Economic pressures

[Danny B]

Italian Flambé,,,China,,, Pensions

Italy deserves it's own case study. The Italians have been well screwed by the EU construct. Just as Trump lobs hand grenades with wild abandon, the Italians (so far) show NO FEAR.
"The Italian cabinet has confirmed the political agreement reached a day earlier to increase the budget deficit to 2.4% - instead of the 1.9% envisaged by [economy minister] Giovanni Tria. That was already way above the trajectory set by the EU."
"The decision means that Italy is now in open defiance on EU budget rules. "
https://moneymaven.io/mishtalk/econo...0-wutrMGuUhHA/

No show, "“We are not turning back from the 2.4 percent target... We will not backtrack by a millimeter,” Luigi Di Maio, deputy prime minister and leader of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, said on RTL radio.
Euro zone finance ministers meeting in Luxembourg said Italy, whose representative Giovanni Tria was a notable absentee"
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-i...-idUSKCN1MC1FS
They say that they won't back off. They already know that the bond markets will sell off. Brussels has no choice and no option. Italy will most likely pull the drain plug (default) rather than backing down.

"China’s total dollar debt burden is over $200 billion and towers over other emerging-market economy debt burdens." "China with almost $100 billion of external dollar-denominated liabilities maturing before the end of 2019."
Problem is, China can't get dollars.
https://dailyreckoning.com/a-three-w...l-the-markets/

"We have to come to the reality that from 2019 onward, we are headed into a Pension Crisis that will be serious. Many are starting to yell about the debt crisis. They lump on private debt and yell its a bubble. What they miss entirely is the fact that we face more than a decade of crises"
"This is by no means prophecies of doom and gloom. Unfortunately, they are prophecies not even of a pessimist, but only facts that are comprehensible simply using a pocket calculator and not even a computer. The Pension Crisis is the end of Socialism. Promises that were made which were never sustainable but were a scheme to win votes. Then the money needed to pay the pension required 8% interest annually. Then the central banks enter the game and mess everything up even more. Instead of DIRECTLY aiding the economy, they lower rates and HOPE that the banks will pass it along. They never did. The banks parked the money at the Excess Reserve Window that the Fed has still not closed."

"The cost of pensions is currently stifling Western society beyond belief. Europe itself is ahead of the curve and will crack before the United States. Europe already has between 30% to 40% of the population who have already retired or are about to leave the labor market. "
"We have to realize that government state pensions are the real crisis. Like California, their solution is always to raise taxes to pay for government pensions."
"The pressure is building on the ECB in Europe behind the curtain to stop this nonsense of Quantitative Easing that has failed to start with and is now the cause of a massive Pension Crisis for the next 10 years."
Martin Armstrong Blog | Beware Of The Real Debt Crisis On The Horizon | Talkmarkets
The CAFR reports show a LOT of money in State pensions,,, just no money in private pensions.

[Danny B]

Inflation, feed the State and, kill the worker

Nature created the family and clan. Later, man created society. Later, kings and priests created the State. The kings and priests would protect us from our temporal and spiritual enemies. The priests would intercede for us as only they could understand and, communicate with the gods. All of this came with a price. The priests demanded 1/10 of our income.
The kings protected us from our foreign enemies. Though, they often started wars just to insure a continuous supply of enemies. After all, the kings needed some kind of justification for the endless taxes that they squeezed out.
Thus was born the endless and growing bureaucracy that always surrounds the State. It was centered on the justification of the inevitability of war.
"Peace must be avoided at all costs". "War and the military is how we organize our society" Report From Iron Mountain.

Society and the State are 2 entirely different constructs. Society was created and organized so that man could organize all of his institutions. The State was created to promote war,,,, and then, protect us from the inevitable wars created by the backlash from the original war.
The State inevitably accumulated a huge agglomeration of bureaucrats and war-profiteers. This is where we find ourselves today. We pay 50% of our income to the State. The State has thoroughly convinced most people that it is an integral and INSEPARABLE component of society.
Frederic Bastiat wrote extensively about this lie.

Society could get along well without the State but, the reverse is not true. The State is simply a parasite that promotes war to gain control over ALL facets of our lives. The Deep State wants endless wars. The blob State wants a growing and, self-perpetuating bureaucracy. All of this costs money. The State prints money and distributes it to it's cronies. They buy government bonds. The worker is heavily taxed to repay these bonds. The worker also pays the "inflation tax" where the State can unload 1/2 of the debt burden by inflating the money supply. The working class constantly loses ground in the battle to survive.
currently, there are 96,2 million Americans of working age who are not in the labor force. Consequently, the State has had to carry the money printing to extremes.
The Deep State and the blob State can only "get" money by printing it. They hope to later throw this debt onto the backs of the worker. They hope to reduce the repayment burden to the bond market by inflating the money supply. The FED printed $trillions but, it never created a wage-price spiral. ZIRP held down debt-service costs but, ZIRP is fast leaving the markets. The exit from ZIRP and, the lack of hyperinflation mean that the pain of debt service will grow rapidly. The Treasury and FED have stepped up printing to finance both the deep state and, the blob State.
Armstrong said that there would be a great implosion. History suggests that the implosion is inevitable.

by John Stepek of Money Week

For most of history, inflation wasn’t really an issue.
Prices went up and down, but mostly were flat or only rose very gently over the very long term. And by long term, I mean centuries and even millennia.
Then along came the 20th century, and the latter part of it in particular.
Let’s just say that, when it comes to inflation, we made up for lost time.
The key point they make is this: we’ve been living through a unique period of financial history.

