Category Archives: Financial crisis

The End of the Big “Gimme”

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The following essay explores the possibility that the German welfare state may crash and burn sooner than most people expect.

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from Ansage. The translator’s comments are in square brackets:

More and More Expenses, Fewer and Fewer Depositors: When Will the Bitter End Come?

The welfare state is becoming more and more bloated, but thanks to a constantly increasing number of benefit recipients — citizens’ benefit recipients, migrants, pensioners, recipients of other benefits (such as child benefit, soon basic child welfare), subsidies for heating replacement and ever more spending for Ukraine — it receives less and less revenue. The many allowances and additional benefits for MPs and civil servants do the rest. All of this costs hundreds of billions of euros every year. And there is no end in sight. Quite the opposite — more and more migrants are coming with many more children, and more and more people are retiring. In short: expenses will continue to rise and taxpayers’ income will continue to fall. [Just like in South Africa, which has around six million taxpayers and about thirty million people who are receiving government hand-outs.]

The positive thing about this indisputably bad trend, however, is the inevitable associated fact that it’s going to blow up all the faster. In other words: the more money spent, the sooner day X will come when the federal government must finally realize that there will no longer be enough, or at some point no money at all for all the state transfer payments mentioned, that the citizens will gradually have to cope with less, and that asylum seekers will have to try their luck elsewhere in the future. The fact that other countries with significantly lower social benefits have significantly fewer asylum seekers and that they also (have to) work much more frequently shows the enormous influence that the level of transfer payments without consideration has on the willingness to immigrate. The pull effect is not a hypothesis, but a REALITY.

Things cannot continue as they are for much longer

It’s no longer a secret that more and more migrants are flooding Germany and more and more people — including Germans — are living voluntarily at state expense, since the transfer payments are simply too high for people to willingly forgo or go to work. But that can’t be the case in the long term. It cannot go on forever, with millions of people living at the expense of others. If everyone thought like those whose well-being is the main concern of today’s politicians, there would never have been any money to distribute at all. So if the dreadful end comes soon, then many people “seeking protection” and poverty migrants would at least partially understand or at least have to realize that Germany is not the right place for them, and the many recipients of citizenship benefits, who as I said are not just foreigners, would have to get off their [fundaments] and go to work. It remains to be seen whether this realization will take place without social upheavals or militant uprisings. [I guess they will soon be chanting Julius Malema’s favourite “song”: Kill the Boer, kill the White.]

One or two politicians, who ultimately only live at the expense of the state, for whom there may not be quite as much money left (although it is clear to me, of course, that the normal citizen has to bite the bullet first), may also look down the tube. The fact is, however, that the state coffers will be empty at some point, and if the money is now spent with both hands, all the better, because then the awakening will come so much faster. Anyone who is already receiving citizen income at the age of 30 and therefore has no incentive to work may wake up in a few years. He can then at least still be relatively fit and possibly even motivated to go to work. However, if this is only the case in twenty years, the now 30-year-old has become a middle-ager, who has “learned” to do nothing but hang around for twenty years or has acquired expertise in pursuing criminal activities and vegetating at the expense of the state. It will be difficult for him to get used to the changed circumstances.

Pensioners will also have to restrict themselves (even more). [I guess they’ll soon have to fight over the bottles for the deposits.]

Furthermore, many (prospective) pensioners will still experience their blue miracle. Many of the future seniors have already calculated the amount of their future pension and are looking forward to a pension of at least €1,600, for example. That’s not much, but it’s usually enough to live on, especially if you own your own home. Unfortunately, too many future pensioners do the math without the landlord, because who knows what the €1,600 will even be worth in the future due to inflation?! These are bare numbers that always have to be put into perspective, quite apart from the fact that too many seniors can only expect a pension that is already too small to live on.

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At the Precipice

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The three videos below feature Tucker Carlson discussing various aspects of the current crisis that finds the United States poised to embroil NATO in a direct military confrontation with Russia.

