2020 – A Year Of Living Dangerously

Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

“A shocking crime was committed on the unscrupulous initiative of few individuals, with the blessing of more, and amid the passive acquiescence of all.”

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

The shocking crime being committed during this century under the unscrupulous initiative of a few evil men is ongoing and no longer hidden from those willing to open their eyes and see the truth. As conspiracy theorists have proven to be right through the sacrifice of Snowden, Assange, and other patriots for truth, the Deep State psychopaths have double downed and are blatantly flaunting their power and control over the levers of government, finance and media.

Never in the history of mankind have such devious, unscrupulous, arrogant, narcissistic and downright evil men seized hegemony over global finance, trade and politics. A minority of billionaire oligarchs and their highly compensated apparatchiks, ingrained in government bureaucracies, surveillance agencies and media outlets refuse to relinquish their dominance and would rather burn the world to the ground than loss their ill-gotten riches, un-Constitutional power and unlawful control.

When I started pondering a theme for 2020, the “year of living dangerously” immediately popped into my mind. But I had a feeling I’d used that title before. I did a search of my site and lo and behold I wrote 2012 – The Year of Living Dangerously eight years ago. As I reread my predictions for 2012, it was a humbling experience, as not only did most of my predictions not come to fruition in 2012, they haven’t materialized during the next eight years. My facts and reasoning were sound, but my naivety regarding the extreme measures the Deep State was willing to utilize, blinded me to how long they could keep this game going. In my year-end assessment of my 2012 predictions this was my conclusion:

“It seems I always underestimate the ability of sociopathic central bankers and their willingness to destroy the lives of hundreds of millions to benefit their oligarch masters. I always underestimate the rampant corruption that permeates Washington DC and the executive suites in mega-corporations across the land. And I always overestimate the intelligence, civic mindedness, and ability to understand math of the ignorant masses that pass for citizens in this country. It seems that issuing trillions of new debt to pay off trillions of bad debt, government sanctioned accounting fraud, mainstream media propaganda, government data manipulation and a populace blinded by mass delusion can stave off the inevitable consequences of an unsustainable economic system.”

This statement has been applicable for an inexplicable length of time, with no indication of changing in the near future. I thought the national debt reaching $16.5 trillion would surely trigger a crisis and recession. Here we are eight years later, $7 trillion more in debt and still no recession. I thought global debt, particularly in in Europe, would lead to a global contagion and breakup of the EU. Global debt has risen by $50 trillion, the EU is intact, and the world muddles on.

The coordinated efforts of central bankers in the U.S., Europe, Japan and China has produced a flood of liquidity, elevating all markets, enriching the .1%, impoverishing senior citizens, and creating inflation for average Americans – underreported by the BLS. By artificially propping up GDP, the economy has not officially gone into recession, which has supported the stock market going up 150% since 2011. Debt to GDP ratios and stock market valuations are meaningless when the Fed’s sole purpose is to enrich their Wall Street benefactors through money printing.

Home prices were still falling in 2011 and I expected it to continue in 2012. Again, I was unable to comprehend the lengths the ruling class would go to in order to reverse the verdict of free markets. Little did I know the Fed, Treasury, and Wall Street would conspire to buy up millions of foreclosed homes, renting them back to the people they kicked into the street, artificially suppress interest rates, and use Fannie and Freddie to again give mortgages to anyone who could fog a mirror. It worked like a charm, as home prices bottomed in 2012 and now have surpassed the 2005 peak.

The official unemployment rate in 2011 was 8.7% and I expected it to tick higher once the recession took hold. But, QE3 was unleashed, staving off recession, propelling the stock market, and driving “official” unemployment to record lows of 3.5% today, even though 101 million working age Americans aren’t working. The combination of QE to infinity and hundreds of billions in corporate stock buybacks have worked wonders for the .1%, despite lackluster GDP and corporate income growth.

Oil reached the highest level in history during 2012 and continued higher in 2013. This normally would have triggered a recession, but QE and zero interest rates kept it at bay. Then the “shale miracle” drove supply higher, oil prices crashed into the $30s, and have remained in the $60 range ever since. The shale miracle certainly created millions of new barrels per day, but the companies fracking for the oil haven’t made a dime in seven years. The “miracle” was created by the Fed’s easy money and Wall Street bankers financing companies with no possibility of ever being profitable. With prices still hovering around $60, frackers are going bankrupt in droves, output has peaked as new investment dollars dry up, and this boom goes bust, as all fraudulent schemes do when reality meets delusion.

As the presidential election approached, the Occupy Wall Street movement was at its height. Just like the Tea Party movement before it, the Occupy movement was co-opted and trivialized within months by the Deep State and their minions in government and the media. Bloomberg did his part and wiped out the Zuccotti Park encampment in one night. Ron Paul’s libertarian attempt to capture the Republican nomination was derailed by the GOP establishment and my dreams of a 3rd party run were dashed. The country’s last chance for redemption was lost.

