The decline and eventual fall of the USA as world superpower?

[Thunder_Gooch]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-31/guest-post-what-expect-during-next-stage-collapse

 

1) Many U.S. allies will refrain from immediate participation in an attack on Syria. Obama will continue unilaterally (or with the continued support of Israel and Saudi Arabia), placing even more focus on the U.S. as the primary cause of the crisis.

 

2) Obama will attempt to mitigate public outcry by limiting attacks to missile strikes, but these strikes will be highly ineffective compared to previous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

3) A no fly zone will be established, but the U.S. navy will seek to stay out of range of high grade Russian missile technology in the hands of Syria, and this will make response time to the Syrian Air Force more difficult. Expect much higher American naval and air force casualties compared to Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

4) Iran will immediately launch troops and arms in support of Syria. Syria will become a bewildering combat soup of various fighting forces battling on ideological terms, rather than over pure politics and borders. Battles will spread into other countries, covertly and overtly, much like during Vietnam.

 

5) Israel will probably be the first nation to send official ground troops into Syria (and likely Iran), citing a lack of effectiveness of U.S. airstrikes. American troops will follow soon after.

 

6) Iran will shut down the Straight of Hormuz sinking multiple freighters in the narrow shipping lane and aiming ocean skimming missiles at any boats trying to clear the wreckage. Oil exports through the straight of Hormuz will stop for months, cutting 20% of the world's oil supply overnight.

 

7) The Egyptian civil war, now underway but ignored by the mainstream, will explode due to increased anger over U.S. presence in Syria. The Suez Canal will become a dangerous shipping option for oil exporters. Many will opt to travel around the Horn of Africa, adding two weeks to shipping time and increasing the cost of the oil carried.

 

8) Saudi Arabia will see an uprising of insurgency that has been brewing under the surface for years.

 

9) Gasoline prices will skyrocket. I am predicting a 75%-100% increase in prices within two-three months of any strike on Syria.

 

10) Travel will become difficult if not impossible with high gasoline costs. What little of our economy was still thriving on vacation dollars will end. Home purchases will fall even further than before because of the extreme hike in travel expenses required for families to move.

 

11) Russia will threaten to limit or cut off all natural gas exports to the EU if they attempt to join with the U.S. in aggression against Syria. The EU will comply due to their dependency on Russian energy.

 

12) Russia will position naval forces in the Mediterranean to place pressure on the U.S. I feel the possibility of Russia initiating direct confrontation with the U.S. is limited, mainly because countries like Russia and China do not need to engage the U.S. through force of arms in order to strike a painful blow.

 

13) China and Russia will finally announce their decision to drop the dollar completely as the world reserve currency. A process which already began back in 2005, and which global banks have been fully aware of for years.

 

14) Because of China's position as the number one exporter and importer in the world, many nations will follow suit in dumping the dollar in bilateral trade. The dollar's value will implode. China, Russia, and the war in Syria will be blamed, and global banks including the Federal Reserve will be ignored as the true culprits.

 

15) The combination of high energy prices and a devaluing dollar will strike retail prices hard. Expect a doubling of prices on all goods. Look for many imported goods to begin disappearing from shelves.

 

16) Homelessness will expand exponentially as cuts to welfare programs, including food stamps, are made inevitable. However, welfare will not disappear, it will merely be “adjusted” to fit different goals. The homeless themselves will be treated like criminals. The roaming bands of jobless drifters common during the Great Depression will not exist during a modern crisis. State and Federal agencies will pursue an “out of sight, out of mind” policy towards the indigent, forcing them into “aid shelters” or other bureaucratic contraptions designed to conditioning the homeless to accept refugee status, making them totally dependent on federal scraps, but also prisoners on federally designated camps.

 

17) Terrorist attacks (false flag or otherwise) will spread like wildfire. Israel is highly susceptible. The U.S. may see a string of attacks, including cyber attacks on infrastructure. Syria and it's supporters will be blamed regardless of evidence. The White House will begin broad institution of authoritarian powers, including continuity of government executive orders, the Patriot Act, the NDAA, etc.

