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Power Is An Illusion, Control Is A Facade

Power Is An Illusion, Control Is A Facade

Tyler Durden

Thu, 11/26/2020 – 23:15

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

This past year in numerous countries the public is being bombarded with lessons in power and control that..

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Power Is An Illusion, Control Is A Facade Tyler Durden Thu, 11/26/2020 - 23:15

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

This past year in numerous countries the public is being bombarded with lessons in power and control that have been forgotten for generations. I think the majority of westerners in particular have long believed themselves “safe” from totalitarian government, from collectivist micro-management and from communistic cultism. They thought we had moved beyond the nightmares of the 20th century. They thought that the “new world” was going to be more Utopian, and that freedom would grace us naturally along with technological progress.

Sure, in the back of everyone’s subconscious there is the fear that the good times are an illusion and that dystopia is just behind a thin veneer of economic stability and false optimism, but most people do not really think such catastrophes will happen in their lifetime. We are now in the midst of a deliberately over-hyped pandemic, strict national lockdowns, civil unrest, riots, aggressive tech censorship, intrusive government censorship, unprecedented corporate and treasury debt, stagflationary central bank stimulus and the collapse of massive financial bubbles. Yet, I still don’t get the impression that many in the public really grasp the extent of the danger; they still believe that the situation is going to heal itself without any effort or much sacrifice on their part.

This is the first lesson of power: Entire societies can be easily influenced when they suffer from delusions that the bad times will be fleeting, and that governments will keep them safe no matter what.

It is a historically proven pattern that governments tend to CREATE problems instead of solving them, and this is because the power dynamic of government never changes. The politicians we “vote” for are not in control, rather, the elites who fund their campaigns and who permeate their cabinets are in control. Political representatives come and go, but the establishment elites never leave. Therefore, the problems our society faces will remain; they are a direct result of the subversive and perpetual power structure that serves the interest of a select minority rather than the public. The decline of our society into tyranny will not stop until this power structure and the people behind it are erased.

This would actually be a simple thing to achieve if enough people were to accept the truth and take action. The elites, the globalists, the establishment, the “new world order”, whatever you want to call this organization of power mongers, is but a collection of mostly weak and feeble psychopaths and parasites. They are completely out in the open; they proudly proclaim their affiliations and intentions on a regular basis through their host institutions, from the Council on Foreign Relations to Tavistock to Bilderberg to the World Economic Forum, the IMF, the Bank for International Settlements, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Open Society Foundation, etc. There is very little that is hidden about these people anymore.

But, it is also a sad reality that most people have to hit rock bottom before they embrace the idea that they cannot rely on the corrupt system to save them from harm. And as long as they continue to have blind faith that the system will self correct, they will never act. The elites operate in the open with impunity because they know that human beings are more likely to seek out help from the system than they are to fix a problem for themselves. If someone was to switch off that single mass fantasy, the elites would be gone tomorrow.

The second lesson of power is that perception of consent creates legitimate consent. To put it another way – When people believe that their peers and neighbors have accepted a certain level of tyranny, they too will often accept it so that they don’t stand out or draw attention to themselves as “aberrant”. People seeking power only need to create the illusion of mass consent. Even when the majority of people are against them, the perception of compliance can sometimes overwhelm logic.

Control is usually achieved passively without force. Sometimes you don’t even need the threat of force; sometimes you only need to inspire a fear of standing out among the crowd.

For example, the pandemic has been used the past six months as a tool for creating such a narrative. Mask wearing “rules” are particularly insidious as they conjure illusions of compliance and submission. “Everyone” is wearing a mask, therefore everyone must support medical tyranny. Mask wearing is a complete farce when it comes to the actual science of virology and viral spread. The CDC still does not recommend cloth masks to their own employees and only allows them to use N95 filtered masks. A recent and censored Danish study confirms the reality that masks are mostly useless.

Strictly enforced cloth mask rules have done nothing to stop renewed spikes in infections in multiple countries and US states. The fact that in many places masks are required OUTDOORS despite endless scientific evidence showing that UV light and open air kills microorganisms including viruses shows that the lockdown response has nothing to do with science or saving lives. It is about control.

We can take all logical factors into account, but, for a lot of people, if they see others wearing masks they too will wear a mask simply because they are afraid to be judged by what they perceive to be the majority. The reality is that a majority of people are wearing the masks grudgingly, and they would take them off tomorrow if they knew other people would do the same.

