lewrockwell--2020-05-12--Fourth Turning Accelerating Towards Climax

I ’ ve been writing articles about the Fourth Turning for over a decade and nothing has happened since its tumultuous onset in 2008 , with the global financial collapse , created by the Federal Reserve and their Wall Street co-conspirator owners , that has not followed along the path described by Strauss and Howe in their 1997 book – The Fourth Turning .
Like molten lava bursting forth from a long dormant ( 80 years ) volcano , the core elements of this Fourth Turning continue to flow along channels of distress , long ago built by bad decisions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bankers .
The molten ingredients of this Crisis have been the central drivers since 2008 and this second major eruption is flowing along the same route .
The core elements are debt , civic decay , and global disorder , just as Strauss & Howe anticipated over two decades ago .
The Fourth Turning : An ... Howe , Neil Best Price : $ 7.92 Buy New $ 12.04 The initial spark for this Crisis was the massive mortgage fraud perpetrated on the nation by the Wall Street banks and enabled by their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bernanke .
Once he took his Wall Street payoff , becoming a multi-millionaire after departing the Eccles building and reaping his rewards ( aka bribes ) , Yellen stepped into the breach , shoveling billions into the deep pockets of the ruling elite .
QE to infinity for the connected billionaire set and .25 % interest on granny ’ s dwindling retirement nest egg .
Then another spineless academic dweeb took over the reins of money printing for the .1 % in 2018 .
Jerome Powell had the gall to raise rates all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wind the Fed ’ s balance sheet all the way down to $ 3.8 trillion from $ 4.5 trillion , before he was sternly told who he works for .
And it ’ s not you and me .
I wonder what threats were made to convince him to fall into line .
The financial engine driving the American economy blew a gasket in September 2019 .
Overnight repo rates soared to 10 % , indicating a major malfunction under the hood , threatening the wealth and safety of our beloved Wall Street @ @ @ @ @ @ @ picking up nickels in front of steamrollers .
Jerome jumped into action , to save his billionaire owners .
The QT was turned off and QE spigot was back on .
He ramped the Fed ’ s balance sheet by over $ 400 billion in three months , with three 25 basis point cuts going into 2020 .
Those in the know understood there were major problems in the financial system , as excessive risk taking , non-existent banking oversight by the Fed , and more corporate , consumer and government debt that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ponzi scheme engine to the brink .
Then lo and behold the China flu arrived as cover for another plunder and pillage subversion perpetrated against the American people by the ruling oligarchs .
Millennials Rising : Th ... Neil Howe , William Str ... Best Price : $ 0.25 Buy New $ 8.99 Powell , Mnuchin and their buddies at Goldman , Blackrock , JP Morgan and the rest of the banking cabal looked back at what Bernanke , Paulson , Blankfein , and their cohorts pulled off in 2008/2009 and said hold @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they have done in two months is breathtaking to behold , as the greatest wealth transfer from the former working class to the champagne and caviar class in the history of mankind has been executed with precision and flawlessness by high tech criminals and their propaganda spewing corporate media compatriots .
This global pandemic is the crisis they couldn ’ t let go to waste .
There is a myriad of theories on where , how , and why this global pandemic began .
The accidental release of the virus from a bio-weapons @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most likely scenario , with the Chinese authorities covering up the nature and seriousness of the virus and allowing infected citizens to spread it throughout the world .
This narrative will likely play into the bloody climax of this Fourth Turning .
What we do know for sure is Trump was convinced by government bureaucrat medical “ experts ” , using seriously flawed models , that more than 2 million Americans would die unless he quarantined the entire nation .
Extrapolating the disastrous NYC results across the entire U.S. and shutting down the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the most disastrous decisions ever made by a U.S. president .
Instead of addressing a virus only marginally more lethal than the yearly flu in a rational fact-based manner , we allowed ourselves to be snowed by “ experts ” and authoritarian politicians who originally downplayed the threat , instructed everyone to not use face masks , and purposely put infected patients into nursing homes .
Cuomo is hailed as a hero by his brother ’ s joke of a news network , when he should be scorned as an inept bungler @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democrat politicians declared racism when Trump tried to shut the borders .
Instead of protecting the most vulnerable in nursing homes ( 40 % to 50 % of all fatalities ) , closing the borders , encouraging the vulnerable to self- quarantine , encouraging people to wear masks , and letting those under 50 years old continue to work and keep the economy from crashing , we used the Chinese tyrannical method of total lockdown .
We let the overbearing reach of government and the egomaniacal authoritarian governors , mayors and Karens lockdown @ @ @ @ @ @ @ incarceration .
They had plenty of room in the prisons because they released pedophiles , rapists , and thieves for fear they might catch the virus .
The government hammer saw everyone as a nail .
And they have been hammering away for two months , with plans to keep hammering for many months to come .
The corporate fascists have utilized the government-imposed shutdown to implement their plan to increase and consolidate their power , control and wealth .
The first order of business was the Fed using the shutdown as its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ junk bonds , and junk government treasuries in order to bail out hedge fund managers , Wall Street CEOs and government politicians dishing out $ 4 trillion of payoffs to constituents with the best lobbyists .
Now Supplements , L-Opt ... Best Price : null Buy New $ 6.32 ( $ 0.06 / Count ) The 32 % drop in the stock market in March was unacceptable to Powell and his minions .
They vowed to do whatever it took to restore the billions in wealth of the .1 % .
The bottom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you can ’ t catch coronavirus at Wal-Mart or Target among hundreds of shoppers , but can catch it alone on the beach or in your local hair salon with three people in the shop .
So , Jerome and Neel decided to slash interest rates by 150 basis points , back to virtually 0 % .
So much for senior citizens getting 2 % in their money market fund ; Wall Street needed free money again .
They ’ ve increased their balance sheet by $ 2.7 trillion in seven weeks , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the stock market has skyrocketed along with the Fed balance sheet , as 33 million non-essential workers have lost their jobs and we enter a 2nd Great Depression .
The Fed pretends to care about wealth inequality even though they are solely responsible for the grand-canyon like divergence between the super-rich and the rest of us .
Their vow to pump $ 6 trillion into the financial system will only benefit the Hamptons crowd .
Lance Roberts describes what is happening : And there you have it .
Bailing out Wall Street and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Fed has done , or will do , does not benefit the 33 million who have lost their jobs and the millions of small businesses which are purposely being snuffed out by tyrannical government overlords , so the mega-corporations , with their patriotic “ we ’ re in this together ” bullshit Madison Avenue identical ad campaigns , will be left with 90 % of the economic pie instead of the 75 % they had before the plandemic .
Even the worst employment figures since the Great Depression ( last Fourth Turning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the BLS to appear far better than they really are .
The reported 14.7 % unemployment rate is complete and utter bullshit fake news .
But the mouthpieces for the oligarchs , the propaganda media outlets , had their spokesmodels and talking head “ experts ” report the gibberish as if it were true .
Maybe these faux financial journalists should have examined the 42-page press release and found the BLS purposely fudged the number by 5 % : Reinventing Collapse : ... Dmitry Orlov Best Price : $ 3.92 Buy New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ massaged and manipulated BLS number is 20 % .
One look at the data shows how ludicrously low they have manipulated the number .
The BLS reported the labor force as 164.5 million in February and now says it is 156.5 million .
Poof !
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– 8.3 million people willingly left the workforce because they felt like it – not because they were forced out of the workforce by the same government paying the BLS to spew this fake data .
These people did not leave the workforce , they are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of employed people is now back to 1999 levels and headed lower .
And as if you didn ’ t already know , the job losses have been borne mostly by blue collar , retail and restaurant workers ( heavily skewed towards women and young people ) , self-employed , and small businesses .
Wal-Mart , Target , Amazon , Wall Street banks and the rest of the mega-corporations are doing just fine – even better since they don ’ t have those pesky small businesses eating into their profits .
At least @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stock market 455 points , back towards all-time highs , as 33 million people wonder where their next meal will come from .
Winning !
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The plain simple fact is there are 260 million working age Americans and 127 million , or 49 % are not working .
Of the 133 million who are working , 23 million are part-time workers and 19 million are government workers .
In another shocking development , while the number of workers in private industries dropped by 18 % , the number of government @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It seems our authoritarian rulers know what is good for us , but don ’ t feel the need to share the pain equally .
But at least our beloved government heroes have time to stage daily parades with their fire engines and $ 70,000 police vehicles and do patriotic flyovers to keep the unemployed and mandatorily masked plebs entertained .
Something has to make up for the lack of the normal bread and circuses of double bacon cheeseburgers and watching overpaid privileged athletes play games .
I can ’ t wait to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hero nurses and doctors overwhelmed with coronavirus patients in their empty hospitals .
If you don ’ t feel the mood of the country turning towards confrontation and civil chaos , you are either a lackey for the establishment , a government paid drone , or propagandized to such an extent you have chosen to be willfully ignorant of your surroundings .
This Fourth Turning seemed somewhat dormant since 2012 , but government , corporate , and consumer debt continued to balloon ; the divide between left and right grew as the Deep @ @ @ @ @ @ @ elected president ; and global disorder accelerated in the Middle East , Europe , Asia and South America .
