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This Is The Worst Purge Of Conservative Voices In The History Of The Internet

In recent weeks, we have witnessed an unprecedented social media crackdown on conservative voices. YouTube’s war with Alex Jones has gotten the most attention, but literally hundreds of conservative content creators have had their accounts penalized, suspended or deleted by YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other social media giants. There appears to be a coordinated effort to target conservative viewpoints, because similar voices on the left are not receiving equal treatment. If I win my race for Congress on May 15th, I am going to make fighting this sort of censorship one of my top priorities once I get to Washington.

How would you feel if you spent years creating videos and building up a subscriber base only to have all of that work wiped out in a single moment by a leftist YouTube moderator?

Sadly, that is precisely what is happening to dozens upon dozens of conservatives right now…

Writing for Polygon.com, Julia Alexander noted that, “Whenever YouTube institutes a tougher moderation stance, a common debate emerges over censorship—especially from notable conservative voices.”

Specifically, she explained, “Questions over YouTube’s moderators and the power they hold were raised this week after notable conservative pundits, gun advocates, conspiracy channels and other right-wing voices received community strikes or were locked out of their channels. Creators who are affected by lockouts, strikes and suspensions are referring to it as the ‘YouTube Purge,’ claiming that YouTube is purging all right-wing or pro-gun content. The move follows the company’s attempt to clamp down on dangerous content following the Parkland shooting.”

One of the most disturbing examples of censorship was what happened to the Health Ranger channel. Mike Adams is a personal friend, and I am extremely upset about what YouTube has done to him…

As we reported over the weekend, YouTube terminated the entire Health Ranger video channel on Saturday, wiping out over 1,700 videos and approximately 350K+ subscribers. This was done, of course, as part of the YouTube left-wing PURGE now being carried out against non-establishment speakers who are being targeted for political reasons.

YouTube’s censorship rampage also wiped out all my videos on the donkeys I rescued, the range-free chickens I raise and even the beautiful ice crystals I captured on video over the winter. In its censorship sweep, YouTube is obliterating thousands of videos without cause, violating the civil rights of informative internet users and functioning as a criminal techno-cartel.

There is absolutely no reason for YouTube to do this. Mike Adams has literally helped millions of people through his work, and I am urging all of my readers to contact YouTube and demand that they restore his channel immediately.

Of course YouTube is not the only one that is cracking down on conservative voices. Here are a few examples of what Facebook has been doing…

Young Cons: This very popular conservative news site had millions of daily readers during the recent election, and the site received nearly all its traffic from Facebook (Lesson: Never put all your marketing eggs in one basket). Facebook has been increasingly censoring Young Cons stories since 2016; now the site struggles mightily and regularly switches domains in order to maintain traffic.

SaraPalin.com: At one point the former GOP VP nominee and Alaska governor’s website was serving up stories to her four million Facebook followers, but she, too, had to begin switching domains in order to maintain traffic.

Right Wing News: This site grew to massive proportions over the past few years, in large part thanks to its meteoric popularity on Facebook. During one week in 2015, the site’s Facebook page reached 133 million people. The site was driving about the same amount of web traffic as some of the biggest newspapers in the U.S. But since 2016 Facebook began blocking traffic to the site; its owner, John Hawkins, announced he would shut it down in January (it’s still online but the content is not regularly updated).

Independent Journal Review: This, too, was a large conservative news and information source, but because it was overly reliant on Facebook traffic, the site had to terminate a number of its employees last week, leaving the fate of the Millennial-focused site in doubt.

And Twitter has been censoring conservatives as well.

In particular, Twitter seems to really dislike pro-life activists…

Pro-life group Live Action cried foul in 2017 after Twitter demanded it delete pro-life images, such as fetal ultrasounds, from its Twitter feed and website before allowing the group to run advertisements. Live Action refused the request.

Another pro-life group, the Susan B. Anthony List, was barred in October from running a video advertisement, because it used the phrase “killing babies” to refer to abortion. “No advertiser is permitted to use the phrase ‘killing babies,’” Twitter told the group.

That same month, Twitter blocked an advertisement by Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s campaign for Senate in Tennessee. Twitter objected to one line Blackburn said: “I’m 100% pro-life. I fought Planned Parenthood, and we stopped the sale of baby body parts –thank God.”

