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Published on The Doomstead Diner on July 3, 2016

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Collapse NOW and Beat the Rush! There IS NO PLAN B!

June 27, 2016

It is now the Monday After the Great Brexit Clusterfuck, and I am going to write this article across the rest of the week as events unfold. So things may change along the way, some things I write today may not be true by Sunday when I publish the Diner Brunch Article. In fact, they might not be true by the time I finish keyboarding out this sentence, so I am NOT going to go back and edit them if they were wrong. lol. The article is also likely to end up fucking LONG, since on any given night in a 7 day week I can easily go 2000 words. lol. I will try to stay within reason though. hahahahahahaha (Note on finishing: I kept it down to around 5000 Words! 🙂 )

The first Major Event resultant from the vote was PM David Cameron resigned. Or at least he promised to resign after 3 months in October, and plenty can happen between now and then. However, given he was the one that suggested the Referendum in the first place, he looks like he is pretty well finished, although he says he will remain as a back bencher after stepping down. He does say a 2nd referendum is out of the question, even though the sore losers started circulating a petition for one virtually nano-seconds after the results were announced.

Exactly who will replace DC as PM remains an open question, although the name bandied about mostly is Boris Johnson, former Mayor of London. He was pro-Brexit and also a member of the Conservative Party, so he is Eligible as a Leader if they have the Majority in Parliament. The problem here is nobody can stand Boris or his Owen Wilson hairdo, plus there is absolutely NO INDICATION Boris has any kind of real plan here to negotiate OUT of the EU. More on this later.

Next up, the First Minister in Scotland Nicola Sturgeon started hinting that the Scottish Parliament would VETO the referendum, since the Scots voted overwhelmingly for Bremain, 62-38%. Whether they could actually DO that "legally" and not get over-ridden by Westminster is an open question.

Following this came the newz on Saturday that Jeremy Corbyn sacked "Fletcher Christian" (Heidi Alexander) for Mutiny on the Bounty, and then following Heidi 10 more Labor MPs in the Shadow Cabinet resigned to join Heidi in the Labor Lifeboat. Hopefully Heidi is as good a Captain as Bligh was and can negotiate their little boat back to Westminster. Suffice it to say though, at the moment the entire Labor Party is in turmoil and adrift at sea, as are the Tories.

In light of this fact, we have a significant problem here in terms of actually IMPLEMENTING the "Will of the People", which is a Divorce from the EU. There really is not a significant Political figure or leader at the moment from either party who could go in and Negotiate this divorce, even if they did have a decent grasp on how it might be accomplished, and nobody does. This is the "No Plan B" aspect of this article, but I'll save going into detail on this until more of the week's events play themselves out.

The other major outcome of this event so far has been it's effect on the Financial Markets, and the fact that the Elites in charge of these things betting the big bets pretty much called it entirely WRONG in the last days leading up to the vote, following the Odds of the Bookies in London who called this as a practical LOCK for the Bremain camp. Even George fucking Soros went LONG on Sterling in expectation of a Bremain vote, after himself lobbying for it heavily on the Op-Ed pages of the MSM financial newz services. When the vote came out OPPOSITE to what they expected, the tide ran out and many if not most of these folks were caught with their Bikini bottoms around their ankles, and the .01% lost a shit load of notional money here, estimated at some $2-3T Globally, with a few Billionaires losing like $1B or so of their net worth on Friday alone.

Despite the entire weekend to Prep for the Market Opening on Monday and Jawboning by Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne prior to the market opening on Monday, further havoc ensued. Getting hit hardest here were not the UK banks, but the EU banks, particularly those in the PIIGS nations. Major banks in Italy for instance are now trading at Penny Stock level, and 30-50% equity valuation loss across the board on these banks is the rule right now. That means their Capitalization is WAY lower than it was last week, when in reality they were already insolvent. Papering over this problem is the task ahead for the Elite, to keep the system up and running.