“The 1950-2000 period is like no other in human or financial history in terms of population growth, economic growth, inflation or asset prices.”
In other words, the only economic environment that almost all of us alive today have ever known, is a whopping great historical outlier.
For example, between 1800 and 1938, consumer prices in the UK were pretty much flat. Since then, they have risen 50-fold."
"To cut a long story short, it put a great deal of pressure on the monetary system. Under the gold standard, the money supply could only grow very slowly "
And of course, a “hard” money system also makes it harder to finance things like war and welfare states,
In fact, the rate of global population growth actually peaked at 2.09% in 1968, according to Deutsche. And this year it is set to fall below 1.1%.
You see, population growth might be slowing. But we’ve already unleashed the fiat currency genie from the bottle."
https://news.goldcore.com/ie/gold-bl...-bonds-stepek/

So, the deep state and the blob state are in danger of losing their paychecks. They squeezed us with the inflation tax. They robbed us with direct taxes. Now, they are borrowing hundreds of $billions. They are well aware that we don't like this arrangement. What to do?
Military and U.S. Law Enforcement Establishing Joint Communication Network for Biometric Databases
https://www.activistpost.com/2018/10...databases.html

The Living Reality Of Military-Economic Fascism Exposed
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...ascism-exposed

"In countries such as the United States, whose economies are commonly, though inaccurately, described as "capitalist" or "free-market," war and preparation for war systematically corrupt both parties to the state-private transactions by which the government obtains the bulk of its military goods and services."
"Moreover, military-economic fascism, by empowering and enriching wealthy, intelligent, and influential members of the public, removes them from the ranks of potential opponents and resisters of the state and thereby helps to perpetuate the state's existence and its intrinsic class exploitation of people outside the state. Thus, military-economic fascism simultaneously strengthens the state and weakens civil society, "

OK, the deep state and the blob state plan to survive by sucking out more and more money. The money is only there if they first print it.
Where does all that lead?
Why Chris Hedges Thinks The American Empire Has Lost Control... And Its Failure Is Imminent
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...ilure-imminent
"If Hedges was worried nine years ago in Empire of Illusion that his nation - like all republics before it - would fail to survive the acquisition of an empire, he’s now convinced it won’t. The title of his newest book, America: The Farewell Tour, "
Many empires have been brought down by the cost of the bureaucracy combined with the cost of the military. Will America be an exception? It is doubtful. There is lots of discussion on the subject.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...-united-states
Armstrong said that Trump is an outlier and that the disintegration will continue.

[Danny B]

Armstrong,,, gold,,, omens

Armstrong; "The events in the Senate concerning the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh’s illustrates that career politicians are destroying our way of life because they are so intent on just beating the opposite party that nobody is paying attention to the real problems we are staring at straight in its eyes."
"In Canada, a report has come out and made it clear that the “wolf is truly at provinces’ doors”, which is warning that the Canadian provinces’ fiscal position, collectively, is not sustainable over the long-term. They will raise taxes further and desperately punish all of us for their mismanagement and failures. They have destroyed our future and they will NEVER prevent a crisis"
"There is NO WILL to change and the parties are at each other’s throats so there can never be any bipartisan cooperation to save our future. We just have to Crash & Burn. "
"The political system is simply incapable of actually managing the economy with career politicians for they are more interested in defeating the opposition to retain their jobs"
"As interest rates continue to rise, we are facing the crisis of all time. The central banks must “normalize” interest rates for the entire pension system is going belly-up."
Normalized interest rates will blow everything anyway.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/a...t-going-broke/

" What it looks like is the seat of the Empire is filled with corrupt bureaucrats fighting for dominance." " It is really sad because it exposes how deep the hatred goes. You are correct, we have crossed the Rubicon. There is no putting this back together. The November elections will NEVER be accepted by either side."
"This is the Array on the Democrats. We are plagued by Directional Changes and Panic Cycles showing up in 2019 and 2021. This is all coming to a MAJOR head by 2020"
"I sincerely fear that Trump will be the very last democratically elected president. They will from here on out alter the actual voting counts to support their desired outcome. This is game over! Turn out the lights! As they said of Rome: they will still laughing when the lights went out."
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...no-going-back/

"The capital inflows to the USA began over FEARS of the Euro. They were deeply against the Euro because of the faulty design. It was a political creation that nobody in their right mind would have created such a currency under this structure. So the capital fled Europe and this was one of the reasons why the DOT.COM bubble was so big. It was aided by foreign capital fleeing Europe, to begin with."
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/a...market-trends/
This is the main reason that the American stock market is so high,,,, foreign capital inflows.

