Making sense of the world through data
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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.
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.
The amazing discrepancy between what people want and what they get through the government "nanny state". As laws pile upon laws, life becomes less fun, more regimented and regulated into nothingness. No surprise people spend most of their time indoor, it's a legal jungle outside. Especially if you're black and poor in red states and unless you're black and poor in blue states.
“Whether
the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the
proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy,
the police, the military.”
- Simone Weil, French philosopher
We are caught in a vicious cycle of too many laws, too many cops, and too little freedom.
It’s hard to say whether we’re dealing with a kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves), a kakistocracy (a
government run by unprincipled career politicians, corporations and
thieves that panders to the worst vices in our nature and has little
regard for the rights of American citizens), or a Nanny State Idiocracy.
Whatever
the label, this overbearing despotism is what happens when government
representatives (those elected and appointed to work for us) adopt the
authoritarian notion that the government knows best and therefore must
control, regulate and dictate almost everything about the citizenry’s
public, private and professional lives.
The government’s bureaucratic attempts at muscle-flexing by way of overregulation and overcriminalization have
reached such outrageous limits that federal and state governments now
require on penalty of a fine that individuals apply for permission
before they can grow exotic orchids, host elaborate dinner parties,
gather friends in one’s home for Bible studies, give coffee to the
homeless, let their kids manage a lemonade stand, keep chickens as pets,
or braid someone’s hair, as ludicrous as that may seem.
As the Regulatory Transparency Project explains, “There are over 70 federal regulatory agencies, employing hundreds of thousands of people to write and implement regulations. Every year, they issue about 3,500 new rules, and the regulatory code now is over 168,000 pages long.”
In
his CrimeADay Twitter feed, Mike Chase highlights some of the more
arcane and inane laws that render us all guilty of violating some law or
other.
As Chase notes, it’s against the law to try to make an
unreasonable noise while a horse is passing by in a national park; to
leave Michigan with a turkey that was hunted with a drone; to refill a
liquor bottle with different liquor than it had in it when it was
originally filled; to offer to buy swan feathers so you can make a
woman's hat with them; to enter a design in the Federal Duck Stamp
contest if waterfowl are not the dominant feature of the design; to
transport a cougar without a cougar license; to sell spray deodorant
without telling people to avoid spraying it in their eyes; and to transport “meat loaf” unless it’s in loaf form.
In such a society, we are all petty criminals.
In
fact, Boston lawyer Harvey Silvergate estimates that the average
American now unknowingly commits three felonies a day, thanks to an
overabundance of vague laws that render otherwise innocent activity
illegal and an inclination on the part of prosecutors to reject the idea
that there can’t be a crime without criminal intent.
The bigger the government grows, the worse the red tape becomes.
Almost
every aspect of American life today, including the job sector, is now
subject to this kind of heightened scrutiny and ham-fisted control.
According to business analyst Kaylyn McKenna, more than 41 states require that makeup artists be licensed.
Twenty-eight states require a license before you can work as a
residential painter. Funeral attendants, whose duties include placing
caskets in visitation rooms, arranging flowers and directing mourners,
have to be licensed to do so in Kansas, Maine and Massachusetts.
This
is what happens when bureaucrats run the show, and the rule of law
becomes little more than a cattle prod for forcing the citizenry to
march in lockstep with the government.
Overregulation is
just the other side of the coin to overcriminalization, that phenomenon
in which everything is rendered illegal, and everyone becomes a
lawbreaker.
As policy analyst Michael Van Beek warns,
the problem with overcriminalization is that there are so many laws at
the federal, state and local levels—that we can’t possibly know them
all.
“It’s also impossible to enforce all these laws. Instead,
law enforcement officials must choose which ones are important and
which are not. The result is that they pick the laws Americans really
must follow, because they’re the ones deciding which laws really matter,”
concludes Van Beek. “Federal, state and local regulations — rules
created by unelected government bureaucrats — carry the same force of
law and can turn you into a criminal if you violate any one of them… if
we violate these rules, we could be prosecuted as criminals. No matter
how antiquated or ridiculous, they still carry the full force of the
law. By letting so many of these sit around, just waiting to be used
against us, we increase the power of law enforcement, which has lots of options to charge people with legal and regulatory violations.”
“Such
laws,” notes journalist George Will, “which enable government zealots
to accuse almost anyone of committing three felonies in a day, do not
just enable government misconduct, they incite prosecutors to intimidate
decent people who never had culpable intentions. And to inflict
punishments without crimes.”
Unfortunately, the consequences are all too serious for those whose lives become grist for the police state’s mill.
In this way, America has gone from being a beacon of freedom to a locked down nation.
We
labor today under the weight of countless tyrannies, large and small,
carried out in the so-called name of the national good by an elite class
of governmental and corporate officials who are largely insulated from
the ill effects of their actions.
We increasingly find ourselves
badgered, bullied and browbeaten into bearing the brunt of their
arrogance, paying the price for their greed, suffering the backlash for
their militarism, agonizing as a result of their inaction, feigning
ignorance about their backroom dealings, overlooking their incompetence,
turning a blind eye to their misdeeds, cowering from their heavy-handed
tactics, and blindly hoping for change that never comes.
The
overt signs of the despotism exercised by the increasingly authoritarian
regime that passes itself off as the United States government (and its
corporate partners in crime) are all around us: censorship,
criminalizing, shadow banning and de-platforming of individuals who
express ideas that are politically incorrect or unpopular; warrantless
surveillance of Americans’ movements and communications; SWAT team raids
of Americans’ homes; shootings of unarmed citizens by police; harsh
punishments meted out to schoolchildren in the name of zero tolerance;
community-wide lockdowns and health mandates that strip Americans of
their freedom of movement and bodily integrity; armed drones taking to
the skies domestically; endless wars; out-of-control spending;
militarized police; roadside strip searches; privatized prisons with a
profit incentive for jailing Americans; fusion centers that spy on,
collect and disseminate data on Americans’ private transactions; and
militarized agencies with stockpiles of ammunition, to name some of the
most appalling.
Yet as egregious as these incursions on
our rights may be, it’s the endless, petty tyrannies—the heavy-handed,
punitive-laden dictates inflicted by a self-righteous,
Big-Brother-Knows-Best bureaucracy on an overtaxed, overregulated, and
underrepresented populace—that illustrate so clearly the degree to which
“we the people” are viewed as incapable of common sense, moral
judgment, fairness, and intelligence, not to mention lacking a basic
understanding of how to stay alive, raise a family, or be part of a
functioning community.
In exchange for the promise of an
end to global pandemics, lower taxes, lower crime rates, safe streets,
safe schools, blight-free neighborhoods, and readily accessible
technology, health care, water, food and power, we’ve opened the door to
lockdowns, militarized police, government surveillance, asset
forfeiture, school zero tolerance policies, license plate readers, red
light cameras, SWAT team raids, health care mandates,
overcriminalization, overregulation and government corruption.
