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Peak Insiders
by
Chris Martenson
Executive Summary
- The math explaining why Ukraine was a predictable flashpoint
- Why the IMF's "help" is about to make the Ukranian situation a lot worse
- Implications for those considering relocating inside or outside of the US
- Chris' "must have" ingredients that make a potential relocation destination worth considering
If you have not yet read Rising Resource Costs Escalate Odds of Global Unrest, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
Ukraine
Now back to Dave’s original series of questions. I think that Ukraine was primed and ready for a shove into instability.
There’s a well known psychology experiment where two male rats can be placed in a cage where they will live somewhat happily as long as they have sufficient food. However, if painful electric shocks are applied to the floor of the cage in such a way that the rats cannot escape, the two males will begin fighting.
Keep up the shocks long enough and the fighting will be severe, even to the death.
What’s happening? The rats lack the context to know that the shocks are coming from outside somewhere. The only thing they can project their discomfort onto is the only other living thing in their sight – the other rat.
So they fight.
Similarly, the people of Ukraine lack the context to know just who is to blame for the unpleasant conditions in which they live and seemingly cannot escape. So they blame each other and fight each other. They blame the President and so he’s gone. But the next one, and the ones following, will be just as bad; and eventually they will each be in turn ousted, too.
The problem is the shocks are not being caused by players they can see and blame. We’ll get to more on that in a minute.
By the numbers, the …:
What To Avoid When Relocating
PREVIEW by Chris MartensonExecutive Summary
- The math explaining why Ukraine was a predictable flashpoint
- Why the IMF's "help" is about to make the Ukranian situation a lot worse
- Implications for those considering relocating inside or outside of the US
- Chris' "must have" ingredients that make a potential relocation destination worth considering
If you have not yet read Rising Resource Costs Escalate Odds of Global Unrest, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
Ukraine
Now back to Dave’s original series of questions. I think that Ukraine was primed and ready for a shove into instability.
There’s a well known psychology experiment where two male rats can be placed in a cage where they will live somewhat happily as long as they have sufficient food. However, if painful electric shocks are applied to the floor of the cage in such a way that the rats cannot escape, the two males will begin fighting.
Keep up the shocks long enough and the fighting will be severe, even to the death.
What’s happening? The rats lack the context to know that the shocks are coming from outside somewhere. The only thing they can project their discomfort onto is the only other living thing in their sight – the other rat.
So they fight.
Similarly, the people of Ukraine lack the context to know just who is to blame for the unpleasant conditions in which they live and seemingly cannot escape. So they blame each other and fight each other. They blame the President and so he’s gone. But the next one, and the ones following, will be just as bad; and eventually they will each be in turn ousted, too.
The problem is the shocks are not being caused by players they can see and blame. We’ll get to more on that in a minute.
By the numbers, the …:
by
charleshughsmith
Executive Summary
- The "half farmer, half X" model
- The "no middleman" model
- The "15% commission" model
- The key features of successful new community models
If you have not yet read The Rise of New Models of Community, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
In Part 1, we discussed the potential for new models of collaboration and community enabled by the Web and social media. I proposed a simple metric for differentiating between simulacrum community and the real deal: a community is only a “real community” if the collective actions of its members push the envelope of the material world.
In Part 2, we’ll examine some models that have arisen as people either abandon or are cut out of the Central State/Corporate Consumerism Status Quo and must create new social and economic arrangements to earn a livelihood. This requires structures that enable self-organizing, voluntary communities to endure and grow.
As Zeus noted in Part 1, The new price of entry is production, meaning that parasitic layers of middlemen have no role in these new arrangements. To participate, one must be productive. i.e. create or add value.
As I mentioned earlier, social media doesn’t change a system’s incentives/benefits and costs/disincentives; the Web is a powerful tool for community building, once the incentives for participating far outweigh the costs.
Let’s start our survey with an example from…
Promising Emerging Community Models
PREVIEW by charleshughsmithExecutive Summary
- The "half farmer, half X" model
- The "no middleman" model
- The "15% commission" model
- The key features of successful new community models
If you have not yet read The Rise of New Models of Community, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
In Part 1, we discussed the potential for new models of collaboration and community enabled by the Web and social media. I proposed a simple metric for differentiating between simulacrum community and the real deal: a community is only a “real community” if the collective actions of its members push the envelope of the material world.
In Part 2, we’ll examine some models that have arisen as people either abandon or are cut out of the Central State/Corporate Consumerism Status Quo and must create new social and economic arrangements to earn a livelihood. This requires structures that enable self-organizing, voluntary communities to endure and grow.
As Zeus noted in Part 1, The new price of entry is production, meaning that parasitic layers of middlemen have no role in these new arrangements. To participate, one must be productive. i.e. create or add value.
As I mentioned earlier, social media doesn’t change a system’s incentives/benefits and costs/disincentives; the Web is a powerful tool for community building, once the incentives for participating far outweigh the costs.
Let’s start our survey with an example from…
by
Chris Martenson
Executive Summary
- Why the US' antagonistic approach towards Russia is likely to backfire big time, in both the near and long term
- How, by definition, the West has already initiated economic warfare against Russia
- Why things will get very bad in a hurry for the West if Russia reacts by re-directing its energy exports
- And how things could get much worse indeed, for everyone, if this conflict erupts into a military confrontation
If you have not yet read Warning: The Ukraine Is At A Flashpoint, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
Poking The Bear
And that finally brings us to Russia, which has a long and complicated history with Ukraine. There are many Russian speaking people in the Ukraine, for whom Russia feels somewhat protective, as perhaps US citizens in Canada or Mexico might expect from the US.
Further, Russia quite rightfully feels that it is being systematically surrounded and cornered by the NATO military structure and they might reasonably ask themselves why and for what purpose(s)? There are probably other ways to look at this, but it's certainly reasonable to think that Russia might feel just the tiniest bit provoked, if not threatened, at the West's obvious efforts to get Ukraine to join up with NATO.
Instead of sitting down with Russia to try and hammer things out, the US resorted almost immediately to a series of sanctions targeted at Russian individuals and companies, as well as the Russian stock and bond markets, with the intention of creating economic and financial hardship that would get Russia to leave Ukraine to the west.
Here are a few of the efforts so far…
How This Situation Can Quickly Get Much Worse
PREVIEW by Chris MartensonExecutive Summary
- Why the US' antagonistic approach towards Russia is likely to backfire big time, in both the near and long term
- How, by definition, the West has already initiated economic warfare against Russia
- Why things will get very bad in a hurry for the West if Russia reacts by re-directing its energy exports
- And how things could get much worse indeed, for everyone, if this conflict erupts into a military confrontation
If you have not yet read Warning: The Ukraine Is At A Flashpoint, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
Poking The Bear
And that finally brings us to Russia, which has a long and complicated history with Ukraine. There are many Russian speaking people in the Ukraine, for whom Russia feels somewhat protective, as perhaps US citizens in Canada or Mexico might expect from the US.
Further, Russia quite rightfully feels that it is being systematically surrounded and cornered by the NATO military structure and they might reasonably ask themselves why and for what purpose(s)? There are probably other ways to look at this, but it's certainly reasonable to think that Russia might feel just the tiniest bit provoked, if not threatened, at the West's obvious efforts to get Ukraine to join up with NATO.
Instead of sitting down with Russia to try and hammer things out, the US resorted almost immediately to a series of sanctions targeted at Russian individuals and companies, as well as the Russian stock and bond markets, with the intention of creating economic and financial hardship that would get Russia to leave Ukraine to the west.
Here are a few of the efforts so far…
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