Did Pfizer Commit Huge Fraud in Its COVID Vaccine Research?

 When your profits are the budget of a not-so-small country, when you control governments and international bodies, the Media and Internet social media, can you do anything "wrong", however nefarious?

 We are already 3 years into a pseudo pandemic from which in many countries the average age of death is higher than the normal average age of death of the population. Worse, in countries like Japan where vaccination rates are high, the number of positive people remains high too. Coincidence?

via Mercola

Story at-a-glance

• In November 2021, Brook Jackson, a whistleblower who worked on Pfizer’s Phase 3 COVID jab trial in the fall of 2020, warned she’d seen evidence of fraud in the trial
• With the release of Pfizer trial data — which they tried to withhold for 75 years — additional problems suggestive of fraud and data manipulation are coming to light
• Trial site 1231, located in Argentina, somehow managed to recruit 10% of the total trial participants, 4,501 in all, and they did so in just three weeks, and without a contract research organization — a feat that has many questioning whether fraud was committed
• The lead investigator for trial site 1231 is Dr. Fernando Polack, who also happens to be a consultant for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (RBPAC), a current adjunct professor at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, an investigator for Fundación Infant, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, and the first author of Pfizer’s paper, “Safety and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine,” published at the end of December 2021
• Site 1231 held a second enrollment session, given the designation of “site 4444.” The 4444 trial site data raise another red flag. It supposedly enrolled 1,275 patients in a single week, from September 22 through 27, 2020 — the last week that recruitment could take place to meet the data cutoff for the FDA meeting in December 2020. Was “site 4444” fabricating data to create the appearance that the jab was having an effect?

In November 2021, Brook Jackson, a whistleblower who worked on Pfizer’s Phase 3 COVID jab trial in the fall of 2020, warned she’d seen evidence of fraud in the trial.

Data were falsified, patients were unblinded, the company hired poorly trained people to administer the injections, and follow-up on reported side effects lagged way behind. The revelation was published in The British Medical Journal. In his November 2, 2021, report, investigative journalist Paul Thacker wrote:¹

“Revelations of poor practices at a contract research company helping to carry out Pfizer’s pivotal COVID-19 vaccine trial raise questions about data integrity and regulatory oversight …

[F]or researchers who were testing Pfizer’s vaccine at several sites in Texas during that autumn, speed may have come at the cost of data integrity and patient safety … Staff who conducted quality control checks were overwhelmed by the volume of problems they were finding.”

Jackson, a former regional director of Ventavia Research Group, a research organization charged with testing Pfizer’s COVID jab at several sites in Texas, repeatedly “informed her superiors of poor laboratory management, patient safety concerns and data integrity issues,” Thacker wrote.

When her concerns were ignored, she finally called the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and filed a complaint via email. Jackson was fired later that day after just two weeks on the job. According to her separation letter, management decided she was “not a good fit” for the company after all.

She provided The BMJ with “dozens of internal company documents, photos, audio recordings and emails” proving her concerns were valid, and according to Jackson, this was the first time she’d ever been fired in her 20-year career as a clinical research coordinator.

BMJ Report Censored

Disturbingly, social media actually censored this BMJ article and published pure falsehoods in an effort to “debunk” it. Mind you, the BMJ is one of the oldest and most respected peer-reviewed medical journals in the world! The Facebook “fact check” was done by Lead Stories, a Facebook contractor, which claimed the BMJ “did NOT reveal disqualifying and ignored reports of flaws in Pfizer’s” trials.²In response, The BMJ slammed the fact check, calling it “inaccurate, incompetent and irresponsible.”^3,4,5 In an open letter⁶ addressed to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, The BMJ urged Zuckerberg to “act swiftly” to correct the erroneous fact check, review the processes that allowed it to occur in the first place, and “generally to reconsider your investment in and approach to fact checking overall.” As noted by The BMJ in its letter, the Lead Stories’ fact check:⁷

• Inaccurately referred to The BMJ as a “news blog”
• Failed to specify any assertions of fact that The BMJ article got wrong
• Published the fact check on the Lead Stories’ website under a URL that contains the phrase “hoax-alert”

Pfizer Trial Data Raises Suspicions of Fraud

Now, with the release of Pfizer trial data⁸ — which they tried to withhold for 75 years — internet sleuths are finding additional problems suggestive of fraud and data manipulation. May 9, 2022, a Twitter user named Jikkyleaks posted a series of tweets questioning data from Pfizer trial sites 1231 and 4444.⁹

Trial site 1231, located in Argentina, somehow managed to recruit 10% of the total trial participants, 4,501 in all, and they did so in just three weeks, and without a contract research organization (CRO). CROs like the Ventavia Research Group, which Jackson worked for, provide clinical trial management services. The lead investigator for trial site 1231 is Dr. Fernando Polack,¹⁰ who also happens to be:¹¹

• A consultant for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (RBPAC) since 2017
• A current adjunct professor at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee
• An investigator for Fundación Infant,¹² which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation¹³
• The first author of Pfizer’s paper,¹⁴ “Safety and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine,” published at the end of December 2021

As noted by Jikkyleaks, Polack “is literally the busiest doctor on the planet,” because in addition to all those roles, he also managed to single-handedly enroll 4,500 patients in three weeks, which entails filling out some 250 pages of case report forms (CRFs) for each patient. That’s about 1,125,000 pages total. (CRFs are documents used in clinical research to record standardized data from each patient, including adverse events.)

This recruitment also took place seven days a week, which is another red flag. “Weekend recruitment for a clinical trial would be odd. Staff are needed to fill out that many record forms (CRFs) and there are potential risks to the trial, so you need medical staff. It would be highly unusual,” Jikkyleaks notes.

Is Polack just a super-humanly efficient trial investigator, or could this be evidence of fraud? As noted by Steve Kirsch in the featured video and an accompanying Substack article,¹⁵ Polack is the coordinator for a network of 26 hospitals in Argentina, so perhaps it’s possible he could have recruited 57 patients per week per hospital, but it seems highly unlikely.

Questions Surround Site 4444 Data

Now, “site 4444” does not exist. It’s actually the same as site 1231. It appears site 1231 held a second enrollment session, and these were for some reason given the designation of 4444. The 4444 trial site data raise another red flag.

Site 4444 (the second enrollment session for site 1231) supposedly enrolled 1,275 patients in a single week, from September 22 through 27, 2020, and the suspicious thing about that — aside from the speed — is the fact that this was the last week that recruitment could take place to meet the data cutoff for the FDA meeting in December 2020. Jikkyleads writes:¹⁶

“My guess: they needed enough numbers of ‘positive PCR tests’ in the placebo group to show a difference between groups for that VRBPAC meeting on the 10th Dec, and they didn’t have them. So, site 4444 appeared and gave them their ‘perfect’ result. Bravo.”

Kirsch notes:¹⁷

“Was there fraud in the Pfizer trial? Without a doubt. The story of Maddie de Garay is a clear case of that. Brook Jackson has evidence of fraud; she has 17 lawyers working for her. If there wasn’t fraud, these lawyers wouldn’t be wasting their time.

This new data on Site 1231/4444 looks suspicious to me. It looks too good to be true. But we can’t make the call without more information. Undoubtedly, the mainstream media will not look into this, Pfizer will remain silent, and Polack will be unreachable for comment. The lack of transparency should be troubling to everyone. That is the one thing we can say for sure.”

Pfizer Documents Reveal COVID Jab Dangers

Among the tens of thousands of Pfizer documents released by the FDA so far, we now also have clear evidence of harm. For nurse educator John Campbell, featured in the video above, these documents appear to have served as a “red pill,”¹⁸ waking him up to the possibility that the jabs may indeed be far more dangerous than anyone expected, including himself.

In the video, Campbell reviews the documents listed as “5.3.6. Postmarketing Experience,” which were originally marked “confidential.” They reveal that, cumulatively, through February 28, 2021, Pfizer received 42,086 adverse event reports, including 1,223 deaths.

To have 1,223 fatalities and 42,086 reports of injury in the first three months is a significant safety signal, especially when you consider that the 1976 swine flu vaccine was pulled after only 25 deaths.

As noted by Campbell, “It would have been good to know about this at the time, wouldn’t it?” referring to the rollout of the jabs. Campbell has been fairly consistent in his support of the “safe and effective” vaccine narrative, but “This has just destroyed trust in authority,” he said.

158,000 Recorded Side Effects — A World Record?

The first really large tranche of more than 10,000 Pfizer documents was released March 1, 2022. (You can find them all on PHMPT.org.¹⁹) In this batch were no less than nine single-space pages of “adverse events of special interest,” listed in alphabetical order²⁰ — 158,000 in all!

The first side effect on this shockingly exhaustive list is a rare condition known as 1p36 deletion syndrome, which results in severe intellectual disability, seizures, vision problems, hearing loss, breathing problems, brain anomalies, congenital heart defects, cardiomyopathy, renal anomalies, genital malformation, metabolic problems and more.

