Gain-of-Function May Explain Bird Flu Jump To Cows And Humans

  The job of a data scientist is to look at data and find patterns to explain what is going on. The Covid crisis has been a textbook example of "patterns" at odd with the narrative as we documented extensively on this blog. 

  In the 1960s following the assassination of JFK, the CIA invented the concept of "conspiracy theory" in order to dismiss more easily the proof that some people were bringing to the table that a lone assassin could not possibly have killed a president. The Warren commission wrote an absurd report full of unbelievable facts such as bullets bouncing and reentering bodies at different angles and whoever exposed the absurdity was labelled a conspiracy theorist. No need to disprove anything for the well oiled propaganda machine.

  Move forward 50 years and admire the progress of social engineering. Now exposing the lies of the Covid campaign for this is what is was, a campaign, got you the fresh label of anti-vax, similar to the label of global warming denialist for looking at actual data related to the climate. 

  The power of such term is strong enough that you do not need to discuss any troubling data. Whatever doesn't fit the narrative is preemptively cancelled on ideological ground. If fact, if you put it in those terms, you suddenly realize that it applies to almost every controversial issue nowadays. Either you conform or you are a heretic who deserves to be silenced.  

  And on and on, we move from subject to subject, crimes are exposed, whistleblowers are shunned, the narrative is restored. They "own" the science!

  Except that they don't. Science is not yet dead and the truth can still be exposed for all to see. The only thing they own is the medias that fewer and fewer people listen to.

  Now bird flu. The latest iteration of genetic manipulation being presented as natural evolution even though absolutely nothing is natural about the virus and its behavior as exposed below...

  What should be abundantly clear by now is that the problem we have is not "climate", "virus", "terrorists" or any other emerging factor but a more fundamental one of a system gone rogue using the scare of the day to push an agenda of world domination and enslavement of bodies and minds. 

  The good thing is that more and more people are coming to this view and understand what is going on. The less good one is that the people doing these things are ruthless and will stop at nothing. They will play with fire, nuclear, AI or genetic engineering until eventually some sparks ignite a global conflagration. Now faced with a collapsing financial system, why not push all the buttons at once. Isn't it the modern equivalent of upturning the apple cart? What could go wrong? 

Authored by  Yuhong Dong, M.D., Ph.D. and Xiaoxu Sean Lin, M.D., Ph.D. via The Epoch Times,

(Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)

In the past six months, bird flu has surprised scientists at least twice.

Bird flu viruses have circulated mainly in birds for a long time. However, in early December 2023, an outbreak occurred in U.S. dairy cows, even though cattle are not typically susceptible to avian influenza A, the bird flu virus.

In late March, a U.S. dairy farm worker was infected by a H5N1 virus from a cow.

On May 22, a second human case of H5N1 infection was reported with prior exposure to infected dairy cows in Michigan.

On the same day in May, an Australian child was infected by an H7 strain,  another subtype of influenza A  known to cause human infections.

Since bird flu infections in humans are rare, these incidents have raised significant concern among scientists.

Why is this happening, and how concerned should we be?

This article aims to avoid unnecessary fear about a potential future pandemic. Instead, we encourage people to think rationally and make appropriate adjustments for the future.

Rapid Spread in Birds

The history of the H5N1 virus family can be traced back to 1996 when it was first discovered in a sick goose in the Guangdong province of China.

H5N1 has evolved, resulting in different genetic lineages (clades) as they mutate, similar to a typical pattern of behavior for RNA viruses such as the ever-emerging COVID-19 variants. In 2013, the H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b emerged. Since then, it has spread rapidly to nearly 100 countries across Asia, Europe, Africa, and America, becoming the most dominant clade and causing significant losses to the poultry industry.

Relative frequency of different clades of bird flu viruse based on data from GISAID’s EpiFlu database. (Illustrated by The Epoch Times)

In December 2021, this particular clade 2.3.4.4b, was first identified in wild birds in the United States.

The clade quickly mixed with other circulating influenza A viruses in wild birds in North America. This resulted in viral reassortment and recombination of genes and exhibiting diverse characteristics. Many of these variants cause severe illnesses in mammals, significantly affecting their nervous system.

The Jump to Cows

The avian influenza virus, commonly called the bird flu virus, belongs to the flu virus family. Flu viruses have many natural hosts, including ducks, geese, swans, gulls, terns, waders, pigs, and horses.

Certain types of flu viruses typically infect specific hosts and do not usually jump from one host to another.

There is a wide variety of bird flu viruses, ranging from H1 to H19, but they have mostly remained in birds and animals, rarely affecting humans.

This changed with the H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b.

Type A flu viruses normally infect wild and domestic birds. Recently, the H5N1 flu virus has also infected domestic mammals and even humans. (Illustrated by The Epoch Times) 

This clade became concerning because of their frequent spillover events. A spillover event occurs when a virus from one normal host reservoir jumps into a new or different host species, for example, jumping from a bird to a horse or cattle.

Since December 2023, the highly pathogenic H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b viruses have been reported to spread in dairy cows in multiple U.S. states, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Centers for Disease Control.

From early this year, some cows have been producing less milk and eating less. It was later confirmed that the H5Nx clade 2.3.4.4b viruses were present in both the cows’ milk and nasal samples. The USDA reported an outbreak in this clade in cows for the first time.

The December USDA preprint reveals that the same viral strain was found in dairy cows that have no known connection to the infected herds. This suggests that the transmission in cows has already started quietly, and asymptomatic cows likely contributed to the rapid spread of the virus.

As of May 28, there were 67 herds infected by the H5N1 virus in nine states. Despite the low number of infected herds, this could indicate that it is no longer just a spillover event, but rather a significant expansion of host tropism. The concern is when a large-scale outbreak might occur.

Furthermore, as dairy cows often live in close proximity to humans, infections in cows may also impact human health.

The Likely Jump to Humans

Although bird flu infections in humans have been rare, they can happen.

In the past 20 years, there have been sporadic human infections with the H5N1 virus. There have been 888 infected patients, resulting in 463 deaths reported across 23 countries. The majority of cases have occurred in Egypt, Indonesia, and Vietnam. These cases have resulted in a cumulative case fatality rate of more than 50 percent, based on data collected by the World Health Organization.

Since these cases are mostly scattered throughout Asia, they haven’t received much public attention in Western countries until recently.

In April 2022, a case was confirmed in a Colorado poultry worker who has since recovered. This was the first known case of H5N1 infection transmitted from poultry to a human in the United States.

The second human case in the United States didn’t occur until late March. A dairy farm worker in Texas showed symptoms of hemorrhagic conjunctivitis in both eyes and was confirmed to be infected by the H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b. He had no respiratory symptoms and fully recovered within a few days.

However, this person reported no contact with sick or dead birds but had close exposure to sick dairy cows. The cows showed decreased milk production, reduced appetite, fever, and dehydration, suggesting H5N1 infection.

This was the first report in the United States of the highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 virus suspected of transmitting from a mammalian animal species to a human.

These cases have alerted scientists, as they suggest that the virus may have acquired the ability to spread between mammals and potentially infect humans.

If a highly pathogenic H5N1 virus were to develop the ability to spread easily among humans, including through human-to-human transmission, it could have a significant impact on the human population, given the high mortality rate observed in previous cases.

Since these are the only two confirmed U.S. cases of cow-to-human transmission, the full extent of similar infections and the mortality rate remain unknown. 

The spillover from one species to another typically happens naturally through the food chain. For instance, it can happen when infected birds are eaten by another species. These events generally occur on a small scale, unlike the widespread occurrences seen in U.S. cattle.

