A pretty nice summary of a possible next phase of the collapse of America. It makes a heck of a lot of sense.

A soft landing for America 20 years from now? Don’t bet on it. The demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines. If Washington is dreaming of 2040 or 2050 as the end of the American Century, a more realistic assessment of domestic and global trends suggests that by 2025, it could all be over except for the shouting.

The screaming.

The writhing, and…

…the dying.

Despite the aura of omnipotence most empires project, a look at their history should remind us that they are fragile organisms. So delicate is their ecology of power that, when things start to go truly bad, empires regularly unravel with unholy speed.

It’s typically a long, long, looonnnggg build up.

And then, something snaps.

And it all unravels…

Like an over-wound spring.

We know this from history: just a year for Portugal, two years for the Soviet Union, eight years for France, 11 years for the Ottomans, 17 years for Great Britain, and, in all likelihood quite soon for the United States, ending within the next few years.

It’s all going to go “belly up”…

  • Economic (Health of the Economy)
  • Social (Social unrest, and a collapse of norms.)
  • Military (Attempts at creating large wars.)
  • Industrial (Jump starting the manufacturing base.)
  • Technology (Investments in R&D, NPD and innovation.)
  • Financial (Value of the USD)

The following is from the Kuntsler Blog also known as “Cluster-fuck nation”. He usually have some nice and pointed points, but this is a crown jewel. In this observation he talks about the major miscalculation(s) in economic policy inside the Washington DC beltway and how it will manifest in “heartland America” when the entire “deck of cards” come tumbling down.

This is a full reprint, all credit to the author. Reprinted to fit this venue with only minor editing as necessary.

We will start with this article, and the follow up with a second one, back to back…

…and then some MM discussions.

Clusterfuck Nation
For your reading pleasure Mondays and Fridays


A nation literally falling apart certainly might want to Build Back Better, but it also might want to consider building back differently, consistent with the signals that reality is sending to humankind these days.

For instance, the signals that the old industrial paradigm is coming to an end, and that the furnishings and accessories of it may not be the ones that humankind actually requires going forward.

Alas, the psychology of previous investment tends to dictate that societies pound their capital — if they still have any —down a rat-hole in the vain and desperate attempt to keep old rackets going.

And this is the essence of Mr. Biden’s infrastructure bill;  a colossal confection of government over-reach with its thin cake layers, cloyingly thick “social justice” frosting, and its giant cherry-on-top of drawing on “capital” that doesn’t exist.

The main racket is the ongoing effort to replace a transactional economy of individual enterprise with the managerial state (that attempts to allocate all resources and direct markets).

We’ve seen that movie before.

It beats a path directly to totalitarian tyranny, and that is already sickeningly visible in the pre-production activities for the new movie.

With social media assisting government to set up total control of its citizens lives — actually copying the techniques already operating in China.

Some pieces of the bill are just plain tragic.

Like the effort to prop up mass motoring by switching out electric cars for the old gasoline-powered cars that have ruled the land for a century.

It’s an appealing fantasy, of course…

…but the electric car thing ain’t a’gonna happen.

Not at the scale envisioned, not unless the government plans to buy the electric cars and give them away to everybody, and that’s rather a stretch.

First, the whole mass motoring racket is falling apart more on its financial model than on whether the cars move by gasoline or electricity.

Americans are used to buying cars on installment loans, and, with the middle-class withering away, there are ever-fewer credit-worthy borrowers for those loans (for ever more expensive cars).

Soon, as the debt markets wobble, there will also be even less hallucinated capital (“money”) to loan out to this shrinking pool of borrowers.

Second, the decrepit US electric grid can’t handle the charging needs of such a gigantic electric car fleet (and fixing the grid alone would be a trillion-dollar project).

Third, the manufacturing of electric cars depends on scarce rare mineral resources that are not readily available in the US, but controlled by foreign nations.

Fourth, car-making utterly depends on far-flung international supply lines for parts and electronics.

This is occurring at a time when the integrated global economy is cracking up under the strain of desperate competition for dwindling resources and the ill-will generated by that.

More… There are yet more kinks in the electric car scheme but those are enough.

MM Comments.

Of course he's talking about the Untied States. The rest of the world doesn't really have this problem. In China, for instance, most public transportation is electric, as is a sizable portion of the private automobile market.

Of course, this whole initiative is in the service of preserving a set of living arrangements that is going obsolete…

… namely, suburbia.

The previous investment represented by all the housing subdivisions, commercial highway strips, malls, office parks, and super-highways pretty much drove the American economy since the Second World War.

It’s understandable that we would be desperate to keep it all running.

As well as fix the pieces that are falling apart, because it’s where we put most of our national wealth.

It’s the whole American Dream in one nifty package.

And, it sure seemed like a good idea at the time, in such a big country, with so much cheap land, and all that oil.

But now things have changed and reality is sending us clear signals that we have to live differently.

The effort to oppose reality is apt to be ruinous for us.

A thumping sense of triumph attended the roll-out of the Build Back Better infrastructure bill…

… at least on the Democrats’ side, especially with all the chocolate Easter eggs for “social justice”…

…lodged in the $1.9 trillion basket.

I imagine it will mark the Biden regime’s high point of esprit.

By the time Congress churns through it all, the financial markets will be sending florid distress signals of deepening instability…

And, with Covid lockdowns ending (or even if they resume), warm weather will bring out people angry about one thing or another into the streets.

And a number of pending legal matters — the Derek Chauvin verdict, the Durham investigation, the Hunter Biden case at DOJ, and perhaps the burgeoning and rather sinister new Matt Gaetz melodrama…

… will stir the pot that the American zeitgeist is brewing in.

With plumes of chaos wafting over the land.

By fall, Build Back Better might transmogrify into the ominous question: build back anything?

Do You Believe in Magic?

Clusterfuck Nation
For your reading pleasure Mondays and Fridays


The people pretending to run the world’s financial affairs do.

The more layers of abstract game-playing they add to the existing armatures of unreality they’ve already constructed…

…the more certain it becomes that they will blow up all the support systems…

…support systems of a sunsetting hyper-tech economy that now has no safe lane to continue running in.

Virtually all the big nations are doing this now in desperation.

This is because they don’t understand that the hyper-tech economy is hostage to the deteriorating economics of energy.

Basically fossil fuels, and oil especially.

The macro mega-system can’t grow anymore.

We’re now in the de-growth phase of a dynamic that pulsates through history, as everything in the universe pulsates.

We attempted to compensate for de-growth with debt, borrowing from the future.

But debt only works in the youthful growth phases of economic pulsation, when the prospect of being paid back is statistically favorable.

Now in the elder de-growth phase, the prospect of paying back debts, or even servicing the interest, is statistically dismal.

The amount of racked-up debt worldwide has entered the realm of the laughable.

So, the roughly twenty-year experiment in Central Bank credit magic, as a replacement for true capital formation, has come to its grievous end.

Hence, America under the pretend leadership of Joe Biden ventures into the final act of this melodrama, which will end badly and probably pretty quickly.

They are about to call in the financial four horsemen of apocalypse:

  1. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT),
  2. A “command” economy,
  3. Universal Basic Income (UBI, “helicopter” money for the people), and
  4. the “Build Back Better” infrastructure scheme.

MMT

MMT is the idea that a nation which claims a monopoly on issuing money can “create” new money ad infinitum with no negative consequences.

