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All posts for the day November 23rd, 2023
At the height of the 2014 coup in Ukraine, Washington’s ‘Maidan midwife’ uttered a phrase that has held true ever since
https://www.rt.com/russia/587796-nuland-eu-ukraine-maidan/
Nov 23, 2023
U.S. Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland offers food to pro-European Union activists as she and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, right, walk through Independence Square in Kiev, Ukraine, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2013. © AP Photo/Andrew Kravchenko
This week, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky – and his Western backers – celebrated the tenth anniversary of the start of the Maidan protests in Kiev. Of course, they led to a US-backed coup and, ultimately, the current conflict with Russia.
“Ten years ago, we began a new chapter in our struggle. Ten years ago, Ukrainians launched their first counteroffensive. Against lawlessness and an attempt to rob us of our European future. Against unfreedom. Year after year, step by step, we make every effort to ensure that, among the other stars on the EU flag, which represents the unity of European nations, our star shines as well. The Ukrainian star,” Zelensky tweeted.
Except that, in reality, it’s been a full ten years now of “f**k(ing) the EU,” as US State Department fixture Victoria Nuland was caught saying back then in a leaked conversation with then ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt.
“F**k the EU,” she demanded. And, well, they sure did exactly that.
And it was no one-night stand, either. Instead, it has turned into a marathon, sadistic orgy on the EU people who are endlessly getting the shaft in this whole mess while the bloc’s chief whip-cracker, unelected Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, tells Western Europeans to bend over and take the pain for Ukraine as she and her pals blow up their own economies with endless sanctions against Russia. Not to mention that her fellow Germans just sat there like a bunch of masochists while their own cheap energy supply got blown up.
“F**king the EU” for ten years straight has been good for her though, apparently. “Ten years of dignity. Of pride. Of striving for freedom. The cold winter nights of Euromaidan have changed Europe forever. Today, it is clearer than ever. The future of Ukraine is in the European Union. The future that the Maidan fought for has finally begun,” von der Leyen said.
Meanwhile, speaking of masochists, Germany is currently panicking over money problems, largely as a result of selling out its own industry to the US-led agenda for Ukraine. “The house is in flames,” one member of the ruling coalition told Bloomberg. Well, it could be a fire. Or it could be German Chancellor Olaf Scholz lighting some romantic candles while tweeting, “10 years ago, the Maidan became a symbol of freedom, democracy and sovereignty. The courage of the Ukrainians will not be forgotten. Ukraine is part of Europe – and we stand by its side.” Scholz still hasn’t bothered to tell us who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline network carrying Russian gas into Germany – his country’s economic and industrial lifeline – an attack which happened to come just a few months after Scholz himself stood right beside Joe Biden while the US president openly threatened the pipeline’s existence. With the International Monetary Fund forecasting a recession for the German economy, Scholz has since resorted to congratulating himself for securing deals like the one to replace a whopping 2% of the pricey American liquified natural gas on which Berlin is now dependent, with Nigerian gas – maybe by 2026.
It’s also quite the revisionist history from Zelensky, saying that Euromaidan was about Ukraine fighting against being robbed of its “European future” and freedom. In reality, Ukraine already had freedom to deal with both Russia and the West, was courted by everyone like the hottest girl in town, and the country’s president at the time, Viktor Yanukovich, had, in fact, just refused to sign an agreement with the EU, which would have reduced Ukraine’s diversity of options and its freedom, and would have put all its eggs in the Western basket. All that is the exact opposite of what Zelensky is now spinning.
Zelensky is also getting poetic about something he calls the Ukrainian star – whatever that is – shining among the stars on the EU flag that represent the bloc’s unity. In any case, some EU leaders have already thrown cold water on the wet dream of Ukraine’s integration into the bloc, which would require unanimity among all member states.
Not only is Zelensky fantasizing about Ukrainian stars but also about Western European unity. But even the bloc’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, whose actual job is to present the EU’s best face to the world, isn’t quite that delusional. Borrell has repeatedly referred to major dissent within the bloc on everything from Ukraine and US-China competition to migration, which Borrell has called nothing less than a potential “dissolving force.” None of this sounds like the quaint little constellation of 27 countries among which Zelensky already sees Ukraine. More like a Big Bang.
