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Note: As part of our premium service, I regularly post short takes on whatever is urgent or needing some more attention that day. This is available to our Insider and VIP level subscribers. I am making today’s available to our entire subscriber community because I want all of our information scout subscribers to get a taste of what’s going on over in the other areas. Also, today’s topic is just too important and I want everyone to get to see it who would like to see it.
I simply cannot believe the oil supply numbers I am seeing. There’s a global oil supply shock underway and as high as oil prices are, they are simply not factoring in the truly desperate supply situation in which we happen to find ourselves.
I suspect that either a) speculator-driven markets are a very bad idea for necessary commodities and b) there’s a bit of “narrative control” going on in the paper markets with various political and monetary authorities conspiring to drive down prices by dumping paper contracts into the futures markets.
Either way, the result is a big and ugly explosion later on.
Oil is simply not one of those things you can manipulate for long, unlike silver or gold.
The metals markets aren’t quite as critical as oil, so they can be monkeyed around with for longer without anything terrible really happening. Oil, on the other hand, gets used up faster at a lower price and when/if it hits a certain critical level, we’ll see extraordinary price spikes as a consequence.
Of course, oil IS the economy. So, any price spikes are really just another way of saying “shortages” which is another way of saying “there will be less economic activity.” Less oil = higher prices = lower economic activity. They are related if not equivalent statements.
The chance of this all ending in a financial and economic implosion is very high. I am personally preparing with greater urgency and getting ready for what could be a long period of disruption.
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Tonight, Chris dissects the latest energy, economic and health news and why the road downhill looks more perilous each day. The U.S., EU and Russia are signaling more hostile intent through backchannel diplomatic moves and front facing resource and economic attacks, and now a new military base near Russia’s border in Poland.
Is it the late 1930s again? What about the impacts of current events on our home fronts? Potential energy shortages reaching across the Atlantic to America? And then there is still the Covid and the vaccine injuries…
Tune in live tonight, June 30, 7 p.m., EST. Here at Peak Prosperity.
The need for community, especially of like-minded people, has never been stronger. The economic indicators, as well as all of our personal experiences, are pointing to hard times…or is it harder times. And yet, we still must navigate the harsh reactions from too many people because we question the narrative…with data (it’s a bizarro world, indeed).
That’s why we need each other, and why we need to build our resilience.
Therefore, I feel it’s important to make this event as accessible as we can. Our team has decided to extend our Early Bird Ticket Sales to July 24. Because we have room. Because we want as many of you to attend. Because we should never feel alone in our world…but don’t wait. Early Bird Ticket Sales pricing for the Honey Badger Gathering will end July 24. Also, ticket sales are open to all subscriber levels (free to VIP).
Who Should Attend
So, what’s this gathering/conference all about? We are going to need community more than ever in the years to come. Many, like myself, do not have experience living in a community where people actually “need” each other. So, how do we go about building a durable community? History says that all durable communities or associations – be those religious or the Boy Scouts – share the same features. They have rituals, regalia, hierarchy, and mentoring. For the Boy Scouts, it would mean secret handshakes (ritual), neckerchiefs (regalia), different levels from Cub to Eagle Scouts (hierarchy), and they actively have older scouts teach younger scouts (mentoring).
At this gathering, we’ll have some of each, but we’re asking people to show up in one of two modes; active learner or as a mentor. Or better yet, both! We’re focussing on mentoring. We want you to bring a skill or knowledge to share, or to be ready to really listen and learn from your fellow tribe members. Anything and everything is welcome. Are you a skilled rabbit raiser? Do you know how to invest in Oil & Gas? Are you especially good at guitar or storytelling? Anything and everything is welcome.
Or bring whatever problem you are trying to solve or decision you are trying to make. I guarantee you – whatever your issue there will be someone here who can address it with expertise.
And as we approach the July 4th weekend, I can’t think of a better way to celebrate Independence Day than by taking steps to secure our own personal independence through resilience.
It will be a remarkable event for Tribe, continuous learning, community, a beautiful environment…and fun.
