By Paraschiva Florescu and Rob Verkerk Ph.D.

Alliance for Natural Health International

With babies developing with a tablet in their hands, the next logical step, ostensibly for the sake of everyone’s convenience, is to implant a cellular communications device — yes, a mini mobile phone — in the bodies of our children.

And — I hear you ask: What about the accompanying risks? Shall we just ignore them? Let’s face it — our kids’ tablets provide such a useful means of keeping the little ones occupied, giving stressed parents a break.

Have you witnessed anything about children and their relationships with technology that makes you uncomfortable, bearing in mind the importance of subconscious programming during the early years of life?

Do they constantly pull their phone out of their pocket during a conversation? Do you see them scrolling, seemingly mindlessly?

What have you witnessed when walking in your local neighborhood: perhaps children with their heads buried in their devices and empty quiet parks?

Whichever way you cut it: family dynamics are changing rapidly as digital technologies take an ever more important role in our lives, and our children’s lives, and, courtesy of social media, human relationships are becoming increasingly virtual.

With babies developing with a tablet in their hands, the next logical step, ostensibly for the sake of everyone’s convenience, is to implant, a cellular communications device — yes, a mini mobile phone — in the bodies of our children.

This technology is a key part of the development of the currently emerging Fourth Industrial Revolution that includes everything from artificial intelligence (AI) to the Internet of things and robotics.

In fact, in case you think this idea is fanciful, it’s given as “Shift 1” in the book of the same name, by none other than Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Think just how many of today’s teenagers might be up for an implantable mobile device: imagine the convenience! No need to subscribe to any platforms, and they’ll never need to worry again about losing their mobile phone!

Mobile phones are becoming an extension of today’s youth. But is there a more sinister agenda unfolding?

How about this for an idea, the first part of which has been borrowed from the playbook of a number of industries, tobacco and opioids, to name just two: create digital addiction or extreme dependence, disconnect humans from each other and from the natural world around them and re-program them in ways that prevent them operating as independent, free-minded citizens and make them compatible with the grand masterplan of the world’s current puppet masters.

In the process, you’ll also be able to surveil their every move via the devices they use to communicate, shop with, bank, drive with, meditate with, recreate with. The mobile device, its associated apps, and its ever-improved camera and recording capabilities have literally become an extension of ourselves.

The notion that dependency or addiction is created on purpose to surveil and control us, is of course just a theory. But disconcertingly, there are a lot of facts along the way that suggest that our dependency on our handsets and computers might be part of a very deliberate plan that leads humanity — at least those that conform — into a transhuman and posthuman future.

This is the future of humanity that the likes of futurist and Google engineer, Ray Kurzweil, historian Yuval Noah Harari, Schwab, and many others in influential positions, are increasingly considering an inevitability. But, like most addictions and psychological re-programming — it is a choice, albeit one that might be difficult for many to avoid.

Defining the problem

Digital or social media addiction can be described as “being excessively concerned about SNSs [social networking sites], motivated by a strong desire to log in to or use SNSs, and devoting so much time and energy to SNSs that it impairs other social activities, studies/job, interpersonal relationships and/or psychological health and wellbeing.”

It’s fair to say that based on this definition, the vast majority of our youth could be considered to be addicted to social media.

The World Health Organization recognizes gaming addiction as a disorder, but not digital addiction (also known as technology overuse) more broadly.

Other studies disagree that digital technologies have a “standalone addictive power” and distinguish between true addictive disorders and negative side effects of social media use.

Even if one disagrees that it is a pathological addiction, just as disconcerting is the development of an extreme dependency on digital technologies to such an extent that a new term, nomophobia, entered the Collins Dictionary, as “a state of distress caused by having no access to or being unable to use one’s mobile phone.”

Whether our youths are addicted or “just” nomophobes, there is a sinister problem here, part of a bigger plan of Big Tech that’s been unfolding for some time.

Watch Paraschiva’s interview with David Charalambous

Paraschiva Florescu recently spoke to David Charalambous, founder of Reaching People and a behavior and communication dynamics expert about the very real issue of digital addiction in young people and how we can combat it. Or listen to the interview here.

Big Tech’s big plan

Nothing that goes on social media platforms, data such as messages, photos, texts, etc. belongs to us anymore. It becomes the property of the platform itself. Data is currently one of the most valuable assets in the world.

The incessant attempts of big corporations to transform everything into data is a form of control.