The core elements of debt , civic decay , and global disorder are now coalescing into a perfect storm of consequences for a nation and world built upon a teetering edifice of unpayable debt , unfulfilled promises , the unbridled greed of a blood thirsty ruling class , and the unbelievable delusions of people who think a world built upon borrowing to consume is sustainable .
The dichotomy between what is happening in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the world of the financiers will lead to violent upheaval on a timeline not anticipated by the ruling class .
There is a good reason gun stores were overwhelmed with business at the outset of this over-hyped flu pandemic .
As Strauss and Howe pointed out twenty three years ago , trust in the government , central bankers , the corporate media , and “ experts ” is disintegrating rapidly .
The anger and disillusionment grows by the day and pockets of resistance are propagating throughout the country .
The un-Constitutional destruction of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mayors and Federal bureaucrats is pushing desperate citizens towards insurrection .
The police who carry out the unlawful orders of their superiors for a paycheck should realize they live among those they are bullying and pushing around .
There is blowback coming and they should act accordingly .
When people have lost everything they had and any hope for the future , while witnessing the privileged continuing to reap the benefits of a rigged financial system , civil disobedience will increase and blood will begin to be shed .
The bubble of abnormalcy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fascinating to watch a Fourth Turning unfold , while in the midst of it , and knowing we are entering the phase where people have died in numbers that put this pandemic fatality count to shame during the previous two American Crisis periods .
From 1861 to 1865 almost 5 % of the male population of the country were killed .
That would equate to about 8 million today .
From 1939 to 1945 an estimated 65 million people were killed .
The 100,000 or so who will die in 2020 from this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ death and destruction to follow .
The trigger for the climactic phase of this Fourth Turning is not a virus that will not kill 99.97 % of the American population , but the economic consequences of the over-reaction and authoritarian response to the virus .
I ’ ve lost respect for numerous bloggers who desperately try to paint Sweden ’ s response as disastrous in an effort to support their own narrative of doom .
Sweden ’ s decision to allow its people and businesses to use reasonable precautions and not lock down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , has resulted in cases per million being in line with the rest of European countries and lower than the U.S .
The louder these bloggers scream , the surer you can be they have been proven wrong .
It is mesmerizing to watch those on the left , along with the Republican “ Never Trumpers ” , flail about as the Obama/Clinton attempted coup against Trump unravels before their very eyes .
The reaction of these people , along with their toadies at CNN , MSNBC and the other left wing media @ @ @ @ @ @ @ believing in the rule of law and people who are willing to do anything for power .
The pure hatred from those on the left for Trump and his followers can not be contained .
They despise the deplorables in flyover country with such a passion , the spittle foaming on their lips as they describe them as gun toting , uneducated , white racists , is an indication of their fury and hate .
What these entitled , suit wearing , botox injected , arrogant idiot yet idiot establishment whores fail to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we ’ re armed and ready .
While psychopaths in suits , worthless politicians , government errand boys and remote working white collar parasites of the establishment continue to get paid , they continue to prohibit the lowly wage earner from making a living .
A price will be paid .
Trump is not a nice guy .
Grey Champions ( Lincoln , FDR ) use their power in ways not conducive to making everyone happy .
They are leading during a time of crisis and will use any means necessary to win @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Clinton , Comey , Clapper , Brennan , Mueller , and their minions has failed and now the tables will be turned .
Trump , Barr , Grennell and Durham have the power to prosecute some of the most powerful left wing politicians and Deep State operatives on the planet .
How this plays out before November will ignite further civil strife and discontent .
People have already begun taking to the streets and as this unnecessary shutdown further impoverishes the masses , things will turn nasty .
Government attempting to have neighbors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nanny State commands will backfire on the rats .
Animosities and grudges will sway the actions of many , once the gloves come off .
The majority of rule following sheep believe what they are being told by their elected leaders , non-elected self proclaimed medical “ experts ” and the feckless shills on their boob tube .
They do not see what is coming , just over the horizon .
The divergence of opinion on how we should proceed from this point onward is immense , with biases , delusions , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the actions taken thus far , driving the narratives .
Listening to Trump bloviate about the tremendous economic boom which will occur when we re-open the country is laughable .
He sounds like a carnival barker .
He allowed himself to be bamboozled by medical “ expert ” hacks and their immensely flawed garbage in-garbage out models into destroying our economy , and he may end up paying the price in November as the economy is mired in a 2nd Great Depression .
But the Dow should be at 50,000 by then , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for him .
Trump thinks you can turn the economy on again and things will be as good as new .
He evidently has never read Bastiat or Hazlitt .
The broken window fallacy now can be called the broken country fallacy .
The financial gurus crow about the fantastic job Powell and Mnuchin have done , based upon what they have seen ( 31 % increase in S & P 500 ) , while that which is unseen has yet to reveal itself .
The hacks who pass for economists and central @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of economics .
They are enablers of plunder , as their actions benefit a small group of men who have created a legal system that allows and glorifies this as a way of life .
Abnormal , morally ambiguous and in many cases illegal actions taken by those pulling the levers of power will have far reaching consequences unseen by these myopic arrogant waterboys for the oligarchy .
The destruction caused by this man-made depression is permanent .
The millions of small businesses demolished are not coming back .
The unemployment rate will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the BLS says 30 million people just left the labor market because they got independently wealthy in the stock market .
The number of corporate and personal bankruptcies will exceed anything seen in history .
The mortgage , credit card and auto loan defaults are going to make 2009 look like a cake walk .
The fear and panic inflicted by the government upon the psyches of the masses has insured bars , restaurants , airlines , cruises , stadiums , movie theaters and anywhere crowds formerly gathered will draw a fraction of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This will lead to more bankruptcies .
The remote working arrangements forced upon companies will result in a glut of office space , as companies save money by no longer renting overpriced offices .
The coming commercial real estate collapse will be one for the record books .
Malls , which were barely staying alive before Covid-19 , are done , as major retailers declare bankruptcy on a daily basis .
Closed stores no longer employ workers .
People whose jobs are gone , with their meager savings depleted , will not be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They won ’ t be eating out three times per week .
They will just be trying to sustain themselves .
A society built upon 70 % of its GDP coming from consumption is now doomed .
The well oiled mechanism of lending money to people so they can buy shit they can ’ t afford and paying them just enough to make the minimum payments has malfunctioned .
The state and local governments dependent upon sales taxes , gasoline taxes , income taxes , tolls , and property taxes to pay for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ overwhelmed with massive deficits , as their revenue streams have evaporated .
This will bring the government pension crisis to a head years earlier than expected .
The normal government action would be to increase taxes on the plebs .
The plebs are broke and will not stand for higher taxes .
They ’ ll demand government layoff workers .
This will just throw another log on the fire of discontent .
The us versus them mindset will grow ever larger until violence breaks out .
The average American suffered economic hardship throughout @ @ @ @ @ @ @ continued to suffer economic hardship since 2008 .
But the real economic hardship has just begun .
As Americans dealt with privation and poverty in the late 1930s the coming global conflict was brewing .
Animosities , prejudices and resentments , exacerbated by economic turmoil , stirred militaristic ambitions of hubristic rulers in Europe and Asia .
The parallels with the current international dynamic may not be the same , but they do rhyme .
Three months ago , the truly chaotic perilous segment of this Fourth Turning seemed far off in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speed of a ballistic missile .
The possibility of global catastrophe is not taken seriously by the vast majority of Americans .
Their ignorance of history is appalling and a pathetic indictment of our educational system .
It ’ s been seventy-five years since the last global conflict and most of the people who experienced the horror are dead .
We ’ ve forgotten the past and are condemned to relive it , just as we do every eighty or so years .
The extreme volatility seen in financial markets over the last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The historical perspective and insight into market valuations of the 30 something Harvard and Wharton MBA traders doesn ’ t reach past last Tuesday .
This bear market bounce , generated on nothing but Fed liquidity and belief in Powell ’ s infallibility , will give way once again to a waterfall like collapse in the equity markets .
This will be the final nail in the coffin of trust in the Fed .
If this crackup occurs as the election approaches , the consequences and actions taken will propel the global @ @ @ @ @ @ @ storm is brewing .
Do you get the feeling the War on Covid-19 will work out just as well as the War on Drugs and War on Terrorism ?
Do you get the feeling the models being used to panic the world into obeying and submitting to our authoritarian surveillance state benefactors are as accurate as the climate models that said the ice caps would be gone by now ?
Do you get the feeling this is about control and power and wealth , and not about your health or well-being ?
Do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and their media propagandists want to keep as much of the country locked down for as long as possible in order to defeat Trump in November ?
Do you get the feeling these people actually want a second wave to kill as many as possible , just to prove they were right ?
Do you get the feeling the destruction of our economy is being cheered by those waiting to enact their green new deal and using MMT to keep the plebs sedated and non-violent ?
I get the feeling this is not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this takedown of a nation .
The existing social order is always swept away during a Fourth Turning .
I see a foggy outline of where this crisis is headed .
The debt situation is untenable .
The inflationists and deflationists both make strong arguments in favor of their disastrous outcome which will beset the nation .
The only thing that matters is we will experience a disastrous outcome in the very near future from this reckless issuance of debt .
