This is the woman who bravely stood up to a Black Lives Matter mob in Washington DC, refusing to raise her fist on their command. Lauren B. Victor, a 49-year-old urban planner, was aggressively heckled by marchers on Monday night while she was dining with a friend in the Adams Morgan district.
International Man: Statism has become a new religion.
A growing number of people are interested in using the State’s power to tell others how to live. They are also voting themselves freebies at the expense of others.
It’s clear that those who want to be left alone won’t be. Is it possible to find freedom in an unfree place?
Doug Casey: Back in 1973, my old friend Harry Browne wrote a really fantastic book called How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World, where he dealt with exactly that question.
Remember, that was almost 50 years ago now—a lifetime.
The book was timely, even though the world was much freer then than it is now. We now have vastly more financial and travel controls, however—many new penalties for saying, or even appearing to think, the “wrong” things. You’re now monitored in many more ways.
Harry’s book is brilliant and actually more important to read now than it was then. His answers to how you find freedom in an unfree world are useful and relevant.
But the fact is that you can run but you can’t hide.
That’s because the world has been infected by a virus. I don’t mean the ridiculous COVID virus. I mean the virus of statism and collectivism.
There’s really nowhere you can go to be safe from it - only some places that are better than others.
For instance, the so-called Five Eyes countries - the US, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. They were once the major bastions of Western Civilization, the only civilization - ever - that held personal freedom as an ideal. But now they’re the very ones leading the route downhill.
It’s a real problem for freedom lovers. We’re a smaller and smaller minority. Most people, however, prefer a strong leader promising the illusion of safety and security. Nothing has changed since the days of Rome. It devolved from a yeoman republic to a multicultural empire with onerous taxes in order to pay for bread and circuses to keep the capite censi under control.
In the latter days of the empire, many of its citizens attempted to escape, to live among the barbarians - even while the barbarians were taking over the empire itself. Pretty much the same thing is happening now in the West in general and the US in particular.
The best thing you can do to defend yourself—at least while it’s still possible—is to become rich enough to insulate yourself from the State. Rich enough so that even if they steal a lot from you—and they will— you still have enough. Enough to absorb the hit, keep moving, and live life as you’d like.
Let me go off on a bit of a tangent here, and look at things from the viewpoint of class. That’s perhaps appropriate in a world where neo-Marxism is being promoted everywhere. I see classes according to how they align relative to the three most important, most basic verbs in any language—be, do, and have.
If you’re lower class—which is to say have a lower class mentality— you just accept what you’re given. The lower classes are defined by psychological demoralization, apathy, and hopelessness. At best, they just think about having stuff—cars, houses, food, mates—but don’t even succeed at that very well because of their values. I doubt, however, that anybody now reading this fits into that category. Historically, they’re by far the largest group, and their numbers are now growing rapidly.
I increasingly wonder if the US even has much of an upper class any more. Being upper class is all about values, primarily being something. Money, power, and prestige don’t make someone upper class—they’re consequences of upper-class values unless you win the lottery or have great athletic, entertainment, or sometimes even business ability. Then you can masquerade for a while. But those things tend to corrupt. It’s easy to descend and become effete, entitled. Ineffectual and stagnant.
The fact is, most of us are middle class. Historically, the middle class is what America is all about; it made America unique. The work ethic, striving, and improving, doing. The middle class is being destroyed by inflation and taxes, which make it hard to save and build capital, and regulations, which make it hard to produce, to do. I’m afraid that ground between the millstones of taxes and inflation—as Lenin said—huge numbers of the middle class are descending into the ranks of the lower—the proletariat.
The three classes are natural enough. But since the invention of mass democracy, since it was turned into a worldwide secular religion around the time of World War One, there’s arisen another class—the political class. Anyone can join it. They were always there but nowhere near as hugely important or virulent. I can’t think of a single verb to define them—all the possibilities are unflattering, though. They hate the middle class, though, because its members are, by definition, productive and independent.
Anyway, these are just a few thoughts. Maybe I’ll expand on them in the future.
To get back to the original question, what you should do is become rich so you can insulate yourself to the best degree that you can from the ongoing crisis. It will eventually pass, and you can reposition yourself - if you’ve maintained some capital.
Money is far from everything, of course. It’s just a tool. But tools are helpful …
International Man: Western Civilization seems to be going downhill economically, politically, and culturally at a rapid pace. The trajectory looks grim.
However, much of the rest of the world outside of the West has their own problems. What
can freedom-loving people do not only survive but thrive in the years ahead?
Doug Casey: Once again, I’ve said this for many years, and it’s truer now than it’s ever been.
The financial and economic problems in the world are serious and accelerating. But as we go deeper into the Greater Depression, your biggest risks aren’t financial or economic. They’re political.
The only way to solve that problem from a practical point of view is to diversify politically the way you would diversify financially.
That means you should have a crib in a second or third country—as well as businesses and financial assets in others besides your home country. That’s the only thing that you can do at this point. You can vote if it makes you feel good. But, as Stalin said, it’s not who votes that counts—it’s who counts the votes. Becoming a political activist is degrading and pointless. This coming election will be largely about cheating by both sides, IMO.
The political classes everywhere are using the current COVID hysteria to cement themselves in place, and very few of the sheeple are resisting. To the contrary, they welcome it, because they think drastic actions make them safe. A degenerating society values safety above all.
It’s true everywhere, though, even in increasingly primitive places like South Africa—in fact, almost all of Africa. India is totally locked down as is most of South America. These places don’t have enough capital stored to enable an enforced vacation of several years. And that’s what we may be looking at.
It’s happening almost all over the world. The people that are being hurt the most, needless to say, are the people living hand to mouth. They’re going to be hurt even worse as all these governments destroy their national currencies—because poor people can only save the local national currency.
When their pitiful paper currency savings are wiped out, then they’re really in trouble. Will they get violent, or just roll up into a ball and die? Good question.
In the 21st century, East Asia, China, Vietnam, Korea are the best places to be. This is also true of Russia and Eastern Europe, notwithstanding the fact that China is going to have a financial collapse and may very well wind up divided into five or six smaller countries.