Two clips contain excerpts from Adam Carolla’s podcast. In the first one Mr. Carlson explains the logical progression of the Deep State praxis that points to the eventual assassination of Donald Trump in order to prevent him from being elected president:

In the second video Tucker Carlson describes what seems to be a deliberate attempt to foment a war between the United States and Russia. Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading this video:

Full Adam Carolla show.

In the final video, recorded in Hungary, Mr. Carlson interviews Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán about the war in Ukraine and the dangerous actions initiated by the USA that risk a direct war between NATO and Russia:

Hat tips: WRSA and Conservative Tree House.

Contempt for the Governed

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In the following video, Colonel Douglas Macgregor (U.S. Army, retired) talks to Tucker Carlson about the war between Russia and Ukraine, and especially about the insane and/or foolhardy policies of the U.S. government concerning that conflict.

At this point it is clear that the endgame in Ukraine is rapidly approaching. Now we must wait to find out whether the country will simply be obliterated and occupied, or whether NATO (i.e. the United States) will intervene and engage in direct combat with the Russian armed forces.

In any case, the American people have no say about what will happen. After our government throws even more hundreds of billions of dollars down the Ukrainian rat hole, will it chuck in a few hundred thousand of our boys after it? You can vote as hard as you like, but both parties are in agreement on these matters, and the decision will be taken without you.

A perilous time lies ahead.

Hat tip: Conservative Tree House.

Paul Weston: “Question Everything”

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After an extended sabbatical — during which he decamped from Blighty and set up camp at an undisclosed location abroad — Paul Weston returns with this video about the Rainbow Curtain of Science that is now descending over the entire West and ushering in our totalitarian future:

All Your Money Are Belong to Us!

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The German Greens want to squeeze more money from those heartless taxpayers who might selfishly want to hold on to some of their wages.

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from Junge Freiheit. The translator’s comments are in square brackets:

Redistribution

Greens: Germans have a “moral obligation” to give up wealth

The economy is in crisis, real wages are falling and inflation is causing problems for the citizens. According to Green MP Johannes Wagner, however, Germans have a “moral obligation” to give up their hard-earned wealth.

Berlin

Member of parliament Johannes Wagner was outraged that the Germans did not want to give up their wealth. “We can still give so much. And we also have a moral obligation to do so,” wrote the MP on Twitter.

It’s “a shame” that many people don’t want to see “what incredible prosperity we have in Germany”. Germany is one of the richest countries in the world, claimed the deputy, who himself collects more than €10,000 in allowances a month. In addition, Wagner called for “more redistribution of the super-rich”. He left it open how people can be redistributed. [Well, haven’t they been redistributing, fairly successfully, culture-enriching third-world thugs for years?]

Numerous users countered the Bundestag backbencher on the social network and pointed out the massive economic problems of many citizens. The median net wealth of young Germans is far below that of other EU countries. In addition, the Federal Republic is pushing a mountain of debt of almost €2.5 trillion.

Afterword from the translator:

“Dear” Mr. Wagner, your lavish lifestyle is 100% financed by the taxes that are forced from those that are working and are creating the wealth you want to distribute. You don’t have to spend a single penny. Anything you buy, whatever, the taxpayer had to pay for. Parasitical politicians like you are the true Hartz IV recipients and should work in the interests of the tax-paying citizens. If you don’t like being a public SERVANT, resign, start working for your money for a change and start paying taxes. Such ideologically retarded rants about giving up wealth while you yourself are freeloading and live like a maggot in a side of bacon. Utterances and beliefs such as these can’t be beaten for audacious hypocrisy. I deeply despise leeches like you.

Here’s his “biography”, although I have no idea if this is real or not, especially when one sees the non-existent or falsified “qualifications” of the other Greens in the German Bundestag that have come to see the light of day so far:

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How Not to Build a Country — Inheritance Tax

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In an appropriate follow-up to his recent essay on capitalism, Michael Copeland discusses one of the great inhibitors of capitalism.