To see the first page, click the link below. The first side effect on this shockingly exhaustive list is a rare condition known as 1p36 deletion syndrome. This condition, caused by the deletion of DNA in chromosome 1p36, results in developmental delays, severe intellectual disability, seizures, vision problems, hearing loss, breathing problems, brain anomalies, congenital heart defects, cardiomyopathy, renal anomalies, genital malformation, metabolic problems and more.^21,22

Life expectancy depends on the amount of DNA that has been deleted. This, at bare minimum, sounds like something a pregnant woman might want to know before she gets the shot.

CRF Anomalies Raise Questions of Fraud

After reviewing some of the released CRFs in the March 1 tranche, investigative journalist Sonia Elijah also discovered several problems, including the following:²³

Patients entered into the “healthy population” group who were far from healthy — For example, one such “healthy” participant was a Type 2 diabetic with angina, a cardiac stent and a history of heart attack.

Serious adverse event (SAE) numbers were left blank — Ventavia site No. 1085 has a particularly large number of missing SAE numbers.

Missing barcodes for samples collected — Without those barcodes, you can’t match the sample to the participant.

Suspicious-looking SAE start and end dates — For example, the so-called “healthy” diabetic suffered a “serious” heart attack October 27, 2020. The “end” date is listed as October 28, the next day, which is odd because it was recorded as serious enough to require hospitalization. Also, on that same day, October 28, the patient was diagnosed with pneumonia, so likely remained hospitalized. “This anomaly raises doubt as to the accuracy of these recorded dates, potentially violating ALOCA-C clinical site documentation guidelines for clinical trials,” Elijah writes.

Unblinded teams were responsible for reviewing adverse event reports for signs of COVID cases, and to review severe COVID cases — Yet in some cases they appear to have dismissed the possibility of an event being COVID-related, such as pneumonia. This despite the fact that Pfizer’s protocol (section 8.2.4) lists “enhanced COVID-19” (i.e., antibody dependent enhancement) as a potential side effect to be on the lookout for. As noted by Elijah: “Inadvertently, this could have led to bias, as the unblinded teams would have been aware which participants were assigned the placebo and those who received the vaccine. They might have been under pressure by the sponsor for the trial to go a certain way and for events like ‘COVID Pneumonia’ to be classified simply as pneumonia.”

Impossible dating — The diabetic who suffered a heart attack followed by pneumonia (which may have been unacknowledged COVID pneumonia) died, and the date of death is listed as the day before the patient supposedly went for a “COVID ill” visit. Clearly, it’s impossible for a dead person to attend a medical visit, so something is wrong here. The clinical investigator note states: “There cannot be a date later than date of death. Please remove data from the COVID illness visit and add cough and shortness of breath as AEs (adverse events).” “What kind of pressure was being exerted here?” Elijah asks.

Second dose administered outside the three-week protocol window.

Observation period appears to have been an automatic entry — According to the protocol, each participant was to be observed by staff for a minimum of 30 minutes. A majority of the CRFs state 30 minutes, which raises the question: Were participants observed for adequate amounts of time, or did they simply put down “30 minutes” as an automatic entry? Why is there so little variety in the observation times? If participants were not adequately observed, their safety was put at risk, which was one of Jackson’s concerns.

Adverse events listed as “not serious” despite extended hospital stay — In one case, the participant fell and suffered facial lacerations the day after the second dose and was hospitalized for 26 days, yet the fall was not reported as serious. Other anomalies in this particular case include listing the fall as being caused by a “fall” unrelated to the study treatment, and the facial laceration being the result of “hypotension” (low blood pressure). The SAE number is also missing for the facial lacerations. Elijah writes, “Doubts can be raised over the credibility of this information given the fall and facial lacerations were intrinsically related. So, if facial lacerations were due to ‘hypotension’ then the fall should be due to that too.” Might low blood pressure be an effect of the experimental shot? Possibly. Especially when you consider the patient fell the day after being given the second dose. Even more suspicious: the causality for the fall was recorded as “related” (to the treatment) on the serious adverse event form, but listed as “not related” on the adverse event CRF. A note states, “Please confirm correct causality.”

Dismissing brand new health problems as unrelated to the treatment — For example, in one case, a female participant with no medical history of impaired kidney function was diagnosed with kidney stones and severe hypokalemia, requiring hospitalization, one month after her second dose. Yet despite her having no history of kidney problems, both events were dismissed as “not related” to the study treatment and no further investigation was done.

In closing, Elijah wrote:²⁴

“All the evidence gleaned over a limited time appears to back up whistleblower Jackson’s claims of poor trial site data management and raises questions as to how Ventavia conducted the Pfizer clinical trials.

The errors and anomalies in the CRFs also allude to her claims that the clinical research associates were not trained adequately, with many having had no prior clinical experience history. If such egregious findings are true at these sites, could they manifest at other trial sites around North America and beyond?”

Can You Trust Pfizer?

Pfizer, which was quickly given emergency use authorization (EUA) for its COVID-19 mRNA gene therapy shot, has a long list of criminal verdicts against it:

In 2002, Pfizer and two subsidiaries paid $49 million to settle civil claims that it had failed to report best prices for its drug Lipitor, as is required under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Statute.25

In 2004, a Pfizer subsidiary Warner-Lambert pleaded guilty and paid more than $430 million to settle criminal charges and civil liability from fraudulent marketing practices.26

In 2007, another subsidiary was found guilty of paying out kickbacks for formulary placement of its drugs and had to pay a fine of $34 million.27

Two years later, in 2009, Pfizer was found guilty of health care fraud and ordered to pay the largest penalty ever for this kind of offense.28 When announcing the record penalty of $2.3 billion against the drug giant, the U.S. Department of Justice said one of the charges was a felony. The other charges stemmed from false actions and false claims submitted to federal health care programs.

In 2010, the company was again ordered to pay $142 million in damages for fraudulent marketing and promoting the drug Neurontin for unapproved uses.29

Less than 10 years later, in 2018, Pfizer was again caught in an illegal kickback scheme and agreed to pay $23.8 million to resolve claims that it used a foundation as a conduit to pay the copays of Medicare patients taking three of its drugs.30

As noted in the journal Healthcare Policy in 2010,³¹ “Pfizer has been a ‘habitual offender,’ persistently engaging in illegal and corrupt marketing practices, bribing physicians and suppressing adverse trial results.” The article also highlights the crimes of Johnson & Johnson, another COVID jab maker.

Despite its tarnished history, we’re now expected to trust that everything Pfizer does is above-board. I don’t think so. A company that continues getting caught committing the same crimes over and over again clearly has a deeply established ethical rot within its corporate structure that fines simply have no effect over.

Has Pfizer committed fraud in its COVID jab trials as well? It sure looks that way. Time will tell whether attorneys will have enough for a conviction in the future. If fraud did take place, Pfizer can (and likely will) be held liable for the more than one million injuries its injection has caused in the U.S. alone, and we all look forward to that reckoning.

The Function of the Fake Binary

  Politics and sociology have advanced by leaps and bounds over the last few years thanks to the incredibly fast and accurate feedback of the Internet. Consequently, "new" techniques like the fake binary below have become standard. "You are with us or against us!" as George W. Bush reminded us almost 20 years ago, while bombing the "evil" Saddam Hussein.

 No wonder the elites have become arrogant: They can divide, rally, promote, censure, shadow-ban... The list is almost infinite and effective. But we end up with a micro-managed, modern Soviet system. The result will be the same. "They pretend to pay us (with fake, deflated money), we pretend to work!".   

Via Off-Guardian

In his 1998 book The Common Good, Noam Chomsky describes the key role that managed disagreements play in modern politics…

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate…”

This remains true despite the increasingly obvious fact that Chomsky himself is part of that function.

What he’s describing is the “fake binary”. The imposition of the idea that Viewpoint A is the official approved narrative and that Viewpoint B is therefore its antithesis.

Points C through Z can therefore be ignored.

The fact hidden in plain sight being that both Viewpoint A and Viewpoint B actually reinforce the overarching narrative being sold and both lead to the same place.

It’s an incredibly effective management tool.

A fake binary allows you to not just manipulate the conformist Normies who automatically obey, but also those who consider themselves to be ‘anti-establishment’, contrarians or ‘rebels’.

How are fake binaries created? They are often initially introduced by the following methods…

Using the legacy media to widely publicize Viewpoint B while appearing to deny, refute or ridicule it.

 “Leaking” allegedly confidential documents that “expose” Viewpoint B as the “hidden truth”. This is usually done through the legacy media, though it’s more effective if you can seed it through the indy media sector.

 Creating entities that are tagged as “anti-establishment” but given a mass following, and feeding them Viewpoint B material.

Once Viewpoint B becomes a dominant “anti-establishment” view you can afford to sit back and allow the oppositional instinct in human nature to do your work for you, and reinforce the fake binary you created without the slightest awareness this is what is happening.

It becomes widely understood that the only solution to the obvious and real evils of Viewpoint A is Viewpoint B.

The fact Viewpoint B actually concedes all the same falsehoods contained in Viewpoint A remains unnoticed and anyone pointing this out tends to be attacked by both sides.

Fake binaries are a godsend to the opinion-managers.

We’ll be talking more about this in the near future…

Italy Announces Rollout of Dystopian Social Credit System

 This is not quite "China" yet but clearly ideas to introduce some form of social credit are being planned almost everywhere.