The civic decay has entered the confrontational stage , with sides taken @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the spark which will ignite the dynamite .
Fighting in the streets will be next .
Which leaves us with global disorder .
The attempted takedown of the US oil industry by Russia and Saudi Arabia has ramped up the potential for conflict in the Middle East .
But , the proxy wars of the last two decades will give way to real conflict , where the losers really lose .
Putin is a wily leader who never shows his cards .
He probes at our weaknesses and takes advantage when our arrogant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Donald J. Trump and what he does and doesn ’ t do over the next five months and possibly next four years .
He is a proud man with a huge ego , prone to impulsive actions , and war-like in his vengefulness against perceived enemies .
And his enemies are many .
He has every right to throw the full weight of the law against the high-level members of the attempted coup .
In an election year , a strategy of aggressiveness against his enemies , will play well with his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economic depression .
When faced with domestic trouble , politicians have always tried to distract the masses with a foreign threat .
I believe Trump is angry he allowed Gates and his vaccine squad at the CDC and WHO to bamboozle him into a national quarantine that destroyed “ the best economy evah ” .
He can ’ t blame himself , so he has turned his ire towards China .
It is the consensus belief this virus originated in Wuhan , China , either from a bio-lab and/or wet market .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and German spy agencies is China knew they had a major issue in December and colluded with the WHO to cover-up the danger and transmit-ability of the virus , while allowing its citizens to travel the globe , spreading the virus far and wide for at least a month before admitting they had a problem .
The Chinese brutally locked down Wuhan and have supposedly stopped the virus dead in its tracks .
The American MSM has bought this bullshit , just like they believe their economic data .
Trump has now openly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to our country , demanding reparations .
This war of words is likely to lead to more economic sanctions and retaliatory actions designed to hurt each other ’ s already dire economic situation .
Just as economic sanctions against Japan in the 1930s and early 1940s backed them into a corner and convinced their leadership to attack the U.S. , pushing China and/or Russia into a corner through the use of economic sanctions designed to hurt them , will provoke a reaction that will lead to war .
Impossible says the linear thinkers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ foolish actions .
History teaches otherwise .
Egomaniacal leaders , with terrible domestic issues , overestimating their abilities to comprehend the actions of their foes , and miscalculating the odds of war , will stumble into conflict , resulting in the deaths of millions .
Global war in this technologically advanced age will not resemble the wars of eighty or one-hundred and sixty years ago .
Civilians will likely bear the brunt of the casualties as attacks on electrical grids , water supplies , and computer systems would paralyze our economy , causing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a really deadly virus could be released by our enemies .
As Strauss & Howe warned , history offers no guarantees .
Many empires before ours have fallen and counting on Providence to protect us is wishful thinking .
Any war could go horribly wrong , with all potential enemies capable of launching a nuclear exchange , ending life as we know it .
We have gotten our first taste of tragedy with this pandemic , and the early returns on leadership , courage , fortitude , and common sense have been found @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the trials and tribulations we will face over the next decade .
A failure to meet the challenges ahead with bravery , grit , good judgement , adherence to our Constitutional principles , and a fair amount of luck , could lead to a defeat from which we will never recover .
No one knows how and when the climax of this Crisis will play out , but the acceleration towards our rendezvous with destiny is in motion .
Strauss & Howe laid out four potential outcomes to this Crisis .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the possibilities .
• This Fourth Turning could mark the end of man .
It could be an omnicidal Armageddon , destroying everything , leaving nothing .
If mankind ever extinguishes itself , this will probably happen when its dominant civilization triggers a Fourth Turning that ends horribly .
For this Fourth Turning to put an end to all this would require an extremely unlikely blend of social disaster , human malevolence , technological perfection and bad luck .
• The Fourth Turning could mark the end of modernity .
The Western saecular @ @ @ @ @ @ @ century with the Renaissance – could come to an abrupt terminus .
The seventh modern saeculum would be the last .
This too could come from total war , terrible but not final .
There could be a complete collapse of science , culture , politics , and society .
Such a dire result would probably happen only when a dominant nation ( like today ’ s America ) lets a Fourth Turning ekpyrosis engulf the planet .
But this outcome is well within the reach of foreseeable technology and malevolence .
• @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mark the end of our nation .
It could close the book on the political constitution , popular culture , and moral standing that the word America has come to signify .
The nation has endured for three saecula ; Rome lasted twelve , the Soviet Union only one .
Fourth Turnings are critical thresholds for national survival .
Each of the last three American Crises produced moments of extreme danger : In the Revolution , the very birth of the republic hung by a thread in more than one battle .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ survived a four-year slaughter that in its own time was regarded as the most lethal war in history .
In World War II , the nation destroyed an enemy of democracy that for a time was winning ; had the enemy won , America might have itself been destroyed .
In all likelihood , the next Crisis will present the nation with a threat and a consequence on a similar scale .
• Or the Fourth Turning could simply mark the end of the Millennial Saeculum .
Mankind , modernity , and America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would be a new mood , a new High , and a new saeculum .
America would be reborn .
But , reborn , it would not be the same .
Reprinted with permission from The Burning Platform .
The Best of Jim Quinn

“At some point, America’s short-term Crisis psychology will catch up to the long-term post-Unraveling fundamentals. This might result in a Great Devaluation, a severe drop in the market price of most financial and real assets. This devaluation could be a short but horrific panic, a free-falling price in a market with no buyers. Or it could be a series of downward ratchets linked to political events that sequentially knock the supports out from under the residual popular trust in the system. As assets devalue, trust will further disintegrate, which will cause assets to devalue further, and so on. Every slide in asset prices, employment, and production will give every generation cause to grow more alarmed.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning
I’ve been writing articles about the Fourth Turning for over a decade and nothing has happened since its tumultuous onset in 2008, with the global financial collapse, created by the Federal Reserve and their Wall Street co-conspirator owners, that has not followed along the path described by Strauss and Howe in their 1997 book – The Fourth Turning.
Like molten lava bursting forth from a long dormant (80 years) volcano, the core elements of this Fourth Turning continue to flow along channels of distress, long ago built by bad decisions, corrupt politicians and the greed of bankers. The molten ingredients of this Crisis have been the central drivers since 2008 and this second major eruption is flowing along the same route. The core elements are debt, civic decay, and global disorder, just as Strauss & Howe anticipated over two decades ago. The Fourth Turning: An... Howe, Neil Best Price: $7.92 Buy New $12.04 (as of 08:30 UTC - Details)
“In retrospect, the spark might seem as ominous as a financial crash, as ordinary as a national election, or as trivial as a Tea Party. The catalyst will unfold according to a basic Crisis dynamic that underlies all of these scenarios: An initial spark will trigger a chain reaction of unyielding responses and further emergencies. The core elements of these scenarios (debt, civic decay, global disorder) will matter more than the details, which the catalyst will juxtapose and connect in some unknowable way. If foreign societies are also entering a Fourth Turning, this could accelerate the chain reaction. At home and abroad, these events will reflect the tearing of the civic fabric at points of extreme vulnerability – problem areas where America will have neglected, denied, or delayed needed action.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe
The initial spark for this Crisis was the massive mortgage fraud perpetrated on the nation by the Wall Street banks and enabled by their drug dealer at the Fed – Ben Bernanke. Once he took his Wall Street payoff, becoming a multi-millionaire after departing the Eccles building and reaping his rewards (aka bribes), Yellen stepped into the breach, shoveling billions into the deep pockets of the ruling elite. QE to infinity for the connected billionaire set and .25% interest on granny’s dwindling retirement nest egg.
Then another spineless academic dweeb took over the reins of money printing for the .1% in 2018. Jerome Powell had the gall to raise rates all the way back to 2.25% and wind the Fed’s balance sheet all the way down to $3.8 trillion from $4.5 trillion, before he was sternly told who he works for. And it’s not you and me. I wonder what threats were made to convince him to fall into line.
The financial engine driving the American economy blew a gasket in September 2019. Overnight repo rates soared to 10%, indicating a major malfunction under the hood, threatening the wealth and safety of our beloved Wall Street bankers and billionaire hedge fund managers, picking up nickels in front of steamrollers. Jerome jumped into action, to save his billionaire owners. The QT was turned off and QE spigot was back on. He ramped the Fed’s balance sheet by over $400 billion in three months, with three 25 basis point cuts going into 2020.
Those in the know understood there were major problems in the financial system, as excessive risk taking, non-existent banking oversight by the Fed, and more corporate, consumer and government debt that could never be serviced, pushing the Ponzi scheme engine to the brink. Then lo and behold the China flu arrived as cover for another plunder and pillage subversion perpetrated against the American people by the ruling oligarchs. Millennials Rising: Th... Neil Howe, William Str... Best Price: $0.25 Buy New $8.99 (as of 09:05 UTC - Details)
Powell, Mnuchin and their buddies at Goldman, Blackrock, JP Morgan and the rest of the banking cabal looked back at what Bernanke, Paulson, Blankfein, and their cohorts pulled off in 2008/2009 and said hold my beer. The chutzpah of what they have done in two months is breathtaking to behold, as the greatest wealth transfer from the former working class to the champagne and caviar class in the history of mankind has been executed with precision and flawlessness by high tech criminals and their propaganda spewing corporate media compatriots.
