This post is Part 1 of two parts meant to recap recent events that show just how fragile our rapidly inflating financial bubbles have become. Events are happening more rapidly as instability rises. We're getting closer and closer to a crippling, perhaps "terminal" financial crisis -the likes of which the world has never seen before since it's bigger and encompasses all markets---even the currency markets and money itself. It clear that the number of govt interventions are going parabolic in both frequency and magnitude. These latter points are the focus of Part 1--our exponential road to ruin.
In Part 2, I'll talk about a longer perspective of how we got here including our declining and inadequate returns of energy investment, our encounters with the finite limits of commodities, including energy products and the limits of growth itself. I'll use a recent post by Gail Tverberg where she discusses how we have an affordable energy problem and she discusses various and ever more desperate and complex "work-arounds" to avoid collapse. But economic collapse is coming.
Part 1: Recent Timeline of Exploding Government Desperation. The End Approaches
Debt and spending are going parabolic now with regards to government spending, the Federal Reserve QE and various bailouts-- all to preserve the appearance of prosperity and maintain the increasingly dangerous EVERYTHING BUBBLE caused by the hysteria/shutdowns related to the COVID virus.
Let's outline a timeline of the vast escalation of recent and desperate measures made to keep all of the various financial bubbles inflated (prevent collapse):
Sept 2019, The Repo Crisis:a sudden financial crisis caused US short-term treasury and Fed Funds
interest rate to spike from 0.25% to 10%. This was caused after a relatively paltry
attempt to "normalize" (reduce) the Fed's balance sheet during the summer of 2019. Another round
of QE begins:
For
perspective, note the extremely limited reduction (QT) of The Fed's
Balance sheet toward the end of 2019 (upper right corner) triggered a major financial Repo Crisis in
September of 2019.
The transition from a Quantitative Tightening to QE Again after the Sept '19 Repo Crackup
Dec 2019,In
addition to QE, the Fed ultimately had to extend $500 Billion dollars
of short-term liquidity (repos) to rescue unknown entities from collapse. The
stock market was soaring and treasury yields plummeted after these injections--worsening an already extended stock market bubble.
Federal Reserve Actions (QE and Repos) from the Sept 2019 to early January 2020
January 2020,it became obvious that The Fed was once again trapped as lender of first resort in Repo,
a market that they rarely enter (except prior to previous burst equity
bubbles in years 2000 and 2008). Repo balances subsided in the January and February, but the Stock market blew upward into the end of Feb 2020.
March 2020,with the sudden lock-down of the economy due to Covid,, the
U.S. stock market went from all-time highs to an emergency FOMC
meeting in just ten sessions. The S&P500 lost more than a third of
its
value in just 21 trading days. Q2 GDP collapsed at a 31% annualized
rate after a -4% annualized decline in Q1 2020. ALL markets around the
world plummeted including: most bonds, foreign and emerging market
currencies, corporate bonds, commodity markets in a synchronized
fashion. The "Everything Bubble" appeared to be collapsing. The dollar soared as a safe haven. The Fed announced $700
billion in QE on March 11, 2020 and then ~$2 Trillion more by early April '20.
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and
Economic Security Act, also known as the CARES Act, is a $2.2 trillion
economic stimulus bill passed by the 116th U.S. Congress and signed into
law by President Donald Trump on March 27, 2020.
As seen in 2000 and 2008, it was impossible for "the government" to stop
the bursting stock market bubbles once the selling commenced. However,
in March 2020, with unprecedented "reserve creation" (QE) and outright
direct buying of bond and stock ETFs by the Federal Reserve, the Fed WAS
able to stop a 30% decline.
Helicopter Money for Wall Street to Rescue the Stock Market
April 2020 to End of 2020, All markets soar with ongoing Federal Reserve QE of $120 Billion per month $3
TRILLION of US Govt Deficit Spending.
The
US Stock Market Soars in 2020 to the most extreme valuations in history
as the Fed Reserve continues it's $120 Billion per month QE with ~$4
TRILLION of US Govt Deficit Spending
Dec 2020The Trump Administration signed a $900 Billion Federal spending package at the end of 2020 that contained the paltry $600 stimulus checks.
Feb 2021The Biden administration is on the verge of passing a spending package of $1.9 Trillion with $1400 stimulus checks.
In that case,
that will lift the cumulative amount of fiscal stimulus in the past 12
months to $5 trillion---three tranches $2.2 trillion, $900 billion, and
$1.9 trillion. That's in addition to about $2 Trillion in Federal Reserve bond/etf purchases! I believe that I've made my point regarding the desperation of the government to rescue the US economy after COVID.
Ominously,
the desperation of the US Federal Reserve and the US Government manipulations to
maintain the "everything bubble" is truly exploding in scope, frequency and magnitude. It's became clear that they can't exit
these various markets or the financial system blows up. Thanks to huge amounts
of liquidity and intervention, the stock and bond markets vaulted to new highs at the end of 2019 and into early 2021.
The leveraged bubble
continues to build to the most extreme in history: truly astronomic levels. Recently, retail enthusiasm for stock market trading,
and especially call buying, has become alarming in scope. Retail
participation is usually the final straw of a bull market. When the
market blows-up, if it's "allowed to," the devastation will be enormous
-- thus the desperate means employed by "government."
Excess FIAT money tends to go "POOF" and to "money heaven." We could all be broke within days of market collapses.
My post: The Economy is Nearing Collapse, Exploding Government Desperation: Part 1,was intended to recap recent events that show just how fragile our
rapidly inflating financial bubbles have become. Financial Events are happening more rapidly as instability rises -- as if more and more spinning plates are whirling above the circus performer's head. We're getting closer
and closer to a crippling financial crisis -probably the likes of which the world
has never seen before since it's bigger and encompasses all
markets---even the currency markets. It clear that the number of govt
interventions are going parabolic in both frequency and magnitude.
The post below is from Gail Tverberg's Our Finite World blog. Gail is an actuary who is a career consultant for insurance companies on risk issues and now specializes in systemic risk issues. She's long talked about how we're reaching peak-affordable energy, (especially oil) and how that actually started in the 1970s with the Arab oil embargo, after the US abandoned sound money in 1971. That event began a long and striking chain of events that has led to our disastrous economic and political situation right now in both our country but also in the world:
Note the Parabolic Rise of US Debt After 1971
It led to a 50 year period of rising debt, budget deficits, trade deficits, inflation, financial asset inflation, repeated bubbles and the resulting instability (collapsing bubbles) and deep recessions resulting in falling living standards, inequality, monetary disorder, instability, the rise of China and Japan before that, the Petro-dollar, endless wars, the massive military-industrial complex, a leviathan surveillance state, mega corporate monopolies, massive US government growth, government malfeasance and corruption, national de-industrialization, wealth inequality, the Eurodollar rise and fall, widespread US intervention and manipulation in nearly every global nation -- all continuing to the present day. All fueled by easy (unsound) money and unbridled spending).