That is, we can “lend” ourselves money (borrow it into existence) without having to worry about paying it back.

The theory caught on only because that’s what we’ve done for two decades and, so far, it hasn’t destroyed the banking system…

…though debt turned exponential, which is to say ruinous, only recently…

… so we won’t have to stand by long to see how this experiment works out.

Note this: MMT completes the divorce between productive activity and capital formation, that is, prosperity without wealth.

A “command” economy

A “command” economy means that government increasingly attempts to take over economic enterprise.

It does so to replace x-million individual economic choices of freely-acting people in a society with bureaucratic central planning.

MM Comments.

It is usually a complete and absolute failure. The sole lone exception is China, and it really isn't a "command" economy at all. Just a "top driven" one.

UBI

UBI is the primary feature of that because, in a command economy, production is mostly pretend, so you just have to give people money (for nothing).

Remember the old basic operating system of the Soviet Union, stated succinctly as: We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.

Got that?

Build Back Better

The idea behind “Build Back Better” is to renovate the infrastructure of a hyper-tech economy that actually no longer exists.

Why?

Because we are in the contraction phase of an historic pulsation or cycle.

It is leaving us with lots of tech and less production, trending toward zero.

Nobody flogging this slogan actually knows what it ought to mean under the circumstances, which is to go with the flow of the reality of this contraction:

To downsize, downscale, and re-localize all our activities to bring them back into sync with actual productivity…

… that is, raising food, making real stuff, and trading it. Again, it’s the energy dynamic, stupid.

To get to that point, we’re going to shed the massive over-burden of financial game-playing that has pretended to represent our economy.

That means stock valuations and bond prices will vaporize along with the derivative activities concocted for trading gainfully in these now-phantom representations of capital.

If that happens sooner rather than later, we won’t even be able to pretend to Build Back Better the interstate highways, the electric grid, airports, and all the other stuff in the “infrastructure” folder.

Indeed, a lot of that would be malinvestment folly now because we’re nearing the end of mass motoring and commercial aviation as we’ve known them.

If we even have electricity twenty-five years from now, it will come from much-reduced grids on a much more regional basis.

The bottom line for all this is that pretty soon every corner of the country will be on its own amid quite a bit of social disorder and financial wreckage.

So, whatever energy you actually can marshal to Build Back Better, save it for your town or your local community.

And remember, all of the attempts by a national government to control these events…

… and coerce its citizens in the service of that…

… will only lead to a more ineffectual and impotent national government that nobody has faith in…

… confirming the fact…

…that you are on your own.

Yikes!

All things end…

Have no doubt: when Washington’s global dominion finally ends, there will be painful daily reminders of what such a loss of power means for Americans in every walk of life.

Even when the American government tries to distract from the collapse by launching a war.

This little quote was written over a decade ago, in 2010, in Salon…

By 2020, according to current plans, the Pentagon will throw a military Hail Mary pass for a dying empire. 

It will launch a lethal triple canopy of advanced aerospace robotics that represents Washington's last best hope of retaining global power despite its waning economic influence. 

By that year, however, China's global network of communications satellites, backed by the world's most powerful supercomputers, will also be fully operational, providing Beijing with an independent platform for the weaponization of space and a powerful communications system for missile- or cyber-strikes into every quadrant of the globe.

-Salon 2010

As a half-dozen European nations have discovered, imperial decline tends to have a remarkably demoralizing impact on a society…

…regularly bringing at least a generation of economic privation.

As the economy cools, political temperatures rise, often sparking serious domestic unrest.

Available economic, educational, and military data indicate that, when it comes to U.S. global power, negative trends has aggregated rapidly and are likely to reach a critical mass no later than 2025.

The American Century, proclaimed so triumphantly at the start of World War II, is already tattered and fading and by 2025, its eighth decade, and could (very probably) end up being history.

But don’t worry!

Here’s a number of articles that make the point that there is a significant difference between a collapse and a crisis.

And while not explicitly spelled out directly, it is implied that the worst possible thing that might happen is yet another economic crisis, not an economic collapse.

Economic Depressions vs Collapse

To begin with, I think it’s important to differentiate between economic collapse and economic depression.

A depression is a rather normal part of the market cycle.

As Adam Smith points out in Wealth of Nations, these occasionally happen as the market corrects imbalances within itself.

Maybe there’s some form of bubble akin to the Dutch Tulip Bubble of the 1600s where the price of rare tulip bulbs increased to preposterous levels before people lost entire fortunes when the market corrected itself.

Who knew?

The point is that economic depression is rather normal.

We all witnessed the effects of the crash of 2009.

Thousands of the “well heeled” lost millions of dollars to the “bigger fish in the economic ocean”.

Yet, if they had kept their money in those sinking stocks rather than withdraw, they would now have exponential returns for their initial investments.

Why?

Because markets do actually fluctuate.

I also don’t believe that events as bad as The Great Depression can truly be called a collapse in any sense of the word.

When I say collapse, I’m referring to situations such as post-WW2 Germany, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, and the like.

When you literally have to pay for a loaf of bread with a wheelbarrow full of bills because of hyperinflation, THEN you have economic collapse.

US Economy Collapse: What Would Happen?

There's a difference between crisis and collapse

The U.S. economy’s size makes it resilient.

It is highly unlikely that even the most dire events would lead to a collapse.

If the U.S. economy were to collapse, it would happen quickly, because the surprise factor is a one of the likely causes of a potential collapse.

The signs of imminent failure are difficult for most people to see.

Most recently, the U.S. economy almost collapsed on September 16, 2008.

That’s the day the Reserve Primary Fund “broke the buck”—the value of the fund’s holdings dropped below $1 per share.

Panicked investors withdrew billions from money market accounts where businesses keep cash to fund day-to-day operations. 

If withdrawals had gone on for even a week, and if the Fed and the U.S. government had not stepped in to shore up the financial sector, the entire economy would likely have ground to a halt.

Trucks would have stopped rolling.

Grocery stores would have run out of food, and businesses would have been forced to shut down.

That’s how close the U.S. economy came to a real collapse—and how vulnerable it is to another one.

Will the U.S Economy Collapse?

A U.S. economy collapse is unlikely. When necessary, the government can act quickly to avoid a total collapse.

MM Comment

Nonsense. Compare the US Economy with the Chinese economy.

Most of the CCP government debts are infrastructure = investment. If they need cash, they can simply privatised.

China have a lot of high quality SOEs, they not only make money and contributed to government tax revenue, but their stocks can be used by government to fund social services such as 10% of selected SOEs share are used for age care in China without the need to increase tax. 

China Economy benefited from government infrastructure and water redirection strategies, as a result  there are new growing opportunities to the economy. Government revenues are healthy with big potential to growth further. 

So, no worries with the current china debt level. Beside, the CCP does not give tax Payer money to too big to fail private businesses. when they billed out a private business , they took over the ownership. Last year, there is a private bank become state own. 

However, Western debts are given to wall street for speculative activities from real estate to stock markets. These businesses don't pay tax, they only bribe the politicians with campaign money, and enrich those most corrupt politicians with speech fees, book deals etc. 

The super rich in the West  keep taking from the tax payers by bribing the politicians and not giving back to the society. 

So sources of western government revenue become narrower, national and household debt keep rising at radicurous speed. these are real debt with no ability to repay. 

