FutureJacked

Vote

2016-11-07T11:14:00.004-06:00

For my U.S. readers - go vote tomorrow. Do it. That is all.

The Biggest FU in Recorded History

2016-10-25T08:48:00.001-06:00

Michael Moore is actually listening. Color me stunned. We'll see if the Donald will actually pull it off, but as I keep saying - the rage is real. Trump doesn't have "support" so much as he is seen as a way to blow up the necrotic hand of corruption and oppression that has strangled Deplorable Country for decades.

Mood matters.

Is There an Economically Sustainable Price for Oil?

2016-10-23T14:09:00.000-06:00

Here is a quick hit for you from Chris Martenson and Gail Tverberg.

Some thoughts to ponder while watching the video:

Keep in mind the demand levels and flows are based on an assumption of continuing to "do business as usual" in terms of the civilian transport. How does the equation change if rationing were imposed to limit fuels for civilian transport, while keeping fewer limits on things like fuels used for agriculture or military purposes, say in the wake of a badly managed war that left the US with a restricted ability to import petroleum?
If you disagree with the premise and think a high oil and gasoline/diesel price is sustainable - and thus able to drive the incentives most economists think exist to substitute alternative fuels for transport - how does that play out for the lower 50% of the economy?
If the answer to question 2 is "badly" - how many men and women in that lower tranche of the economy have served in the military and are conversant in urban counter-terrorism operations from their time in Afghanistan or Iraq?
If we take the premise as reasonably accurate, how will your area of the country fare if/when shortages or restrictions on fuels availability affect you?
How fast can local economies shift back towards less-intensive fuel use patterns, say on the order of 1950? Or 1930?

We talked to some of this in Catastrophic Abundance as well. Dust off your scenario planning skills, friends. Methinks time is short.

The Curtain Falls?

2016-10-18T09:04:00.000-06:00

The End

Long silence on this end. Partially due to the pressures of life. Partially due to the fact that all the things we've discussed for years here at FutureJacked are coming to life. All this planning is no longer an academic exercise.

Let's take a look over the landscape.

The Kingdom

What's been our Rule #1 for most of 2016? That's right, look to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as the bellwether for what is to come.

SASEIDX for 18 October 2016 via Bloomberg

Here are a selection of stories worth your time if you have not already seen them:

I won't even go into the war in Yemen as it is a bloody mess of conflicting interests and disinformation. Just know that the Saudis have a real fight on their hands and the Iranians are happy to keep them focused on the Houthis.

Before the Kingdom falls, you might make sure you have a plan in place for high gas prices or even shortages...

Russia

Here is another area rife with misinformation, lies, truth, anger, historical grievances, political pandering, and bullshit. I'll re-state a few things I've said in the past before moving ahead:

Putin is a bad man
The Russia of 2016 is not the Soviet Union of 1986
Russia has interests in having influence in territories close to its borders
Russia sees a value in pushing back on the globalist/banker/Anglo-US world system as it regards being plugged into that system as equivalent to allowing the West to loot her natural resources and keep her as a vassal state (my interpretation and pretty much what Russia was under Yeltsin)
The Russians have been able to change the calculus in Syria and Ukraine, so far without tipping it into a shooting war with the US, NATO, et al
Just because I can acknowledge that the Russian state sees itself as having legitimate interests in Ukraine, Syria, etc. (much as the US has interests in Canada, Mexico, and Cuba) does not mean I am a Russian apologist. I am looking at this from the point of view that the West seems to be talking itself into a war with Russia (and potentially China) and that in my opinion we are not ready for such a war (see the F-35 and the USS Ford)

In short, I do not buy the narrative being shoved down the throats of anyone who consumes US media - whether as part of the Presidential campaign or as part of coverage of foreign events. In my opinion, we are seeing the curtain call of not just the neo-liberal consensus in place since the 1980's, but the post-WWII architecture of the West. This set of realities seems to be driving the Western elites insane. And I am not kidding around. Look at not just the rhetoric, but the policy implementation, the corruption (not just the defense corruption - which is going to wind up killing a lot of US soldiers, sailors, and airmen - but the political corruption in which a certain Foundation stands as a shining example of pay-to-play and utter lawlessness). This is has the stench of an end-game about it.

If Russia thinks that President Clinton (v2.0) and the neo-cons who make up a big part of her foreign policy brain trust are staging to roll back the Bear in Ukraine, Syria, etc. then this could go from proxy war to hot war quickly.

For my review of Russian war planning policy as it relates to nuclear weapons, please re-read Nuclear Weapons and Social Mood. The idea of using a nuclear strike to "warn" an opponent to back off was looked at in the 1970's, with a general assumption that limited use will almost certainly evolve into a full-blown nuclear exchange. Just sayin'.

Why do I think this is something to actively worry about and prepare for? The Russians are deadly serious about this scenario. While it didn't get a lot of play here in the US, the Russians recently conducted a massive nuclear war drill including outreach to their citizens and education on how the government would operate in case of a nuclear war.

This possibility is likely enough that you should at least review your preparations.

The Election

I am without words about the election. HRC has found traction in the avalanche of accusations against the Donald. I think he's toast. Maybe I'm wrong. The grievances he's given voice to will still be with us, though, and HRC's contempt for the Deplorables will not be helpful in navigating this perilous time for the Republic.

I don't know what else to say, other than, as I was driving up I-75 near Atlanta (had a long road trip last week), I spotted a billboard rented by the League of the South. It simply stated "#secede". God save us from the Plantation thugs, but when social mood finally breaks, the whole project of the United States may "go South"...

Nuclear Emergencies

If you have not taken the time to do so, please review the Nuclear Strike of the Month series. These are a set of scenarios and thought experiments where we review what limited nuclear attacks might look like. If you think nuclear war - limited or otherwise - is a possibility, please take some time to do more than just worry about it.

From October 20th - 27th, I'm putting my e-book Nuclear Emergencies on sale. I'll see how quickly I can get this in hard copy via createspace, but until then, please read it - or something equivalent - and get ready.

What Will You Do in Post-Coup America?

2016-07-28T15:54:00.000-06:00

USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Poll 28 July 2016

On July 19, 2016, The Los Angeles Times, a highly credible and influential U.S. News organization, published the following Op-Ed by James Kirchik, entitled If Trump Wins, A Coup Isn't Impossible Here in the U.S. If you haven't, please take time to read it. There will be nothing new in it if you've been following the election via the twitter feeds and articles from America's formidable array of highly credentialed and well-regarded media establishment. It's not the content, but the framing I want to draw your attention to. You have a prominent media figure floating a trial balloon in the sort of "I'm not sayin', but I'm just sayin'..." style that you see when someone under intense stress is talking themselves into doing something very challenging and very life-altering. Imagine for a moment a major U.S. news organization publishing such a thing in 2008, positing such an event if Obama were to beat McCain...

Next, please dip your toe into the media circus that erupted after The Donald made the following statements during one of his many strolls he continues to make through the head-space of the Democratic National Convention and HRC's campaign - a palace in which he lives rent-free: "Russia, if you're listening,I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing; I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press."

This generated the kind of response The Donald planned on - an enormous firestorm of outrage and accusations Trump was a Putin's best buddy and all but on his payroll. It also kept the story about slipshod cyber-security practices on the part of HRC and the DNC out in front of the media, in the midst of the Democratic National Convention. The DNC is nothing if not predictable. HRC's campaign staff is nothing if not easily manipulated and continues to play a "me-too" reactive game with The Donald. And Trump is is nothing if not highly tactically skilled at pushing the right buttons to elicit a response.

Next came howls that Trump is being propelled by those who do not trust HRC and regard The Donald as the "lesser evil" or that plan to vote Third Party as a way of avoiding voting her in. Again, flat out wrong. Channeling John Michael Greer on this topic, I would say again, the elites are missing this one completely. The strength of Bernie Sanders should have shown them the real answer - we popped the seal on this whole back-and-forth of "lesser evils" that shaped elections from 1988 through 2012. Voters haven't been grudgingly deciding to vote for Trump or Bernie - they've been actively excited. They have visions that something new is possible or at least that they can burn this sucker to the ground and rebuild on the ashes. (Note - this is not me, as I huddle here in the corner of the basement at FutureJacked Headquarters, saying either vision would "work" or be better, I'm just saying both candidates in their own way have changed what voters see as possible.)

And then we have the stories which have followed the Russia-related comments that began to line up under the same conceptual banner - that Trump is a Russian-loving traitor and a next-generation Manchurian Candidate:

(As an aside, for those of you alive during the last decade or so of the Cold War, feast on this - vast swaths of major media outlets and credible journalists are accusing a Republican presidential candidate of being pro-Russkie and a Russian mole. May you live in interesting times indeed...)

