investmentwatchblog--2020-05-26--Is The U.S. Prepared For War With China?

Mid-2020 saw the world at war , actual strategic war as far as the Forbidden Palace in Beijing was concerned .
This was almost disbelievingly acknowledged by some in Washington , DC , London , Canberra , Ottawa , New Delhi , and Tokyo .
It was a war that was viewed tentatively and with incredulity in much of the West because it was a war of a very new type .
And it was a war in which the West — for the first time in a century or more — did not write the rules of engagement .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ covert war to overt war , the People ’ s Republic of China ( PRC ) leadership was aware , certainly by early May 2020 ( and probably even by January of that year ) , that it had to move quickly to use the cover of the global coronavirus preoccupation and lockdown in order to make and consolidate some key strategic advances while it could do so unopposed .
These initial objectives for Beijing included : • Locking down control of the autonomous Hong Kong region — a significant source of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ generation — once and for all , and hoping to do so with minimal foreign reprisal ; • Rebuilding a PRC position whereby it could resume domination of global supply chain origination manufacturing , something which it had essentially been losing even before the 2020 crisis ; • Break up the revival of a coherent US alliance structure in the Indo Pacific ( including the Middle East ) and ensure that there were no viable options to allow the Russian Federation to expand its rapprochement with the West .
Essentially , it needed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ second Silk Road ” , dominated by Russia and supported by Japan ( in particular ) would not be strategically threatening to Beijing ; • Make progress in shortening the timescale for a military-led option to remove Taiwan — the Republic of China ( ROC ) — from any chance of depending on strategic military cover from the United States and Japan .
There were no immediate , clearcut successes visible for Beijing by late May 2020 , but the urgency was there , and so was the momentum .
The PRC had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and it was clear that it had , despite reviving fear , distrust , and counteraction by the US , UK , and Australia , in particular .
Beijing ’ s economic position and outlook , worsening for at least the previous decade , could not sustain the PRC ’ s strategic competitiveness visàvis the US and its allies much longer unless the crisis could be used to actually ruin the relative economic and military positions of its opponents .
It was , then , a decision that , if Beijing could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and therefore strategic ) competitiveness , then all others needed to lose their ability to compete .
It was a war plan consciously written by the Communist Party of China ( CPC ) , and particularly in the image of the CPC and PRC leader , Xi Jinping .
It had its ideological origins in the globalism pioneered by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ( CPSU ) , but it took on Maoist characteristics ( consolidated by the updated Maoism of Xi Jinping ) , including the clarity of the 1999 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Unrestricted Warfare total war strategy .
So the new war doctrine — the 21st Century version of “ total war ” — was a long time in coming .
Its development was also , most importantly , an evolution of the Allied victory of World War II , with its development of global supply chain thinking : logistics and industrialization .
The CPC , starting with Deng Xiao-ping , learned to truly create “ socialism with Chinese characteristics ” , but that meant something very much modernized over historical Marxist-oriented interpretations .
This @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Beijing that it needed to rebuild the traditional “ global ” supply chain pattern through which the Middle Kingdom had made itself the central power through much of ancient history .
Its supplicant , or tributary vassals , had depended on the Silk Routes , overland through Eurasia and by sea through the Indo-Pacific ( and beyond ) , and must be made to do so again .
This became Xi Jinping ’ s “ One Belt , One Road ” ( OBOR ) initiative , which in May 2017 became the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ BRI ) when it was clear that Moscow , Tokyo , and Washington were attempting to create a “ second Silk Road ” across Russia , bypassing Beijing ’ s attempted domination of the South China Sea ( to control the Silk Road at Sea ) .
But in the period up to mid-2020 , the “ new total war ” was viewed — particularly in the West — as nebulous .
This new total war format is , by definition , amorphous , and deliberately so , as I note in my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the 21st Century and the Trigger of the Fear Pandemic .
Direct , kinetic confrontation — the measure by which the uniformed military and much of society viewed “ war ” — was absent , although the threat of it had finally emerged by April/May 2020 , and this galvanized thinking among Western leadership .
It even generated enough alarm to see the deep internal political schisms in the US and Australia heal at least to a degree .
In the US , the emerging threat saw Democratic Party and Republican Party @ @ @ @ @ @ @ largely unreported in the US media — to reject the PRC ’ s threat to US and Western interests .
It also caused the UK Government to finally be able to move , with broad public acceptance , to end the PRC ’ s strategic leverage in Britain , including ending the question of reliance on the PRC ’ s 5G communications technology from Huawei .
However , it was , to use the term at the start of World War II , a period of “ phony war ” , just as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ May 10 , 1940 .
And it was akin to the thinking which , after World War I was enjoined in August 1914 , saw soldiers happily reassuring their families that they would be “ home by Christmas ” .
Both those episodes of wishful thinking characterized the start of the two total wars of the 20th Century .
But in both those conflicts , as with the new total war of the 21st Century , those who had long planned secretly for an offensive war knew that their canvases extended beyond the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They planned for a victory which had global , and indeed globalist , ramifications : a total world system unified under the nexus of the visionary power .
But these titanic struggles are usually won or lost by factors determined well in advance of the opening shots of kinetic war , and during the “ phony war ” period before the targets of the initial aggressor are aware that they have been caught at a disadvantage .
In the Napoleonic Wars , World Wars I and II , and the Cold War , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and the Soviet Union coupled with the People ’ s Republic of China ) sensed that they were at a significant strategic disadvantage .
This caused them to undertake strategic preparations and operations without and well before any formal declaration of war .
They needed to steal a march on their adversaries .
Significantly , in all of those “ total wars ” — and the Cold War was even more total than the earlier great wars — the initial aggressor never overcame its fundamental lack of comprehensive strategic strength .
Is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Century likely to be different ?
Is it likely to be as protracted as the four-decade Cold War ?
Certainly , given technologies and the extent to which some three decades of “ peaceful ” globalism had allowed Beijing to dominate supply chains so that its trading partners became dependent on it , it was to be a far more amorphous war than even the Cold War .
Pres .
Xi had some cause for optimism , but also — because of the PRC ’ s fundamental and increasing economic weakness — cause @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which he knew would bring about a major strategic response , a pushback , from his adversaries .
The late 2019 outbreak of the coronavirus ( COVID19 ) viral epidemic provided the trigger point for open offensive operations by the PRC , but they were operations that were still within the boundaries of amorphous warfare .
Beijing , going into the 2020 breakout , understood completely the limitations and strengths of its existing formal military capabilities .
In the words of the US Country and Western song , it “ knows when to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fold ‘ em , knows when to walk away , knows when to run ” .
Beijing knew that it must essentially win the new total war before it became globally kinetic , and therefore it must preclude the formation ( or the rejoining ) of Western alliances and strategic economic gains against it , and prevent Russia , in particular , from being drawn into the Western camp .
Although the PRC had depended heavily ( and resentfully ) on Moscow during the Cold War , by the 21st Century it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , technologically more innovative than the PRC — which now depended on Beijing .
Russia was , to draw an imperfect parallel from World War II , Italy to Beijing ’ s Germany in the new total war .
One-time US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said : “ You go to war with the army you have , not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.
” While that is as true today as it was in the early post-Cold War period when Rumsfeld made his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all aspirant powers discreetly attempt to gain as much force development — and strategic technology — as possible before having to show their hand in a major war .
This was the case with the PRC in the 21st Century , and particularly since Pres .
Xi Jinping came to supremacy in 2012 .
It may not be reasonable to say the same about the Russian Federation in this timeframe .
Russia was indeed , in the post-Cold War era , able to step out from the shadow of the Soviet-era to prepare @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a state where the US regarded it as its “ pacing threat ” : the capability which most challenged US capabilities .
But it was the PRC that worked discreetly to pose the actual threat .
To a significant degree , the economics of Eurasia and the Russian dependency on cashflow from the PRC meant that Beijing largely had access to Russian technology during its critical buildup period for war against the US and its allies .
But the PRC also had access ( even in the pre-Xi era ) to much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Western intellectual property .
This included the very technology of strategic precision targeting and guidance for ballistic weapons and hypersonic weapons which threatened US and allied capabilities in the offshore oceans of East , and Southeast Asia , by 2020 .
Beijing knew that , if it needed to force the US to “ go to war with the army it has ” , rather than the defense force it needed to have , it had best do so before the defense modernization plans driven by the US Donald Trump Administration could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by early 2019 that the intended Trump upgrades to the US defense capabilities had not yet taken hold , and that some of the US capability improvements were unlikely due to longterm commitments to , for example , the Lockheed Martin F35series combat aircraft .
On March 7 , 2020 , a RAND organization warfare analyst , in a speech to the ( significantly , Democratic Party-controlled ) Center for a New American Security , announced that RAND conflict simulation had seen the US fail to prevail in a comprehensive military engagement with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ analyst David Ochmanek noted : “ We lose a lot of people .
We lose a lot of equipment .
We usually [ in these engagements ] fail to achieve our objective of preventing aggression by the adversary.
” The conclusions were supported by a presentation by former US Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work .
“ In every case I know of , ” said Work , “ the F35 rules the sky when it ’ s in the sky , but it gets killed on the ground in large numbers.
” But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anything like acceptable operational readiness rates do not even justify DepSec Work ’ s qualified optimism .
A gathering of the Aspen Security Forum in the US in July 2019 brought further reinforcement of the relative weakness of US forces in the Pacific .
Much of this analysis was based on the 2015 RAND study , The US-China Military Scorecard : Forces , Geography , and the Evolving Balance of Power , 1996-2017 , but with follow-on simulation strengthening the case .
The 2018 bipartisan official study for the US Defense Department , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Assessment and Recommendations of the National Defense Strategy Commission , noted : “ If the United States had to fight Russia in a Baltic contingency or China in a war over Taiwan , Americans could face a decisive military defeat.
” The Commission highlights the PRC ’ s and Russia ’ s ongoing efforts to develop advanced anti-access/area-denial ( A2/AD ) weaponry , systems which could result in “ enormous ” losses for the US military in a conflict .
It went on : “ Put bluntly , the US military could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it fights ” .
The Trump Administration , however , was moving rapidly to attempt to rectify the challenge , moving belatedly to accelerate the introduction of maneuverable hypersonic weapons for offensive and defensive operations .
Indeed , the speed with which the Trump White House was committed to recovering US defense capabilities clearly played a key role in spurring Beijing to action to achieve essential objectives in the “ near-abroad ” before the US could rectify its disadvantage .
Already , Xi had moved the PRC ’ s defense emphasis from ground @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Liberation Army ( PLA ) toward the PLA Navy ( PLAN ) and the PLA Air Force ( PLAAF ) and — even more importantly — the Strategic Rocket Force and the Strategic Support Force .