We’re looking at worldwide chaos in the making. I was always half kidding when answering the question, “How bad do you think the Greater Depression will be?” and I’d say, “Even worse than I think it’s going to be.” But now, it’s no joke.
Are there any options for like-minded individuals to come together if there is no perfect country or place?
Doug Casey: Everybody should read Neal Stephenson’s book, The Diamond Age.
The ideas that he developed, essentially of nation-states falling apart and being replaced with phyles, was very prescient.
Humans are social animals; we like to hang out with other people.
This is especially true with people that are like us. In other words, people that believe in the same things, that have the same values, and have the same outlook on the world.
It’s actually crazy to try to put diverse, disparate people together into the same political entity. That’s because, inevitably, any and all of the groups in that artificial political entity are going to try to get control of the apparatus of the State to benefit themselves and punish the others. Politics always results in a war of all against all.
I think Stephenson’s novel was quite correct. People will increasingly find that their real countrymen are people with whom they share values and ideas—or whatever happens to be important to them. Not a national passport. That’s just government ID, like a driver’s license.
Within that context, here in the US, Libertarians tried to put together a community, I think called the Free State Movement, centering around Keene, New Hampshire. I haven’t been there. So, I don’t know if it’s in any way successful or not, or whether the Libertarians are looked upon as some type of a weird religious cult by the locals. I don’t think it’s had any real effect on anything.
Worse, if the wrong guys get in power, the thing could backfire.
It might facilitate one-stop-shopping to find potential enemies of the State. If seriously dangerous political class types take over, as is likely in November if Biden wins the election, there’s no telling what might happen.
Of course, I tried to put something together in an obscure but very pleasant part of Argentina, La Estancia de Cafayate.
It’s been an artistic success, and it’s a great place to live. We’ve got a lot of great people living there—very enjoyable, mellow, easy-to-get-along-with company. But we attracted our share of antisocial and dogmatic nutcases. Just because someone is a political Libertarian doesn’t necessarily mean he has any other virtues. And he may be psychologically unbalanced in the bargain.
Psychology and character are the real problems. Shangri-la doesn’t exist. And it won’t until the vast majority of humans are more like Harry Browne, Ron Paul, or Lao-Tzu, and less like AOC, Pelosi, or Obama. I guess my best suggestion at this point is to look at a small town, whether you’re in the US or elsewhere, one that has a frontier culture, where people are independent-minded.
I suspect most of the people reading this now are what we’d call gamma rats.
They’re not like alpha rats, which want to boss everybody else around, taking the best mates and best territory. And beat up the beta rats, who are the vast majority of the population.
The gamma rats also tend to get the best possessions and so forth, but they don’t beat up the beta rats nor let themselves be beat up by the alpha rats. The trouble is that, in laboratory experiments, scientists found that gamma rats are only a very small portion of the population. Among humans, we’re an equally small portion of the population.
International Man: Let’s discuss some potential bright spots.
What role do you think the advancement of technology will play in empowering the individual?
Doug Casey: From Day One, technology has been the friend of the average man, and hugely beneficial. Except the effect comes in two stages. The first is usually only good for the ruling political class and bad for the average guy.
Let’s go to Stanley Kubrick’s movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Remember the scene where the hominids gathered around the watering hole, and the one hominid comes up with the idea of using a bone as a weapon to beat up the other group?
That was early technology. The first guy that gets technology uses it to dominate. But then after a while, it’s monkey see, monkey do. The technology spreads from the inventor or the first utilizer to the population in general, and things equalize.
It’s been that way for hundreds of thousands of years.
It was true with gunpowder. The first people that got gunpowder ran the State; they used it to keep the peasants at bay. But when it got into the hands of the peasants, they were able to use firearms to take out armored knights, which they couldn’t do before. The tables were turned.
That same was true with writing, and then the printing press. At first, they were hoarded by the political classes and priesthoods, who used them to maintain their power. The same with the computer. In the old days of ENIAC and the IBM 360, only a government or a giant corporation could afford them, and they could use them to keep track of all the little people. Now, everybody has a massively powerful laptop or cellphone. Hackers can counterattack.
I go into that theme in some detail in Assassin, the third novel in the High Ground septet. It will be released in September—lots of political implications. I urge readers who are interested to get Speculator and Drug Lord now, so as not to fall behind. Speculator is especially relevant because of what’s about to happen with gold stocks.
In other words, technology eventually turns the tables to the advantage of the average guy, even though it’s always used to suppress the average guy in the beginning.
It was technology that liberated the masses to overturn whatever the current political class might have been at the time. It has nothing to do with democracy, which is just a sop to make the peasants believe they’re in charge. If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let you do it.
It’s a trend that’s going to continue. But it can be years, or even decades, before a new technology finally gets into the hands of the average guy. Then the political class wants to regulate it.
The powers-that-be treat all technologies as dangerous. Like guns, they want to keep these things out of the hands of the average guy, basically to keep the peasants from defending themselves.
But the cat always gets out of the bag in the long run. It’s a reason for long-term optimism. That said, there’s always a chance of a genuine Dark Age if the old order collapses seriously enough.
International Man: Most people are familiar with large, centralized tech companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, etc.
But we’ve also seen the development of decentralized technologies that empower the individual, such as encryption and the 3D printing of guns. One key example of this is bitcoin, which is a decentralized form of money.
What promise do you think decentralized technologies have for wresting power out of the hands of the State, and what are the implications?
Doug Casey: The mistake that people make with things like Facebook - a giant, amoral, and duplicitous corporation - is thinking that just because billions of people use it, it must be harmless. “Oh, it must be kind of decentralized and democratic because it lets everybody communicate with one another.”
Giant media corporations like Facebook and Google are dangerous because they can actually form people’s view of reality itself. Much more than newspapers or even TV could. The average person’s understanding of the world, what’s happening, and what other people think is no longer a product of talking to his neighbors or even looking out the window. Their opinions and emotions are now formed by looking at their little screens. That makes them very easy to manipulate.
