underXposed

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Will someone please explain to me why everyone is tearing their hair out to maintain the rat race by scrambling madly for energy sources? This feudal system that has the world by the balls for centuries has caused unprecedented suffering and death. It’s madness to prop up the corpses of the oil dinosaurs in power with their outdated form of top-down power. Anyone? Anyone?

Sure, Americans want to continue our cushy lifestyles with mobile independence (one person each in millions of cars in gridlock rush hour), communication networks, shopping malls, hot water for showers, etc. I understand that. But the truth is that, just as the masses trusted like children in the “Holy Roman Empire” and Adolf Hitler, instead of using our brains people have allowed themselves to be hoodwinked into junkie-hood from the get-go, this time into buying gas guzzlers, living all casual in the ‘burbs, cruising through the convenience lifestyle like it would never end. You knew that we trade in petrodollars, that is, gold hasn’t been the standard for a very long time, right? All along, we have the usual beneficiaries (in a large part banks) manipulating everything behind the curtain.

Well guess what? Their shell game is over, folks. O-V-E-R.  Within the next few days or weeks, we can expect the

PENDING MELTDOWN OF 6,000 AMERICAN BANKS
Translated from the Financial Telegraph
June 28, 2008

BRUSSELS/AMSTERDAM (DFT) - Fortis expects a complete breakdown of the American financial markets within days or weeks. This explains, according to the bank insurer, the series of interventions on Thursday with the aim of strengthening themselves by € 8 billion. “We are ready at the last moment. The U.S. is doing much worse than we had thought,” said Fortis chairman Maurice Lippens, who insists that CEO Votron shall not be replaced. Fortis expects bankruptcies among the 6,000 U.S. banks that have low coverage. “But the same goes also for Citigroup and General Motors, and thereby starts a complete meltdown in the U.S.” Read the rest>>

This reality would support James Howard Kunstler’s June 30 post Worse Than Grandma’s Depression.

The banks have been doing their death dance for an entire year now, pretending that their problems are those of mere “liquidity” (i.e. cash-on-hand) rather than insolvency (no cash either on hand or in the vault and nothing else to sell to raise cash except worthless “creative” securities that nobody would ever buy). But the destruction of money (resulting from loans not paid back) is now so intense that the game of pretend has reached its terminal point. The question for the moment is exactly who and what will be crushed as these institutions roll over and die.

And while you’re at it, check out The Telegraph UK’s excellent article, Part two of Eagle and the Dragon: Requiem for a Dream.  The headline reads:

Once symbolic of optimism and certainty, America’s credit-crunched suburbs may be facing a decline as dramatic as that of Detroit, itself once a beacon of industry. Mick Brown and the photographer Alec Soth continue their investigation into the contrasting fortunes of the US and China

Talk about depression.

A Possible Catastrophic Scenario for America

While the “news” media waste our time blabbering about the bickering and hair-splitting between presidential candidates or bemoans the shrinking power of Starbucks and General Motors, the real concern lurks beneath us like a monstrously huge dark shadow. Look under your ass, man. We’re all being taken for a ride over the cliff.

On the Global Research site from Canada, David DeBatto, a former U.S. Army Counterintelligence Special Agent and Iraqi war veteran, draws a catastrophic scenario of what could unfold by the next presidential election if bush invades Iran :

The day after the invasion Wall Street (and to a lesser extent, Tokyo, London and Frankfurt) acts as it always does in an international crisis – irrational speculative and spot buying reaches fever pitch and sends the cost of oil skyrocketing. In the immediate aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iran, the price of oil goes to $200.00 – $300.00 dollars a barrel on the open market. If the war is not resolved in a few weeks, that price could rise even higher. This will send the price of gasoline at the pump in this country to $8.00-$10.00 per gallon immediately and subsequently to even higher unthinkable levels.

If that happens, this country shuts down. Most Americans are not be able to afford gas to go to work. Truckers pull their big rigs to the side of the road and simply walk away. Food, medicine and other critical products are not be brought to stores. Gas and electricity (what is left of the short supply) are too expensive for most people to afford. Children, the sick and elderly die from lack of air-conditioned homes and hospitals in the summer. Children, the sick and elderly die in the winter for lack of heat. There are food riots across the country. A barter system takes the place of currency and credit as the economy dissolves and banks close or limit withdrawals. Civil unrest builds.

The police are unable to contain the violence and are themselves victims of the same crisis as the rest of the population. Civilian rule dissolves and Martial Law is declared under provisions approved under the Patriot Act. Regular U.S. Army and Marine troops patrol the streets. The federal government apparatus is moved to an unknown but secure location. The United States descends into chaos and becomes a third world country. Its time as the lone superpower is over.

It doesn’t get any worse than this.

Then the first Israeli bomber drops its nuclear payload on Tehran.