A Cold Dark Winter Is Coming
Got firewood?
I have never seen countries commit economic suicide before and it’s quite magnificent in its absurdity. It’s like I’m driving down the highway of life with blue and red flashing lights in the distance. And then you pass by a five-car pile-up and, in morbid fascination, you can’t keep your eyes away.
In Europe, the price of natural gas is spiraling out of control. It is now around 10 times higher than they were on average over the last decade and 10 times higher than in the United States. This has been wreaking mayhem across a continent that now finds itself on the precipice of an economic abyss. It’s sending inflation to 40-year highs, shutting down whole industries, shuttering businesses and filling the general population with dread when they get their energy bills in the mail. And it’s only going to get worse with winter approaching.
In May I wrote an article called Cycles Of Turmoil which contained a chart outlining the likely future of the human race if we maintain the current trajectory. The Great Reset agenda appears to be alive and well so it’s time to update the chart.
The tiers in my chart are not mutually exclusive. Each one builds on the other, contributing to the next stage. So the Plandemic is still raging (apparently) and the global economy is still struggling to bounce back. China is still neck deep in its zero-Covid insanity and wreaking havoc on supply chains. All the social engineering shenanigans lie in wait for the next wave of implementation and the technology it spurred into overdrive continues to be developed.
Regional war is still in its embryonic stage. It will continue to mature into 2023, Martin Armstrong’s “Year Of Hell”. We likely reach the top of the chart by October 2024.
If you’ve read any of my articles you may remember I’m a student of history. So allow me a brief digression.
In mid-October 2024 we will witness a planetary alignment event not seen since 536 AD, a year that Harvard medieval scholar, Michael McCormick describes as “the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year.". 536 AD was the onset of a volcanic winter that plunged summer temperatures by 2.5 degrees Celsius in Europe. The volcanic eruptions resulted in crop failures and famine that lasted for decades. It was later complicated by the Plague of Justinian, which began in 541. It caused millions of deaths and initiated the Late Antique Little Ice Age, which lasted from 536 to 660. Feel free to explore this tangent starting here - Volcanic winter of 536.
Before we move on I’ll drop this image of the planetary alignment on October 13th, 2024. Earth is caught in a perfect square of the 4 large outermost planets - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
European Energy Crisis
The energy crisis in Europe has often drawn parallels to the “Energy Shock” of the 1970s. That was a period of high inflation that while painful, was weathered just fine. So surely this energy crisis will be more of the same? Inflation will soar, supplies will be tight, and while painful we will again weather the storm. In fact, we’ll sail through that storm in a year or two compared to a decade the last time.
Well, let’s put that hopium pipe down for a second and analyze why this crisis is nothing like the 1970s.
On the 6th October 1973, a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel, now known as the Yom Kippur war. Their objectives were to reclaim the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights.
Richard Nixon requested $2.2 billion from Congress to support Israel on October 19th. Led by Saudi Arabia, OAPEC (Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries) initiated an oil embargo on the US and other Isreal-supporting nations - Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The price of oil tripled and even though the embargo only lasted a few months until January 1974, the price of oil remained high even after the embargo was lifted.
With that background out of the way let’s analyze why this Energy Shock is nothing like the one experienced in 1973.
Oil powers vehicles. Natural gas generates electricity and powers multiple industrial processes. A lack of oil means fewer cars and trucks on the roads. A lack of natural gas leads to higher prices which leads to de-industrialization and the implosion of economies. And that is exactly what is starting to happen.
The closure of even 25% of businesses is not just some mere inconvenience. Those businesses are employers. Closing them puts millions of people out of work and guarantees a Great Depression Redux. Imagine what 60% is going to do. And it’s not just the UK. A Goldman Sachs report predicts “65% industry curtailment in Germany if flows stopped coming entirely”. And with Nord Stream 1 shutdown indefinitely those flows have now stopped entirely.
And because of the absolute insanity of the gas futures markets, all of Europe is affected. Even those countries that don’t rely on Russian gas. The price of gas is set by the TTF (Title Transfer Facility) trading house in the Netherlands.
But it gets worse. Much worse.
Heavy industries that use a lot of energy cannot afford to stay open. This includes steel plants and other metal smelting and manufacturing operations. With no metals, we can’t make ANYTHING.
If you thought that was bad you might need to sit down for this next one.
Ammonia-based synthetic fertilizers that feed 4 billion people on this planet are made by mixing atmospheric nitrogen with natural gas under high pressure and temperature via something called the Haber-Bosch process.
High energy prices across Europe have resulted in the halting of 70% of the region’s fertilizer production capacity.
Less fertilizer equals less food. This is why “Food Crisis” is next up on my chart.
In October 1973 the population of the world stood at 3.913 billion. It is now exactly double that and it’s fertilizers that feed all those extra people.
Maximo Torero, chief economist from the Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN), who told Bloomberg TV that elevated fertilizer prices could decrease global grain production by upwards of 40% in the next planting season. Add into the equation the crop losses due to record droughts and the war in Ukraine and we are looking at nothing short of famine across the global south in 2023. This will lead to social unrest and regional conflict.
This is, of course, all by design. A 2020 white paper from WEF and the consulting firm McKinsey and Company warns of greenhouse gas emissions and potential runoff from fertilizers, advocating for an end to fertilizer subsidies in developing countries and praising China for its efforts to reduce fertilizer use.
