Challenges for Resolving Complex Conflicts

Posted on April 18, 2018 by Reid Mukai

By Robert J. Burrowes

While conflict theories and resolution processes advanced dramatically during the second half of the 20^th century, particularly thanks to the important work of several key scholars such as Professor Johan Galtung – see ‘Conflict Transformation by Peaceful Means (the Transcend Method)’ – significant gaps remain in the conflict literature on how to deal with particular conflict configurations. Notably, these include the following four.

First, existing conflict theory does not adequately explain, emphasize and teach how to respond in those circumstances in which parties cannot be brought to the table to deeply consider a conflict and the measures necessary to resolve it. This particularly applies in cases where one or more parties is violently defending (often using a combination of direct and structural violence) substantial interrelated (material and non-material) interests. The conflict between China and Tibet over the Chinese-occupied Tibetan plateau, the many conflicts between western corporations and indigenous peoples over exploitation of the natural environment, and the conflict between the global elite and ‘ordinary’ people over resource allocation in the global economy are obvious examples of a vast number of conflicts in this category. As one of the rare conflict theorists who addresses this question, Galtung notes that structural violence ‘is not only evil, it is obstinate and must be fought’, and his preferred strategy is nonviolent revolution. See The True Worlds: A Transnational Perspective p. 140. But how?

Second, existing conflict theory does not explain how to respond in those circumstances in which one or more parties to the conflict are insane. The conflict between Israel and Palestine over Israeli-occupied Palestine classically illustrates this problem, particularly notable in the insanity of Israeli Prime Minister Binjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked. But it is also readily illustrated by the insanity of the current political/military leadership in the USA and the insanity of the political, military and Buddhist leaders in Myanmar engaged in a genocidal assault on the Rohingya. For a brief discussion of the meaning and cause of this insanity see ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’.

As an aside, there is little point deluding ourselves that insanity is not a problem or even ‘diplomatically’ not mentioning the insanity (if this is indeed the case) of certain parties in particular conflicts. The truth enables us to fully understand a conflict so that we can develop and implement a strategy to deal with all aspects of that truth. Any conflict strategy that fails to accurately identify and address all key aspects of the conflict, including the insanity of any of the parties, will virtually certainly fail.

Third, and more fundamentally, existing conflict theory does not take adequate account of the critical role that several unconscious emotions play in driving conflict in virtually all contexts, often preventing its resolution. This particularly applies in the case of (but is not limited to) suppressed terror, self-hatred and anger which are often unconsciously projected as fear of, hatred for and anger at an opponent or even an innocent third-party (essentially because this individual/group feels ‘safe’ to the person who is projecting). See ‘The Psychology of Projection in Conflict’.

While any significant ongoing conflict would illustrate this point adequately, the incredibly complex and interrelated conflicts being conducted in the Middle East, the prevalent Islamophobia in some western countries, and the conflicts over governance and exploitation of resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo are superlative examples. Ignoring suppressed (and projected) emotions can stymie conflict resolution in any context, interpersonally and geopolitically, and it does so frequently.

Fourth, existing conflict theory pays little attention to the extinction-causing conflict being ongoingly generated by human over-consumption in the finite planetary biosphere (and currently resulting in 200 species extinctions daily) which is sometimes inadequately identified as a conflict caused by capitalism’s drive for unending economic growth in a finite environment.

So what can we do?

Well, to begin, in all four categories of cases mentioned above, I would use Gandhian nonviolent strategy to compel violent opponents to participate in a conflict transformation process such as Galtung’s. Why nonviolent and why Gandhian? Nonviolent because our intention is to process the conflict to achieve a higher level of need satisfaction for all parties and violence against any or all participants is inconsistent with that intention. But Gandhian nonviolence because only Gandhi’s version of nonviolence has this conflict intention built into it. See ‘Conception of Nonviolence’.

‘But isn’t this nonviolent strategy simply coercion by another name?’ you might ask. Well, according to the Norwegian philosopher, Professor Arne Naess, it is not. In his view, if a change of will follows the scrutiny of norms in the context of new information while one is ‘in a state of full mental and bodily powers’, this is an act of personal freedom under optimal conditions. Naess highlights this point with the following example: Suppose that one person carries another against their will into the streets where there is a riot and, as a result of what they see, the carried person changes some of their attitudes and opinions. Was the change coerced? According to Naess, while the person was coerced into seeing something that caused the change, the change itself was not coerced. The distinction is important, Naess argues, because satyagraha (Gandhian nonviolent struggle) is incompatible with changes of attitudes or opinions that are coerced. See Gandhi and Group Conflict: An Exploration of Satyagraha pp. 91-92.

To elaborate this point: Unlike other conceptions of nonviolence, Gandhi’s nonviolence is based on certain premises, including the importance of the truth, the sanctity and unity of all life, and the unity of means and end, so his strategy is always conducted within the framework of his desired political, social, economic and ecological vision for society as a whole and not limited to the purpose of any immediate campaign. It is for this reason that Gandhi’s approach to strategy is so important. He is always taking into account the ultimate end of all nonviolent struggle – a just, peaceful and ecologically sustainable society of self-realized human beings – not just the outcome of this campaign. He wants each campaign to contribute to the ultimate aim, not undermine vital elements of the long-term and overarching struggle to create a world without violence.

Consequently, given his conception of nonviolence, Gandhi’s intention is to reach a conflict outcome that recognizes the sanctity and unity of all life which, obviously, includes the lives (but also the physical and emotional well-being) of his opponents. His nonviolent strategy is designed to compel participation in a conflict process but not to impose his preferred outcome unilaterally. See Nonviolent Campaign Strategy and Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy.

This can apply in the geopolitical context or in relation to ordinary individuals ‘merely’ participating in the violence of overconsumption. Using nonviolent strategy to campaign on the climate catastrophe or other environmental issues can include mobilizing individuals and communities to emulate Gandhi’s asceticism in a modest way by participating in the fifteen-year strategy outlined in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth ’ which he inspired.

But even if we can use nonviolent strategy effectively to get the conflicting parties together, the reality is that suppressed and projected emotions – particularly fear, self-hatred and anger as mentioned above – or even outright insanity on the part of one or more parties may still make efforts to effectively transform the conflict impossible. So for conflict resolution to occur, we need individuals who are willing and able to participate with at least minimal goodwill in designing a superior conflict outcome beneficial to everyone concerned.

Hence, I would do one more thing in connection with this process. Prior to, and then also in parallel with, the ‘formal’ conflict process, I would provide opportunities for all individuals engaged in the process (or otherwise critical to it because of their ‘background’ role, perhaps as a leader not personally present at the formal conflict process) to explore in a private setting with a skilled ‘nisteler’ (who is outside the conflict process), the unconscious emotions that are driving their particular approach to the conflict. See ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’. The purpose of this nisteling is to allow each participant in the conflict process to bring a higher level of self-awareness to it. See ‘Human Intelligence or Human Awareness?’

I am not going to pretend that this would necessarily be possible, quick, easy or even work in every context. Insane individuals are obviously the last to know they have a psychological problem and the least likely to participate in a process designed to uncover and remove the roots of their insanity. However, those who are trapped in a dysfunctional psychological state short of insanity may be willing to avail themselves of the opportunity. In time, the value of this aspect of the conflict resolution process should become apparent, particularly because delusions and projections are exposed by the person themself (as an outcome of the expertise of the person nisteling).