We
relied on the government to help us safely navigate national emergencies
(terrorism, natural disasters, global pandemics, etc.) only to find
ourselves forced to relinquish our freedoms on the altar of national
security, yet we’re no safer (or healthier) than before.
We
asked our lawmakers to be tough on crime, and we’ve been saddled with
an abundance of laws that criminalize almost every aspect of our lives.
We wanted criminals taken off the streets, and we didn’t want to have to pay for their incarceration. What
we’ve gotten is a nation that boasts the highest incarceration rate in
the world, with many doing time for relatively minor, nonviolent crimes, and a private prison industry fueling the drive for more inmates.
We fell for the government’s promise of safer roads, only to find ourselves caught in a tangle of profit-driven red light cameras,
which ticket unsuspecting drivers in the so-called name of road safety
while ostensibly fattening the coffers of local and state governments.
This
is what happens when the American people get duped, deceived,
double-crossed, cheated, lied to, swindled and conned into believing
that the government and its army of bureaucrats—the people we appointed to safeguard our freedoms—actually have our best interests at heart.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries,
the problem with these devil’s bargains is that there is always a
catch, always a price to pay for whatever it is we valued so highly as
to barter away our most precious possessions.
Get ready for what may well be the geoeconomic bombshell of 2024: the coming of a decentralized monetary ecosystem.
Welcome to The Unit –
a concept that has already been discussed by the financial services and
investments working group set up by the BRICS+ Business Council and has
a serious shot at becoming official BRICS+ policy as early as in 2025.
According to Alexey Subbotin, founder of Arkhangelsk Capital Management and one of the Unit’s conceptualizers,
this is a new problem-solving system that addresses the key geoeconomic
issue of these troubled times: a global crisis of trust.
He
knows all about it first-hand: a seasoned financial professional with
experience in investment banking, asset management and corporate
matters, Subbotin leads the Unit project under the auspices of IRIAS, an
international intergovernmental organization set up in 1976 in
accordance with the UN statute.
The Global Majority has had enough
of the centrally controlled monetary framework put in place 80 years
ago in Bretton Woods and its endemic flaws: chronic deficits fueling irresponsible military spending; speculative bubbles;
politically motivated sanctions and secondary sanctions; abuse of
settlement and payment infrastructure; protectionism; and the lack of
fair arbitration.
In contrast, the Unit proposes a reliable, quick
and economically efficient solution for cross-border payments. The -
transactional - Unit is a game-changer as a new form of international
currency that can be issued in a de-centralized way, and then recognized
and regulated at national level.
The Unit offers a unique
solution for bottlenecks in global financial infrastructure: it is
eligible for traditional banking operations as well as for the newest
forms of digital banking.
The Unit can also help to upend unfair
pricing in commodity trading, by means of setting up a new – fair and
efficient – Eurasian Mercantile Exchange where trading and settlement
can be done in a new currency bridging trade flows and capital, thus
paving the way to the development of new financial products for foreign
direct investment (FDI).
The strength of the Unit, conceptually,
is to remove direct dependency on the currency of other nations, and to
offer especially to the Global Majority a new form of apolitical money -
with huge potential for anchoring fair trade and investments.
It is indeed a new concept in terms of an international currency - anchored in gold (40%) and BRICS+ currencies (60%). It is neither crypto nor stablecoin – as it’s shown here.
The Beauty of Going Fractal
The
Global Majority will instantly grasp the primary purpose of the Unit:
to harmonize trade and financial flows by keeping them outside of
political pressure or “rules” that can be twisted at will. The
inevitable consequence translates as financial sovereignty. What matters
in the whole process are independent monetary policies focused on
economic growth.
That’s the key appeal for the Global
Majority: a full ecosystem offering independent, complementary monetary
infrastructure. And that surely can be extended to willing Unit partners
in the collective West.
Now to the practical level: as
Subbotin explains, the Unit ecosystem may be easily scalable because it
comes from a fractal architecture supported by simple rules. New Unit
nodes can be set up by either sovereign or private agents, following a
detailed rule-book in custody of the UN-chartered IRIAS.
This
means that connection is available to all open DEX and digital
platforms operated by both commercial and Central Banks around the
world.
The endgame is that everyone, essentially, may use
the Unit for accounting, bookkeeping, pricing, settling, paying, saving
and investing.
No wonder the institutional possibilities
are quite enticing – as the Unit can be used for accounting and
settlement for BRICS+; payment and pricing for the Eurasian Economic
Union (EAEU); or as a reserve currency for Sub-Saharan Africa.
And now comes the clincher: the
Unit has already received backing by the BRICS Business Council and is
on the agenda at the crucial ministerial meeting in Russia next month,
which will work out the road map for the summit next October in Kazan.
That
means the Unit has all it takes to be on the table as a serious subject
discussed by BRICS+ and eventually be adopted as early as in 2025.
Will Musk and the NDB Be on Board?
As
it stands, the priority for the Unit conceptualizers – whom I followed
for over a year during several, detailed meetings in Moscow - is to
inform the general public about the new system.
The Unit team is
not interested at all in getting straight into political hot waters or
to be cornered by ideologically-laden arguments. Direct references to
inspiring but sometimes controversial concepts or authors like Zoltan
Pozsar may bury the Unit concept into pigeon holes, thus limiting its
potential impact.
What may lie ahead could be extraordinarily
exciting, as the Unit appeal could extend all the way from Elon Musk to
the BRICS’s New Development Bank (NDB), hopefully engaging an array of
crucial actors. After a positive evaluation by Finance Minister Anton
Siluanov – who remains on the post in the new Russian government - it’s
not far-fetched to imagine Putin and Xi discussing it face to face this
week in Beijing.
As it stands, the major takeaway is that
the Unit should be seen as a feasible, technical solution for the
theoretically Unsolvable: a globally-recognized payment/trade system,
immune to political pressure. It’s the only game in town – there are no
others.
Meanwhile, the Unit conceptualizers are open for
constructive criticism and all manners of collaboration. Yet sooner or
later the battle ranks will be lined up – and then it will be a matter
of seriously upping the game.
“Academically Sound, Technologically Innovative”
Vasily
Zhabykin, co-author of the Unit white paper and founder of CFA.Center,
Unit’s technological partner at Skolkovo Innovation Hub in Moscow,
crucially stresses: the Unit “represents apolitical money and can be the connector between the Global South and the West.”
He’s
keen to point out that “the Unit can keep all the wheels turning unlike
most of the other concepts that feature ‘dollar killers’, etc. We do
not want to harm anybody. Our goal is to improve efficiency of currently
broken capital and money flows. The Unit is rather the ‘cure for
centralized cancer’’’.
Subbotin and the Unit team “are
keen to meet new partners who share our approach and are ready to bring
additional value to our project.” If that’s the case, they should “send
us 3 bullet points on how can they help and improve the Unit.”
