Category: Current Events & Politics

The “American Redoubt”, the Dream of a Conservative Fortress, by Adrien Jaulmes

Editor’s Introductory Note: The following is a translation of a March 24, 2023 article in France’s oldest newspaper, Le Figaro. One of the newspaper’s American staffers interviewed me by telephone, in February, during his fact-finding tour of the region. Here is a link to that original piece, in French: Aux États-Unis, la «Redoute américaine», un rêve de forteresse conservatrice. (In the United States, the “American Redoubt”, a dream of a conservative fortress.) Most of the article was “réservé aux abonné”  — reserved for subscribers.The Le Figaro reporter, Adrien Jaulmes, kindly sent me the English version of the article. The reporter …


Bank Failures are Driving What I’m Doing, by Sara Sue

I’ve been trying to figure out what The Powers That Be (TPTB) are up to and how it’s going to affect me. I can only speak of my own strategy for the coming deep recession and/or depression. I can’t solve the big picture crisis. I can only attend to my own farm and family. My primary goals have been to grow food as if our lives depend upon it, and to get as far away as possible from any big city without being so remote I can’t get help. Additionally, since I rely on banking, a year or so ago …


Some Implications of the Blackstone Default

In lieu of my regular economics & investing column, I’m posting a brief update on the threat to global financial markets from commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) and collateralized loan obligations (CLOs). Since 2006, I’ve warned SurvivalBlog readers about the systemic risk posed by disappearing counterparties, in the trillion of dollars of notional value in derivatives. If you haven’t yet read my background piece about that, please take the time to do so: Derivatives–The Mystery Man Who’ll Break the Global Bank at Monte Carlo. Just a week ago, this headline was seen in newspapers around the world: Blackstone Defaults On $562MM …


Grounds for a National Divorce

The mainstream media has finally caught on to something that has been brewing in America for decades: The deepening divide between two cultures. On one side is the “Blue State” coastal/leftist/authoritarian/atheist/urban culture. And on the other side is the “Red State” inland/conservative/liberty-loving/Christian/rural culture. Back in 2021, we read this headline, from Forbes: America’s Mass Migration Intensifies As ‘Leftugees’ Flee Blue States And Counties For Red. That article included this: “America is on the move like never before. Some would say at a tectonic level and for many the driver is as much political as it is economic. The top five …


A Closer Look at the Pivotal Bruen Decision

The U.S. Supreme Court’s New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen decision (issued June 23, 2022) was a pivotal ruling.  Following up on the District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and the McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010) decisions, Bruen reaffirmed private gun rights, quite solidly. Up until those three decisions, the Supreme Court had conspicuously ignored taking up any Second Amendment cases, for more than 50 years. But now, the highest court has made it quite clear that the right to keep and bear arms is nigh-on absolute. I’ve mentioned the Bruen decision before in SurvivalBlog. …


America Is a Prison Disguised as Paradise, by John & Nisha Whitehead

“If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They’ll have enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads. But if an American wants to preserve his dignity and his equality as a human being, he must not bow his neck to any dictatorial government.”— President Dwight D. Eisenhower The government wants us to bow down to its dictates. It wants us to buy into the fantasy that we are living the dream, when in fact, we are trapped in an endless nightmare of servitude and oppression. Indeed, with every passing day, life in …


A Dollar Collapse Is Now In Motion – Saudi Arabia Signals End Of Petro Status, by Brandon Smith

The decline of a currency’s world reserve status is often a long process rife with denials. There are numerous economic “experts” out there that have been dismissing any and all warnings of dollar collapse for years. They just don’t get it, or they don’t want to get it. The idea that the US currency could ever be dethroned as the defacto global trade mechanism is impossible in their minds. One of the key pillars keeping the dollar in place as the world reserve is its petro-status, and this factor is often held up as the reason why the Greenback cannot …


Spy Balloon? What a Maroon

The mass media has been all abuzz about the transit of what was reportedly a “Chinese Spy Balloon”, over the continental United States (CONUS). There were plenty of conflicting reports. And the Biden Administration did a pathetic job of showing any resolve in defending our airspace. This media circus began on Wednesday evening (February 1, 2023) with some fuzzy pictures taken by residents of Billings, Montana. This news story was released the following morning: Chinese surveillance balloon left Montana, drifting across middle of U.S., Pentagon confirms. And then we learned: Flight data: 3 military aircraft from Spokane went to Montana …


