Author: VD

A Hitherto Unthinkable Restraint

But sooner or later, their amassed leverage – which is the corporate word for debt – was inevitably going to start bringing down the big banks.

Today The Fed is holding an emergency meeting under “expedited procedures.”

The actions to be considered are the discount and advance rate — in other words, interest rates.

The rumored reason is that Credit Suisse may be in trouble — specifically due to writing interest rate swaps, along with a number of other institutions which happens to include pension funds both in the UK and US, none of whom should ever be playing with levered instruments for the simple reason that leverage is everywhere and always speculative.

But of course they are because nobody has ever gone to prison for using leverage as a means to evade requiring the underlying organization to fund pensions adequately with actual money. Why that would cause both firms and governments to have to behave responsibly and we can’t have that.

This sort of act is a ridiculous violation of anything approaching fiduciary responsibility — which is a legal obligation for pension managers, not a suggestion. After all its not their money — its the pensioners’ money and they are charged with prudent management of same, which the use of leverage, especially leverage on a trend 40 years old that cannot reasonably go below zero, is the exact opposite of “prudent.”

Of course the same is true for banks; they have fiduciary responsibilities too, including to the nation as a whole since they have a backstop through the government for depositors. Nobody went to prison last time in 2008 for this crap either, did they?

Never mind that exiting those positions (including at a loss) was clearly prudent in the two years after the US government along with everyone else threw trillions in printed credit into the economy as a result of the pandemic. Anyone with two IQ points to rub together had to expect that to reflect back into inflation and thus higher rates, never mind that its insane to expect that time has no value which is what a “zero rate” policy claims.

Now add to it that the economic report from Friday showed higher core inflation than The Fed and everyone else expected — not lower. In other words the bad news continued, and therefore the only logical “emergency” act is to withdraw even more credit from the system.

The Fed refused to take the bitter medicine that was necessary back in 2008. They bought a lot more time than I would have imagined by kicking the can down the road, and the Covid lockdowns and “emergency spending measures” appear to have given them an additional two years. But now it’s October, historically a month when the debt chickens come home to roost, and two of the world’s biggest banks, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank, have managed to get themselves in seriously deep trouble again, because no one ever stops doing what they’re doing when you prevent them from suffering the consequences of their actions.

While both giant banks are too big to be permitted to fail without significant ramifications through their host countries and the demi-global financial system – which now requires the prefix since the BRICSIA nations have their own system – and both are national flagships, the recent destruction of the energy pipelines suggests the hitherto unthinkable possibility that the Fed might not only be willing to let the banks fail, but perhaps even order the Swiss and German governments to refrain from bailing them out in the interest of furthering the Great Reset.

And both current governments are sufficiently corrupt, and sufficiently ignorant of economics, that they might well accept destructive direction from Washington DC on the subject. The fact that the only member of the Swiss Federal Council who has any grasp of economic matters just resigned last week might even be a sign that an unprecedented action – or rather, lack of action – may be in the offing.

This suggests that the next big economics battle will be the nationalization of banks and money vs centralized demi-global banking and a single digital currency for the former West.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Mandate of Hell

I tend to concur with the idea that Vladimir Putin will continue to refuse to take the bait and allow Russia to be blamed for starting World War III:

Since “Joe Biden” flat-out promised last February to “bring an end to the Nord Stream pipeline” — and let’s assume he meant both NS 1 and 2 — why seek further to unravel a fake mystery? Is our apparitional “president” not a man of his word? Of course, the machinery behind “Joe Biden” so far denies any credit for the consequential act, but who in this land is unaware that the US government’s default setting these days for answering anything is to lie.

The purpose of the act was likewise simple, plain, and obvious: to foreclose any possibility of Germany negotiating a separate peace with Russia around the financial and economic sanctions imposed by the USA over the Ukraine operation. Don’t you suppose it was clear to any German with half a brain that NATO’s joining of the sanctions was nothing less than a one-way ticket to Palookaville for Euroland? That it would mean goodbye to its advanced manufacturing economy and then goodbye to a comfortable, modern, standard of living?

