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2017 is Looking More Optimistic Than Ever
Guest Post by Martin Armstrong
The only thing about international trade is that someone cannot have a trade surplus without another experiencing a trade deficit. We all cannot have trade surpluses simultaneously and we have to begin understanding this reality. The net capital movements around the world are showing clear signs that things will be intensifying and the net capital movement is headed for the dollar – but that does not mean day one. Sure, many will point the finger at Trump and blame him for a trade war etc., but in reality, the net capital movements are intensifying for reasons that have nothing to do with trade. Ushering in Trump will also have a profound impact upon Europe and now Merkel’s greatest challenge will be to hold the EU together for its core design was to enhance German trade by eliminating currency risk.
Continue reading “2017 is Looking More Optimistic Than Ever”
QUOTES OF THE DAY
“It seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances.
The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him.
He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers From Prison
“Now that I look back, I realize that a life predicated on being obedient and taking orders is a very comfortable life indeed. Living in such a way reduces to a minimum one’s need to think… I may have made an error in judgement— but one thing is beyond dispute: the man was able to work his way up to leader of a people of almost 80 million. His success alone proved that I should subordinate myself to him.”
Adolph Eichmann, as quoted by Hannah Arendt in Eichmann in Jerusalem: The Banality of Evil
“In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true… Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow.
The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness…
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
“He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.”
Samuel Johnson
THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Nixon signs national speed limit into law – 1974
On this day in 1974, President Richard M. Nixon signs the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act, setting a new national maximum speed limit.
Prior to 1974, individual states set speed limits within their boundaries and highway speed limits across the country ranged from 40 mph to 80 mph. The U.S. and other industrialized nations enjoyed easy access to cheap Middle Eastern oil from 1950 to 1972, but the Arab-Israeli conflict changed that dramatically in 1973. Arab members of the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) protested the West’s support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War by stopping oil shipments to the United States, Japan and Western Europe. OPEC also flexed its new-found economic muscle by quadrupling oil prices, placing a choke-hold on America’s oil-hungry consumers and industries. Continue reading “THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Nixon signs national speed limit into law – 1974”
A BIASED 2017 FORECAST (PART TWO)
In Part One of this article I discussed the failure of our brains to think rationally due to our biases and the relentless propaganda flogged by our Deep State ruling class. Viewing the future through the looking glass of the Fourth Turning keeps you focused on the three catalysts which will drive all events in 2017 and beyond. I’ve addressed my 2017 Debt forecast in Part One. Now I will make some guesses about what might happen in 2017 related to Civic Decay and Global Disorder.
Civic Decay Forecast
“Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.” – Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
The presidential election and its aftermath tell you everything you need to know about the level of civic decay overtaking this country. The country is as divided as it was after the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. There is virtually no common ground between liberals and conservatives. The pure hatred and contempt between the winners and losers in the recent election does not bode well for the country over the next four to eight years.
The social fabric of the country has been torn asunder. The Clinton supporters believe anyone not on their side is deplorable, racist, misogynist, and fans of Hitler. Trump supporters believe anyone not on their side is low IQ, Muslim loving, deceitful, math challenged, and fans of a criminal. The gulf between the two sides is unbridgeable.
India – A Lot Of Pain For No Gain
Submitted by Jayant Bhandari via Acting-Man.com,
India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, announced on 8th November 2016 that Rs 500 (~$7.50) and Rs 1,000 (~$15) banknotes would no longer be legal tender. Linked are Part-I, Part-II, Part-III, Part-IV, Part-V, Part-VI and Part-VII, which provide updates on the demonetization saga and how Modi is acting as a catalyst to hasten the rapid degradation of India and what remains of its institutions.
India’s Pride and Joy
Indians are celebrating that their economy has surpassed that of India’s former colonial master, the UK.
So-called educated Indians have latched on to the above visual, with full support of the Indian government. It has been shared far and wide in the national media. When you remind them that India’s population is twenty-one times that of the UK and on top of that, the British pound has taken a huge pounding because of Brexit and associated fear in the financial markets, expect to be ignored. You will be seen as anti-Indian.