These articles aren't being posted on prisonplanet.com. These articles are on CNN, CNBC, the Washington Post, and other mainstays of the information establishment. Dwell on that a moment and then let's wonder if The Donald has been too clever by half. What if his insurgency and the rhetoric he is using to drive it has been too effective in freaking out the elites who oversee this enormous continent-spanning Potemkin Village they've built for us in the U.S. since the early 1980's? What if they begin to believe their own spin and the stories they've published since Trump began gutting Republican Primary hopefuls like deer and leaving their carcasses to drain on gibbets in front of a stunned American electorate? What if they actually believe this stuff they are publishing?

The Rubicon

So, I tell you all that to ask you this - what will you do when the Deep State removes Donald Trump after he is elected in November of 2016?

This is not me trolling. The readers of this blog know their media and their history. You can spot the shape of the coming events in the language they are using to prep the public's mind-space. Never forget - you are in the midst of a Mind War every day. You are bombarded by ads, propaganda, and a continual assault of symbols designed scientifically to get you to buy, to vote, to shun, to love, to cry, and to fight. Continue to watch the media signals as the elites melt down over the next few months. We live in a barking mad world where a narcissistic sociopath and a septuagenarian Commie drew impassioned votes and dared again to Hope for Change.

In response we are greeted with a consistent message that those people voting for Trump or Bernie are on the one hand (only and always) bigots, or on the other, stupid children who need to shut up and get with the program - the standard elite tactic of mockery and denigration of "the Other." We see the neo-con war machine lining up behind HRC. We see a vastly funded political campaign backed by the entire establishment structure - both Democrat and Republican - floundering against an insurgency.

When the Democrats decided to go flat-out Reaganesque "Morning in America" for their convention tone, they were done. If they are so blind to the pain and insecurity the system the elites have built over the last 35 years has inflicted on a significant fraction of the U.S. voting population that they not only ignore that pain and insecurity, but denigrate those very feelings as if they were invalid, then God himself can't help them now.

So, I ask again, what will you do when the Deep State removes Donald Trump after he is elected in November of 2016?

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2016-07-19T15:17:00.000-06:00

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The Cost of Disruption Continues to Collapse

2016-05-24T11:38:00.002-06:00

The Disruption by CAVARTWORKS

One of the themes we continue to harp upon here at FutureJacked is that the settled and orderly life (and the systems set up to support that orderly existence) that so many (not all, but many) in the Western Industrial World have enjoyed for decades is coming unraveled as the foundations upon which it was built upon wash away under the changing tides of net negative social mood and a shift in technology allowing small groups to wield significant power to destroy.

The Old World, built as it was during an era of intensely positive social mood, governed by bureaucracies that were at least moderately efficient in not killing the goose that lays the golden eggs of good jobs and stable investment environments, and leveraging technologies of violence that tilted in favor of large-scale organizations (generally the thesis described in brief in Catastrophic Abundance) is dead. The vast majority just have not woken up to that fact. When they do, they will look around see a world with its infrastructure all laid out in nice, shiny, easily disrupted locations because of the assumptions made back in an era of peace and trust.

As mood continues to darken, things like this will continue to intrude on the psyche of that majority, reinforcing the downturn:

Threatening Robo-Calls Evacuate Thousands of Students in U.S., U.K. Schools
Thousands of students in several dozen schools across the United States and Great Britain were evacuated Monday after what appeared to be coordinated recorded threats of violence were called in, according to news reports and law enforcement officials who spoke to NBC News...

The formal response modern institutions are locked into guarantees widespread disruption at the most minor of perceived threats. It's as if society has an auto-immune disease and the slightest trigger can set off a cascading set of costly, disruptive, and time-consuming responses. And this particular incident didn't even involve a bomb or a gun. Imagine the disruption ramped up from here if a pipe bomb (even a fake one) had been planted as part of this Op...

John Robb has done a lot of work in this space over the years and you should be following his stuff.

But don't just read and think about it. There's more than sufficient evidence out there right now for you to realize you must - must - become more resilient. Grow a garden, have a little extra food on hand. Know what to do if the power goes out for four days, know your neighbors. Life is going to get much more unsettled in the coming decades. Act now to prepare so you are not caught like a deer in the headlights when things go off-script.

Threat Board May 2016

2016-05-18T10:55:00.004-06:00

Crumble Canyon by Clay Brooks

In my last post, I mentioned I'd be hashing out some thoughts on structures to help us navigate the storm building up all around us. It's proving tougher than I thought. More to come and we may just muddle through it together.

In the meantime, we need to give another look at our threat board.

Rule #1: Check the Saudi Stock Market

I cannot continue to stress this enough - check the trend of the Saudi stock market (SASEIDX). Here is the one-year chart for perspective:

SASEIDX, Bloomberg

They continue to hold the line, but take a look at it from the perspective of the 5 year chart and you'll see what looks to me to be an unhealthy pattern. For you technical analysts out there, especially those who use the Elliott Wave toolkit, chart your own waves or have EWI do it for you and make up your own mind, but considering this news tidbit from Bloomberg today, looks like the "fundamentals" are beginning to reflect the chart:

Saudi Arabia Considers Paying Contractors With IOUs
Saudi Arabia has told banks in the country that it is considering giving contractors IOUs to settle some outstanding bills, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.

A projected budget deficit this year is prompting the government to weigh alternatives to limit spending. Contractors would receive bond-like instruments to cover the amount they are owed by the state which they could hold until maturity or sell on to banks, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private.

Contractors have received some payments from the government in cash and the rest could come in "I-owe-you" notes, the people said...

I'll just leave that there for you to ponder. If you've ever had cash flow challenges, whether with your personal budget or in running a business, you know what this means.

As goes the Kingdom, so goes the Middle East
.

The Russian Nuclear Bogeyman

Putin is a bad man. Noted. But the absolutely mad rush by the Western elites to set Russia up as the next Great Satan is, in my mind, absolutely antithetical to US national interest and, frankly, the main interests of the major Western Powers, such as they are today.

Recently, we have a former UK general talking about how we are likely to see nuclear war with Russia in the near future. This is on the heels of countless other articles churned out the various think tanks, policy offices, and government agencies, all equating Russia's attempts to re-assert her primacy in what she calls the Near Abroad to the full-court press of the old Soviet Union.

Russia is not the USSR. The idea you would expect Russia to quietly fold itself into a world system run by corporate chieftains and bankers whose brilliance was laid bare for all to see 2007-2008 and be pleased with march of NATO to within a few hundred kilometers of St. Petersburg is to misread Russian psychology and history with a level of mendacity not seen since the senility of the Spanish Empire. But you know what, our elites are just the men and women for that job.

My analogy continues to be, what would the US response be to China toppling the governments of Mexico and Canada, and installing their own puppet regimes there?

Somehow, the Western elites have managed to craft a policy that has aligned Russia with the radical Islamists in Iran and the Chinese. In a world where we should be aligned with Russia to face growing threats out of the Middle East and as a bulwark against he rise of China, we instead have actively worked to isolate her and drive her into the arms of our enemies.

Sadly, the worst part is, I actually agree with General Shirreffs from the article above - we very well may see a nuclear war with Russia. A war that even now is completely preventable. That was one of the driving reasons I wrote Nuclear Emergencies - we could very well see it within the next ten years.

Ranting aside, when analyzing the West's tensions with Russia, you generally need to drill down several paragraphs in news stories to get to any meat. Pay attention to increased troop placements, war games (which Russia routinely runs under scenarios which go nuclear), and, of course, what stock market charts tell us about social mood.

Secession Continues to be Mainstreamed...

Texas Secede Bumper Sticker

Pardon the abuse of the Queen's English there, but I continue to get sick at the continuing drumbeat (totally forecast by socionomics, I must state) of separatism and secession which continues to slowly grow in intensity here in the States. And yes, I'm looking at you, Texas.

But it isn't just Texas. Over ten US states have active (to some degree) secession movements. As we saw with the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the USSR, and Yugoslavia - when large-scale political combinations built up over positive mood eras come apart, they can come apart quickly.

And for those who think it would be a swell idea, just remember, damn near every time, the first revolt fails...

A Tremulous Quiet

I'll leave the discussion of the upcoming US Presidential election alone for the moment. The DJIA continues its levitation act up up near 18,000. Whither it blows, we shall see - and that will help propel the campaign season in directions unimagined just a year ago.

At a more macro level, I recommend the following articles from The Archdruid Report as a way of describing some of the anger and frustration out there that the best and brightest continue to ignore and dismiss as nothing but the ravings of a bunch of ignorant, racist hicks who are too stupid to know how stupid they are and that they need to shut up and vote Blue:

Donald Trump and the Politics of Resentment (note the date it was published)
The Decline and Fall of Hillary Clinton
The End of Ordinary Politics

Yes, in my model, socionomics is pumping the fuel into the system which ignites this anger, but Mr. Greer's discussion of how these things have worked out historically is well worth pondering.

