Tag: decline and fall

Banana Republic USA

When the leading opposition candidate is repeatedly charged with made-up crimes, you know a country has neither the rule of law or a legitimate democracy.

Former President Donald Trump’s legal woes deepened after he was hit with federal criminal charges linked to his attempts to cling to power after losing the 2020 election. Trump is facing four counts including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and obstruct the electoral count for trying to overturn the 2020 election. The 45-page indictment says he was ‘determined to remain in power’ despite ‘having lost.’

Special Counsel Jack Smith said in a televised public statement following the release of the indictment that the attack on the Capitol was ‘fueled by lies’ made by Trump ‘targeted at obstructing the bedrock function of the U.S. government – the nation’s process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election.’ He pledged that his office will conduct a ‘speedy’ trial.

The former president has been summoned to appear before U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan – an Obama appointee – on Thursday in Washington, D.C. There are also six unnamed alleged co-conspirators according to the indictment.

Trump and his co-conspirators ‘used knowingly false claims of election fraud’ to try to ‘subvert the legitimate election results and change electoral votes’ for Joe Biden, according to the indictment.

So, the Establishment committed electoral fraud in order to put a fake President into office, then criminalized anyone pointing out that they did what they observably did.

Sounds legit.

The absurd thing is the fact that the only thing the USA really had going for it vis-a-vis the challenges posed by China and Russia was the perception of it holding the moral high ground with regards to “freedom and democracy”. But the perceived moral high ground has now gone the way of its European majority and its industrial capacity.

Enjoy the show. It’s unusual to have the chance to witness a global empire in the process of collapsing.

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The Capital That Was Lost

A commenter on Gab observes how the societal changes throughout the United States have significantly reduced its human capital:

I like to relate to my experience growing up in a small town, once a modest but prosperous mining community. By the 80s and through the 90s, the mine was long closed and economic opportunities were scant. By the 2000s, generational welfare recipients were common, except now the last vestiges of culture disappear as crime and drugs increase.

The town now serves mostly as a retirement/ bedroom community with a base of unfortunates.

I always thought that if a big employer showed up nearby, there would be a huge line for the much needed jobs. What I didn’t understand until recent years is what had really been lost: Human capital.

Now employers are hungry for people and you can’t get anyone to show up. New generations seem incapable of managing getting to work on time or at all. That’s what was lost, the culture that reinforced family, work ethic, social values. That’s human capital. Once it’s gone, it’s very hard to get back.

This is where Generation X can, despite its tendency toward nihilism and apathy, make a real difference and give its successors an advantage. Because we don’t care about the mainstream narrative, we can reinforce the traditional family, work ethic, and social values that enhance human capital. We have the ability to teach them how to be in the society, but not of it.

Just yesterday, I explained the way business communications hierarchy worked to several members of the younger generation, and assigned them to watch this scene from The Godfather in order to help them understand how it works. Notice in particular the way the two senior subordinates, the hit man and the lawyer, as well as the rival family capo, understand immediately the major faux pas that has been committed by the undisciplined son.

“I have a sentimental weakness for my children, and I spoil them, as you can see. They talk when they should listen.” This is the key phrase from this scene, and not the more famous “Never tell anybody outside the Family what you’re thinking again.” But they are both significant concepts that are part of what was the human capital of the time.

Our children and grandchildren will not pick up these things via osmosis from the mainstream culture the way we did, which is why it falls for us to preserve it by teaching them wisely and well.

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Why Nothing Works Anymore

A former Boieng employee shows how diversity is actively – and literally – destroying US industrial capacity:

I quit my job as an Aerodynamicist at Boeing today.

Just a week short of ten years.

The path to today started back in summer 2021, when a new employee named Jamal (his real name, folks) was assigned to my aerodynamics engineering section. Before Jamal, everybody in aero possessed engineering & related science degrees (physics in my case), some of us had an MS, and our lead held a Ph.D.. Jamal held a degree in “Aerospace Science Engineering”, which we ultimately learned was an extremely, extremely, extremely watered down version of an Engineering Technology program.

My department head was told by his leadership that Jamal was “going to be an aerodynamicist”, despite having only indoctrination-level exposure to the discipline (basic aero, at Tuskeegee U, is given during the junior year). Totally not an affirmative action hire, right?

In the year the followed, we steadily kept Jamal from the critical work which he proved from day one complete lack of understanding. We had him doing only basic data entry in Excel. He was literally useless to us in every way.