"It is just not practical that we have a monetary system that is based upon a commodity. Historically, inflation would come in waves depending upon new discoveries of the metal. So the quantity theory of money was not developed purely from fiscal mismanagement as often portrayed today. The true value of money is the productive-capability of its people. China, Germany, Japan, all rose from economic depression WITHOUT gold. They did it with the productive capacity of the people. The produce whatever and sell it to someone else and then get gold or whatever in return. This theory that you have nothing without gold is just stupid."

"The collapse of the Turkish lira is a reflection of the collapse in confidence in the government. The same has taken place in Venezuela. China and Japan rose from the ashes, not because of their possession of commodities, but because they could bring their people to bear and produce various items efficiently and cost-effective. It was the people first that produced the economic recovery and then they bought even gold."
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/m...gold-standard/

Armstrong argues that you can not have a gold standard or commodity money. This is duplicitous at best. The money supply has to grow commensurate with the growth in population. BUT, there can not be an unlimited supply of whatever commodity is chosen as money. It then becomes worthless. If the population grows faster than the money supply, that particular commodity grows too expensive and, is unavailable to the producing economy. EG, wheat, salt, cattle, etc
If gold is used for money, it really doesn't matter if the price goes too high. It isn't used in the producing economy so, it makes no difference.
Gold serves the purpose of limiting the creation of government bonds.

The industrial revolution created an enormous quantity of tangible wealth. The banks and the State do NOT want wealth stored beyond their reach. If people go to gold as a store of value, it is out of reach. Rather than letting gold rise way up and, serve as money, banks / State created paper money, and then, electronic entries. This allowed the banks / State to continuously steal your "stored labor". Gold could rise to $50,000 an ounce and, this would not hurt the economy. Central Banks have started buying gold again. They want that stability but, they don't want you to have it.

10/03 Rates are surging with 10-year, 30-year Treasury yields touching multiyear highs – CNBC
https://www.dollarcollapse.com/spiki...tes-huge-deal/
10/03 Italy caves, agrees to cut budget deficit after market sell-off – Reuters
The ECB told the Italians that their budget would break the EU. So, the Italians are just going to bide their time. The EU will break soon enough and, this way, Italy can't be blamed.
10/03 How China’s peer-to-peer lending crash is destroying lives – Bloomberg This will be the bad news story that never ends.
10/03 Junk bond spreads drop to lowest since 2007 – Talk Markets
Capital inflows from all over the world are juicing up American markets.

Apparently, the cost of hurricanes is going up quite a bit.
https://www.dollarcollapse.com/runni...icane-numbers/

“Over the past ten days, this exchange has triggered an omen every day. Such a streak has not happened over at least the past 40 years. This brings the total number of omens triggered on both exchanges over the past month to 15, the most since December of 1999, just before the peak of the Dotcom Mania.”
“Even more notable, it brings the total omens triggered over the past year to 44, by far the most in at least 40 years and roughly doubles the total seen almost 20 years ago. The only thing to conclude from this is that we are currently seeing a historic divergence in equity market breadth, the sort of dispersion that has typically preceded broader market turbulence.”
https://realinvestmentadvice.com/a-p...shes-09-29-18/

[Danny B]

Money supply expansion,,,debt-to-gdp,,, Roman Trump

The Bretton Woods agreement was specifically designed to keep nations from hyperinflating their bond markets to finance wars. Since America was the reserve currency, we still had the ability to inflate the money supply. We had previously promised NOT to do that. We kicked off a war in Korea and, later, a war in French Indo-China. This made a lot of money for war-profiteers but, it destroyed the Bretton woods agreement. We broke the gold link. With the link broken, we could engage in endless wars with bubble economics.
The post-Bretton Woods economic picture was a series of bubbles & crashes. Here is a good article from Charles Hugh Smith. Just remember that the main purpose of bubbles is to promote wars.
oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: Pensions Now Depend on Bubbles Never Popping (But All Bubbles Pop)
"The nice thing about the "wealth" generated by bubbles is it's so easy: no need to earn wealth the hard way, by scrimping and saving capital and investing it wisely. Just sit back and let central bank stimulus push assets higher."
Keep in mind that the deep State wants bubbles for war, AND, the blob State wants bubbles for jobs and pensions.

"Household debt relative to GDP is near-flat or declining in the US, Japan, Germany, and France. In China, it’s grown from 40% to 50% of GDP in just two years." "Bloomberg’s base case shows Chinese debt-to-GDP reaching 330% by 2022, which would place it behind only Japan among major economies. It might be “only” 290% if GDP growth stays high."
https://www.mauldineconomics.com/fro...-the-trade-win
Japan and China have a declining population & workforce. Here is a graph of worldwide debt creation. You can easily see the reason for capital flight to America.
https://ggc-mauldin-images.s3.amazon...80921_TFTF.png

Much of that capital flight is going into stock markets. Armstrong has warned the world about the danger of sovereign debt.
"Treasury Yields Surge, Curve Steepens, 30-Yr Yield Highest Since 2012: 6 Reasons"
Here is a graph of "Treasury shorts", https://imageproxy.themaven.net/http...wUevKqWTMMGzSQ
https://moneymaven.io/mishtalk/econo...UChpx8e9T1JpQ/