More to come. Lot's more, sadly...

Don't Be Fooled: News Does NOT Drive the Markets

2016-03-25T09:25:00.003-06:00

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The Next Wave

2016-03-16T10:12:00.002-06:00

Coming Soon by Adam Spain

I wanted to check in on a few things and give you a feel for what we'll be working through here at FutureJacked over the rest of 2016.

KSA KSA KSA

First off, as I continue to insist you do on at least a weekly basis, let's check in on the Saudi stock index (one year chart):

SASEIDX via Bloomberg, 16 March 2016

Be wary. The Kingdom is the linchpin for the entire Middle East.

The US Presidential Primary

Back here in the USA, we had another round of Presidential Primary voting. While The Donald had a very solid night, it wasn't a slam dunk as Kasich took Ohio, meaning his insurgency campaign in the Republican Party will continue, but possibly be just successful enough to result in an epic meltdown in Cleveland this summer as the Republican Party bosses work to give the nomination to a Dark Horse candidate.

Bernie's insurgency looks to be failing as well, choking off that outlet for negative mood on the Democratic Party side of things.

I've mentioned before, it's one thing to do scenario planning and intellectual exercises on just what things look like when we shift into an intensely negative-mood era. It's another to live them and watch your country and your fellow citizens attempting to navigate those rough rapids.

Here are the scenarios I am working with today:

Scenario A

The Donald heads into Cleveland with a big plurality, but not majority, of delegates. There, on the ground, he will fail to garner enough votes on the first ballot. As the rounds proceed, the party bosses, who control the various state-level machines and who have positioned "double agents" among the delegate who will vote against Trump once they are unbound, begin to assert themselves. A "savior" is found who will "bring the party together". How the factions play out will determine whether that "savior" is Ted Cruz, Kasich, Romney, or some other figure the elites believe will be able to show a good face.

Riots ensue. Some sparked by Trump supporters, some sparked by outside agitators. The number of "Trump is Hitler" references breaks Google search.

Trump then forms a third party challenge, co-opting the Reform Party. The lack of state and local organization hurts the effort and with no slate of viable congressional, senate, and state level candidates, prevents this effort from achieving anything other than eviscerating the Republican effort.

The Republican candidate finishes third, behind HRC and Trump. President Clinton (v2.0) takes office and the Republican Party moves towards an Evangelical-first party, cutting the economic libertarians loose.

President Clinton rides into office owing a great debt to minority voters and brings Identity Politics rhetoric to the forefront of the National conversation. A Republican-controlled House and Senate immediately begins to hold hearings on HRC's email servers and thwarts her every move, except for when she proposes a war to re-orient the Middle East back towards domination by the Sunni coalition led by the Saudis.

Assumptions: The elites are still powerful enough to manipulate the outcome via procedural mechanisms and that The Donald's "ground game" is not strong enough to overcome it. Basically, this assumes Trump is a reflection of the anger out there, but that he has not built a formal party mechanism to channel this anger to victory (unlike that German guy he is constantly compared to).

Scenario B

The Donald heads into Cleveland with a majority of delegates on the back of big wins in states such as New York and New Jersey. The convention is disrupted by outside agitators, quietly abetted by the Party bosses. The Donald manages to cut a deal for an acceptable-to-the-Establishment Vice Presidential candidate. The premium costs for The Donald's life insurance policies immediately skyrockets.

Trump heads into election season in the midst of a significant market downturn, blamed on him. HRC blasts him with speeches that warm the hearts of policy wonks of both the Red Tribe and Blue Tribe. The Donald blasts back with invective, talk of how Bill Clinton's NAFTA really did result in a giant sucking sound of American jobs going to Mexico and that he is ready to "Fire" the Establishment.

Amazingly to Nate Silver and other "right-thinking" Americans, he wins, as a big enough slice of angry Bernie voters cross over to support him. Congress amazingly re-discovers its Constitutional imperative to be a co-equal in government and begins to thwart The Donald's every move. The elites heap the blame on Trump for the grinding recession which sweeps across the USA...

Assumptions: The elites are too fractured to come together and stop him at the Convention. Negative mood continues to build and people are more interested in voting against the existing system and using Trump as their vehicle.

Those are my two main working scenarios. I have a few others which I hope to never trot out. Reading up on the disintegration of Yugoslavia, though. Not that I am connecting any dots in that fashion at all...

What Next for Political Structures?

With the political alignments which have been in place at least since 1980 (and one might argue since 1932 in terms of the Welfare-Warfare State) coming apart at the seams, what kind of new parties or party structures might we see fill the gap?

One way to approach it is to look at the fault lines that have been developing over the past decade - and think critically about them. An article I'd strongly, strongly, suggest which covers this topic very well and in an even-handed way is I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup. Please read this and think about how the various groups and interests in play interact with each other.

We received what seems like a strong validation of the thesis presented in the Outgroup article via Kevin Williamson, writing in National Review Online a few days ago:

The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. Forget all your cheap, theatrical Bruce Springsteen crap. Forget your sanctimony about struggling Rust Belt factory towns and your conspiracy theories about the wily Orientals stealing our jobs. The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trump’s speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin. What they need isn’t analgesics, literal or political. They need real opportunity, which means that they need real change, which means that they need U-Haul.

The elites of the Republican Party are showing yet again their disconnect from those they claim to lead. This guy will have garnered Trump another 400,000 votes by the time his article has finished making the rounds of social media.

After the demolition or severe weakening of the party system we've all grown up with aside, what might come next?

My plan is to build up a picture of what a new political movement might look like in the coming months. This effort will be focused on those of us out in Flyover Country and see how might the various "Left Behind" groups (or the "Unprotected" to use Peggy Noonan's phrase) come together to pursue a set of policies and vision that can address the strip-mining of jobs for those not in the Technorati, how some of the (sometimes radical) policies we'll look at play in with ethnic tensions, national security, economic structures, etc., and how we can come out the other side of this massive wave with a more positive set of structures.

The aim is to build a system that doesn't leave behind a mass of Morlocks, whose only life goals should be to learn how to game a pernicious welfare system, win the jackpot by getting signed up for crazy money, and finding ways to score illegal drugs while keeping mental health and drug rehab facilities underfunded and stigmatized.

More to come.

Buckle up in the meantime.

Three Minutes to Midnight?

2016-03-10T16:04:00.002-06:00

Cold War by Taylor Callery

I want to draw your attention to a recent article posted at War on the Rocks, entitled Three Minutes to Midnight: Closer to Nuclear Conflict Than We Think. It touches on a number of themes we've pushed hard here at FutureJacked over the last year and as mass mood continues to throw off alarm bells of negativity across the globe, these themes continue to be relevant to what you want to have on your threat board.

First, a caveat. I often find anti-nuclear articles tiresome. Not because I necessarily disagree with them, but because the tone always goes full Apocalypse and the hectoring gets old. That caveat aside, the authors of the article in question do raise some very valid points.

While at Stanford last month, we had a long conversation with former Secretary of Defense William Perry about the nuclear dangers facing the world. We were struck by his provocative and frightening outlook: that the possibility of a nuclear catastrophe today is greater than it was during the Cold War. North Korea’s recent bluster only underlines the dangers.

Perry knows whereof he speaks, since he has devoted most of his career to preventing nuclear conflict. (Full disclosure: One of us was his student and research assistant at Stanford.) His recent book, My Journey at the Nuclear Brink, explains why he focused so much on these issues, and why he concluded that nuclear weapons endanger U.S. national security far more than they preserve it.

After our conversation with Perry, we attended a lecture that he gave on today’s nuclear dangers. It is well worth watching in its entirety, for he offered a nuanced analysis of the nuclear policies and capabilities of Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan. After this sweeping tour of the world, he concluded that there are three main nuclear dangers today that, taken together, make the current world even more dangerous than during most of the Cold War.

And here is the video mentioned in the article:

The arbitrary and politicized nature of the Doomsday Clock aside, the authors of the article make a number of points well worth pondering. One of these points, the Russian military doctrine of a "de-escalatory strike" with tactical nuclear weapons when faced with a major conventional warfare challenge was discussed in depth here back in our post on Nuclear Weapons and Social Mood and the general theme has also been continually analyzed in depth by Alan Hall in the Socionomist over the past ten years.

Please take the time to think about nuclear war. Check out Nuclear Emergencies. Do some planning similar to what we did in the Nuclear Strike of the Month series. Think about how you are positioned to deal with nuclear war - whether it is a regional conflict between India and Pakistan, or a nuclear exchange between the US and Russia.

Every day the headlines trumpet negative social mood. Whether it is Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders challenging the Establishment political edifice or the continual rumblings of Brexit - this whole negative social mood thing is not just a fun little intellectual toy. It has vast implications and you still have time to use this tool to prepare as best you can for what is coming our way.