It’s being used maliciously to feed into AI systems in order to understand our human behavior. How we think, what we buy, how many steps a day we take — all this is valuable information that Big Tech is gathering.

These AI systems are designed to control us.

Our data are also used to inform new developments such as neuromorphic computers, which are artificial “brains,” and “pervasive neurotechnology.”

It might not surprise you that the CEO of SharpBrains, one of the leaders in this field and an allegedly “independent market research firm,” is also on the panel of the WEF’s Council on the Future of Neurotechnology.

Data from social media sites are collected by business owners.

Eighty-six percent of business owners gather data from their customers, with 64% using data from social media sites, mainly Facebook and Instagram.

Our data are used to inform propaganda campaigns from voting to vaccination, as portrayed in the Netflix documentary “The Great Hack.”

Tristan Harris, tech “ethicist” featured in the movie “The Social Dilemma,” (see here and here) suggests in his piece at the Nobel Prize Summit 2023 that social media is about “re-wiring the flows of attention and information in our society.”

Think of it this way: life on this planet has always revolved around an energy exchange of some sort.

A carnivore eats a herbivore, yet the energy of the herbivore’s body returns to the ground to fuel other life forms, including the progeny of the herbivore. The currency of exchange for a beautiful work of art is typically money.

The transaction that occurs is typically regarded as a fair exchange for raw talent, years of experience and hours and hours of attention and creativity expression, a value that can be subsequently traded (recycled).

With social media, the exchange is often very unbalanced. We give to it (attention, time, ideas, creativity) and we get little more than a dopamine hit in return.

It leaves us feeling more empty and unfulfilled, a bit like trying to fill a bottomless bucket, but we go back for more dopamine. We are turning our youth into dopamine junkies.

[…]

The perspective of big science

The formal science of evaluating the risks and benefits of social media appears to give the impression of balance. Some (see here and here) identify negative consequences of social media such as cyber-bullying, cyber-racism and issues relating to the exchange of sexually explicit content between minors.

Yet many papers deny or ignore any link between depression, anxiety, social disconnection, low self-esteem, poor self-image or body dysmorphic disorder with the amount of time spent on devices.

That’s despite these effects being frequently cited in the popular press, because they are widely observed, being supported by limited studies. On the contrary, the literature (that often in turn reflects the interests that fund research), frequently bigs up the benefits of digital technologies used almost ubiquitously by our youth.

For example, a recent review reminds us that social media is now the “primary mode of peer interactions and communication among adolescents,” this trend has been further magnified by the COVID-19 era.

Another review finds that “social gaming may also increase feelings of connection and sense of community.”

In Indigenous communities, “mobile phones are viewed as an extension of a person and may be shared by family members” whilst “forming community through social media can act as a process of uniting and healing for the Indigenous community,” finds Emma Rice, a researcher at Georgetown University.

Others go as far as saying that isolation in young people is more common among those who are disconnected from digital sources of entertainment and social media.

Yet, does social media offer genuine connection, and is a digital connection equivalent to a real-world connection?

Edward Hallowell, Harvard psychiatrist, writes in his paper about the “human moment” to illustrate meaningful connection as “an authentic psychological encounter that can happen only when two people share the same physical space.”

This might have something to do with our improved perception of non-verbal communication when we are in close proximity to one another.

But it may also be linked to the close interaction of proximal human biofields (the electromagnetic field that radiates beyond every living being). With digital technologies, we can all agree that we have connectivity, but perhaps we don’t experience connectedness.

This is the “Story of Separation” that contemporary thinker and philosopher, Charles Eisenstein, elaborates on in his book, “The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible.”

In this story, we are led to believe that we are “separate individuals in a universe that is separate from you as well … you are a bubble of psychology, a mind (whether brain-based or not) separate from other minds and separate from matter.”

Technology of course is just viewed as a further (and inevitable) separation of ourselves from the natural world, with neurotechnologies and AI increasingly being sold to the youth as the champions in this adventure that we must embrace, not reject.

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/big-tech-kids-cell-mobile-phone-tablet/

Truth, however, like a river meander, proves unstoppable over time.

Some sixteen months after the peaceful assembly of people from all areas of our country was brutally invaded and dispersed by henchmen of the political State, an extraordinary documentary film has emerged: River of Freedom.

I attended the sold-out Wellington premiere on 7 September at the Embassy Theatre and was myself transported to that relatively brief but powerful time when the citizenry reclaimed their rights, stood their ground and created, in microcosm, a society of mutual sustenance — an ideal, as it were, founded upon by charity, compassion and tolerance, and united, despite considerable diversity.

