[noobtube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', 'I')ndeed a lot the "peaceful society" I attribute to that nation was during a short period after the second WW when the male population was a lot lower and there was abundant jobs and money for all.

[theluckycountry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('noobtube', '
')As bad as the news makes it out to be in America, it is still an amazing place to live. It's just that the United States government decided to declare war on the population.

I blame it on the end of the gold standard in 1965 and the removal of money from circulation. It seems, that was the year when the United States government just decided to liquidate the population to pay its bills (see Vietnam War, feminism, abortion, etc.).

[noobtube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', 'A')n amazing place as long as you have one of the good jobs, and are the right color for your neighborhood I suspect. The switch off the gold standard was indeed a disaster, internationally, internally though the currency had been fully paper since the 1930's though the debt levels associated with it had been kept under control. There was a 100 year period of American history I researched long ago, back in the 1800's, where there was basically very little paper money employed and the nation experienced mild deflation over the period due to innovation basically. Money supply was in balance with mine production but of course that couldn't work today with the much higher population.

Large populations are needed (were needed) to fight wars but they are inherently bad for a nation with limited natural resources. The US now has limited resources relative to it's population. Personally I think falling population is a good thing, China, Russia, they have been declining now and the western pundits point to that as a disaster but it's really only a disaster if you have a bloated social security ponzi scheme running. To my mind the mass replacement level immigration works in two ways, it helps keep the ponzi going and it destroys national cohesion.

But change is coming, the 4th turning, call it what you like, I think the populations of the planet will be a lot lower in 50 years, food if nothing else dictates that. The reason I compared America in the future to Mexico is because of the immigration, of Mexicans. I doubt it's just all the happy law abiding ones coming up and they bring their culture with them don't they.

[theluckycountry]

I remember a comment made after 9/11, for a few weeks men stopped sodomizing their wives and girlfriends. They got a little spiritual in other words.

[theluckycountry]

Jackpot: NYC Mayor To Give Migrants Pre-loaded Debit Cards Worth Up To $10,000

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') shocking ten million illegals have crossed the southern border into the US under President Biden's watch so far. Thousands of lucky migrants who end up in the progressive hellhole of New York City could soon receive pre-loaded debit cards with amounts as much as $10,000 under a new controversial program launched by Democrat Mayor Eric Adams.

The New York Post reports Adam's genius plan to give unvetted illegals taxpayer funds is set to begin with 500 families staying at the luxurious Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan.

[yellowcanoe]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', '[')b]Jackpot: NYC Mayor To Give Migrants Pre-loaded Debit Cards Worth Up To $10,000

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') shocking ten million illegals have crossed the southern border into the US under President Biden's watch so far. Thousands of lucky migrants who end up in the progressive hellhole of New York City could soon receive pre-loaded debit cards with amounts as much as $10,000 under a new controversial program launched by Democrat Mayor Eric Adams.

The New York Post reports Adam's genius plan to give unvetted illegals taxpayer funds is set to begin with 500 families staying at the luxurious Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan.

[theluckycountry]

Australia has been encouraging refugees since the end of the second world war, and in a sense they were needed to build out the country as it was not very populated. We welcomed Poles and Italians, Greeks and other white immigrants displaced by the war. After the Vietnam war we dropped the "White Australia policy" and lot of southern Vietnamese were brought in as they feared persecution from the northern government. Then Central European immigrants and Lebanese, more recently a smattering of Sudanese from that war zone. Always people from warzones.

There is no group larger than about 1% once you exclude the Chinese and Indian immigrants and this is good because while they migrate to the cities and cluster into their cheap suburbs, they cause no major disruption to society as a whole. The Chinese and Indians work hard, they are a big tax base and a lot of them came out under special visas, they had to be millionaires and start a business basically. Immigrants do cause trouble though, crime, but just as much and more is committed by the natural born Aussies and I doubt things would be much different had we never allowed the immigration. We had plenty of organized crime here before they came, my father told me of the straight razor gangs of the 1930's, youths who ran riot during the depression years.

All cities turn into hell holes eventually but the people born in them can't see this because they have known nothing else. You really have to move to a quiet rural community to discover what life can be like without a million people living around you. It's like going back in time, at least that was my experience. Like going back to the 1960's and early 70's where in the city I grew up in you could stand by a main road at 2am and not see a car pass for 30 minutes. Where the neighbors all talked to each other, where they smiled in the street at each other.

Cities are a necessary element of society, I just feel sorry for those who have to live in them in these later years of insanity.

