This was great stuff. Saldo's Turbo-America strikes me as nothing more than the metastasis of a long-developing cancer, the acceleration into collapse caused by the terminal population explosion of a parasitic organism. He's right that revolt is not in the cards any time soon - what is there to unite around? But by the same token, as you correctly describe, no one cares anymore. The GAE dies not with a bang, but a whimper.
Great analysis of Saldo's Turbo-America take, and the comparison to a metastasis of a long-developing cancer is apt. In one of his pieces on that theme, he does end with the caveat that a Black-Swan Event could change everything. And that's just it, given a long-enough timeline, another Black-Swan Event is pretty much a certainty; and given that the current regime seems to be actively trying to create such events in order to boost the profits of its oligarchs, I would say another crisis is probably coming sooner rather than later. Your World War III essay struck me as prophetic, but if it's not World War III, it's just a matter of time before it's something else. The GAE is like a morbidly obese diabetic catching COVID early in the scamdemic: what would otherwise just be a rough couple weeks turns into a fatal illness.
I certainly wasn't trying to prophesize in the WWIII essay - I'm not even sure that there will be a WWIII in the form that we might expect. It was just an analysis of the underlying economic and moral factors.
This is however how collapse usually occurs. The fundamentals of a society rot out, and a storm it would have easily weathered when younger and stronger knocks it over. Whether that happens this year or a decade from now doesn't much matter.
Yeah, if you see someone driving the wrong way on a one-way street, as fast as he can, in a rusted-out Ford Pinto, it would be hard to predict exactly which incoming car he'll crash into, but you know a crash is coming, and when it does, it'll be explosive.
“Lord willing, we will be able to learn from our mistakes and design a new system that cultivates virtue and incentivizes excellence, while dis-incentivizing corruption. I will discuss my ideas for that in United States of Enron”
In 2010-2014 when I was an Admin at the Doomstead Diner we pointed out repeatedly, if we don't do something about these bankers and the debt, the next bubble is going to make the housing bubble look tiny, and it will likely be the last.
They literally increased the debt by 30% in two years, to float the banks, 2020-2022. That is what covid was, mostly a means to print 5 trillion for the banks in a short period of time, then flood the zone with new money for the likes of Blackrock to buy up the wreckage of covid economy, which is the greatest transfer of wealth up the social pyramid in the history of the world, dwarfing the Great Recession.
People don't understand why I am planting an orchard and a giant garden this spring, with plans to put a lot of veggies away next Fall. I don't think it will be long before they do. This feels to me like 2007 x's 10.
Exactly. I remember in *2015* looking at a historical chart of the S&P 500 and seeing the bubble had returned as big as it was in 2007, and it's only gotten much bigger since then. Something like 40% of the currency that has ever been in circulation was printed during the scamdemic -- it's probably even more than 40% now. The problem with smoke-and-mirrors financial schemes is that at some point, they require exponential escalation just to maintain, and I thin we're past that point now. It's just a matter of time till the whole thing crashes and burns. And as a point of comparison, Enron's stock price hit its peak in 2000; it went completely bankrupt in 2001. The 1920s Bull Market peaked just months before the crash in 1929. I think we're past our peak, and sliding towards the moment when it all comes apart.
People were jumping out windows on Wall Street, in 1929. Former high-flyers were standing in lines for bread and soup 1929-35. Few of them were addicted/dependent to Pharma drugs, while many had been accustomed to growing/gathering/hunting food and having at least a 6month supply of food going into winter. What about Americans today? The vast majority would be caught totally surprised and entirely unprepared for a real economic depression, not believing such a thing is possible.
Very true. It was a majority rural nation then, with high-trust local communities. Today it's overwhelmingly urban/suburban and very low trust. That difference is going to make a Great Depression much worse today.
I don't think they're driving towards selfless ends at all. The narrative of climate and contagion that is so destructive does something very important, it provides them with a justification to centralize power. What the psychopath is motivated by is the lust to consolidate power, which meets their needs regardless of timeline. You say they won't enjoy the ultimate outcome, but they are already enjoying the fruits now. The more power is consolidated, the more these cretins thrive. They are coordinated by this desire for power and control. Now, that said, this desire could be the product of malign cosmic forces...
I get what you're saying, but today's elites are reaping a harvest sown decades or even generations ago. The Marxists have completed their "long march through the institutions." When that march began, it was just communist footsoldiers toiling away in relative obscurity doing jobs (like teaching) that were not high-paying or high-status. Many of them sacrificed for a cause that was bigger than themselves and that would not come to fruition until after they were gone. Many of these Marxcissists (including the early ones) strike me as being psychopathic, with a cold and calculating disregard for the suffering their programs cause and would cause. I could be wrong about that -- ponerology is Harrison's beat, not mine -- but the ability of psychopaths to sacrifice their short-term self-interest for the long-term success of their death cult is a phenomenon that, to me, points at a larger reality, like demonic egregores or a hive-mind for which they serve as organic portals.