A
bold follow-up step should be, for instance, a virtual conference on
the Unit, featuring leading Russian economist Sergey Glazyev, Yannis
Varoufakis, Jeffrey Sachs and Michael Hudson, among others.
“I
have been following the development of Unit for more than a year and
can confirm that Unit offers a very timely, feasible solution. It is
academically sound, technologically innovative and at the same time
complementary to the existing banking infrastructure.
Launching
it under the auspices of an UN institution gives Unit legitimacy, which
the current Bretton Woods framework is clearly lacking. Recent actions
by the US administration and loud silence from IMF clearly indicate the
need for change.
A decentralized approach to emission of
potential global trade currency, whose intrinsic value is anchored in
physical gold and BRICS+ currencies, makes Unit the most promising of
several approaches being considered. It balances political priorities of
all participants, while helping each sovereign economy develop along
its optimal path.
The New Development Bank (NDB) and
BRICS+ shall embrace the concept of Unit and help it to become the
pinnacle of the new emerging global financial infrastructure, free from
malign political interferences while focused instead on fair trade and
sustainable economic growth.”
A clear, practical
example of possible Unit problem-solving concerns Russia-Iran trade
relations. These are two top BRICS members. Russian trade with Iran is
unprofitable due to sanctions – and both cannot make payments in US
dollars or euros.
Russian companies suffer significant losses
after switching to payments in national currencies. With each transfer,
Russian businesses on average lose as much as 25% due to the discrepancy
between the market rate in Iran and the state rate.
And
here’s the key takeaway: BRICS+ as well as the Global Majority can only
be strengthened by developing closer geoeconomics ties. The removal of Western speculative capital shall
free up local commodity trading, and enable the pooling of investable
capital for sustainable development. To unlock such a vast potential,
the Unit may well be the key.
Here's another WW3 is unavoidable article. The world has no use for such a war but the elites in the West want it.
Understanding this, what will China do? Blinken was recently in China to administer more menaces (before flying to Ukraine to play the guitar!) and Biden just signed a long list of tariff increases. Putin is in Beijing this week and probably will, on top of a warm welcome, get some actual support. Will it delay the war? Will Western countries get the message? Unlikely? What at this stage could cancel the ineluctable? If there ever was a good question to ask an advance AI, this one should be on top of the list.
There
are two classic propaganda narratives used by governments when it comes
to keeping the public invested in any war campaign that does nothing to
advance their national interests:
First, there’s the “commitment” lie, which
says that once you step in to support a war effort you then must stay
exponentially committed, even if that war effort is exposed as
pointless. Anytime the public pulls back from that war in a bid to
reconsider what purpose it serves they are ridiculed for potentially
“risking lives” and setting the stage for defeat. In other words, you
must support the effort blindly. You’re not allowed to examine the
conflict rationally, because who wants to be blamed for losing a war?
Second, there’s the “domino effect” lie,
which says that if you allow a particular “enemy” to win in one
conflict, they will automatically be emboldened to invade other
countries until they own the entire planet. It’s the same claim used to
trick the American populace into supporting the war in Vietnam and it
rarely turns out to be true. In fact, nations that engage in regional
wars tend to be so weakened by the fighting that they don’t have the
means to move on to another country even if they wanted to.
In
the US we heard both of these narratives heading into the recent
congressional vote for billions more in monetary and logistical aid to
Ukraine. Neocons and Democrats worked together to force the
bill through with a percentage of true conservatives fighting to stop
it. Those conservatives were attacked relentlessly by the media for
“helping the Russians”, but the reality that no one in the mainstream
wants to talk about is that Ukraine has already lost the war.
No
amount of additional funding or arms shipments are going to help them,
and it has nothing to do with conservatives questioning the validity of
war spending. Anyone who has a basic understanding of military
strategy knows that the key to winning is ALWAYS manpower first,
logistics second. Not superior technology or armaments, not superior
cash and certainly not popular support from foreign interests.
This
is especially true in a war of attrition, and attrition is in fact the
method being used by Russia to systematically whittle down Ukraine’s
forces. However, the western media refuses to discuss what’s really happening and has been acting as a hype machine for Ukraine instead.
In September of 2022 I noted that
the Russian pullback to the Donbas was not the “retreat” the western
media made it out to be. Many establishment talking heads claimed that
this was the beginning of the end for Vladimir Putin and that Ukrainian
forces would be taking Crimea in the near future.
I argued that
Russia was likely trying to consolidate its position as western
artillery and tanks flooded into Ukraine. I also suggested that Russia
wanted to avoid urban combat in major cities while tens-of-thousands of
seasoned mercenaries were rushing to the front from the US and Europe. I
predicted that the Russian pullback was in preparation for surgical
strikes on western Ukraine’s resources and grid infrastructure.
With
Ukraine’s grid heavily damaged, a large portion of the population would
leave the cities and head for Europe until the war played out. Putin
has specifically avoided major fighting within larger urban centers for a
reason. Driving civilians out of metropolitan areas would make it
easier for Russia to strike Ukraine in a secondary offensive without
risking extensive collateral damage in the form of civilian casualties.
This is exactly what has happened.
Almost 7 million
Ukrainians left the country outright in the past 2 years, with another 6
million displaced (mostly from larger cities). Currently, Russia is
moving to push civilians out of Kharkiv,
Ukraine’s second biggest city, and they will probably be successful
given their momentum and the destruction of water and power resources.
With civilians out of the way a more aggressive attack can then be
initiated.
Russia has been using an “artillery bubble” as a tool
to protect ground forces as they push an advance. Meaning, troops will
only attack as far as the artillery can reach. Artillery is vital to a
large scale offensive. Coincidentally, Russia doubled its importation of
explosive materials commonly used for artillery in the past several months. They are now reportedly producing triple the amount of artillery that NATO is providing to Ukraine.
Mainstream
analysts claim the push towards Kharkiv move might be a feint, allowing
Russia to increase the size of its buffer zone. They continue
to assert that Russia doesn’t have the forces necessary for a major
offensive. I would say it depends on how weak Ukraine’s defensive lines
actually are. Russia has been consistently using large scale Pincer
movements to envelop defensive positions and destroy them.
In the past two weeks alone Russia has gained considerable ground. Russian
troops recently made confirmed advances northwest of Svatove (Luhansk
Oblast), near Avdiivka (Donetsk Oblast), in Robotyne (Zaporizhzhya
Oblast), and in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast, U.S.-based think tank
Institute for the Study of War reported on May 6th. The reason for this
is relatively simple – Ukraine lacks the manpower to effectively establish defense in-depth. All the reports coming from the front support this theory.
That
is to say, Ukraine’s defensive lines are a facade with no secondary
positions or trenches to stall Russian breakthroughs. Once the Russians
cut the main line there’s nothing much stopping them from gaining large
stretches of ground. Some analysts have blamed this development
on a lack of Ukrainian foresight or strategic preparedness, but I would
argue that they just don’t have enough people to defend more than a
single forward line.