Zero Hedge has an interesting take and more charts in his post This Is Why Bonds Are Crashing, According To Bill Gross.
The debt-to-GDP ratio is a country's debt as a percentage of its total economic output. Countries with a ratio above 77% are in danger of default.
A debt-to-GDP ratio of 60% is quite often noted as a prudential limit

Powell wants to go full speed ahead with rate hikes. While it might bring some profitability to pension funds, he will crash everything else. Debt service on our $21.5 trillion public debt could easily hit $1 trillion a year. Corporate debt will becomes unpayable and most will default. There are only 2 American companies with AAA credit. Keep in mind that U.S. Gov lost it's AAA rating years ago.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...n-crash-market

"Altogether, the U.S. federal government has run up a $136.5 trillion bill that will have to be paid, using figures from usdebtclock.org. Accounting for the unfunded liabilities, every single taxpayer in America is currently on the hook for just under $1 million dollars. And that doesn’t count the $10 trillion or so of local and state debt and unfunded liabilities."
"If you started a stack of our crisp, new dollar bills on your coffee table, you could keep stacking until you reached the moon, which is close to 238,855 miles above your table. You’d have enough bills left over from our pile of 136.5 trillion to do 38 more stacks to the moon."
https://www.opslens.com/2018/10/03/n...ion-look-like/

Going from gold to paper allowed a big expansion in the money supply. Going from paper to pixels allowed even more. When the default cascade hits, the pixels will vanish without even a puff of smoke.
10/04 JGB market enters “uncharted territory” as bond rout goes global – Zero Hedge Japan just printed ever-more wondering at what point things would unwind. The ECB swears that it will stop printing. That should be interesting when you consider Italian debt.

Armstrong, "There was an emperor who came to power in 270AD who appears more like the same script of Trump’s DRAIN THE SWAMP. The debasement of the coinage was indeed pervasive. However, much of this was NOT official, but the corruption of the bureaucracy.
led by a man named Felicissimus who was most likely a Procurator Summarum Rationum, or the top official in the monetary system at the time in charge of the Rome Mint. The rebellion of mint workers barricaded themselves in on the Caelian Hill in Rome. Aurelian sent in the troops to DRAIN THE SWAMP in Rome itself and it was a major battle ending with 7,000 dead. The mint in Rome was then closed until later in the reign."

"Aurelian was not one of them and was another general raised by the army. He was not Italian in his heritage. He was not of noble birth and the Senate may have been looking to reassert itself once again as they had to under Maximinus (235-238AD). They also knew that Aurelian was planning to reform both the monetary system and the political system of the Empire."
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...erthrow-trump/
The blob state killed the emperor to maintain their positions of power,,,, not long before the empire collapsed.

[Danny B]

Rising defaults

One of the major weak points of the Chinese economy is; They aren't really working for profits, just expansion. This makes them particularly vulnerable to slowdowns.
'Chinese companies with dollar-debts (liabilities) will watch it grow compared to their falling assets (denominated in the weakening Yuan). And with rising debt burdens always comes the higher risk of default.
Already 2018’s turning out to be a record year for onshore Chinese bond defaults. . .
Goldman noted that in the last two months alone – there were at least eight new defaults."
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...hit-new-record

"The House on Wednesday passed an $854 billion spending bill to avert an October shutdown, funding large swaths of the government while pushing the funding deadline for others until Dec. 7."
“Two pieces of deficit-financed legislation explain the vast majority of this increased borrowing – the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) and the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (BBA18). Looking at next year alone, TCJA is projected to add about $230 billion to the deficit, including its effects on interest costs and economic growth. BBA18 is projected to add another $190 billion. Other legislation, including to delay health-related taxes, provide for disaster relief, and fund the government, is projected to add about $30 billion.”

"Debt to GDP will rise to nearly 100% of GDP."
"In a word, what was a $20 trillion national debt when the Donald arrived in the White House is no longer. Now it’s barreling toward $40 trillion within the next decade."
https://realinvestmentadvice.com/deb...n-train-wreck/

"The Leahy Law provision of the 2001 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act (FOAA) (Sec. 8092 of PL 106-259) states:

“None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to support any training program involving a unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of Defense has received credible information from the Department of State that a member of such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights, unless all necessary corrective steps have been taken.”
"Beginning in 2019, Washington will give Israel $3.8 billion annually for the next 10 years, $38 billion in total – plus countless amounts more on request."
https://stephenlendman.org/2018/10/1...-israel-daily/

"Wall Street banks are now collecting more from Los Angeles just in fees than it has available to fix its ailing roads."
Keep in mind that the gas tax money was sucked into the general fund to be handed out as welfare payments.
Los Angeles wants to have it's own bank for it's own money. The bankers are in a panic.
https://ellenbrown.com/2018/10/03/br...to-the-voters/

It looks like it's 'game on" now for Italy.
10/04 ‘Complete insanity’ of Italy debt plans may lead to huge restructuring – Reuters
10/04 Stocks fall as 10-year US yield hits its highest level in 7 years – CNBC
10/04 3 Important takeaways from the US yield shock – Zero Hedge
Powell will get something to break but, what will break first?
There is talk of breaking up the big banks.
https://sputniknews.com/us/201810031...-bank-breakup/

[Danny B]

Fighting deflation because they can't fight automation

The jobs went off to our low wage competitors. The State is trying to keep everybody employed by pumping money into the military and the blob State. The corporate tax reduction was a shot of Viagra to make it to the mid-terms, NOTHING more. As FED GOV prints to keep everybody working, it weakens the sovereign bond market.

