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Thread: Forecast: Great Global Depression begins 2018; Trump and Euro skeptics will be blamed. Qanon is part of the distraction.

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    Avalon Member mountain_jim's Avatar
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    Default Re: Forecast: Great Global Depression begins 2018; Trump and Euro skeptics will be blamed. Qanon is part of the distraction.

    While trying to save for a hoped-for retirement in a few years I am also in cash except for physical-holding Gold and Silver funds.

    I have missed the rise over the last 2 years while sitting the market out. I have my reasons besides the ongoing belief it HAS to correct/crash at some point, and I might not have time to get out first.

    In 1999 I missed a huge percentage rise while sitting out and waiting for the big drop, then in Jan/Feb of 2000 with no drop I started piling in only to lose my shirt in the Tech crash that followed.

    I am still recovering from that loss, and one result is timid investing.

    And still I wait for more reasonable valuations.
    I don't believe anything, but I have many suspicions. - Robert Anton Wilson

    The present as you think of it, and in practical working terms, is that point at which you select your physical experience from all those events that could be materialized. - Seth (The Nature of Personal Reality - Session 656, Page 293)

    (avatar image: Brocken spectre, a wonderful phenomenon of nature I have experienced and a symbol for my aspirations.)

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    Default Re: Forecast: Great Global Depression begins 2018; Trump and Euro skeptics will be blamed. Qanon is part of the distraction.

    Quote Posted by Paul (here)
    The Great Global Depression is bearing down on us.
    [INDENT][INDENT]All nations and corporations outside of the US that owe any significant debt denominated in US Dollars will be unable to repay that debt, as US Dollars abroad become increasingly scarce. Trump's Tax Bill of late 2017, and his new raising of trade tariffs, are two of the measures that are shrinking the available supply of US Dollars outside of the US.

    The European Union has its own immense and still expanding debt crisis. I don't understand the dynamics and details of it as well, but it's surely a train wreck of great proportions, waiting to happen. Whatever elements of European culture, tradition and nationality are least liked by the elite bastards will no doubt be blamed for the immense train wreck, once it unfolds.

    Within the US, where I have studied matters more, I suspect that the ever excellent Brandon Smith is right, in his most recent article White House Soap Operas Distract From Real Global Dangers. Brandon writes that Trump is being setup to take the blame
    Brandon Smith continues to expand on his thesis that the "next world war" will be an economic war more so than a military war, and that the collapse of the US Reserve Dollar based monetary system, hidden behind a trade war, will usher in a new world monetary system.

    See Brandon's April 11, 2018 World War III Will Be An Economic War article, in which he concludes:

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    International financiers and central banks have everything to gain by pulling the plug on life support for stocks, bonds, real estate, etc. at this time. In the midst of a trade war panic, they can pretty much do anything they want without retaliation. All future catastrophe can now be dumped in the lap of any number of scapegoats. Some people will blame Donald Trump and the conservatives that voted for him. Some people will blame China and Russia as the culprits behind our ills. Other people will blame “capitalism” and “free markets” in general for the crisis even though we haven’t enjoyed true free markets in well over a century. But, very few people will blame global banks specifically.

    I can tell you exactly what globalists will say as they salivate over the panic; they will blame the “selfishness” of “nationalism” as the great culprit, and they will call for a one world economic system built on a one world currency framework as the solution.

    In many ways a world economic war could be far more disastrous than a nuclear one. In the event of economic collapse just as many people could very well perish as trade infrastructure and freight systems shut down, but the damage can be more easily directed and centrally controlled by financial elitists. Wealth can be shifted into any number of assets anywhere on the planet — so the idea that globalists have anything to lose in this scenario is rather naive. In the meantime, the banks plan to steal even more power for existing organizations like the IMF. As some countries suffer economic breakdown, globalist institutions will only grow.

    In a nuclear war, there is only pandemonium. In an economic war, centralized dominance remains possible. The greatest disaster would not be the tragedy of mass unemployment, degradation of infrastructure, loss of monetary stability or loss of reliable food and energy production. No, the greatest disaster would be the continued thriving of banking conglomerates and central bank organizations as large portions of the world crumble. The greatest disaster will be what happens AFTER the collapse — the consolidation of a “new world order,” if the banking elites are not unmasked as the real catalyst behind the next world war.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    See further Brandon's most recent June 14, 2018 America Loses When The Trade War Becomes A Currency War article, in which he writes:

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Without a massive resurrection of American manufacturing and production, we enter into a trade war with little ammunition because we remain dependent on foreign production and goods, while other nations like China can easily expand into alternative markets and retain their own production capabilities. Trump could have launched a new renaissance of production in the U.S. if he had given corporations incentive to bring manufacturing back home. Instead, he gave them a sizeable tax cut without asking for anything in return. Those tax cuts, instead of creating jobs or luring factories back to the U.S., have instead been spent where we all knew they would be spent — on stock buybacks to prop up a flailing equities market.

    The longer the trade war continues, the more other countries will consider the “nuclear option” of dumping the dollar as world reserve, or dumping U.S. debt. In my view, this is exactly what the globalists want. Trump bumbles into a trade war and is blamed for a crisis in the dollar as well as a crash in stock markets, while the banking elites introduce their new world order reset as a solution. In this case, I think the worst case scenario is the intended scenario.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Notice, for example, that we're hearing that the way that Trump maneuvered North Korea into promising to give up its nuclear bombs and missiles was by escalating a trade war with China, in order to pressure China into leaning on North Korea (who depends on China for its food) to give up its nukes.

    I continue to find Brandon Smith's commentary to be some of the best available.
    My quite dormant website: pauljackson.us

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    Default Re: Forecast: Great Global Depression begins 2018; Trump and Euro skeptics will be blamed. Qanon is part of the distraction.

    Quote Posted by Paul (here)
    by escalating a trade war with China
    Speaking of which, the following was just posted on Zerohedge: Chinese Warn Of "Immediate" Retaliation As Trump Readies $50 Billion Tariff Package:

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Just hours after President Trump reportedly signed off on tariffs targeting some $50 billion in Chinese goods (a decision that was finalized after a 90-minute meeting with officials from the West Wing, as well as senior national-security officials, the Treasury Department, the Commerce Department and the office of the US Trade Representative), Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said during a press conference in Beijing that China is prepared to retaliate as it takes a more confrontational approach against the US on trade, according to the Wall Street Journal.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Brandon Smith seems to have his finger on the pulse of world economic and geopolitical affairs.
    My quite dormant website: pauljackson.us

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    Default Re: Forecast: Great Global Depression begins 2018; Trump and Euro skeptics will be blamed. Qanon is part of the distraction.