If you don’t stand up when you see others being censored, then please don’t complain when the social media giants censor you as well. I think that Dr. Michael Brown made this point exceedingly well in his most recent article…

First they came for Infowars, and I did not speak out—because I found them offensive.

Then they came for Geller and Spencer, and I did not speak out—because I found them obnoxious.

Then they came for Prager U, and I did not speak out—because I found them opinionated.

Then they came for a host of others, and I did not speak out—because I have my own life to live.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

This is why we need good liberty-minded people to run for office all over the nation.

If we do not fight back, this sort of oppression is only going to get worse. Right at this moment I am engaged in an extremely tight race for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, and if you want me to go to Washington and defend our free speech rights, please consider making a contribution because we desperately need it right now…

Donate By Credit Card Online: https://secure.anedot.com/michaelsnyderforcongress/donate

Donate By Paypal: https://donorbox.org/michael-snyder-for-congress

Donate By Check: Make your check out to “Michael Snyder For Congress” and send it to the following address…

Michael Snyder For Congress
PO Box 1136
Bonners Ferry, ID 83805

In the entire history of the Internet, we have never seen this sort of a coordinated purge before.

The left believes that they are going to win, but we are definitely not going to allow that to happen.

Michael Snyder is a pro-Trump candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District. If you would like to help him win on May 15th, you can donate online, by Paypal or by sending a check made out to “Michael Snyder for Congress” to P.O. Box 1136 – Bonners Ferry, ID 83805. To learn more, please visit MichaelSnyderForCongress.com.

The Internet Crackdown Begins: U.S. Senator Al Franken Wants Google, Facebook And Twitter To Censor Political Speech

Are the days of the free and open Internet numbered? The Internet is certainly used for all sorts of horrible things, but it has also allowed ordinary people to communicate on a mass scale that would have been unimaginable decades ago. In the old days, if you wanted to reach large audiences of people with your information you always had to go through corporate gatekeepers. But today, anyone with an Internet connection can literally broadcast whatever they want to say to the whole world. Personally, my wife and I have always been amazed at how many people we are able to touch all over the planet from our little home in the mountains. Over the past seven years our websites have been viewed more than 100 million times, and we receive emails about our work from people all over the globe.

Unfortunately, major changes may soon be coming to the Internet. The election of Donald Trump really angered the elite, and they are blaming the power of the Internet for his victory. They insist that something must be done “for the good of democracy”.

For example, in an opinion piece for the Guardian, U.S. Senator Al Franken proposed that it is time for the U.S. government to step in because Google, Facebook and Twitter have failed to prevent the spread of propaganda, misinformation, and hate speech…

As lawmakers grapple with the revelations regarding Russia’s manipulation of social media during the 2016 election, many are shocked to learn the outsized role that the major tech companies play in so many aspects of our lives. Not only do they guide what we see, read, and buy on a regular basis, but their dominance – specifically in the market of information – now requires that we consider their role in the integrity of our democracy.

Last week’s hearings demonstrated that these companies may not be up to the challenge that they’ve created for themselves. In some instances, it seems that they’ve failed to take commonsense precautions to prevent the spread of propaganda, misinformation, and hate speech.

Those are very ominous words.

So precisely what would constitute “propaganda”, “misinformation” or “hate speech”?

When you start regulating speech, you cross a very dangerous line. There is a reason why our founders guaranteed us freedom of speech in the Bill of Rights, because if we don’t have the freedom to say what we want then what do we really have left?

During the presidential election, there was a lot of talk about Hillary Clinton’s health. The mainstream media insisted that she was just fine, and they accused those of us in the alternative media that were questioning her health of engaging in “propaganda” and “misinformation”. Well, it turns out that we now know that Clinton’s health was so bad that Donna Brazile was actually considering replacing her as the nominee, and so it was actually the mainstream media that was putting out “propaganda” and “misinformation”.

Any effort to institute some sort of “truth police” would take us significantly down the road to totalitarianism, but apparently that is what Franken wants. In fact, he is openly suggesting that it is time for government regulators to step in…

Instead of simply trusting the big tech companies to police how their services are being used and abused, Franken suggested that regulators need to step in. Lawmakers should take a closer look at the influence technology plays in the everyday lives of Americans by conducting “vigorous oversight in the form of investigations and hearings to fully understand current practices and the potential for harm,” the Minnesota senator said.

“I’m hopeful that recent events will encourage regulators, as well as a broader contingent of my colleagues — on both sides of the aisle — to give this issue the attention it deserves,” he said.