 

18) Martial Law may not even be officially declared, but the streets of America will feel like martial law none the less.

 

19) False paradigms will flood the mainstream as the establishment seeks to divide American citizens. The conflict will be painted as Muslim against Christian, black against white, poor against rich (but not the super rich elites, of course). Liberty Movement activists will be labeled “traitors” for “undermining government credibility” during a time of crisis. The Neo-Conservatives will place all blame on Barack Obama. Neo-Liberals will blame conservatives as “divisive”. Liberty Movement activists will point out that both sides are puppets of the same international cabal, and be labeled “traitors” again. The establishment will try to coax Americans into turning their rage on each other.

 

20) The Homeland Security apparatus will be turned completely inward, focusing entirely on “domestic enemies”. The domain of the TSA will be expanded onto highways and city streets. Local police will be fully federalized. Northcom will field soldiers within U.S. border to deal with more resistant quarters of the country. Totalitarianism will become the norm.

[voidisyinyang]

The problem with your China analysis is that U.S. corporations control the import/exports of China.

 

That's why Henry Kissinger was on the board of directors of China's petroleum corporation.

 

Oil is used a veto power to keep the dollar value high - petrodollars.

 

So china relies on a strong dollar to keep exports to U.S. cheap.

 

Same with Japan.

 

That's why they are the two top buyers of U.S. treasury bonds for printing money....

 

 

 

John Williamson, one of the foremost academics on exchange rates, and a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington examined the benefits of the US dollar’s reserve status.

He recognized two ways that US power is enhanced in the world economy by the greenback’s dominant role, which he doesn’t see challenged in the next 25 years.

First, the $3.2 trillion in official reserves that China has accumulated in maintaining the yuan's semi-fixed peg to the dollar tie Beijing's policy hands. That is because any hostile gesture, such as a threat to shift out of dollars, would destroy Chinese wealth.

Second, because of the extensive private use of the dollar globally, the United States is better able to enforce a financial embargo such as the one now directed against Iran.

China also faces risks including foreigners reinvesting their yuan back into China’s security markets. Such inflows may alter exchange rates and interest rates and would weaken the Communist Party’s grasp on their economy which would create an unpredictability that is against the iron rule it enjoys.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/china-to-challenge-us-dollar-reserve-currency-status-2012-10#ixzz2dfIZalCi

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203753704577254794068655760.html

 

The purchase of U.S. securities amounted to just 15% of the increase in China's foreign-exchange reserves in the 12 months ended June 30, down from 45% in 2010 and an average of 63% over the past five years, according to calculations based on information published by the U.S. Treasury and the Chinese government.

Economists have long warned that if China starts to cut back its purchases of U.S. securities, U.S. interest rates could climb, damaging the American economy and ratcheting up the government's borrowing costs.

"We've been worried about China refraining from buying U.S. debt for three years now, and it really has not occurred," said David Ader, head of government bond strategy at CRT Capital in Stamford, Conn.

China's foreign-exchange reserves have ballooned over the past two years, and the country has plenty of money to support the U.S. and other debt issuers. "China has been diversifying for several years," Mr. Ader said. "It's been incremental and they've told us that much. Simply diversifying into another currency certainly made sense."

 

and

 

 

For now, China’s dollar trap remains a reality. While foreign exchange reserves can protect China from a currency crisis (the PBOC can sell them to support the renminbi) or an external debt crisis, they really are not much use for a domestic financial crisis or as a weapon against the U.S. (as long as people in the U.S. understand that these threats are empty, that is.) The reserves are not wealth, since the PBOC had to borrow in order to purchase its dollars. In fact, as its US dollar assets have devalued relative to its liabilities in renminbi, in this area, the PBOC is sitting on a massive unrealized loss.