This is why the mainstream media pushes mask wearing propaganda everyday, 24/7. News journalists stand on street corners or in open air parks and wear masks on camera. Politicians wear masks even when on camera in their own homes. Celebrities and companies try to sell the idea that mask wearing is “cool”. Hey, if you don’t wear a mask you could be putting hundreds or thousands of other people at risk and killing their grandmas, right?

The masks do nothing. They achieve nothing in terms of stopping the virus spread or saving lives. This is a fact made obvious by the very infection numbers the establishment holds up as a rationale for the masks. But if the establishment elites through propaganda can convince you to wear a mask everyday, then this opens the door to them dictating many other aspects of your life. The masks are just a gateway into more destructive mandates.

The solution to this type of tyranny is to stop caring what other people think, especially when the facts are on your side. In the town where I live, the vast majority of people have said no to the mask restrictions. If someone wants to wear a mask because they believe it will protect them, that’s fine. But, no one is going to tell us we have to wear them “for our own good”. That said, even if I was the ONLY person not wearing a mask around town, I would not care if it bothered others. Your credo has to be “try and force me to wear a mask, and watch what happens…”

The third lesson of power is that force only leads to control if you respond with submission. A group of people can beat you or even kill you, but they can’t force you to comply if you do not fear for your own life.

I find that the use of force by tyrants is predicated on the assumption that the people they are seeking to control will not fight back effectively. As soon as people do fight back effectively, the tyrant is shocked. Most tyrants rise to power, not because they have won multiple battles and subdued their opponents, but because they never had to fight in the first place. Or, they win a handful of easy battles, often staged to look more victorious than they really were, and then use those mediocre wins as a means to terrify all future opposition into not fighting. The tyrants start to believe their own lies and presume their own invincibility.

Predators do not seek out hard targets, they seek out weak targets. The solution to tyrants is for the hard targets to seek them out and strike them in the midst of their confidence. When predators get hit back they have a habit of running away.

But, this requires people who do not live in fear of what might happen when they fight back. The concept of sacrificing comfort (or much worse) can’t be an issue. Fear fades away when a person fights for something more than himself. It’s not always about personal survival, sometimes it’s about the survival of future generations, or the survival of a set of principles. As that fear disappears, so does the illusion of control that tyrants rely on.

The fourth lesson of power is that ideals either stem from human conscience, or they do not. And if they do not, then they are not ideals worth adopting or fighting over. The conscience of the average person is not as ambiguous and changeable as the establishment would like you to believe. A lion’s share of human beings operate on a certain set of inherent morals and principles that are universally shared; they do not need to be taught these principles, they are born knowing them. If these rules were not ingrained into our psyches our species would have self destructed thousands of years ago.

Establishment elites would like you to believe that all ideals are a product of environment, and that those who control the environment control the morals of the people by extension. This is a lie. Values such as freedom exist even in the most oppressive environments, and people seek it out even when the risk is overwhelming. Empathy is also inherent for most of us, but a certain percentage of people are born without the capacity for it. The REAL fight in the middle of any power struggle is the fight between those who are born with conscience, values and empathy, and those who are born without these grounding characteristics.

Psychopathic tyrants desperately want to prove that all other people are just as devoid of humanity and soul as they are. They want to prove that the voice of conscience that guides us is a mask we wear to pretend that we are not evil at our core. Control comes from the fallacy that we are dependent on our environments to tell us who we are as individuals. Control comes from the notion that morals are relative, and that principles are social constructs.

Conscience is inherent, but it is also a choice. You have the free will to listen to it, or ignore it. If a tyrant can convince you to ignore the voice of your own conscience then the only other guide in life is your environment. And, if that tyrant dominates every aspect of your environment, then he now has the power to rewrite your moral code, at least temporarily. You can be made to do terrible things you would not otherwise do, or support destructive causes and ideologies you would not otherwise support.

The ultimate totalitarian power is the power to make people forget their own inner voice. The ultimate tool against evil is to listen to that voice and to not be afraid of the supposed consequences.

The question of the facade of power is about to become the defining question of our epoch as the elitist establishment accelerates their agenda for greater centralized control of our lives. The truth they do not want you to understand is that they have no power. They have nothing. We could defy their mandates anytime we wish. We could do away with them tomorrow if we wanted. They are of no use to humanity, they serve no valuable purpose. They only seek to feed like vampires on the masses and fulfill their deranged fantasies of conquest. Sooner or later they will have to be dealt with – The sooner the better.