So once government regulators begin regulating speech on the Internet, where will it end?

Will everything that we do on the Internet have to be evaluated for “truthiness” before it is allowed to be posted?

And who decides what the “truth” actually is?

I am a big believer in the marketplace of ideas. I have always been convinced that if everyone is allowed to openly share what they believe that the truth will win in the end.

Of course the elite are scared of the free exchange of ideas, because that gives the people way too much control over their own destiny. Prior to the Internet age, they were always in control of the flow of information in our society, but now things have changed dramatically.

They desperately want to get control of the Internet, because they want things to go back to the way that they used to be. But we can’t allow that to happen, and so we must greatly resist any attempts to regulate speech on the Internet.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

20 Amazing Facts About What Happens Every Single Minute Of Every Single Day In Our Rapidly Changing World

Our world is changing at a blinding pace that is accelerating with each passing day. Thanks to the Internet, information travels at a speed that would have been unimaginable at other times in human history, and our technological capabilities are advancing at a rate that is exponentially increasing. What all of this means is that seismic cultural shifts that used to take decades can now be accomplished in a matter of months or even weeks. So will all of this change lead to a wonderfully positive future for humanity, or will it result in a dystopian nightmare? Only time will tell, but what everyone can agree on is that our world is rapidly becoming a much different place than the world that our parents and grandparents grew up in. The following are 20 amazing facts about what happens every single minute of every single day in our rapidly changing world…

#1 250 babies will be born, and 113 of them will be born into poverty.

#2 500 hours of video will be uploaded to YouTube.

#3 The Earth will travel 1,118 miles around the sun.

#4 McDonald’s will sell 4,500 hamburgers.

#5 Lightning will strike our planet about 6,000 times .

#6 28,500 trees will be cut down.

#7 51,000 applications will be downloaded from Apple’s App Store.

#8 65,000 barrels of oil will be used used.

#9 People will watch 64,444 hours of content on Netflix.

#10 120,673 pounds of edible food will be thrown away in the United States.

#11 $203,596 worth of products will be sold on Amazon.com.

#12 448,800 tweets will be posted on Twitter.

#13 527,760 photos will be shared on Snapchat.

#14 3.3 million posts will be made to Facebook.

#15 3.8 million Google searches will be conducted.

#16 5 million pounds of garbage will be generated.

#17 6 million chemical reactions will happen in each one of our cells.

#18 20.8 million messages will be sent using WhatsApp.

#19 25 million Coca-Cola products will be consumed.

#20 204 million emails will be sent.

Facebook Suspends Christian Homeschool Mom’s Account Over Posts Citing Bible on Homosexuality

A Christian mother is accusing the social media giant Facebook of censorship after her account was suspended over posts on what the Bible says about homosexuality and sin.

Elizabeth Johnston, an Ohio homeschooling mother of 10 who runs the popular conservative blog “The Activist Mommy,” told The Christian Post on Tuesday that Facebook suspended her account earlier this month because she wrote about how Leviticus condemns homosexuality as “detestable” and an “abomination.”

Johnston said the comment in question was posted over six months ago in a long thread of comments that was in response to another Facebook user who claimed that Christians are hypocrites for condemning homosexuality but being willing to eat shellfish and pork.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Mark Zuckerberg funds bid to develop mind-reading brain implants

FACEBOOK founder Mark Zuckerberg is funding the development of technology with the potential to read humans’ minds.

The billionaire has just pledged to hand over £40 million to researchers working to combat deadly diseases.

This cash will be distributed by the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, an organisation which aims to “enable doctors to cure, prevent or manage all diseases during our children’s lifetime”.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Facebook now flags and down-ranks fake news with help from outside fact checkers

Snopes, FactCheck.org, Politifact, ABC News, and AP will help Facebook make good on four of the six promises Mark Zuckerberg made about fighting fake news without it becoming “the arbiter of truth.” It will make fake news posts less visible, append warnings from fact checkers to fake news in the feed, make reporting hoaxes easier and disrupt the financial incentives of fake news spammers.

“We’re not looking to get into the grey area of opinion,” Facebook’s VP of News Feed Adam Mosseri tells me. “What we are focusing on with this work is specifically the worst of the work — clear hoaxes that were shared intentionally, usually by spammers, for financial gain.”

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Now That The Election Is Over, Will Republicans And Democrats Learn How To Love One Another?