My position is backed by numerous
reports of the government’s desperate struggles with conscription. For
the past six months the average age of Ukraine recruits is 43 years old. Meaning, youth
recruitment is waning, either because younger people don’t want to
fight and are avoiding the draft by leaving the country, or too many
have died.
The conscription problem has been hidden by
the western media for many months now, but even corporate news platforms
are starting to admit that there is a severe lack of new recruits. Front line fighters have been complaining for months that they need to be cycled away from the trenches and given rest.
Another
bad sign is the fact that Ukraine has been using Special Forces
soldiers for trench duty. These units are trained specifically for
asymmetric hit-and-run warfare, not sitting in mud holes waiting for
artillery strikes to rain down on their fixed and exposed positions.
It seems like pure stupidity, but it makes sense if Ukraine is actually
running out of people to hold their only defensive line.
The
cover-up of massive casualties is something I mentioned in past
articles on the war and I think it bears repeating: Western warhawks
continue to claim that it will be “cheaper” to use Ukrainian soldiers to
fight Russia than to fight a larger war down the road with American and
European lives.
The sociopathy behind this rationale is
disturbing. The lack of manpower in Ukraine cannot be solved. It is a
product of endless death paid for with our tax dollars. NATO has
prolonged the fighting with funding and arms, but not to win, only to
sacrifice more people in a bloody conflict Ukraine is destined to lose.
Their
argument also assumes that Americans and Europeans are going to jump
blindly into military service in a war against Russia. I don’t know
about Europeans, but I do know for a fact that most Americans are not
going to buy in and will refuse a draft. The majority of the US public
doesn’t even want to send further aid to Ukraine; they certainly aren’t
going to go die for Ukraine. The arrogance of the warhawks is mind
boggling.
The bottom line is this: Ukraine is about to be overrun. They
didn’t have the manpower to effectively launch a counteroffensive. They
don’t have the manpower to establish defense in-depth. And, they are
using their most seasoned soldiers as cannon fodder in the trenches.
This dynamic demands that diplomatic solutions be entertained, but no one seems to be talking about that. Why?
As I theorized in my article ‘World War III Is Now Inevitable – Here’s Why It Can’t Be Avoided’, the underlying plan may very well be to try to force Americans and Europeans to accept an expanding war with Russia. The
western public has been bombarded with lies about Ukraine’s ability to
win; when they lose people will be shocked and incensed by the outcome.
Maybe
the elites hope that the populace will be so angry about the loss that
they will rally around a larger war effort by NATO? The French
government has already asserted that they are willing to send troops to Ukraine in direct confrontation with Russia, while Lithuania and Poland have said they will not rule out the possibility.
Now
is the time for peace negotiations, BEFORE Ukraine is overrun. Will
this happen? Probably not. But when diplomacy is removed from the table
completely the only conclusion we can come to is that a greater war is
desired. And when greater war is desired, we also have to conclude that
our leadership has something substantial to gain by putting the world at
risk.
You might be on the side of Ukraine, you might be
on the side of Russia, you might not care about either side, but there’s
no denying that this war is being escalated by special interests and we
need to ask why?
So the QR Covid pass was not for nothing and people warning that this was the future were indeed on the right tracks. Now imagine a state of emergency due to war, global warming, a new pandemic, whatever really. You can go one place, not another one. Sounds OK? Fine. Now add AI to this. I can go but you can't. Now add dynamic pricing, Sorry 5 dollars became 20 for you, just 3 for me. The possibilities are infinite. Ask the Chinese! This is how, imperceptibly the "soft" police state will be implemented. You do not support pedophiles in kinder gardens, do you? Once you see through the "technical" aspect, the policies become transparent. Note that access is not limited to the Olympic venues but to the areas around. Eventually the "zones" will become permanent.
The capital of France– Paris – will be split into zones this
summer, with anyone wanting to enter certain areas required to show a
pass on their phone.
Special measures will be in place throughout the city as part of
increased security around the Olympic Games, which start in July.
Anyone wishing to enter certain zones, including residents, will have
to apply for a special Pass Jeux (games pass) on a platform run by
police.
It mostly applies to people driving, but even pedestrians will need
to show a QR code to enter an area called the ‘grey zone’ around the
River Seine in the centre, where the opening ceremony will take place.
The codes will be checked at access points along the entrance to each zone, manned by officers.
As expected the superb geo-strategic analysis of Macgregor I posted yesterday was erased by Google within hours. This is pure censorship and criminal!
Here's a more innocuous post which should have a longer shelf life.
Nuts are good for health. That much almost everybody knows by now. What we are discovering is how good they actually are. In a nutshell: Eat more nuts! :-)
In
their many variations, nuts are a superfood praised as rich sources of
minerals, vitamins, amino acids, proteins, and other bioactive
compounds.
Chestnuts
are champions for vitamin C, for instance. Pistachios contain the most
vitamin A and potassium. Both are high in folic acid. Cashews enrich us
with magnesium. The level of vitamin B3 (niacin) is the highest in
peanuts, and vitamin E (tocopherol) is found in almonds.
Walnuts are especially high in alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), a neuroprotective omega-3 fatty acid important for normal growth and development. It also has been shown to induce apoptosis (programmed death of cells) in breast cancer cells.
Our bodies cannot produce ALA, hence, nutritional intake is a must, as it is with many other key nutrients.
Research Supports the Benefits of Nuts
A 2023 review
published in the journal Foods, found mounting evidence that a nut-rich
diet can potentially prevent numerous chronic illnesses.
According
to the report, “The ingestion of phytochemicals from nuts and their
positive influence on several diseases (cancer, heart disease, stroke,
hypertension, birth defects, cataracts, diabetes, diverticulosis, and
obesity) are established.”
In addition to the improvement of
cardiovascular disease, depression, and cognitive function, nut
consumption is correlated with lower cancer incidence and cancer
mortality, and decreased all-cause mortality, states a 2021 review.
The Nut/Cancer Health Connection
The World Health Organization predicts a considerable increase in cancer, with a potential of 32.6 million cases worldwide by 2045.
Effective
strategies, such as increasing dietary fiber, eating more fruits and
vegetables, and physical activity, could potentially reduce cancer risk
factors by approximately 42 percent.
The journal Chronic Diseases and Translational Medicine published a 2023 review about the interrelation of nut consumption and different types of cancer, including women-related and gastrointestinal cancers.
Data
suggests that eating nuts not only reduces “cancer-related risk and
mortality,” but possibly prevents the occurrence of certain types of
cancer and its advancement. Nuts contain active anticarcinogenic
compounds such as “folate, phytosterols, saponins, phytic acid,
isoflavones, ellagic acid, α-tocopherol, quercetin, and resveratrol,”
according to the review.
The research points to certain phytochemicals and their mechanisms as preventatives for cancer.
