lewrockwell--2020-03-06--The Coronavirus Is the Way to Martial Law and Total Control Over Populations

The United States government has initiated martial law .
All citizens are to conform to government mandates .
U.S. security forces will enforce these mandates locally with all city , county , and state police forces , and in all other cases the military will be in control .
Mandated behavior will include forced vaccinations , quarantine , intense surveillance , and restriction on any movement not authorized by government and health officials .
Blood and urine samples may be required , and any interference with this process will be treated as a high crime against the state .
Questioning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all Internet and communication services will be fully monitored and controlled .
Punishment for non-compliance will range from incarceration in holding camps to death .
Individual rights will be suspended in the name of national security due to the extreme pandemic risk facing this country .
This is necessary for the safety of all Americans .
While many will consider this possible scenario outlandish , considering the mass hysteria over a flu-like virus that has not even been explained as yet , could lead to such a declaration by the U.S. government and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to any that have followed the propaganda related to the new coronavirus now called Covid-19 , it is evident that worldwide panic has exploded .
Many of the things mentioned above have already taken place in China and other parts of the world .
It is of great importance given all that is taking place today due to this mystery virus , that all are familiar with the government ’ s legal authority to do all these things mentioned and much more in any case of a supposed mass health emergency .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be suspended , and full government control over the population , has been adopted in one form or another by at least 40 states .
It is called the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act ( MSEHPA ) , and is designed to authorize “ state health officials and their designees to take control of people , property , health care , communications and more in a public health emergency.
” This horrendous document was drafted by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to change all public health laws .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vaccine seller , and a massive power gain with these changes in any so-called health emergency .
The original draft was revised by the Center for Law and the Public ’ s Health , a collaboration between Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University .
I would recommend that anyone with an interest in what is going on should read over this emergency health powers document .
It is very scary to say the least , because this is how the controllers see things .
Article ’ s I and II are for finding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Article V concerns special powers and management of property .
It spells out the access and control of properties , of health care facilities , of all roads and public areas , disposal of human remains , control of all health care supplies , rationing , and destruction of property .
Article VI concerns additional special powers to “ protect society.
” Some of these include forced vaccination , treatment , isolation and quarantine—with or without warning , forced collection of samples and testing , criminal investigation , and access to all protected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ concerns what is labeled miscellaneous , but includes the transfer of funds , private liability , and federal supremacy in cases of conflicting law .
This is important .
If total control over a population is the goal sought with this type of health emergency plan , there is no doubt that with these powers , there is little restriction impeding the implementation of medical martial law by the self-proclaimed state authorities .
Allowing any takeover by government of this magnitude would be tantamount to accepting total slavery at the hands of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the truth about this possibility in this article : Coronavirus : The Cures Will Be Worse Than the Disease .
I believe this is exactly the case , and if the hype gets much worse , some of the things I have mentioned will begin to appear .
Depending on circumstances , these could be incremental in nature , which would serve as a test for government , but if mass hysteria takes center stage , all bets are off .
The exact cause of this so-called virus is not certain at this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ evidence suggests that it was manmade , and came from a bio-weapons lab .
How it was released is also not certain , but it is very difficult to believe that it could have been accidental , and very likely that it was intentionally released .
The first and most major effect was the destruction of a Chinese economy that was on pace to catch and surpass that of the U.S .
Given that the U.S. agenda for some time has been to harm China ’ s economy , this virus has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ China ’ s economy has not only been set back , but has been decimated , as is discussed in this interview on The Last American Vagabond .
The globalist agenda could not have a better excuse for establishing more world governance and massive economic change than this new coronavirus called Covid-19 .
Crisis creates opportunity for the ruling elites , as popular dependence on the authoritative ruling class vastly increases in times of fear and stress .
Panic and uncertainty lead to a weak and compliant society , one easy to control @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ruling powers desire .
Any bio-weapon attack , or mass viral outbreak , regardless of whether it was intentional or not , can only lead to tyrannical measures .
The release of this agent sets the stage for a perfect storm for radical global economic change , and if it was a false flag event meant purposely to create panic , these changes are already set to take place .
Money is already flowing from the IMF and the World Bank .
The IMF has already set aside $ 50 billion , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 12 billion .
There will be more to come .
With this money being lent to developing countries for so-called support due to the health and economic effects of this virus , these banks gain monstrous control over these countries ’ future .
This is an old ploy that allows central banking systems to take over countries , and control their land and natural resources .
That is one of the reasons why these loans are made for zero interest .
This will go a long way to help create a central planning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ World Health Organization ( WHO ) is already calling for an end to cash , and using this virus as the excuse , as they claim the virus could be spread by the exchange of cash among all that use it .
Calls for using digital money is strong , and with cash out of the way , all can be monitored in every single thing they do , which is just another nail in the coffin of freedom and privacy .
The table is set , and this could easily be a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in order to advance a master globalist agenda .
The Federal Reserve can not print enough money to support the markets , and even with a hundred billion dollars a day , the demand is still greater than all the fake money they can create out of thin air .
Since late September , over half a trillion dollars has been pumped into the Repo market alone , and this is steadily increasing , but this is not enough .
This indicates extreme risk in the banking system and markets , which could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ collapse .
Is this why we now have a health emergency that may have been created intentionally in order to allow control over society before economic Armageddon is upon us ?
The signs are there , and this looks ominous already .
If it is intentional , things will continue to worsen , and destruction of rights will escalate quickly .
This is one time when all should pay attention , as once control is achieved by voluntary inaction , it will be almost impossible to reverse , and life as we know @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gary D. Barnett

The United States government has initiated martial law. All citizens are to conform to government mandates. U.S. security forces will enforce these mandates locally with all city, county, and state police forces, and in all other cases the military will be in control. Mandated behavior will include forced vaccinations, quarantine, intense surveillance, and restriction on any movement not authorized by government and health officials. Blood and urine samples may be required, and any interference with this process will be treated as a high crime against the state. Questioning authorities will not be allowed, and all Internet and communication services will be fully monitored and controlled. Punishment for non-compliance will range from incarceration in holding camps to death. Individual rights will be suspended in the name of national security due to the extreme pandemic risk facing this country. This is necessary for the safety of all Americans.
While many will consider this possible scenario outlandish, considering the mass hysteria over a flu-like virus that has not even been explained as yet, could lead to such a declaration by the U.S. government and government agencies. As should be obvious to any that have followed the propaganda related to the new coronavirus now called Covid-19, it is evident that worldwide panic has exploded. Many of the things mentioned above have already taken place in China and other parts of the world.
It is of great importance given all that is taking place today due to this mystery virus, that all are familiar with the government’s legal authority to do all these things mentioned and much more in any case of a supposed mass health emergency. The document drafted that allows all individual rights to be suspended, and full government control over the population, has been adopted in one form or another by at least 40 states. It is called the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act (MSEHPA), and is designed to authorize “state health officials and their designees to take control of people, property, health care, communications and more in a public health emergency.” This horrendous document was drafted by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to change all public health laws. The same CDC gains monetary benefits as a vaccine seller, and a massive power gain with these changes in any so-called health emergency. The original draft was revised by the Center for Law and the Public’s Health, a collaboration between Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University.
I would recommend that anyone with an interest in what is going on should read over this emergency health powers document. It is very scary to say the least, because this is how the controllers see things.
Article’s I and II are for finding and planning for a health emergency.
Article III covers detection, tracking, identifying and interviewing individuals, information sharing, and enforcement.
Article IV concerns declaring a state health emergency, emergency powers, executive orders, and enforcement.
Article V concerns special powers and management of property. It spells out the access and control of properties, of health care facilities, of all roads and public areas, disposal of human remains, control of all health care supplies, rationing, and destruction of property.
Article VI concerns additional special powers to “protect society.” Some of these include forced vaccination, treatment, isolation and quarantine—with or without warning, forced collection of samples and testing, criminal investigation, and access to all protected health information about individuals.
Article VII concerns disseminating all information.
Article VIII concerns what is labeled miscellaneous, but includes the transfer of funds, private liability, and federal supremacy in cases of conflicting law. This is important.
If total control over a population is the goal sought with this type of health emergency plan, there is no doubt that with these powers, there is little restriction impeding the implementation of medical martial law by the self-proclaimed state authorities. Allowing any takeover by government of this magnitude would be tantamount to accepting total slavery at the hands of a ruling class.
James Corbett accurately stated the truth about this possibility in this article: Coronavirus: The Cures Will Be Worse Than the Disease. I believe this is exactly the case, and if the hype gets much worse, some of the things I have mentioned will begin to appear. Depending on circumstances, these could be incremental in nature, which would serve as a test for government, but if mass hysteria takes center stage, all bets are off.
The exact cause of this so-called virus is not certain at this point, but an enormous amount of evidence suggests that it was manmade, and came from a bio-weapons lab. How it was released is also not certain, but it is very difficult to believe that it could have been accidental, and very likely that it was intentionally released. The first and most major effect was the destruction of a Chinese economy that was on pace to catch and surpass that of the U.S. Given that the U.S. agenda for some time has been to harm China’s economy, this virus has been the driver to accomplish that goal. China’s economy has not only been set back, but has been decimated, as is discussed in this interview on The Last American Vagabond.
The globalist agenda could not have a better excuse for establishing more world governance and massive economic change than this new coronavirus called Covid-19. Crisis creates opportunity for the ruling elites, as popular dependence on the authoritative ruling class vastly increases in times of fear and stress. Panic and uncertainty lead to a weak and compliant society, one easy to control, and that is exactly what the ruling powers desire. Any bio-weapon attack, or mass viral outbreak, regardless of whether it was intentional or not, can only lead to tyrannical measures. The release of this agent sets the stage for a perfect storm for radical global economic change, and if it was a false flag event meant purposely to create panic, these changes are already set to take place.
Money is already flowing from the IMF and the World Bank. The IMF has already set aside $50 billion, and the World Bank has set aside $12 billion. There will be more to come. With this money being lent to developing countries for so-called support due to the health and economic effects of this virus, these banks gain monstrous control over these countries’ future. This is an old ploy that allows central banking systems to take over countries, and control their land and natural resources. That is one of the reasons why these loans are made for zero interest. This will go a long way to help create a central planning system for a global government.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is already calling for an end to cash, and using this virus as the excuse, as they claim the virus could be spread by the exchange of cash among all that use it. Calls for using digital money is strong, and with cash out of the way, all can be monitored in every single thing they do, which is just another nail in the coffin of freedom and privacy.
The table is set, and this could easily be a grand scheme that has been long planned in order to advance a master globalist agenda. The Federal Reserve cannot print enough money to support the markets, and even with a hundred billion dollars a day, the demand is still greater than all the fake money they can create out of thin air. Since late September, over half a trillion dollars has been pumped into the Repo market alone, and this is steadily increasing, but this is not enough. This indicates extreme risk in the banking system and markets, which could mean dollar destruction and an economy facing collapse.
Is this why we now have a health emergency that may have been created intentionally in order to allow control over society before economic Armageddon is upon us? The signs are there, and this looks ominous already. If it is intentional, things will continue to worsen, and destruction of rights will escalate quickly. This is one time when all should pay attention, as once control is achieved by voluntary inaction, it will be almost impossible to reverse, and life as we know it will cease.
The Best of Gary D. Barnett