The 2016 election will be remembered as perhaps the most contentious election in modern American history, and things often got extremely angry and bitter on a personal level. If you spend much time on Facebook or Twitter you know exactly what I am talking about. The vitriol on social media has been off the charts, and there are some people that are actually unfriending anyone that supported the candidate that they were against. This election has also torn apart families, friends and even entire churches. Relationships that took decades to build in some cases are now permanently shattered because of fighting over Trump and Clinton.

Personally, I couldn’t imagine choosing never to talk to a family member or a close friend ever again because of a political disagreement. Trump and Clinton are only temporary, but your family will always be your family. Sadly, we live in a nation where strife, discord, bitterness and resentment are all running rampant, and unforgiveness has become a national pastime.

As a nation, we are extremely divided. In fact, at this moment we are more divided than we have ever been in my entire lifetime. A house divided against itself will surely fall, and if we don’t learn how to love one another I don’t see any reason to be optimistic about the future of this country.

If you are a Republican, can you honestly say that you love Democrats?

If you are a Democrat, can you honestly say that you love Trump supporters?

If this nation is ever going to heal, we have got to learn how to forgive, and we have got to learn how to love others that see things differently than we do.

I know what many of you are thinking at this point. Many of you are wondering if I have gone soft, and many of you are wondering how we are supposed to forgive people that believe some of the most horrible things imaginable.

I didn’t say that it would be easy.

And it is certainly not necessary to agree with someone or even acknowledge that their viewpoints are legitimate in order to love, forgive and value that person.

Let’s take abortion as an example. Most Democrats and many Republicans believe that we should continue to murder babies on an industrial scale in our abortion mills all over the country. In fact, many of them want to make it even easier and want to shower organizations such as Planned Parenthood with even more government money.

This is evil on a level that is difficult to put into words, and what we are doing to those precious little children is on par with what the Nazis did to Jewish people and other minorities in their concentration camps during World War II. And if we do not stop slaughtering babies, the judgment of God is going to absolutely devastate this nation.

According to Gallup, 79 percent of all Americans believe that abortion should be legal under at least some circumstances, and so unfortunately that is not likely to happen any time soon.

But just because someone believes in killing babies does not mean that we should hate that person.

On the contrary, every single individual is of immense value. Whenever you are tempted to hate someone, just remember that Jesus valued that person so much that He was willing to go to the cross to pay for that person’s sins. No matter what someone looks like, no matter where someone is from, and no matter how much money they have, each and every person is greatly loved in the Father’s eyes, and we are commanded to love them too.

We are to love all people at all times and in all ways. Christian maturity is far more about how much you love than it is about how much you know. Unfortunately, most people don’t seem to understand this simple truth.

These days a lot of people are running around touting how self-righteous they are, but most of those same people seem to be quite lacking in real love.

If you really want to be someone that “keeps the commandments”, you should start by getting your heart right. In Matthew 22, Jesus told us which commandments are the most important of all. The following is what Matthew 22:36-40 says in the Modern English Version…

36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?”

37 Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

We should all constantly endeavor to become people of great love.

Once again, that does not mean that you have to accept or approve of what others are saying or doing. In fact, often the loving thing is to point out that someone you love is being destructive to themselves or others.

And as a nation, we are being self-destructive on a scale that is almost unimaginable. We are literally committing national suicide, and until we start radically changing our behavior it isn’t going to matter much who is in the White House.

If you want to get your heart right on a personal level, a good place to start is by forgiving those that have hurt you or offended you. And that would include our politicians. I am certainly not saying that you should vote for anyone that stands for positions that are extremely offensive, but we can definitely forgive them and pray for them.

In addition, if you have had relationships that have been broken during this election season, perhaps now is a good time to reach out in a spirit of love and forgiveness.

Life is too short to go around holding grudges, and those that choose to forgive often find that they are the ones that are truly being set free.

About the author: Michael Snyder is the founder and publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog and The Most Important News. Michael’s controversial new book about Bible prophecy entitled “The Rapture Verdict” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

Government Software Calculates Your ‘Threat Score’ And Categorizes Citizens As Red, Yellow Or Green

Do you know what your “threat score” is? Today, more than 90 percent of all local police departments and nearly all government agencies employ some sort of technological surveillance. One of the most common applications is called “Beware”, and it scans billions of “arrest reports, property records, commercial databases, deep Web searches” and social media postings to give authorities an idea of who they are dealing with. So the next time that police pull up in front of your home, it is likely that what you have posted on Facebook will be searched. If you have said things that could be construed as “anti-government” or “anti-police”, there is a very good chance that you will have a very high “threat score” and you will be on “the red list”.