Today, we’re going back over The Great Reset. I initially produced this video back in November of 2020 and it’s worth revisiting today. Why? Because it’s hard to get our hearts and minds around the level of ignorance or depravity, or both, that the WEF/Davos crowd are exhibiting.
They really are either as dense or as malignant as they seem.
The predicament they and their many willing foot soldiers have placed us all in is quite dire. I cannot find any path forward that avoids great strife for the masses.
The energy-related and monetary shocks are now in the system and will have to work their way through before we can even begin to guess at the actual impacts.
While hopefully smaller than we might fear, we have to also consider that they might be far more damaging than our darkest thoughts.
Nobody can know the final results, but we can determine the direction. Less energy equals lower living standards. Many of those possible outcomes can be somewhat avoided by people who take early actions.
Having hard assets helps. Being able to produce your own food can be a lifesaver. Having a strong circle of like minds to help you think things through and to have your back will be vital.
So, it’s time.
Time to really allow ourselves to admit that whatever their plans or intentions, it’s too late to put the genie back in the bottle. We’re now a part of whatever unfolds and we’re going to have to make the best of it all.
They’ve planned a crisis, and now it’s here. However skeptical it’s possible to be about their plans, I am 10 times more skeptical than that.
In November of 2020, I covered the Great Reset for my subscribers. I am always trying to understand what is happening in the world and why. Such “framing” is essential if you want to avoid being another Rat in a Cage.
Yes, the shocks still happen, but at least we know where they are coming from, and we can avoid accidentally blaming innocent parties for our discomfort and fear. That’s a huge positive as it saves emotional and physical energy and money.
Better yet, we can anticipate events and take actions to assure we and our families and loved ones are taken care of in the event of certain bad outcomes.
Let me be blunt; the Davos/WEF/Great Reset crowd is chock full of ignorant fools. They are “true believers” in their ideology and yet far too few of them have any practical experience to fully appreciate the gears they have set in motion.
To them, you just administrate and bully to get the outcomes you wish. To us, out here in the real world, we understand that the economy and energy systems upon which we all depend are actually quite fragile complex systems. You perturb them at your own peril.
Starve a major economy for energy (as is happening in Europe right now) and you cannot control what happens next. Instead, because it is a complex system, all you can do is sit back and watch for what emerges.
That’s the nature of complex systems – they are inherently unpredictable. You cannot plan for certain outcomes, you can only apply pressure and then watch for what emerges.
Well, I won’t be at all surprised if what “emerges” from all these WEF shocks is complete chaos. Economic and financial meltdowns, asset destruction, currency gyrations unseen for generations – you name it!
At the end of it all, however, this prediction is easy to make; the aftermath of an energy-starved economy is that living standards go down. Well, for the masses. Not so much for the wealthy elite who are the same ones now running their Great Reset experiments on us all.
I have decided to make this formerly behind-the-paywall episode partially public because it might be helpful to do so. Further, it shows the level of thinking and the timeliness of the analysis that I provide for my subscribers.
If knowing such things in advance is useful to you, then you should definitely subscribe!
Chris takes a dive into the unlikely news that it took a French prime minister to educate an American president on the state of oil production capabilities (or lack of) in the Middle East.
This data on the drop off in birth rates in multiple reporting countries is really bad. Horrendously bad.
The number of births in three reporting countries are down by unthinkable amounts. Germany, Switzerland and Taiwan are each reporting huge declines that are “large sigma” events.
Note: I am on the road this morning and unable to produce a video, so here’s a quick written summary.
Here’s Germany, reporting a 9-sigma decline in live births for the first quarter of 2022, which means something you might expect randomly every few hundred million years or so. I’ll have to check the math on that, but it should never happen, yet it has.
German “heath” authorities have tried to down play this by saying it can’t be the vaccine because only elderly people were vaccinated during the conception window. This turns out not to be actually true. Yet another non-shocking display of a national health authority either not being in command of the most basic facts, or outright lying to protect their pharma friends.
