Early in my legal career, I represented a high-security prison that wanted to suspend, for six months, a guard who, while bored and sitting alone in a watchtower one night, took his shotgun and blasted a hole in the wall.
I try not to let the world's woes overwhelm or depress me. But I have eyes that can see that not all is well and I mourn the world my children are entering into.
I tend towards pessimism too, but it's always worth remembering that things can get better as well as worse. The current evil globohomo system is definitely fading out, and that will involve pain for us all. However, hopefully, something better will come out of it.
Thank you. I may not live to see the end of the war we're fighting, but I'm still fighting.
When I got kicked out of my Catholic homeschool co-op in 2021 for pushing back on the "requirement" that my children be masked, I started my own co-op and named it after John 16:33: "I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world." I just have to keep reminding myself!
Here's the worst part for me. 95% of them agreed with me and thought it was nonsense. BUT they were too cowardly to stand up and say anything! I pushed back and asked for a meeting with our chaplain, to explain why I would not be masking and neither would my children. They wanted me to comply, even though I explained that that would be *lying with my face,* which went against my moral code. I wept at the meeting, I was so disillusioned with what was happening. But I was told I was not "committed to the co-op" and then never invited back. It was eye-opening and devastating. The bishops and the majority of the priests went along with the lies. I thought Christians would be the shining light on the hill, but I learned differently. And to this day, they do not admit that they kicked me out, they tell a story that I was not "willing to compromise." You're damn right I'm not. Mark, I'd love to share the letter I wrote to the chaplain, if you wouldn't mind me emailing it to you.
So they played a fascist game on you and then gaslit you, too. : (
I'm so sorry you had to go through that. And I'm sorry, too, as someone who was raised Christian, that I have found, over the long stretch of my experience, that Christians tend to be extremely patriarchal, overly rigid and regimented, highly authoritarian, judgmental and sometimes quite snobbishly cruel. Sorry to say it. I've had good times, but mostly I'm very happy to be free of that kind of straight-jacketed manipulation.
We're home schoolers here too, Jeannie, in Switzerland. I was quite shocked that the coop insisted on masks. Everyone here who home schooled was firmly against all that rubbish. However, you've achieved one of the most powerful steps we little people can: keeping your kids out of the awful public schools and away from Woke Central!
I so admire you Jeannie. I’m Catholic as well. It sickened me to see most everyone in the Novus Ordo parishes masking and social distancing during Mass. (I refused to mask in the presence of our Triune God). I attended an SSPX mission parish whenever I could. No masking there. No social distancing. Sanity prevailed.
One tiny liturgical bright spot—now, post Scamdemic there is no holding hands during the Our Father in the Novus Ordo parishes.
I so agree with you! Hot topic for me. I did write about the church and the scamdemic on my substack! I observed many protestants were worse!!! I was sooo surprised! We used to go to a Protestant church when my kids were little and I figured since the Catholics went crazy I would go there!! OMG They were closed for years and doing all the nonsense way after it was over!!! I couldn't believe it. Maybe more "woke" people go there. Chrisitanity DID come out very badly. I'm still angry.
I was raised Episcopalian, and I haven't been formally "Christian" since the mid 1990's. But I took my mother to church and became somewhat friendly with a bunch of those seemingly nice folks. And they ARE nice, but they are STILL masking, though not demanding everyone do it. Mind-boggling. But such is the way of Lizard-Brain Thinking, which is how FEAR drives those unwilling to question...
And I may have snorted out loud when the priest gave a sermon about how we shouldn't succumb to FEAR... from behind a MASK...
Your approach is the exact opposite from mine here......no way would I ever even contemplate- now or then - setting foot in any church where those a-scriptural and anti-God rules were ever in place. Sorry, but the deception they bought into instead of upholding God and His ways, was a bridge too far and hence I attend a church (for want of a better word since it is a generally one) where none of the nonsense was tolerated. Not that this was at all easy for the pastors, ministers etc at all and here in New Zealand churches were closed down to everyone....well, OK, you could still go and worship at your strip joint or brothel; no government worries about that at all......and when reopened the rules were strict as to how many attendees, toilet facilities, entrances per several people and so on and it took creative thinking to circumvent this nonsense and I have every admiration for those brave ones who stood their ground even at the expense of losing many who considered themselves Christians but who had zero in the way of spiritual spine. . A young Baptist minister in Aberdeen (I think it is) has a brilliant speech on the topic of the church role in such times- John William Noble. Well worth viewing.
You're onto it... This was never about SAFETY, not really, not at the upper levels. It was, and IS, about destroying community, destroying faith and spirituality, destroying societal cohesion, destroying connectedness and decency and the need for skepticism and so forth. Masking children... ANY forced and unscientific mandates on children is the ULTIMATE EVIL...
And look at the schools now, teaching all this LBGTQXYZ stuff to ELEMENTARY SCHOOL kids?????? Teaching second graders about masturbation, about drag queens??????? wtaf. They go for the CHILDREN, gender dysphoria, sexualization of little kids... It's EVIL. No other word.
I know what you are saying. I could never hang out at the protestsnt church we used to go to anymore because of their bad response but I go to the Catholic church to receive the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, which is what Catholics and I believe. And that gives me strength and doesn't matter what goofy priests did during the scamdemic I'm not going to deny myself Jesus. Sometimes I hear something inspiring and lately have met people on the same page as me. We can't expect perfection from humans. Even Jesus had one traitor in his group of 12. With all the evil going on there is still some good in the church.
It’s Now time to vote different! D and R had their chance! Vote for Decency Vote on Hope Vote for Bobby KennedyJr as our First Independent President since George Washington. Kennedy 24🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Thank you Mark. This topic is not given enough attention, and I believe it will create resentment and divide us generationally unless we understand what is going on. Lately I have heard Millennials complain about Boomers and their easy retirement living, as if the retirees don't deserve it and are taking something away from the younger generation. It is our government and its' policies that have destroyed the middle class.
