Chain Reaction of Problems Coming In 2015: “Collapse Will Be On A Scale That Is Many Magnitudes Greater Than 2008″

"While losing 50,000 or even a million jobs will have a major impact on consumer spending, and thus the economy, the real problem is the massive amount of leveraged bets and debt currently in the system. There are trillions of dollars of derivatives and leverage at play in financial markets, much of it centering around the oil & gas industry. Should the price of oil remain at these levels or go even lower then a lot of major financial institutions are going to be in trouble."

[SHTF Plan]If you’re like most Americans, then you are absolutely loving the price you paid this week for a gallon of gas. Just a couple of years ago it was not uncommon to see a $75 price tag for filling up your car. Today, you might be driving off for half that amount.

On the surface the recent drop in the price of oil has been a huge boost to America’s pocket books. But according to some analysts we shouldn’t be too quick to celebrate. The U.S. Oil and Gas industry has seen incredible job growth during the recession, with nearly 800,000 new jobs being attributed to domestic fracking and drilling expansion. At over $100 barrel, there was plenty of money to go around.

But with a sub-sixty dollar price point, it’s quite possible that all economic hell is about to break loose.

For many it has already begun.

Thousands of recently highly paid workers have been laid off after the oil price plummeted 50 percent in 2014. At least four American oil-producing states are already facing budget problems due to decreasing oil revenues.

[...]

In a study published last year, the Council on Foreign Relations warned the largest job losses caused by sharp decline in oil prices are going to take place in North Dakota, Oklahoma and Wyoming, where the number of drilling rigs is decreasing.

[...]

According to Tom Runiewicz, a US industry economist at IHS Global Insight, if oil stays around $56 a barrel till the middle of the next year, companies providing services to oil and gas industry could lose 40,000 jobs by the end of 2015, while oil and gas equipment manufacturers could slash up to 6,000 jobs.

These workers can earn more than $1,700 a week, much higher than the average $848 a week payment for other workers, the WSJ reported. When experienced workers lose their highly paid jobs, they stop paying their bills.

Source: RT

Those are the conservative estimates and they are based on a $56 price point, which is almost exactly where we are today. But Saudi Arabia and other OPEC nations have suggested the price could drop to $40 or even as low as $20.

In such a scenario we could easily see widespread layoffs in an industry that currently employs over 10 million Americans.

But that’s not even the worst of it.

While losing 50,000 or even a million jobs will have a major impact on consumer spending, and thus the economy, the real problem is the massive amount of leveraged bets and debt currently in the system. There are trillions of dollars of derivatives and leverage at play in financial markets, much of it centering around the oil & gas industry. Should the price of oil remain at these levels or go even lower then a lot of major financial institutions are going to be in trouble.

In a recent interview with King World News, John Ing says that not only did Congress remove financial safeguards when they passed their latest budget bill, but by doing so they left America susceptible to a disaster that will make 2008 look like a dress rehearsal.

While everybody appears to be celebrating the record highs on Wall Street, we are also seeing a loss of public trust. One key example of this loss of public trust is when you look at the $1.1 trillion spending bill in the U.S., where there was the dilution of the Dodd-Frank Act which now allows for bail-ins in the United States… This will lead to disastrous consequences…

[...]

Meanwhile, the derivatives monster has gotten even bigger. With the drop in the oil price we have yet to see the impact of the credit default swaps and what this will mean for the stability of the global financial system.

This will certainly set off a chain reaction of problems in 2015.

[...]

The 2008 collapse was just a dress rehearsal compared to what the world is going to face this time around. This time we have governments which are even more highly leveraged than the private sector was.

So this time the collapse will be on a scale that is many magnitudes greater than what the world witnessed in 2008.

Full Interview: King World News via Steve Quayle

On top of all the other problems being faced by Americans – low wages, lackluster job growth, increased medical care costs, rising prices on essential goods, and more taxes to name a few – could the sudden drop in the price of oil could be the trigger that sends the whole thing crashing down?

As we saw in 2008 it can happen quickly. Within a matter of a few weeks trillions of dollars in wealth were vaporized and America fell into it’s worst recession since the 1930′s.

This time, as John Ing notes, the magnitude of the crash will be significantly worse and even the U.S. Treasury Department has warned that the system is so volatile that should there be even a single hiccup in our government’s ability to borrow money it would lead to a catastrophic effect lasting more than a generation.