The Fed’s Crossroads – Hawkish or Dovish?, by Arkadiusz Sieroń

Editor’s Introductory Note: This guest article was selected by JWR. It was first published by Sunshine Profits, and is reposted with permission. — While Flash US Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) declined further in January, the input inflation accelerated. It’s not clear whether the Fed should become more dovish or hawkish – and that impacts gold. The flash US PMI Composite Output Index registered 46.6 in January, up from 45.0 in December. It implies that the decline in business activity softened to the slowest in three months. But it was a further fall, as each number below 50 means a decrease …


Society’s Sudden Death: 2023-2026, by Jakobus A. Rechnen

Editor’s Introductory  Note:  The following translated article could be considered a conjectural rant. It was written by a European SurvivalBlog reader, under a pen name. If you don’t like reading rants, then skip reading this. – JWR — This is my gedankenexperiment for period: the three years following, Europe, in U.S.A., and the world (whole). It has its basis in my scary belief that the Covid Vaccines are actually for the worse than the Covid illness that the Vaccines (Impfstoffe) claim to be preventing. I may be completely wrong, or I may be mostly right. Maybe. You decide. Premise: I …


Pessimist or a Realist? Our Present Situation – Part 5, by The Lone Canadian

(Continued from Part 4. This concludes the article.) Food Shortages Right now, at this moment, we are facing a global food shortage thanks to wars, and floods and droughts. Farmers in the Netherlands are recognized as the most efficient farmers in Europe, if not the world. And yet their own government is in the process of forcibly seizing as many as 3000 farms and euthanizing the livestock because their “Nitrogen Minister” has deemed their farms to be emitting to much nitrogen. The government claims that this is necessary if they are going to meet their 2030 emissions goals. Goals that …


Pessimist or a Realist? Our Present Situation – Part 4, by The Lone Canadian

(Continued from Part 3.) The Real Energy Crisis Energy is the lifeblood of progress and industrialization. We don’t refer to countries as Second World or Third Worldworld anymore, that’s not politically correct. Now we call them “emerging markets.” And for them to “emerge” from Third World, or Second World status to take their place at the “big boys” table internationally takes energy. “Developing Nations” need energy to develop – pretty simple. And not just energy, but a stable supply of relatively cheap energy. The more they develop, the more energy they need to continue to develop. We may have hit …


Pessimist or a Realist? Our Present Situation – Part 3, by The Lone Canadian

(Continued from Part 2.) On the other side of the world….kind of….depending on how you look at it, China continues to make aggressive moves toward Taiwan. Much like Russia with the Donbas region, their claim is repatriation, not invasion. President Biden has stated on more than one occasion that we will put troops on the ground to help the people of Taiwan, although every time he says it, the white house tries to walk it back after the fact. You’d almost think that they are confused over what their course of action would be. But that might just be their …


Pessimist or a Realist? Our Present Situation – Part 2, by The Lone Canadian

(Continued from Part 1.) While we’re on the subject of interest rates, lets explore low interest rates. I’ve mentioned that the government, through the Fed, has kept them artificially low since about 2008. Now, the general thought was that low interest rates would stimulate the economy. Low interest rates mean that you can buy that bigger house, or new car. It also means that businesses can expand because the risk on a loan is lower. It means that new businesses can start up because people can more easily qualify for a loan, and their payments are relatively low, so its …


Pessimist or a Realist? Our Present Situation – Part 1, by The Lone Canadian

“My wife calls me a pessimist. I claim I’m a realist. Chances are, I’m just an a** with an attitude problem.” That’s my tag line on one of the sites that I belong to. Now, you may take offense at my wording, but if you knew me, you’d have to agree that the sentiment is pretty accurate. I’m writing this in the final few days of 2022, and I’ve had to go back and examine that tag line. I’ve had to question whether I am a pessimist, or am I simply well-informed when it comes to current events, and honest …