Not many weeks ago German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock told the world that Germany would support Ukraine (and US-driven NATO policy) “no matter what German voters think.” That was all for show, you understand, to maintain the flimsy pretense that NATO had any actual stake in whatever happens in Ukraine — as the result of the dumpster fire set there by America. At the same time, that very same German foreign ministry was sneaking through back channels to feel out the Russian foreign ministry on ways Germany might get Russian natgas on the down-low, through third parties, say, Turkey, buying time until the glorious day those Nord Stream pipelines might re-open and the former normality of German economic life would resume?

“Joe Biden” slammed the door on that pretty conclusively Monday, blowing up the two pipelines, a premier act of insanity by a US government fueled at every level and in every direction by psychotic strategic thinking. For starters, consider that the Nord Stream sabotage amounts to the leading member of NATO committing an act-of-war against the rest of NATO. What else do you call depriving most of Europe the means to make a living — or merely to stay alive?

Mr. Putin has not yet responded to the extreme provocation of the Nord Stream vandalism. I doubt he will make some histrionic tit-for-tat act of retaliation against any critical infrastructure of NATO or America itself. Rather, he will now methodically proceed to wipe up the floor with Mr. Zelenskyy’s army, eliminate whatever American missiles and other ordnance are stockpiled around the place, complete the occupation of the Black Sea coastal territory from Kherson to Odesa, and put that troublesome backwater of Western Civ in order. The hallmark of the operation will be a measured and businesslike approach. Russia will just get it done, put out the dumpster fire, and refuse to allow the USA to start World War Three.

“Joe Biden” and his regime of Satanic degenerates will just have to lump it. They will have lost Europe’s loyalty by the foolish Nord Stream caper. They will have enough trouble on their hands at home with America’s collapsing economy and all the ill-feeling they have generated with the Woke insults, persecutions, and punishments inflicted on half the population — not to mention the coming dire repercussions of the wicked Covid “vaccine” scam.

The USA’s destruction of the Russo-German pipelines is not an act of strength. It was, rather, an act of desperation, an effort to keep its disloyal “allies” in line. But while the attack on Germany’s people may have been successful in the short run in preventing Germany from effectively surrendering to Russia, you can be certain that everyone from Tokyo to Berlin now understands that the neocons in the USA will sacrifice them as readily as they have been sacrificing the people of Ukraine to absolutely no avail.

It’s also fascinating to observe that everyone from the President of Russia to the libertarians of Lew Rockwell now see and understand that the current US regime is a degenerate and Satanic one. To say that the Fake Biden Adminstration has lost the Mandate of Heaven would be an understatement. Indeed, it would be more accurate to say that its only mandate is the Mandate of Hell.

DISCUSS ON SG

God Withdraws His Hand

Rod Dreher believes that God withdrew His hand of protection from the United States on September 11, 2002. And, let’s face it, subsequent events do tend to support his contention.

On this morning in 2002, I woke up before daylight to join a journalist friend in Brooklyn, where we both lived, and to follow a NYPD bagpipe band down to Ground Zero. The NYPD arranged for one of its piper bands to begin marching from each of the five boroughs, all to converge simultaneously at Ground Zero, where the memorial service was to begin.

The only people who had access to Ground Zero were family members of victims, and officials. But when we arrived there, a huge crowd had massed outside the perimeter. I said goodbye to my friend, and melted into the crowd to gather material for the piece I was writing for National Review (I had gone to work there that previous January). I remember standing there at the edge of Ground Zero, looking at my watch, waiting for the minute when, one year earlier, the first plane struck the north tower. That was also to be the signal for the start of the memorial service at Ground Zero.

At that moment — at that precise moment — a ferocious wind blew in from the same direction that the plane had taken. It was uncanny. There was a hurricane far offshore, and this was its outermost fringe. Still, the timing was eerie. That wind blew like something biblical, all morning. Signs, chairs, anything not tied down was blowing around. I walked around in that for hours, watching and talking to people.