Accordingly,
walnuts, pecans, almonds, and pine nuts contain polyphenols, which
inhibit carcinogenesis that is chemically induced. Likewise, hazelnuts
and brazil nuts hold helpful properties, called isoflavonoids, to
balance hormonal mechanisms.
Most nuts are strong antioxidants that counteract oxidative stress and guard our DNA—the health benefits list of nuts is long.
Nuts at a Glance
Walnuts
A review
published in the journal Nutrition outlines the cancer-preventative
properties of walnuts, as researched in animal studies with mice. It
summarizes the following points:
A diet enriched with walnuts prevented the increase of “human breast cancers implanted in nude mice by [approximately] 80%.”
Mammary gland tumors were reduced by approximately 60 percent through a diet containing walnuts in a mouse model.
“Walnuts slowed the growth of prostate, colon, and renal cancers by antiproliferative and antiangiogenic mechanisms.”
Another
interesting fact was shared in the review. Comparing the intake of
whole walnuts to a diet equally rich in n-3 fatty acids, the reduction
of tumors in the mammary gland was greater when ingesting whole nuts.
This reinforces the idea that active components in walnuts act
synergistically to suppress cancer.
Walnuts also proved their antitumorigenic qualities in an animal study
in vivo in mice. Compared to the corn-oil-based control group, the
walnut group featured two major improvements—the tumor growth rate was
slowed by 27 percent, and the tumor weight was reduced by 33 percent.
Reducing
inflammation in the body benefits many health conditions, amongst
others cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, and cancer. Walnuts
have proven valuable in all.
A randomized controlled trial tested a daily intake of 56 grams of walnuts (366 calories) in 46 overweight adults. Another trial
analyzed the same amount on diabetic patients. Both results showed that
the increased nut intake improved endothelial function significantly,
which is key for healthy blood and lymph vessels. In turn, endothelial
cells are needed to protect from vascular malfunctions—the hallmarks of
several types of malignant disorders.
Almonds
Contrary
to common belief, regular almond intake does not lead to weight gain,
although the nuts contain almost 50 percent fat. Instead, almonds
“appear to promote weight loss,” affirms a research paper
published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, which
benefits obesity-related illnesses, such as cardiovascular disease and
cancer.
However, almonds also contain the highly controversial and much-researched bioactive compound glycoside amygdalin. Highly
controversial because its pharmaceutical development as an anti-cancer
treatment continues to be a topic of discussion in the pharmaceutical
world.
As a commercial drug, amygdalin is distributed under the
name Laetrile but has since been shown to have serious side effects,
such as damage to nerves and the liver, a lack of oxygen in the blood,
and confusion. Furthermore, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has
not approved Laetrile and has said that the compound shows only little
anticancer effect.
In contrast, a review
in the Journal of Cancer Research and Therapeutics praises amygdalin’s
few side effects, its low cost, and especially its excellent results in
the battle against multidrug resistance. Furthermore, the compound can be easily naturally sourced as it occurs in the kernels of many fruits and is a compound in nuts.
A 2023 comprehensive review
published in the International Journal of Molecular Science relates the
same hopeful message: “Amygdalin seems to be a promising naturally
occurring agent against cancer disease development and progression.”
While
Amygdalin has proven its anti-tumor qualities, it is still not
recommended as an extensive remedy, as some challenges need to be
overcome.
Its correct dosage heavily depends on the type of
bacteria present in a person’s gut. Therefore, researchers have not been
able to find an across-the-board therapy. “Unfortunately, there is
currently no foolproof method for determining the microbial consortium
and providing a safe oral dosage for every patient,” researchers state
in a 2022 review.
Scientists
place their hope in modern nano-technologies as they further explore
the qualities of amygdalin in cancer treatment. “There are several
pieces of evidence to support the idea that amygdalin can exert
anticancer effects against lung, breast, prostate, colorectal, cervical,
and gastrointestinal cancers.” The compound “has been reported to
induce apoptosis of cancer cells, inhibiting cancer cells’ proliferation
and slowing down tumor metastatic spread,” according to the
above-mentioned 2023 review.
A 2019 article
published in Cancer Medicine that dials in on amygdalin, primarily
found in bitter almonds, not only highlights its “antioxidative,
antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and immunoregulatory activities,” but
investigates the clinical value of the anticancer agent.
The
compound introduces cytotoxicity and apoptosis in the body and balances
the immune function, which affects especially “solid tumors” such as
lung or bladder cancer and renal cell carcinoma.
Despite
limiting factors, such as the “primary stage” of both clinical and
experimental research and the lack of high-quality publications on the
topic, researchers still believe these studies to be promising regarding
cancer treatments.
Many may not be surprised that walnuts and
almonds provide us with these health benefits. However, the following
nut, which botanically speaking, is a legume, often gets a “bad rap” as a
common allergen. Nevertheless, research shows its valuable qualities in
cancer therapy.
Peanuts
A human study
published in the journal Gynecologic and Obstetric Investigation showed
that “High consumption of peanuts, walnuts, and almonds appears to be a
protective factor for the development of breast cancer.”
The
study group included 97 female patients suffering from breast cancer,
and a control group of 104 healthy women. Researchers analyzed their
seed consumption via the Mantel-Haenszel test method and found a
correlation between dietary nut intake and the development of breast
cancer.
Peanuts once again portrayed their qualities as functional food in a study
that investigated phytosterols (PS), a natural compound that lowers
cholesterol levels and prevents cardiovascular diseases. This research
suggests that their sterol beta-sitosterol, in particular, holds
protective anticancer effects against “colon, prostate, and breast
cancer.”
With 207 milligrams PS per 100 grams, unrefined peanut
oil has the highest concentration of valuable beta-sitosterol—even
higher than olive oil. Peanut butter “contains 144-157 mg PS/100 g.”
Further refinement of the product results in lower rates of the active
compound.
Another healthy property of peanuts is the polyphenol phytochemical resveratrol—the target of a review focused on anticancer agents. In addition to peanuts, sources of resveratrol include grapes, red wine, and other berries.
Researchers
point out that people benefit from the consumption of this powerful
antioxidant, as it displays “strong anti-tumor activities through
inhibiting tumor cell proliferation, inducing cell apoptosis, promoting
tumor cell differentiation, preventing tumor invasion and metastasis,
and further moderating the host immune system to kill tumor cells.”
In
fact, the nickname “French Paradox” was given to resveratrol’s impact
on the health of the French people, as it seems that the compound
counteracts the French diet, which is often high in fats, and protects
consumers from cardiovascular disease and more.
Pistachios
Another inconspicuous nut with plenty of healthy properties comes from the cashew family.
In
comparison to other nuts, the health profile of pistachios is even more
advantageous. They are low-fat, a good source of vegetable protein,
contain a remarkable amount of minerals (potassium) and vitamins (C and
E), and are high in dietary fiber.