 I can confirm that this is indeed the case as a few companies have already contacted me to work on such projects in Japan. The answer is that I can (it is not that complicated) but I won't. The challenge is not technical but political to make sure that the population accepts the schemes. The solution will be to link everything to "Carbon" and shame people who do not "participate". Then tax and finally punish. 

 This is how it was done with Covid. A great rehearsal for things to come if there ever was a use for the pandemic!

by Capitalist Exploits

I don’t know if you saw this but the trend is far from good over in the Mediterranean.

Italy has many things to love, but sadly I think many of us will never experience them.

Italy Announces Rollout of Dystopian Social Credit System; Compliant Citizens Will Be Rewarded For “Good Behaviour” – [your]NEWS

Social credit scores are already in use in various places around the world, but nowhere more than in the communist hell hole that is China. The dystopian measurement acts in a similar fashion to a traditional credit score, however, as the name indicates, one’s score has little to do with their financial prospects or ability to pay off debt on time – social scores are all about your level of compliance to the regime and acceptance of the approved narrative.

For example, if social credit scores were in full effect in the United States and you were to donate money to a company like the National Rifle Association (NRA) or buy stocks in oil – pretty much anything deemed far-right or environmentally damaging by the establishment – your score would take a hit. Too many hits and, you guessed it, there goes your purchasing power and ability.

You can see now the appeal of programmable money to sociopaths. It will allow them total control over our lives. We’d see the elimination of entire ranges of products.

Whatever doesn’t meet any government’s stated requirements will immediately be sanctioned. Just as they are trying to disallow sovereign nations from buying Russian energy and paying in rubles.

So they can and will sanction you from buying that cigar or maybe even that diamond ring for the love of your life. Diamonds may become frivolous and not very ESG friendly. Who knows?

The article goes on to explain more as to how they’re rolling this out.

The program will kick off its pilot starting in the fall of 2022 in the large metropolitan city of Bologna. Citizens who comply with the radical climate change agenda by displaying “good behavior,” such as correctly recycling or using public transportation, will be rewarded with cryptocurrency and discounts to local retailers, according to local newspaper Bologna Today.

Enrollees will be given a “smart citizen wallet” where their rewards can be accessed. The higher one’s score, correlating with good behavioral changes, will allow them access to more benefits.

All of this is enough to drive a man to drink. I’ll have the Jack Daniels, thanks.

In all seriousness though, this social credit system is all tied to the coming CBDCs. And that, my friends, means we’re in for a battle. Why?

Because all these sociopaths in various positions of power actually want this power. But they all have their own idiosyncrasies and desires. And they don’t all align with the NWO and Herr Klaus et al.

AMERICAN FREAKSHOW or the broken American dream

 What's left of the American dream in 2022?

 Not much according to this article. It reminds me of the Southern coast of England which was already in this sorry state of degeneracy over 40 years ago although there never really was any "English dream" to start with!

 Still, as we enter the "bread and circus" age of our Roman decline while the elites gather in Davos with their "carbon-tax-free" private jets to discuss the tax heavy future of the peasants, it is worth remembering that our current decadence is not just economic and political but also social as sarcastically told bellow. 

AMERICAN FREAKSHOW

“When you’re born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you’re born in America, you get a front row seat.” – George Carlin

When we saw the forecast for this past weekend on Wednesday, we quickly booked a room for Friday and Saturday nights in Wildwood. Even though we are headed back down to the beach in two weeks for our annual vacation, we couldn’t pass up an 80 degree day in May. The Montego Bay hotel is one of only a few that are open all year in Wildwood. It’s kind of dumpy, the staff is grumpy and the one elevator takes five minutes to arrive.

You park underneath and there is always water dripping from somewhere. It always reminds me of that condo tower that collapsed in Miami last year. The rooms are clean and the view from the 5^th floor balcony is spectacular, looking out on the Atlantic Ocean. You get to see a stunning sunrise, majestic sailboats, and dolphins frolicking close to the beach.

Of course it’s easier to see when there isn’t a five story pile of sand in front of your hotel and the beach access is blocked off. It’s normally peaceful when there aren’t dump trucks and other heavy machinery operating from 6:00 am until 4:00 pm. It’s also quieter when your ghetto neighbors in the next room aren’t blasting their music at volume 11. It seems the North Wildwood authorities attempt to defeat Mother Nature every year by replenishing the beach that washes away every winter during coastal storms. So they pile up tons of sand and truck it up and down the North Wildwood beaches all spring, trying to create a decent sized beach by Memorial Day. It’s not working so well this year.

They had created a small but decent sized beach in North Wildwood, until a coastal storm washed it all away. So, one week before Memorial Day, this is what the beach looks like now. At high tide, there is no beach. They are fighting an uphill battle, and they will always lose. They spend millions of taxpayer dollars per year and it all washes out to sea every year. On Saturday we packed our cooler full of refreshments, grabbed our books (my birthday gift – The Real Anthony Fauci by RFK), and headed to the beach with our chairs. We found a tiny opening behind the sand dune with waves lapping at our feet. We sat for a couple hours, drinking our illegal refreshments, taking in the views, but not reading very much.

The lack of beaches is mostly a North Wildwood problem, as Wildwood’s beaches are quite wide. Mother Nature and the tides spare their beaches. As our economic system continues to swirl down the toilet, the money for these boondoggles will dissipate like the beach during a Nor’easter.

That night we went to Inlet on Olde for dinner and a few drinks. They had an acoustic guitar player who was good, but no one cared. No applause. No requests. We reminisced that if this was a few years ago we would be at the Shamrock watching Bill Jack perform until the wee hours of the morning. But Governor Murphy and the corrupt politicians in Wildwood forced the Shamrock out of business over bullshit covid violations and now Billy Jack is nowhere to be found in Wildwood as of today. We sure hope he gets a steady gig somewhere so we can see him again.

Checkout time was 10:00 am on Sunday, but the weather was perfect, so we wanted to hang around and enjoy it as long as possible. The temperature was 72 in Wildwood, with an ocean breeze, while it was 95 degrees and humid at home. We took a long walk on the beach and made our way back onto the boardwalk, as we planned to get some lunch before heading home. About a block from where our old condo is, there is the Douglass Fudge Pavilion where there were two empty Adirondack chairs with our names on them. We decided to sit back and take in the sights on this beautiful spring day.

This picture my wife took from our seats should have been a foreshadowing of what we would witness over the next forty-five minutes. Within a few yards of each other are Douglass Fudge and Laura’s Fudge. Everywhere you look on the Wildwood boardwalk, it is fudge, pizza, ice cream, sodas, French fries, tacos, burgers, cheesesteaks, candy, fried Oreos, fried Snickers, donuts, hoagies, zeppoles, churros, and funnel cake. Based on the hundreds of people waddling by us on the boardwalk that day, it seemed like most had consumed ample quantities of these foods and many others.

When the average person walking on the Wildwood boardwalk looks like Chris Christie, you know you’ve got an obesity problem in this country. To be honest, there were plenty of thin, athletic people on the boardwalk, but they were outnumbered by 3 to 1 by the fatties. I’m 59 years old and probably 25 pounds overweight, but I wasn’t in my twenties and thirties. The disturbing fact is how many young people are enormous. Luckily they rebuilt this part of the boardwalk with sturdier boards, so it could handle the hordes of Chris Christies sauntering on the boardwalk.

I know everyone has the ability to not consume junk food and live a healthy lifestyle, but our society is built upon mass consumption of manufactured food stuff, marketed to youngsters from the day they start watching TV. Just as the government uses Edward Bernays propaganda techniques to control the masses, these same techniques are used by mega-corporations to convince the ignorant masses to consume their products.

This obesity epidemic is produced systematically by corporations creating products that aren’t food but are sold and marketed as food. They are chemically produced crap, intended to make us sick, so the Sickcare industry and Big Pharma can sell us more products that don’t cure you, but treat your symptoms. It’s the circle of death, with a population left obese, sick and dependent, while mega-corporations are enriched.

It was about the 30-minute mark that I turned to my wife and said, “This is a freakshow”. Just then a surrey went by with some diverse passengers holding ferrets, confirming my freakshow diagnosis. Shortly thereafter two identical 50ish fat lady twins with dyed black hair of equal length and wearing the exact same clothes shuffled by, reconfirming my freakshow assessment. In addition to the waddling land whales, there were the purple hair brigade, nose, and lip piercing platoon, and of course the tattooed taskforce. Some hit a grand slam by being in all four categories.

I’m often left speechless when observing what people are doing to their bodies in the world today. When I was a kid the only people with tattoos were military guys or bikers, and those tattoos were a single symbolic tattoo on their upper arm. You never saw a tattoo on a woman in the 1960s, 70’s or 80’s. On this day it seemed like 50% of every man, woman and teen was adorned in hideous unrecognizable graphics from head to toe. My wife took this picture and the 60ish couple just happened to be walking by. It’s difficult to make out, but both of these seniors had full leg and arm tattoos. They were the classic representation of white trash.

I can’t conceptualize what makes people want to denigrate their own bodies in such a way. I think it is another example of our cultural decline. This social media ME culture, where everyone is taking selfies and posting on Facebook or Instagram, encourages the ignorant masses to try and stand out by doing things to their bodies in order to be noticeable and make an impression.

