran, China, Africa, Brazil, etc are not.

    Obviously it would be great to attack and invade your enemies and defeat them where no one notices, but this is the real world. The only way to do that is to be the Israeli lobby and blame somebody else. Or Europe and blame America for everything.

    “It will cost $1.3 trillion to sustain the nation’s F-35 fleet, partly because of poor reliability.”

    There are 283 F-35’s. That’s $4.5 Billion per plane. You want to explain that? And when we have a plane of low reliability, our answer is to make more parts? Isn’t that considered a scandal?

    “Ministers from nine NATO countries have called on the US to strengthen its borders with Ukraine by sending them air defense systems,”

    I believe some of these systems are the original ones that are nuclear-capable. Thus ‘5 Minutes from Moscow”. Okie-dokie then!

    “The Russian official argued that Poland was not above an opportunistic land grab”

    Nobody is, clearly. The goal of London is to make every country with wrong borders, as Lawrence of Arabia in Iraq and literally everywhere since Queen Elizabeth I in 1600. Then the nations thus screwed over get in trouble for re-setting the borders to the rational, national, ethnic lines. Can we just do this once and leave it unscrewed?

    “Total collapse of Russia” –Mail. Wow, and I thought the Guardian couldn’t be surpassed for hyperbolic falsity.

    On what would they base this? His 80% approval rating? Or his taking of Bakhmut while not depleting any supplies nor engaging the Russian Army? Sadly, it’s so predictable it’s no longer even entertaining to point and stare at the naked man raving the town square rubbing s—t on himself – WE are the ones that have to go out and clean it up.

    It’s “Projection.” They have nothing but projection, and no self-awareness of their projection and how obvious and mechanical it is. Truly mentally ill, not as a slur, as a concern.

    Will defend Britain’s Northern Borders? Russia is amphibious landing Scotland now? “It really helps”. That means Britain doesn’t have to pay for it, or they wouldn’t say that. Instead, Finland is paying for Britain. They’re being sacked and extracted like the other colonies, London needs the money flows and got them, just before London Banks collapse. Nice goin’ Finland! If you want to live in leather Yurts again, this is the way to do it.

    “Russia Has Military Resources, Willpower to Defend Sovereignty – MFA (TASS) “

    America now has neither the resources, NOR more importantly the willpower. Now most things on the internets are false, but check every comment on every single Army recruiting video for about a year now. The soldiers consider the Government and therefore U.S. Army to be their sworn enemy, attacking the American people, and killing them exclusively in service of other nations overseas. You can fight a war with no material – look at Ireland – but you can’t fight it with no willpower.

    Thankfully, the occupation has been revealed and we’re in no danger of invasion, even from the South, although they have inserted all the military-age soldiers they could move over whole continents, it’s not really enough to more than make a mess and inconvenience.

    “commanders and they keep the salaries of dead soldiers.”

    Now you know why have have no losses, and only 100k are officially dead. If they admitted the other 200k-400k, their fraud would be found out. …Like us in F-Stan actually, we probably schooled Ukraine how to do corruption right. We had to abandon $6B in hardware there because IT DIDN’T EXIST. It was all fraud, paid for on the books and never delivered. Sure F-Stan got a little, and they show it on TV, but just the veneer coat. The real crime was CIA+Ops and U.S. Military brass above Colonels. I mean, I can tell, I can smell it from here. Can’t you? But nobody knowd?

    So this is like how all the Heroin on planet earth was right underneath the U.S. Army, yet it snuck out over the hills on Juan Valdez’ Donkey and nobody saw nothin? Not like that volume needs weekly C-130 cargo lifts landing in Incerlik, as the only possible method? Like that? I’m supposed to believe it? Can’t smell it from 10,000 miles away here under this bridge?

    “$98 billion of deposits left the banking system in the week after the Silicon Valley Bank collapse. Most of the money went to money-market funds,”

    Is that even money? Single IPOs and Wall St deals are $100b commonly. And CDs are now paying 5%, so that isn’t a “flight”, it’s a “going TO”. It reached an interest rate that was worth the trouble of conversion. We already learned 1) MM isn’t safe and will lock up, and 2) if banks lock up, MM will too, so what’s the “Flight” about? Does this guy actually think MM are “safe’ “Flight” when BlackRock shut off cash-outs just this week? I expect public dum-dums not to know that, but ‘experts’? Make your case, but I’m skeptical.

    “capital destruction in the asset base of banks and private equity firms is between a 15% to 25% wipe-out”

    Since all risks are now currency risks, does that mean US$ drops by 25%? Against what? DeutscheBank? No, Bacon and Oil, (see Saudi) and not a mere 25%. More like 80%. But things unfold in time.

    “the documents were moved from the vice presidency to at least three different locations in a personal vehicle.”(And held unlocked in Hunter’s garage while he got money from Moscow and diamonds from China.)

    Yes but now Local DA’s can bring charges. Why is that bad? The Feds won’t and somebody has to.

    “Jackson, who had over 15 years of experience working with clinical trials, claimed she “repeatedly informed her superiors of poor laboratory management, patient safety concerns and data integrity issues” during the approximately two weeks she was employed by Ventavia in September 2020.”

    Pfizer: “No she didn’t.” We win!!!

    at the last minute the prison “received intelligence” that they were journalists, so no go.”

    Of course. It wastes the most time and can be used as a carrot to Assange that they can then snatch away from him. Duh.

    “Official Permission”? So the Prime Minister said it was okay, do this thing, and the Local Warden overruled him? Hahahahaha! No. They’re in on it together or someone would get their ears boxed in public. So go back and talk to this “Official Permission” Chappie and ask him why he’s f’ing with you, and why he isn’t discredited forever along with all England, while you start an Expose’ on him, his gay lover, and his new corvette.

    …As the story follows on, each specific denial is another war crime and human rights violation. You can’t hold people without trial. You can’t hold them in solitary. You can’t hold them incommunicado. You can’t hold them without their lawyers, and you can’t treat them differently and prevent their visitation, although that one has the most latitude.

    So, why would you keep your money in the banks of a 3rd world s—thole that has no rule of law? Clearly there is zero law in NY and DC, and zero in London. …And you wonder why Armstrong predicts the financial center move to Asia?

    #132802
    Red
    Participant

    In Part One, we looked at fake news as a simulacrum – something so many stages removed that it has no connection at all with the real world. This is not simply a matter of bias or propaganda, but something which calls into question everything we think we know and why we think we know it. After all, if we are unable to trust external sources of information, we are reduced to our limited personal experience of the world. We might know such basics as that putting your hand on a hot stove is an unpleasant experience, or that a particular fruit tastes nice. But beyond those basics, our knowledge “event horizons” are severely limited. Indeed, as stage magicians and optical illusions teach us, we cannot even trust our own senses. This condition though, is far more serious than parlour games and theatre entertainment. At a time when our life support systems are beginning to crumble, we need some solid ground on which to stand. But to find this, we need to do more than simply rethink our understanding of the world, we need first to unthink it. And nowhere is this more true than in our received understanding of the economy – the school of economics known as “neoclassical.”

    Counterfeit World – Part Two – Economics

    #132803
    chooch
    Participant

    The irony of it all. That would be some crazy voodoo if Pfizer, Moderna… can shift the blame for the damage done by the mRNA biological onto Trump. If he makes it to the debate stage, this could be a smack down moment.

    https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/555247-trump-takes-credit-for-vaccine-rollout-one-of-the-greatest-miracles/amp/

    Former President Trump on Tuesday gave himself credit for the current coronavirus vaccine rollout, calling it “one of the greatest miracles of the ages.”….

    https://www.science.org/content/article/exclusive-qa-robert-f-kennedy-jr-trumps-proposed-vaccine-commission

    (Jan. 10th, 2017)

    ScienceInsider caught up with Kennedy by telephone in an airport flight lounge shortly after he met with Trump in New York City. He made it clear that CDC’s vaccine scientists and practices will be a major focus of the commission’s work. Excerpts from our interview, which have been edited for brevity and clarity, appear below.