Obviously, I am emphasizing the psychological aspects of the conflict process because my own considerable experience as a nonviolent activist together with my research convinces me that understanding violence requires an understanding of the psychology that drives it. If you are interested, you can read about the psychology of violence, including the 23 psychological characteristics in the emotional profile of archetype perpetrators of violence, in the documents ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice ’.

Ideally, I would like to see the concept of nistelers operating prior to, and then parallel with, focused attention on the conflict itself normalized as an inherent part of the conflict resolution process. Clearly, we need teams of people equipped to perform this service, a challenge in itself in the short-term.

If, however, conflicting parties cannot be convinced to participate in this process with reasonable goodwill, we can always revert to using nonviolent strategy to compel them to do so. And, if all attempts to conduct a reasonable conflict process fail (particularly in a circumstance in which insanity is the cause of this failure), to impose a nonviolent solution which nevertheless takes account of the insane’s party’s legitimate needs. (Yes, on just that one detail, I diverge from Gandhi.)

Having stated that, however, I acknowledge that only a rare individual has the capacity to think, plan and act strategically in tackling a violent conflict nonviolently, so considerable education in nonviolent strategy will be necessary and is a priority.

Given what is at stake, however – a superior strategy for tackling and resolving violent geopolitical conflicts including those (such as the threat of nuclear war, the climate catastrophe and decimation of the biosphere) that threaten human extinction – any resources devoted to improving our capacity to deliver this outcome would be well spent.

Provided, of course, that reducing (and ultimately eliminating) violence and resolving conflict is your aim.

In addition to the above, I would do something else more generally (that is, outside the conflict process).

Given that dysfunctional parenting is ultimately responsible for the behaviour of those individuals who generate and perpetuate violent conflicts, I would encourage all parents to consider making ‘My Promise to Children’ so that we start to produce a higher proportion of functional individuals who know how to powerfully resolve conflicts in their lives without resort to violence. If any parent feels unable to make this promise, then they have the option of tackling this problem at its source by ‘Putting Feelings First’.

If we do not dramatically and quickly improve our individual and collective capacity to resolve conflicts nonviolently, including when we are dealing with individuals who are insane, then one day relatively soon we will share the fate of those 200 species of life we drove to extinction today.

Biodata: Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his website is here.

Robert J. Burrowes
P.O. Box 68
Daylesford, Victoria 3460
Australia

Email: flametree@riseup.net

Websites:
Nonviolence Charter
Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth
‘Why Violence?’
Feelings First
Nonviolent Campaign Strategy
Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy
Anita: Songs of Nonviolence
Robert Burrowes
Global Nonviolence Network

Saturday Matinee: Obsolete

Posted on June 3, 2017 by Reid Mukai

Source: Truthstream Media

The Future Doesn’t Need Us… Or So We’ve Been Told. With the rise of technology and the real-time pressures of an online, global economy, humans will have to be very clever – and very careful – not to be left behind by the future. From the perspective of those in charge, human labor is losing its value, and people are becoming a liability. This documentary reveals the real motivation behind the secretive effort to reduce the population and bring resource use into strict, centralized control. Could it be that the biggest threat we face isn’t just automation and robots destroying jobs, but the larger sense that humans could become obsolete altogether? *Please watch and share!* Link to film: http://amzn.to/2f69Ocr

Lament for Humanity: A 50 Year Reflection

Posted on September 1, 2016 by Reid Mukai

Beryl & James Burrowes 1942 & 2016

By Robert J. Burrowes

Source: RINF

Deeply affected by the death of my two uncles in World War II, on 1 July 1966, the 24th anniversary of the USS Sturgeon sinking of the Japanese prisoner-of-war ship Montevideo Maru which killed the man after whom I am named, I decided that I would devote my life to working out why human beings are violent and then developing a strategy to end it.

The good news about this commitment was that it was made when I was nearly 14 so, it seemed, anything was possible. Now I am not so sure.

Here is my report on 50 years of concerted effort to understand and end human violence.

In 1966 one of my immediate preoccupations was war. The US genocidal war on Vietnam was raging and, as a sycophantic ally of the United States, Australia had been drawn into it some years previously. Trying to understand what this war was really about was challenging, particularly given the limited (mainstream) sources of information available to me at the time.

But I was deeply troubled by another problem too. I had seen a photo of a starving African child in the newspaper when I was ten and I found this most disturbing. Why did adults let children starve? I wondered. And trying to make sense of this by reading newspaper reports or asking those around me was utterly unenlightening.

By the early 1970s the environmental crisis was starting to impact on my awareness too, including through environmental campaigns I heard about and the ‘limits to growth’ literature published by the Club of Rome, which I read at University.

So where are we today?

Well, the most casual perusal of the state of our world reveals the ongoing (and recently heightened) threat of nuclear war and obliteration (on top of the ongoing and rapidly spreading radioactive contamination generated by Fukushima and the use of Depleted Uranium weapons), ongoing phenomenal levels of military spending and the endless push from corporate and other elite interests for more wars. Hence, we are witness to and, through our taxes, active supporters of an endless sequence of wars, military invasions, occupations and coups, virtually all of them instigated by the US elite and its allies, as well as a sequence of ‘local’ wars, also instigated by western elites and supplied with weapons by western corporations.

The global economy teeters on the brink of collapse and, of course, from the viewpoint of those 100,000 people in Africa, Asia and Central/South America who starve to death each day or those one billion people who live in a state of semi-starvation and abject poverty in many parts of the world, it has already ‘collapsed’. This all happens at the instigation of insane elites who continue to accumulate and hoard their wealth, much of it in illegal offshore tax havens. Given the enormous psychological damage that individual members of the elite have suffered, millions or even billions can never be enough.

And the environmental crisis has only become vastly worse with the synergistic impact of our combined assaults on the environment causing human extinction-threatening strain on the biosphere. These devastating assaults include those inflicted by military violence (often leaving vast areas uninhabitable), the emission of vast quantities of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere, rainforest destruction, industrial farming, mining, commercial fishing and spreading radioactive contamination.

We are also systematically destroying the limited supply of fresh water on the planet and inducing the collapse of hydrological systems. Human activity drives 200 species of life (birds, animals, fish, insects, reptiles, amphibians, plants) to extinction each day and 80% of the world’s forests and over 90% of the large fish in the ocean are already gone.

Despite this readily available information, governments continue to prioritize spending $US2,000,000,000 each day on military violence, the sole purpose of which is to terrorize and kill fellow human beings, now or in the future.

In addition, you might have noticed the ongoing attacks on everything from our civil liberties and right to privacy to our right to eat healthy food that has not been poisoned and/or genetically mutilated.

So why does all of this happen? Well, 50 years of research and decades of nonviolent activism have had some rewards and particularly the research that Anita McKone and I conducted during our 14 years in seclusion (1996-2010) which fully explained why human beings are violent. In essence, it is an outcome of the visible, ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence inflicted by adults on children. See ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.

Moreover, this research also gave us enormous insight into the insanity of the global elite and those who serve them in order to maintain this worldwide system of violence and exploitation that is killing us all while destroying the biosphere. Whether it be the politicians who implement elite policies, the academics who ‘justify’ or remain silent about this violence and exploitation, the business people who manage it, the judges, magistrates, lawyers and prosecutors who defend and ultimately enforce it, the teachers and media personnel who teach and promote (or distract us from) it, or the soldiers, private military contractors, police and prison officers who inflict its most direct violence, the global elite is served by a ready stream of witting or unwitting people, many of whom are paid by your taxes to do its bidding. See ‘The Global Elite is Insane’.