*  *  *

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Analyst reviews Apple stock price target amid challenges

Here’s what could happen to Apple shares next.

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They said it was bound to happen.

It was Jan. 11, 2024 when software giant Microsoft  (MSFT)  briefly passed Apple  (AAPL)  as the most valuable company in the world.

Microsoft's stock closed 0.5% higher, giving it a market valuation of $2.859 trillion. 

It rose as much as 2% during the session and the company was briefly worth $2.903 trillion. Apple closed 0.3% lower, giving the company a market capitalization of $2.886 trillion. 

"It was inevitable that Microsoft would overtake Apple since Microsoft is growing faster and has more to benefit from the generative AI revolution," D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria said at the time, according to Reuters.

The two tech titans have jostled for top spot over the years and Microsoft was ahead at last check, with a market cap of $3.085 trillion, compared with Apple's value of $2.684 trillion.

Analysts noted that Apple had been dealing with weakening demand, including for the iPhone, the company’s main source of revenue. 

Demand in China, a major market, has slumped as the country's economy makes a slow recovery from the pandemic and competition from Huawei.

Sales in China of Apple's iPhone fell by 24% in the first six weeks of 2024 compared with a year earlier, according to research firm Counterpoint, as the company contended with stiff competition from a resurgent Huawei "while getting squeezed in the middle on aggressive pricing from the likes of OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi," said senior Analyst Mengmeng Zhang.

“Although the iPhone 15 is a great device, it has no significant upgrades from the previous version, so consumers feel fine holding on to the older-generation iPhones for now," he said.

A man scrolling through Netflix on an Apple iPad Pro. Photo by Phil Barker/Future Publishing via Getty Images.

Future Publishing/Getty Images

Big plans for China

Counterpoint said that the first six weeks of 2023 saw abnormally high numbers with significant unit sales being deferred from December 2022 due to production issues.

Apple is planning to open its eighth store in Shanghai – and its 47th across China – on March 21.

Related: Tech News Now: OpenAI says Musk contract 'never existed', Xiaomi's EV, and more

The company also plans to expand its research centre in Shanghai to support all of its product lines and open a new lab in southern tech hub Shenzhen later this year, according to the South China Morning Post.

Meanwhile, over in Europe, Apple announced changes to comply with the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA), which went into effect last week, Reuters reported on March 12.

Beginning this spring, software developers operating in Europe will be able to distribute apps to EU customers directly from their own websites instead of through the App Store.

"To reflect the DMA’s changes, users in the EU can install apps from alternative app marketplaces in iOS 17.4 and later," Apple said on its website, referring to the software platform that runs iPhones and iPads. 

"Users will be able to download an alternative marketplace app from the marketplace developer’s website," the company said.

Apple has also said it will appeal a $2 billion EU antitrust fine for thwarting competition from Spotify  (SPOT)  and other music streaming rivals via restrictions on the App Store.

The company's shares have suffered amid all this upheaval, but some analysts still see good things in Apple's future.

Bank of America Securities confirmed its positive stance on Apple, maintaining a buy rating with a steady price target of $225, according to Investing.com

The firm's analysis highlighted Apple's pricing strategy evolution since the introduction of the first iPhone in 2007, with initial prices set at $499 for the 4GB model and $599 for the 8GB model.

BofA said that Apple has consistently launched new iPhone models, including the Pro/Pro Max versions, to target the premium market. 

Analyst says Apple selloff 'overdone'

Concurrently, prices for previous models are typically reduced by about $100 with each new release. 

This strategy, coupled with installment plans from Apple and carriers, has contributed to the iPhone's installed base reaching a record 1.2 billion in 2023, the firm said.

More Tech Stocks:

Apple has effectively shifted its sales mix toward higher-value units despite experiencing slower unit sales, BofA said.

This trend is expected to persist and could help mitigate potential unit sales weaknesses, particularly in China. 

BofA also noted Apple's dominance in the high-end market, maintaining a market share of over 90% in the $1,000 and above price band for the past three years.

The firm also cited the anticipation of a multi-year iPhone cycle propelled by next-generation AI technology, robust services growth, and the potential for margin expansion.

On Monday, Evercore ISI analysts said they believed that the sell-off in the iPhone maker’s shares may be “overdone.”