What caused the recent jump to cows from another species? Was it a natural, random event as in the past, or were other factors involved?

Gained the Ability to Spread via Aerosols

The original avian H5N1 viruses were not easily transmissible between mammals.

About a decade ago, two virologists, Yoshihiro Kawaoka from the University of Wisconsin in Madison and Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands, alarmed the world by conducting high-risk gain-of-function studies on H5N1.

The process was complex. For example, a mutant H5N1 virus was created carrying the specific gene mutation PB2 E627K. It was then passed through ferrets 10 times. After gaining a total of five mutations, the mutant H5N1 virus gained the ability to be transmitted via aerosols or respiratory droplets.

These mutations had only been found in nature, but never all within the same strain. Moreover, their lab manipulation and enhanced ability to transmit via aerosol has resulted in pandemic potential.

In 2011, Paul Keim, a microbial geneticist who chaired the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), expressed concern after reviewing their publications. “I can’t think of another pathogenic organism that is as scary as this one,” he told Science. Having worked on anthrax for many years, he added, “I don’t think that anthrax is scary at all compared to this.”

Publishing these key mutations enables others to replicate the work in their own labs and marks the beginning of the unsettling H5N1 narrative.

The H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b was first detected in 2013.

Further Manipulation in a Chinese Lab

On April 1, 2021, a three-party project was initiated between the United States, the UK, and China that included the USDA, the U.S. National Poultry Research Center, the Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory (SEPRL) in Georgia, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and the Roslin Institute in the UK.

The USDA is sponsoring a grant of $1 million for this project. The SEPRL and Roslin Institute provide expertise in avian immunology genomics and viral transcriptomics analysis.

The actual experiments are conducted in China’s CAS lab. There might be a specific reason for choosing this location.

The project, as we’ll explain later, is also a gain-of-function (GOF) study.

GOF studies on the bird flu virus have triggered broad criticism by the U.S. scientific community since 2011. Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist and laboratory director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology, also told Science, “This work should never have been done.” From a biosafety perspective, scientists have expressed concern that a new virus generated through research could escape from the lab or that bioterrorists could leverage the published results into a bioweapon for malignant purposes.

In the United States, gain-of-function experiments involving influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus were banned from October 2014 through December 2017. The moratorium was lifted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Dec. 19, 2017.

Chinese labs often have sufficient technical capacity but face a major challenge due to relatively loose biosecurity regulations.

Former CDC director, Dr. Robert Redfield, recently stated, “Bird flu, I think, is going to be the cause of a great pandemic—where they are teaching these viruses how to be more infectious for humans.”

A Severe, Rapidly Spreading Virus

Chinese scientists are not opposed to doing risky gain-of-function studies on bird flu viruses.

For example, in a study published in Science in May 2013, scientists led by Chen Hualan at Harbin Veterinary Research Institute in Harbin, China, combined the highly lethal but not easily transmissible H5N1 virus with the highly contagious H1N1 swine flu strain, which infected millions of people in 2009.

At least three aspects of the three-party collaborative project study design strongly indicate its gain-of-function nature. However, these may be difficult to discern without reading between the lines.

One significant issue is the experimental approach known as “serial passage.” The process of serial passage research is widely acknowledged by scientists as a tool for gain-of-function studies.

Serial passage involves growing and reproducing the virus from one cell to another or from one animal to another. These studies have high risks of generating mutations that can lead to greater transmissibility, pathogenicity, and zoonotic transmission. The more potent mutants can be selected for the next passage.

As written in their proposal, CAS scientists are responsible for measuring “fitness,” which indicates the outcome of a viral infection—whether it develops faster or slower and whether it results in a severe or mild illness. Samples are collected before and after each round of passages to identify patterns of transmission and pathogenicity. This increases the likelihood of creating mutant H5N1 strains that can cause more severe diseases with faster transmission.

The second clue is linked to the animal models they carefully selected to reproduce the virus—mallard ducks, Chinese geese, and Japanese quail.

The mallard duck is the most abundant migratory and wide-ranging duck on Earth and can crossbreed with 63 other species. It is an asymptomatic carrier harboring many bird flu viruses, potentially allowing more mutated viruses to recombine.

Flu viruses are large, single-stranded RNA viruses comprising an eight-segmented genome. This unique feature of the virus genome implies that it is easy to reassort to one another, resulting in different combinations of genomes, especially when given a perfect condition of many different types of viruses residing in one host.

Furthermore, the Japanese quail has a dual expression of two bird flu virus receptors on both avian and mammalian species. It is such an ideal host that after a series of passage trials, people can identify those strains that are more adaptive to mammalian receptors but not bird receptors.

Therefore, this study design favors the selection of a mutated H5N1 virus that has enhanced tropism for mammalian hosts with a higher pathogenicity or transmissibility.

This is a technologically well-designed study setting to achieve the gain-of-function purpose, in which the study objective appears to be about enhanced surveillance, monitoring, fitness, and vaccine studies.

In addition, this study plans to use live viruses to challenge mallard ducks with low-pathogenic bird flu viruses first, followed by a high-pathogenic virus.

Because the bird flu virus is highly prone to recombination, a genome reassortment among high- and low-pathogenic bird flu viruses could generate new recombinant influenza viruses with unpredictable host tropism or pathogenicity.

Therefore, this creates an even higher potential of generating new gain-of-function mutants.

Since 2021, the bird flu virus H5N1 of clade 2.3.4.4b has had an explosive geographic expansion among wild birds and domestic poultry across Asia, Europe, and Africa, and spread to America at the end of 2021.

Response to Criticism

There has been longstanding criticism of gain-of-function research. Several members of the U.S. Congress have also expressed serious concern about collaborating with the Chinese on bird flu research.

“We are disturbed by recent reports about the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) collaboration with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-linked Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) on bird flu research,” they wrote in an April 12 letter.

“This research, funded by American taxpayers, could potentially generate dangerous new lab-created virus strains that threaten our national security and public health,” they added.

When interviewed by the Science journal in February, the lead investigator denied that they planned to do gain-of-function studies. However, the experimental approach includes “in vivo passage of viruses through mallard ducks and Chinese goose species to predict evolution in natural hosts.”

The lead scientist at CAS involved in this study, Wenjun Liu, emphasized that the Chinese government has strict regulations for lab safety. However, this argument is far from convincing since even a biosafety level 4 lab—the highest safety level—can have serious safety compliance issues, as demonstrated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology and COVID-19.

The recent suspension of funding for scientist Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, sends a clear signal that people distrust virological studies linked to Chinese government-controlled labs.

Increased Pathogenicity

The pathogenicity of H5N1 in animals has increased.

In a 2023 study published in Cell, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and the Vaccine Research Center of the NIH, used their existing model of cynomolgus macaques to test the effectiveness of the H5N1 vaccine.

In this study, an inhaled aerosol dose of 5.1 log10 plaque-forming units (PFU) caused a strong fever and acute respiratory disease in four out of six macaques, resulting in their deaths. PFU is a method of measuring the amount of the virus.

In comparison, in studies conducted from 2001 to 2014 with cynomolgus macaques, when these monkeys were given high doses of H5N1 (6.5–7.8 log10 PFU) through various routes (nose, throat, mouth, and eyes), they usually developed mild illness, and only 2 out of 49 monkeys died from the infection, based on previous reports.

Compared to the studies done 10 to 23 years ago, a much lower dose used in the 2023 study caused a much higher percentage (half) of the monkeys’ deaths. This indicates that the pathogenicity of the H5N1 virus has dramatically increased.