How Not to Build a Country — Inheritance Tax

by Michael Copeland

Uncle George (not his real name) died some ten years ago. He was in his late eighties, much afflicted by Parkinson’s, and had been in a nursing home for about a year. He had served in the army in the war, and for a while afterwards. Otherwise he had spent his life running a business. It was a business that his father had started from scratch, at a very difficult time in the Depression of the 1930s, when the firm he had previously directed had been obliged to close by the sudden loss of its export market.

Businesses are vulnerable: they can easily suffer loss and be forced to close, even well-known big firms like Woolworths, Wedgwood, Parker Knoll, and so on. The firm, a small one, relied heavily on the post for distribution, and was very nearly strangled out of business by the unions in the postal strike. Uncle, though not a natural businessman, steered the company through those stressful and difficult times. That can be regarded as his achievement, in holding on to the enterprise and guiding it in succeeding decades, though it affected his health. He used to stay at the office late in the evenings, where, he explained, he could work without interruptions. Much attached to his work, he remained at the helm much too long — until he was 80. He did not have a family: the firm was his whole life, and only reluctantly, as Parkinson’s took over, did he part with the company.

After retiring, Uncle kept a close eye on matters economic. He berated the house-price rush, and foresaw the financial crash some two years beforehand: “I am very worried about this,” he used to say; “I think there is going to be a recession. What are the people in the Treasury doing?”

Uncle lived simply, in a small flat. Parkinson’s prevented him from driving, so he gave up his car. At root insecure, he retained the proceeds of the firm’s sale towards health care, operations, and long-term care, which he paid for himself, and which, of course, are large costs, quite unquantifiable in advance. He already had his own savings, and had looked after the funds his parents had left him, but he was no landed Duke with rolling acres. He had what he had been able to save prudently AFTER paying business tax, income tax, capital gains tax, and after meeting expenses of living. But no, there is the further raid made by inheritance tax, at nearly half the value of all assets beyond the threshold. All assets means everything — flat, furniture, pictures, jewellery, savings, cash in the bank, investments — the works. He made some arrangements to mitigate the tax on his estate. In the event, when he died, those arrangements did not have effect.

The inheritance tax on his estate was considerable. It amounted to more than the sale proceeds of the firm — his life’s work. Gone. Taken. The question arises: what had he been working for? Where is the justification for penalising someone who has, at some stress, maintained employment for others and who has made provision for his retirement so as not to draw on taxpayer funds? He was an endangered species: an employer. Many families depended on him. His firm generated wealth: it produced things that were not there before, and which customers bought. It may sound easy to do, but it is difficult and stressful, exacting a health toll on those that perform it. Most unfair is it to inflict concerns about parting with funds on such people when they are elderly, infirm, and uncertain of the future.

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The InterNazi Takeover

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Our Hungarian correspondent László reports on the save-the-planet NOW ideology that has now engulfed Hungary.

The InterNazi Takeover

by László

Even though I have seen this coming for a long time, the official announcement — and its cynical Communist style — shocked me. When I read the headline quoting a government official: “An Effective Climate Policy is a Christian and Patriotic Duty,” I started to feel a cold stone in my stomach. And no “global warming” can ever heat that stone up. That slogan is a joke.

A ‘fight or flight’ response. Thoughts such as “How am I gonna fight this?” and “Where can I flee from this?” flooded my mind. Nowhere, obviously. It’s the second time (the corona psyop being the first), that I have felt that my family and I are personally in the crosshairs of the globalist predators. It’s one thing to know that your liberty will be taken away at some point in the future, and a completely different thing to see the iron gate closing on you. I know what Communism is; I lived it!

“Christian and patriotic obligation,” my [fundament]! Hungarian patriots have been betrayed. It’s a huge turning point. But I don’t think very many fellow Hungarians get this declaration of war on them.