And just to ensure that you are endlessly frightened into accepting this worldwide system of violence and exploitation, and to support its further encroachment into your life, the global elite conducts an ongoing terrorist campaign against you. See ‘Terrorism: Ultimate Weapon of the Global Elite’ and ‘Why Elites Love Drones’.

But there is another huge problem too: Lack of solidarity.

Elites know that they can divide us and that enables them to conquer us. Despite our efforts to build solidarity over recent decades, elites keep finding new ways to emphasize our ‘differences’. We need to start thinking of our selves as ‘We are all each other’. Does it matter if the ‘big’ difference between us is our gender, our race, our class, our religion, our nationality or something else (or even all of these)?

While elites can easily manipulate us, especially via education systems and the corporate media, into projecting our fear and self-hatred onto others who are ‘different’ and then inflicting violence on, or even killing, each other because, in effect, ‘I am an adult and you are a child’, ‘I am a man and you are a woman’, ‘I am non-indigenous and you are indigenous’, ‘I am a Christian/Jew/Hindu/Buddhist and you are a Muslim’, ‘I am working class and you are middle class’, ‘I am white and you are not’, ‘I am straight and you are LGBTQIA’, ‘I am one nationality and you are another’, ‘I am a feminist and you are a socialist’, or even ‘I am human and you are a bird/animal/fish/insect/reptile/amphibian/plant’ then we haven’t even begun to realize that the real issue is that we are all living beings and this insane elite is willing to do anything they can to exploit and, if necessary, kill us all.

Isn’t it time we started to see what makes us the same – victims of violence and exploitation – rather than focusing on what, after all, are the rather less significant differences in our bodily characteristics, in our beliefs or even the causes of our exploitation (which is not meant to diminish the significance of the outcomes of direct and structural violence which undoubtedly have variable impact)? Fear divides us.

One interesting personal outcome of this lifetime of effort, apart from the many arrests, terms of imprisonment (including once in a psychiatric ward where I was forcibly injected with ‘antipsychotic’ drugs), bankruptcy and seizure of my passport that have been direct results of my nonviolent activism, is that Anita and I have been homeless since 1999: conscience has its costs. Moreover, a worldwide search has failed to identify more than a handful of individuals (but pre-eminently my parents, James and Beryl, both veterans of World War II and now 93) or an organization of any kind that is willing to fund our research or our work to end human violence. Of course, there is a psychological explanation for this as well. See ‘Why Don’t We Try to Understand and End Human Violence?’

So what of human prospects? Not good. With an insane elite controlling the US (and other) military/nuclear arsenals and the highly exploitative global economy (with the secret corporate governance deals, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, designed to further consolidate corporate control of our world), as well as the dominant discourse via the education systems and corporate media, very few people have the emotional and intellectual capacities to critique this world order and then strategically and nonviolently resist the rush to extinction in which we now find ourselves. In short, most human beings are utterly (unconsciously) terrified and remain politically inert despite time and opportunities slipping rapidly away.

And those who do courageously resist this violent world order face a phalanx of violent institutions, ranging from psychiatry – see ‘Defeating the Violence of Psychiatry’ – and the pharmaceutical – see ‘Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients’ – and agribusiness – see ‘Monsanto, America’s Monster’ – industries to the corporate media – see ‘Propaganda & Engineering Consent for Empire’ – and the police, legal and prison systems – see ‘The Rule of Law: Unjust and Violent’ – designed to neutralize or stop us, one way or another.

So what do I suggest? Well, with the scientific evidence now indicating that near term human extinction is the most likely outcome – see ‘Why is Near Term Human Extinction Inevitable?’ – it is increasingly clear that if we are to end human violence in all of its many and complex manifestations, and prevent human extinction, then we need an integrated and comprehensive strategy for doing so that also provides many meaningful avenues for involvement by individuals and organizations who wish to respond powerfully: token gestures have no value. Over many years I have endeavoured to create this overarching strategy and I invite you to participate in it by doing one or more of the following.

If you are an adult, you might consider dramatically modifying your treatment of children in accordance with ‘My Promise to Children’. You might also find this article useful in better understanding how to do so: ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’.

If these suggestions seem beyond you, then perhaps your own emotional healing should be your priority. Despite its title, this article explains what you need to do: ‘An Open Letter to Soldiers with “Mental Health” Issues’. And remember this: if you don’t believe that you are ‘important’ enough to spend time learning to know yourself more deeply, I disagree. You are important.

Separately from the above, you might like to join those participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’. You might also consider signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’.

And if you would like to learn how to make your nonviolent action campaign for a peace, environmental or social justice outcome more strategically effective, you can do so here: ‘Nonviolent Campaign Strategy’. To nonviolently defend against coups and invasions, remove a dictatorship or conduct a liberation struggle, check out ‘Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy’.

I am not going to get another 50 years to try to create the world of peace, justice and sustainability for which many of us strive but I am going to use every single moment of the time I have left.

Why? Because I love the Earth and everything on it. And you?

Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his website is here.

Is the US Economy Heading for Recession?

Posted on May 5, 2016 by Reid Mukai

By Jack Rasmus

Source: Global Research

This past week the U.S. government announced the country’s economy rose in the January-March 2016 at a mere 0.5 percent annual growth rate. Since the U.S., unlike other countries, estimates its GDP based on annual rates, that means for the first quarter 2016 the U.S. economy grew by barely 0.1 percent over the previous quarter in late 2015.

Growth this slow indicates the US economy may have “slipped into ‘stall speed’, that is, growth so weak that the economy loses enough momentum and slides into recession”, according to economists at JPMorgan Chase.

Has the U.S. economy therefore come to a halt the past three months? If so, what are the consequences for a global economy already progressively slowing? What will an apparently stagnating US economy mean for Japan, already experiencing its fifth recession since 2008? For Europe, stuck in a long term chronic stagnation? And for emerging market economies, struggling with collapsing commodity prices and currencies, rising unemployment, and long term capital flight trends? Once heralded as the only bright spot in the global economy, the US economy now appears to have joined the slowing global trend.

Some Interesting Trends

Last quarter’s 0.5 percent U.S. GDP may indicate the nation’s economy is even weaker than it appears. The economy of the United States’ recent 0.5 percent growth rate is the latest in a steady declining U.S. GDP growth trend over the past year. In the previous fourth quarter 2015, the US economy grew 1.4 percent, which was down from the preceding quarter’s growth of 2 percent and before that 3.9 percent. So the U.S. economy appears to be slowing rapidly over the past year.

Over an even longer period of more than eight years, since the previous peak growth in late 2007, the U.S. economy has grown by a cumulative total of only 10.1 percent. That’s a paltry annual growth of only 1.2 percent a year on average for the past 8+ years.

But even those figures are overestimated. In 2013, the U.S. redefined the way it estimated GDP, adding categories like R&D expenses and other intangibles that artificially boosted U.S. GDP estimates simply by redefining it. That “economic growth by redefinition” raised GDP by around 0.3 percent annually, and in dollar terms by roughly US$500 billion annually. So the real U.S. GDP may be actually growing by less than 1 percent on average per year since 2007; and during the most recent quarter, January-March 2016, the economy may not have grown at all, but may have stagnated, collapse, and come to a halt.