Gail and myself have noted the increasing number of "work-arounds" to avoid economic decline and collapse. The increasing number of work-arounds have themselves created excess complexities that render the system even more fragile/unstable:
a) 40 years of falling interest rates,
b) Falling tax rates and higher gov't deficits,
c) Then zero interest rates ongoing for 12 years now,
d) Exponentially rising debt and government spending,
e) Manipulation of markets as a policy effort called "wealth effect"
f) endless quantitative easing ("printing" of reserves by the Federal Reserve) to fund government deficits as citizens can not afford increased taxes
g) Rapidly rising income support payments and subsidies to the public,
h) Talk of universal basic income..
i) Evidence that the world is reaching the end of affordable commodities, especially energy, signals imminent economic collapse.
All of these work-arounds, for 40+ years have been designed to compensate or "kick the can" to avoid the public notice of the obvious economic decline.However, financial and economic collapse draws closer. In Part 1, I show that any attempt at normalization will lead to collapse, so
ever increasing numbers of desperate measures are necessary in order to avoid that
inevitability.
Part 1 also chronicles just a recent number of cracks in our economic and financial foundations that speak of an
ominous future. But it's not just economic cracks that are showing.
Social unrest, calls for socialism, cultural decay, corruption,
concentration of wealth and wealth inequality show that our decline is
very obvious. Wealth inequality is back at 1929 levels.
Part 2: Gail Tverberg's Post "Where Energy Modeling Goes Wrong" from her blog at Our Finite World:
There are a huge number of people doing energy modeling. In my
opinion, nearly all of them are going astray in their modeling because
they don’t understand how the economy really operates.
The modeling that comes closest to being correct is that which underlies the 1972 book, The Limits to Growth
by Donella Meadows and others. This modeling was based on physical
quantities of resources, with no financial system whatsoever. The base
model, shown here, indicates that limits would be reached a few years
later than we actually seem to be reaching them. The dotted black line
in Figure 1 indicates where I saw the world economy to be in January
2019, based on the limits we already seemed to be reaching at that time.
Figure 1. Base scenario from 1972 Limits to Growth, printed using today’s graphics by Charles Hall and John Day in “Revisiting Limits to Growth After Peak Oil,”
with dotted line added corresponding to where I saw the world economy
to be in January 2019, based on how the economy was operating at that
time.
The authors of The Limits to Growth have said that their
model cannot be expected to be correct after limits hit (which is about
now), so even this model is less than perfect. Thus, this model cannot
be relied upon to show that population will continue to rise until after
2050.
Many readers are familiar with Energy Return on Energy Invested
(EROEI) calculations. These are favorites of many people following the
Peak Oil problem. A high ratio of Energy Returned to Energy Invested is
considered favorable, while a low ratio is considered unfavorable.
Energy sources with similar EROEIs are supposedly equivalent. Even these
similarities can be misleading. They make intermittent wind and solar
appear far more helpful than they really are.
Other modeling, such as that by oil companies, is equally wrong.
Their modeling tends to make future fossil fuel supplies look far more
available than they really are.
This is all related to a talk I plan to give to energy researchers
later in February. So far, all that is pinned down is the Summary, which
I reproduce here as Section [1], below.
[1] Summary: The economy is approaching near-term collapse, not peak oil. The result is quite different.
The way a person views the world economy makes a huge difference in
how one models it. A big issue is how connected the various parts of the
economy are. Early researchers assumed that oil was the key energy
product; if it were possible to find suitable substitutes for oil, the
danger of exhaustion of oil resources could be delayed almost
indefinitely.
In fact, the operation of the world economy is controlled by the laws
of physics. All parts are tightly linked. The problem of diminishing
returns affects far more than oil supply; it affects coal, natural gas,
mineral extraction in general, fresh water production and food
production. Based on the work of Joseph Tainter, we also know that added
complexity is also subject to diminishing returns.
When a person models how the system works, it becomes apparent that
as increasing complexity is added to the system, the portion of the
economic output that can be returned to non-elite workers as goods and
services drops dramatically. This leads to rising wage disparity as
increasing complexity is added to the economy. As the economy approaches
limits, rising wage disparity indirectly leads to a tendency toward low
prices for oil and other commodities because a growing number of
non-elite workers are unable to afford homes, cars and even proper
nutrition.
A second effect of added complexity is growing use of long-lasting
goods available through technology. Many of these long-lasting goods are
only affordable with financial time-shifting devices such as loans or
the sale of shares of stock. As non-elite workers become increasingly
unable to afford the output of the economy, these time-shifting devices
provide a way to raise demand (and thus prices) for commodities of all
types, including oil. These time-shifting devices are subject to
manipulation by central banks, within limits.
Standard calculations of Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI)
ignore the fact that added complexity tends to have a very detrimental
impact on the economy because of the diminishing returns it produces. To
correct for this, today’s EROEI calculations should only be used to
compare energy systems with similar complexity. The least complex energy
systems are based on burned biomass and power from animals. Fossil
fuels represent a step upward in complexity, but they still can be
stored until their use is required. Intermittent renewables are far
ahead of fossil fuels in terms complexity: they require sophisticated
systems of storage and distribution and therefore cannot be considered
equivalent to oil or dispatchable electricity.
The lack of understanding of how the economy really works has led to the failure to understand several important points:
(i) Low oil prices rather than high are to be expected as the economy reaches limits,
(ii) Most fossil fuel reserves will be left in the ground because of low prices,
(iii) The economy is experiencing the historical phenomenon of collapse, rather than peak oil, and
(iv) If the economy is not to collapse, we need energy sources
providing a larger quantity of net energy per capita to offset
diminishing returns.
[2] The world’s energy problem, as commonly understood by researchers today
It is my observation that many researchers believe that we humans are
in charge of what happens with future fossil fuel extraction, or with
choosing to substitute intermittent renewables for fossil fuels. They
generally do not see any problem with “running out” in the near future.
If running out were imminent, the problem would likely be announced by
spiking prices.
In the predominant view, the amount of future fossil fuels available depends upon the quantity of energy resources that can be extracted with available technology. Thus, a proper estimate of the resources that can be extracted is needed. Oil seems to be in shortest supply based on its reserve estimates and the vast benefits it provides to society. Thus, it is commonly believed that oil production will “peak” and begin to decline first, before coal and natural gas.
In this view, demand is something that we never need to worry about
because energy, and especially oil, is a necessity. People will choose
energy over other products because they will pay whatever is necessary
to have adequate energy supplies. As a result, oil and other energy
prices will rise almost endlessly, allowing much more to be extracted.
These higher prices will also enable higher cost intermittent
electricity to be substituted for today’s fossil fuels.
A huge amount of additional fossil fuels can be extracted, according
to those who are primarily concerned about loss of biodiversity and
climate change. Those who analyze EROEI tend to believe that falling
EROEI will limit the quantity of future fossil fuels extracted to a
smaller total extracted amount. Because of this, energy from additional
sources, such as intermittent wind and solar, will be required to meet
the total energy demand of society.
The focus of EROEI studies is on whether the EROEI of a given
proposed substitution is, in some sense, high enough to add energy to
the economy. The calculation of EROEI makes no distinction made between
energy available only through highly complex systems and energy
available from less complex systems.
EROEI researchers, or perhaps those who rely on the indications of
EROEI researchers, seem to believe that the energy needs of economies
are flexible within a very wide range. Thus, an economy can shrink its
energy consumption without a particularly dire impact.
[3] The real story seems to be that the adverse outcome we
are reaching is collapse, not peak oil. The economy is a self-organizing
system powered by energy. This makes it behave in very unexpected ways.
