This article was originally published by Brandon Smith at Alt-Market.
The news cycle moves so quickly these days writing an analysis on current events becomes difficult; the moment you publish an examination of the situation people have already moved on to the next disaster. So, today I’m not going to do that. Instead, let’s look at current trends and project what is likely to happen in the next couple of months. In my article ‘How The Pandemic Crisis Will Probably Develop Over The Next Year’ published in early March, I outlined what I believed would be the major developments on a longer timetable. Some of these predictions have already occurred.
Now I would like to tackle a shorter timetable and focus more specifically on the economic side of things, along with the effects of government lockdowns and how they will continue. Yes, that’s right, if you think the “reopening” of the economy is going to be widespread, or that it will last, don’t get your hopes up. I am using a 60-day model because I have observed that the average non-aware person appears to be about two months behind those of us in the liberty movement in terms of seeing the dangers ahead.
First and foremost, the lockdown issue is on almost everyone’s mind, and as I’ve been saying for the past month, it would not take long before people start freaking out about their financial prospects once they realize this thing may not be over “in two weeks” as we keep hearing every two weeks from the mainstream media, state governments, and Donald Trump. The “two weeks until reopen” mantra is designed to keep the public placated and docile, and the establishment will continue to use it until people are finally fed up, which is already beginning to happen.
Civil Disobedience Is Here: People All Over Are Getting Off Their Knees & Disobeying Tyrants
Lockdown protests are sparking up across the country and it’s only going to get worse from now on. Understand though that establishment elites probably expected this, especially in the US, and they are planning to use civil unrest to their advantage.
Do not be surprised if some areas of the country do indeed “reopen” next month, but expect these locations to be primarily rural. Do NOT count on first and second-tier cities to reopen, at least nowhere near the activity that they had previous to the viral outbreak. In fact, while rural towns try to go back to normalcy, many major cities will probably double down and increase restrictions rather than loosen them.
Why do I think this will happen? I’ve noticed an odd narrative being pushed in the mainstream media lately that has me concerned. The MSM is aggressively promoting the notion that rural states and counties are about to be crushed by the coronavirus, and looser restrictions in these places are “a danger to everyone”.
Now, if you read between the lines in this propaganda, what I see is not the media reporting on what is happening now, but what they expect to happen soon. In my area of Montana, there is no community spread of the virus, and this is common to many parts of rural America. However, what if rural towns reopen while large metropolitan areas remain closed for business? Unless travel restrictions are instituted, expect a FLOOD of city dwellers to pour into rural areas looking for a taste of freedom and some open bars and restaurants.
If your small town is within 1-2 hours’ drive of a large city, get ready for a parade of yuppies on main street looking for a vacation from lockdown.
This in itself is not a big deal. If people want to drive from the city to spend money in small-town America then that’s a benefit to struggling rural communities (and a bizarre 180-degree shift from the norm). But here is what I think will happen next:
After about two weeks of reopening, small towns across the US will have a massive spike in infection numbers and community spread. Viral clusters will develop and some people will die. Does this mean our economy should be frozen to the point of collapse or that medical martial law is the answer? No, absolutely not. But the media is already gearing up for the big “we told you so”, and as rural infections skyrocket state governments and the federal government will start calling for renewed lockdowns even more harsh than before. The rest of the world will say “that’s what those Americans (conservative Americans) get for being selfish and trying to reopen too soon”.
The economy cannot be opened one piece at a time, it has to be opened all at once. Otherwise, you are going to get a huge influx of people to reopened regions and an inordinate amount of infection cases will follow in those areas, exaggerating the spread of the virus. Of course, a full reopening of the nation is not going to happen.
Get ready for a great big fake wrestling match between state governments and Trump in terms of how to handle ending lockdowns. Take note though that Trump flip-flops so much on state power vs. executive power that no one actually knows where he really stands on the issue; this is by design.
We hear a lot of complaints about the World Health Organization and China hiding or suppressing information on the coronavirus and the extent of the danger to the public. Yet Trump was downplaying the pandemic in the EXACT same way in January, claiming that Chinese data was trustworthy and that the virus was under control. This past week Trump seems to be taking the WHO and China to task, but is any of this real?