    Q: What happened in the meeting?

    A: It was an hour meeting and the vice president–elect came in to the last 15 minutes. The meeting was with [Trump] and Kellyanne Conway [recently appointed counselor to the president].

    Q: Did the president-elect request the meeting or did you?

    A: He called me a week ago to request it.

    Q: Why?

    A: He wants to make sure that we have the best vaccine science and the safest vaccine supply that we can have.

    …Click link to read the rest

    #132804

    Germ,

    Fully Vaxxed Lose 25 Years of Life Expectancy, Study Shows

    Interesting, as is the underlying and linked study. But when I read:

    “Recent government data out of Australia shows that the excess deaths in 2022 were 5162% higher than in previous years..”

    I want to stop reading.

    #132805
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Here’s your Gold chart formation, cup-handle targeting $3,000.
    Finger

    Silver is at 80 or 100:1 when long-term should be 16:1, and with an overshoot might go 1:1.
    So let’s say silver breaks, gold at $3,000. +50% x 5x. $75 x 5 = $375 at 16:1. 2:1 = $1,500/oz silver.

    Where is that in the big scheme? Oil price 1980? All over the place but $10 before, $40 spike, and long-term $25 after. Now $80. 3x the previous high is $50/oz = $150/oz silver. 8x previous is $400.

    Gold? Again, all over, but $45/oz fixed. Broke to $880 high, $360 long term, now $2,000. 3x the high, 8x the long again. (300 x 8 = 2400)

    So these numbers are not at all out of line. The only thing that’s out of line is that silver is the only commodity on earth whose price has DROPPED since 1980. It should at least be 2x $50 or $100/oz. Gold has been for decades. Since that’s highly anomalous, it calls for a higher snapback. What’s “Higher” snapback? Gold is 2x the 1980 high, so 4x the 1980 high to be really conservative? That’s $200/oz at which point it will still have nearly no effect on high tech and electrical prices. Easily sustainable.

    But we know from Platinum and Palladium that when Tesla and GM start a bidding war to stockpile supply the prices go up without limit. Those numbers went from $30 to $300 or $100 to $1000 during those panics, 10x. That’s $500/oz on Industrial Buying.

    Now that falls again after, but still like gold, like oil, to 2-4x the original low price. Look these up for yourself as WordPress doesn’t like a lot of links. Here’s the overall though, and even decades ago:

    100yCommodity
    https://blog.gorozen.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Blog%20Images/100_year_1.png?width=866&height=567&name=100_year_1.png

    That says easy 10x, given. No chance it won’t happen. 10x on oil, 10x on wheat, gas, eggs, food, bacon, cars, lumber. We’re already 2x into that and clearly in no mood to fix anything yet.
    https://blog.gorozen.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Blog%20Images/100_year_1.png?width=866&height=567&name=100_year_1.png

    So how could we POSSIBLY not have a 10x in gold, Silver, and most probably Bitcoin?

    $600 Silver. $10,000 gold? Question is, what is oil in that world? Can I drive to work?

    #132806
    zerosum
    Participant

    TAE highlights the American public to the cognitive dissonance between our wrong assumptions about the world and the real world.
    There is “an alternate media” that tells what happened.

    Level of Homeless/suffering
    – no shelters
    – cars
    – tents
    – RVs
    – “trailer Trash”
    – slums, sub-standard housing
    – war zone, rubble, no municipal service
    ———-
    Level of Income
    – none
    – charity
    – food banks
    – welfare
    – Unemployment, part time
    – less than living income, rent, food, health
    – Lalaland – Own an Apartment in Trump Tower and Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida
    ———————–
    Ware zone
    Mr. Blinken recently said that…a ceasefire should not be allowed.

    – war zone, rubble, no municipal services, electricity, water, sewage, garbage, no safety
    ————

    —————————-
    Marshall Plan – European Recovery Program
    • The Fall Of America’s Benevolent Empire (Fazi)
    There will be no more Marshall Plans
    BY THOMAS FAZI
    https://unherd.com/2023/04/the-fall-of-americas-benevolent-empire/
    As the historian Sallie Pisani shows in her book “The CIA and the Marshall Plan” December 27, 1991, https://kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700605026/
    under the guise of the Marshall Plan, the US used “massive foreign aid and non-military covert operations to reshape war-torn Europe in the image of the US”.
    Pisani tells, for the first time, the story of the top CIA operatives who were instrumental in developing the non-military covert intervention policies.
    —————-
    • The Tragic U.S. Choice to Prioritize War Over Peacemaking (NC)
    Posted on April 4, 2023 by Yves Smith

    The Tragic U.S. Choice to Prioritize War Over Peacemaking


    —————
    Breaking News

    Can’t Make This Up… UPDATE – Joe Biden Moved and Stored Unguarded Classified Documents in China Town! (VIDEO)

    Can’t Make This Up… UPDATE – Joe Biden Moved and Stored Unguarded Classified Documents in China Town! (VIDEO)
    By Jim Hoft Apr. 4, 2023 7:46 pm

    Joe Biden’s former assistant as Vice President, Kathy Chung, testified today to the House Oversight Committee about the mishandling of classified documents by Joe Biden since his time as Vice President.

    Today we learned that as he left the White House, he took “boxes containing classified documents, vice presidential records, and other items” and had them stored in three separate locations throughout Washington D.C.: an office near the White House, an office in Chinatown, and, eventually, the Penn Biden Center.

    After Chung’s testimony today to the House Oversight Committee, Rep. James Comer put out the following statement:
    Read more: …
    —————-

    #132807
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Counterfeit World – Part Two – Economics

    Not sure what Consciousness of Sheep is up to. First quotes Marx and follows Marxist theory – while then saying he was wrong about everything. Then quotes General Economists (who are all Marxist) then again saying they too are wrong about everything. Can we get a voice in here that was right about something? Why are we following and referring to only those who were wrong, discredited, and/or killed 100 million people with bad theory?

    Then goes on to advise an economic theory that includes a foundation in energy – so far, so good. Except there is 100 years of energy in Russia and Iran alone. They’re signing 50-year contracts even before drilling many wells. The Syria transit the U.S. is continuing war crimes for is also a 50-year contract. So just as before, they, following people who were also wrong, are wrong again.

    So sure, add your energy foundation because you philosophically should, but it will remain entirely irrelevant for at least another 50 and quite possibly another 100 years. That’s even if we have no oil in the U.S. which I’d be astonished if we don’t, with 30,000ft wells with unstoppable flows, no drilling in Atlantic or Arctic, and oil bubbling up daily off the Malibu coast.

    The collapse is in accounting, it’s in trust. It’s in morality, it’s in promises: Not in oil.

    #132808
    Germ
    Participant

    Dr. D – your reasoning is quite correct.

    Silver is the “Magical Metal” unlike any other.
    It is:
    – the most light reflective od all metals,
    – the most electrically conductive … ,
    – the most temp. conductive …,
    – anti-microbial.

    Almost all the gold ever mined still exists above ground, almost all the silver ever mined has been ‘consumed’.

    And you are correct about the historical Gold:Silver price ratio of 16:1 – although geologically it comes out of the ground at 9:1.
    Silver is rare!

    The manipulation of the “paper silver” price on the Comex and CME, and which is holding the price down like a large gas-filled ball under water, will soon be overwhelmed by the buying of physical and shortgages.

    We have fireworks in the metals marker dead ahead.
    Silver is indeed going to the moon – as are the miners.