    It’s Showtime in North Korea
    by Jon Rappoport
    June 13, 2018
    https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2...n-north-korea/

    Rappaport seems to be right on target as usual.

    Quote People Magazine: “’North Korea has great beaches,’ Trump told reporters. ‘You see that whenever they’re exploding cannons into the ocean. I said, “Boy, look at that view. Wouldn’t that make a great condo?”’ Trump said he advised Kim that instead of pursuing his nuclear ambitions, he should build ‘the best hotels in the world’ on North Korea’s coastline to boost the country’s economy. ‘Think of it from a real estate perspective,’ Trump said.”

    Sometimes a war is necessary, in order to do business. Necessary for the people making war.

    Sometimes the threat of war is enough. It spurs growth.

    —Here’s a shoreline of brand new condos. Move-in ready. Restaurants, hotels, shops, synthetic streets emerging from barren land. Let’s build a modern city. Let’s build ten. This could be how North Korea is shaping up.

    Instead of a nuclear catastrophe, bring in the usual players, the giant construction companies, the electric-power utilities. They know how to put it all together.

    As I wrote some months ago, for Trump the business of America is business, period. Let’s make a deal. You may like it, you may hate it, but there it is. That’s how he’s always rolled.

    Environmental problems, pollution, earthquakes from fracking? Minor issues. Just keep building. The investors make piles of money. Tourists show up. The local backwater culture never saw anything like it? They’ll adapt. They’ll get used to it. Call it democracy, monarchy, dictatorship, socialism, who cares? There’s cash on the table.

    The new North Korea may eventually look like a hundred versions of Dubai side by side. War and sanctions are the threats; business is the solution.

    Trump has that viewpoint. Jobs will come, projects will climb upwards and sideways. Does it feel like a new era of capitalism or crazy gloss and shine? Depends on who you are. Are you nestled in the top tier of profiteers, or are you making beds and delivering meals in brand new hotels? Are you a janitor three floors below ground level making your daily rounds, or are you booking a suite thirty floors up in the air?

    Kim understands the whole game, because he has China as a model. Repressive rule from above, along with active zones of volcanic capital investment and massive production of goods.

    Foreign banks and financiers are popping champagne corks. The North Korean government will find a way to make hay while the sun shines, too, even if they have to back the manufacture of a synthetic sun. They’ll invent a new bank, they’ll invent new money out of air, they’ll say it’s “for the people.” A small farmer scratching out a meager existence on frozen land will turn into a waiter in a luxury restaurant in a city that was never there until yesterday. Voila. French cuisine spiced with kimchi.

    Bring on the golf courses. The tennis courts. The equestrian show places, the NBA game of the week.

    Absolute duty to the government leadership and its mottos of socialism will find translation into duty and obedience to the companies and corporations transforming the landscape. “We have the best workers in the world!” And those workers will unite under the rubric of money. Same tune, different lyrics.

    Trump thinks, “Show me a ****hole country, and I’ll show you a future of unlimited profit.” Only now he doesn’t have to worry about losses on the books and bankruptcies along the way. He doesn’t have to worry (if he ever did) about cooking the accounting ledgers. He’s both business and government. The whole North Korea renovation WILL BE cooked books—and it’s entirely acceptable, because it will be measured by expansion, visible to the world in hundreds of ways.

    Anybody who is anybody will get his piece of the action. And no one who is anyone will ask questions.

    A history of frozen wastelands and brazen population control will, one day, appear as a mere footnote in a Pyongyang museum. “Yes, it was once that way, but under our immortal leadership, we have triumphed and become entirely modern. Now we rule by edict and force in order to build a paradise for every citizen. Triple bacon burgers! Nachos! Rodeo Drive!”

    Sort out the difference between low and high consumer culture according to what’s in your wallet.

    It’s Showtime in North Korea.

    This is the mouth-watering prospect for investors.

    As I say, Kim knows the new model just by looking at China. He loses nothing in the way of control. He just plays from a different deck of cards—all aces.

    Of course, in order for a titanic deal to go through, China will have to be included. No doubt, behind the scenes, they’ve been at the bargaining table. The Trump “trade war” with Xi Jinping has a number of moving parts.

    Ready, set, go. Crony capitalism rides again.
    Each breath a gift...
    _____________

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    Default Re: Forecast: Great Global Depression begins 2018; Trump and Euro skeptics will be blamed. Qanon is part of the distraction.

    Quote Posted by onawah (here)
    It’s Showtime in North Korea
    by Jon Rappoport
    June 13, 2018
    https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2...n-north-korea/

    Rappaport seems to be right on target as usual.

    Quote People Magazine: “’North Korea has great beaches,’ Trump told reporters. ‘You see that whenever they’re exploding cannons into the ocean. I said, “Boy, look at that view. Wouldn’t that make a great condo?”’ Trump said he advised Kim that instead of pursuing his nuclear ambitions, he should build ‘the best hotels in the world’ on North Korea’s coastline to boost the country’s economy. ‘Think of it from a real estate perspective,’ Trump said.”

    Sometimes a war is necessary, in order to do business. Necessary for the people making war.

    Sometimes the threat of war is enough. It spurs growth.

    —Here’s a shoreline of brand new condos. Move-in ready. Restaurants, hotels, shops, synthetic streets emerging from barren land. Let’s build a modern city. Let’s build ten. This could be how North Korea is shaping up.

    Instead of a nuclear catastrophe, bring in the usual players, the giant construction companies, the electric-power utilities. They know how to put it all together.

    As I wrote some months ago, for Trump the business of America is business, period. Let’s make a deal. You may like it, you may hate it, but there it is. That’s how he’s always rolled.

    Environmental problems, pollution, earthquakes from fracking? Minor issues. Just keep building. The investors make piles of money. Tourists show up. The local backwater culture never saw anything like it? They’ll adapt. They’ll get used to it. Call it democracy, monarchy, dictatorship, socialism, who cares? There’s cash on the table.

    The new North Korea may eventually look like a hundred versions of Dubai side by side. War and sanctions are the threats; business is the solution.

    Trump has that viewpoint. Jobs will come, projects will climb upwards and sideways. Does it feel like a new era of capitalism or crazy gloss and shine? Depends on who you are. Are you nestled in the top tier of profiteers, or are you making beds and delivering meals in brand new hotels? Are you a janitor three floors below ground level making your daily rounds, or are you booking a suite thirty floors up in the air?

    Kim understands the whole game, because he has China as a model. Repressive rule from above, along with active zones of volcanic capital investment and massive production of goods.