Watching the images of the multitudes who had the audacity to oppose the government’s demolition of fundamental human rights and its imposition of divisive and, frankly, illegal mandates, I was reminded of the many kindly and generous people I met, the determination to assert our unalienable rights, our requests for someone — anyone — from the elected body of Parliament simply to meet with us and to discuss our concerns, and the monolithic refusal of our politicians to engage.

I was reminded too of the creative joys that emerged from the occupants of Parliament’s terrain as we waited for a ‘representative’ to do his or her duty, such as the makeshift basketball court where I spent many an hour while on my daily rounds, the tents where music poured forth, and the meals supplied for free to all and sundry.

On one particular evening as I wound my way around, I was stopped in my tracks by a live rendition of the song I had been yearning to hear for weeks: Tom Petty’s ‘I Won’t Back Down’.

I remember too the day when victims of the mandated Jab were memorialized by a string of white crosses hung across our stage. I was honored to have said a few words on their behalf.

As the days and weeks wore on and the government’s frustration with a strong and peaceful presence grew, police actions became more aggressive and attempts to undermine our ability to continue residence became bolder. And all of this occurred during a period when a ‘vax apartheid’ state had been declared and those of us who were unjabbed were not permitted access to restaurants, churches, theatres, barbers, cinemas or gyms …

On the first of March 2022 I was part of a team that had been assembled to negotiate a peaceable solution to a situation that had become very tense. A member of the police force was slated to join, but this representative never appeared. On my way home that afternoon I happened to notice that the street next to Wellington’s main police station was filled with unmarked vans. I concluded that the police would stage a raid the next morning and I informed everyone I knew — filmmakers, protest leaders, media personnel and the like. Most — not all — told me that my fears were unfounded. They were wrong.

Fortunately the filmmakers of River of Freedom were there to record the fascistic thuggery that took place on 2 March, which included the use of tear gas and 40 mm rubber bullets against peaceful citizens. An elderly man had his hip broken thanks to a police assault and the first ambulance called to assist refused to take him to hospital.

Such were the memories that crowded upon me as I viewed River of Freedom, as I watched a brilliant and beautifully shot and viscerally moving documentary bring us a ‘real news’ account of what happened.

At my barber’s the other day I chanced to mention the Parliament protests — he cuts hair within a stone’s throw of the area — and I could tell by his reaction that his view of the event was the one promulgated by Radio New Zealand and the Dominion Post and the State-funded TV stations and other organs of propaganda — that a bunch of dirty low-lifes had conspired to make unnecessary trouble. I suggested he see River of Freedom; whether he will or not is another matter.

I understand that cinemas around the country, cinemas in towns large and small, have been booked out for showings of the film and that plans are underway to make the documentary available to an international audience.

Director Gaylene Barnes, producers Jared Connon and Julian Arahanga, cinematographer Mark Lapwood, and the entirety of the team deserve to be commended for presenting a genuine history of one of New Zealand’s most significant political and social events — for correcting the record, for countering falsehood and for inspiring those of us who have fought for our rights to continue our fight.

Make no mistake: that coming together in early 2022 had consequences felt within the corridors of political power. We served them notice, with peace, dignity and strength.

And if they think they can pull another fast one, they should think again. We are better prepared.

Via https://newzealanddoc.substack.com/p/river-of-freedom-deluge-of-truth

Executive Action

Directed by David Miller (1973)

Film Review

Until three days ago, I had no idea this film existed. I find it extraordinary that only 10 years after Kennedy’s murder, a major Hollywood studio publicly disclosed that the alleged perpetrator Lee Harvey Oswald was a known intelligence and FBI asset.

Based on a book of the same name by Mark Lane* and Donald Freed, the film was promoted as “fiction” incorporating “historical documented fact.” It depicts an eminently plausible scenario in which a network of business interests, rogue intelligence agents and sharpshooters conspire to kill President John F Kennedy.

In one scene, the conspirators review actual documents from Oswald’s military record revealing steps the CIA took (including training him in Russian) to create a suitable cover story to embed him in the Soviet Union as a double agent. Despite his dramatic renunciation of US citizenship at the US Embassy in Moscow (and his promise to turn over classified military secrets), the Russians refused to bite. The conspirators then review how his handlers returned him to the US, first to New Orleans, then to Dallas where they find him a job at the Texas School Book Depository and pay him a small stipend as an FBI informant.