Essentially , the PRC was attempting to do something which it had not achieved since the first half of the 13th Century : to become a ( if not the ) globally dominant maritime power .
But the first order of business was to dominate the First Island Chain ( and particularly Taiwan ) and subdue the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ based on Guam ) into defeat or at least a defensive impotence .
That a window of opportunity continued to exist into 2020 for the PRC to use its largely mobile ballistic missile capabilities to neutralize both US fleets at sea within around 1,000 n.miles from the PRC coastline and against US air ( particularly B52 , B2 , and B1 bomber ) and missile assets on Guam and the Japanese islands was evident .
An open report in the UK newspaper , The Times , on May 16 , 2020 , indicated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ US forces would be overwhelmed , and that the situation was worsening with the introduction of new PLAN attack submarines , aircraft carriers , and destroyers through 2030 .
The Times article quoted Bonnie Glaser , director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington , DC , and a consultant for the US Government on East Asia , as saying : “ Every simulation that has been conducted looking at the threat from China by 2030 have all ended up with the defeat of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ volatile issue because that could escalate to a war with the US , even to a nuclear war .
In the Pentagon and State Department and the White House , China is now seen as the biggest threat .
We have been too passive in the past.
” PRC military and intelligence analysis clearly recognized that short-term military success would not necessarily equate to longterm victory .
The Japanese decision to strike at US naval and air assets at Pearl Harbor , Hawaii , on December 7 , 1941 , actually ensured longterm @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Beijing had no desire to create a similar outlook for itself .
But Beijing had no option but to initiate conflict with the US alliance at this time if it wished to avoid short term implosion due to economic and internal resource shortcomings .
There is no doubt that Beijing has had a decade to consider this , and to formulate its broader strategic plan to help foment a more broadly-based collapse of US and Western strategic and economic resilience , at least sufficient to enable the PRC to consolidate its geostrategic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ domestic population control .
Xi Jinping needed , by May 2020 , to show early strategic progress for substantive and prestige reasons .
Both are critical to ensure domestic support and compliance and to move regional and global competition into a defensive and possibly conciliatory posture .
Consolidation and demonstration of PLA capabilities in the South China Sea and against the ROC on Taiwan were ongoing , but did not yet reach the level of a definitive , iconic , and durable outcome for Beijing .
Beijing , through its National People ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , introduced a new national security law for Hong Kong to suppress “ sedition , secession , and subversion ” as well as foreign involvement , “ terrorism ” , and autonomy .
Despite Beijing ’ s denial , this represented the effective end of the “ one nation , two systems ” policy guaranteed under the terms of the July 1 , 1997 , handover of Hong Kong to the PRC by the United Kingdom Politicians from 23 nations had , by May 24 , 2020 , signed a petition of complaint @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the real test of how much it would impact the economy of the PRC would be determined by whether the US ended its special economic relationship with Hong Kong .
That would be a significant blow for Beijing , but the CPC leadership had already calculated that the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong had already effectively destroyed significant contributions by Hong Kong to the PRC economy , and the coronavirus shutdowns had merely cemented that reality .
So bringing Hong Kong under direct Beijing control was worth the loss of whatever economic benefits @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And it would send a firm indication of Beijing ’ s resolution to Taiwan .
But real questions persisted as to how much the act would calm or enflame unrest against Beijing in Hong Kong , and whether it would caution or enflame anti-Beijing sentiments being aroused by economic and COVID19 related issues around the rest of mainland China .
Again , clearly , Beijing could not accept the situation in Hong Kong , and had no option — if the CPC wished to retain control — but to suppress by force the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to bend to any other entreaties .
Similarly , internal security in the rest of the PRC would be undertaken forcefully .
And Beijing was aware of the escalation of US and Turkish fomenting of the Uighur ( Turkic ) population of Xinjiang ( with the “ East Turkestan ” independence movement ) .
The now naked USPRC hostilities meant that Washington would be less discreet in its support for the Uighurs against their suppression by Beijing .
The question there was how much Beijing could pressure Moscow to make Turkey cease cooperation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ankara sees itself as the pan-Turkish patron of the East Turkestan movement .
Beijing had , by early May 2020 , begun ( once again ) to probe a military flexing against India in the Pangong Tso Lake and Galwan Valley areas of Eastern Ladakh , part of Kashmir , along the “ Line of Actual Control ” in the unresolved border area .
The Indian Army immediately matched the PLA buildup which had taken place in the two weeks to May 22 , 2020 .
At least five rounds of talks at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 22 , 2020 , failed to calm the tensions , and there had been violent confrontations between the Indian Army and PLA forces on May 5 , 2020 , and a similar incident in North Sikkim on May 9 , 2020 .
From the PRC perspective , this manageable exercise was a form of probasila ( Soviet term ) : reconnaissance to the point of contact , to gauge enemy strength , reaction , and resolve .
It gave Beijing an option to escalate or distract , and possibly to divert India away @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other SouthEast Asian nations on the question of PRC advances .
But the PLA operations were also key to its resolve to support Pakistan ’ s claims to its part of Kashmir which determines the PRC ’ s critical overland access to the Indian Ocean , something threatened by India ’ s 2019 invasion of Kashmir .
So the Ladakh escalation was a key indicator of Beijing ’ s need to ensure consolidation of its close geographic links in the Indo-Pacific region .
But of overriding importance to Beijing was its campaign to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was not re-elected to the Presidency in the November 3 , 2020 , election , and that the Republican Party would lose its majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate .
In some respects , and using the contrived narrative of US initiation of , engagement in , and mismanagement of the COVID19 crisis , the CPC was able to make common cause with such anti-Trump US influencers as The New York Times and the CNN cable network .
Yet as tempting as this tactical alliance was in helping the Democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the Republicans in November 2020 , it was clear by mid-May 2020 that many in the Democratic Party leadership were also turning against Beijing over the COVID19 issue and its hostility toward both the US and its allies , and Hong Kong .
To be sure , Beijing would never have expected an overt alliance with anti-Trump elements in the US , but it aimed at achieving sufficient “ net effect ” that it could sustain momentum against a Trump/Republican victory in November 2020 .
There was little doubt in Beijing that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2016 election , the PRC would not have seen the sharp end to two decades of unopposed PRC strategic expansion in the Indo-Pacific and the AfricaMiddle East regions .
Beijing ’ s initial strategic operations in the new total war had been underway for some time before the 2020 watershed .
However , with the watershed of the COVID19 crisis , the PRC ’ s most urgent initial strategic operation was to ensure that it consolidated its hold on markets around the world .
It had been losing market share gradually to other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the PRC .
The initial strategic operation of the CPC in early 2020 was to ensure that the PRC ’ s factories returned to full production as quickly as possible so that an abundance of PRC-made goods could be dumped at concessionary prices onto the world market .
This would , if done rapidly and at enticing prices , make it more difficult to stimulate the reestablishment of manufacturing in the major “ pseudo postindustrial ” client states of North America , Europe , and Australasia .
This operation was a race against @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the marketplace lure of cheap goods to overturn the instinct to resist Beijing and recreate — and incentivize and protect — revived local industry .
The ability of client states to resist the dependence on the PRC would require legislation and government programs , and Beijing hoped that , over time , the urgency of those efforts would fade and the client states would fall back into the slumber of dependency on the PRC as the supplier of goods .
Beijing also hoped that by returning to robust economic production early in 2020 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ form of governance had triumphed over the chaos of liberal democracy as evidenced by the COVID19 malaise in Western and other “ Western-style democracies ” .
These were reasonable strategic exercises , but there was no evidence by May 2020 of success , or that , on the other hand , the US and its allies would have the ability to regrow their independent strategic capabilities in the near-term .
And Beijing clearly hoped that , by dampening a return to vigorous Western dominance in the short term , it could then deliver @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ongoing splitting operations within target societies , a further process of reducing USled abilities to withstand the relative growth and dominance of the PRC .
Pres .
Xi was , in May 2020 , clearly hoping to postpone the initial kinetic operations of the new war for as long as possible .
It was in his interests to make as much progress as possible before his opponents began their own strategic revival That “ strategic revival ” by Beijing ’ s opponents was the prospect that the US and other PRC client states @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chain and general trade reliance on the PRC quickly .
In fact , the public and governmental reaction against the PRC in Beijing ’ s trading partners was swift and strong .
Beijing ’ s attempts to bully the Australian Government into withdrawing its demand for an independent inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus epidemic were successful in that the World Health Assembly ( WHA ) in Geneva on May 1819 , 2020 , dampened down the Australian-led call for an independent inquiry in favor of a World Health Organization ( WHO @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” inquiry “ soon ” .
This actually only served to anger the US and its allies further , something compounded by a statement on May 19 , 2020 , from the PRC embassy in Canberra noting that the terms of the COVID19 resolution were “ totally different from Australia ’ s proposal of an independent international review … All those who know the consultation process that led to the resolution understand this .
To claim the WHA ’ s resolution [ as ] a vindication of Australia ’ s call is nothing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Australia Cheng Jingye had , until a few months earlier , been able to get lead articles in Australian national media to berate Australians into thanking Beijing for Australia ’ s economic success .
By mid-May 2020 , every appearance or statement by Amb .
Cheng generated more Australian calls to rebuild the Australian industry and reduce reliance on trade with the PRC .
Beijing had numbed , or paralyzed , North American , European , Australasian , SouthEast Asian , and other target audiences for a decade .
It had made resistance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unthinkable .
But that period was now over .
The war had been enjoined .
So where and how would kinetic operations begin ?
It seems clear that Beijing is reluctant to initiate military action , but is ready to engage once it has begun .
Both the PRC and the US see advantages and disadvantages in delaying decisive tactical or theater action .
The path to escalation to nuclear engagement is also far less clear — and deterrence far less sure — than during the NATO Warsaw Pact “ mutually assured destruction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ willingness by the PLA to engage in nuclear capabilities ( ie : against military targets ) .
Military action in the near-term could well consolidate the PRC position in its “ near abroad ” .
It could even achieve de facto or de jure control of Taiwan , a critical legitimizing goal for the CPC , if the US did not rush in tripwire assets and support to show a preemptive tripwire to deter PRC escalation .
But what after that ?
Would it give Beijing the breathing space to “ fight another @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it left matters as they were — it would not have had that chance , given its growing economic difficulty ( and the potential for collapse ) ?
Like Japan in 1941 , the CPC must buy time if it is to survive and consolidate control over markets and sources of supply .
But , like Japan in 1941 , would a precipitate action cause not just the US , but a variety of its allies to rebuild in the longer-term ?
The wager is now in the air .
By Gregory R. @ @ @ @ @ @