Easy retirement living? Maybe for some, but I know a great many seniors who are struggling financially and medically. For every one of us who are able to take trips and/or be snowbirds, there's a lot more of us who are basically waiting for the clock to run out and wondering if we can afford to even live. We aren't living high on the hog.
Some have lost the dream of a comfortable retirement, others have lost the dream of home ownership, and there is more and more money in the hands of fewer people than ever before.
I’ve been pondering this, Mark. We are a family of five adult kids. Two of us live in comfort owning two paid off homes each. One sister, divorced, lives in poverty and is continuously fretting about rising costs. She rents. Her unmarried millennial sons help her as much as possible as do we more affluent sibs. The two youngest sibs are still in the workforce. One of them, married, rents and is saddened that the prospect of owning a retirement home (condo) has vanished. They have saved a nest egg, but what will that buy? (Their accomplished kids will likely help them out). A last sibling, the baby, has his own paid off home. Divorced, wife gave him the home to pursue a lucrative job in a foreign country.
I mean no offense, but I must point out: Being "accomplished" does not necessarily equate with financial wealth.
In a Capitalist society we are taught that the more money someone has, or makes, the more WORTHY they are, and on the flip side, if someone is not financially well-endowed, they must be somehow inferior.
I find that, as a polymath and artist, and a skilled person of many talents but also someone who never cared about material wealth, that that comment is unwittingly and unnecessarily demeaning. No, I'm not all upset, just wanted to make a point, not to shame you.
I have wondered if some of the increased health costs to insurers (due to COVID protocols and injuries from the experimental shots) is possibly being shifted to an increase in auto and property premiums, because if health insurance premiums increase too noticeably and rapidly, the effects of the protocols and shots would be more obvious. I don't know; just wondering.
In theory, no, that shouldn’t be allowed. They’re supposed to compartmentalize all those insurances and have reserves. How that works in Reality may be a different matter.
The injection questions can impact so many markets: RE, healthcare, schooling. Who knows where it goes and ends?
We've had record inflation year after year since the housing boom started. But the CPI was changed to count housing costs less than appliances etc. Obviously it's rigged because for most of us, we pay way more in housing than gas and food. Appliances are not bought every year and take a small fraction of our budgets.
But people didn't see the rise in housing over 2 decades+ as inflation. They saw it as investment. That's the scam people fall for... Label something as an investment and it can become inflated without the stigma.
Last funny.... Gas was 5 dollars a gallon during Dubya Bush. Adjusted for today's dollars, it's around 8 dollars a gallon. But when we got up to 5-6, people thought it was the end of the world record inflation?!
All of this economic "illiteracy" is why people thought they could afford homes that were already overpriced a decade ago.
And yes, the 28% of gross went up to 40+% of budget. But for some reason prices keep rising, because as you said, there's a lot of gambling money being pushed into the markets.
I don't see how they can keep rising without a correction. People can barely afford living for 5+years.... Wages have stagnated.
Professor Richard Wolff and Michael Hudson explain that the issue is that we are in the phase where rentier capitalism is bigger than industrial capitalism. Rentier capitalism is making money on mere ownership. Nothing was produced, but money out of thin air.
The market collapse is a good example of that as it lost a trillion or so in value.... Yes, that value left when big shots like Warren Buffet went and cashed in their chips. It only takes one big player to pull out of a stock to make it drop and the recovery is foolish as those are the ones thinking this was the bottom.
A Realtor acquaintance who sells $700K-new-builds for Pulte, reports how shocked she is at the number of young-couple-buyers she’s got. Common denominator: they all work for the federal government. Though my grandsons, 11 and 8, are already active entrepreneurs (lawn service and carwash), I hope I have something to leave them. If I can fend off my own financial rape, that is.
Until everything crashes. The government will get rid of healthcare and food supplies before they get rid of Big Military and Fed Jobs, but they will go eventually.
Teresa, if your kids are already getting the work ethic then they are on the best course to survive what is probably coming. They'll grow up with drive and initiative.
Only one presidential candidate is highlighting most of the points you’ve made here, and the legacy press is engaging in a concerted effort to keep him out of the spotlight unless they can do so in a way that suggests scandal. The finance and banking sectors have always been powerful and will remain so until the plug is pulled or cut. Eliminating the federal reserve board would go far toward that goal. Our republic is highly imbalanced and cannot sustain its sovereignty (let alone definition) as a democratic republic much longer before it rips itself apart or it implodes. The foolish shortsighted leadership of the country is leading it to its demise. No administration in my lifetime has been more shortsighted than the current one. But the Congress is no better. They are rewarding themselves through remarkably astute stock trade while kow-towing to the coercive security apparatus in nearly all ways. I’m not sure how many opportunities the people (the masses) will have left to vote someone in who sees what needs to change and who also has the wherewithal to slay or weaken the monstrous apparatus that is suffocating out our long-held American ideals while strangling all but the very rich. I hope people vote wisely and independently in November.
Agreed. Harris will be a catastrophe. Trump would probably do a few good things, but he spends most of his time making puerile personal attacks on Biden/Harris, instead of laying out firm policy. I may have missed it, but what are his exact plans for cutting the budget and downsizing the Deep State?
Good question. He's the most self-conflicting guy I've seen in a while.
But I really don't think there's any "voting" going on, or rather, the voting is irrelevant. People are INSTALLED, and not by us. I do think that's the case... If anyone can convince me otherwise, I'm open to hearing it.
INdeed. And I'd just go a little further and say the "leadership" of this country is most likely being PAID to bring it down... Look at the Globalist Agenda... "You will own nothing and you will be happy"... AS IF. They really do see us as "talking cows." But it's clear that if We the Peeps don't wake up and get up and take our Sovereignty back, we're gonna be in deeeeep doo doo. A good first step might be to UNTIE Israel and kick it to the curb. But probably the other regional entities will kick it into the bonfire soon enough.