    Foreign banks and financiers are popping champagne corks. The North Korean government will find a way to make hay while the sun shines, too, even if they have to back the manufacture of a synthetic sun. They’ll invent a new bank, they’ll invent new money out of air, they’ll say it’s “for the people.” A small farmer scratching out a meager existence on frozen land will turn into a waiter in a luxury restaurant in a city that was never there until yesterday. Voila. French cuisine spiced with kimchi.

    Bring on the golf courses. The tennis courts. The equestrian show places, the NBA game of the week.

    Absolute duty to the government leadership and its mottos of socialism will find translation into duty and obedience to the companies and corporations transforming the landscape. “We have the best workers in the world!” And those workers will unite under the rubric of money. Same tune, different lyrics.

    Trump thinks, “Show me a ****hole country, and I’ll show you a future of unlimited profit.” Only now he doesn’t have to worry about losses on the books and bankruptcies along the way. He doesn’t have to worry (if he ever did) about cooking the accounting ledgers. He’s both business and government. The whole North Korea renovation WILL BE cooked books—and it’s entirely acceptable, because it will be measured by expansion, visible to the world in hundreds of ways.

    Anybody who is anybody will get his piece of the action. And no one who is anyone will ask questions.

    A history of frozen wastelands and brazen population control will, one day, appear as a mere footnote in a Pyongyang museum. “Yes, it was once that way, but under our immortal leadership, we have triumphed and become entirely modern. Now we rule by edict and force in order to build a paradise for every citizen. Triple bacon burgers! Nachos! Rodeo Drive!”

    Sort out the difference between low and high consumer culture according to what’s in your wallet.

    It’s Showtime in North Korea.

    This is the mouth-watering prospect for investors.

    As I say, Kim knows the new model just by looking at China. He loses nothing in the way of control. He just plays from a different deck of cards—all aces.

    Of course, in order for a titanic deal to go through, China will have to be included. No doubt, behind the scenes, they’ve been at the bargaining table. The Trump “trade war” with Xi Jinping has a number of moving parts.

    Ready, set, go. Crony capitalism rides again.
    Trump as always speaks from the point of view of a businessman!)

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    Default Re: Forecast: Great Global Depression begins 2018; Trump and Euro skeptics will be blamed. Qanon is part of the distraction.

    Trump’s Bailout of Coal and Nuclear Plants Could Cause Thousands of Early Deaths, Send Utility Bills Soaring
    By Grant Smith, Senior Energy Policy Advisor Environmental Working Group
    JUNE 8, 2018
    https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysi...3#.WyQQcqdKgdV

    Quote In his continuing crusade to prop up dying industries, President Trump wants to make Americans pay for expensive electricity from dirty, dangerous coal and nuclear power plants – even if cheaper, cleaner and safer sources are available. The political payback to his friends in these industries could contribute to tens of thousands of premature deaths and cost Americans billions of dollars.

    Last week, Trump ordered Energy Secretary Rick Perry to head off the closure of coal and nuclear plants that are losing money because they can’t compete economically with power from solar, wind or natural gas. A leaked Department of Energy memo revealed a scheme to declare a national emergency on the grounds that the nation’s security requires keeping the plants open to ensure a reliable supply of electricity. If implemented, operators of regional power grids would be required to buy a certain percentage of electricity from coal and nuclear plants.

    But the so-called emergency doesn’t exist.

    “There is no need for such drastic action,” PJM, the largest electricity grid operator in the country, told Politico. “Any federal intervention in the market to order customers to buy electricity from specific power plants would be damaging to the markets and therefore costly to consumers.”

    How costly? When Perry proposed a similar bailout scheme in November, energy analysts said it would have added more than more than $10 billion a year to utility customers’ bills and contribute to an estimated 27,000 premature deaths from air pollution in the next 25 years.

    Trump and Perry’s argument is that coal and nuclear power plants store weeks of fuel supply on-site, making them resilient against blackouts. But most blackouts occur due to power line damage and have little to do with on-site fuel supply. And coal and nuclear plants contribute less to system resiliency than other resources.

    Restarting coal and nuclear plants that shut down during storms is a slow process – it can take up to two weeks for a nuclear plant and anywhere from 13 to 75 hours for coal plants to start generating power. And the older a coal plant is, the more often breaks down.

    The more resilient energy sources are wind and solar. Wind turbines can keep operating unless they are catastrophically damaged. Solar panels will soon have the same capability. California has mandated that solar arrays have the ability to continue operating if the electric system fails.

    The real threat to national security is the continued use of coal for generating electricity. Coal is a major contributor to climate change. Unlike the Trump administration climate change deniers, the Department of Defense wrote in a 2015 report to Congress that it is “clear climate change is an urgent threat to our national security.”

    The real solution to electric system resiliency is building microgrids. These are smaller electric grids within the larger electric system. The DOD is interested in building microgrids at military bases to sustain power if the larger grid collapses. There are currently about 2,000 microgrids worldwide, including some in the U.S.
    Each breath a gift...
    _____________

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    Default Re: Forecast: Great Global Depression begins 2018; Trump and Euro skeptics will be blamed. Qanon is part of the distraction.

    Despite Federal Roadblocks, States and Cities Lead on Solar Power
    By Grant Smith, Senior Energy Policy Advisor Environmental Working Group
    WEDNESDAY, MAY 16, 2018
    (Some good news, since fortunately, the trend towards more sustainable energy sources continues)
    https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysi...2#.WyWv2KdKgdV

    Quote The Trump administration is not only trying to revive the dying coal industry, but is working to slow the rapid growth of solar power. It is slapping punitive tariffs on imported solar panels and proposing to slash federal funding for solar research.

    But at the state and local levels, governments and citizens continue to invest in a future where all Americans share the economic and environmental benefits of solar power.

    Last week, California became the first state to require solar panels on most new homes, beginning in 2020. With California home prices already at astronomical levels, naysayers complained that the mandate will add an estimated $10,000 to the cost of a new home. But consider the savings.

    The California Energy Commission expects the new policy to cut energy use in new homes in half. It will add an estimated $40 a month to the average mortgage, but homeowners will save up to $80 on their monthly electricity bills. According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, over the life of a 30-year mortgage, the average homeowner will save $14,000. The energy commission says the overall savings to residential utility customers over 30 years will be $1.7 billion.

    Even homebuilders support the solar mandate.

    “With this adoption, the California Energy Commission has struck a fair balance between reducing greenhouse gas emissions while simultaneously limiting increased construction costs,” said Dan Dunmoyer, head of the California Building Association.