So western governmen keep taxing the 99% with yearly rising service fees, council rate, all kind of fines. These policies affect the average people buying power, hence affecting the people buying power. Thus, domestic consumption  as one of the major pillars of Western GDP contracted, the economy in trouble. 

As rich people don't pay tax, the 99% running out of money. As a result, small and medium sized businesses suffered, tax revenue for government reduced. So trump think that trade war is easy to win, he can raise tax from China, but he failed miserably.

US will collapsed once RMB successfully replace the dollar as world trading currency, when the ability to continue print money without inflation in US is gone, US dollar will collapse, economy will collapse. 

Hope the above make sense.

Cheers

<redacted>

For example, the Federal Reserve can use its contractionary monetary tools to tame hyperinflation…

…or…

…it can work with the Treasury to provide liquidity (as during the 2008 financial crisis).

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation insures banks, so there is little chance of a banking collapse similar to that in the 1930s.

The president can release Strategic Oil Reserves to offset an oil embargo.

Homeland Security can address a cyber threat.

The U.S. military can respond to a terrorist attack, transportation stoppage, or rioting and civic unrest.

In other words, the federal government has many tools and resources to prevent an economic collapse.

MM Comment.

Sure it can try. But does it still have the actual ability to do so?

What Would Happen If the U.S. Economy Collapses?

If the U.S. economy collapses, you would likely lose access to credit.

Banks would close.

Demand would outstrip supply of food, gas, and other necessities.

If the collapse affected local governments and utilities, then water and electricity might no longer be available.

A U.S. economic collapse would create global panic.

MM Comment

Most of the world has expected this collapse for decades and have put in place systems to mitigate any American-centrist collapse. Certainly the five-eyes nations of Canada, UK, NZ and Australia will be negatively affected, but the rest of the world will not be so directly affected.

The USA does not own, run or dictate to the world.

Demand for the dollar and U.S. Treasury’s would plummet.

Interest rates would skyrocket.

Investors would rush to other currencies, such as the yuan, euro, or even gold. It would create not just inflation, but hyperinflation, as the dollar lost value to other currencies.

If you want to understand what life is like during a collapse, think back to the Great Depression. The stock market crashed on Black Thursday. By the following Tuesday, it was down 25%.

Many investors lost their life savings that weekend.

By 1932, one out of four people was unemployed.

Wages for those who still had jobs fell precipitously—manufacturing wages dropped 32% from 1929 to 1932.

U.S. gross domestic product was cut nearly in half.

Thousands of farmers and other unemployed workers moved to California and elsewhere in search of work.

Two-and-a-half million people left the Midwestern Dust Bowl states.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average didn’t rebound to its pre-Crash level until 1954.

MM Comment

Everything in America today is an illusion. The GDP is artificially skewed in favor of the fantastic wealth held by the 1%. Were they to lose 30% of their wealth, the GDP for the nation could possibly drop to a mere tiny fraction of it's value.

When the curtain comes falling down everything that is fake and an illusion becomes clear for the world to see.

Collapse Versus Crisis

An economic crisis is not the same as an economic collapse. As painful as it was, the 2008 financial crisis was not a collapse. Millions of people lost jobs and homes, but basic services were still provided.

Other past financial crises seemed like a collapse at the time, but are barely remembered now.

1970s Stagflation

The OPEC oil embargo and President Richard Nixon’s abolishment of the gold standard triggered double-digit inflation. The government responded to this economic downturn by freezing wages and labor rates to curb inflation.7 The result was a high unemployment rate. Businesses, hampered by low prices, could not afford to keep workers at unprofitable wage rates.

1981 Recession

The Fed raised interest rates in a bid to end double-digit inflation.

That created the worst recession since the Great Depression. President Ronald Reagan cut taxes and increased government spending to end it.

1989 Savings and Loan Crisis

One thousand banks closed after improper real estate investments turned sour. Charles Keating and other Savings & Loan bankers had mis-used bank depositor’s funds. The consequent recession triggered an unemployment rate as high as 7.5%. The government was forced to bail out some banks to the tune of $124 billion.

Post-9/11 Recession

The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 sowed nationwide apprehension and prolonged the 2001 recession—and unemployment of greater than 10%—through 2003. The United States’ response, the War on Terror, has cost the nation $6.4 trillion, and counting.

2008 Financial Crisis

The early warning signs of the 2008 Financial Crisis were rapidly falling housing prices and increasing mortgage defaults in 2006. Left untended, the resulting subprime mortgage crisis, which panicked investors and led to massive bank withdrawals, spread like wildfire across the financial community. The U.S. government had no choice but to bail out “too big to fail” banks and insurance companies, like Bear Stearns and AIG, or face both national and global financial catastrophes.

2020 Recession

It is too soon to tally up the total costs of the 2020 global health crisisCoronavirus pandemic—the crisis is still ongoing. Already we have seen worldwide supply-chain interruptions, heightened volatility and steep losses in financial markets, and sharp slowdowns in the travel and hospitality industries.

How much economic cost should we expect? According to the United Nations’ Conference on Trade and Development, the global economic hit could reduce global growth rates to 0.5% and cost the global economy as much as $2 trillion for 2020.

So what is going to happen?

I am not really all that good in predicting future events. You know, it’s all a very personal event that lies upon your world-line template. But regardless as to what your template map looks like we can make a couple of basic and reasonable statements…

  • America is deep, deep in debt.
  • There are no efforts to control this debt, or slow down spending.
  • This is not sustainable.

Since it is not sustainable, there will come a time when this kind of behavior will end. It might be gradual, or sudden. But it will have to end.

How the nation handles this change in economic policy will depend on may, many factors. Knowing human nature, humans do not like change, and those accustomed to doing things a certain way will have a difficult time adapting.

Gradual Change

If the change is gradual, and those managing the economy are talented, capable and willing…

… the United States economy can contract in a very controlled implosion, will little radical change, and managed in such as way that the United States might experience a simple minor recession.

Significantly, in 2008, the U.S. National Intelligence Council admitted for the first time that America's global power was indeed on a declining trajectory. In one of its periodic futuristic reports, Global Trends 2025, the Council cited "the transfer of global wealth and economic power now under way, roughly from West to East" and "without precedent in modern history," as the primary factor in the decline of the "United States' relative strength -- even in the military realm." 

Like many in Washington, however, the Council’s analysts anticipated a very long, very soft landing for American global preeminence, and harbored the hope that somehow...

... the U.S. would long "retain unique military capabilities… to project military power globally" for decades to come.

Sure…

What ever you say.

Wrapped in imperial hubris, like Whitehall or Quai d'Orsay before it, the White House still seems to imagine that American decline will be gradual, gentle, and partial. In his State of the Union address last January, President Obama offered the reassurance that "I do not accept second place for the United States of America." 

A few days later, Vice President Biden ridiculed the very idea that "we are destined to fulfill [historian Paul] Kennedy's prophecy that we are going to be a great nation that has failed because we lost control of our economy and overextended." 

Similarly, writing in the November issue of the establishment journal Foreign Affairs, neo-liberal foreign policy guru Joseph Nye waved away talk of China's economic and military rise, dismissing "misleading metaphors of organic decline" and denying that any deterioration in U.S. global power was underway.

Ordinary Americans, watching their jobs head overseas, have a more realistic view than their cosseted leaders. An opinion poll in August 2010 found that 65 percent of Americans believed the country was now "in a state of decline."  Already, Australia and Turkey, traditional U.S. military allies, are using their American-manufactured weapons for joint air and naval maneuvers with China. 