Both, in vitro and in vivo
models have indicated significant regulatory properties in pistachios on
oxidative stress, according to a 2022 review. Consequently, eating pistachios also positively affected the risk of chronic diseases, including cancer.
Another 2022 review highlighted resveratrol in pistachios and its favorable role in breast cancer treatment.
Unfortunately, the high cost of this nut often keeps people from regular intake, which would be beneficial to their health.
Diet, Inflammation, and Cancer
It has long been known that lifestyle and diets greatly impact our health.
A 2010 review
describes the multistage process of cancer as “initiation, promotion,
and progression,” and explains that oxidative stress plays a role in all
three phases of tumorigenesis (the formation of cancer), as does
chronic inflammation in the body—conditions fought by nuts.
A diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids is beneficial to cancer survival, according to a review
published in the Journal of Nutrition that examined several animal
studies. In addition, it can lessen side effects that come with
chemotherapy and increase the treatment’s efficacy. The review goes as
far as stating that the “consumption of omega-3 fatty acids might slow
or stop the growth of metastatic cancer cells,” after appropriate cancer
treatment.
Walnuts contain the highest amount of omega-3 fatty acids.
Attention to Quality
As phenolic compounds in nuts are highly unstable, they may be impacted by various processing techniques.
Unfortunately,
studies are rare, as certain types of nuts also react differently.
Research that does exist indicates that thermal treatment negatively
impacts nuts, such as hazelnuts, where most of the polyphenol content is
found in the skin.
Roasting also alters the profile of nutrients
in nuts, which can lead to increased allergenicity and changed protein
levels, for instance in peanuts. This processing technique seems to
affect almonds and pistachios less—they stay stable or might even
slightly benefit from the process. In contrast, the antioxidant profile
of hazelnuts and walnuts suffers.
A 2023 overview
published in the journal Foods mentions that peanuts blanched in 100
degree Celsius water for 20 minutes were less allergenic. On the other
hand, “boiling almonds for 10 min[utes], or cashews and pistachios for
60 min[utes] did not affect their properties.”
Authors of the
overview suggest that consumers best educate themselves about the
variation of bioactive compounds in nuts and the impact of food
processing methods, as well as finding a quality source.
Recommended Daily Intake
A 2020 narrative review highlights the extremely low consumption of nuts and seeds worldwide.
Although
nuts are continuously praised as a superfood, and the per-capita
consumption in the United States increased to 5.6 pounds per person in
2022, recommended consumption is rarely met.
As a rule of thumb, a 2021 study comes to the conclusions that eating a “handful of nuts” is a practical way of “achieving recommended nut intakes.” Researchers explained that combining various types of nuts in a medium-size
handful averages at about 36.3 g, which “resulted in a high proportion
of individuals taking at least 80% of the recommended intake of nuts.”
Feel
free to mix and match, bake with nuts and seeds, or add them to your
salads, lunch, and dinner. Mostly though, just have fun going “nuts
about nuts” and assisting your health at the same time.
Alexandra
Roach is a board-certified holistic health practitioner, herbalist, and
movement teacher who has also worked as a journalist, TV news anchor,
and author. She has earned citations from U.S. Army commanders for her
work with military personnel and writes with a broad perspective on
health.
An amazing analysis from Douglas Macgregor which goes far beyond Ukraine. The West elites are losing their grip on power and are therefore desperate and dangerous. A new world or Armageddon. The stakes could not be higher. We may be weeks away from a nuclear war.
PS: Listen quickly to this masterful analysis of the world as YouTube tends to censor these videos within days of their publication.
The everything bubble; China Real Estate, US Office Building, Tokyo second bubble and many others worldwide will burst eventually. They always do. The only thing which cannot be predicted is when. The behavior is similar to that of a sand pile. You cannot predict which grain of sand will start the crash but you can with certainty predict that one will. Ed Dowd believes this will happen before the end of the year. I agree. In fact most people agree which may be why there is a sense of panic in Brussels and Washington. A new world order is being born. This might be the signal!
Former Wall Street money manager Ed Dowd is a skillful financial
analyst. Even though he has a wildly popular book on CV19 vax deaths
and injuries called “Cause Unknown,”
he is now turning his attention back to the economy. Dowd warns the
economy can fall out of bed at any time. Dowd explains, “What’s coming
up next is a credit cycle. We are going to see commercial real estate
go into problem mode. There are a lot of loans that need to be rolled
over in 2024 and 25. A lot of these properties are down 80% . . . .
There is huge credit risk coming. The prediction of bank failures is
accurate. We are going to see, over the next 12 to 24 months, banks go
belly-up. Then, they will have to get merged with bigger banks.”
What happens to the Biden economy? Dowd says, “The economy is going
to take a nosedive sometime in the next 12 months. The real economy is
not doing well. . . . The only thing that has been holding up the GDP
growth is government spending. We are spending $1 trillion every 100
days. That’s adding $1 trillion to the deficit. The only job creation
is government jobs, and they don’t actually add to the economy. . . .
Reports are coming out now that the low-income consumer is getting
absolutely hammered. McDonald’s talked about it in their most recent
earnings call. . . . So, low-income and the middle-class are getting
squeezed while the rich continue to plug along.”
Dowd told me off camera that the economy could get into trouble
without warning. Dowd explains, “You’ve got to look at history. In
2008 and 2009, everyone talks about the crisis, but bank failures
started showing up in 2007. . . . I suspect as we roll through time in
the real economy and the money supply issues start to hit the economy,
we will see more bank failures and more businesses shut down. 46% of
small businesses are having problems paying their rent. There is going
to come a time in the next 6 to 12 months this huge shock that we saw
in the 2008 financial crisis, and the 2000 bubble where massive layoffs
start to happen–it’s inevitable. This is what happens when you crank up
interest rates from 0% to 5.5%. There is a lag in the real economy,
and it’s hitting right now. It’s only going to intensify as time goes
on.
The Chinese real estate bubble has been imploding for a few years now. But how bad is it, really?
With over 30 years of experience with "bubbles" in Japan, I am afraid we won't know the answer for quite some time. As in Japan, the Chinese government can and will paper over the deflationary trend with huge budget deficits as the article below suggests. Eventually, just as in Japan, the potential for destroying the money his huge.
This said, as my next article explains, the West will already be in recession at that time so does it matter in the end? Just another black swan among many?
It
has long been understood that most financial data provided by the
Chinese government is propaganda designed to misrepresent the country's
true economic circumstances. At best, their statistics provide half the
truth and the rest has to be discerned through deeper investigation.
When systemic crisis events take place in China it usually comes as a
shock to much of the world exactly because they expend considerable
resources in order to hide instability behind a thin veneer of
fabricated progress.
The biggest story in China in the new
millennia has been nation's debt explosion. China's debt-to-GDP ratio
is currently estimated at nearly 300% (official numbers), with most of
the liabilities accrued in the past 15 years. Chinese debt spending
accelerated in part because of the global credit crash of 2008, but a
lesser known factor is their entry into the IMF's Special Drawing Rights
basket. The process started around 2011 and the IMF requires any
prospective applicant to take on a wide array of debt instruments before
they can be added to the global currency mechanism.