Given the underlying irrationality and tribalism of India (read earlier updates for more on this), selected numbers are used to rationalize feelings and emotions. You see this everywhere in India: Science — very ironically — is used as a tool to rationalize superstitions and irrationalities.
OBAMA’S LEGACY
The Extraordinary Size of Amazon in One Chart
The Sisterhood and a Profound Weariness: Unbiased Analysis
Guest Post by Fred Reed
Having for decades been exposed to the hostility of radical feminists, to the enormous harm they have done the schools and universities and the military, to relations between men and women, to their ashen tediousness and endless fury, their victimhood, I finally began to yell, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” At least, not quietly. Some thoughts, expressed with the gentility characteristic of this worthy column:
To begin with, there is problem of forged credentials. Radical feminists do not represent women. They represent radical feminists. Other women typically say that they are feminists, meaning in favor or equality of pay and opportunity, but explicitly reject the ideological baggage of the radicals.
Nor do feminists bear demographic resemblance to other women. For example, it is a good bet that no feminist voted for Trump, but CNN’s exit polls have 42% of women, and 53% of white women, voting for him. Further, few feminists seem to be married with children, and comparatively few are heterosexual. None of these conditions is morally wrong, but suggest not much commonality with most of humanity.
Continue reading “The Sisterhood and a Profound Weariness: Unbiased Analysis”
2017 COMES IN WITH A BANG
HAPPY ISLAM NEW YEAR – RELIGION OF PEACE MY FAT ASS
THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Batista forced out by Castro-led revolution – 1959
On this day in 1959, facing a popular revolution spearheaded by Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement, Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista flees the island nation. Amid celebration and chaos in the Cuban capitol of Havana, the U.S. debated how best to deal with the radical Castro and the ominous rumblings of anti-Americanism in Cuba.
The U.S. government had supported Batista, a former soldier and Cuban dictator from 1933 to 1944, who seized power for a second time in a 1952 coup. After Castro and a group of followers, including the South American revolutionary Che Guevara (1928-1967), landed in Cuba to unseat the dictator in December 1956, the U.S. continued to back Batista. Suspicious of what they believed to be Castro’s leftist ideology and worried that his ultimate goals might include attacks on the U.S.’s significant investments and property in Cuba, American officials were nearly unanimous in opposing his revolutionary movement.
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12 RESOLUTIONS YOU CAN STEAL FROM DOGS
Criminal Witch Hunt In Dallas Pension Fiasco
Submitted by Michael Shedlock via MishTalk.com,
In the wake of the near collapse of the Dallas police and fire pension fund, a Dallas News editorial says Former Police, Fire Pension Managers Should Face Criminal Investigation.
Mayor Mike Rawlings is right to ask for a state criminal investigation into shady practices by the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System’s prior management.
The fund is on the verge of a potentially catastrophic collapse that could leave public safety workers, taxpayers and the City of Dallas on the hook for billions of dollars. And the reason stems from abuses under the former administrator Richard Tettamant, who was ousted in 2014.
The fund’s former managers bet heavily on risky investments such as luxury homes in Hawaii, a resort and vineyard in California and Dallas’ Museum Tower itself, and promised its hardworking police and fire employees unrealistic returns while enjoying lavish perks.
Continue reading “Criminal Witch Hunt In Dallas Pension Fiasco”
Washington Post Caught Spreading More Fake News About “Russian Hackers”
by Tyler Durden
Readers of the Washington Post received some alarming news yesterday when the paper published a story alleging that those pesky “Russian hackers” were up to their no good tricks again and had managed to “penetrate the U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont.” The full headline read as follows:
The opening paragraph of WaPo’s story directly linked the “hack” of the Vermont utility to the same “Russian hacking operation dubbed Grizzly Steppe” that the Obama administration has blamed for the DNC and John Podesta email hacks. Vermont’s Governor, Peter Shumlin, told WaPo that “Americans should be both alarmed and outraged” by these actions perpetrated by “one of the world’s leading thugs, Vladimir Putin,” before seemingly calling for further retaliatory actions from the Obama administration.
Continue reading “Washington Post Caught Spreading More Fake News About “Russian Hackers””
TIME TO GET UP – IT’S A NEW YEAR