History Repeated?

While we retrospectively reviewed the timing of the GOF studies in 2012 and 2021 and the outbreaks of H5N1 bird flu viruses in birds and mammals in 2013 and 2021, it is clear that there is a close temporal relationship between them.

This research on the bird flu viruses and current outbreaks in birds and cows should also remind us of the fiercely debated origin of SARS-CoV-2.

A widely discussed, evidence-based viewpoint on the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus suggests that bat-derived coronaviruses, previously harmless to humans, gained the ability to infect humans through lab manipulation.

It’s particularly important to consider the current focus of scientific research after experiencing an unprecedented, challenging period due to COVID-19. Some Chinese government-controlled labs are still creating more dangerous viruses and enabling them to spread on a large scale in the name of pandemic preparedness. This raises the question of whether they are truly helping people or creating more diseases.

These alarming facts and circumstances should prompt immediate, thorough investigations into Chinese labs and their potential connection to the H5N1 bird flu outbreak.

In the pursuit of advancing science and researching more effective ways to protect people, such as developing vaccines, the underlying driving force behind such endeavors is often technological competition. However, scientists may have created more problems than solutions for humanity.

In many health articles from The Epoch Times, we emphasize that the best way to prevent a pandemic or viral infection is to focus on improving our health. This includes maintaining a healthy lifestyle, enhancing our natural immunity, and preserving our natural healing abilities.

Editing the virus to enhance its transmissibility and pathogenicity, and researching its pandemic potential, only fuels more fear, rather than resolving the issue.

Ironically, some modern technology can have an extensive negative impact on society. The ability of scientists to conduct GOF research does not justify its necessity.

It’s time for people to wake up.

More About Bird Flu Viruses

There are four types of flu viruses: A, B, C, and D. Based on our current knowledge, only type A can cause global pandemics. A pandemic can occur when an influenza virus has the ability to create long-lasting human-to-human transmission in a population with limited immunity against the virus. In history, three type A flu viruses have triggered human pandemics: H1N1 (1918), H2N2 (1957), and H3N2 (1968).

Influenza A viruses are classified into dozens of subtypes according to two types of glycoproteins on the surface of the virus.

The first glycoprotein, hemagglutinin (H), allows the virus to bind to a celluar surface receptor known as sialic acid and enter the cell. Its name comes from its ability to cause red blood cells to clump together into masses. The second one, neuraminidase (N), is a receptor-destroying protein and enzyme that cleaves the glycosidic bonds of the neuraminic acid, which helps release new viral particles from infected cells. The balance between the H and N function has potential implications for transmission, host adaptation, and pathogenicity between species.

A total of 19 H proteins (H1–H19) and 11 N proteins (N1–N11) have been identified. Different combinations of H and N can be used to name a flu virus. H5N1 has a type 5 H and a type 1 N, so its name is H5N1.

The “H5Nx” nomenclature indicates different neuraminidase types (such as N1, N2, N6, N8) are paired with the H5 protein.

A “clade” is like a branch on a family tree. In a virus family, a clade refers to a group of viruses from a common ancestor with similar characteristics. Clade 2.3.4.4b includes various viruses from H5N1, H5N2, H5N5, H5N6, and H5N8.

Five subtypes of avian influenza A viruses, H5, H6, H7, H9, and H10 are known to have caused human infections.

Bird flu viruses are classified as either low or highly pathogenic avian influenza based on the disease severity they trigger.

The H5 and H7 subtypes are highly pathogenic. Specifically, A(H5N1) and A(H7N9) viruses have caused most of the avian influenza A viral infections reported in people.

HPAI A(H5N6) and LPAI A(H9N2) viruses have also caused human infections in recent years.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Putin Expects NATO, And Possibly Poland In Particular, To Escalate The Proxy War In Ukraine

  We have been warning about the risks of escalation since the beginning. We are now slowly but surely approaching the point of no return. What can Russia do? Maybe not much if the global West is hell bent on starting a conflict.

  The analysis of this blog is straightforward. Thanks to 70 years of profligacy the West is bankrupt and in need of a reset. But the scale of the crisis prevents a simple jubilee as in the past. Covid was the first shot in an attempt to take control. It succeeded in the short term and allowed the Central Banks to inject trillions of dollars in the system buying 3 years in the process but failed in the long term as people could see through the machiavellian plan. 

  Option B is more risky, create a limited war to justify restrictions and limitations. This is where we stand now, on the edge of the precipice. War between East and West is almost unavoidable at this stage. This is not an ideological but a resource conflict: Russia has the resources, the West, especially Europe doesn't. 

  Chances for war: Almost 100% now. 

  Compared to this, what's happening in Gaza and the guilty verdict of Trump are almost anecdotes although indirectly they do increase the odds for a global conflict.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

President Putin shared a lot of insight about the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine during the press conference that he held during his latest trip to Uzbekistan. The first point of relevance that he made is that Zelensky is no longer regarded by Russia as Ukraine’s legitimate leader after his term expired. According to President Putin’s “tentative estimate” of this legal question, Rada Speaker Stefanchuk should now be seen as Zelensky’s legal successor.

The Russian leader also speculated that the only reason why the incumbent remains in power is for him to carry out scandalous moves like possibly lowing the draft age to 23 and even 18 years. In his words, “I believe that after this and other unpopular decisions are made, those who are acting today as representatives of executive government would be replaced with people who would not be responsible for the unpopular decisions made. These representatives will be simply replaced in a snap.”

Moving along, in response to a question about NATO chief Stoltenberg’s suggestion for members to let Ukraine use their arms to hit targets inside of Russia like the US just tacitly approved of Kiev doing, he reminded everyone that long-range precision strikes require space reconnaissance data. Since Ukraine lacks these capabilities, such strikes can only be carried out with NATO support, including through instructors inside Ukraine masquerading as mercenaries for plausible deniability purposes.

President Putin advised the West to think twice about this and then addressed Russia’s fresh push into Ukraine’s Kharkov Region, which he confirmed was in response to the shelling of Belgorod and aimed at carving out a “security area” exactly as he earlier warned he’d order if those attacks didn’t stop. On the topic of Belgorod, he lamented that the Western media doesn’t report on Ukraine’s strikes there, and hinted that his envisaged “security area” could expand to stop longer-range attacks if need be.

He was later asked about Ukraine inviting French “instructors”, to which he responded by saying that his forces regularly “hear English, French, or Polish on the radio” when listening in their opponents, thus confirming that their mercenaries have long been deployed there. Of those three, President Putin believes that the Polish ones are the least likely to leave, which is an allusion to Russian officials’ prior claims that it plans to annex Western Ukraine or at least incorporate it into a sphere of influence.

As for how he sees everything ending, he reaffirmed his commitment to peace talks and reminded everyone that it’s Ukraine that unilaterally froze this process, not Russia. Mid-June’s upcoming “peace talks” in Switzerland are only designed to “create a semblance of global support” for the West’s unilateral demands of Russia aimed at inflicting a strategic defeat upon it. Suffice to say, President Putin promised that this won’t succeed, and he concluded by saying that it’ll only be more painful for Ukraine.

Reflecting on his remarks, the Russian leader signaled that he’s sincerely interested in peace but is also preparing for an escalation in the conflict since NATO’s latest moves suggest that it’s still disinterested in compromising. The US is using Zelensky as its figurehead for implementing unpopular decisions aimed at indefinitely perpetuating this doomed conflict, after which it’ll likely replace him with someone else once public opinion demands it.