The announcement took place in the “World Congress of Jurists conference, which this year focuses on the relationship between sustainability and law” — that’s totalitarian Communist tech tyranny, if you translate it from Newspeak. Total subversion of the national legal system. In other words: InterNazi takeover. War.

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Translation of the article from Pesti Srácok:

Judit Varga: An Effective Climate Policy is a Christian and Patriotic Duty

An effective climate and green policy is a Christian and patriotic duty, said [ex] Justice Minister Judit Varga in New York on Thursday at the World Congress of Jurists conference, which this year focuses on the relationship between sustainability and law.

In her speech at the biennial event, the politician said that policy decisions on Hungary’s climate and energy transition will pay particular attention to the framework set by the Hungarian constitution.

She stressed that Hungary’s constitution stipulates that the protection of the country’s environmental and cultural values is everyone’s duty for the benefit of future generations.

She stated that only international cooperation can guarantee national solutions for the preservation of the environment, and that citizens must be regularly informed and consulted in the democratic decision-making process.

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Taking Care of Their Own

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A German food bank, responding to the severe economic crisis in the country that has put so many citizens into straitened circumstances, has decided to give priority to native Germans in their distribution of charitable resources, and send the culture-enrichers to the back of the line. Needless to say, this has caused outrage among the Gutmenschen, who would prefer to pamper the migrants while Germans starve.

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from Heimatkurier:

Germans first: Thüringer Tafel outraged anti-German establishment

In times of need, love for one’s own counts. In Thuringia, a food bank is currently under pressure that has internalized exactly this principle. Needy Germans are given preference there over migrants. The left-wing establishment’s anti-German tantrums over the case speak volumes.

In Germany, many non-profit boards are currently under pressure. Due to a lack of food donations and unreliable volunteers, the charities see their existence threatened. “We do not have enough goods to supply all households equally. From the middle of the month it will simply be difficult for everyone to get the same amount.” So said Mary Stoll, the head of the food bank in the small town of Kahla in Thuringia.

Germans first

“The Germans were there before and they will still be there once the Ukrainians are gone. We depend on our German customers.” That’s why they decided to help needy Germans in Kahla first. Only then would Ukrainian refugees have the opportunity to help themselves in the shop.

Anti-German tantrums

After the media reports on the new Tafel policy, an aggressive storm of indignation has now unleashed on the employees of the Thüringer Tafel. Nasty insults and even threats are not uncommon. Spurred on by the establishment, which is riddled with pathological self-hatred, left-liberals can hardly contain their anti-German hatred online. Above all, the quota migrant Sawsan Chebli once again emphasized with a particularly bold reaction: “Germans first? Dear Tafel, that’s a no-go.”

Legitimate course of action

The official association of food banks in Germany also commented on the case, and absurdly accuses the branch in Kahla of racially playing off people in need against each other. Solidarity with the poor is important. The prosperity-destroying policies of recent years, such as the existence-destroying Corona measures or the sanctions in the Ukraine war, have driven many Germans into poverty. But since they are the ones who populated this country, built it up and defended it in dozens of past wars for thousands of years, it is only logical to prefer Germans to foreigners in their own country — even if this angers the self-loathing anti-Germans.

Afterword from the translator:

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Pensioners Must Give Way to Migrants

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If I were a native German, the following article would make my blood boil. The German mindset and temperament are different from those of an ornery American, however. It seems they’re willing to endure a lot of humiliation and exploitation before taking action to change their collective circumstances.

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from the Austrian site AUF1. The translator’s comments are in square brackets:

“No lifetime achievement”: Government adviser wants to abolish widows’ pensions

The economist Monika Schnitzer, chairwoman of the federal government’s panel of experts, absurdly dubbed “Wirtschaftsweise” (Economy Wise), has called for the widow’s pension to be abolished. In doing so, she flatly denies the lifetime achievements of pensioners who have raised children and run the household. However, the “expert” has no problem with the lifelong full support of millions of immigrants.