The danger to the global financial system is not the Brexit itself, which for the most part just makes the UK the Canary in the Coal Mine for a location where things will get really bad, really fast. Where the real danger lies is if/when one of the systemically important TBTF Banks in any of these countries has a run on deposits, compounding the problem of loss of equity share valuations. At some point, the WEAKEST bank will become a target for other banks, who are all really Vultures circling each other. This is essentially what occurred with Lehman when that investment bank collapsed back in 2008.

There are many likely targets here, all the EU and UK banks are insolvent and have been so since the 2008 financial crisis. The only thing that has backstopped all of them are the Central Banks, and it remains unclear whether the CBs have the "ammo" necessary this time to fire off the "bazooka" and dump enough freshly printed toilet paper to keep the EU commode lubricated. At least after the first 2 days of this mayhem, they are not doing too good.

OK, signing off on this initial installment of the post-Brexit Diary. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

————

June 28, 2016

Tuesday morning in Alaska now, and after crashing for 2 days straight days and making a bunch of new records in terms of lost phantom money, the markets have calmed today. No big BTFD Dead Cat Bounce, but not dropping like a stone either. David Cameron is over in Brussels basically telling the Clowns he's not gonna pitch Article 50 at them, they have to wait for his successor, whoever that might be. So meanwhile it all just hangs up in the air, and the market traders don't know what to bet on.

The choice of a replacement for DC has now been moved up to September from October, but that is still 2 months plus away which is a lot of time for a lot of shit to go down, both politically and financially. For one thing it already appears to have required a $40B bailout of Italian Banks by the Italian Goobermint, itself also of course dead broke. About the only way I can think of the Romans got this cash injection was by selling worthless bonds directly to the ECB, because what other bank would buy this dogshit? Only Italian banks, but they are the ones in need of the bailout!

Meanwhile, over in Spain the new election do-over was held, with pretty much the same result as last time, which is that no one party is even close to a majority neccessary to be in sole control of Da Goobermint, and they're not real good at forming Coalition Gobermints in Spain. The "acting" Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is demanding the "Right to Rule", but nobody on the left is going to support this crook, and between them the 2 left wing parties have more seats than the right wing, depending on how the tiny parties distribute out. All of which means more uncertainty from the Spanish department, but probably nothing major besides possibly a Spanish bank going down and a bailout necessary there from Mr. Moneybags Super Mario Dragon.

In the blogosphere, the Pundits are all dissecting the REASON for the Brexit vote, and the consensus is that it's a Class Warfare vote, with the folks left behind with Globalization making a Protest Vote against the Elite, who they have totally lost faith in on either side of the political aisle. In the UK, you are basically talking the White Working Class voting for Brexit, with the Upper class and Immigrants voting Bremain. This is for the most part true IMHO, but just knowing this fact doesn't mean getting a functioning democratic goobermint is any more possible. There is talk both in Britain and the FSoA of forming entirely new political parties because the current ones have failed so miserably, but exactly what would these new parties promise and what could they deliver and WTF will be running for office in said parties? Nobody Knows the answer to these questions.

All of which leads us to a general failure of Democracy, which has a few Academics like Ken Rogoff coming out of the woodwork explaining why we need Super Brains like him to make sure that Democracies don't vote the wrong way. LOL. You see, as long as you vote the way the Elite want you to vote, Democracy is a GREAT form of Goobermint! As long as they put up all the candidates who regardles of flavor will kowtow to their interest, they LOVE democracy! The MINUTE you start voting the WRONG way or put up a candidate who is not in their pocket (although he certainly will be after being elected, see Alex Tsipras in Greece), Democracy is NOT good! In the words of Emma Goldman…

So what you end up with in the failure of Democracy is that the Elites clamp down on it, and in our case now gradually restrict it in a boiling frog sort of way, and after a period of MAYHEM like the UK is currently experiencing you get still more autocratic goobermint, although these days they call it "technocratic", with the prefix there giving it the veneer of scientific reasoning. The vox populi tends to accept this as long as things calm down and they still have food on the table. They accept less control over their lives and the loss of freedom in exchange for some measure of security. This goes on in a series of downward spiraling cycles until the Elite no longer get enough food distributed out to the masses, and then you get your revolutions. The UK still probably has a couple of cycles of this pattern left to go here, but not true for other places around the globe like Venezuela for instance.