After a while, I made it to the other side of Ground Zero, and took refuge from the wind in Trinity Church Wall Street, the old Episcopal church next door to the Twin Towers. The Archbishop of Canterbury had come over to preside over a memorial service there. I stayed for that. At some point towards the end of that service, we all heard the bells toll from Ground Zero next door, signaling the end of the reading of the names, and that service. When I emerged out onto the street a few minutes later, the wind had stopped. I don’t know what time it ceased to blow, but I would bet it was when the last name was read. In all these years since then, I’ve never seen anything online remarking about it one way or the other.

I walked back home to Brooklyn, wrote a piece for NR, filed it, then relaxed. The phone rang. It was my journalist friend, slightly freaking out. “Come over,” she said. I took off.

At her apartment, she led me into her home office, and pointed to something hanging on a wall. It was a small American flag, almost paper-thin, and very old. Judging from the number of stars on its field, I would say from the Revolutionary War era. It was mounted and framed under glass.

And it was torn from top to bottom, right down the middle.

“What am I looking at?” I asked.

She explained that someone had given her that antique flag many years earlier. She had it framed, and it had hung on the wall of every home office she had had since then, wherever she lived. Every day she was home, for years, she had looked at it.

On this day, however, when she returned from Ground Zero, she noticed that it had been torn right down the middle.

Nobody else had been home, and if they had been, they would have had to have torn the paper on the back of the frame to get to the flag. It was untouched.

Both of us were, and are, Christian. The significance of this sign was not lost on us.

The curtain of the Temple separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple. Traditionally, Christianity interprets this sign as indicating God’s judgment on the religion of His people, the Jews. I can’t speak for my friend, with whom I lost touch after I left New York, but I immediately interpreted the torn flag as a sign that God had withdrawn his protection from America, in judgment.

The USA observably ceased to be either a Christian or an American nation after its leaders surrendered to decades of tireless blandishments by judeochristians, led by Emmanuel Cellar, in 1965. But it wasn’t until 2001 that it became undeniable the US government was being ruled by a foreign elite, as the intentional sacrifice of thousands of US citizens for the purpose of engaging in imperialist warfare and eradicating historical American liberties sufficed to demonstrate.

If Dreher’s instincts are correct, then America was judged for its excessive tolerance, for committing the sins of Jeroboam and for its submission to evil, and was given over to the wicked to rule. And so long as the wicked rule, the suffering of Americans and those who live in US satrapies will continue, and most likely, will continue to increase.

What do Jeroboam’s sins have to do with us today? More than one would think, because the root cause of his sins is a temptation faced by most Christians today. Tolerance is a byword for virtue these days, but it was Jeroboam’s tolerance for that which was wrong which led to his disobedience, and ultimately culminated in the kingdom’s full-blown rejection of the Lord God of Israel. The Israelites did not immediately turn to Baal and Asherah, indeed, it took them many years to reach that state of apostasy. But the seeds of evil had already been sown by Jeroboam, in his willingness to tolerate forms of worship that God had expressly forbidden.

DISCUSS ON SG

A Tremendous Opportunity

The US Secretary of State, whose department threatened to destroy Nord Stream 2 even before the beginning of the Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine, now says the USA considers the destruction of the Russian gas pipelines to be a “tremendous opportunity”. Indeed.

The US views the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines as a “tremendous opportunity” to wean EU states off Russian energy, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Friday.

With winter approaching, Blinken said that the US wants the bloc to use less fuel.

Washington has for years been trying to convince EU leaders to swap Russian gas for its LNG.

The severity of the damage to the undersea conduits now means that the bloc is “indefinitely deprived” of Russian gas via this route, Russian energy operator Gazprom stated on Friday.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, Blinken boasted that the US is now “the leading supplier of [liquefied natural gas] to Europe.” In addition to shipping its own fuel to Europe, Blinken said that the US is working with European leaders to find ways to “decrease demand” and “speed up the transition to renewables.”

DISCUSS ON SG

The Gammas in the Manger

Yesterday, I posted the following to Gab, to mark a significant milestone there. While SocialGalactic is, and will remain, my primary social media platform, Gab has become an increasingly effective way to reach those who are outside the community.

It’s official. I now have more followers – 34k – on #GAB than I did on Twitter – 33k – when my account was permanently “suspended” there without any reason being given or anything controversial being tweeted. Thanks very much to @a for persevering through tremendous obstacles to provide everyone with this sound alternative platform.