    “Silver will be Gold on steroids!”

    T$ISF

    #132809
    Germ
    Participant

    First comment from the article linked below:

    “I bet now, that the evidence will one day be revealed showing that those lockdowns were one of the greatest smokescreens for theft of public funds by those in power who had the most opportunity to do so. Here in the UK, it is already a fact, the tip of the iceberg is discussed in parliament, the non-tender emergency contracts awarded in that period. The genius though was that all procedures involved were legal, so none of the powerful who benefited will ever be punished. The usual poor countries routinely pointed out as irredeemably corrupt must look at us and shake their heads for the lessons in arrogant, shameless hypocrisy and greed.”

    “Flattening the Curve.” The Origins of a Bad Idea
    “We are still reeling from three years of madness, but it seems that many of us are starting to make a serious effort to try to understand what happened to us and why. How could it be that the reaction to the Covid epidemic involved a set of “measures” of dubious effectiveness, from national lockdowns to universal masking, that had never been tried before in humankind’s history? ”
    https://www.senecaeffect.com/2023/04/flattening-curve-military-origins-of.html

    … and then they all went and got injected!
    What a hoot.

    TVASF

    #132810
    Germ
    Participant


    TVASF

    #132811
    boilingfrog
    Participant

    More irony… Trump is arraigned for falsifying the books, but years ago Federal Accounting Standards Board made rule changes that allowed financial institutions to “Mark To Model (‘make believe’?) instead of Mark to Market.

    All good till folks want their money…

    Clown world continues unabated…

    #132812
    zerosum
    Participant

    More TAE highlights

    Fully Vaxxed Lose 25 Years of Life Expectancy, Study Shows


    Fully Vaxxed Lose 25 Years of Life Expectancy, Study Shows
    Frank BergmanApril 2, 2023 – 12:57 pm
    ———–

    The PfizerGate Scandal: Governments worldwide are hiding data to disguise the fact the Covid Vaccines damage the Immune System and cause AIDS


    The PfizerGate Scandal: Governments worldwide are hiding data to disguise the fact the Covid Vaccines damage the Immune System and cause AIDS
    BY THE EXPOSÉ ON MARCH 26, 2022 • ( 55 COMMENTS )

    Health authorities around the world are manipulating figures in an attempt to hide from the general public that the Covid-19 injections are causing the fully vaccinated to develop Vaccine Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome; and we can prove it…
    The Australian Cover Up
    The Canadian Cover Up
    The German Cover Up
    The PHE Cover Up (UK)
    The UKHSA Cover Up
    The PHS Cover up
    UKHSA and PHS Interpretation Warnings are Outright Frauds
    The Danish Cover Up
    Conclusion
    1. The vaccine is a fraud
    2) The regulators are frauds
    3. Hospital administrations are frauds
    4. Medical staff who vaccinate have become frauds
    5. Politicians are fraud
    Global Vaccine Action Plan.
    So I say to all those caught up in this 5 level fraud: There is no wealth without health. Therefore there is no economic security in corrupted healthcare

    And I say to all those in the mainstream media who are sitting on the fence. This is bigger than Watergate you would be Woodwards and burnt out Bernsteins. Now who’s gonna step up to the scoop?

    #132813
    Germ
    Participant

    @Dr. D

    T$ISF

    #132814
    Oroboros
    Participant

    “Feels like the fall of Europe comes first.”

    • The Fall Of America’s Benzedrine Empire

    Can’t happen soon enough

    It’s hanging on by a thread

    Get me the scissors

    .

    .

    #132815
    Germ
    Participant

    Endocrinologist Forecasts More Hormone-Related Diseases as Spike Proteins Found to Deplete Endocrine Reserves

    ” … every single day that goes by when the “vaccinated” feel just “fine” will firm up their beliefs that it is the general rule of life to not suffer any adverse events by friendly doctors and “experts” of the “Trust the Science” mafia ‘looking out for their health’ as a bureaucrat like Dr. Mengele 2.0 aka Dr. Fauci would say. Never mind that these injections offer zero inoculation, do not prevent spread whosoever, nor attenuate symptoms.”

    “This “vaccination” situation is akin to the famous turkey Thanksgiving chart:

    https://www.2ndsmartestguyintheworld.com/p/endocrinologist-forecasts-more-hormone

    TVASF ( cluck … cluck … cluck …)

    #132816
    The Markster
    Participant

    Technically this is Obama’s FOURTH term we are in the middle of right now. Obama has kept control of the DOJ, FBI, CIA, State Department and DNC machine since he left office with a smirk in January 2017. The BLM-ANTIFA gestapo work for him, as does the Big Pharma division inside the FDA, CDC and NIH. And he does not expect to lose going forward.

    #132817
    kultsommer
    Participant

    COMMUNIST RULES FOR REVOLUTION
    The list was aimed, as it appears to me, for the Western audience, since all the Countries that were communist became that in old and boring fashion way – rugged revolution. No Club 54 for them. I can imagine the price of Soviet porn, if existed, that it would have commanded now days!
    Some other snippets:
    Promotion of athletics. What’s wrong with that?
    Promotion of democracy. They never did – it was always proudly stated that there is one and only system to be obeyed.
    Now, there is that Tweeter entry right above – the polar opposite of the “List”.
    The way some are capable to consolidate the two is nothing short of miracle.

    #132818
    Oroboros
    Participant

    “…..The ‘just-in-time’ supply chain that provides the parts used to make America’s F-35 fighter jets could jeopardize the ability of US forces to keep the aircraft in service during the country’s next major war, the officer in charge of the program has reportedly claimed…..”

    The Empire of Lies Military Industrial Mafia and Uniparty has dispersed military spending across almost every Congressional district as a CONTROL GRID.

    You what a taste of the good stuff, tow the line on voting for more military mafia grift.

    You don’t go along with the program, we shut down the military mafia spending and close factories in your district.

    Pretty straight forward racket.

    The only trouble is that the military mafia is designed for profit not performance and it’s ‘supply chain’ is pure shit, totally unable to function efficiently.

    Russia has a very robust military industrial supply chained, geared for jacking up massive quantities of war material. Their war machine is designed for Performance and is getting fine tuned as we speak.

    The Empire of Lies Military Industrial Mafia and Uniparty can’t find their own asses with both hands.

    It would take decades of untangling and reorganizing along entirely different criteria and priorities to even come close to the Russian system and by then the Russians will have leap frogged into a new paradigm of warfare, leaving the Empire of Lies Military Industrial Mafia in the dust holding their limp dicks in their hands.

    Hahahahahaha!

    Real efficiency is such a bitch!

    Truth begets Reality

    Lies beget Fantasy

    The F-35 Lard Bucket can’t exceed the speed of sound without damaging it’s air-frame! Nice design

    The Russian’s 5th generation Su-57 fighter jet must be shaking in it’s undetectable 2000kph boots.

    The Motto of the Uni-party & it’s Military Mafia

    .

    #132819
    Just Some Randomer
    Participant

    @ Dr. D “$600 Silver. $10,000 gold? Question is, what is oil in that world? Can I drive to work?”

    Certainly you can drive to work…if you have stocked up on some gold and/or silver.

    Of course it’s quite likely that there will be no ‘Work’ to drive to at that point.

    #132822
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    @ Dr D


    Then quotes General Economists (who are all Marxist) then again saying they too are wrong about everything

    If general economists are “all marxists,” then how is it that they receive essentially zero training in Marxist economic theory in their many years of formal training?

    Economist Richard Wolff truly *is* a Marxist economist. He was a classmate of Janet Yellen, who is a “general economist.” Note that she has the prestigious jobs, and Prof. Wolff has never been more than a college professor. Wolff wanted to study Marx’s economic theory, but in the various economic degrees that he pursued there were no classes in Marxist theory available. Instead, he had to find a private tutor.