I was pleased to see Massie propose an End to the Fed... I've been after that since well before Occupy started...
Mark - Thank you. I've already forwarded this article to several friends - one a high-end investor, one a "youngster" in his 50's planning for retirement, and a senior living in a rural community, at poverty level but in a paid-for home she inherited that she's sharing with a grandchild who has a job. She has plenty of family nearby. All recognize the horrors of the last four years.
Have you submitted this to any national newspapers or magazines for their "opinion" pages? There's plenty here the whole world needs to read.
I understand. Pierre Kory has been able to get some anti-scam opinion stuff in the NY Times or similar national press. He had to tone it down a bit but the message got through. I think folks clinging to the "keep wearing your mask, get your booster" philosophy are turned off by the anti-scam, but when a direct result is felt in their 401K's and they realize their middle class status is hurtling downward, that might get their attention. I'll keep pointing folks in your direction here on SS. Thanks again for another thought - provoking, well crafted article.
But so is the "Truth" getting out there... I've noticed things on Youtube that made my jaw drop... Political things. Opinions that are logical and rational as opposed to mindless Woke blather... The tide IS turning, and something outrageous will likely happen before too long that will speed that up... The truth IS starting to seep out.
Does anyone else think that the repo crisis in September of 2019 might have been the initial impetus for the scamdemic? And following from that, they realized it could be useful for achieving other goals: disgracing Trump’s presidency and then making a killing on a dangerous vaccine platform that Pharma, the Deep State, and the military had been desperate to bring to market.
Remember the seventies? Like it was the pits. No credit to prop up the kiddo’s in the seventies. None what so ever. Then the eighties rolled around everyone got jobs. Then came the awesome 90’s and NAFTA. America sold us out. It now looks like a fire sale. Who knows what twenty years will bring 🤷♀️
It's always smart to look at what's happened before. But this isn't at all like the 70's. I graduated college in '71. You could pay for college easily then, my tuition at a relatively expensive private school was about 350/quarter. Medical costs were far less. Government gobbled up much less of our GDP. We now have parasitic institutions taking SO MUCH of our wealth right off the top that getting ahead is far harder. Aside from economics, free speech was still considered a core American value in the 70s. Merit was valued, not sexual or racial identity. Those social ills might turn around, although I'm not counting on it. The economic ones are intractable. Once a segment has immense economic power, they're able to sustain it, short of major upheaval. Turning the USA around today will be far, far harder than it ever was before. Impossible, IMO.
True, and especially so on the technological front. The globalists are clearly trying to corner the market on AI and other developments in order to use them to censor freedom lovers and generally screw us over. However, new technologies often end up in the hands of the people who can use them against the government. Let's hope this trend continues.
Let's talk about those evil investors, shall we? Awful, awful people, right? Well, let me tell you, if you have a 401(k), if you have a Roth IRA, or any kind of retirement plan that is not a direct contribution pension (and even then, where do you think your company parks your money in the meantime?) YOU are one of those evil investors that are making a profit off the Scandemic. That's right. We somehow think that we aren't entangled in this mess, but check your portfolio sometime. You may not directly own Pfizer, Moderna, or Blackrock stock, but it's a pretty good guess that one or more of your mutual funds contain those stocks. So you are profiting off the Scandemic at the same time that you are being exploited by it. It's a lot how American and British economies were entangled in the African slave trade. You didn't have to be a slaveowner to profit off it or even support it. Do you like sugar in your tea? Then don't look too closely at where and how that sugar was made. Do you like cotton clothes? Again, don't look too closely. The same goes with a lot of things today that we consider indispensable. Let's not think about what goes into our electronic gadgets and where it comes from and how it is obtained. So it is not a matter of virtuous us versus evil them. We are them and they are us.
As someone who was never able to get into the housing market and therefore lives in a mobile home in a mobile home park, if you think what is happening with regular homes is bad, there is a whole industry dedicated to telling people how to make big money in mobile home parks. Their main selling point is mobile home parks are the cheapest housing around. As long as your lot rent is lower than a comparable apartment complex unit, you basically have a captive population. Because this is where you move to when you can't afford anywhere else. Now, mind you, it doesn't have to be much lower, it just has to be less than what an apartment or mortgage payment would be. These websites go on to tell would-be buyers to look for mobile home parks in communities where there is a huge income gap, where housing prices tend to be high so the barrier to homeownership is likewise high. So it is very easy to trap senior citizens and others who do not have much income. If you say, how awful, again, take a look at your retirement portfolio. Do you hold any REITs? Then you are participating in this just as much as the person who actually purchases the park, or the apartment complex or the rental house!
What we have created and allowed to have been created is one of those mythical creatures that swallows itself, an ouroboros. I am not up on my Egyptian mythology to know how this creature manages to sustain itself, but common sense says it cannot.
Not true that someone with a mutual fund in which Pfizer, REITs et al. are a small slice is "participating just as much" as are fund managers.
It's hard to control what these funds invest in. But I suppose that, with some effort, I could opt of whatever fund I have and find some fund that doesn't invest in such activities.
This is a problem. There are many people who'd rather just believe the media and the bureaucrats than have a dialogue about any of this or see, with their own eyes, the disconnect between what others tell vs. what their direct observation should tell them.,
'Twas ever thus, Mark. The majority throughout history have mostly been NPCs. No matter: it's a small, dedicated minority who can change things for the better.
So well written, Mark! We are reflected in your words. We are about 7 years out from retirement when my husband can move away from the area of his local union, and move out of state. Selling our home today would be the best move financially for the sale itself, but we don’t do it because our interest rate on our mortgage is only 2% and it wouldn’t make much sense to swap that with 7%. Especially since we just hit that year where most of our payment goes to principal! We would certainly walk away with a lot more money today than any other year and maybe be able to pay cash for a downsized home, but that is also uncertain given housing prices are high everywhere. So we are scared to move too soon. It might mean we sell for less in 7 years and rates will still be high? 🤷🏼♀️ So frustrating to decide.