By Gregory R. Copley
Mid-2020 saw the world at war, actual strategic war as far as the Forbidden Palace in Beijing was concerned. This was almost disbelievingly acknowledged by some in Washington, DC, London, Canberra, Ottawa, New Delhi, and Tokyo. It was a war that was viewed tentatively and with incredulity in much of the West because it was a war of a very new type. And it was a war in which the West — for the first time in a century or more — did not write the rules of engagement.
Indeed, because it had emerged from covert war to overt war, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) leadership was aware, certainly by early May 2020 (and probably even by January of that year), that it had to move quickly to use the cover of the global coronavirus preoccupation and lockdown in order to make and consolidate some key strategic advances while it could do so unopposed. These initial objectives for Beijing included:
Locking down control of the autonomous Hong Kong region — a significant source of the PRC’s access to foreign exchange generation — once and for all, and hoping to do so with minimal foreign reprisal; Rebuilding a PRC position whereby it could resume domination of global supply chain origination manufacturing, something which it had essentially been losing even before the 2020 crisis; Consolidate military domination of the South China Sea region; Break up the revival of a coherent US alliance structure in the Indo Pacific (including the Middle East) and ensure that there were no viable options to allow the Russian Federation to expand its rapprochement with the West. Essentially, it needed to end the prospect that the “second Silk Road”, dominated by Russia and supported by Japan (in particular) would not be strategically threatening to Beijing; Make progress in shortening the timescale for a military-led option to remove Taiwan — the Republic of China (ROC) — from any chance of depending on strategic military cover from the United States and Japan.
There were no immediate, clearcut successes visible for Beijing by late May 2020, but the urgency was there, and so was the momentum. The PRC had no option but to make gains quickly, and it was clear that it had, despite reviving fear, distrust, and counteraction by the US, UK, and Australia, in particular. Beijing’s economic position and outlook, worsening for at least the previous decade, could not sustain the PRC’s strategic competitiveness visàvis the US and its allies much longer unless the crisis could be used to actually ruin the relative economic and military positions of its opponents.
It was, then, a decision that, if Beijing could not succeed in recovering its economic (and therefore strategic) competitiveness, then all others needed to lose their ability to compete.
It was a war plan consciously written by the Communist Party of China (CPC), and particularly in the image of the CPC and PRC leader, Xi Jinping. It had its ideological origins in the globalism pioneered by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), but it took on Maoist characteristics (consolidated by the updated Maoism of Xi Jinping), including the clarity of the 1999 doctrinal watershed of the publication of the Unrestricted Warfare total war strategy.
So the new war doctrine — the 21st Century version of “total war” — was a long time in coming. Its development was also, most importantly, an evolution of the Allied victory of World War II, with its development of global supply chain thinking: logistics and industrialization.
The CPC, starting with Deng Xiao-ping, learned to truly create “socialism with Chinese characteristics”, but that meant something very much modernized over historical Marxist-oriented interpretations. This led, progressively, to the understanding by Beijing that it needed to rebuild the traditional “global” supply chain pattern through which the Middle Kingdom had made itself the central power through much of ancient history. Its supplicant, or tributary vassals, had depended on the Silk Routes, overland through Eurasia and by sea through the Indo-Pacific (and beyond), and must be made to do so again.
This became Xi Jinping’s “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) initiative, which in May 2017 became the “Belt & Road Initiative” (BRI) when it was clear that Moscow, Tokyo, and Washington were attempting to create a “second Silk Road” across Russia, bypassing Beijing’s attempted domination of the South China Sea (to control the Silk Road at Sea).
But in the period up to mid-2020, the “new total war” was viewed — particularly in the West — as nebulous. This new total war format is, by definition, amorphous, and deliberately so, as I note in my new book, The New Total War of the 21st Century and the Trigger of the Fear Pandemic. Direct, kinetic confrontation — the measure by which the uniformed military and much of society viewed “war” — was absent, although the threat of it had finally emerged by April/May 2020, and this galvanized thinking among Western leadership.
It even generated enough alarm to see the deep internal political schisms in the US and Australia heal at least to a degree. In the US, the emerging threat saw Democratic Party and Republican Party politicians coming together in relative unanimity — largely unreported in the US media — to reject the PRC’s threat to US and Western interests. It also caused the UK Government to finally be able to move, with broad public acceptance, to end the PRC’s strategic leverage in Britain, including ending the question of reliance on the PRC’s 5G communications technology from Huawei.
However, it was, to use the term at the start of World War II, a period of “phony war”, just as it appeared from September 1939, until May 10, 1940. And it was akin to the thinking which, after World War I was enjoined in August 1914, saw soldiers happily reassuring their families that they would be “home by Christmas”.
Both those episodes of wishful thinking characterized the start of the two total wars of the 20th Century.
But in both those conflicts, as with the new total war of the 21st Century, those who had long planned secretly for an offensive war knew that their canvases extended beyond the mere vision of formal military conflict. They planned for a victory which had global, and indeed globalist, ramifications: a total world system unified under the nexus of the visionary power.
But these titanic struggles are usually won or lost by factors determined well in advance of the opening shots of kinetic war, and during the “phony war” period before the targets of the initial aggressor are aware that they have been caught at a disadvantage. In the Napoleonic Wars, World Wars I and II, and the Cold War, the aggressors (France, Germany twice, and the Soviet Union coupled with the People’s Republic of China) sensed that they were at a significant strategic disadvantage. This caused them to undertake strategic preparations and operations without and well before any formal declaration of war.
They needed to steal a march on their adversaries. Significantly, in all of those “total wars” — and the Cold War was even more total than the earlier great wars — the initial aggressor never overcame its fundamental lack of comprehensive strategic strength.
Is the new total war of the 21st Century likely to be different?
Is it likely to be as protracted as the four-decade Cold War? Certainly, given technologies and the extent to which some three decades of “peaceful” globalism had allowed Beijing to dominate supply chains so that its trading partners became dependent on it, it was to be a far more amorphous war than even the Cold War.
Pres. Xi had some cause for optimism, but also — because of the PRC’s fundamental and increasing economic weakness — cause to accelerate the timescale for initiating operations which he knew would bring about a major strategic response, a pushback, from his adversaries.
The late 2019 outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID19) viral epidemic provided the trigger point for open offensive operations by the PRC, but they were operations that were still within the boundaries of amorphous warfare.
Beijing, going into the 2020 breakout, understood completely the limitations and strengths of its existing formal military capabilities. In the words of the US Country and Western song, it “knows when to hold ‘em, knows when to fold ‘em, knows when to walk away, knows when to run”. Beijing knew that it must essentially win the new total war before it became globally kinetic, and therefore it must preclude the formation (or the rejoining) of Western alliances and strategic economic gains against it, and prevent Russia, in particular, from being drawn into the Western camp.
Although the PRC had depended heavily (and resentfully) on Moscow during the Cold War, by the 21st Century it was Russia — still, in many ways, technologically more innovative than the PRC — which now depended on Beijing.
Russia was, to draw an imperfect parallel from World War II, Italy to Beijing’s Germany in the new total war.
Relative Foundational Strategic Capabilities
One-time US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said: “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”
While that is as true today as it was in the early post-Cold War period when Rumsfeld made his comment, it is also true that all aspirant powers discreetly attempt to gain as much force development — and strategic technology — as possible before having to show their hand in a major war.
This was the case with the PRC in the 21st Century, and particularly since Pres. Xi Jinping came to supremacy in 2012.
It may not be reasonable to say the same about the Russian Federation in this timeframe. Russia was indeed, in the post-Cold War era, able to step out from the shadow of the Soviet-era to prepare its forces, doctrine, and technology to a state where the US regarded it as its “pacing threat”: the capability which most challenged US capabilities. But it was the PRC that worked discreetly to pose the actual threat.
To a significant degree, the economics of Eurasia and the Russian dependency on cashflow from the PRC meant that Beijing largely had access to Russian technology during its critical buildup period for war against the US and its allies. But the PRC also had access (even in the pre-Xi era) to much Western strategic technology through the intelligence-driven acquisition of Western intellectual property. This included the very technology of strategic precision targeting and guidance for ballistic weapons and hypersonic weapons which threatened US and allied capabilities in the offshore oceans of East, and Southeast Asia, by 2020.
Beijing knew that, if it needed to force the US to “go to war with the army it has”, rather than the defense force it needed to have, it had best do so before the defense modernization plans driven by the US Donald Trump Administration could take effect.
Beijing had clear confirmation by early 2019 that the intended Trump upgrades to the US defense capabilities had not yet taken hold, and that some of the US capability improvements were unlikely due to longterm commitments to, for example, the Lockheed Martin F35series combat aircraft. On March 7, 2020, a RAND organization warfare analyst, in a speech to the (significantly, Democratic Party-controlled) Center for a New American Security, announced that RAND conflict simulation had seen the US fail to prevail in a comprehensive military engagement with either the PRC or Russia. RAND analyst David Ochmanek noted: “We lose a lot of people. We lose a lot of equipment.
We usually [in these engagements] fail to achieve our objective of preventing aggression by the adversary.”
The conclusions were supported by a presentation by former US Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work. “In every case I know of,” said Work, “the F35 rules the sky when it’s in the sky, but it gets killed on the ground in large numbers.” But subsequent failures of the F35 to achieve anything like acceptable operational readiness rates do not even justify DepSec Work’s qualified optimism.
A gathering of the Aspen Security Forum in the US in July 2019 brought further reinforcement of the relative weakness of US forces in the Pacific. Much of this analysis was based on the 2015 RAND study, The US-China Military Scorecard: Forces, Geography, and the Evolving Balance of Power, 1996-2017, but with follow-on simulation strengthening the case.
The 2018 bipartisan official study for the US Defense Department, entitled Providing for the Common Defense: The Assessment and Recommendations of the National Defense Strategy Commission, noted: “If the United States had to fight Russia in a Baltic contingency or China in a war over Taiwan, Americans could face a decisive military defeat.” The Commission highlights the PRC’s and Russia’s ongoing efforts to develop advanced anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) weaponry, systems which could result in “enormous” losses for the US military in a conflict. It went on: “Put bluntly, the US military could lose the next state versus state war it fights”.
The Trump Administration, however, was moving rapidly to attempt to rectify the challenge, moving belatedly to accelerate the introduction of maneuverable hypersonic weapons for offensive and defensive operations. Indeed, the speed with which the Trump White House was committed to recovering US defense capabilities clearly played a key role in spurring Beijing to action to achieve essential objectives in the “near-abroad” before the US could rectify its disadvantage.
