Jewish Decline and the Rise of China: In the US | Fred On Everything

Jewish Decline and the Rise of China: In the US 

Years ago, when I was tech writer for weird magazines such as Signal and for other more-normal techish pubs, Jews littered the intellectual landscape. They were all over high-end research, such as Bell Labs. The big names were often Jewish, Einstein, von Neumann, Feynman, Gell-Mann, Minsky. The staff list for the Manhattan Project read like a Yeshiva yearbook. The same happened in the arts. Bernstein, Landowska, Rubinstein, Stoppard (“Maidens in search of Godhead…and vice versa.”) 

Jews were smart, most people figured, not necessarily liking it.  I wondered why without great interest. Genetic determinists of course cooked up evolutionary explanations involving undiscovered genes acted upon by unquantifiable selective pressures to produce assumed results not correlatable with the pressures. Business as usual. 

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The Elites Have Lost the Right to Rule – Part 2 | Liberty Blitzkrieg

The Elites Have Lost the Right to Rule – Part 2

In the end, the elites will be overthrown and a power vacuum will form.  The transition period will be extremely difficult as the elites will fight their demise to the end.  For you see, they care nothing for you they care about their power and control.  Nevertheless, rulers have always only ruled by the will (or apathy) of the people and when the people become overly taxed and abused they always rebel.  The main thing to think about is what kind of society do we want to rebuild from the ashes.  I am of the view that it must be a return to the Constitution and an elimination of central banking power and secrecy.  Let’s not fall for a demagogue or be pushed into a war when things are at their worst.

– From my 2010 post: The Elites Have Lost The Right to Rule

While the Trump and Brexit movements are indisputably fascinating merely as public indictments against the greedy and criminal status quo, they are equally meaningful from another perspective.

The reaction from many in the media to both Trump and Brexit have betrayed their ulterior motives by exposing dangerous, antidemocratic biases. Now this has nothing to do with whether or not you are in favor of either Trump or Brexit. Personally, I think Trump is a very unwelcome reaction to the destructive trends going on around us. He’s extraordinary divisive (even amongst people who hate the establishment), has no regard for civil liberties, and displays obvious authoritarian tendencies. Despite this point of view, I don’t focus obsessively on all the negative aspects of Trump in my posts, because I acknowledge that Trump is a symptom of a much larger problem, not the root cause of it. Dealing with symptoms can keep things settled for a time, but the problem will invariably return in far worse form should the underlying causes remain unresolved. People are acting as if it can’t possibly get worse than Trump. Believe me, it can get a lot worse.

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oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: Brexit, the E.U. and the "Special Relationship" of the U.S./U.K.

Brexit, the E.U. and the "Special Relationship" of the U.S./U.K.

Any clique in the E.U. that thinks the U.S. will sit idly by while they "punish" the U.K. had better recalibrate their core interests and the potential for blowback.

One constant in a fast-shifting global chess board is the special relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States. The term special relationship defines a close collaboration diplomatically, militarily and financially.

Some might go so far as to speak of an Anglo-American Empire in terms of finance.

Needless to say, this special relationship impacts the European Union and the longer term impacts of Brexit.

Alliances are as complex as marriages. Just as marriages unite families as well as individuals, so alliances and treaties bind various sectors and agencies of nations in different ways and with different degrees of bonding.

Ties between France and Britain, for example, go back to the Norman invasion of England in 1066. The two have been rivals, adversaries and allies.

Nations that share borders almost always have special relationships due to the histories that go with borders--trade, war, occupation, alliances, etc.

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Artist's Impression Of The Modern Olympian | Zero Hedge

Artist's Impression Of The Modern Olympian

Olympic atheletes heading to Rio are dropping like flies...

Source: Townhall.com

And to be honest, who can blame them?

'Ignorant Masses' Warn 'Elites' - "Go Ahead, Rise Up... But Be Careful What You Wish For" | Zero Hedge

'Ignorant Masses' Warn 'Elites' - "Go Ahead, Rise Up... But Be Careful What You Wish For"

Via CommunityConservatives.com,

And so it’s on…

James Traub, at Foreign Policy.com, has called for the “elites to rise up against the ignorant masses.”

In a spectacular display of the very ignorance against which he issues his call to arms, Traub shows how thoroughly infected the establishment is with their group-think.  God forbid the ‘fist shaking’ rabble would actually think for themselves and effect an “utter repudiation of the bankers and economists and Western heads of state who warned voters against the dangers of a split with the European Union.”  If there was a miscalculation on the part of David Cameron, it was “how utterly he misjudged his own people[‘s ability to think for themselves].”