Trump’s persona is meant to be ambiguous and chameleon-like so that he can be presented as all things to all people. For the political left, he’s a boogeyman, a bumbling conservative villain, and statist that is destroying the country; he acts as a catalyst to drive them even more insane than they already are. For some on the political right, Trump is a savior, or a martyr. They place him on a pedestal so high that he can do no wrong and some even believe he is actually fighting a “secret war” with the elites using subversive tactics despite the fact that half of his cabinet is made up of banking and Council on Foreign Relations alumni.
This absurdity has divided the liberty movement into different camps – Those who realize Trump is a fraud, and those who treat him like a 4D chess playing god.
I fully expect Trump to flip-flop again in the next two months. For now, he is acting like a champion of the people defending lockdown protesters and pushing for a quick reopen. After the next wave of infections and deaths occur, do not be surprised if he suddenly calls for stringent lockdown procedures.
Economically, new lockdowns after a short reopen will devastate small businesses that are clamoring for oxygen already. The much-vaunted small business stimulus package was a dud, and it burned up in less than a week. Another stimulus is on the table, but it is being contested. If another bailout is passed it will vanish yet again with most small businesses still not receiving a dime. Bottom line: Too-big-to-fail corporations are going to get their money, and small businesses will get little or none after the next 60 days. This means that 50% of the jobs in the country are now on the chopping block, and most of them will not return because these businesses were already on the ropes with razor-thin margins and extensive debt obligations.
The economy is already dead, the pin to the grenade has already been pulled, the majority of Americans simply don’t realize it yet.
In terms of individual government aid, some laid-off employees are sitting pretty, though, at least for a little while. The stimulus measures are beginning to reach the newly jobless on top of their normal unemployment benefits, so even if businesses reopen, they may have a hard time finding people to work for them. You can make more money from government checks right now than you can working full time at almost any service-based business while also avoiding “the Rona”. But what these people don’t realize is that this windfall is going to dissipate quickly.
Other recently unemployed people are still waiting for their checks, showing the government response to be uneven.
The stimulus is drying up fast and everyone and their mother has a hand out to get theirs, with corporations being the biggest drain. The fact that the small business stimulus disappeared in under a week should tell you what is about to happen with individual stimulus measures. But beyond this problem is the unspoken issue of supply chain disruptions and inflation.
What good is your government check if 90% of the stores are shut down, 50% of the items you want to buy are considered “non-essential” and restricted, and the items you are allowed to buy are skyrocketing in price? The common American is being set up for a shock they are not prepared for when they realize that government checks (Universal Basic Income) are barely going to keep them alive, let alone grant them months of paid leisure. I think the awareness of this will hit the general public in around 60 days.
To reiterate, the supply chain breakdown will go mainstream in a couple months. The stores are sparse right now; they are stretching inventory to fill gap in shelves and limiting purchases on a long list of items to one per customer, but they aren’t in crisis mode yet. With the biggest producers of meat products shutting down as well as farms having trouble hiring workers to process produce and other goods.
The lockdowns caused an initial drop in some prices due to closed restaurants and oversupply, but this is soon to end as supply is about to be destroyed because of a lack of production. Economic collapse rarely if ever leads to advantages for consumers; this is a fallacy from the depression era which for some reason is still perpetuated by uneducated economists today.
The name for this type of event is a “stagflationary crisis” and it is something I have been warning about for years. It means price inflation in necessities while deflation occurs in wages, many assets, and some commodities. The oil market is an indicator of these mechanics in action. As oil plunges, the public gets cheap gasoline, but the price collapse also represents a collapse in global energy demand, and thus a collapse in production. A collapse in production leads to less supply, and thus higher prices and the cycle continue until everything breaks and the populace is reduced to one of two choices – poverty or self-sufficiency.
The extent of the crisis will become much more clear in the next two months to the majority. The result will be civil unrest in the summer, likely followed by extreme poverty levels in the winter. No measure of “reopening” is going to do much to stop the avalanche that has already been started. The solution is always the same: localized trade and production and removing yourself and your community from dependency on the establishment controlled economy. It’s certainly difficult, but it is possible. What is not possible is fixing the broken and corrupt economy we have now or stopping the current collapse. This is a fool’s errand for people living in unicorn land.
David Icke To LEOs & Military: “Look Your Children In The Eye” & Tell Them YOU Enforced Tyranny
EDITOR’S NOTE: What can save the economy and businesses is working in your communities as Smith suggested. Take action voluntarily, open your business, and stop asking permission to make a living. Stand up and we can prevent the future he’s predicting. Or remain enslaved and follow the demands of tyrants and watch your way of life evaporate. Rendering politicians irrelevant is the only way to get out of this mess that politicians created and it will require mass civil disobedience to the draconian commands they expect us, the slaves, to obey without question.