Our culture doesn’t honor people’s intellect or thoughts, but how they look and the shock factor of being more outrageous than everyone else. But, in reality, the tattooed masses are nothing but followers, doing whatever trend the crowd has latched onto at the moment. This explains their complete subservience to getting jabbed with an experimental Big Pharma concoction. They were told everyone else was getting it, so they just followed like good sheep.

I think millions of people feel like nameless, faceless cogs in the machine. They have no real purpose in life and are desperate to stand out. They are then convinced by friends or TV getting tattoos will make others think they are a rebel and will be talked about by others. Instead, most of them look pathetic and unemployable, especially those with neck, face, or head tattoos. There is nothing more disgusting than a hippopotamus with tattoos from head to toe. I believe the proliferation of tattoos is an attempt to fill a void in their hearts and minds, created by a world run by psychopaths who see people as objects to be used, milked, manipulated, corralled, and monetized.

They have been using media and technology for decades to influence and control the thoughts, emotions, and opinions of the masses through propaganda designed to keep the masses poor, indebted and doing menial jobs, while they live in luxury and splendor. The void in the lives of the masses is purposely created and it’s filled by manufactured food and distortion of their bodies. I’m convinced this freakshow we call our country has not been created by accident, but purposely by the ruling oligarchy (aka owners) as the best paradigm to accomplish their evil intentions and enrichment.

After lunch, we still thought it was too soon to hit the road, so we drove down to the rocks at 2^rd and JFK Boulevard. We sat on the bench where we had left my mother a few weeks earlier so she could talk to my deceased father, as that was the bench they always sat on while watching the wave’s crash on the jetty. I didn’t realize my wife was taking a picture of me, but the shirt I was wearing had one of my favorite quotes from George Carlin: “It’s a Big Club, and you Ain’t in it.”

Since I don’t believe in coincidences, as this article percolated in my mind, I happened to watch the two part documentary of George Carlin’s life on HBO over the last two nights called George Carlin’s American Dream. It was fascinating, enlightening and highly entertaining to watch Carlin’s transformations, awakenings, growth, and the anger with our culture that drove him in his final years.

The establishment hacks who Carlin despised said he was just a bitter old man at the end of his life, but he had zeroed in on the real problems in this country and who was most responsible, and they didn’t like it. I’m convinced anyone who wants to understand what has happened and is happening in this world just needs to read the words of Huxley, Orwell and Carlin. They capture the zeitgeist of our times. I think my observations on the Wildwood boardwalk can be encapsulated in these two quotes from Carlin:

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

“The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice! You have OWNERS! They OWN YOU. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought—and paid for—the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls.”

The owners have used the stupidity of the average person, created by decades of useless indoctrination in government run schools, to enslave people in debt and turn them into non-thinking consumers, who beg the owners to tell them what to think, believe, or inject into their bodies. At the end of the documentary it is pointed out Carlin wasn’t always a cynic. He was an idealist who became a cynic when he realized our society was doomed and there was nothing he could do but rage against the machine.

I’ve followed a similar path, as I began writing because I thought I could convince enough people to change our course through the ballot box. But I’ve come to the same conclusion as Carlin. This freakshow we call America cannot be fixed at the ballot box and is destined to fall. It is happening now and there is nothing we can do to stop it from happening. The American Dream is dead.

“That’s why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.”

Every teenager in America should be made to watch Carlin’s American Dream monologue from 2005, shortly before his death. Carlin never lost faith in individuals, only in groups, governments, corporations, and the ruling elite. Once this tottering empire of lies falls it will be up to individuals to create something better.

World War 3: Is The Stage Being Set For The US To Go To War With China And Russia Simultaneously?

 Another author who also believes that we are in the early hours of WW3.

 This is not a difficult call to make. Just looking at history shows that economic sanctions almost always bring war, not peace. Negotiations bring peace but there are almost none taking place at this stage. 

 So what will actually happen? Again, history is a good teacher. Nothing much happens following early provocations and the belligerents consequently calculate that their next step should be fine. And usually it is... until it's not.

 When you asphyxiate Japan as the US did in 1940, you can expect a response, eventually. The problem of Japan at that time was that the country lacked resources (as did Germany) whence a mad scramble South to reach Malaysia and Indonesia quickly. This is clearly not the case of Russia today, although it could quickly becomes the case for China as the country cannot run a war-time economy without imports. Still Russia is not North Korea and the country would find it hard to run a Juche (close) economy for long. But with the support of China and a few other countries, we end up with a balance between belligerents which is of course the worst possible framework since it is the one which will encourage both sides to up the ante. The risk for war is therefore above 90%...    

Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

You would have to be out of your mind to fight wars with China and Russia simultaneously.  Unfortunately, the guy in the White House actually fits that description.  Joe Biden has been a hothead throughout his career in politics, but now he is a hothead that is in an advanced state of mental decline.  And as I have warned for more than a year, he is surrounded by the worst foreign policy team in U.S. history, and that is really saying something.  Biden and his team just keep making one colossal mistake after another, and now we are on a path that could soon have us fighting major wars with both China and Russia at the same time.

If there was ever a time to invoke the 25th Amendment, it is now.  If we start shooting at the Chinese and the Russians, the unthinkable will actually become reality.  There will be no “do overs”, and there will be no going back to the way that life was before.

During a press conference in Japan, Biden was asked if he would use the U.S. military to defend Taiwan if China invades.  This is how he responded…

“Very quickly, you didn’t want to get involved in the Ukraine conflict militarily for obvious reasons. Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?” a reporter asked the president during a news conference in Japan.

“Yes,” Biden replied.

“You are?” the reporter pressed.

“That’s the commitment we made,” the president said.

As he made those remarks, Biden seemed dazed and confused, as if he was in some sort of a mental fog at the time.

Immediately after Biden’s press conference, administration officials attempted to walk back his remarks.

They said that he had “misspoke” and that there had been no change in policy.

But the damage had already been done, and the Chinese were furious.  In fact, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry responded by stating that “there is no room for compromise” when it comes to Taiwan…

‘On issues concerning China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and other core interests, there is no room for compromise,’ said Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

‘We urged the US side to earnestly follow the One China principle … be cautious in words and deeds on the Taiwan issue, and not send any wrong signal to pro-Taiwan independence and separatist forces — so it won’t cause serious damage to the situation across the Taiwan Strait and China-US relations.’

China has always considered Taiwan to be Chinese territory, and in recent weeks there have been all sorts of rumblings that the Chinese are getting ready to invade.

Let me share just one example with you…

Officials from the Chinese finance ministry and central bank on April 22 met with representatives of dozens of banks, including HSBC, to discuss what Beijing could do in the event of the imposition of severe sanctions on China. The finance ministry noted, in the words of the Financial Times, that “all large foreign and domestic banks operating in China” were present.

Participants concluded Beijing could not protect foreign assets, but the holding of the “emergency meeting” is nonetheless ominous. Chinese officials have seen the effect of sanctions imposed on Russia after it launched its “special military operation” in Ukraine in February, and they are planning to weather any such measures applied to their own country.

Why would the Chinese hold such an emergency meeting?

Of course the answer is obvious.

The only reason why the U.S. would impose the same sort of sanctions on China as it has on Russia would be if China decided to invade Taiwan.

As I have detailed in previous articles, the Chinese have been sending military aircraft into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone on a constant basis for months.  And there have been all sorts of reports and rumors that the Chinese military is actively making preparations for an invasion.

So that is why Biden is being asked about a potential invasion.  Everyone realizes that such a scenario is a distinct possibility.

And once China invades, the U.S. and China will immediately be in a state of war.

In fact, an article that was recently posted on Fox News is suggesting that the Chinese may actually launch a “first strike” against U.S. military assets if it decides to launch an invasion of Taiwan…

For China to seize Taiwan, it must first gain air superiority and then knock out Taiwan’s navy. And unlike Russia’s invasion of non-NATO ally Ukraine, China must assume from the start that America and Japan will swiftly come to Taiwan’s aid, meaning that China will launch a first strike on American and Japanese naval and air assets. Thus, unless successfully deterred, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is likely to be a high-intensity affair from the first hour, with American ships, submarines, and air bases targeted by hundreds of Chinese missiles—regardless of whether America formally returns to strategic ambiguity or even abandons Taiwan as some suggest.

Personally, I don’t think that the Chinese would risk such an attack.

Instead, I think that they would hit Taiwan with overwhelming force and hope that Biden would just respond with sanctions.

But I could be wrong.

Switching gears, both sides continue to escalate the war in Ukraine.

On Sunday, we learned that the U.S. is actually considering sending troops into Ukraine to guard the U.S. embassy in Kiev…

Plans to send U.S. forces back into Ukraine to guard the recently reopened American Embassy in Kyiv are “underway at a relatively low level,” Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday.

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that officials are mulling plans to send special forces to Kyiv to guard the U.S. Embassy. The effort is a delicate one, as it requires balancing the safety of American diplomats while avoiding what Russia could see as an escalation.

That is not a good idea, but rational people are not running our foreign policy at this point.