The situation will get worse with Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality—somebody will program and control what goes into these things. Maybe subtly, or maybe very overtly. The situation is greatly aggravated by the COVID hysteria in many ways.
The solution to the danger, however, is not to regulate them. That would be totally counterproductive. Regulation just means giving even more power to the State—which is innately vastly more dangerous than any corporation. At least corporations have to provide a worthwhile service to stay in business…
What we really need is not just one Facebook where everybody goes, and can therefore be easily monitored. What we need is 10,000 Facebooks, so the power devolves to everybody and anybody.
The problem will resolve itself in the long run, though. Giant corporations become dysfunctional. Apart from that, they’re subject to the second Law of Thermodynamics as anything else. It’s one of the few laws I believe in.
That’s true, politically speaking as well. The world would have been much better off if Bismarck had not united about three hundred minor principalities and kingdoms in Germany in 1871. The world and the Germans would have been much better off in every possible way if they’d stayed three hundred fairly small, not powerful principalities.
Same in Italy, with Garibaldi. Today they’d be much better off if there were still scores of little duchies and counties. The same with India, which would be much better off if their hundreds of kingdoms hadn’t been forcibly united by the British. It’s true everywhere.
I hope, and actually expect, that places like Germany, Italy, and certainly India will once again devolve into smaller units. The way the Soviet Union broke up into fifteen, and Yugoslavia broke up into six, and Czechoslovakia split into two. The US, which has evolved into a multicultural domestic empire, should—and likely will—split up as well.
* * *
As these trends continue to accelerate, what you do right now can mean the difference between coming out ahead or suffering crippling losses. That’s exactly why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released a free report with all the details on how to survive the crisis ahead. It will help you understand what is unfolding right before our eyes and what you should do so you don’t get caught in the crosshairs. Click here to download the PDF now.
(NEW ATLAS) An incredible, first-of-its-kind trial testing the pain-killing properties of LSD microdoses has delivered the compelling suggestion that tiny, non-psychedelic doses of this infamous drug could serve as an effective analgesic.
Back in the 1960s, during the original heyday of psychedelic science, one of the more fascinating research areas for LSD was its unexpected efficacy as an analgesic. Researcher Eric Kast was one of the pioneer investigators on the topic, publishing over a dozen key papers exploring the ways pain perception is influenced by LSD.
Kast’s work was primarily with active psychedelic doses of LSD, and he consistently found the drug produced effective, and protracted, analgesic effects. Unfortunately, Kast’s work with LSD ended, as most psychedelic research did, when access to the drug was restricted in the late 1960s.
Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Dr. Mercola, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked.
As the COVID-19 pandemic struck fast and hard, years of changes are transforming the economy in a matter of quarters. For instance, the trend of remote work continues to erupt, allowing folks to work at home instead of corporate offices.
(CHRISTIAN POST) Some Christian leaders, including a couple of prominent conservative evangelicals, have denounced the conspiracy theory movement gaining traction in conservative circles known as QAnon.
Created by an anonymous online figure in 2017, QAnon claims that President Donald Trump is in a war with a “Deep State” government, battling entities like elitist pedophile rings and satanism.
The conspiracy alleges that a Satan-worshipping "deep state" faction that includes A-list celebrities is working to defeat Trump and engage in child sex abuse.
Today’s episode of SYSTEM UPDATE that explores this topic — the data demonstrating this unravelling, the factors causing it, and the consequences from it — will debut at 2:00 p.m. ET on The Intercept’s YouTube channel.
ORIGINAL LINK A Quarter Of All Personal Income In The US Comes From The GovernmentTyler DurdenFri, 08/28/2020 - 15:25
Today's release of the latest Personal Income and Spending data showed that income and spending both rose more than expected in July, just ahead of the fiscal cliff at the end of that month, which as we showed last week has resulted in a sharp drop in spending among recipients of Unemployment Benefits.
In other words, it is safe to say that with much of the unemployment insurance benefits on their way out, as the following chart from Goldman shows...
... spending will slide in August and onward unless a new fiscal stimulus program is agreed upon by Congress (for now, consensus among strategists is that for that to happen, the market will need to suffer a correction first).
It is even safer to say that if all government stimulus were withdrawn, the US would stumble right into a double dip recession (if not depression), because as we have shown previously what was most remarkable about today's personal income and spending data is just how reliant on the US government the population has become.
We are referring, of course, to Personal Current Transfer payments which are essentially government sourced income such as unemployment and emergency benefits, welfare checks, and so on. In July, this number was $4.9 trillion annualized, just a small drop from the $5 trillion in July.
Just as striking, is that as of July when total Personal Income was just over $20 trillion annualized for the first time ever, the government is now responsible for just under a quarter of all income.
Putting that number in perspective, in the 1950s and 1960s, transfer payment were around 7%. This number rose in the low teens starting in the mid-1970s (or right after the Nixon Shock ended Bretton-Woods and closed the gold window). The number then jumped again after the financial crisis, spiking to the high teens.
And now, the coronavirus has officially sent this number into the mid-20% range, after hitting a record high 31% in April.
And that's how creeping banana republic socialism comes at you: first slowly, then fast.
So for all those who claim that the Fed is now (and has been for the past decade) subsidizing the 1%, that's true, but with every passing month, the government is also funding the daily life of an ever greater portion of America's poorest social segments.
Who ends up paying for both?
Why the middle class of course, where the dollar debasement on one side, and the insane debt accumulation on the other, mean that millions of Americans content to work 9-5, pay their taxes, and generally keep their mouth shut as others are burning everything down and tearing down statues, are now doomed.
The "good" news? As we reported last November, the US middle class won't have to suffer this pain for much longer, because while the US has one one of the highest median incomes in the entire world, with only three countries boasting a higher income, it is who gets to collect this money that is the major problem, because as the chart also shows, with just a 50% share of the population in middle-income households, the US is now in the same category as such "banana republics" as Turkey, China and, drumroll, Russia.
What is just as stunning: according to the OECD, more than half of the countries in question have a more vibrant middle class than the US.
