Re: SC83

http://www.mikeruppert.blogspot.com/

"THIS DAY OF RECKONING"

By
Michael C. Ruppert

It's not possible yet for any world leader to tell people that the collapse of industrialized civilization is coming but it appears as though the Obama administration is preparing to say it… at least from what we can see. (It's going to become obvious soon enough.) What is not known are what secret plans are being made and what contingencies are being prepared for. There are some clues.

As our first Chief Performance Officer, Nancy Killefer is extraordinarily qualified for the job of going through the federal budget line by line and seeing which programs work and which don't, determining which can be cut to save money. But I believe Barack Obama put her brief to her in a public-consumption version and also in a confidential one that was a bit more direct. It might have sounded something like this: "Nancy I want you to determine in what order we shut down the United States government. Tell us which switches to turn off, in what order, so that we don't shut the wrong things down too soon."

In Thursday's speech the President-elect, in my opinion, began weaning the American people, from their so-deeply ingrained sense of entitlement to wasteful excess. He called this the end of an era of "profound irresponsibility". He set the right tone initially about the gravity of the crisis but stopped short of Peak Oil and the fact that there can and will be no recovery. He chided us for living beyond our means and flatly said that there will be cutbacks in government services. He predicted double digit unemployment. (I see 20% or greater unemployment by January 2010.) He continues to talk about recovery but I'm sure he knows there won't be one. In fact he said that this could be a recovery that it might not be possible to recover from. We are being prepared...........

...........In the meantime WHILE EVERYONE WAS WATCHNG GAZA the stories of a global implosion are mounting. -- Europe's economy is contracting at a faster rate than in the 30s. In the meantime the Russian shut-off of European gas supplies is wreaking havoc, especially in the Balkans, the Czech Republic and elsewhere, causing factories to be shut because there isn't enough energy to run them and keep people from freezing. Corporate pension funds in the U.S. are facing serious shortfalls. Unemployment Claims have crashed three state web sites. Every major industrialized nation (including the U.S.) is preparing for civil unrest. And we haven't seen Q4 earnings reports yet.

China has just announced that it is holding onto its cash and not lending as much to the U.S. It has its own bailout package to fund. It needs that cash for its own bailout and thus can no longer lend anywhere near as much to the U.S. at a time when we are borrowing or printing money at rates about a hundred times higher than in World War II. Reports have suggested that China may dump half of its $1.4 trillion dollar holdings within the next two months. A global dollar dump will follow shortly thereafter bringing all those greenbacks back home. That could be the trigger for Weimar-style inflation.

Starting back as far as late 2003 FTW was predicting these developments. One of my best essays from the period was "As the World Burns" (FTW's third economic alert) from Dec. 2004 is available at the FTW site: http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/120104_world_burns.shtml

Manufacturing has hit a 28-year low and today's jobs report is the worst since 1945 with the biggest job losses yet to come. Officially, unemployment now exceeds 7%. Fourth-quarter earnings reports are due soon and that will be one of the biggest buckets of cold water in the face we've seen in a couple of months.

As I correspond with a number of key friends and researchers around the world we have all concluded that it may be just a matter of weeks before we start seeing major disruptions in everyday life. It's hard to keep up with the torrent of ominous news.............