If rational people were making these decisions in Washington, we would not have already committed 54 billion dollars to this conflict.  That is an amount that is nine times larger than what Ukraine normally spends on their entire military for an entire year.

In the war in Ukraine, it is the U.S. that is spending most of the money, it is the U.S. that is providing most of the equipment, it is the U.S. that is providing most of the intelligence, and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has admitted that we are even flying members of the Ukrainian military into the United States to train them.

This has already become a full-blown proxy war between the United States and Russia, and we are dangerously close to it becoming an actual shooting war between our two nations.

And that is a scenario that we should be trying to avoid at all costs.

This week is is also being reported that Vladimir Putin “survived an assassination attempt” shortly after the war in Ukraine began…

Vladimir Putin survived an assassination attempt not long after starting his war in Ukraine, the country’s intelligence chief has claimed.

Kyrylo Budanov said Putin was ‘attacked.. by representatives of the Caucasus’ – a region that includes Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and parts of southern Russia – around two months ago.

‘[It was an] Absolutely unsuccessful attempt, but it really happened… It was about 2 months ago,’ Budanov said. ‘I repeat, this attempt was unsuccessful. There was no publicity about this event, but it took place.’

If this happened, I severely doubt that it was “representatives of the Caucasus” that were ultimately behind it.

To me, it is far more likely that western intelligence was involved.

And this could explain why I saw Vladimir Putin in danger just before the Russians launched their special military operation.  In that experience I saw that Putin had been knocked down, but he had not been killed.

However, as I went on to explain, I had another experience that led me to believe that he will ultimately end up dead.  Interestingly, it is being rumored that Putin underwent cancer surgery just last week…

Vladimir Putin underwent ‘successful’ cancer surgery last week and is recovering, it has been claimed in just the latest rumour about the Russian leader’s health.

The 69-year-old underwent an unknown procedure late last Monday following advice from medics that treatment was ‘essential’, according to Telegram channel General SVR which claims to be getting information from inside the Kremlin.

Some in the western media are cheering for Putin’s death, but I believe that whoever replaces him will be even more antagonistic toward the west.

My hope is that a way can be found to have peace, but at this moment U.S. officials do not seem inclined to pursue peace with Russia.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has decided to allow the U.S. military to participate in “an Israeli drill simulating a massive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities”…

As if an intense proxy war with nuclear powerhouse Russia isn’t bringing enough heat, the Biden White House has now given the greenlight for unprecedented U.S. participation in an Israeli drill simulating a massive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

According to The Times of Israel, “The U.S. Air Force will serve as a complementary force, with refueling planes drilling with Israeli fighter jets as they simulate entering Iranian territory and carrying out repeated strikes.” The mock attack on Iran will happen this month, as part of a broader Israeli military exercise called “Chariots of Fire.”

This is another future war that I have been warning about, and I believe that it could erupt at any time in the months ahead.

And when the missiles start flying back and forth, the entire globe will be shocked by the carnage and devastation.

This is a time of wars and rumors of wars, and I believe that World War 3 has already started.

But for now the major powers are still not shooting at one another, and we should be very thankful for that.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration continues to make one glaring error after another, and at some point our good fortune will run out.

As Food Protectionism Spreads, India Limits Sugar Exports, Malaysia Halts Chicken Sales

 Just imagine what it will be like in December!

As Food Protectionism Spreads, India Limits Sugar Exports, Malaysia Halts Chicken Sales

Tuesday was a jammed-packed day for food protectionism developments across Asia. India announced a sugar export ban, and Malaysia halted shipments of chicken. Like many others in the region, both countries suffer from high inflation. Each respective government and central bank seeks to suppress inflation, and what appears to be the move at the moment (besides raising interest rates) are protectionist measures.

If inflation continues to run hot in these countries, the risk of socio-economic turmoil increases. 

Today's events first began with India. Bloomberg reported earlier that sources expected a sugar export ban was imminent. The Indian government announced the new trade restrictions late in the US cash session. Following India's lead, Malaysia announced trade restrictions on chickens to curtail rising prices. 

We suspect more countries to announce protectionist measures to quell food inflation, though such trade restrictions will only exacerbate food insecurity worldwide. 

* * * 

Update: India, the world's second-biggest sugar producer, will cap sugar exports at ten million tons during the current sugar season (2021-22). It's another attempt to contain inflation and stabilize domestic prices. 

"Taking into consideration unprecedented growth in exports of sugar and the need to maintain sufficient stock of sugar in the country as well as to safeguard interests of the common citizens of the country by keeping prices of sugar under check, Government of India has decided to regulate sugar exports from June 1, 2022," Consumer Affairs Ministry said. 

The ministry will allow only 10 million tons of sugar exports for the season that ends in Sept. 2022. Sugar mills have already contracted 9 million tons, and a record 7.8 million tons have already been shipped. 

India's curbs on sugar exports follow another protectionist step as wheat exports were restricted earlier this month. The government is trying to get a handle on soaring food inflation by ensuring adequate domestic supplies. 

India's government is on a protectionist roll. What crop will they ban for export next?

* * * 

Food protectionism soars and will continue worldwide through 2022, exacerbating food security risks for the world's most vulnerable countries. One country safeguarding its food supplies is India. 

Earlier this month, India's government halted wheat exports amid heatwaves threatened crop yields. Another act of protectionism could be announced in the coming days with an export restriction on sugar, according to Bloomberg. 

A person familiar with the new trading restrictions says the government plans to announce a ten million ton cap on sugar exports through September. The move guarantees that domestic stockpiles are adequate ahead of the next growing season in October. 

India is the second-largest sugar exporter behind Brazil. Its largest customers include Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Dubai. 

Bloomberg notes the proposed sugar trade restriction "appears to be an extreme case of precaution:" 

India is expected to produce 35 million tons this season and consume 27 million tons, according to the Indian Sugar Mills Association. Including last season's stockpiles of about 8.2 million tons, it has a surplus of 16 million, including as much as 10 million for exports.

India rarely shipped more than 7 million tons until last year, when exports hit a record 7.2 million. Sugar mills tended to rely on government subsidies to boost exports. However, global prices have jumped almost 20% in the past year, allowing India to increase shipments without subsidies. There are expectations for exports to range between 9 million and 11 million tons this season. 

The person said once shipments reach 9 million tons. Exporters will have to submit paperwork to the government to apply for permits to send the remaining 1 million tons. They added the export halt could support global sugar market prices. 

Besides increasing protectionism in India, Indonesia's ban on palm oil exports roiled edible oil markets for a month (the restriction has since been reversed). Malaysia also announced to halt 3.6 million chickens a month from June 1 and increase wheat imports to stabilize prices.   

The trend is clear: Food protectionism will exacerbate the global food crisis, creating headaches for governments and central banks desperately trying to curb inflation before it becomes unmanageable and results in socio-economic turmoil.

It's Not Just The USA: The Economic Instability Is Global

 We are clearly at the end of a long term cycle but this time is different because the cycle is global. Can Russia and China decouple from the West and avoid a crash? Time will tell. At this stage, I do not think we can avoid war as we are already in the late economic stage of one and once you enter the fog of war, there are so many factors in play that the outcome becomes unpredictable.

 The current economic decisions in Western countries are so destructive that it is easy to look for malevolent intentions i.e. conspiracy theories. If only! At least there would be some kind of a direction! But mostly, it looks more and more as shortsightedness and incompetence on a grand scale. 

Authored by Paul Tolmachev via The Mises Institute,

The actions of the authorities in developed countries, essentially an extension of the Keynesian economic policy discourse, have brought the economies into disrepute. These actions consist of immense stimulus and virtually unfunded government indexation of voter income in the face of expected impoverishment amid COVID, lockdowns, and other global problems.

The government is making money cheaper, just to maintain electoral support. This leads to a dispersal of demand and a proliferation of zombie companies, it distorts the incentives for healthy competition, it reduces business efficiency, and it kills the innovation factor of economic growth. Most importantly: it creates leverage - the dominance of needs over opportunities, demand over supply-in other words, it leads to dramatic market disequilibrium.

Before COVID times, such imbalances over the past 20 years were bought with new leverage, and the imbalances went away for a while, giving birth to inevitable new imbalances in the future. The Austrian cycles perfectly describe this process, its starting points and its consequences. In fact, this leftist social agenda for buying electoral loyalty is a new political doctrine based on simplification, and most importantly, on the abolition of any concern for tomorrow. 

In СOVID times, however, all that has changed. Another injection of mega liquidity, the cheapening of money by all possible means - from direct budgetary donations to the inflating of the Fed's balance sheet - occurred against a background of blocked demand, rather than falling due to economic stagnation. As a result, the savings of all agents increased abnormally, people stopped wanting to work, the flow of investment into the stock market and into financial assets increased, creating hyperinflation in them and moving them away from their fair value.

The assumption was that, once the restrictions were lifted, the intensified and unmet buying intentions would sharply accelerate the economy, because the capacity and potential of supply is enormous: supply has the capacity to satisfy demand, synergistically accelerating the economy. This has not happened, however, because there have been structural shifts as a result of excessive lockdowns: gaps in supply chains, reduced labor force participation, and labor shortages in general, hypertrophied growth of commodity markets, and geopolitical tensions that reinforce all of the above factors. As a result, supply is unable to meet the demand because of cheap money, and inflation is again eating away at the economy.