The cholera bacteria do not understand that they will be burned along with the body they killed, but see only their ability to prosper in the short term at the expense of the ailing host.
Loved your piece, you taught me a lot, and gave me clarity about things I've been thinking about for the past few years. Great work. Very educational, and well-written. Fluid prose, excellent pacing.
I get the feeling that we all just want it over. We need resolution. We are exhausted watching the accelerating decline and the sheer weirdness and dysfunction.
Re the 2024 elections. There is some speculation that these may not take place at all. The late Vladimir Zhirinovski predicted just before his death that the '24 elections would not be held. He was pretty smart, if controversial, so may have been on to something.
The collapse is already happening. There are apparently food shortages in England (egg shortages in London supermarkets, and now some vegetables).
Concrete skills (trades, agriculture/horticulture/medicine) are essential. Access to a small plot of land (an allotment). No need to grow everything, just enough to supplement a family diet. DIY types will do well.
Spot on. "I get the feeling we all just want it over." Exactly. When you live with the knowledge that it is inevitable that shit will hit the fan, it gets psychologically exhausting. Okay, let it hit the fan already, so we can start working towards a real resolution of it. It's like any unpleasant and scarily uncertain undertaking: after a certain point, you just gotta deal with it, and endless planning and theorizing just amounts to procrastination and avoidance. Obviously I don't condone anything illegal or immoral to hasten this process, but I am getting tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop, while every day the cultural decay just gets worse and more flagrant all around me, and all the regime wants to focus on is more $$$ for Ukraine and promoting transgenderism and anti-white racism.
Exhaustion is integral to social control on a mass scale in the current era.
The key is not to focus on the things you cannot control, but the things you can. The immediate, immanent, personal, tangible and concrete offer opportunities for agency and developing capacity. Contemplating the big picture, the great Rorschach of the postponed Apocalypse, does the opposite. So too does trying to come up with solutions for their problems. The good thing is that we already know the answers to our own problems. To adapt Shakespeare: the answers lie not in our stars but in ourselves.
"Which view is correct? Are we more like Rome in 27 B.C., in that our Republic may be practically dead, but it’s about to be reborn as history’s greatest empire? Or are we more like the Soviet Union circa 1990, mere months away from attempted coups in D.C., the sudden disintegration of N.A.T.O., and the complete collapse of the federal government?"
Why not both?
I'm anticipating a full collapse of the G.A.E., and a major collapse of FedGov (along with their propaganda/mind control ability, and most of their ability to project power), with a return to local autonomy. This will be out of necessity, and will result a previously absent sense of genuine purpose for we, the people.
There's a lot of actors in motion in this machine. Some are trying bring about the WEF/Davos shitbag crowds technotyrrany dystopia, some are trying to preserve some functionality and keep outdated/hopelessly broken bureaucratic systems operating, and some are trying to create something new, looking back to what worked in the past, while also seeing what didn't work and trying something else.
What's different this time? This is the most talked about collapse in recorded human history. Perhaps as many as 15-30% of the population is paying attention and taking action, and that's way more than any other collapse (as far as I can tell). Those people are going to be positioned to make decisions and direct resources to create what comes after. The rest are going to do what they've always done: As they are told.
All that said: It ain't gonna be easy for most people, even the prepared. But if you are paying attention, and have been taking logical steps to prepare, you will have a much easier time than most. Who knows, you might even enjoy it, and find a thriving you only dreamed possible in the process.
If you're just waking up to this: You may only have months, instead of years. Get busy.
Thanks, man. That's exactly right. I think it's important to be optimistic personally and on the small-scale. After Enron collapsed, its natural gas pipelines (which had been its original business) kept operating, just under different management. I think the same will happen with the USA. We just have to get back to basics and connect with the True and the Good. We've been bewitched by smoke-and-mirrors political and financial con games for too long.
This was great stuff. Saldo's Turbo-America strikes me as nothing more than the metastasis of a long-developing cancer, the acceleration into collapse caused by the terminal population explosion of a parasitic organism. He's right that revolt is not in the cards any time soon - what is there to unite around? But by the same token, as you correctly describe, no one cares anymore. The GAE dies not with a bang, but a whimper.