This global pandemic is the crisis they couldn’t let go to waste. There is a myriad of theories on where, how, and why this global pandemic began. The accidental release of the virus from a bio-weapons lab in Wuhan appears to be the most likely scenario, with the Chinese authorities covering up the nature and seriousness of the virus and allowing infected citizens to spread it throughout the world. This narrative will likely play into the bloody climax of this Fourth Turning.
What we do know for sure is Trump was convinced by government bureaucrat medical “experts”, using seriously flawed models, that more than 2 million Americans would die unless he quarantined the entire nation. Extrapolating the disastrous NYC results across the entire U.S. and shutting down the entire economy will prove to be one of the most disastrous decisions ever made by a U.S. president.
Instead of addressing a virus only marginally more lethal than the yearly flu in a rational fact-based manner, we allowed ourselves to be snowed by “experts” and authoritarian politicians who originally downplayed the threat, instructed everyone to not use face masks, and purposely put infected patients into nursing homes. Cuomo is hailed as a hero by his brother’s joke of a news network, when he should be scorned as an inept bungler who caused the deaths of thousands.
Democrat politicians declared racism when Trump tried to shut the borders. Instead of protecting the most vulnerable in nursing homes (40% to 50% of all fatalities), closing the borders, encouraging the vulnerable to self- quarantine, encouraging people to wear masks, and letting those under 50 years old continue to work and keep the economy from crashing, we used the Chinese tyrannical method of total lockdown.
We let the overbearing reach of government and the egomaniacal authoritarian governors, mayors and Karens lockdown an entire nation under the threat of incarceration. They had plenty of room in the prisons because they released pedophiles, rapists, and thieves for fear they might catch the virus. The government hammer saw everyone as a nail. And they have been hammering away for two months, with plans to keep hammering for many months to come.
The corporate fascists have utilized the government-imposed shutdown to implement their plan to increase and consolidate their power, control and wealth. The first order of business was the Fed using the shutdown as its excuse to buy the toxic assets, junk bonds, and junk government treasuries in order to bail out hedge fund managers, Wall Street CEOs and government politicians dishing out $4 trillion of payoffs to constituents with the best lobbyists. Now Supplements, L-Opt... Buy New $6.32 ($0.06 / Count) (as of 07:55 UTC - Details)
The 32% drop in the stock market in March was unacceptable to Powell and his minions. They vowed to do whatever it took to restore the billions in wealth of the .1%. The bottom 99% be damned. Everyone knows you can’t catch coronavirus at Wal-Mart or Target among hundreds of shoppers, but can catch it alone on the beach or in your local hair salon with three people in the shop.
So, Jerome and Neel decided to slash interest rates by 150 basis points, back to virtually 0%. So much for senior citizens getting 2% in their money market fund; Wall Street needed free money again. They’ve increased their balance sheet by $2.7 trillion in seven weeks, a 65% increase. Shockingly, the stock market has skyrocketed along with the Fed balance sheet, as 33 million non-essential workers have lost their jobs and we enter a 2nd Great Depression.
The Fed pretends to care about wealth inequality even though they are solely responsible for the grand-canyon like divergence between the super-rich and the rest of us. Their vow to pump $6 trillion into the financial system will only benefit the Hamptons crowd. Lance Roberts describes what is happening:
“To no one’s real surprise, the driver of the market is simply “The Fed.” As the Fed engages in “QE,” it increases the “excess reserves” of banks. Since banks are NOT lending to consumers or businesses, that excess liquidity flows into the stock market.”
And there you have it. Bailing out Wall Street and screwing Main Street, again. Everything the Fed has done, or will do, does not benefit the 33 million who have lost their jobs and the millions of small businesses which are purposely being snuffed out by tyrannical government overlords, so the mega-corporations, with their patriotic “we’re in this together” bullshit Madison Avenue identical ad campaigns, will be left with 90% of the economic pie instead of the 75% they had before the plandemic.
Even the worst employment figures since the Great Depression (last Fourth Turning) were spun by the government drones at the BLS to appear far better than they really are. The reported 14.7% unemployment rate is complete and utter bullshit fake news. But the mouthpieces for the oligarchs, the propaganda media outlets, had their spokesmodels and talking head “experts” report the gibberish as if it were true.
Maybe these faux financial journalists should have examined the 42-page press release and found the BLS purposely fudged the number by 5%: Reinventing Collapse: ... Dmitry Orlov Best Price: $3.92 Buy New $1.99 (as of 10:45 UTC - Details)
If the workers who were recorded as employed but absent from work due to “other reasons” (over and above the number absent for other reasons in a typical April) had been classified as unemployed on temporary layoff, the overall unemployment rate would have been almost 5 percentage points higher than reported (on a not seasonally adjusted basis).
So that means even the massaged and manipulated BLS number is 20%. One look at the data shows how ludicrously low they have manipulated the number. The BLS reported the labor force as 164.5 million in February and now says it is 156.5 million. Poof!!! – 8.3 million people willingly left the workforce because they felt like it – not because they were forced out of the workforce by the same government paying the BLS to spew this fake data.
These people did not leave the workforce, they are unemployed by government mandate. The number of employed people is now back to 1999 levels and headed lower. And as if you didn’t already know, the job losses have been borne mostly by blue collar, retail and restaurant workers (heavily skewed towards women and young people), self-employed, and small businesses.
Wal-Mart, Target, Amazon, Wall Street banks and the rest of the mega-corporations are doing just fine – even better since they don’t have those pesky small businesses eating into their profits. At least the Fed was able to propel the stock market 455 points, back towards all-time highs, as 33 million people wonder where their next meal will come from. Winning!!!!
The plain simple fact is there are 260 million working age Americans and 127 million, or 49% are not working. Of the 133 million who are working, 23 million are part-time workers and 19 million are government workers. In another shocking development, while the number of workers in private industries dropped by 18%, the number of government workers only dropped by 8%. It seems our authoritarian rulers know what is good for us, but don’t feel the need to share the pain equally.
But at least our beloved government heroes have time to stage daily parades with their fire engines and $70,000 police vehicles and do patriotic flyovers to keep the unemployed and mandatorily masked plebs entertained. Something has to make up for the lack of the normal bread and circuses of double bacon cheeseburgers and watching overpaid privileged athletes play games. I can’t wait to see more tik-tok dance videos from the hero nurses and doctors overwhelmed with coronavirus patients in their empty hospitals.
If you don’t feel the mood of the country turning towards confrontation and civil chaos, you are either a lackey for the establishment, a government paid drone, or propagandized to such an extent you have chosen to be willfully ignorant of your surroundings. This Fourth Turning seemed somewhat dormant since 2012, but government, corporate, and consumer debt continued to balloon; the divide between left and right grew as the Deep State conducted a coup against a duly elected president; and global disorder accelerated in the Middle East, Europe, Asia and South America.
The core elements of debt, civic decay, and global disorder are now coalescing into a perfect storm of consequences for a nation and world built upon a teetering edifice of unpayable debt, unfulfilled promises, the unbridled greed of a blood thirsty ruling class, and the unbelievable delusions of people who think a world built upon borrowing to consume is sustainable.
The dichotomy between what is happening in the real world and what is happening in the world of the financiers will lead to violent upheaval on a timeline not anticipated by the ruling class. There is a good reason gun stores were overwhelmed with business at the outset of this over-hyped flu pandemic. As Strauss and Howe pointed out twenty three years ago, trust in the government, central bankers, the corporate media, and “experts” is disintegrating rapidly. The anger and disillusionment grows by the day and pockets of resistance are propagating throughout the country.
The un-Constitutional destruction of rights and liberties by overbearing governors, mayors and Federal bureaucrats is pushing desperate citizens towards insurrection. The police who carry out the unlawful orders of their superiors for a paycheck should realize they live among those they are bullying and pushing around. There is blowback coming and they should act accordingly. When people have lost everything they had and any hope for the future, while witnessing the privileged continuing to reap the benefits of a rigged financial system, civil disobedience will increase and blood will begin to be shed. The bubble of abnormalcy will be popped.
It is weirdly fascinating to watch a Fourth Turning unfold, while in the midst of it, and knowing we are entering the phase where people have died in numbers that put this pandemic fatality count to shame during the previous two American Crisis periods. From 1861 to 1865 almost 5% of the male population of the country were killed. That would equate to about 8 million today. From 1939 to 1945 an estimated 65 million people were killed.
The 100,000 or so who will die in 2020 from this virus is just a prelude to the death and destruction to follow. The trigger for the climactic phase of this Fourth Turning is not a virus that will not kill 99.97% of the American population, but the economic consequences of the over-reaction and authoritarian response to the virus. I’ve lost respect for numerous bloggers who desperately try to paint Sweden’s response as disastrous in an effort to support their own narrative of doom.
Sweden’s decision to allow its people and businesses to use reasonable precautions and not lock down their country in the dictatorial Chinese way, has resulted in cases per million being in line with the rest of European countries and lower than the U.S. The louder these bloggers scream, the surer you can be they have been proven wrong.