Already, Xi had moved the PRC’s defense emphasis from ground force operations of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) toward the PLA Navy (PLAN) and the PLA Air Force (PLAAF) and — even more importantly — the Strategic Rocket Force and the Strategic Support Force. Essentially, the PRC was attempting to do something which it had not achieved since the first half of the 13th Century: to become a (if not the) globally dominant maritime power. But the first order of business was to dominate the First Island Chain (and particularly Taiwan) and subdue the US control of the Central Pacific (based on Guam) into defeat or at least a defensive impotence.
That a window of opportunity continued to exist into 2020 for the PRC to use its largely mobile ballistic missile capabilities to neutralize both US fleets at sea within around 1,000 n.miles from the PRC coastline and against US air (particularly B52, B2, and B1 bomber) and missile assets on Guam and the Japanese islands was evident.
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An open report in the UK newspaper, The Times, on May 16, 2020, indicated that continuing US simulation exercises showed that US forces would be overwhelmed, and that the situation was worsening with the introduction of new PLAN attack submarines, aircraft carriers, and destroyers through 2030. The Times article quoted Bonnie Glaser, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, and a consultant for the US Government on East Asia, as saying: “Every simulation that has been conducted looking at the threat from China by 2030 have all ended up with the defeat of the US. … Taiwan is the most volatile issue because that could escalate to a war with the US, even to a nuclear war. In the Pentagon and State Department and the White House, China is now seen as the biggest threat. We have been too passive in the past.”
PRC military and intelligence analysis clearly recognized that short-term military success would not necessarily equate to longterm victory. The Japanese decision to strike at US naval and air assets at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, actually ensured longterm Japanese defeat in World War II, and Beijing had no desire to create a similar outlook for itself.
But Beijing had no option but to initiate conflict with the US alliance at this time if it wished to avoid short term implosion due to economic and internal resource shortcomings. There is no doubt that Beijing has had a decade to consider this, and to formulate its broader strategic plan to help foment a more broadly-based collapse of US and Western strategic and economic resilience, at least sufficient to enable the PRC to consolidate its geostrategic space and sufficient economic strength to ensure domestic population control.
Initial PRC Targets
Xi Jinping needed, by May 2020, to show early strategic progress for substantive and prestige reasons. Both are critical to ensure domestic support and compliance and to move regional and global competition into a defensive and possibly conciliatory posture.
Consolidation and demonstration of PLA capabilities in the South China Sea and against the ROC on Taiwan were ongoing, but did not yet reach the level of a definitive, iconic, and durable outcome for Beijing.
Beijing, through its National People’s Congress on May 22, 2020, introduced a new national security law for Hong Kong to suppress “sedition, secession, and subversion” as well as foreign involvement, “terrorism”, and autonomy. Despite Beijing’s denial, this represented the effective end of the “one nation, two systems” policy guaranteed under the terms of the July 1, 1997, handover of Hong Kong to the PRC by the United Kingdom
Politicians from 23 nations had, by May 24, 2020, signed a petition of complaint against Beijing for the action, but the real test of how much it would impact the economy of the PRC would be determined by whether the US ended its special economic relationship with Hong Kong. That would be a significant blow for Beijing, but the CPC leadership had already calculated that the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong had already effectively destroyed significant contributions by Hong Kong to the PRC economy, and the coronavirus shutdowns had merely cemented that reality.
So bringing Hong Kong under direct Beijing control was worth the loss of whatever economic benefits the territory might still have had. And it would send a firm indication of Beijing’s resolution to Taiwan. But real questions persisted as to how much the act would calm or enflame unrest against Beijing in Hong Kong, and whether it would caution or enflame anti-Beijing sentiments being aroused by economic and COVID19 related issues around the rest of mainland China.
Again, clearly, Beijing could not accept the situation in Hong Kong, and had no option — if the CPC wished to retain control — but to suppress by force the “pro-democracy movement” which had refused to bend to any other entreaties. Similarly, internal security in the rest of the PRC would be undertaken forcefully. And Beijing was aware of the escalation of US and Turkish fomenting of the Uighur (Turkic) population of Xinjiang (with the “East Turkestan” independence movement). The now naked USPRC hostilities meant that Washington would be less discreet in its support for the Uighurs against their suppression by Beijing.
The question there was how much Beijing could pressure Moscow to make Turkey cease cooperation with the US on this issue. Ankara sees itself as the pan-Turkish patron of the East Turkestan movement.
Beijing had, by early May 2020, begun (once again) to probe a military flexing against India in the Pangong Tso Lake and Galwan Valley areas of Eastern Ladakh, part of Kashmir, along the “Line of Actual Control” in the unresolved border area. The Indian Army immediately matched the PLA buildup which had taken place in the two weeks to May 22, 2020. At least five rounds of talks at local levels there had, by May 22, 2020, failed to calm the tensions, and there had been violent confrontations between the Indian Army and PLA forces on May 5, 2020, and a similar incident in North Sikkim on May 9, 2020.
From the PRC perspective, this manageable exercise was a form of probasila (Soviet term): reconnaissance to the point of contact, to gauge enemy strength, reaction, and resolve. It gave Beijing an option to escalate or distract, and possibly to divert India away from broader cooperation with the US and other SouthEast Asian nations on the question of PRC advances. But the PLA operations were also key to its resolve to support Pakistan’s claims to its part of Kashmir which determines the PRC’s critical overland access to the Indian Ocean, something threatened by India’s 2019 invasion of Kashmir.
So the Ladakh escalation was a key indicator of Beijing’s need to ensure consolidation of its close geographic links in the Indo-Pacific region.
But of overriding importance to Beijing was its campaign to ensure that US Pres. Donald Trump was not re-elected to the Presidency in the November 3, 2020, election, and that the Republican Party would lose its majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. In some respects, and using the contrived narrative of US initiation of, engagement in, and mismanagement of the COVID19 crisis, the CPC was able to make common cause with such anti-Trump US influencers as The New York Times and the CNN cable network. Yet as tempting as this tactical alliance was in helping the Democratic Party to seek the ouster of Trump and the Republicans in November 2020, it was clear by mid-May 2020 that many in the Democratic Party leadership were also turning against Beijing over the COVID19 issue and its hostility toward both the US and its allies, and Hong Kong.
To be sure, Beijing would never have expected an overt alliance with anti-Trump elements in the US, but it aimed at achieving sufficient “net effect” that it could sustain momentum against a Trump/Republican victory in November 2020. There was little doubt in Beijing that had Hillary Clinton defeated Trump in the 2016 election, the PRC would not have seen the sharp end to two decades of unopposed PRC strategic expansion in the Indo-Pacific and the AfricaMiddle East regions.
Initial Strategic Operations
Beijing’s initial strategic operations in the new total war had been underway for some time before the 2020 watershed.
However, with the watershed of the COVID19 crisis, the PRC’s most urgent initial strategic operation was to ensure that it consolidated its hold on markets around the world. It had been losing market share gradually to other manufacturing states as labor costs mounted in the PRC.
The initial strategic operation of the CPC in early 2020 was to ensure that the PRC’s factories returned to full production as quickly as possible so that an abundance of PRC-made goods could be dumped at concessionary prices onto the world market. This would, if done rapidly and at enticing prices, make it more difficult to stimulate the reestablishment of manufacturing in the major “pseudo postindustrial” client states of North America, Europe, and Australasia.
This operation was a race against time for Beijing. It relied on the marketplace lure of cheap goods to overturn the instinct to resist Beijing and recreate — and incentivize and protect — revived local industry. The ability of client states to resist the dependence on the PRC would require legislation and government programs, and Beijing hoped that, over time, the urgency of those efforts would fade and the client states would fall back into the slumber of dependency on the PRC as the supplier of goods.
Beijing also hoped that by returning to robust economic production early in 2020 it could reinforce its claims that its form of governance had triumphed over the chaos of liberal democracy as evidenced by the COVID19 malaise in Western and other “Western-style democracies”.
These were reasonable strategic exercises, but there was no evidence by May 2020 of success, or that, on the other hand, the US and its allies would have the ability to regrow their independent strategic capabilities in the near-term. And Beijing clearly hoped that, by dampening a return to vigorous Western dominance in the short term, it could then deliver, with kinetic operations as well as ongoing splitting operations within target societies, a further process of reducing USled abilities to withstand the relative growth and dominance of the PRC.
Initial Kinetic Operations
Pres. Xi was, in May 2020, clearly hoping to postpone the initial kinetic operations of the new war for as long as possible. It was in his interests to make as much progress as possible before his opponents began their own strategic revival
That “strategic revival” by Beijing’s opponents was the prospect that the US and other PRC client states would reduce or substantively end their supply chain and general trade reliance on the PRC quickly. In fact, the public and governmental reaction against the PRC in Beijing’s trading partners was swift and strong.
Beijing’s attempts to bully the Australian Government into withdrawing its demand for an independent inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus epidemic were successful in that the World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva on May 1819, 2020, dampened down the Australian-led call for an independent inquiry in favor of a World Health Organization (WHO) commitment to a “lessons learned” inquiry “soon”.
This actually only served to anger the US and its allies further, something compounded by a statement on May 19, 2020, from the PRC embassy in Canberra noting that the terms of the COVID19 resolution were “totally different from Australia’s proposal of an independent international review … All those who know the consultation process that led to the resolution understand this. To claim the WHA’s resolution [as] a vindication of Australia’s call is nothing but a joke.”
PRC Ambassador to Australia Cheng Jingye had, until a few months earlier, been able to get lead articles in Australian national media to berate Australians into thanking Beijing for Australia’s economic success. By mid-May 2020, every appearance or statement by Amb. Cheng generated more Australian calls to rebuild the Australian industry and reduce reliance on trade with the PRC.
Beijing had numbed, or paralyzed, North American, European, Australasian, SouthEast Asian, and other target audiences for a decade. It had made resistance to the “rise of China” unthinkable. But that period was now over. The war had been enjoined.
So where and how would kinetic operations begin?
It seems clear that Beijing is reluctant to initiate military action, but is ready to engage once it has begun. Both the PRC and the US see advantages and disadvantages in delaying decisive tactical or theater action. The path to escalation to nuclear engagement is also far less clear — and deterrence far less sure — than during the NATO Warsaw Pact “mutually assured destruction” era. There seems a greater willingness by the PLA to engage in nuclear capabilities (ie: against military targets).
Military action in the near-term could well consolidate the PRC position in its “near abroad”. It could even achieve de facto or de jure control of Taiwan, a critical legitimizing goal for the CPC, if the US did not rush in tripwire assets and support to show a preemptive tripwire to deter PRC escalation.
But what after that?
Would it give Beijing the breathing space to “fight another day”, given that — had it left matters as they were — it would not have had that chance, given its growing economic difficulty (and the potential for collapse)?
Like Japan in 1941, the CPC must buy time if it is to survive and consolidate control over markets and sources of supply. But, like Japan in 1941, would a precipitate action cause not just the US, but a variety of its allies to rebuild in the longer-term?
The wager is now in the air.
By Gregory R. Copley via Defense and Foreig Affairs