The firm said that investors' growing preference for AI-focused stocks like Nvidia  (NVDA)  has led to a reallocation of funds away from Apple. 

In addition, Evercore said concerns over weakening demand in China, where Apple may be losing market share in the smartphone segment, have affected investor sentiment.

And then ongoing regulatory issues continue to have an impact on investor confidence in the world's second-biggest company.

“We think the sell-off is rather overdone, while we suspect there is strong valuation support at current levels to down 10%, there are three distinct drivers that could unlock upside on the stock from here – a) Cap allocation, b) AI inferencing, and c) Risk-off/defensive shift," the firm said in a research note.

Related: Veteran fund manager picks favorite stocks for 2024

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Major typhoid fever surveillance study in sub-Saharan Africa indicates need for the introduction of typhoid conjugate vaccines in endemic countries

There is a high burden of typhoid fever in sub-Saharan African countries, according to a new study published today in The Lancet Global Health. This high…

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There is a high burden of typhoid fever in sub-Saharan African countries, according to a new study published today in The Lancet Global Health. This high burden combined with the threat of typhoid strains resistant to antibiotic treatment calls for stronger prevention strategies, including the use and implementation of typhoid conjugate vaccines (TCVs) in endemic settings along with improvements in access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene.

Credit: IVI

There is a high burden of typhoid fever in sub-Saharan African countries, according to a new study published today in The Lancet Global Health. This high burden combined with the threat of typhoid strains resistant to antibiotic treatment calls for stronger prevention strategies, including the use and implementation of typhoid conjugate vaccines (TCVs) in endemic settings along with improvements in access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene.

 

The findings from this 4-year study, the Severe Typhoid in Africa (SETA) program, offers new typhoid fever burden estimates from six countries: Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, and Nigeria, with four countries recording more than 100 cases for every 100,000 person-years of observation, which is considered a high burden. The highest incidence of typhoid was found in DRC with 315 cases per 100,000 people while children between 2-14 years of age were shown to be at highest risk across all 25 study sites.

 

There are an estimated 12.5 to 16.3 million cases of typhoid every year with 140,000 deaths. However, with generic symptoms such as fever, fatigue, and abdominal pain, and the need for blood culture sampling to make a definitive diagnosis, it is difficult for governments to capture the true burden of typhoid in their countries.

 

“Our goal through SETA was to address these gaps in typhoid disease burden data,” said lead author Dr. Florian Marks, Deputy Director General of the International Vaccine Institute (IVI). “Our estimates indicate that introduction of TCV in endemic settings would go to lengths in protecting communities, especially school-aged children, against this potentially deadly—but preventable—disease.”

 

In addition to disease incidence, this study also showed that the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Salmonella Typhi, the bacteria that causes typhoid fever, has led to more reliance beyond the traditional first line of antibiotic treatment. If left untreated, severe cases of the disease can lead to intestinal perforation and even death. This suggests that prevention through vaccination may play a critical role in not only protecting against typhoid fever but reducing the spread of drug-resistant strains of the bacteria.

 

There are two TCVs prequalified by the World Health Organization (WHO) and available through Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. In February 2024, IVI and SK bioscience announced that a third TCV, SKYTyphoid™, also achieved WHO PQ, paving the way for public procurement and increasing the global supply.

 

Alongside the SETA disease burden study, IVI has been working with colleagues in three African countries to show the real-world impact of TCV vaccination. These studies include a cluster-randomized trial in Agogo, Ghana and two effectiveness studies following mass vaccination in Kisantu, DRC and Imerintsiatosika, Madagascar.

 

Dr. Birkneh Tilahun Tadesse, Associate Director General at IVI and Head of the Real-World Evidence Department, explains, “Through these vaccine effectiveness studies, we aim to show the full public health value of TCV in settings that are directly impacted by a high burden of typhoid fever.” He adds, “Our final objective of course is to eliminate typhoid or to at least reduce the burden to low incidence levels, and that’s what we are attempting in Fiji with an island-wide vaccination campaign.”

 

As more countries in typhoid endemic countries, namely in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, consider TCV in national immunization programs, these data will help inform evidence-based policy decisions around typhoid prevention and control.

 

###

 

About the International Vaccine Institute (IVI)
The International Vaccine Institute (IVI) is a non-profit international organization established in 1997 at the initiative of the United Nations Development Programme with a mission to discover, develop, and deliver safe, effective, and affordable vaccines for global health.