As it appears right now, since nobody has a real good PLAN for how to even NEGOTIATE a Brexit much less operate independently afterward AND the Brit Political system is in complete lockup mode, nothing will really change in the near term, but the standard of living for most people will continue to deteriorate until there is another, bigger movement, next time probably Pan-European. In the mean time, we can watch this Kabuki Theater Act for the rest of the week.

———–

June 29, 2016

Now into Wednesday, and the silliness never stops over in the EU Parliament. The action was actually yesterday, so most of this is a recap of the events in Brussels, where both David Cameron and Nigel ("You're not laughing now, are you?) Farage made equally poorly received appearances, which are likely to be their last in those hallowed halls of corruption.

Far as DC was concerned, he stood firm on NOT being the one to invoke Article 50 and get the Divorce proceedings going, much to the consternation of the Euroclowns who are anxious to get this over with and put the Thumbscrews to the UK in order to hopefully put a damper on a possible Frexit from France, Nexit from the Netherlands and an Italeave from the Italians. DC pronouncements done, he is now Persona Non Grata at the EU, and the rest of the EU Bigwigs will meet without his meat package in the room today.

Nigel Farage also did one of his now classic Stand Up Routines in front of the EU Parliament, where he has been the UKs MEP for 17 years since 1999, the whole time basically arguing that the EU is a worthless piece of shit, the other MEPs there are worthless pieces of shit and their whole purpose in life is to shit all over everyone in Europe while scarfing up every free perk they can while they wander the halls of these buildings and take bureaucratic dumps on everyone outside the buildings. This happens to all be TRUE, but it doesn't make NF well liked in the room. lol.

So, NF finally had his "I told you so" Moment of Glory, commenting at the beginning of his speech, "You're not laughing now". LOL. No, they weren't laughing, but they were BOOING pretty loud. Loud enough that the moderator had to stop the proceedings at the beginning of the speech to give NF his "democratic" right to be heard, which has to be the most egregious example of complete hypocrisy ever to hit the planet on the political level, and that is saying a LOT. The EU Parliament and EU in general is the LEAST democratic organization to ever hit the planet. Even fucking Dictatorships and Monarchies are more democratic than the EU, at least with those a few insiders can argue with the King or Dictator and perhaps make some progress if they don't lose their heads first. Not in the EU! You can't argue with anybody! Thousands of pages of documents are prepared by thousands more apparatchiks and lawyers every day, and nobody know WTF is actually responsible for it all! It just keeps accumulating and more Goobermint apparatchiks sign more agreements and treaties into law every day without knowing jack shit about them. They don't even need "fine print" in these documents! They are so fucking long with so many pages NOBODY has time in the day to read it all and still take a shit when nature calls!

EPIC SILLINESS became apparent when Juncker gave his speech entirely in French, and since the UK is the only English speaking nation in this Union, now they are going to eject the English language from EU translations and proceedings! lol.

This really highlights the fundamental problem with the EU, which is that there are a good dozen or so languages that are designated as "official" languages of their respective countries. The Irish do not have English as their official language, they list Gaelic. Romanians speak Romainian, Hungarians speak Hungarian, Polish speak Polish etc. Imagine if you went from New York to Boston and everyone in NY spoke NYese and everyone in Boston spoke Bostonese, and without a Google translator on your smart phone you couldn't read the signs as soon as you crossed the MA border. This is really the fundamental problem behind making the EU a mirror of the FSoA Federated Union of states, they LITERALLY do not speak the same language!

Now, after English, there are two BIGGIES here in the Polyglot Soup, German and French. Going back to the pre-WWII years, French was the accepted "International Language of Diplomacy". Problem of course here is with ejecting English is that in the years SINCE WWII, all these tiny nation-states with their own languages have mostly taken on English as their second language. While there are some folks like my college era girlfriend who are fantastic at learning many different languages (a dozen or so including Ancient Greek & Latin), MOST people even in Europe can only handle their own language and maybe 2 more. If a Hungarian diplomat has a second language besides Hungarian right now, it is probably English, although maybe German. If a Spanish Diplomat has a second language, it is probably English, although maybe French.