It is mesmerizing to watch those on the left, along with the Republican “Never Trumpers”, flail about as the Obama/Clinton attempted coup against Trump unravels before their very eyes. The reaction of these people, along with their toadies at CNN, MSNBC and the other left wing media, reveals an unbridgeable chasm between those believing in the rule of law and people who are willing to do anything for power.
The pure hatred from those on the left for Trump and his followers can not be contained. They despise the deplorables in flyover country with such a passion, the spittle foaming on their lips as they describe them as gun toting, uneducated, white racists, is an indication of their fury and hate. What these entitled, suit wearing, botox injected, arrogant idiot yet idiot establishment whores fail to realize is we despise them equally and we’re armed and ready. While psychopaths in suits, worthless politicians, government errand boys and remote working white collar parasites of the establishment continue to get paid, they continue to prohibit the lowly wage earner from making a living. A price will be paid.
Trump is not a nice guy. Grey Champions (Lincoln, FDR) use their power in ways not conducive to making everyone happy. They are leading during a time of crisis and will use any means necessary to win. The coup attempt by Obama, Clinton, Comey, Clapper, Brennan, Mueller, and their minions has failed and now the tables will be turned. Trump, Barr, Grennell and Durham have the power to prosecute some of the most powerful left wing politicians and Deep State operatives on the planet.
How this plays out before November will ignite further civil strife and discontent. People have already begun taking to the streets and as this unnecessary shutdown further impoverishes the masses, things will turn nasty. Government attempting to have neighbors rat on neighbors for not obeying the Nanny State commands will backfire on the rats. Animosities and grudges will sway the actions of many, once the gloves come off.
The majority of rule following sheep believe what they are being told by their elected leaders, non-elected self proclaimed medical “experts” and the feckless shills on their boob tube. They do not see what is coming, just over the horizon. The divergence of opinion on how we should proceed from this point onward is immense, with biases, delusions, and inability to grasp the unintended consequences of the actions taken thus far, driving the narratives. Listening to Trump bloviate about the tremendous economic boom which will occur when we re-open the country is laughable. He sounds like a carnival barker.
He allowed himself to be bamboozled by medical “expert” hacks and their immensely flawed garbage in-garbage out models into destroying our economy, and he may end up paying the price in November as the economy is mired in a 2nd Great Depression. But the Dow should be at 50,000 by then, so he’s got that going for him. Trump thinks you can turn the economy on again and things will be as good as new. He evidently has never read Bastiat or Hazlitt. The broken window fallacy now can be called the broken country fallacy. The financial gurus crow about the fantastic job Powell and Mnuchin have done, based upon what they have seen (31% increase in S&P 500), while that which is unseen has yet to reveal itself.
“The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.” ― Henry Hazlitt
The hacks who pass for economists and central bankers don’t practice the art of economics. They are enablers of plunder, as their actions benefit a small group of men who have created a legal system that allows and glorifies this as a way of life. Abnormal, morally ambiguous and in many cases illegal actions taken by those pulling the levers of power will have far reaching consequences unseen by these myopic arrogant waterboys for the oligarchy.
The destruction caused by this man-made depression is permanent. The millions of small businesses demolished are not coming back. The unemployment rate will never approach 3.5% again, unless the BLS says 30 million people just left the labor market because they got independently wealthy in the stock market.
The number of corporate and personal bankruptcies will exceed anything seen in history. The mortgage, credit card and auto loan defaults are going to make 2009 look like a cake walk. The fear and panic inflicted by the government upon the psyches of the masses has insured bars, restaurants, airlines, cruises, stadiums, movie theaters and anywhere crowds formerly gathered will draw a fraction of what they did three months ago. This will lead to more bankruptcies.
The remote working arrangements forced upon companies will result in a glut of office space, as companies save money by no longer renting overpriced offices. The coming commercial real estate collapse will be one for the record books. Malls, which were barely staying alive before Covid-19, are done, as major retailers declare bankruptcy on a daily basis. Closed stores no longer employ workers.
People whose jobs are gone, with their meager savings depleted, will not be spending on frivilous gadgets and baubles. They won’t be eating out three times per week. They will just be trying to sustain themselves. A society built upon 70% of its GDP coming from consumption is now doomed. The well oiled mechanism of lending money to people so they can buy shit they can’t afford and paying them just enough to make the minimum payments has malfunctioned.
The state and local governments dependent upon sales taxes, gasoline taxes, income taxes, tolls, and property taxes to pay for their bloated bureaucracies are going to be overwhelmed with massive deficits, as their revenue streams have evaporated. This will bring the government pension crisis to a head years earlier than expected. The normal government action would be to increase taxes on the plebs. The plebs are broke and will not stand for higher taxes. They’ll demand government layoff workers. This will just throw another log on the fire of discontent. The us versus them mindset will grow ever larger until violence breaks out.
The average American suffered economic hardship throughout the 1930s, just as average Americans continued to suffer economic hardship since 2008. But the real economic hardship has just begun. As Americans dealt with privation and poverty in the late 1930s the coming global conflict was brewing. Animosities, prejudices and resentments, exacerbated by economic turmoil, stirred militaristic ambitions of hubristic rulers in Europe and Asia. The parallels with the current international dynamic may not be the same, but they do rhyme. Three months ago, the truly chaotic perilous segment of this Fourth Turning seemed far off in the distance. Now it approaches with the speed of a ballistic missile.
The possibility of global catastrophe is not taken seriously by the vast majority of Americans. Their ignorance of history is appalling and a pathetic indictment of our educational system. It’s been seventy-five years since the last global conflict and most of the people who experienced the horror are dead. We’ve forgotten the past and are condemned to relive it, just as we do every eighty or so years.
The extreme volatility seen in financial markets over the last two months only happens during bear markets. The historical perspective and insight into market valuations of the 30 something Harvard and Wharton MBA traders doesn’t reach past last Tuesday. This bear market bounce, generated on nothing but Fed liquidity and belief in Powell’s infallibility, will give way once again to a waterfall like collapse in the equity markets. This will be the final nail in the coffin of trust in the Fed. If this crackup occurs as the election approaches, the consequences and actions taken will propel the global disorder into a new stratosphere. A storm is brewing.
Do you get the feeling the War on Covid-19 will work out just as well as the War on Drugs and War on Terrorism? Do you get the feeling the models being used to panic the world into obeying and submitting to our authoritarian surveillance state benefactors are as accurate as the climate models that said the ice caps would be gone by now? Do you get the feeling this is about control and power and wealth, and not about your health or well-being?
Do you get the feeling the left wingers and their media propagandists want to keep as much of the country locked down for as long as possible in order to defeat Trump in November? Do you get the feeling these people actually want a second wave to kill as many as possible, just to prove they were right? Do you get the feeling the destruction of our economy is being cheered by those waiting to enact their green new deal and using MMT to keep the plebs sedated and non-violent? I get the feeling this is not going to end well for those initiating this takedown of a nation. The existing social order is always swept away during a Fourth Turning.
I see a foggy outline of where this crisis is headed. The debt situation is untenable. The inflationists and deflationists both make strong arguments in favor of their disastrous outcome which will beset the nation. The only thing that matters is we will experience a disastrous outcome in the very near future from this reckless issuance of debt. The civic decay has entered the confrontational stage, with sides taken, weapons at the ready, awaiting the spark which will ignite the dynamite.
Fighting in the streets will be next. Which leaves us with global disorder. The attempted takedown of the US oil industry by Russia and Saudi Arabia has ramped up the potential for conflict in the Middle East. But, the proxy wars of the last two decades will give way to real conflict, where the losers really lose. Putin is a wily leader who never shows his cards. He probes at our weaknesses and takes advantage when our arrogant leaders make mistakes.
This leads us to Donald J. Trump and what he does and doesn’t do over the next five months and possibly next four years. He is a proud man with a huge ego, prone to impulsive actions, and war-like in his vengefulness against perceived enemies. And his enemies are many. He has every right to throw the full weight of the law against the high-level members of the attempted coup.
In an election year, a strategy of aggressiveness against his enemies, will play well with his base and possibly distract people from the economic depression. When faced with domestic trouble, politicians have always tried to distract the masses with a foreign threat. I believe Trump is angry he allowed Gates and his vaccine squad at the CDC and WHO to bamboozle him into a national quarantine that destroyed “the best economy evah”. He can’t blame himself, so he has turned his ire towards China.
It is the consensus belief this virus originated in Wuhan, China, either from a bio-lab and/or wet market. The narrative now being spun by the U.S. and German spy agencies is China knew they had a major issue in December and colluded with the WHO to cover-up the danger and transmit-ability of the virus, while allowing its citizens to travel the globe, spreading the virus far and wide for at least a month before admitting they had a problem.
The Chinese brutally locked down Wuhan and have supposedly stopped the virus dead in its tracks. The American MSM has bought this bullshit, just like they believe their economic data. Trump has now openly accused China of causing the economic damage to our country, demanding reparations. This war of words is likely to lead to more economic sanctions and retaliatory actions designed to hurt each other’s already dire economic situation.