lewrockwell--2020-03-06--Next Comes the ‘Turbulent Twenties’

Next Comes the ‘Turbulent Twenties’

The coronavirus is now exposing a far more deadly disease : Namely , the poisonous brew of easy money , cheap debt , sweeping financialization and unbridled speculation that has been injected into the American economy by the Fed and Washington politicians .
It has turned Wall Street into a dangerous gambling casino while leaving Main Street buried under mountainous debts , faltering investment in growth and productivity and the hand-to-mouth economics of spending more than you earn .
It has also left the American economy exceedingly vulnerable to external shocks .
That ’ s because 80 % of households @ @ @ @ @ @ @ businesses have hollowed out their balance sheets and artificially extended their supply chains to the four corners of the earth in order to goose short-run profits and share prices .
However , this unprecedented fragility is becoming evident as public health authorities around the world aggressively move to contain the Covid-19 contagion .
This will mean separating workers from their workplaces , consumers from the malls , diners from the restaurants , travelers from the airlines , hotels and resorts and much more like and similar disruptions to the supply-side of the economy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A. Stockman Best Price : $ 2.00 Buy New $ 9.95 In short , the world ’ s supply chains are buckling and freezing-up , thereby causing production and incomes to fall abruptly .
In turn , shrunken incomes and cash flows will pull the legs out from under the edifice of debt and speculation that has been piled atop the American economy .
So both a renewed financial and economic crisis and an abrupt change of course lie dead ahead .
The 30-year era of False Prosperity is over .
Accordingly , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will be a decade when the chickens come home to roost .
It will be a time when the cans of delay and denial may no longer be kicked down the road to tomorrow .
To the contrary , the 2020s will mark an era when today ’ s economic and political fantasies are crushed by America ’ s accumulated due bills .
Bubbles will be burst .
Speculators will get carried out on their shields .
Easy money wealth will evaporate .
Fiscal trauma will ensue .
The national joy ride will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lies ahead is rooted first and foremost in the fecklessly incurred mega-debts of the private and public sectors alike .
Together they have soared to the staggering sum of $ 75 trillion .
That ’ s 5X more than the $ 14 trillion outstanding three decades ago .
Yet the proceeds from these massive borrowings were not used to invest and provide for tomorrow , but to live high on the hog today .
After three decades of such artificial debt-fueled “ prosperity ” , the very warp and woof of American society @ @ @ @ @ @ @ eighty percent of U.S. households live essentially hand-to-mouth .
But that ’ s not because they are naturally imprudent ; it ’ s because they have been incentivized to borrow and spend , while being punished for saving and setting aside for life ’ s unforeseen contingencies and setbacks .
Likewise , the C-suites of corporate America have been rewarded for strip-mining their balance sheets and cash flows in order to pump money into Wall Street for stock buybacks and M & A .
But this has caused investment in productive plant , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be shortchanged .
Consequently , the growth capacity of the main street economy has been progressively eviscerated .
And most especially , the public sector has been fiscally ruined .
During the 32-years since Alan Greenspan launched the present era of reckless and relentless monetization of the public debt in 1987 , there have been only four balanced budgets sandwiched between 28 years of sheer fiscal promiscuity .
That has already taken the Federal debt from $ 3 trillion to $ 23 trillion , and it ’ s now heading , inexorably , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the 2020s .
The public debt-to-GDP ratio will then reach a Greek-style 150 % .
Worse still , the nation ’ s political system studiously ignores this obvious fiscal malignancy .
That ’ s because the Fed and other central banks have removed the sting of rising interest rates and the “ crowding out ” of private investment .
So politicians have succumbed to the latest version of free lunch economics .
This has permitted , in turn , national governance to degenerate into bitter partisan warfare that has festered so long @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of constitutional government .
Rather than facing tough policy choices , the Dems have retreated into identity politics and sanctimonious racialist moralizing .
They ’ ve abandoned virtuous pursuit of the public good for cheap virtue signaling to their base .
Likewise , the GOP has prioritized building border walls and keeping people out of America ’ s historic melting pot on the fear they might not vote Republican .
But in feeding red meat to their political base , they ’ ve abandoned the GOP ’ s real job—functioning as watchdog of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Beyond the water ’ s edge , the bipartisan duopoly has immersed itself in the projects of Empire and pretensions to being the world ’ s indispensable nation and global gendarme .
So doing , it has actually undermined homeland security while saddling the nation with trillions of debt to fund Forever Wars that are illegal , immoral and pointless .
These perversions of governance ultimately resulted in the freakish 2016 election in which the GOP accidentally nominated a bombastic outsider—a Great Disrupter who had not been house-trained by the Washington establishment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump presidency caused the incumbent Dems to baldly and illegally deploy the surveillance tools of the national security apparatus to detour his candidacy .
And then to attempt to abort his presidency via the RussiaGate and UkraineGate/Impeachment hoaxes once the voters had spoken .
At the same time , even as the Donald has brashly and pugnaciously fought the unconstitutional coup against his presidency , he , too , has gone about the business of filling the Swamp even deeper , rather than draining it as he promised on the campaign trail .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ national security branch—has never been bigger , fatter and more wasteful than under Trump .
The Donald has increased Federal spending in constant dollars ( 2019 $ ) by $ 180 billion per year during his term to date .
That compares to $ 120 billion per year under George Bush the Younger , $ 80 billion under Obama and $ 40 billion per year under Clinton .
So there isn ’ t anything which resembles MAGA coming down the pike during the 2020s and beyond .
Trump has only made the inherited @ @ @ @ @ @ @ measurably worse with his four-pronged assault on sound economics .
These are not the route to MAGA .
They are the path to bigger government in Washington , dangerous bubbles on Wall Street and diminished prosperity , opportunity and liberty on Main Street .
Accordingly , it is now way too late for a stick save from either political party or any state institution bivouacked in the Imperial City .
And that especially includes the madcap money printers at the Federal Reserve .
The fact is , the engines of free market capitalism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decades of bad money and bad policy .
What has passed for “ recovery ” since the Great Recession has been only a temporary debt-fostered reprieve .
Likewise , the soaring stock market reflects the greatest monetary deformation in history , not the rational discounting of a beneficent future .
Accordingly , ten malefic trends will dominate national life during the long night of reckoning which lies ahead .
• A prolonged , painful reversal of the three-decade long hyper-inflation of financial asset prices that has resulted in the Everything Bubble ; • @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , fixed income retirees and holders of cash ; • Ferocious global economic headwinds arising from the demise of the Red Ponzi ; • An outbreak of unprecedented partisan acrimony rendering Washington completely dysfunctional and imperiling America ’ s very constitutional foundation ; • The lapse of Imperial Washington into belligerence , retreat and failure all around the planet ; • The Baby Boom retirement tsunami , which will cause entitlement spending to soar and generational conflict to erupt like never before ; and • A virulent outbreak of class warfare and redistributionist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a stagnating economic pie .
Moreover , there is a powerful reason to keep abreast of these Turbulent Ten trends .
To wit , these baleful developments are not just possibilities .
They are well nigh certainties !
And they are ultimately rooted in a common cause .
Namely , the three decade long explosion of debt , speculation and financialization that was initiated in October 1987 when Alan Greenspan bailed out Wall Street gamblers and launched what has become a toxic worldwide regime of Keynesian central banking .
Peak Trump : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New $ 21.99 Consequently , America ’ s current $ 74 trillion mountain of public and private debt has become contagious .
On a worldwide basis , total debt outstanding now totals $ 255 trillion or a staggering 3X global GDP of $ 85 trillion .
It now constitutes the greatest barrier to continued growth , prosperity and financial stability in all of economic history .
Even more crucially , these brobdingnagian figures did not materialize during the last three decades because everyday people suddenly lost their senses and became addicted to unsustainable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speculation .
To the contrary , the people here and abroad were misled , induced and baited into burying themselves under crushing debts by agents of the state—especially its central banking branch .
The tools of deceit were falsified interest rates , artificially inflated asset prices and a hoary theory that debt-fueled “ stimulus ” injections by the state can create a permanent increase in economic growth and societal wealth .
These mountains of debt can temporarily goose GDP , of course , because GDP accounting is inherently incomplete : It views the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flows—quarter after quarter , year upon year– without regard to balance sheets and the accumulated carry cost of debt over time .
Moreover , this Keynesian blindness to balance sheets and their systematic impairment has gotten far more consequential since Greenspan launched a wholly new form of monetary central planning in October 1987 .
Under the latter , the price of debt has been deeply and systematically falsified by the central banks , thereby providing a powerful artificial incentive to borrow and a misleading signal to debtors about its longer-run implications .
Balance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and governments especially because they do not borrow in order to acquire productive assets capable of defraying the accumulating cost of carry .
Instead , all the added debt went into living high on the hog today .
Nor has the private business sector escaped the damage caused by deep repression of interest rates .
That ’ s because the cost of benchmark debt ( i.e .
the 10-year U.S. treasury note ) is really the master “ cap rate ” or valuation multiple for the entire financial system .
Artificial and sustained @ @ @ @ @ @ @ results in proportionately higher asset prices and increased price/earnings multiples—meaning that cheaper debt and richer share prices are one of the most toxic consequences of Keynesian central banking .
It provides powerful incentives to the corporate C-suites to borrow at sub-economic costs and use the proceeds to fund stock buybacks , thereby increasing per share earnings and goosing the value of top executives ’ own ample stock options .
Likewise , cheap debt causes a huge distortion in the M & A market .
Acquisitions are made to look “ accretive ” not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there are true , sustainable synergies , but because they carry cost of purchase debt is so low .
Needless to say , these forms of financial engineering redistribute financial wealth to the top 1 % and 10 % of households .
The latter own 40 % and 85 % of the stock , respectively , and they have gained mightily since Greenspan initiated the present era of Keynesian central banking in the late 1980s .
At the end of the day , the relentless and ever deepening financial repression—especially during the decade @ @ @ @ @ @ @ little gain in national output and jobs beyond what capitalism does on its own .
For example , manufacturing production is still 2 % below pre-crisis levels of November 2007 .