Other “documented fact” presented in the film include the absence of Kennedy’s entire cabinet from the US, except for Lyndon Johnson (who was with him in Dallas), Robert McNamara (secretary of defense) and Robert Kennedy (attorney in general). On November 22, 1963, the rest were airborne on their way to a major conference in Japan. The filmmakers also point out that the emergency code book mysteriously disappeared from their plane, that all phone lines were down in Washington DC in the hour following the shooting and that neither the secret service nor the Dallas police failed followed required procedures in safeguarding the president’s motorcade.

The film depicts three shooters (none of them Oswald), one each in the School Book Depository, the Records Building across the street and on the Grassy Knoll in front of the motorcade.

The primary “fictional” component of the film is the identity of the conspirators. I was surprised it presented no evidence from New Orleans District Attorney James Garrison’s 1967 prosecution of JFK assassination co-conspirator Clay Shaw.  During Shaw’s trial, Garrison presented extensive evidence about the role Permindex* (responsible for numerous assassination attempts on late French president Charles De Gaulle) played in financing and orchestrating the assassination.

The film loosely portrays Kennedy’s killers as eugenicists keen on reducing the global population of dark skinned people, who are also deeply unhappy about the global nuclear test ban treaty, as well the president’s decision to withdraw all US troops from Vietnam by 1965.

There’s great archival footage of some of Kennedy’s more memorable speeches and Oswald’s interactions with reporters while in police custody. Claiming to be a “patsy,” Oswald insists he never killed anyone (neither the president nor police officer J D Tippett). Oswald was officially arrested and charged for murdering Tippett.

The film ends by scrolling through the names of 18 material witnesses (to the assassination) who died under mysterious circumstances between November 1963 and February 1967.

*Lane is best known for his number one bestselling 1966 critique of the Warren Commission report Rush to Judgement.

*Permindex, also referred to as Permanent Industrial Exposition or Permanent Industrial Expositions, was a trade organization French intelligence identified as orchestrating numerous assassination attempts on De Gaulle, as well as the successful assassination of John F Kennedy and numerous other world leaders.

Newsweek

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) whistleblower makes bombshell claims against the U.S. intelligence agency on Tuesday relating to the origins of COVID-19.

The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence announced that members heard testimony from a CIA whistleblower who alleged that the CIA “offered six analysts significant monetary incentives to change their position on COVID-19’s origin.”

“The whistleblower, who presents as a highly credible senior-level CIA officer, alleges that of the seven members assigned to the CIA team tasked with analyzing COVID-19 origins, six officers concluded that the virus likely originated from a lab in Wuhan, China,” the House’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic said in a press release. “The CIA, then, however, allegedly offered financial incentives to six of the experts involved in the investigation to change their conclusion in favor of a zoonotic origin.”

The announcement on Tuesday comes several months after the Wall Street Journal obtained classified intelligence reports in February, which found that the U.S. Department of Energy determined that COVID-19 likely originated from a lab in Wuhan, China.

“The whistleblower further contends that to come to the eventual public determination of uncertainty, the other six members were given a significant monetary incentive to change their position,” House’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner said in a joint statement.

Via https://www.newsweek.com/cia-whistleblower-bombshell-claim-covid-conspiracy-1826498

In recent months, the practice of refusing has shifted from exclusively small groups on the radical left to the heart of public discourse in Israel.

Hundreds of reservists announced that they would stop volunteering for reserve service in protest at what many claim is an effective “coup” by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose judicial reforms will heavily strengthen parliament against the judiciary.

Former politicians and members of the security establishment have also declared support for the boycott. At a demonstration in Tel Aviv in July, former Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin said the time had come “to decide on the suspension of volunteering for the reserves until the legislation is completely stopped”.

Former Defence Minister and Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon has also said of reservists who stop their service that he “would have done the same”.

The statement by the 230 youths is the first organised initiative regarding refusal of mandatory service, which applies in Israel to every man or woman at the age of 18, except for ultra-Orthodox Israelis – who are exempt for religious reasons – and Palestinian citizens of Israel, most of whom are not conscripted.

“The statement makes the connection between the judicial overhaul and the occupation. Those promoting the overhaul in the Knesset are Rotman, Ben Gvir and Smotrich, who are settlers,” said 16-year-old Ella Greenberg Keidar, referring to a number of far-right legislators who have been pushing the judicial reforms.

She told Middle East Eye that the government’s legislation was enabling further construction in the occupied territories and further acts of “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians.