    Another innovative policy to push solar was adopted this month in Athens, Ohio. By a vote of more than three to one, voters supported adding a carbon fee to their utility bills, to be used to fund solar installation projects on public buildings. The fee, expected to add $1.60 to $1.80 to the average monthly bill, should also provide an incentive for residents to reduce their energy use.

    Eddie Smith, director of the Southeast Ohio Public Energy Council and also an Athens township trustee, said the carbon fee will raise awareness about the threat of climate change.

    “It’s having dialogue about the damage that comes from fossil fuel energy production, and over time shaping a culture that understands how incredibly damaging those byproducts are,” Smith told The Athens Messenger. “If we’re ever going to have an efficient energy economy, we have to have a culture that embraces charging and capitalizing into the rate of energy those damages from fossil fuel energy production.”

    Solar power has been most widely embraced by homeowners with higher incomes. But 10 states have programs to expand solar access to lower-income households. Illinois’ Solar for All Program is funded by charges on residents’ utility bills and through the Illinois Power Agency.

    The program funds initiatives to put solar panels on homes and apartment buildings in lower-income neighborhoods, investment in community-wide solar programs in designated environmental justice zones, and grants to nonprofits serving those communities. It also includes training in solar installation jobs for lower-income residents.

    These and other innovative programs show that leadership in the development of renewable energy doesn’t have to come from the federal government. As one solar industry executive told CNN Money, "Solar's future is secure even in the face of temporary poor federal policy."
    Each breath a gift...
    _____________

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    Default Re: Forecast: Great Global Depression begins 2018; Trump and Euro skeptics will be blamed. Qanon is part of the distraction.

    I am just curious when is there not a depression for the working class?

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    Default Re: Forecast: Great Global Depression begins 2018; Trump and Euro skeptics will be blamed. Qanon is part of the distraction.

    Peter Schiff on Joe Rogan's podcast earlier today.



    Dave - Toronto

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    Default Re: Forecast: Great Global Depression begins 2018; Trump and Euro skeptics will be blamed. Qanon is part of the distraction.


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    Default Re: Forecast: Great Global Depression begins 2018; Trump and Euro skeptics will be blamed. Qanon is part of the distraction.

    Quote Posted by Justplain (here)
    I would say that transfering assets into useful real estate is a realistic way to hedge against global financial collapse.
    The housing market is way overpriced right now. It's in the same self-feeding spiral of people buying and reselling that it was before the 2008 crash. If you buy land, you'll always have it (unless you default on your payments to the bank!), but it'll be cheaper when the housing market crashes again.

    I convert a chunk of cash into silver or gold every now and then. Demand for silver especially is only going to go up with electronics production, and the prices of both of them appear to be severely suppressed. I've seen it claimed by multiple sources that gold is suppressed by something like 10x and the price of silver is as much as 25x undervalued in relation to the dollar. The banks regularly dump massive futures whenever their prices go up too much, to send them crashing back down based on nothing but fear.

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    Default Re: Forecast: Great Global Depression begins 2018; Trump and Euro skeptics will be blamed. Qanon is part of the distraction.

    Quote Posted by cecilmeyer (here)
    I am just curious when is there not a depression for the working class?
    Try the 1950's into the 60's. One man could work one job and afford a house, car, groceries, and everything else for his entire family.

    It wasn't until around the 1970's that this became impossible for the majority of Americans, and women had to start working to support the household too. Around the same time, the Department of Education was created and the education system was essentially nationalized to indoctrinate the kids while both parents worked.

    Reagan tried to get us back to where 1 working man could support an entire family, but obviously we still aren't there again yet.

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    Default Re: Forecast: Great Global Depression begins 2018; Trump and Euro skeptics will be blamed. Qanon is part of the distraction.

    Unless It Changes, Capitalism Will Starve Humanity By 2050
    Drew Hansen
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/drewhan.../#369a55177ccc
    "Capitalism has generated massive wealth for some, but it’s devastated the planet and has failed to improve human well-being at scale.

    • Species are going extinct at a rate 1,000 times faster than that of the natural rate over the previous 65 million years (see Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School).https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/...nction_crisis/

    • Since 2000, 6 million hectares of primary forest have been lost each year. That’s 14,826,322 acres, or just less than the entire state of West Virginia (see the 2010 assessment by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN).http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/40893/icode/

    • Even in the U.S., 15% of the population lives below the poverty line. For children under the age of 18, that number increases to 20% (see U.S. Census).https://www.un.org/development/desa/...n-by-2050.html


    • The world’s population is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050 (see United Nations' projections).


    Capitalism is unsustainable in its current form.

    How do we expect to feed that many people while we exhaust the resources that remain?

    Human activities are behind the extinction crisis. Commercial agriculture, timber extraction, and infrastructure development are causing habitat loss and our reliance on fossil fuels is a major contributor to climate change.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat_destruction

    Public corporations are responding to consumer demand and pressure from Wall Street. Professors Christopher Wright and Daniel Nyberg published Climate Change, Capitalism and Corporations last fall, arguing that businesses are locked in a cycle of exploiting the world's resources in ever more creative ways. https://books.google.com/books/about...d=UrNOrgEACAAJ

    "Our book shows how large corporations are able to continue engaging in increasingly environmentally exploitative behaviour by obscuring the link between endless economic growth and worsening environmental destruction," they wrote.

    Yale sociologist Justin Farrell studied 20 years of corporate funding and found that "corporations have used their wealth to amplify contrarian views [of climate change] and create an impression of greater scientific uncertainty than actually exists."

    Corporate capitalism is committed to the relentless pursuit of growth, even if it ravages the planet and threatens human health. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/c-change/

    We need to build a new system: one that will balance economic growth with sustainability and human flourishing.

    A new generation of companies are showing the way forward. They're infusing capitalism with fresh ideas, specifically in regards to employee ownership and agile management.

    The Increasing Importance Of Distributed Ownership And Governance

    Fund managers at global financial institutions own the majority (70%) of the public stock exchange. These absent owners have no stake in the communities in which the companies operate. Furthermore, management-controlled equity is concentrated in the hands of a select few: the CEO and other senior executives.

    On the other hand, startups have been willing to distribute equity to employees. Sometimes such equity distribution is done to make up for less than competitive salaries, but more often it’s offered as a financial incentive to motivate employees toward building a successful company.

    According to The Economist, today’s startups are keen to incentivize via shared ownership:https://www.economist.com/leaders/20...ng-the-company

    The central difference lies in ownership: whereas nobody is sure who owns public companies, startups go to great lengths to define who owns what. Early in a company’s life, the founders and first recruits own a majority stake—and they incentivise people with ownership stakes or performance-related rewards. That has always been true for startups, but today the rights and responsibilities are meticulously defined in contracts drawn up by lawyers. This aligns interests and creates a culture of hard work and camaraderie. Because they are private rather than public, they measure how they are doing using performance indicators (such as how many products they have produced) rather than elaborate accounting standards.