The fact of the matter though is that because the Anglo-Americans basically took over Europe in the aftermath of WWII, everybody there took on English as their second language other than the native one to their countries. So now, with the exit of the Brits, the Frogs and Krauts are trying to instantaneously reverse this process by speaking only French or German in the EU Parliament! lol.

Given that the EU employs more translators than anyone on earth INCLUDING the fucking United Nations, they are cutting off their noses to spite the face here. Pitching English out the EU window when it is the main second language that all the Diplomats shitting in the EU Member Toilets speak is simply stupid and petty.

Besides that is the simple fact that even though not a part of the EU, guess who ELSE speaks English? Amerikans, that's who! So if you stop translating to English, no Amerikans who might be interested in what you are talking about (granted there are few) can understand a word of it. Ater listening to Nigel Farage rant on his fellow MEPs, I went to watch a livestream from the show at the EU Parliament, and everyone was speaking French or German! My French and German language skills are less than rudimentary. You go past voulez vous pousse avec moi or Sig Heil! and I am lost. Spanish and Portuguese OK, I can follow it, but I get lost fast in French and German. lol. Fucking YouTube and Google did not even provide me with live caption English Translations! If I am going to trust these folks to drive my car for me, they should at LEAST be able to give me a live play-by-play transcription in ENGLISH of the nonsense going on in the EU Parliament, don't you think? Is that too much to ask from Sergei Brin and Ray Kurzweil? Maybe they could contract this out to Elon Muskrat or Mark Suckerbug if they can't do it in house at Google?

In any event here though, it really doesn't matter WHAT fucking language they are speaking, they are all talking past each other anyhow, and whether I can understand the drivel they are pitching out is also irrelevant. THEY don't even understand each other or what is going on here in reality anyhow! It's the Deaf, Dumb & Blind Pinball Show!

We'll see what tomorrow brings to Tommy Time.

————

June 30, 2016

As we move into Thursday, the markets have calmed somewhat, although the Euro banks are still taking a beating, Deutchebank in particular. Even before this, DB was a lumbering behemoth loaded with "assets" that are really liabilities and kept afloat only through fraudulent accounting practices and likely backdoor infusions of cash from the ECB. Right now their market cap is less than that of AirB&B, while at the same time balancing $Trillions$ in derivatives and a loan portfolio awash with non-performing loans. An accident waiting to happen there.

The big danger with Brexit or any of these political destabilizations is that it provokes a banking crisis similar to what Lehman did back in 2008. Obviously, TPTB have refined their techniques since then, and seemingly no matter how bad off a bank is, they simply never fail. How long the charade can go on remains an open question, although Soros showed up at the EU Parliament warning they were on the verge of a major crisis, and they better start issuing out more junk bonds now to build up a Slush Fund to take care of new crises as they emerge. As my dad the Bankster used to say, "there is no problem you cannot solve by throwing enough money at it". lol. This is apparently true, at least for so long as the money keeps working anyhow, but that won't be true in perpetuity.

Meanwhile, back in the UK on the political level, Boris Johnson or "BoJo" as he is popularly known of the Owen Wilson hair-do and considered the leading contender to replace David Cameron as Chief Tory Imbecile since he was one of the chief proponents of Brexit along with Nigel Farage (but also a bona fide Tory) has taken his hat OUT of the ring, and will not run for Prime Moron of the UK.

Reason for the Exeunt, Stage Left? In a scene straight out of Shakespeare, BoJo was Backstabbed by his own campaign manager, Michael Gove. In an email a few hours before BoJo's Press Conference, MG said BoJo was "not the man to lead this country" and then proceeded to toss his OWN hat in the ring! BoJo set up his own political assassination here by writing a mealy mouthed editorial where he backpedalled on the principles of the Brexit, seeing as the consequences are already pretty ugly.