investmentwatchblog--2020-05-26--Joe Biden is gonna BEAT Joe Biden

Joe Biden is gonna BEAT Joe Biden

Joe seemed to forget his opponent in an interview and declared that he would defeat himself
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AC


investmentwatchblog--2020-05-26--WHO says NO hydroxychloroquine!

WHO says NO hydroxychloroquine!

# BREAKING WHO suspends trial of hydroxychloroquine as COVID-19 treatment over safety concerns pic.twitter.com/96SrmMykVy

#BREAKING WHO suspends trial of hydroxychloroquine as COVID-19 treatment over safety concerns pic.twitter.com/96SrmMykVy
— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 25, 2020


investmentwatchblog--2020-05-26--Trump Has Won the Propaganda War With China

by Tom Luongo of Gold Goats ‘ N Guns via Strategic Culture Foundation Donald Trump has finally won a war .
It ’ s a war he ’ s uniquely suited to fight , a propaganda war , and he ’ s successfully waged it on China through his command of Western media .
Stating this doesn ’ t imply any kind of judgment on my part as to whether he should or should not have waged this war with China .
He has and he has emerged victorious , thanks to his reframing the threat from COVID-19 as an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people .
Now , I ’ m convinced that the circumstances surrounding COVID-19 were a plot by evil people to kill millions of people and usher in a bleak , authoritarian nightmare they ’ ve had legislation and action plans written to execute for years .
I ’ m just not convinced it was China that was wholly behind it .
In fact , my fundamental problem with Trump ’ s China propaganda war vis-à-vis COVID-19 is that it lets the real culprits for how it unfolded around the world off the hook @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s a different discussion .
Today ’ s discussion is about where things stand between the U.S. and China and what ’ s on tap for the future .
Why do I think Trump has won his war against China ?
A recent poll by Bloomberg found that 78 % of Americans are willing to spend more for products made in “ Not China ” than in “ China.
” Moreover , that poll goes onto say that 40 % of Americans now say they won ’ t buy anything at all from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more people I talk with personally here in the U.S. are at this point .
I ’ m not one of them .
While , personally , I ’ d prefer my food , clothing and basic necessities be made as close to home as possible it has nothing to do with antipathy with China or Chinese people .
To me that ’ s just wise , defensive living .
In times of crisis , basic necessities should have supply chains as short as possible .
Honestly , I would say the same @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Idaho .
But economic reality is that Idaho is better at growing potatoes and California almonds than Florida is and therefore those supply chains aren ’ t likely to change much .
That doesn ’ t mean , however , my wife isn ’ t growing potatoes this year or that I ’ ll miss them if my local Winn-Dixie is out of them because the truck was late or the harvest poor .
It ’ s called comparative advantage and it is the basis for all productive economic interactions .
And in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is superior to the U.S. currently , and until the dynamic changes people will complain about “ Made in China ” but they will still buy what they need , especially in a country with 40+ million people out of work being acutely price-sensitive .
But that said the poll numbers found by Bloomberg will rise over the next couple of years because things will get that desperate here in the U.S. and people want to work and be willing to work for less .
That can only happen , however , if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And that lies at the feet of government at all levels , which are , by definition , funded by the private sector .
Like it or not , folks , government has no money of its own .
Everything it has it has after taking it through taxes .
Trump is clearly pursuing policies to decouple the U.S. and China ’ s economy to as great an extent as possible to help the U.S. economy regain its domestic productive capacity .
And he ’ s been very systematic about it .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ China over their handling of COVID-19 are just the next stage of this .
He began the process with his tax cut plan which cut corporate taxes as well as small business and self-employment taxes , reversing decades of ruinous policy designed to destroy the American middle class and offshore U.S. productive capacity .
He ’ s quietly been slashing federal department budgets and staff and lifting mandates on states .
That process is slow , very slow , during normal operations .
But that wasn ’ t nearly enough and now he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which is to cut taxes again and incentivize the onshoring of manufacturing .
His Chief Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow floated that idea last week .
Republicans in Congress didn ’ t like it .
And one has to wonder why ?
It ’ s not like the current budget looks anything like what tax receipts are going to total this year or next .
The deficit will be above World War II levels .
More likely they would rather dole out checks of funny money than not collect the money in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ continues to flow through D.C. rather than go back to the people themselves .
But to change the direction of a now floundering U.S. it is going to take more than that and Trump ’ s willingness to use his broader powers under the auspice of the COVID-19 national emergency to cut government regulation and red tape is the next step forward on this path .
Never let a crisis go to waste right ?
Well , the Democrats are pushing for a China-esque total surveillance state and Green New Deal all rolled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which , if passed , would only make the U.S. even more uncompetitive and hasten its demise .
Trump is finally doing the same thing , by going in the complete opposite direction .
The key to reversing China ’ s comparative advantages over the U.S. is removing the barriers to commerce which make local production unattractive .
It ’ s that simple .
And with oil prices now very low and low for a long time to come , Trump is now fighting lower shipping costs from overseas .
The U.S. maintains @ @ @ @ @ @ @ federal level but state and local as well .
The American people can follow Trump blaming China all they want , but China is the symptom , government is the disease .
To solve this problem they have to look at themselves and admit this addiction to government itself is the barrier to them getting back to productive , happy lives .
I generally lay that blame for this extravagance at the feet of the cozy relationship between the Federal Reserve and the Treasury department creating money like crazy and allowing Congress and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voters with handouts from our future .
That future is now here .
And as individuals we have to face that .
I ’ ve said for a long time that anywhere from 20-40 % of U.S. GDP is a phantasm born of fake money .
It is waste and sloth within a system designed to hollow out the middle class and roll wealth up to an international oligarch class .
Remove it and you get a better sense of what GDP and the cost basis for production truly is .
The same @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way .
Strip out the financialization and how much real economy is left ?
That oligarch class just pulled the plug on that portion of the U.S. economy and I have no doubt that China had a hand in helping that along .
It would be in their strategic interest to do so .
Thanks to Trump ’ s ham-fisted propaganda the American people now get this in the broadest terms .
And he ’ s willing to do both great and terrible things to change the dynamic .
This much he has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ China he ’ s waging has only just begun .
