Five Stages of Collapse

The day of reckoning for a century of putting our faith in the wrong people with wrong ideas and evil intentions is upon us. Dmitry Orlov provides a blueprint for the collapse in his book – The Five Stages of Collapse – Survivors’ Toolkit:

Stage 1: Financial Collapse. Faith in “business as usual” is lost. The future is no longer assumed to resemble the past in any way that allows risk to be assessed and financial assets to be guaranteed. Financial institutions become insolvent; savings wiped out and access to capital is lost.

Stage 2: Commercial Collapse. Faith that “the market shall provide” is lost. Money is devalued and/or becomes scarce, commodities are hoarded, import and retail chains break down and widespread shortages of survival necessities become the norm.

Stage 3: Political Collapse. Faith that “the government will take care of you” is lost. As official attempts to mitigate widespread loss of access to commercial sources of survival necessities fail to make a difference, the political establishment loses legitimacy and relevance.

Stage 4: Social Collapse. Faith that “your people will take care of you” is lost, as social institutions, be they charities or other groups that rush to fill the power vacuum, run out of resources or fail through internal conflict.

Stage 5: Cultural Collapse. Faith in the goodness of humanity is lost. People lose their capacity for “kindness, generosity, consideration, affection, honesty, hospitality, compassion, charity.” Families disband and compete as individuals for scarce resources. The new motto becomes “May you die today so that I can die tomorrow.” Read more >>

Massive solar flare narrowly misses Earth, EMP disaster barely avoided

The earth barely missed taking a massive solar punch in the teeth two weeks ago, an "electromagnetic pulse" so big that it could have knocked out power, cars and iPhones throughout the United States.

Two EMP experts told Secrets that the EMP flashed through earth's typical orbit around the sun about two weeks before the planet got there.

"The world escaped an EMP catastrophe," said Henry Cooper, who led strategic arms negotiations with the Soviet Union under President Reagan, and who now heads High Frontier, a group pushing for missile defense.

"There had been a near miss about two weeks ago, a Carrington-class coronal mass ejection crossed the orbit of the Earth and basically just missed us," said Peter Vincent Pry, who served on the Congressional EMP Threat Commission from 2001-2008. He was referring to the 1859 EMP named after astronomer Richard Carrington that melted telegraph lines in Europe and North America. Read more >>

The Shock Doctrine - Full Movie

A documentary adaptation Naomi Klein's 2007 book, The Shock Doctrine. An investigation of disaster capitalism, based on Naomi Klein's proposition that neo-liberal capitalism feeds on natural disasters, war and terror to establish its dominance.

Based on breakthrough historical research and four years of on-the-ground reporting in disaster zones, The Shock Doctrine vividly shows how disaster capitalism -- the rapid-fire corporate re-engineering of societies still reeling from shock -- did not begin with September 11, 2001.

The films traces its origins back fifty years, to the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman, which produced many of the leading neo-conservative and neo-liberal thinkers whose influence is still profound in Washington today.

New, surprising connections are drawn between economic policy, shock and awe warfare and covert CIA-funded experiments in electroshock and sensory deprivation in the 1950s, research that helped write the torture manuals used today in Guantanamo Bay.

The Shock Doctrine follows the application of these ideas through our contemporary history, showing in riveting detail how well-known events of the recent past have been deliberate, active theatres for the shock doctrine, among them: Pinochet's coup in Chile in 1973, the Falklands War in 1982, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Asian Financial crisis in 1997 and Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

Wheat prices surged in July by the biggest amount in a half-century

DROUGHT SENDS WHEAT SKYROCKETING

Wheat prices surged in July by the biggest amount in a half-century as severe drought in Russia and other former Soviet republics destroyed grain crops.

* Wheat prices rose $1.97 a bushel, or 42 percent, this month and are at their highest level since September 2008.

* September corn contracts jumped 13.5 cents, or 3.6 percent, to $3.9275 a bushel, and November soybeans added 17 cents to $10.05 a bushel.


Source: modbee.com

What Obama's New ‘Soviet-Style’ Capital Controls mean for the Near Future

New Obama Law Places ‘Soviet-Style’ Capital Controls on Americans

By 21stcenturywire

By Patrick Henningsen
21st Century Wire Managing Editor

Americans’ ability to move their money across international borders may become restricted thanks to new legislation passed last week. Buried within Obama’s recent $17.5 billion “H.I.R.E.” Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act (H.R. 2487) is a new U.S. Federal restriction on any foreign holdings which exceed the meager amount of $50,000 and leaves the door open for a new 30% transaction or ‘holdings’ tax to be enforced by the IRS. The new law amounts to an unprecedented extension of the US Government into the global sphere.

Why has the White House and its Federal Government decided passed such a law now? We should start by considering the big picture. The ramifications of this new under-the-radar federal move are large and far-reaching. Concerned readers would do well here to question both the fundamental and practical aspects of such a law. Consider for one moment the letter of the law- or the figure of $50,000. For extremely high net-worth individuals, this new regulation over their personal freedom amounts to a mere ’speed-bump’ in financial terms. With their money buried securely into property, foreign investments and strings of shell companies and complexed funds, financial elites will find this new super socialist state control affects only minor liquid cash amounts, or ‘pocket-money’. For the middle class or small investor, the picture is quite different. Fast-forward 12 or 18 months into the future where rising inflation and a severe devaluation of the dollar may occur. The ability for a middle class American to migrate his or her savings into the relative safe haven of a foreign currency or overseas investment is now controlled by the United States Federal Government.