Back in May, shortly after trying to get Jamal reassigned to a different section, our section lead was terminated by the company after serving 29 years. They told us that he “started his retirement early”. While this is factually accurate, it was glaringly evident that for stating our collective concern for Jamal, our boss was painted as a racist, and forced out. Because diversity.

Not even a week later, we received our new boss, “Miss Shanika”, as she wanted us to address her as. She wasn’t even an engineer by education or trade. She was a redundant data archival specialist. You can’t make this up.

For those tuned in, to give you a clue to her ethnicity, White, Asian and Hispanic women aren’t named “Shanika”, nor do we casually tell people to precede our first names with a salutation.

Within days, “Miss Shanika”, looking out solely for her own kind, made ‘Jamal the Useless’ team lead of my project, demoting me. I was told that “he earned the opportunity”. Four days later, approximately 724GB of MatLab-processed wind tunnel & CFD data was rendered unuseable. It took three of us to find out that the code script somehow got fucked up. The worst part was that Shanika threw the three of us under the bus for the data corruption, complete with written repremands, and given a timeline to fix it. Fortunately, we had a copy of the script and was able to reprocess the data, fully completing the sub-project two weeks ago.

But happened to Jamal? Well, just a week after we unfucked the mess, he was given commendation directly from Boeing corporate leadership for “Unparralleled Excellence in Leadership, for going above & beyond by finding a problem in data and fixing it, saving the company untold time and millions in the process!”

Here, as they say, is where it gets kinda interesting…

One of my colleagues found out why/how/when…and who, fucked it all up. It wasn’t Jamal. Rather, it was Shanika who did it, from the comfort of her own home (according to IT).

Yeap, that’s right, folks- gigabytes worth of data; company intellectual property worth tens of millions of dollars, was deliberately sabotaged in a blatant effort to promote an undereducated, totally incompetent token employee, and make us out to be the bad guys.

The materialist crowd that believes greed and the desire for money is the primal cause of all evils is going to have a hard time explaining this sort of thing, just as they can’t explain why “stupid” companies like Disney just keep happening to make massive money-losing films that can’t possibly appeal to their primary markets. But just as good Christian white men put their ideals above their financial interests when the two happen to conflict, so too do others.

It’s just that their ideals happen to be very, very different than those of good Christian white men.

Not that Mr. Singh appears to be a good Christian white man. What actually happened here appears to be a case of red-on-red, or to be more accurate, black-on-brown.

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America Has Lost its Appeal

Michael Hudson explains why the rest of the world is attempting to free itself from the US financial and military hegemony that has dominated the post-WWII era:

A nationalist reaction against U.S. dominance is rising throughout European politics, and instead of America locking in its control over European policy, the United States may end up losing – not only in Europe but most crucially throughout the Global South. Instead of turning Russia’s “ruble to rubble” as President Biden promised, Russia’s balance of trade has soared and its gold supply has increased. So have the gold holdings of other countries whose governments are now aiming to de-dollarize their economies.

It is American diplomacy that is driving Eurasia and the Global South out of the U.S. orbit. America’s hubristic drive for unipolar world dominance could only have been dismantled so rapidly from within. The Biden-Blinken-Nuland administration has done what neither Vladimir Putin nor Chinese President Xi could have hoped to achieve in so short a period. Neither was prepared to throw down the gauntlet and create an alternative to the U.S.-centered world order. But U.S. sanctions against Russia, Iran, Venezuela and China have had the effect of protective tariff barriers to force self-sufficiency in what EU diplomat Josep Borrell calls the world “jungle” outside of the US/NATO “garden.”

Although the Global South and other countries have been complaining about U.S. dominance ever since the Bandung Conference of Non-Aligned Nations in 1955, they have lacked a critical mass to create a viable alternative. But their attention has now been focused by the U.S. confiscation of Russia’s official dollar reserves in NATO countries. That dispelled the thought of the dollar as a safe vehicle in which to hold international savings. The Bank of England’s earlier seizure of Venezuela’s gold reserves kept in London – promising to donate them to whatever unelected opponents of its socialist regime U.S. diplomats designate – shows how sterling and the euro as well as the dollar have been weaponized. And by the way, what ever happened to Libya’s gold reserves?

What has occurred is a change in consciousness. We are seeing the Global Majority trying to create an independent and peacefully negotiated choice as to just what kind of an international order they want. Their aim is not merely to create alternatives to the use of dollars, but an entire new set of institutional alternatives to the IMF and World Bank, the SWIFT bank clearing system, the International Criminal Court and the entire array of institutions that U.S. diplomats have hijacked from the United Nations.