The biggest problem is not the pandemic and it’s not the economic collapse. The biggest problem is tyranny and the enslavement of mankind.
Trump is acting like a champion of fascists and thieves. If he was a champion of the people, he would have imprisoned everyone involved in the false imprisonment and illegal enslavement of the people in the 43 states that have issued the lock downs, as well as those in his administration that have enacted an absurd 4 phase plan for re-openning, which would include himself.
Sending out a tweet in support of protestors while he has the power to end the lock down and continues enacting draconian measures is the biggest insult conceivable!
Inflation and inadequate pay to support oneself show that the economy was never self-sustaining without some version of white slavery.
There would have to exist, some kind of status lower than moral and civil adulthood, an original debt akin to original sin.
This is the end. 25% of American workers are shut out of their jobs. So far. More will be locked out soon. Most will not get their jobs back. They will be forced onto welfare. Forced to vote Democrat forever. It’s over. Rise up! Change it or die.
Good article; straightforward and honest, thanks; but the author neglects to say re the “in sixty days” and “in small towns” prediction, that new cases of COVID-19 (or some type agent; who knows what it will be?) will suddenly kindle again BECAUSE government agents will insure that it happen.
It is inimical to reason and logic to assume that above and beyond all the lies there have been no ‘abettors’ and ‘spreaders’ of the virus thus far, not to mention what is sure to come in the near future when circumstances begin to resume some vestige of normalcy and the tyrants need added incentive.
My wish would be that some of these bas****s be caught in the act of spreading new contagion and forced to reveal where their paychecks are coming from.
. . . Now, wouldn’t that be a halcyon event worth contemplating!
“The Cloward–Piven strategy is a political strategy outlined in 1966 by American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven that called for overloading the U.S. public welfare system in order to precipitate a crisis that would lead to a replacement of the welfare system with “a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty”.
(According to the economic school of Darth Skippy, ubi will last until they accidentally forget to just print more “helicopter money” into existence, or they cause a Holodomor, on purpose.)
“The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”
— attributed to Thatcher
(See your public works through, to the end. Maintain them. Do not pick fights with the other tinpot dictatorships. You have a printing press and a relatively-stable demand for commodities, that should not lead to wheelbarrows of Wiemar banknotes, overnight.)
Oh, wait…
“As of April 16, 2020 the SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) has hit its current funding limit and we have closed our application until additional funds have been allocated by Congress, or until the program officially ends. At this time, we are no longer accepting new applications for PPP loans.
For those of you with who previously submitted applications, please continue to check your email inbox for communication regarding your loan application.”
I am one frugal tightass. I have to look up where to eat, when I go out, every once in a blue moon.
But, there are buffet and fast food hobbyists.
When these establishments are opened, they are loaded down with the cheese, pizza toppings 1ft thick, and all-you-can-eat high-end ingredients.
They are subject to hoodrats, urban decay, health violations, then, go out of business.
Until the next transfusion.
All they’re really doing is laundering subsidies. The rest is stage props. Your work uniform may as well be put on a traffic cone or bowling pin — placeholders, which don’t complain.
Their answer to all this will be WAR! On all fronts. Get ready guys…
IMO this is the best piece I’ve ever read from Mr. Smith in the last ten years.
Or…maybe it’s the only one I agree with. Anyway, good post.
We have had so much time to prep.
The viral video that shows Covid-19 is a fake crisis:
https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=WGbYHJcMbz8
Apr 24, 2020 Bail-Ins, Bail-Outs: The Next BANKING CRISIS – Mike Maloney
“There is a banking crisis coming in the future, the big question is whether it will be bail-outs – where YOU have to pay for it through future taxation, or will it be bail-ins – where you pay for it right now as the bank takes some of your deposits?”
https://youtu.be/DjZCIg7AGsk
As I’ve been saying since the beginning of the pandemic, wearing MASKS while out in public is the number 1 mitigating factor for preventing infection, and containing this virus (or any other respiratory virus).
If you’re in a grocery store, library, coliseum, or any other place where people congregate, you are INHALING everyone else’s EXHALATIONS, and if that person has SARS-2/Covid-19 you are at high risk for contracting the virus!
Asian nations that mandated mask wearing for their populace, have exponentially lower numbers of Covid-19 patients, even though they are in close proximity to China.