    This trend hearkens back to cooperatives where employees collectively owned the enterprise and participated in management decisions through their voting rights. Mondragon is the oft-cited example of a successful, modern worker cooperative. Mondragon's broad-based employee ownership is not the same as an Employee Stock Ownership Plan. With ownership comes a say – control – over the business. Their workers elect management, and management is responsible to the employees.

    REI is a consumer cooperative that drew attention this past year when it opted out of Black Friday sales, encouraging its employees and customers to spend the day outside instead of shopping.

    I suspect that the most successful companies under this emerging form of capitalism will have less concentrated, more egalitarian ownership structures. They will benefit not only financially but also communally.

    Joint Ownership Will Lead To Collaborative Management

    The hierarchical organization of modern corporations will give way to networks or communities that make collaboration paramount. Many options for more fluid, agile management structures could take hold.

    For instance, newer companies are experimenting with alternative management models that seek to empower employees more than a traditional hierarchy typically does. Of these newer approaches, holacracy is the most widely known. It promises to bring structure and discipline to a peer-to-peer workplace.

    Holacracy “is a new way of running an organization that removes power from a management hierarchy and distributes it across clear roles, which can then be executed autonomously, without a micromanaging boss.”
    https://www.holacracy.org/what-is-holacracy

    Companies like Zappos and Medium are in varying stages of implementing the management system.

    Valve Software in Seattle goes even further, allowing employees to select which projects they want to work on. Employees then move their desks to the most conducive office area for collaborating with the project team.

    These are small steps toward a system that values the employee more than what the employee can produce. By giving employees a greater say in decision-making, corporations will make choices that ensure the future of the planet and its inhabitants."

    Those small steps had better start getting a lot bigger really fast!
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    Default Re: Forecast: Great Global Depression begins 2018; Trump and Euro skeptics will be blamed. Qanon is part of the distraction.

    I think the Ubuntu movement (or a derivative of) will be the saving grace of the human race. Its time has not quite come yet, as there are still far too many asleep/selfish people that would be threatened by it.
    The only thing that will save us (never mind 'the economy') is to adopt a philosophy Contributionism & take it completely to our hearts. We cannot 'fix' the old model, or build a 'new' system with the consciousness we presently have. I guess things will have to get really grim before we all wake up.

    As the Ubuntu movement explains, it all starts with one small town with enough people willing to give it a go:

    https://ubuntuplanet.org/

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    Default Re: Forecast: Great Global Depression begins 2018; Trump and Euro skeptics will be blamed. Qanon is part of the distraction.

    We have to graduate from consuming to conserving and from competing to cooperating, much as the ancient societies that Prof. Mariah Gimbutus researched and wrote about.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marija_Gimbutas
    Those cultures did not wage war on each other, were more matriarchal in nature ( ie, more balanced), where the primary goals were to provide everyone with at least the basic necessities and to honor the Earth.
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    Default Re: Forecast: Great Global Depression begins 2018; Trump and Euro skeptics will be blamed. Qanon is part of the distraction.

    CATHERINE AUSTIN FITTS – WE’VE REACHED ‘NEVER NEVER LAND’ ACCOUNTING
    Greg Hunter
    Published on Sep 15, 2018

    "There is good reason people are going to real assets. The U.S. government is “missing” $21 trillion between the DOD and HUD. This fact was uncovered by Fitts and economist Dr. Mark Skidmore last year. What was the government’s answer to this gigantic accounting fraud that is the size of the federal deficit? Give the government’s budgets basically classified national security status. Investment advisor and former Assistant Secretary of Housing, Catherine Austin Fitts says, “Apparently, the people leading the audit have come to them and said if we do this audit, we will disclose classified projects. So, the board (Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board - FASAB) came out with a new policy. I say it is illegal. You cannot do it under the financial management laws, and you certainly cannot do it under the Constitution, and it said you can keep classified off the books, which means you can cook the books and you can basically do whatever you want. This matches up with the waiver given to the national security advisor that says corporations, if he waives them (regulations), can also cook their books with the SEC. Now, we have the corporations making money, and they can cook their books under the law, and apparently the government can too. So, when the board made the statement and announced this new policy, they made the point that if they didn’t do this, the only alternative was to redact the Department of Defense financial statements, which meant you would have to redact the U.S. government’s financial statements, which means we have reached “Never, Never Land,” which also means the whole thing is a joke. . . . As a matter of policy, they are saying you have to give them, for the IRS, for the Census and all these other things, complete financial disclosure and honest financial disclosure by pain of law or you go to prison, but they can make up whatever they want. They can publish financial statements that are complete fiction with no accountability to you and call it national security. What this is doing is engineering complete financial insecurity for every American citizen. This is the end of financial security.”

    In closing, Fitts says, 'I am a gold fan. . . . You also want to have as little leverage and debt as possible. . . . I am also a silver fan, and I am getting reports that silver is getting hard to find. Gold is down 8% for the year and silver is down 16%, but go and try to buy a bunch of silver. It’s tough.' "

    Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Catherine Austin Fitts, Publisher of The Solari Report.

    Alexandra Bruce's take:
    https://forbiddenknowledgetv.net/cat...nd-accounting/

    "Catherine Austin Fitts joins Greg Hunter to discuss the latest financial trends, resulting from “reverse Globalization” and the re-patriation of capital and assets to the US, which has resulted in the “submerged emerging markets.” Many such countries are really feeling the pain, with rising unemployment and greatly devalued currencies, Russia’s having dropped 18% since January and Venezuela’s dropping by 99.9%.

    Fitts says it’s not just US Federal policies to bring back capital and manufacturing that are causing this but also automation and AI that are impacting developing markets by altering what the US needs from those markets, from natural resources to outsourcing.

    In addition, she says, there has been a continuing breakdown of the US dollar’s hegemony established by Bretton-Woods system during the end of World War II, which has been on very shaky ground since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.

    With the US dollar as the reserve currency, the US has benefited from cheap resources – but at the expense of exorbitant military budgets and she implies it no longer works if “the money you’re spending for a military running the system is less than the benefit you’re getting.”

    She says we saw two factions of the American establishment battling in the 2016 election, “One of them wants to pull back behind the oceans into ‘Fortress America’ [or what she says Trump calls ‘Make America Great Again’].