    The way I see it, the word “Marxism” is conflated by the West (especially in the USA) to = “communism as practiced by the Communist Party, especially as done by Stalin and Mao,” because the movers and shakers in the collective West do not want the masses to read and understand Marx, as they are worried that if the masses ever do, that the masses will become uncontrollable.

    Vilifying Marx and his writings is akin, in my view, to vilifying Christ and the New Testament because of The Crusades and The Inquisition. Christ had some wonderful, valuable teachings. Just because they have often been warped into brutal human actions does not mean that Christ caused those deplorable actions, nor that his teachings were false and without value. Just because some very corrupt men rose to the top in revolutions that claimed to be the type of “communist revolution” suggested as imminent by Marx and then proceeded to oppress the masses doesn’t mean that the very defunct Marx caused those actions. No, just as it was for The Crusades and The Inquisition, those actions were caused by corrupt evil men who simply used a du jour and available philosophy as “cover” for their reprehensible deeds.

    Now, I don’t see Marx as a god or demigod, etc. He was just a guy who saw injustice in the world and was trying his best to understand the injustice so that the rest of humanity might be benefited from his scholarship. He did not become rich or powerful in his lifetime for his efforts. He viewed economics through the lens of his own life, and his criticisms of capitalism are largely accurate, although he did “miss the boat” on the value of fossil fuels. He was fallible, like the rest of us.

    The reason why we — especially those of us in the US — have been carefully groomed to hate Marxism and Karl Marx is not because he or his teachings are inherently evil, rather, it is because Marx’s ideas are believed by The Powers That Be to be capable of turning the masses against The Elites (the WEFfers) and causing the masses to become uncontrollable.

    And this is EXACTLY the reason why I believe that it is important to read Marx — not because I want to foment a “communist revolution,” but because we can learn from Marx’s scholarship, add it to what we observe in our lives as well as to the history of the century and a half that have transpired since Marx passed, and it can aid us as we try to figure out how to move forward out of the current political and economic mess that we find ourselves in.

    #132825
    John Day
    Participant

    Holding The Wrong End is posted https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/holding-the-wrong-end

