I was going to slot this under Social Collapse but instead I’m featuring this article because it is at once astounding, insightful into our culture and profoundly disturbing: Watch What Happens When A Baby That Is Addicted To A Cellphone Has It Taken Away. Note that the mother thinks that this is funny and a search in YouTube finds the video in Best funny baby video compilation of 2015. Here’s just the video:
A real hoot.
By the way, if you know someone who might be interested in my letter, please pass it on. They can email me (see End Notes) requesting inclusion on my mailing list.
Trade War
Trump has a couple of hardline neocons in Bolton and Navarro who backed by Pompeo and Kudlow could push the trade war with China into a kinetic war: China Ambassador Warns Of “Dire Consequences” If No Deal, Hints At “All Out” War. It may be simply hard negotiating but the Trump team hasn’t blinked yer and I don’t expect that the Chinese will unless its part of a longer strategy that they might choose to play.
Boy! Are Trump’s tariff wars ever paying off (the scale is negative): Home Sales Plunge, Trade Deficit Spikes, Fed Blinks. The Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930 is credited with its tariffs as being a major cause of the Great Depression. Pundits are discussing the next US recession as coming in 2019 or 2020 at the latest. Trump may be able to turn it into the Greater Depression: The Smoot-Hawley Tariff and the Great Depression.
Recall that in Bits and Pieces – 20181104, Sunday I included a two part series on the fall of empires by Mike Maloney. An interesting point he made was that by studying the history of great conflicts between two major powers, the event that precipitated war between them was often one that was caused by a third party.
We have two global war scenarios on the horizon, the US vs Russia and the US vs China. They may coalesce into a single event. A trigger point that sits between the US and Russia is the Ukraine. Since the 2014 US-backed coup that overthrew the democratically elected government that had become pro-Russian, the Ukraine has been alleging or staging incidents that would bring Western powers in to engage Russia. We have a new one over the Sea of Azov and it is well analyzed by Blackstone Intelligence:
As of Sunday evening, nothing major has evolved from it – at least visibly.
The US
Among some of the stellar Democratic personages are Maxine Waters (D. California)
and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) who may have spent too much time with his rubber duckie:
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A new light is on the horizon however, in Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). I had previously noted how she didn’t know what the three branches of government were. Now she’s showing a deficit in recent history knowledge, notably of the holocaust. Since I am unable to embed the video, go to Democratic Socialist Ocasio-Cortez compares her election victory to moon landing and watch the 3rd one down.
When I first saw the announcement by the bank of Canada about buying mortgage bonds I couldn’t figure out why. It is reminiscent of the US Federal Reserve’s buying mortgage backed securities (MBS) after the Lehman crisis. YouTube algorithms offered a thoughtful approach to the question, one that will require some research to create a full picture. Partly as a place-holder for myself, here’s the video:
Someone send this to the Clown Prince: Trump, Mnuchin Call For GM To Pay Back Federal Bailout. A solution for the Canadian government would be to file an injunction preventing GM from selling or removing any Canadian assets. When they close the plant, sell it off. Any net deficit can be recovered over time by placing a levy on every GM vehicle entering Canada.
Returning to the UN Migrant Compact, Gatestone Institute explains the implications for Canada and frames Trudeau’s media buyout which is a requirement of the compact: Canada’s Treacherous “Faustian Bargain”. In short: kiss goodbye to your standard of living.
The MSM narrative is that these are women and children fleeing oppression. In fact it is a well organized attempt to destabilize the US. It has not been clear who is behind it but now, thanks to Ami Horowitz, we have documentary proof that it is the UN and supporting agencies. I will not likely cover this story going forward since the video really has all you need to know
Stefan Molyneux always delivers a very thoughtful and often thought-provoking video. Today he gives one that reveals the fallacy in socialist economic thinking:
Climate
A long-standing conspiracy theory is that of chemtrails. The narrative is that undisclosed authorities have been mixing chemicals with jet fuel so that the exhaust seeds the air with the desired chemical or biological agent. Believers point to what they consider to be abnormal patterns in the vapour trails of jets. This is not a topic I’ve wished to spend time on because it fails the basic question of why, without creating even more convoluted theories.
There is now a proposal to do just this coming from academia. I had seen it and passed on mentioning it but I’ll pass it on today’s coming from Martin Armstrong: Scientists Want to Synthetically Create a Volcanic Winter – Are they Just Nuts? The insanity of the proposal is that it will only have a temporary effect on global temperature if successful and have no effect on CO2. At the same time, scientists are surprised at how fast the sun’s energy output has dropped which is producing the same result as seeding the atmosphere with SO2 which is what volcanoes do naturally – planetary cooling. But we can’t admit that any CO2 effect is insignificant compared to the natural effect of solar cycles.
Grand Solar Minimum (GSM)
Here is a brief comment from Martin Armstrong using his computer model. It is not a climate model as used by those trying to show that CO2 is the dominant climatic factor, but a model based on historical observation and the theory of cycles: Global Cooling is Real – Major Temperature Low 2046?. What caught my attention this time was the correlation between economic growth and social upheaval. I have seen diagrams overlaying the rise and fall of empires and dynasties with the major climatic temperature trends.
The insular thinking of the CO2 modellers is shown to be of no use when one expands the frame of preference to include solar physics, the action of solar and planetary magnetic fields, cosmic rays, volcanic and seismic activity, and even health effects, all of which are correlated and interdependent. Did you know that academic research is finding links between geological activity, health effects, particularly cardiac and stroke, and psychological states, all linked to cosmic ray activity which currently is at the highest levels on record.
Energy
Here’s an update on the South Stream 2.0 pipeline and its geopolitical significance: Russian South Stream 2.0 Comes Out of the Shadows. I have commented in the past on how the US always talks about defending its national interests without ever identifying them. If one looks at the carnage of the Middle East over the last century starting with the US alliance with Saudi Arabia and the creation of the petrodollar, one sees oil at the forefront. Energy remains the major point of contention that the US has with Russia along with its military power.
Another Mediterranean pipeline pr0posal you might want to be aware of is one from Israel to Italy: The Ins and Outs of Israel’s Pipeline to Europe. The internecine fighting among EU states over gas sources and their relative economics is interesting.
End Notes
I can be reached at the following email address. It is not in standard format as webcrawling robots harvest identifiable email addressees from webpages, compile them into lists and sell the lists to spammers. Use thepoog before the @ symbol and digitaldoor after it followed by .net. Please forward any comments directly by email.