On the contrary: Schnitzer had just called for the immigration of another 1.5 million supposedly “skilled workers” to Germany, and in all seriousness complained about an allegedly missing “welcoming culture”.

Millions of unskilled migrants, on the other hand, are “welcome”

At the same time, she now wants to reduce the old-age benefits of local women, calling for the abolition of widows’ pensions. This is drawn by four million women after not they, but their deceased husbands, paid for it. It’s set at 55% of her dead husband’s pension.

Schnitzer, who advocates for a policy that smuggles millions and millions of completely unqualified migrants directly into lifelong full subsistence through the social systems, actually justifies her proposal to end widows’ pensions by saying that these are drawn without their (the widows’) own lifetime achievements.

Pension-splitting required

To top it all off, she said: “The current regulation reduces the incentives to take up your own employment.” In addition, “single contributors” would be defrauded, who “contribute to the financing of pension entitlements
for non-working partners, who themselves are not paying into the system”. [What about all those generations of migrants who NEVER paid into anything and are only receiving? But I guess that would be racist, wouldn’t it?]

As an alternative, Schnitzer proposed pension splitting, in which all pension entitlements acquired by one or both partners during a marriage should be split in half. As soon as one partner dies, the other would receive half of the jointly earned pension entitlements — plus the entitlements earned through their own work during the marriage.

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You’ll Use the CBDC, Eat the Bugs, and Be Happy — Or Else!

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Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from Uncut News:

Cristian Terheș: Laws are being prepared in Brussels to introduce the digital wallet and identity, control purchases and limit meat consumption

MEP Cristian Terheș said controversial laws are being prepared in Brussels, such as the launch of the digital wallet, which will make it easier to control and monitor citizens’ personal finances, limit the purchase of clothing and consumption of meat and to promote insect-based foods . All “to protect the planet.”

“How else is the government supposed to know that you only buy three coats a year? Nicolae Ceaușescu was nothing compared to what they — Brussels officials — think. That’s what it means to have a system where all transactions are monitored. All you need is a digital wallet and a digital identity. I know the backroom conversations that go on. We managed to stop it in Parliament, but I’m not sure we’ll be able to stop it completely. The big groups in the European Parliament support this mess from a political point of view.”

“In early 2021, Ursula von der Leyen said that eating cockroaches would be given free rein. Some said that wasn’t true. As I speak to you, I am in Warsaw with a group of MEPs. I had a meeting with the climate minister. I asked him if there is anyone in the Council who asks the Commission where such ideas come from. We see the World Economic Forum in Davos. They managed to educate politicians on both the left and the right. There are people in the governments of the world who were trained by Schwab. Look at the public policies they promote! Let’s see what’s happens in England…” Terheș commented on RomâniaTV.

Afterword from the translator:

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Brussels Says: Give Us More of Your Euros!

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Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from eXXpress:

Even more billions for the EU: Johannes Hahn and Von der Leyen need money from Austria in 100 days

The pressure on us Austrians and all net contributors in the EU will increase dramatically: in just 100 days — on October 1st — Ursula Von der Leyen and Budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn need the commitment from Vienna, Berlin and Paris for an additional €66 billion.

They want to increase the salaries of EU politicians and EU officials by 15%, the additional costs for the EU commissioners are even to rise by 20% in 2024, and there is also a funding commitment to Ukraine of €50 billion to be transferred over the next four years to Kiev, as well as steeply rising lending rates: The EU leadership is faced with a dramatic financial crisis, as the eXXpress and the Bild newspaper have recently reported.

And for all of us an Austrian is right in the middle of this expensive billion-dollar circus: Johannes Hahn, the budget commissioner. This year he is already on a begging tour in all the capitals of the nine EU net contributors. These nations would extort even more tax money from their citizens than before and transfer it to Brussels. It’s about no less than €66 billion in additional financial needs.

