June 25, 2008 journal, quoting from collapse and rumors of collapse by Stephen Yates. This is reciting what I have said many times but Yates so eloquently states his research. "Every so often the question hit you forcibly, like a ton of bricks, how much trouble are we in, anyway? The answer is: more than most Americans know or would be willing to believe. The latter might actually be a good thing. If America actually woke up. The government would well have mass panic on its hands. Skyrocketing gas and food prices are just the tip of the iceberg, after all. Roughly a week ago, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) one of the most elite banking establishments in the world-advised its clients to brace for a full-fledged crash in global stock and credit markets over the next 3 months. The problem: inflation, the real thing, not the contrived "core" rate reported by American government and the elite controlled media. "A very nasty period is soon to be upon us-be prepared", warned Bob Janjauh, the RSB's credit strategist. Our debt based and credit empowered House of Cards economy is living on borrowed time. The false prosperity of the Alan Greenspan era in particular is catching up with us. "I do not think I can be much-blunter" Mr. Janjauh continued. "If you have to be in credit, focus on quality, and a short duration, non-cyclical defensive names. Cash is the key safe haven. This is about not losing your money, and not losing your job". The Dow, as market watchers doubtless know, took a bath last week, dropping to under 12,000 on June 20. It may have rallied again by the time this article reaches print. There are plenty of old school investors who will think this is a good time to buy. They might end up losing their shirts before this is over. Mr. Janjauh concluded, "Globalization was always going to risk putting the G-7 bankers into a dangerous corner at some point". The easy money policy the Federal Reserve has been employing to keep the U.S. economy afloat is not working: though the full story is complicated. With the dollar still the world's reserve currency this is one of the biggest factors compelling inflation and establishing world markets. The European Central Bank E.C.B. is understandably dragging its feet. Morgan Stanley has warned of an impending catastrophe. Business writer Ambrose Evans-Pritchard states, "We see striking similarities between the trans-Atlantic tensions that built up in the early 1990's and those that are accumulating again today ... just as then, the Fed cut rates to bail out the banks and prevent an economic hard landing. While Frankfurt has stuck to a hawkish line and ignoring angry protest from politicians and squeals of pain from the European export ind-ustry... the point of maximum stress should occur in coming months if (ECB) carries out the threat this month by Jean-Claude Trichet to raise rates. It will be even worse yet-for Europe-if the Fed backs away from expected tightening. This could well trigger another catastrophic event, warned Morgan Stanley". Recently I saw a time line that placed the start of catastrophic collapse in September, with the demise of the dollar, shock waves would ripple through the global economy until they destabilize and brought down the financial system of all advanced nations. The global economy itself would be forced to shut down in January 2009". cont. Taken from The Times Examiner paper. June 25, 08. "I don't know how much credence to place on timelines this specific. There are simply too many variables. It is certainly possible that the old school is right to the extent that the Fed will continue to pull economic recovery rabbits out of the hat of fiat dollar assets for at least the immediate future. But then, when the Fed money house of cards finally does collapse, the effects will be still more catastrophic. And consider just 4 of those variables: 1-Israel and United States (militant neo-cons) are preparing for a military strike on Iran, some time between now and January 2009. The neocons claimed that Iran is aiding Iraqi insurgent. Israel has said openly that it will not allow any Islamic fundamentalist state to get its hands on a nuclear weapon. Iran's President Mohammed Ahmadinejah insist that Iran's nuclear program is for peaceful energy generation. It may not matter, as the neocon Israel axis gears up for the third war of aggression by Western powers in a decade. The unintended consequences could be gargantuan if Russia and China elect to get involved. Neither are exactly our friends. The latter is willing to sell us tons of cheaply made crud notwithstanding. 