The thing about romanticizing relationships is that it can turn out to be a bummer when you have to deal with real life. And here in the real world, Ukraine is already getting into fights with other European countries, most recently Poland and Slovakia, whose truckers, by the thousands, have been blockading roads to three border crossings for days, and effectively blocking humanitarian aid. They apparently feel that they’re losing business amid the Ukraine conflict and that their government isn’t doing anything about it. So there isn’t even an engagement date in sight between Kiev and the EU, let alone a wedding day, and already there’s trouble in paradise.
Too bad all these elites can’t just get a room already and leave the rest of us out of it.
https://www.sott.net/article/486239-The-COVID-caper-gradually-unravels
Jeffrey A. Tucker
The Epoch Times
Tue, 21 Nov 2023
Think back to those grim days of mid-March 2020. Many things didn’t make sense. There were screams about a new virus but no tests available for anyone to find out if we had the dreaded disease or not. The main question in everyone’s mind was, “How can I find out if I have this strange new bug?”
Hold on just a moment there. If there were no tests, how do we know that there was a reason to panic? If there were only a handful of positive tests, how do we know for sure that the virus wasn’t here and spreading months earlier? Maybe what they were calling COVID-19 was here for a year or more.
Was there really any way to know? Sure, we could have done seroprevalence tests on the population, but there were none underway. The one that came out earliest, in May 2020, showed that exposure had already happened by March, a fact which completely undermines the entire cockamamie policy response. The study was brutally attacked.
Why precisely was it mid-March 2020 when all official institutions, including media, not just in the United States but all over the world, decided suddenly to freak out? Why not in January 2020? Why at all?
Indeed, it wasn’t even clear what the point of the lockdowns was. Were we trying to make the virus go away through brute force? Early on, then-Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci even told The Washington Post that the virus would be defeated by social distancing alone.
What precisely would be the point of delaying infection and spread by two weeks, then another two weeks, and so on? There are endless questions. How did we know how many ventilators were going to be needed and where? And ventilation itself is a strange approach in any case since it’s so deeply damaging and even deadly.
There was zero evidence in mid-March that this virus was potentially fatal for working-age people, and even among healthy elderly people, the survival rate was extremely high.
Another strange fact of those days was that they kept screaming that there was no treatment. Well, are we sure of that? No one in official channels was looking for treatments. How do we find treatments? By talking to experienced doctors who treat patients. But every time one of them spoke out, they were quickly and brutally shouted down and denounced.
As it turns out, many clinical physicians did, in fact, discover very effective treatments, from Vitamin D to hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. Huge and well-connected private sources of wealth funded deeply flawed studies that were trying to debunk them.
There was a ton of prattle about a vaccine, but this never made sense of any history of such products. A coronavirus is fast-mutating. Never before had there been a vaccine for the same virus that fuels half the common colds. There was no reason to expect that such a product would ever arrive. Even if it did, it would take five to 10 years to pass safety and efficacy tests. Plus, there’s always a grave danger of vaccinating your way out of a pandemic: It can drive mutations and wreck immune systems.
Again, all of this was known, not even controversial a year earlier. Still, in the chaos of those lockdown days, vaccine producers were given billions in tax dollars for development, all the privileges that come with “emergency use,” and wide indemnification against injury. Why is this not, and very obviously, an extremely bad idea?
Knowing that all of this was happening, alongside the locking down of the country, was enough reason for any discerning individual to cry foul. But there was another problem: We were by and large forbidden from gathering in groups. There could be no meetings. The few that took place were denounced by the media. Most were simply illegal.
The world was in chaos, and the professional class that could have put the pieces together was forced into a kind of digital isolation and paid the big bucks to sit around at home. Everyone was told that doing so was saving lives, even though there wasn’t a shred of evidence that this was true. But the media was howling in absolute union as if any of this made sense.
As the months went on, there were other crazy things happening, such as the gradual discovery that the PCR tests were good only for discovering the presence of the virus but nearly useless for delineating sick from not sick. Everything positive was declared a case, even though in the past the word “case” was reserved for people who were actually sick and in need of some treatment.
