This article was originally published by Brandon Smith at Alt-Market. 

In order to determine if a geopolitical or economic threat is legitimate, I find it helps to watch how the mainstream propaganda narrative flows and changes.

For example, for the past year as almost every fundamental indicator was flashing warning signs on the global economy the primary message in the mainstream was that central banks would never allow any major shocks to the financial system.  In other words, they would pour in cash at the slightest hint of trouble.  The conclusion for the investment world?  To “buy the F’ing dip!”   Why not?  You can’t lose.

Despite the fact that fraudulent stock markets artificially inflated by corporate stock buybacks are irrelevant to the health of our system, they still represent a psychological placebo for the masses.  Very few people care that it is a historic bubble; as long as everything is in the green they assume that all is well with the economy.

In the past, anyone who pointed out that this attitude was a recipe for disaster, anyone who argued that the system was breaking and the Everything Bubble was popping was called a “doom monger” or “chicken little”.

I’ve noticed very recently (in the last week) that this attack response is shifting in an interesting way. Where propaganda peddlers used to call us “paranoid”, now they argue that “our prepping or precious metals stacking won’t save us…”  People are “coming to take our supplies…” they say. That’s quite a 180-degree flip flop. As preppers and alternative economists are proven more and more right every day, the narrative has changed from telling us we’re wrong, to telling us we will be sorry for being right.

Well, I’m not sorry for being right and neither should any other liberty analyst or preparedness advocate. I believe the information we have provided to millions of people has encouraged them to remain vigilant and ready for a crisis, and hopefully, this will keep them alive in the future.  The so-called “skeptics” seem to be determined to convince people to do absolutely nothing; to remain blind to any data that does not fit the recovery narrative and to have no backup plan in the event that something goes wrong. Why all the hostility towards the idea of simply being prepared?

Who benefits the most if you and the majority of people have no contingency plan? Who has something to gain by trying to convince you to ignore the obvious?

As mentioned, if they can’t win by conning the liberty movement into turning a blind eye to the facts, they have decided to let us know that it doesn’t matter and we will still be made to suffer for our defiance. This confirms my long-time argument that prepping is only the beginning of the fight; it is a means to an end. The real fight will be for our freedoms and the freedoms of future generations. Those who think the goal is only about survival are severely mistaken. Personal survival would be nice, but the survival of our principles and our way of life takes precedence, and this will require us to do a lot more than merely stock supplies and hide out in the woods.

I have also noted in recent days that the public narrative of globalists has also changed in a strange but rather predictable way. In past articles, I have outlined instances in history when the global elites have openly admitted to the mechanics of an impending crisis right before it happens. The Bank For International Settlements did this right before the crash of 2007, warning specifically that the crash of the credit bubble was imminent. Of course, what the globalists do not mention is that they are so good at predicting these events because they helped to create them in the first place.

I was amused the other day to watch an interview by Bloomberg of globalist Mohamed El-Erian in which he essentially spilled the beans on the reality of the coronavirus situation. Some people might be surprised to hear El-Erian sound a whole lot like an alternative economist in the Liberty Movement, admitting that the virus will disrupt the global supply chain and that it will have far-reaching consequences for the economy for much longer than many people assume.

El-Erian and certain other globalists in the BIS and IMF have been setting themselves up as the prognosticators of the coming collapse, while other globalists and their media outlets have worked tirelessly to attack alternative analysts for the same exact observations. The message is clear – there can be only one group that the public listens to as the crash unfolds, and the liberty movement is not it. The globalists want to have their cake and eat it too; they want to cause a crash, and then they want to be worshiped as the saviors that warned people about the crash.

El-Erian’s comments on the coronavirus outbreak and its far-reaching effects suggest to me that this is indeed one of the trigger events we have all been waiting for and warning about. But the narrative that the coronavirus is itself the cause of all of this economic chaos is an elaborate lie. The economy was crashing well before the virus ever appeared.