So the next time someone abuses the popular phrase "they hate us for our [fill in the blank]", perhaps it's time to counter that "they" may not "hate" us at all, but rather are making fun of what has slowly but surely become the world's biggest banana republic?
And as we concluded last year, and as even established banks now agree, "it has not Russia, nor China, nor any other enemy, foreign or domestic, to blame... except for one: the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States."
With all the vicious and deadly riots occurring around the U. S., the public is finally waking up to the fact that our nation’s young people of all races, ethnicities, and backgrounds have been “brainwashed.”
Let’s look carefully at the rioters that we see on social media and on the nightly news. The one thing most of them have in common is that they are young people.
No, they are not all people of color. In fact, if a person starts noticing, a huge percentage are White.
WHO SHOULD GET THE BLAME
I keep waiting for some leader in our country to put the blame right where it belongs – at the feet of Obama and his Common Core Standards. While most of the nation slept, Obama (almost on his first day in office) pushed this social justice, Marxist, socialist, Communist belief system straight into nearly all curriculum standards and teaching units.
Because of the radical shift in standards, Common Core forced Pre-K through 12 schools to purchase all new curriculum, most of it digitized and produced by unknown leftists from who knows where.
The “Race to the Top” funds from the feds were contingent upon implementing the Common Core Standards. Of course, the colleges/universities were only too glad to follow suit since many of the professors for years had been spouting that same dogma.
For ten years, students in Pre-K through 16 have had a steady diet of this leftist dogma; and the seeds for these riots were sown, waiting only for this moment in time to ripen into bull-blown Antifa and BLM anarchists.
Once the dogma was thoroughly imbedded in the curriculum in nearly every subject area, it has been very difficult to pull it out.
Homeschoolers and private school students have not escaped this leftist dogma either because the man who was the architect of the Common Core (David Coleman) became the president of the College Board. He quickly announced publicly that all CB products would be aligned with Common Core — that means Pre-SAT, SAT, and Advanced Placement – all of which impact students in every educational setting throughout the country. The ACT followed suit as have other testing programs throughout the nation.
“What gets tested gets taught.” The reason for this is that if students are going to do well on a test, they have to understand the philosophy that controls the type of answers required on the Common-Core-driven tests.
Because of the takeover by Obama’s Common Core Standards, traditional, fact-based curriculum (a.k.a., Type #1) was thrown aside and was replaced 24/7, Pre-K through 16 with what is referred to as Type #2.
Please take the time to study carefully the differences between Type #1 vs. Type #2 as shown in this chart:
As a classroom teacher for over 33 years, I believe that every parent should have the right to choose the best type of educational setting for his/her children. I have taught in public, private, homeschool, and online settings. We have two sons of our own and five grandchildren with experiences in varied educational environments.
I also understand that school choice has become widely acclaimed particularly after parents during COVID have begun to pay more attention to what their children are studying. Many parents do not like what they are seeing.
The big problem is this: IF ALL CURRICULUM IS TYPE #2/COMMON CORE, THEN PARENTS HAVE NO REAL “CHOICE.”
To take back our children’s hearts, minds, and souls from the leftist dogma, we must move every educational setting into Type #1, traditional, fact-based standards and curriculum. If we do not do this, then our nation will keep on producing more of these badly deceived young people who have been stripped of learning the most basic, common sense, knowledge and skills.
From the standpoint of the student, there can be no mixing of Type #1 and Type #2. Either there are right or wrong answers based upon time-honored facts; OR people’s opinions, feelings, and beliefs are what is of ultimate importance.
To be honest, if you and I had been steeped in Type #2 for the last ten years 24/7, we would probably believe too that we are little “gods” who have the right, the responsibility, and the obligation to challenge anything and anyone who goes against the leftist dogma!
To see with your own eyes the kind of leftist Black Lives Matter (BLM) curriculum that is being promoted across our country, please watch this 7-minute video.
The only thing that will stop this horrendous type of leftist curriculum from destroying our nation’s youth and hence, America, is to move all educational settings back to the Type #1 philosophy – in the curriculum standards, the curriculum, and the tests.
Parents must have genuine “school choice” for their children.
Type #1 should be the place where we as adults make our stand because curriculum standards control what is taught day-to-day in the curriculum. If our elected leaders do not understand this, then it is our responsibility to teach them!
I have posted my 9.11.19 article below which should help our leaders “to get it.”
7 minute YouTube: “BRAINWASHED: How Black Lives Matter Hijacked Our Schools” (a.k.a., How Obama’s Common Core Standards Hijacked Our Schools” —https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKh6JfdSSdQ
Newsflash; real science is based on facts not “consensus”.
I’m sick and tired of idiots beating me over the head with pseudoscience instead of sticking to the cold, hard facts.
Show me the hard data that standing six feet from someone is necessary.
Show me the hard data that wearing any old rag on my face is going to materially stop the spread of a virus.
Show me the hard data that enjoying fresh air and sunshine outdoors could be an invitation to an early death.
Please, stick to the facts and don’t dare lecture me about the “consensus” and here’s why.
Maybe you’ve heard of Ignaz Semmelweis, an Austrian-Hungarian obstetrician with a prickly personality. If not, you will quickly recognize his contribution to the medical profession with the three words he made famous:
“Wash your hands.”
This was way back in 1847.
Dr. Semmelweis provided hard data clearly demonstrating that once he and his staff began washing their hands and disinfecting equipment between patients the number of infections and deaths dropped dramatically.
Unfortunately, the scientific “consensus” at the time held that there was no benefit to these measures and his advice was almost completely ignored by the learned medical community. In fact, many of his medical peers were incensed with his suggestion that they could be responsible for transmitting illness and disease!
At the time doctors took pride in their soiled gowns as a mark of their industrious work! It was commonplace for doctors who had just completed an autopsy to go to the maternity ward and deliver babies without ever washing up! After all it was the “consensus” and with so many doctors in agreement how could they be wrong?
Dr. Semmelweis died in an insane asylum in 1865 knowing that untold numbers of patients had needlessly suffered and died because the medical community refused to accept his findings and instead chose to follow the “consensus”. Ironically, the same year Dr. Semmelweis died Dr. Joseph Lister, a British surgeon, began building on the work of French microbiologist Louis Pasteur regarding germ theory.