I understand that this sounds like something that comes directly out of a science fiction movie, but I assure you that it is very real. In fact, the Washington Post reported on this just the other day…

While officers raced to a recent 911 call about a man threatening his ex-girlfriend, a police operator in headquarters consulted software that scored the suspect’s potential for violence the way a bank might run a credit report.

The program scoured billions of data points, including arrest reports, property records, commercial databases, deep Web searches and the man’s social media postings. It calculated his threat level as the highest of three color-coded scores: a bright red warning.

“Beware” was created by a corporation known as “Intrado”, and police departments around the nation began using it back in 2012. When police officers using this software roll up to your home, they will instantly know which residents are on the “green list”, which are on the “yellow list”, and which are on the “red list”. Here is more from the Washington Post…

As officers respond to calls, Beware automatically runs the address. The searches return the names of residents and scans them against a range of publicly available data to generate a color-coded threat level for each person or address: green, yellow or red.

Exactly how Beware calculates threat scores is something that its maker, Intrado, considers a trade secret, so it is unclear how much weight is given to a misdemeanor, felony or threatening comment on Facebook. However, the program flags issues and provides a report to the user.

In promotional materials, Intrado writes that Beware could reveal that the resident of a particular address was a war veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, had criminal convictions for assault and had posted worrisome messages about his battle experiences on social media.

Everything that you have ever done on the Internet could potentially be used to calculate your “threat score”. So if you made some ill-advised comments on Facebook or in an Internet forum five years ago, there is still probably a record of that somewhere, and “Beware” will probably find it.

The next time you get pulled over or a police officer comes to your home, things that you may have completely forgotten that you ever said may come back to haunt you. With that in mind, I would like you to read the following excerpt from an article by Matt Agorist…

Imagine the following scenario: You are on your way home from work, driving down the road when you notice police lights in your rearview mirror. You are being pulled over.

As you sit there, on the shoulder, adrenaline rushing, simultaneously angry and nervous, the police officer, in his patrol car behind you, is sizing you up based on an algorithm that determines your “threat rating.”

The officer enters your license plate into a mobile application on his laptop. In a matter of seconds, this application crawls over billions of records in commercial and public databases, including all available social media engagement, recent purchases and “any comments that could be construed as offensive.” The application then determines if your “threat rating” is green, yellow, or red.

Imagine that you are one of our informed and frequent readers and understand the importance of police accountability and are unafraid to voice your entirely peaceful, yet strong opinion about police misconduct. Imagine that you left a comment on Facebook this morning about a particular officer’s misconduct; imagine that it is this particular officer who just pulled you over.

We live in a society that has become absolutely obsessed with surveillance.

A “Big Brother police state control grid” is being systematically constructed all around us, and we are being watched, tracked, monitored and controlled in hundreds of different ways.

So what can we do about this?

Is there any hope for change?

Well, John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute believes that the key is grassroots activism and non-violent resistance…

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, there is only one feasible solution left to us short of fleeing the country for parts unknown: grassroots activism that strives to reform the government locally and trickles up.

Unfortunately, such a solution requires activism, engagement, vigilance, sacrifice, individualism, community-building, nullification and a communal willingness to reject the federal government’s handouts and, when needed, respond with what Martin Luther King Jr. referred to as “militant nonviolent resistance.”

That means forgoing Monday night football in order to actively voice your concerns at city council meetings, turning off the television and spending an hour reading your local newspaper (if you still have one that reports local news) from front to back, showing your displeasure by picketing in front of government offices, risking your reputation by speaking up and disagreeing with the majority when necessary, refusing to meekly accept whatever the government dictates, reminding government officials—including law enforcement—that they work for you, and working together with your neighbors to present a united front against an overreaching government.

So what do you think?

Will we ever be able to get our privacy back, or has government surveillance become too entrenched?