America sits on the brink of the largest financial and economic collapse in the history of the world and the recent drop in the price of oil could be the Black Swan no one saw coming.

Those who fail to position themselves accordingly could experience serious damage to their wealth and well-being if and when this happens. Time is running short and now is the time to prepare. After the panic starts it will be too late.

CDC issues flu vaccine apology: this year's vaccine doesn't work!


[Natural News]For the first time we can remember, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are going on the record, saying the flu vaccine won't work this year. The warning comes just before the busiest part of flu season, in January and February. Unfortunately, there won't be any refund for any of the patients or insurance companies who spent money on flu shots earlier this fall.

But don't worry. Just when you thought perhaps the CDC could boost their credibility, they found a way to put a sales pitch on the end of their warning. The CDC says if you do come down with the flu, there's a cure. It's just going to cost more money. Money that will end up profiting pharmaceutical giants, GlaxoSmithKline and Roche. CDC officials are urging doctors to prescribe two specific antiviral medications for any patients who come in with flu symptoms.

Just last week, the CDC issued a warning, prompting Americans to take the flu vaccine if they haven't already. Health officials said they had 160 million flu shots on the shelves and ready to go. But just earlier this week, Italy launched an official investigation after about a dozen people died within 48 hours of getting the flu shot. Their national health agency issued an immediate warning, saying DON'T take the vaccine. Here in America, the CDC isn't going that far. In fact, they found a way of turning this failed vaccine into a promotion for yet another big pharma drug.

Here's the news report view:




And here's an original laboratory research report from Natural News earlier this year. I personally conducted the ICP-MS heavy metals analysis of these flu vaccines and have the raw count data to prove it. Mercury particle counts at atomic masses 200, 201 and 202 were through the roof on these laboratory tests.

Don't you find it astonishing that it takes a private ICP-MS laboratory with no ties to government funding, universities or the FDA to finally test flu vaccines and report the truth? (To my knowledge, Natural News is the only news organization in the world that owns a cutting-edge private mass spectrometry instrument and uses it for scientific research in the public interest...)

Flashback: Flu vaccines laboratory confirmed to contain crazy high concentrations of mercury
Mercury tests conducted on vaccines at the Natural News Forensic Food Lab have revealed a shockingly high level of toxic mercury in an influenza vaccine (flu shot) made by GlaxoSmithKline (lot #9H2GX). Tests conducted via ICP-MS document mercury in the Flulaval vaccine at a shocking 51 parts per million, or over 25,000 times higher than the maximum contaminant level of inorganic mercury in drinking water set by the EPA.(1)

The tests were conducted via ICP-MS using a 4-point mercury calibration curve for accuracy. Even then, the extremely high level of mercury found in this flu shot was higher than anything we've ever tested, including tuna and ocean fish which are known for high mercury contamination.

In fact, the concentration of mercury found in this GSK flu shot was 100 times higher than the highest level of mercury we've ever tested in contaminated fish. And yet vaccines are injected directly into the body, making them many times more toxic than anything ingested orally. As my previous research into foods has already documented, mercury consumed orally is easily blocked by eating common foods like strawberries or peanut butter, both of which bind with and capture about 90% of dietary mercury.

Here are the actual results of what we found in the influenza vaccine from GSK (lot #9H2GX):

Aluminum: 0.4 ppm
Arsenic: zero
Cadmium: zero
Lead: zero
Mercury: 51 ppm

All tests were conducted via calibrated, high-end ICP-MS instrumentation as shown in these lab videos.

Doctors, pharmacists and mainstream media continue to lie about mercury in vaccines
As you take in the scientifically-validated fact that mercury exists at very high concentrations in flu vaccines, keep in mind that most doctors, pharmacists and members of the mainstream media continue to stage an elaborate lie that claims mercury has "already been removed from vaccines."

Never mind the fact that the use of mercury is admitted right on the package containing the vaccine vial. And now, Natural News has scientifically confirmed the mercury content of flu vaccines using high-end laboratory instrumentation. The existence of high mercury in flu shots is irrefutable.