Even in that scenario, however, it’s unclear whether another Ukrainian regime change would precede the recommencement of genuine peace talks that ensure Russia’s national security interests. President Putin’s words about Poland came amidst it expressing support for using Western arms to strike targets inside of Russia, countenancing shooting down missiles over Western Ukraine, and repeating its position that a conventional intervention in that neighboring country can’t be ruled out.

From the looks of it, Poland is indeed preparing to conventionally intervene in Ukraine if Russia achieves a military breakthrough, which could spike the risks of World War III by miscalculation due to the US’ dangerous game of nuclear chicken that it’s playing as explained here. In sum, the NATO-Russian security dilemma is spiraling out of control, and Russia might use tactical nukes in self-defense to stop any large-scale NATO invasion force that threateningly crosses the Dnieper towards its newly unified regions.

Therein lies the importance of President Putin hinting that his country might expand its “security zone” to defend against Ukraine’s use of long-range precise strike systems against targets within its pre-2014 territory. He wants NATO to know the territorial extent to which Russian forces might go in the event that the front lines collapse, which is essentially dependent on them and their decision to allow it to use such Western arms with the bloc’s space reconnaissance support.

The message being sent is that Russia has no interest in going beyond those geographical limits that NATO itself is responsible for setting through its abovementioned decision, which is meant to prevent the bloc from overreacting if their opponents achieve a military breakthrough. A Polish- and/or French-led conventional intervention would already be dangerous enough, but that invasion force’s potential crossing of the Dnieper could trigger a tactical nuclear response from Russia in self-defense.

The latest military-strategic dynamics suggest that a conventional NATO intervention is seriously being considered, even if it’s only a partial one that remains west of the Dnieper. The signals coming from NATO as a whole and Poland in particular show that they want an escalation in order to continue fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian, but President Putin just countersignaled that his country is prepared for all eventualities.

It’s therefore up to the West whether or not everything spirals into World War III.

Fraying at the Edges: America's Descent into Chaos - Brian Rose & Colonel Douglas Macgregor (Video - 45mn)

  Another great interview of Douglas Macgregor which as usual will probably be cancelled by YouTube, the paragon of free speech or what's left of it in the West. (So listen quickly, the clock is ticking.) 

  The only subject on which I disagree with him is that the West facing financial disaster is looking for trouble in Ukraine and negotiation for this reason is quasi impossible. I hope I am wrong... 

 

NATO PREPARES NUCLEAR STRIKE ON RUSSIA BORDER? (Video - 47mn)

   A little wordy but the analysis and information are complete and thorough. Is the situation as dire as Canadian Preper presents? Hard to tell but the stakes for Russia and NATO are very high. We are literally playing with fire but is there any adult left in the room to cool down the rhetoric? Or are we seeing the switch from a local conflict to a real world war?

 

Putin Threatens West's 'Dense Populations' In 'Small Land Masses' In Response To NATO Escalation

  How far will NATO go to provoke Russia? Red line after red line eventually, a real one will be tripped. 

  I do believe that it is wise for Russia to not answer immediately especially as the country is winning in Ukraine. The answer should be asymmetric and not expected. 

  But clearly tensions are rising. A matter of months?  

Putin Threatens West's 'Dense Populations' In 'Small Land Masses' In Response To NATO Escalation

More and more European officials and NATO countries are on board with allowing Ukraine to use Western-supplied weapons to strike deep inside Russian territory. Among the latest to speak openly about this are NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, and the government of Sweden, which is the NATO alliance's newest member state.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday issued one of his more dire warnings yet, putting Europe on notice by commenting on their possessing small land areas and dense populations. The veiled threat is very ominous especially in light of the fact that Russia just wrapped up tactical nuclear drills near Ukraine...

Putin told reporters gathered in Tashkent during an official visit to the central Asian country of Uzbekistan, which is a former Soviet Republic, "Constant escalation can lead to serious consequences."

He also hinted at the prospect of nuclear war in posing: "If these serious consequences occur in Europe, how will the United States behave, bearing in mind our parity in the field of strategic weapons?"

"It's hard to say - do they want a global conflict?" Putin questioned, warning that Ukraine hitting Russian territory with externally supplied long-range weapons would make the West directly involved in the conflict.

He also appeared to reference a new agreement between Kiev and Paris which will see French military trainers be deployed to Ukrainian soil. Putin remarked that this puts the situation a big step closer to major direct confrontation between Russia and France - and ultimately the NATO alliance. That's when he warned the following...

They... "should be aware of what they are playing with" as they had small land areas and dense populations.

"This is a factor that they should keep in mind before talking about striking deep into Russian territory. This is a serious thing, and we are of course watching it very closely," Putin said.

Week after week, officials in the West find new ways to escalate (also in light of Russian forces making rapid gains in Kharkiv), and given that Zelensky has said it's 'impossible' to sit down at the negotiating table with Moscow so long as Putin is in power, there appears to be no off-ramp whatsoever.

Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin this week. Kremlin Pool via AP

Indeed we might add to Putin's remarks that everyone is playing with fire... and this has been the case for a long time now. There are very few European leaders willing to openly resist this intensifying push to escalate at this point.

BREAKING: ANOTHER RUSSIAN NUCLEAR RADAR HIT (Video - 28mn)

   As expected we are getting very close to a major turn in Ukraine.The war is lost for the West as Macron recently hinted with his "End of Europe in sight"! Well, let's see how this play out but the omen are not good. As the president of Hungary recently said, we may have crossed the Rubicon.

 

China and Russia Just Shocked the US Government With This Move! (Video - 13mn)

  A new world order is being implemented step by step. Probably slower than people expect but taking everything into consideration at a relatively fast pace. 

 

The Incoming Commercial Real Estate Crisis No One Seems Prepared For

  The US office real estate bubble is huge and will probably bankrupt many American Banks by the middle of next year considering the large amount of refinance necessary which technically cannot happen at 5%+.

  Of course this bubble pale compared to the Chinese real estate bubble which is imploding right now. Just as it was the case in Japan 30 years ago, the implosion will not tank the Chinese economy but it will put a severe brake on future growth. All in all, just as the Japan "miracle" ended in a bubble, the Chinese miracle will probably do likewise. To keep growing, China must transform its economy into a more modern one and in so doing enter into direct competition to Europe and the US adding pressure to the country foreign relations.

  And just to prove that mankind, at the social level is unable or at the very least very slow to learn anything, Japan is blowing another real estate bubble. Luckily, 2.0 is restricted to central Tokyo and a few other major cities like Osaka and Fukuoka. It is fueled by foreign money taking advantage of the weak Yen to invest massively in the country. Taking no account whatsoever of demand or the ever present risk of a major earthquake. What could go wrong?

Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times

It has been a year since a string of U.S. regional bank failures, together with the collapse of global heavyweight Credit Suisse, caused many to fear that a major financial crisis was imminent.

But, by the summer of 2023, the panicked withdrawals by frightened depositors largely subsided.

In February, however, New York Community Bank (NYCB) appeared to resurrect the crisis when it announced $2.4 billion in losses, fired its CEO, and faced credit downgrades from rating agencies Fitch and Moodys.

In what has become a familiar tale for U.S. regional banks, NYCB’s share price plummeted by 60 percent virtually overnight, erasing billions of dollars from its market value, and its depositors fled en masse.

“I think that there’s more to come,” Peter Earle, a securities analyst and senior research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, told The Epoch Times.