At the same time, instead of reducing its clumsy intervention, the government, on the contrary, increases social programs and government spending in the form of infrastructure projects. In this way it depresses business through the inevitable increase in the tax burden and further contributes to the compression of supply, reducing efficiency, the desire to invest and, in general, worsening business expectations and expanding the mandate and the number of bureaucratic entities.

Against this same backdrop, by continuing its conciliatory policy with resource autocracies, the government is forcing a green agenda at the worst possible time, underfunding both conventional and alternative energy, which cannot cover the current need for the capacity provided by conventional energy. A cursory reading of Klaus Schwab's The Great Reboot is enough to understand the inadequacy of such a utopian concept, the adherence to which, as we can see, leads to anti-utopian consequences.

The result was a geopolitical tension caused by differing interests, preferences and expectations of global players: Russia, as a resource autocracy, saw a window of opportunity and the vulnerability of the economic position of the Collective West - and played the tactical card. In the short horizon, the calculation proved correct: on the whole, post-conservative externalities and leftist populist policies of Western power elites weakened developed economies, led to stagflation and increased the threat of recession. The blow to the Western world in the form of the military conflict in Eastern Europe and its aftermath was well-timed for the resource autocracy itself, which from within needed a new impetus for self-preservation and confirmation of the regime's legitimacy by the population.

What do we get in the end?

We end up with structural shifts, when all the post-Soviet problems multiply manifold.

Stagflation is already a fact today; recession is inevitable tomorrow. Social discontent, which will inevitably happen and is already taking place in various parts of the Western world, will force governments to continue to care about today without thinking about tomorrow - and to continue the policies of populism and leftist expansive discourse, which will inevitably lead to even greater leverage and exacerbate economic, and therefore social, imbalances.

Commodity inflation will not end quickly, since significant exporters of raw materials are in conflict and alternative channels of resource importation have not been established. New energy is clearly insufficient against the background of limiting imports of old energy from the resource autocracy. This means that traditional energy supplies must be recanalized, which is inevitably accompanied by rising costs and acceleration of inflation. Supply is under stress from rising costs - logistical lockups, commodity inflation and labor shortages. An additional stress is on the way, or rather, already in the room - rising credit costs and a potential drop in demand.

At the same time, China, as the embodiment of an alternative sociopolitical pole, benefits in the short horizon. Against the background of universal turbulence and socio-economic disequilibria in the Western world, the ability to centrally stimulate the market in the initial stages of the capitalist impulse can be quite a success story. At this point, there are still no acute dependencies on state injections, no meaningful imbalances in supply and demand dynamics, and no ideological constraints on imported raw materials.

China, with its own problems of growing state capitalism in the form of hypertrophied infrastructure capex and an authoritarian political frame leading to market and innovation inefficiencies over the long haul, now has a distinct advantage. It lies in the possibility of directive economic management and linear monetary and fiscal incentives. This is an advantage that Western states no longer have and that, by the way, China itself will soon lose, because games of "big government" do not succeed for too long. They always end in one thing: social and economic collapse in its various forms and outcomes.

As a result, Western economies are faced with a dilemma as never before: to continue state expansion and addiction treatment with a new dose, or to start bringing the economy into balance. Of course, this is associated with tough and unpopular political decisions, all the more painful in a situation of global tension. But this is precisely the situation in which politicians show their true skills, namely the ability to convince voters to sacrifice something today for the sake of a better tomorrow. Otherwise, there will be no tomorrow at all.

So far, we have been assured of only one thing: we are living in one day and there is no tomorrow. In short, it's like Keynes: we are all going to die in the long run. I think we've been through this before.

Banking on Social Unrest on Peak Prosperity (Long Video)

 A long but interesting video looking at the current economy. 

 Our economy is going down the drain. We could have done something about it some years ago. Now it's too late. Famine is baked in the cake. Oil shortages too. As for our financial system, well...

 

Germans ´schwedt´ hard for Russian oil

 This article is a little rambling and technical since written by an oil expert but it would be difficult to find a better one explaining clearly the absurdity of the current European energy policy.

 Economic suicide is a short way to describe it but what does it mean on the ground? 

 It takes 15 years to build a nuclear reactor so Mr Macron has a solution for 2037+. But Germany plans to get rid of Russian oil by the end of this year. Here's what it really means.

Germans ´schwedt´ hard for Russian oil

´Krautensuiciden´:

by Jorge Vilches for the Saker Blog

Germans will soon passionately conjugate a very strange new verb amongst themselves, the infinitive form of which is “ to schwedt ”. Of course, all sorts of ironic phraseology will emerge in the blogosphere with creative commentariati wondering whether “to schwedt or not to schwedt”… or millennials surely indicating to “chill it, don´t schwedt it ”…

So, you may wonder what exactly is this ´schwedt´ thingy about ? Well, it all starts with Schwedt, a small greyish-dull industrial town in North East Germany right next to the Polish border – it doesn´t get much greyer than that – which is now getting ready for no more and no less than…(drumroll please)…sudden World Fame… or…”GAME OVER”.

Traffic today still continues to drive-by Schwedt gloriously unattentive with visitors naïvely unable to focus on anything special. But savvy technical buzz circles silently have it that the famous Schwedt Refinery – in a matter of weeks – will turn into the Mother of All Engineering & Political Battles ever that will define the future of Germany and Europe vis-á-vis the stubbornly desired banning of Russian oils. If this battle were lost ( or partially lost ) many firmly credible experts solemnly insist it would have irrevocable existential consequences with European countries turning into almost failed states. But then the question arises: Is it really possible – or even believable — that Germany (!) could actually fail in this essential Schwedt Refinery project it has set up for itself with absolutely no need ? How would it happen ?

Well, it should happen because only discontinuous and/or non-viable and/or variable-quality blends of unvetted yet far more expensive new oils are to be found as substitutes for constant, fully-proven all-around compliance of Russian Urals oil that all Europe enjoys today. Or also because of the subsequent failure of the refinement process for such yet non-existent and only theoretically viable non-Russian blends supposedly to be batch delivered (!) by still un-named third parties upon which Germany would necessarily entrust its existence. Instead, compare that to HUGE, smooth and constant,pipeline delivery of high quality Russian Urals feed 24x7x365 already processed by European refineries swiftly and reliably into excellent final products at an unbeatable un-subsidized price. Accordingly, the distillates to be possibly delivered (or not) by the Schwedt Refinery with non-Russian feedstocks may mean either World Fame or GAME OVER. Failure could also come about even assuming that vendors were able to supply enough and continuous seaborne batch quantities of reasonably viable oils. Because there might also not be enough fully dedicated handling, storage and/or logistics capacity at Baltic ports to unload and/or adequately deliver to a very far away Schwedt. Other logistical and batch-related factors could also go wrong. Made-In-Russia will be missed. For example, the Urals blend homogenous quality & quantities, the price, and the smooth 24x7x365 Druzhba feed. So let´s schwedt it, shall we ?

the “Battle of the Schwedt”

Many historians attribute to Mark Twain the saying: “History does not repeat itself but it does often rhyme.” At any rate, the Battle of the Bulge defined Germany´s defeat and the end of World War 2. Now, the Battle of the Schwedt will define the future of the world, but only if Western Europeans are able to avoid triggering World War 3, something that unfortunately is definitely in the cards. Meanwhile, small-town Schwedt is home to Germany´s most politically important refinery ( without Schwedt, no Berlin, okay ? ) which has been connected to the Druzhba pipeline for many decades smoothly and continuously bringing in precious Urals oil from Russia to process into many different distillates of excellence. So much so that the Schwedt Refinery all by itself today provides fuel to almost all filling stations in Berlin… as well as to the surrounding huge state of Brandenburg the 5^th largest in all of Germany… plus also to the Berlin international airport… plus areas of Western Poland…

You do follow the importance of having a smooth, high quality, un-expensive operation at the Schwedt Refinery no ?

Well all that is soon about to drastically change as Germany apparently wants – at all costs — to stop importing the excellent, cheap, reliable, decades-proven, fully vetted, well-delivered, and most successfully processed and refined Russian oil. And even if the new and still unknown vendors were to duly coordinate themselves (?) to continuously deliver constant HUGE quantities and quality of new non-Russian blends of experimental crude oils…and even if the Baltic + Schwedt infrastructures were able to deliver exactly per requirements… still the Schwedt Refinery must also perform 100% despite the forcefully needed, mind-boggling modifications to adapt it to new and fully unexpected non-Russian feedstocks. Ref #1 https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/opec-ministers-warn-no-increase-supply-coming-online

keeping score

Be that as it may, to follow the European oil & gas game, there is no longer need to monitor what´s going on throughout all of Europe. Neither is it necessary to even monitor the group of countries with the most important economies. Nope. No need either to follow what´s going on, say, throughout Germany as the EU´s most important economy. No, none of that is needed anymore. Just follow closely what´s going on at Schwedt and the rest no need to schwedt it. Because if Schwedt doesn´t make it, Berlin & surroundings will break it, Germany will grid-lock, the euro currency will become elegant and colorfull wallpaper just like the 1920s Papiermarks, and the rest of Europe will go down the drain into an oblivion spiral. So, clear enough, the events at Schwedt will be the perfect indicators of the overall future. And if someone does not happen to like what´s happening, they´ll probably have to schwedt it anyway.