Just as economic sanctions against Japan in the 1930s and early 1940s backed them into a corner and convinced their leadership to attack the U.S., pushing China and/or Russia into a corner through the use of economic sanctions designed to hurt them, will provoke a reaction that will lead to war. Impossible says the linear thinkers who can’t conceive of such foolish actions. History teaches otherwise.
Egomaniacal leaders, with terrible domestic issues, overestimating their abilities to comprehend the actions of their foes, and miscalculating the odds of war, will stumble into conflict, resulting in the deaths of millions. Global war in this technologically advanced age will not resemble the wars of eighty or one-hundred and sixty years ago. Civilians will likely bear the brunt of the casualties as attacks on electrical grids, water supplies, and computer systems would paralyze our economy, causing death on a grand scale. Maybe a really deadly virus could be released by our enemies.
As Strauss & Howe warned, history offers no guarantees. Many empires before ours have fallen and counting on Providence to protect us is wishful thinking. Any war could go horribly wrong, with all potential enemies capable of launching a nuclear exchange, ending life as we know it. We have gotten our first taste of tragedy with this pandemic, and the early returns on leadership, courage, fortitude, and common sense have been found wanting.
This does not bode well for the trials and tribulations we will face over the next decade. A failure to meet the challenges ahead with bravery, grit, good judgement, adherence to our Constitutional principles, and a fair amount of luck, could lead to a defeat from which we will never recover. No one knows how and when the climax of this Crisis will play out, but the acceleration towards our rendezvous with destiny is in motion. Strauss & Howe laid out four potential outcomes to this Crisis. It’s time to steel yourself to the possibilities.
This Fourth Turning could mark the end of man. It could be an omnicidal Armageddon, destroying everything, leaving nothing. If mankind ever extinguishes itself, this will probably happen when its dominant civilization triggers a Fourth Turning that ends horribly. For this Fourth Turning to put an end to all this would require an extremely unlikely blend of social disaster, human malevolence, technological perfection and bad luck. The Fourth Turning could mark the end of modernity. The Western saecular rhythm – which began in the mid-fifteenth century with the Renaissance – could come to an abrupt terminus. The seventh modern saeculum would be the last. This too could come from total war, terrible but not final. There could be a complete collapse of science, culture, politics, and society. Such a dire result would probably happen only when a dominant nation (like today’s America) lets a Fourth Turning ekpyrosis engulf the planet. But this outcome is well within the reach of foreseeable technology and malevolence. The Fourth Turning could spare modernity but mark the end of our nation. It could close the book on the political constitution, popular culture, and moral standing that the word America has come to signify. The nation has endured for three saecula; Rome lasted twelve, the Soviet Union only one. Fourth Turnings are critical thresholds for national survival. Each of the last three American Crises produced moments of extreme danger: In the Revolution, the very birth of the republic hung by a thread in more than one battle. In the Civil War, the union barely survived a four-year slaughter that in its own time was regarded as the most lethal war in history. In World War II, the nation destroyed an enemy of democracy that for a time was winning; had the enemy won, America might have itself been destroyed. In all likelihood, the next Crisis will present the nation with a threat and a consequence on a similar scale. Or the Fourth Turning could simply mark the end of the Millennial Saeculum. Mankind, modernity, and America would all persevere. Afterward, there would be a new mood, a new High, and a new saeculum. America would be reborn. But, reborn, it would not be the same.
Reprinted with permission from The Burning Platform.
The Best of Jim Quinn


lewrockwell--2020-05-12--The Sum of All Broken Promises

The Sum of All Broken Promises

The restless public , cooped up and idled in springtime ’ s flowering , have watched Wall Street doing just fine while they see the approaching sunset of their own much more modest Paycheck Protection Program and coronavirus relief checks .
Late last week , the Dow Jones shot up 455 points the same day that the government announced the worst unemployment numbers since the lows of the Great Depression .
Are there two economies in this country ?
One for people who expect to work for pay , and another for bankers who play shady games with money and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t pan out ?
Kind of looks like it , a little bit .
That tangled pile of cognitive dissonance is liable to catch fire soon like an overactive compost heap as the promised opening-up of America commences and tens of millions of able adults discover that their old jobs , vocations ( and paychecks ! )
will never re-open , not to mention health care plans and pensions .
God help us if the stock markets are still chugging up when that recognition sweeps the land .
Living in the Long @ @ @ @ @ @ @ $ 24.95 And why won ’ t the markets keep chugging if the Federal Reserve keeps stuffing bales of dollars into Wall Street ’ s boilers ?
Jay Powell and his crew of monomaniacs apparently believe that bolstering the indexes is the sole signifier of a healthy system , and they ’ ve turned early adapters to Modern Monetary Theory ( MMT ) , the idea that government can print as much money as it feels like to keep the wheels of activity turning ( or , at least , the appearance of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , they ’ ve churned out trillions , equal to the first two hundred-plus years of the USA ’ s national debt — and , of course , new money is new debt because under our currency regime money is loaned into existence .
Well , one reason the markets may not keep chugging is that money is disappearing into the ol ’ black hole of extinction even faster than the Fed can enter keystrokes that magically represent new money .
The reason : if , in fact , money is loaned into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ existence when the loans are not paid back .
After all , that ’ s what a loan is : money advanced on a promise to be paid back , generally at interest , interest representing the time-value of money , that is , the duration of the loan .
Do you have any idea how many loans are not being paid back , and may now never be paid back ?
Too Much Magic : Wishfu ... James Howard Kunstler Best Price : $ 4.53 Buy New $ 8.06 Start with houses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mortgage ( a loan ) every month .
The national average outstanding mortgage debt is $ 148,000 .
Total mortgage debt is $ 10.3 trillion .
Now cars : There are roughly 260 million passenger vehicles registered in America , with upward of 100 million of them bought on loans that are still active , amounting to $ 1.2 trillion , enough to buy 53 million Ford Fusions at $ 23,000 each .
Now credit card debt : total for the US is $ 3.9 trillion with an average carried balance of $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ adult Americans have no savings .
As Senator Everett Dirksen ( R-Ill ) once quipped during a senate budget battle , “ A billion here , a billion there , pretty soon , you ’ re talking real money.
” Consider that a trillion is a thousand billion ( and a billion is a thousand million ) .
In an ordinary reality , a reality-based reality , that is , with reality-based money , that would be a lot of money ( and a lot of debt ) !
It ’ s hard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with over 20 percent of the US work-force idle , with no income , there ’ s liable to be a lot of debt that ’ s not being paid back , will never be paid back , and a lot of money headed into extinction .
That will translate into a lot of people with no money .
Until all that money they owed is finished not being paid back , and the new money that Fed is busy creating , with no relationship to the production of things of value , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ finished disappearing .
Then Americans will have plenty of money .
The catch is that the money will be worthless .
Thus , the two ways of going broke : having no money ; or having lots of money that ’ s too worthless to buy anything .
So it goes .
World Made by Hand : A ... Kunstler , James Howard Best Price : $ 1.10 Buy New $ 10.56 Along with people ’ s hopes and dreams of a decent life .
What you see , then , is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has come to be based on broken promises .
That ’ s what the restless public will take away from this morass of statistics .
The discord will rapidly leave the statistical frame and take hold in the emotional frame , and that frame will feature entirely negative emotion : rage , resentment , grievance , vengeance , feelings like that .
The sum of all broken promises is a broken social contract .
That ’ s the agreement that we will behave civilly in exchange for the liberty to go about our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ laws ) about what is legitimate business .
A broken social contract is exactly what all these machinations are leading up to .
Hence , the appearances of the state — the system and the people who run it — become more and more fantastically and transparently dishonest .
For instance , the fake candidacy of Joe Biden , a man too far gone in age and mind to be president , with a long slime-trail of family money-grubbing in and around his official offices , and now an old sexual molestation charge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ think they ’ re kidding with this ?
The coronavirus gave them an excuse to stuff Joe in a closet for two months , but can they keep hiding him there after the grand opening-up ?
Will Wall Street and its errand boys in the Federal Reserve keep working their shifty hoodoo , enriching shareholders , hedge funders , and corporate execs while everybody else hits the red-line of hunger and outrage ?
Will Mr. Trump do what he suggested way back on the campaign trail in 2016 and declare a national bankruptcy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a difference between bankruptcy and national insurrection .
Bankruptcy , at least , holds the promise of a work-out .
Financial work-outs are generally painful , but orderly .
That could make all the difference .
The Best of James Howard Kunstler

The restless public, cooped up and idled in springtime’s flowering, have watched Wall Street doing just fine while they see the approaching sunset of their own much more modest Paycheck Protection Program and coronavirus relief checks. Late last week, the Dow Jones shot up 455 points the same day that the government announced the worst unemployment numbers since the lows of the Great Depression. Are there two economies in this country? One for people who expect to work for pay, and another for bankers who play shady games with money and receive extravagant bailouts when their games don’t pan out?
Kind of looks like it, a little bit. That tangled pile of cognitive dissonance is liable to catch fire soon like an overactive compost heap as the promised opening-up of America commences and tens of millions of able adults discover that their old jobs, vocations (and paychecks!) will never re-open, not to mention health care plans and pensions. God help us if the stock markets are still chugging up when that recognition sweeps the land.