Underlying this year’s turbulence is the fact that many regional banks are sitting on large portfolios of distressed commercial real estate (CRE) loans. according to Mr. Earle. And many are attempting to cope through a process called “extend and pretend,” in which they grant insolvent borrowers more time to pay in hopes that things will get better.

“There is trouble out there, and most of it probably won’t be realized because of the ability to roll some of these loans forward and buy a few more years, and maybe things will recover by then,” he said.

“But all it does is it kicks the can down the road, and it basically means a more fragile financial system in the medium term.”

NYCB’s problem was an overwhelming exposure to New York landlords who were struggling to stay solvent. At the start of this year, the bank had on its books more than $18 billion in loans to multifamily, rent-controlled housing developments.

This situation was particularly concerning given that NYCB had been the safe-haven institution that rescued Signature Bank, another failing regional bank, in March 2023.

Much of what took down banks such as Signature Bank in last year’s banking crisis was an unmanageable level of deposits from high net worth and corporate clients that were too large to be insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

In Signature Bank’s case, about 90 percent of its deposits were uninsured, and depositors rushed to withdraw their money when the bank came under stress from losses in the cryptocurrency market.

Another source of stress for regional banks was their inability to cope with an aggressive series of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve to combat inflation. Many banks that held large bond portfolios yielding low fixed rates found that the value of these portfolios declined sharply, creating unrealized losses.

While these portfolios, often made up of U.S. Treasury securities, were considered safe from a credit perspective, they were subject to market risk, and their loss of value sparked concerns about the banks’ solvency in the event they had to be sold. As stock traders rushed to sell the shares of banks with large exposures to interest rate risk, customers became spooked and raced to withdraw their money.

Consequently, unrealized losses quickly became actual losses as banks were forced to sell bonds and loans at a loss in an increasingly futile attempt to make panicking depositors whole.

Rate Hikes Cease, Problems Remain

Today, while interest rates remain high, they are relatively stable. And yet concerns about the health of U.S. regional banks remain because of their large exposure through CRE, including office buildings, multifamily housing units, and retail spaces.

While CRE loans make up about 13 percent of the balance sheets of the biggest U.S. banks, they make up 44 percent of regional banks’ lending portfolios. CRE loans designated as nonperforming doubled as a percentage of U.S. banks’ portfolios from 0.4 percent in 2022 to 0.81 percent by the end of 2023.

In total, there are about 130 regional banks in the United States, with a little more than $3 trillion in assets. These banks, which each have between $10 billion and $100 billion in assets, are typically more exposed to the boom and bust of local markets but also to specific sectors within those markets where they have been able to operate profitably.

While other credit sectors, such as home mortgages, car loans, and corporate loans, are generally the domain of larger financial institutions, regional banks have found a profitable niche in lending to real estate investors. But in the past several years, commercial landlords have been taking hits from two directions.

Since the introduction of lockdowns and the rise of work-at-home culture during the COVID-19 pandemic, many corporations have viewed office rents as a cost ripe for cutting.

According to an April CRE report by Commercial Edge, the office vacancy rate across the United States was 18.2 percent as of March, an increase of 1.5 percent over the prior year.

“U.S. office vacancy rates have increased in recent years as companies embrace remote and hybrid work and re-examine their office footprints,” the report reads. “The increases are not concentrated in just one market or sector.”

Yellen Threatens German Banks With Sanctions; EU Approves Using Russian Asset Profits For Ukraine's Defense

  Remember when Central Banks were supposed to be focused on monetary policies and be politically neutral?

  What a joke! Now that we see the full weaponization of finance, no wonder why the BRICS are in a rush to create their alternative financial system.  

  We are now approaching the end of the Bretton Woods and World Bank systems built after the second World War. But instead of implementing a more open system inclusive of the new economic giants, the US is accelerating the demise of what they painstakingly built over almost a century. The crash is fast approaching but unfortunately so is the risk of a world conflagration.

Yellen Threatens German Banks With Sanctions; EU Approves Using Russian Asset Profits For Ukraine's Defense

In a rare moment of tensions among allies, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is demanding that German bank executives get serious about complying with anti-Russia sanctions, warning further that German banks could find themselves under sanctions.

She warned them of secondary sanctions meant to thwart deals with Russian entities in a meeting among bank leaders in Frankfurt. "Russia continues to procure sensitive goods and to expand its ability to domestically manufacture these goods. We must remain vigilant and be more ambitious," Yellen said. "I urge all institutions here to take heightened compliance measures and to increase your focus on Russian evasion attempts."

According to Reuters, "In an unusually direct warning, she told the executives to police sanctions compliance among their banks' foreign branches and subsidiaries and reach out to foreign correspondent banking customers to do the same, especially in high-risk jurisdictions."

"Russia is desperate to obtain critical goods from advanced economies like Germany and the United States," Yellen continued. "We must remain vigilant to prevent the Kremlin’s ability to supply its defense industrial base, and to access our financial systems to do so."

Washington's pressure campaign to force out Russian interests from Europe appears to be bearing fruit:

Earlier this month, Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) dropped a bid for a 1.5 billion euro ($1.6 billion) industrial stake linked to Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska after intense U.S. pressure.

The deal's collapse was a fresh setback for the lender, which faces criticism for its ties to Moscow more than two years since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The pressure also underscored Washington's willingness to take European banks to task over their Russia ties.

A spokesman later said, "RBI will continue to work towards the de-consolidation of its Russian subsidiary."

Meanwhile the European Union has finally approved a US-backed plan to use seized Russian assets to generate profits which will in turn help arm Ukraine. 

Associated Press reports that "The 27-nation EU is holding around 210 billion euros ($225 billion) in Russian central bank assets, most of it frozen in Belgium, in retaliation for Moscow’s war against Ukraine. It estimates that the interest on that money could provide around 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) each year." A first tranche of funds could be available as early as July.

Starting in February, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen began getting more vocal on the "moral case" for using Russian assets to aid Ukraine, telling allies they must find a way to "unlock the value" of the hundreds of billions in immobilized Russian assets, also with an eye towards Ukraine's post-war reconstruction.

Previously some Ukrainian officials floated the idea of "reparation bonds" backed by future claims for war damages against Moscow, and utilizing frozen Russian assets. These initiatives have gained steam under US leadership. Most of the $300 billion in frozen Russian assets are held in Europe - particularly France, Germany, and Belgium.

Taxpayer Costs Skyrocket As Two-Thirds Of Jobless Benefit Recipients In Germany Are Migrants

  Between the wrong type of immigration, of energy policies and external relations, the suicide on Germany is on tracks. by 2030, what was the richest country in Europe will be on its knees. Not that is matters much since by then Europe will be destroyed, either financially or more ominously militarily. Thankfully meanwhile the country is focusing on net zero, transgenders and Russia bashing. Can countries actually go mad?

Authored by Thomas Brooke via ReMix News,

Nearly two-thirds of German residents receiving unemployment benefits have a migration background, new figures from the Federal Employment Agency have revealed.

The statistics published by the federal agency and cited by the Die Welt broadsheet showed that 63.1 percent of those in receipt of the so-called citizen’s income, or “Bürgergeld,” are of migrant origin, and “most do not have a German passport.”

The German newspaper explained that while employment figures are increasing year-over-year, “because the Federal Republic has long allowed very high immigration of low-skilled people, the number of migrants who are unemployed and receiving social benefits is also increasing.”

The figures define “migration background” as anyone who themselves or whose parents were born without German citizenship, i.e., first- and second-generation migrants.

Of the 3.93 million people eligible for the taxpayer-funded benefit as of December 2023, some 2.48 million were classed as being of a migration background, with 1.83 million recipients not having German citizenship.