That’s a really big deal, not for me, but for the alternative platform. It serves as proof that for public figures, Gab is now a viable and credible alternative to Twitter. One of the primary challenges of any social media platform is to provide a compelling reason for people to join it, and one of the biggest attractions for users is the ability to follow the regular postings of the public figures they like and admire.

And as with the Wikipedia/Infogalactic situation, it’s very frustrating for those who go to the effort to provide alternatives to the mainstream platforms to observe how a) most public figures simply will not support the alternatives unless they are literally kicked off the mainstream platform, b) the vast majority of people would rather use a free platform that farms their data on behalf of globalists who hate them and want to see them dead than pay a very small amount to use a platform that is in accordance with their faith and society, and c) most people would rather cry about being deprived access to the mainstream platforms than make effective use of the alternatives.

So, this particular milestone is significant for Gab, because it proves that at least for minor public figures, there is no material advantage to being on Twitter any longer. Most people appeared to recognize this, as the post was liked by more than two thousand users, and yet, it still managed to trigger the Gammas of Gab, as the following comments demonstrate.

  • Space Bear: Also notice how he thanks @a but not to his followers. very telling. I am going to assume (rightfully or wrongly) that it is a tel of narcissism.
  • Travis Hancock: And still, I don’t know what/what you are. Don’t care…..
  • Alex Pazzo: wow you are so much better than other people with fewer followers. SIMP
  • BrotherStephen444: Don’t like you, don’t care for you in the slightest, but, real freedom of speech allows you to succeed in you vainglorious attempt to prove to the world that there are some who actually want to listen to you. Good job, and I am sincere about that. I am also sincere when I tell you to crawl back under the rock you came out from under from.
  • m249saw2004: gross. You equate your social media to actual achievement.
  • ForeverLawless: Yet u only follow 43 people back
  • Theycensoredme: You must be a shill…
  • Mythbuster: Who cares about the number of followers? Get rid of your ego
  • Ozymandias, King of King: It seems important to you, but why?
  • Gerald VonGustav: Holy shit, you’re still grifting here? I for sure thought you would be completely irrelevant for everyone by now.
  • SHELLSHOCK_1986: nice followbots gayboy
  • 7SEAL7: Says a person who only follows back less than 50 people. Numbers mean nothing. People should unfollow number Nazis
  • Up A Damn Mountain: Yeah…but everyone knows there aren’t 34k actual human beings that use Gab actively, so is it REALLY that much of an accomplishment?

DISCUSS ON SG

A Legitimate Expression

Karl Denninger points out that the referendums which the globalist media is furiously decrying as “sham referendums” are obviously far more democratically legitimate than the Kiev regime:

Do recall that Zelinskyy declared that if you voted in these “shams” that was to be considered a criminal offense punishable by imprisonment.

This, of course, has been “memory-holed” all over the Internet — but was reported at the time.

Do remember that the Government of Ukraine has done this before. Specifically, they refused the right of the people to decide in 2014, which was also reported, this after the Ukraine government itself was deposed in a literal coup complete with shooting the people who didn’t like the way things were going after the United States, along with others, put their very-large thumb on the scale in deposing Yanukovych.

Isn’t it funny how a national government can be literally overthrown in a violent coup openly fomented by our government, including sitting Senators, and when the people who live in said land say screw you! to that the government then turns around and say “you have no choice, slave!” and declares their intent to walk off on a peaceful basis illegal?

Either the 2014 actions which the US fomented were invalid and everyone involved in them and the succession of power since, including Zelinskyy should be brought up on international charges and hanged or it is beyond question that as of 2014 those “breakaway” portions of the nation had and continue to have every right to walk off because the government to which they acceded on an alleged “voluntary” basis even if you originally accept it was voluntary despite reasonable doubt it was, no longer existed as of 2014.

The fact that the Russian people of the new Russian provinces have been literally fighting for their freedom from an illegitimate foreign government that came to power in a coup for the last eight years should have been a sufficient indicator that the will of the people was not to be a part of the Ukrainian state. The referendums were merely about whether these Russian nationals wanted to try to survive alone or to be provided with the protection of the Russian state; there was nothing “sham” about it.