2-The politically correct program converting corn into "environmentally safe" bio-fuels is comfortable driving up the price of basic food-stuffs to the point where food riots have already broken out in poorer nations. Globalization has widened the gulf between extremely rich and extremely poor in every nation it has affected, including ours. Expect unrest to occur in advanced nations, including ours, when our former middle-class has to begin choosing between groceries, e.g..the electric bill or the mortgage payment or the gasoline necessary to commute is their service sector jobs. 3-The U.S. is the world's biggest exporter of grain. Disastrous floods in the U.S. Midwest are going to worsen the developing food crisis in 2009, probably sooner. 4-There is the above mentioned friction between the Fed and the ECP, with the former pursuing an inflationary monetary policy to head off a domestic economic meltdown and the latter wanting to fight inflation with a tighter policy. Obviously, they can't do both at once. A number of weeks back, I com-mented on several Internet writings by Russian-born and author Dmitry Orlov were of interest because he observed the fall-collapse of the Soviet Union firsthand. His book- Reinventing Collapse is now out. It is worth reading. In a sense, he has a foot in both world's. The former Soviet Union and ours. He can look at both with cool objectivity. While I don't agree with everything he says, he makes numerous point that are vital to our present situation. Orlov, you may recall argues that empires-of which the Soviet Union and America are the 20th country exemplars-have structural similarities that over ride their ideological differences. Both sabotaged their agrarian basis of independent family farms, the Soviets with collective farming and the U.S. with big agriculture factory farming. Both growth obsessed and extremist. Both embraced central control. Despite their ideological differences both built classless societies "and America dreamed", both are elite dominated, advancement then became a matter of political instead of achieving. There are exceptions of course. But in fact that we can identify many of them by name-Bill Gates, J. Bezos, Larry Ellison and a few others is telling. Both governments found themselves living beyond their means. The Soviets became mired in an unwinable foreign war in Afghanistan. The U.S. is mired in unwinnable foreign wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, The Soviet Union went bankrupt: The U.S. is going bankrupt. Both gave rise to political alienation and aggression we might call it. The average Soviet citizen knew they couldn't influence official policy and didn't try. Instead they adopted a cynical motto, "I pretend to work and they pretend to pay me. In the U.S., There is a growing population of refugees from the wings of our Washington politicians who realize they can't influence policy and don't try. The growing number of Americans want as little to do with the current federal government as possible. We may adopt a motto such as don't vote"; it only encourages them. Finally, having undetermined their peoples original agricultural economics and tradition replacing them with materialism and corporate governmental obstacles to fill, neither Empire created much in such the same as meaningful work for its people to do. Hence the well known rates of alcoholism in the Soviet Union and those of drug abuse, mental illnesses, suicide and so on in the U.S. empires require populations of mostly compliment common fodder willing to ruin their health and give their lives, if necessary, for the system. Both empires are state run educational systems set out to produce such common fodder-a labor force with the skills to follow directions but without the cognitive or the ability to question the system as a whole. And the cheaper this labor force would work, the better. Strictly speaking, we should not refer to the American empire but the Euro British / Pan-American empire, that product of globalization that has spread across the Western world (and is dominated by the Rothschild's. Rockefellers, Fabians and the Bilderbergers) that small adjustment made, most of Orlov's observations rang true to me. His most important observations-it is more of a warning, is that the Russian people most of whom had lost faith in the Soviet system long before, were in many ways ready when it collapsed. Though deprivation through caused by the inefficiency of central planning, they were hardly, self reliant, or suburban and car dependent and were not possessed with an entitlement mentality. Families tended to stay together; children did not end up in other parts of the country in pursuit of employment. Most housing was government housing; thus rent & mortgages were unknown to them. Our Almighty Dollar has been essentially irrelevant to them in Russia. Americans are just the opposite. Orlov's warning is that Americans, with their non negotiable suburban lifestyle, car dependence, and sense of entitlement, and what would be a relative helplessness in the face of serious adversity..." Dr. Steven Yates Ph.D. is on the staff at Greenville Technical College, State Institution and elsewhere. Balance of article should be on-line at The Times Examiner weekly.