Don’t forget, there was a huge marketing campaign enlisting “experts” and doctors to shill for the idea that these vaccines were safe for pregnant women and didn’t affect fertility. How they could be allowed to say that given the fact we knew, at a minimum, that women’s menstrual cycles were strongly disrupted is beyond me. It’s not even remotely defensible on any level.
All I have to say to Dr. Hildreth is fuck you. There was no possible way any competent or caring doctor could have said anything other than “we don’t know” because the shoddy vaccine trials didn’t include pregnant women or follow them up when they accidentally did become part of the trial.
Next, Switzerland is reporting births by month, with the same chilling result.
What could it be? Are women and men just staying home playing video games, too tired or worn out by circumstances to carry on with life? Or could it be the giant medical experiment that was forced onto the population? Remember, even the FDA’s own advisory panel said that if we wanted to find out if these vaccines were safe for children that “we’ll just have to give it to them to find out.”
Finally, we have Taiwan sporting a literally unthinkable 26 sigma event:
What’s interesting here is that Taiwan heavily leaned on the Astra-Zeneca vaccine early on, but later brought in the Moderna and Pfizer jabs. Is it possible that any old jab could do this? Is it a delayed reaction from exposure to the lab-created brainchild of Fauci/Baric/Daszak/Shi? Both? Something else?
At this point we don’t know but the precautionary principle would clearly indicate that we should immediately stop ““vaccinating”” young people immediately.
First because these vaccines do practically nothing against the omicron strains in terms of reducing spread or viral loads, and second because young people aren’t at risk of serious outcomes form omicron.
There’s literally no medical logic or public health necessity that can be defended here. So why are all these countries still insisting, promoting, or mandating vaccines for everyone?
Is it mass psychosis? Is it something darker?
All I know is that the people worried about a depopulation event now have powerful data to work with and the flames of discontent are sure to be fanned by this news.
The markets were mixed for most of the week. However on Friday, there was a bit of a surprise rally in equities. Financial Entertainment News thought the pop on Friday was due to this:
That’s a very modest improvement over the 5.4% expectation earlier this month. In that same report, the consumer sentiment number came in at 50, which is a new all time low, vs last month’s reading of 58. This series goes back to the 1950s, and it does tend to be a predictor of where things are going next, so this new all time low is very bearish.
But timingwise, the sentiment numbers (10 a.m. Friday) did line up with a fairly brisk rally in equities, crappy debt, copper, and silver that started right at 10 a.m. I’m not sure what to make of it. “Rally on worst sentiment numbers ever” – really? Or was it on the 0.1% decline in inflation expectations? Or manipulation by “someone”? No idea.
Equities did move higher this week, rallying +6.45%, with half of the move happening on Friday right after that release. The candle print looked strong, the sector map was bullish (discretionary, sickcare, and tech were leaders), but does this really mark a low? Or is it just a dead cat bounce?
Let’s consult Doctor Copper. This week, copper fell for most of the week, losing -0.29 [-7.20%]. That’s a pretty bad week. While copper ended Friday flat, it wasn’t a bullish print. Copper’s downtrend remains quite strong, and the breakdown below support currently suggests: “dead cat bounce.”
Crude edged lower this week, falling -2.54 [-2.33%] to 106.34. Crude rallied on Friday, which erased what would have been half of crude’s weekly loss. Crude’s OI (blue line) remains quite low, which suggests to me that the banksters don’t really want to go short here, even with crude at near-decade highs. This hints at (probably) higher prices ahead. Higher crude = inflation.
And here’s the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (red line) & U.S.-non-SPR (black line) oil in storage. President Grandpa’s WEF-trained handlers are continuing to enthusiastically sell off the oil in our SPR, which we keep to help the nation deal with medium-term energy emergencies, at seven million barrels per week, but the U.S. commercial storage isn’t growing at all. The weekly-released SPR-crude is either being consumed in the U.S., or sold abroad. Emptying the SPR with no emergency is in service to the WEF-transnational goal: “the U.S. won’t be the sole superpower by 2030.” No energy = no civilization.