Anyone who claims mercury has been removed from all vaccines is either wildly ignorant or willfully lying. And anyone who would knowingly allow themselves to be injected with mercury is probably already a victim of the kind of brain damage well known to be caused by mercury.

Read more

... Americans' Slipping Sense Of Duty

"In 2014 about a fourth of them said there’s no duty to keep informed, volunteer or speak English."~~ An Associated Press-GfK poll

[Patriot Rising]Americans’ commitment to some traditional obligations of citizenship has slipped.

Americans are a little less likely to ask what they can do for their country these days.

An Associated Press-GfK poll found that the sense of duty has slipped since a similar survey three decades earlier. Civic virtues such as staying informed or serving on a jury don’t seem as important as they once did ? especially among the younger generation.

The findings fit with research that’s been worrying many experts who study civic engagement or advocate for teaching more about civics in school.

“I don’t see any recovery,” said Rutgers University Professor Cliff Zukin. “The people who were 40 two decades ago aren’t as engaged as the people who were 60 two decades ago. This generational slippage tends to continue.”

Here are five things to know about Americans’ sense of civic duty:


CITIZENSHIP’S NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE

Americans’ commitment to some traditional obligations of citizenship has slipped.

An Associated Press-GfK poll repeated questions asked in 1984 about six civic-minded activities: voting, volunteering, serving on a jury, reporting crime, knowing English and keeping informed about news and public issues.

Of the six, only voting and volunteering were embraced about as strongly as three decades ago, when NORC at the University of Chicago posed those questions to Americans on the General Social Survey, but volunteering doesn’t rank very high on the list for many.

While just 28 percent say volunteering is “a very important obligation” that a citizen owes the country, three-fourths of Americans consider voting central to citizenship.

Nonetheless, only about 36 percent of eligible voters turned out for November’s midterms, according to University of Florida Associate Professor Michael P. McDonald’s analysis. That’s the lowest since World War II.


BUT BIG MAJORITIES STILL FEEL AN OBLIGATION

Despite some sliding, Americans still think U.S. citizenship carries some duties as well as rights.

About 9 out of 10 say that reporting a crime you witness, voting in elections, knowing English and serving on a jury when called are at least “somewhat important” obligations.

And each of those is still rated “very important” by a majority. It’s just that, except in the case of voting, those majorities have slipped by an average of about 13 percentage points.

“There are a lot of arguments about how our society has shifted toward a rights focus instead of an obligation focus,” said Scott Keeter, director of survey research at the Pew Research Center. But Keeter isn’t convinced there’s enough evidence to support that conclusion.

“It’s a little early to pull the alarm bells about the demise of our civic culture,” he said.


SENSE OF DUTY LOWEST IN THE YOUNG

Young people are feeling less dutiful, or maybe just showing their libertarian streak.

In every category except volunteering, adults under 30 were less likely than their elders to see any obligation, and also felt less obliged than young people of the past.

In 2014 about a fourth of them said there’s no duty to keep informed, volunteer or speak English.

Young adults felt the most responsibility about reporting a crime: two-thirds said that’s “very important,” and the rest were divided between “somewhat important” and “not an obligation.”

Still, in 1984, their parents’ generation was much more devoted to maintaining law and order ? 86 percent of young adults then called reporting crime “very important.”

Read more


America's debt clock real time

Christmas Vs Xmas: A Political Reading

"Once the original class origins of the Christmas story were erased and the conflict between the absolutist state and civil society were abolished, the capitalist class inserted its own ‘props’ into the story: the Xmas tree became the site for consumer ‘gifts’; the Xmas ‘stocking’ had to be filled with consumer goods; the Xmas day image required the “happy family” opening up boxes of consumer goods – bought on credit at 20% interest rates."

[Global Research]The fundamental ‘change’, engineered by the capitalist class in pursuit of profits, was to take the ‘Christ Story’ out of Christmas and to convert the weeks before and after into a consumer orgy. Aided and abetted by “secularist allies”, the capitalist class succeeded in eliminating any reference to the Christmas story, including the nativity scene and carols commemorating it, from public spaces. The significant social message, embedded in the Christmas story, is diluted by well-meaning cultural diversity-promoters, who demand ‘equal time for ‘Hanukah’ (a Jewish narrative celebrating war, conquest and the slaughter of ‘apostate-assimilated-Hellenized’ Jews by traditionalists-fundamentalists – an event not even mentioned in the Hebrew Bible) and “Kwanzaa” (a holiday invented in the 1960’s by a cultural black nationalist preaching “self-help”).