He has the American people on his side , now he just has to convince the chattering class in D.C. that the old way of doing things is over .

by Tom Luongo of Gold Goats ‘N Guns via Strategic Culture Foundation
Donald Trump has finally won a war. It’s a war he’s uniquely suited to fight, a propaganda war, and he’s successfully waged it on China through his command of Western media.
Stating this doesn’t imply any kind of judgment on my part as to whether he should or should not have waged this war with China. He has and he has emerged victorious, thanks to his reframing the threat from COVID-19 as an evil Chinese plot to kill millions of people.
Now, I’m convinced that the circumstances surrounding COVID-19 were a plot by evil people to kill millions of people and usher in a bleak, authoritarian nightmare they’ve had legislation and action plans written to execute for years. I’m just not convinced it was China that was wholly behind it.
In fact, my fundamental problem with Trump’s China propaganda war vis-à-vis COVID-19 is that it lets the real culprits for how it unfolded around the world off the hook. But, ultimately, that’s a different discussion.
Today’s discussion is about where things stand between the U.S. and China and what’s on tap for the future. Why do I think Trump has won his war against China?
Simple, the numbers.
A recent poll by Bloomberg found that 78% of Americans are willing to spend more for products made in “Not China” than in “China.” Moreover, that poll goes onto say that 40% of Americans now say they won’t buy anything at all from China.
I can tell you that more people I talk with personally here in the U.S. are at this point. I’m not one of them. While, personally, I’d prefer my food, clothing and basic necessities be made as close to home as possible it has nothing to do with antipathy with China or Chinese people.
To me that’s just wise, defensive living. In times of crisis, basic necessities should have supply chains as short as possible. Honestly, I would say the same thing about stuff made in California or Idaho. But economic reality is that Idaho is better at growing potatoes and California almonds than Florida is and therefore those supply chains aren’t likely to change much.
That doesn’t mean, however, my wife isn’t growing potatoes this year or that I’ll miss them if my local Winn-Dixie is out of them because the truck was late or the harvest poor.
It’s called comparative advantage and it is the basis for all productive economic interactions. And in some areas of the economic sphere China is superior to the U.S. currently, and until the dynamic changes people will complain about “Made in China” but they will still buy what they need, especially in a country with 40+ million people out of work being acutely price-sensitive.
But that said the poll numbers found by Bloomberg will rise over the next couple of years because things will get that desperate here in the U.S. and people want to work and be willing to work for less.
That can only happen, however, if the barriers to local commerce are lifted. And that lies at the feet of government at all levels, which are, by definition, funded by the private sector. Like it or not, folks, government has no money of its own. Everything it has it has after taking it through taxes.
Trump is clearly pursuing policies to decouple the U.S. and China’s economy to as great an extent as possible to help the U.S. economy regain its domestic productive capacity. And he’s been very systematic about it. This propaganda war and his attacks on China over their handling of COVID-19 are just the next stage of this.
He began the process with his tax cut plan which cut corporate taxes as well as small business and self-employment taxes, reversing decades of ruinous policy designed to destroy the American middle class and offshore U.S. productive capacity. He’s quietly been slashing federal department budgets and staff and lifting mandates on states.
That process is slow, very slow, during normal operations.
We are primarily funded by readers. Please subscribe and donate to support us!
But that wasn’t nearly enough and now he’s faced with the next task, which is to cut taxes again and incentivize the onshoring of manufacturing. His Chief Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow floated that idea last week. Republicans in Congress didn’t like it. And one has to wonder why?
It’s not like the current budget looks anything like what tax receipts are going to total this year or next. The deficit will be above World War II levels. More likely they would rather dole out checks of funny money than not collect the money in the first place. That way the power continues to flow through D.C. rather than go back to the people themselves.
But to change the direction of a now floundering U.S. it is going to take more than that and Trump’s willingness to use his broader powers under the auspice of the COVID-19 national emergency to cut government regulation and red tape is the next step forward on this path.
Never let a crisis go to waste right? Well, the Democrats are pushing for a China-esque total surveillance state and Green New Deal all rolled into one $3 trillion monstrosity, which, if passed, would only make the U.S. even more uncompetitive and hasten its demise.
Trump is finally doing the same thing, by going in the complete opposite direction.
The key to reversing China’s comparative advantages over the U.S. is removing the barriers to commerce which make local production unattractive. It’s that simple. And with oil prices now very low and low for a long time to come, Trump is now fighting lower shipping costs from overseas.
The U.S. maintains an extravagant government at not only the federal level but state and local as well. The American people can follow Trump blaming China all they want, but China is the symptom, government is the disease.
To solve this problem they have to look at themselves and admit this addiction to government itself is the barrier to them getting back to productive, happy lives.
I generally lay that blame for this extravagance at the feet of the cozy relationship between the Federal Reserve and the Treasury department creating money like crazy and allowing Congress and Presidents for two generations now to bribe voters with handouts from our future.
That future is now here.
And as individuals we have to face that.
I’ve said for a long time that anywhere from 20-40% of U.S. GDP is a phantasm born of fake money. It is waste and sloth within a system designed to hollow out the middle class and roll wealth up to an international oligarch class. Remove it and you get a better sense of what GDP and the cost basis for production truly is.
The same thing goes for China, by the way. Strip out the financialization and how much real economy is left?
That oligarch class just pulled the plug on that portion of the U.S. economy and I have no doubt that China had a hand in helping that along. It would be in their strategic interest to do so.
Thanks to Trump’s ham-fisted propaganda the American people now get this in the broadest terms.
And he’s willing to do both great and terrible things to change the dynamic. This much he has shown in spades. This war with China he’s waging has only just begun. He has the American people on his side, now he just has to convince the chattering class in D.C. that the old way of doing things is over.


investmentwatchblog--2020-05-26--NO ESCAPE: Fed & Treasury REPLAY Global Financial Crisis At HYPER-SCALE

Breakthrough Analysis : the Fed and UST are re-running the 2009 Global Financial Collapse playbook at hyper-scale.. New forensic analysis @ @ @ @ @ record from the Office of the Controller General during the epicenter of the 2008-2009 global @ @ @ @ @ $ 10T capital flows into the bankrupt Morgan Stanley , in stunning contrast to the @ @ @ @ @ Stearns .
According to widely followed proprietary analyst and founder of KirbyAnalytics , Rob Kirby @ @ @ @ @ in the oven , and the resulting destruction is inescapable .
In the face of @ @ @ @ @ the ordinary person do to forestall personal financial disaster , and emerge intact ?