Dr. Lister began experimenting with various means of disinfecting wounds. He instructed surgeons under his responsibility to not only wash their hands with a 5 percent solution of carbolic acid but also wear clean gloves. His work validated Dr. Semmelweis discoveries regarding the value of hygiene and cleanliness in medicine.
Today we all benefit from Dr. Semmelweis groundbreaking work even though he was never recognized for his contribution during his lifetime. The moral to this story is that scientific “consensus” is often wrong. In no way can it justify the hysteria, lockdowns and wealth destruction that is being manufactured by the elites.
The COVID hysteria is emotion based, not fact based. Instead of cold, hard facts backing up the “science” we’re told to shut up and accept the “consensus”. As Dr. Semmelweis discovered the consensus is often wrong.
The Labor Department announced on Thursday that another 1.006 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week. Prior to this year, the all-time record for a single week was just 695,000, and so the number of Americans that are losing their jobs each week continues to remain at a catastrophic level. But this latest figure is actually being spun as “good news” because at least it was lower than the week before. And I am willing to concede that point, because we should definitely welcome any sign that the numbers are starting to move in the right direction. However, there is no doubt that what we have experienced up to this point in 2020 is nothing short of an economic cataclysm. Over the last 23 weeks, more than 58 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits. Even if zero workers filed for unemployment for the rest of 2020, this would still be the worst year for unemployment claims in all of U.S. history by a gigantic margin. Vast hordes of workers have been losing their jobs week after week as the U.S. economy melts down right in front of our eyes. This has truly been an economic horror show, and the most nightmarish chapters are still ahead of us.
When economic numbers start getting really bad, the government often decides to “modify” how they are calculated, and on Thursday the Labor Department announced that it will be “changing how it adjusts weekly jobless-claims figures for seasonal swings”.
Presumably, that should help the numbers look a bit better starting next week.
But no matter how much they massage the numbers, they can’t erase the fact that tens of millions of people are deeply hurting right now. According to one new survey, 61 percent of Americans need “another relief bill”, and about two-thirds of Americans from the age of 24 to the age of 54 say that they are currently in financial distress…
The latest survey by MagnifyMoney reveals 61 percent of the country needs another relief bill to pay for expenses. Over 80 percent of workers who have been laid off or furloughed due to COVID-19 are counting on more assistance. The poll of 1,010 Americans adds 71 percent of Generation X (ages 40 to 54) and 65 percent of millennials (ages 24 to 39) say they are currently in financial distress.
If you are not in financial distress at this moment, you should be very thankful for your blessings, because you are definitely in the minority.
And more layoff announcements just keep on coming with each passing day. On Thursday, we learned that Lord & Taylor will be laying off all their workers and closing every single store…
Lord & Taylor, the first department store established in the United States, is officially going out of business, ending a nearly 200-year run.
The bankrupt company announced Thursday that all of its 38 remaining stores and website have begun liquidation sales — a reversal from last week’s decision to keep 14 locations open.
When I was a kid, I was always so intimidated by Lord & Taylor when my mother would take me to the mall.
I always thought that was where the rich people shopped.
I never imagined that someday I would see it go out of business forever.
Of course countless other retailers are going belly up as the worst “retail apocalypse” in U.S. history rolls on. According to Coresight Research, approximately 25 percent of all malls in the United States “will close over the next three to five years”…
Another new report out this week from Coresight Research estimates 25% of America’s roughly 1,000 malls will close over the next three to five years, with the pandemic accelerating a demise that was already underway before the new virus emerged.
Can you imagine what our country is going to look like if that actually happens?
Already, communities all over America are being blighted by one boarded up property after another, and this is especially true in many impoverished areas.
Of course our economic problems have been accelerated by a series of very unusual events that have been beyond our control. It has been one thing after another here in 2020, and the latest major disaster to hit us was Hurricane Laura. We were extremely fortunate that neither New Orleans or Houston took a direct hit from this storm, because it was enormously destructive. Just consider what one survivor told the press about the devastation in his community…
“It looks like 1,000 tornadoes went through here. It’s just destruction everywhere,” said Brett Geymann, who rode out the storm with three family members in Moss Bluff, near Lake Charles, Louisiana. He described Laura passing over his house with the roar of a jet engine around 2 a.m.
Let us hope that we will have at least a little bit of time before the next major crisis comes along. Many had been hoping that August would be a quiet month, but that didn’t turn out to be the case, and now September is just a few days away.
And as we approach the fall season, it is being reported that wealthy investors have been “hoarding cash”…
A group of multimillionaire investors in the U.S. are hoarding cash at unprecedented levels.
Tiger 21, a club of more than 800 investors, reported Thursday that its members have raised their cash holdings to 19% of their total assets on concerns over the economic consequences of the covid pandemic in the U.S. That’s up from about 12% since the start of the outbreak. About a quarter now expect the crisis to continue until the end of next June, the group said.
Is this a sign that many of them believe that trouble is ahead for the financial markets?
Of course it isn’t just the wealthy that are deeply concerned about the months ahead. Our nation has been gripped by endless turmoil for most of this year, and now a very hotly contested presidential election is just over two months away. Meanwhile, economic conditions will continue to deteriorate, and that means that tens of millions of Americans will become even more angry and even more frustrated. If you believe that the U.S. is just going to snap out of all of this somehow and everything will turn out just fine in the end, then you simply do not understand the times in which we are living.
For so long we were warned that a “perfect storm” was coming, and now it is here.
And if you think that 2020 has been bad, just wait until you see what else is ahead.
***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.***
About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com. By purchasing the book you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe. I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article. In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help. During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.
ORIGINAL LINK Germany Imposes Fine For All Non-Mask Wearers In New National CrackdownTyler DurdenFri, 08/28/2020 - 02:45
It should surprise nobody that this happens first within the EU. While much of the world takes to mask-wearing more out of a social and health consciousness "most people are on board" type attitude, the government of Germany has announced fines as punishment for people not wearing them.