Behind the Wizard’s Curtain

The media and press like to define recessions as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. Actually, U.S. economists tasked with declaring when a recession has begun or has ended don’t rely totally on GDP estimates, which are notoriously inaccurate and have become increasingly so, given U.S. and other governments’ penchant for changing how they define GDP.

Redefining GDP to boost the appearance of growth is not just a problem in the US in recent years. For example, there are few independent research sources that think China is growing at its officially announced 6.8 percent GDP rate. To note but a couple, both Capital Economics and Lombard Street research estimate that China’s GDP is growing at only around 4-4.5 percent based on close examination of other indicators like electricity usage, power generation, local transport volumes, and so forth. In recent years India officially nearly doubled its GDP overnight by redefining it. So did Nigeria. India bank researchers, whom this writer has talked to, say they have a rule of thumb: take the official government GDP rate and half it and that’s probably close to India’s actual GDP. In Europe, a number of economies, including Britain, which have been desperate to raise their GDP in recent years, now include drug smuggling and prostitution services in their estimates of GDP. How they come up with such estimates and the pricing of such services is, of course, interesting.

Not satisfied with the media-press definition of a recession as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP, US economists at the National Bureau of Economic Research, who are tasked with declaring the beginning and end of a recession, look at various economic indicators — like industrial production, retail sales, exports-import trends, and other sources. A recession may occur in just one quarter; or may require more than two.

Looking at these other indicators for this past January-March 2016 period, the US economy appears even more likely headed for a recession and sooner rather than later.

US industrial production (manufacturing, mining and utilities) declined at an annual rate of -2.2 percent this past quarter, after having declined -3.3 percent the preceding quarter. Industrial production has fallen six of the last seven months. US industrial capacity is now at its lowest point since 2010.

Business investment is another trouble spot. Investment in business structures fell by -10.7 percent and investment in new equipment by -8.6 percent, the latter the biggest drop since the 2007-09 recession. Business inventories rose barely, by the smallest amount in two years, continuing a slowing trend of the past nine months.

And what about consumption, which constitutes about two thirds of the total US economy? US consumer spending has been growing at an average monthly rate of only 0.1 percent. Retail sales, the largest element of consumer spending, has fallen every month on average during the quarter. After having sustained retail sales in previous years, auto sales, a large component of retail sales, declined for the second consecutive quarter during the January-March period. The outlook for U.S. consumer spending recovery is also not too bright. A recent Gallup poll reported that 60 percent of those interviewed indicated the U.S. economy was “getting worse.” Reflecting the poor demand for consumer goods, U.S. consumer prices now hover on the brink of deflation, falling at an average monthly rate of -0.1 percent for the quarter.

Exports are declining, residential housing construction recently plummeted. In other words, not many of the economic indicators that comprise GDP show a promising picture. GDP should probably be even lower than the recently reported 0.5 percent annual and 0.1 percent quarter to quarter growth rates. The U.S. economy has obviously “stalled.” But it’s not the first time. In fact, it’s the fifth time it has since the official end of the last recession in June 2009.

What’s a Relapse?

The performance of the US economy this past January-March, a trend that appears is continuing into April, represents what this writer has called an ‘economic relapse’. A relapse is a collapse of economic growth for a single quarter, to near zero or even negative growth.

The U.S. economy has experienced now five such single quarter relapses since the 2007-09 recession was officially declared over. The economy collapsed to 0.1 percent in early 2011, to 0.2 percent in late 2012, declined again by -2.2 percent in 2014 and collapsed to 0.2 percent in 2015.

Relapses are the consequence of “epic” recessions such as occurred in 2007-09, which are typically characterized by short, shallow recoveries that slip repeatedly into periodic bouts of renewed stagnation. They are the result of near total reliance on central bank monetary policies that are designed to boost stock, bond and other financial markets — and thus the incomes of rich investors — but which fail to generate a sustained real economic recovery. Fiscal policies designed to stimulate consumption and good paying jobs are rejected. That almost perfectly describes U.S. economic policy the past eight years.

Politicians Wearing Rose-Colored Glasses

Despite the facts, U.S. government politicians and Federal Reserve bank officials continue to run around declaring that the U.S. economy is performing well. They like to cite the 200,000 jobs allegedly created in recent months. But a closer examination shows the jobs being created are part time, temp, contract, low paid, no benefit service jobs. Jobs that generate no overall wage increase for the economy and no real income gains for working people.

Young workers 30 years old or less are especially hard hit by this “‘well performing US economy.” A recent study by the Center for American Progress, for example, showed that 30 year old workers earn today the same pay, adjusted for inflation, that 30 year olds earned back in 1984.

Despite all that, President Obama continues to tour the country complaining that he doesn’t get enough credit for bringing the US back from the worst recession since the 1930s depression. He should tell that to the millions of millennial young workers, with low paid crappy service jobs, with no medical insurance, having to live at home with relatives because they can’t afford to rent an apartment, loaded with debt and with no prospects for meaningful change on the horizon. No wonder they’re rallying around Bernie Sanders, who continues to capture 85 percent of their votes in the presidential primaries. Obama (and Hillary) will have a hard time convincing them “all is well” — and an even harder time getting them to vote Democrat in the coming election in November.

Jack Rasmus is author of the recent, 2016 book “Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy,” by Clarity Press, soon translated into a Chinese edition, and the forthcoming June 2016 book, “Looting Greece: The Emerging New

A Critical Update on the Failing Global Economy

Posted on February 14, 2016 by Reid Mukai

By Phillip J. Watt

Source: The Mind Unleashed

The matrix-media will have us believe that the global economy is only experiencing a temporary glitch and that everything will be fine, however that is simply an outright lie. After several decades of saturating the world with unbacked currency and mountains of debt, the can we’ve been kicking has finally run out of road.

As you would know, stocks are plummeting across the globe and since their peak in around mid 2015, individual regions have lost 10-40% in stock value. In total, on the 20th of January the MSCI global stock market index reflected that the world’s markets had officially entered a bear market, which is 20% or more. This is just the beginning, too.

The exceptionally poor start to stocks in 2016 has somewhat been driven by ‘fears’ about China’s economic troubles, but really it is because many of the fundamentals of the global economy are extremely weak. For example, oil, which sustains the financial health of many countries and industries, has crashed over 70% in the last 2 years, whilst the Baltic Dry Index, which measures the amount of raw materials being shipped around the planet, is at a record low of 298 (to put this into context, just before the great recession of 2008 is was over 11,000).

More examples are that in early 2016, North Atlantic cargo shipping almost came to a halt and the U.S. orders in the trucking industry “for Class 8 trucks – the big rigs that haul freight on North American highways – plunged 48% from a year ago”. Furthermore, the retail sector is falling apart, with tens of thousands of job cuts and shop doors closing at an alarming rate.

For a deeper analysis of the data which scream that we’re steam-rolling towards a long over-due debt reset, which might even end in a sustained global depression such as that of the 1930′s, read “22 Signs That The Global Economic Turmoil We Have Seen So Far In 2016 Is Just The Beginning”.

OFFICIAL REPORTING IS FALSE

Given the ‘faith’ that stakeholders need to have in this economic system to keep it from imploding, the governmental data and the mainstream media cannot be truthful in what they report to the world, otherwise news of doom would be a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s ridiculous to design an economic model in this way, yet regardless of the epic failure of Keynesian economics and the Wall Street casino, any investor who doesn’t recognize this by now is unfortunately in line for some serious financial loss.