And total industrial production has crept just 4 % higher over 12 years .
Moreover , even the huge one-time inflation of financial asset prices on Wall Street didn ’ t embody sustainable real wealth because it was primarily based on multiple expansion , not earnings growth .
Exactly 31-years ago in early 1989 , for instance , the S & P @ @ @ @ @ @ @ represented 12X earnings of $ 25 per share .
At the same PE multiple today , the index would weigh in at just 1600 or less than half of the 3240 level where it ended 2019 .
Stated differently , 56 % of the S & P 500 gain since 1989 is owing to PE multiple expansion , not earnings growth , and it materialized during a three decade interlude when the long-term growth capacity of the US economy was being ground to the vanishing point .
That is , PE multiples should @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the nosebleed section of history .
Indeed , this “ bad money ” regime of the Keynesian central bankers has now finally taken itself hostage .
The central bankers have fostered such massive and egregious bubbles that they are literally terrified by the prospect of another stock market meltdown like those of 2000-2002 and 2008-2009 .
In turn , the latter would bring a renewed bout of desperate restructurings , layoffs and asset liquidations in the C-suites and a new round of recession on main street .
So the Fed has simply launched @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and incendiary that it will surely catalyze the final blow-off top early in the 2020s .
After it had distorted , falsified and inflated financial asset prices beyond all recognition—the Fed dithered and delayed shrinking its balance sheet , thereby putting the lie to Bernanke ’ s solemn pledge that after the unusual and exigent conditions of the financial crisis had passed they would reduce the Fed ’ s massive trove of Treasury and GSE debt to pre-crisis levels .
It didn ’ t .
After a tepid 15 % balance sheet retrenchment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turned tail and ran in the face of bitter attacks from the White House and unrelenting pressure from the bully boys and crybabies of Wall Street .
And now the last bit of sanity in the Eccles Building has vanished .
From a low of $ 3.76 trillion on August 28 , the Fed has already pumped $ 406 billion into the bond pits .
That represents a staggering $ 1.1 trillion annualized rate of balance sheet expansion .
That ’ s money printing on steroids .
It is also the great monetary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ruckus last September was the warning bell that the 30-year era of Bubble Finance was fixing to blow .
But the fools in the Eccles Building , blindly fixated on enforcing their interest rate pegs , effectively got out a gasoline hose and fueled what is now the blow-off top .
And that will pave the way for the Turbulent Twenties , and for the unfolding of all the baleful factors listed above .
There has rarely been such a fraught moment in American history .
During the Turbulent Twenties ahead we are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political/constitutional crisis and a thundering financial breakdown at the same time .
Indeed , this perfect storm will gravely impact the personal liberty and economic welfare of every American citizen—so you need to understand what ’ s coming down the pike and how it will impact Washington and Wall Street alike .
You also need to understand that there has been no Trump b0om , whatsoever—even if the Donald was right during the campaign .
That ’ s when he castigated Washington ’ s failed economic policies and labeled the faux prosperity of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that was fixing to implode on the American people .
Trumped !
A Nation on t ... David A. Stockman Best Price : $ 2.05 Buy New $ 9.50 Still , just because Donald Trump targeted the symptoms correctly that doesn ’ t mean he had a plan to fix the American economy or the skills and know-how to move the turgid , essentially paralyzed , machinery of the Federal government constructively forward .
In fact , the mainstream media has the whole story wrong .
The Donald is not remotely the force @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to seem by the Trump-obsessed journalists and talking heads .
To the contrary , he ’ s actually a political flyweight , megalomaniacal incompetent and bile-ridden bully who stumbled into the Oval Office against all odds ; and then lucked-out a second time by riding high on the final three-year crest of a deeply impaired and unsustainable economic recovery and monumental stock market bubble .
And here is where experience comes in .
Since starting in Washington as a legislative assistant in 1970 , we have seen every business cycle and President up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the Donald committed the most egregious rookie mistake in the history of the American presidency .
That is , he insouciantly embraced a financial bubble that was destined to crash and took ownership of a struggling , geriatric business cycle expansion that had “ recession ahead ” written all over its forehead .
After all , the Donald was sworn in during month # 90 of what was already the third longest business expansion in American history .
It is now month # 126 and it will be month # 138 when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s the thing .
We are already at a point never , ever reached before .
Even the tech boom of the 1990s—previously the longest ever cycle—ended in recession during month # 119 , and back then there were plenty of tailwinds to keep it going .
Those year 2000 tailwinds , of course , have now become ferocious 2020s headwinds .
Europe is rolling over into recession .
The Red Ponzi is floundering under its massive load of $ 40 trillion of debt and staggering malinvestments .
And the US economy is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and private debt and egregious Wall Street bubbles whose days are clearly numbered .
Moreover , recessions have not been outlawed by the economic gods and there are overwhelming odds that the next one will hit sometime soon as the 2020s unfold .
And when it does , Wall Street , the US economy and the Donald ’ s fantasy of MAGA will come tumbling down with it .
Accordingly , we think the Donald will mainly be remembered not as the restorer of MAGA nor as the statesman who rescued America from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ building for more than three decades .
Instead , the Donald is destined to be remembered as the Great Disrupter .
His lasting contribution will be that he rambunctiously discredited the handiwork of Imperial Washington .
And that will prove to be progress itself as the Turbulent Twenties unfold .
After all , it is the self-serving consensus of the bipartisan ruling class in favor of permanent war , unchained entitlements , fiscal incontinence , unsustainable debt-fueled household spending , rampant corporate financial engineering and Keynesian monetary repression and “ wealth effects ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ roots of our current economic malaise .
At the same time , it should be crystal clear by now that Trump has no real program to restore domestic prosperity and that he has actually made matters inestimably worse with his four misbegotten wars on the American economy .
We are referring to the above referenced Trade War on domestic consumers ; Border War on needed immigrant labor ; political war on the Fed when it was belatedly trying to normalize ; and what amounts to a war on the nation ’ s solvency @ @ @ @ @ @ @ additions to the soaring national debt .
As to the “ undrainable swamp ” , it should never be forgotten that its deep-end lies on the Pentagon side of the Potomac .
Yet the Donald has fed the military/industrial- surveillance complex like never before , thereby defeating his own stated goal .
That is , America ’ s desperately needed pivot to fiscal and national security sanity was stopped cold by Trump ’ s mindless $ 140 billion per year boost to an already vastly excessive and waste-ridden national defense budget .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blocked by a reckless economic and political war against Iran that will do exactly nothing to further the security and safety of the American homeland .
Needless to say , even if the Donald ’ s policies were better focused , his efforts to make MAGA never had a chance owing to the utterly groundless Russia-collusion investigation , the Mueller witch hunt and now the UkraineGate/Impeachment farce .
These political attacks are groundless , but nevertheless have functioned to disable Trump ’ s presidency .
In fact , the Donald ’ s fluke @ @ @ @ @ @ @ caused the Deep State to come out of hiding and bare its fangs against American democracy itself .
So doing , it has finally awakened the sleepwalkers of the Foxified Right about the immense dangers of the Warfare State and the sweeping surveillance and police state apparatus that has been created in the service of the neocons ’ misbegotten war on terrorism and quest for Empire .
Moreover , the terrifying capabilities , resources and ( purported ) credibility of the nation ’ s $ 75 billion per year intelligence community were literally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ CIA director , John Brennan .
It is now more than evident that they illegally pursued a plot to first forestall Trump ’ s election , and then to re-litigate the outcome and eviscerate his Presidency after the voters had spoken .
At the end of the day , however , the result will be a thoroughly paralyzed government in Washington .
As the 2020s unfold , therefore , the latter will prove to be utterly incapable of stopping the twin fiscal menace of the Warfare State and Welfare State—a monster that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taking the $ 2 trillion per year of uncontrolled entitlements off the table , Trump then added insult to injury via his unfunded $ 1.7 trillion tax cut and massive defense and domestic spending increases .
All told , the result will be a guaranteed $ 20 trillion explosion of the Federal debt ( on top of the existing $ 23 trillion ) over the coming decade .
Stated differently , crunch time is coming to the casino and that ’ s what is sure to bring the Donald down .
The stock @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 50 % correction ( 1600 on the S & P 500 ) , but also a long L-shaped bottom rather than a quick V-shaped rebound which occurred after 2009 .
So the combination of the mess he inherited and the compounding damage from his four misguided wars on the American economy add-up to a looming catastrophe .
To be sure , we do not know exactly when the brown stuff will hit the fan .
But we do know that Washington ’ s Empire abroad and phony prosperity at home are terminally failing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
We also know that whatever comes next , it won ’ t be MAGA .
Not by a long shot .
Indeed , once upon a time the prospect of $ 43 trillion of public debt—even a decade down the road— was literally unfathomable .
In fact , in one of our favorite remembrances from our White House days , we recall telling President Reagan in the photo below that America was on the verge of having a $ 1 trillion national debt .
That was in January 1981 , and at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mark was almost a nightmarish prospect .
But President Reagan was not intimidated .
He properly insisted that this looming Rubicon was emblematic of the mess he had inherited , and that under his watch the nation ’ s soaring public debt would finally be stopped cold .
Alas , it wasn ’ t .
By the time he left office , the national debt was pushing $ 3 trillion , and it was off to the races from there .
When Bill Clinton packed his bags to leave the White House the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ then soared to $ 10.7 trillion by the end of George W. Bush ’ s two terms , stood at $ 19.9 trillion when Obama moved on and has already passed $ 23.0 trillion on the Donald ’ s watch .
But here ’ s the thing .
President Trump is no Ronald Reagan .
If the Gipper couldn ’ t stop the Washington deficit and debt brigades , there is not a snowball ’ s chance in the hot place that the Donald will .
In truth , unlike all of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ added to the debt during their turn at the helm but at least gave lip service to the notion of fiscal rectitude , the Donald just flat-out doesn ’ t care and he ’ s taking the GOP with him into fiscal fantasy-land .
What this means is that America is now fast drifting toward the Debtberg .
It is only a matter of time before the impending collision shatters the faux prosperity and wanton complacency that prevails on both Wall Street and in Washington .
Still , it is not too late @ @ @ @ @ @ @ David Stockman