Nomi Prins, "Now the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), or the “central bank of central banks,” is sounding a new alarm on this policy.
In its recent quarterly report, the BIS warned that low rates have catalyzed an increase in the number of “zombie” firms. The number of such firms has now risen to an all-time high."
These zombie firms provide jobs,,,, same as in China. By blocking the "crisis of automation", the State has created a crisis of Central Banks.
https://dailyreckoning.com/worlds-mo...-zombie-alert/

Here is a graph of global yield curve.
https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defa...04_5-30-11.jpg
A blind man could interpret this. There just isn't enough capital to service the enormous credit bubble. As rates go up, there will be even less capital available.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...-curve-inverts
All of this was preordained when the FED tried to rescue the far too numerous banks.

So, where do we fit in?
"An enormous "sword of Damocles" hangs over all markets now. A massive liquidity drain is underway as global QE reverses into QT and rates rise against the background of immense ubiquitous crippling debt burdens. What this means is that the biggest credit crunch of all time is bearing down on us, which will involve markets crashing in the absence of bids, serious dislocation of capital markets and out of control interest rates.
The liquidity that drove the massive bubbles in real estate and stock markets is being pulled. That must inevitably lead to these markets dropping, and we are already seeing the start of it with the Emerging Markets plunging and hitherto red hot real estate markets cooling.
so when the markets buckle and cave in, it won't be "something out of the blue" or an "Act of God" as the mainstream media will inevitably portray it; it is eminently predictable, and slated to happen soon.

What has happened in recent years is that central banks and governments have intervened with their liquidity injections to artificially extend the bull market—a bear market should have started several years back—it is like a guy who has just finished a marathon being pumped with drugs and told to run another 10 miles. What this means is that when the bear market eventually does hit, it arrives like a category 5 hurricane, which is actually what is called for now given the monstrous debt bubbles that have been inflated to gigantic proportions by all this relentless money pumping.

ZIRP policies of recent years have allowed for a massive transfer of wealth from the masses, the middle and lower classes, to the elites and super wealthy. The way it works is this: while the little folk continue to pay usurious interest rates to borrow money, the 1% pay almost nothing, borrow wads of cash and turn round and speculate in real estate, stock markets and other things
Now, you might say, when the Fed and other central banks realize that they have pulled the plug on the markets with their liquidity drain, won't they simply reverse course to stabilize the markets and pump them up again. Yes, of course they will, but by then it will be too late, as a self-feeding liquidation cycle will be going full bore, and any changes they make will need time to take effect. However, what will happen soon after they reverse course is that the dollar will suddenly find it has no wind in its sails,

With a monstrous liquidity crunch bearing down on us, you don't have to be a genius to work out what will happen to commodities. Look at 2008 as a dry run for what's coming. Basically anything that can be sold for cash will be, and that will include commodities. It will only be when the central banks and governments reverse course into mega QE that commodities will quickly reverse and soar, especially the precious metals.

"Basically anything that can be sold for cash will be"
First, he says that there will be no money / liquidity. Then, he says that everything will be sold.
Precious metals are NOT commodities, specifically gold.
https://www.streetwisereports.com/ar...it-crunch.html

[wayne.ct]

Stephen Lendman

Yesterday you posted a link to Stephen Lendman's post in which he says, "The Jewish state’s only enemies are invented ones. Real ones don’t exist."

I guess he intends to be taken literally but that makes no sense to me. I think you agree with him in a general way, but does he really believe that statement to be literally true? Putting your own views aside, what do you think he is saying? What does he mean by saying their enemies are invented? And, what does he mean by Jewish state? Is this not in reality an endless feud in which both sides refuse to forgive and coexist?

[Danny B]

A short history of Trana-Jordan

Off topic but, since everything is connected, I'll address it. You must start with Theodore Herzl.
Theodor Herzl (born May 2, 1860, Budapest, Hungary, Austrian Empire [now in Hungary]—died July 3, 1904, Edlach, Austria)

Though he died decades before the State of Israel's establishment, he is considered the country's founding father.
Theodore Herzl was the spiritual godfather of the jewish State. He proclaimed that the foreign jewish settlers must BUY the land. He also demanded that the foreign settlers live in peace. Trans-Jordan was only 17% jewish in the '30s.
Unfortunately for the Arabs who lived there at the time, Herzl was ignored by the immigrants. Many of them were from Russia and, for lack of a better word, many of them were uncivilized and barbaric. Russia was a murderous and barbaric land for much of it's history after the Bolsheviks murdered the Tsar. The jews had been kicked out of just about every State and province. They wanted a homeland.
Keep in mind that the Amish and Mennonites were invited into Russia, Canada and many other States.