Chancellor Angela Merkel announced during a virtual meeting Thursday with state governors that almost the entire country will be under a 50 euros minimum ($59) fine for breaching the national mask mandate.
After the meeting it was announced that all federal states except the east's Saxony-Anhalt agreed on setting a minimum fine.
In her comments Merkel also urged Germans tostay home “wherever it is possible” and avoid traveling to "hot spots" like the United States.
Berlin also agreed to impose a strict limiting on gatherings. Not only have many major public events been canceled outright, but police are enforcing a ban on private parties of more than 25 persons.
Large public events will not return until 2021. The new stringent measures including the mask fines go into effect by the end of the day Thursday.
BREAKING Germany #Corona response goes (more) national again:
Merkel + State Premiers:
- call on Germans NO travel to risk areas
- from Oct no paid leave upon return in quarantine
- no large events till 2021
- €50 min fine - no mask
This also as most German schools are now back in session, though there's been a handful of closures due to new coronavirus cases.
It's part of a broader initiative proposed by German health officials to crackdown on people flouting social distancing measures amid the pandemic, even though in recent weeks authorities say coronavirus clusters are due mainly to incoming vacationers.
Germany's confirmed COVID-19 numbers have been on the whole relatively low compared to other Western nations, at about 240,000 out of a population of 83 million.
Former Acting DNI and former US Ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell’s 2020 Republican National Convention Speech was truly remarkable in that, in so many words, he explained the Deep State agenda and how deleterious it has been for the Americans People.
The process to undermine the Constitution began in earnest on 9/11, accelerating wildly over the past 4 years, with Big Tech censorship, military-grade psychological operations unleashed on us hapless taxpayers, which has us tearing at each other’s throats. And don’t forget the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, which legalized Fake News (Deep State propaganda).
Most Americans hold opinions that they don’t realize aren’t even theirs.
There have been incremental steps leading up to a post-Constitutional America, starting in 1913, with the founding of the Federal Reserve Bank. A fully post-Constitutional America, one that makes no bones about it; that is proud to cast off the Constitution will be cemented if Kamala Harris is President.
There will no longer be 1st or 2nd – or ANY Amendment rights. The Biden-Harris platform’s proposed tax hikes, the Green New Deal, the “reparations for slavery”, etc. will utterly bankrupt America and subsequently the world. Billions will starve, which is precisely what these eugenicists want. Select survivors will be forced to live in the China Model.
***
TRANSCRIPT
Four years ago, one outsider stood alone and said in public what most Americans thought in private. It was 14 years after the start of the war in Afghanistan and 12 years after the Invasion of Iraq, where thousands of American troops had died and trillions in taxpayer dollars had been spent and yet, no candidate could bring themselves to admit that something had gone badly wrong with American foreign policy, that the American voter, the American soldier and the American taxpayer had all been let down. Except for one Donald Trump.
He called America’s Endless Wars what they were: a disaster.
The media was shocked, because Donald Trump was running as a Republican and yet, he said out loud what we all knew: that American foreign policy was failing to make Americans safer after the end of the Cold War.
Democrats and Republicans in Washington bought into the illusion that the whole world would start to resemble America and so, they started to pursue unlimited globalization.
They welcomed China into the World Trade Organization. They engaged in nation-building in Afghanistan and tried to export democracy to Iraq. They signed a nuclear deal with Iran and a global climate agreement in Paris.
But they didn’t ground any of it in the interests of the average American, so for decades, while Washington politicians built a global system, American wages stagnated, our great cities and industries were hollowed out, entire communities were devastated and our manufacturing plants were shipped off to China.
That’s what happened when Washington stopped being the capital of the United States and started being the capital of the world.
As US Ambassador to Germany, I had a front row seat to Donald Trump’s America-First foreign policy. I wish every American could see how President Trump negotiates on their behalf.
I’ve watched President Trump charm the Chancellor of Germany, while insisting that Germany pay its NATO obligations.
I was proud to witness President Trump say to foreign leaders: “I don’t blame you for wanting America to pay for your security. I actually respect you for out-negotiating the presidents before me. But it stops with me. I won’t let the American taxpayer be taken advantage of.
Donald Trump’s administration has always made clear that our priority is the American People’s security. That’s the job of all leaders: to put their people first and we’ve seen how this strategy has succeeded.
In four short years, Donald Trump has led even some Washington democrats to agree on the Chinese threat on trade deals that benefit America-First on alliances that share responsibility.
In four years, Donald Trump didn’t start any new wars. He brought troops home. He rebuilt the military and signed peace deals that make Americans safer.
The Washington elites want you to think this kind of foreign policy is immoral and so they call it “Nationalist”. That tells you all you need to know.
The DC crowd thinks when they call Donald Trump a “Nationalist”, they’re insulting him, as if the American President isn’t supposed to base foreign policy on America’s national interests.
A return to the Biden way of thinking means America gives the radical terrorist regime in Tehran a planeload of cash in the middle of the night.
Well, you see, President Trump also sent an aircraft in the middle of the night to deal with Iran but that plane was on a different mission – an air strike to take out the head of Iran’s terror machine, who plotted the deaths of Americans.
But we also must be clear, that when those who seek freedom take tremendous personal risk, in places like Hong Kong, Tehran or Minsk, there is no doubt who President Trump’s administration supports.
We will always stand with the people who fight for their God-given freedoms.
Don’t be fooled. The Washington establishment is trying to sell you on their candidate. Joe Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972, 48 years ago.
Well, it’s actually the typical Washington story. Just this year, 22 Democrats ran for President. They rejected all of the outsiders and nominated the ultimate Washington insider; someone they had to pull out of retirement.
Every time Joe Biden offers a new idea, you should ask yourself, “Why didn’t he try that over the last 48 years?”
Today, the Democrats blame a global pandemic, that started in China on President Trump and they still blame Russia for Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016.
As acting Director of National Intelligence, I saw the Democrats’ entire case for “Russian Collusion” and what I saw made me sick to my stomach.
The Obama-Biden administration secretly launched a surveillance operation on the Trump campaign and silenced the many brave intelligence officials who spoke up against it. They presented bogus information as facts. They lied to judges then they classified anything that undermined their case.