    “Now, with drones and other technology, you can project power…by using drones and space weaponry and other things…[instead of running a global military].

    “With robotics and AI, you can bring a tremendous amount of the manufacturing and operations you need for national security back into North America, so what you’re seeing is a consolidation of the base back into North America and making North America strong, so…[if] the end of the Bretton Woods system happens and we shift to a multipolar world, America can be effective in that world.”

    Fitts says these ideas make a lot of sense for concrete businesses. “The other [Globalist] faction, on the other hand, wanted to continue to strip the base, on the theory that you could keep the global game going. I don’t think it was gonna work and clearly, there were a lot of smart people in the military [who backed Trump and] who didn’t think it could keep working, either.”

    While almost all financial figures in the Alternative Media have been warning of an imminent global economic collapse for the past decade, Fitts has maintained that we would see, instead a “slow burn.” But things are coming to a head, with Germany’s Finance Minister, Olaf Scholz recently urging the establishment on an alternative to the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) banking network, which carries the vast majority of all interbank transactions, with data centers in the US, Netherlands and Switzerland.

    SWIFT is a major source of global signals intelligence for the NSA and US has thrown its weight around through the SWIFT system, as a primary means of imposing financial sanctions on countries like Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea. The Europeans have become increasingly dissatisfied with this arrangement, to say nothing of the sanctioned nations.

    In the long term, the outlook for the US dollar looks very weak but in the short term, it’s still strong and “not coming apart anytime soon.” This continued “dangerous dominance” however does carry the threat of extreme volatility events. “That’s why this situation argues for balance…the real push is to real assets, whether it’s real assets, reflected in a stock or real assets, reflected by real estate or precious metals…Since 2008, the holdings of the top 100 land owners America has doubled Greg, doubled!

    “…The push, politically is going to be towards building a global equity model. So, we’ve been on a debt model and there’s going to be tremendous push, including from the central bankers to push for an equity model and it’s one of the reasons I think you see the central banks around the world buying stocks for their reserve. So instead of buying US Treasuries, the Swiss National Bank has been one of the leaders of building stocks. We had a report in 2017 from the BIS looking at the debt problem that said, ‘Anything we could do to encourage equity is really important.'”

    Her latest report, “The Rise of the Asian Consumer” addresses how the growing Asian middle class, which will soon be ten times the size of that of the US will act like a tsunami, raising prices on everything, while also presenting enormous opportunities for Western businesses.

    This will occur in tandem with radical developments in robotics and AI. Fitts says that understanding these changes will be important for situating yourself advantageously. “You know, demographics are so important to who succeeds…if you look at estimates of how many engineers we’re producing a year or the G7 is producing every year versus how much [Asia is] producing, you know it’s multiples of 5 to 10 times more engineers every year. We’re producing a lot of lawyers Greg, we need to be producing more engineers…

    “The other thing is, their engineers, in terms of innovation are not checked by the copyright system, the way we are here. So, if you look at the speeds they’re moving at, in terms of invention on tech or AI, it’s quite remarkable.

    “The second thing I go through are IQs…the Asian populations are considered to have IQs of about five to ten points higher than ours and if you look at what’s been going on in this country in the last 20 years, with nutrition, with fluoride, with geoengineering, lots of other things; vaccines, I think have been a really concerted effort to lower IQs here. So if you look at the number of engineers they’re producing, the speeds at which they’re free to operate and the IQ points they have on the board, relative to our population, it’s scary.”

    Fitts says that the Anglo-American alliance has been so dominant over the past century because, “We have been able to achieve the lowest cost of capital, globally of anybody…If you get into the financial engineering of what we accomplished, it’s quite remarkable – but it all depends on people believing that we practice the rule of law – and if you look at what has happened with the bailouts and the (missing) $21 trillion, it is going a long way to destroy our reputation.”

    The rich in China do not trust their government and are moving their assets offshore and she says, “It’s going to come down to whether the American alliance can reaffirm their credibility, when it comes to respecting people’s property rights and the rule of law,” an area in which she has seen “tremendous deterioration.”

    Fitts gets into her attendance of the Aspen Council last year, where she learned that venture capitalists definitely intend to replace every US worker with robots, which will be given citizenship and which will pay taxes (!)

    The final months of the year are looking very tense and it remains unclear if release will come in the form of war, a geopolitical problem, a financial problem or all three. “The variability of what could happen is extraordinary. I think that’s what’s making life so difficult. So this is really a time to be prepared.”

    Fitts is a fan of silver, which is down 16% in 2017, leading her to ask whether “they’re trying to preserve silver for the industrial applications?” (a sentiment echoing Web Bots predictions which remain as yet unfulfilled).

    She’s a fan of gold. Even though it is down 8%, both gold and silver are hard to buy in quantity but that if there is anything that people all over the world agree upon, it’s that, 'Gold is money.' ”
    Last edited by onawah; 16th September 2018 at 20:38.
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    Default Re: Forecast: Great Global Depression begins 2018; Trump and Euro skeptics will be blamed. Qanon is part of the distraction.

    Quote Posted by A Voice from the Mountains (here)
    Quote Posted by cecilmeyer (here)
    I am just curious when is there not a depression for the working class?
    Try the 1950's into the 60's. One man could work one job and afford a house, car, groceries, and everything else for his entire family.

    It wasn't until around the 1970's that this became impossible for the majority of Americans, and women had to start working to support the household too. Around the same time, the Department of Education was created and the education system was essentially nationalized to indoctrinate the kids while both parents worked.

    Reagan tried to get us back to where 1 working man could support an entire family, but obviously we still aren't there again yet.
    Voice from the Mountains,

    Huh? Reagan started the gutting of unions with his abrupt firing of air traffic controllers. Prior to the Reagan era, a unionized work force guaranteed a rising standard of living. They could be a disruptive force that created a whole different set f problems, but you have to hand it to unions for creating a bygone era where one man working could support a family.

    IMHO, you are like 180 degrees off here. Women going back to work in huge numbers was partly a result of Reaganism. It had the unintended consequence of flooding the market with labor and eventually driving wages down. You're probably correct on that one.

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    Default Re: Forecast: Great Global Depression begins 2018; Trump and Euro skeptics will be blamed. Qanon is part of the distraction.

    Quote Posted by Paul (here)
    Trump will be blamed for starting a trade war, and that trade war will be blamed as a major cause of the Great Global Depression that begins, I expect, in 2018.
    Brandon Smith has updated his forecast of a major collapse, from his forecast made in March of 2018 (which formed the opening post of this thread) that the crash will happen in 2018, to forecasting that the crash will happen either in late 2018 or early 2019, based on the expected timing of coming US Federal Reserve interest rate hikes. Brandon continues to expect that a Trump initiated trade war will be used as one of the covers for this collapse, to keep blame off the central bankers who are once again up to their usual boom and bust cycles that they control, by extending and then retracting debt.