 

http://thediplomat.com/pacific-money/2012/09/28/the-dollar-trap-chinas-misunderstood-foreign-exchange-reserves/

 

 

Edited September 1, 2013 by pythagoreanfulllotus

[ralis]

[zerostao]

everybody knows isnt just a leonard cohen song

its also a concrete blond song

everybody knows

[Thunder_Gooch]

 

Senator Lindsay Graham has warned South Carolinians about the threat of a ‘terrorist nuclear attack’ on the same day that our exclusive high level military intel revealed to us that nuclear warheads were being shipped to South Carolina from a major Texas airforce base under an ‘off the record’ black ops transfer.

[ralis]

Latest on the NSA!

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/05/nsa-snowden-encryption-cracked/2772721/

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/sep/05/nsa-project-bullrun-classification-guide

 

NSA uses supercomputers to crack Web encryption, files show.

 

 

 

U.S. and British intelligence agencies have cracked the encryption designed to provide online privacy and security, documents leaked by former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden show.

In a clandestine, decade-long effort to defeat digital scrambling, the National Security Agency, along with its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), have used supercomputers to crack encryption codes through "brute force" and have inserted secret "back doors" into software with the help of technology companies,The Guardian,The New York Times and ProPublicareported Thursday.

The NSA has also maintained control over international encryption standards.

As the Times points out, encryption "guards global commerce and banking systems, protects sensitive data like trade secrets and medical records, and automatically secures the e-mails, Web searches, Internet chats and phone calls of Americans and others around the world."

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has filed a federal suit challenging the government's collection of telephone communications data, called the NSA's efforts to defeat encryption "recklessly shortsighted'' and said they make the Internet less secure for all.

In a statement, the ACLU said the actions will "further erode not only the United States' reputation as a global champion of civil liberties and privacy but the economic competitiveness of its largest companies.''

"The encryption technologies that the NSA has exploited to enable its secret dragnet surveillance are the same technologies that protect our most sensitive information, including medical records, financial transactions and commercial secrets," said Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist of the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. "Even as the NSA demands more powers to invade our privacy in the name of cybersecurity, it is making the Internet less secure and exposing us to criminal hacking, foreign espionage, and unlawful surveillance.''

The spy agencies have focused on compromising encryption found in Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), virtual private networks (VPNs) and 4G smartphones and tablets. The NSA spent $255 million this year on the decryption program — code named Bullrun — which aims to "covertly influence" software designs and "insert vulnerabilities into commercial encryption systems" that would be known only to the agency.

The documents leaked by Snowden, who has been granted temporary asylum in Russia, do not name specific companies or encryption technologies, and refer to customers and users as "adversaries."

The NSA calls its decryption efforts the "price of admission for the U.S. to maintain unrestricted access to and use of cyberspace."

A 2010 memo describing an NSA briefing to British agents about the secret hacking said, "For the past decade, N.S.A. has led an aggressive, multipronged effort to break widely used Internet encryption technologies. Cryptanalytic capabilities are now coming online. Vast amounts of encrypted Internet data which have up till now been discarded are now exploitable."

The GCHQ is working to penetrate encrypted traffic on what it called the "big four" service providers — Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Microsoft's Hotmail.

One document shows that by 2012, the British agency had developed "new access opportunities" into Google's systems.

Most major tech companies did not immediately respond. In the past, they have said they cooperate with government agencies only as prescribed by law.

Google said in a statement: "We do not provide any government, including the U.S. government, with access to our systems. As for recent reports that the U.S. government has found ways to circumvent our security systems, we have no evidence of any such thing ever occurring. We provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law."

A spokesman for Microsoft, Dominic Carr, said Thursday night that "the company has significant concerns about the allegations of government activity reported today.'' He cited a previous Microsoft statement denying it provides "any government with the ability to break the encryption.''

The NSA says code-breaking is fundamental to its mission of protecting national security by deciphering communications from terrorists, spies or other U.S. adversaries.

During the 1990s, the agency fought unsuccessfully to have a secret government portal included in all encryption protocols.

