American, and Western media in General, lately sound a lot like something out of a South Park Movie, except instead of singing "Blame Canada, Blame Canada", the current lyrics of choice are:
"Blame China! Blame China!"Really, its become an epic 3 ring circus, except that the clowns are scary, and the acrobats are swinging by shoe strings, the lions have got the whips, and the magicians have disappeared into their own hats. ....
While the US media is keeping people distracted with all sorts of ridiculousness, the global economy is collapsing, the TPP is about to be signed, and the Middle East is at war. But dont worry Im sure that Bernie and Donald can save it. ....
buhahahahhaha!!!!! Oh god, the political rhetoric right now is hysterically funny to those of us outside the brainwash zone..... or it would be, if I wasnt so freaked out by clowns.
"Blame China" is the clarion call of the US financial Media...... but anyone with half a working brain cell isnt buying the latest US Jobs report, nor the clowns telling Americans that the US Economy is just hunky dory and AOK.
But given the fact that not a ship is shipping anything anywhere, you have to wonder what they are selling in the US that is creating such a "strong economy".... air? (hopefully not from Los Angeles), Water? (hopefully not from Flint Michigan)..... Oh I know! Its the Stock Market thats buoying up the US economy.....
Oh SNAP! .... Well that cant be it.
Anyway, for those of you who are interested, there are a couple of interesting articles down below, that shed a spotlight on the undercurrent of global economic collapse.
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Live update of marine shipping as of this morning, 1034 gmt Jan 10, 2016- I have found ONE ship in the Pacific that is in transport, and two in the Atlantic in transport. ..... every other ship is docked or anchored. Strangely, the Mediterranean Sea is PACKED.
d Historic First: North Atlantic EMPTY of Cargo Ships in-transit - ALL anchored along coasts; none moving
Commerce between Europe and North America has literally come to a halt. For the first time in known history, not one cargo ship is in-transit in the North Atlantic between Europe and North America. All of them (hundreds) are either anchored offshore or in-port. NOTHING is moving.
This has never happened before. It is a horrific economic sign; proof that commerce is literally stopped.
The reason commerce has stopped is simple: People are not buying things. When people do not buy things, retailers do not sell things, so they do not order more goods for stock.
When retailers do not order goods, manufacturers dont make anything because there are no orders to fill. When manufacturers do not make goods, they dont order raw materials for manufacturing.
When there are no orders for raw materials, commodities sellers do not sell raw materials. When no raw materials are sold, there is no shipping by large cargo ships, (or railroads or tractor trailers) to move anything.
Put simply, the global economy is LITERALLY stopping. Right now. Today.
How things go from this point forward is simple: Without sales, retailers are not even "turning dollars" so they will have to layoff employees and close stores. Without orders, manufacturers will have to layoff employees and shut down. When manufacturing shuts down, suppliers of commodities will have to layoff employees and cease operations. As all of this economic activity comes to a halt, then the disaster REALLY takes off:
When businesses are not even "turning dollars" they cannot pay back their loans. Retailers, manufacturers and commodities suppliers will begin defaulting on bank loans within 30 days. When enough of them default, it begins taking-out banks. As banks begin to fail, others will run to their banks to withdraw money for fear THEIR bank will fail too; and therein starts "bank runs."
Continue reading here: https://www.superstation95.com/index.php/world/750
To see the live feed for Ocean/waterways shipping click HERE
"Nowhere To Hide" As Baltic Fried Index Careens To Fresh Record Low
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/07/2016 15:00 -0500
Another day, another fresh all-time record low in The Baltic Dry Index as Deutsche Banks "perfect storm" appears ever closer on the horizon. Plunging 4.7% overnight to 445 points, this is 20% lower than the previous record low in 1986 and as one strategist warns, "It’s a brutal start of the year, there’s just nowhere to hide on the market."