State of the Global Markets Report - 2016

2016-02-25T13:19:00.001-06:00

Futurejacked Readers - I wanted to draw your attention to a limited offering from Elliott Wave International. As you know, we are an EWI affiliate here and have found their offerings very useful over the many years we've been both a subscriber and affiliate.

I strongly urge you to take advantage of this free report before the free download limit is reached.

State of the Global Markets Report -- 2016 edition, one of the most anticipated annual reports for investors and technical analysts, has just been released, and the first 10,000 copies can be reserved right now 100% free. After that, it goes to $99 per download, where it will stay for the rest of the year.

This report flies off the virtual shelves every year, and with this year being especially volatile so far, we arranged with the publisher to give you an immediate heads up so you can be among the first to get access.

This 50-page, chart-filled report may be the most valuable publication you read this year. It will help you avoid the dangerous pitfalls and spot the biggest opportunities in the year ahead.
Want to know what's inside? Click this link to start reading it now. If you want a little context first, take a look at these headlines:

Wall Street makes worst ever start to a year (Financial Times)
Dow Tumbles Nearly 400 Points on China Worries (Wall Street Journal)
World markets plunge as oil drops below $27 a barrel (CNN)
Expect gold prices to be massively volatile (MarketWatch)

Notice anything interesting?

The thing that jumps out at me is how massively contrary today's reality is compared to most experts' projections for 2016 just a few short months ago. Not getting off to a great start, are they?
Now consider this: In the first week of this year, the Wall Street Journal polled 10 well-known fundamental analysts for their year-end forecast for the S&P 500. They projected on average the S&P to reach 2,193 by the end of the year. The lowest forecast was 2,100. The highest was 2,300.

Now that's interesting enough, but get this: These same experts from the same poll one year ago projected the S&P to reach 2,201 by the end of LAST year!

Fast forward to today, investors and analysts have been in a panic as the markets ended 2015 well off those projections and kicked off 2016 with its worst start EVER.

U.S. stocks, Chinese stocks, gold, oil, the entire European Union -- all are at pivotal junctures right now, and we're only two months into the new year.

If you want to prepare for the rest of 2016 and equip yourself to adapt to rapidly changing trends around the world, I encourage you to follow this link and claim your copy now.

You will get instant access to Elliott Wave International's annual State of the Global Market Report -- 2016 Edition, one of the most widely circulated annual reports for investors and technical analysts.

The State of the Global Market Report provides a premium-level look inside the world's largest independent financial forecast firm's big-picture forecasts for 2016. It gives you a snapshot of what's already occurred then focuses you squarely on what Elliott Wave International's team of global analysts sees for the rest of 2016 and beyond. At about 50 chart-filled pages, it may be the most valuable publication produced each year to help investors position themselves wisely for the year ahead, avoid the dangerous pitfalls, and catch and ride the biggest, fastest-moving opportunities.

You may not read every line of this globally focused report, but we guarantee you will benefit from the insights that apply to your favorite markets.

Please follow this link to start reading the report now >>

Sincerely,

The FutureJacked Team

P.S. We know most investors are interested mostly in U.S. markets, but there's an advantage to looking abroad, too. EWI has a keen understanding of how markets around the world fit into the global big-picture. After all, the Great Depression started in Europe then crossed the Atlantic to the Americas. So it's important you keep an eye on the global big picture. As a result of reading this report, you'll see what we EWI's sees right now and for the rest of the year -- both threats AND opportunities on a global scale. Click this link to learn more and download your free report now.

He Knows What He's Doing

2016-02-23T08:57:00.004-06:00

For those of you in the United States who continue to buy into the condescension of the Establishment as they attempt to explain the rise of Donald Trump in terms they can understand - only racist white straight males who are ignorant can vote for such a madman - make no mistake, he is not the fool they make him out to be.

Watch the video above. Look at the production quality, the way they play back and forth between dying Europe's cultural icons, shifting to the black and white video footage of swarming masses overwhelming border barriers. The fable that is chosen for this piece is pitch-perfect.

And the elites have no answer, other than, trust us, this will work out because we are smarter than you morons out in the lumpenproletariat.

Donald Trump as president would be a disaster for a variety of reasons, but the rage he represents is real and the core issues that drive that rage are far more than the arrogant assumptions of the elites.

Threat Board February 2016

2016-02-14T10:51:00.001-06:00

Triple Threat by Mr. Grin

In Looking for the Channels from June of 2015, we were trying to get a feel for where this onrushing flood of negative social mood would carve out the channels and build up the stories we'll tell ourselves about this unsettling era in which we live and hope to traverse.

Let's zero in on Syria, as it seems to have eclipsed the struggle in Ukraine as the hot spot most likely to generate an historical accident on the scale of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo. And while from a socionomic point of view the potential for a World War in the immediate future looks unlikely, things can spiral out of control quickly in these eras. Alan Hall covers this in a short video and link to an article here.

Replaying the Thirty Years War in Syria

As events in the Middle East barrel down the well-worn path to even more death and destruction, I continue to ask you to read news articles and consume news videos with a jaundiced eye and with your socionomics hat on.

At this point, any "real" reason behind the conflict in Syria has long be overtaken by events. Whether you subscribe to the Arab Spring in Syria thesis, or the attribute it to Sunni efforts to oust Assad and disrupt the "Shia Crescent", or that it was all about building a pipeline from Qatar to Europe - Russia's decision to prop up the Assad government in late 2015 has shifted the calculus significantly.

Today we find a situation where:

Russia is bombing "moderate" rebels in western Syria, shaping the events on the ground to restore the Assad government's primacy in the west of the country and secure the major urban areas (of which Aleppo is the key prize).
US policy is in flux, torn between the hawkishness of the McCain camp and a more "realist" point of view on whether further intervention will produce the results they hope for.
Turkey has become fixated on the growing strength of Kurdish elements in the Syira debacle, turning its guns on the Kurdish YPG - a group that has actively fought Daesh and has been strongly supported by the US coalition.
The Turkey-Russia dynamic continues to be tense. Russia has not only kept up significant air operations in Syria, but it has moved advanced anti-aircraft weapons in to Latakia and reportedly Russian Spetsnaz forces are active in Syria.
Saudi Arabia, already in a fight against Iranian proxies in Yemen and subject to attacks by Daesh internally, is readying itself to send forces to Turkey and engage the fight in Syria.
Jordan sits on the sidelines at the moment, but one can assume Daesh has its sights on the kingdom.
Israel will do what it wants, against who it wants. They are absolutely the joker in the deck. Should Jordan go up in flames, always remember there is a strong thesis in parts of the country that the Palestinian population should be forcibly relocated across the Jordan River. Should the region implode further, look for this "desperate times call for desperate measures" thesis to take hold in socionomically fertile soil.

And those are just a few snapshots of a region of vast importance to energy flows and geopolitics.

And as we strongly urged in our 2016 Socionomics Trendspotting article, you should be checking the Saudi stock market index at least weekly. Here's the current chart, five-year view for context:

SASEIDX Five Year View, Bloomberg, February 14, 2016

Looks like a steaming bowl of not-good, and also looks like a chart of a country set to double-down on sending troops out to fight their designated enemies.

The Keynesian Endgame Looks to go Full Retard

Pardon the indelicate, but accurate, phrase, but as Central Banks around the world go full retard with the implementation of negative interest rates and as they huff and puff and talk themselves into attempting to ban cash, what might that mean for those of us out in the real world?

The short answer is, I have no clue. NIRP policies would seem to be a bullet to the head to pension funds, but perhaps in the short term we could see the market head higher as money flees bonds. Or, perhaps NIRP might actually create a stronger incentive to save at first, until the Central Bankers really began to drop the hammer on relatively small deposits in terms of fees and negative-interest charges. If you are relying on a pension, or plan to in a decade or so, well, here is your pro tip of the day - it looks doubtful you'll see much of it when you need it.

As for banning cash, I again have no real clue how that might play out in the real world. The first shot across the bow will be banning large denomination notes, such as the 500 euro note, the 50 pound note and the 100 dollar bill. The same tired arguments used to ban private holding of gold back in the mid-20th century will be trotted out - only criminals need to hold these notes and we must fight those bad, bad people.

After that, some societies might actually pull it off. Norway has talked seriously about it. And in a small, ethnically homogeneous society where the elites can get most everyone on board, it might work - until hackers step in and show just how vulnerable such systems can be. In a society such as the US could it happen? Maybe the $100 bill could get pole-axed, but past that, it will be much like efforts by the elites on the coasts to ban or strongly restrict firearms - they seem to have no real clue just how much resistance they would meet out in Flyover Country. But that may not stop them from trying.

Plan

We will leave you with this admonition - plan, but don't fear. Have a solid emergency plan in place. Think about how you would participate in a world where cash has been banned. What sort of barter arrangements would you be able to participate in? What skills can you offer?