[3a] The economy is tightly connected by the laws of physics.
Energy consumption (dissipation) is necessary for every aspect of the
economy. People often understand that making goods and services
requires energy dissipation. What they don’t realize is that almost all
of today’s jobs require energy dissipation, as well. Without
supplemental energy, humans could only gather wild fruits and vegetables
and hunt using the simplest of tools. Or, they could attempt simple
horticulture by using a stick to dig a place in the ground to plant a
seed.
In physics terms, the economy is a dissipative structure, which is a
self-organizing structure that grows over time. Other examples of
dissipative structures include hurricanes, plants and animals of all
types, ecosystems, and star systems. Without a supply of energy to
dissipate (that is, food to eat, in the case of humans), these
dissipative structures would collapse.
We know that the human body has many different systems, such as a
cardiovascular system, digestive system and nervous system. The economy
has many different systems, too, and is just as tightly connected. For
example, the economy cannot get along without a transportation system
any more than a human can get along without a cardiovascular system.
This self-organizing system acts without our direction, just as our
brain or circulatory system acts without our direction. In fact, we have
very little control over these systems.
The self-organizing economy allows common belief systems to arise
that seem to be right but are really based on models with many incorrect
assumptions. People desperately need and want a “happily ever after”
solution. The strong need for a desirable outcome favors the selection
of models that lead to the conclusion that if there is a problem, it is
many years away. Conflicting political views seem to be based on
different, equally wrong, models of how world leaders can solve the
energy predicament that the world is facing.
The real story is that the world’s self-organizing economy will
determine for us what is ahead, and there is virtually nothing we can do
to change the result. Strangely enough, if we look at the long term
pattern, there almost seems to be a guiding hand behind the result.
According to Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee in Rare Earth,
there have been a huge number of seeming coincidences that have allowed
life on earth to take hold and flourish for four billion years. Perhaps
this “luck” will continue.
[3b] As the economy reaches limits, commodities of many types reach diminishing returns simultaneously.
It is indeed true that the economy reaches diminishing returns in oil
supply as it reaches limits. Oil is very valuable because it is energy
dense and easily transported. The oil that can be extracted, refined,
and delivered to needed markets using the least amount of resources
(including human labor) tends to be extracted first. It is later that
deeper wells are built that are farther from markets. Because of these
issues, oil extraction does tend to reach diminishing returns, as more
is extracted.
If this were the only aspect of the economy that was experiencing
diminishing returns, then the models coming from a peak oil perspective
would make sense. We could move away from oil, simply by transferring
oil use to appropriately chosen substitutes.
It becomes clear when a person looks at the situation that
commodities of all kinds reach diminishing returns. Fresh water reaches
diminishing returns. We can add more by using desalination and pumping
water to where it is required, but this approach is hugely expensive. As
population and industrialization grows, the need for fresh water grows,
making diminishing returns for fresh water a real issue.
Minerals of all kinds reach diminishing returns, including uranium,
lithium, copper and phosphate rock (used for fertilizer). The reason
this occurs is because we tend to extract these minerals faster than
they are replaced by the weathering of rocks, including bedrock. In
fact, useable topsoil tends to reach diminishing returns because of
erosion. Also, with increasing population, the amount of food required
keeps increasing, putting further pressure on farmland and making it
harder to retain an acceptable level of topsoil.
[3c] Increased complexity leads to diminishing returns as well.
In his book, The Collapse of Complex Societies, Joseph Tainter points out that complexity reaches diminishing returns, just as commodities do.
As an example, it is easy to see that added spending on healthcare reaches diminishing returns. The discovery of antibiotics clearly had a huge impact on healthcare, at relatively little cost. Now, a recent article is entitled, The hunt for antibiotics grows harder as resistance builds.
The dollar payback on other drugs tends to fall as well, as solutions
to the most common diseases are found, and researchers must turn their
attention to diseases affecting only, perhaps, 500 people globally.
Similarly, spending on advanced education reaches diminishing
returns. Continuing the medical example above, educating an increasing
number of researchers, all looking for new antibiotics, may eventually
lead to success in discovering more antibiotics. But the payback with
respect to the education of these researchers will not be nearly as
great as the payback for educating the early researchers who found the
first antibiotics.
[3d] Wages do not rise sufficiently so that all of the
higher costs associated with the many types of diminishing returns can
be recouped simultaneously.
The health care system (at least in the United States) tends to let
its higher costs flow through to consumers. We can see this by looking
at how much higher the Medical Care Consumer Price Index (CPI) rises
compared to the All Items CPI in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Consumer price index for Medical Care versus for All Items, in chart made by the Federal Reserve of St. Louis.
The high (and rapidly rising) cost of advanced education is another cost
that is being passed on to consumers–the students and their parents. In
this case, loans are used to make the high cost look less problematic.
Of course, if consumers are burdened with higher medical and
educational costs, it makes it difficult to afford the higher cost of
energy products, as well. With these higher costs, young people tend to
live with their parents longer, saving on the energy products needed to
have their own homes and vehicles. Needless to say, the lower net income
for many people, after health care costs and student loan repayments
are deducted, acts to reduce the demand for oil and energy products, and
thus contributes to the problem of continued low oil prices.
[3e] Added complexity tends to increase wage disparities. The
reduced spending by lower income workers tends to hold down fossil fuel
prices, similar to the impact identified in Section [3d].
As the economy becomes more complex, companies tend to become larger
and more hierarchical. Elite workers (ones with more training or with
more supervisory responsibility) earn more than non-elite workers.
Globalization adds to this effect, as workers in high wage countries
increasingly compete with workers in lower wage countries. Even computer
programmers can encounter this difficulty, as programming is
increasingly moved to China and India.
Individuals with low incomes spend a disproportionately large share
of their incomes on commodities because everyone needs to eat
approximately 2,000 calories of food per day. In addition, everyone
needs some kind of shelter, clothing and basic transportation. All of
these types of consumption are commodity intensive. People with very
high incomes tend to buy disproportionately more goods and services that
are not very resource intensive, such as education for their children
at elite universities. They may also use part of their income to buy
shares of stock, hoping their value will rise.
With a shift in the distribution of incomes toward those with high
earnings, the demand for commodities of all types tends to stagnate or
even fall. Fewer people are able to buy new cars, and fewer people can
afford vacations involving travel. Thus, as more complexity is added,
there tends to be downward pressure on the price of oil and other energy
products.
[4] Oil prices have been falling behind those needed by oil producers since 2012.
Figure
4. Figure created by Gail Tverberg using EIA average monthly Brent oil
price data, adjusted for inflation using the CPI Index for All Items for
Urban Consumers.
Back in February 2014, Steven Kopits gave a presentation at Columbia University explaining the state of the oil industry. I wrote a post describing this presentation called, Beginning of the End? Oil Companies Cut Back on Spending.
Oil companies were reporting that prices had been too low for them to
make an adequate profit for reinvestment, back as early as 2012. In
inflation-adjusted terms, this was when oil prices were about $120 per
barrel.
Even Middle Eastern oil exporting countries need surprisingly high
oil prices because their economies depend on the profits of oil
companies to provide the vast majority of their tax revenue. If oil
prices are too low, adequate taxes cannot be collected. Without funds
for jobs programs and food subsidies, there are likely to be uprisings
by unhappy citizens who cannot maintain an adequate standard of living.