"There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures"- William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

This exposes a few things. First that BoJo is a total COWARD. His side wins this clusterfuck, but he sure doesn't wanna be in there negotiating the collapse of the UK economy! To be fair, the EU economy will collapse also, but in London he'll be held accountable for the Brit end of the pain, and likely would end up swinging from a bridge over the Thames River. Second is that it is now equally obvious he had NO PLAN for implementing a Brexit if they won. Logic should tell you that they should have created some kind of Manifesto to release on winning the Referendum as to what they would do to implement it. No such manifesto exists. Why not? Because they didn't think they would actually WIN, that's why not.

So now the NEW frontrunners for PM in the UK appear to be either MG or Theresa May, the Home Secretary. She was in the Bremain Camp, but apparently also has sympathy for the Brexit idea, a kind of ideal Fence Sitter for "re-unifying" the Tories. However, one does not expect her to be a very strong negotiator for the Brexit team in Brussels if/when they actually invoke Article 50. Also unclear here is that after taking power she doesn't call for a 2nd Referendum to get the fucking Brits to vote the right way this time! MG was more full on Brexit, but with BoJo's blood staining his hands it's hard to say how many MPs would vote for him. Much as BoJo was despised by most of the Tories, backstabbers aren't well liked either. In politics, loyalty is a very important quality, and rewarding a campaign manager who backstabbed his own candidate with the Top Job doesn't seem too likely to me.

On the other side of the aisle, Jeremy Corbyn was roundly sabotaged with an overwhelming vote of No Confidence from his fellow Labor MPs, but he is refusing to step down and promises to run again if they call for a general election, which seems likely. JC still does have strong support from Rank & File Labor Party plebes and there is as of yet not a strong candidate within the Labor Party to challenge him, so that election also will end up a likely clusterfuck. In the meantime, absolutely nothing can be accomplished on the Labor side of this problem, and clearly there is simply nobody around who could actually show up in Brussels and do any real Negotiations on how to fulfill the "Will of the People" and do a Brexit. More on this issue when the week concludes, but we still got one more workday here for the week, so we will see what Newz Friday brings before we close out this act in the Global Kabuki Theater of Collapse.

———–

July 1, 2016



Closing out the week here on Friday, the markets have calmed down as the Brexit vote has been "priced in", and everybody also now realizes that so far nothing has really changed, nor is it likely to change too soon either. The Brits are not going to invoke Article 50 until well after the Tories pick a new Prime Maniac, which won't come until September as they whittle down the now pretty crowded field. BoJo is out, but now besides Theresa May and Michael Gove you also have Stephen Crabb, Liam Fox and Andrea Leadsome. They seem to be split between tepid pro-Brexit and lukewarm Bremain. Depending who ends up getting the nod, there remains a possibility the Brits would schedule yet another Referendum to try and get the proles to vote the right way this time. Scheduling a new referendum would push the timeline back still further of course, so for now it is back to BAU.

One does wonder here during the period if Nigel Farage will be allowed to go into his office or sit in his spot at the EU Parliament? He is after all still the MEP for the UK, and they are still in the EU. However, his presence would no doubt be pretty disruptive. Jean-Claude Juncker would need regular infusions of Maalox during the sessions. lol.

In other newz, the Austrian PM said it was the EUs incompetence on the Refugee problem that was the deciding factor in the Brexit campaign, and the Czech PM came out supporting a Referendum for the Czechs on both EU and NATO membership, even though he says he personally thinks they should stay in. The most recent Austrian election for President also was invalidated today, which means they are going to now hold new elections for that spot, one of the contenders being a far right neo-Nazi type who also wants a referendum. For the Czechs, to hold such a referendum though they would need to change their Constitution, since apparently right now it is not set up for the proles to directly vote on such issues. Such a constitutional ammendment would take a 60% vote in their Parliament, and that seems unlikely to happen in the near term.

Over in France, Marine LePen renewed her call for a referendum, which of course Hollande is ignoring and will continue to do so until he is voted out of office or assassinated, whichever comes first. However, elections in Frogland are not until next year also, so even assuming she gets elected and puts up a referendum there, it probably would not come until 2018.