Our youngest son used his Covid unemployment PUA to pay for college, all of it, so his total loans are less than what they would have been. Still it’s a a significant amount because we have no extra money ourselves to help him pay for college. His ability to afford taxes and health insurance, rent and utilities, and food and transportation is so impossible that he may not be able to afford paying down the debt he has at all. We are begging him to live at home to really throw money at that debt and get rid of it as fast as possible so it doesn’t hold him hostage, but it will depend on where the job offers come from. If it’s out of state he will be in debt forever. 😕
Our other son did everything that was asked of him academically. He was a hard worker and full of hope and faith. But he was mentally impacted by the realization that he was sold a dream by educators that was completely false. After graduation he listened to us and lived at home to start paying down all debt, but after 8 months working like a dog with nothing left in his paycheck and unable to afford any of the benefits his employer offered, he literally had a mental breakdown due to the depression and anxiety of it all. The damage our government and economy caused runs far deeper than a pocketbook, and it screwed with the mental health of our youth. If you weren’t born into money, it’s devastating.
Very good thoughts and truth about the changes in our economy. I get frustrated with the people I see that want the government to do everything and provide everything, when it can’t do anything well or reasonably cheap. And it’s so true how the rich get richer doing nothing and the middle class and poor work hard for less and less.
Yes, the rich get richer doing nothing. Or, doing things that produce nothing of value, like working in finance or bureaucracies. My lifelong peeve against the Republican party is they oppose anything that might make these parasites less wealthy and empower those doing useful work. They always demonize it as "wealth redistribution". This idea also suffers from superficially sounding like Marxism. It's not. Marxism penalizes productivity, rewards sloth. A sensible redistribution would do exactly the opposite, move us closer to a meritocracy. We currently largely have a kleptocracy, like Marxism always becomes. As a side note, how exactly do we expect to defeat the globalists when they have all the money? Money is power. We need to claw it back somehow.
Excellent synopsis of critical trends which have been exacerbated over the last 5 years. I ask myself how the rich came to be rich and for many it has been the millions or billions of people endlessly consuming goods and services. This caused enormous profits to flow and company stocks to rise exponentially. Look at Musk...most of his wealth is tied to the shares of his stock, Tesla.
So what happens as over time as consumers (perhaps the middle class) are less able to consume due to various reasons? Does the top 5 or 10% just retain their wealth without the billions of consumers supporting them? Will the stock markets become a trading war between State Street, Vanguard and Blackrock who are all trying to hoard stocks?
I expect that there will eventually be another massive multi-trillion dollar influx into the economy as unemployment rises or if another fake pandemic is attempted (this is practically guaranteed) and again most of the funds will end up in the hands of the top 10%. All this wealth is of course fake.
The only thing that will break this cursed scheme is a shotgun blast to the head of government...or a nuke to the head of the DC swamp.
I think that part of the reason the rich get richer is simply that "wealth begets wealth". For example, here in Switzerland, many people invest in very stable, locally based corporations like Nestlé and Phillip Morris. These shares will never crash but being low risk, won't bring much return either. That means if that if you're an ordinary schlub holding a couple of hundred shares, you'll get some steady dividends but nothing spectacular. However, if you're super-rich - and there are a few in Switzerland who are! - then you can invest so much money in their shares that you get a lot of money even when the dividend is mediocre. You can also pay the best tax lawyers to help you evade a lot of tax and also invest in a lot of riskier start-ups that won't bankrupt you if they fail. Wealth begets wealth
I try not to let the world's woes overwhelm or depress me. But I have eyes that can see that not all is well and I mourn the world my children are entering into.
I tend towards pessimism too, but it's always worth remembering that things can get better as well as worse. The current evil globohomo system is definitely fading out, and that will involve pain for us all. However, hopefully, something better will come out of it.
Thank you. I may not live to see the end of the war we're fighting, but I'm still fighting.
When I got kicked out of my Catholic homeschool co-op in 2021 for pushing back on the "requirement" that my children be masked, I started my own co-op and named it after John 16:33: "I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world." I just have to keep reminding myself!
Wow, some homeschoolers bought that nonsense?!
Here's the worst part for me. 95% of them agreed with me and thought it was nonsense. BUT they were too cowardly to stand up and say anything! I pushed back and asked for a meeting with our chaplain, to explain why I would not be masking and neither would my children. They wanted me to comply, even though I explained that that would be *lying with my face,* which went against my moral code. I wept at the meeting, I was so disillusioned with what was happening. But I was told I was not "committed to the co-op" and then never invited back. It was eye-opening and devastating. The bishops and the majority of the priests went along with the lies. I thought Christians would be the shining light on the hill, but I learned differently. And to this day, they do not admit that they kicked me out, they tell a story that I was not "willing to compromise." You're damn right I'm not. Mark, I'd love to share the letter I wrote to the chaplain, if you wouldn't mind me emailing it to you.
So they played a fascist game on you and then gaslit you, too. : (
I'm so sorry you had to go through that. And I'm sorry, too, as someone who was raised Christian, that I have found, over the long stretch of my experience, that Christians tend to be extremely patriarchal, overly rigid and regimented, highly authoritarian, judgmental and sometimes quite snobbishly cruel. Sorry to say it. I've had good times, but mostly I'm very happy to be free of that kind of straight-jacketed manipulation.
Yes, unfortunately
We're home schoolers here too, Jeannie, in Switzerland. I was quite shocked that the coop insisted on masks. Everyone here who home schooled was firmly against all that rubbish. However, you've achieved one of the most powerful steps we little people can: keeping your kids out of the awful public schools and away from Woke Central!