Looking at Figure 4, we see that there has been very little time that
Brent oil prices have been above $120 per barrel. Even with all of the
recent central bank stimulus and deficit spending by economies around
the world, Brent oil prices remain below $60 per barrel.
[5] Interest rates and the amount of debt make a huge difference in oil prices, too.
Based on Figure 4, oil prices are highly irregular. Much of this
irregularity seems to be associated with interest rate and debt level
changes. In fact, in July 2008, what I would call the debt bubble
associated with the subprime housing and credit cards collapsed,
bringing oil prices down from their peak abruptly. In late 2008,
Quantitative Easing (QE), (aimed at bringing interest rates down) was
added just prior to an upturn on prices in 2009 and 2010. Prices fell
again, when the United States discontinued QE in late 2014.
If we think about it, increased debt makes purchases such as cars,
homes and new factories more affordable. In fact, the lower the interest
rate, the more affordable these items become. The number of purchases
of any of these items can be expected to rise with more debt and lower
interest rates. Thus, we would expect oil prices to rise as debt is
added and fall as it is taken away. Now, there are many questions: Why
haven’t oil prices risen more, with all of the stimulus that has been
added? Are we reaching the limits of stimulus? Are interest rates as low
as they can go, and the amount of debt outstanding as high as it can
go?
[6] The growing complexity of the economy is contributing to the huge amount of debt outstanding.
In a very complex economy, a huge number of durable goods and
services are produced. Examples of durable goods would include machines
used in factories and pipelines of all kinds. Durable goods would also
include vehicles of all types, including both vehicles used for
businesses and vehicles used by consumers for their own benefit. As
broadly defined here, durable goods would include buildings of all
types, including factories, schools, offices and homes. It would also
include wind turbines and solar panels.
There would also be durable services produced. For example, a college
degree would have lasting benefit, it is hoped. A computer program
would have value after it is completed. Thus, a consulting service is
able to sell its programs to prospective buyers.
Somehow, there is a need to pay for all of these durable goods. We
can see this most easily for the consumer. A loan that allows durable
goods to be paid for over their expected life will make these goods more
affordable.
Similarly, a manufacturer needs to pay the many workers making all of
the durable goods. Their labor is adding value to the finished
products, but this value will not be realized until the finished
products are put into operation.
Other financing approaches can also be used, including the sale of
bonds or shares of stock. The underlying intent is to provide financial
time-shifting services. Interest rates associated with these financial
time-shifting services are now being manipulated downward by central
banks to make these services more affordable. This is part of what keeps
stock prices high and commodity prices from falling lower than their
current levels.
These loans, bonds and shares of stock are providing a promise of
future value. This value will exist only if there are enough fossil
fuels and other resources to create physical goods and services to
fulfill these promises. Central banks can print money, but they cannot
print actual goods and services. If I am right about collapse being
ahead, the whole debt system seems certain to collapse. Shares of stock
seem certain to lose their value. This is concerning. The end point of
all of the added complexity seems to be financial collapse, unless the
system can truly add the promised goods and services.
[7] Intermittent electricity fits very poorly into just-in-time supply lines.
A complex economy requires long supply lines. Usually, these supply
lines are operated on a just-in-time basis. If one part of a supply line
encounters problems, then manufacturing needs to stop. For example,
automobile manufacturers in many parts of the world are finding that they need to suspend production
because it is impossible to source the necessary semiconductor chips.
If electricity is temporarily unavailable, this is another way of
disrupting the supply chain.
The standard way to work around temporary breaks in supply chains is
to build greater inventory, but this is expensive. Additional inventory
needs to be stored and watched over. It likely needs financing, as well.
[8] The world economy today seems to be near collapse.
The self-organizing economy is now pushing the economy in many
strange ways that indirectly lead to less energy consumption and
eventually collapse. Even prior to COVID-19, the world economy appeared
to be reaching growth limits, as indicated in Figure 1, which was
published in January 2019. For example, recycling of many renewables was
no longer profitable at lower oil prices after 2014. This led China to
discontinue most of its recycling efforts, effective January 1, 2018,
even though this change resulted in the loss of jobs. China’s car sales fell in 2018, 2019, and 2020, a strange pattern for a supposedly rapidly growing country.
The response of world leaders to COVID-19 has pushed the world
economy further in the direction of contraction. Businesses that were
already weak are the ones having the most difficulty in being able to
operate profitably.
Furthermore, debt problems are growing around the world. For example,
it is unclear whether the world will require as many shopping malls or
office buildings in the future. A person would logically expect the
value of the unneeded buildings to drop, reducing the value of many of
these properties below their outstanding debt level.
When these issues are combined, it looks likely that the world
economy may not be far from collapse, which is one of my contentions
from Section [1]. It also looks like my other contentions from Section
[1] are true:
(i) Low oil prices rather than high are to be expected as the economy reaches limits,
(ii) Most fossil fuel reserves will be left in the ground because of low prices, and
(iv) If the economy is not to collapse, we need energy sources
providing a larger quantity of net energy per capita to offset
diminishing returns.
Regarding (iv), the available energy supply from wind and solar (net
or otherwise) is tiny relative to the total energy required to operate
the world economy. This issue, alone, would disqualify a Great Reset
using wind and solar from truly being a solution for today’s problems.
Instead, plans for a Great Reset tend to act as a temporary cover-up for
collapse.
Pastor Mark Wiesenborn St. Matthew Lutheran Church, Houston, Texas Feb 7, 2021
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our dear Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Our sermon message is taken from the Gospel lesson, where we are invited to witness God’s love through a miracle of mercy: “A leper comes to Jesus,
imploring him, and kneeling says to him, ‘If you will, you can make me
clean.’ Moved with pity, he stretches out his hand and touches him.”
GOSPEL LESSON – Mark 1:40-45 [ESV] 40 A leper came to Jesus, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.” 41 Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” 42 And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. 43 And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once, 44 and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” 45 But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.
Dear friends in Christ, since we are just one week away from Valentine’s Day I wanted to share a thought-provoking question. A team of researchers asked a group of 4- to 8-year-old children: “What does love mean?” The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:
Elaine (age 5) “Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.”
Karl (age 5) “Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.”
Chrissy (age 6) “Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.”
Karen (age 7) “When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.” (what an image!)
Danny (age 7) “Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.”
Noelle (age 7) “Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it every day.”
Love is a many splendored thing! Poems and songs are written for the sake of sharing someone’s deep love; kingdoms have been divided, and wars have been fought at least in part for the sake of love. Surveys have identified many reasons that people “fall in love”: physical attractiveness; bonding through compatible personalities and shared goals; sense of humor; the hope of emotional and financial security; friendship and affection and a romantic nature; and also respect and trust.
The Bible teaches: “We love others because God first loved us.” [1st John 4:19]
Christian wedding vows express this with mutual promises to love, honor, and cherish one another…for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer…in sickness and in health…until death parts us, according to God’s holy will. Since Jesus is described in all four Gospels as well as in Revelation as the “bridegroom” of the Church, let’s take some time today to consider three qualities of God’s love for us. It is UNCONDITIONAL. It is SACRIFICIAL. And it is STEADFAST.