In place of the Christmas story, we have been given anachronistic ‘Nordic tales of tree worship’ and ‘gift giving’ by an obese bearded sweat-shop owner employing stunted slave workers *(‘Hi Ho, Hi Ho! It’s off to work we go; we work all day, we get no pay! Hi Ho, Hi Ho!’). This has become the dominant mythology driving the consumerist – profiteering of the global commercial – capitalist production chain.

Over time, it came to pass that ‘Christmas’ commercial sales became the centerpiece of capital accumulation. New and powerful sectors of capital entered the field. Finance capital, particularly credit card companies charging debtors usurious, interest rates over 20% per year, became central to and the principal beneficiaries of the great transformation of the Christmas story.

"Community solidarity, the sharing of food, shelter, learning and fraternal good cheer, in the face of persecution by a criminal state and an avaricious ruling class, defines the spirit of Christmas. The Christmas story affirms the virtues of social solidarity and not individual consumerism. It defines a moment in which the deep bonds of humanity displace the shallow comfort of commodities. It is the celebration of a moment in which the values and virtues of breaking bread in a fraternal community take precedence over the accumulation of wealth."

The new, modern, secular monetized, relativized Christmas story redefined the entire meaning of the holiday.

First, there was the language ‘excision’; the prefix was altered. Christ-mas became Xmas. The X symbol left out what constituted the original narrative and circumstances surrounding the celebration of the birth of Jesus.

Once the original class origins of the Christmas story were erased and the conflict between the absolutist state and civil society were abolished, the capitalist class inserted its own ‘props’ into the story: the Xmas tree became the site for consumer ‘gifts’; the Xmas ‘stocking’ had to be filled with consumer goods; the Xmas day image required the “happy family” opening up boxes of consumer goods – bought on credit at 20% interest rates.

The driving force behind the phony props and imagery is a command headquarters composed of capitalist manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers, market analysts, publicists, consultants, advertisers, investors, factory owners employing a vast army of low paid workers in Asian manufacturing sweatshops and huge corporate retail outlets with minimum wage salespeople. Christmas sales are the major profit maximizing occasion for the entire year: The success or failure of commercial capitalism rides on the profits accrued between November 30 and January 7.

The entire capitalist edifice rests on the notion that “Xmas” is about large-scale buying and selling of consumer goods; it is about ensuring that class inequalities and racial divisions are temporarily blurred; that repressive police state intrusions into the privacy of family life are forgotten and that social solidarity is replaced by an orgy of individual consumerism.

‘Xmas’ is a time to celebrate massive profiteering, based on the indebtedness of the ‘masses’. It is a time for downsized workers to buy imported goods on credit from manufacturers who had relocated to low wage regions: Price consciousness replaces class consciousness. Picketing US retailers, who import from Bangladesh sweatshop death traps, where workers ‘earn’ $25 a month, goes against the ‘Xmas spirit’. ‘Buy and feel free’! It’s a time to be jolly!

The new secular, monetized ‘Xmas’ is a consumer-driven commercial event motivated by profits, advertisement and the mindless worship of ‘the market’. Family and neighborly relations are now tied to the cash nexus: Who buys or receives the most expensive gifts experiences the greatest gratification. ‘Gift giving’ is based on ‘consumer spending’; who could imagine any alternative!

Millions of atomized individuals compete to buy the most commodities that their credit/debit cards can cover. ‘Virtue’ becomes ‘success’ in the frantic engagement with the market. From the perspective of political power, individual consumerist consciousness means submission to ‘the market’ as well as submission to the ruling class, which dominates ‘market relations’.

The entire ‘Xmas’ period highlights the fact that market relations between wage-earning/salaried individuals and commercial/financial elites take precedence over productive (and state) relations between capital and labor. In “the market” the struggle is between consumers over commodities, overseen by commercial capital. In the new Xmas story the consumer is the centerpiece; the market is the mediator of all social relations. The ‘Christ story’ has been relegated to a periphery, if not totally excluded. At most, the story is reduced to a birth scene witnessed by cows, sheep and three ‘Kings’.