I so admire you Jeannie. I’m Catholic as well. It sickened me to see most everyone in the Novus Ordo parishes masking and social distancing during Mass. (I refused to mask in the presence of our Triune God). I attended an SSPX mission parish whenever I could. No masking there. No social distancing. Sanity prevailed.
One tiny liturgical bright spot—now, post Scamdemic there is no holding hands during the Our Father in the Novus Ordo parishes.
If it's any consolation, SM, Protestants were just as bad, and probably worse. In fact, Christianity came out of the Covid hysteria very badly.
I so agree with you! Hot topic for me. I did write about the church and the scamdemic on my substack! I observed many protestants were worse!!! I was sooo surprised! We used to go to a Protestant church when my kids were little and I figured since the Catholics went crazy I would go there!! OMG They were closed for years and doing all the nonsense way after it was over!!! I couldn't believe it. Maybe more "woke" people go there. Chrisitanity DID come out very badly. I'm still angry.
I was raised Episcopalian, and I haven't been formally "Christian" since the mid 1990's. But I took my mother to church and became somewhat friendly with a bunch of those seemingly nice folks. And they ARE nice, but they are STILL masking, though not demanding everyone do it. Mind-boggling. But such is the way of Lizard-Brain Thinking, which is how FEAR drives those unwilling to question...
And I may have snorted out loud when the priest gave a sermon about how we shouldn't succumb to FEAR... from behind a MASK...
LOL Okay, dude.
It did - very badly and the Pope didn't help? https://austrianpeter.substack.com/p/the-financial-jigsaw-part-2-satanic?sd=pf
I am angry too, but I ridicule what is ridiculous.
https://alphaandomegacloud.wordpress.com/2021/08/12/faith-masks/
Yeah I did not go to church until the signing up garbage ended and I was able to go maskless without anyone bothering me about it.
Your approach is the exact opposite from mine here......no way would I ever even contemplate- now or then - setting foot in any church where those a-scriptural and anti-God rules were ever in place. Sorry, but the deception they bought into instead of upholding God and His ways, was a bridge too far and hence I attend a church (for want of a better word since it is a generally one) where none of the nonsense was tolerated. Not that this was at all easy for the pastors, ministers etc at all and here in New Zealand churches were closed down to everyone....well, OK, you could still go and worship at your strip joint or brothel; no government worries about that at all......and when reopened the rules were strict as to how many attendees, toilet facilities, entrances per several people and so on and it took creative thinking to circumvent this nonsense and I have every admiration for those brave ones who stood their ground even at the expense of losing many who considered themselves Christians but who had zero in the way of spiritual spine. . A young Baptist minister in Aberdeen (I think it is) has a brilliant speech on the topic of the church role in such times- John William Noble. Well worth viewing.
You're onto it... This was never about SAFETY, not really, not at the upper levels. It was, and IS, about destroying community, destroying faith and spirituality, destroying societal cohesion, destroying connectedness and decency and the need for skepticism and so forth. Masking children... ANY forced and unscientific mandates on children is the ULTIMATE EVIL...
And look at the schools now, teaching all this LBGTQXYZ stuff to ELEMENTARY SCHOOL kids?????? Teaching second graders about masturbation, about drag queens??????? wtaf. They go for the CHILDREN, gender dysphoria, sexualization of little kids... It's EVIL. No other word.
I know what you are saying. I could never hang out at the protestsnt church we used to go to anymore because of their bad response but I go to the Catholic church to receive the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, which is what Catholics and I believe. And that gives me strength and doesn't matter what goofy priests did during the scamdemic I'm not going to deny myself Jesus. Sometimes I hear something inspiring and lately have met people on the same page as me. We can't expect perfection from humans. Even Jesus had one traitor in his group of 12. With all the evil going on there is still some good in the church.
Well done.
https://alphaandomegacloud.wordpress.com/2021/08/12/faith-masks/
Good for you for not going along! Homeschooling is the only option these days. Wish I had done it. I had looked into it.
Yes, JR - this is the way to go - cooperation, not competition: https://austrianpeter.substack.com/p/the-financial-jigsaw-part-2-localisation?s=w
We must make it happen, and we can, and I believe we will.
It’s Now time to vote different! D and R had their chance! Vote for Decency Vote on Hope Vote for Bobby KennedyJr as our First Independent President since George Washington. Kennedy 24🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
I like SOME things about Bobby, but his stance on abortion is a deal breaker.
It's easier when you realize all 3 candidates support abortion.
Did you see Trump's tweet today supporting "women's reproductive rights?"
So let's FIX that world, for your children, and all the rest of them.
Likewise JR - https://austrianpeter.substack.com/p/the-financial-jigsaw-part-2-preface?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Thank you Mark. This topic is not given enough attention, and I believe it will create resentment and divide us generationally unless we understand what is going on. Lately I have heard Millennials complain about Boomers and their easy retirement living, as if the retirees don't deserve it and are taking something away from the younger generation. It is our government and its' policies that have destroyed the middle class.
Easy retirement living? Maybe for some, but I know a great many seniors who are struggling financially and medically. For every one of us who are able to take trips and/or be snowbirds, there's a lot more of us who are basically waiting for the clock to run out and wondering if we can afford to even live. We aren't living high on the hog.
Yep. I'm approaching retirement, but I'll probably continue full time working till around 90 and go part-time till 105. Then I'll take it easy!
LOL - at 80 I 'work' 24/7 but it is a labour of love to spread the good news!
I'll check out the OnlyGrans app when I get there!
LOL!
Yep. When life begins!
You sound like me, LOL. Let's DO IT!! vroom vroooom!
The grocery prices are destroying us.
Some have lost the dream of a comfortable retirement, others have lost the dream of home ownership, and there is more and more money in the hands of fewer people than ever before.