    ​Considering the Collapse of Antiquity and the Bank Panic​, ​(Michael Hudson’s birthday present to me​, extensively excerpted​.) Thanks Christine
    Danny Haiphong: Michael. I’m going to pull up — you have a new book that has recently released called “The Collapse of Antiquity: Greece and Rome as Civilization’s Oligarchic Turning Point”.​..​
    ​..​And there’s a lot of worry in the financial markets, among these large monopoly creditors. What is going on, and how does your book help us understand how we got to this place?
    Michael Hudson: ​Well, what happened in Greece and Rome is very much like what is happening today. And there’s a common denominator in all of the Western Financial systems, debts grow by compound interest.
    ​ ​That is, any rate of interest has a doubling time. [Debts] sweep up steadily, and the real economy grows much more slowly, so that debts mount up without the economy being able to pay them and there’s a crash.
    ​ ​Well, before you had Greece and Rome, you had 3,000 years of Near Eastern civilization realizing this.
    ​ ​And periodically, every new ruler that would come to the throne in the Near East for thousands of years would simply wipe the slate clean of personal debts and start all over, in balance. Because they realized that if you didn’t cancel the debts, then you would have your citizens fall into bondage and would have to work for their creditors and lose their land to foreclosing creditors. All the land would end up in the hands of just a few creditors who would usually overthrow the the government and try to take over.
    ​ ​Well, what made Greece and Rome and all subsequent societies, down to today’s United States, so different is they didn’t cancel the debts. They left the debts in place. And instead of having a ruler, or some central authority able to stop an oligarchy from developing and taking over and monopolizing all of the money and all the land, there wasn’t any central ruler.
    ​ ​This is usually called democracy. But democracies for the last 2500 years have not been very good at being able to check the rise in credit or interest. And that’s why Aristotle said that many constitutions of the Greek states claim to be democratic but they were really oligarchic.
    ​ ​And Aristotle said, — Under democracy, creditors begin to make loans and the debtors can’t pay and the creditors get more and more money, and they end up turning a democracy into an oligarchy, and then the oligarchy makes itself hereditary, and you have an aristocracy.
    ​ ​And unless members of the aristocracy say, — Wait a minute, we’re bankrupting society, we’re reducing the whole society to poverty. Nobody’s going to fight for us anymore because they’re all in bondage.
    ​ ​Unless you have some member of the upper class or some family taking over, like Cleisthenes did in Athens in 506 BC, then you’re going to have what happened in Rome — a Dark Age.
    ​ ​And a Dark Age is when the creditors take over and reduce all the rest of the economy to bondage. Or today you call it “austerity” or “debt deflation”.
    ​ ​So what’s happening in the banking crisis today is that debts grow faster than the economy can pay. And so when the interest rates finally began to be raised by the Federal Reserve, this caused a crisis for the banks.
    ​ ​And the result is the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and the other banks that have gone under are just the tip of the iceberg.​..
    ..Whenever interest rates go up, this threatens banks with insolvency, because this is how the financial system is structured. The only hope of the financial system to avoid insolvency — which it did way back in 2008 — was for the Federal Reserve to flood the economy with credit and inflate the economy.
    ​ ​That’s what the Federal Reserve quantitative easing was all about. Low interest rates immediately raised the price of bonds, real estate, and stocks. And the Fed has said its job is to protect the banks by inflating the economy — inflating, not the economy really, but by inflating the asset markets, inflating the bond market, inflating the stock market…
    ​..​And we’re in the same kind of slow crash that you had in Greece and Rome and that you always have in almost any financialized economy where all the wealth is sucked up to the top, and there’s a transfer, not only of income, but of property — to the creditor class. And that’s what we’re having today.
    ​ ​The creditor class in the US is very much like the oligarchy in Greece and Rome or under feudalism, except that class today is no longer a landlord class, because rent is for paying interest and it’s a financial class, not a landlord class.
    ​ ​If you look at where all of this legal system came from that makes Western civilization so different from the rest of the world — well, it’s that Western civilization has a pro-creditor law that turns out to be a law that favors a minority at the top instead of trying to preserve all overall economic growth, which was the objective of economic takeoffs from the Bronze Age, Sumer, Babylonia, to the first millennium, to the Near East, to Asia, for almost every country outside of the West.​..
    ​.​.Today’s economic theory — it’s junk economics, basically. It imagines that the root of all inflation is labor wanting more wages, and the solution to any inflation — and in fact to any economic problem — is to pay labor less…
    ..So the result is that since 2008 home ownership rates have fallen in the United States from 58% or 59% in 2009 to where they are now, which is below 50%.
    ​​Less than half of Americans own their own homes, as a result of monopolists buying tens of thousands — millions — of homes as investment.
    ​ ​So the American economy is shifting, from a middle class economy, where people own their own homes, to an absentee-owned landlord-run economy, run by the landlords essentially borrowing from the banks in a kind of symbiotic relationship…
    ..Well, the real problem is that labor is making so little that it’s not able to buy the goods and services that it produces, because it has to pay higher mortgage costs, it has to pay higher credit card costs.
    ​ ​This week the Federal Reserve announced that the average credit card debt in the United States was $10,000. So the average credit card holder holds $10,000 in debt…
    ​..When you wipe out the large deposits and the bank goes under, you wipe out debt. And what America needs — you could say what Western civilization has needed since Greece and Rome — is the kind of debt cancellation that kept Near Eastern economies growing for thousands of years before Rome took over the West…
    ..We have to monopolize all information technology so that now that we’ve deindustrialized the American economy, we can live without industry simply by monopoly rents. If we control the patents of information technology, and chemical patents, and the health patents for pharmaceuticals, then we can just live on our patent rights as if we’re landlords.
    ​ ​And in fact, monopoly rent, patent rent, and the rents from TikTok are very much like land rents. This was the whole point of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill and David Ricardo in the 19th century warning against remaining a rentier economy…
    ..America has pulled a color revolution at the top, in Germany, Holland, England, and France, essentially, where the foreign policy of Europe is not representing their own economic interests. America simply said, — We are committed to support a war of (what they call) democracy (by which they mean oligarchy, including the Nazism of Ukraine) against autocracy.
    ​ ​Autocracy is any country strong enough to prevent the emergence of a creditor oligarchy, like China has prevented the creditor oligarchy.
    ​ ​Like Putin and Russia have been able to to check the kleptocrats that were sponsored by the United States in the 1990s and to say to the kleptocrats, — Well you can keep the money but you have to support pro-Russian policies, not simply sell out your oil to American companies to take over. Oil and natural resources are Russian companies. We’re not going to lose our national patrimony on that…
    ..So what he ​[Lavrov] ​explained in this article was that the mistake that Putin and the Russians made was I think a legacy of their Marxist materialist background. They thought that the politics of all countries was going to reflect the economic interests of their countries.
    ​ ​They couldn’t quite believe that Europe and other countries would support a policy that was directly against their economic interests, like refusing to buy Russian oil and gas, which meant ending the entire German steel industry, and the glass blowing industry, and the fertilizer industry, all of which required gas imports from Russia…
    ..You’re having countries essentially being driven out of the American Empire by the American policy of trying to have all-or-nothing…
    ​..​The question is whether Trump and other Republicans are going to try to make the 2024 election precisely one of saying, — Well, if you’re for American prosperity, including employment for American wage earners, we’ve got to end the war economy.
    ​ ​Whereas the Democratic party said, — It’s worth cutting back Social Security here. It’s worth cutting back medical support, Medicaid and social spending in order to fight the war. Military spending is sacrosanct and the war is essentially what our State Department, our CIA, and the Federal Reserve, and Miss Yellen, is all about…
    ..Global South countries, especially Brazil — by the way, Lula is going early next month to China — they are in a squeeze today, especially now that the rise in the Federal Reserve’s interest rate has increased the dollar’s exchange rate.
    ​ ​All these Global South countries owe very heavy dollar debts. And they can’t afford to pay these dollar debts and at the same time pay more money for their imports of oil and gas and food. So what are they going to do?
    ​ ​Are they going to go without energy and turn off the lights and restrict their diets just so that they can pay foreign creditors? Or they’re not going to pay the foreign debts? …
    ..Well you can see where all this is heading. At a certain point — we’re not there yet — but China will say, — Well, you owe a lot of dollar debts that are pushing you into austerity and pushing you into reliance on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that is even more anti-labor than the Federal Reserve. You can deal with us and we’ll have our imports and we will have a mutually beneficial trade with you on easier credit terms that you can afford.
    — We realize that if you trade with us, you’ll be sanctioned, just as countries that traded with Russia were sanctioned. So why don’t you trade with us — 75% of the world’s economy — instead of with the US and Europe dollar-euro bloc that’s only 15-25% of the economy. We’ll take care of you.​..​
    ..China says, — Well, we’ve organized our credit as equity. Our credit is basically for building ports, for building infrastructure that’s we’ve put in place that’s actually going to be earning an income for the countries. We’ve made productive loans.
    ​ ​The IMF loans, the World Bank loans, and similar bondholder loans are what’s called “odious debt” — they are debt that does not help the client countries, the debtors, earn the money to pay the debt with the interest. And it’s debt that was negotiated by client oligarchies that were put in power and backed by the United States…
    ..So apart from a few vulture funds buying these debts at low prices, you have the domestic oligarchy — the domestic banking class, the financial class, the monopolist class, the old colonial class — owning this debt and, since they’re also the class that runs the central bank and indeed the government, they know they’re going to pay the foreign debt, because the foreign debt of Yankee dollars is paid to themselves.
    ​ ​The Brazilian ruling class is the recipient of the Yankee dollars. So at some point this debt crisis, certainly for countries like Brazil and I think Argentina also, are going to be involved, not necessarily a break simply with the US dollar, but with the domestic oligarchies that were client oligarchies of the United States…
    ​..​So you’re going to have what is not only a global fracture but it will finally be the domestic class war of socialism versus oligarchy, and that’s the wor​l​d that you had way back in Greece and Rome. That’s why it’s worthwhile seeing that all of these strains occurred long before. They’ve occurred again and again…
    ​..​In fact, the oligarchy almost always won by violence, and that’s certainly been the case in Brazil. I remember back in 1964 I met with Brazil’s former president I think Kubitschek, who had just been overthrown, who told me and a few others who were with me the story of what had happened and said, — You have to live with it, because America controls who’s in control of Latin America.
    ​ ​It’s its backyard, and it only trusts dictators. It doesn’t trust democratically elected leaders, because America is frightened that a democratically elected leader might represent the voters who elected him, instead of the little US Embassy with envelopes stuffed full of dollars [for bribery], and the army trained in the United States to overthrow democratic leaders​..​.
    ..Since the epoch of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, the wealthy class in the United States — the 10% — found that it could make much more money by financial means than by industrial mains.
    ​ ​And in fact, the corporate employers found they could increase profits not by lowering wages in the United States, but by simply moving their production facilities to China and other countries in Asia and producing at lower wages.
    ​ ​So the whole idea of free trade, especially under the Clintons after 1990, was an attempt to replace American industrial labor with Asian and other industrial labor, including the maquiladoras along the border with Mexico.
    ​ ​Maquiladoras were factories put just over the border to get low-price non-unionized labor, Mexican labor, as opposed to American labor.
    ​ ​So you had a decision led by the Democratic party to replace American labor with less expensive foreign labor, and under Clinton also to deregulate the financial sector and essentially turn what was a traditional commercial banking sector into a brokerage house sector, into financial gambling on derivatives, financial stock purchases, buying and selling companies…
    ​.​.So now you have a critical mass of countries, 75-85% of the world’s population, saying, — Wait a minute, if we’re producing all of the industrial products and raw materials that make industrial products, what do we need the dollar American and European rentiers for?​ …​
    ..Well, the United States and Europe say, — Our role is to refrain from bombing you. Our role is not to treat you like we’ve treated Libya and Iraq and Syria. We can offer you not-bombing-you like we did in these countries…
    ​..​It’s not only China, it’s Russia. Saudi Arabia for years, what it wanted more than anything else from the United States was military arms, especially when its Sunni leadership was thinking of military war with Shiite Iran.
    ​ ​So the one thing that Saudi Arabia did depend on United States industry for was armaments, airplanes especially. In the last few months, Saudi Arabia has begun to buy arms from Russia. You can imagine how this has upset the American military industrial complex, because this was where America was making enormous monopoly rents off its high-priced armaments…
    ..You can see what was happening with Saudi Arabia. [Their thought process is], — America’s always really wanted to control our oil industry and it’s always been threatening that it’ll become our enemy if we make peace with Iran. Well, we want to make peace with Iran because otherwise Iran may blow up our oil fields, and they may sink a ship in the [Strait] of Hormuz and prevent our exports from occurring.
    ​ ​The Saudi Arabians are deciding, you never want to put all your eggs in one basket. They’re diversifying, and that includes Russia…
    ..But your real question I think was about why China pulled ahead, and not the United States.
    ​ ​China is pulling ahead by doing exactly what the United States was doing in the late 19th century. It’s pulled ahead by using an active government sector to subsidize basic needs…this was all spelled out by the first professor of economics at the first business school in the United States, Simon Patten, who taught at the University of Pennsylvania.
    ​ ​He said, — The United States emphasizes a fourth factor of production besides labor, land, and capital, and that is public infrastructure spending. The Erie Canal has made possible the grain exports of the midwestern grain coming into upstate New York into the east coast.
    ​ ​He said that public railroads, public education, public health, all of this, the role of government infrastructure is to lower the cost of living by providing basic needs like education, healthcare, a job, freely or at least at a subsidized cost.
    ​ ​Well, this is what made American industry able to undersell industries that did not have as rapid or as well-developed a public sector in Europe.
    ​ ​Well, since Reagan and Thatcher privatized the public sector, now you have the public sector trying to make profit.​..​
    ​..You had the privatization and carve up and break up of the public sector in the United States. The costs went way up. That’s why privatized healthcare in the United States absorbs 18% of GDP. Whereas, even in conservative England in the 19th century Benjamin Disraeli, the Conservative prime minister, said, “Health, all is health”, and wanted to provide healthcare. After World War II, Britain’s National Health Service was a model for the whole rest of the world…
    ​..​China has not only kept basic infrastructure in the public domain, but it’s kept the most important utility in the public domain: banking.
    ​You have the Bank of China creating the credit. The function of the Bank of China is not to create public credit for take-over loans to take over companies, break them up, and reduce employment. It’s to help the economy grow…
    ​..And that’s what the United States calls “autocracy” and says China is an autocracy because it has public banking instead of leaving it in private hands to do to China what our banks have done to the American economy…
    ​..​Democracies abolish the infrastructure, privatize it, usually selling it off to American or European buyers, and say that, — There’s no such thing as a basic human need. Land can be a commodity to make financial gains from by charging rent that people have to borrow money to buy.
    ​ ​[Democracies say,] — There’s no such thing as a public need. Health is not a basic right. It’s a monopoly opportunity for pharmaceutical companies and health insurance companies to make enormous gains. Having a job is not a public right. Losing a job is a right of the financial and corporate class to create enough unemployment to keep wages down so the profits ostensibly can go up.
    ​ ​So basically, a democracy is a country that lives in the short run for privatized financial gains and an autocracy takes long run planning into account and keeps planning in the democratically-elected sector, not in the hands of the financial centers such as Wall Street, Paris, the city of London, or other other banking centers…
    ​..​The IMF loan to Ukraine gives the Global South countries immediate reason to annul all debts owed to the IMF and the World Bank as agents of the US subversion of their countries, giving them loans on conditions that instead of helping them repay the debt, they impose austerity programs that actually prevent IMF clients from repaying their debts…
    [link won’t load, sorry]