The British made a deal with the jews. If they could Drag America into the war, England would give them a homeland. The Balfour Declaration. They convinced the president that only a war would bring America out of it's great depression. Just as the Lusitania was used as a pretext for WW I, Roosevelt needed a pretext for a European war. Americans refused to get drug in again to Europe's troubles. Roosevelt figured that it would be easier to force Americans to accept a pacific war and then,,,, A European war. Roosevelt blockaded Japan to get them to Attack.
Admiral Kimmel, the commander of Pearl Harbor base testified before congress that military intelligence knew 2 weeks ahead of time when and where the attack would be.

When the war was over, many refugees poured into Trans-Jordon / Palestine. Their attitude was personified by ,,,, The great israeli patriot and freedom fighter, David Ben-Gurion was very clear when he said " we have stolen their land. God gave it to us but, he isn't their god so why should they care"
The British took on the problem of administering Palestine under the British mandate. They planned a continuation of the earlier situation of multi-theistic and multi-culturism. The land had previously been reasonably peaceful. [by middle eastern standards]
Terror gangs and parties were formed to drive out both the arabs and the British. Irgun, Stern, Nehi and Likud were very active at blowing up buses and market places.
The Russians seemed to be at the forefront of the terror. One Russian immigrant, Begin was particularly bloodthirsty. There isn't any doubt about his reign of terror. He documented it very well.
"The Deir Yassin massacre took place on April 9, 1948, when around 120 fighters from the Zionist paramilitary groups Irgun and Lehi attacked Deir Yassin, a Palestinian Arab village of roughly 600 people near Jerusalem."
"150 corpses were found in one cistern alone, among them people who had been either decapitated or disemboweled.[5] Israeli historian Benny Morris wrote that there were also cases of mutilation and rape.[6] Several villagers were taken prisoner and may have been killed after being paraded through the streets of West Jerusalem.[7] "
Menachin Begin later became Prime minister.

The jewish/russian terrorists stacked up corpses for the media. Their crowning achievement was when they blew up the King David hotel and killed 97 members of the British command. The British left declaring that the land was ungovernable. "

Look at the dates. It was the terror gangs blowing things up in the late'40s.
BTW, it was Rahm Emmanuel's father who was part of blowing up the British command.
Israel was founded by murder and deception on stolen land. The Arabs were not attacking the jews. It was the other way around. Many jews consider themselves to be the master race. It is OK to do genocide to the goyim (cattle).
I've had israeli acquaintances tell me that israel is a communist country. Dunno. It sure takes a lot of foreign aid to keep them going.
"Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: 'Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
This just isn't the right attitude to get along in the world. The israeli supreme court just declared that it's laws extended to the whole world.
What it gets down to is; the immigrants started blowing up everything to drive out the non-jews.
The jews are slowly waking up to the idea that zionism has hijacked Judaism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_Zi...ature=youtu.be
There is no arguing over who started it first.
I wrote about this in 2009 at Burning Man.
https://eplaya.burningman.org/viewto...p?f=56&t=28087

The jews didn't so much invent their enemies. They manufactured them.

[Danny B]

Bond yields turn,,,, Kunstler

"A severe sell-off in technology stocks has pushed the front-month VIX futures contract to a premium relative to the second-month contract."
"Typically, the curve is in contango -- that is, upward sloping -- because the outlook for U.S. equities is more uncertain over longer time periods than shorter ones."
"A curve that’s in backwardation -- the opposite of contango -- indicates traders are acutely concerned with the near-term outlook for equities. "
"Joining the 10-year in breaking its long-term downtrend line are the 30-year and 5-year bond yields:" VERY important indicator of confidence.
"What’s fascinating is that as the stock market has only recently started to wobble a bit, the main US Treasurys have been declining in earnest since mid-August:"
"To recap: what we’re seeing now is very consistent with the end of a major credit-liquidity cycle. Everything is being sold. Stocks and bonds."
https://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/...is-think-again
OK, so, the bond market has rolled over. Just what does this mean? What does it mean for the future?
The West has a crisis of employment. Liquidity was force-fed to the upper loop of gamblers. It never made any improvements in wages or aggregate earning power . Consumption crashed whenever / wherever easy credit was curtailed. Without easy money, everything defaults. Automation cut deeper and deeper into jobs and earnings. Japan now has a robot that hangs drywall.
Actual productive GDP has crashed and only the FIRE economy is moving,,, thanks to free money.

Here are 2 articles from Kunstler. I'll excerpt but, you should read both.
"But something else emerges from this story, perhaps unintentionally: that the complexities of government are now hopelessly unmanageable, no matter who is in charge of them, and that the actual path of this still-growing complexity leads to criticality and collapse."
"due to that age-old pitfall of making ever-increasing investments in complexity with diminishing returns. That is exactly how societies collapse and that is where things stand in the Time of Trump. "
"Government has attempted to prop them up by schemes that amount to racketeering of one kind or another — the dishonest manipulation and representation of money — and now money itself is in revolt, as can be seen in the sudden rise of interest rates, especially the ten-year US Treasury Bond "