Today’s Gospel reading is all about Jesus, who shows the astonishing mercy and love of God to someone whom many of us might cross a street to avoid. A man with leprosy comes to Jesus saying, “If you WILL, you CAN make me clean.” Now, where did he get an idea like that? That’s an easy one. Just before this, Mark has told us that after Jesus had healed Peter’s mother-in-law of her fever: “the whole city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons…” [Mark 1:32-34]
Lepers were the ultimate ‘untouchables.’ If a leper touched you, you became unclean whether you caught the disease or not. If you touched a leper, the same thing. If you touched something a leper had touched, same thing. In any case, you would almost certainly get kicked out of the congregation too.
But this man comes to Jesus. Interestingly, the Gospels record several accounts of lepers coming to Jesus. There are those ten with leprosy who come to Jesus, which Luke tells us about. [Luke 17:12-19] They must have believed He wouldn’t turn them away. They must have turned to Him as their only hope. Jesus has mercy and TEN are healed; yet only ONE returns to give thanks.
Today another man comes alone. “If you WILL, you CAN make me clean,” he implores Jesus. He has no doubt that Jesus has the ability to help him – more specifically, the Greek word dunamis (which later was applied to describe the instantaneous power unleashed with the invention of dynamite). It’s an acknowledgement that Jesus has the awesome power to perform miracles. The only question is whether He is willing. “Will he heal me?” “Does He desire to heal me?” We share his fear and sorrow: “I know that He cared about the crowds lined up at the door. I believe that Jesus cares about the whole world. But does He care about ME? Does He care enough to help ME?” Luther always said that the hardest part of the Gospel to believe was that little word, ‘you,’ as in ‘I forgive YOU all your sins’. Not too hard to believe that Jesus has taken away the sins of the world. Sometimes it’s very hard to believe that He has taken away ‘MY’ sins.
Do you remember the acronym “W.W.J.D.” What would Jesus do? All eyes are on Jesus, which is just the way it should be. This is not about this man making a decision for Jesus. It’s all about what decision Jesus will make for this man. Mark writes, “Moved with pity, he stretches out his hand and touches him and says to him, ‘I will, be clean.’
There’s that word that keeps popping up whenever we fix our eyes on Jesus: “And he touches him.” Some of the spectators might want to scream out: ‘No, Jesus, don’t touch HIM. He’s a leper! You healed so many others just by the word from your mouth. You healed the official’s son and the Centurion’s servant from clear across town. For goodness sake, don’t touch this man. You will become unclean! You will be kicked out of the congregation! (You might even end up being taken outside the city walls and your flesh will get torn up by whips and thorns… nails, and spears.) Please, Jesus, don’t touch this man.”
What a blessing for us to see and realize then, that God’s love is UNCONDITIONAL.
We don’t need any surveys to discover reasons why people “fall out of love.” Physical attraction fades, or shifts to another person with inappropriate thoughts, flirting words, and unfaithful actions. SIN sneaks into our livesthrough stress over worldly resources like money and time; constant demands on our priorities and energy; loss of self-esteem, boredom and loneliness; and fear of growing older or weaker with unfulfilled hopes and dreams. Respect diminishes, and trust is lost.
What a blessing it is to gaze upon the empty cross and the open tomb and know that God’s love is SACRIFICIAL.
I think that most sermons you may have ever heard on this text all make about the same move at this point and begin to talk about this man’s leprosy in spiritual terms. Supposedly, the man’s leprosy signifies the man’s sin – and Jesus deals with this man’s sin, and He deals with your sin and my sin too. And I suppose that there’s nothing too terribly wrong with that because after all, it is absolutely true.
But Jesus doesn’t make that move here and so maybe we shouldn’t either. He doesn’t say to this man with leprosy, “Don’t you know that I’m not here because of your physical problems? I’m here to deal with your spiritual problems. I’m here to take away your sins, to renew your spirit, and to cleanse your heart. Don’t you know that flesh and blood do not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t bother me with fleshly, physical things.”
What we do read is this, “He touches him and says, ‘I will; be clean.’ And immediately the leprosy leaves him, and he is made clean.” His leprous, unclean flesh is made clean – who knows, maybe soft and wrinkle free, smooth as a baby’s bottom. In that sense it is almost as though his SIN has been nullified, reversed, taken away, no trace of any decay or damage accumulated throughout his lifetime.
The point here is that Jesus restores this man’s flesh, his physical body. Sometimes I am afraid that we over-spiritualize the work of God in Jesus Christ. Somehow we’ve picked up this notion that the body really doesn’t matter to God. Everything is spiritual and the only thing that matters to God are spiritual matters.
Maybe this at least partly explains why we use our bodies as carelessly and adulterously as we do. We think that God cares nothing for the flesh, only for the spirit, so we can do “whatever we will” with our body and still actually believe this has nothing to do with our spiritual relationship with Jesus.
But Jesus is the Word made flesh, dwelling among us. He is not only the spiritual and eternal Word dwelling among us – but also the Word wrapped in a vulnerable and perishable body, and He is very much interested in this man’s skin and muscle tissue, tendons and ligaments.
What Jesus does for this man is a miracle, a genuine miracle, no doubt about it. But there were many lepers in Israel, yet on that day Jesus just touched this man and just made this man clean. Jesus said, “There were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” [Luke 4:27] Why just one? Why not all? The answer: what Jesus did for this man, is an example. It’s a sign. Signs are things that point to something beyond themselves. It’s an example of what Jesus wills to do for ALL men, women and children – for every nation and tribe and language and people. [Revelation 14:6-7]
Our problem is that we tend see no further than the sign. We think that the sign is the destination. We fail to see what all these signs and miracles are pointing to. If all your witnessing does is to point people to signs and wonders, it’s probably better to say nothing to anyone, because you’ve missed the whole point. Jesus tells this man to say nothing to anyone because He knows they will chase Him down for another sign… which, of course, is exactly what they do. What Jesus does for this man is not a call to come and have Him do a miracle for you. It is a call to put all your hope and trust in Jesus, who will make all things new again!
What a blessing it is to hear stories about the life and teaching of Jesus, and by faith to realize that God’s love is STEADFAST. He has promised to never leave you nor forsake you! That is why I hope to encourage you next week on Valentine’s Day and continuing throughout all seasons, to remember the UNCONDITIONAL love of God; to make every effort to demonstrate it with others in SACRIFICIAL ways; and together as the family of the Christian Church to remain STEADFAST in our faith! Paul says, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”
What does love mean?
Rebecca (age 8) “When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love.”
Billy (age 4) “When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.”
Terri (age 4) “Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired.”
Bobby (age 7) “Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.” (Wow!)
Nikka (age 6) “If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate.” (we need a few million more kids like her in this world)
Mary Ann (age 4) “Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.”
Jessica (age 8) “You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.”
And the final one: A four-year-old child whose next-door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman’s yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said: ‘Nothing, I just helped him cry.’
When there is nothing left but God, that’s when you find out that God’s love is all you truly need! In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit! Amen.
In one instance after another, history proves to be a reliable bellwether as to what will happen in the future. The reason that this is so often true is that, throughout the ages, whilst technology has been ever-changing, human nature remains essentially the same.
In November of 1932, the Nazis had lost considerable ground in Parliament but were still holding on to power, albeit tentatively.
With only one-third of the vote and a federal election scheduled for March of 1933, the Nazis faced losing out to the Left-oriented parties.