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The Militarization of the US Goes Beyond Police Departments – The Burning Platform

The Militarization of the US Goes Beyond Police Departments

Nonmilitary federal agencies have spent almost US$1.5 billion on guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment.

A new report by a taxpayer watchdog group reveals that the growing militarization in the United States goes beyond police departments by showing how nonmilitary federal agencies are arming themselves like military units.

The report “The Militarization of America” examines government expenditures by 67 federal agencies between 2006 and 2014 and found that they spent US$1.48 billion stockpiling guns, ammunition and other military-style equipment.

“The recent growth of the federal arsenal begs the questions: Just who are the feds planning to battle?” American Tranparency’s Adam Andrzejewski, the author of the report, recently wrote in Forbes.

The report states that “administrative agencies including the Food and Drug Administration, Small Business Administration, Smithsonian Institution, Social Security Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, United States Mint, Department of Education, Bureau of Engraving and Printing, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and many other agencies purchased guns, ammo, and military-style equipment.”

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Tomgram: Thomas Frank, Worshipping Money in D.C. | TomDispatch

Tomgram: Thomas Frank, Worshipping Money in D.C.

I’m no stranger to shakedowns. I’ve experienced them, in one form or another, from Asia to Africa.

Sometimes the corruption is subtle. Sometimes it’s naked. Sometimes you press folded currency into someone’s palm. Sometimes there’s a more official procedure. Sometimes a payment is demanded outright. (A weapon might even be involved.) Other times, it’s up to you to suggest that we somehow work things out privately.

Luckily, I live in the United States, and if the 2016 presidential campaign has reminded me of anything, it’s that America is, by definition (and unlike so many of the other countries on the planet), a corruption-free zone. Mind you, no one would claim that the race for the Oval Office is free of unethical behavior. It’s just that the actions and efforts involved aren’t considered “corrupt” here.

Take an Associated Press (AP) exposé last week. It revealed that the campaign of presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump had “plowed about $6 million” -- roughly 10% of his expenditures -- “back into Trump corporate products and services.” The campaign paid, for instance, about $520,000 in rent and utilities for its headquarters at Manhattan’s Trump Tower and an astounding $4.6 million to TAG Air, the holding company for the billionaire candidate’s airplanes.

The AP investigation found that the Trump campaign was “unafraid to co-mingle political and business endeavors in an unprecedented way,” while noting that there is, in fact, “nothing illegal about it.” In other words, while it may seem shady, feel fraudulent, and -- to steal a Trumpism -- sound crooked, it’s all on the up and up according to our unique American system.

Today, Thomas Frank, author most recently of Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?, takes us on a tour of another dimly lit corner of corruption-free America, a completely legal and remarkably unethical world that comes with its own guidebook: a newsletter chronicling daily dalliances involving money, alcohol, and political influence. Though it may seem like a foreign world to those of us outside the Beltway bubble, it influences our daily lives in myriad ways.  Think of it as a circuit of cocktail hours and cocktail parties linked by a well-greased set of revolving doors; an endless series of social events attended by the influential, the influencers, and those looking -- for the right price -- to be influenced. If it seems like I’m using that word -- influence -- a little too much, it isn’t by chance. Let the influential Thomas Frank explain how influence and Influence have warped Washington and the rest of our world. Nick Turse

The Life of the Parties 
The Influence of Influence in Washington 
By Thomas Frank

Although it’s difficult to remember those days eight years ago when Democrats seemed to represent something idealistic and hopeful and brave, let’s take a moment and try to recall the stand Barack Obama once took against lobbyists. Those were the days when the nation was learning that George W. Bush’s Washington was, essentially, just a big playground for those lobbyists and that every government operation had been opened to the power of money. Righteous disgust filled the air. “Special interests” were much denounced. And a certain inspiring senator from Illinois promised that, should he be elected president, his administration would contain no lobbyists at all. The revolving door between government and K Street, he assured us, would turn no more.

Instead, the nation got a lesson in all the other ways that “special interests” can get what they want -- like simple class solidarity between the Ivy Leaguers who advise the president and the Ivy Leaguers who sell derivative securities to unsuspecting foreigners. As that inspiring young president filled his administration with Wall Street personnel, we learned that the revolving door still works, even if the people passing through it aren’t registered lobbyists.

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14 Signs The World Is On The Verge Of Generational Chaos | Zero Hedge

14 Signs The World Is On The Verge Of Generational Chaos

Submitted by John Mauldin via MauldinEconomics.com,

It is one of the great ironies of life that each generation believes its experiences are unique. The reality is that we have seen this movie before—with different actors, plot twists, and technological advancements.