To solidify the point, all official numbers in the U.S. and elsewhere are manipulated; shadow stats have made that abundantly clear. For example, real unemployment in the U.S. is above 20% and many of those who are actually working are in low-paying, part-time jobs.

Further to the true state of the labor market in America, many university graduates are working in hospitality or an unrelated field. Something like half of all under 25 yr olds still live with their parents or grandparents. Labor participation rates are at the lowest level in 38 years. Over 45 million people are on food subsidies and poverty and homelessness is increasing not just in America, but all around the globe.

Brazil, Canada, Russia and other countries are already in recession, amplified by the collapse of oil and commodity prices. Unofficial figures suggest the US is too. Canada in particular has seen massive inflation in food and other necessities, so it is likely that we can expect that to emerge in other countries as well.

This shit is really getting serious.

WHO IS AT FAULT?

Unfortunately, the masses don’t yet understand that most central banks around the world are private companies owned by private families i.e. the oligarchs. Essentially, this and the other banking organisations that they own is a century-old scam that robs the people of their riches.

Simply, the U.S. Government has effectively been taken over by an oligarchy, as evidenced by this Princeton University study in 2014. It’s no surprise then that this small group of so-called elites benefited from the largest transfer of wealth in human history, which happened in the 2008 GFC.

The 1%, particularly the 0.1%, economically prospered from the illegal, unethical and unprecedented bank bailouts, whilst the 99% suffered with losses in superannuation, savings, homes and employment. Many also lost their lives due to overdose, suicide and other self-abuse, which was due to their loss of livelihood and economic independence brought about by the global monetary scam.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

The recovery from the GFC of 2008 never occurred, particularly for the main street economy (the real economy, not the Wall street economy). It’s happening all over again because unlike Iceland, there were no incarcerations for the fraudulent bankers and no serious revolution to the banking and finance sector.

This time though, it appears the shadow order (who have monopolized the banking and corporate sectors and effectively control western foreign and domestic policy) are not quite ready for another recessionary/depressionary round because they don’t yet have all their mechanisms in place to offer ‘the solution’ (i.e. global currency, trade agreements and governance).

They’ve got processes such as High Frequency Trading that prop up stocks by buying them back with the money they manifest from nothing (Plunge Protection Teams). They’ve been in overdrive trying to keep it afloat, but to no avail, because the real economy is drying up. As mentioned, global trade is tanking and many businesses are either going into liquidation or laying off thousands of workers each, so it’s easy to imagine that we’re going to hear about a major corporation going bust any day now.

This might just be the black swan event that ‘officially’ triggers the next crisis.

History indicates what will likely happen next: war. When a superpower and their economic hegemony is in collapse (such as the end of petrodollar and the U.S. Dollar as the world’s reserve currency), going to war can distract the populace from the true reasons of an economic crash and the associated suffering that emerges as a result. Essentially, the blame can be shifted to foreign entities.

This is why a high probability exists for a massive false flag to occur over the coming weeks/months to convince the masses to go to war with Russia, China and/or Iran. Saudi Arabia and Iran’s tensions are high right now so they might use that platform; it may in fact be orchestrated for this aim.

In the very short term, however, expect more dramatic policy measures, such as more mass money creation (QE) and even negative interest rates by the Federal Reserve (just like they’ve recently done at Japan’s central bank). They might even attempt widespread bank bail-ins, as already implemented in Italy, Portugal and Cyprus.

As explained in this Reuters article:

“so-called bail-ins typically mean wiping out creditors’ investments, slashing their value or converting them into shares in the bank. Uninsured depositors could get caught along with professional investors”.

In other words, they’re once again planning to steal the hard-earned cash of the little guy, but instead of doing it via tax-funded bail-outs as they did in 2008, they’re going to do it directly by commandeering the financial assets that people house in banks.

Yet, no matter what they do in the short term, they cannot stop the massive bubbles in debt, derivatives (over 1.5 quadrillion dollars), real estate, stocks, and bonds from inevitably popping. It might happen tomorrow or it might hold off for another year, yet regardless of the exact timing, any one of these or other triggers could easily send the global economy into a severe and sustained global depression.

Preparing accordingly, therefore, is nothing short of wise.

WHAT TO DO NEXT?

The potential for it to get seriously ugly over the coming months and years is very real, so both individually and collectively, we should be taking this very seriously.

Whatever does happen though, I do feel it will be in our collective favor. Their matrix of control is crashing; so many more people are now aware of the agenda to create a global governance, as well as the propaganda narratives they convey through the mainstream media that they either own or control.

In other words, we need to accept that all ‘official truths’ are a farce and they’ve been unarguably exposed and documented for the world to see as clear as day. Excitingly, the mainstream ‘truths’ are even beginning to be viewed by the masses as the bullshit of a pathological liar.

To prepare financially, many alternative economists recommend to exit all high risk investments such as stocks. For example, do you know where your superannuation is invested? There will no doubt be massive swings in stocks in the coming weeks, but the risk is high that they will continue to decrease at the least, and dramatically crash at the worst.

Also, to prepare physically, have you secured food and water insurance? Just like we get insurance for our health, car, home contents etc., in these times we should do the same with our basic necessities. I’m sure those in Canada are wishing they stocked up on essential goods because now they’re spending all their hard earned cash on just surviving.

For a deeper discussion on how to prepare, read “70 Tips That Will Help You Survive What Is About To Happen To America”.

FINAL THOUGHTS

These are exciting times because the western world is waking up to the lies and deceptions they’ve been force-fed (much of it is of course common knowledge in places like Russia and parts of Europe etc.). The mainstream narrative in every way you could possibly imagine is a complete fabrication to elicit your consent, especially for war. Yet, even though all of this is driving the awakening needed for humanity’s evolution, there are real risks for all of us.

Organizing our lives in as many self-sufficient ways as possible is simply being street smart. Arming ourselves with the right information is not just for the benefit of ourselves, but our family, friends and community as a whole. And of course, don’t feed the fear machine; we’re electro-magnetic beings in an electro-magnetic universe and how we think and feel does ripple out into the waters.

Make sure it’s worthy energy.

And remember, the banking sector is the head of the snake. This is the fundamental control mechanism of the powers-that-will-no-longer-be that we need to disassemble, because everything else of importance will naturally follow suit. For further information on how to create a better world for our personal future, as well as the future of humanity, see the articles linked below.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Phillip J. Watt lives in Australia. His written work deals with topics from ideology to society, as well as self-development. Follow him on Facebook or visit his website.

The U.S. Is At The Center Of The Global Economic Meltdown

Posted on January 22, 2016 by Reid Mukai

By Brandon Smith

Source: Alt-Market.com

While the economic implosion progresses this year, there will be considerable misdirection and disinformation as to the true nature of what is taking place. As I have outlined in the past, the masses were so ill informed by the mainstream media during the Great Depression that most people had no idea they were actually in the midst of an “official” depression until years after it began. The chorus of economic journalists of the day made sure to argue consistently that recovery was “right around the corner.” Our current depression has been no different, but something is about to change.

Unlike the Great Depression, social crisis will eventually eclipse economic crisis in the U.S. That is to say, our society today is so unequipped to deal with a financial collapse that the event will inevitably trigger cultural upheaval and violent internal conflict. In the 1930s, nearly 50% of the American population was rural. Farmers made up 21% of the labor force. Today, only 20% of the population is rural. Less than 2% work in farming and agriculture. That’s a rather dramatic shift from a more independent and knowledgeable land-utilizing society to a far more helpless and hapless consumer-based system.