Living in the Long Eme... James Howard Kunstler Buy New $24.95 (as of 10:56 UTC - Details) And why won’t the markets keep chugging if the Federal Reserve keeps stuffing bales of dollars into Wall Street’s boilers? Jay Powell and his crew of monomaniacs apparently believe that bolstering the indexes is the sole signifier of a healthy system, and they’ve turned early adapters to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), the idea that government can print as much money as it feels like to keep the wheels of activity turning (or, at least, the appearance of activity). In just two months, they’ve churned out trillions, equal to the first two hundred-plus years of the USA’s national debt — and, of course, new money is new debt because under our currency regime money is loaned into existence.
Well, one reason the markets may not keep chugging is that money is disappearing into the ol’ black hole of extinction even faster than the Fed can enter keystrokes that magically represent new money. The reason: if, in fact, money is loaned into existence, it is defaulted out of existence when the loans are not paid back. After all, that’s what a loan is: money advanced on a promise to be paid back, generally at interest, interest representing the time-value of money, that is, the duration of the loan. Do you have any idea how many loans are not being paid back, and may now never be paid back?
Too Much Magic: Wishfu... James Howard Kunstler Best Price: $4.53 Buy New $8.06 (as of 10:05 UTC - Details) Start with houses. 63 percent of homeowners pay a mortgage (a loan) every month. The national average outstanding mortgage debt is $148,000. Total mortgage debt is $10.3 trillion. Now cars: There are roughly 260 million passenger vehicles registered in America, with upward of 100 million of them bought on loans that are still active, amounting to $1.2 trillion, enough to buy 53 million Ford Fusions at $23,000 each. Now credit card debt: total for the US is $3.9 trillion with an average carried balance of $9,333. Meanwhile, 45 percent of adult Americans have no savings.
As Senator Everett Dirksen (R-Ill) once quipped during a senate budget battle, “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you’re talking real money.” Consider that a trillion is a thousand billion (and a billion is a thousand million). In an ordinary reality, a reality-based reality, that is, with reality-based money, that would be a lot of money (and a lot of debt)! It’s hard to project an exact figure, but with over 20 percent of the US work-force idle, with no income, there’s liable to be a lot of debt that’s not being paid back, will never be paid back, and a lot of money headed into extinction. That will translate into a lot of people with no money. Until all that money they owed is finished not being paid back, and the new money that Fed is busy creating, with no relationship to the production of things of value, overcomes the old money that’s finished disappearing. Then Americans will have plenty of money. The catch is that the money will be worthless. Thus, the two ways of going broke: having no money; or having lots of money that’s too worthless to buy anything. So it goes.
World Made by Hand: A ... Kunstler, James Howard Best Price: $1.10 Buy New $10.56 (as of 10:30 UTC - Details) Along with people’s hopes and dreams of a decent life. What you see, then, is a nation, and a system, that has come to be based on broken promises. That’s what the restless public will take away from this morass of statistics. The discord will rapidly leave the statistical frame and take hold in the emotional frame, and that frame will feature entirely negative emotion: rage, resentment, grievance, vengeance, feelings like that. The sum of all broken promises is a broken social contract. That’s the agreement that we will behave civilly in exchange for the liberty to go about our business — within clearly defined rules (laws) about what is legitimate business. A broken social contract is exactly what all these machinations are leading up to. Hence, the appearances of the state — the system and the people who run it — become more and more fantastically and transparently dishonest.
For instance, the fake candidacy of Joe Biden, a man too far gone in age and mind to be president, with a long slime-trail of family money-grubbing in and around his official offices, and now an old sexual molestation charge against him. Who do the Democrats think they’re kidding with this? The coronavirus gave them an excuse to stuff Joe in a closet for two months, but can they keep hiding him there after the grand opening-up?
Will Wall Street and its errand boys in the Federal Reserve keep working their shifty hoodoo, enriching shareholders, hedge funders, and corporate execs while everybody else hits the red-line of hunger and outrage? Will Mr. Trump do what he suggested way back on the campaign trail in 2016 and declare a national bankruptcy? There is, after all, a difference between bankruptcy and national insurrection. Bankruptcy, at least, holds the promise of a work-out. Financial work-outs are generally painful, but orderly. That could make all the difference.
Reprinted with permission from Kunstler.com.
The Best of James Howard Kunstler


lewrockwell--2020-05-12--US Further Escalates War on China by Other Means

In early April , China ’ s official People ’ s Daily broadsheet slammed the Trump regime ’ s unacceptable restrictions imposed on the country ’ s journalists in the US .
It called hostile US actions a “ clumsy performance ( that ) further exposed the hypocrisy of the self-styled advocate of press freedom.
” The State Department imposed onerous visa restrictions on Chinese journalists , denying entry or expelling some for political reasons .
In 2018 , 29 Chinese journalists were denied US visas without explanation .
Nine others had their visas revoked .
Chinese journalists in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Congress and various Capitol Hill events , some interrogated like criminal suspects — their legitimate rights denied .
Hate Inc. : Why Todayu2 ... Taibbi , Matt Best Price : $ 15.95 Buy New $ 14.99 In December 2018 , the Trump regime ’ s Justice Department designed Chinese media in the US as “ foreign agents , ” — requiring them to provide information about their finances and activities on a regular basis .
In mid-February , the State Department designed five Chinese media in the US as “ foreign missions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — including the requirement to get approval for renting or buying housing accommodations for their staff .
In March , the State Department ordered designated Chinese media in the US to reduce their staff to 100 from 160 — expelling 60 journalists from the country .
On Friday , the Trump regime ’ s Homeland Security Department issued new visa guidelines for Chinese journalists , restricting them to 90 days , in lieu of open-ended entry , with an option to extend them for another 90 days .
Trump Regime Threatens Escalated War @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policy applies as well to Chinese journalists working for non-Chinese media .
It ’ s effective on May 11 .
According to an unnamed DHS official cited by Reuters , the new policy aims to limit the number of Chinese journalists in the US .
Unacceptably treating them like fifth column threats virtually assures retaliation by Beijing .
An unnamed Chinese journalist who used to work in the US called the Trump regime ’ s new move an “ expulsion ” policy , adding : Up to now , it ’ s been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ three months ” because of US hostility toward Beijing .
The Return of Great Po ... Kroenig , Matthew Best Price : $ 25.10 Buy New $ 25.95 China Institute of International Studies research fellow Zhang Tengjun slammed how Washington operates , saying : “ The US has long labeled itself as valuing ‘ freedom of the press , ’ but its actions were full of hypocrisy.
” “ The new policy speaks of the double standard being practiced by US politicians.
” “ They continuously stress on Chinese journalists ’ official background @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Chinese reporters ’ normal reporting activities in the US.
” Trump ’ s China bashing policy aims to boost his troubled reelection campaign .
Most polls conducted in early May showed his approval below 45 % , disapproval over 50 % .
His indifference toward public health , mishandling of COVID-19 outbreaks , and economic collapse that left tens of millions of Americans without work may be his undoing in November .
The Best of Stephen Lendman

In early April, China’s official People’s Daily broadsheet slammed the Trump regime’s unacceptable restrictions imposed on the country’s journalists in the US.
It called hostile US actions a “clumsy performance (that) further exposed the hypocrisy of the self-styled advocate of press freedom.”
The State Department imposed onerous visa restrictions on Chinese journalists, denying entry or expelling some for political reasons.
In 2018, 29 Chinese journalists were denied US visas without explanation. Nine others had their visas revoked.
Chinese journalists in the US are harassed, denied press passes to Congress and various Capitol Hill events, some interrogated like criminal suspects — their legitimate rights denied. Hate Inc.: Why Todayu2... Taibbi, Matt Best Price: $15.95 Buy New $14.99 (as of 05:05 UTC - Details)
In December 2018, the Trump regime’s Justice Department designed Chinese media in the US as “foreign agents,” — requiring them to provide information about their finances and activities on a regular basis.
In mid-February, the State Department designed five Chinese media in the US as “foreign missions,” imposing onerous burdens on them — including the requirement to get approval for renting or buying housing accommodations for their staff.
In March, the State Department ordered designated Chinese media in the US to reduce their staff to 100 from 160 — expelling 60 journalists from the country.
On Friday, the Trump regime’s Homeland Security Department issued new visa guidelines for Chinese journalists, restricting them to 90 days, in lieu of open-ended entry, with an option to extend them for another 90 days.
Trump Regime Threatens Escalated War on China by Other Means
The new policy applies as well to Chinese journalists working for non-Chinese media. It’s effective on May 11.
According to an unnamed DHS official cited by Reuters, the new policy aims to limit the number of Chinese journalists in the US.
Unacceptably treating them like fifth column threats virtually assures retaliation by Beijing.
An unnamed Chinese journalist who used to work in the US called the Trump regime’s new move an “expulsion” policy, adding:
Up to now, it’s been “difficult to renew a visa every three months” because of US hostility toward Beijing. The Return of Great Po... Kroenig, Matthew Best Price: $25.10 Buy New $25.95 (as of 05:05 UTC - Details)
China Institute of International Studies research fellow Zhang Tengjun slammed how Washington operates, saying:
“The US has long labeled itself as valuing ‘freedom of the press,’ but its actions were full of hypocrisy.”