Anyone who claims that the Kiev regime had any right to continue ruling over those people is a literal statist as they were always Russian-speaking members of the Russian nation while being subject to the Ukrainian state.

The nation is not the state. That’s why people are referred to as “British expats”; which is to say British nationals resident in a non-British state. And the nation has a right to dictate to the state, not the other way around.

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

It’s should not be a surprise to see that the foreign rulers of the United States That Used To Be America reject the founding principles of the Real America.

DISCUSS ON SG

Welcoming the New Russians

Novorussia is Russia again. The contrast between Putin’s actual speech and the way the Western media described it with over-the-top rhetoric while providing only “extracts” that nevertheless fail to make its case is really all you need to read to understand who the good guys are and who the satan-worshipping evil guys are.

Vladimir Putin has annexed four Ukrainian regions to Russia in a blistering Kremlin speech in which he vowed to ‘smash’ the West and liberate the world, raising fears he is gearing up to deploy Moscow’s huge nuclear arsenal.

The Russian despot, speaking in front of his cronies in Moscow, declared that ‘millions of people’ had ‘opted’ to become vassals of Russia in sham referendums – declaring them to be ‘are our people, forever,’ to a standing ovation in the Kremlin’s grand Georgian Hall.

He then turned on the West, delivering screed in which he recalled the horrors of both world wars, Korea, and Vietnam; made homophobic jibes, ranted about sex changes, and accused westerners of being ‘Satanists’; vowed ‘Western hegemony will be smashed’ and spoke of Russia’s ‘destiny’ to liberate the world.

He even suggested that the US had set a ‘precedent’ for using nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, hinting that he could be considering his own atomic strike – either against Ukraine or its allies.

Reaction was swift. President Zelensky, who has vowed never to respect the annexation, declared that Ukraine will officially apply to join NATO and will never negotiate with Russia so long as Putin is in power. Prime Minister Liz Truss said Britain ‘will ensure [Putin] loses this illegal war. The EU said it ‘unequivocally condemns’ the annexation. Boris Johnson, former Prime Minister who became an iconic figure to Ukraine, branded Putin’s speech a ‘disgrace’ and vowed the UK will stand with Ukraine ‘without flinching until their country is whole and free.’

In other words, if these US lapdogs are to be taken seriously, Russia will end up ruling the entire European continent, plus Great Britain and Ireland. Fortunately, we all know these are not serious people; Ukraine will be conquered entirely if its neocon government does not surrender, Britain couldn’t defeat the Catholics in Northern Ireland much less the Russians, the EU had no problem with the annexation of Serbian territory, and Boris Johnson is a ticket-taking bozo who couldn’t keep his job despite being elected with a massive majority.

Remember, this is the same media that tells us Kiev is winning a war against Russia, which of course is why Zelensky is desperately attempting to speed up its application to NATO even though the USA has zero intention of committing any of its troops to the NATO-Russian war. Because, obviously, running screaming for help is what people who are winning do, right?

Now, read President Putin’s actual words. It’s hard to imagine any globalist leader of the so-called West being able to even quote him directly without bursting into flames.

In 1991 in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, representatives of the party elite of that time made a decision to terminate the Soviet Union, without asking ordinary citizens what they wanted, and people suddenly found themselves cut off from their homeland. This tore apart and dismembered our national community and triggered a national catastrophe. Just like the government quietly demarcated the borders of Soviet republics, acting behind the scenes after the 1917 revolution, the last leaders of the Soviet Union, contrary to the direct expression of the will of the majority of people in the referendum of 1991, destroyed our great country, and simply made the people in the former republics face this as an accomplished fact.

I can admit that they didn’t even know what they were doing and what consequences their actions would have in the end. But it doesn’t matter now. There is no Soviet Union anymore; we cannot return to the past. Actually, Russia no longer needs it today; this isn’t our ambition. But there is nothing stronger than the determination of millions of people who, by their culture, religion, traditions, and language, consider themselves part of Russia, whose ancestors lived in a single country for centuries. There is nothing stronger than their determination to return to their true historical homeland.