    Once again, his article is an excellent one - clear and perceptive.

    He writes on his alt-market.com website:

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    The Everything Bubble: When Will It Finally Crash?

    Wednesday, 26 September 2018 09:38 Brandon Smith

    Much like the laws of physics, there are certain laws of economics that remain constant no matter how much manipulation exists in the markets. Expansion inevitably leads to contraction, and that which goes up must eventually come down. Central banks understand this reality very well; they have spent over a century trying to exploit those laws to their own advantage.

    A common misconception among people new to alternative economics is the idea that central banks only seek to keep the economy afloat, or keep it expanding forever. In reality, these institutions and the money elites behind them artificially inflate financial bubbles only to deliberately implode them at opportunistic moments.

    As I have outlined in numerous articles, every economic bubble and subsequent crash since 1914 can be linked to the policy actions of central bankers. Sometimes they even admit to culpability (to a point), as Ben Bernanke did on the Great Depression and as Alan Greenspan did on the 2008 credit crisis. You can read more about this in my article ‘The Federal Reserve Is A Saboteur – And The “Experts” Are Oblivious.’

    Generally, central bankers and international bankers mislead the public into believing that the crashes they are responsible for were caused “by mistake.” They rarely if ever mention the fact that they often use these crises as a means to consolidate control over assets, resources and governments while the masses are distracted by their own financial survival. Centralization is the name of the game. It is certainly no mistake that after every economic implosion the wealth gap between the top 0.01% and the rest of humanity widens exponentially.

    Yet another crash is being weaponized by the banks, and this time I believe the motivations behind it are rather different. Or at least the goals are supercharged.

    The next phase of the financial elite’s plans for centralization involve a complete restructuring of the global monetary climate, something Christine Lagarde of the IMF has often referred to as the great “economic reset.” The term “economic reset” is more likely code for “economic collapse,” one epic enough to facilitate a completely new monetary framework with a new global reserve currency. A historically unprecedented economic reset would require a historically unprecedented financial bubble, which is exactly what we have today.

    The ‘Everything Bubble’ as many alternative analysts are calling it is built upon multiple crumbling pillars. Here they are in no particular order:

    Central Bank Stimulus

    Bailouts and QE measures on the part of central banks have been used as a stopgap since the 2008 crash to prevent market reversals whenever they appear. Most of all, central banks have been particularly obsessed with keeping stocks in a perpetual bull run, which Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan admitted was part of maintaining a certain positive “psychology” within the public. In other words, the purpose of stimulus measures was to give the masses a false sense of security, not heal the real economy.

    The other primary initiative behind stimulus was to prop up debt poisoned governments and corporations around the world. However, the intention was not necessarily to help these institutions climb out of the red. No, instead, the goal was to keep them semi-solvent long enough for them to take on EVEN MORE debt, to the point that when they do collapse the aftermath will be so devastating that recovery would be impossible.

    The timing of the central bank tapering of QE should be treated as an alarm on the crash of the everything bubble. With the Federal Reserve cutting off QE measures, the Bank of Japan using “stealth tapering,” and the European Central Bank warning of high inflation and the need for tapering, it is clear that the era of easy money is almost over. When the easy money is gone, the crash is near.

    Stock Buybacks

    Using steady loans from the Federal Reserve as well as Trump’s tax cut, stock markets have been inflated beyond all reason by corporations implementing the equities manipulation scheme of stock buybacks. By artificially reducing the number of stock shares on the market, companies can increase the “value” of the existing shares and fuel a bull market rally. This rally has nothing to do with actual wealth creation, of course. It is a game of phantom wealth and inflated numbers.

    Stocks in particular will require ever more debt on the part of corporations along with never-ending near zero interest rates in order to keep the farce going. The central bankers, though, have other plans.

    Near Zero Interest Rates

    Low interest rates should be considered a part of the stimulus model, but I’m setting them separately because they represent a special kind of market manipulation. The option for corporate entities to borrow from the Fed at almost no cost has done little to improve the effects of the 2008 credit crisis. In fact, corporate debt levels are now near all-time highs not seen since the last crash. This time, however, dependency on low cost loans has conjured a monstrous addiction within the business cycle. Any increase in interest rates will trigger painful withdrawals.

    Central banks around the world are now increasing that pain as they hike rates well beyond what many analysts were expecting a few years ago. Corporate debt in particular is highly vulnerable to this new tightening policy. Without low rates, corporations can no longer afford to hold the debts they have, let alone take on more debt in a futile attempt to keep equities propped up.

    Central banks argue that “inflation” is the excuse for hiking interest rates at this time. True inflation has been well above Fed targets for years, and the banking elites showed no care whatsoever. I suspect that the real reason is that the next phase of the reset is near, and a little chaos is needed.

    For decades, the Fed has kept the neutral rate of interest well below the rate of inflation. For the first time in at least 30 years, the Fed under Jerome Powell is seeking to increase neutral rates to make them equal to the pace of inflation (official inflation). The Fed has approximately two to three more rate hikes (including the September rate hike) to reach the pace of inflation. I believe this is our window on the next crash; the moment at which the Fed completely reverses its past policy of artificial support for the economy.

    Federal Reserve Balance Sheet

    I have written at great length about the correlation between the Fed’s balance sheet and equities and I will not go into great detail here. Simply put, with each increase in the balance sheet over the past decade, stocks rallied in tandem. As the Fed cuts assets, stocks enter volatility. A divergence has occurred the past two months between the Fed balance sheet and stocks, but I believe this is temporary.

    Corporate buybacks are at all-time highs in 2018, and it’s obvious that this is meant to offset the Fed’s waning support for the markets. As interest rates increase and the Trump tax cut dwindles, though, buybacks will die.

    If we consider the possibility that the Fed’s assets also include stock shares as many suspect, then the Fed asset dumps would also INCREASE the number of existing shares on the market and sabotage corporate efforts to reduce shares through stock buybacks. I predict stocks will once again converge with the falling Fed balance sheet by the end of this year and that they will continue to drop precipitously through the last quarter of 2018 and the rest of 2019.

    Timing Is Everything

    Central banks need cover before they can launch their “global reset,” and what better cover than a massive international trade war? Trump’s trade war is an excellent distraction which can be used as a rationale for every negative consequence of the central banks pulling the plug on stimulus life support. Meaning, the disasters the central bankers cause through tightening into a weak economic environment can be blamed on Trump and the trade conflict.