If war breaks out, what would that really mean for you? If a world war breaks out, what then? If nothing else, revisit our Nuclear Strike of the Month for August 2015 and apply that analysis to your region as applicable.

Keep your eyes open, believe little of the spin provided to you as fact, and enjoy the moment. We are still in an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity. Enjoy, prepare, then be part of the solution to a better world when the whole thing goes sideways.

Europe: Why It's Going to Get a Lot Worse Before It Gets Better

2016-02-03T16:32:00.000-06:00

(Interview) Europe: Why It's Going to Get a Lot Worse Before It Gets Better

New interview with our European markets expert

By Elliott Wave International

Brian Whitmer, the editor of our monthly European Financial Forecast, explains what indicators helped him anticipate market volatility.

You'll also learn what he's expecting for the year ahead in European stocks.

You can read Brian's commentary comparing Germany to the Greek god Atlas as part of our report, Deflation and the Devaluation Derby.

Here's what you will learn:

How Europe's biggest economies are screeching to a halt
Currency devaluation's role in the developing global crisis
How the self-reinforcing aspect of deflation is already apparent in commodities trading
Why the top 1% of earners are in for a rude awakening
The hair-raising future for U.S. stocks

Just recall how swiftly the 2007-2009 financial crisis unfolded. We anticipate that the next global financial crisis could be even more sudden and severe.

Prepare now with our new report, Deflation and the Devaluation Derby.

CLICK TO CONTINUE READING >>

This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline (Interview, 4:32 min.) Europe: Why It's Going to Get a Lot Worse Before It Gets Better. EWI is the world's largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.

Socionomic Trendspotting for 2016

2016-01-18T17:04:00.000-06:00

2016 is already shaping up to be quite a show. Let's pick out some of the major themes which have been developing and see what socionomics has to tell us about them.

Nuclear Testing

Socionomics has long looked to nuclear weapons tests as a marker for social mood. It is my opinion that they are even more important as a mood marker now than in the past, as the major proof-of-principle and development tests have been completed for a variety of weapons systems by the major nuclear powers. Any full-blown nuclear tests by an established nuclear power would be part of a larger geopolitical struggle or messaging than a strictly technical test.

Other powers seeking nuclear weapons might be expected to continue limited testing. What's quite interesting is that North Korea led the year off with the detonation of what they claimed was a hydrogen bomb at their test facility at Punggye-ri (sometimes referred to as P'unggye-yok).

First, a quick detour. Their claims that they set off a hydrogen bomb have largely been derided. It is almost certain they did detonate a nuclear weapon of some sort. I find it highly unlikely they have been able to construct a classic hydrogen bomb due to issues of complexity as well as the need for specialty items and substances required to make such a device work.

That said, it is plausible that North Korea did test a device that utilized fusion as part of a primarily fission weapon. This is known as a "boosted weapon" and in short, it means a nuclear warhead based on fission (much like the weapons detonated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki), but laced with materials which, when subjected to the intense energy of a nuclear explosion, also fuse, adding even more power to the blast.

Details aside, what I wish to draw your attention to is the use of nuclear tests as socionomic markers. I propose you keep the following list of what I regard as ranking potential nuclear tests in mind as we navigate 2016:

Baby Bear

North Korean nuclear tests do correlate with other negative mood indicators, but in my opinion should not be solely relied upon. North Korea has other factors it is dealing with - including a still relatively new leader as well as tensions with not only the US and South Korea, but China, Russia, and Japan. A one-off nuclear test of North Korea should be noted, but such an event does not necessarily correlate with intense levels of negative mood outside of the region.

Momma Bear

The next level up in concern would be any test or tests by Pakistan or India. These are regional rivals who have fought a number of wars since the middle of the last century. A weapons test by one, the other, or both, should be noted with alarm and taken in the context of any other geopolitical situations. These would be, in my opinion, markers of not only regional negative mood, but potentially a negative mood marker for the larger world system.

Poppa Bear

The last time Russia tested a nuclear weapon was 1990, when it was still part of the Soviet Union. The last US test was in 1992. The last UK test was 1991, and China and France conducted their last tests in 1996.

Were one or more of the Big 5 to test a nuclear weapon I would regard this as an intensely negative mood marker. As stated earlier, while there are plenty of engineers and physicists in these countries' weapons programs who want to test to confirm the weapons would still behave as expected, political considerations to refrain from testing overwhelm this desire - currently.

Should a country such as Russia conduct an underground test, consider it not only a "message" to the West, but as a flashing negative socionomic indicator.

Charts to Watch

SASEIDX - Bloomberg

Check the Saudi index every week. I cannot stress this enough. Should the House of Saud go the way of the Bourbons, then the conflict we see in Syria will be little more than a warm-up for the slaughter to come.

Polarization

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign continues to burn hotly on socionomic fuel. The Donald’s popularity looks to me far more akin to that of a rock star than a traditional political candidate.

He does not have a system behind him, no party mechanism, no theory or platform – nothing really except the media coverage he generates basically for free.
Not much of a “ground game” in the primaries and caucuses
Zero endorsements from any part of the Republican Establishment heading into Iowa

What he does have on his side is a large wave of anger and revulsion for the political process as it has metastasized to date. Bernie Sanders has a similar wave of disillusionment and anger pushing his campaign from the Democratic side.

How will it play out? Trump himself could act as a primary marker of social mood over the course of the year. If we see a further deepening of negative sentiment, he might actually attain the White House. Should the waves have another run towards the positive, then he should flicker and die out, another negative mood structure shown to have foundations build on sand when the positive tide moves in.

I want to especially emphasize the first point above. For all the vaporing over Trump, should he actually be elected, what could he possibly accomplish? He has no party (the Republican Party elders would be reluctant in the extreme to allow anything constructive to happen under his watch – just to show the little people the folly of not voting for a proper Establishment figure if nothing else). He has no theory or mechanism to inspire, past his celebrity. For all those comparing Trump to Hitler, recall the National Socialists had a deep and disciplined party structure built over a decade. They built up an ideology that German universities accepted, like shooting an infectious disease into their veins. There was a deep base from which Hitler could draw. Not so much for Trump. Treat him as a marker. Granted, should he actually be elected and survive to take office, we could see a level of dysfunction that would make the 1850’s look like a time of blessed harmony.

Another issue that bears watching is the Bundy militia occupation of a federal wildlife refuge. Right now it is mostly being played for laughs or indignation by the main information channels in the U.S. Again, social mood will dictate whether this is an incident around which a lot of anger out West over federal ownership and authority over vast areas of those states turns into a movement, or whether it fades away. And before you dismiss it as another Clown Shown to distract everyone, let’s recall another armed action against a federal facility, taken in an era of intense political polarization, and meant to ignite a conflict – John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry. It “worked” in the sense that not long after, the U.S. entered into a period of bloodshed so vast that it took a World War to exceed its death toll.

And a final issue you might see thrust back into the limelight with the coming of spring – and a downdraft in mood – could be another wave of unrest on various college campuses. I have a lot of opinions here, having been at ground zero for one of the more well-publicized events this past fall. We’ll see how things work out. One thing I will point out regarding the campus protests you saw – they are in some ways an example of what a strong set of theories and an entrenched “machine” made up of like-minded people can do. Note that you have seen men and women in positions of authority calling for the evisceration of the First Amendment – and not one of them has suffered a single penalty, while their targets have been forced into silence or to resign.

Secession

This is a theme I am quite intrigued by and expect to see gain tremendous traction this year. In a way, it is unfolding in a manner that rhymes with the clashes of the 1930’s between fascism and communism across Europe.

As in the 1930’s watch Spain. If you are someone pushing for independence for a region or a peoples – whether it be Scotland or Texas, Wallonia or Biafra, I expect you already have your plane tickets booked for Catalonia.

The Catalan Independence Movement has drunk deep of the negative mood sweeping the European Project and has grown to a point where the regional (soon to be a national?) parliament has a strong minority of separatist members and is threatening to establish its own central bank.

Where this goes will be interesting to say the least. Should negative mood rip the last shreds of legitimacy from the old powers that be in 2016, we all need to keep our heads and see where the waves are rushing – either to move safely with the tide, or attempt to move to safety in order to avoid being engulfed…

Pulling Another Brick from the Wall

2015-12-31T14:43:00.001-06:00

Wall Collapse

The little things build up.

We've had a year in the United States where the fabric of civil society continued to unravel in many public ways. Much of the expressions of this unraveling continued to match up with how socionomics describes negative mood eras. From campus protests, to the Black Lives Matter movement, to a deepening divide among partisans of the two main political parties, to the Donald Trump phenomenon - it looked and sounded like a country in the grip of negative mood. The DJIA managed to start the year at around 17,800 and finish around 17,500, and though that change doesn't look like much, it encompassed a year where we swung from 18,351 to 15,651 and back again.