And after Donald Trump won the election, when they should have continued the American tradition of helping the President-Elect transition into the White House, they tried, instead to undercut him, even more.
Former Vice President, Joe Biden asked intelligence officials to uncover the hidden information on President Trump’s incoming National Security Adviserthree weeks before the inauguration.
That’s the Democrats. Between surveillance, classifications, leaks and puppet candidates, they never want the American people to know who’s actually calling the shots but with Donald Trump, you always know exactly who is in charge because the answer is you.
You’re in charge, not lobbyists, not special interests, not warmongers or China-sympathizers or globalization fanatics.
With Donald Trump and Mike Pence in the White House, the boss is the American People. President Trump rightly calls his foreign policy “America First.”
America First does not advance the interests of one group of Americans at the expense of another. It has no bias about Red or Blue, educated or not educated, urban or rural.
America First is simply the belief that politicians should focus on the equality and dignity of every American and that this duty is fulfilled by promoting the safety and wealth of the American people above all else. That’s America First. That’s the Trump doctrine and that, my friends is four more years.
ORIGINAL LINK 'Empty Highways' - About 61 Million Americans Have Stopped Commuting In Post-Covid World Tyler DurdenThu, 08/27/2020 - 22:45
A new survey from ValuePenguin.com, commissioned by LendingTree, found 61 million Americans have stopped commuting to work due to the virus-induced recession. The reduction of motor vehicles on highways will result in deep economic scarring across the entire economy.
The coronavirus has upended nearly every aspect of life in the United States, and Americans' driving behavior and commutes are no exception. ValuePenguin surveyed drivers to see how their habits have changed. We found a large number of drivers are no longer commuting to the office, whether because they are working from home or have lost employment due to COVID-19. -ValuePenguin
The survey found three in 10 respondents with motor vehicles are no longer making the daily commute to work in a post-COVID-19 world:
About three in 10 consumers with a motor vehicle said they no longer have a commute due to COVID-19, either because they're working from home (19%) or they temporarily or permanently lost their jobs (10%).
On the other hand, 26% are back to their daily commute as of August, including essential workers (17%) and those whose employers reopened their offices (9%). (The remainder don't have commutes either because they worked from home prior to the pandemic, or they were not working prior to the pandemic.) -ValuePenguin
Millions of motor vehicles are missing from America's highways since March. About 38% of respondents said traffic in their respective metro areas remains subdued, and 36% said traffic was reduced but trending back to pre-pandemic levels.
For more color on empty streets and highways, TomTom high-frequency traffic congestion data of New York City shows traffic levels remain subdued.
The decline in travel has resulted in respondents making fewer trips to the gas pump. Almost a third said they're driving every day, compared to 50% of drivers pre-pandemic. The number of respondents who fill up their tanks every week dropped by 26% in August versus before the pandemic.
While declining fuel consumption and oversupplied markets have subdued gasoline and diesel prices, a reduction in travel has resulted in a quarter of respondents to make cost-cutting changes to their auto insurance.
About 14% switched to another provider that was offering better deals, 12% reduced the amount of coverage since they are driving less and 3% took one of their household's vehicles off the policy because their family is using fewer cars. -ValuePenguin
The effects of COVID-19 will be felt for years. The response to the virus has accelerated powerful behavioral changes that will continue to shape how Americans use automobiles. We believe the changes in commuting and e-commerce are here to stay and that the combined effect of reduced commuting and shopping journeys could be as much as 270 billion fewer vehicle miles traveled (VMT) each year in the US. -KPMG
The permanent loss of vehicles on highways will have a tremendous impact across the entire economy and is suggestive that a "V-shaped" recovery is not in the cards for this year or next.
(ZEROHEDGE) – Morgan Stanley's Michael Wilson warned a "growth scare" for markets could be imminent, if that is in the "next several weeks/months." If so, then all the instabilities of a slowing recovery, deteriorating labor market, waning consumer sentiment, and small business massacre will come out of the woodwork and shock investors.
On a micro-level, we want to share with readers a genuinely shocking, and deep economic scarring story developing in San Francisco.
According to CBS San Francisco, citing a new survey via the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, "more than half of all storefronts in San Francisco are no longer in business due to COVID-19."
"The survey showed only 46 percent of storefront businesses in San Francisco that were open at the beginning of the pandemic are still operating," said Jay Cheng, spokesman of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce.
Cheng said 1,300 stores have closed in recent months, with about 1,200 still open.
"There's a lot of reasons for that. If you're a fitness studio, you can't open because of the pandemic. If you're a retail space, you could open, but you might have decided that there isn't enough foot traffic or enough customer base to make that worthwhile to reopen. So it's become a very difficult situation," he said.
(BGR.COM) – With the ongoing coronavirus pandemic still raging across the globe, the last thing we need is another new virus that is even more deadly. Unfortunately, that's what recently popped up in Kazakhstan, at least according to Chinese health officials. The initial reports sounded pretty dire, with the new "unknown pneumonia" carrying a higher fatality rate than COVID-19, and cases piling up rapidly.
It was very, very bad news. That is until Kazakhstan officials decided to chime in on the reports and essentially denied the entire thing. China hasn't backed down on its initial claims and insists that its neighbor is dealing with something very serious.
Kazakhstan went into lockdown in mid-March over the coronavirus pandemic. It enacted many of the same restrictions we've seen worldwide, and cases of COVID-19 began to trend downward. The country made the decision to "reopen," or lift many of the lockdown restrictions in early May. Recently, the infection rate has begun to trend upward once again.
The country recently had its most reported infections in a single day. Roughly two weeks ago, officials reported nearly 2,000 new COVID-19 cases in a single day, which is a record for the country. The government has called this the "second wave," and it's similar to what many other countries, including the United States, are currently battling, but whether there is a new virus running rampant in the country is still unclear.
New documents in the George Floyd investigation have been released and it is likely that they will be key to the criminal defense of the accused officers in that case.