But by ONLY telling people to “social distance” and wash their hands, and NOT telling people to wear a mask while in public, it’s guaranteeing that the virus will spread among the population.
Remember the 1st “Commandment” chiseled into the rock of the Georgia Guidestones: “Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.”
Remember the words of Bill Gates who said that if they were successful vaccinating humanity, it would REDUCE the world’s population by 10-15%.
Remember the words of Prince Phillip who said, “If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.”
At this point, anyone still believing in the Left/Right, Democrat/Republican paradigm is missing the BIG picture.
BOTH Left and Right, Republican and Democrat, don’t give a tinkers damn for the people they govern.
They view humanity as mere money machines for their crony governments, imbeciles, “useless eaters”, malcontents, and sheep who need to be controlled, and occasionally have their numbers culled.
The only strategy left to us as rational, thinking human beings is detaching from the system as much as is humanly possible.
For those of us who read the Bible, and believe, I can foresee a future where everyone would be required, UNDER PENALTY OF LAW, to receive a Covid-19 vaccination.
Anyone wishing to participate in the economy, i.e., having an Internet connection, shopping for food online or in a grocery store, renting an apartment, buying a house, going to work, going to a movie or restaurant, or obtaining Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid SSI, or welfare/food stamp benefits, would be required to show PROOF of VACCINATION.
“He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads.”
Revelation 13:16
People are now expecting a $2,000 entitlement per month per person for up to one year.
A single month would cost over $650 billion. One year would exceed $7 trillion on this plan alone, and just think of the entire planet illegally coming to America to get their monthly checks. We would be in danger of adding 100 million illegals this year. It would be an invasion, just as it has been every year since 1964 [more than doubled the population since then, mostly illegal aliens]
Once you give a freeloader free stuff, each moth thereafter they’ll demand it as if it was their god given right. I for one would never hand out money no mater what, and I would never ever tax or fee a citizen. This system rewards the bottom 50% of do-nothings.
Why didn’t the people save a portion of their EARNINGS each month to weather disasters? Because the majority of the bottom 50% don’t earn, they freeload.
Expect stock market highs by 4 July, just like 2008-09, all stimulus money will cycle through the Wall Street corporations bottom lines.
The fun part is when the US must tax this stimulus back out of the system, or, every year the US will have to out do the previous years stimulus in order to get the 2% GDP growth.
LOL double the national debt every three years to get the 2% GDP growth.
Shame on all those that expect a handout and didn’t save parts of the earnings. No excuse.
We are constantly hearing about “what happens if the virus spreads when lock down is eased”. Does no one know the consequences of a collapsed economy? Apparently not, we never hear anything about what happens when the entire country is closed for business. Take a look at Venezuela, that’s what we get when the money stops circulating. The virus will be over in a few months, but a crashed economy will last for decades, meaning no money, no food, no energy or transportation and millions of deaths due to starvation, violence and illness as a result.
I have to stop the government. I’m only one man. I can’t do every thing. But I can do something. God give me strength. Freedom.
We all want someone to go first, don’t we? Give me an organized effort. I’ll be on board
The bad guys own the propaganda machine. Wait until the bankruptcies come rolling through the system. Banks, suppliers, and employees get the big shaft. Then they file for bankruptcy. And on it goes. You do have ammo right?
Go to work
“This absurdity has divided the liberty movement into different camps – Those who realize Trump is a fraud”
THIS is why you’re losing viewership.
Yeah,this is definitely not the site it once was, not even close.
The narrative steering is just as bad here.
There is no particular reason to believe that a building magnate, who has never personally driven a single rivet, is in favor of a free market, as opposed to crony capitalism. He has given honorary positions to replacement demographics, never to categorically refuse globalism, nor the arch-Communists, embedded here, who wear their genocidal feelings on their sleeve.
h ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Repatriation?wprov=srpw1_0
h ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USAT_Buford
A couple of possible ways to look at the national real estate:
— Art of the Deal.
— Not for sale.
Yep once the slack gets tight it will be hell on earth, plus theres the real chance they will release the new deadly bug to really start the kill off, if you dont know at this point that the C-19 was Govt made you are sleeping and waking you up is never going to happen.
We already have looting but classed as burglary in NYC. Up 75%. In Seattle burglary is up 25%. Source Daily Mail. Ain’t seen nothing yet. When the hoods are starving shits about to get real.