Despite the title of this 2-hour video, most of the discussion is about the political repercussions of the Ukraine war and Russian sanctions across the West, plus the prospects for the approaching midterms. Some notes:

US economy - the official inflation rate is 9.1%, but shadowstats.com, which calculates it using the old metric from the 1970s, says it's actually 17.1%, the highest rate they've found in 75 years. And when you look at essential items like food, fuel and things that depend on fuel for its major input costs, it's as high as 50% in some places.

The Fed continues to raise interest rates, based on the myth that this is how Paul Volcker cured inflation in the 1980s. They may just sink the stock market - some watchers predicting 50% decline - and the real estate market - for the first time in several years, inventories are backing up and prices are starting to decline.

The danger is that by raising interest rates, they're going to target the wrong inflation. Over the past 20-30 years there's been huge increase in asset prices like cars and houses; while there may have been actual growth there, no one disputes there's also a bubble aspect to it, and when they prick that bubble they're going to bring those asset prices down.

But what they aren't going to do is bring down retail prices and these are the ones that affect working people. But these prices are also affected by supply issues, which were already bad but made worse this year by the sanctions war. With asset prices falling at the same time retail prices are rising, and with interest rates also rising, it's hard to see how you can avoid a basic collapse in investment and demand.

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Robert Barnes and George Gammon will probably file an FOIA lawsuit against the Fed for refusing to provide documentation as to what they've been up to over the past two years.

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BRICS - BRICS is trying to create a commodities-driven currency that's an alternative to the dollar's global dominance and that's a shoe that's yet to fall. What happens when the dollar truly loses its global dominance? That has a wide range of ripple effects in the US economy. Long-term it might have some advantages but short-term it's going to be painful.

Putin has confirmed that BRICS is looking at setting up an alternative reserve currency based on a basket of BRICS currencies. If Saudi Arabia joins BRICS and starts demanding payment for oil in this reserve currency, the dollar will be in serious trouble.

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Deep State - watchers of US policy from non-Western countries have concluded that Deep State globalist actions/failures are driven by incompetence more than mischievous malevolence. There's more and more evidence they never had a grand plan and their failures show these people are not very bright in the way that the equally evil but more clever Deep State players from the past were.

After the assassinations of the 1960s - JFK and RFK Jr, MLK Jr, Malcolm X - followed by the impeachment of Nixon that led to the reformist Congress that exposed Deep State malfeasance, they were smart enough to step back into the shadows, holding onto some of their power instead of plowing forward at the risk of losing it all. The question is whether the current DS purveyors have the smarts to do the same. They still have power now but their potency and their monopoly over the legislative branch is rapidly declining with their recent debacles, e.g., losing in Ukraine less than a year after the Afghanistan debacle.

Disturbing report in Financial Times about the weapons going to Ukraine; vast quantities being shipped to southern Poland, then taken to the border and distributed among trucks, private cars, etc. Now they're appearing on the Deep Web in all sorts of places; there's talk 2 howitzers were sold to the Russians; unconfirmed rumors that a MLRS was also sold to the Russians. No one is in charge, no one has any control, no real supervision or accounting or monitoring. What happens when one of these US weapons ends up being used against Americans?

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Midterms, Biden/Harris, Hunter Biden - The recent Hunter Biden leak shows his problems with addiction and shady activities have been going on for a long time, at least a decade and maybe more. Joe Biden, his sister and his brother also have a history of corruption involving foreign nations. And there's no way the Deep State and the institutional players in DC didn't know all of these things when they orchestrated Biden's nomination.

They wanted Harris or Buttigieg, but Harris's campaign was already dead and Buttigieg left minority voters cold so it came down to either Biden or Bernie and we all know the rest. The fact that they were willing to orchestrate the election of such a compromised candidate as Biden - Biden himself and his entire family - and one who was in obvious mental decline, is just mindboggling. There's also no doubt that intelligence agencies all over the world - notably Russia and China - know all of this as well.

2022, 2024: But he's become too much of a obstacle if Democrats hope to retain power (frankly, I think that ship has sailed). It's been one disaster after another with no end in sight.

So it's likely he won't be in office by the time the 2024 elections roll around. Whether he's removed before or after the 2022 midterms probably depends but they don't want Kamala, either. So what we may see is Kamala getting pushed out because of some real or fake scandal, Buttigieg being put in as VP and then Biden being forced to resign.

Alexander and Robert agreed about the Biden administration and its supporters' reckless attitude toward the rule of law. Polls showing majority of Dem think the Supreme Court should be abolished (guess they want to torch the Constitution as well?); calls for protests, doxxing and violence against the Justices; a restaurant where Kavanaugh ate was beseiged with fake dinner reservations, trying to do them economic damage; legal voices suggesting Biden should reverse the Roe v. Wade decision or refuse to enforce it.

Roe v Wade had become like a religious tenet within the neoliberal legal left. Last week you had law professors arguing with Sen. Hawley about how men can get pregnant. They don't understand how disconnected they are because they live in such a tight bubble.

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The illusion of control of the central planners - this was an interesting concept they discussed that rings true whether we're talking about a specific country, political group or the WEF/Davos crowd. The insanity we've seen and are still seeing - the pandemic, the sanctions and the resulting fallout of both are proof it's only an illusion of control, despite the conviction of the decision-makers otherwise.

Confession through projection analysis: Robert tells people to do this. So if Ukraine puts out Russian casualty #s, assume those are their own casualty #s. Same has been true of what Dems and media accused Trump of, it ends up being a script for what Biden is. Same with Putin right now - what they say about his secret health problems, that there's lots of internal coup plotting, lots of corruption scandals, scandals of ineptitude in policy - basically they're describing Biden. That explains part of the craziness we've seen.

Mention of the left and right in France working together to shoot down the vaccine passport. Alexander calls this a seminal moment given the historical acrimony between these groups but only time will tell if it was just be a one-off. This could be relevant to the US, what could be accomplished if left populists and right populists formed more alliances.