I’ve been pondering this, Mark. We are a family of five adult kids. Two of us live in comfort owning two paid off homes each. One sister, divorced, lives in poverty and is continuously fretting about rising costs. She rents. Her unmarried millennial sons help her as much as possible as do we more affluent sibs. The two youngest sibs are still in the workforce. One of them, married, rents and is saddened that the prospect of owning a retirement home (condo) has vanished. They have saved a nest egg, but what will that buy? (Their accomplished kids will likely help them out). A last sibling, the baby, has his own paid off home. Divorced, wife gave him the home to pursue a lucrative job in a foreign country.
I mean no offense, but I must point out: Being "accomplished" does not necessarily equate with financial wealth.
In a Capitalist society we are taught that the more money someone has, or makes, the more WORTHY they are, and on the flip side, if someone is not financially well-endowed, they must be somehow inferior.
I find that, as a polymath and artist, and a skilled person of many talents but also someone who never cared about material wealth, that that comment is unwittingly and unnecessarily demeaning. No, I'm not all upset, just wanted to make a point, not to shame you.
That last paragraph says it all!
No, it has not ended well. Like everyone keeps saying, "buckle up."
Indeed.
Yep, it was the greatest mugging/murder in history.
I have wondered if some of the increased health costs to insurers (due to COVID protocols and injuries from the experimental shots) is possibly being shifted to an increase in auto and property premiums, because if health insurance premiums increase too noticeably and rapidly, the effects of the protocols and shots would be more obvious. I don't know; just wondering.
Also.... it's not over yet. Buckle up.
In theory, no, that shouldn’t be allowed. They’re supposed to compartmentalize all those insurances and have reserves. How that works in Reality may be a different matter.
The injection questions can impact so many markets: RE, healthcare, schooling. Who knows where it goes and ends?
Car insurance across the country, has definitely gone up due to the insurance payouts on all the ’vaxxidents’.
We've had record inflation year after year since the housing boom started. But the CPI was changed to count housing costs less than appliances etc. Obviously it's rigged because for most of us, we pay way more in housing than gas and food. Appliances are not bought every year and take a small fraction of our budgets.
But people didn't see the rise in housing over 2 decades+ as inflation. They saw it as investment. That's the scam people fall for... Label something as an investment and it can become inflated without the stigma.
Last funny.... Gas was 5 dollars a gallon during Dubya Bush. Adjusted for today's dollars, it's around 8 dollars a gallon. But when we got up to 5-6, people thought it was the end of the world record inflation?!
All of this economic "illiteracy" is why people thought they could afford homes that were already overpriced a decade ago.
And yes, the 28% of gross went up to 40+% of budget. But for some reason prices keep rising, because as you said, there's a lot of gambling money being pushed into the markets.
I don't see how they can keep rising without a correction. People can barely afford living for 5+years.... Wages have stagnated.
Professor Richard Wolff and Michael Hudson explain that the issue is that we are in the phase where rentier capitalism is bigger than industrial capitalism. Rentier capitalism is making money on mere ownership. Nothing was produced, but money out of thin air.
The market collapse is a good example of that as it lost a trillion or so in value.... Yes, that value left when big shots like Warren Buffet went and cashed in their chips. It only takes one big player to pull out of a stock to make it drop and the recovery is foolish as those are the ones thinking this was the bottom.
This article goes into what is the real low.
https://charleshughsmith.substack.com/p/the-great-unwinding-is-there-any
This substack is pretty awesome in looking at the economy without the brainwashing of popular PMC economic bs.
Well said.
A Realtor acquaintance who sells $700K-new-builds for Pulte, reports how shocked she is at the number of young-couple-buyers she’s got. Common denominator: they all work for the federal government. Though my grandsons, 11 and 8, are already active entrepreneurs (lawn service and carwash), I hope I have something to leave them. If I can fend off my own financial rape, that is.
Yes, those fed employees need nice houses because they get to work from home.
They also get very high pensions.
Until everything crashes. The government will get rid of healthcare and food supplies before they get rid of Big Military and Fed Jobs, but they will go eventually.
No, they won't.
They can just keep in writing checks based on phony money, created whenever they need it.
What's another hundred trillion when you can create money outta thin air?
Hit us in the belly or the wallet and watch us rise up like a freakin Goliath made of The Peeps.
That's a sneaky way of doing a bit of BRIBERY... lol
Except when the blindness bubble bursts, it won't do them any damn good (the govt).
Parents and grandparents are also funding these young people. Something my parents could never do. They never owned a home.
Teresa, if your kids are already getting the work ethic then they are on the best course to survive what is probably coming. They'll grow up with drive and initiative.
Only one presidential candidate is highlighting most of the points you’ve made here, and the legacy press is engaging in a concerted effort to keep him out of the spotlight unless they can do so in a way that suggests scandal. The finance and banking sectors have always been powerful and will remain so until the plug is pulled or cut. Eliminating the federal reserve board would go far toward that goal. Our republic is highly imbalanced and cannot sustain its sovereignty (let alone definition) as a democratic republic much longer before it rips itself apart or it implodes. The foolish shortsighted leadership of the country is leading it to its demise. No administration in my lifetime has been more shortsighted than the current one. But the Congress is no better. They are rewarding themselves through remarkably astute stock trade while kow-towing to the coercive security apparatus in nearly all ways. I’m not sure how many opportunities the people (the masses) will have left to vote someone in who sees what needs to change and who also has the wherewithal to slay or weaken the monstrous apparatus that is suffocating out our long-held American ideals while strangling all but the very rich. I hope people vote wisely and independently in November.
RFK. Ride or die.
He won't get it, or they'll do a Family Tradition thing and shoot his ass.
Agreed. Harris will be a catastrophe. Trump would probably do a few good things, but he spends most of his time making puerile personal attacks on Biden/Harris, instead of laying out firm policy. I may have missed it, but what are his exact plans for cutting the budget and downsizing the Deep State?