Please feel free to tell us what you think by posting a comment below…

Bear Market: The Average U.S. Stock Is Already Down More Than 20 Percent

The stock market is in far worse shape than we are being told. As you will see in this article, the average U.S. stock is already down more than 20 percent from the peak of the market. But of course the major indexes are not down nearly that much. As the week begins, the S&P 500 is down 9.8 percent from its 2015 peak, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 10.7 percent from its 2015 peak, and the Nasdaq is down 11.0 percent from its 2015 peak. So if you only look at those indexes, you would think that we are only about halfway to bear market territory. Unfortunately, a few high flying stocks such as Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google have been masking a much deeper decline for the rest of the market. When the market closed on Friday, 229 of the stocks on the S&P 500 were down at least 20 percent from their 52 week highs, and when you look at indexes that are even broader things are even worse.

For example, let’s take a look at the Standard & Poor’s 1500 index. According to the Bespoke Investment Group, the average stock on that index is down a staggering 26.9 percent from the peak of the market…

Indeed, the Standard & Poor’s 1500 index – a broad basket of large, mid and small company stocks – shows that the average stock’s distance from its 52-week high is 26.9%, according to stats compiled by Bespoke Investment Group through Friday’s close.

“That’s bear market territory!” says Paul Hickey, co-founder of Bespoke Investment Group, the firm that provided USA TODAY with the gloomy price data.

So if the average stock has fallen 26.9 percent, what kind of market are we in?

To me, that is definitely bear market territory.

The rapid decline of the markets last week got the attention of the entire world, but of course this current financial crisis did not begin last week. These stocks have been falling since the middle part of last year. And what Bespoke Investment Group discovered is that small cap stocks have been hurt the most by this current downturn…

Here’s a statistical damage assessment, provided by Bespoke Investment Group, of the pain being felt by the average U.S. stock in the S&P 1500 index:

* Large-company stocks in the S&P 500 index are down 22.6%, on average, from peaks hit in the past 12 months.

* Mid-sized stocks in the S&P 400 index are sporting an average decline of 26.5% since hitting 52-week highs.

* Small stocks in the S&P 600 index are the farthest distance away from their recent peaks. The average small-cap name is 30.7% below its high in the past year.

After looking at those numbers, is there anyone out there that still wants to try to claim that “nothing is happening”?

Over the past six months or so, the sector that has been hit the hardest has been energy. According to CNN, the average energy stock has now fallen 52 percent…

And then there’s energy. The dramatic decline in crude oil prices rocked the energy space. The average energy stock is now down a whopping 52% from its 52-week high, according to Bespoke. The only thing worse than that is small-cap energy, which is down 61%.

If you go up to an energy executive and try to tell him that “nothing is happening”, you might just get punched in the face.

And it is very important to keep in mind that stocks still have a tremendous distance to fall. They are still massively overvalued by historical standards, and this is something that I have covered repeatedly on my website in recent months.

So how far could they ultimately fall?

Well, Dr. John Hussman is convinced that we could eventually see total losses in the 40 to 55 percent range…

I remain convinced that the U.S. financial markets, particularly equities and low-grade debt, are in a late-stage top formation of the third speculative bubble in 15 years.

On the basis of the valuation measures most strongly correlated with subsequent market returns (and that havefully retained that correlation even across recent market cycles), current extremes imply 40-55% market losses over the completion of the current market cycle, with zero nominal and negative real total returns for the S&P 500 on a 10-to-12-year horizon.

These are not worst-case scenarios, but run-of-the-mill expectations.

If the market does fall about 40 percent, that will just bring us into the range of what is considered to be historically “normal”. If some sort of major disaster or emergency were to strike, that could potentially push the market down much, much farther.

And with each passing day, we get even more numbers which seem to indicate that we are entering a very, very deep global recession.

For instance, global trade numbers are absolutely collapsing. This is a point that Raoul Pal hammered home during an interview with CNBC just the other day…

Looking at International Monetary Fund data, “the year-over-year change in global exports is at the second lowest level since 1958,” Raoul Pal, Publisher of the Global Macro Investor told CNBC’s”Fast Money”this week.

Basically, it means economies around the world are shipping their goods at near historically low levels. “Something massive is going on in the global economy and people are missing it,” Pal added.

The steep decline in 2015 exports is second only to 2009, when the global recession led to a 37 percent drop in export growth.

We have never seen global exports collapse this much outside of a recession.

Clearly we are witnessing a tremendous shift, and it boggles my mind that more people cannot see it.

As for this current wave of financial turmoil, it is hard to say how long it will last. As I write this article, markets all over the Middle East are imploding, stocks in Asia are going crazy, currencies are crashing, and carry trades are being unwound at a staggering pace. But at some point we should expect the level of panic to subside a bit.