My expectations of a war between Iran and Israel have still gone unfulfilled, with tensions continuing to grow. But at least the military industrial complex was able to profit from war in Syria, Yemen, and the never-ending war in Afghanistan. Trump’s taking out a key Iranian general with drone strikes have certainly increased the risk of something bigger in the Middle East, but will probably not result in a bigger shooting war.

Eight years of keeping the balls in the air, as their toxic “solutions” poison the system and ensure a cataclysmic demise to this debt-based Ponzi scheme, has convinced millions abnormality is actually normal. Living through my first and only Fourth Turning has proven to be more difficult than I realized. I expected it to proceed at a much faster pace than has materialized. Knowing the details of previous Fourth Turnings convinced me I could predict how this one would proceed.

But I failed to grasp the likely twenty-year length of this crisis and how actions and reactions will develop on their own timeline, not according to the annual forecast of prognosticators and pundits. The key factors driving this crisis: debt, civic decay, and global disorder, triggered this crisis in 2008, continue to gain momentum, and will ultimately merge into a lethal combination which will end the relatively short but eventful period of the American Empire.

My attempt at trying to predict what would happen in 2019, based on the Fourth Turning – 2019 From a Fourth Turning Perspective – turned out to be wrong once again. Not a shocker, since my timing has been off during the first eleven years of this Crisis. Nothing in my assessment has changed one year later. The three driving factors of this Fourth Turning continue to hasten towards a fateful climax. My assessment as we entered 2019 still applies as we enter 2020:

Debt, civic decay and global disorder are on center stage as we enter the fateful year of 2019. A madness seems to be gripping the nation, a melancholy realization all is not right. Everything has a chaotic feel, as financial markets are falling, politicians threaten and attack each other, government dysfunction is laid bare for all to see, Deep State snakes slither behind the scenes trying to bring down Trump, racial tensions grow, foreign governments topple, Russia and China challenge U.S. hegemony, and the global debt Ponzi scheme is entering its collapse phase.

The stock market was falling and signs of imminent recession were appearing as we entered 2019. My prediction that a Fed discount rate of 3% would trigger a recession, stock market collapse and a debt crisis looked solid, until the Treasury, Trump and Wall Street bankers pressured Powell to cease rate increases and corporate executives did their part by buying back their shares. Powell then folded like a cheap suit to Trump’s demands and lowered rates by .75% to goose the stock market over the summer.

When the repo market showed the true underlying distress in the financial system, Powell introduced QE4 and added $500 billion to the Fed balance sheet, with no sign of slowing down. This liquidity injection again boosted the wealth of the .1% to stratospheric levels as the stock market skyrockets to new records daily. There are clearly deep-seated structural issues with a financial system saturated with unpayable levels of debt. So, the Fed will continue to run their electronic printing presses at warp speed until the inevitable banquet of consequences is served to all.

The optimism among the financial class has reached all-time highs. As long as their sugar daddy Powell keeps the candy flowing, all is well on Wall Street. Meanwhile, most economic indicators continue to point downward and our national debt grows by $4 billion per day. Average Americans are up to their eyeballs in debt, as they need their credit cards to survive, student loan delinquencies soar, auto loan debt is going bad at a higher rate than the 2008 crisis, and home prices are now 15% above the previous bubble peak.

Rent and healthcare costs continue to grow at a much higher rate than reported by the government. It feels like something has to give. Reasonable, critical thinking, intelligent observers are flabbergasted by the outrageously blatant disregard for future generations being exhibited by the ruling class, as they pillage whatever is left of our national wealth. The children be damned.

The social distress I noted last year continues unabated today as the glorification of abnormality reaches new heights. The flames of division and disarray are fanned unceasingly by the left-wing media in order to distract from the true desperate financial situation of the country. As young generations, dumbed down and socially engineered in government run schools, are lured into believing socialism is the answer by corrupt lying politicians, they are willfully ignorant of what socialism has wrought in Venezuela and other 3rd world shitholes.

Rather than focus on how politicians of both parties, the Deep State and the Wall Street cabal have destroyed their financial futures through corrupt schemes and rigging the system for their benefit, they worship a thirteen year old regarding the climate change hoax. The puppeteers using Greta as their puppet seek control of your lives, more taxes, and the power to take away your liberties and freedom, while enriching themselves.

The political distress as we entered 2019 was already at looming civil war intensity. If possible, the decibel level has actually risen higher, to 11 on a 1 to 10 scale. The Mueller investigation turned into a big nothingburger as the ongoing Deep State coup against Trump relentlessly marches onward. The Democrats and their Surveillance State co-conspirators have determined the best way to cover-up their treasonous acts is to stay on the offensive by impeaching Trump on bogus charges. Their media mouthpieces produce prodigious levels of propaganda designed to convince the masses Trump should be removed from office. The majority of the public aren’t buying it, as the fake news media has lost its credibility after three years of lies and misinformation.

In Part II of this article I will examine some of the dynamics which will most impact the next year and remainder of this Fourth Turning.

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