Then, on the night of 27th February 1933, flames erupted from the Reichstag.
The people of Germany were horrified that their parliament building had been burned.
A man was immediately arrested who was claimed by the Nazis to be a communist working for the left-wing opposition parties.
The German people called for a return to law and order.
The Nazis acted swiftly, drawing up the “Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State.”
The act abolished freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and freedom of privacy. It additionally suspended the autonomy of the various German states.
The Nazis were re-elected in the March election and, thereafter, would not need to have any concerns over their future rule. Absolute power was quickly created.
So, fast-forward to Washington, D.C., in 2021 and we have an attack on the Capitol Building.
Within minutes of the attack, videos were all over the TV media. (Did the attackers conveniently send videos immediately to CNN and MSNBC, incriminating themselves? Seems doubtful.)
One report stated that the “hundreds of demonstrators, among them Nazis and white supremacists, who carried out last week’s attempted coup did so under the guise that Trump’s claims of voter fraud and a stolen election were true.”
Within the hour, the media rounded up Democrat leaders, who spoke of “an attempted coup” and “an unspeakable assault” and called for “the immediate impeachment of Donald Trump and his removal from office.”
Further, the same leaders called for the expulsion of Republican lawmakers who “attempted to overturn the election,” stating that they “violated the 14th Amendment.”
The 14th Amendment states that “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress [who has engaged] in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States.
And such action against Mister Trump and his supporters in Congress would be entirely justifiable… if the accusations are indeed factual.
And that’s where we run into a bit of a snag.
The demands for removal from office are based on two premises: first, that Mister Trump incited an attack on the Capitol Building, which he did not. He called for a protest, but that is all. He was within his rights to do so.
Second, that the congressmen who back Mister Trump do so in support of his election fraud case – demanding that it be heard by the courts, which has been denied him.
Whether we think of Mister Trump as the populist saviour or regard him as a demon is unimportant. The action being called for is not justifiable within the Law.
But as long as we’re at it, we might put aside, for a moment, the vitriolic reporting regarding the attack on the Capitol and examine the videos objectively. Was this indeed an attempted coup – highly armed troops who acted with military precision?
Well, no. In fact, the attackers seemed to have been divided into two groups. The first appear to be actual Trump supporters, some wearing silly outfits, wandering aimlessly in the Capitol and taking selfies with Capitol guards. (Not exactly your guerilla strike force.)
The second behaved more like the Antifa groups that were hired to create riots in some forty cities in the US in 2020. This latter group caused minor mayhem in the Capitol, then quickly left, after the videos had been filmed for the benefit of the media.
If we ignore the media rhetoric and study the videos objectively, what we see is, in fact, two entirely different groups entering the Capitol. The first are clearly Trump supporters, who, at worst, acted as vandals, stupidly breaking windows and pinching Mrs. Pelosi’s lectern whilst grinning for photos. Their behaviour resembles a drunken frat party gotten out of hand, more so than an insurrection.
But should Congress choose to press charges against them, they are legally justified in doing so.
The second group clearly had greater focus and caused a disturbance, damage to property and personal injury. These people, if they can be found, should also answer for their actions, regardless of whether they were paid by one side or the other to perform their little amateur drama.
What we witnessed was, in fact, a minor event of vandalism that was exacerbated by the fact that it took place at the Capitol Building. It pales in comparison to the scores of riots in America in 2020, with their burning of vehicles and buildings and even the takeover of public and private real estate.
But this incident was immediately made use of to make demands to remove a president and some elected Republican members of Congress from office.
Immediately after the calls for removal, numerous other Republican congressmen hurried to the cameras to state that they in no way support Mister Trump at this point, then stood back to allow the Democrat lynch mob to do their worst.
And so, we look back again to the events after the Reichstag fire.
People are shocked and scared. There’s a call for law and order.
The Nazis acted swiftly, abolishing freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and freedom of privacy. The Nazis took full power from that date forward and transformed Germany into a collectivist state.
In the US, the playbook has been altered slightly.
The president and others arguing in his favour were silenced by social media. Congressional sympathizers were threatened with expulsion. The conservative media have come under attack. (Freedom of assembly and privacy were already decimated in 2020.)
The new regime now has full power and the observer must now ask himself what this will mean to his few remaining “inalienable” rights and whether his treasured Liberty will soon be just a memory.
Editor’s Note: Economically, politically, and socially, the United States seems to be headed down a path that’s not only inconsistent with the founding principles of the country, but accelerating quickly toward boundless decay.
In the years ahead, there will likely be much less stability of any kind.
I'm tired of hearing from minorities complaining about "White Privilege" or otherwise denigrating White people as if white people are the big problem in our country. Nearly all of these complainers are minority Democrats; who have become the anti-white party in a country of 65% white people.
The simple truth is that basically all of the world's technological, scientific, medical, engineering and philosophical advancements and inventions were conceived and developed by white people. Not only that, but white people, mostly English-speaking people, invented political, personal and economic freedom, religious freedom, rule of law, guaranteed rights and personal liberty that are now uniquely enshrined in our law. The US and the US Constitution is the envy of the world.
Yes, East Asians have even higher median IQs compared to Northern Europeans and their descendants, and could have invented many things, but they haven't nearly to the extent of the Europeans. Even today they don't have as much ability to invent ground-breaking technologies or political philosophies. They merely copy or steal from the West and perfect the mass production of technologies.
The USA benefits from a 1000 year history of Anglo ideas and
philosophies, dating from Pre-Norman times to the Magna Carta and
beyond, that ultimately culminated in the exceptional US Constitution. These
outstanding ideas, combined with the work ethic and Judeo-Christian
ethic of mostly white European immigrants to the US, led to the most
successful and vibrant political, economic and social "experiment" ever
seen in world history: the USA. Our Constitutional government and our prosperity has been the envy of the world for 230 years now. You could say that it is white people who invented modern civilization. And few nations, except the mostly white nations of the British commonwealth, have successfully emulated the US success.
Yes, history is a brutal, unfair and bloody place for all of mankind, but it
was white, mostly English-speaking people, that were the first cultures
to eliminate slavery that was a scourge of the earth for 5000+ years.
By the late 18th century, in Philadelphia, Paris and London, concurrent
discussions about eliminating slavery were taking place and soon after,
slavery was eliminated in their countries and colonies. In contrast and as an extreme example, slavery was only outlawed in Mauritania in 2007! White people ended slavery!
Here's just some of the zillions of other accomplishments of white people (from Burning Platform):
Look around you. Can you find anything with a moving part that was not invented by whites? Anything electronic? Cars, telephones, computers, aircraft, antibiotics, on and on–all sprang from the minds of white people. You are not supposed to say such things, and could be run out of a university for it–but ask yourself, if you have the courage: Is it true? [Of course it's true.]
The Hubble Space Telescope: twenty-five hundred years of phenomenally complex math, physics, electronics, optics, and chemistry went into the Hubble. It is entirely a white man’s show. Nobody else has come close. Your professors will not want you to think this. They will not want you to think. But you have a mind. Use it.
Look around your university. Who do you see taking the hard subjects–math, chemistry, physics, engineering, philosophy, computer science? Whites and Asians…right? Are they the kind of people who complain constantly about White Privilege? You may notice a pattern here: Those who can, do. The rest bitch and moan.