We were told to test, test, test, but there was never an action item of what to do with a positive case. Isolate, fine. That was for somehow “controlling the spread,” but for how long were we going to attempt to do that? If everyone was going to get this thing and develop immunity, what precisely could have been the point in all of the disruption and destruction?
Coincident with all this insanity, Congress was authorizing trillions and trillions of dollars in spending bills, generating debt that the Federal Reserve would buy with new money that was sure to generate inflation at a later date. Had all fiscal sanity just been thrown out the window?
Also in the midst of all of this, we had an extreme relaxation of ballot rules over voting. This happened right away and prepared a path for an explosion of the mail-in ballots that would decide the election against President Donald Trump.
Then you had the emergence of intense censorship from all main social media accounts. Before Joe Biden was inaugurated, President Trump was removed by Twitter entirely. Over the following week, the social media site Parler was shut down by Amazon, which was hosting its website, just before the app was removed from Apple.
At this point, it should have been obvious what was happening here: Media was being nationalized, bit by bit; all important sectors of it, in any case — that which reaches the 99 percent.
Now, at this point in the narrative, we were invited to believe that all of these weird things were discreet incidents, perhaps various interest groups piling on to take advantage of the chaos.
Some people, at the time, said there was no way that this was all the unfolding of a giant conspiracy. Governments aren’t that smart. Consider all that had to come together: media-generated panic with no serious outliers, bad PCR testing, neglect of therapeutics, mass intubation, indemnification of vaccine makers, global lockdowns, media censorship, social media takedowns, cancellation of dissent, relaxation of voting rules, worst inflation and spending in 40 years, and I’m probably missing a few things.
Surely all of this couldn’t have been planned from the top.
Maybe. And yet this week, we’ve been presented with incredible evidence of how the government worked very closely with social media companies through third-party institutions that were themselves funded by the government. They flagged accounts for takedowns. This so-called switchboarding was deployed to hide censorship.
I knew all of this, but the evidence is now all before us. It’s an avalanche of confirmation of our worst suppositions.
Here’s what stands out to me. We now have emails from April 2020 showing that Twitter officials knew for sure that the Election Integrity Partnership of the Stanford Internet Observatory was being established by the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency of the Department of Homeland Security precisely to monitor and control social media.
One can presume that these efforts began a few weeks earlier, roughly fitting the timeline of the censorship efforts together with lockdowns.
In other words, it all happened at once. From what we can see, the turning point was March 13, 2020. That was the date of the coup. It was never announced. It just happened. The lockdowns and public panic were the dry ice deployed by magicians to hide their tricks.
President Trump was mostly not in charge of anything after that date, which is why he was so anxious to change the subject as the summer months of 2020 approached. At that point, he couldn’t restrain the immense bureaucracy that had taken charge of the country.
How the rest of the disaster fits in, we still need to know. There’s so much more to discover. But this one bit of information — that censorship and lockdowns went together — is highly suggestive of an integrated plan.
After all, if you were plotting a coup, with some of the world’s smartest and most powerful people, would you not plan it out in great detail? Indeed you would.
There’s so much more to learn about this disaster, or scandal, for the ages.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Comment: And yet another scandal for the ages may be in the offing again. But forewarned is forearmed:
“Effective federal public policies over the previous few years were spectacularly successful in stemming U.S. hunger, but as many of those policies have been reversed, hunger has again soared,” said one expert.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/jarring-wake-up-call-hunger-surges-in-us-after-food-aid-cuts
Highlighting the end of a yearslong trend of declining hunger in the United States due largely to federal policies like the expanded Child Tax Credit and universal school meals, a report published Wednesday details how the expiration of these programs has fueled a resurgence in food insecurity.
Hunger Free America’s (HFA) 2023 National Hunger Survey Report found that “the number of Americans without enough food over a seven-day period was an average of 40% higher in September and October of 2023 than in September and October of 2021.”
“Over that time period, the number of people without enough food increased from 19.7 million to 27.8 million nationwide,” HFA noted, attributing the rise in hunger to the expiration of the expanded Child Tax Credit and universal school meals.
