The Bottom Is Falling Out

The Bottom's Falling Out

Raul Ilargi Meijer

Imagine you’re standing across the street from a house that’s on the verge of falling apart, a condemned building, an edifice devoured by rot from bottom to top. Now imagine you see a construction crew arriving to repair it, and they start to fix the roof. You would think that’s not much use if the walls, floor and foundation are just one wolf’s huff and puff away from collapse.

Still, that is what the world’s central banks are doing today: they “fix” the top by bailing out banks and allege that somehow that will fix the rest of the edifice too. In that same analogy, while central banks prop up banks, governments try to support the walls, by bailing out businesses. Again, while the floors and foundations keep on rotting away. And when the floors cave in, so of course will the walls, just like the roof.

There may appear to be some logic to all this, but it’s only the “inner logic” of an economic and political ideology that deals exclusively with how things should be, not how they are. Of course it’s nice to have a shiny new roof, and strong walls. But neither have any value if there are no more floors to support them.

This is what is happening today to our economies and societies. The 2008 crisis wasn’t bad enough to expose the failures of the “inner logic” of the system, but the fallout of COVID19 will be. And it’s not the virus that does it all, or the lockdowns, they merely expose a system that’s been rotting for many years without its floors and foundations ever being repaired.

So you got the Fed team working on the roof and the government team working on the walls, and absolutely nobody working on the floors and foundations. And at some point you’re going to have to ask what these people actually know about building and construction, even about gravity: are they aware that roofs and walls are infinitely more dependent on solid floors than floors are on them?

Actually, I think they are. They just don’t think it’s possible that the floor may fall out from underneath them (i.e. they deny gravity). But that is what is threatening to happen. Not only in the US, but all over the western world. And if there’s one thing you don’t want to happen to your house, or your economy/society, it’s for the bottom to fall out. Because where will you live?

Still, with headlines such as

“More Than Half Of The US Population Is Not Working”,

“50 Million Americans Have Lost Their Job In Past 6 Weeks”,

“42 Million Unemployed, 25.5% Unemployment Rate”,

“52% Of Small Businesses Expect To Be Out Of Business Within Six Months”,

“53% Of Restaurants Closed Amid Coronavirus Have Shuttered Permanently”,

“US Retail Apocalypse: Over 25,000 Stores Could Close By Year End”,

...and more of the same on the way, we should at least consider the possibility of the bottom falling out, and prepare accordingly.

It’s one thing to want to save the businesses, but if you have huge amounts of people who can’t afford to buy anything from them, businesses will inevitably fail in huge numbers. If the bottom threatens to fall out, you need to focus on saving the floor and foundations, the people, not the businesses. Nothing to do with socialism or anything like that, but with preserving your society as a going concern.

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Leaving FantasyLand:

You Are Now Leaving FantasyLand: The Losses Will Be Taken By Somebody

Charles Hugh Smith 

Round about late March, we entered a Financial FantasyLand in which all the sins and excesses of rampant financialization were going to be painlessly washed away. Mever mind the entire U.S. economy is an inverted pyramid of balance-sheet "value" and debt resting on a shrinking foundation of collateral; everyone would be made whole in the Federal Reserve's Financial FantasyLand.

You are now leaving FantasyLand: trillions of dollars of phantom value have already vanished, and these catastrophic losses will be taken by somebody. The question is: who will get the concrete overshoes? Whose balance sheets will collapse to negative numbers, erasing all their phantom wealth?

Everyone was delighted to suspend reality and entertain the fantasy that there was a cost-free way to bail out financialization's greed-soaked sinners: The Fed will simply print as many trillions as needed to make everyone whole. Since it doesn't cost the Fed anything to digitally print endless trillions, this "solution" is completely, totally free.

What an amazing moment of grace: all our sins washed away in a rising river of Fed-printed money. With endless trillions available, everyone can get bailed out forever. Collateral, actual earnings and profits, none of that matters. The Fed's grace is godlike in its infinite expansion.

This escape from karma, consequence and divine retribution was as temporal as the ride through FantasyLand. The wheel of karma has turned, The Tao is reversing, the banquet of asymmetric, non-linear consequences has been served and the Fed's godlike powers will be revealed to be as delusional as the "value" and "wealth" that's piled up in the balance sheets of the top 0.1%.

For there actually is a cost to digitally printing trillions to bail out all the predatory parasites of financialization. Put simply, every dollar that's digitally printed that isn't matched by an increase in the productive capacity of the economy, i.e. the means to generate goods and services with less capital and fewer hours of labor, is nothing but a hidden reduction in the purchasing power of every existing dollar.