Stuffing huge budget holes in Brussels

The finance ministers of these net contributor states are unlikely to show much enthusiasm for sending millions more from their budgets to the EU, reports the news magazine Focus: “With their appearance Von der Leyen and her budget commissioner Johannes Hahn have a lot of budget holes to plug no one expected when the medium-term financial framework for the EU (MFF) was adopted. Hahn went on a begging tour through the European capitals. The Austrian noticed there that after all the crises of the past few years and a period of ‘no matter what the cost’, the signs are now pointing to consolidation of the national budget.” And the big problem: Hahn needs a positive decision in October.

The pressure from Brussels on the European governments, who are supposed to pay even more in the future, will therefore increase even more in the next 100 days. It will be interesting to see whether the finance ministers and heads of government will remain firm and instead of releasing the payment of additional billions, will demand an austerity course at the top of the EU. After all, the behavior of the black-green federal government on this issue will also have a major impact on the outcome of the National Elections next year.

The ÖVP and the Greens are still silent on the EU’s additional spending

While the ÖVP [Österreichische Volkspartei, Austrian People’s Party] and the Greens are still silent about the billions of euros in additional needs of the EU Commission, the Freedom Party has already positioned itself clearly: EU Parliamentarian Harald Vilimsky (FPÖ [Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, Austrian Freedom Party]) sharply criticizes the EU’s additional spending — it cannot currently be explained to anyone in Austria why 15% salary increases for EU politicians and an increase in the number of seats in Parliament in Brussels now have to be approved. The billions in payments to Ukraine that have already been announced by the EU should also be stopped.

Afterword from the translator:

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Your Papers, Please

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The World Health Organization is planning to implement a system of digital health passports or vaccination certificates that will be used to limit the travel and activities of citizens in the event another “pandemic” is declared. The entity doing the declaring will, of course, be the WHO itself. The ultimate goal is to enroll every human being on the planet in the new system.

Once it is in place, the architects of global governance will be able to restrict the freedom of movement of the populace. Coupled with a mandatory digital currency (which means the abolition of cash), it will allow the authorities control what people can buy and where they can buy it. It will eventually force them out of their motor vehicles, after which they may be induced to move to a 15-minute “smart” city and eat the bugs.

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from Aufl.info. The translator’s comments are in square brackets:

End of freedom of travel: WHO and EU launch digital world vaccination card

The health dictatorship sought by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the EU is becoming very concrete. Now the bag is finally closed: On Monday, the two organizations announced the start of a “groundbreaking digital health partnership”. The WHO is now taking over the EU system of digital COVID-19 certification. This is to facilitate a global mobility management system and protect citizens anywhere in the world from current and future health threats.

In the future, the WHO can declare a pandemic and link people’s freedom to travel to a “vaccination”. Those who refuse can no longer leave their country.

Goodbye freedom of travel

The WHO and the EU are now openly in lockstep initiating the global prison state in the name of “health”. The pandemic contract, which is to be signed in 2024, is only the seal on it. The digital COVID-19 certificate was one of the key elements of the EU in the COVID-19 pandemic. To facilitate “freedom of movement” (permission to travel) within its borders, the EU rapidly introduced interoperable COVID-19 certificates (entitled “EU Digital COVID Certificate” or “EU DCC”). Based on open-source technologies and standards, it also enabled the connection of non-EU countries issuing certificates according to EU-DCC specifications, becoming the most widely used solution worldwide.

EU and WHO dictate

The WHO set the general guidelines for this right from the start. To strengthen global health care “in the face of growing health threats,” the WHO is establishing a global digital health certification network powered by EU technology. The aim of this network is to make the digital certificate “palatable” to every country in the world. The WHO defines the standards and the validation of digital signatures for fraud prevention. The WHO does not (yet) have access to the underlying personal data. These remain (for the time being) reserved exclusively for governments. [And we can trust those guys with our lives, now, can’t we?]