The upshot will be civilizational in scope. We are seeing not the End of History but a fresh alternative to U.S.-centered neoliberal finance capitalism and its junk economics of privatization, class war against labor. The idea that money and credit should be privatized in the hands of a narrow financial class instead of being a public utility to finance economic needs and rising living standards is finally facing its reckoning.

It is right to celebrate historical American Independence. But it’s also important to understand that Americans are no longer free or independent. Which is the primary reason that America no longer serves as an ideal or a model for the rest of the world.

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Boosting Morale

While promoting inclusivity and diversity in the US military:

The Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada hosted its first drag show in order to boost morale and promote inclusivity and diversity, according to the base. The “Drag-u-Nellis” show was held at the Las Vegas base on June 17. The Nellis Air Force Base Pride committee planned the event, and the Nellis Top 3 sponsored the show.

According to the group’s Facebook page, Nellis Top 3 is a “social and professional organization established to enhance the morale, espirit de corps, of all enlisted personnel assigned to the Wing and to facilitate cooperation between members of the top three enlisted grades.” The Nellis Air Force Base Pride committee focused on diversity and inclusion initiatives at the base, and the group is made up of volunteers across the base, Lt. Col. Bryon McGarry, a Nellis spokesperson, told Task & Purpose.

The show featured drag queens from the Las Vegas area, including appearances by Coco Montrese, Makena Knight and Alexis Mateo. The event intended to help attendees “discover the significance of Drag in the LGBT+ Community,” according to the event’s flyer.

In related news, US military veterans are telling their children to stay the hell away from the US military.

The US military’s recruiting woes have reportedly intensified as current and former troops increasingly advise their family members against enlistment, weakening a tradition of multi-generation service that has historically been the nation’s primary source of new soldiers.

Veterans have soured on recommending that loved ones follow in their footsteps in the face of a tight labor market and rising concerns over low pay, debilitating injuries, suicides, and indecisive wars, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The recruiting crisis also comes amid controversy over the Pentagon’s prioritization of left-wing issues, such as transgenderism and critical race theory.

Diminishing enthusiasm for enlistment among veterans is a troubling trend for the Pentagon because the vast majority of new troops come from military families. In fact, nearly 80% of US Army recruits have family members who have served in the military.

Since there is a fair probability that some Americans will find themselves having to fight the US military in the aftermath of the collapse of the US political structure, this self-immolation of the military’s quality and capabilities is almost certainly for the best.

It’s a very good time for entrepreneurial veterans to enter the armed security business.

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Authority vs Democracy

One could add minor cities like Portland and Minneapolis to the image, but that would be overkill. The point is that history has not ended and liberal democracy is no longer winning. Democracy is neither virtuous nor eusocietal. It is abundantly clear that it is dyscivilizational. There is a reason the Founding Fathers created a system to expressly limit democracy by limiting the voting franchise to mature white land-owning men, and the Western democracies are presently experiencing the consequences of foolishly expanding the franchise.

Russia is not only going to defeat the Kiev regime, it is going to defeat NATO and Clown World. How long it will take is impossible to say, but the demise of Clown World is inevitable due to its many incoherencies.

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Biden as Valens

Martin Armstrong draws a historical parallel:

My phone has been in meltdown ever since Trump was arrested… EVERY phone call I have had from Asia to Europe, they are all expressing complete shock that the United States is collapsing and they are now all seeing that our forecast that the 2024 Presidential Election would be the most corrupt in history and market the END of democracy in the United States.

These people just do not get it, they crossed the line and now the view of the United States from the outside looking in, they no longer believe that America is the beacon of liberty to the world. It is becoming so obvious that our computer will be right again. I warned it even was showing that the 2024 election might not even take place. That was a small 18% probability, but that NEVER came up EVER in this history of running our political models – NEVER!

This year, 2023, was a MAJOR Directional Change that was showing up in both the LEFT & the RIGHT databases. The year 2025 is when a president would take office in January. This has been the #1 target on our political models for decades. The NEOCONS are in full control of the government. There is no way to stop the collapse of the United States at this point. Nobody will listen and there is nothing I can do. People often ask what if people protested? We will never realize the opportunity to reestablish a new form of government post-2032 without the pain and destruction first.

During the Reign of Valentinian I and his brother, Valens, who came to power in 364AD where Valentinian I died in 375 and Valens ruled into 378, there are serious correlations from both and economic and monetary perspective. They too saw their power weakening so they allowed the Goths to cross the Danube and settle within Roman territory provided they would also then serve in the Roman military. This is what is really behind Biden allowing all these people to flood in through the border. What they do not realize, is that history repeats as Biden grants citizenship in return for military service. The Neocons want to build an army to defeat China and Russia simultaneously.