Periodically, we invite notable outside experts to share their insights exclusively for the Peak Prosperity audience. Today we’re fortunate to publish new perspective from David Stockman, former director of the OMB under President Reagan, former US Representative, best-selling author of The Great Deformation, and veteran financier. David understands the inner workings and fatal flaws of the DC political machine AND Wall Street better than nearly anyone else alive.
The coronavirus is now exposing a far more deadly disease: Namely, the poisonous brew of easy money, cheap debt, sweeping financialization and unbridled speculation that has been injected into the American economy by the Fed and Washington politicians.
It has turned Wall Street into a dangerous gambling casino while leaving Main Street buried under mountainous debts, faltering investment in growth and productivity and the hand-to-mouth economics of spending more than you earn.
It has also left the American economy exceedingly vulnerable to external shocks. That’s because 80% of households have no appreciable rainy day funds and businesses have hollowed out their balance sheets and artificially extended their supply chains to the four corners of the earth in order to goose short-run profits and share prices.
However, this unprecedented fragility is becoming evident as public health authorities around the world aggressively move to contain the Covid-19 contagion. This will mean separating workers from their workplaces, consumers from the malls, diners from the restaurants, travelers from the airlines, hotels and resorts and much more like and similar disruptions to the supply-side of the economy. The Great Deformation:... David A. Stockman Best Price: $2.00 Buy New $9.95 (as of 09:55 UTC - Details)
In short, the world’s supply chains are buckling and freezing-up, thereby causing production and incomes to fall abruptly. In turn, shrunken incomes and cash flows will pull the legs out from under the edifice of debt and speculation that has been piled atop the American economy.
So both a renewed financial and economic crisis and an abrupt change of course lie dead ahead. The 30-year era of False Prosperity is over.
Accordingly, the Turbulent Twenties have begun. This will be a decade when the chickens come home to roost. It will be a time when the cans of delay and denial may no longer be kicked down the road to tomorrow.
To the contrary, the 2020s will mark an era when today’s economic and political fantasies are crushed by America’s accumulated due bills.
Bubbles will be burst. Speculators will get carried out on their shields. Easy money wealth will evaporate. Fiscal trauma will ensue. The national joy ride will end.
The decade of reckoning that lies ahead is rooted first and foremost in the fecklessly incurred mega-debts of the private and public sectors alike. Together they have soared to the staggering sum of $75 trillion.
That’s 5X more than the $14 trillion outstanding three decades ago.
Yet the proceeds from these massive borrowings were not used to invest and provide for tomorrow, but to live high on the hog today. After three decades of such artificial debt-fueled “prosperity”, the very warp and woof of American society has been deformed.
For example, eighty percent of U.S. households live essentially hand-to-mouth. But that’s not because they are naturally imprudent; it’s because they have been incentivized to borrow and spend, while being punished for saving and setting aside for life’s unforeseen contingencies and setbacks.
Likewise, the C-suites of corporate America have been rewarded for strip-mining their balance sheets and cash flows in order to pump money into Wall Street for stock buybacks and M&A.
But this has caused investment in productive plant, equipment, technology and human resources to be shortchanged. Consequently, the growth capacity of the main street economy has been progressively eviscerated.
And most especially, the public sector has been fiscally ruined.
During the 32-years since Alan Greenspan launched the present era of reckless and relentless monetization of the public debt in 1987, there have been only four balanced budgets sandwiched between 28 years of sheer fiscal promiscuity.
That has already taken the Federal debt from $3 trillion to $23 trillion, and it’s now heading, inexorably, toward $43 trillion by the end of the 2020s. The public debt-to-GDP ratio will then reach a Greek-style 150%.
Worse still, the nation’s political system studiously ignores this obvious fiscal malignancy. That’s because the Fed and other central banks have removed the sting of rising interest rates and the “crowding out” of private investment.
So politicians have succumbed to the latest version of free lunch economics.
This has permitted, in turn, national governance to degenerate into bitter partisan warfare that has festered so long that it now threatens the very future of constitutional government.
Rather than facing tough policy choices, the Dems have retreated into identity politics and sanctimonious racialist moralizing. They’ve abandoned virtuous pursuit of the public good for cheap virtue signaling to their base.
Likewise, the GOP has prioritized building border walls and keeping people out of America’s historic melting pot on the fear they might not vote Republican. But in feeding red meat to their political base, they’ve abandoned the GOP’s real job—functioning as watchdog of the treasury and guardian of sound money.
Beyond the water’s edge, the bipartisan duopoly has immersed itself in the projects of Empire and pretensions to being the world’s indispensable nation and global gendarme. So doing, it has actually undermined homeland security while saddling the nation with trillions of debt to fund Forever Wars that are illegal, immoral and pointless.
These perversions of governance ultimately resulted in the freakish 2016 election in which the GOP accidentally nominated a bombastic outsider—a Great Disrupter who had not been house-trained by the Washington establishment.
Yet the very prospect of a Trump presidency caused the incumbent Dems to baldly and illegally deploy the surveillance tools of the national security apparatus to detour his candidacy. And then to attempt to abort his presidency via the RussiaGate and UkraineGate/Impeachment hoaxes once the voters had spoken.
At the same time, even as the Donald has brashly and pugnaciously fought the unconstitutional coup against his presidency, he, too, has gone about the business of filling the Swamp even deeper, rather than draining it as he promised on the campaign trail.
In fact, the Federal Leviathan—including its national security branch—has never been bigger, fatter and more wasteful than under Trump.
The Donald has increased Federal spending in constant dollars (2019 $) by $180 billion per year during his term to date. That compares to $120 billion per year under George Bush the Younger, $80 billion under Obama and $40 billion per year under Clinton.
So there isn’t anything which resembles MAGA coming down the pike during the 2020s and beyond. Trump has only made the inherited trend of soaring debts and diminishing growth measurably worse with his four-pronged assault on sound economics.
Trade Wars. Border Wars. Fiscal Debauchery. Easy Money attacks on the Fed.
These are not the route to MAGA. They are the path to bigger government in Washington, dangerous bubbles on Wall Street and diminished prosperity, opportunity and liberty on Main Street.
Accordingly, it is now way too late for a stick save from either political party or any state institution bivouacked in the Imperial City. And that especially includes the madcap money printers at the Federal Reserve.
The fact is, the engines of free market capitalism have been corroded and paralyzed by three decades of bad money and bad policy.
What has passed for “recovery” since the Great Recession has been only a temporary debt-fostered reprieve. Likewise, the soaring stock market reflects the greatest monetary deformation in history, not the rational discounting of a beneficent future.
Accordingly, ten malefic trends will dominate national life during the long night of reckoning which lies ahead.
The spectacular failure of Keynesian central banking; A prolonged, painful reversal of the three-decade long hyper-inflation of financial asset prices that has resulted in the Everything Bubble; The violent implosion of America’s fiscal accounts; An intensified central bank war on savers, fixed income retirees and holders of cash; Peak Debt-induced suffocation of domestic economic growth; Ferocious global economic headwinds arising from the demise of the Red Ponzi; An outbreak of unprecedented partisan acrimony rendering Washington completely dysfunctional and imperiling America’s very constitutional foundation; The lapse of Imperial Washington into belligerence, retreat and failure all around the planet; The Baby Boom retirement tsunami, which will cause entitlement spending to soar and generational conflict to erupt like never before; and A virulent outbreak of class warfare and redistributionist political conflict unprecedented in American history owing to a stagnating economic pie.
Moreover, there is a powerful reason to keep abreast of these Turbulent Ten trends.
To wit, these baleful developments are not just possibilities. They are well nigh certainties!
And they are ultimately rooted in a common cause.
Namely, the three decade long explosion of debt, speculation and financialization that was initiated in October 1987 when Alan Greenspan bailed out Wall Street gamblers and launched what has become a toxic worldwide regime of Keynesian central banking. Peak Trump: The Undrai... David A. Stockman Buy New $21.99 (as of 01:57 UTC - Details)
Consequently, America’s current $74 trillion mountain of public and private debt has become contagious.
On a worldwide basis, total debt outstanding now totals $255 trillion or a staggering 3X global GDP of $85 trillion. It now constitutes the greatest barrier to continued growth, prosperity and financial stability in all of economic history.
Even more crucially, these brobdingnagian figures did not materialize during the last three decades because everyday people suddenly lost their senses and became addicted to unsustainable levels of debt, leverage and financial speculation.
To the contrary, the people here and abroad were misled, induced and baited into burying themselves under crushing debts by agents of the state—especially its central banking branch.
The tools of deceit were falsified interest rates, artificially inflated asset prices and a hoary theory that debt-fueled “stimulus” injections by the state can create a permanent increase in economic growth and societal wealth.
No they can’t!
These mountains of debt can temporarily goose GDP, of course, because GDP accounting is inherently incomplete: It views the economy as simply a matter of sequential flows—quarter after quarter, year upon year– without regard to balance sheets and the accumulated carry cost of debt over time.
Moreover, this Keynesian blindness to balance sheets and their systematic impairment has gotten far more consequential since Greenspan launched a wholly new form of monetary central planning in October 1987.
Under the latter, the price of debt has been deeply and systematically falsified by the central banks, thereby providing a powerful artificial incentive to borrow and a misleading signal to debtors about its longer-run implications.
Balance sheets have been deeply impaired for households and governments especially because they do not borrow in order to acquire productive assets capable of defraying the accumulating cost of carry. Instead, all the added debt went into living high on the hog today.
Nor has the private business sector escaped the damage caused by deep repression of interest rates. That’s because the cost of benchmark debt (i.e. the 10-year U.S. treasury note) is really the master “cap rate” or valuation multiple for the entire financial system.
Artificial and sustained repression of cap rates, therefore, results in proportionately higher asset prices and increased price/earnings multiples—meaning that cheaper debt and richer share prices are one of the most toxic consequences of Keynesian central banking.
It provides powerful incentives to the corporate C-suites to borrow at sub-economic costs and use the proceeds to fund stock buybacks, thereby increasing per share earnings and goosing the value of top executives’ own ample stock options.
Likewise, cheap debt causes a huge distortion in the M&A market. Acquisitions are made to look “accretive” not because the make business sense or because there are true, sustainable synergies, but because they carry cost of purchase debt is so low.
Needless to say, these forms of financial engineering redistribute financial wealth to the top 1% and 10% of households. The latter own 40% and 85% of the stock, respectively, and they have gained mightily since Greenspan initiated the present era of Keynesian central banking in the late 1980s.