Already, America's closest economic partners are backing away from Washington's opposition to China's rigged currency rates. As the president flew back from his Asian tour last month, a gloomy New York Times headline  summed the moment up this way: "Obama's Economic View Is Rejected on World Stage, China, Britain and Germany Challenge U.S., Trade Talks With Seoul Fail, Too."

-Salon 2010

Sudden Change

If those in Washington DC, have been living in isolation bubbles, echo chambers, and have selfish, self-interests at heart rather than what is good for the nation, it is highly likely that there could be a very sudden change. Perhaps one that reaches the limits  and boundaries of a catastrophe.

There are far too many variables involved to make accurate predictions. But that doesn’t stop people. And you can find these predictions all over the internet.

But what will actually happen?

No one knows.

The Elites have their ideas…

Here’s a ten year old article from Salon, and they pretty much nailed it in regards to what is going on. If anything, they were too optimistic.

From Salon 2010…

Viewed historically, the question is not whether the United States will lose its unchallenged global power, but just how precipitous and wrenching the decline will be.

In place of Washington’s wishful thinking, let’s use the National Intelligence Council’s own futuristic methodology.

Here we suggest four realistic scenarios for how, whether with a bang or a whimper, U.S. global power could reach its end in the 2020s (along with four accompanying assessments of just where we are today).

The future scenarios include:

  • Economic decline,
  • Oil shock,
  • Military misadventure, and…
  • World War III.

While these are hardly the only possibilities when it comes to American decline or even collapse, they offer a window into an onrushing future.

Economic Decline: Scenario 2020

After years of swelling deficits fed by incessant warfare in distant lands, in 2020, as long expected, the U.S. dollar finally loses its special status as the world’s reserve currency.

Hasn't happened... yet. But that is currently in process.

For many reasons, the Chinese authorities will probably someday stop pegging the yuan to a basket of currencies, and shift to a modern inflation-targeting regime under which they allow the exchange rate to fluctuate much more freely, especially against the dollar.

When that happens, expect most of Asia to follow China. In due time, the dollar, currently the anchor currency for roughly two-thirds of world GDP, could lose nearly half its weight.

Considering how much the United States relies on the dollar’s special status – or what then-French Finance Minister Valéry Giscard d’Estaing famously called America’s “exorbitant privilege” – to fund massive public and private borrowing, the impact of such a shift could be significant.

Suddenly, the cost of imports soars.

This did happen. From the "Trump Tariffs" of 25%, to the costs of shipping in 2021, importing products into the United States is factually much more costly than before.

Unable to pay for swelling deficits by selling now-devalued Treasury notes abroad, Washington is finally forced to slash its bloated military budget. Under pressure at home and abroad, Washington slowly pulls U.S. forces back from hundreds of overseas bases to a continental perimeter. By now, however, it is far too late.

Did not happen. The United States military instead got much larger.

Faced with a fading superpower incapable of paying the bills, China, India, Iran, Russia, and other powers, great and regional, provocatively challenge U.S. dominion over the oceans, space, and cyberspace.

True, and in process.

Meanwhile, amid soaring prices, ever-rising unemployment, and a continuing decline in real wages, domestic divisions widen into violent clashes and divisive debates, often over remarkably irrelevant issues.

True and in process.

Riding a political tide of disillusionment and despair, a far-right patriot captures the presidency with thundering rhetoric, demanding respect for American authority and threatening military retaliation or economic reprisal.

Good call. Donald Trump became President, and Biden continues his neocon ambitions.

The world pays next to no attention as the American Century ends in silence.

Oh, the world is paying attention. It's just that America is viewed as a declining and unstable nation.

Oil Shock: Scenario 2025

The United States remains so dependent upon foreign oil that a few adverse developments in the global energy market in 2025 spark an oil shock.

By comparison, it makes the 1973 oil shock (when prices quadrupled in just months) look like the proverbial molehill.

Angered at the dollar’s plummeting value, OPEC oil ministers, meeting in Riyadh, demand future energy payments in a “basket” of Yen, Yuan, and Euros.

This is in process.

That only hikes the cost of U.S. oil imports further.

At the same moment, while signing a new series of long-term delivery contracts with China, the Saudis stabilize their own foreign exchange reserves by switching to the Yuan.

In process.

Meanwhile, China pours countless billions into building a massive trans-Asia pipeline and funding Iran’s exploitation of the world largest percent natural gas field at South Pars in the Persian Gulf.

In process.

Concerned that the U.S. Navy might no longer be able to protect the oil tankers traveling from the Persian Gulf to fuel East Asia, a coalition of Tehran, Riyadh, and Abu Dhabi form an unexpected new Gulf alliance and affirm that China’s new fleet of swift aircraft carriers will henceforth patrol the Persian Gulf from a base on the Gulf of Oman.

Not happened, and there are no plans for this. What is happening is that China and Iran, with Russia have formed a joint military block.

Under heavy economic pressure, London agrees to cancel the U.S. lease on its Indian Ocean island base of Diego Garcia, while Canberra, pressured by the Chinese, informs Washington that the Seventh Fleet is no longer welcome to use Fremantle as a homeport, effectively evicting the U.S. Navy from the Indian Ocean.

Did not happen. In fact, the United States is pushing for even stronger military presence, and few other nations are enthusiastic about joining the QUAD.

With just a few strokes of the pen and some terse announcements, the “Carter Doctrine,” by which U.S. military power was to eternally protect the Persian Gulf, is laid to rest in 2025. All the elements that long assured the United States limitless supplies of low-cost oil from that region — logistics, exchange rates, and naval power — evaporate. At this point, the U.S. can still cover only an insignificant 12 percent of its energy needs from its nascent alternative energy industry, and remains dependent on imported oil for half of its energy consumption.

Did not happen. Instead, the USA is heavily involved militarily in the entire Middle East region.

The oil shock that follows hits the country like a hurricane, sending prices to startling heights, making travel a staggeringly expensive proposition, putting real wages (which had long been declining) into freefall, and rendering non-competitive whatever American exports remained.

Not happened yet, but 2025 is still four years away.

With thermostats dropping, gas prices climbing through the roof, and dollars flowing overseas in return for costly oil, the American economy is paralyzed. With long-fraying alliances at an end and fiscal pressures mounting, U.S. military forces finally begin a staged withdrawal from their overseas bases.

I would highly doubt it. If anything the last few years has been a nearly insane level of pro-military anti-China, anti-Russia and anti-Iran war-mongering.

Within a few years, the U.S. is functionally bankrupt and the clock is ticking toward midnight on the American Century.

Military Misadventure: Scenario 2014

Counterintuitively, as their power wanes, empires often plunge into ill-advised military misadventures. This phenomenon is known among historians of empire as “micro-militarism” and seems to involve psychologically compensatory efforts to salve the sting of retreat or defeat by occupying new territories, however briefly and catastrophically.

These operations, irrational even from an imperial point of view, often yield hemorrhaging expenditures or humiliating defeats that only accelerate the loss of power.

Embattled empires through the ages suffer an arrogance that drives them to plunge ever deeper into military misadventures until defeat becomes debacle.

  • In 413 BCE, a weakened Athens sent 200 ships to be slaughtered in Sicily.
  • In 1921, a dying imperial Spain dispatched 20,000 soldiers to be massacred by Berber guerrillas in Morocco.
  • In 1956, a fading British Empire destroyed its prestige by attacking Suez.
  • And in 2001 and 2003, the U.S. occupied Afghanistan and invaded Iraq.