"This riveting horror show has also distracted the nation — and a media fully invested in compounding the psychodrama — from the momentous tectonic movements in the world’s money system, now shaking apart. Among other things, it will blow up the fantasy that Mr. Trump has magically orchestrated a new miracle economy. But it will also bring to an abrupt close the pornographic machinations of his adversaries in Swamptown. And then we will get on in earnest with the true business of the long emergency — making new arrangements, however difficult — to escape the deadly clutter of our own constructed hyper-complex hyper-reality."
Fishtailing into the Future - Kunstler

"These are climate change, the crack-up of a debt-based money system, the winding–down of techno-industrial economy, and the ecological destruction of the only planet that human beings call home."
"What humans can do is decide how to ride these events. For the moment, America has opted for a grand circus of sexual hysteria."
"Next on tap for this beleaguered nation will be a constitutional crisis and a financial crisis. It’s difficult to predict the order of their unfolding, except to say that these will open up a maelstrom of losses which will then be hard to either adjudicate or correct, once our system of law is compromised. As this occurs, all the raging hysteria over sex will be overshadowed by real existential issues as the people lose their homes, incomes, and futures and desperately search for a way out of more chaos than they bargained for."
Imaginary Monsters and the Uses of Chaos - Kunstler

The changes in the bond markets are due to a change in psychology.
https://www.dollarcollapse.com/marke...ology-changed/

"by Ambrose Evans- Pritchard

Each super-cycle for bonds over the past two centuries has lasted the span of a career. The tide is immensely powerful. When it turns, the world economic system faces what amounts to a regime change.

The current "ice age" - to borrow from Albert Edwards at Societe Generale - began in 1981 when the US Federal Reserve delivered a crushing monetary shock and defeated the Great Inflation. Benchmark US yields have been falling in a staggered fashion ever since.

It is the only experience that most investors, traders and PhD economists at central banks have ever known. But if the chartists are right - and you ignore them at your peril - the downtrend line has finally broken. US Treasury yields across the maturity spectrum are smashing through historic lines of resistance, with instant knock-on effects through the $US49 trillion ($62 trillion) market for global bonds."
https://www.afr.com/markets/market-d...0180110-h0gkwn

[wayne.ct]

Thank you

Thanks for trying to answer my question. Yes, I see it is off topic so I'll let it go.

[Danny B]

The mention of o t. was a comment, NOT a condemnation. Consider that we had a jewish rabbi as the comptroller of the Pentagon when $trillions went missing.
https://rense.com/general75/latest.htm
Mention of just about anything connected to israel is also important to America. Most of the reason that America is broke and collapsing is directly related to israeli control of America.
Israel destroyed their bond market in the early 80s. I went there in '84 after they had knocked 3 zeros off the Shekel. They have now destroyed our bond market.

[Danny B]

more milestones on the road to bond default

You may be tempted to think that the economy is OK for most. You may believe that the crash is in a holding pattern. Not so. We are passing milestones on a regular basis on our journey to insolvency. Sovereign Bonds have broken out of a trendline that began in 1981.
Now, junk bonds (ccc) have broken out of a trendline.
10/07 Junk bonds’ incredible shrinking premiums make CCCs pricey – Gulf Times
10/07 Europe’s junk bond bubble has finally burst – Zero Hedge
China must inflate to keep employment going.
10/07 China pumps $109bn into economy as trade war bites on growth – Guardian
They're crashing anyway. OZ depends a lot on China.
10/07 Australia auto crash on top of housing crash – Mish
10/07 Why the Aussie dollar is crashing – News.com

The Central Bank is supposed to take the punch bowl away when the party gets going real good. BUT, voters and investors do not want the party to end. Yellen pumped it up good to help obummer. Powell is emptying the punchbowl.
"Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank has a ways to go yet before it gets interest rates to where they are neither restrictive nor accommodative."
"The bottom line is the Fed waited much too long to begin normalizing monetary policy. Moreover, they pre-committed to an extremely gradual path of rates increases. This policy approach essentially ensured that so-called "tightening" measures would fail to tighten financial conditions. Over-liquefied and speculative markets were content to look right through them, confident that cheap liquidity and easy Credit conditions would run unabated."
https://creditbubblebulletin.blogspo...-finances.html

"each time rates have climbed towards 3%, the market has stumbled.”
"Our bigger concern remains interest rates simply for one reason – you can NOT have higher stock prices AND higher interest rates. Period.
One or the other will have to give."
"With bond traders more short than at any point in history, the ultimate “reversion to the mean” in Treasury’s will drive rates towards zero."
https://creditbubblebulletin.blogspo...-finances.html

Charles Huge Smith has a good article, The Dynamics of Decadence
oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: The Dynamics of Decadence
Italy is still stirring things up.
10/07 Italy outlook darkens as politics skews from orthodox thinking – Bloomberg
10/07 Italy’s debt crisis flares up as showdown with the EU intensifies – Wolf Street
10/07 The “VaR shock” is back: global bonds lose $880 billion in one week – ZH
That won't do anything for confidence.
10/07 The US spent a record $523 billion on debt interest in fiscal 2018 – Zero Hedge
WE forked over $ 1/2 trillion to the owners of the FED. More deflation.