[theluckycountry]

"Who Could Be Next": Top Canadian Pension Fund Sells Manhattan Office Tower For $1, Sparking Firesale Panic https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ime-buyers

[theluckycountry]

Food. Many years back the populace was priced out of steak and into chicken and ground beef, now the CEO of Kelloggs has a better idea for cash strapped families, GMO Cereal for dinner. Bon Appétit my American friends.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-styl ... 03484.html

Cereal, it's, Surreal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8Dw1bjRxY0&t=15s

[careinke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', 'F')ood. Many years back the populace was priced out of steak and into chicken and ground beef, now the CEO of Kelloggs has a better idea for cash strapped families, GMO Cereal for dinner. Bon Appétit my American friends.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-styl ... 03484.html

Cereal, it's, Surreal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8Dw1bjRxY0&t=15s

[noobtube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', 'F')ood. Many years back the populace was priced out of steak and into chicken and ground beef, now the CEO of Kelloggs has a better idea for cash strapped families, GMO Cereal for dinner. Bon Appétit my American friends.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-styl ... 03484.html

Cereal, it's, Surreal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8Dw1bjRxY0&t=15s

[yellowcanoe]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('noobtube', '
')
The Jews got what they wanted. They turned America into a scraping, begging, indebted mass of self-absorbed, narcissists. Not saying America was ever a land of moral, upstanding people. But, there WAS massive wealth in the land. Jews could not tolerate that because it meant they would stay out of power. So, they backed the Civil RIghts movement and the immigration agenda to dilute the power of the existing establishment (Protestants/Catholics/Christians).

American power rests in the cities. And, the biggest city is New York City.

In my life, I have learned Jews took control of New York in the 1980s. From there, they took control of America using Wall Street. With help from the 2nd biggest city, Los Angeles, they got control of Disney and Hollywood. Jews had control of credit and communications. In the 90s, they pushed Holocaust and Anti-semitism to neutralize dissent in America. This expanded through the 2000s and 9/11, as Jews consolidated infiltration of the intelligence networks (CIA, FBI sharing intel with Mossad). It reached its zenith (I think) with Joe Biden and his cabinet filled with Jews.

The last 50 years in America have been nothing but decline. Small town failures have been masked by big city glitz and glamour. But, the United States is slowly dying. Immigration and Jews have been killing America for a LONG time.

But, Biden may see the decline of Jew power as Ukraine and Israel/Hamas began on his watch. And, the younger generations are sick of hearing Holocaust and anti-semitism, the go-to excuses that Jews loved to use to keep people in line.

[noobtube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yellowcanoe', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('noobtube', 'B')ut, Biden may see the decline of Jew power as Ukraine and Israel/Hamas began on his watch. And, the younger generations are sick of hearing Holocaust and anti-semitism, the go-to excuses that Jews loved to use to keep people in line.

[theluckycountry]

I remember reading the reports about the Israeli South African alliance with nuclear weapons

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')sraeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu told the Sunday Times of London in 1986 that Israel had been operating a secret uranium enrichment facility “on a production scale” since 1979-80. Vanunu also told former U.S. nuclear weapon designer Theodore Taylor that uranium was enriched by gas centrifuges. Based on Vanunu’s information, Taylor concluded that Israel was enriching uranium to weapon grade. Vanunu also confirmed earlier reports that Israel was conducting research on laser enrichment at Dimona.

Israel has obtained natural uranium supplies on the world market from a number of sources. Starting in the mid-1970s, Israel clandestinely imported 600 metric tons of yellowcake from South Africa. Israel has also devised a method of extracting uranium from the phosphate deposits in the Negev desert, where there is an estimated thirty to sixty thousand tons of uranium contained in low-level phosphate ores.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') think if this site had concentrated more on ways people as individuals could harden their lives against the consequences of peakoil, and I don't mean the usual delusions of bicycles and backyard veggie patches, but real practical ways to maintain a decent lifestyle when oil is becomes unaffordable, then more might have hung around.

[theluckycountry]

Thanks for the update Doly. You've certainly been out there holding the torch so to speak, doing everything a sane person with a good awareness of our problems could hope to do. I'm sorry it didn't work out for you, especially the transition towns. I think they were the last hope (pre-collapse) of getting anything going at the small community level. Do you think it's just a matter of not many of the participants being fully onboard? Or did the typical wrangling politics raise it's head and drive the best thinkers/workers away?

I saw that with the volunteer fire brigade, 50 members and only 5 turn up for meetings, 10 for a fire... perhaps. Too much power playing by people like RE salesmen and aspirants to local council. But I'm past all that now hence my post above about mitigation being a more personal thing to me now because no one else really wants to get on board. They all live for today.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n the meantime, I got sucked up into a Holy Grail quest in my free time. I mean, literally.

[theluckycountry]

Cities' "Doom Loops" Are Even Worse Than You Imagined

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith, OfTwoMinds
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')This is why those who understand these dynamics are getting out, even though the city was their home.