Ref #2 https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/projects/pck-oil-refinery/

´Krautensuiciden´ (Goethe-approved)

Well, for starters, everything is very secretive and really up-for-grabs. Problem #1 is that this is not an engineering project, it´s 99% political and with no technical backstop, period. Actually, and in more than one sense, both basic engineering and economics 101 fully oppose it. So being 99% GEO-political in nature ( you still follow ? ) one possibility is that we cannot know many details of the plan because politicians do not have one, just wishful hissy fits.

Or, Problem #2 it may just be a back of the envelope idea that no one – literally – is aware of what any of the possible proposed “solutions” or outcomes would mean. Pretty much like a bunch of teen-age bullies would plan their attack onto their own teachers at the high school parking lot. Bear in mind that this “idea” means that German and European costs at large will increase unbelievably, to the point of not being competitive even amongst neighboring countries.

Problem #3 is internal opposition hindrance, splitting the matter in two camps. Because it is very hard to accept that no clear-thinking minds remain anywhere in Germany and/or Europe for that matter. Oh, by the way, the Schwedt refinery is majority-owned by Russian state-owned company Rosneft not supposedly willing to refine non-Russian oil.

Problem # 4 is that, per Bloomberg… ” Berlin reportedly aims to find new suppliers* to substitute for Russian oil and resolve logistical problems* within six to seven months”. And then adds the killer phrase. “The measure will apparently be adopted whether or not the EU reaches a consensus on a Russian oil embargo.” I attest to the fact that many other sources besides Bloomberg repeat exactly the same wording rigorously transcribed above as if a confidential secret press release had been distributed. Who knows, possibly it was…

But whatever the communications approach adopted, it means that German politicians now in charge would want to fully work against Germany´s own best interests no matter if the EU wisely decides to postpone the practical joke of announcing it will ban the import of Russian oil… just simply because it cannot do that. It´d be mission impossible.

So I propose to coin the idiom ´Krautensuiciden´ as a new German term that Goethe himself would have approved.

Ref #3 https://www.rt.com/news/555542-germany-deadline-drop-russian-oil/

Option (3)

The now-famous Option (3) means the requirement to fully and definitely modify/retrofit all the Schwedt Refinery´s internal processes to enable the refinement of non-Russian oil blends which would now be received from multiple yet unknown experimental vendors that would supposedly continuously unload batches at the Wilhelmshaven & Rostock & Gdansk ports terminals in the Baltic Sea. Instead, today the Druzhba pipeline elegantly, silently and reliably delivers the extraordinary Russian Urals blend 24x7x365 to German satisfaction and in huge amounts while the Schwedt refinery processes and distills to perfection without any need of modifying or retrofitting anything there Heaven forbid .

So you now understand why I coined the term ´Krautensuiciden´ ? Ref #4 https://thesaker.is/why-russias-oil-ban-is-impossible/

So Schwedt Refinery Option (3) means to modify it for a blend of different non-Russian oils…and with no possible “toggle switch” to convert from one type of non-Russian oil blend to another…No meaningful contamination possible !! We´d have a forceful life-long linkage between one vendor and its supposedly constant, homogenous and very large oil deliveries, which would be different from other vendors and their supposedly also constant deliveries made to other EU refineries different from Schwedt. There is NO possible interchangeability here…So each refinery would have it´s own specific oil blend now, which means separate, isolated, dedicated storage and delivery means. Bloomberg adds

“ German authorities reportedly plan to use an old pipeline* linking the Schwedt refinery to the northern port city of Rostock, but that would require an upgrade* for the infrastructure, which currently only has the capacity to meet 60% of the facility’s needs. Oil can be delivered to Rostock* from a national reserve, located near other Baltic ports, i.e. Wilhelmshaven*.” Rostock may also supply other key refineries such as Leuna (Leipzig) and Plock ( Poland ). What is not explained is the tons of modifications and investments that have to additionally be made both at Rostock + Wilhemshaven + Gdansk ports which will be addressed later herein as much as possible in view of all the unknowns.

There is a lot to unpack from these 2 brief paragraphs from Bloomberg et al, so allow me to parse them out slowly.

• “new suppliers” means unvetted, experimental, not-coordinated, variable, probably only very partial small suppliers, with dozens of never coordinated and variable business associates at each and every single stage of the project from beginning to end from well-head to Schwedt Refinery. Russian sourcing is the opposite.

This means to find, negotiate, plan for, test, certify, contract & schedule fully compliant Russian-oil substitutes.

• “logistical problems” means all of what is explained throughout this article (and more) including References.
• “old pipeline” means a 200 km sometimes partially buried heavy structure built with obsolete materials and technology commissioned in 1963 many times patched-up already and most probably unable to be “pigged”-inspected properly or meaningfully, let alone be upgraded as needed. This 60-year-old Soviet-era structure most probably cannot be “fixed” either or revamped or retrofitted or pressurized as really needed by 21^st. century standards. Lots of skeletons hanging inside many closets after several decades, now to be opened.
• “Rostock” is a not-fit-for-purpose port with only tanker berth No. 3 which accepts crude oil so handling & capacity is now very limited and thus also needs upgrading and retrofitting of equipment plus dedicated facilities including storage, handling and delivery capabilities. Also, Long Range (LR) 2 vessels are the maximum size accepted by this Rostock berth, thus limiting crude unloading volumes by each vessel.

Ref #5 https://ihsmarkit.com/research-analysis/impact-of-the-russia-ukraine-crisis-on-full-shutdown.html

• “Wilhelmshaven” is a larger deep-water much better furnished port for inbound seaborne deliveries located some 400 km. away from Rostock port by land and 1000 km away by boat which is not anywhere “close-by” .

Gdansk is an equivalent and alternative well-equipped port but located in Poland 600 km. away by land.

Still, Gdansk would need to undergo improvements similar to Wilhemshaven adapting to Rostock new needs.

• “Schwedt” is the refinery that processes and distills all sorts of fuels and other products. By the required Option (3) it needs modification of new feedstock lines and infrastructure, an atmospheric distillation facility, a vacuum distillation system, a cat-crack unit, a visbreaking facility, an alkylation unit, a catalytic reformer, an isomerisation unit, and an ethyl tertiary butyl ether (ETBE) facility. Plus brand new storage facilities + handling equipment for Rostock feed to substitute the 24x7x365 smooth Druzhba pipeline. Not easy to do all that in 6 months (!)… rather 6 years. Contractors and third parties everywhere. I foresee plenty of claims & lawsuits.

PLUS all sorts of sensors, software & firmware modifications or possible purchases of new stuff (!!) which mean that the IT Department, just for oversight purposes, most probably will have to hire new personnel (most preferably grey-haired if available ! ) and contract third party vendors… all of that in 6 months time…while all of Europe does the same

But there is yet FAR more regarding enormous logistical challenges for unloading, storing and later delivering unexpected far larger quantities of seaborne batch feedstocks… and subsequently distributing such to the refineries where they are needed… Because the Russian Druzhba pipeline supplied both an extraordinary quality and also an incredible non-stop quantity of Urals feedstock oil. So now such volumes have to come from different sources, not just one. And that is why Gdansk and Wilhelmshaven step into the act. Accordingly, Rostock port facilities on the one hand do need to be deeply modified to both (a) receive larger inbound seaborne batch feedstock deliveries from abroad and (b) store & handle adequately (c) deliver as needed.… But still Rostock terminals need to receive yet more volume from Wilhelmshaven + Gdansk. So that means that both Baltic ports in turn also need to be modified to receive and store larger imported seaborne batch but ALSO to deliver adequately to the Rostock terminal. But that would still not be enough, so internal deliveries of oil feedstocks would come to Rostock from yet other sources via inland waterways + rail + road inbound and also to Wilhemshaven and Gdansk terminals… and even to Schwedt.

Summary of the ´Krautensuiciden´ agenda

The Schwedt Project faces 9 + 2 highly challenging, simultaneous & parallel projects all to be executed in 6 months.

1. Wilhelmshaven + Gdansk : dedicated storage + equipment for frequent inbound seaborne batch deliveries
2. Wilhelmshaven + Gdansk : dedicated logistics for outbound deliveries to Rostock port storage terminals
3. Rostock : berth revamping for larger seaborne inbound oil tankers from Wilhelmshaven or elsewhere
4. Rostock : dedicated storage facilities + handling equipment for larger, more frequent seaborne batches
5. Logistics for internal delivery via inland waterways + rail + road inbound to both W. + R. storage terminals
6. Rostock port – Schwedt Refinery: pipeline upgrade & revamping + modifications to receive Rostock feed
7. Schwedt Refinery: new oil feedstock definition, testing and vendor selection, approval, certification & contract.
8. Schwedt Refinery: retrofit and revamping modifications per Option (3) described above.
9. Schwedt Refinery: enhanced storage facilities + handling equipment for large & frequent batch deliveries

Actually it´s 11 (eleven) simultaneous projects just to MAYBE have a lower-rated substitute of what Schwedt already has today… only that at a MUCH higher price… plus the high cost of all the unnecessary 11 simultaneous projects…

a 6-month blitzkrieg ?