Experts and critics say that while "back doors" may help intelligence gathering, they weaken the Web's overall security and trust, and could be used against Americans.

"The risk is that when you build a back door into systems, you're not the only one to exploit it," Matthew Green, a cryptography researcher at Johns Hopkins University, told the Times. "Those back doors could work against U.S. communications, too."

Bruce Schneier, a security technologist, examined the documents before they were published and authored an analysis for the Guardian. He told USA TODAY that they are the biggest revelations yet from the documents leaked by Snowden and said they show NSA has "subverted" much of the Internet and tech companies that form its backbone.

"They fundamentally undermine the social contract of the Internet — which is that you get what you think you get and it works,'' Schneier said. "An agency has subverted vast swaths of this to turn the Internet into a surveillance engine. Now the Internet doesn't do what people thought it did.''

"They've done it through secret agreements with companies, so essentially all the companies you deal with on the Internet have been lying to you. They have basically sucked the trust out of the Internet — the NSA and these companies. It's a public-private partnership to turn the internet into a surveillance engine.''

The Center for Democracy and Technology, a non-profit group that advocates for a free Internet, called the NSA efforts "a fundamental attack on the way the Internet works.''

"In an era which businesses as well as the average consumer trust secure networks and technologies for sensitive transactions and private communications online, it's incredibly destructive for the NSA to add flaws to such critical infrastructure," said Joseph Lorenzo Hall, CDT Senior Staff Technologist.

"The NSA seems to be operating on the fantastically naïve assumption that any vulnerabilities it builds into core Internet technologies can only be exploited by itself and its global partners. The NSA simply should not be building vulnerabilities into the fundamental tools that we all rely upon to protect our private information," Hall added.

The Times and ProPublica said intelligence officials asked them not to publish the article, arguing that the revelations "might prompt foreign targets to switch to new forms of encryption or communications that would be harder to collect or read."

After removing "some specific facts," they chose to publish "because of the value of a public debate about government actions that weaken the most powerful tools for protecting the privacy of Americans and others."

ProPublica published a separate article explaining its decision to publish:

The story, we believe, is an important one. It shows that the expectations of millions of Internet users regarding the privacy of their electronic communications are mistaken. These expectations guide the practices of private individuals and businesses, most of them innocent of any wrongdoing. The potential for abuse of such extraordinary capabilities for surveillance, including for political purposes, is considerable. The government insists it has put in place checks and balances to limit misuses of this technology. But the question of whether they are effective is far from resolved and is an issue that can only be debated by the people and their elected representatives if the basic facts are revealed.

The non-profit news organization noted that "American history is replete with examples of the dangers of unchecked power operating in secret," specifically the President Nixon, who "tried to subvert law enforcement, intelligence and other agencies for political purposes, and was more than willing to violate laws in the process."

"Such a person could come to power again. We need a system that can withstand such challenges. That system requires public knowledge of the power the government possesses. Today's story is a step in that direction," ProPublica wrote.

Edited September 6, 2013 by ralis

[ralis]

Another reason for the deterioration of the U.S. This video contains abject stupidity!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HR9ZEsy80v8

[Starjumper]

Another reason for the deterioration of the U.S. This video contains abject stupidity!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HR9ZEsy80v8

 

Back in the fifties the US had the most advanced education system in the world, and my dad told me that education equates to freedom.

 

Well right after that I saw the quality of education plummet till now the US has the poorest quality public education system in the world. There is no doubt that this was done specifically as part of the social engineering program with the specific goal of taking away freedom.

 

Of course the result of this lack of education, social engineering, and religious divisionism (the country has been divided politically along religious lines) is that there are a higher percentage of people in the US who don't 'believe' in evolution. I don't want to be a part of it, so I went South.

[ralis]

Back in the fifties the US had the most advanced education system in the world, and my dad told me that education equates to freedom.