The percentage varies considerably among the federal states. In Hesse, Baden-Württemberg, and Hamburg, more than 7 in 10 of all recipients are migrants at 76.4 percent, 74.1 percent, and 72.8 percent, respectively.

There exists a strong correlation between the rise in the migrant population and the percentage of welfare benefits going to migrants, giving weight to the argument that mass immigration of low-skilled workers is not a net benefit to Europe’s largest economy.

In 2013, the percentage of the German population with a migration background was 20 percent, with 43 percent of benefit recipients being migrants. Today, 29 percent of the German population are foreign-born and 63 percent of unemployment benefits are handed to migrants.

In July last year, a response by Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs Anette Kramme to a request made by the Alternative for Germany MP René Springer revealed that the number of German recipients of welfare benefits had halved since 2010, while the number of foreign nationals receiving payments had doubled.

The cost to the taxpayer has skyrocketed since 2010, with a 122 percent increase on the €6.9 billion bill then to around €15.4 billion a year today.

Springer said at the time that Germany desperately needed to implement “a restrictive immigration policy that effectively prevents immigration into our social systems. The citizens’ income introduced by the federal government, on the other hand, acts like an immigration magnet.”

Joe Biden Tariffs Against China Just Backfired on the US Economy! (Video - 14mn)

 Tariffs at this stage are not just absurd, they are counterproductive and the symbol of America's decline. Think about Boeing giving back money to its shareholders (and 55 million dollars to its president!) applied to car manufacturing, solar panels, batteries, microchips.

  Just to jump to something completely unrelated, if we are as good as containing AI as the Americans are at containing China, may god have pity on us!

 

Jim Rickards' Last WARNING about the BRICS and the fall of the dollar. (Video - 23mn)

  The BRICS have got the US dollar cornered as the dollar is on its last foot. 

  Great talk by Jim Rickards!

 

Ex-CDC Director Says It's High Time To Admit 'Significant Side Effects' Of COVID-19 Vaccines

  "Never too late!" comes to mind! In Japan too, some voices are starting to be heard against the mRNA vaccines. They are simply not yet operational and therefore dangerous. Now the real problem is that we've known that from the very beginning. And those who promoted their safety are the same people who also managed to skip the tests. If this is not criminal, what is?

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said Thursday that many officials who tried to warn the public about potential problems with COVID-19 vaccines were pressured into silence and that it’s high time to admit that there were “significant” side effects that made people sick.

Then director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Robert Redfield, holds up a document while testifying in Washington, DC, on Sept. 16, 2020 in (Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images)

Dr. Redfield made the remarks in a May 16 interview with Chris Cuomo on NewsNation, during which he lamented the loss of public confidence in public health agencies because of a lack of transparency around the vaccines, which he said “saved a lot of lives” but also made some people “quite ill.”

“Those of us that tried to suggest there may be significant side effects from vaccines ... we kind of got canceled because no one wanted to talk about the potential that there was a problem from the vaccines, because they were afraid that that would cause people not to want to get vaccinated,” Dr. Redfield said.

In his role as head of the CDC, Dr. Redfield was part of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed, a project to surge COVID-19 vaccine development at a time during the pandemic when little was known about the virus and rapid vaccine rollout was widely seen as key to getting the outbreak under control and lockdowns lifted.

In September 2020, a few months before the first COVID-19 vaccines were given in the United States, Dr. Redfield testified before the Senate that COVID-19 represented the “most significant public health challenge to face our nation in more than a century,” and that the prevailing view among scientists at the time was that the overall case fatality rate of the disease was somewhere between 0.4 and 0.6 percent in the United States.

“If you were to look right now, individuals under the age of 18, it’s about 0.01 percent, 19 to say 69, it’s more like 0.3 percent. And if you’re over the age of 70, it’s about 5 percent now,” he testified at the time.

While there’s lingering controversy about the severity of COVID-19, a recent study estimates that the global case fatality rate was 8.5 percent in February 2020 but had plunged to 0.27 percent in August 2022, meaning that the estimated relative risk reduction over that time was a whopping 96.8 percent.

In his interview on NewsNation, Dr. Redfield said that the vaccines that were developed as part of Operation Warp Speed were “important” and saved “a lot of lives.” However, despite their benefits, the drawbacks of the vaccines must be a matter of open discussion, he said.

“They’re important for the most vulnerable people, those over 60, 65 years of age. They really aren’t that critical for those that are under 50 or younger. But those vaccines saved a lot of lives, but they also—we have to be honest, some people got significant side effects from the vaccine,” he said.

“I have a number of people that are quite ill and they never had COVID, but they are ill from the vaccine,” he continued. “And we just have to acknowledge that.”

Vaccine Controversy

The severity of COVID-19 remains a matter of debate because it’s unclear whether deaths were overcounted or undercounted due to various factors, such as lack of clarity around the role of underlying medical conditions in fatalities in cases where COVID-19 was listed as the primary cause, or underreporting of asymptomatic infections. Aside from the issue of whether people died “from” COVID-19 or “with” a positive test for SARS-CoV-2, there have also been questions about the role of secondary pneumonia caused by mechanical ventilation.

Either way, a study from January 2023 indicates that the global case fatality rate from COVID-19 has dropped dramatically over the course of the pandemic. Global case fatalities ranged from 1.7 to 39.0 percent in February to March of 2020, according to the study—but fell to below 0.3 percent in July to August 2022.

The researchers estimate that the risk of death from COVID-19 has dropped by 96.8 percent over the course of the pandemic.

Along with a decline in COVID-19 fatalities, there have been growing concerns about vaccine side effects, given that a significant number of vaccinated people have reported various adverse reactions.

The most common COVID-19 vaccine adverse events are those that affect the body generally, with fever, fatigue, and overall discomfort being the top three, according to the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). But there are others.

For instance, heart muscle inflammation (myocarditis) and inflammation of the lining outside the heart (pericarditis) have both officially been acknowledged by the CDC as a known side effect of Moderna’s and Pfizer’s mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.

Nervous system disorders have also been reported, with such disorders being the third most common in the Pfizer trials, coming after general and muscle-related adverse events.

There have also been papers linking spike-protein-based COVID-19 vaccines to skin problems, a dull ringing in the ears known as tinnitus, visual impairments, blood clotting, and even death. Recent reporting from EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders“ program indicates that the likelihood of death associated with COVID-19 vaccines (in close proximity to the shot rather than proven as caused by it) was over 100 times greater than for flu vaccines.

There are also concerns about a post-vaccination jump in excess deaths and disability.

The CDC still recommends that people of all ages receive a COVID-19 vaccine, saying that the potential side effects do not outweigh the potential harms of getting sick with COVID-19.

In a notice published in late April, the agency again called for adults aged 65 and older to get the latest version of the vaccines.

We are getting closer to nuclear war! (Video - 53mn)

  "We are getting closer to nuclear war!" That's Canadian Preper, so you'd guess he's on the edge of reality. Fine. Except that gold at 2420 dollar per once would tend to agree. At this speed, we'll be well past 3000 by the Summer.

This Is How They Plan To Control All Of Us, And It's Terrifying (Video - 5mn)

  No, we are not crazy. The conspiracy is real. Here's the proof!

 

Why The Dollar Will Lose Its Status As Global Reserve Currency

  Great post on how the US, just like Rome at the end is undermining itself. 

  One huge caveat as the author completely miss the meaning of the Russo-Chinese alliance and the potential of the BRICS to coalesce developing countries into a non dollar block. 