At the end of the day, the relentless and ever deepening financial repression—especially during the decade since the financial crisis— has generated precious little gain in national output and jobs beyond what capitalism does on its own.
For example, manufacturing production is still 2% below pre-crisis levels of November 2007. And total industrial production has crept just 4% higher over 12 years.
Moreover, even the huge one-time inflation of financial asset prices on Wall Street didn’t embody sustainable real wealth because it was primarily based on multiple expansion, not earnings growth.
Exactly 31-years ago in early 1989, for instance, the S&P 500 index stood at 295 where it represented 12X earnings of $25 per share.
At the same PE multiple today, the index would weigh in at just 1600 or less than half of the 3240 level where it ended 2019.
Stated differently, 56% of the S&P 500 gain since 1989 is owing to PE multiple expansion, not earnings growth, and it materialized during a three decade interlude when the long-term growth capacity of the US economy was being ground to the vanishing point.
That is, PE multiples should have been falling, not soaring to the nosebleed section of history.
Indeed, this “bad money” regime of the Keynesian central bankers has now finally taken itself hostage.
The central bankers have fostered such massive and egregious bubbles that they are literally terrified by the prospect of another stock market meltdown like those of 2000-2002 and 2008-2009.
In turn, the latter would bring a renewed bout of desperate restructurings, layoffs and asset liquidations in the C-suites and a new round of recession on main street.
So the Fed has simply launched a Hail Mary which is so transparent and incendiary that it will surely catalyze the final blow-off top early in the 2020s.
After it had distorted, falsified and inflated financial asset prices beyond all recognition—the Fed dithered and delayed shrinking its balance sheet, thereby putting the lie to Bernanke’s solemn pledge that after the unusual and exigent conditions of the financial crisis had passed they would reduce the Fed’s massive trove of Treasury and GSE debt to pre-crisis levels.
It didn’t. After a tepid 15% balance sheet retrenchment through August 2019, the Fed actually turned tail and ran in the face of bitter attacks from the White House and unrelenting pressure from the bully boys and crybabies of Wall Street.
And now the last bit of sanity in the Eccles Building has vanished. From a low of $3.76 trillion on August 28, the Fed has already pumped $406 billion into the bond pits. That represents a staggering $1.1 trillion annualized rate of balance sheet expansion.
That’s money printing on steroids. It is also the great monetary match. Stated differently, the repo ruckus last September was the warning bell that the 30-year era of Bubble Finance was fixing to blow.
But the fools in the Eccles Building, blindly fixated on enforcing their interest rate pegs, effectively got out a gasoline hose and fueled what is now the blow-off top.
And that will pave the way for the Turbulent Twenties, and for the unfolding of all the baleful factors listed above.
There has rarely been such a fraught moment in American history.
During the Turbulent Twenties ahead we are heading for the double whammy of a political/constitutional crisis and a thundering financial breakdown at the same time.
Indeed, this perfect storm will gravely impact the personal liberty and economic welfare of every American citizen—so you need to understand what’s coming down the pike and how it will impact Washington and Wall Street alike.
You also need to understand that there has been no Trump boom, whatsoever—even if the Donald was right during the campaign. That’s when he castigated Washington’s failed economic policies and labeled the faux prosperity of 2016 as a big fat ugly bubble that was fixing to implode on the American people. Trumped! A Nation on t... David A. Stockman Best Price: $2.05 Buy New $9.50 (as of 06:30 UTC - Details)
Still, just because Donald Trump targeted the symptoms correctly that doesn’t mean he had a plan to fix the American economy or the skills and know-how to move the turgid, essentially paralyzed, machinery of the Federal government constructively forward.
In fact, the mainstream media has the whole story wrong. The Donald is not remotely the force of nature he’s been made to seem by the Trump-obsessed journalists and talking heads.
To the contrary, he’s actually a political flyweight, megalomaniacal incompetent and bile-ridden bully who stumbled into the Oval Office against all odds; and then lucked-out a second time by riding high on the final three-year crest of a deeply impaired and unsustainable economic recovery and monumental stock market bubble.
And here is where experience comes in. Since starting in Washington as a legislative assistant in 1970, we have seen every business cycle and President up close and personal.
So we know that the Donald committed the most egregious rookie mistake in the history of the American presidency.
That is, he insouciantly embraced a financial bubble that was destined to crash and took ownership of a struggling, geriatric business cycle expansion that had “recession ahead” written all over its forehead.
After all, the Donald was sworn in during month #90 of what was already the third longest business expansion in American history. It is now month #126 and it will be month #138 when his first term ends.
Here’s the thing. We are already at a point never, ever reached before.
Even the tech boom of the 1990s—previously the longest ever cycle—ended in recession during month #119, and back then there were plenty of tailwinds to keep it going.
Those year 2000 tailwinds, of course, have now become ferocious 2020s headwinds.
Europe is rolling over into recession. The Red Ponzi is floundering under its massive load of $40 trillion of debt and staggering malinvestments.
And the US economy is imperiled by $74 trillion of public and private debt and egregious Wall Street bubbles whose days are clearly numbered.
Moreover, recessions have not been outlawed by the economic gods and there are overwhelming odds that the next one will hit sometime soon as the 2020s unfold.
And when it does, Wall Street, the US economy and the Donald’s fantasy of MAGA will come tumbling down with it.
Accordingly, we think the Donald will mainly be remembered not as the restorer of MAGA nor as the statesman who rescued America from a day of reckoning that has been building for more than three decades.
Instead, the Donald is destined to be remembered as the Great Disrupter. His lasting contribution will be that he rambunctiously discredited the handiwork of Imperial Washington.
And that will prove to be progress itself as the Turbulent Twenties unfold.
After all, it is the self-serving consensus of the bipartisan ruling class in favor of permanent war, unchained entitlements, fiscal incontinence, unsustainable debt-fueled household spending, rampant corporate financial engineering and Keynesian monetary repression and “wealth effects” based central banking that lies at the roots of our current economic malaise.
At the same time, it should be crystal clear by now that Trump has no real program to restore domestic prosperity and that he has actually made matters inestimably worse with his four misbegotten wars on the American economy.
We are referring to the above referenced Trade War on domestic consumers; Border War on needed immigrant labor; political war on the Fed when it was belatedly trying to normalize; and what amounts to a war on the nation’s solvency embedded in the Donald’s runaway additions to the soaring national debt.
As to the “undrainable swamp”, it should never be forgotten that its deep-end lies on the Pentagon side of the Potomac. Yet the Donald has fed the military/industrial- surveillance complex like never before, thereby defeating his own stated goal.
That is, America’s desperately needed pivot to fiscal and national security sanity was stopped cold by Trump’s mindless $140 billion per year boost to an already vastly excessive and waste-ridden national defense budget.
And now that crucial pivot has been further blocked by a reckless economic and political war against Iran that will do exactly nothing to further the security and safety of the American homeland.
Needless to say, even if the Donald’s policies were better focused, his efforts to make MAGA never had a chance owing to the utterly groundless Russia-collusion investigation, the Mueller witch hunt and now the UkraineGate/Impeachment farce.
These political attacks are groundless, but nevertheless have functioned to disable Trump’s presidency.
In fact, the Donald’s fluke elevation to the Oval Office has finally caused the Deep State to come out of hiding and bare its fangs against American democracy itself.
So doing, it has finally awakened the sleepwalkers of the Foxified Right about the immense dangers of the Warfare State and the sweeping surveillance and police state apparatus that has been created in the service of the neocons’ misbegotten war on terrorism and quest for Empire.
Moreover, the terrifying capabilities, resources and (purported) credibility of the nation’s $75 billion per year intelligence community were literally hijacked by Obama officials led by then CIA director, John Brennan.
It is now more than evident that they illegally pursued a plot to first forestall Trump’s election, and then to re-litigate the outcome and eviscerate his Presidency after the voters had spoken.
At the end of the day, however, the result will be a thoroughly paralyzed government in Washington.
As the 2020s unfold, therefore, the latter will prove to be utterly incapable of stopping the twin fiscal menace of the Warfare State and Welfare State—a monster that the Donald has made immeasurably worse.
After taking the $2 trillion per year of uncontrolled entitlements off the table, Trump then added insult to injury via his unfunded $1.7 trillion tax cut and massive defense and domestic spending increases.
All told, the result will be a guaranteed $20 trillion explosion of the Federal debt (on top of the existing $23 trillion) over the coming decade.
Stated differently, crunch time is coming to the casino and that’s what is sure to bring the Donald down.
The stock market is heading not only for another 50% correction (1600 on the S&P 500), but also a long L-shaped bottom rather than a quick V-shaped rebound which occurred after 2009.
So the combination of the mess he inherited and the compounding damage from his four misguided wars on the American economy add-up to a looming catastrophe.
To be sure, we do not know exactly when the brown stuff will hit the fan. But we do know that Washington’s Empire abroad and phony prosperity at home are terminally failing and that the sell-by date draws near.
We also know that whatever comes next, it won’t be MAGA. Not by a long shot.
Indeed, once upon a time the prospect of $43 trillion of public debt—even a decade down the road— was literally unfathomable.
In fact, in one of our favorite remembrances from our White House days, we recall telling President Reagan in the photo below that America was on the verge of having a $1 trillion national debt.
That was in January 1981, and at the time crossing the $1 trillion mark was almost a nightmarish prospect.
But President Reagan was not intimidated. He properly insisted that this looming Rubicon was emblematic of the mess he had inherited, and that under his watch the nation’s soaring public debt would finally be stopped cold.
Alas, it wasn’t. By the time he left office, the national debt was pushing $3 trillion, and it was off to the races from there.
When Bill Clinton packed his bags to leave the White House the public debt was $5.7 trillion, then soared to $10.7 trillion by the end of George W. Bush’s two terms, stood at $19.9 trillion when Obama moved on and has already passed $23.0 trillion on the Donald’s watch.
But here’s the thing. President Trump is no Ronald Reagan. If the Gipper couldn’t stop the Washington deficit and debt brigades, there is not a snowball’s chance in the hot place that the Donald will.
In truth, unlike all of the Gipper’s successors, who relentlessly added to the debt during their turn at the helm but at least gave lip service to the notion of fiscal rectitude, the Donald just flat-out doesn’t care and he’s taking the GOP with him into fiscal fantasy-land.
What this means is that America is now fast drifting toward the Debtberg. It is only a matter of time before the impending collision shatters the faux prosperity and wanton complacency that prevails on both Wall Street and in Washington.
Still, it is not too late to get prepared.
Reprinted with permission from Peak Prosperity.
The Best of David Stockman


