By Jim Miles

I cannot say “I told you so” because I did not. But I can say “They told us so” because they did. “They” being the alternate media that provided news and views that the mainstream media (MSM) would not touch because it harmed their veneer of the world that all was running smoothly.

Certainly, there were signs in the MSM that all was not well. For a while forest fires were the rage in Brazil and Australia and California, soon to be forgotten as other news was created by the MSM.

Greta Thunberg became a climate star or a conspiracy victim depending on how you wanted your views heard, but that only lasted for a short while. A few mass murders here and there were big enough to make it into the MSM and the politicians and Hollywood were excited for a few days before gun fever died down.

A  few war threats flared up and died down, some rather serious political grandstanding that could have led to much worse but fortunately died down rather quickly.

The biggest distraction was and still is Donald Trump and his supposed Russian connections (hey, he’s a businessman, he’s bound to have some) and his impeachment on something that even now I cannot think of, and his many tariffs and sanctions being used to keep the supposed nasties of the world under control.

The sad part is, a lot of citizens could care less as long as their cozy distracted lives were allowed to proceed more or less as they had learned to live within the limits of their consumer-oriented lives.

Otherwise, everything was copacetic, moving along nicely.  Unemployment numbers were at record lows, the stock market was at record highs, inflation was under control and was supposed to be even a bit higher for the neoliberal capitalist order to function properly.

The US was the exceptional nation and its western allies in NATO, Israel, and the EU were more than willing and more or less able supporters.

Who Told us so?

But then something happened and as if out of the blue skies a meteor struck the earth, everything changed within weeks. But this was not a strikeout of the blue – it was foreseen and foretold numerous times by numerous authors and researchers working for numerous alternate websites that were ignored by the MSM.

There are many alternate websites that warned that what has happened was due to happen any time soon, although what also surprised many of them was how long the powers that be were able to sustain the veneer that all was well.

Those that I have followed over the last decade or more fall into two categories: those focused on political/global affairs; and those focused on domestic or foreign financial affairs.

The political ones include Counterpunch, Palestine Chronicle, Global Research, Countercurrents, USA Watchdog, Fort Russ News, RT News, and Axis of Logic.  There is often frequent overlap between these sites as they copy and print articles from each other, and from many other perfectly good alternate sites that others may have as their main sources.

The financial sites started with Max Keiser on RT News.  From there I started looking at other sites, again many which copy and print related articles from other good sites.  Among those on the alternate scale who speak most intelligently are people such as Egon von Greyerz, Peter Schiff, Bill Holter, Michael Pento, Jim Sinclair, Michael Hudson, Alasdair MacCleod – all on their own sites and quoted frequently on other sites.

I do not always understand what is being said as much of the financial world is filled with its own arcane lexicon, much of it meaningless except to those who have worked the system, as most of those listed above have.

Also, I have a very dim view of economics anyway, there is nothing scientific about it, and its economic formulas have about as much legitimacy as astrology – which at least has the mathematical legitimacy of knowing where the stars and planets are at any given time.  But the fundamental message was consistent…

What did they Tell us (It is not the COVID-19 Virus)

We were told it was all a great big bubble, built on the foundations of previous bubbles and all it needed was something to poke the bubble and drain it of air – or in this case phony digital money.  They hesitated to tell us when, although last fall some of the more observant saw something happening well before the COVID-19 virus hit.

And that is the main news – the economic woes most people are now facing have not been caused by the virus but by the economic bubble(s) popping rather loudly and quickly as the newly laid off ten million US citizens and the many millions elsewhere can attest to.

But the bubble received a double prick. The first was the COVID virus.  The second was the ‘free for all’ in oil production instigated by our friends in Saudi Arabia who need a higher oil price in order to sustain their economy and their terror activities throughout the region and beyond.

And yes, they told us so.  The financial bubble was all ready to burst. COVID and oil did the pricking.

So What now are They Telling us

The MSM is concentrating as usual in the short term. The virus will go away. The markets will rebound. The government will keep things going with their trillions of dollars of support. Life will go on in a few weeks, a few months, maybe next fall.

Reading the alternate media presents a different story.  According to the financial analysts mentioned above, this is the start of the Greatest Depression.  The virus may go away – and then return in waves like the flu does seasonally.  The markets will have a few dead cat bounces (after all cats do have nine lives) and then fail almost completely.  Trillions of new dollars are and will be added to the debt to contribute to the largest future forecast of all – the demise of the US dollar.

That is the really big news and it is both awful to consider and also awesome to consider.  As the US does its best to reinflate the economic bubble, they are adding trillions of dollars to the already immense and unpayable global debt. Of the many variations of what this then causes, all the analysts tend to agree that the US$ will become worthless, maybe not right away, but in a few years as more and more artificial fiat money is pumped into the system.

The Implications are Profound

The US., already on its way to becoming a third world country, will dive deeper into that realm.

Many/most large corporations and banks will be bankrupt, taking along all the money robbed from the common masses over the years.

With a useless US$, bribery, graft, sanctions on the bad side and trade, investment, and payrolls on the good side will have to take place with another currency – thus the US loses most if not all of its global financial power to control others.

Oil will no longer be sold in dollars, cratering the economies of a few countries (Saudi Arabia, the US, Canada) but not others (Russia, in particular as they are mostly clear of foreign debt and have large gold reserves and have elevated their domestic infrastructure and agricultural production).

Unfortunately, having one of the most belligerent, aggressive, egotistical militaries in the world, the US could decide to go ballistic – literally – just to deprive everyone else of the ability to carry on without them.

The environment will receive a bit of a break as commercial and industrial demands fall off dramatically but it will probably be too little too late.  When it comes to short term demands for survival, the environment will probably not be much of a consideration.

I told you so

Lastly, this will not be an “I told you so” statement. It has already been postulated in different forms by the alternate media personnel. We are entering a new world order, and it will be quite different from what it looks like now – let’s hope collectively we can learn from it and create a better world rather than an even more belligerent one.

– Jim Miles is a Canadian educator and a regular contributor/columnist of opinion pieces and book reviews to Palestine Chronicles.  His interest in this topic stems originally from an environmental perspective, which encompasses the militarization and economic subjugation of the global community and its commodification by corporate governance and by the American government.