“Many federal benefit increases have either gone away entirely, or are being ramped down, even as prices for food, rent, healthcare, and fuel continue to soar,” the advocacy group added.
Among the report’s other findings:
- The states with the highest rates of food-insecure children were Delaware (21.4%), Nebraska (21.0%), Texas (20.7%), Georgia (20.0%), Kentucky (19.7%), and Louisiana (19.7%);
- Nationally, 9.1% of employed adults in the U.S. lived in food-insecure households during the three-year time period;
- The states with the highest rates of food insecurity among employed adults were Arkansas (13.7%), Texas (13.4%), Louisiana (12.5%), South Carolina (12.5%), and Oklahoma (12.4%);
- 7.6% of older Americans, defined as people 60 years and older, lived in food-insecure households;
- Louisiana had the highest rate of food insecurity among older Americans at 13.9%, followed by Mississippi (12.7%), the District of Columbia (12.6%), West Virginia (11.0%), and Oklahoma (10.4%); and
- The states with the lowest rates of food insecurity were New Hampshire (6.1%), Minnesota (7.3%), Vermont (7.7%), Colorado (8.4%), and North Dakota (8.6%).
“This report should be a jarring wake-up call for our federal, state, and local leaders,” HFA CEO Joel Berg said in a statement.
The new HFA report follows federal data released in November showing the U.S. child poverty rate more than doubled in 2022 compared to the previous year, thanks in large part to the expiration of the expanded Child Tax Credit. Under the policy—part of the American Rescue Plan signed into law by President Joe Biden in March 2021—eligible families received up to $300 per child each month.
However, the program expired at the end of 2021 as congressional Republicans and right-wing Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia opposed its extension. Manchin infamously argued that parents would use the money to buy drugs instead of food for their children.
Meanwhile, congressional Republicans last year blocked the extension of a pandemic-era policy under which public schools offered free breakfast and lunch to tens of millions of children.
“Effective federal public policies over the previous few years were spectacularly successful in stemming U.S. hunger, but as many of those policies have been reversed, hunger has again soared,” Berg said on Wednesday. “At exactly the moment when so many Americans are in desperate need of relief, many of the federally funded benefits increases, such as the Child Tax Credit and universal school meals, have expired, due mostly to opposition from conservatives in Congress.”
“Just as no one should be surprised if drought increases when water is taken away, no one should be shocked that when the government takes away food, as well as money to buy food, hunger rises,” Berg added. “Our political leaders must act to raise wages and provide a strong safety net, so we can finally end U.S. hunger and ensure that all Americans have access to adequate, healthy food.”
Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
Jurors in state court in Jefferson City awarded James Draeger, Valerie Gunther and Dan Anderson a total of $61.1 million in actual damages along with another $500 million each in punitive damages over claims that using Roundup on their lawns and gardens caused them to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
https://www.newstarget.com/2023-11-22-mosanto-forced-pay-billions-roundup-verdict.html
Three former users of Roundup weed killer have won more than $1.5 billion in a judgment against Monsanto, now a unit of Bayer AG, that a Missouri jury says must pay its victims for the glyphosate-based herbicide giving them cancer.
Jurors in state court in Jefferson City awarded James Draeger, Valerie Gunther and Dan Anderson a total of $61.1 million in actual damages along with another $500 million each in punitive damages over claims that using Roundup on their lawns and gardens caused them to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
The suit is one of many in recent days in which juries have ruled against Monsanto over claims concerning the carcinogenic properties of its Roundup formula. This latest suit is one of the largest to be handed down against a U.S.-based corporate defendant this year.
(Related: In 2021, a court ruled that Monsanto showed “willful” disregard for human safety by selling cancer-causing glyphosate.)
Will Monsanto survive the litigatory pressure?
Though Monsanto has won other similar such cases in the past, the fact that it lost this big one along with numerous others recently, has caused speculation that the now-German-owned drug and agriculture chemical company may need to alter its legal strategy.
The jury, based in Cole County, Mo., ruled that Monsanto is liable for claims of negligence, design defects and failure to warn plaintiffs of the potential health damages of using Roundup, the primary active ingredient of which is glyphosate.