Rob Kirby interviewed by Dunagun Kaiser on Reluctant Preppers
Breakthrough Analysis: the Fed and UST are re-running the 2009 Global Financial Collapse playbook at hyper-scale..
We are primarily funded by readers. Please subscribe and donate to support us!
New forensic analysis of the officially released financial record from the Office of the Controller General during the epicenter of the 2008-2009 global financial collapse reveals inexplicably massive $10T capital flows into the bankrupt Morgan Stanley, in stunning contrast to the collapse and absorption of Bear Stearns.
According to widely followed proprietary analyst and founder of KirbyAnalytics, Rob Kirby, the cake is already in the oven, and the resulting destruction is inescapable. In the face of overwhelming forces, what can the ordinary person do to forestall personal financial disaster, and emerge intact?


investmentwatchblog--2020-05-26--April grocery prices jumped the most in 46 years

Not since 1974 have grocery store prices surged 2.6 percent in just one month .
That just happened in April @ @ @ @ @ released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday , as CNBC reported .
@ @ @ @ @ , meat , cereal and milk all went higher in April as people flocked to @ @ @ @ @ on food amid government lockdowns designed to slow the spread of Covid-19 , according to @ @ @ @ @ were for meat and eggs .
Consumers paid 4.3 percent more in April for meats @ @ @ @ @ eggs , 1.5 percent more for fruits and vegetables , and 2.9 percent more for @ @ @ @ @ as well as nonalcoholic beverages , the Labor Department said , as The Washington Post @ @

Not since 1974 have grocery store prices surged 2.6 percent in just one month. That just happened in April, according to new data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday, as CNBC reported.
Prices Americans paid for eggs, meat, cereal and milk all went higher in April as people flocked to grocery stores to stock up on food amid government lockdowns designed to slow the spread of Covid-19, according to CNBC.
The largest increases were for meat and eggs. Consumers paid 4.3 percent more in April for meats, poultry, fish and eggs, 1.5 percent more for fruits and vegetables, and 2.9 percent more for cereals and bakery products, as well as nonalcoholic beverages, the Labor Department said, as The Washington Post reported.
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investmentwatchblog--2020-05-26--Two Missouri hair stylists test positive, exposed 140 clients.

A hair stylist in Springfield , Missouri , exposed as many as 91 people to coronavirus after working at a @ @ @ @ @ symptomatic , health officials said Friday .
The exposed include 84 Great Clips customers and @ @ @ @ @ , said Clay Goddard , director of the Springfield-Greene County Health Department .
The condition @ @ @ @ @ was not identified , was not revealed .
So far , no other positive case @ @ @ @ @ been confirmed , but the county is nonetheless facing “ a glut of cases , @ @ @ @ @ exposed at the salon would be offered tests .
“ The good news is both @ @ @ @ @ were masked ” at the time of exposure , he said .
Goddard said at @ @ @ @ @ more cases like this would quickly strain Springfield ’ s ability to care for patients @

A hair stylist in Springfield, Missouri, exposed as many as 91 people to coronavirus after working at a salon for eight days while symptomatic, health officials said Friday.
The exposed include 84 Great Clips customers and, potentially, seven coworkers, said Clay Goddard, director of the Springfield-Greene County Health Department. The condition of the stylist, who was not identified, was not revealed.
So far, no other positive case connected to the stylist has been confirmed, but the county is nonetheless facing “a glut of cases,” Goddard said.
Those exposed at the salon would be offered tests.
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“The good news is both the clients and the hairstylists were masked” at the time of exposure, he said.
Goddard said at a news conference Friday that more cases like this would quickly strain Springfield’s ability to care for patients.
www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/missouri-hair-stylist-coronavirus-worked-while-symptomatic-exposed-dozens-clients-n1213561


investmentwatchblog--2020-05-25--Tucker Carlson: Coronavirus and the shocking abuse happening in nursing homes. This tragedy wasn’t b

Tucker Carlson: Coronavirus and the shocking abuse happening in nursing homes. This tragedy wasn’t by accident

Months from now , if and when we ’ re finally able to assess the coronavirus pandemic rationally and honestly @ @ @ @ @ clear that it was mostly a disaster for the old and the sick .
Thirty-year-olds @ @ @ @ @ most noise , flooding the Internet with their neuroses .
But it is old people @ @ @ @ @ About a third of all deaths in this country so far have occurred in long-term @ @ @ @ @ you a lot about the tragedy unfolding in New York .
As of Friday night @ @ @ @ @ residents have died there after Governor Andrew Cuomo forced facilities to admit infected patients .
@ @ @ @ @ only happening in New York .
In New Jersey , Connecticut and Massachusetts for example @ @ @ @ @ account for more than half of the statewide totals .
So , if you ’ @ @ @ @ @ facility , this virus has been genuinely dangerous .
But the real story is even @ @ @ @ @ to bad policies .

Watch the latest video at foxnews.com
Months from now, if and when we’re finally able to assess the coronavirus pandemic rationally and honestly, it’ll be clear that it was mostly a disaster for the old and the sick. Thirty-year-olds in Brooklyn have made the most noise, flooding the Internet with their neuroses.
But it is old people who have really suffered.
About a third of all deaths in this country so far have occurred in long-term care facilities. We told you a lot about the tragedy unfolding in New York.
As of Friday night, almost 6,000 nursing home residents have died there after Governor Andrew Cuomo forced facilities to admit infected patients.
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But it’s not only happening in New York. In New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts for example, deaths in nursing homes account for more than half of the statewide totals.
So, if you’re old and in a facility, this virus has been genuinely dangerous.
But the real story is even worse than that, thanks to bad policies.
www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-coronavirus-abuse-nursing-homes


investmentwatchblog--2020-05-25--“It will be the greatest rigged election in history” – Trump

• President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday that if the US allows all states to vote via mail-in ballots it ’ ll result in the ‘ greatest rigged election in history ’ • Trump has been ramping up his campaign against mail-in ballots for weeks now • Last week he threatened to withhold federal aid from Michigan and Nevada after they started to expand mail voting opportunities to prevent spread of COVID-19 • His threat to Michigan comes as Gov .
Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency in parts of state due to severe flooding • Trump claimed that people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forgeries and ‘ force ’ voters to sign the compromised ballots • He accused politicians supporting mail-in ballots of using the coronavirus pandemic to peddle a voting scam President Donald Trump has doubled down in his attacks against mail-in voting for this year ’ s presidential election claiming it will lead to the ‘ greatest rigged election in history ’ and its supporters are using the coronavirus to create a voting scam .
Trump is ramping up his campaign against the integrity of mail-in ballots as states including Michigan and Nevada opt to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decrease public exposure to coronavirus .
‘ The United States can not have all Mail In Ballots .
It will be the greatest Rigged Election in history .
People grab them from mailboxes , print thousands of forgeries and “ force ” people to sign .
Also , forge names , ’ he tweeted Sunday afternoon .
‘ Some absentee OK , when necessary .
Trying to use Covid for this Scam !
’ he added .

President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday that if the US allows all states to vote via mail-in ballots it’ll result in the ‘greatest rigged election in history’
Trump has been ramping up his campaign against mail-in ballots for weeks now
Last week he threatened to withhold federal aid from Michigan and Nevada after they started to expand mail voting opportunities to prevent spread of COVID-19
His threat to Michigan comes as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency in parts of state due to severe flooding
Trump claimed that people would steal ballots from mailboxes, print forgeries and ‘force’ voters to sign the compromised ballots
He accused politicians supporting mail-in ballots of using the coronavirus pandemic to peddle a voting scam
President Donald Trump has doubled down in his attacks against mail-in voting for this year’s presidential election claiming it will lead to the ‘greatest rigged election in history’ and its supporters are using the coronavirus to create a voting scam.
Trump is ramping up his campaign against the integrity of mail-in ballots as states including Michigan and Nevada opt to have constituents send in their votes to decrease public exposure to coronavirus.
‘The United States cannot have all Mail In Ballots. It will be the greatest Rigged Election in history. People grab them from mailboxes, print thousands of forgeries and “force” people to sign. Also, forge names,’ he tweeted Sunday afternoon.
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‘Some absentee OK, when necessary. Trying to use Covid for this Scam!’ he added.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8352827/Greatest-rigged-election-history-Trump-doubles-attack-against-mail-ballots.html


investmentwatchblog--2020-05-25--Coronavirus Bankruptcy Tracker: These Major Companies Are Failing Amid The Shutdown

The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the demise of companies that were already in trouble as Americans ( and their dollars @ @ @ @ @ and economic shutdowns .
Oil and gas drillers like Whiting Petroleum and Diamond Offshore filed @ @ @ @ @ , and J.Crew became the first major U.S. retailer to do the same on May @ @ @ @ @ the way .
“ It has been a poorly-kept secret that a number of the @ @ @ @ @ ” says Scott Williams , a bankruptcy attorney at RumbergerKirk .
“ There has not @ @ @ @ @ the last 45 days .
What I think you ’ ve seen is lots of @ @ @ @ @ ‘ I ’ m going to get there at some point .