    #132826
    John Day
    Participant

    To Fight the State, Build Alternatives to the State​ Forwarded by Charles Hugh Smith.
    ​Thus, if we are meaningfully oppose state power, it is necessary to encourage, grow, and sustain institutions and organization over which states cannot so easily roll their enormous weight. When people support a local parish, raise a family, build a business, create mutual aid organizations, or foster local civic independence, they are doing work that is absolutely critical to fighting state power. While it is always good to speak ill of state power—and to oppose its countless violent and impoverishing grifts—this is not enough. We must also speak well of nonstate institutions and strengthen them in our daily work and daily lives. Without these institutions of kinship, religion, markets, and towns, nonstate society will be irrelevant.
    ​ ​Mere opposition to the state—without viable private or local alternatives—will never be sufficient. People want services like education and help for widows, orphans, and the disabled. They want safety, a sense of community, and solidarity with others. These benefits of society do not require states, but they do require institutions. Yet these institutions in our own time as so reduced as to offer little as alternatives to the state.
    https://mises.org/wire/fight-state-build-alternatives-state

    ​Meryl Nass MD: ​​Why Legislators Should Reject the WHO’s Proposals for Pandemics/ David Bell, MBBS, PhD
    a wonderful summary of what is being proposed through the WHO to wrest sovereignty from the human population under the guise of public health
    https://merylnass.substack.com/p/why-legislators-should-reject-the

    ​ Charles also found this useful health information:
    ​ ​Effective management of atherosclerosis progress and hyperlipidemia with nattokinase: A clinical study with 1,062 participants
    ​ ​Nattokinase (NK), known as a potent fibrinolytic and antithrombotic agent, has been shown to have antiatherosclerotic and lipid-lowering effects. However, data on human clinical studies are limited. In this clinical study involving 1,062 participants, our objective was to examine the efficacy of NK in atherosclerosis and hyperlipidemia and safety at the dose of 10,800 FU/day after 12 months of oral administration. Various factors, including lower doses that influence NK pharmacological actions, were also investigated.
    ​ ​We found that NK at a dose of 10,800 FU/day effectively managed the progression of atherosclerosis and hyperlipidemia with a significant improvement in the lipid profile. A significant reduction in the thickness of the carotid artery intima-media and the size of the carotid plaque was observed. The improvement rates ranged from 66.5 to 95.4%. NK was found to be ineffective in lowering lipids and suppressing atherosclerosis progression at a dose of 3,600 FU/day. The lipid-lowering effect of NK was more prominent in subjects who smoked, drank alcohol, and subjects with higher BMI. Regular exercise further improved the effects of NK. Co-administration of vitamin K2 and aspirin with NK produced a synergetic effect. No noticeable adverse effects associated with the use of NK were recorded.
    ​ ​In conclusion, our data demonstrate that atherosclerosis progression and hyperlipidemia can be effectively managed with NK at a dose of 10,800 FU/day. The lower dose of 3,600 FU per day is ineffective. The dose of 10,800 FU/day is safe and well tolerated. ​ ​Some lifestyle factors and the coadministration of vitamin K2 and aspirin lead to improved outcomes in the use of NK.
    https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcvm.2022.964977/full

    ​ Also from Charles…
    ​ ​Following a radically successful trial on cancer patients, a new blood test that promises to predict tumors more than a year before they begin to form is now being applied in hospitals across the United Kingdom.
    “This is the first pan-cancer blood test,” said Ashish Tripathi, founder and CEO of Tzar Labs as well as chairman of Epigeneres Biotech, the Indian firm where the test was first developed in 2021. An updated report on their findings was published this month in the journal Stem Cells.
    “We can detect [cancer] earlier than other known technologies … before the tumor has physically formed,” Tripathi continued during a new interview with author and medical advocate Deepak Chopra.
    “Not only can I actually detect it at this stage — I can actually tell you which cancer and where it is forming, straight from a blood test.”​…​
    ..In a trial of 1,000 participants — 500 non-cancer and 500 cancer patients — researchers were able to accurately anticipate the formation of tumors across at least 25 types of cancer, including all of the most prevalent and deadly varieties, such as breast, pancreatic, lung and colorectal. Even some participants within the presumed “non-cancer” group were found to have a predisposition for future cancer diagnosis.
    ​ ​“We did not get even one false negative, not even one false positive,” Tripathi noted…
    ​..Despite the numerous blood-based cancer screening methods that have recently been in development, Tripathi’s team’s approach differs by zeroing in on stem cells with a biomarker for cancer, as opposed to searching for full-blown tumor cells that may already be present. This allows them to determine whether cancer is on the horizon well before those cells have progressed to form a tumor.
    https://nypost.com/2023/03/27/holy-grail-of-cancer-detection-predicts-tumors-a-year-before-they-form-breakthrough/

    ​ Charles also sent this compelling explanation of the meaning of life. It is succinct:
    ​ ​Yes to Life, in Spite of Everything: Viktor Frankl’s Lost Lectures on Moving Beyond Optimism and Pessimism to Find the Deepest Source of Meaning
    ​ ​The young Viennese neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl (March 26, 1905–September 2, 1997) was taken to Auschwitz along with more than a million human beings robbed of the basic right to answer this question for themselves, instead deemed unworthy of living. Some survived by reading. Some through humor. Some by pure chance. Most did not. Frankl lost his mother, his father, and his brother to the mass murder in the concentration camps. His own life was spared by the tightly braided lifeline of chance, choice, and character.