Each of the three plaintiffs was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma which is said to have been caused by the simple use of Roundup on their family properties. The weed killer is highly toxic, we now know, and Monsanto is known for hiding and covering up the damning science against its products.
Monsanto is appealing the ruling, which could end up resulting in reduced punitive damages. It all depends on what happens and whether or not the case makes it to the Supreme Court, which reportedly will not allow punitive damages to be this high based on court guidance.
Bayer, which purchased Monsanto a few years back, continues to claim that decades of studies support the safe use of Roundup.
The case marks the fourth straight loss for Bayer in court this year. Union Investment, one of Bayer’s top 10 shareholders, recently called on the company to try to engage more directly with plaintiffs to settle cases rather than see them through to court.
Meanwhile, the plaintiffs are celebrating the victory, as is their lawyer, Bart Rankin, who said in a statement that this is just the first case among many to be won on behalf of thousands of plaintiffs all across the country.
In many ways, Monsanto has turned out to be a toxic asset for Bayer, which everyone cringed at when the company took over the chemical giant. With so much evidence floating around out there about the dangers of glyphosate, it is almost shocking that Bayer made the decision to buy at all.
Nevertheless, suits against Bayer continue to flood the courts, and the company has said in a recent statement that it plans to present stronger arguments in the appeal that it says will overturn the judgment.
“It said in the recent trials that have gone against the company, courts have improperly permitted plaintiffs to misrepresent the European Union’s renewal process for glyphosate and the safety assessment by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,” Reuters reported about the matter.
Last week, the EU Commission said it would renew approval for glyphosate based on the safety assessments of the European Food Agency and European Chemicals Agency following the failure of EU member states to provide a clear opinion one way or another about the herbicide’s continued use.
More of the latest news about the downfall of the chemical industry can be found at Collapse.news.
Sources for this article include:
The Iranian president requested that West Jerusalem’s alleged war crimes be investigated and the blockade of Gaza be broken
BRICS nations should also open an inquiry into Israel’s alleged use of illegal white phosphorus and other banned weapons against civilians, the Iranian president suggested.
https://www.rt.com/news/587753-iran-brics-israel-terrorist-summit/
Nov 23, 2023
Ruins of Beit Lahia in Gaza after Israeli airstrikes © Getty Images / Abdulqader Sabbah
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi called on the BRICS nations to designate the Israeli government and its military as terrorist organizations over their alleged war crimes against the Palestinians. He submitted the request to the group’s online Extraordinary Joint Meeting on the Middle East Situation in Gaza on Tuesday.
Iran, which officially becomes a member of BRICS in January, had requested the emergency summit to discuss Israel’s war in Gaza. Raisi urged members to use their influence to break Israel’s “siege” of Gaza and ensure the safe delivery of humanitarian aid.
“It is necessary that this fake regime be recognized as a terrorist regime and its army be regarded as a terrorist organization,” he said, imploring the bloc’s members to recognize the Palestinian state’s right to self-defense while cutting ties with West Jerusalem.
“With regards to the constant crimes [committed] by and the racist nature of the fake Israeli regime, free nations [of the world] expect all governments especially BRICS members to immediately put the issue of the severance of political, economic and military ties with the regime high on the agenda,” Raisi continued.
BRICS nations should also open an inquiry into Israel’s alleged use of illegal white phosphorus and other banned weapons against civilians, the Iranian president suggested.
READ MORE: Unilateral US attempts to resolve Gaza conflict failing – Putin
Iran, Raisi said, will support South Africa’s joint effort – filed with four other countries on Friday in the International Criminal Court – to investigate whether war crimes had been committed in Gaza. However, he suggested the filing should also hold the US responsible for Israel’s murder of children in the enclave.
Israel has killed over 13,500 Palestinians in Gaza since declaring war on Hamas last month, including at least 5,600 children, according to Palestinian health officials. At least 6,000 more residents of the enclave are said to be missing. Israel has framed the unprecedented bombardment of the blockaded territory as a justified response to Hamas’ surprise cross-border attack, which left 1,200 Israelis dead on October 7.