“The new policy speaks of the double standard being practiced by US politicians.”
“They continuously stress on Chinese journalists’ official background to find an excuse for cracking down on Chinese reporters’ normal reporting activities in the US.”
Trump’s China bashing policy aims to boost his troubled reelection campaign.
Most polls conducted in early May showed his approval below 45%, disapproval over 50%.
His indifference toward public health, mishandling of COVID-19 outbreaks, and economic collapse that left tens of millions of Americans without work may be his undoing in November.
Reprinted with permission from Global Research.
The Best of Stephen Lendman


lewrockwell--2020-05-12--As the World Is Distracted by COVID-19, a Series of Large Earthquakes Is Rocking the ‘Ring Of Fire’

Within the past several days , large earthquakes have been striking all along the outer rim of the Pacific Ocean , and many are wondering if all of this activity could potentially be building up to something really big .
Those that follow my work on a regular basis know that I have been deeply concerned about seismic activity on the west coast for a long time , and scientists assure us that it is just a matter of time before “ the Big One ” hits us .
According to Wikipedia , approximately 81 percent of all large earthquakes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and of course the west coast of North America accounts for a large stretch of it .
As you can see from this map , the California and Alaska coastlines have been absolutely peppered by quakes in recent days , but nobody is really talking about these quakes because everyone is so focused on COVID-19 right now .
Yes , this pandemic deserves our attention , but I would submit that all of the unusual shaking that has been happening certainly deserves our attention as well .
You may not have heard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 4.5 earthquake rocked San Diego on Sunday afternoon… The Beginning Of The End Michael Snyder Best Price : $ 9.97 Buy New $ 18.08 That is a rather large quake for that particular area , and it is just one of hundreds that have been hitting the region .
In fact , CalTech says that there have been 1,227 earthquakes in California and Nevada over the last 7 days .
Meanwhile , the section of the Ring of Fire that runs along the west coast of South America has also been getting hit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ struck northern Chile on Sunday , and that really shook a lot of people up .
Subsequently , the portion of the Ring of Fire that runs along the coast of Japan was hit by a magnitude 5.8 earthquake very late on Sunday… And that unusual event in Japan was very quickly followed by a magnitude 5.6 earthquake in Indonesia .
Of course Indonesia sits right along the Ring of Fire as well .
There has been so much shaking in Indonesia recently , but most Americans never hear about it .
Just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hit by a magnitude 6.9 earthquake that was so powerful that it was actually felt in Australia… So as you can see , there have been significant seismic events all over the Ring of Fire within the past several days .
But it isn ’ t just the Ring of Fire that has been shaking .
Big earthquakes have been popping up in diverse places all over the globe , and the magnitude 5.1 quake that just hit Iran really surprised a lot of people… And weird earthquakes have been happening in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ my work on a regular basis knows that in addition to the west coast I am always watching the New Madrid seismic zone very carefully .
So when two unusual earthquakes hit southern Tennessee on Sunday morning , it definitely got my attention… Without a doubt , there is a whole lot of shaking going on right now .
Living A Life That Rea ... Michael Snyder Best Price : $ 14.48 Buy New $ 14.53 That does not necessarily mean that a major event of some sort is imminent , and we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ event can be put off for as long as possible .
But as I keep warning , the crust of our planet is very unstable , and many have been warning that we should expect that instability to only get worse in the days ahead .
Seismologists have warned us over and over that it is just a matter of time before “ the Big One ” absolutely devastates the west coast .
They have told us that the San Andreas fault appears to be “ locked and loaded ” and that it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” .
And if that actually happens , seismologists have warned that the ground level could suddenly decline by up to 3 feet , and that could potentially result in vast portions of southern California suddenly being way below sea level .
In other words , we are talking about the sort of disaster that most people don ’ t even want to think about .
Of course very few people ever imagined that a coronavirus pandemic would virtually shut down the entire country , and yet here we are .
We live @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have a feeling that they will soon get a whole lot stranger… Reprinted with permission from End of The American Dream .
The Best of Michael Snyder

Within the past several days, large earthquakes have been striking all along the outer rim of the Pacific Ocean, and many are wondering if all of this activity could potentially be building up to something really big. Those that follow my work on a regular basis know that I have been deeply concerned about seismic activity on the west coast for a long time, and scientists assure us that it is just a matter of time before “the Big One” hits us. According to Wikipedia, approximately 81 percent of all large earthquakes take place along the Ring of Fire, and of course the west coast of North America accounts for a large stretch of it. As you can see from this map, the California and Alaska coastlines have been absolutely peppered by quakes in recent days, but nobody is really talking about these quakes because everyone is so focused on COVID-19 right now.
Yes, this pandemic deserves our attention, but I would submit that all of the unusual shaking that has been happening certainly deserves our attention as well.
You may not have heard about it yet, but a magnitude 4.5 earthquake rocked San Diego on Sunday afternoon… The Beginning Of The End Michael Snyder Best Price: $9.97 Buy New $18.08 (as of 07:00 UTC - Details)
A 4.5 magnitude earthquake originating in Imperial County rocked San Diegans from East Village to Lakeside on Sunday afternoon, according to the United States Geological Survey. The quake struck at 3:07 p.m. in Imperial County about 10.5 miles southeast of Ocotillo Wells, according to the USGS. It had a depth of 10 kilometers or 6.2 miles.
That is a rather large quake for that particular area, and it is just one of hundreds that have been hitting the region. In fact, CalTech says that there have been 1,227 earthquakes in California and Nevada over the last 7 days.
Meanwhile, the section of the Ring of Fire that runs along the west coast of South America has also been getting hit pretty hard. A magnitude 5.4 quake struck northern Chile on Sunday, and that really shook a lot of people up.
Subsequently, the portion of the Ring of Fire that runs along the coast of Japan was hit by a magnitude 5.8 earthquake very late on Sunday…
The quake hit near the east coast of Honshu at 23.58 UTC on Sunday. The earthquake was reported to have a depth of 80km. It also hit 129km north east of Saitama and also 26km south east of Hitachi, according to emsc-csem. USGS tweeted: “Prelim M5.8 Earthquake near the east coast of Honshu, Japan May-10 23:58 UTC”
And that unusual event in Japan was very quickly followed by a magnitude 5.6 earthquake in Indonesia.
Of course Indonesia sits right along the Ring of Fire as well.
There has been so much shaking in Indonesia recently, but most Americans never hear about it. Just a few days ago, Indonesia was hit by a magnitude 6.9 earthquake that was so powerful that it was actually felt in Australia…
A powerful earthquake in Indonesia has been felt in the Northern Territory. Residents of Darwin reported online they had felt the shake, which registered as a magnitude-6.9 quake late on Wednesday evening. The tremor hit the Banda Sea, more than 600km north of Darwin, at a depth of 142km.
So as you can see, there have been significant seismic events all over the Ring of Fire within the past several days.
But it isn’t just the Ring of Fire that has been shaking. Big earthquakes have been popping up in diverse places all over the globe, and the magnitude 5.1 quake that just hit Iran really surprised a lot of people…
A 5.1 magnitude earthquake hit Iran shortly after midnight on Thursday night with its epicenter 34 miles east of the capital city Tehran. AFP reported that panicked residents rushed into the streets, abandoning buildings in fear they would collapse. Two people were killed and 55 injured in the earthquake. The earthquake was followed by eight more mild aftershocks.
And weird earthquakes have been happening in the U.S. as well.
Anyone that follows my work on a regular basis knows that in addition to the west coast I am always watching the New Madrid seismic zone very carefully.
So when two unusual earthquakes hit southern Tennessee on Sunday morning, it definitely got my attention…
Two earthquakes were reported back to back in southern Tennessee early Sunday morning, officials say. Both quakes happened about 4.3 miles southeast of Sewanee, which is near the Alabama border and about 52 miles from Chattanooga, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The first, a 3.1 magnitude, hit at 3:33 a.m. and the second, a 2.8 magnitude, hit at 3:34 a.m.
Without a doubt, there is a whole lot of shaking going on right now. Living A Life That Rea... Michael Snyder Best Price: $14.48 Buy New $14.53 (as of 06:20 UTC - Details)
That does not necessarily mean that a major event of some sort is imminent, and we should certainly hope that the next major event can be put off for as long as possible.
But as I keep warning, the crust of our planet is very unstable, and many have been warning that we should expect that instability to only get worse in the days ahead.
Seismologists have warned us over and over that it is just a matter of time before “the Big One” absolutely devastates the west coast. They have told us that the San Andreas fault appears to be “locked and loaded” and that it could potentially “unzip all at once”.
And if that actually happens, seismologists have warned that the ground level could suddenly decline by up to 3 feet, and that could potentially result in vast portions of southern California suddenly being way below sea level.
In other words, we are talking about the sort of disaster that most people don’t even want to think about.
Of course very few people ever imagined that a coronavirus pandemic would virtually shut down the entire country, and yet here we are.
We live in very strange times, and I have a feeling that they will soon get a whole lot stranger…
Reprinted with permission from End of The American Dream.
The Best of Michael Snyder