By the time
of China's official inclusion in the SDR in 2016 they had nearly doubled
their national debt. After 2016 debt levels skyrocketed.
The
debt problem is harder to quantify in China because of their communist
structure posing as a free market structure. Corporate debt in China
has to be included into the national debt picture because of state
funded enterprises and the level of government investment in property
and industry.
It
is here where we find the most blatant warning signs of deflationary
crisis, particularly in property markets and infrastructure
development. The CCP has put a "great information wall" in place to
prevent accurate data from leaving the country, but some reports on
China's failing infrastructure still escape. China's export market is crumbling
in the past year, in large part because western consumers are tapped
out due to inflation. However, what they prefer not to mention is the
damage they did to themselves after three years of near constant covid
lockdowns. This destroyed their retail sector and things have only
grown worse since.
Then
there is the real estate market which has suffered extreme deflation
over the past decade, with a larger drop expected in the next year.
China deliberately popped the housing market bubble as a means to
disrupt what officials considered out of control speculation. This led
to the now famous "ghost towns" dotting the Chinese landscape; thousands
of neighborhoods and high rises left unfinished and empty after
development companies went bankrupt.
One
of the more disturbing trends in China, though, is the effort to use
large infrastructure projects to hide the nation's deflationary
decline. China's propaganda machine is pervasive across the world and
most people in the west assume that China is on the cutting edge of
progress because of videos on social media. In reality, the Chinese
have been building cheaply constructed and poorly designed false-front
landmarks that look technologically impressive on the surface but fall
apart in a matter of months.
China is planning another 1 trillion Yuan ($137 billion) in infrastructure projects in 2024 alone, but the debt cycle and the deflationary spiral seem to be catching up with them. The IMF claims
that China's economy has stumbled but is "unlikely to fall", yet, with
their global exports falling, property markets plunging and consumer
activity in decline it's hard to see how they can continue without a
depression-like event in the near future.
Interesting Article on Social Media, the disease of our time, by Charles Hugh Smith. What else to say but highlight the artificiality of the whole edifice and its destructive effect, especially on the younger generations?
I am by essence a libertarian and would prefer by far that people decide for themselves in most matters of life, especially for things like alcohol. One valid argument against that is the fact that some things like alcohol and drugs are addictive and that consequently people cannot decide by definition since they fall into the addiction. Well, if that is true, then why not submit Social Media to the same rule since their addictive power is even stronger?
Once we've made "digital visibility" the primary source of our
identity, status and self-respect, we've doomed ourselves to wandering,
compass-less, in a vast artificial wasteland.
That social media is addictive is self-evident. The temptation to continue scrolling is as limitless as the vast wasteland of content.
The destructive nature of this addiction is also self-evident. The net result of this addiction is depression, anxiety and rising rates of self-harm and suicide.
The immense profitability of addiction to screens and social media
establishes the corporate incentives to increase their addictive power
and thwart attempts to limit this profitable power. Who cares about self-harm and depression when shareholder value is at stake?
Though social media is pitched as connecting us all, it's actually about control: the platforms control the flow of user-created content, the addictive mechanisms and the monetization of user engagement.
What's less obvious is the incentive for users to keep creating content for the tech platforms to monetize.
This is of course the great "innovation" of social media: entice users
to create content so the corporation gets all this content for free. The
second "innovation" is to monetize the users' attention / "engagement,"
a two-fer: monetize the free user-created content and then monetize the
addicted users who can't stop scrolling.
The incentive for users is core to human nature: to gain recognition and respect. We observe the tremendous status and respect lavished on those with high digital visibility on screens, and this ignites our Mimetic Desire--we want what we see others wanting and value what others desire--to increase our digital visibility so we too can enjoy some of the status and respect heaped on those with screen presence.
Concurrent with the rise of digital visibility as the key source of status and respect is the decline of other social means of gaining status and respect.
The economy places a premium on mobility of both capital and labor, so
the workforce and neighborhoods are in constant flux. Unlike the
previous economic model of stable employment, where people routinely
worked for the same company for decades, as did their peers, now there's
no stable community at work that provides social ties and respect:
everyone is an atomized, free-floating individual.
Sure, we can pass physical prints of our selfies in famous locales
around to our stressed-out, here-today, gone-tomorrow co-workers, but
who cares? How much status and respect can we possibly gain in the
limited, unstable circles of work and neighborhood? Very little.
The same is true of neighborhoods: here today, gone tomorrow.
There is no stable social order left in the real world to provide the
recognition and respect every human needs. So we turn to the artificial
media-world of screens and social media.
What defines the media? That it's staged, scripted, enhanced, edited, artificial.
TV programs are artificial representations of real life, not real life:
the boring bits have been edited out, the drama enhanced, the actors
made up and the scenes staged.
Real life can't compete with this carefully edited, distilled, enhanced simulation of real life.
We understand this and so our goal on social media is to stage, script
and edit our real-world selves and lives into an enhanced artificial
facsimile that is worthy of a higher status than that earned by our
unstaged real life.
So even as we share a crowded apartment with five other low-paid
workers, we post photos of ourselves in luxe bars holding $20 cocktails. This is only half the battle for digital visibility;
the other half is building an audience so our visibility increases. As
our visibility increases, the status and respect we gain increases
proportionately.
As the means to gain status and respect in the real world have
diminished, the potential to increase our status in the digital realm
has skyrocketed. This is the difference between the old legacy
mediums of TV and print: we could only be passive observers, as it was
extremely difficult to get through all the gatekeepers and actually get
on TV or in print media.
Anyone can get on the screen and page in social media. There are three billion Channels of Me,
and so the Darwinian struggle is to stage, edit and enhance one's
channel to somehow become more appealing and compelling than the
millions of competing channels.
This generates another addictive dynamic: did anyone "like" my last post or comment?
The desire for an audience introduces an emotional vulnerability: we
want the higher status awarded to larger audiences, and so we become
obsessed with monitoring our "likes" and views. We become easy targets
for trolls who relish crushing the hopes and spirits of those seeking to
out-stage and out-enhance everyone else trying to increase their digital visibility.
This is the potent source of much of the depression, anxiety and
self-harm stripmining the mental health of the younger generations. Once we've made digital visibility
the primary source of our identity, status and self-respect, we've
doomed ourselves to wandering, compass-less, in a vast artificial
wasteland.
To avoid self-destruction, we must understand the nature of social
media--that it's been carefully crafted to addict us--and to free
ourselves of the illusion that an enhanced digital representation of
ourselves is a worthy foundation for our identity, social status and
self-respect.
The artificial digital realm is not a substitute for real life, nor
is "status" gained on social media a substitute for an authentic
identity and selfhood. We reach through the screen for the proffered feast and are left even more starved when we finally turn the screen off.