    Yes to Life, in Spite of Everything: Viktor Frankl’s Lost Lectures on Moving Beyond Optimism and Pessimism to Find the Deepest Source of Meaning

    #132828
    John Day
    Participant

    How’d I miss this?
    Long-awaited Fed digital payment system to launch in July
    https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/15/long-awaited-fed-digital-payment-system-to-launch-in-july.html

    #132830
    zerosum
    Participant

    Thanks for finding and pub
    https://www.unz.com/mhudson/considering-the-collapse-of-antiquity-and-the-bank-panic/
    I always wondered how previous civilizations were able to last so long.

    #132831
    John Day
    Participant

    Ah, zerosum, It’s YOU.

    🙂

    #132832
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    tow the line

    Toe the line.

    I thought we sorted that one out months ago.

    But lets face it, everyone knows what is meant, whether it’s tow the line or toe the line: it means to not follow your own logic or morality but instead go along with a edict issued by an authoritarian figure who want to implement policies/actions that are likely to cause harm.

    I guess the managers of Finland were told they would not have jobs or even have a country if they didn’t tow/toe the line and allow the forces of Oceania-NATO to increase their military presence, and in doing so reduce the wellbeing and security of the people Finland.

    Airstrip Five took two major hits yesterday as a consequence of being an Airstrip of The Empire of Lies; base interest rates up, stoking devaluation of fiat currency and pulling down the housing market at an even faster rate -putting more people who bought near the market peak ‘under water’ and further crushing the dwelling construction sector; further demolition of the farming sector via a further fall in international dairy (milk, milk powder, cheese) prices.

    And of course, there was a rise in fuel prices on Tuesday as a consequence of the increase in international oil prices.

    There’s a rumour about The Scorpion having had a job created for it: something to do with ‘working for King Charles III’. Presumably this will involve setting up and office and hiring twenty or thirty office staff -most of them provided with electric vehicles that run in part on coal-generated electricity, with unlimited travel and free food and accommodation for The Scorpion thing itself, plus a small army of ‘security forces’ to ensure this specimen of filth, c.f. Macron, does not have to fend off ‘hate speech’ for itself, cowardly liar that it is..

    I was asked yesterday whether banks in this sector of Oceania are secure (the questioner didn’t use the term Oceania, as she is still very much in The Matrix); I pointed out that none of the banks are secure (they are all upside-down and most have few if any reserves) but TSB is arguably more secure than most as it is it largely in the home mortgage market as opposed to more commercial banks, which are heavily into the international Mafia-run casino.

    It’s getting a little more difficult to blame Putin for everything that has been happening. So maybe we will be subjected to Two Minutes of Hate directed at Trump until the latest piece of theatre blows up in Big Brother’s face.

    Isn’t it farcical that Trump gets accused of falsifying a financial entry when the entire NATOstan-Oceania financial-economic system is fake and fraudulent and is progressing rapidly towards terminal collapse.

    I guess that what The Scorpion meant when it campaigned in the recent past on the basis of the slogan ‘Let’s keep moving’ [towards the abyss].

    I think, for a lot of people the Wile E Coyote moment has arrived.

    #132833
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Insane New Bill In Canada Criminalizes Making Fun Of LGBT – Satanic Tyranny

    The Woketards have jammed their blood funnel into Canuckistan’s heart.

    Good luck with that

    #132834
    Rototillerman
    Participant

    Dr. D, Germ: regarding silver:

    “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” – Yogi Berra

    That being said, I think there is a slow-moving realization in the silver markets that the paper-dominated dance is about to end. Consider the 90% silver coin page at jmbullion.com: a week ago there were around a dozen products for sale (various denominations and quantities). Yesterday there were four. Today there are… oops, there is… one!

    Consider also the ratio of face value to purchase price: a couple years back when I bought silver dimes it was an 18x multiplier (meaning a silver dime costs $1.80 to purchase); when I bought dimes and quarters in 2022 it was 22x; and today it is over 30x. All of that is happening while the paper price has hardly budged.

    https://www.jmbullion.com/silver/junk-silver/90-silver/all-90-silver/

    #132835
    John Day
    Participant

    Yves Smith picks apart the “empty bag” Trump indictments.

    The Shambolic Criminal Case Against Donald Trump

    #132836
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Sergey Naryshkin on Poland’s plans to seize Western Ukraine by default and stealth

    Ah, Polish jokes write themselves.

    Poland is creaming it’s pants at the thought of reincorporating Western Ukraine [Eastern Cresy] back into Poland proper.

    “The Polish leadership believes that the condition for the implementation of this idea is the collapse of Ukrainian Statehood as a result of a military defeat”

    Well, that says it all about Poland’s duplicitous motives.

    “And so the Polish government does not want and opposes a peaceful settlement….”

    Cause they need the Ukronazis to be totally defeated with a Russian Face Stomp

    Then it will be easier to grap Western Ukraine with Nazilensky swing from a lamp post.

    In other words, Polish is just licking it’s chops and waiting to stick a shiv into Ukronaziland’s back.

    High Five!

    Can’t wait!

    #132837
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Excellent analysis from Brian again.

    #132838
    Mr. House
    Participant

    “Yves Smith picks apart the “empty bag” Trump indictments.”

    She’s still a C$%^ and can burn in hell until she apologizes for how wrong she was with regards to covid. She posts articles like that to make you think she cares, she doesn’t. Her entire life has been milking the financial system and she still does to this day. I also find it very surprising she moved to NYC to Alabama right before covid hit. And then censored anyone who disagreed with her about covid.

    #132839
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Details on The Scorpion’s new role in promoting tyranny:

    New Zealand’s Lockdown Queen Becomes Internet Authoritarian

    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/new-zealands-lockdown-queen-becomes-internet-authoritarian

    #132840
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Be All You Can Be – U.S. Army’s new brand trailer | U.S. Army

    Empire of Lies military mafia recruitment failing big time.

    The Snowflake Rainbow Farts in this propaganda plea would be smoked by Wagner in a NY minute.

    Hugs & Kisses,

    Be All the Freaks Your Twisted Imagination Can Conjure Up

    COMMENTS to this joke of a recruitment ad

    ~ “Be all you can be. You can be fat and out of shape. You can be a man that thinks he’s a woman. You can be anything you want. Go army!”

    ~ My family and I will never again put our lives at risk for a country that hates it’s own people.

    ~ If US WWII soldiers could see this ad they would have fought for Germany.

    ~ No Russian ever called me a racist, looted or burned down my hometown

    ~ They just gave a high-paying engineering job at work to an Indian guy with an H1-B visa who barely speaks English. I can’t wait to give my life for this country!

    ~ I’m not dying for the tiny hat people. No Russian ever called me a bigot or forced me to use fake pronouns.

    #132841
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Sign up to defend the City of Brotherly Love

    Philly “Junkies R US”

    #132842
    Dr. D
    Participant

    On Democracies. Um, well most of the them weren’t democracies. There WERE Democracies in Greece and once upon a time in Rome but they were a noticable exception. Yes, they decay into oligarchies and aristocracies, which is why we’re not supposed to have one. I don’t know why that’s so hard to knock into people’s thick heads. Deep breath, Repeat after me: The Founding Fathers hated and feared democracies above all things. We are not a democracy, effectively or legally. We are a Republic. The law that they set and remains in effect does not allow or at least not encourage the debt problem of which he speaks. Bankruptcy is enshrined in Federal Law, you and I can take it any time. So there’s a lot of ignorance going on.