Remember the market shock at the end of 2018 when the Federal Reserve tightened liquidity and cut its balance sheet? Remember how the mainstream finally had to admit that recession was a distinct possibility even though they had been telling us for years that the economic recovery was a fact and that the central banks had saved us? A considerable amount of jawboning and global central bank stimulus measures (primarily from China) was used to keep the economy crawling for another year, but the banks never intended to actually fix anything.

The underlying mechanics of that event have not changed. Dollar liquidity is still disappearing as Federal Reserve repo markets indicate the massive demand for easy cash by banks and other companies continues.  They cannot survive for long without it, which is not how an economy in recovery is supposed to function. Yet, the Fed says it intends to cut off that cash flow in the coming months. The Fed knows as many of us know that their repo purchases are nothing but a stopgap and that without bailouts and real QE on the level of the $16 trillion TARP measures there is no way to stall the crash for much longer.

Another issue that I think goes largely ignored is that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell knew all along that tightening liquidity into economic weakness would cause a crash.  He is even recorded in the October 2012 Fed minutes as saying so.  Yet he did it anyway and then pretended as if the systemic crash response was nothing to be concerned about.  Why?  Well, my theory has always been that the Fed and the international bankers WANT a crash, on a timetable of their preference.

From the chaos they hope to implement a new order in the form of a fully centralized one world economic authority and monetary system; a plan which has slowly been entering the mainstream discussion the past couple of years.  It is a scheme that Mohamed El Erian has even mentioned in his own editorials.

It would be awfully convenient for them to cut liquidity again while the world is in the shadow of a viral pandemic; after all, whatever happens, the virus will be blamed and the fed will escape most scrutiny.

In the meantime, global and US exports, manufacturing and freight shipments have ALL be telling us for months that a recession/depression is on the way. The export crash was not only limited to the US and China, but multiple top economies including Japan and Germany have also been witnessing extensive declines in manufacturing and export demand.

Japan’s GDP contracted 6.3% in the final quarter of 2019 and their exports shrank for 12 months in a row.

Germany’s economic growth slowed to a six-year low as its official GDP hovers near recession territory. German exports continue to slump as global demand crumbles.

In the US, freight shipments and volume have collapsed by 9.4%; the most since 2009.  US manufacturing remains weak and 4^th quarter retail sales have been revised down, showing consumer activity slowing. And, all of this data is for the months BEFORE the coronavirus appeared.

But don’t be surprised when the media and the globalists use the virus event as the end-all excuse for why the economic system is breaking down. Certainly, the disruption of the supply chain will be the final nail in the coffin of the Everything Bubble, and people dying in large numbers from a SARS-like virus can really put a damper on economic activity.  But the central banks killed the economy years ago by feeding the largest debt bonanza in history, addicting companies and markets to easy cash and then cutting that liquidity just enough to cause the system to go into convulsions. Currently, corporate debt, consumer debt, and national debt are all at historic highs.

There is no stimulus measure that can fix this problem – at the most, the central banks could prolong the inevitable for another year perhaps, but why would they when they have multiple scapegoats to blame the crash on?

Donald Trump continues to set himself up as one of these scapegoats as he still dismisses the coronavirus pandemic as nothing to be worried about, claiming “some people think” it will be gone by April.  His constant habit of attaching his administration to the performance of the stock market is bizarre when one takes into account that he called the markets a massive “bubble” inflated by the Fed during his 2016 campaign.

I continue to believe according to the evidence that this is his job. The banking elites he is surrounded by in his cabinet call the shots in the White House. Trump’s purpose is to act as a magnet for controversy and distraction while ignoring blaring alarms of impending crisis; he is meant to play the role of the bumbling villain.  His response to the Cov19 virus so far fits that theory.

Whatever happens in the coming months, never forget that the economic and geopolitical situation has been dire for years. The coronavirus, while a legitimate threat that must be taken seriously, is also highly beneficial to a select group of elites who now have perfect cover to move forward with an economic collapse that they have been planning for some time.