 

Well right after that I saw the quality of education plummet till now the US has the poorest quality public education system in the world. There is no doubt that this was done specifically as part of the social engineering program with the specific goal of taking away freedom.

 

Of course the result of this lack of education, social engineering, and religious divisionism (the country has been divided politically along religious lines) is that there are a higher percentage of people in the US who don't 'believe' in evolution. I don't want to be a part of it, so I went South.

 

How far South did you go?

[Thunder_Gooch]

[ralis]

[idquest]

A poor guy just follows the orders. A fish rots from the head down.

[Thunder_Gooch]

[Thunder_Gooch]

 

Skip to 1:13:01

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_%28U.S._intelligence_official%29

 

 

This should establish his credentials as 30+ year veteran of the NSA.

Edited September 8, 2013 by More_Pie_Guy

[Apech]

Cheer up Yankees it could be worse ... it could be 1814 ....

 

 

That tired old special relationship with the White House is under strain these days – with Britain and the US out of step on Syria. But we're still a long way short of what our relations with the White House were like 200 years ago when we Brits set fire to it. A British army scattered an American force outside Washington, marched in and burned both houses of Congress, the war and state departments, the treasury – and the White House.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/books/shortcuts/2013/sep/08/britain-burned-down-white-house

[Thunder_Gooch]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI0-ZgQB0Dc

[Thunder_Gooch]

[zerostao]

another sad episode. WTF

 

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/09/107-year-old-man-dies-shootout-swat-team/69177/

[Thunder_Gooch]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_Johnston_shooting

 

Kathryn Johnston (June 26, 1914 – November 21, 2006)^[1] was an elderly Atlanta, Georgia, woman who was shot by undercover police officers in her home on Neal Street in northwest Atlanta on November 21, 2006, where she had lived for 17 years. Three officers had entered her home in what was later described as a 'botched' drug raid.^[2][3][4] Officers cut off burglar bars and broke down her door using a no-knock warrant.^[5] Police said Johnston fired at them and they fired in response; she fired one shot out the door over the officers' heads and they fired 39 shots, five or six of which hit her.^[3][6] None of the officers was injured by her gunfire, but Johnston was killed by the officers. Police injuries were later attributed to "friendly fire" from each other's weapons.^[2][3][6]

[ralis]

When will these people stop brain washing children and any fool that believes in bogus nonsense. The educational system in this country is worse than second rate as it is and will contribute to the further decline.

 

"Texas textbook review panel: Put more ‘creation science based on Biblical principles’ in biology books."

 

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/10/texas-textbook-review-panel-put-more-creation-science-based-on-biblical-principles-in-biology-books/

 

 

The significance of changes to Texas textbooks cannot be understated. It is the largest textbook market, and publishers tailor the content of their textbooks to appease its State Board. Any alteration to the content of a Texas textbook will be felt across the country. As Michael Hudson, the Texas director of the People for the American Way noted, Texas conservatives have “been able to use our special situation in Texas to impose their narrow views on the nation as a whole.”

Edited September 11, 2013 by ralis

[Thunder_Gooch]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYL28a0LM_A

Edited September 11, 2013 by More_Pie_Guy

[Thunder_Gooch]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7tSfwkKaUo

 

The official explanation for the collapse does not mention controlled demolition.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/engineering/architecture/4278874

 

The long-awaited report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) conclusively rebuts those claims. Fire alone brought down the building, the report concludes, pointing to thermal expansion of key structural members as the culprit.

This has never occurred before in history, hundreds of top structural engineers and architects say this is impossible. It cannot happen.

 

 

Edited September 11, 2013 by More_Pie_Guy

[Thunder_Gooch]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-25_Empire_State_Building_crash

 

The B-25 Empire State Building crash was a 1945 aircraft accident in which a B-25 Mitchell piloted in thick fog crashed into the Empire State Building. The accident did not compromise the building's structural integrity, but it did cause fourteen deaths (three crewmen and eleven people in the building)

[Thunder_Gooch]

[Thunder_Gooch]