“Beyond criticising settlers and the settlements, we want to talk about the militarism of society that allows such a thing. In addition, the reform was designed to increase the oppression of LGBT people, women and immigrants,” she said.

‘I won’t be a soldier of Ben Gvir’

Some of the signatories said they had planned to refuse to serve even before the current far-right government was formed, while others have consolidated their position in recent months.

Tal Mitnick, 17, told MEE that despite his concerns he had planned to keep his head down and enlist in a non-combat role, so that he would be able to get a career after military service.

“When the protests started, I started to be more active and learn from people around me,” he said. “I decided to publicly refuse. I understood that these army units are backing up the combat units, giving them the intolerance to invade houses and blackmail Palestinians.”

‘On the personal level, my attitude has changed – I felt there was an obligation to publicly refuse, in order to present a resistance to the blunt fascist discourse’

– Yuval Dag, activist

He added that the demonstrations had caused a lot of people to wake up and see the connection between the overhaul and the occupation.

“I personally began to connect things, to see the settlers from the West Bank leading the overhaul, and why it is important for them to weaken the Supreme Court, in order to pass racist laws and annex the territories,” he explained.

Yuval Dag was the first person to be jailed since the new government was formed and the protests began in January.

Dag, who is 20, had taken the decision to refuse military service already, but decided to go public after the new far-right government was elected.

“On the personal level, my attitude has changed – I felt there was an obligation to publicly refuse, in order to present a resistance to the blunt fascist discourse,” he explained to MEE. “In the general public, the slogan of ‘I won’t be a soldier of Ben Gvir’ became acceptable, even in places where the occupation was not discussed, because now there is a demon on the other side.”

Dag served 64 days in military prison before he was released.

“It was a difficult experience in prison… I hope more will refuse and that it will become more acceptable.”

Refusal ‘common and accepted’

In July, the Knesset passed a key pillar of the government’s judicial reform package, abolishing Israel’s “reasonableness standard”, eliminating the Supreme Court’s ability to block government decisions it deems unreasonable.

Proponents of the plan say it is necessary to restore the balance of power between government branches, while opponents say it will remove checks and balances and undermine the independence of the judicial system.

Attorney Noa Levy, who represents conscientious objectors and advises Youth Against Dictatorship, said that increasing numbers of Israelis taking part in military service had contacted her since the reforms protests began.

Levy told MEE that they said they had lost confidence in the roles assigned to them, and were overwhelmed by doubts following the first mass refusals, prompted by the abolition of the reasonableness standard.

For older “refuseniks”, the new wave of Israelis refusing to serve is heartening.

David Zonsheine, 50, is co-founder of the Courage to Refuse group that refused to serve in the West Bank and Gaza during the Second Intifada in the early 2000s.

He was jailed in 2002 after he refused to serve as a reservist in the Palestinian territories.

“More than 20 years ago, we were struggling to return Israel to the morally good place they thought it once was,” he told MEE.

“We used our uniform in order to speak to the public – they understand the army itself is the problem, as it produces all the right-wing ideology, even more extreme than Ben Gvir.”

Zonsheine said that while he was still guarding his expectations, it was a positive fact that refusal was now “common and accepted”.

“The protests against the overhaul shifted the focus from the army to the regime,” he explained. “We stated we won’t serve because of what the army is doing to Palestinians; they state that they won’t serve in an army of a regime because of its actions against Israeli Jews. Now we need to explain the problems beyond that.”

[…]

Via https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-judicial-crisis-new-movement-sees-young-people-refuse-military-service

The stage has been set for a societal meltdown of epic proportions.  When the United States went through the Great Depression of the 1930s, conditions were extremely rough, but our country was able to successfully weather the storm thanks to the relatively high character of the American people.  Unfortunately, several generations later we are simply not made of the same stuff.  Just about every form of evil that you can possibly imagine is absolutely exploding in our society today, and there is chaos in major cities from coast to coast.  If things are this bad now, while economic conditions are still at least somewhat stable, what is going to happen when economic conditions get exceedingly harsh in this country?

Already, crime is totally out of control in communities all over the nation.  According to the Washington Post, homicides are up 29 percent in Washington D.C. so far this year, and robberies are up 67 percent…

The spike in felonies — homicides and robberies are up 29 and 67 percent from the same time period last year, police statistics show — is not the only data that is causing alarm. The number of juveniles arrested for carjacking has increased slightly since last year, with 41 of the 64 charged between the ages of 12 and 15. As of Aug. 31, a total of 81 minors had been shot in the city this year, compared with 66 over the same span last year and 37 in 2021.