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-07/nowhere-hide-baltic-fried-index-careens-fresh-record-low
BUT That was Jan 6th..... everyone has gone silent on the Baltex Dry Index as of Friday Jan 8th 2016 when just two days later the Baltex has fallen radically again:
http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/BDIY:IND
Federal Reserve’s “net worth” collapses 33% in two weeks
Simon Black
January 8, 2016
In case it weren’t completely obvious how completely screwed up the financial system is, please allow me to introduce Exhibit A: the Federal Reserve’s own balance sheet.....
.....In the US, the Federal Reserve’s assets total $4.486 trillion, including more than $2 TRILLION in US government debt. The Fed also has total capital (i.e. net worth) of $39.5 billion.
That sounds like a lot. Until you realize that it constitutes just 0.88% of its total assets. Not even 1%!
This is a tiny, almost nonexistent level of capital at the Federal Reserve.
Put another way, the issuer of the United States dollar, the most widely used currency on the planet, and the central bank of the largest economy in the world, has almost no margin of safety.
This puts the entire global financial system at a tremendous level of risk....
.....But what’s really astonishing about all of this is how quickly the Fed’s balance sheet deteriorated. And why. Just two weeks ago, the Fed’s total capital was nearly $59 billion. And even that wasn’t very much given the size of its balance sheet.
Today it’s $39.5. This is an incredible 33% drop in just two weeks!....
....It turns out that Congress and the President passed a law last month called the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act. We’ve talked about this one before– the FAST Act is supposed to provide funding for America’s highway system. But one of the provisions is that a US citizen can have his passport revoked if the government believes in its sole discretion that he owes too much tax. Crazy. And, buried deep within the nearly 500 pages of legislation is a neat little section demanding that Federal Reserve bank surpluses above a certain amount must be turned over to the United States Department of Treasury.
In other words, the US government is so broke that they’re now confiscating assets from the Fed, putting the entire global financial system at even more risk.......Governments are completely bankrupt. And even central banks now are being pushed into insolvency by the bankrupt governments they support.
https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/federal-reserves-net-worth-collapses-33-in-two-weeks-18532/
With immediate effect, the following minor corrections are made to “Table A.1 – Currency and funds code list” (as advised by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency):
HOLY SEE (VATICAN CITY STATE) to
HOLY SEE (THE)
RUSSIAN FEDERATION to
RUSSIAN FEDERATION (THE)
UNITED KINGDOM to
UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND (THE)
UNITED STATES to
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (THE)
Read the article and watch the video report HERE: http://removingtheshackles.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-vatican-jubilee-national-bankruptcy.html
For a bit more than a month, the nitrates have reappeared in the systems water at a quite high concentration, so last week, I decided not to add ammonia to the water and track the levels of nitrates in the water. Interestingly, the nitrates have kept increasing, even if I didnt add more ammonia. Also, some ammonia has actually appeared in the system.
The Worms are in their new home...Had to remove a wardrobe to make some room first... It was dismantled & the backing ply was nailed to the batons behind the farm to make a sun block with the rest being saved to be used as shelving... The wire frame at the base of the farm was covered with some weed mat fabric..
The castings harvester was a bit of a let down... The castings were still too damp & just formed balls... We ended up going back to the proven method of just fishing them out with our hands...
Got some good shots of the White Cabbage Butterfly eggs yesterday...
The Shallots & spring Onions are being attacked by these little fellas on the Left... 7 were pulled from a square foot of onions... The little bugs on the Right are having a field day on the eggplants, pumpkins & a few other plants... 
Planted out the Red Strawberry & the pot of others we saved from Bed #1 a few months back... They are situated at the end of Bed #4 under the slightly over pruned Lemon tree... The Lemon tree is packed with fruit which is great, & has more flowers appearing on it all the time... There is also a feral Tomato growing through it which is doing quite nicely...
Some of the Rainbow Silverbeet has produced a rather stunning Flower spike... Hopefully we will get heaps of seed as we are looking at planting out the back of the Chook pen with Silverbeet for the Ladys... The Galangal is rather surprising... It has a very delicate sent that is very nice...
Weekly Harvest...