Great analysis of Saldo's Turbo-America take, and the comparison to a metastasis of a long-developing cancer is apt. In one of his pieces on that theme, he does end with the caveat that a Black-Swan Event could change everything. And that's just it, given a long-enough timeline, another Black-Swan Event is pretty much a certainty; and given that the current regime seems to be actively trying to create such events in order to boost the profits of its oligarchs, I would say another crisis is probably coming sooner rather than later. Your World War III essay struck me as prophetic, but if it's not World War III, it's just a matter of time before it's something else. The GAE is like a morbidly obese diabetic catching COVID early in the scamdemic: what would otherwise just be a rough couple weeks turns into a fatal illness.
I certainly wasn't trying to prophesize in the WWIII essay - I'm not even sure that there will be a WWIII in the form that we might expect. It was just an analysis of the underlying economic and moral factors.
This is however how collapse usually occurs. The fundamentals of a society rot out, and a storm it would have easily weathered when younger and stronger knocks it over. Whether that happens this year or a decade from now doesn't much matter.
Yeah, if you see someone driving the wrong way on a one-way street, as fast as he can, in a rusted-out Ford Pinto, it would be hard to predict exactly which incoming car he'll crash into, but you know a crash is coming, and when it does, it'll be explosive.
We've been in WWIII for going on a decade, it's just that the nature of war has changed so it's not apparent.
I personally thought Turbo-America was one of the more hilarious copes.
“Lord willing, we will be able to learn from our mistakes and design a new system that cultivates virtue and incentivizes excellence, while dis-incentivizing corruption. I will discuss my ideas for that in United States of Enron”
Looking forward to that. Meanwhile, https://twitter.com/aynrandfan/status/1630808413797232643?s=46&t=i3Y5gXL0yqpW0etnkVV6sw
Very well said, and written.
Thanks, James!
In 2010-2014 when I was an Admin at the Doomstead Diner we pointed out repeatedly, if we don't do something about these bankers and the debt, the next bubble is going to make the housing bubble look tiny, and it will likely be the last.
They literally increased the debt by 30% in two years, to float the banks, 2020-2022. That is what covid was, mostly a means to print 5 trillion for the banks in a short period of time, then flood the zone with new money for the likes of Blackrock to buy up the wreckage of covid economy, which is the greatest transfer of wealth up the social pyramid in the history of the world, dwarfing the Great Recession.
People don't understand why I am planting an orchard and a giant garden this spring, with plans to put a lot of veggies away next Fall. I don't think it will be long before they do. This feels to me like 2007 x's 10.
Exactly. I remember in *2015* looking at a historical chart of the S&P 500 and seeing the bubble had returned as big as it was in 2007, and it's only gotten much bigger since then. Something like 40% of the currency that has ever been in circulation was printed during the scamdemic -- it's probably even more than 40% now. The problem with smoke-and-mirrors financial schemes is that at some point, they require exponential escalation just to maintain, and I thin we're past that point now. It's just a matter of time till the whole thing crashes and burns. And as a point of comparison, Enron's stock price hit its peak in 2000; it went completely bankrupt in 2001. The 1920s Bull Market peaked just months before the crash in 1929. I think we're past our peak, and sliding towards the moment when it all comes apart.
People were jumping out windows on Wall Street, in 1929. Former high-flyers were standing in lines for bread and soup 1929-35. Few of them were addicted/dependent to Pharma drugs, while many had been accustomed to growing/gathering/hunting food and having at least a 6month supply of food going into winter. What about Americans today? The vast majority would be caught totally surprised and entirely unprepared for a real economic depression, not believing such a thing is possible.
Very true. It was a majority rural nation then, with high-trust local communities. Today it's overwhelmingly urban/suburban and very low trust. That difference is going to make a Great Depression much worse today.
I don't think they're driving towards selfless ends at all. The narrative of climate and contagion that is so destructive does something very important, it provides them with a justification to centralize power. What the psychopath is motivated by is the lust to consolidate power, which meets their needs regardless of timeline. You say they won't enjoy the ultimate outcome, but they are already enjoying the fruits now. The more power is consolidated, the more these cretins thrive. They are coordinated by this desire for power and control. Now, that said, this desire could be the product of malign cosmic forces...
I get what you're saying, but today's elites are reaping a harvest sown decades or even generations ago. The Marxists have completed their "long march through the institutions." When that march began, it was just communist footsoldiers toiling away in relative obscurity doing jobs (like teaching) that were not high-paying or high-status. Many of them sacrificed for a cause that was bigger than themselves and that would not come to fruition until after they were gone. Many of these Marxcissists (including the early ones) strike me as being psychopathic, with a cold and calculating disregard for the suffering their programs cause and would cause. I could be wrong about that -- ponerology is Harrison's beat, not mine -- but the ability of psychopaths to sacrifice their short-term self-interest for the long-term success of their death cult is a phenomenon that, to me, points at a larger reality, like demonic egregores or a hive-mind for which they serve as organic portals.