With the hubris that marks empires over the millennia, Washington has increased its troops in Afghanistan to 100,000, expanded the war into Pakistan, and extended its commitment to 2014 and beyond, courting disasters large and small in this guerilla-infested, nuclear-armed graveyard of empires.

So irrational, so unpredictable is “micro-militarism” that seemingly fanciful scenarios are soon outdone by actual events. With the U.S. military stretched thin from Somalia to the Philippines and tensions rising in Israel, Iran, and Korea, possible combinations for a disastrous military crisis abroad are multifold.

Washington makes its move, sending in Special Operations forces to seize oil ports in the Persian Gulf. This, in turn, sparks a rash of suicide attacks and the sabotage of pipelines and oil wells. As black clouds billow skyward and diplomats rise at the U.N. to bitterly denounce American actions, commentators worldwide reach back into history to brand this “America’s Suez,” a telling reference to the 1956 debacle that marked the end of the British Empire.

Well things are going on. Most are not reported. There is the enormous Beirut explosion, as well as various other oil related military Mal-adventures.

World War III: Present Situation

In the summer of 2010, military tensions between the U.S. and China began to rise in the western Pacific, once considered an American “lake.” Even a year earlier no one would have predicted such a development. As Washington played upon its alliance with London to appropriate much of Britain’s global power after World War II, so China is now using the profits from its export trade with the U.S. to fund what is likely to become a military challenge to American dominion over the waterways of Asia and the Pacific.

With its growing resources, Beijing is claiming a vast maritime arc from Korea to Indonesia long dominated by the U.S. Navy.

In August, after Washington expressed a “national interest” in the South China Sea and conducted naval exercises there to reinforce that claim, Beijing’s official Global Times responded angrily, saying, “The U.S.-China wrestling match over the South China Sea issue has raised the stakes in deciding who the real future ruler of the planet will be.”

Amid growing tensions, the Pentagon reported that Beijing now holds “the capability to attack… [U.S.] aircraft carriers in the western Pacific Ocean” and target “nuclear forces throughout… the continental United States.” By developing “offensive nuclear, space, and cyber warfare capabilities,”

China seems determined to vie for dominance of what the Pentagon calls “the information spectrum in all dimensions of the modern battlespace.” With ongoing development of the powerful Long March V booster rocket, as well as the launch of two satellites in January 2010 and another in July, for a total of five, Beijing signaled that the country was making rapid strides toward an “independent” network of 35 satellites for global positioning, communications, and reconnaissance capabilities by 2020.

To check China and extend its military position globally, Washington is intent on building a new digital network of air and space robotics, advanced cyberwarfare capabilities, and electronic surveillance. Military planners expect this integrated system to envelop the Earth in a cyber-grid capable of blinding entire armies on the battlefield or taking out a single terrorist in field or favela.

By 2020, if all goes according to plan, the Pentagon will launch a three-tiered shield of space drones — reaching from stratosphere to exosphere, armed with agile missiles, linked by a resilient modular satellite system, and operated through total telescopic surveillance.

Last April, the Pentagon made history. It extended drone operations into the exosphere by quietly launching the X-37B unmanned space shuttle into a low orbit 255 miles above the planet.  The X-37B is the first in a new generation of unmanned vehicles that will mark the full weaponization of space, creating an arena for future warfare unlike anything that has gone before.

From 2008 through 2016, American military forces were training to invade islands in the South China Sea, and moneys were spent enlarging military bases in the Pacific.

From 2017 through 2020, it's been war. Mostly "hybrid", but there has been a major biological warfare effort involved against China with 7 strains attacking livestock, and three attacking people. All have failed.

Leaving and resulting a March 2021 Alaskan meeting where the USA told China to "roll over and die", or be destroyed. China responded back with "Fuck you".

World War III: Scenario 2025

The technology of space and cyberwarfare is so new and untested that even the most outlandish scenarios may soon be superseded by a reality still hard to conceive. If we simply employ the sort of scenarios that the Air Force itself used in its 2009 Future Capabilities Game, however, we can gain “a better understanding of how air, space and cyberspace overlap in warfare,” and so begin to imagine how the next world war might actually be fought.

It’s 11:59 p.m. on Thanksgiving Thursday in 2025. While cyber-shoppers pound the portals of Best Buy for deep discounts on the latest home electronics from China, U.S. Air Force technicians at the Space Surveillance Telescope (SST) on Maui choke on their coffee as their panoramic screens suddenly blip to black. Thousands of miles away at the U.S. CyberCommand’s operations center in Texas, cyberwarriors soon detect malicious binaries that, though fired anonymously, show the distinctive digital fingerprints of China’s People’s Liberation Army.

The first overt strike is one nobody predicted. Chinese “malware” seizes control of the robotics aboard an unmanned solar-powered U.S. “Vulture” drone as it flies at 70,000 feet over the Tsushima Strait between Korea and Japan. It suddenly fires all the rocket pods beneath its enormous 400-foot wingspan, sending dozens of lethal missiles plunging harmlessly into the Yellow Sea, effectively disarming this formidable weapon.

Determined to fight fire with fire, the White House authorizes a retaliatory strike. Confident that its F-6 “Fractionated, Free-Flying” satellite system is impenetrable, Air Force commanders in California transmit robotic codes to the flotilla of X-37B space drones orbiting 250 miles above the Earth, ordering them to launch their “Triple Terminator” missiles at China’s 35 satellites. Zero response. In near panic, the Air Force launches its Falcon Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle into an arc 100 miles above the Pacific Ocean and then, just 20 minutes later, sends the computer codes to fire missiles at seven Chinese satellites in nearby orbits. The launch codes are suddenly inoperative.

As the Chinese virus spreads uncontrollably through the F-6 satellite architecture, while those second-rate U.S. supercomputers fail to crack the malware’s devilishly complex code, GPS signals crucial to the navigation of U.S. ships and aircraft worldwide are compromised. Carrier fleets begin steaming in circles in the mid-Pacific. Fighter squadrons are grounded. Reaper drones fly aimlessly toward the horizon, crashing when their fuel is exhausted. Suddenly, the United States loses what the U.S. Air Force has long called “the ultimate high ground”: space. Within hours, the military power that had dominated the globe for nearly a century has been defeated in World War III without a single human casualty.

A New World Order?

Even if future events prove duller than these scenarios suggest, every significant trend points toward a far more striking decline in American global power by 2025 than anything Washington now seems to be envisioning.

As allies worldwide begin to realign their policies to take cognizance of rising Asian powers, the cost of maintaining 800 or more overseas military bases will simply become unsustainable…

finally forcing a staged withdrawal on a still-unwilling Washington.

With both the U.S. and China in a race to weaponize space and cyberspace, tensions between the two powers are bound to rise, making military conflict by 2025 at least feasible, if hardly guaranteed.

Complicating matters even more, the economic, military, and technological trends outlined above will not operate in tidy isolation.

As happened to European empires after World War II, such negative forces will undoubtedly prove synergistic.

They will combine in thoroughly unexpected ways, create crises for which Americans are remarkably unprepared, and threaten to spin the economy into a sudden downward spiral, consigning this country to a generation or more of economic misery.

As U.S. power recedes, the past offers a spectrum of possibilities for a future world order.

At one end of this spectrum, the rise of a new global superpower, however unlikely, cannot be ruled out.