IVI’s current portfolio includes vaccines at all stages of pre-clinical and clinical development for infectious diseases that disproportionately affect low- and middle-income countries, such as cholera, typhoid, chikungunya, shigella, salmonella, schistosomiasis, hepatitis E, HPV, COVID-19, and more. IVI developed the world’s first low-cost oral cholera vaccine, pre-qualified by the World Health Organization (WHO) and developed a new-generation typhoid conjugate vaccine that is recently pre-qualified by WHO.

IVI is headquartered in Seoul, Republic of Korea with a Europe Regional Office in Sweden, a Country Office in Austria, and Collaborating Centers in Ghana, Ethiopia, and Madagascar. 39 countries and the WHO are members of IVI, and the governments of the Republic of Korea, Sweden, India, Finland, and Thailand provide state funding. For more information, please visit https://www.ivi.int.

 

CONTACT

Aerie Em, Global Communications & Advocacy Manager
+82 2 881 1386 | aerie.em@ivi.int


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US Spent More Than Double What It Collected In February, As 2024 Deficit Is Second Highest Ever… And Debt Explodes

US Spent More Than Double What It Collected In February, As 2024 Deficit Is Second Highest Ever… And Debt Explodes

Earlier today, CNBC’s…

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US Spent More Than Double What It Collected In February, As 2024 Deficit Is Second Highest Ever... And Debt Explodes

Earlier today, CNBC's Brian Sullivan took a horse dose of Red Pills when, about six months after our readers, he learned that the US is issuing $1 trillion in debt every 100 days, which prompted him to rage tweet, (or rageX, not sure what the proper term is here) the following:

We’ve added 60% to national debt since 2018. Germany - a country with major economic woes - added ‘just’ 32%.   

Maybe it will never matter.   Maybe MMT is real.   Maybe we just cancel or inflate it out. Maybe career real estate borrowers or career politicians aren’t the answer.

I have no idea.  Only time will tell.   But it’s going to be fascinating to watch it play out.

He is right: it will be fascinating, and the latest budget deficit data simply confirmed that the day of reckoning will come very soon, certainly sooner than the two years that One River's Eric Peters predicted this weekend for the coming "US debt sustainability crisis."

According to the US Treasury, in February, the US collected $271 billion in various tax receipts, and spent $567 billion, more than double what it collected.

The two charts below show the divergence in US tax receipts which have flatlined (on a trailing 6M basis) since the covid pandemic in 2020 (with occasional stimmy-driven surges)...

... and spending which is about 50% higher compared to where it was in 2020.

The end result is that in February, the budget deficit rose to $296.3 billion, up 12.9% from a year prior, and the second highest February deficit on record.

And the punchline: on a cumulative basis, the budget deficit in fiscal 2024 which began on October 1, 2023 is now $828 billion, the second largest cumulative deficit through February on record, surpassed only by the peak covid year of 2021.

But wait there's more: because in a world where the US is spending more than twice what it is collecting, the endgame is clear: debt collapse, and while it won't be tomorrow, or the week after, it is coming... and it's also why the US is now selling $1 trillion in debt every 100 days just to keep operating (and absorbing all those millions of illegal immigrants who will keep voting democrat to preserve the socialist system of the US, so beloved by the Soros clan).

And it gets even worse, because we are now in the ponzi finance stage of the Minsky cycle, with total interest on the debt annualizing well above $1 trillion, and rising every day

... having already surpassed total US defense spending and soon to surpass total health spending and, finally all social security spending, the largest spending category of all, which means that US debt will now rise exponentially higher until the inevitable moment when the US dollar loses its reserve status and it all comes crashing down.

We conclude with another observation by CNBC's Brian Sullivan, who quotes an email by a DC strategist...

.. which lays out the proposed Biden budget as follows:

The budget deficit will growth another $16 TRILLION over next 10 years. Thats *with* the proposed massive tax hikes.

Without them the deficit will grow $19 trillion.

That's why you will hear the "deficit is being reduced by $3 trillion" over the decade.

No family budget or business could exist with this kind of math.

Of course, in the long run, neither can the US... and since neither party will ever cut the spending which everyone by now is so addicted to, the best anyone can do is start planning for the endgame.

Tyler Durden Tue, 03/12/2024 - 18:40

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