Take the Hadron Collider, a gigantic particle accelerator at CERN, in Switzerland, a massive instrument for research in subatomic physics. It is one of the greatest and most challenging projects of humanity. The Japanese could do this if they wanted to badly enough and soon, perhaps, the Chinese. They didn’t. The technology is a white man’s show, starting from Athens 2500 years ago. Are you sure you should be ashamed of this?
How about the (white) geniuses Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Antonio Vivaldi, Frederik Chopin, Aaron Copeland, Ludwig Von Beethoven, Freud, Einstein, Darwin, Leonardo DaVinci, Rembrandt, Pierre Auguste Renoir. Claude Monet, Socrates, Pythagoras, Max Plank, Neils Bors, Rene Descartes, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Edwin Hubble, Friedrich Neitzsche, Alexander Graham Bell, William Shakespeare, Stephen Hawking, Van Gogh,, Adam Smith, Leo Tolstoy, Abraham Lincoln, Enrico Fermi, James Maxwell, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Louis Pasteur, Madame Curie, Charles Dickens, Robert Oppenheimer, Martin Luther, Thomas Edison?.....and 1000s more!
Here's just a few other mostly-white accomplishments: Euclidean geometry. Parabolic geometry. Hyperbolic geometry. Projective geometry. Differential geometry. Calculus: Limits, continuity, differentiation, differential equations, integration. Physical chemistry. Organic chemistry. Biochemistry. Classical mechanics. The indeterminacy principle. The wave equation. The Parthenon. The Anabasis. Air conditioning. Number theory. Romanesque architecture. Gothic architecture. Information theory. Entropy. Enthalpy. Every symphony ever written. The twelve-tone scale. The mathematics behind it, twelfth root of two and all that. S-P hybrid bonding orbitals. The Bohr-Sommerfeld atom. The purine-pyrimidine structure of the DNA ladder. Single-sideband radio. All other radio. Dentistry. The internal-combustion engine. Turbojets. Turbofans. Doppler beam-sharpening. Penicillin. Airplanes. Surgery. The mammogram. The Pill. The condom. Polio vaccine. The integrated circuit. The computer. Football. Computational fluid dynamics. Tensors. The Constitution. Euripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Aeschylus, Homer, Hesiod. Glass. Rubber. Nylon. Skyscrapers. The piano. The harpsichord. Elvis. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. (OK, that’s nerve gas, and maybe we didn’t really need it.) Silicone. The automobile. Really weird stuff, like clathrates, Buckyballs, and rotaxanes. The Bible. Bug spray. Diffie-Hellman, public-key cryptography, and RSA. Et cetera again and again.
If you talk about these accomplishments on college campuses, in front of black kids, you will be labeled "white supremacist!" But this is just sour grapes. US blacks should also be more realistic about their abilities and they'd be more happy. Their 'sour grapes' attitude brings unhappiness. And miserable they are.
Conversely, most Latinos and Asians correctly respect white people and
their unmatched accomplishments. They accept that they are not as
accomplished as the Northern Europeans and their descendants. Instead,
they work hard to emulate this success. Here's the thing; acceptance
of yourself realistically in the "pecking order" of abilities and
culture leads to personal happiness. Latinos and Asians are happy people
as they leap-frog blacks to prosperity.
Rather than be angry, black folks should be more grateful too. Black
people in modern America are able to enjoy our peace and prosperity.
Unlike pre-1960 America, they can freely live in white and/or Latino
neighborhoods and enjoy the peaceful, orderly, prosperous communities
that whites and Latinos have created. Where they are forced by poverty
or choice to live in majority black neighborhoods, the conditions are
dangerous, impoverished, unhealthy and unhappy. Keep in mind, it could be worse, they could be living in the still deplorable conditions of Africa! Count your blessings, people.
On campuses, you hear ignorant, uninformed black and Latino students, most of them unqualified to even be in college,
complain about "white privilege" or even try to reverse-discriminate
against whites. I am reading more and more cases where blacks are
self-segregating meetings, dorms, lectures and speeches etc to exclude
whites. It's because these black students can't compete with whites in
reasoning and logic and they know it.
I'm still thinking about the all-black cast of the Broadway play
"Hamilton" where whites were told not to apply to casting calls! Then
those same people, all Black, who only read aloud what others have
written and therefore only "appear" to be learned and intelligent,
lectured the newly-elected VP, Mike Pence, a man who is actually leading the nation. Sorry, but Blacks for the most part are arrogant, ignorant and know nothing.
The
entire Leftist culture, blacks, Big Corporate (corrupt) media and
Hollywood tries to minimize the wildly successful history of the white
northern Europeans who "invented" the social, technological and
political foundations for the prosperity, freedom and happiness that a
billion people enjoy today in Europe, Canada, USA, Australia and New
Zealand. The problem for the Left is that our genius white Founding Fathers had values that are the very definition of Conservative: They
founded a culture that champions self-determination, self-sufficiency,
personal responsibility, charity that takes care of your own, the
primacy of family, community and church, the worship of God, minimal
government and minimal regulation. The Left wants to change all that
thinking they have a better way. And they have largely succeeded in
upending our conservative heritage. Now we have big government and big
corruption that is threatening our financial and social stability, We
have excessive regulation and too many idle people living at the expense
of others causing our nation to careen toward complete financial and
social collapse mostly due to corruption and unsound policies of a massive and incompetent government, a government that is unable to fix all the problems that IT caused.
White persons are under attack in this country by ignorant minorities
and the Leftists who dominate our schools and universities. The
ridiculous complaint of "White Privilege" shows how intellectually
bereft blacks and the so-called social justice warriors are. There is so much ignorance in our country-- and it's mostly found in the ranks of Blacks and Democrats.
Thomas Jefferson from the Declaration of Independence,
…Governments
are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent
of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to
abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on
such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall
seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
"The Declaration of Independence says that we not only have the right but we also have the duty
to alter or abolish any government that does not secure our unalienable
rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Given that the U.S. was formed by settlers who threw off British
government rule, there is also an historic precedent for overthrowing
the government. This was – and in many cases still is – a radical idea. But it is
based on the philosophy that people have rights that no government can
grant or deny.
According to John Locke, the fountainhead of this philosophy: There
is no difference between an unjust government and a thief. Just like we
are right to fight off a thief, we are right to fight off an oppressive
government."
The Brazen 2020 Election Theft
Our country just had an obviously stolen election where, in key Democratic cities, in the key battleground states, vote counting stopped simultaneously in 5 states in a coordinated fashion. Then votes were 'manufactured' in the wee hours of November 4th to overcome Trump's significant lead in all the key battleground states. Some Republican observers were told that we're finished for the night. In other counting centers (black) bullies/thugs chased out (white) Republican observers.
In Atlanta, a negligible and minor toilet leak was reported to be a major incident that stopped counting. It was a lie. Then the Democrats hauled out their suitcases and boxes of ballots from under the table and feed them multiple times through the machines. Suddenly 100's of thousands of votes for Biden appeared in the swing states with virtually no votes for Trump. In many of these urban counties there were more votes recorded than those registered. In some cases, 90+% turnout was reported, which just doesn't happen in Democratic districts.
Even though 100's of sworn affidavits of fraud, none of this evidence was allowed or adjudicated in a court of law. No actual factual evidence was presented in any court. Crucially the Supreme Court also refused to listen to any facts.