The basic plot seems to push along a hauntingly familiar path.

In 1997, Neil Howe and William Strauss introduced the concept of Fourth Turning. They divided the population into four generational archetypes: Hero, Artist, Prophet, and Nomad. (read more about the archetypes and their characteristics here)

Each generation consists of people who were born and came of age at the same period in history. They had similar experiences and thus gravitated toward similar attitudes.

The change of control from one generation to the next is called a “turning” in the Strauss/Howe scheme. On a Fourth Turning, the cycle repeats, sparking a generational crisis.

When Howe uses that word, he doesn’t mean a short period of difficulty. He means an existential crisis—one in which society’s strongest institutions collapse (or are severely challenged and stressed) and national survival is in serious doubt.

By Neil Howe’s timeline, we are today about halfway through the Fourth Turning’s Crisis phase. If this Fourth Turning is like previous ones, here is what we should see.

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The Archdruid Report: Outside the Hall of Mirrors

Outside the Hall of Mirrors

The outcome of last week’s vote concerning Britain’s membership in the European Union has set off  anguished cries and handwaving across much of the internet and the mass media. The unexpected defeat of the pro-EU camp, though, has important lessons to offer, and not just for those of my readers who live in Britain; the core issues underlying the Brexit referendum are also massive realities in many other countries right now, and will likely play a very large role—quite probably a decisive one—in this year’s presidential race here in the United States.

Now of course part of the outcome has to be put down to the really quite impressive incompetence of the Remain campaign. The first rule of political campaigning is that if something isn’t working, it’s time to try something else, but apparently that never occurred to anybody on the pro-EU side. From the beginning of the campaign to its end, very nearly the only coherent arguments that came out the mouths of Remain supporters were threats about this or that awful thing that was going to happen if Britain left the EU. Weeks before the election, as a result, faux headlines yelling BREXIT WILL GIVE YOU CANCER, EXPERTS WARN and the like had already become a common topic of internet humor.

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The Idiocy of The TSA Exposed – The Burning Platform

The Idiocy of The TSA Exposed

Guest Post by Karl Denninger

In a word, crap.

A Turkish official told The Washington Post that the two bombers blew themselves up at the terminal entrance after police shot at them. Another official told Reuters that the bombers detonated their explosives prior to passing through a X-ray security checkpoint.

This of course is something that can happen anywhere and all the TSA “security lines” mean nothing.  After all the entire nation is a “grenade and bomb free zone” — right?

In fact the longer and more-congested the lines the worse the impact of such an attack.

By concentrating people into an area for “screening” you have just increased the “attack surface” of a terrorist.  I pointed this out years ago in my The Sexual Assault articles, and now we’ve got the terrorists doing exactly that — albeit in another nation.

Anyone who thinks this can’t happen here has rocks in their head.  It both can and probably will.

Oh, by the way, anyone care to bet on the religious affiliation of the attackers?

I hate it when I’m right.

The Collapse of Western Democracy -- Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org

The Collapse of Western Democracy

Paul Craig Roberts

Democracy no longer exists in the West. In the US powerful private interest groups, such as the military-security complex, Wall Street, the Israel Lobby, agribusiness and the extractive industries of energy, timber and mining, have long exercised more control over government than the people. But now even the semblance of democracy has been abandoned.

In the US Donald Trump has won the Republican presidential nomination. However, Republican convention delegates are plotting to deny Trump the nomination that the people have voted him. The Republican political establishment is showing an unwillingness to accept democratic outcomes.
The people chose, but their choice is unacceptable to the establishment which intends to substitute its choice for the people’s choice.

Do you remember Dominic Strauss-Kahn? Strauss-Kahn is the Frenchman who was head of the IMF and, according to polls, the likely next president of France. He said something that sounded too favorable toward the Greek people. This concerned powerful banking interests who worried that he might get in the way of their plunder of Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Italy. A hotel maid appeared who accused him of rape. He was arrested and held without bail. After the police and prosecutors had made fools of themselves, he was released with all charges dropped. But the goal was achieved. Strauss-Kahn had to resign as IMF director and kiss goodbye his chance for the presidency of France.

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Tax Farming | The Z Blog

Tax Farming 

Tax farming is a system where the state, usually a ruler or oligarchy, grants the right to collect taxes to a private person or group of individuals. In theory, this agent collects the taxes and hands them to the state, keeping a percentage for his fee. The tax farmer is eager to make sure the taxes are collected so he does a really good job collecting those taxes. Since the tax farmers are usually closer to the people being taxed, they are going to be better at unearthing the various tax dodges cooked up by the people, thus avoiding the problem of tax avoidance.