We all know what happens when you don’t sink the ships. Eventually, the barbarians take over the government. In 2004, when I first predicted the collapse of the USA as a political entity in 2033, the prediction was seen as an utter absurdity. Now, it’s not looking crazy at all.

We’ll know it was dead on when people start denying that I could possibly have seen it coming three decades in advance. But history always rhymes, and the patterns are there for those with the education and the wherewithal to read them.

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Banking in Yuan

Russian banks are openly discussing settlements in the Chinese currency:

The hegemony of the US dollar is seriously challenged by the rise of the Chinese yuan and by Washington’s failed attempt to wreck the Russian economy by weaponizing the greenback, Andrey Kostin, head of Russia’s banking major VTB, told Reuters on Friday.

The major banking figure said that under the current geopolitical circumstances more and more nations are shifting away from trade settlements in dollar and euro, while China is moving towards removal of strict currency policies.

“The long historical era of the dominance of the American dollar is coming to an end,” Kostin said, in an interview with the news agency. “I think that the time has come when China will gradually remove currency restrictions.”

According to Kostin, VTB has been discussing using the Chinese national currency in settlements with third countries.

US Dollar hegemony was always based on US military supremacy which began with the security of the US industrial homeland and was secured by the physical destruction of all of its potential economic rivals from 1939-1941. But now that Clown World is collapsing under the weight of its incoherencies, that global military supremacy has devolved to the mere regional superiority of a traditional Great Power, as evidenced by the recent failures of its proxies in Syria, Afghanistan, and Ukraine.

And that is a very, very different game than global monopower.

My expectation is that the political structure of the USA will fail before most Americans recognize the extent to which the global balance of power has changed.

UPDATE: The Chinese are directly targeting the US film industry as well.

China Film Association released professional ethics convention for film practitioners, vowing firm opposition to tax evasion, pornography, gambling and drugs.

The association published the convention on its WeChat account on Thursday, saying that the move is aimed to further strengthen the construction of professional ethics of film workers and the construction of film industry style in order to create a clean environment for the Chinese film industry and contribute to building China into a country with a strong socialist culture.

The convention called on Chinese film practitioners to stick to loving the country and the people and to firmly oppose any remark or behavior attempting to split the country, destroy national unity, damage social harmony and stability or infringe people’s interests.

It requires film practitioners to comply with the laws and regulations on environmental protection, cultural relics protection and production safety at filming sites; resolutely resist tax evasion, pornography, gambling and drugs.

It also expresses opposition against violating behaviors like exorbitant pay, ghostwriting by gunmen, malicious hype, fake box office and illegal reprinting, and calls on the industry to abandon abnormal aesthetics.

Translation from the original Mandarin: No more Disney films in China.

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Ghost Town San Francisco

The City by the Bay continues to die:

The owner of two of San Francisco’s largest hotels has stopped making mortgage payments on the properties and will let them go into foreclosure as historic crime rates continue to deter tourists.

Park Hotels and Resorts announced on Monday that it stopped making payments on its $725 million loan due in November for the Hilton San Francisco Union Square and Parc 55 — the largest and fourth-largest hotels in the city, respectively.

‘After much thought and consideration, we believe it is in the best interest for Park’s stockholders to materially reduce our current exposure to the San Francisco market,’ CEO Thomas Baltimore Jr said in a statement.

‘Now, more than ever we believe San Francisco’s path to recovery remains clouded and elongated by major challenges — both old and new’ as the city becomes a ghost town with empty storefronts.

Out of 203 retailers open in 2019 in the city’s Union Square area, just 107 are still operating, a drop of 47 percent in just a few pandemic-ravaged years.

Among the heavy hitters, Brooks Brothers, Ray Ban, Christian Louboutin, Lululemon and Marmot have all packed it in.

Another 12 new retailers have opened in the area since the pandemic began in 2020 but already two have them have either closed or plan to shut down.

Williams-Sonoma also announced it will shut down in 2024.

San Francisco is a harbinger of the urban US future. Few US cities combine extremes of ideology, diversity, and immigration in as perfect a mixture as San Francisco. Just as Detroit is the poster city for pure vibrancy, San Francisco is the poster city for left-wing ideals. And it is demonstrating, in real-time, the inevitable consequences of those ideals.

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