Leaders of the BRICS member countries and incoming members Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE attended Tuesday’s virtual summit hosted by South Africa. While attendees were expected to publish a joint declaration regarding the conflict, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Tuesday that diplomats had not had time to draft the statement. Instead, most countries opted to release individual statements, with most calling for some form of ceasefire.
“Russia honors all its commitments in this sphere [food security] and remains one of top food exporters,” the head of state added
https://tass.com/politics/1710299
MOSCOW, November 22. /TASS/.
First ships with complimentary Russian grain on board have sailed to Africa, President Vladimir Putin said at the online summit of the Group of Twenty (G20).
“Today, I would like to inform you that the first ships with complimentary Russian grain have been sent to Africa,” the Russian leader said.
The country is meeting all its commitments in the food export sphere, Putin noted.
“Russia honors all its commitments in this sphere [food security] and remains one of the top food exporters,” the head of state added.
The role of developing economies should also be increased in international financial institutions, “including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, use resources of these organizations in interests of the development of countries and regions that are really in need, and not for opportunistic political goals,” Putin stressed.
“We are ready to join efforts for solving these current tasks within the framework of the Group of Twenty and in other international institutions, including the BRICS association, whose weight and influence are obviously growing, particularly considering its expansion process,” he added.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin made this statement at a roundtable on the issue of food security
The Russian leader also repeatedly pointed out that the bulk of Ukrainian grain exported via the deal corridors ended up going to wealthy countries, despite the deal’s original intent to ease food insecurity by supplying grain to the world’s neediest countries, particularly in Africa.
MOSCOW, November 22. /TASS/.
The West continues the policy of purchasing cheap grain for selling it at a premium to countries in need, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin said.
“Western countries continue their policy of purchasing cheap grain for processing and selling it later at a higher price to countries in need,” he said at a roundtable on the issue of food security.
Implementation of the initial deal under the Black Sea Grain Initiative concluded in July 2022 in Istanbul as a set of agreements to ensure a secure maritime corridor for ships carrying Ukrainian grain to world markets as well as for exports of Russian agricultural products, was terminated on July 17 at Moscow’s initiative. Russian President Vladimir Putin previously noted that the Russia-specific provisions of the deal were never implemented, despite the efforts on the part of the UN, because Western countries never intended to uphold their pledges to unblock Russian exports. The Russian leader also repeatedly pointed out that the bulk of Ukrainian grain exported via the deal corridors ended up going to wealthy countries, despite the deal’s original intent to ease food insecurity by supplying grain to the world’s neediest countries, particularly in Africa.
Right now, the gap between the wealthy and the rest of us is the greatest that it has ever been in the entire history of our nation.
WEDNESDAY, NOV 22, 2023
Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
The rich have been getting richer and the poor have been getting poorer, and this is causing all sorts of societal problems.
Thanks to social media, the poor can see the incredible affluence that the wealthy are enjoying, and they are deeply envious.
Of course, it certainly doesn’t help that flaunting wealth has become one of the favorite pastimes of the wealthy.
Many of them love to post photos and videos of their luxury lifestyles on their social media accounts, and that is not a good thing.
Because times have not been good for most of the country.
In fact, a brand new study from the Federal Reserve has discovered that the bottom 80 percent have “lower bank deposits and other liquid assets compared to their status in March 2020”…
As of June, the bottom 80% of households by income, when adjusted for inflation, had lower bank deposits and other liquid assets compared to their status in March 2020. The decline marks a significant shift from the initial phases of the pandemic, where various factors, including government financial support and restricted spending opportunities during lockdowns, led to an accumulation of excess savings.
In other words, the vast majority of all Americans have been getting poorer.
Meanwhile, the rich have just kept on getting even richer…
The Federal Reserve, along with Bloomberg calculations, identified a rapid drawdown of these excess savings, particularly stark among the lower-income groups. While all income groups have experienced a decrease in real-term cash balances from the peak in 2021, the disparity is noteworthy. The wealthiest one-fifth of households still have cash savings approximately 8% above their pre-COVID levels. In stark contrast, the poorest two-fifths have witnessed an 8% decrease, and the next 40% — broadly representing the middle class — have seen their cash savings fall below pre-pandemic levels.