Yet both China and Russia evince self-referential cultures, recondite non-roman scripts, regional defense strategies, and underdeveloped legal systems, denying them key instruments for global dominion. At the moment then, no single superpower seems to be on the horizon likely to succeed the U.S.

Nonsense. As of 2021, Russia, China and Iran have combined for a unified Asia.

In a dark, dystopian version of our global future, a coalition of transnational corporations, multilateral forces like NATO, and an international financial elite could conceivably forge a single, possibly unstable, supra-national nexus that would make it no longer meaningful to speak of national empires at all.

As stated by an American inside of America over ten years ago. Such dated ignorance.

While denationalized corporations and multinational elites would assumedly rule such a world from secure urban enclaves, the multitudes would be relegated to urban and rural wastelands.

In “Planet of Slums,” Mike Davis offers at least a partial vision of such a world from the bottom up. He argues that the billion people already packed into fetid favela-style slums worldwide (rising to two billion by 2030) will make “the ‘feral, failed cities’ of the Third World… the distinctive battlespace of the twenty-first century.”

As darkness settles over some future super-favela, “the empire can deploy Orwellian technologies of repression” as “hornet-like helicopter gun-ships stalk enigmatic enemies in the narrow streets of the slum districts… Every morning the slums reply with suicide bombers and eloquent explosions.”

At a midpoint on the spectrum of possible futures, a new global oligopoly might emerge between 2020 and 2040, with rising powers China, Russia, India, and Brazil collaborating with receding powers like Britain, Germany, Japan, and the United States to enforce an ad hoc global dominion, akin to the loose alliance of European empires that ruled half of humanity circa 1900.

Another possibility: the rise of regional hegemons in a return to something reminiscent of the international system that operated before modern empires took shape.

In this neo-Westphalian world order, with its endless vistas of micro-violence and unchecked exploitation, each hegemon would dominate its immediate region — Brasilia in South America, Washington in North America, Pretoria in southern Africa, and so on. Space, cyberspace, and the maritime deeps, removed from the control of the former planetary “policeman,” the United States, might even become a new global commons, controlled through an expanded U.N. Security Council or some ad hoc body.

All of these scenarios extrapolate existing trends into the future on the assumption that Americans, blinded by the arrogance of decades of historically unparalleled power, cannot or will not take steps to manage the unchecked erosion of their global position.

If America’s decline is in fact on a 22-year trajectory from 2003 to 2025, then we have already frittered away most of the first decade of that decline with wars that distracted us from long-term problems and, like water tossed onto desert sands, wasted trillions of desperately needed dollars.

Duh. It's pretty fucking obvious.

If only 15 years remain, the odds of frittering them all away still remain high. Congress and the president are now in gridlock; the American system is flooded with corporate money meant to jam up the works; and there is little suggestion that any issues of significance, including our wars, our bloated national security state, our starved education system, and our antiquated energy supplies, will be addressed with sufficient seriousness to assure the sort of soft landing that might maximize our country’s role and prosperity in a changing world.

Yup. Forget about a "soft landing". The psychopaths in Washington DC will have none of that.

Europe’s empires are gone and America’s imperium is going.

It seems increasingly doubtful that the United States will have anything like Britain’s success in shaping a succeeding world order that protects its interests, preserves its prosperity, and bears the imprint of its best values.

This was written a decade ago in 2010.

The “knee jerk” reaction is for America to start a war.

Don’t.

China. Does. Not. Play.

The Oligarchy have their ideas…

Certainly the PTB, and the oligarchy skedaddled to their hidy-holes in remote areas of NZ, Canada, and Europe. So that tells me that the oligarchy believe that a collapse is imminent.

So, taking their lead and some common sense, we can take note and prepare…

How Do We Prepare for Economic Collapse?

From the SHTFblog…

Thankfully, history can give us some advice here.

As Ayn Rand points out throughout her books (particularly in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal), it is production which is true wealth. The person who produces, whether that be food, shoes, holsters, or some other form of tangible good, is the one who holds true wealth. They’re adding something to society, creating something that others need or want.

In the same spirit, I would argue that the person who can provide a tangible service as well also has true wealth. An electrician who can provide light to a building, a plumber who can ensure personal hygiene is a diminished issue, and a doctor who can repair a wound are all examples of people who may not necessarily produce tangible goods (such as in the case of farmers, leatherworkers, and blacksmiths), but they still are able to produce a service that is both wanted and needed.

So, one of the first things that we can do to prepare ourselves for economic collapse is to become capable of producing.

This can be done in two primary ways: by the learning of a new skill or by getting into the business of producing merchandise.

Learning a New Skill

This is part of the reason that I went and became a locksmith. I have more than one job but wanted to have something of a backup plan perchance something should happen to my primary income. Tradesmen are both necessary and (typically) in short supply. Learning a concrete skill seemed to be something that would provide a fairly decent insurance policy should I need to fall back on something else. I’m glad I did, too. We’re a ‘key’ business.

Whether it be plumbing, carpentry, farrier work, or any other kind of trade for that matter, the point is that becoming proficient in a trade is to make yourself proficient in something that is likely to always be necessary. To look at a rather morbid example of such, we can analyze what the Germans did to the Jews throughout the Holocaust. Whether you are reading Schindler’s List, Maus, or The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz, you can see that it was the Jews who knew a trade such as metal polishing, mechanical work, or machining were (at least for a while) kept alive. (Of course, I’m by no means saying that pianists, teachers, and shopkeepers had no value.)

Learning to Produce Products

The second aspect would be investment in a particular merchandise. It involves producing products, starting a side business of some sort, perhaps. True, this often requires increasing one’s knowledge in a particular field, but there are some regions where it is simply the investment that allows a man to produce. As the saying goes, it takes money to make money.

This is where a shopkeeper would fit in. It is because such a man has invested capital into supplies that he is able to produce wealth for himself. Post-economic collapse though, which supplies will help one to produce wealth, however? Well, that leads me to the next topic: bartering.

Barter Society

I think that one of the first things that people need to realize when it comes to economic collapse is that things revert to a BARTER society. Look throughout history, and you’ll see that this is the case. The world doesn’t go to pot and a day later people are walking around and trading gold coins with one another. (I believe Joe Nobody illustrates this point rather well in his Holding Their Own series).

No, people start with trading goods and services for other needed/desired goods and services. Greece proved this with their recent economic collapse within the past five years or so. People traded eggs, milk, and meat for what they needed. I think it’s important to note that the farmer – a producer – was the one that was able to provide this for people as well. HE had true wealth throughout the collapse.

Again, in Venezuela we saw the same thing. People resorted to trading bananas for haircuts. The FIRST thing that becomes of value during an economic collapse is goods and services. True, there will be a very short window in which cash is king until people realize that the paper they have trusted all those years is now truly worthless in every sense of the word, but that window is short.

Barterable Goods and Services

So, after the brief cash window closes, after your world resorts to barter, the question becomes: “Okay, so what do I barter with? How do I get the things that my family needs?”