The conversion of Christmas into the massive Xmas-market event broadens its consumer appeal, increases sales and profits. Potential consumers from all religions (and the non-religious) can join the consumer orgy. It is not about values, ethics or beliefs – it’s about buying, selling, debt and accumulation. To be a successful commercial event ‘Christians’ must suppress the politics and ethics of the Christ story, which is dramatically opposed to the immersion in the marketplace.

The Politics of the Christmas Story

"The Christmas story does not resonate with the owners, investors and publicists of big commercial enterprises who have converted the multitude into worshipers of their little plastic cards. Taking ‘Christ out of Christmas’ and destroying the joy and fellowship and solidarity of shared humanity embodied in the celebration of the birth of Christ is essential in order to continue to accumulate wealth. Putting the ‘Christ story’ back into Christmas is a step toward defeating consumerist consciousness and recreating social solidarity, so necessary for ending injustice."

The protagonists of the Christmas story, Joseph and Mary, are a working class household living at a subsistence level. Joseph, a carpenter, is partially out of work and earns a minimum wage. They live frugally, spend their meager earnings on essentials and travel cheaply on a donkey. To escape a repressive government they migrate in search of security, hoping to find a new home. The pregnant Mary and her unemployed husband Joseph look for sympathy and solidarity among the poor. They knock on doors but the landlords send them away. Only a poor farmer offers them a place – they can share a barn with the sheep and cows.

In the face of an uncertain future and a troubled present, Mary and Joseph receive material support from local residents in Bethlehem . Three wise men (the Magi or mathematicians from Persia ) are internationalists who travel to greet the new family. They show great concern for the new born baby Jesus by perhaps offering hiss family a scholarship so he can study mathematics and science…. The coming together of local neighborhood people and the three educated “outsiders” to celebrate the birth of Christ and offer support to the homeless family, dispossessed migrants, has been an event for wonder and celebration.

Community solidarity, the sharing of food, shelter, learning and fraternal good cheer, in the face of persecution by a criminal state and an avaricious ruling class, defines the spirit of Christmas. The Christmas story affirms the virtues of social solidarity and not individual consumerism. It defines a moment in which the deep bonds of humanity displace the shallow comfort of commodities. It is the celebration of a moment in which the values and virtues of breaking bread in a fraternal community take precedence over the accumulation of wealth.

The Christmas story, the trials and travails of Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus resonate with millions of American workers today: especially those who have lost employment and been dispossessed of their homes. The Christmas story resonates with the tens of millions of immigrants persecuted and jailed by tyrannical states. The Christmas story resonates with the millions of people of color who are “stopped and frisked” by a militarized police.

The Christmas story does not resonate with the owners, investors and publicists of big commercial enterprises who have converted the multitude into worshipers of their little plastic cards. Taking ‘Christ out of Christmas’ and destroying the joy and fellowship and solidarity of shared humanity embodied in the celebration of the birth of Christ is essential in order to continue to accumulate wealth. Putting the ‘Christ story’ back into Christmas is a step toward defeating consumerist consciousness and recreating social solidarity, so necessary for ending injustice.

America's debt clock real time

Obama In China: Taking Candy From A Baby

Barack Obama meets the Great Wall of Chinese protectionism

"Chinese leader Xi Jinping knows something Barack Obama doesn’t: America is finished. The U.S. economy is an ocean liner holed below the waterline. In the stateroom, the band plays on – but, on the bridge, the outcome is clear."~~Eamonn Fingleton@FORBES Magazine

By Eamonn Fingleton

[FORBES]Chinese leader Xi Jinping knows something Barack Obama doesn’t: America is finished. The U.S. economy is an ocean liner holed below the waterline. In the stateroom, the band plays on – but, on the bridge, the outcome is clear.

With the arguable exception of the late-era Soviet Union, America is sinking faster than any Great Power in history.

As a proportion of national output, America’s foreign debts are already larger than those of any Great Power since the rotten-to-the-core Ottoman empire a century ago. For those who need reminding, the Ottoman empire, which had flourished for more than six centuries, was then within a decade of final collapse.

Because every dollar of current-account deficit (the current account is the largest and most meaningful measure of trade) represents an extra dollar that has to be funded from abroad, America’s foreign indebtedness is now accumulating at a rate of more than $1 billion a day.