The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the demise of companies that were already in trouble as Americans (and their dollars) stay home amid lockdowns and economic shutdowns. Oil and gas drillers like Whiting Petroleum and Diamond Offshore filed for bankruptcy in late April, and J.Crew became the first major U.S. retailer to do the same on May 4. More are on the way.
“It has been a poorly-kept secret that a number of the big-box retailers were struggling,” says Scott Williams, a bankruptcy attorney at RumbergerKirk. “There has not been a dramatic uptick in the last 45 days. What I think you’ve seen is lots of people being forced into, ‘I’m going to get there at some point.
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www.forbes.com/sites/hanktucker/2020/05/03/coronavirus-bankruptcy-tracker-these-major-companies-are-failing-amid-the-shutdown/amp/


investmentwatchblog--2020-05-25--The Unemployment Rate Signals The Dow Jones Index To Crash To This Level

Even with the highest unemployment rate in more than 80 years , the U.S. Stock Market continues higher regardless of the lousy economic data and fundamentals .
However , without the massive money printing and liquidity injections by the Federal Reserve , the stock market indexes would be substantially lower .
Unfortunately , the Fed is now forced to prop up the markets because stock markets have now become the economy , instead of the other way around .
With the total U.S. Equity Market Cap to GDP Ratio now nearly 140 % , it is more than double the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 70 years .
And , if we look at the markets back in the 1950s , it took 24 years for the Dow Jones Index to double from 500 to 1,000 .
Thus , from 1958 to 1982 , the Dow Jones Index traded in that 500-1,000 range .
So , the real driver of the economy before the 1990s was the “ Physical economy , ” not the stock market .
Well , that ’ s all changed today because the Stock Market is now the most important part of the economy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years for the Dow Jones Index to double from the 14,000 ’ s to 29,500 ( Oct 2019 ) .
Even though the Fed has propped up the markets , it won ’ t last because GRAVITY and FUNDAMENTALS always win out in the end .
One metric that has provided a “ Reliable Indicator ” for Major Corrections in the Dow Jones Index is the Unemployment rate .
THE CHART OF THE WEEK shows that when the U.S. Unemployment rate went above 9 % , the Dow Jones Index fell to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that ’ s correct… I stated QUARTERLY .
I decided to upgrade my Stockcharts service to include longer-term charts and more interesting settings .
So , now I can use the Quarterly setting , which represents three months of trading .
When the U.S. Unemployment rate went above 9 % , we can clearly see that the Dow Jones Index fell to the BLUE LINE , which represents the 100 Quarterly Moving Average ( QMA ) .
If we look at the current unemployment rate of 14.7 % for April , the Dow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ QMA of 13,150 .
You can thank the Federal Reserve for keeping most Americans from liquidating their 401K ’ s and retirement plans .
I can assure you if the Dow Jones Index continued to fall below the 18,000 level , the GREAT AMERICAN PANIC SELL-OFF would have gone into OVERDRIVE .
I will do a new video update showing why the 18,000 level was significant .
So , if Americans really started to sell their stocks , it would have created a NASTY FEEDBACK LOOP instigating even more selling .
Again , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ keeping Americans happy , content , and delusional in regards to their 401K ’ s and retirement plans .
With the U.S. Unemployment rate likely to reach 18 % -20 % by May-June , I don ’ t see how the Dow Jones Index doesn ’ t fall to the 13,150 level , or even lower .
At some point , the RUBBER will meet the ROAD as the fundamentals finally kick in… regardless of the money printing .
This is when I believe we will start to see demand for GOLD & @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Sure , there ’ s been a great deal of physical buying from precious metals investors , but most Americans are still FAST ASLEEP looking forward to their next cruise on the Diamond Princess .
The world is heading towards a new Economic Paradigm .
A transition from BUILDING WEALTH to PROTECTING WEALTH .
This is due to the current ENERGY CLIFF that the U.S. and the global economy has finally reached .

by Steve St Angelo of SRSrocco Report
Even with the highest unemployment rate in more than 80 years, the U.S. Stock Market continues higher regardless of the lousy economic data and fundamentals. However, without the massive money printing and liquidity injections by the Federal Reserve, the stock market indexes would be substantially lower.
Unfortunately, the Fed is now forced to prop up the markets because stock markets have now become the economy, instead of the other way around. With the total U.S. Equity Market Cap to GDP Ratio now nearly 140%, it is more than double the 68% mean average for the past 70 years. And, if we look at the markets back in the 1950s, it took 24 years for the Dow Jones Index to double from 500 to 1,000.
Thus, from 1958 to 1982, the Dow Jones Index traded in that 500-1,000 range. So, the real driver of the economy before the 1990s was the “Physical economy,” not the stock market. Well, that’s all changed today because the Stock Market is now the most important part of the economy. Interestingly, it only took seven years for the Dow Jones Index to double from the 14,000’s to 29,500 (Oct 2019).
Even though the Fed has propped up the markets, it won’t last because GRAVITY and FUNDAMENTALS always win out in the end. One metric that has provided a “Reliable Indicator” for Major Corrections in the Dow Jones Index is the Unemployment rate.
THE CHART OF THE WEEK shows that when the U.S. Unemployment rate went above 9%, the Dow Jones Index fell to the 100 Quarterly Moving Average. Yes, that’s correct… I stated QUARTERLY. I decided to upgrade my Stockcharts service to include longer-term charts and more interesting settings. So, now I can use the Quarterly setting, which represents three months of trading.
We are primarily funded by readers. Please subscribe and donate to support us!
When the U.S. Unemployment rate went above 9%, we can clearly see that the Dow Jones Index fell to the BLUE LINE, which represents the 100 Quarterly Moving Average (QMA). If we look at the current unemployment rate of 14.7% for April, the Dow Jones Index is nowhere near the 100 QMA of 13,150. You can thank the Federal Reserve for keeping most Americans from liquidating their 401K’s and retirement plans.
I can assure you if the Dow Jones Index continued to fall below the 18,000 level, the GREAT AMERICAN PANIC SELL-OFF would have gone into OVERDRIVE. I will do a new video update showing why the 18,000 level was significant. So, if Americans really started to sell their stocks, it would have created a NASTY FEEDBACK LOOP instigating even more selling. Again, you can thank the Fed and for keeping Americans happy, content, and delusional in regards to their 401K’s and retirement plans.
With the U.S. Unemployment rate likely to reach 18%-20% by May-June, I don’t see how the Dow Jones Index doesn’t fall to the 13,150 level, or even lower.
At some point, the RUBBER will meet the ROAD as the fundamentals finally kick in… regardless of the money printing. This is when I believe we will start to see demand for GOLD & SILVER like we have never witnessed before. Sure, there’s been a great deal of physical buying from precious metals investors, but most Americans are still FAST ASLEEP looking forward to their next cruise on the Diamond Princess.
The world is heading towards a new Economic Paradigm. A transition from BUILDING WEALTH to PROTECTING WEALTH. This is due to the current ENERGY CLIFF that the U.S. and the global economy has finally reached.


investmentwatchblog--2020-05-25--SHOCK VIDEO: CDC Going Door to Door to Collect Your DNA, Blood

Alarming video of CDC officials harassing American citizens for DNA samples at their homes has sparked further controversy for the @ @ @ @ @

Alarming video of CDC officials harassing American citizens for DNA samples at their homes has sparked further controversy for the embattled and feckless agency.
truepundit.com/shock-video-cdc-going-door-to-door-to-collect-your-dna-blood/
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truepundit.com/shock-video-cdc-going-door-to-door-to-collect-your-dna-blood/
truepundit.com/shock-video-cdc-going-door-to-door-to-collect-your-dna-blood/


investmentwatchblog--2020-05-25--VIDEO – Angry Shoprite Masked shoppers rage at non-masked shopper

Grouprage is the new normal I suppose.. .. “ Get the f*ck out of here !
” ..

Grouprage is the new normal I suppose..
..“Get the f*ck out of here!” ..
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h/t DeploraVision


investmentwatchblog--2020-05-25--Shocking Reports Appear As Trump Says He’s Almost Defeated The Deep State

Brought To You By What We Eat Daily : Collagen

Brought To You By What We Eat Daily: Collagen
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investmentwatchblog--2020-05-25--CDC Throws Its Hat In With “Covid’s Just a Bad Flu” Estimates MUCH LOWER Fatality Rate!!

For More Information See : www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-… www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056…

For More Information See:
www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-…
www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056…
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