    “the Fed has said its job is to protect the banks by inflating the economy” Yes it has, but that is counter to its mandate, as indeed most of their actions are. And openly illegal. What do you want me to say? If Congress has no interest in enforcing the law and won’t remove a mandate that is openly against themselves, the economy, and the people, am I supposed to make them? Suppose there was widespread and open bribery – but you don’t have to imagine – and no one enforced it anymore. Is it like a logical or philosophical flaw that no one will follow their own, law, principles, and self-interest? That’s not really relevant to the theory if everyone is merely fudging the whole data experiment instead.

    .When you wipe out the large deposits and the bank goes under, you wipe out debt. …is the kind of debt cancellation”

    Yes, it’s called “Bankruptcy” and it’s been repealed. No one has to go bankrupt ever again. However, that is the #Opposite of nearly every historic era and school, and all “Western Finance” through all history until now. If BlackRock and Sachs went bankrupt in ‘08 as legally and mathematically required, they wouldn’t be bidding up house prices now, would they? “Western Finance’ had the solution and used it for 400 years before now. Only now have we re-established a King. We told them not to, and they established a coup instead.

    He also has no interest in “TikTok rents”; Don’t use TikTok. That’s not a rent, that’s like not buying Gucci bags. Don’t. He says “we can’t afford houses.” The Amish can afford houses quite handily because they work together and don’t stab each other all day like the rest of us. It’s called community and morality, you may have read about it somewhere in books.

    “[GOP =] American prosperity, including employment for American wage earners, we’ve got to end the war economy.
    ​ ​Whereas the Democratic party said, — It’s worth cutting back Social Security here. It’s worth cutting back medical support, Medicaid and social spending in order to fight the war.”

    That is quite the switch. Will anyone catch up or is it one funeral at a time?

    “[Chinese] credit is basically for building ports, for building infrastructure that’s we’ve put in place that’s actually going to be earning an income for the countries. We’ve made productive loans.”

    Unproductive loans should go bankrupt. We have outlawed bankruptcy in opposition to all capitalist economics ever. Therefore, it now fails because it’s not “Western Finance” in any way, ever. China, a communist country can understand this and it’s quite the switch. Will anyone catch up or is it one funeral at a time?

    “the domestic class war of socialism versus oligarchy, and that’s the wor​l​d that you had way back in Greece and Rome.”

    Because there was no private property in Greece and Rome? Because Roman Senate directed all economic activity and not wealthy villa owners? What are you talking about? If every premise is wrong, one can only expect the conclusion to be wrong.

    “​..​In fact, the oligarchy almost always won by violence,” and the people have won by violence too. But also using not-violence, while usually the oligarchy gets its way using not-violence as well. So all 4 boxes of our matrix are checked yes. Conclusions: All things are all things that are. True = False True = True

    “Reagan and Thatcher privatized the public sector, now you have the public sector trying to make profit.”

    I can’t think of anything Reagan privatized. Air traffic is the same, Gov’t still unionized. Medical was always private. We have fewer arms companies than ever. It implies America was ever nationalized and government run to begin with. When would that have happened? Under Hoover? Coolidge? Andrew Jackson? Quite obviously his healthcare example is dead-wrong. We never had national healthcare and prices rose the instant it became MORE public, government run, and less privatized. The governments own rules outlawed all the private practices that had enormous diversity in providing resources before then. It’s just totally made up and the #Opposite.

    He finishes with saying open Slavery is good and correct and necessary. That is to say, it is your RIGHT to get healthcare. That means someone must GIVE it to you, for free. They are therefore your slave, if that is in fact your actual “Right.” He says you have a RIGHT to a job. No matter what you do, I must hire and pay you, I am your slave. Even if you do no work at all and kick me every morning, I have no options and you have no responsibilities. Otherwise it’s not a “Right.” So he is very dangerous person who very much doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

    Marx certainly isn’t very responsible for Marxist revolutions. Or even parties. That’s true. ALL economics is Marxism, as far as I’ve read or been schooled in. There is nothing out there not Marx or Marx-lite except Smith and Mises. Even the Anti-Marxists use nothing but Marxist outlook and vocabulary. That’s why it’s so easy to say that all are, as all are Keynesians, and only Keynesians have all powers of position nationwide and nearly worldwide. The Chicago School is just a lump that helps Keynes along.

    Now the reason I bring it up again, is THEY say they are Marxists. THEY say they follow and believe him. And as far as I can tell, they do. They are the prefect expression of his original thought, unlike Christianity, which I believe would oppose mass murder or even single murder. Marx believed in the Revolution, the inevitability, and that it would lead to wonderful things. What am I supposed to call them? If I guy both says he’s a Mormon and strictly follows the Book of Mormon and Mormon leaders, he’s a Mormon. Qvack.

    The reason I am adamant is because I hold the opposite view. Leaders aren’t troubled by Marx in the least, he’s been an enormous help and aid to them for 150 years running. Never a single year Marxism’s been around the rich haven’t prospered by it. The workers, when adopting Marxism always lose, are always under control, always suffer, and always die by the millions. What’s for a billionaire or Security State not to like? It’s the state and oligarchs’ highest goal and order to bring in Marxism which is alluring and misdirects people’s efforts away from all the things that work. Historically work for nations, families, and individuals. What they hate is LIBERTY. Property. Freedom of choice. Self-defense and self-determination.

    Thus we see even today, nothing BUT billionaires and corporations as represented by the WEF, spending trillions to re-establish the Soviet program in Europe and even worldwide. They openly train and fund literal Marxist revolutionaries as seen in the leaders of BLM and Antifa, who were on TV openly proud of it. It’s not a secret. If billionaires and corporations don’t like Marxism, they certainly have a hundred-billion dollar strange way of showing it. Nike. Amazon. Disney. The most brazenly evil companies and people on earth and who do they choose to support, even at their own collapse and bankruptcy like BuzzFeed and HuffPo? Marxists. Every decision is not only pro-Marxist, funding them, but also anti-Capitalist, and anti-profit. (or they wouldn’t go bankrupt, alienate customers, and be sued by shareholders.)

    I mean, don’t YOU find that odd? If they’re so successful and so anti-capitalism, why would their own enemies be almost their sole benefactor on planet earth? If Putin said Germany was his foremost enemy, but then 90% of all German organization, parties, and funding came from Putin, wouldn’t that be suspicious? — They’re not “Really” Marxists? They say they are. They follow the premises, both original and historic. Other people have a consensus that they are, nearly worldwide. The Dictionary says they are. I don’t know what you want from me.

    I can only presume you yourself Marxist in some way, or there would be no need for such a far-reaching defense. That’s okay, I don’t mind, but I won’t not have the opinion you’re probably going to kill everyone quite widely with your policy decisions then. In fact, it’s already started. We’re in the inflation where prices have doubled and the poorest are being crushed. This is very standard rulebook stuff, written even before 1919 and every month since: Destroy the poor. Devastate the nation. Break up the family. Using policies with pretty, pretty names. Strychnine: isn’t that just just a beautiful, exotic, scientific-sounding word? Take yours today. 9 out of 10 experts say, and no one’s complained afterwards yet!

    #132843
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Final Railway Portion of Kerch/Crimea Bridge Now Goes Up

    Living in the Empire of Lies, it must look almost supernatural to see another country that actually works and builds and solves problems rapidly and decisively.

    Meanwhile two days ago back in the Empire of Lies

    The Road Goes On Forever and the Party Never Ends!

    Train derails, spilling beer in western Montana

    Party by the River!

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