There is no way America can export itself back to national solvency. As Xi Jiping knows only too well, this is a matter of technology. As soon as American corporations come up with a more efficient new production technology, they ship it to China or elsewhere overseas where it will boost the productivity of foreign workers. Any corporation that wants to sell in China must not only manufacture there but bring its best technology. Then it is expected to export back to the United States.

"As Chinese leaders know better than anyone, the ultimate issue is American corruption. Washington is actually far more corrupt than Beijing. If you want to get something done in Washington, you do what you do in Jakarta: just slip some money to the right people. The point was made as far back as a generation ago by the prominent Japanese commentator and author Shintaro Ishihara. From an East Asian point of view, the United States is already, in its political dynamics, a Third World country."

All this means that the American economy has passed the tipping point. It is now simply too hollowed out to make a recovery. Even apparently solid U.S. manufacturers like Boeing BA +0.3%, Caterpillar CAT +0.54%, and Corning Glass have long since sourced many of their most advanced components and materials from Japan, Korea, Germany, and other manufacturing-focused nations. (For a closer look at Boeing, click here and here. Much of Boeing’s most valuable technology has long since been transferred to East Asia, not least its avionics and its incomparable wing technology.)

In proceeding full steam ahead towards national bankruptcy, the United States is world history’s ultimate example of the triumph of ideology over commonsense. Beginning in the Eisenhower era, succeeding Washington administrations have bet the farm on ever-freer trade. Supposedly this would strengthen American economic leadership. To say the least, the powers that be in Tokyo, Seoul, and Taipei, as well as in Bonn, Frankfurt, and West Berlin, discreetly laughed at such epochal naïveté.

No nation has understood the stupidity of America’s trade policy more clearly than post-Mao China. On the one hand, American leaders have thrown the U.S. market wide open to Chinese exports. On the other, they have ignored Beijing’s in-your-face blocking of virtually all advanced American exports to China. The United States has been by far the most serious victim of Chinese protectionism.

As Chinese leaders know better than anyone, the ultimate issue is American corruption. Washington is actually far more corrupt than Beijing. If you want to get something done in Washington, you do what you do in Jakarta: just slip some money to the right people. The point was made as far back as a generation ago by the prominent Japanese commentator and author Shintaro Ishihara. From an East Asian point of view, the United States is already, in its political dynamics, a Third World country.

Even South Korea, with just one-seventh of America’s population, is a bigger exporter to China than the United States. On a per-capita basis, South Korea’s China exports are eight times larger than America’s. Korea’s exports moreover consist almost entirely of leading First World goods such as highly miniaturized electronic components, whereas the main things America sells to China are Third World-ish items such as iron ore, coal, and wheat.

This is not to suggest that American brands are absent from China. Actually they are everywhere. But virtually all American-brand goods sold in China are made there — using American production knowhow that, in some cases, has taken the American nation generations to build up. In an egregious sell-out of the American national interest, U.S. corporations now almost reflexively comply with China’s technology demands. Unlike their peers in places like Korea, Japan, Germany, and Taiwan, they have not had much choice: whereas other nations’ governments stand behind their corporations and work hard to stem the leakage abroad of key production technologies, Washington lets the “wisdom” of the market prevail.

"No nation has understood the stupidity of America’s trade policy more clearly than post-Mao China. On the one hand, American leaders have thrown the U.S. market wide open to Chinese exports. On the other, they have ignored Beijing’s in-your-face blocking of virtually all advanced American exports to China. The United States has been by far the most serious victim of Chinese protectionism."

As the New York Times has pointed out, a current example concerns Intel and Qualcomm, which have very similar technologies that China is angling to acquire. From Beijing’s point of view, it is taking candy from a baby. The two American companies can be pitted against one another in the certainty that one or other will soon cave. It is the group versus the individual and in a well-organized groupist society, the group always prevails.

There is a one-way valve here. Key production technologies leak out of the United States: they don’t leak in. Other nations have industrial policies to make sure that their most productive technologies stay at home. By contrast in a latter-day America, corporations have no national loyalty and they have every reason to transfer their technologies abroad. That way they can aim to earn brownie points with foreign governments, not least the communist regime in Beijing. Their executives also max out their stock options.

America's debt clock real time