The idea that the Fed or Treasury can print endless trillions and there will never be any consequence of this fraud is nothing more than a compelling Cargo Cult superstition. Just as South Pacific Cargo Cults painted radio dials on rocks to communicate their desire for the return of Uncle Sam's shiploads of freebies, the "we can print our way out of any problem" cargo cult paints low inflation numbers and arcane equations on rocks and declares the magic will work: the Fed/Treasury can print as many trillions as we need to bail out every greed-soaked sinner, and there will never be any consequences--never ever, because the painted rocks have magical powers.

The fantasy of linearity holds that a 10% decline in revenues, profits, rents collected, etc. will only cause a 10% decline in isolated parts of the economy. The believers in the fantasy acknowledge that the 10% decline will hurt, but only a bit, and soon Mommy and Daddy (Treasury and Fed) will apply the Band-Aid and it will all go away.

As the inverted pyramid collapses, the effects will be non-linear: a 10% decline may trigger dominoes that end up generating an 90% decline in "value" and "wealth" because the collapse of collateral to a non-fantasy valuation will implode all the phantom valuations piled on steadily more fragile and fantastic layers of phantom "capital."

The fantasy of the Neofeudal Aristocracy is that the losses can be painlessly transferred to the debt-serfs and taxpaying peasantry. Mommy and Daddy (Treasury and Fed) will load future generations of debt-serfs and taxpaying peasantry with the losses and the political-financial Nobility will have their fortunes preserved. Gee, thanks, Mommy and Daddy! You're swell!

The Neofeudal Aristocracy overlooks one terribly inconvenient fact: the debt-serfs and peasantry own next to nothing. The non-linear collapse of phantom capital will have asymmetric consequences: all the "assets" most likely to go to zero are owned not by the peasantry but by the Neofeudal Aristocracy.

Now that we're exiting Financial FantasyLand, reality will intrude. The Fed is not godlike and the sins of predatory, parasitic, exploitive financialization will be paid in full measure. The hubris-drenched punditry and Neofeudal Aristocracy who mock the notion that there was anything beyond the command of their conjured trillions will discover that The way of the Tao is reversal, and their child-like faith in their own perverse powers to shape the world to their liking will be destroyed along with their phantom wealth.

Faith vs Marxism

There Is No Expiration Date on God-Given Rights

 Dennis Jamison

This year’s Independence Day celebrations were tainted by the poisonous divisiveness of political posturing since it is an election year. But, 2020 is unlike any other election year—it represents a turning point in the history of the United States of America. What exists at the heart of all of the nasty division, which may not be easily seen with all of the anarchists and Antifa and Black Lives Matter rioting across the country, is the core of the battle for the soul of America.

It is likely that America’s legacy further into the 21st century, and possibly its future survival, will be decided from the outcome of this election. That is not an exaggeration. Already anarchists and Marxists are attempting to abort history through tearing down the statues of historical figures. Yet, tearing down the statues represents “symbolic” actions aimed at much bigger targets. Such targeted statues were not only national heroes—heroes of the ending of slavery, heroes who fought to preserve the Union, but also religious symbols—such as tearing down statues of white Jesus, as commentator and BLM advocate Shaun King demanded in June:

“All murals and stained glass windows of white Jesus, and his European mother, and their white friends should also come down,” King wrote in a second tweet. “They are   a gross form of white supremacy.”

“Yes, I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down,” King wrote on Twitter. “They are a form of white supremacy. Always have been.” — Shaun King (@shaunking) June 22, 2020

So Antifa, a totally militant Marxist organization as James O’Keefe and Project Veritas have verified, and the Black Lives Matter terrorists really have two major targets. One of the targets is the symbols of religion—symbols of faith, and religion itself. The other is the Constitution as described in another of my recent articles. The root of such poison is in Marxist ideology that declares religion as the opiate of the people. Then, by logical extension, if religion is a false “crutch” for people, it must be removed because it harms a Marxist society. Like Nazis, who convinced the German people through sophisticated propaganda that mentally ill people were a drain upon Germany, communist ideology and committed Marxist leaders view religious people in a similar light. 

An essential point for committed Socialist/Marxist/Communist leaders is that the concept of religious freedom is harmful to healthy socialist societies because faith represents a fallacious perception of reality. Marxism is basically a God-denying ideology. Its philosophical worldview is that God does not exist; thus, there is no real purpose for religion. If one denies God, Marxists concur that the concept of God-given rights is ridiculous. While condescension towards people of faith may exist within the secular-humanists, such condescension under Socialist governments, and especially under Communist regimes, morphs into legalized persecution and oppression of people of faith and religious groups. It is “systemic intolerance” of faith.

This is America 2020. The Brown Shirts have been unleashed upon city streets. A “sanitized” version of a Marxist revolution is under way. It has little to do with an illusion of “systemic racism.” It is about exercising a physical, militant presence to show relative power or political strength. Anarchists and terrorists do what they do according to their purpose unless they are arrested, hindered, or stopped in one way or another. But, what would stop this militant reality show short of physical confrontation or armed combat?