lewrockwell--2020-03-06--No, Bernie Is Not A ‘Self-Hating Jew’

No, Bernie Is Not A ‘Self-Hating Jew’

These days , I ’ m feeling sorry for Bernie Sanders .
He seems to have incurred the displeasure of just about every establishment in this country .
Although I don ’ t agree with his economic policies or his readiness to take over the intersectional politics of other Democratic presidential candidates ( Bernie used to be quite good on the need for immigration restrictions ) , I can certainly respect him for his enemies .
Whatever my differences with him , Bernie showed guts when he turned down an invitation from AIPAC , an organization that has ruined critics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The trashing of Sanders by AIPAC groupies as a “ self-hating Jew ” bring to mind the old saying “ Tanti nemici tante honore [ So many enemies , so much honor ] .
” When the annual AIPAC gathering assembled in Washington on March 1 , the politicians who were present , led by Mike Pence and Mike Bloomberg , took turns firing away at the missing Democratic candidate .
It seems that Bernie had betrayed the party of Harry Truman , the Democratic president who in 1948 first recognized the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ longtime bipartisan support for Israel , which AIPAC leaders repeatedly affirmed as integral to our national political life .
In a group statement , we also learn : “ Senator Sanders has never attended our conference , and that is evident from his outrageous comment.
” Further : “ Senator Sanders is insulting his very own colleagues and the millions of Americans who stand with Israel .
Truly shameful.
” Against the Left : A Ro ... Llewellyn H Rockwell Jr Best Price : $ 13.57 Buy New $ 8.00 Allow me to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a candidate for president from one of our two national parties feel obliged to attend a lobbying organization representing the French or Italian government ?
And have our politicians devoted the same concern to Christians who are at risk in Muslim countries as they have to the Israeli lobby ?
Why do our “ conservative ” Republicans worry less ( or so it would seem ) about endangered Christian communities in China and the Middle East than they do about Israeli geopolitical interests ?
Equally noteworthy : in August , House Minority Leader @ @ @ @ @ @ @ News that the “ Democrats are moving away from Israel due to the influence of the ‘ new socialists.
’ ” Even allowing for McCarthy ’ s crocodile tears and the childish outbursts over the “ new socialist group , ” one might want to ask why a prominent Republican leader is emphasizing Democratic defections from the AIPAC camp .
Might it have to do with holding on to his party ’ s Zionist donors while getting the same from the Democratic side ?
Jamie Kirchick , a veteran Sanders despiser and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ why “ America ’ s first serious Jewish presidential candidate garners only a tiny fraction of support from Jewish Dems.
” Kirchick ’ s explanation is that Jewish Democrats have always “ abhorred men like Sanders ” who have sought “ to erase distinctions between democrats and totalitarians on the left.
” Sanders emerges “ from an entirely different political lineage , that of anti-anti-communism , ” he continues .
The Best of Paul Gottfried

These days, I’m feeling sorry for Bernie Sanders. He seems to have incurred the displeasure of just about every establishment in this country.
Although I don’t agree with his economic policies or his readiness to take over the intersectional politics of other Democratic presidential candidates (Bernie used to be quite good on the need for immigration restrictions), I can certainly respect him for his enemies. Whatever my differences with him, Bernie showed guts when he turned down an invitation from AIPAC, an organization that has ruined critics for disagreeing with their Middle East policies. The trashing of Sanders by AIPAC groupies as a “self-hating Jew” bring to mind the old saying “Tanti nemici tante honore [So many enemies, so much honor].”
When the annual AIPAC gathering assembled in Washington on March 1, the politicians who were present, led by Mike Pence and Mike Bloomberg, took turns firing away at the missing Democratic candidate. It seems that Bernie had betrayed the party of Harry Truman, the Democratic president who in 1948 first recognized the Jewish state. He was also threatening longtime bipartisan support for Israel, which AIPAC leaders repeatedly affirmed as integral to our national political life. In a group statement, we also learn: “Senator Sanders has never attended our conference, and that is evident from his outrageous comment.” Further: “Senator Sanders is insulting his very own colleagues and the millions of Americans who stand with Israel. Truly shameful.” Against the Left: A Ro... Rockwell Jr, Llewellyn H Best Price: $2.85 Buy New $8.00 (as of 07:59 UTC - Details)
Allow me to raise some obviously rhetorical questions: would a candidate for president from one of our two national parties feel obliged to attend a lobbying organization representing the French or Italian government? And have our politicians devoted the same concern to Christians who are at risk in Muslim countries as they have to the Israeli lobby? Why do our “conservative” Republicans worry less (or so it would seem) about endangered Christian communities in China and the Middle East than they do about Israeli geopolitical interests?
Equally noteworthy: in August, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy expressed apparent concern on Fox News that the “Democrats are moving away from Israel due to the influence of the ‘new socialists.’” Even allowing for McCarthy’s crocodile tears and the childish outbursts over the “new socialist group,” one might want to ask why a prominent Republican leader is emphasizing Democratic defections from the AIPAC camp. Might it have to do with holding on to his party’s Zionist donors while getting the same from the Democratic side?
Jamie Kirchick, a veteran Sanders despiser and a reliable neocon publicist, writes inTablet about why “America’s first serious Jewish presidential candidate garners only a tiny fraction of support from Jewish Dems.” Kirchick’s explanation is that Jewish Democrats have always “abhorred men like Sanders” who have sought “to erase distinctions between democrats and totalitarians on the left.” Sanders emerges “from an entirely different political lineage, that of anti-anti-communism,” he continues.
Read the Whole Article
The Best of Paul Gottfried


lewrockwell--2020-03-06--Quincy Conference: A ‘Seat at the Table’…or a Kick in the Teeth?