Secretly decided

The decision for the current initiative was signed back on December 2, 2022, between EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides (for the EU Member States) and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. With this partnership, “a robust multilateral system with the WHO at the heart and a strong EU will be further strengthened,” according to an EU press release. The decision is based on the EU Global Health Strategy and the Global Digital Health Strategy of WHO Member States. It is also supported by Minister of Health Johannes Rauch.

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France Becomes a Third-World Country

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The following article (translated from the German) concerns the demographic crisis in France, which is well on its way to becoming a third-world country.

It’s all very well for the alarmists to issue their warnings now, but in my opinion it will make no practical difference. The point of no return was passed a long time ago, probably more than a decade ago. Nothing can prevent the dénouement now. The situation will inevitably end in a general collapse or civil war, or more likely a combination of the two. Assuming we don’t hit a nuclear winter before that.

The rest of the West is headed for the same destination. France and Sweden may be a couple of cars ahead of us, but we’re all on the same train.

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from Report24. The translator’s comments are in square brackets:

Mass Migration

Ex-Intelligence Chief: Mass Migration is Turning France Into a Third World Country

The persistently high level of immigration to France will fundamentally change the country. Above all, citizens of the former French colonies in Africa are pushing into the “Grande Nation”. This is increasingly causing criticism — including from the former head of the secret service and ambassador Pierre Brochand, who warns of the devastating consequences. [That should have been addressed 50+ years ago. Now it will only be possible without any morals or mercy and through rivers of blood.]

Alongside Scandinavian Sweden and Great Britain, which also used to have vast numbers of colonies, France is one of those European countries in which a high percentage of the population has a migration background. A circumstance that additionally leads to the creation of parallel societies and causes increasing criticism. This is also the opinion of the former French secret service chief and ambassador Pierre Brochand.

The retired high-ranking civil servant has repeatedly called on the government to change its immigration policy because the liberal approach that has prevailed for decades is not only making the country poorer but could also lead to civil war. [Not could, WILL.] Furthermore, social security funds would suffer from the massive immigration, since the immigrants and asylum seekers have received enormous sums of money in benefits, but contributed little to the financing of the social system. [Little? That is the overstatement of the last ten millennia.] Brochand explained on French radio that the massive immigration of low-skilled people from failed states has dragged the country into the abyss.

“Fifty years ago we had the best public services in the world. We were proud of it and the whole world envied us for it. Today they are vilified by everyone and we complain about them. So what happened in the meantime? The 35-hour work week cannot be ignored; it has indeed played a role. But we take in 450,000 people each year who haven’t contributed a penny to the infrastructure they’ll be using from day one. We’ve taken in 2.6 million people in the last five years. How can you expect these people, who then become over-consumers and under-contributors, not to put unbearable pressure on public services?”

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Fear Itself

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** UPDATE **

To clear up any misperceptions about what I wrote below: I mean no criticism of Western Rifle Shooters Association. Far from it. The site is a news aggregator, one of the best around. It doesn’t peddle fear porn, but it links to some people who do. As do I. We both think it’s important to link to all kinds of information, both alarming and reassuring.

My major beef is with sites that predict the occurrence of dire events within a specific time frame, then turn out to be wrong, and never have to account for their failure. Some sites that predicted hyperinflation no later than 2010 are still predicting it. It’s always going to happen within the next six months. When it eventually does happen, it won’t prove that they were right. You can wake up every morning and predict a major asteroid will strike the Earth tomorrow. Eventually there will come a day when a major asteroid does strike the Earth. But that won’t mean you were right.

And no, it’s not like a weather forecast. Weather forecasting is well understood to be an inexact science, subject to stochastic indeterminacy. Both the forecaster and the audience know that. But the doom-mongers who make specific predictions about dire events that will occur within a specific time frame make those predictions from a position of assumed inerrancy. And then, when they turn out to be wrong, they just move on to the next one, never revisiting their error or attempting to explain it.

On the other hand, I have no quarrel with writers who simply state what they think is most likely to occur. “I think X will probably occur, and here’s my reasoning. But it’s also possible that Y will happen; I just think it’s less likely, for these reasons.” And, if they’re wrong, they acknowledge it, and try to figure out where their logic went astray.