Regarding goods, I believe that the following is a good list to begin with. These are the things that people are going to need, and that are going to hold intrinsic value post-economic collapse:

  • Water – Particularly water bottles. These are readily portable, and not so value dense as to be unpractical for trade.
  • Water Filters – The majority of Americans have less than 3 days of food in their home. That includes water. If people can’t afford their electric bill, post-economic collapse, they are going to need access to safe water, and a water filter provides that.
  • Ammo – I truly believe that this will be one of the most practical and widely accepted forms of currency. It’s been used before as a currency, and it’ll be used again.
  • Guns – Value-dense, but there are going to be people who want them to protect their families from post-collapse violence. The demand for guns skyrocketed this year thanks to the riots and government action. What do you think the demand will look like post-collapse?
  • Gasoline Containers – Everybody will need them, and very few have them.
  • Food – There will always be a need for food, and – as witnessed by food bank lines – one of the first indicators of economic downturns.
  • Diapers – Parents go through thousands of these per year and will not have an adequate supply for their kids post-collapse. I believe reusable cloth diapers will be important.
  • Body Armor – Value-dense, but people will want it. There are record sales of it this year, and that desire will continue in a violent, post-collapse economy.
  • Coffee – It creates an addiction, and the withdrawal effects SUCK. People are going to want coffee, and there are ways to store it for a long time.
  • Boots – There will be an increase in the amount of walking the average man does thanks to the unavailability of gasoline. Shoes will wear out and need to be replaced.
  • Coats – Clothing wears out, new people are always being created, people constantly change size, and people always need it.
  • Gloves – There will be an increase in outdoor work, and gloves wear out.
  • Alcohol – Another thing that mankind can’t seem to get enough of. I just wouldn’t broadcast how much of this stuff that you have. People kill for it.
  • Tobacco – Another addiction that I wouldn’t broadcast you have a lot of. Cigarettes were routinely used as currency among POWs in WW2, and still are used in prisons throughout the world as currency.
  • Baby Formula – If breastfeeding is no longer an option, people are going to need formula to feed their babies. Parents WILL feed their babies, and there will be a dire need for such. Once again, not something I would advertise that I have a stockpile of.
  • Gasoline – This will always be needed for vehicles and generators.
  • Salt – Needed for meat storage since it is very unlikely that people will have access to constant electricity for refrigeration.
  • Medical Supplies – Crutches, slings, gauze, various first aid equipment and more will be in short supply. People always hurt themselves, and very few of much stored for their own first aid.
  • Medicine – There will always be a need for medication.
  • Spare Gun Parts – Guns break, and few have spare parts stored.
  • Condoms – People are going to realize that now is probably not the best time to get pregnant. If you staple three of them together and sell them in multi-packs, you can create a market for your baby formula as well! (I’m kidding, I’m kidding.)
  • Eye Glasses – Maybe it’s difficult to get replacement glasses, but reading glasses can be bought in bulk cheaply. It’s one of the most difficult things to get in prison, as the “state issue” glasses make you look like a retired mob boss.
  • Holsters – The thousands of people who bought pistols to keep in their nightstand will come to realize that they need a way to carry their weapon around with them. Things will be too dangerous to do otherwise, and many forget to buy a holster ahead of time.

When it comes to services, these are the skills that I believe will be in great demand post-economic collapse. It would be wise to learn at least some degree of proficiency in one of them.

  • Farming – Food production will be vital, and the man with beehives, fields, a garden, chickens, or dairy animals will be able to produce an item that people need on a daily basis.
  • Ranching – Much different than farming. Whether you know how to manage cattle for somebody else, or have the knowledge to raise them of your own accord, cattle, sheep, goats, and so on are going to need to be cared for to provide meat, leather, hides, and more for people.
  • Mechanical Work – Vehicles, generators, and more will break down and people will need them to be fixed.
  • Electrical Work – Wiring solar, pumps for wells, and more will always be needed.
  • Machining – It is likely that there will still be factories producing, and machinists will be needed for such.
  • Gunsmithing – Accidents happen, and few trust their own abilities to fix a firearm. Gunsmiths will be needed for such events.
  • Leatherwork – Primarily for holsters, gun straps, and clothing.
  • Medical Work – There will be a dire need for such workers post-economic collapse. People will be unable to afford their medications, or regular healthcare services, and thus there will be a drastic increase in acute conditions. Medical workers will be needed to address such, even if it is on the individual barter basis.
  • Protection – Herds, businesses, neighborhoods, and residences are going to want permanent protection, and will be willing to hire experienced armed men to do so. Knowing how to patrol, set up a perimeter, and dispose of threats will be in demand.
  • Baking – Knowledge of how to make bread will allow you to produce an item that everyone will need and want post-collapse.
  • Textile Creation – Whether this comes in the form of knitting, crocheting, tailoring, or so on, there will be a need for items of cloth as clothing gradually wears out, is lost, soiled, or stolen.

Keep in mind that all the above are general lists. Undoubtedly, you will be able to think of both goods and services that will have post-economic collapse value that are not included above. These are simply given to get your mind thinking about some sure-fire ways to be able to barter for what you need in the event of an economic collapse.

What About Precious Metals?

There are two reasons gold and silver have been omitted:

First, the use of precious metals doesn’t seem to come into common use until well after the period of barter transactions.

Second, I believe that precious metals are much more important for wealth evacuation. Let’s take a look at both of these in more detail.

To begin with, seldom throughout history do we see precious metals instantly being reverted to as currency post-economic collapse. Why? You can’t eat them, you can’t drink them, and few understand their inherent value (ask a friend what the current price of gold is to find see). Even fewer can tell if the gold/silver that you are offering them is the real deal or a fake.

Stocking precious metals is now how to survive an economic collapse. People don’t want gold and silver after an economic collapse. They want to be able to feed their families. Gold and silver will not be a readily used means of exchange in such an event.

To further complicate matters, gold is incredibly value dense. As of this writing, gold is a little over $2000 an ounce. That’s a lot of value wrapped up in that little coin. If you need ammunition, and go to buy it from some small-time reloader, do you think he’ll be able to honor the equivalent of an ounce of gold’s worth of ammo? Odds are he won’t even have that much in stock. If we really want to examine the issue, I think that silver would be a better form of currency, precious-metals wise.

Silver is currently around $25/ounce. That’s a much more useable value amount on a daily basis. (If you want to read more, read about the best silver for preppers.) However, what we see throughout history is the reversion to barter, not to the gold standard.

Gold Exception – Wealth Evacuation

If you’ve got to get the heck out of somewhere, and fast, then I believe that gold is where it’s at. Silver is too bulky. A pocket full of gold coins would allow you to “start fresh” somewhere a bit more stable (if you can find such a place). Shoot, we can even look at the US post-Civil War here. Southern money was worth nothing after the war. However, those with gold and silver were able to have something with inherent value that would be redeemable for the new currency.

Again, we can look to the German Jews of the late 1930s. This was a very scary time to be a Jew in Europe. The persecution was very real, and things were heating up. The man who was able to sew gold coins up into the hem of his jacket, and get the heck out of Dodge ASAP was able to arrive at a new and politically friendlier climate with at least some of his wealth intact and under the radar. Baggage is lost and stolen. Clothing seldom is. Thus, I believe that one of the best purposes of gold is wealth evacuation.

How to Survive an Economic Collapse Summary

If you had asked people a year ago if they ever thought the entire world would enact lockdowns and throw refuse people for not wearing a surgical mask at Kroger, they would have said you were nuts. Yet, here we are. Why is it so improbable to think an economic collapse couldn’t be next? All of the warning signs are there? Is it foolish to just ignore them, and pretend that things will always continue on as “normal”?

I’ll let you come to your own conclusions.

Conclusion

So, let’s simplify things.

