Mentally Stuck Here

Nov 30, 2022

Painting Scenarios,

A few excerpts from a recent Michael Hudson interview. Thanks Christine:

The problem is that Europe cannot withdraw from NATO without dissolving the European Union, which commits military policy to NATO and hence to an immense balance-of-payments drain to purchase high-priced U.S. arms as well as other necessities. If the question is how long Germany and Europe can put political and military loyalty to the United States over their own economic prosperity and employment, the answer by the Greens is that “shock therapy” will help make Europe greener.
At first glance that is right as heavy industry is shut down. But it seems that Europe’s fuel of the future is coal and cutting down its forests...

..The United States does indeed care about what happens outside of the United States. That is the essence of imperialism: You take care to conquer other countries economically, financially and technologically, making them dependent on yourself so that you can charge monopoly prices and siphon off their economic surplus for your own financial and corporate elites.
The aim of U.S. unilateral diplomacy is to establish trade, monetary and military dependency. That is how politicians “care” about what foreign countries are doing – and why the U.S. meddles so much in their political processes...

..U.S. sanctions and military confrontation are driving other countries to defend themselves by creating alternatives to the US dollar and also to dependency on U.S. suppliers for food, energy and critical technology so that they can avoid being “sanctioned” to force them into compliance with U.S. dictates.
This break did not occur before because it was not urgent. It has been the U.S. sanctions and threat that the US/NATO war against Russia will persist much longer than Ukraine. It is ultimately a drive against China, and President Biden has said that this will take twenty years or so. For Americans, the threat of losing their ability to control the economic policy of other nations is a threat to what they view as civilization itself...

..The exponential mathematics of interest-bearing debt makes debt crises inevitable. That has been the case for thousands of years. The expansion path of debt is more rapid than that of the underlying “real” economy.
At some point, either debts will have to be wiped out – annulled – or countries will fall into debt peonage to the creditor powers, just as within creditor nations the economy is polarizing between the creditor One Percent and the increasingly indebted 99 Percent...

..The global system will need to move beyond reliance on the US dollar, and turn national banking and credit systems into public utilities. That is the only way that governments can write down debt – mainly, debt owed to themselves – without inciting a political and even violent fight against their moves to free the economy from its debt overhead. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/11/michael-hudson-answers-questions-on-europes-self-immolation-feds-malpractice-changing-world-order.html

Charles Hugh Smith on "The Oil Curse"

 The price of oil appears to be reflecting the global recession that's baked into receding stimulus and liquidity and higher inflation. China's attempt to secure Zero Covid is also exerting downward pressure on oil demand. As consumers globally come to grips with layoffs, depleted savings and maxed-out credit cards, demand can be expected to drop further...
There's another twist to The Oil Curse story: now that the easy-to-get oil is gone, it now requires massive, permanent investments in future production to keep the oil flowing. Governments (like the oil Sheikdoms) seeing their revenues decline will naturally slash investment to fund the politically essential welfare-graft that enables their grip on power.
Starved of essential investment, oil production inevitably declines, further reducing revenues of oil-dependent states. This feedback loop is unforgiving: less investment leads to less oil which leads to less revenues which further squeezes investment.
It's not just the price of oil that matters: how much disposable income consumers have left to buy more goods and services matters, too. Put another way: demand can fall below supply for longer than oil producers can remain solvent.http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-oil-curse-and-splashy-pr.html

This essay is mostly the history of technocracy, a movement which began in the 1800s, and did some good work in its early years. Some of those who contributed insights and ideas were not fully sold on the product, nor was the product what it has become with the internet, AI and social media, nor was Zbigniew Brzezinski Chinese. We have largely had a bureaucratic technocracy for a long time, some call it "the deep state". China: The World’s First Technate – Part 1 Ian Davis https://off-guardian.org/2022/11/25/china-the-worlds-first-technate-part-1/

We might feel anonymous in a crowd, but AI knows where our smartphone is, and what it is transmitting and receiving, and can report on that in detail. (In related news, Justin Trudeau says Chinese citizens have the right to protest against COVID lockdowns, because they are not Canadian truck drivers.) Beijing protesters spooked by phone calls from police https://insiderpaper.com/beijing-protesters-spooked-by-phone-calls-from-police/

Paul Craig Roberts: COVID Roundup. Was the mRNA Vaccine Intended as a Population Reduction Measure? The circumstantial evidence is substantial that it was.
The multi-decade agitation for population reduction by Bill Gates and a passel of elites and organizations and a decade or longer of research to develop the Covid virus suggest that the “vaccine” had an intent that is not acknowledged, but we will never know unless someone confesses.
The process of defrocking doctors, medical scientists, and nurse whistleblowers who provide facts unwelcome by authorities continues. https://www.globalresearch.ca/covid-roundup/5800525

The Birth of the Biostate .Thanks Christine

During the Business 20 (B20) panel held ahead of the G20 summit, Indonesia’s Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin made the same recommendation in even starker terms: “Let’s have a digital health certificate acknowledged by WHO — if you have been vaccinated or tested properly, then you can move around.” In a 132-page document that contains a series of recommendations for the G20, the B20 urged the widespread adoption of digital Covid-19 certificates that would be part of a “technology-enabled ‘always-on’ global health infrastructure”.

Sadikin added that G20 countries have agreed to the proposal and now plan to introduce it as a revision to the IHR framework at the next World Health Assembly, scheduled for May 2023 in Geneva. The idea is that the WHO should be given legally binding powers to implement such measures in the future. This is an attempt to revamp the WHO’s so-called international pandemic treaty — an effort to give it sweeping powers to dictate public health measures to countries with the full backing of international law, potentially overriding their national sovereignty.
This reform would effectively transform the organisation into something akin to a “world health government” with unprecedented powers to overrule the decisions of national governments in all matters of public health...

..A fundamental aspect of this brave new world envisioned by Schwab is the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution, which in his own words consists in “the fusion of our physical, digital and biological identities”. Digital IDs, in this sense, should be understood as just the first step in a “revolution” aimed at completely blurring the lines between our bodies and emerging technologies such as robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, quantum computing, biotechnology, and so on. https://unherd.com/2022/11/a-biostate-wont-cure-the-west/

Edward Slavsquat, in Moscow, says Russia's not too different from Canada, China or New Zealand in some regards. Thanks Robin.

Whatever Putin’s personal views on mandatory vaccination may be, the reality is that Russia’s capital introduced the country’s first compulsory vaccination policy in mid-June, which required various business sectors to meet a 60% vaccination quota among employees. Workers who refused the shot were at risk of being suspended indefinitely without pay (or, in layman’s terms, “being fired”). Many other regions followed suit with similar (and even more stringent) mandates.
After the State Duma elections in late September, Russia’s regions began mass adopting vaccine mandates as well as QR-coded “health” passes. All 85 federal subjects of the Russian Federation now have compulsory vaccination rules (some more strict than others). For example, in Leningrad Oblast, all state, municipal and private organizations must ensure 100% of employees are fully vaccinated, or have a medical exemption or proof of prior infection in the last six months. Hold-outs will need to be tested every 72 hours.