    I don’t think it’s a coincidence that almost every escalation in the trade war happens to take place at the same time as major central bank announcements on rate hikes and balance sheet cuts. The latest trade war salvo of $200 billion in tariffs against China is leading to a Chinese announcement on retaliation — all of this taking place on the exact week of the Fed’s September meeting which is expected to result in yet another rate hike and expanded balance sheet cuts.

    The Fed’s tightening policies have resulted in a severe reaction by emerging markets which are already crashing and have diverged greatly from U.S. markets. American stocks will not escape the same fate.

    The Fed’s neutral rate efforts suggest a turning point in late 2018 to early 2019. Balance sheet cuts are expected to increase at this time, which would also expedite a crash in existing market assets. The only question is how long can corporations sustain stock buybacks until their own debt burdens crush their efforts? With such companies highly leveraged, interest rates will determine the length of their resolve. I believe two more hikes will be their limit.

    If the Fed continues on its current path the next stock crash would begin around December 2018 into the first quarter of 2019. After that, other sectors of the economy, already highly unstable, will break down through 2019 and 2020.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Last edited by ThePythonicCow; 27th September 2018 at 05:07.
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    Default Re: Forecast: Great Global Depression begins 2018; Trump and Euro skeptics will be blamed. Qanon is part of the distraction.

    I've been hearing the economy is going to crash 'this year' every year for the past six or more years. Always predicted to be in October...

    in truth, I've been hearing it since before the mini collapse of 2008 but it is never anything like as bad as 'expected'.

    Yes, it always looks like it will and maybe one year the predictors will get lucky and be right.

    We've also been hearing that the dollar is worthless and will collapse for the past umpteen years but it just gets stronger and stronger.

    I suspect this continual prediction of collapse is more a reflection of either the state of the individual's subconscious or the collective unconscious. It's a state of mind common among the 'conspiracy' believers but not among other people. Our flawed economic system bumbles on regardless and has done for over a hundred years. Even if there is a collapse since debt in fiat money is almost imaginary there is no reason it must be the disaster predicted. Of course, it could be if The Powers That Be wanted it but (just like population reduction) it would be relatively simple to implement and yet it hasn't happened.

    I doubt it will happen this year, or next.

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    Default Re: Forecast: Great Global Depression begins 2018; Trump and Euro skeptics will be blamed. Qanon is part of the distraction.

    Quote Posted by Paul (here)
    The Great Global Depression is bearing down on us.
    All nations and corporations outside of the US that owe any significant debt denominated in US Dollars will be unable to repay that debt, as US Dollars abroad become increasingly scarce. Trump's Tax Bill of late 2017, and his new raising of trade tariffs, are two of the measures that are shrinking the available supply of US Dollars outside of the US.

    The European Union has its own immense and still expanding debt crisis. I don't understand the dynamics and details of it as well, but it's surely a train wreck of great proportions, waiting to happen. Whatever elements of European culture, tradition and nationality are least liked by the elite bastards will no doubt be blamed for the immense train wreck, once it unfolds.

    Within the US, where I have studied matters more, I suspect that the ever excellent Brandon Smith is right, in his most recent article White House Soap Operas Distract From Real Global Dangers. Brandon writes that Trump is being setup to take the blame. The political dramatics that have so engaged both the "left" and the "right" (e.g. Trump's tweets and Qanon's posts on 4chan and 8chan) in the US in the last couple of years, surrounding Trump, Hillary, and related drama are an equivalent to the "Bread and Circuses" of the Roman Empire. Trump will be blamed for starting a trade war, and that trade war will be blamed as a major cause of the Great Global Depression that begins, I expect, in 2018.
    The above, working in part from the work of Brandon Smith, was written early in this year of 2018.

    As 2018 draws to a close, Brandon is still at it.

    His latest article, The Psychological Warfare Behind Economic Collapse, examines the unfolding plans for a major global economic collapse, as part of controlling earth's resources and humanity, especially our minds.

    In the middle of this article, Brandon writes:
    Economics as the globalists implement it is not about profit. It is sometimes about milking the population for labor or hard assets, but this is a side benefit. What economics is really about is molding minds; it is about changing the psychology of millions of people. It is about erasing inborn conscience and moral compass. It is about destroying long held societal principles and heritage. And sometimes, it is about erasing history altogether, killing most of a generation, and then writing a new history that is more suitable to the globalist ideal, which is much easier when there are so few people who remember the truth left to argue about it.
    He concludes this article with:
    The globalist magazine The Economist announced in 1988 the coming of a one-world currency system, one that would be launched in 2018 and that would require the decline of the U.S. economy and the dollar to open the door to the reset. It is no coincidence that we are now witnessing the beginning of a major financial crash in the last quarter of 2018. This crash was engineered starting in 2008 by central banks first through the inflation of a historic bubble encompassing almost all asset classes using stimulus measures and near zero interest rates, and it is being imploded today by the same central banks using tightening measures into economic weakness.

    It is also no coincidence that the globalists have announced in 2018 that their intention is to adapt to a digital monetary system using blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. That is to say, the one world currency system predicted in The Economist is already here. They are only waiting for a crisis large enough to pressure society to accept total global centralization as a solution.

    Forcing the public to embrace worldwide centralization would require several measures. First, the current system, which as stated is designed to fail, would have to be allowed to crash. Second, the crash would have to be blamed on someone other than the globalists and their ideology of globalism. Third, philosophical opponents of globalism (i.e., conservatives, nationalists and decentralization activists) would have to be demonized or eliminated so that the globalists can build their new world order without opposition. Fourth, the population would need to be sufficiently traumatized to the point of psychological submission and desperation, so that when the new system is introduced, they will be grateful for it, thus preventing future rebellion by making the public a willing cooperator in their own enslavement.

    The success of such a plan is not guaranteed. In fact, I believe the globalists will ultimately fail in their endeavor as I have outlined in past articles. This does not mean though that they aren’t going to try. Liberty activists must accept the fact that the plan of the globalists involves the deliberate destruction of our current economy. Those who refuse will find themselves bewildered by the outcome of future financial developments, instead of being prepared. They will find themselves easily subdued, instead of ready to rebel. And they will wonder after it’s all over why they didn’t see it coming when the end game was so obvious.
    It's another fine Brandon Smith article. If you enjoy his work, you can find the full article at: White House Soap Operas Distract From Real Global Dangers.
    My quite dormant website: pauljackson.us

  36. The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to ThePythonicCow For This Post:

    A Voice from the Mountains (21st December 2018), Spellbound (21st December 2018)

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