That’s the honest way to deal with the inherent stochastic nature of future events. But it doesn’t tend to generate as much eye-bulging fear in its audience, which makes it less profitable.

WRSA’s response is here.

A few weeks ago Vera, who is a long-time and regular commenter at Gates of Vienna, left this comment on the news feed:

I don’t know where to post this, WRSA now mostly posts stuff without discussions underneath, so I’ll post it here. They have been an amazing resource all these many months of madness. But lately, I am having a hard time following. They seem to have bought into the mainstream narrative of scaring the crap out of everybody, all the time. If there has been a day of late when some mushroom cloud did not feature, I haven’t noticed. And NC Renegade is the same. Endless stories of bloggers and others who have made a career out of screaming doom at all and sundry.

THIS is alternative media?!? If it bleeds, it leads? If it scares you, we’ll hit you over the head with it until kingdom come? I am revolted. MSM works hard to keep the panic going. Why are “our people” jumping on that bandwagon, have you asked yourselves?

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”

I replied to her with this:

Yes, scaring people 24/7 seems to have become a major tactic used by the Empire. For that reason, I think it’s not a good idea to join in with all the hype about whatever the current doom might be.

Doom may indeed descend upon us. Who knows? But major alternative media sites have been predicting imminent doom since at least 2008, when hyperinflation and financial collapse were said to be imminent. They were all wrong back then by at least fifteen years. Why should we believe them now?

My advice: “Be patient and watch calmly.” Plus: “Keep Occam’s Razor close at hand.”

Since then I’ve thought a lot more about the issue.

For many years it’s been obvious that the populace is being professionally scared. By that I mean that the government, major corporations, and the media deliberately contrive to frighten the general public. Agents of the state act in collusion with private interests to gin up fear among the citizenry in order to serve their own purposes. It’s a well-established principle of authoritarian and totalitarian governance that frightened citizens are easier to control and manipulate.

In recent years we’ve been subjected to a barrage of fear porn on various topics, beginning with the “pandemic” in early 2020. The scary stuff is delivered serially, with each new frightening topic emerging in the media just as the previous panic begins to wane. First COVID, then when that started to fade, monkeypox. Then came the danger of nuclear war. And through it all was woven the perennial favorite, “climate change”, the fear of which is supposed to make us give up the internal combustion engine, live in “smart cities”, and eat the bugs.

The Powers That Be seem to be keeping their options open on various other scare stories, such as UFOs or new, improved pandemics. There’s obviously a need to hold a frightening new crisis in reserve, ready to be trotted out when needed.

There’s no denying that the legacy media are deliberately pounding their audience with fear porn, day after day. But Vera is right that the alternative media are doing the same thing, albeit with a different set of preferred scary topics. Hyperinflation, mandatory vaxing and/or chipping, transhumanism, and the abolition of cash are among the most popular frighteners. And the alt-media occasionally overlap the MSM on some fear-inducers, such as the possibility of nuclear war.

The media agents of fright, whether mainstream or alternative, rely on the short memories of their audience. I remember when the climate fright first got going, back in the early to mid 1970s. But before we were told to be scared about “global warming”, the fearmongers wanted us to lie awake nights worrying about a “new ice age”. They’re hoping we’ve forgotten all that, but the archival records are available for anyone who cares to look them up.

The PTB are also hoping we’ll forget the terrifying predictions which laughably failed to come true. The coming eco-dystopia in the 1980s, for instance — John Brunner was one of its most notable proponents in The Sheep Look Up — never materialized. Pollution didn’t kill all marine life in the 1990s. The world’s oil reserves weren’t exhausted before the year 2000. Lower Manhattan still isn’t underwater, thirty or forty years after the first alarming predictions were issued.

We’re not supposed to remember any of that stuff. And I’m pretty sure most people don’t remember it. But I do.

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