The cholera bacteria do not understand that they will be burned along with the body they killed, but see only their ability to prosper in the short term at the expense of the ailing host.
Very well said!
This is FIRE, Daniel-san.
Thanks! From a writer and thinker of your caliber, that means a lot!
Clearly a fake poll, bro. Be more cynical.
"And in the latest Gallup Poll, 41% of Americans still approve of the job Brandon is doing?"
Remember how when Trump was running, all the polls were "wrong"? No, they were purposefully dishonest, and briefly got exposed.
Good point, and thanks for the reminder! Cynicism is a legit survival mechanism in today’s thoroughly gaslit culture.
Loved your piece, you taught me a lot, and gave me clarity about things I've been thinking about for the past few years. Great work. Very educational, and well-written. Fluid prose, excellent pacing.
Overall, this piece is a masterpiece, I applaud you sir.
Thanks!
Nice article - looking forward to the next one. The basics is where it begins.
Thanks!
I get the feeling that we all just want it over. We need resolution. We are exhausted watching the accelerating decline and the sheer weirdness and dysfunction.
Re the 2024 elections. There is some speculation that these may not take place at all. The late Vladimir Zhirinovski predicted just before his death that the '24 elections would not be held. He was pretty smart, if controversial, so may have been on to something.
The collapse is already happening. There are apparently food shortages in England (egg shortages in London supermarkets, and now some vegetables).
Concrete skills (trades, agriculture/horticulture/medicine) are essential. Access to a small plot of land (an allotment). No need to grow everything, just enough to supplement a family diet. DIY types will do well.
Spot on. "I get the feeling we all just want it over." Exactly. When you live with the knowledge that it is inevitable that shit will hit the fan, it gets psychologically exhausting. Okay, let it hit the fan already, so we can start working towards a real resolution of it. It's like any unpleasant and scarily uncertain undertaking: after a certain point, you just gotta deal with it, and endless planning and theorizing just amounts to procrastination and avoidance. Obviously I don't condone anything illegal or immoral to hasten this process, but I am getting tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop, while every day the cultural decay just gets worse and more flagrant all around me, and all the regime wants to focus on is more $$$ for Ukraine and promoting transgenderism and anti-white racism.
Exhaustion is integral to social control on a mass scale in the current era.
The key is not to focus on the things you cannot control, but the things you can. The immediate, immanent, personal, tangible and concrete offer opportunities for agency and developing capacity. Contemplating the big picture, the great Rorschach of the postponed Apocalypse, does the opposite. So too does trying to come up with solutions for their problems. The good thing is that we already know the answers to our own problems. To adapt Shakespeare: the answers lie not in our stars but in ourselves.
Exactly right!
"Which view is correct? Are we more like Rome in 27 B.C., in that our Republic may be practically dead, but it’s about to be reborn as history’s greatest empire? Or are we more like the Soviet Union circa 1990, mere months away from attempted coups in D.C., the sudden disintegration of N.A.T.O., and the complete collapse of the federal government?"
Why not both?
I'm anticipating a full collapse of the G.A.E., and a major collapse of FedGov (along with their propaganda/mind control ability, and most of their ability to project power), with a return to local autonomy. This will be out of necessity, and will result a previously absent sense of genuine purpose for we, the people.
There's a lot of actors in motion in this machine. Some are trying bring about the WEF/Davos shitbag crowds technotyrrany dystopia, some are trying to preserve some functionality and keep outdated/hopelessly broken bureaucratic systems operating, and some are trying to create something new, looking back to what worked in the past, while also seeing what didn't work and trying something else.
What's different this time? This is the most talked about collapse in recorded human history. Perhaps as many as 15-30% of the population is paying attention and taking action, and that's way more than any other collapse (as far as I can tell). Those people are going to be positioned to make decisions and direct resources to create what comes after. The rest are going to do what they've always done: As they are told.
All that said: It ain't gonna be easy for most people, even the prepared. But if you are paying attention, and have been taking logical steps to prepare, you will have a much easier time than most. Who knows, you might even enjoy it, and find a thriving you only dreamed possible in the process.
If you're just waking up to this: You may only have months, instead of years. Get busy.
Thanks, man. That's exactly right. I think it's important to be optimistic personally and on the small-scale. After Enron collapsed, its natural gas pipelines (which had been its original business) kept operating, just under different management. I think the same will happen with the USA. We just have to get back to basics and connect with the True and the Good. We've been bewitched by smoke-and-mirrors political and financial con games for too long.