[Danny B]

productivity vs speculation,,,global cooling

"Jerome Powell said the central bank has a ways to go yet before it gets interest rates to where they are neither restrictive nor accommodative."
In Sharia-compliant banking, the bank is exposed to the risk of investment, NOT just the risk of default of the borrower.
The Bank of North Dakota only loans money for productive investments, NOT for speculation. The Bank of ND is more profitable than the NYC banks.
When Powell talks about interest rates being either restrictive or accommodative, he is, for the most part, talking about interest rates for speculation, NOT productivity. The money loaned for speculation is at far higher risk than money loaned for production. The 2 should have entirely different interest rates. The Bank of ND only loans money that has a dedicated cash stream to finance repayment.
So what happens when you loan money for a purely speculative purpose that isn't directly connected to any kind of productivity?
10/08 John Hussman: $20 trillion to be wiped from stock markets – Business Insider
10/08 Ron Paul: US is barrelling towards a stock market drop of 50% or more – ZH
Greed can turn to fear in a heartbeat. Buying stocks on margin takes a lot of confidence. What happens when confidence wavers?
10/08 “Waiting for the world to end” – bond rout bodes badly for equity investors – ZH
Did something just break? – Lance Roberts, Real Investment Advice
10/07 The “VaR shock” is back: global bonds lose $880 billion in one week – ZH
That could definitely dent confidence.
10/08 Central banks are piling into gold – Seeking Alpha
The latest warning from the BIS spooked a lot of CBs.

10/08 Erdogan says Turkey is not facing any worrying economic problems – Reuters
This official denial is the sure sign that everything in Turkey is about to fall apart.
10/08 Housing affordability hits lowest point in 10 years – Forbes
All that hot money from the FED is fleeing just where the State does not want it to flee.
10/08 Germany changes immigration policy, will seek skilled migrants – Gatestone ABOUT TIME.
10/08 Will America run short of seafood? This ocean farm could save us – USA Today
Farmed Salmon Is One Of The Most Toxic Foods In The World

10/08 Renewable energy is growing too slow to meet climate goals, IEA warns – CNBC
"The last grand maximum peaked circa 1958, after which the sun has been steadily quieting down. Today, the drop in activity is at its steepest in 9,300 years, which is being ignored by the Global Warming propaganda."
"The sunspot cycle is roughly every eleven years. However, this time it’s different. The sun is headed for a very rare, super-cooling period that threatens to topple civilization itself as it has throughout history roughly following a 300-year cycle."

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/a...-excitability/

"Already, the data is now in for September. The world just had the coldest September for a decade, according to the latest satellite measurements by the University of Alabama at Huntsville."
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...lobal-warming/

10/08 Interpol asks China for information on its missing president – CBS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKP0_y6FrQ4

[wayne.ct]

Israel vs Papacy

So, are these two symbiotic forces? Or are they in opposition? It seems to me that the US is the lapdog of the Papacy and you seem to see the US as the lapdog of Israel. That all three are about to instigate a new Crusade/Jihad seems obvious. They are more likely to collude than bicker and the Muslim world will be overrun militarily. Your thoughts?

[Danny B]

Don't ask me,,, Dunno

Wayne, too much is in flux for me to make an educated guess.
Erdogan wants a new Ottoman Empire.
Israel wants a "Greater Israel",,,, even though they have SERIOUSLY polluted the Israel that they already occupy,,,, and their birth rate is stagnant. They have a growing list of very powerful enemies. Also, Trump said that he wants to make America great again. He can't do that with israel dragging us down.
Neocons want a new American century and control of Central Asia.
Central Asia wants no part of that plan.
The Eurocrats want a federal Europe that is soon to blow up in a spectacular fashion.
China wants respect, prosperity and power. They want revenge for what the British did to them for many years. Their fertility rate is only 1.6 and their workforce declines by 1 million a year. They have 1 million Sunni Uighurs in concentration camps.
The U.K. is a big pressure cooker with no pressure relief.
OZ is tied very closely to the fate of China.
Saudi Arabia is not far from failing.
Nobody left in Venezuela seems to now what they are doing.

Iran could blow up and make a total mess of the Straights of Hormuz, Suez Canal and Bab el-Mandeb Strait. These handle 61% of the world's oil.
Iraq and Libya could light up again.
Lebanon could re-enter the world's stage in a spectacular fashion.

THEN, add in the fact that we go into deepest solar minimum in 2019. That will kick off more volcanoes and earthquakes. We are already cooling. A couple of good volcanoes will cool us a few degrees more.
"Laki's output of sulphur dioxide dwarfs the 1990 eruption of Pinatubo in the Philippines, which is famous for halting global warming for several years. While that eruption produced 17 mega tones of sulphur dioxide, Laki was pumping the same amount out every three days at its peak."
"The period from around 1600–1900 is often referred to as the Little Ice Age. Indeed, glacier cover in Iceland is believed to have reached a maximum in 1890;"
"According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the world's volcanoes, both on land and undersea, generate about 200 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, while our automotive and industrial activities cause some 24 billion tons of CO2 emissions every year worldwide."

Did I mention the pole flip? That will wipe out a lot of our electronic infrastructure. Add in the fact that Earth is losing a LOT of protection as we move into areas that have much greater bombardment of cosmic rays.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsqZJP54shg&t=478s
Too many unknowns and variables for me.