Gold moved down -11.27 [-0.61%] to 1838.30 with most of the loss coming on Thursday. The OI for gold remains quite low, and it fell this week, which continues to suggest we are closer to a low for gold than a high. At the very least, the banksters are not piling in short, which they tend to do at the highs.
The buck dropped -0.56 [-0.54%] on the week; this was a relatively quiet currency market this week, at least from the USD perspective. The buck remains quite close to a multi-decade high – last time we were here was back in 2003.
Same thing (in reverse) for the Euro; the Euro is just above (104) support. If the Euro drops through support, it will worsen the inflation situation for our friends across the pond. Let’s hope peace breaks out in Ukraine before that happens.
For the most part, it was an uneventful week in the markets, although based on Doctor Copper’s continuing decline, I think the “risk” downtrend remains firmly in place.
Americans Are Wasting Billions Every Year on Useless Supplements, Scientists Warn. “Unfortunately, based on the existing evidence, the Task Force cannot recommend for or against the use of most vitamins and minerals and is calling for more research,” says USPSTF interim chief scientific officer John Wong. Related: Fauci himself takes vitamin D, but can’t find enough evidence to recommend it to You and Me. Result: hundreds of thousands of people died.
20 million lives saved by COVID-19 vaccines in first year: report.“More than 4.3 billion people received an inoculation, saving 20 million lives, according to research published Thursday in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.” Since Pfizer’s own data [page 12] show that the shots kill more than they save, this suggests the shots have killed more than 20 million people. If only we had decided to employ early treatment instead of forced vaccination.
EU plans for life without Russian gas amid inflation spike. “The EU relied on Russia for as much as 40% of its gas needs before the war – rising to 55% for Germany – leaving a huge gap to fill in an already tight global gas market.” Good luck with that.
Russia and China are brewing up a challenge to dollar dominance by creating a new reserve currency. Actually, this challenge is composed of the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) not just Russia and China. Has the WEF been able to penetrate these BRICS cabinets with their flock of Young Global Leaders? My sense is no. I can just imagine Engineer Xi, or Putin’s response to such an attempt. This currency challenge is an unintended (but foreseeable) consequence of the West attempting to impose “sanctions” on Mister Price Hike Putin.
It seems pretty clear that the drumbeats of war are looming in the Middle East. Strangely, the mainstream media seem to be ignoring it, and the financial markets act unaware.
That can only mean one thing. Get ready.
For starters, should war break out, it will likely be a major Black Swan event. Obviously, economies and financial markets hate Black Swans. That means more volatility to follow.
So, what’s happening in the Middle East that’s got me so worried?
Shadow War
Currently, there is a shadow war going on between Israel and Iran. A lot of things are happening beneath the surface, especially in the espionage realm. Some incidents were reported but received less attention than they should given the gravity of the situation.
Weekly Military Actions in Syria
For quite a long while, Israel and Iran have been conducting shadow operations against each other. Every week, I hear about Israeli air and missile strikes in Syria against Iranian interests. That in itself is quite extraordinary. One recently hit the civilian airport in Damascus, it made the news.
Normally, when a nation’s military violates the airspace of another and conducts strikes, it is as good as declaring war. If frantic diplomatic efforts are not carried out successfully, a broader shooting war will follow. That this isn’t driving major headlines is worrisome.
Consider what happens near Taiwan. Whenever the Chinese air-force nears the Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) of Taiwan, the media screams about it. China does not have to violate the actual airspace of Taiwan for reporters to fret impending war.
Yet Israel’s weekly violation of Syrian airspace to conduct military airstrikes results in actual combat deaths. But you hardly hear any mention of it.
Cyberwar
There have been more than rumors and speculation of an active cyberwar between the two nations for quite a long while. As the New York Times recently reported,
Millions of ordinary people in Iran and Israel recently found themselves caught in the crossfire of a cyberwar between their countries. In Tehran, a dentist drove around for hours in search of gasoline, waiting in long lines at four gas stations only to come away empty.
In Tel Aviv, a well-known broadcaster panicked as the intimate details of his sex life, and those of hundreds of thousands of others stolen from an L.G.B.T.Q. dating site, were uploaded on social media.