For eight long years, people in Donbass were subjected to genocide, shelling and blockades; in Kherson and Zaporozhye, a criminal policy was pursued to cultivate hatred for Russia, for everything Russian. Now too, during the referendums, the Kiev regime threatened schoolteachers, women who worked in election commissions with reprisals and death. Kiev threatened millions of people who came to express their will with repression. But the people of Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson weren’t broken, and they had their say.

I want the Kiev authorities and their true handlers in the West to hear me now, and I want everyone to remember this: the people living in Lugansk and Donetsk, in Kherson and Zaporozhye have become our citizens, forever….

Western countries have been insisting for centuries that they bear freedom and democracy for other nations. Everything is exactly the opposite: instead of democracy – suppression and exploitation; instead of freedom – enslavement and violence. The whole unipolar world order is inherently anti-democratic and not free, it is deceiving and hypocritical throughout.

The United States is the only country in the world that has used nuclear weapons twice, destroying the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. And they created a precedent. Recall that during WWII the United States and Britain reduced Dresden, Hamburg, Cologne and many other German cities to rubble, without the least military necessity. It was done ostentatiously and, to repeat, without any military necessity. They had only one goal, as with the nuclear bombing of Japanese cities: to intimidate our country and the rest of the world.

The United States left a deep scar in the memory of the people of Korea and Vietnam with their carpet bombings and use of napalm and chemical weapons. It actually continues to occupy Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea and other countries, which they cynically refer to as equals and allies. Look now, what kind of alliance is that? The whole world knows that the top officials in these countries are being spied on and that their offices and homes are bugged. It is a disgrace, a disgrace for those who do this and for those who, like slaves, silently and meekly swallow this arrogant behaviour.….

The current neocolonial model is ultimately doomed; this much is obvious. But I repeat that its real masters will cling to it to the end. They simply have nothing to offer the world except to maintain the same system of plundering and racketeering.

They do not give a damn about the natural right of billions of people, the majority of humanity, to freedom and justice, the right to determine their own future. They have already moved on to the radical denial of moral, religious, and family values.

Let’s answer some very simple questions for ourselves. Now I would like to return to what I said and want to address also all citizens of the country – not just the colleagues that are in the hall – but all citizens of Russia: do we want to have here, in our country, in Russia, “parent number one, parent number two and parent number three” (they have completely lost it!) instead of mother and father? Do we want our schools to impose on our children, from their earliest days in school, perversions that lead to degradation and extinction? Do we want to drum into their heads the ideas that certain other genders exist along with women and men and to offer them gender reassignment surgery? Is that what we want for our country and our children? This is all unacceptable to us. We have a different future of our own.

Let me repeat that the dictatorship of the Western elites targets all societies, including the citizens of Western countries themselves. This is a challenge to all. This complete renunciation of what it means to be human, the overthrow of faith and traditional values, and the suppression of freedom are coming to resemble a “religion in reverse” – pure Satanism. Exposing false messiahs, Jesus Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount: “By their fruits ye shall know them.” These poisonous fruits are already obvious to people, and not only in our country but also in all countries, including many people in the West itself.

Signing of treaties on accession of Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and Zaporozhye and Kherson regions to Russia, Vladimir Putin, 30 September 2022

It’s fascinating to observe that Vladimir Putin sees and calls out the inversion. It’s clear that he understands its significance too, with his reference to “a religion in reverse”. The wicked can fold, spindle, and mutilate the truth all they like, but eventually the truth leaks out. The current rulers of the Neo-West are pure Satanists. The USA did create a precedent with its unnecessary use of atomic weapons. And whether Neo-Western hegemony is smashed or it collapses under the weight of its own internal contradictions, it will come to an end sooner or later.

NATO cannot defeat Russia anymore than Germany could defeat the USA in WWII. And if the NATO-Russian war escalates into WWIII, it is the Sino-Russian alliance that will be the winners. The problem is that just as Hitler believed he could bluster and intimidate the Allies into surrender after a series of successful bluffs, the Neocons believe they can mediacate and magic-word their way to victory over Russia, China, Iran, India, Brazil, and the rest of the world on the basis of their past successes.

The fruits of past success produce the seeds of future failure.

DISCUSS ON SG