A correspondent who prefers to remain anonymous sent me this account of the "doom loop" that is playing out in many American cities. The correspondent makes the case that the Doom Loop is not limited to specific cities, but is a universal dynamic in all US cities due to the core causes of the Doom Loop: financialization and the multi-decade decay of cities' core industrial-economic purpose / mission.

I have edited the text slightly, with the correspondent's approval.

The context of the Doom Loop, the process and politics of this decay, are the second-order results of central bank easy money. This led to financialization becoming the city's core function and the subsequent loss of the city's previous mission. The people living in cities just haven't gotten the message yet. As such, there is no reversing the process until the centralization of capital itself is reversed.

The typical media articles on metropolitan "doom loops" make it seem like not every city is headed down the path. Now that financialization does not require a physical presence, every city above a certain size will share the same experience. There will be local variations which impact the trend, such as a potential utility as a large pool of voters (i.e. a vote farm), but the decline is part and parcel of financial 'virtualization.'

The process when a city loses its purpose but persists due to inertia follows this basic pattern:

1. Corporate consolidation costs the city its financial base as Fortune 100 corporations are sold to conglomerates closer to the centers of finance. This is one more second-order effect of easy money: global corporations can easily finance the acquisition of multi-billion dollar companies.

2. In the past, cities received huge government subsidies for re-development, but none for ongoing maintenance. All the redevelopment projects looked great at first, but with little funding for maintenance, they've gone downhill and many are now dangerous.

Today, the only redevelopment is done by the billionaire class who make most of their money from (surprise) finance. Once the billionaire loses interest, it's gone, too.

I would rather find myself in a developing-world city than an American downtown, at least there would be people around. Many American downtowns are literally apocalyptic.

3. Major league sports are increasingly an exercise in force protection. It's like going inside a forward firebase in Iraq. People still get shot in the stands from guns fired outside the bubble. Unsurprisingly, some major league teams are exploring space outside the cities despite their stadiums being only 20 years old.

4. When federal agencies build new facilities, they're essentially fortresses with direct entrance/egress from the highway. They add little to nothing to the surrounding economy.

5. Real estate, sales and personal property taxes in cities are typically the highest within the state. As tax revenues decline, cities' political leaders increase business taxes and start floating ideas such as taxing non-profit organizations: a financial death spiral indeed. Should taxes increase, organizations and companies have said they will leave.

6. In the industrial economy, the core purposes of cities were derived from advantageous locations and key transportation assets (first water, then rail, then roads, and later aviation). In the information age, those benefits are diminished or gone. As a result of their transportation advantages, cities became manufacturing and warehousing hubs. Those too are diminished or gone.

7. Cities have lost their core economic purpose and are choking on their high legacy costs. The proposed substitute purposes--entertainment and bourgeois lifestyles--are not true substitutes. Fine dining and secure condos with delivery do not replace actual economic functions.

8. Making matters worse, the upper-middle class doesn't want affordable housing in their enclaves, as it lowers property values. So the workers needed to keep the city functioning can no longer afford to live there. Yes In My Backyard (YIMBY) movements to promote affordable housing are not enough.

9. Much of the politics the media focuses on are a consequence of decline, not a cause, and the net result of all the in-fighting is some version of stasis: all sorts of solutions are proposed, but since none address the core sources of decline or the cities' high legacy costs, they boil down to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

This is why those who understand these dynamics are getting out, even though the city was their home.

[theluckycountry]

Target Finally Gets Serious About Out-Of-Control Thefts, Lowers Intervention Threshold To Just $50

Imagine, stores all across the city where people just fill trolleys and walk out the door uncontested. That's what's been happening and it will continue to happen because these new measures will achieve nothing. Only armed guards with the ability to detain thieves and a functioning police force that will arrest them for prosecution works.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n response, retailers have shut down stores in crime-ridden areas and locked up entire aisles of high-value items. A lawless society, due to failed progressive policies, cannot economically thrive. It's time for Americans to demand law and order.

[theluckycountry]

California: Delivery Drivers Now Being Accompanied By Armed Guards Due To "Crime Concerns"
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/newso ... e-concerns

What a joke! America's collapse is getting breathtaking, this is Mexico, Honduras, Brazil!

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')ne company, Core Mart, has started hiring the guards to escort its drivers. Which means that somewhere, in a board room, it likely made more financial sense to pay for all new security staff than it did to continue to allow drivers to get robbed (and inventory lost) as was happening prior.

California: sounds like a wonderful place to do business. San Jose police reported a slight uptick in delivery truck robberies two years ago, but no recent surge has been observed, NBC Bay Area reported.

[theluckycountry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '
')
Now the covid is turning into annual thing just like the flu, except it kills several times as many people as the flu.