For years, Israel and Iran have engaged in a covert war, by land, sea, air and computer, but the targets have usually been military or government related. Now, the cyberwar has widened to target civilians on a large scale.
Recently, as the Jerusalem Post reported, false rocket warning sirens were activated in Jerusalem and Eilat on June 19 and suspicion fell on Iranian hackers.
Assassinations and Sabotage in Iran
In May, an Iranian colonel was assassinated on Iranian soil. This is not the first assassination allegedly conducted by Israel. The rumors and speculation of assassinations across Iran are spreading. For example, this poster was found in Iran:
Figure 1 Wahab Faramarzian, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp air force officer, was killed in Maraghe. Source: Global Telegram
Also, a drone strike by an unknown perpetrator took place in Iran. As the New York Times reported,
A drone strike this week targeted a highly sensitive military site outside Tehran where Iran develops missile, nuclear and drone technology, according to three Iranians with knowledge of the attack and an U.S. official.
The strike on Wednesday evening hit the site of the Parchin military complex, about 37 miles southeast of the capital, with quadcopter suicide drones, according to the Iranian sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly. The drones exploded into a building used by the Ministry of Defense for research on drone development, killing a young engineer who worked at the ministry and injuring another person, they said.
Iran’s Terror Plot Against Israelis in Turkey
Recently, Israeli Mossad, in collaboration with Turkish authorities, thwarted multiple plots by Iranian Revolutionary Guard cells to kill Israeli tourists and businesspeople. As this article reported,
Israel and Turkey have already stopped several attempts by Iran-backed terrorists to attack Israelis, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Monday.
“The operational efforts with the Turkish security forces have borne fruit,” he said in a press briefing. “In recent days, in a joint Israeli-Turkish effort, we thwarted a number of terrorist attempts, and numerous terrorists were arrested on Turkish ground.”
Bennett said Israel and Turkey were working together very closely to stop Iran’s attempt to harm Israelis and Jews. He thanked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for his efforts.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz warned on Tuesday that Iran is just a “few weeks” from accumulating sufficient fissile material for a bomb. It is also working to finish the production and installation of 1,000 advanced centrifuges enriching uranium, including at a new underground site at the Natanz nuclear facility, he said.
Then he made this startling comment:
The price for tackling the Iranian challenge on a global or regional level is higher than it was a year ago and lower than it will be in a year
In other words, I think he is saying that it is better to take major action against Iran sooner rather than later!
Exercise in Cyprus
It appears as if Israel is actively planning military strikes against its enemies, all of whom appear to be Iranian backed (if not Iran itself).
The Israel Defense Forces on Thursday wrapped up a major military exercise in Cyprus, simulating a military ground offensive deep inside Lebanon in a potential war against the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group.
The Mediterranean island was chosen both for its Lebanon-like terrain — mountainous along a coastal plain — and its proximity to Israel. The drill simulated various difficulties in a ground assault, such as food, water, and ammunition supply; communication issues; and the general complications in operating in unfamiliar territory.
“The first challenge we prepared for was accumulating troops,” said Brig. Gen. Ofer Winter, commander of the 98th Paratroopers Division, which led the exercise.
Winter said thousands of troops were brought in to play the Lebanese side, using boats, planes, and helicopters. “We arrived in the field with great intensity. We spread out the troops, and they began operating against key areas and significant targets we identified as being important to defeat,” he said, referring to mock enemy military sites and rocket launching grounds.
Major Air-Raid Drill in a Far Away Nation
Also, early this month, Israel practiced a wide scale strike on Iran. As this news article reported,
Dozens of Israeli Air Force fighter jets conducted air maneuvers over the Mediterranean Sea on Tuesday night, simulating striking Iranian nuclear facilities.
According to a statement by the Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday, the drill included “long-range flight, aerial refueling and striking distant targets.” And according to Channel 13 news, more than 100 aircraft — as well as navy submarines — participated in the drill that spanned some 10,000 kilometers.
In face of Iran’s continued development of a nuclear capability, the Israeli Air Force has developed a new capability to be able to fly its F-35 stealth fighter jets from Israel to the Islamic Republic without requiring mid-air refueling.
Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi on Sunday warned that overwhelming force would be used in Lebanon in the next potential war with Hezbollah.
Speaking at the first National Conference on the Home Front, Kochavi detailed the IDF’s strategy for responding to an attack from the radical Shiite terrorist group.
“We will deal massive strikes in the war, but we will warn the residents and allow them to leave the areas. I say to the residents of Lebanon: I advise you to leave, not only at the beginning of the war but from the beginning of tensions and before the first shot is fired. I advise you to leave those areas because the attack force will be unimaginable – like nothing you have witnessed before,” Kochavi said.
Very sadly, in every war, civilians will be caught in the crossfire.
Will Other Nations Support Israel?
For Israel to conduct a military strike on Iran, other nations have to be involved. Israeli warplanes must fly over foreign countries and back. The question is which ones?
If Israeli warplanes fly over Jordan and Iraq. This will require U.S., Jordanian and Iraqi approval or cooperation. The Iraqi government is now controlled by Shiites, who favors Iran.
The next alternative will be over Saudi Arabia. There has been some warming of relationships between Israel and the Sunni Arab nations lately because they have a common enemy in Iran.
Possible Consequences
There are many ways for an Israeli strike on Iran to escalate into a wider regional war. For example,
If Saudi Arabia facilitated a flyover by Israeli warplanes to strike Iran, you can expect any Iranian retaliation to include Saudi Arabia as well. Perhaps Iranian proxies in Yemen will cause serious trouble for them. Iran and their allies could target Saudi oil fields.
In retaliation, the Iranian navy and drones may attempt to block the Straits of Hormuz, which is a strategic choke point for the global flow of oil. The U.S. Navy will have to be involved to overcome this global economic threat.
We can expect Hezbollah in Lebanon and perhaps even Hamas in Gaza to rain rockets into Israel. The Israelis will have to conduct a ground operation in Lebanon to deal with this threat, which they had been practicing in Cyprus. Also, the Israeli civilian population will have to be prepared.
Hezbollah may find a way to target the Israel’s new Karish gas rig, which Lebanon claims is in its territory.
Economic Fall Out: Inflation May Get Worse
Recently, Saudi Arabia offered to increase oil production to help Europe wean itself from Russian oil. If Saudi oil wells are damaged or destroyed by Iran or its allies in Yemen, additional production will likely cease.
If the Straits of Hormuz are choked, it will impact oil prices for the entire world.
Europe also signed a gas deal with Israel to reduce its dependency on Russian gas. If Hezbollah manages to damage or destroy Israel’s gas production in the Mediterranean Sea, this deal is not going to happen either.
It is a no-brainer that energy prices are going to spike if war breaks out in the Middle East, and at a time when global energy prices are already at an elevated level.
That means there will be further upward pressure on prices. Today’s daily headlines about inflation will be nothing compared to what is to come.
Gold prices may shoot up also.
Can a Major War be Avoided?
What if Iran acquires nuclear weapons? Then all bets are off. Major population centers in Israel will be threatened. If Iran attacks Saudi oil fields with a nuclear weapon, how can radioactive oil fields be repaired? It may not even be possible. That is why there is an urgency to take major action to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
If Israel strikes Iran, how can it keep other nations from being dragged into a war? The best case scenario is for a swift military victory against Iran and its allies. Maybe the oil and gas fields can be spared, or if not, hopefully the damage is not catastrophic. Even in the best case scenario, it will take some time to repair the damage. Therefore, inflation will remain elevated for quite a while.
Unfortunately, all this can only mean war will revisit Middle East sooner rather than later. This is what I fear. I hope that all my fears will be unfounded.
“It’s disgusting…I’m horrified.” Chris’ take on the latest study exposing the vaccine’s special adverse events, and what that means for parents who want to vax their infants and young children.
For some reason, America’s strategic oil reserves are disappearing. President Biden’s press secretary said they began distributing it in April this year, but…it may not be the truth. Is there a global oil problem too? Check out Chris’s hot take on the world’s energy supply.