I hesitate to write this , as I am a fan of the Libertarian Institute .
But one of their recent articles has me scratching my head .
And though I have never named them before in a critical piece , I notice that one of my articles is linked in their article so I believe I should set the record straight because the topic is so critically important to our movement .
The article in question , “ The Quincy Institute : Off to a Decent Start , ” heaps praise on the Koch/Soros collaboration for its first conference @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Vision for America in the World.
” From the first sentence of the Libertarian Institute article it is clear there is something very wrong with the piece .
It begins , “ Non-interventionists are not used to having a seat at the power table.
” The implication is clear : with this conference non-interventionists have finally been given their “ seat at the power table.
” But nothing could be further from the truth .
Out of 22 speakers there was not a single non-interventionist in the line-up .
So , even though @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were still no seats for non-interventionists .
Not .
One .
Seat .
And we are supposed to cheer ?
The Revolution : A Mani ... Ron Paul Best Price : $ 1.99 Buy New $ 6.99 Unfortunately , the piece was littered with some assertions that frankly are hard to explain .
For example , the author , in responding to criticism over the speaker line up ( where he links to my article on the topic ) , explains the abysmal selection of speakers by claiming , “ The event was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Institute and Foreign Policy… ” ( emphasis added ) .
But that is simply not true .
Nowhere in the promotional materials on either the Foreign Policy or Quincy website was this conference billed as a debate between Quincy and Foreign Policy magazine , with one favoring “ restraint ” and the other pushing the status quo .
It was billed as a jointly hosted “ leadership forum on the future of US foreign policy and national security.
” The whole “ this was a debate between FP and Quincy ” is revisionism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ choice to feature the unreconstructed epitome of the “ old vision ” – David Petraeus – as the lead speaker facing no scrutiny or opposition .
As if Quincy had no power to reject the inclusion of Petraeus in its own conference .
Further attempting to exculpate the Quincy Institute for any responsibility over the line-up , the author writes , “ Quincy was discernably the junior partner in the conversation.
” Based on what evidence ?
Presumably being backed by moneybags Koch and Soros , the Quincy Institute picked up the lion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the event .
How does that make one a “ junior partner ” ?
More accurately it would suggest they are either grossly incompetent or in on the scam .
And while we ’ re at it , if you are seeking to launch a “ new vision ” for US foreign policy , why partner with a magazine that endorsed the bloodthirsty warmonger Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 ?
Though it has received less scrutiny , it is worth mentioning that the other major backer for this event was the Pivotal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ organization , it is among the single largest financial backers of…the McCain Institute !
Yes…that McCain .
So we have an event funded by two huge backers of the warmongering Atlantic Council ( Koch and Soros ) and a major funder of the neoconservative McCain Institute .
We have as “ senior partner ” in the conference a publication that endorsed for president the instigator of the murderous Libya invasion and the author of the plan to arm jihadists in Syria .
It is a conference that features not a single non-interventionist on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supposed to jump up and cheer because we finally have a place at the table ?
Are we really that desperate for a pat on the head from the Beltway bombardiers and their think tanks ?
The author does not go into the actual presentations at the conference beyond the Petraeus debacle , but it isn ’ t difficult to see that even the “ best ” speakers are , at best , self-described “ realists.
” On the panel ostensibly to demonstrate that “ left wing ” Members of Congress are getting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to push non-interventionism we are treated to the display of BOTH Members of Congress agreeing that Venezuela ’ s president was a monster who had to go !
That ’ s the real bipartisanship in Washington .
The Republican , Arizona ’ s Andy Biggs , made the absurd and laughable claim that Juan Guaido was “ rightfully elected ” president of Venezuela and therefore it is legitimate for the US to install him in office .
Though he didn ’ t say “ Guaido ” because he clearly did not even know @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as we know , Guaido never even ran for president in Venezuela – he was named president by Mike Pence !
Biggs then further shows his utter ignorance of a country where he seeks US regime change by stating , “ I view Maduro as the legitimate leader ” before being corrected by a member of the audience and , clearly embarrassed , laughing it off .
This is the best argument for non-intervention : the people “ in charge ” have no idea what they are dealing with ( and the people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dealing with ) .
Realists are not strategic allies of non-interventionists .
There may be some tactical alliances on specific issues where there is the joint intent of sucking the oxygen out of the room on a particular intervention , but we should not forget that “ realists ” believe strongly in US government interventionism overseas .
They only quibble with the neocons over the criteria .
If it ’ s “ in the national interest ” they are all for it .
But who gets to determine the “ national interest ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And as ever check their funders to determine their interpretation of the national interest .
Swords Into Plowshares ... Paul , Ron Best Price : $ 4.00 Buy New $ 15.99 The neocons are Trotskyites determined to use force to remake the entire world in their image .
Realists are for the use of force to affect outcomes determined by the masters of the Grand Chessboard .
To paraphrase Michael Malice , realism is just neoconservatism driving the speed limit .
The purpose of the Quincy conference was not to promote non-interventionism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to speak .
Worse , actual non-interventionists were not welcome even in the audience .
Genuine antiwar activist and intellectual Ray McGovern was denied entry to the event because presumably they could not bear having anyone with a history of challenging “ King David ” Petraeus on his murderous record .
The purpose was , as I said in my original piece , to serve up the old wine of a disastrous foreign policy in the new bottles of “ restraint ” and other meaningless wooden language phrases .
One speaker even expressed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war “ war ” because it implied that there should be an end to the use of US military force overseas !
So this conference was “ a good start ” for non-interventionists ?
What ’ s their next act…a keynote from Bill Kristol ?
As Ron Paul has always said , this is at its core a philosophical question .
It is not about compromising one ’ s values or principles .
We must stand strong against US government interventionism overseas .
Full stop .
Anything less and we are , like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the continuation of Wasington ’ s disastrous and anti-American foreign policy .
The Best of Daniel McAdams

I hesitate to write this, as I am a fan of the Libertarian Institute. But one of their recent articles has me scratching my head. And though I have never named them before in a critical piece, I notice that one of my articles is linked in their article so I believe I should set the record straight because the topic is so critically important to our movement.
The article in question, “The Quincy Institute: Off to a Decent Start,” heaps praise on the Koch/Soros collaboration for its first conference, inaccurately titled, “A New Vision for America in the World.”
From the first sentence of the Libertarian Institute article it is clear there is something very wrong with the piece.
It begins, “Non-interventionists are not used to having a seat at the power table.” The implication is clear: with this conference non-interventionists have finally been given their “seat at the power table.” But nothing could be further from the truth. Out of 22 speakers there was not a single non-interventionist in the line-up. So, even though the table was absurdly large, there were still no seats for non-interventionists. Not. One. Seat.
And we are supposed to cheer?
The Revolution: A Mani... Ron Paul Best Price: $1.99 Buy New $6.99 (as of 11:00 UTC - Details) Unfortunately, the piece was littered with some assertions that frankly are hard to explain. For example, the author, in responding to criticism over the speaker line up (where he links to my article on the topic), explains the abysmal selection of speakers by claiming, “The event was pitched as a forum between the Quincy Institute and Foreign Policy…” (emphasis added).
But that is simply not true. Nowhere in the promotional materials on either the Foreign Policy or Quincy website was this conference billed as a debate between Quincy and Foreign Policy magazine, with one favoring “restraint” and the other pushing the status quo. It was billed as a jointly hosted “leadership forum on the future of US foreign policy and national security.”
The whole “this was a debate between FP and Quincy” is revisionism in response to the outcry over the choice to feature the unreconstructed epitome of the “old vision” – David Petraeus – as the lead speaker facing no scrutiny or opposition. As if Quincy had no power to reject the inclusion of Petraeus in its own conference.
Further attempting to exculpate the Quincy Institute for any responsibility over the line-up, the author writes, “Quincy was discernably the junior partner in the conversation.”
Based on what evidence? Presumably being backed by moneybags Koch and Soros, the Quincy Institute picked up the lion’s share of the tab for the event. How does that make one a “junior partner”? More accurately it would suggest they are either grossly incompetent or in on the scam.
And while we’re at it, if you are seeking to launch a “new vision” for US foreign policy, why partner with a magazine that endorsed the bloodthirsty warmonger Hillary Clinton for president in 2016?
Don’t like Trump? Fine. Don’t endorse anyone.
Though it has received less scrutiny, it is worth mentioning that the other major backer for this event was the Pivotal Foundation. For those unfamiliar with that organization, it is among the single largest financial backers of…the McCain Institute! Yes…that McCain.
So we have an event funded by two huge backers of the warmongering Atlantic Council (Koch and Soros) and a major funder of the neoconservative McCain Institute. We have as “senior partner” in the conference a publication that endorsed for president the instigator of the murderous Libya invasion and the author of the plan to arm jihadists in Syria. It is a conference that features not a single non-interventionist on a single panel. Yet we are supposed to jump up and cheer because we finally have a place at the table?
Are we really that desperate for a pat on the head from the Beltway bombardiers and their think tanks?
The author does not go into the actual presentations at the conference beyond the Petraeus debacle, but it isn’t difficult to see that even the “best” speakers are, at best, self-described “realists.”
On the panel ostensibly to demonstrate that “left wing” Members of Congress are getting together with “right wing” Members to push non-interventionism we are treated to the display of BOTH Members of Congress agreeing that Venezuela’s president was a monster who had to go! That’s the real bipartisanship in Washington.
The Republican, Arizona’s Andy Biggs, made the absurd and laughable claim that Juan Guaido was “rightfully elected” president of Venezuela and therefore it is legitimate for the US to install him in office. Though he didn’t say “Guaido” because he clearly did not even know they guy’s name. And as we know, Guaido never even ran for president in Venezuela – he was named president by Mike Pence!
Biggs then further shows his utter ignorance of a country where he seeks US regime change by stating, “I view Maduro as the legitimate leader” before being corrected by a member of the audience and, clearly embarrassed, laughing it off.
This is the best argument for non-intervention: the people “in charge” have no idea what they are dealing with (and the people under them know exactly what they are dealing with).
Realists are not strategic allies of non-interventionists. There may be some tactical alliances on specific issues where there is the joint intent of sucking the oxygen out of the room on a particular intervention, but we should not forget that “realists” believe strongly in US government interventionism overseas. They only quibble with the neocons over the criteria. If it’s “in the national interest” they are all for it. But who gets to determine the “national interest”? Well they do, of course. And as ever check their funders to determine their interpretation of the national interest. Swords Into Plowshares... Paul, Ron Best Price: $4.00 Buy New $15.99 (as of 11:36 UTC - Details)
The neocons are Trotskyites determined to use force to remake the entire world in their image. Realists are for the use of force to affect outcomes determined by the masters of the Grand Chessboard.
To paraphrase Michael Malice, realism is just neoconservatism driving the speed limit.
The purpose of the Quincy conference was not to promote non-interventionism. Not a single non-interventionist was allowed to speak. Worse, actual non-interventionists were not welcome even in the audience. Genuine antiwar activist and intellectual Ray McGovern was denied entry to the event because presumably they could not bear having anyone with a history of challenging “King David” Petraeus on his murderous record.
The purpose was, as I said in my original piece, to serve up the old wine of a disastrous foreign policy in the new bottles of “restraint” and other meaningless wooden language phrases. One speaker even expressed the view that we should stop calling war “war” because it implied that there should be an end to the use of US military force overseas!
So this conference was “a good start” for non-interventionists? What’s their next act…a keynote from Bill Kristol?
As Ron Paul has always said, this is at its core a philosophical question. It is not about compromising one’s values or principles. We must stand strong against US government interventionism overseas. Full stop. Anything less and we are, like the Quincy Institute, merely providing cover for the continuation of Wasington’s disastrous and anti-American foreign policy.
The Best of Daniel McAdams