Good question. He's the most self-conflicting guy I've seen in a while.
But I really don't think there's any "voting" going on, or rather, the voting is irrelevant. People are INSTALLED, and not by us. I do think that's the case... If anyone can convince me otherwise, I'm open to hearing it.
INdeed. And I'd just go a little further and say the "leadership" of this country is most likely being PAID to bring it down... Look at the Globalist Agenda... "You will own nothing and you will be happy"... AS IF. They really do see us as "talking cows." But it's clear that if We the Peeps don't wake up and get up and take our Sovereignty back, we're gonna be in deeeeep doo doo. A good first step might be to UNTIE Israel and kick it to the curb. But probably the other regional entities will kick it into the bonfire soon enough.
I was pleased to see Massie propose an End to the Fed... I've been after that since well before Occupy started...
Mark - Thank you. I've already forwarded this article to several friends - one a high-end investor, one a "youngster" in his 50's planning for retirement, and a senior living in a rural community, at poverty level but in a paid-for home she inherited that she's sharing with a grandchild who has a job. She has plenty of family nearby. All recognize the horrors of the last four years.
Have you submitted this to any national newspapers or magazines for their "opinion" pages? There's plenty here the whole world needs to read.
It's too long for the papers. And the narrative is anti-Scam, just like the anti-lockdown stuff I wrote in March-June, 2020 was.
That's the beauty of Substack. But most people don't know about SS.
I understand. Pierre Kory has been able to get some anti-scam opinion stuff in the NY Times or similar national press. He had to tone it down a bit but the message got through. I think folks clinging to the "keep wearing your mask, get your booster" philosophy are turned off by the anti-scam, but when a direct result is felt in their 401K's and they realize their middle class status is hurtling downward, that might get their attention. I'll keep pointing folks in your direction here on SS. Thanks again for another thought - provoking, well crafted article.
People who still believe in the scam are probably beyond the reach of ANY type of media input, mainstream or alternative.
It's growing. ^_^
But so is the "Truth" getting out there... I've noticed things on Youtube that made my jaw drop... Political things. Opinions that are logical and rational as opposed to mindless Woke blather... The tide IS turning, and something outrageous will likely happen before too long that will speed that up... The truth IS starting to seep out.
Does anyone else think that the repo crisis in September of 2019 might have been the initial impetus for the scamdemic? And following from that, they realized it could be useful for achieving other goals: disgracing Trump’s presidency and then making a killing on a dangerous vaccine platform that Pharma, the Deep State, and the military had been desperate to bring to market.
Yes MAC - it was "Going Direct" via Larry Fink: https://austrianpeter.substack.com/p/a-perfect-storm-the-money-crisis?s=w
It was the pre-softening before the BIG Softening of "Covid."
Maybe it’ll pay off like the 60’s
Remember the seventies? Like it was the pits. No credit to prop up the kiddo’s in the seventies. None what so ever. Then the eighties rolled around everyone got jobs. Then came the awesome 90’s and NAFTA. America sold us out. It now looks like a fire sale. Who knows what twenty years will bring 🤷♀️
It's always smart to look at what's happened before. But this isn't at all like the 70's. I graduated college in '71. You could pay for college easily then, my tuition at a relatively expensive private school was about 350/quarter. Medical costs were far less. Government gobbled up much less of our GDP. We now have parasitic institutions taking SO MUCH of our wealth right off the top that getting ahead is far harder. Aside from economics, free speech was still considered a core American value in the 70s. Merit was valued, not sexual or racial identity. Those social ills might turn around, although I'm not counting on it. The economic ones are intractable. Once a segment has immense economic power, they're able to sustain it, short of major upheaval. Turning the USA around today will be far, far harder than it ever was before. Impossible, IMO.
True, and especially so on the technological front. The globalists are clearly trying to corner the market on AI and other developments in order to use them to censor freedom lovers and generally screw us over. However, new technologies often end up in the hands of the people who can use them against the government. Let's hope this trend continues.
Hopefully, a Whole Nuther Thang, as in, to hell with govt. ;)
Let's talk about those evil investors, shall we? Awful, awful people, right? Well, let me tell you, if you have a 401(k), if you have a Roth IRA, or any kind of retirement plan that is not a direct contribution pension (and even then, where do you think your company parks your money in the meantime?) YOU are one of those evil investors that are making a profit off the Scandemic. That's right. We somehow think that we aren't entangled in this mess, but check your portfolio sometime. You may not directly own Pfizer, Moderna, or Blackrock stock, but it's a pretty good guess that one or more of your mutual funds contain those stocks. So you are profiting off the Scandemic at the same time that you are being exploited by it. It's a lot how American and British economies were entangled in the African slave trade. You didn't have to be a slaveowner to profit off it or even support it. Do you like sugar in your tea? Then don't look too closely at where and how that sugar was made. Do you like cotton clothes? Again, don't look too closely. The same goes with a lot of things today that we consider indispensable. Let's not think about what goes into our electronic gadgets and where it comes from and how it is obtained. So it is not a matter of virtuous us versus evil them. We are them and they are us.
As someone who was never able to get into the housing market and therefore lives in a mobile home in a mobile home park, if you think what is happening with regular homes is bad, there is a whole industry dedicated to telling people how to make big money in mobile home parks. Their main selling point is mobile home parks are the cheapest housing around. As long as your lot rent is lower than a comparable apartment complex unit, you basically have a captive population. Because this is where you move to when you can't afford anywhere else. Now, mind you, it doesn't have to be much lower, it just has to be less than what an apartment or mortgage payment would be. These websites go on to tell would-be buyers to look for mobile home parks in communities where there is a huge income gap, where housing prices tend to be high so the barrier to homeownership is likewise high. So it is very easy to trap senior citizens and others who do not have much income. If you say, how awful, again, take a look at your retirement portfolio. Do you hold any REITs? Then you are participating in this just as much as the person who actually purchases the park, or the apartment complex or the rental house!