Governments Can’t Fix This Problem
But they will try and the results will be disastrous. So disastrous that I might have gotten “Food Crisis” and “Economic Collapse” the wrong way around on my chart. Time will tell.
Germany is putting on a brave face and making sure everyone knows that all will be well as they have filled their underground reserve tanks to 80%. What most people don’t know is that those reserves will last just 2 months, taking Germany to mid-Novemeber when it starts to get really cold. Gazprom built those underground reservoirs to ensure gas flows during problems and maintenance disruptions. They were never meant to be an alternative to pipeline supplies.
But not to worry. Germany can get its gas in the form of LNG (Liquified Natural Gas), right? Nope. It can’t. It doesn’t have any LNG terminals to offload and gasify the LNG. Its only solution is to ship LNG to other countries and transport the gas via the gas pipeline network that crisscrosses Europe. An expensive and tricky endeavor indeed.
There is also another factor that many European countries are going to have to face. There is not enough LNG produced worldwide to replace the amount of gas that flowed through Russian pipelines. Someone is going to have to do without.
Germany has a bunch of nuclear reactors that could keep its citizens warm this winter. The problem is that they have mostly all been decommissioned because the country has been completely hijacked by the anti-human Green Party. But in desperation even they sent out a request to the operator of two its last remaining nuclear plants to halt the decommissioning of the plants on December 31st. It should be abundantly clear to the world that Germany’s Green Party simply does not understand anything when it comes to energy. The operator of one of the plants, E.ON, explained that it is not possible to put its Isar 2 facility in reserve mode beyond its scheduled closure at the end of 2022. German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said he was “somewhat bewildered” after receiving E.ON’s letter, which cast doubt on the plan’s workability. So Germany can’t even restart working reactors planned for decommission let alone their plants that have already been mothballed.
Robert Habeck simply does not care. He knows that Germany’s economy is going to be de-industrialized this winter. It’s a price he’s willing to pay.
These politicians are the new aristocracy. After a cold dark winter, the German populace might seek a very 18th-century French solution to this problem.
A new “Lehman Brothers” moment
European countries are desperately propping up their struggling power companies. Energy trading is being strained by margin calls of at least $1.5 trillion, putting pressure on governments to provide more liquidity and bail out utility companies. Finland has warned of a “Lehman Brothers” moment, with power companies facing sudden cash shortages. As the crisis deepens and further trillions are pumped into the market this will only turbocharge inflation and plunge the whole Eurozone into a deep recession. But of course, these bail-outs are all heralded as “anti-inflation measures”. Leaving out the obvious irony that household energy prices are not included in CPI (consumer price index) statistics, the measure by which governments massage data and calculate inflation, the irony that governments will stop inflation by creating inflation should not be overlooked by those of us who are watching the slow self-destruction of our way of life.
And, of course, one has to ask, if it’s that easy for governments to simply print money and feed it to energy providers, then why don’t they just pay for everyone’s electric bills all the time? Even though Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) would have us believe such things are probably possible, the current economic situation, stemming from the money printing executed during the Plandemic demonstrates the complete fallacy of this new school of econmic policy.
The heads of the Eurozone know the consequences of the calamity they have brought upon themselves. But these WEF puppets just don’t care. Because when the dust settles, and billions of people have been exterminated, utopia will be within their reach.
What he means is the “the end of abundance” has come for YOU. His class will still be eating caviar while you are making one potato stretch to feed your family.
The death of Queen Elizabeth marks the end of an epoch
I’m going to end this article on the story that has captured the 24/7 news cycle. Queen Elizabeth’s death has had a profound effect on the people of my homeland. I have never been a royalist but I also don’t discount the role the Royal Family has played in post-war Britain. The death of a monarch that has reigned since 1952 is a portent none should ignore. It signals the end of a cycle and the beginning of something sinister, as the name of the new monarch suggests.
King Charles III now sits on the throne of a country that once ruled half the world.
Charles I & II had reigns beset by civil war. It’s inconceivable that a reigning monarch such as Elizabeth would call her firstborn son, and heir to the throne, Charles.
The first English Civil War broke out in 1642, less than 40 years after the death of Queen Elizabeth I (!), and 17 years after the ascension of Charles I to the throne. I’m not going to go into the history but it was a bloody time and the Roundheads of Oliver Cromwell defeated Charles’ Cavaliers resulting in the king losing his head for treason in 1649.
Charles II, the son of Charles I, carried on his father’s war against the parliamentarians, until his defeat in 1651, and fled to France for nine years. He was eventually restored as monarch in 1660 after Cromwell’s death and the rewritten history paints him as a popular king. The fact is he constantly dissolved parliaments and interfered in politics and despised the new political realities ushered in by Oliver Cromwell that relegated the monarchy to a constitutional monarchy.
I leave you with this thought. Few people understand that the Great Reset is a plan that was launched by King Charles III. Long live the King!
We think along the same lines!
https://nakedemperor.substack.com/p/dark-winter-energy-lockdowns-and
Good analysis of the current crisis.
No scholar of English history, I knew that the royals assiduously avoided the name "John" but was unaware that "Charlie" was not that much better.
Speaking of portents, as a Christian, I hearken back to the fire that nearly destroyed Notre Dame Cathedral during Holy Week of 2019. A warning from Our Lady of what was to come, perhaps. It also allowed the bloody globalists to test-run their "build back better" slogan. In the end, this towering achievement of Western Civilization was not destroyed. We must remain hopeful. Suffering is in our future, but we will prevail.