What’s the bottom line? About 80% of the current population in the U.S. is more than likely inexperienced in any meaningful form of food production and self-reliance.

The rationale for lying to the public is certainly there. Economic and political officials could argue that to reveal the truth of our fiscal situation would result in utter panic and immediate social breakdown. When 80% of the citizenry is completely unprepared for a decline in the mainstream grid, a loss of savings through falling equities and a loss of buying power through currency destruction, their first response to such dangers would be predictably uncivilized.

Of course, the powers-that-be are not really interested in protecting the American people from themselves. They are interested only in positioning their own finances and resources in the most advantageous investments while using our loss and fear to extract more centralization, more control and more consent. Thus, the hiding of economic decline is enacted because the decline itself is useful to the elites.

And just to be clear for those who buy into the propaganda, the U.S. is indeed in a speedy decline.

In ‘Lies You Will Hear As The Economic Collapse Progresses’, published in summer of last year, I predicted that “Chinese contagion” would be used as the scapegoat for the downturn in order to hide the true source: American wealth destruction. Today, as the Dow and other markets plummet and oil markets tank due to falling demand and glut inventories, all we seem to hear from the mainstream talking heads and the people who parrot them in various forums is that the U.S. is the “only stable economy by comparison” and the rest of the world (mainly China) is a poison to our otherwise exemplary financial health. This is delusional fiction.

The U.S. is the No. 1 consumer market in the world with a 29% overall share and a 21% share in energy usage, despite having only 5 percent of the world’s total population. If there is a global slowdown in consumption, manufacturing, exports and imports, then the first place to look should be America.

Trucking freight in the U.S. is in steep decline, with freight companies pointing to a “glut in inventories” and a fall in demand as the culprit.

Morgan Stanley’s freight transportation update indicates a collapse in freight demand worse than that seen during 2009.

The Baltic Dry Index, a measure of global freight rates and thus a measure of global demand for shipping of raw materials, has collapsed to even more dismal historic lows. Hucksters in the mainstream continue to push the lie that the fall in the BDI is due to an “overabundance of new ships.” However, the CEO of A.P. Moeller-Maersk, the world’s largest shipping line, put that nonsense to rest when he admitted in November that “global growth is slowing down” and “[t]rade is currently significantly weaker than it normally would be under the growth forecasts we see.”

Maersk ties the decline in global shipping to a FALL IN DEMAND, not an increase in shipping fleets.

This point is driven home when one examines the real-time MarineTraffic map, which tracks all cargo ships around the world. For the past few weeks, the map has remained almost completely inactive with the vast majority of the world’s cargo ships sitting idle in port, not traveling across oceans to deliver goods. The reality is, global demand has fallen down a black hole, and the U.S. is at the top of the list in terms of crashing consumer markets.

To drive the point home even further, the U.S. is by far the world’s largest petroleum consumer. Therefore, any sizable collapse in global oil demand would have to be predicated in large part on a fall in American consumption. Oil inventories are now overflowing, indicating an unheard-of crash in energy use and purchasing.

U.S. petroleum consumption was actually lower in 2014 than it was in 1997 and 25% lower than earlier projections predicted. A large part of this reduction in gas use has been attributed to fewer vehicle miles traveled. Though oil markets have seen massive price cuts, the lack of demand continued through 2015.

This collapse in consumption is reflected partially in newly adjusted 4th quarter GDP forecasts by the Federal Reserve, which are now slashed down to 0.7%. And remember, Fed and government calculate GDP stats by counting government spending of taxpayer money as “production” or “commerce”. They also count parasitic programs like Obamacare towards GDP as well. If one were to remove government spending of taxpayer funds from the equation, real GDP would be far in the negative. That is to say, if the fake numbers are this bad, then the real numbers must be horrendous.

And finally, let’s talk about Wal-Mart. There is a good reason why mainstream pundits are attempting to marginalize Wal-Mart’s sudden announcement of 269 store closures, 154 of them within the U.S. with at least 10,000 employees being laid off. Admitting weakness in Wal-Mart means admitting weakness in the U.S. economy, and they don’t want to do that.

Wal-Mart is America’s largest retailer and largest employer. In 2014, Wal-Mart announced a sweeping plan to essentially crush neighborhood grocery markets with its Wal-Mart Express stores, building hundreds within months. Today, those Wal-Mart Express stores are being shut down in droves, along with some supercenters. Their top business model lasted around a year before it was abandoned.

Some in the mainstream argue that this is not necessarily a sign of economic decline because Wal-Mart claims it will be building 200 to 240 new stores worldwide by 2017. This is interesting to me because Wal-Mart just suffered its steepest stock drop in 27 years on reports that projected sales will fall by 6% to 12% for the next two years.

It would seem to me highly unlikely that Wal-Mart would close 154 stores in the U.S. (269 stores worldwide) and then open 240 other stores during a projected steep crash in sales that caused the worst stock trend in the company’s history. I think it far more likely that Wal-Mart executives are attempting to appease shareholders with expansion promises they do not plan to keep.

I am going to call it here and now and predict that most of these store sites will never see construction and that Wal-Mart will continue to make cuts, either with store closings, employee layoffs or both.

As the above data indicates, global demand is disintegrating; and the U.S. is a core driver.

The best way to sweep all these negative indicators under the rug is to fabricate some grand idea of outside threats and fiscal dominoes. It is much easier for Americans to believe our country is being battered from without rather than destroyed from within.

Does China have considerable fiscal issues including debt bubble issues? Absolutely. Is this a catalyst for global collapse? No. China’s problems are many but if there is a first “domino” in the chain, then the U.S. economy claims that distinction.

China is the largest exporter in the world, not the largest consumer. If anything, a crash in China’s economy is only a REFLECTION of an underlying collapse in U.S. demand for Chinese goods (among others). That is to say, the mainstream dullards have it backward; a crash in China is a herald of a larger collapse in U.S. markets. A crash in China is a symptom of the greater fiscal disease in America. The U.S. is the primary cause; it is not the victim of Chinese contagion. And the crisis in the U.S. will ultimately be far worse by comparison.

I wrote in ‘What Fresh Horror Awaits The Economy After Fed Rate Hike?’, published before Christmas:

“Market turmoil is a guarantee given the fact that banks and corporations have been utterly reliant on near-zero interest rates and free overnight lending from the Fed. They have been using these no-cost and low-cost loans primarily for stock buybacks, purchasing back their own stocks and reducing the number of shares on the market, thereby artificially elevating the value of the remaining shares and driving up the market as a whole. Now that near-zero lending is over, these banks and corporations will not be able to afford constant overnight borrowing, and the buybacks will cease. Thus, stock markets will crash in the near term.

This process has already begun with increased volatility leading up to and after the Fed rate hike. Watch for far more erratic stock movements (300 to 500 points or more) up and down taking place more frequently, with the overall trend leading down into the 15,000-point range for the Dow in the first two quarters of 2016. Extraordinary but short lived positive increases in the markets will occur at times (Christmas and New Year’s tend to result in positive rallies), but shock rallies are just as much a sign of volatility and instability as shock crashes.”

Markets moved immediately into crash territory after the new year began. This was an easy prediction to make and one that I have been reiterating for months — just as the timing of the Fed rate hike was an easy prediction to make, based on the Fed’s history of deliberately increasing instability through bad policy as the economy moves into deflationary spirals. The Fed did it during the Great Depression and is doing it again today.