What we have created and allowed to have been created is one of those mythical creatures that swallows itself, an ouroboros. I am not up on my Egyptian mythology to know how this creature manages to sustain itself, but common sense says it cannot.
Not true that someone with a mutual fund in which Pfizer, REITs et al. are a small slice is "participating just as much" as are fund managers.
It's hard to control what these funds invest in. But I suppose that, with some effort, I could opt of whatever fund I have and find some fund that doesn't invest in such activities.
Hmm, I lost money 💰 and you just wait… 401 k will be robbed. No doubt about it.
Heads they win
Tails you lose
They consider your savings THEIR money
It is their money! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asxt3bPN8io
Interestingly, 1 in 6 or 1 in 7 houses in Japan are vacant. One can rent for very little or even free.
Had lunch out the past few days:
$19/head for BIG lunch in a historic inn, courses, drinks
$10/head yesterday
$5/ head today (incl. one person getting draft beer)
Japan is in stagflation and living, eating, dressing well
US is in strong inflation and identity crisis
Great reporting, keen awareness, thank you, for sharing. Wake up readers.
I think if you are reading this Substack, you are awake. It’s the ones who aren’t, that need the warning.
This is a problem. There are many people who'd rather just believe the media and the bureaucrats than have a dialogue about any of this or see, with their own eyes, the disconnect between what others tell vs. what their direct observation should tell them.,
'Twas ever thus, Mark. The majority throughout history have mostly been NPCs. No matter: it's a small, dedicated minority who can change things for the better.
There's always gonna be somma them. The smarter and more rebellious types always push the elephant through the gate.
So well written, Mark! We are reflected in your words. We are about 7 years out from retirement when my husband can move away from the area of his local union, and move out of state. Selling our home today would be the best move financially for the sale itself, but we don’t do it because our interest rate on our mortgage is only 2% and it wouldn’t make much sense to swap that with 7%. Especially since we just hit that year where most of our payment goes to principal! We would certainly walk away with a lot more money today than any other year and maybe be able to pay cash for a downsized home, but that is also uncertain given housing prices are high everywhere. So we are scared to move too soon. It might mean we sell for less in 7 years and rates will still be high? 🤷🏼♀️ So frustrating to decide.
Our youngest son used his Covid unemployment PUA to pay for college, all of it, so his total loans are less than what they would have been. Still it’s a a significant amount because we have no extra money ourselves to help him pay for college. His ability to afford taxes and health insurance, rent and utilities, and food and transportation is so impossible that he may not be able to afford paying down the debt he has at all. We are begging him to live at home to really throw money at that debt and get rid of it as fast as possible so it doesn’t hold him hostage, but it will depend on where the job offers come from. If it’s out of state he will be in debt forever. 😕
Our other son did everything that was asked of him academically. He was a hard worker and full of hope and faith. But he was mentally impacted by the realization that he was sold a dream by educators that was completely false. After graduation he listened to us and lived at home to start paying down all debt, but after 8 months working like a dog with nothing left in his paycheck and unable to afford any of the benefits his employer offered, he literally had a mental breakdown due to the depression and anxiety of it all. The damage our government and economy caused runs far deeper than a pocketbook, and it screwed with the mental health of our youth. If you weren’t born into money, it’s devastating.
Juju, that is heartbreaking.
Your sons and many others, incl. one of my kids, were victimized. This is unforgivable.
Very good thoughts and truth about the changes in our economy. I get frustrated with the people I see that want the government to do everything and provide everything, when it can’t do anything well or reasonably cheap. And it’s so true how the rich get richer doing nothing and the middle class and poor work hard for less and less.
Yes, the rich get richer doing nothing. Or, doing things that produce nothing of value, like working in finance or bureaucracies. My lifelong peeve against the Republican party is they oppose anything that might make these parasites less wealthy and empower those doing useful work. They always demonize it as "wealth redistribution". This idea also suffers from superficially sounding like Marxism. It's not. Marxism penalizes productivity, rewards sloth. A sensible redistribution would do exactly the opposite, move us closer to a meritocracy. We currently largely have a kleptocracy, like Marxism always becomes. As a side note, how exactly do we expect to defeat the globalists when they have all the money? Money is power. We need to claw it back somehow.
Excellent synopsis of critical trends which have been exacerbated over the last 5 years. I ask myself how the rich came to be rich and for many it has been the millions or billions of people endlessly consuming goods and services. This caused enormous profits to flow and company stocks to rise exponentially. Look at Musk...most of his wealth is tied to the shares of his stock, Tesla.
So what happens as over time as consumers (perhaps the middle class) are less able to consume due to various reasons? Does the top 5 or 10% just retain their wealth without the billions of consumers supporting them? Will the stock markets become a trading war between State Street, Vanguard and Blackrock who are all trying to hoard stocks?
I expect that there will eventually be another massive multi-trillion dollar influx into the economy as unemployment rises or if another fake pandemic is attempted (this is practically guaranteed) and again most of the funds will end up in the hands of the top 10%. All this wealth is of course fake.
The only thing that will break this cursed scheme is a shotgun blast to the head of government...or a nuke to the head of the DC swamp.
I think that part of the reason the rich get richer is simply that "wealth begets wealth". For example, here in Switzerland, many people invest in very stable, locally based corporations like Nestlé and Phillip Morris. These shares will never crash but being low risk, won't bring much return either. That means if that if you're an ordinary schlub holding a couple of hundred shares, you'll get some steady dividends but nothing spectacular. However, if you're super-rich - and there are a few in Switzerland who are! - then you can invest so much money in their shares that you get a lot of money even when the dividend is mediocre. You can also pay the best tax lawyers to help you evade a lot of tax and also invest in a lot of riskier start-ups that won't bankrupt you if they fail. Wealth begets wealth