The documents contain accounts of extremely high levels of fentanyl in Floyd’s blood that could have contributed to his death. The documents are likely to feature significantly in the criminal defense of former officers Tou Thao, Derek Chauvin, J Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane. While admissibility can be challenged, they reflect findings that will be raised at trial on the impact of these drugs in Floyd’s system.
However, the documents in my view do not conclusively establish that the drug use was the cause of the death. Indeed, some reaffirm the view of prosecutors. I do not believe that these documents should not be treated as determinative evidence by the court in pre-trial motions. In other words, this should go to a jury.
The newly released documents include three documents that address the fentanyl issue but there is a critical point of conflict in the accounts. One document is a memo from county attorney Amy Sweasy where she offers a summary of a conversation with Andrew Baker, the Hennepin County chief medical examiner. It includes the following account:
Fentanyl 11. He said, “that’s pretty high.” This level of fentanyl can cause pulmonary edema. Mr. Floyd’s lungs were 2-3x their normal weight at autopsy. That is a fatal level of fentanyl under normal circumstances. . . . AB said that if Mr. Floyd had been found dead in his home (or anywhere else) and there were no other contributing factors he would conclude that it was an overdose death.
That is clearly something the defense could highlight to the jury. Floyd is shown in videotapes complaining that he could not breathe when he was not under restraint. However, the handwritten notes from a meeting contains a notable countervailing statement:
Fentanyl at 11 ng/ml — this is higher than chronic pain patient. If he were found dead at home alone & no other apparent cause, this could be acceptable to call an OD. Deaths have been certified w/ levels of 3.
Baker: I am not saying this killed him.
That is an important distinction since the level of fentanyl could have been a contributor but the legal cause remained the kneeling on the neck of Floyd. Indeed, there is a telling third document from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System. The federal officials asked for the review and the document states:
The Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner agrees with the autopsy findings and the cause of death certification of George Floyd as determined by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office. His death was caused by the police subdual and restraint in the setting of severe hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, and methamphetamine and fentanyl intoxication. The subdual and restraint had elements of positional and mechanical asphyxiation. The presence of sickle cell trait is a significant finding in this context.
We concur with the reported manner of death of homicide.
The point is that the fentanyl could have made Floyd more vulnerable or susceptible to a fatal medical emergency. However, that would not in my view clearly negate the criminal charge. There is a torts doctrine that “you take your victims as you find them,” meaning that you are still liable for injuries or deaths even if the outcome was magnified by a pre-condition. So, the fact that someone was more susceptible to greater injury due to age or medical condition does not excuse your liability for the full damages when your intentional or negligent tort was the cause of the injury.
Thus, the recently released material cuts both ways for the defendants. To the extent that the officers heard Floyd complaining that he could not breathe while still in the car only confirms that he had some medical emergency or condition. That could make the conduct of the officials more sanctionable, not less. Officers commonly deal with people who have drugs in their system and are legally required to consider any medical threat in how they address such encounters. They can argue that the drug use was a type of superseding intervening factor. However, these documents still support the prosecutors on the ultimate cause of death in the level of restraint used by the officers.
ORIGINAL LINK "I Don't Think There Should Be Any Debates" Says Pelosi, Calling Them An "Exercise In Skullduggery"Tyler DurdenThu, 08/27/2020 - 11:55
Nancy Pelosi has just joined the chorus of prominent Democrats trying desperately to avoid placing Joe Biden in front of the proverbial firing squad in a debate with President Trump.
"I don't think that there should be any debates," Pelosi said on Thursday, one day after President Trump demanded Biden take a drug test before the two square off.
"I wouldn't legitimize a conversation with him - nor a debate in terms of the presidency of the United States," she added.
Pelosi said that Trump was "disgraceful" when he 'stalked' Hillary Clinton during the 2016 debate by walking near her, and that he will probably "act in a way that is beneath the dignity of the presidency."
"I think he will also belittle what the debates are supposed to be about. And they're not to be about skulduggery on the part of somebody who has no respect for the office he holds, much less the democratic process.
"I don't think that he should dignify that conversation with Donald Trump."
Pelosi then suggested that each candidate could hold separate 'conversations' with voters, saying: "Let that be a conversation with the American people, not an exercise in skulduggery."
Watch:
.@SpeakerPelosi: “Don’t tell anybody I told you this.. Especially don’t tell Joe Biden. But I don’t think there should be any debates.” pic.twitter.com/Guu8Jkl1Gs
Pelosi is far from the first Democrat trying to avoid a Trump-Biden debate. As Rick Moran wrote via PJMedia earlier this month:
* * *
Democrats around the country have begun to pressure the Biden campaign to call off all debates with Donald Trump due to the coronavirus pandemic, they say.
In truth, the reason they don’t want Biden to debate Trump is that they don’t think Trump will play by their rules. The president would take over the debate and make it about what he wants, not what Biden wants.
Democrats are also worried about Biden’s mental stamina and his ability to remain engaged for an hour and a half during a debate.
Democratic strategists and supporters of Vice President Joe Biden are urging him not to debate President Donald Trump in the lead-up to Election Day, citing Trump’s publicity stunts and disregard for the rules in 2016. Meanwhile Biden backers, including some conservatives, applauded the University of Notre Dame and the University of Michigan for cancelling their scheduled debates over COVID-19 concerns.
Former White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart joined several Democratic Party strategists in bluntly advising Biden, “whatever you do, don’t debate Trump.” Speaking on CNN Saturday, Lockhart said Trump shouldn’t be given another platform which will enable him to “repeat lies,” which he said occurred in the 2016 debates against Hillary Clinton.
Trump has a knack for exaggeration and hyperbole that Democrats don’t like. It’s very effective in debates and Biden would spend most of his time on the defensive.
CNN political analyst @joelockhart tells @smerconish that Joe Biden shouldn’t debate President Trump.
Trump “will take the truth and destroy it, and Biden will be in the position of correcting him over and over and over again. I don't think he should give him that platform.” pic.twitter.com/4EOR4Q9Um7
Prior anti-lockdown protest in Germany, via Reuters.
Prior anti-lockdown protest in Germany, via Reuters.