It is no coincidence that global markets began to tank after the first Fed rate hike; no-cost overnight lending to banks and corporations was the key to maintaining equities in a relatively static position. As the U.S. loses momentum, the world loses momentum. As the Fed ends outright stimulation and manipulation, the house of cards falls.

I have said it many times and I’ll say it yet again: If you think the Fed’s motivation is to prolong or protect the U.S. economy and currency, then you will never understand why it takes the policy actions it does. If you understand and accept the fact that the Fed is a saboteur working carefully and incrementally toward the destruction of the U.S. to make way for a new globally centralized system, everything falls into place.

To summarize, the U.S. economy as we know it is not slated to survive the next few years. Read my article ‘The Economic Endgame Explained’ for more in-depth information on why a collapse is being engineered and what the openly admitted goal is, including the referenced 1988 article from The Economist titled “Get Ready A World Currency In 2018,” which outlines the plan for a reduction of the dollar and the U.S. system in order to make way for a global basket reserve currency (Special Drawing Rights).

It is astonishingly foolish to assume that even though the U.S. has held the title of king of global consumption share for decades, that our economy is somehow not a primary faulty part in the sputtering global economic engine. Economies are falling because demand is falling. Demand is falling because Americans are not buying. Americans are not buying because Americans are broke. Americans are broke because central bank policy has created an environment of wealth destruction. This wealth destruction in the U.S. has been ongoing, but only now is it becoming truly visible. The volatility we see in developing nations is paltry compared to the financial chaos we now face. Anyone who attempts to dismiss the dangers of a U.S. breakdown or the threat to the unprepared public is either an idiot, or they are trying to divert and distract you from reality. The coming months will undoubtedly verify this.

The Business of War is the Cause of War

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Reid Mukai

By Sergey Baranov & Ethan Indigo Smith

Source: Waking Times

If you objectively and consistently observe the mainstream media and its interpretation of global events, its omissive and deceptive character soon becomes abundantly clear. This could hardly be called incompetence. The coverage, which is popularly called “news,” is in fact nothing but a propaganda mechanism, designed to persistently shape public opinion in favor of war.

Who benefits from war?

Certainly not the people on the warring sides. People always suffer in war; their futures ruined and their lives destroyed. In fear, they look to their government to protect them, the very same government that is invested in war. War is a dirty business that profits off death and destruction while generating blood money for the profiteers. The people are told to look the other way, outside of their country – where the ‘enemy’ supposedly resides.

But what if the real enemy is inside the country, and wears expensive suits, not turbans? What if he speaks your language while living in luxury and sending his children to study at Princeton, Yale and Harvard? While your kids are sent off to fight in fraudulent wars for corporate interests masquerading as ‘patriotism’.

This is in fact jingoism – a nationalized fervor of aggression, based on the notion of supremacy, and usually founded in a lust for power and riches. This mindset, of course, isn’t new and is no different from Adolf Hitler’s extreme nationalism, or fascism.

Today we are living under the rule of oligarchical, trans-humanist, eugenicist elites that continuously consolidate power in order to control and confine humanity while methodically stripping us of the power to govern ourselves. One of the best ways to achieve this is to keep the people in constant fear of wars and threats of terrorism, that, in reality governments themselves typically create or sponsor. For example, we can look at the current threat of ISIS which is in fact a remodel of Al Qaeda, a group the CIA created in the 1970’s to fight the Russians in Afghanistan.

Constant mainstream promotion of ISIS with newly released videos of beheadings and other types of inhuman cruelty is used to scare the American people into the further submission, and ever-greater losses of rights and personal freedoms. The growing surveillance and domestic police state, and the passage of laws including the recent renewal of the Patriot Act, wouldn’t be possible without always frightening the general public. This policy ensures the constant funding of the military industrial complex, which unfortunately has taken over the government, as Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States had foreseen and warned us about on Jan. 17th, 1961.

READ: Former Presidents Warn About the “Invisible Government” Running the United States

How can we stop the war machine?

Well, certainly not by fighting against it using its means. That’s what the machine is designed for, and an armed resistance will only be playing into its hands. After all, they’ve got the nukes and they will use them as they have already done in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There must be another way to shut down this engine of death.

What is the way to a global peace? Certainly it isn’t paved with war… how absurd! Nor is it threats and rhetoric of war.

Furthermore, the nuclear threat means that the situation today is dire. The wars most of us have known in our lifetimes have not been nuclear which is why you need to wake up and get involved before it happens. There are no survivors under mushroom clouds – everybody dies.

There is no defense in the case of a nuclear war being unleashed – unless you were to commit yourself to living underground in a bunker for the rest of your life, without ever again seeing and feeling the sunshine. It is a death by a thousand cuts if you remain on the surface. There is no technology to clean up radiation and take it out of the air, water and land. The half-life of nuclear radiation is 4.5 billion years, equal to the age of our planet. That means that during this time, the radioactive particles will remain as deadly as they are today. This could be the end of all of us if nuclear war were to be released on a massive scale – a probability that is as high today as it has ever been, and growing proportionally with the insanity of politics.

The cold war between the Soviet Union and USA never ended, only slowly heated up. And even though the nuclear arms race developed through paranoia, the threat of nuclear war today, is in fact a very present and real one.

Realizing that war is an instrument to have us kill and be killed on behalf of corporate interests, we should be refusing the very notion of war, no matter how much we are lied to and instigated to do otherwise. War defeats individuals and empowers institutions. Wars do not happen naturally. They are orchestrated for political and economic advantage by corporate entities for which human life is only a means to a greater enrichment. The United States of America is not the only country in which the military industrial complex has taken over. The same can be seen in many modern nations.‘’War is good for the economy,’’ is a slogan often heard on the news in Israel.

But for which economy? For the economy of peace, or for the economy of war? Is it good for the people or is it good for those who are in the business of bullets and bombs?

Traveling the world and observing ordinary people, one will inevitably come to the conclusion that no one actually wants war. Regardless of the geographical location, nationality, skin color, social status etc., people want peace, and to see their children grow. Wars, although they may appear, are not fought between people. They are fought between military industrial factions and alliances warring for domination and control.

READ: All Wars Are Well Planned Banker Wars, Including World War 3

Banks financing the governments of warring sides are even more heavily involved than the war materials industries. They fund the entire game by lending money to the governments, further sinking nations in debt, while they use this money to kill each other off. Federal spending surges as the military is mobilized. Outlays for troops, weapons and munitions increases as conflicts escalate. Thee fraudulent and never-ending war in Iraq has already cost over 3 trillion dollars and counting – a steady flow of income for all those who are employed and benefiting from war.

While the average person wants to be left alone to live his or her life in peace on either side of an orchestrated conflict, government, corporations and institutions drag us into conflict time and again. The world has become a place where corporate interests, backed by corrupt governments, all funded by evil banks, violate human rights, freedom and dignity beyond measure. This poses an existential threat to the survival of our species that will not abate as long as the military industrial complex maintains its grip on our society and our culture.