Or six years ? Six months is a ridiculous timespan for satisfactory conclusion of all of the above. Quite frankly I´d be astonished if this idea ever sees the light of day. Actually it´s nonsense whichever schedule is adopted, but 6 months is beyond childish. By the way, 95% completion is not enough. But German Economics Minister Robert Habeck has said that six-months gives Berlin long enough to make the change. So one of us two is wrong, and I say it´s him.

Actually, way before 6 months we should know about the schedule non-compliance. The reason is Key Dates. Just like building a house, you can´t place the window frames if the walls are not there. Same for these projects there are key CPM – Critical Path guidelines and most specially Key Dates by which xyz needs to already be timely in place as planned, inspected, commissioned, permitted, etc. So if one Key Date is not met, the schedule cannot make progress from there on or, worse yet, may even blow up because the window for continuity of other stuff sometimes is very narrow. Timing is of the essence and many things just can´t be started unless xyz is finished first. Many of these are parallel or partially parallel activities. But some are almost 100% SEQUENTIAL which means that they have to be 100% satisfactorily concluded before going on to the next one. Oh, an additional detail is that if we care to believe Herr Habeck, all other refineries in the EU would also be attempting to simultaneously pull the very same trick as Schwedt. So 6 years sound far more reasonable than 6 months ? Ref #6 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61318689

Ref #7 https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germany-one-step-away-ending-dependence-russian-oil

the Rostock-Schwedt pipeline

The exotic idea consists in supplying the Schwedt Refinery from the Rostock Baltic port which would ´supposedly´ be receiving viable oil blends from yet-unknown vendors as explained before in great detail. But that would NOT be enough quantity no matter how stretched. So the hope and the prayer is that the same oil blends would also be unloaded at the Gdansk Baltic port (Poland) now fully dedicated for Schwedt, not for Polish refineries. Same for the Wilhemshaven Baltic port (Germany) with only one single priority, namely Schwedt, not any OTHER of the many German refineries all of which have not been assigned any sourcing yet, if any were possible (!) . In turn, Rostock would also prioritize Schwedt, not the Leuna Refinery (Germany) or the Plock Refinery (Poland). It´d be a game of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Or a circus number of Chinese plate spinners, which is impossible to work it out in practice. Maybe it works sporadically, but such logistics will not fly well most of the time meaning GAME OVER for Schwedt.

During the revamping & upgrading project of this pipeline, operational and environment considerations should always have to comply with the EU´s Green Deal spirit and wording, same as other EU Common Policies in force. And always working with safe and ecofriendly practices. Environmental impact assessments have to be completed, presented, approved, permitted and commissioned. Also any strikes or labor union problems would have to be avoided, with 24 x 7 activities no week-ends, no Christmas. Plus an extraordinary HR challenge regarding enough quantity and the right quality of management, staff, and all sorts of field personnel from port maneuvering and logistics, to IT contractors, to welders… in a fully unexpected 6-month pipeline & refinery project, etc. The pipeline trace would go through highways and urban areas with municipalities that have opinionated politicians… also pristine environments, rolling hills, valleys and ridges, forests, rivers, lakes, home to fish and wildlife with strong winds, rain and snow. The switch-over from the Urals oil to the new “equivalent” blend from yet unknown vendors is a most unfathomable and mysterious procedure.

Ref #8 https://www.eek-energy.com/en/news/petroleum/detail/news/oil-industry-prepares-for-oil-embargo.html

the refinery blues

The comments section of my latest article gained greatly from the input offered by SKovacs an excellent and friendly poster who shared his first hand 30-year knowledge in the oil & gas and refining business with us all. Please see link referenced below. Below I just summarize and/or quote what this most experienced poster had to say

1. matched & mated : many EU refineries have been built to process certain types of oils found in Russia. The very design & build of these refineries (and petrochemical plants) was based on certain specific oil types within narrow variation in blend / quality and steady supply — variation normally of less than 15% vol/day — guaranteed for over 30 years (most commonly 50+ years). Obviously enough, the continuous supply of quality feeds is critical to the operation of a refinery or any chemical plant.
2. obsessive compliance: adapting an EU refinery to new types of oils requires detailed laboratory knowledge of the new blend, and formal guarantees for its continuous delivery for decades, convoluted & lengthy contracts and procurement processes, extremely detailed engineering plans, manufacturing of parts, shipping, installation, testing, commissioning, optimization, permitting etc. etc. etc. before it can be declared “done”. Any element of this incomplete list, if missing, renders the whole affair a failure both technically and economically.
3. guarantees: the above assumes guaranteed efficient and continuous shipping and receiving network(s) are always in place and fully operational (!) Such work involves thousands of people, complex processes and of course many billions of euros, regulatory permitting process, inherent lawsuits etc., i.e. A LOT OF TIME – years ! Europe deprived of oil/gas/metallurgical coal from Russia — and also iron ore — is unlikely to build much. Never mind the finer components that require other alloy metals which are also provided by Russia… Ref #9 https://thesaker.is/europes-mad-ban-on-russian-oil/

not your dog
Some may think that refinery feedstocks are like dog food, even interchangeable. Not true. Refineries are very closely matched and subtly calibrated/configured to very specific feedstocks difficult and time-consuming to substitute. Changes can and have been made but it requires lots of effort, money, dedicated facilities, experimentation, mistakes, trial & error, specific expertise, risk, and most importantly fixed, unchanging new feedstocks always complying with specs. Substituting the quality and humongous quantity of Russian oil feeds has never ever been attempted.

This means that Russia today supplies Europe with exclusive Urals grades of very precise and constant homogenous physical & chemical characterization that would be impossible to get from third parties fast enough and cheap enough in continuous enormously large quantities from different reservoirs wherever. So it´s a very delicate and tight matching already achieved between Schwedt and the Russian Urals blend, that most probably cannot be substituted

Ref #10 https://www.ifo.de/en/node/69417

the (very low) odds

Banning Russian oil means many things. Some are known to require — among other things — time, money, expertise, human resources, etc.etc. But some others are unknown and very complex. For example, finding many new different oils – from many new unproven vendors – that collectively and in a coordinated fashion ( ?? ) would constantly offer into the future — rain or shine, come hell or highwater — the very same homogenized profile of delivery, quality, quantity, price, service and enlargeability of feedstocks that Russia has reliably provided Europe for decades at low cost. Anything less and Europe will no longer be or perform or deliver as we know it. Skeptics please easily find the 6 (six) criteria that such oil feedstocks mandatorily need to meet at Ref #11 https://thesaker.is/why-russias-oil-ban-is-impossible/

Europe and Germany have been forewarned.

They better know what they are doing

Nukes? Is Putin Bluffing?

 We are seeing a relentless march toward war with almost no willingness whatsoever the negotiate or even discuss anything.

 The only question left is: When do we cross the Rubicon?

 With a market crash scheduled over the Summer, famine in developing countries for fall and an energy crisis in Europe for the Winter, the incentive to cross will only grow month after month...

Nukes? Is Putin Bluffing?

By L. Reichard White

May 21, 2022

On Feb. 27, 2022, just three days after he pulled the Ukraine invasion trigger (Feb. 24) Russia’s Putin puts nuclear forces on high alert | Reuters

March 12, 2022: “We warned the United States that the orchestrated pumping of weapons from a number of countries is not just a dangerous move, it is a move that turns these convoys into legitimate targets,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told state television on Saturday…. –Russia says it could target Western arms supplies to Ukraine

March 23, 2022: –Putin’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov says Russia Will Use Nuclear Weapons If Faced with Existential Threat (VIDEO)

April 29 Former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO Says, “We Are Using the Ukrainians as Our Proxy Forces”

U.S. intelligence gives Ukraine info on the location of Russian generals which has resulted in 4 Russian generals being killed. American leadership should be on a “list of war criminals” for sharing military data with Kiev, top Russian politician claims –US ‘Directly’ Involved in Ukraine Conflict

May 13, 2022 – 05:25 PM: Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who is now the deputy of Russia’s Security Council, warned Thursday that the US and NATO risk a direct conflict with Russia and a “full-fledged” nuclear war by pouring weapons into Ukraine. –Top Russian Official Says NATO Risking ‘Full-Fledged’ Nuclear War

President Biden today announced an additional $800 million in security assistance to Ukraine, bringing the total U.S. security assistance committed to Ukraine to $1 billion [3.8 billion as of May 10 — and possibly much more] in just the past week, and a total of $2 billion since the start of the Biden Administration. The assistance will take the form of direct transfers of equipment from the Department of Defense to the Ukrainian military to help them defend their country against Russia… –Fact Sheet on U.S. Security Assistance for Ukraine | The White House

“If the United States threatens our state, it’s good: here is the Sarmat [Satan-2 ICBM] for you, and there will be nuclear ashes from you if you think that Russia should not exist,” he continued. “And Finland says that it is at one with the USA. Well, get in line.”… –Russia threatens nukes for US, UK, Finland if NATO expands