This was common in the Bronze Age and flourished from time to time in various places into the late Middle Ages. The Italians still maintain a form of it in their banking system, where the small local banks operate as a taxing authority for certain transactions. The remains of this practice are still with us in the form of business and sales taxes. The retailer is basically a tax collector. The difference is the business collecting sales and employment tax is not getting a commission. They are forced to do it by the state as a condition of doing business.

Like all solutions, it came with trade-offs. The king may have lacked the communications systems and granular knowledge of the local economy to efficiently collect his own taxes, but he gave away some degree of his authority when he resorted to tax farming. He also gave away some portion of his tax revenue to the tax farmer. Since the power to tax is the power to rule, the king was also ceding some of his own power to others, who could one day use those powers against him. In other words, the king was trading power for money, which is always a risky trade-off.

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Rotten to the Core, by Robert Gore | STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC

Rotten to the Core, by Robert Gore

Coercion is inseparable from corruption. When a group coerces with impunity, it steals from, lies to, defrauds, and enslaves the subjugated. The dominant group invariably develops a morally comforting ideology of its superiority and the subjugated’s inferiority. Such relationships are the essence of corruption.

Every square inch on the planet is subject to the jurisdiction of one or more coercive regimes, with their attendant corruption and fraud. Trillions of dollars, euros, pounds, and yen, et al., are extracted from the productive and diverted to governments, who buy political support. Trillions more are borrowed. Central banks issue fiat debt units backed only by laws mandating their acceptance and extract funding for governments via the hidden tax of debt depreciation and the hidden theft of debt monetization and interest rate suppression. Regulation allows governments to reward cronies and extort and terrorize the unfavored. Perpetual wars benefit militaries and those who supply the armaments, with part of their profits recycled to those championing war. This is pervasive, legal corruption. One can only guess at the extent of sub rosa criminality, which may dwarf it.

Last week’s Brexit vote, in particular financial markets’ reaction, underscore the corruption and fraud, and the inevitability of its failure. Brexit is a victory for Britain’s honest producers; those who work in districts far removed from The City, London’s financial precinct. They will be freed from onerous European Union mismanagement, bureaucracy, regulations, and taxes that have contributed to Europe’s economic stagnation, dearth of innovation, and persistently high unemployment, especially among its youth. The European Central Bank’s debt monetization and negative interest rates, while obscuring the sorry state of the European economy, have only made it sorrier. Chronic debt issuance has left many European governments, and their banks, which own much of that debt, one economic or financial crisis away from insolvency.

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Bruce Charlton's Notions: The Implosion of the Mandarin Class (The Establishment or 'Cathedral')

The Implosion of the Mandarin Class (The Establishment or 'Cathedral')

The Implosion of the Mandarin Class (The Establishment or 'Cathedral')

As I wrote in a comment yesterday - the UK Establishment is imploding before our very eyes. The ruling elite are tearing each other apart, lashing-out, panicking, venting... despairing in an escalating cycle (while repeatedly calling for calm, unity, reconciliation etc).

A post on http://booksinq.blogspot.co.uk reminded me of something I wrote 6 years ago about why secular Mandarins (aka The Establishment, or 'The Cathedral' to use the currenly popular casually-anti-Christian neoreactionary synonym) are a bad choice for rulers - which I repost here for its revelance to the future:

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SIGNALS – The Burning Platform

SIGNALS

Via Townhall

F-35 Fail: The Aircraft Could Kill Its Pilots During Combat | The Daily Sheeple

F-35 Fail: The Aircraft Could Kill Its Pilots During Combat

Yet another disturbing revelation about America’s newest fighter jet has been uncovered. The aircraft, which cost taxpayers over $1 trillion to develop, can barely take off, and which the Pentagon admits is a total failure, also has a defect that could easily kill its pilots during combat.

Apparently the Martin-Baker designed ejection seat is flawed. It’s been found that pilots weighing less than 136 lbs are at risk of a potentially fatal neck injury if they try to eject. An “elevated risk” has also been found for pilots weighing between 136 lbs and 165 lbs. In other words, it’s likely that the majority of pilots who use the aircraft are at risk of breaking their necks if they ever have to eject.

The reason why has to do with how the seat is designed, which causes it to rotate slightly upon ejection. The company that designed the seat has so far failed to find a solution to the problem. The Air Force however, has been looking into reducing the weight of the F-35’s designated helmet as a potential solution, each of which cost $400,000, or four times has much as the previous model.