Addiction is profitable:
Smartphone addiction:
I've written dozens of essays on social media over the past 13 years;
This is one point on which I am optimistic: Censorship will fail for the simple reason that eventually a censored society becomes less efficient and therefore less competitive. (This said, it is very difficult to predict what AI could do to censorship since the hallmark of an advanced AI will be its ability to outsmart us. But by then it will also outsmart the people doing the manipulation...)
It’s not been a good week for the Censorship Industrial Complex.
The machine has been built and put into action over nearly a decade but largely in secret. Its way of doing business has been
via surreptitious contacts with media and tech companies, intelligence
carve-outs in “fact-checking” organizations, payoffs, and various other
clever strategies, all directed toward boosting some sources of
information and suppressing others. The goal has always been to advance
regime narratives and curate the public mind.
And yet, based on its operations and insofar as we can tell, it had every intention of remaining secret. This
is for a reason. A systematic effort by government to bully private
sector companies into a particular narrative while suppressing dissent
contradicts American law and tradition. It also violates human
rights as understood since the Enlightenment. It was a consensus, until
very recently, that free speech was essential to the functioning of the
good society.
Four years ago, many of us suspected
censorship was going on, that the throttling and banning was not merely a
mistake or the result of zealous employees stepping out of line. Three
years ago, the proof started to arrive. Two years ago, it became a
flood. With the Twitter files from a year ago, we had all the proof we
needed that the censorship was systematic, directed, and highly
effective. But even then, we only knew a fraction of it.
Thanks
to discovery from court cases, FOIA requests, whistleblowers,
Congressional inquiries thanks to the very narrow Republican control,
and some industrial upheavals such as what happened at Twitter, we are overwhelmed with tens of thousands of pages all pointing to the same reality.
The
censors developed a belief at the highest levels of control in
government that it was their job to govern what information the American
people would and would not see, regardless of the truth. The actions
became truly tribal: our side favors banning gatherings, closing
schools, says the Hunter Biden laptop is a fake, favors masking, mass
vaccination, and mail-in voting, and denies the import of voter fraud
and vaccine injury, whereas their side takes the opposite approach.
It was a war over information, undertaken
in total disregard for the First Amendment, as if it doesn’t even
exist. Moreover, the operation was not only political. It clearly
involved intelligence agencies that were already hip deep in the
“all-of-society” pandemic response.
“All of Society” means all, including the information you receive and are allowed to distribute.
A
vast swath of unelected bureaucrats took it upon themselves to manage
all knowledge flows in the age of the Internet, with the ambition to
turn the main source of news and sharing into a giant American version
of Pravda. All of this occurred right under our noses – and is still going on today.
Indeed,
censorship is a full-on industry now, with hundreds and thousands of
cut-outs, universities, media companies, government agencies, and even
young people in school studying to be disinformation specialists, and
bragging about it on social media. We are just one step away from a New York Times
article – as follow-ups to their recent praise of the Deep State and
also government surveillance – with a headline like “The Good Society
Needs Censors.”
Incredibly, the censorship is so pervasive now that it is not even reported.
All these revelations should have been front page news. But so captured
is the news media today that there are very few outlets that even
bother to report the fullness of the problem.
Not receiving nearly enough attention is the new report
from the Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the
Weaponization of the Federal Government of the US House of
Representatives.
Running nearly 1,000 pages including
documentation (however many pages are purposely blank), we have here an
overwhelming amount of evidence of a systematic, aggressive, and deeply
entrenched effort on the part of the federal government, including the
Biden White House and many agencies including the World Health
Organization, to tear out the guts of the Internet and social media
culture and replace them with propaganda.
Among the
well-documented facts are that the White House directly intervened in
Amazon’s own marketing methods to deprecate books that raised doubts
about the Covid vaccine and all vaccines. Amazon responded reluctantly
but did what it could to satisfy the censors. All these companies –
Google, YouTube, Facebook, Amazon – became acquiescent to Biden
administration priorities, even to the point of running algorithmic
changes by the White House before implementation.
When
YouTube announced that it would take down any content that contradicted
the World Health Organization, it was because the White House instructed
them to do so.
As for Amazon, which is like every publisher in wanting full freedom to distribute, they faced intense pressure from government.
These are just a few of thousands of pieces of evidence of routine interference from government against social media companies,
either directly or through various government-funded cut-outs, all
designed to enforce a certain way of thinking on the American public.
What’s amazing is that this industry was allowed to metastasize to such an extent over 4-8 years or so,
with no legal oversight and very little knowledge on the part of the
public. It’s as if there is no such thing as the First Amendment. It’s a
dead letter. Even now, the Supreme Court seems confused, based on our
reading of the oral arguments over this whole case (Murthy v. Missouri).
One
gets the sense when reading through all this correspondence that the
companies were more than a bit rattled by the pressure. They must have
wondered a few things: 1) is this normal? 2) do we really have to go
along? 3) what happens to us if we just say no?
Probably every corner grocery store in any neighborhood run by a crime syndicate in history has asked these questions.
The best answer is to do what you can in order to make them go away.
This is precisely what they did time after time. After a while, the
protocol probably begins to feel normal and no one asks anymore the
basic questions: is this right? Is this freedom? Is this legal? Is this
just the way things go in the US?
No matter how many high
officials were involved, how many in the C-suites of big companies
participated, however many editors and technicians of the best
credentials played along, there can be no question that what took place
was an absolute violation of speech rights that very likely exceeds
anything we’ve seen in US history.
Keep in mind that we only know what we know, and that is severely truncated by the force of the machinery.
We can safely assume that the truth actually is far worse than we know.
And further consider that this censorship is keeping us from knowing
the full story about the suppression of dissidents, whether medical,
scientific, political, or otherwise.
There might be millions in
many professions who are suffering right now, in silence. Or think of
the vaccine-injured or those who have lost loved ones who were forced to
get the shot. There are no headlines. There are no investigations.
There is almost no public attention at all. Most of the venues that we
once thought would police such outrages have been compromised.
To top it off, the censors are still not backing down.
If you sense a lessening of the grip for now, there is every reason to
believe it is temporary. This industry wants the entire Internet as we
once conceived of it completely shut down. That’s the goal.
At
this point, the best means of defeating this plan is widespread public
outrage. That is made more difficult because the censorship itself is
being censored.
This is why this report from the US House of
Representatives needs to be widely shared so long as doing so is
possible. It could be that such reports in the future will themselves be
censored. It could also be the last such report you will ever see
before the curtain falls on freedom completely.
Jeffrey
Tucker is Founder, Author, and President at Brownstone Institute. He is
also Senior Economics Columnist for Epoch Times, author of 10 books,
including Life After Lockdown, and many thousands of articles in the
scholarly and popular press. He speaks widely on topics of economics,
technology, social philosophy, and culture.