Economists and historians will note that such “Capital Controls” are part and parcel of super-socialist states like the Soviet Union and its former satellite states. Even today, it’s common practice for struggling socialist governments located in regions like South America, Central America and Africa to impose periodic restrictions on cash leaving those countries- a sure sign of a currency and economy in decline. This practice also characterizes foreign states who are under the economic restructuring administration of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). One could also speculate that such restrictions imposed on Americans would certainly pave the way for a future IMF-type administration of the USA, making it markedly easier to manage for the World Bank.

Putting all speculation aside though, this new law amounts to a dangerous precedent where the Federal Government can, with the full enforcement of the IRS, lay down Capital Controls on any dollar amount- regardless of its size. In the event of a US currency devaluation(see US ‘Bank Holiday’) of the dollar, the said figure in the new bill- $50,000, could become a rather nominal sum amounting to only 2/3’s or 1/3 of it’s previous value. Do not count on the Federal Government to adjust its printed figure of “$50,000″ for inflation or devaluation, leaving a Capital Control on relatively smaller holdings, leaving no safe haven for the average American.

Throughout history, in countries where such Capital Controls are administered by the state, large black market cash courier industries have thrived. When a foreign currency is difficult or illegal for local citizens to acquire, they will either pay a tax to the government or a smaller black market premium to acquire it. If government transaction taxes are high enough(like the new 30% tax set by US law), punters may opt the black market. This certainly was the case in fledgling socialist countries like Italy in the 1960’s where organized networks of independent couriers amassed large fortunes by smuggling cash over the border. Of course, new border restrictions and TSA surveillance technologies will make it almost impossible for an individual to move substantial amounts of cash through airports. Through color of law, such activities might already be considered illegal and deemed as tax evasion by the IRS. Read a full analysis on Obama’s new law here, courtesy of our friends at Zero Hedge:

CIA private army of the president

An interesting documentary where Professor Chalmers Johnson speaks about how his ideas and knowledge changed throughout his life. Some of the subjects are:

CIA private army of the president
CIA disastrous intervention: Iran government of 1953
The CIA couldn't detect the Soviet Union Economy was coming apart

Oath Keepers Ready to Revolt

ALAN MAIMON
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Launched in March by Las Vegan Stewart Rhodes, Oath Keepers bills itself as a nonpartisan group of current and retired law enforcement and military personnel who vow to fulfill their oaths to the Constitution.

More specifically, the group's members, which number in the thousands, pledge to disobey orders they deem unlawful, including directives to disarm the American people and to blockade American cities. By refusing the latter order, the Oath Keepers hope to prevent cities from becoming "giant concentration camps," a scenario the 44-year-old Rhodes says he can envision happening in the coming years.

It's a Cold War-era nightmare vision with a major twist: The occupying forces in this imagined future are American, not Soviet.

"The whole point of Oath Keepers is to stop a dictatorship from ever happening here," Rhodes, a former Army paratrooper and Yale-trained lawyer, said in an interview with the Review-Journal. "My focus is on the guys with the guns, because they can't do it without them.

"We say if the American people decide it's time for a revolution, we'll fight with you."

That type of rhetoric has caught the attention of groups that track extremist activity in the United States.

In a July report titled "Return of the Militias," the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center singled out Oath Keepers as "a particularly worrisome example of the Patriot revival."

The Patriot movement, so named because its adherents believe the federal government has stepped on the constitutional ideals of the American Revolution, gained traction in the 1990s and has been closely linked to anti-government militia and white supremacist movements. More...

More on Battle for Control of Caspian Sea

Image via Wikipedia

Press TV reports Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has assured Iran that it will not be left out at any decisions to be made on the status of the Caspian Sea. In a letter to his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki, Lavrov reiterated that Iran will be part of any decision makings on the issues pertaining to the Caspian Sea, IRNA reported on Friday.

"Russia is of the conviction that any talks or decision makings on the Caspian Sea should be made unanimously and collectively by all five littoral states."

Lavrov said cooperation between the littoral states was the key to peace, stability and security in the region. He expressed hope that the third future summit to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan, will help solve a range of issues regarding the legal status of the sea. Lavrov's letter came in response to Mottaki's earlier protest at Iran's exclusion at an informal summit of the littoral states.

The presidents of the central Asian states of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan as well as Russia and Azerbaijan met in the Kazakh coastal city of Aktau earlier this month to discuss issues of mutual interest.

The Iranian president was, however, absent in the meeting described as an informal gathering which did not aim to 'consider the issues on the status of the Caspian Sea and division of the seabed.' Iran protested being left out by summoning the ambassadors of all four countries and writing to their foreign ministers. Mottaki also called his four counterparts to express dismay over the exclusion.

The maritime and seabed boundaries of the Caspian Sea have yet to be demarcated among Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan, the five countries bordering the Sea. Despite extensive negotiations, the legal status of the Caspian Sea has been unclear since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.