About the Authors

Sergey Baranov is the author of Path: Seeking Truth in a World of Lies. Follow him on Facebook here. Follow Sergey on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/sergey.baranov.path

Activist, author and Tai Chi teacher, Ethan Indigo Smith was born on a farm in Maine and lived in Manhattan for a number of years before migrating west to Mendocino, California. Guided by a keen sense of integrity and humanity, Ethan’s work is both deeply connected and extremely insightful, blending philosophy, politics, activism, spirituality, meditation and a unique sense of humour. Follow Ethan on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ethan-Indigo-Smith/423549761069857?fref=ts

How a Minimal Ebola Outbreak Will Devastate the U.S. Economy

Posted on October 27, 2014 by Reid Mukai

By Dave Hodges

Source: Investment Watch

A World Bank analysis of the economic impact of Ebola on national economies suggests that only a minimal outbreak of the virus could very well devastate the United States and its economic interests.

Economic Consequences of the Perceived Threat of Ebola

There are two dominant theories related to the present Ebola crisis. One theory states that the media and certain government sponsored agencies such as the CDC, NIH and the FDA are hyping the Ebola crisis to promote the roll-out of mandatory vaccines. This notion promotes the belief that Ebola will not impact that many people but the fear being promoted will drive people to help people like Bill Gates make a fortune from the inevitable vaccines that will follow this crisis. The theory certainly has merit.

The second theory postulates that Ebola will serve as a depopulation instrument AND the elite (e.g. Bill Gates) will make money on the demise of much of humanity through the implementation of mandatory vaccines, while Ebola rips through the population claiming millions of lives.

This second theory also proposes that the super-elite need not worry about succumbing to Ebola because of the fact that there are at least two vaccines and one vaccine, the 2006 human-tested Crucell vaccine, is being withheld from the public and is not being reported on in the media despite a paper trail pointing to its existence and possible efficacy as a treatment agent in the fight against Ebola. This fact has given rise to the possibility that the Crucell vaccine is effective, but the majority of the population will be receiving the hastily prepared and subsequently dangerous GSK vaccine. On the surface, this would seem like crazy thinking. However, it is actually very logical thinking because the Obama administration refuses to shut down air travel from West Africa or to shut down our porous border while trying to prevent the possibility of bioterrorism involving Ebola. Any prudent person would shut down the entry points of Ebola into the U.S. Therefore, we need to be asking what does the Obama administration know that the rest of us do not?

Which of the two theories is true? In terms of economic collapse, it does not matter which is true because either scenario will result in economic devastation.

The globalists are already warning the world about what lies ahead. On October 8, 2014, the World Bank warned about economic consequences of Ebola outbreaks on West African economies.

“With Ebola’s potential to inflict massive economic costs on Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone and the rest of their neighbors in West Africa, the international community must find ways to get past logistical roadblocks and bring in more doctors and trained medical staff, more hospital beds, and more health and development support to help stop Ebola in its tracks,” says Jim Yong Kim, the President of the World Bank Group.

In fact, the World Bank has published an economic analysis and a series of projections regarding the impacted Ebola countries in West Africa.

Ebola’s Critical Mass Impact On the U.S. Economy

What is the threshold of GDP loss that a country like the United States can endure before the wheels come off of the economy? In other words, how much of a percentage impact would Ebola have to have on the economy to devastate most businesses? Recently, the Washington Post published figures which set the historical average profit margin for a U.S. business at 4.6%. This means that if the spin-off effects of Ebola exceeds a 5% impact on the economy, the wheels will quickly come off the U.S. economy. Business failures will lead to a Stock Market collapse. Because the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed under Clinton, the Banks would be the next to fail because they are recklessly tied to underwriting and insuring many investment events in the Stock Market and individual savings and retirement accounts would disappear as well when the banks collapse.

Quickly, the country would fall into chaos. As widespread as the cascading economic collapse would become, no amount of martial law would contain the chaos.
Turn your attention to the World Bank chart, listed above, with regard to the projected economic impact on Liberia based upon low, medium and high projected effects of an Ebola outbreak on their economy. Pay attention to the percentage of loss of their economic base listed in the above World Bank projections.

Ebola’s Impact on Liberia Percentage of Impact

Low Impact From Ebola – 3.4%

Medium Impact From Ebola – 5.8%

High Impact From Ebola – 12.0%

Some are wondering why Liberia was chosen to illustrate the economic impact of Ebola and what this could potentially mean to the United States economy? Sierra Leone and Guinea have very primitive economies compared to Liberia, therefore, the impact of Ebola on their respective economies would be insignificant as a basis of comparison to the United States. To some extent, a Liberian comparison is invalid on its face because the Liberians do not have anything close to a 3,000 mile salad. In Liberia, there is virtually no “Just In Time” (JIT) delivery which forms the backbone of our service economy here in the United States. However, the Liberian numbers give us some idea of what we could expect in the U.S. when Ebola gains a foothold.

Since the economy of the United States is based upon JIT and our economic institutions are considerably more well-integrated and intertwined than they are in Liberia, what do you suppose would be the low, medium and high impact on the United States? Undeniably, the impact of Ebola as a factor of economic devastation would be catastrophically higher. The social consequences are devastatingly higher as well because a lower percentage of Americans are able to provide their own food supply as compared to Liberia. There are no numbers that I can point to with regard to the low, medium and high impact effect of Ebola on the U.S. economy except to say that any analysis would place the percentage of impact at a far higher rate than the World Bank projections listed for Liberia. It is safe to conclude that even a low impact effect of Ebola on the U.S. economy would exceed the 5% threshold.

When Going Out In Public Becomes Too Much of a Risk

As any politician, sociologist or policeman will tell you that the fabric that holds society together is voluntary conformity and trust. Most Americans obey most laws because we understand the importance of societal cooperation as opposed to the dangers of living in a state of anarchy. The other factor that binds society together is trust. One of the key elements of trust in America is that our citizens trust the fact that it is safe to go out in public. And going out in public is where much of America’s economic business is conducted (i.e. restaurants, movie theaters, shopping malls, football games, concerts, etc.).

Mike Adams, appearing as a guest on The Common Sense Show on October 6, 2014, captured this notion when he stated that when Americans lose trust in the belief that it is safe to be in crowds, the impact on our way of life, and especially on our economy, will be catastrophic.

To illustrate just how devastating the effects can be on the economy when people lose trust in the belief that it is safe to go out in public, let’s take a look at the immediate reaction from the citizens of Dallas when only one Ebola case, Thomas Duncan, surfaced in the city.

When it was announced that Thomas Duncan had contact with some Dallas school children, we saw the immediate impact as Dallas moms began to keep their children home from school. Officials in Louisiana refused to receive Thomas Duncan’s property. Subsequently, and according to the AP and Veolia North America, Duncan’s effects were disposed of in drums taken from a Dallas apartment where Duncan became ill and were burned at the company’s incinerator in Port Arthur., TX.

It does not matter what I write or what someone broadcasts on their talk show about Ebola, once people perceive there is a threat, even a low-level threat posed by someone like Thomas Duncan, the people will panic. Rationality will not be part of the decision making process. Fear will take over.

How long would police, fire, EMT personnel, hospital personnel, people that service our water supplies and the doctors that service our infirm, stay on the job following an Ebola outbreak? An examination of this question, by using Hurricane Katrina, as a comparison, tells us that by the third day, virtually all essential services would be seriously compromised because of personnel defections. In this scenario, how would chronically ill people receive their medications? How would people get emergency appendectomies or other emergency medical procedures? There will be no “911, what’s your emergency”? The factors that bind society together will quickly unravel as Ebola spreads even on a relatively low level of impact.

What can you do to prepare if the economy collapses because of the economic impact of Ebola?

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After the Crash

Dispatches From a Long Recovery (Est. 10/2024)

Tag Archives: Global Economy