Right now, the gap between the wealthy and the rest of us is the greatest that it has ever been in the entire history of our nation.
According to a different report that was just put out by the Labor Department, average hourly earnings are lower today than they were when Joe Biden first entered the White House…
Millions of Americans have received a pay cut over the past two years thanks to high inflation, a blow to President Biden as he attempts to center his re-election campaign around “Bidenomics.”
The Labor Department reported Tuesday that average hourly earnings for all employees was $11.05 in October — a 3.32% decline from the $11.43 figure in January 2021, when Biden took office.
And as the pace of layoffs picks up, soon millions of Americans won’t have a job to go to at all.
This week, we learned that Citigroup has begun large scale layoffs…
One of the U.S.’ top banks will begin massive layoffs on Wednesday in a corporate overhaul as the company seeks to trim its operating expenses to levels more in line with its competitors, according to CNBC.
Citigroup will begin cutting employees on Wednesday, with new terminations continuing to be announced through next week, affecting some chiefs of staff, managing directors and lower-level employees, according to CNBC. Following the initial round of layoffs, more employees in less senior positions are expected to be dismissed in February, with the layoffs being expected to be fully completed by March 2024.
And Stellantis has just announced that it has offered buyouts to approximately half of its salaried employees…
Stellantis, one of the Big Three U.S. automakers, on Monday offered buyouts to about half of its salaried employees as it looks to cut costs as it transitions to electric vehicles (EVs) and takes on increased costs from a new union contract.
The parent company of major car brands like Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram offered voluntary buyouts to about 6,400 of its roughly 12,700 salaried employees who aren’t represented by a union and have at least five years of experience. Employees who accept the incentive will depart the company before the end of December.
As economic conditions have deteriorated, crime has soared.
In recent days I have written about the shocking thefts that we are witnessing all over the nation, but this one tops them all…
This is the shocking moment a mob of 40 people looted a FedEx truck while it was stopped at a red light in Memphis, Tennessee.
Around 8:30pm Saturday, a 53-foot trailer was ransacked while it sat in traffic at the intersection of Riverport Road and West Mallory Avenue.
After the driver reported the theft, the Memphis police arrived and saw vehicles speeding away recklessly along with a number of boxes thrown across the road.
The FedEx truck had nowhere to go, because once it reached the intersection there were cars that suddenly moved into position to block it…
The truck driver told the police that cars blocked the intersection just before a group of men broke open the sealed back door and looted the trailer.
Three men have since been detained after the raging group caused nearly $10,000 in damages – and stole numerous items such as Kicker Speakers, a box of air liners and three DirectTV cable boxes.
In my brand new book entitled “Chaos”, I specifically warn people to avoid Memphis if at all possible.
It has become one of the most dangerous cities in the entire country.
But of course, we are starting to see these sorts of crimes everywhere.
Large groups of people have decided that it is okay to take from the rich and the corporations that they control and give to the poor (themselves) because the rich probably exploited the poor to get their wealth in the first place.
This sort of “Robin Hood mentality” is extremely dangerous, and it is rapidly spreading.
And now we have an election season and a war in the Middle East to add fuel to the fire. On Thursday, a crazed group of protesters shut down the entire Bay Bridge…
A well-coordinated group of hundreds of Pro-Palestine protesters shut down the Bay Bridge on Thursday morning, tying up traffic during rush hour and calling out to world leaders to end the war in Gaza during the APEC summit.
The four-hour chaotic event, which started around 7:45 a.m., ended with at least 70 arrests and 29 towed cars. All lanes finally reopened just before noon, but not after at least 200 protesters had chained themselves together and purposefully tossed their car keys into the bay, stalling efforts to reopen the span to frustrated drivers.
Needless to say, this is just the beginning.
The war in the Middle East is going to continue to escalate, and 2024 will be the most chaotic election year that any of us have ever seen by far.
So buckle up and hold on tight, because we are going to see staggering levels of civil unrest and crime in 2024 and beyond.
* * *
Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.