The Electoral College failed in it's duty to right "the madness of crowds." But it has never functioned as originally intended.
Trump led a rally of his supporters in D.C.on January 6th -- essentially recounting the numerous slights, frauds, BigTech and media manipulation and statistical impossibilities that occurred. It was factual, not inflammatory. Only the scope of cheating was inflammatory.
But before he and his supporters were even finished, shadowy groups were already being allowed into the capital building including BLM, Antifa supporters and other (paid?) trouble-makers. CNN was shown to be a conspirator and "in" on the subversion. Some cops stood aside and let them in. Shortly thereafter, a few Trump supporters joined in. But conservatives never or very rarely destroy anything or bash windows. It's not in their DNA. Clearly the violence was done by a violent fringe in a clear "false flag" event that was staged so that the Fake News could once again falsely slander Trump Supporters.
This was not unlike Charlottesville years ago, when a bus suspiciously arrived full of paid trouble-makers, made a scene and caused some violence. They attacked the peaceful group that actually had a permit to march but local law enforcement never intervened. Although Trump clearly denounced "White Supremacy" in his remarks that were quite conciliatory, the Fake News industry, every Democrat liar and Biden himself repeated the "fine people" hoax for 3+ years even though the transcript of Trump's remarks are clear in his denunciation. LIARS!
So, for 4+ years, Trump supporters have been labeled xenophobes, white supremacists, Islamophobic, racist, sexist, homophobic,etc. thanks to Hillary, Obama, the Fake News industry, Biden and EVERY Democrat. I've been personally called a Nazi or a Brown shirt for years, while the really violent, destructive fascists, Antifa and BLM, have been burning cities, attacking police, businesses and bystanders, attacking Federal buildings and tearing down public statues across the nation for years! Democrats denied the obvious mayhem by characterizing it as "peaceful protests!" DEMOCRATS AND LEFTISTS (the same thing now) ARE LIARS, CHEATERS AND THIEVES. Republican politicians are barely any better now.
Everything is a lie in America now. Everything is total propaganda from lying Leftists at State or Federal Gov'ts, the Lying Fake News corporations and Lying Big Tech.We've
been bombarded with idiotic accusations against the US founding fathers and
multiple attempts at re-writing our history by the most ignorant among us (cough, blacks, cough)---and there are so many! You're assumed to be
"guilty" of "something" just by being White now. Blacks and their fraud
politicians and race hustlers want reparations for black treatment even though some $7 to
$9 Trillion has been spent on black persons in this country since
Johnson's War on Poverty! Sadly, IT DIDN'T WORK. From my post USA, The Least Racist Nation on Earth
Big Tech, Big Fake News corporations and crazy Leftist Democrats are now busy cancelling and "de-platforming" conservatives, threatening "truth and reconciliation" committees presumably to imprison conservative US citizens for just having an alternative (and entirely correct) opinion.
All along it's been the Democrats lying out of their asses to slander Trump and his supporters. The
corrupt "Left-wing media-Big Tech-Hollywood elites-Globalist Communist"
cabal has been creating fraudulent, seditious reporting
all along: the Russia Hoax, the Mueller "Investigation" Hoax, the Mike Flynn Hoax, the Roger Stone Hoax, the RENEWED Russia
Hoax after it was debunked!, the despicable Fine People Hoax, all the variously insane Hate Crime Hoaxes,
the White Nationalist Hate Hoaxes, the "Nation of Hate" hoax at CNN,
the "Impeachment" Hoax and on and on....... IT CONTINUES TO THIS DAY.
Whiteness and White people are being denigrated for being our country's biggest problem; but no one is allowed to say that it is clearly the idiotic un-culture of Blackness is certainly one of the biggest problems for our country-- second only to politicians. Whiteness is way down the list of problems. It is low US black intelligence and high black criminality that is a huge burden to our country. About ONE HALF of our prisons are populated by black men who are 6% of the population. I've written many posts about all of the FALSE MEMES PERPETRATED BY THE PHONY LEFT. Here's just one:
We just faux-elected a fungus as president. And we just had a faux-inaugural, where the people were kept OUT by military. The public was not allowed! At the same time, the FBI tried to paint an outrageous meme that a
populist uprising was planned at all of the state capitals!! Holy crap, it of course was
total hysteria and fake news! There is literally no intelligence at all at our "intelligence" agencies.
Of course that false meme justified 20,000 natl guards at the capitol in a VAST exaggeration of the
(non)threat of "Conservatives." Could anything be more laughable? Everything is a fucking lie, a false
narrative or a smear by the Left. IT'S ALWAYS THE POLITICAL LEFT WHO ARE VIOLENT! Here's a video of some of the national guard troops turning their backs to the Biden motorcade (naturally the lying media "fact checkers (distorters)" said that it was "standard procedure.") Bullshit! There was nothingstandard about what happened on inauguration day. Walls were erected to keep citizens out of DC!
This country is circling the drain. Shadowy Communist/Leftist forces have infiltrated our government hoping to take advantage of our many government-created "crises." Nothing is functioning. Nothing is fixed. We are in a man-made economic Depression due to bad flu with a 99.9% survival rate.
Let me be clear: I am not a Republican, Libertarian or Democrat. I have been calling for outright Revolution, "destruction" or perhaps best said "dismantling" of our overly large, corrupted government and central bank.
It's because the failures of Big Government that are at the root of nearly every evil and our societal/moral collapse that we see today in our country. We have endless wars, endless meddling in foreign countries by the CIA and US troops in 148 countries doing God-knows-what. I have written countless posts about the evil and failures of our over-intrusive, ever-failing government--which includes the entirely out-of-control Federal Reserve:
"Newly Seceded Republic of Texas Denies Federal Government Tax Revenue: US Govt Bonds Crash"
"Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska Quickly Follow"
"17 Other States Considering Similar Action"
Secession may provide a great path for dismantling the Federal Bureaucracy, create a hard Federalism of sorts and save Conservatives from endless persecution. Once one state like Texas announces their secession, a number of others will quickly join to form and "new and perfect union."
At first, the newly aligned states can keep the US dollar, but eventually create truly sound money to circulate in parallel with the US dollar.
But here's the key thing: the new seceded states can adopt a flat 5% income tax payable only to their states AND NO INCOME TAX MONEY SENT TO WASHINGTON DC. For a time, FICA deductions can be sent to Washington to fund existing social security and medicare costs. If Washington tries to play "hard ball," the new federation can withhold FICA and take care of retirees themselves and be completely free of evil DC.
The very day that words are uttered that the new federation of states will not send Income Tax money to Washington, the US Bond market will crash and interest rates soar. Of course the Federal Reserve will immediately monetize EVEN MORE debt-spending. But it will create a crisis that will end the country as we know it. Sadly, it HAS to be done.
Defunding Washington DC is the key to taking down our thoroughly corrupted, incompetent, money-wasting bureaucracy.
The US dollar is being intentionally devalued, in part, due to vast and increasing fiscal and trade deficits due to massive government spending that is being substantially funded by "reserve money creation" by the Federal Reserve. Our currency is being radically devalued. Inflation is starting to show up EVEN in the government's lying statistics.
Just a little more supporting information of what our "incredible shrinking dollar" is doing in the commodities market:
