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Ian Carr's avatar

It really is amazing that the common man and woman think that Governments have the publics interest at heart. Bill is right on most counts and as we watch these hucksters in power negotiate their way through the mess of their own creation and pretend that they know what they are doing, it hits me. They do know what they are doing and it is scary and coming fast.

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JJ's avatar

Canadian and US governments do not reflect the will of the people, but the views that they are trying to sell to the people by controlling the press. Both are for the new World order. The people becoming the slaves of the government. ..JJ

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MattieRoss's avatar

So I wonder what’s going to happen when the “Ukraine is winning the war” narrative being pushed by NATO members and MSM is revealed to be patently false?

Without making any judgements or political statements, Ukraine cannot win this war…even if the NATO decides to

(🎉SURPRISE🎉)

put boots on the ground and take on Putin directly.

That’s what concerns me. Hasn’t the US already wasted enough blood and treasure on unwinnable ground wars in Asia?

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Dennis T.'s avatar

Rarely is a war actually won, USA has not won a war since WW2.

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Apr 21, 2022
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Jonathan CV's avatar

Whew! I have put PG V on my "don't bother reading it" list, and recommend you do the same.

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George Thorn's avatar

You are lost in the wilderness of your own delusions. If we and I do mean you could just admit defeat, admit we were wrong and had made a massive mistake, we could then stop and rethink. What place do we make for ourselves on the massively overpopulated planet? I'll say this again, 20 years and 2+ trillion in Afghanistan, Trump made the deal with the Taliban, Biden postponed but honored, and we left and in that 20 years their population doubled from 20 to 40 million and now we are told there are 20 million facing starvation. How does anyone wrap their head around that solid piece of malfeasance?

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Apr 21, 2022
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George Thorn's avatar

LOL

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Dan's avatar

I'm sure I won't be the only one to point out (sorry) that points are (or were) found in the distributor, not the carburetor. But your point is well taken.

I've long pondered the huge gap between data and information. We've got way too much of the former that doesn't get processed into the latter. And way too many people who think they're informed because of all the trivia they absorb. Your writing is one of the rare places one can find actual information and it is much appreciated.

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Jonathan CV's avatar

What I have read in Bill Bonner's publications over 10 years, and certainly all of BPR's writings, is compassion for common people all over the world, including the Ukraine, based on their global life experience all over the world. And coupled with practical, usable action steps for those who wish to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Fake news is a big part of the problem - as BPR reminded us yesterday.

I agree with PG V, Ohimbo and Moondog's expressions of compassion for the Ukrainian people. So does Bill Bonner. I find no support whatsoever for their strident criticisms in either today's commentary or anywhere else.

Oh, well. "Man sieht nur was man weiss" said Goethe. One can see only what one already knows.

"A man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest."

In future when I see PG V at the beginning of a comment, I'll skip it. Mac Ohimsa and Moondog I'll watch closely for a while.

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Apr 21, 2022
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Jonathan CV's avatar

Oh, goodness. I don't read Goethe. I just read geniuses like BPR, Stephen Covey, et al, some of whom read Goethe.

How do you translate, "Was der Mensch nicht freiwillig ergibt dass kann mann nicht erzwingen“?

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Craig Whitfield's avatar

The Ukrainians have their Azov Neo-Nazis and the U.S. government has their Neocons. Birds of a feather flock together.

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tormntos's avatar

Amen to moondog, that beautiful country is a smoking rubble heap and the war crimes are unconscionable. And Bill is right to be concerned that our primary weapon of choice is: sanctions and that they WILL cost us here.

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Apr 20, 2022
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Craig Whitfield's avatar

Nazis and Neocons are both Fascists. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck .....

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Apr 20, 2022
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Craig Whitfield's avatar

Fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer. The U.S. adopted economic fascism back in the 30's and never looked back. Mussolini and Hitler didn't have the monopoly on Fascism; FDR made sure of that.

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Apr 20, 2022
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Jonathan CV's avatar

Again, PG V, name calling and careless with the truth. Oh well, I can relate. My mother said my middle initial should have been "O" for OftenWrongButNeverInDoubt.

But "morons and children or sensitive superficial sycophants"??? ..."if you paid any attention (you dont)." ..."wokist convention of school children...dont get your panties in a bunch."

OLD LINE conservatives are United Empire Loyalists, supporting geniocratic dictatorships (not regal/right/straight/rulers, but crooked oligarchies) who kept most of their "subjects" in serfdom by force. I've heard Europeans recently use LIBERAL to refer to the wing that supports liberal freedom for the common man.

Aristotle named Democracy (democrateia) and described it "the perversion of popularly elected government." Democracy is a perversion - my dema (neighborhood) voting to take property and freedom away from your dema. Democracy is, by its very nature, legitimized civil war: poor neighborhoods against rich neighborhoods against poor neighborhoods. Democracy is a mob, whipped up by demagogues. A mob is the majority of the moment, sure enough, but it's a lawless majority.

Politeia is the name Aristotle gave to the sustainable form of popularly elected government, where we vote for the benefit of the whole nation (polis). In fact, by definition a poli-tician is a statesman. Is it strange that the word politeia has been erased from our education? The governments today honestly refer to themselves as democracies, then confuse their subjects by referring to their elected promoters as politicians. Listen to your incumbents seeking reelection: "see the booty I brought home for you! Send me back and I'll steal lots more!" You send them out to steal from other neighborhoods who you think are stealing from you. What a shock to find out your own demotician are stealing from you!

All we have today are demoticians, bought and sold like pork bellies.

Democracy is weak men - making unsustainably bad laws - creating poverty and tyranny - which make strong men making good laws... We seem to have reached step 3. BPR is showing me how to be a more effective part of the solution. Can you suggest any improvements on Maximum Safety Mode?

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Kelly Williams's avatar

It is true and also as long as we try to understand Putin by American standards and not Russian we will never get it right. We are getting too reliant on technology and have no ability to read a map or basic survival knowledge, this will be our downfall at some point. Rebekah Koffler’s book Putin’s Playbook is quite the eye opener. Bill thanks for being you! Kelly

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MURREYVONMISES's avatar

How comes there is only a "heart" symbol to click for agreeing with a comment?? What about not disagreeing with some kind of symbol?? So I can let PG V know I don't like 2/3 of his comments. (and a few others also). Bill, Dan, Tom, we need an answer to that.

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Jonathan CV's avatar

I'm OK with just a heart. Hopefully I did not encourage a shift toward Facebook/Twitterdom at BPR.

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MattieRoss's avatar

It’s a Substack thing. But I agree there should be a thumbs down option here. The only people who need non thumbs down options are all the Karen’s and snowflakes and woke people on FriendFace and Sh*tter.

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Jmgauley's avatar

Sometimes understanding the story depends on where you start. With this link, the author started with the financial sanctions on Russia. But that appeared in reaction to the Russian intervention in Donbas. Then there’s the ‘NATO’ story and the bio labs story. And the 2014 CIA coup in the Ukraine….https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/04/thierry-meyssan/the-end-of-western-domination/

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John Mooney's avatar

It is possible that the Ukraines are not the nicest people on earth but they do not deserve to be murdered by a equally terrible and nasty Russian government and Hitler clone like Putin! No country should be destroyed for any reason!

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Craig Whitfield's avatar

Bill, spot on! When the final chapter is written the death of the U.S. empire will be the result of suicide. We live in a nation comprised predominately of Statists and our national religion has become Statolatry. Statists have ditched the "Golden Rule" for the "Ends Justify The Means." Unless the U.S. goes through a massive exorcism to rid its self of Statolatry there's no changing the trajectory. Having the world's reserve currency is the Golden Goose and both our elected and unelected miscreants are doing their best to kill it. I believe this quote from G. Michael Hopf is apropos: "Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times." Future generations will look back at the Baby Boomer generation and rightly blame them for their lower standards of living.

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George Thorn's avatar

I'm sorry but I'm so sick of drivel and idiot quotes. Hard times don't create anything also true of the rest of that simpleton slop. When you spend more than you earn you're in trouble, when you use more than you have you're in trouble, it's a planetary issue and, as far as I can make out, five billion of us need to get to the exit so the Earth can survive. That's correct folks, at our consumption levels this planet can support sustainably three billion.

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Craig Whitfield's avatar

You might get your wish if the Ukraine conflict goes nuclear. If you want to pick and choose who stays and goes join team Klaus Schwab and the WEF.

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George Thorn's avatar

LOL NO, I have no interest in picking, it is what it is. As it is my family is heading slowly to self annihilation. That said if it's nuclear armageddon so be it. We don't just like to kill each other we like to kill the land under us, aren't we great?

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Craig Whitfield's avatar

aren't our Governments great!

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George Thorn's avatar

Aren't WE our governments?

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Craig Whitfield's avatar

That would be a Hell No! If you don't belong to either Tribe you're disenfranchised. Count me as disenfranchised.

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Apr 20, 2022
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Craig Whitfield's avatar

So the U.S. government has the monopoly for using nukes in warfare. At least Putin is somewhat transparent. That's more than we can say about the Machiavellian Neocons in the State Department.

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Apr 20, 2022
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Jonathan CV's avatar

Do you mean shot, bombed, executed - Obama style?

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Apr 20, 2022
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Craig Whitfield's avatar

War should always be the last resort. The Western leaders failed miserably by not engaging in diplomacy beforehand. They had ample opportunities and purposefully dropped the ball. They got the proxy war with Russia they wanted. War might be the health of the state, but its living hell for the common man. Both the Russian and U.S. governments can both proudly don their black hats. As for me, I'm not buying anything these miscreants are selling.

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Apr 20, 2022
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Craig Whitfield's avatar

Ukraine was not going to become a NATO member due to their terminally corrupt government. This would have been an easy give. Getting the Ukraine to stop killing its citizens in the Donbas would have been another easy give. Even a no nothing Neocon could have sold this to Putin. They wanted their proxy war with Russia.

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Apr 20, 2022
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George Thorn's avatar

You know, sometimes you can be a bit silly.

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Apr 20, 2022
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Craig Whitfield's avatar

If you truly think Biden is making any decisions then you better go get that exorcism and fast.

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Peter P Pomialowski's avatar

With a kindergarten teacher as Prime Minister and a Finance Minister with a nasty skeleton in her closet. we need regime change in Canada.

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Gary's avatar

GH

While I agree that current sanctions yield unknown and unintended consequences, I find fault with Bill's apparent position as stated........."Do the Canuck feds or their American counterparts know what Russia is doing and why; are they really such evildoers? And how about the Ukraine? Is it really a valiant defender of liberty and democracy… or a bunch of neo-Nazi thugs eagerly egged on by the west’s warmongers? How do the feds know which side is right? Is either side right?". I take the position that the above quote is irrelevant. What really matters is that the "Ruskies" are killing innocent people by the thousands. If the civilized and "free" world means anything at all, then the Russian military and it's leadership need severly punished as of "yesterday".

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Dennis T.'s avatar

Bill, on this you're not totally correct, there's folks who think they know everything about everything. So enlightened are these if you suggest another point of view the war is on. These wars always seem to include the ad hominem attack along with argumentum ad verecundiam. As my father a salesman by profession used to say; "You know what you know, maybe more to the ignorant, but don't go thinking you're the smartest guy in the room."

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Mike Benson's avatar

Thanks, Bill. A good dose of home truth.

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George Thorn's avatar

I thought this was about money and investments not distractions.

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Guy Lindeman's avatar

Seems to me the US put sanctions on Cuba back in the 60’s. What good has that done?

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