lewrockwell--2020-03-06--Erdogan or Erdo-gone in Turkey?

Erdogan or Erdo-gone in Turkey?

It looks like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is headed for the political gallows a lot quicker than I ever thought .
His offensive in Idlib has bogged down .
And a day before he ’ s scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow Erdogan Turkish parliament degrades quickly as opposition speaks out against his Syria campaign .
Now , apparently fistfights in Turkish parliament aren ’ t that uncommon since one took place back in 2016 over the controversial changes to the constitution Erdogan rammed through back then .
It ’ s clear Erdogan ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And his push into Syria is a grave miscalculation as I ’ ve noted in other posts ( here and here ) .
I spoke with Sputnik Radio ’ s newest show , Political Misfits , on this making the point that Erdogan is still convinced he can fill the vacuum left by a retreating U.S. to become the regional overlord in a new Middle East .
Yes , really , he ’ s that delusional .
The noises coming out of Moscow for tomorrow ’ s meeting is that not only will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Putin , he ’ ll lose everything else in the process .
Remember , Russia holds a lot of sway over the Turkish economy and , as such , controls a fair amount of Erdogan ’ s political capital hostage .
No matter how he tries to spin this , he ’ s the aggressor here and Putin knows he ’ s an unreliable partner .
The Russian Ministry of Defense isn ’ t playing games .
In the same way that they systematically revealed the real narrative of U.S. support of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of their military intervention it is now doing the same thing to Erdogan ’ s betrayal of the 2018 Sochi agreement .
In all of this the Russians have been a source of the closest thing we get to real information from Syria .
That this is never reported here in the West is criminal , but then again so is the campaign to destroy Syria .
It ’ s been Russia that has consistently uncovered and disseminated early warnings of chemical weapons false flags , helping us to prove what our instincts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ standing of international organizations like the OPCW have suffered greatly .
With the latest report of a failed chemical weapons attack by Turkish-backed jihadists in Saraqib , Putin now has more than enough ammo to use against Erdogan at the U.N. Security Council .
Secret Empires : How th ... Schweizer , Peter Best Price : $ 5.99 Buy New $ 11.07 And I expect that threat should be on the table when the two sit down to talk tomorrow .
Since their rapprochement after Turkey shot down a Russian SU-24 , Putin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his past crimes if his behavior dovetailed with Putin ’ s ultimate goal of restoring the territorial boundaries of Syria .
Putin ’ s done this multiple times in order to keep the fighting to a minimum and find ways to get the situation resolved .
But until Erdogan is defanged in Idlib there is no possibility of an end to the Syrian conflict .
He ’ s the key , because without his acting as the tip of NATO ’ s spear , there is no appetite for taking this further .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ behavior is in clear conflict with this the end is in sight .
As I said in my last article , Putin may have misjudged Erdogan ’ s ambitions but he could have also been giving him just enough rope to hang himself with .
And I believe Putin is near the point of seeing Erdogan as “ Not Agreement Capable , ” which is where he is with the United States .
He , frankly , doesn ’ t have any other choice .
This is likely Erdogan ’ s last of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s meeting will tell the tale .
Elijah Magnier is reporting a possible cease fire agreement but only if Turkey yields the entire M4 highway .
In my opinion , that would be the equivalent of surrender terms .
Autocracy is , at best , a meta-stable form of government .
And Erdogan ’ s moves to concentrate power in his hands have pushed things in Turkey dangerously in that direction .
Failure at this level of international high stakes poker usually ends badly for the guy who bets the farm on a @ @ @ @ @ @ @

“Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad”
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “Prometheus”
It looks like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is headed for the political gallows a lot quicker than I ever thought.
His offensive in Idlib has bogged down. And a day before he’s scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow Erdogan Turkish parliament degrades quickly as opposition speaks out against his Syria campaign.
This prompted a fistfight.
When a member of #Turkey’s Parliament, #Engin_Özkoç bravely criticised #Erdoğan’s operation & involvement in #Syria, members of the #AKP took offence & launched a fist fight in Parliament against him & other CHP members. https://t.co/mnSwrxERsg — Hala Jaber (@HalaJaber) March 4, 2020
Now, apparently fistfights in Turkish parliament aren’t that uncommon since one took place back in 2016 over the controversial changes to the constitution Erdogan rammed through back then.
It’s clear Erdogan’s support at home is deteriorating quickly. And his push into Syria is a grave miscalculation as I’ve noted in other posts (here and here).
I spoke with Sputnik Radio’s newest show, Political Misfits, on this making the point that Erdogan is still convinced he can fill the vacuum left by a retreating U.S. to become the regional overlord in a new Middle East.
Yes, really, he’s that delusional.
The noises coming out of Moscow for tomorrow’s meeting is that not only will Erdogan not get any of Idlib from Putin, he’ll lose everything else in the process.
Remember, Russia holds a lot of sway over the Turkish economy and, as such, controls a fair amount of Erdogan’s political capital hostage. No matter how he tries to spin this, he’s the aggressor here and Putin knows he’s an unreliable partner.
The Russian Ministry of Defense isn’t playing games. In the same way that they systematically revealed the real narrative of U.S. support of the Syrian Civil War during the early stages of their military intervention it is now doing the same thing to Erdogan’s betrayal of the 2018 Sochi agreement.
#SYRIA | 🇷🇺 MoD: #Turkey has allowed its observation posts, established under 2018 #Sochi deal, to virtually merge with #terrorist bases in #Idlib. In violation of international law it has deployed a strike force the size of a mechanised division there ➡ https://t.co/s97qRUmLis pic.twitter.com/FPpiIufroA — Russian Embassy, Syria (@RusEmbSyria) March 4, 2020
In all of this the Russians have been a source of the closest thing we get to real information from Syria. That this is never reported here in the West is criminal, but then again so is the campaign to destroy Syria.
It’s been Russia that has consistently uncovered and disseminated early warnings of chemical weapons false flags, helping us to prove what our instincts tell us is true.
And the standing of international organizations like the OPCW have suffered greatly. With the latest report of a failed chemical weapons attack by Turkish-backed jihadists in Saraqib, Putin now has more than enough ammo to use against Erdogan at the U.N. Security Council. Secret Empires: How th... Schweizer, Peter Best Price: $5.99 Buy New $11.07 (as of 07:25 UTC - Details)
And I expect that threat should be on the table when the two sit down to talk tomorrow.
Since their rapprochement after Turkey shot down a Russian SU-24, Putin has willing to give Erodgan cover for his past crimes if his behavior dovetailed with Putin’s ultimate goal of restoring the territorial boundaries of Syria.
Putin’s done this multiple times in order to keep the fighting to a minimum and find ways to get the situation resolved. But until Erdogan is defanged in Idlib there is no possibility of an end to the Syrian conflict.
He’s the key, because without his acting as the tip of NATO’s spear, there is no appetite for taking this further.
So now, with Erdogan’s behavior is in clear conflict with this the end is in sight. As I said in my last article, Putin may have misjudged Erdogan’s ambitions but he could have also been giving him just enough rope to hang himself with.
And I believe Putin is near the point of seeing Erdogan as “Not Agreement Capable,” which is where he is with the United States.
He, frankly, doesn’t have any other choice. This is likely Erdogan’s last of his nine political lives. Tomorrow’s meeting will tell the tale.
Elijah Magnier is reporting a possible cease fire agreement but only if Turkey yields the entire M4 highway. In my opinion, that would be the equivalent of surrender terms.
#Russia may accept a ceasefire with a guarantee M4 will be open IMMEDIATELY. Otherwise, it will be opened by fire, with a guarantee from #Turkey & deadline/schedule that all jihadists will be relocated from #Idlib. #Syria has the upper hand and doesn’t need to give concessions. — Elijah J. Magnier (@ejmalrai) March 4, 2020
Autocracy is, at best, a meta-stable form of government. And Erdogan’s moves to concentrate power in his hands have pushed things in Turkey dangerously in that direction.
Failure at this level of international high stakes poker usually ends badly for the guy who bets the farm on a bluff.
Reprinted with permission from Gold Goats ‘n Guns.
The Best of Tom Luongo