What would stop or hinder actions to promote fear and panic? Number two: A revival of faith in America would penetrate the efforts at provoking divisiveness and terror in the population. What are secular-humanist government officials continuing to dismantle? In “COVID-plagued” America, they are closing churches, hindering attendance at faith-based worship services. Those intolerant of faith even initiate mandated penalties, fines, even arrests for people who openly profess their faith. Yet, how much genuine effort was made to arrest Antifa and BLM rioters? Or, if such terrorists were arrested, how long did they actually stay in jail? The power of faith is a threat to Marxists; it goes a long way in dismantling the politics of fear.

Let us ask a few more questions: Why have there been so many court cases against religious people in recent years? Why have so many people of faith had to go into the secular court system to fight for their God-given rights? If the U.S. government was established to secure the people’s God-given rights, why is there any fight in the first place? Who are the elected officials that are holding on to the self-evident truths today?

NYTimes Blames Churches For CV Spike

New York Times Falsely Blames Churches for Huge Spike in Coronavirus Cases

MATT MARGOLIS

President Trump wanted houses of worship to reopen, and the New York Times is trying to not only blame him for wanting them to reopen during the pandemic, but also blaming churches as a “major source” of coronavirus cases.

“Weeks after President Trump demanded that America’s shuttered houses of worship be allowed to reopen, new outbreaks of the coronavirus are surging through churches across the country where services have resumed,” read the report, which was published Wednesday.

“The virus has infiltrated Sunday sermons, meetings of ministers and Christian youth camps in Colorado and Missouri. It has struck churches that reopened cautiously with face masks and social distancing in the pews, as well as some that defied lockdowns and refused to heed new limits on numbers of worshipers,” the report continued. “Pastors and their families have tested positive, as have church ushers, front-door greeters and hundreds of churchgoers. In Texas, about 50 people contracted the virus after a pastor told congregants they could once again hug one another.”

The report also mentions a Florida teenager who died from the coronavirus after attending a church youth group party—though they failed to mention she had a rare autoimmune disorder and childhood cancer.

The New York Times literally is trying to put the fear of God in churchgoers, hoping to replace their Christian faith with subservience to government social-distancing edicts and media reporting.

And then you get to the following paragraph:

More than 650 coronavirus cases have been linked to nearly 40 churches and religious events across the United States since the beginning of the pandemic, with many of them erupting over the last month as Americans resumed their pre-pandemic activities, according to a New York Times database.

Just 650 cases. According to the New York Times, 650 cases linked to churches is a “major source” of coronavirus cases out of the more the 3 million official cases there have been since the beginning of the pandemic. There have been over 430,000 new cases in the month of July alone, but 650 cases linked to churches is a “major source” of coronavirus cases? That represents just 0.02 percent of all cases since the start of the pandemic, and 0.15 percent of new cases just from July.

These 650 church-linked cases are literally a drop in the bucket. Yet the New York Times wants you to believe churches are partially to blame for the recent spike in cases. What they don’t want you to know is that the recent surge in cases, when you take into account the incubation period of the disease, appears to be linked to the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests and riots that started in late May. But the New York Times wants to scare people of faith away from their places of worship. Meanwhile, the very same day they published this attack on churches, they also published a report arguing that the recent protests and riots did not play a role in the recent spike in cases.

And we’re supposed to believe there isn’t a hidden agenda here.

Iran To Help With Air Defense In Syria

Iran To Help Syria With Air Defense To Repel US, Israeli Attacks

Submitted by South Front,

Iran will help to strengthen Syrian air defense capabilities as part of a wider military security agreement between the two countries, Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri said on July 8. The statement was made after the signing of a new military cooperation agreement in Damascus.

The agreement provides for the expansion of military and security cooperation and the continuation of coordination between the Armed Forces of the two countries. Major General Baqeri said that the signed deal “increases our will to work together in the face of US pressure.”

“If the American administrations had been able to subjugate Syria, Iran and the axis of resistance, they would not have hesitated for a moment,” he said.

The major general emphasized that Israel is a “powerful partner” of the US in the war against Syria, claiming that terrorist groups constituted part of the Israeli aggression.

In their turn, the United States and Israel insist that Iran and Hezbollah are responsible for the destabilization of Syria and prepare what they call ‘terrorist attacks’ against the US and Israel. 

In the framework of this approach, Israel, with direct and indirect help from the US, regularly conducts strikes on various supposedly ‘Iranian targets’ across Syria. Often these strikes concur with large-scale attacks of al-Qaeda-linked groups and ISIS on positions of the Syrian Army and its allies. One of the main points of Israeli concern is the growing military infrastructure of pro-Iranian forces near al-Bukamal, on the Syrian-Iraqi border. Therefore, the announced move by Iran to boost Syrian air defenses, including possible deployment of additional air defense systems, is a logical step for them to take to protect their own interests.