  • The statists argue that nothing really bad will happen in the future. At worst will be a recession, but Washington DC will have everything under control.
  • The “doom and gloomers” are forecasting a complete melt-down of the American society, and it will happen regardless of an American involvement in World War III.
  • Preppers are fearful for the worst of the worst.
  • Fourth Turning followers are also fearful for the worst of the worst.
  • Media Shrills are mindless automatons. They just regurgitate their programming.
  • Sheeple are oblivious. They know that things are going to shit, but they believe what ever they read. The the “news” says that everything is under control.
  • Neocons believe that everything will be fixed and turn around once the USA wins World War III.

So what is going to happen?

I cannot tell you all because everyone’s future is different. We all have our own MWI topography maps, and our futures depend on our thoughts, and affirmations.

Would it be too strange for me to allude that the members of each of the groups above will have their own futures play out exactly as their thoughts and actions dictate…

…Yup. That is what it’s gonna be (more or less).

No one is going to be unscathed. We will all experience changes. It’s just that the magnitude of the changes will differ from person to person. The best advice that I can give is to make your immediate environment safe, secure and as stable as possible.

There is no way to predict what will happen for the vast bulk of humanity. All you can do is prepare for your own family and your own region.

The best way to prepare is to be prudent. Be cautious. Be positive, and conduct prayer affirmations that include a GENEROUS listing of affirmations that describe safety and isolation from any looming catastrophes as a result of American mismanagement, evil behaviors, or insanity of one level or the other.

Do you want more?

I have more posts in my SHTF Index here…

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How the US Government uses Military Special Forces to control civilian populations

America has been conducting warfare with military forces dressed in civilian attire for decades now. These forces use military tactics, training, and utilize military support structures to accomplish their objectives. They do everything that a normal and regular military does, except that  they are not easily identified as combat forces. As they operate in secret and disguise.

Most well known of these assault troops are NGO’s.

What Is an NGO?

A non-governmental organization (NGO) is a non-profit group that functions independently of any government.

Meaning that it operates as a separate entity where there are no obvious direct connections between the NGO and the parent government.

NGOs, sometimes called civil societies, are organized on community, national and international levels to serve a social or political goal such as humanitarian causes or the environment.

The largest and best funded NGO’s out of the United States are dedicated to “spreading democracy”, “advocating liberty”, and “promoting American values”.

But all NGOs are different and some are met with intense criticism for lack of transparency in budgeting or effectual action. When donating money or looking for work in the NGO world, it is always important to do your research about how much of the group’s budget goes to administrative costs and how much goes directly to the cause you care about. The website Charity Navigator is a useful resource for this.

Another important critique of NGOs is that all too often organizations staffed with Americans and Europeans come into developing nations with action plans that don’t fit the local context and end up adversely affecting their target populations. This, however, is not an inherent flaw of NGOs but rather a symptom of failing to acknowledge the importance of local expertise within the NGO framework.

Because NGO funding commonly comes from developed nations, a particularly effective model for NGOs includes using local in-country staff to plan and implement programs on the ground while working with an international board focused on fundraising, outreach, and strategic group planning.

It would be untrue to claim that NGOs are immune to political influence simply because they are not directly connected to governments; NGOs’ funding and even daily operations are subject to political approval.

For example, NGOs working to bring amnesty to political refugees will often face intense political adversity, and even violence during their in-country work. But unlike government organizations, NGOs typically have more flexibility to defy a political status quo to pursue what they believe to be important social change.

Shelly Grimaldi

Key Takeaways

  • NGOs, is an abbreviation for Non-Governmental Organizations.
  • NGO’s tend play a major role in international development, aid and philanthropy.
  • NGOs are non-profit by definition, but may run budgets of millions or up to billions of dollars each year. They are classified this way for tax reduction strategies.
  • NGOs rely on a variety of funding sources. This varies from private donations and membership dues to direct government contribution and training.
  • Many NGO’s, especially American ones, are almost entirely funded directly by the United States government. Either directly or though proxy in a “pass through” arrangement.

About NGOs

While “NGO” has various interpretations, the term is generally accepted to include non-profit, private organizations that operate outside of government control. Some NGOs rely primarily on volunteers, while others support a paid staff. The World Bank identifies two broad groups of NGOs:

  • Operational NGOs, which focus on the design and implementation of development projects.
  • Advocacy NGOs, which defend or promote a specific cause and seek to influence public policy.

Some NGOs may fall under both categories simultaneously. Examples of NGOs include those that support human rights, advocate for improved health or encourage political participation. The ones funded though by the United States all are involved in political participation at some level or the other.

How NGOs are Funded

As non-profits, NGOs rely on a variety of sources for funding, including:

  • Membership dues
  • Private donations
  • The sale of goods and services
  • Grants
  • Direct government grants
  • Hidden government funding though “pass through” arrangements

Despite their supposed independence from governments, many NGOs rely heavily on government funding. Large NGOs may have budgets in the millions or billions of dollars.

Types of NGOs

A number of variations of the NGO acronym exist, including:

  • INGO: An international NGO. For example, the Conference of INGOs of the Council of Europe is comprised of more than 300 participating INGOs.
  • GONGO: This means government-organized NGO, often derogatory. Foreign Policy describes GONGOs as a government-backed NGOs set up to advocate on the behalf of a repressive regime in the international arena.
  • QUANGO: Chiefly a British term, often derogatory. A quango is a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization that relies on public funding. Its senior officials are appointed by the government. A Financial Times opinion piece writes that quangos are seen as useless and are often staffed by quangocrats.
  • ENGO: An environmental NGO, for example, Greenpeace or the World Wildlife Fund. Both groups operate internationally in addition to advocating for the environment. They are often simply referred to as NGOs.

NGO’s in China

The United States government uses NGO’s as the primary method to inject military personnel inside enemy nations. This injection of assault troops and CIA associated military forces for point-of-force disruption of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang, and Tibet primarily come from one singular NGO’s. Which is the NED.

NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a private, nonprofit foundation dedicated to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world. Each year, NED makes more than 1,600 grants to support the projects of non-governmental groups abroad who are working for democratic goals in more than 90 countries.

https://www.ned.org

The CIA under a different name

American military publications

Here is a very interesting work. It’s a complete book, reproduced here in in PDF format. It is titled “SOF Civil Affairs in Great Power Competition” and comes from the United States military; specifically the “Joint Special Operations University and the Department of Strategic Studies”.

The work describes how the United States uses military personnel to control civilian populations for military objectives. It discusses NGO’s and how to foment revolutions and turmoil, as well as how to control unruly populations such as within America.

It discusses among other things…

  • How the United States military is engaged in harming and causing turmoil within China. All without wearing military uniforms, or firing guns and automatic weapons.
Journalist, NGO, or CIA operative?

As well as the very interesting segment(s) on…

  • How the United States military is engaged in controlling the American population to prevent uprisings, armed resurrection and “torches and pitchfork” moments.

It’s an interesting read, though many of us within MM know about much of the techniques used. We watched them in “real time” as all of Hong Kong is on video camera, wired and recorded.

It is useful to keep in mind that these techniques are being employed inside of America against Americans today. Which pretty much explains the idea why the sheeple haven’t risen up against the oligarchy class yet…

…yet.

Rather than reproduce the work in HTML, it is reproduced in the PDF format. Just click on the link below and download it and read at your convenience.

The China section is profoundly interesting.

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