While a preponderance of violence occurs where it often has — in poor neighborhoods on D.C.’s eastern edge — statistics show that the geography of crime has become more diffuse, with prosperous areas less immune than before.

Those are definitely very alarming numbers, but Washington D.C. is far from alone.

A crime wave has been steadily percolating all over America, and even young women are eagerly participating in the violence…

The shocking moment three women beat an Asian man with a metal pipe before taking off with his car has been caught on camera.

Danxin Shi, a rideshare driver, is no longer able to work after his vehicle was stolen by the gang about 5:30pm on Tuesday evening in crime-ridden, Dem-led Chicago.

Footage shows the moment the Chinatown resident, who lives West 22nd Place, parking his vehicle and walking along the street when he is struck with a weapon and shoved to the ground – where he is beaten repeatedly.

This makes me so sad.

Young women are not supposed to act like this.

But now we live in a society where all of the old rules have been thrown out.

In this environment, literally anything goes.  Theft is going to cost U.S. retailers more than 100 billion dollars this year alone, and “flash robberies” that are conducted by mobs of young people have become a daily occurrence…

A group of ‘flash rob’ thieves stormed into a Los Angeles Macy’s department store at Northridge Mall on Sunday morning as they filled bags with $20,000 worth of perfume.

Cellphone video of the crime showed several men dressed in dark hoodies and blue medical face masks loading up bags of what appeared to be cologne and perfume merchandise.

Meanwhile, the worst drug crisis in the entire history of the United States just continues to escalate.
Today, the heart of the city of Benjamin Franklin looks like something you would expect to see in a third world country…

Disturbing new video from Philadelphia shows addicts on the street in a trance like state, passed out on the sidewalk in the city’s multiple homeless encampments.

In the Kensington neighborhood, the footage shows fires burning on trash littered sidewalks as groups of people set up camp.

Drug users are seen hunched over with no control of their limbs, while others are sprawled across the garbage covered streets.

Large groups have taken over the sidewalks, turning them into homeless encampments where many people live in their own filth.

But this isn’t just happening in our large metropolitan areas.

According to Zero Hedge, authorities are having to deal with “third-world country stuff” in Casper, Wyoming…

A city in Wyoming has been overwhelmed with a growing number of homeless people, who have damaged a local hotel that would require millions of dollars to fix and left hundreds of pounds of human feces in the downtown area, according to its mayor.

Casper Mayor Bruce Knell, in an interview with local news media Cowboy State Daily published on Aug. 31, said the city’s homeless population had topped about 200 people, creating “a mess” as they roam the city’s parks and streets.

“It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s third-world country stuff happening in Casper, Wyoming,” Mr. Knell said.

“They destroyed everything,” he added. “It’s horrible.”

With each passing day, conditions in this nation get even worse.

So what is going to happen when the economy finally tanks and people start getting really desperate?

You might want to start thinking about that, because very hard times are clearly on the horizon.

When the economy slows down, there is less demand for rail transportation, and at this point total combined U.S. rail traffic has fallen on a year over year basis for three months in a row…

“August was the third straight month in which total year-over-year U.S. rail carloads have fallen,” Association of American Railroads (AAR) Senior Vice President John T. Gray reported on Sept. 6. Total combined U.S. traffic for the first 35 weeks of 2023 was 16,173,208 carloads and intermodal units, a decrease of 4.9% compared to last year.

Even more troubling, credit card delinquencies and auto loan delinquencies have both hit levels that we haven’t seen in more than a decade…

This year, credit card delinquencies have hit 3.8%, while 3.6% have defaulted on their car loans, according to credit agency Equifax.

Both figures are the highest in more than 10 years.

“The increase in delinquencies and defaults is symptomatic of the tough decisions that these households are having to make right now — whether to pay their credit card bills, their rent or buy groceries,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told the Washington Post.

We had a very sharp recession during the first two quarters of 2020, and then we had another relatively mild recession during the first two quarters of 2022.

Now it appears that a new downturn has begun, and it promises to be very painful.

But our population is clearly not prepared to handle what is ahead of us.

When economic conditions get extremely harsh, I expect that we will see a massive national temper tantrum, and it won’t be pretty.

[…]

Via https://michaeltsnyder.substack.com/p/we-have-a-real-life-nightmare-on/