But ultimately the Air Force plans to scrap the ejection seat, and replace it with one designed by a different company. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like they’ll be scrapping the F-35 boondoggle anytime soon.

Delivered by The Daily Sheeple

Revenge Of The Rubes——Why The Days Of The Financial Elite’s Rule Are Numbered | David Stockman's Contra Corner

Revenge Of The Rubes——Why The Days Of The Financial Elite’s Rule Are Numbered

Talk about not waiting for the body to get cold. The establishment oracles are out in force today proclaiming that Brexit has already been cancelled. Apparently, like in the case of the first negative vote on TARP, two days of currency and stock market turmoil have taught the rubes who voted for it the errors of their ways.

The argument is that the unwashed masses outside of Greater London have shot themselves in the foot economically based on some atavistic fears of immigrants and cultural globalization. Racism even.

But those are just momentary emotional outbursts. Right soon they will get back to where their bread is buttered, and demand a second referendum in order to re-board the EU’s purported economic gravy train.

Thus, Gideon Rachman, one of the Financial Times’ numerous globalist scolds, professed that his depression about the Brexit vote has already given way to a worldly vision of relief:

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Mainstream Media Explains The Benghazi Report | Zero Hedge

Mainstream Media Explains The Benghazi Report

Nothing to see here, move along...

Source: Townhall.com

The Age of Disintegration — War Is Boring

The Age of Disintegration

by PATRICK COCKBURN

We live in an age of disintegration. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Greater Middle East and Africa. Across the vast swath of territory between Pakistan and Nigeria, there are at least seven ongoing wars — in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and South Sudan.

These conflicts are extraordinarily destructive. They are tearing apart the countries in which they are taking place in ways that make it doubtful they will ever recover. Cities such as Aleppo in Syria, Ramadi in Iraq, Taiz in Yemen and Benghazi in Libya have been partly or entirely reduced to ruins.

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Scathing New Report Shows Just How Bankrupt Social Security Really Is | Zero Hedge

Scathing New Report Shows Just How Bankrupt Social Security Really Is

Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

Last week, a group of analysts published an astonishing report about the future of Social Security in the United States, and theirremarks were nothing short of damning.

According to their calculations, for example, these analysts claim that Social Security is already running a huge deficit to the tune of tens of billions of dollars each year.

In fact, this Social Security funding deficit has been taking place for several years now, and it’s actually accelerating. So the problem worsens each year.

According to the analysis, the astounding rise in Social Security recipients vastly outpaces any growth in tax revenue received into the program. And this trend will continue for decades.

The report goes on to describe Social Security’s two main trust funds, OASI (for ‘Old Age Survivors Insurance’) and DI (‘Disability Insurance’).

They tell us that DI actually went bust several months ago.

But rather than attack the root cause of the problem and restructure the program, Congress quietly slapped a band-aid on DI by simply diverting funds from OASI, just enough for DI to limp along for a few more years.

So in other words, they robbed from OASI to pay DI, and keep it afloat through the next presidential election. It’s incredibly short-sighted.

Among the other programs slammed in this report, the Hospital Insurance (HI) fund, one of Medicare’s major trust funds, is of particular concern.

Their brutal analysis shows HI is going to completely run out of money in 2028, just twelve years from now (when President Clinton finishes her third term).

2028 is actually two years earlier than they had originally projected.

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FEMA Contractor: Unrest After 395% Food Price Spike Coming Soon | Zero Hedge

FEMA Contractor: Unrest After 395% Food Price Spike Coming Soon

Submitted by Claire Bernish via TheAntiMedia.org,

Preparations by various cogs of the national security complex, including FEMA, indicate a coming worldwide food shortage - and a resulting crisis marked by extreme civil unrest around the globe.

As Motherboard noted of two reports published previously by CNA Corporation, but which largely escaped attention, the world’s food supply could be insufficient to maintain even current populations much further into the future. And the crisis — which several factors indicate may already be underway — may begin to worsen considerably as early as 2020.

Employing a desktop game simulation of the conditions of a global food shortage, titled “Food Chain Reaction,” CNA’s Institute for Public Research brought together “65 officials from the US, Europe, Africa, India, Brazil, and key multilateral and intergovernmental institutions,” Motherboard explained. And the Institute, which oversaw the simulation, “primarily provides scientific research services for the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA].”

According to the website for Food Chain Reaction: A Global Food Security Game — no commentary on Orwellian overtones needed — the “simulation and exercise intended to improve understanding of how governments, institutions, and private sector interests might interact to address a crisis in the global food system,” and took place in early November 2015.

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