  But overall, there can be no doubts at this stage: We are at the very edge of momentous changes. 408, 476, 1453, 1789, 1914, history will decide but it is likely that 2024 or maybe 2025 will be added to the list.

Authored by James Hickman via SchiffSovereign.com,

By the early 400s, the Roman Empire was coming apart at the seams and in desperate need of strong, competent leadership. In theory, Honorius should have been the right man for the job.

Born into the royal household in Constantinople, Honorius had been groomed to rule, practically since birth, by the finest experts in the realm. So even as a young man, Honorius had already accumulated decades of experience.

Yet Rome’s foreign adversaries rightfully believed Honorius to be weak, out of touch, divisive, and completely inept.

He had entered into bonehead peace treaties that strengthened Rome’s enemies. He paid vast sums of money to some of their most powerful rivals and received practically nothing in return. He made virtually no attempt to secure Roman borders, leaving the empire open to be ravaged by barbarians.

Inflation was high. Taxes were high. Economic production declined. Roman military power declined. And all of Rome’s foreign adversaries were emboldened.

To a casual observer it would have almost seemed as if Honorius went out of his way to make the Empire weaker.

One of Rome’s biggest threats came in the year 408, when the barbarian king Alaric invaded Italy; imperial defenses were so non-existent at that point that ancient historians described Alaric’s march towards Rome as unopposed and leisurely, as if they were “at some festival” rather than an invasion.

Alaric and his army arrived to the city of Rome in the autumn of 408 AD and immediately positioned their forces to cut off any supplies. No food could enter the city, and before long, its residents began to starve.

Historians have passed down horrific stories of cannibalism– including women eating their own children in order to survive.

Rather than send troops and fight, however, Honorius agreed to pay a massive ransom to Alaric, including 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, and literally tons of other real assets and commodities.

(The equivalent in today’s money, adjusted for population, would be billions of dollars… similar to what the US released to Iran in a prisoner swap last year.)

Naturally Honorius didn’t have such a vast sum in his treasury… so Romans were forced to strip down and melt their shrines and statues in order to pay Alaric’s ransom.

Ironically, one of the statues they melted was a monument to Virtus, the Roman god of bravery and strength… leading the ancient historian Zosimus to conclude that “all which remained of Roman valor and intrepidity was totally extinguished.”

Rome had spent two centuries in the early days of the empire– from the rise of Augustus in 27 BC to the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180 AD– as the clear, unrivaled superpower. Almost no one dared mess with Rome, and few who did ever lived to tell the tale.

Modern scholars typically view the official “fall” of the Western Roman Empire in the year 476. But it’s pretty clear that the collapse of Roman power and prestige took place decades before.

When Rome was ransomed in 408 (then sacked in 410), it was obvious to everyone at the time that the Emperor no longer had a grip on power.

And before long, most of the lands in the West that Rome had once dominated– Italy, Spain, France, Britain, North Africa, etc. were under control of various Barbarian tribes and kingdoms.

The Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Franks, Angles, Saxons, Burgundians, Berbers, etc. all established independent kingdoms. And for a while, there was no dominant superpower in western Europe. It was a multi-polar world. And the transition was rather abrupt.

This is what I think is happening now– we’re experiencing a similar transition, and it seems equally abrupt.

The United States has been the world’s dominant superpower for decades. But like Rome in the later stage of its empire, the US is clearly in decline. This should not be a controversial statement.

Let’s not be dramatic; it’s important to stay focused on facts and reality. The US economy is still vast and potent, and the country is blessed with an abundance of natural resources– incredibly fertile farmland, some of the world’s largest freshwater resources, and incalculable reserves of energy and other key commodities.

In fact, it’s amazing the people in charge have managed to screw it up so badly. And yet they have.

The national debt is out of control, rising by trillions of dollars each year. Debt growth, in fact, substantially outpaces US economic growth.

Social Security is insolvent, and the program’s own trustees (including the US Treasury Secretary) admit that its major trust fund will run out of money in just nine years.

The people in charge never seem to miss an opportunity to dismantle capitalism (i.e. the economic system that created so much prosperity to begin with) brick by brick.

Then there are ubiquitous social crises: public prosecutors who refuse to enforce the law; the weaponization of the justice system; the southern border fiasco; declining birth rates; extraordinary social divisions that are most recently evidenced by the anti-Israel protests.

And most of all the US constantly shows off its incredibly dysfunctional government that can’t manage to agree on anything, from the budget to the debt ceiling. The President has obvious cognitive disabilities and makes the most bizarre decisions to enrich America’s enemies.

Are these problems fixable? Yes. Will they be fixed? Maybe. But as we used to say in the military, “hope is not a course of action”.

Plotting this current trajectory to its natural conclusion leads me to believe that the world will enter a new “barbarian kingdom” paradigm in which there is no dominant superpower.

Certainly, there are a number of rising rivals today. But no one is powerful enough to assume the leading role in the world.

China has a massive population and a huge economy. But it too has way too many problems… with the obvious challenge that no one trusts the Communist Party. So, most likely China will not be the dominant superpower.

India’s economy will eventually surpass China’s, and it has an even bigger population. But India isn’t even close to the ballpark of being the world’s superpower.

Then there’s Europe. Combined, it still has a massive economic and trade union. But it has also been in major decline… with multiple social crises like low birth rates and a migrant invasion.

Then there are the energy powers like Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia; they are far too small to dominate the world, but they have the power to menace and disrupt it.

The bottom line is that the US is no longer strong enough to lead the world and keep adversarial nations in check. And it’s clear that other countries are already adapting to this reality.

Earlier this month, for example, China successfully launched a rocket to the moon as part of a multi-decade mission to establish an International Lunar Research Station.

By 2045, China hopes to construct a large, city-like base along with several international partners including Russia, Pakistan, Thailand, South Africa, Venezuela, Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Egypt. Turkey and Nicaragua are also interested in joining.

This is pretty remarkable given how many nations are participating, even if just nominally. Yet the US isn’t part of the consortium.

This would have been unthinkable a few decades ago. But today the rest of the world realizes that they no longer need American funding, leadership, or expertise.

We can see similar examples everywhere, most notably in Israel and Ukraine. And I believe one of the next shoes to drop will be the US dollar.

After all, if the rest of the world doesn’t need the US for space exploration, and they can ignore the US when it comes down to World War 3, then why should they need the US dollar anymore?

The dollar was the clear and obvious choice as the global reserve currency back when America was the undisputed superpower. But today it’s a different world.

Foreign nations continuing to rely on the dollar ultimately means governments and central banks buying US government bonds. And why should they take such a risk when the national debt is already 120% of GDP?

In addition, Congress passed a new law a few weeks ago authorizing the Treasury Department to confiscate US dollar assets of any country it deems an “aggressor state.”

While people might think this is a morally righteous idea, the reality is that it will only turn off foreign investors. Why should China, Saudi Arabia, or anyone else buy US government bonds when they can be confiscated in a heartbeat?

All of this ultimately leads to a world in which the US dollar is no longer the dominant reserve currency. We’re already starting to see signs of that shift, and it could be in full swing by the end of the decade.

The COLLAPSE WONT Be Like Most People Think by George Gammon (Video - 51mn)

   Absolutely stunning and brilliant video by George Gammon who surprises Canadian preper with non intuitive financial concepts and consequently overturn the poor guy's beliefs obliging him to admit literally that the explanation is "above his pay grade!" 