As you can see here, it is mass confusion all over "the continent", and at least unless there is a Financial Collapse somewhere in the next couple of years, this political Kabuki Theater is not going to end overnight. Rome didn't Collapse in a Day either.

———–

July 2, 2016



At Last! The 5 day work week is OVAH and we can now attempt to LEARN something from this clusterfuck!

The first thing apparent to me is that despite some of the most convoluted Conspiracy Theorizing EVAH by Brandon "Lexington & Concord" Smith that this whole bizness was actually PLANNED by the Elite as a means to crash the system and then take over with an even bigger and better One World Goobermint, the truth here is that the Elite do not have fucking Clue 1 about what is going on outside of expensive hotels and restaurants in Basel, Switzerland. They repeatedly get caught with their collective pants down, and are simply in a constant state of Damage Control on both the economic and political fronts. The system they built over the last 500 or so years since the Medici Banking Era is coming apart at the seams, and all they are really doing here is trying to prolong their power and privilege as long as possible, and avoid being strung up by their gonads before dieing a natural death of over-consumption of canapes, truffles and $5000 bottles of Domaine Leflaive Montrachet Grand Cru, Cote de Beaune, France.

Even more important than this though is it is a first class demonstration of the failure of Democracy as a Gooberning System in a period of Economic Contraction. First of all, the electorate just about everywhere has no clue as to what the real problems are, these are not discussed anywhere except a few fringe websites like the Doomstead Diner. The Proles just vote on local problems they have, voting for the Power Seeker in their neighborhood that articulates them best and says he will SOLVE those Problems! Except said PS doesn't really have a PLAN for solving the problems, because…there is no Plan that will do that! At least no Plan that doesn't involve a lot of DEAD PEOPLE anyhow!

You can see pretty clearly here there is no real difference between Labor & Tory, or here in the FSoA between Democrat & Republican. All the Political Apparatchiks are simply trying to keep the system operating long enough for each of them to walk out the revolving door of Politics and into a nice cushy job as a Lobbyist or an Unelected Bureaucrat shitting in the Members Only Toilet of the EU Parliament!

If you do happen to be one of the few people who frequents Fringe Websites like the Diner, WTF do you vote for? Do you vote for Brexit, knowing full well that if it actually came to pass your local economy would crumble to dust? Do you vote for Bremain, knowing full well that if it comes to pass you will be subject to ever more onerous taxes and ever less freedom and self-goobernmint? Do you vote for The Donald, knowing full well that if he is elected the economy will go straight down the toilet and a race war will ensue? Do you vote for Killary knowing full well that if she is elected we will go straight down the road to Global Thermonuclear War with the Ruskies? Where is the "right choice" in any of these "democratic" elections? You can't even find a "Lesser of 2 Evils" candidate, except maybe Giant Meteor who will put us all out of our collective misery together, and do it mercifully and quick!

What we have here now are 2 types of Nation-States. Those who have already FAILED like Somalia, Egypt, Syria,Venezuela etc, and those who are on the road to FAILURE, which is everybody else. If the Elite at Bilderberg can hold the show together economically for a while, the descent into mayhem in first world countries may take a few more years. However, if the bankstering system currently held together by Duct Tape and Bailing Wire comes apart at some point, the 1st World will join the 3rd World fairly rapidly skiing the Giant Slalom Downhill.

Fringe Website readers like the Diners who are aware of these issues know that on a Global Geopolitical level the problems are just going to get worse moving ahead here on the Collapse Highway. On the Nation-State level you will continue to see ever more polarization and ever less effective Goobermint, where likely instead of verbal Filibusters, Congressional meetings turn into all out Fistfights. Any positive CHANGE here is not going to come from the Top Down, it can only come from the Bottom Up. So it is up to each of us to form up local community structures that can weather the storm of a Civilization Collapse. If you have not yet begun this process with your friends, today would be a good time to start. For more ideas on how to get this started in your neighborhood, click on the SUN logo below.