While I'll save my projections for 2016 for a later post, I did want to draw your attention to an issue that is getting some press and which I think matters deeply for reasons beyond the headlines. I want you to think a bit about the fact that the United States is on the cusp of withdrawing recognition of the identification documents issued by a handful of states which make up the Union.

As Ars Tehcnica put it:

TSA may soon stop accepting drivers’ licenses from nine states

The citizens of several US states may soon find that they can't use their drivers' licenses to get into federal facilities or even board planes.

Enforcement of a 2005 federal law that sets identification standards, known as "Real ID," has been long-delayed. But now Department of Homeland Security officials say enforcement is imminent. The "Real ID" law requires states to implement certain security features before they issue IDs and verify the legal residency of anyone to whom they issue an ID card. The statute is in part a response to the suggestion of the 9/11 Commission, which noted that four of the 19 hijackers used state-issued ID cards to board planes...

...The law was originally scheduled to go into effect in 2008 but was subject to repeated delays. In recent months, DHS has been telling states those delays are over and that the law will be implemented in 2016. However, any restrictions on air travel won't go into place without at least 120 days' notice, and no state has received such a notice yet. In several states, however, restrictions on entering federal buildings could kick in as early as January 10...

The latest list (as of 31 December 2015) from the DHS has the following states shown as non-compliant and subject to enforcement as of January 10, 2016:

Illinois
Missouri
New Mexico
Washington

Many articles address the initial concerns for people who hold ID cards from these states. The main issue on most people's minds is that they won't be able to be used as an ID to get past TSA for air travel. It also means they won't be able to get into federal facilities using their valid driver's license to boot.

We'll see how it works out in practice, but let's also think beyond the hassle factor and the clown show way popular media will deal with it (on the one hand, crazy state level conspiracy nuts won't abide by a sane law passed for our own good - on the other hand, this is yet another federal overreach and unfunded mandate put to the states with no real positive outcome other than an expansion of Big Guvmint). Socionomics tells us to expect anger and separatism in negative mood eras. Now imagine setting up lines at airports where Americans from non-compliant states need a passport to travel internally (via airlines) or are treated for all intents and purposes as foreign nationals before they can visit federal facilities. How is that going to play? Some of us with day jobs in one of the non-compliant states listed above who have to travel to D.C. on occasion to work with regulators are wondering just how we are supposed to meet with the feds if we can't get in the front door.

Would this include Congress? By that I mean not only will Congressional members have to use passports to travel, but what about citizens who want to visit their representatives? What about other facilities which are federally regulated such a nuclear power plants? How might this affect interacting with the IRS?

Add this issue to the various marijuana legalization and state-level gun law movements which smack of nullification (as we discussed last month) and we are pulling at yet another thread of our national fabric and setting up another psychological break between the states and the central government in D.C.

More to come on this issue, I am sure.

I wish you all a very Happy New Year. Keep your eyes open and your powder dry.

Risk ON? Risk OFF?

2015-12-17T09:52:00.001-06:00

While I am still cooking some longer posts that will go in-depth on some of the macro-level issues that a negative Socionomic mood era can produce, I'd like to share the following from EWI.

As usual, I regard a lot of what they produce as not only interesting, but actionable.

- - -

Here is the opening paragraph of the just-published, subscriber-level report from our friends at Elliott Wave International, the world's largest independent financial forecasting firm.

[We have] been tracking a steady global shift to greater financial conservatism over the last 18 months. As we noted in October, the long duration of the transition from a "risk on" to a "risk off" attitude suggests that the next decline will "go deeper and last longer than that of 2007-2009," which was the biggest bear market since the Great Depression. The relationship between the MSCI Emerging Markets Index and the MSCI World Index on this chart shows a trend away from risk that will gradually ...

Now, I'm sorry, but I have to cut it off there, because the next part shares EWI's big-picture forecast, typically reserved for paying subscribers (but we have arranged for you for free at this link).
EWI's subscribers pay $59 per month to read insights like these and others, so they would string me up if I copied and pasted them right here into this email. But for the next week only, you can read their urgent new report in full, 100% free. It will be on your screen in about one minute.

Follow this link to unlock the rest of this report now -- free this week only >>

About the Publisher, Elliott Wave International

Founded in 1979 by Robert R. Prechter Jr., Elliott Wave International (EWI) is the world's largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.

Nuclear Strike of the Month (December 2015): Target Dabiq

2015-12-11T14:29:00.000-06:00

Daesh and the Apocalyptic Battle at Dabiq

Air Burst Over Dabiq

Not much to see in terms of this kind of attack modeling. The destruction would be vast. An air burst would allow for forces to move in post-detonation, though one would expect to give it a week or so just to minimize contamination.

For an alternative view, here is what the detonation footprint and fallout pattern look like for a ground burst:

Ground Burst at Dabiq

Ground Burst at Dabiq, regional view

As a ground burst would foul the headwaters of the Euphrates as well as deposit radionuclides in lakes and reservoirs Turkey depends upon, one would need to be very angry with Turkey (and Iraq to a degree) to contemplate a ground burst here.

The Aftermath

I'll let you think about what an attack on what, to some of the Salafists, is the equivalent of Megiddo (that is, Armageddon) in their world view. The potential blowback in places like Saudi Arabia or Turkey could be immense.

Thoughts and Plans

My thoughts on this one are that while we continue to regard the use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear opponent as unlikely, I wish to continue to remind you that when we make these historical phase changes - the U.S. in 1860, Europe in 1939, the USSR in 1991 - the "rules" the various elites have fashioned to help control situations in the old order go out the window.

There is another thought for you to ponder as well, and that is, as we've seen over the course of the Nuclear Strike of the Month series this year, nuclear weapons are extremely blunt instruments. The damage and slaughter they can do is immense, but there are many other factors in fighting a war than body counts.

NOTE: This is the final installment in the Nuclear Strike of the Month series. While I do expect to continue to blog on this topic, we have covered plenty of ground over the past year in terms of scenarios. Future work is expected to drill more deeply into specifics of handling a post-nuclear war environment or analyzing current events which might lead to an exchange.

Clown Show Disclaimer

Due to the subject matter of this post, it will be necessary to provide the following disclaimer. Blog posts like this tend to bring out comment trolls ready to gin up the Clown Show of name-calling, knee-jerk willful misinterpretation, and angry discourse generating much sound and fury, but which in the end, signifies nothing. Such comments will be deleted.

I am not promoting nuclear war. I am not attempting to wish such an attack upon any population anywhere. I am attempting to provide a plausible scenario which might lead to the use of nuclear weapons. My expectation is that you will use this scenario to war game whatever plans you may be putting into place to deal with this new era we find ourselves in and see if you are as ready as you hope.

Poking the Bear

2015-11-24T13:39:00.002-06:00

Russian Plane Shot Down by Turkish F-16s

As I am sure any reader of FutureJacked is already well aware of, Turkish F-16s have shot down a Russian Su-24 fighter jet. They claim the Russian jet invaded Turkish airspace. The Russians disagree.

Take this opportunity to recall historical moments have a way of snowballing out of control during negative mood eras. The power play going on in Syria and Iraq has pulled in every major power on the planet except India.

Take time out to review your situation. If war - real war - comes, expect to see strict capital controls, a lockdown on social media and internet platforms, dislocations across all sorts of economic and service sectors (especially if China decided to halt certain exports, say of rare earths and other key components to the West), a potential spike in oil if critical refineries and transport nodes in the Middle East were hit.

Should this really mark the beginning of a downward spiral to a nuclear exchange, take time to review the Nuclear Strike of the Month series and wargame your current preparations.

While I'm not convinced this is the trigger to a global war, history can move at absurd speed when the proper conditions are in place.

Be prepared, friends. If you aren't prepared - get there.

Automation, Jobs, and What Comes Next

2015-11-16T12:33:00.001-06:00

In my recent post, Your Greatest Enemy, I emphasized the idea that as our current system continues to fly apart, being able to think creatively about how to handle this new environment will be critical. In that spirit, give a listen to Charles Hugh Smith and Chris Martenson in this excellent talk about automation, jobs, finance, and how might we go about building a new system of work, community, and governance - or at least thinking about it - before the final implosion hits us.

Nuclear Strike of the Month (November 2015): Target The Day After

2015-11-13T17:18:00.002-06:00

The Day After (1983)

The Scenario
In keeping with the spirit of the TV Movie, this scenario will begin with a strategic nuclear strike on Kansas City. We will then discuss not so much the attack itself, but what steps might you have been able to take prior to the attack and what survivors on the ground would face in the aftermath.

Any attack like the one envisioned here would almost certainly be part of a much larger series of strategic attacks on the United States (and we should assume, a significant retaliatory strike upon the country. I'm using nominal yields of 1 MT for the attacks.