If things do temporarily calm down, don’t let that fool you. Global financial markets have not been this fragile since 2008. Any sort of a trigger event is going to cause stocks all over the world to slide even more.

And let us not minimize the damage that has already been done one bit. As you just read, the average stock on the Standard & Poor’s 1500 index is already down 26.9 percent. The financial crisis that erupted during the second half of 2015 has already resulted in trillions of dollars of wealth being wiped out.

When people ask me when the “next financial crisis” is coming, I have a very simple answer for them.

The next financial crisis is not coming.

The next financial crisis is already here.

An angry bear has been released after nearly seven years in hibernation, and the entire world is going to be absolutely shocked by what happens next.

(Originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog)

100 Year Old Christmas List From A 7 Year Old Boy Shows How Materialistic Our Society Has Become

If there were no presents at all, would you still want to celebrate Christmas? 100 years ago, a little seven-year-old boy named Homer Mellen sent Santa Claus a letter asking for “a box of paints, also a nine cent reader, and a school bag to put them in.” And he added that if Santa happened to have “any nuts, or candy, or toys to spare” that he would love to have some. My, how times have changed. Today, nearly all of us expect to be showered with presents on Christmas morning, and then almost immediately people begin posting photos of their “Christmas loot” on social media websites such as Facebook. And as you will see below, the “Rich Kids of Instagram” have taken boasting about wealth to an extreme that nobody has ever seen before. Our society has become deeply, deeply materialistic, and whatever “meaning” Christmas once may have had has become almost completely lost at this point.

When I first came across this 100 year old Christmas list, I was quite stunned. First of all, this young boy was able to express himself far better than most seven-year-old boys can today. Secondly, his letter to Santa reflected a sense of humility and thoughtfulness that is extremely rare in this day and age. In case you cannot read the letter that I have posted below, here is what it says…

“Dear Santa Claus,” the boy begins in cursive handwriting. “Will you please send me a box of paints, also a nine cent reader, and a school bag to put them in.”

He modestly continues, “And if you have any nuts, or candy, or toys to spare, would you kindly send me some.” If so, Homer concludes, “You will please a seven year old boy.”

The Mellen family kept and cherished this note for 98 years in a little box containing “private little things like locks of hair, or the first picture that was taken,” Mellen explained, in order to “put away for memories for grandchildren.”

I don’t know about you, but that letter touched my heart, and it made me long for an era that has long since passed away.

In 2015, things are very different. Most people spend the month of December eagerly anticipating all of the stuff that they are about to get, and this is ingrained in our children from a very early age.

If you don’t think that this is true, just spend some time on the “Rich Kids Of Instagram” Tumblr page this holiday season. You will see example after example of rich kids boasting about the stuff they hauled in over their holidays.

To these young adults, Christmas is far better when you are rich. And from a worldly perspective, it is hard to argue with their logic. Just check out how “rich kid” Serena Marron spent her holiday season last year…

Need a break from parties? Spare a thought for Serena Marron, who is waking up after a week of uninterrupted revelry that started at lunchtime on Boxing Day.

That was when the 20-something student, who lives in New York, stepped off a private jet on the holiday island of St Kitts in the Caribbean and took up residence on a 62m motor yacht called the Apogee.

The next week saw her spend her days lying on the deck of the yacht (which costs £350,000 a week to charter) and nights flexing her Wall Street financier father Donald’s credit card in exclusive bars, restaurants and nightclubs.

In just two days, Serena and friends lunched at the £300-a-head Hotel Isle de France on St Barths, drank £150 fishbowl cocktails at the Le Thi nightclub and knocked back £400-a- bottle champagne at Nikki Beach bar.

She ended this bender shortly before dawn yesterday, posing bleary-eyed at £3,000-a-night Villa Rockstar at the Eden Roc hotel.

Does that sound like any Christmas that you have ever had?

And check out how 20-year-old “rich kid” Evan Luthra spends his dough…

Another major spender is self-made millionaire Evan Luthra, who boasts 126,000 Instagram fans.

‘I go to clubs and spend maybe $20,000 (£14,000) a night on alcohol or charter a yacht for $50,000 (£33,000) day,’ he said.

The 20-year-old who lives in LA has been developing apps since the age of 12 and the wealth he’s amassed allows him to travel around by helicopter.