  What's stays is that our financial system is probably about to crash although George Gammon believes that Central Banks will be able to keep us hanging up there for a while longer. (I disagree because these things have a dynamic of their own and at some stage, as in Japan right now, the Central Bankers start to lose control.) 

  What is proven to be nonsense is the Canadian preper's belief in a collapsed Western economic system where you have to fend for yourself with a gun while bartering radishes with your neighbors. George Gammon gives the example of Argentina which is as collapsed as can be and where people nevertheless stick with the local currency (or dollars) to the exclusion of Gold, silver and bitcoins that nobody wants. A great practical lesson of ABC economics. 

 

"West's Governments Need War" Warns Martin Armstrong "Because Their Debts Are No Longer Sustainable"

  I completely agree with Martin Armstrong: We may get war because Western governments facing collapse will not know what else to do. What a tragedy!

Interview with Martin Armstrong by Piero Messina for SouthFront

Martin Armstrong is one of the most influential economists of our times. Someone called him the “Forecaster”, because that was the title of the biopic film that helped make his activities known throughout the world.

Those of Martin Armstrong are not just “predictions”, as his reflections are based on the compendium of precise mathematical formulas and analytical skills. We interviewed him to try to understand the current geopolitical context. From the crisis of Western democracies to the birth of the BRICS front, to arrive at profound reflections on the risk of a military conflict on a global scale, Armstrong interprets real-time data thanks to his diachronic “vision” and a decades-long effort of research and analysis . Armstrong’s work allows us to connect knowledge of the past to critical factors of the present time. For all these reasons, Armstrong’s analyzes are precious for understanding the present and orienting ourselves towards a future that appears full of unknowns and pitfalls.

Fukuyama advocated the end of history. Huntington spoke of a clash of civilizations. Is it possible to imagine a third way?

Our greatest threat is centralized control; that is what doomed communism. I agree with Huntington that the clash of civilizations will be based upon cultures and religion mainly because of centralized attempt to impose a unified culture.

At the end of the 1980s, the reference geopolitical model was the unipolar world, based on Western primacy. What cultural, military, and economic pillars is the Washington Consensus based on? Is it true freedom?

The military in economic pillars that dominate Washington today have nothing to do with freedom. They have to do with people who were unwilling to accept the collapse of communism. Whereby the enemy was transformed by communism to ethnic racism.

With the birth of the BRICS, is it possible to talk about a multipolar option? What are the limits that you see in this geopolitical dimension?

The birth of the BRICS was caused by these people we call the neocons who engaged in ethnic racism and targeted Russia by removing them from the world economy under SWIFT. This woke up many in the world, realizing that the dollar was now being weaponized and was no longer a monetary instrument exclusively. Nations began to realize if they did not conform to the commands of Washington, then they to could be removed from SWIFT. Thus they have divided the world economy bringing to an end globalization.

Your analysis and studies seems to reveal several critical issues regarding the stability of the so-called Western system. There is a profound crisis of democratic systems, there is a lot of mistrust towards mainstream information and above all there are “agents” external to the institutions (an example above all is the activity of George Soros) who seem to influence the choices of governments in the United States and Western Europe. What could happen in the immediate future and in the coming years?

It has been propaganda that we live under a democracy. We live under republics in which case the people are represented and have no right to vote on critical issues. Republics historically are the most corrupt forms of government compared to a monarchy or dictatorship which cannot be bribed. In a republic, all representatives lacking term limits are up for sale to the highest bidder. This has resulted in the collapse of confidence in government both in Europe and the US which have fallen below 30% – the lowest since WWII. External agents such as George Soros, Bill Gates, World Economic Forum, push personal agendas which has further undermined the confidence in our systems. It is the government that decides if we go to war or not. The people are never asked.

Now, We invite you to make some reflections on the geoeconomic dimension. The global capitalist system is based on the indebtedness of sovereign states. Is this a sustainable situation? Who will pay the bill in the end?

The sovereign debt crisis that we face has appeared often throughout history. It is unsustainable because governments act in their own self-interest and will always expand debt to retain power. Historically, these systems collapse when they issue new debt to pay off the old, and no one is there to buy the new debt. Once they can no longer continue to borrow new money, then inevitably, they collapse.

Your predictive model is based on precise calculations. The cycles of history and the economy thus seem to chase each other along the time span of history. If I’m not mistaken, you compared the current context to the crisis and dissolution of the Roman Empire. Is it correct?

History repeats because human nature never changes. The Roman Empire is but one example from history of its success and failures. It lasted longer than anyone because it did not impose cultural regulations. The Christians called them pagans because they had so many Gods. That was the product of their policy of freedom of religion. Athens had Athena, Northern Europe had Thor, so they did not try to change the culture of the lands they conquered. They created a common market where someone in Britain could sell products to someone in Rome. So the freedom of religion, low taxation, freedom of movement, and a common market combined to create the Pax Romana.

Is it still possible to avoid a large-scale world conflict?

It is unlikely that we can avoid world war. Governments need war because their debts are no longer sustainable. They will use the war as the excuse for defaults – as was the case for WWII. They will create Bretton Woods II with the IMF digital currency as the reserve.

Pope Francis has been talking about a piecemeal Third World War for years. From your point of view, is what the Holy Father claims can be shared? What are the main weapons of this possible Third World War?

I believe we have a third world war that will begin piecemeal with the Middle East, Iran vs Israel, Europe vs Russia, north Korea vs Japan and South Korea, China vs Taiwan. But they will eventually merge together.

Have you argued that the true wealth of a state is its people? Why did we forget about all this? Above all, who is it convenient for?

The wealth of every nation is its people. That has been proven with the rise of Germany and Japan after WWII. This is the essence of Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand.” But those in government prefer Marx, for he advocates that the state has the power to manipulate the people. So, Governments have forgotten it and reject Smith because Marx provides them with more power.

Is it correct to claim that your analysis succeed in covering the intersection of geopolitics, Global Markets and Economic Confidence? Can you explain to us in a simple way how your Socrates predictive model works? By the way, why did you name it just like the Greek philosopher?

I named my computer model after Socrates because the oracle of Delphi had said that he was the smartest man in Greece. He tried to prove the oracle wrong and the process proved it to be correct. He was put on trial and sentenced to death because he knew too much. My computer has taught me a lot in geopolitics, we had a major bank in Lebanon in the 1980’s and they asked if I could create a model on the Lebanese pound. I put the data in the computer and it came out and said their country would fall apart in 8 days. I thought something was wrong with the data. When I told the client, they asked me what currency would be best, and I said the Swiss Franc. Eight days later the civil war begn. Obviously they saw the movement of money themselves and came to me for the timing. The same thing happened with a client in Saudi Arabia who was a big shipper. He called me asking me what gold would do tomorrow because Iran was going to begin attacking shipping in the gulf. So once again, there was advanced information about war. By 1998, I understood how the computer was forcasting such events. I warned in June at our London conference that Russia was about to collapse. The London financial Times had snuck into the back of the room and reported that forecast on the front of their newspaper on June 27th 1998. Russia collapsed about 6 weeks later.

Are unpredictable events, such as the terrorist attack in Moscow, also considered among the parameters of your predictive model? A “black swan” type event can change the course of history and geopolitical relations?”

Yes, we saw the capital flows shift a day in advance, up to a week in advance in the case of the attack in israel. The defense stocks began to rise even with 9/11 the government used our model to look at who bought puts on airlines in the days before. Someone always knows when they’re going to do these types of events. And they move their money either to profit or to avoid a loss. The computer is tracking everything. It cannot tell me which person has done it. Just that the move is about to take place.