The Attack

Kansas City was struck across the entire metro area. The Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe rail yards, the downtown airport, and the bridges over the Missouri River were primary targets. To the north, the Kansas City International Airport was hit as well. To the south, the National Nuclear Security Administration's National Security Campus (known better as the Kansas City Plant), where non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons packages are fabricated, was another target, receiving a groundburst, in an attempt to destroy any subterranean facilities.

NOTE: The permanent link to the attack scenario in NUKEMAP for some reason resets all the attacks as groundbursts, so if you follow the link and see the extra fallout paths, along with less (initial) casualties, it is an artifact of the program. Feel free to tinker with the scenario as you see fit.

Four nuclear detonations over Kansas City, Missouri (1 MT each)

The Aftermath
The estimated death toll is just under 800,000 dead immediately, around a quarter-million injured - and this leaves out the further effects of radiation sickness from either the initial blast or from ingesting fallout, nor does it address hunger and thirst.

As a reminder, here are what the color codes mean for the blast effects:

And the effects of the fallout:

The effects on infrastructure are quite severe. Kansas City is the second largest rail hub in the United States. The major rail yards would be utterly destroyed. All the major bridges over the Missouri River would be destroyed as well. Kansas City serves as a major center for intermodal and trucking transport - that would be shot as well.

Most of the major hospitals in the region are located in the blast zone - KU Med, St. Luke's, Truman Medical Center, the VA Medical Center on 35th Street, along with uncounted clinics and pharmacies.

Schools, water utilities, power utilities, power lines, fiber-optic cabling, cell phone towers would all be devastated. Knock-on effects on the entire regional power grid, whether from the disruption of power supply and infrastructure or from EMP blast effects, would almost certainly down power for cities and towns hundreds or even thousands of miles away.

The fallout pattern looks sickly similar to what we saw when we modeled the destruction of Whiteman Air Force Base back in August. The effects on farmland, the lower Missouri River watershed, and roads and railways outside the initial blast zone are also tremendous. Plus, we have to think, if we are in a total or near-total war scenario, if Kansas City is getting hit, so is Whiteman AFB, and probably St. Louis.

Thoughts and Plans
For this kind of massive attack scenario, one should expect to have at least some sense of impending world crisis prior to the missiles flying. While a massive attack out of the blue can't be completely ruled out, this adds so many variables that you might as well not leave your fallout shelter if this truly worries you.

I recommend you check out this resource for your reading, thinking, and planning pleasure. One caveat - they are trying to sell you stuff. That said, my review of the materials is that they line up quite well with nuclear war civilian survival planning documents for the last several decades. At a minimum you should at least think about the six main points they talk to.

Education and thought is key here and in a post-attack situation you will need to be able to adjust on the fly. For instance, the website in the link above sells, among other things, potassium iodide tablets. Well, let's say you didn't prepare, or you get caught away from your home or shelter and believe a fallout cloud is going to settle on you. One of the key dangers in the early days post-attack is the ingestion of I-131, a radioactive isotope which will go to your thryoid and cause illness or death in large doses. By taking a potassium iodide tablet, your body would take the iodine from the tablet and load your thyroid, meaning not much radioactive iodine can latch on, thus protecting you (from that particular isotope - NOT any of the others). Well, in the U.S. at least, almost all the commercial salt sold to restaurants and grocery stores is "iodized salt" - so in an emergency scenario, find a salt shaker and iodize yourself. While not perfect, it is something.

Plans are one thing. Keeping your head in panicky situation and handling it well is something entirely different.

Regarding your personal situation, nuclear attack survival planning is dependent upon several factors, listed from what I regard as the most important down to least important:

Luck

Are you in an area which is targeted?
Is the wind blowing fallout towards you or away from you?
Is the wind blowing fallout towards or away from a reservoir or river you depend on?

Your Neighbors

Do you have good working relations with your neighbors?
Are they generally as prepared as you are?
Have you worked with them in the past as part of a group effort, whether in a civic organization or local government?
Which ones are veterans?
Which ones are cops? Firefighters? Belong to the National Guard?
Which ones own firearms?
Do you trust them?
Do you live in an area with a history of violent ethnic tensions?

Your Preparations

Are you prepared? If you had to blink for the slightest second at that question, please head over to this FEMA resource and see if your preparations meet their suggestions for getting ready before an attack.
If you do not have a fallout shelter, where is your designated shelter? Is it in your home? At a local center or shelter?
If you are relying on your home, say a basement, do you require a sump pump to keep it dry? What happens when the entire power grid goes down for an extended period of time?
Do you have enough water? If you quickly answered yes, you are lying to yourself. You will need more water than you ever imagined. If you do not believe this, conduct a "stress test" of your emergency preparations. Pick a three-day weekend and shut off the power and water to your house. Survive on your supplies. Stay in your home or yard (whatever you think the scenario is you want to test). See what you think of your prepping after three full days.

Your Proximity to Federal or State Government Power Centers
Being close to major power centers can be a blessing and a curse. The elites will need their technocrats, soldiers, and workers able to serve them. This should lead to at least some level of shelter and supply.

On the flip side, the elites will get all "eggs must be broken to make our omelets" and that might mean a lot of razor wire fences, deportations, and shots fired.

In the Medium Term

Longer term issues begin to arise in the weeks and months post-attack. Reading through civil defense documents from an era such as the 1950's, there are often assumptions that city folks, or at least a big fraction of them, can leave town and find shelter with friends and/or family back on the farm. Well, those days are long over. Rural America has been strip-mined by corporate agriculture practices. There is no longer a huge network of mixed-product farms where at least some fraction of calories can be grown locally. The soils have been worked so hard that even carving up these large plots means a soil without the necessary microbes and organic matter to grow much of anything without inputs in the form of bulk fertilizers, anhydrous ammonia, chemical pesticides, etc.

This has real implications. Urban life will be severely disrupted for a very long time. Historically in times or war or collapse, urban centers have suffered and rural areas (at least the ones not caught in a war zone or in the path of brigands or a leaderless mob that was once an army) have managed to survive. Would that be the case now? The bridge from here to there has to span an enormous learning curve. In our quest for efficiency and specialization, vast skillsets have been lost by the bulk of the population. Growing food for real, as in, you and your kids will eat what you grow or you will actually starve, is hard. Very hard. Learning it on the fly, worrying about fallout getting in the food chain, etc. These would be tough.

And that is just the aspect of food. Play out similar scenarios for getting the basics of life without reliable transportation networks or electricity. Hospitals and clinics would become little more than places where the sick could be made a little more comfortable and where amputation would make a comeback. Infection would kill those who now can just go to a pharmacy and get a $10 prescription for keflex.

Lastly, always remember, success and survival is a team sport. You can't watch your own back every hour of every day. If all your neighbors decide to vote and come over with their rifles and redistribute your year's supply of food, where does it leave you? Unless you've volunteered it, it leaves you at a minimum and outcast and quite possibly dead. Your neighbors, your family, your friends - these people can help you survive trying times. They'll all be suffering as well. There is strength in numbers. Yes, I know, groups of people are a pain in the ass. Just figuring out the agenda for a Lodge meeting, or coming up with a speaker and menu for a civic group luncheon can be trying - how much worse would it be in a disaster scenario? Granted - but we have evolved as social animals. It is what it is.

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Socionomics and Marijuana Legalization

2015-11-06T11:17:00.002-06:00

As we continue to try and map the channels down which this new era of negative mood is going to flow, I suggest you set aside some time to watch the above video courtesy of the Socionomics Institute.

I think this issue encapsulates much of what we'll be facing - an issue long thought settled (marijuana has been a Schedule 1 drug for decades) is being reopened and fought against from the ground up, the public opinion on the illegality of pot has shifted dramatically and the governing structures in place are lagging significantly. While legalization has proceeded on a state-by-state basis, it is still illegal at the federal level.

This dynamic between the state-level approach to ending marijuana prohibition is fascinating and could inform the way other expressions of negative mood might get implemented. In short, having the states legalize this substance while still keeping it illegal under federal law - and letting the states go forward in this manner - is straight-up old school Nullification. Now, legally there is actually a bit more gray area as the states are not technically voiding Federal law, but the next step to replaying the Nullification Crisis isn't a big one and certainly not inconceivable should the next economic crisis prompt Federal laws which dramatically and negatively affect key states such as California, Texas, or Florida.

This tactic - of using state laws to neuter or otherwise render hard to enforce Federal laws - is also being tried with gun rights issues.

Makes you really wonder what else we might see in this arena. If cyber security becomes the next big bogeyman and the US moves in the direction of the UK as it attempts to ban all encryption that can't be compromised by the government, does California set up its own laws in defiance of a federal ban? What other areas do you see the states setting up in opposition to the Feds?

Your Greatest Enemy

2015-10-26T10:33:00.000-06:00

Don't Believe Everything You Think

A brief reminder from FutureJacked Headquarters - be very careful of your assumptions. As Will Rogers once put it,

It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble. It's what we know that ain't so.