‘One of the services I have, it’s like Uber for helicopter,’ he revealed. ‘You press the button and they give you a helicopter near you in five minutes.’

In his downtime, Evan likes to hire a yacht and post an invitation on his Instagram account for people to join him.

Within an hour he’ll have 20 girls texting him, eager to come along.

Where did these young people learn to act this way?

The truth is that this is what our society glorifies, and most of our young adults would act like this if they had enough money to do so.

As it is, the average American will spend 830 dollars on Christmas this year. Most people pile up lots of debt on their credit cards buying lots of useless stuff, and much of it will just end up sitting on a shelf somewhere taking up space. But most Americans do this year after year because society tells them that this is what they need to do in order to be happy.

Of course the truth is that most people do not find happiness during the Christmas season. In fact, the rate of suicide spikes to the highest level of the entire year during “the holidays”, and one survey found that 45 percent of all Americans say that they dread the Christmas season.

Where did we go wrong?

If Christmas really is all about stuff, what does that mean for those that cannot afford to buy much? Are their holidays “worse” than those that have a lot of money for presents?

It is often said that “whoever dies with the most toys wins”, but I totally disagree with that. Our lives are not about the stuff that we accumulate, and we can’t take any of it with us when we die. Instead, our lives should be about loving God and loving each other.

Rather than teaching our children to greedily look forward to all of the goodies they are going to get on Christmas morning, what if we taught them to try to be people of great love?

How different would our society look?

Just something for you to think about as you and your family enjoy “the holiday season”…

See the Hunting Pictures a Texas Cheerleader Posted on Facebook That Have Some Calling Her ‘Scum’ and Demanding They Be Removed

A Texas Tech University cheerleader’s Facebook page is causing an uproar for photos she posted showing her with large game animals she hunted in Africa.

At the time of this posting, more than 44,000 people have signed a petition to have Facebook remove Kendall Jones’ page “for the sake of all animals.” The petition was started on June 22.

“Remove the page of Kendal [sic] Jones that promotes animal cruelty!” the petition reads.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Facebook’s Unethical Experiment

Facebook has been experimenting on us. A new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that Facebook intentionally manipulated the news feeds of almost 700,000 users in order to study “emotional contagion through social networks.”

The researchers, who are affiliated with Facebook, Cornell, and the University of California–San Francisco, tested whether reducing the number of positive messages people saw made those people less likely to post positive content themselves. The same went for negative messages: Would scrubbing posts with sad or angry words from someone’s Facebook feed make that person write fewer gloomy updates?

Egypt Sentences Christian to 6 Years in Prison for Liking Facebook Page

International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned Kerolos Shawky, a Christian in southern Egypt, has been convicted and sentenced to six years in prison and a fine of 6,000 EGP ($840 USD) on charges of blasphemy and contempt of Islam. The ruling was handed down on Tuesday. His defense team plans to appeal and hopes the conviction will be reviewed before the end of this month, one of his lawyers told ICC.

As ICC reported, Kerolos was accused of violating Article 98(f) of the Egyptian Penal Code which prohibits “ridiculing or insulting heavenly religions or inciting sectarian strife” but is often used as a means of persecuting religious minorities, as the United States Commission on Religious Freedom highlighted in its 2014 Annual Report. The accusations brought against Kerolos also sparked violence against Christians in the surrounding area as shops and homes were vandalized and set on fire.

Rafla Zekry Rafla, a lawyer representing Kerolos and president of the Human Rights Commission of the Luxor Bar Association, told ICC he feels the charges are unfair. “Kerolos didn’t intend to insult the Islamic religion, only he made a like on the page of Knights of the Cross on Facebook,” Rafla told ICC.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Police: Thief Forgets To Log Off Facebook After Burglarizing Home

A Minnesota man is in jail because he logged on to Facebook.

Police say 26-year-old Nicholas Wig checked his profile from a home he broke into, and then he didn’t log off. It happened June 19 in South St. Paul.

“World’s dumbest criminal,” the homeowner James Wood said. “I don’t know.”

Wood had come home to find his house ransacked. His credit cards, cash and watch were all gone.

In their place, the thief had left a pair of Nike tennis shoes, jeans and a belt, that were all wet. Wood said it had been raining outside.

“I started to panic,” he said. “But then I noticed he had pulled up his Facebook profile.”

(Read the rest of the story here…)