We continue, day by day, to edge towards a social, political, economic and demographic earthquake which will shear the foundations of the post-World War II world and provide us with the opportunity to build again from the rubble.

In the best of times you should always be ready to challenge your assumptions. To grab another quote, this time from a tome which alternately aggravates or inspires depending on your wiring:

Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.

In challenging times, clarity of thought is priceless.

With this in mind, here is a recent Pop Trends, Price Culture podcast from the formidable Robert Folsom which is well worth listening to and pondering next time you are so sure you are "right" that no other options are even conceivable:

I don't mean to say abandon all principles, but I do mean you should be flexible in your thinking and open to new solutions in a world where the assumptions built into the systems we all grew up with will be challenged. New solutions may involve radical changes in how you work and interact with your neighbors and your fellow citizens. Be mindful that a new world with new assumptions in the birthing. We may think the new baby is ugly, but we still have to deal with it.

And for those of you who like to dig deeply into the source material, here is the Dunning-Kruger paper for your viewing pleasure:

Unskilled and unaware of it how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments from AMPA Escola Garrigàs

Nuclear Strike of the Month (October 2015): Target Middle East Tactical Exchange

2015-10-16T14:45:00.000-06:00

150 kT Air Burst west of Baalbek, Lebanon, in the Bekaa Valley

Note on the Nuclear Strike of the Month Series: In this series I want to illustrate various ways attacks using nuclear weapons can play out. I will be using Dr. Alex Wellerstein's online NUKEMAP tool to generate the estimates of the blast and follow-on effects and we'll be turning to concepts found in Nuclear Emergencies to help evaluate consequences.

My rationale is to show a wide range of nuclear attack scenarios short of all-out thermonuclear war. The idea is to give readers a feel for the destructive power of nuclear weapons, provide scenarios as thought experiments for your own planning, and to discuss what nuclear weapons can and (sometimes more importantly) what nuclear weapons can't do.

For a variety of reasons, it is my opinion we will see nuclear weapons used in warfare sometime between now and 2030. We might as well brush up on the basics.

Nuclear Strike of the Month: Tactical Nuclear Exchange in the Middle East

This month we will examine how nuclear weapons might be used tactically, as part of a direct military campaign. With all the talk recently about the Iranian Nuclear Deal, and now with the intervention of Russia in the Syria mess, I want to postulate a situation where Israel feels compelled to use nuclear weapons on the battlefield to reverse severe setbacks on the battlefield. I'm not including a first strike on Israel by, say, a nuclear-armed Iran or even Russia, because the retaliation Israel is capable of would push any response into a strategic nuclear exchange of damn near old Soviet-US proportions. I'll admit the following scenario is a huge stretch - Israel is not going to lose a conventional engagement in my opinion, but for the sake of trying to see how nukes might get deployed in the Middle East, we'll at least postulate it here.

We are using 150 kT warheads in this model. That may seem a bit on the high end for tactical weapons, and I admit it is a bit arbitrary, so feel free to alter the scenario if you like. I am modeling air bursts here as I am assuming the goal is to do maximum damage while avoiding intense long-term environmental issues and contamination. As usual zoom in and zoom out on the maps and see how exchanges like this compare to our analysis of a groundburst using multi-megaton warheads back in August.

The Scenario
Things really began to go downhill for Israel's strategic situation when the Great Slaughter of Palmyra finished off the last of the Daesh forces in Syria. Assad's revitalized army, along with support from Russian airstrikes, military advisers and special forces, contingents of Hezbollah, and several units of Iranian "volunteers" had chased Daesh out of Aleppo, out of Raqqa (with heavy losses on both sides), ending in the encirclement focused on Palmyra. The other insurgent forces fell rapidly as well, with only a few groups holding out in the extreme North under the protection of Turkey.

Iranian forces allowed a "back door" to remain open for a large number of Daesh forces as part of a Devil's bargain, giving them one chance at passage out of Syria, through Iraq, and into Saudi Arabia, which led several months later to the civil war which brought the House of Saud's focus back home and caused their support for Sunni forces in the general region to shrivel up.

While Syria began the process of rebuilding, they were no longer masters of their own fate, with Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah playing influential roles in major policy decisions. While juggling those outside influences, Assad also had to be wary of Turkey moving from occasional attacks on Kurdish positions to a full-blown invasion of Syria.

A series of provocations and miscalculations began to escalate all along Israel's northern border as they looked out across the frontier towards a Hezbollah which was even more emboldened now than they had been since the aftermath of the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War, to a Syria which now more resembled Lebanon in that Assad might run the official government, but there were strong forces within Syria completely out of his control. When Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah died in a massive explosion just outside of Baalbek, Hezbollah blamed the Israelis, the Israelis blamed it on an internal Hezbollah power struggle, and then rockets began to rain down on Israel from Hezbollah positions. First in ones and twos, then in waves.

Israel responded as they had in 2006, with massive bombardments and a major call-up of forces. What happened next had not been seen in Israel since the first dark days of the 1973 War. Instead of playing to script and waiting in fortifications to be shelled into pulp, waves of Hezbollah small combat teams in trucks and small armored vehicles streamed over the Northern border while at the same time conventional forces from Syria (and apparently led by Iranian officers in many cases) attacked the Golan Heights. These forces were all armed with next-generation tank-killer weapons and MANPADs which turned out to be more effective than intelligence estimates. Waves of drones flew south into Israel, some as kamikaze devices, some as decoys, some as surveillance platforms. While they had little direct effect on the battle, the psychological effect was intense, as swarms of them darkened the skies over Jerusalem and several crashed on the grounds of Dimona.

Then the unthinkable happened - an entire brigade found itself surrounded by Hezbollah forces near Dan, Israel - and they were cut down by a combined Syrian-Hezbollah attack before reinforcements could be brought to bear. The West Bank erupted into flames as sleeper cells sprang into action, bombing Israeli infrastructure and tying down security assets. A police station in a suburb of Haifa fell to a team and the Hezbollah flag was hoisted over the ruins.

The Attack
As the riots in the West Bank turned into actual occupation of Israeli government offices and the takeover of some towns and with the news of Syrian tanks commanded by Iranians victorious over Israeli forces and possibly driving south, and with apparently the latest generation of Russian anti-aircraft weapons in the hands of Israel's enemies - and proving effective in driving off close air support, the fateful decision was made to reset the balance.

Israeli intel identified two major Hezbollah staging areas in the Bekaa Valley and a key supply and transportation depot for the Syrian army. Intense discussions were held with the Russian military attache in Tel Aviv and messages send through back every available back channel - Hezbollah and Syria were to back off, or Israel would use all means at her disposal to stop the invasion. That night, televisions all over the world showed the green flag of Hezbollah flapping in the breeze over a burned out police station outside of Haifa and the Israeli cabinet agreed to act.

Strikes on Baalbek, Qarauon, and near Nawa

Three bombers, each carrying two nuclear warheads, one for delivery, one for backup, simultaneously took flight and, upon receiving the code word "Jephthah" they delivered their 150 kiloton warheads to target.

150 kT strike outside of Baalbek, Lebanon

The attack on Baalbek was meant to disrupt Hezbollah logistics and send a message to the major Hezbollah presence in the Bekaa Valley. Baalbek was damaged significantly, but as it was an airburst, fallout was minimized, though the effects of the blast in a confined valley amplified the damage outside the normal blast zone, shattering windows for hundreds of square kilometers.

Attack near Qaraoun, at the southern end of the Bekaa Valley

The second strike in the Bekaa Valley was detonated over Lake Litani, blasting the dam, and sending a huge wall of water down the valley. Roads were destroyed and those note destroyed by the blast were washed out, choking off a major resupply route for the offensive into Israel.

150 kT blast near Nawa, Syria

The attack on Syrian soil destroyed an armored battalion in transit as well as severely damaging a fuel supply depot which had been set up without the secrecy the Iranians and Syrians had hoped for.

The Aftermath
The psychological effect was almost more devastating than the actual attacks. Just as no one had expected the Russians to come into Syria guns blazing at the end of 2015, no one had expected the Israelis would use nuclear weapons on the battlefield unless either first struck by them or in imminent danger of being overrun by conventional forces. The Israeli cabinet had decided that their enemies needed to be reminded of the force which could be brought to bear on them. That, combined with Israel sorting out its mobilization efforts, resulted in a rollback of Syrian forces all the way to Damascus and an ugly slaughter in South Lebanon the burned out eventually.

Thoughts and Plans
Using a nuclear warhead against an opponent who is not a major state and does not go to war with huge forces arrayed in the field becomes tricky, at least from this armchair warplanner's point of view. Psychological or political effects aside, many of the enemies faced on today's battlefields are dispersed irregulars - they don't line themselves up in nice, nukeable rows like a Soviet tank division.

Use this information in your planning as you see fit.

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