The US is clearly now pushing Russia towards war. But if you read the signs correctly, Russia has been preparing for exactly this outcome for many years.

As John Kenneth Galbraith famously stated, "The process by which money is created is so simple the mind is repelled." As Peak Prosperity's Chris Martenson explains (as part of his excellent Crash Course), essentially, money is lent into existence though fractional reserve banking. The dollars you deposit at the bank? They turn into nearly 10x that amount as your bank subsequently makes loans using that money as collateral. As simple as the process is, nearly every American remains ignorant of it and its massive implications. At the heart of the matter is this: our money supply and its related debt obligations MUST continue expanding (thereby devaluing the purchasing power of each dollar ad infinitum) -- forever -- or the entire system collapses upon itself. Prepare to be repelled...

For reasons that have no rational explanations at this time, the US and Europe have embarked on a concerted program to demonize Putin, ostracize Russia, and bring the world as close to a major conflict as it's been since the Cold War, a time hardly memorable to many in the current crop of our elected officials. A dangerous dynamic is brewing between the West and Russia/Putin. We are seeing a rush to war very similar to the one that led up to Saddam's ouster, but this time, we have much less justification (hard to believe) and the opponent is tremendously more capable. There is little sense in the course the West is currently pursuing, little to gain, and much to lose. The main conclusion here is that not only is the US poking the bear, but it is doing so with increasing frequency and upping the ante dangerously with each step.

There are three fundamental forces disrupting the conventional order, and everyone with their eyes open sees them at work every day:

- Essential resources are becoming more expensive.
- The system of expanding credit/debt to fund more consumption (i.e. “growth”) has reached marginal returns and is failing.
- Networked software, automation and robotics are reducing the need for human labor on a global scale.

As a result of these three structural forces, economic instability is not going to go away any time soon.  Technology leapfrogs the obsolete and inefficient; no wonder conventional sectors and the market for traditional 9-to-5 jobs are both stagnating.

Economic laws are not optional. They are like the laws of physics - inexorable!

We talk a lot about Peak Cheap Oil as the Achilles' heel of the exponential monetary model, but the real threat to the quality of our daily lives would be a sustained loss of electrical power. Anything over a week without power for any modern nation would be a serious problem. When the power goes out, everything just stops. A blackout of a few hours results in an inconvenience for everyone and something to talk about. But one more than a day or two long? Things begin to get a bit tense; especially in cities, and doubly so if it happens in the hot mid-summer months. Anything over a week and we start facing real, life-threatening issues.

The following excellent discussion waxes across the defining trends of our time, including market manipulation by central planners, monetary hijinks of the highest order, crony corporatism, clueless and complicit politicians, and the explosion of State control. John sees us hurdling towards an increasingly certain future of banana-republic wealth disparity, currency failures, and civil strife. That is, unless we rise up to assume ownership of our own destiny. Doing so will not be easy, or pain-free. In many ways, the most important important question concerning our collective destiny is: Will we have the courage to take control of it?

Based on historical patterns and the alarming state of our current monetary system, Mike Maloney, monetary historian believes the fiat US dollar is in its last years as a viable currency. He sees its replacement as inevitable in the near term - as in by or before the end of the decade - "All of this is converging with the crazy experiments the Federal Reserve has done. During the last three monetary shifts, it was only the world's central banks and big international banks that were affected and were worried. The common man didn't even know what was going on. With this one, everybody is going to feel it. Everybody is going to know it. You will either be a winner or a loser, but everybody is playing this game."

In Reality, War Will Bring An End to the Petrodollar, and Impose Hardship on the Average American ...

"It is fair to say that this particular constellation of issues, problems if you will, has never been faced before at these levels. Never," warns Chris Martenson (of The Crash Course) but what does he mean when he says "Great change is upon us." This brief condensed look at The Three 'E's of - Economy, Energy, and Environment are all one needs to understand the current situation is anything but a sustainable status quo (no matter how reassured by record high stock prices the general public may be).

Coming to the understanding that the Status Quo is not sustainable is often a crooked path of overcoming programming, propaganda, denial and fear...

The situation in Iraq is serious, and is probably going to get worse before it gets better. The potential for this recent action to morph into a regional conflict is very high. That means that oil could go a lot higher, and if it does, we can expect the odds of a global economic recession and an attendant financial crisis to go up considerably from here. Before we dive into what's actually happening over there right now, we need to begin with a longer and deeper historical context of the region, which is essential to understanding pretty much everything in the Middle East. The western press likes to report on things as if they suddenly occur for no discernible reason, context-free and unconnected to our actions and activities over there. But the story of the Middle East is a story of intense external meddling -- especially by the US, recently.

The US shale oil "miracle" has about as much believability left as Jimmy Swaggart. Just today, we learned that the EIA has placed a hefty downward revision on its estimate of the amount of recoverable oil in the #1 shale reserve in the US, the Monterey in California. As recently as yesterday, the much-publicized Monterey formation accounted for nearly two-thirds of all technically-recoverable US shale oil resources. But by this morning? The EIA now estimates these reserves to be 96% lower than it previously claimed. Yes, you read that right: 96% lower. As in only 4% of the original estimate is now thought to be technically-recoverable at today's prices.

Dwindling resources produce the least admirable human behaviors, something science has tested and understands quite well. Ukraine is a bellwether; we will see other conflicts like it elsewhere in the world, and likely, in time, within our own nation. Which is why understanding the nature of social unrest is so important, particularly to those considering relocation (within or outside of their home country). You certainly don't want to leap from the frying pan into the fire as resource scarcity and conflicts are now part of the global equation.

As tensions between all parties in Eastern Europe boil over, Chris Martenson provides a brief tour through just some of the antics surrounding the US' involvement in bringing about change (you can believe in!) in Ukraine. We raise these items to counter the usual clutter and complete lack of context being provided in the US press and to illustrate that the US is already in pretty deep and therefore unlikely to back down now. Before we move on, do you not find it at all strange that the US media, usually extremely sensitive to anti-semitism, has given the McCain and Nuland support of the Svoboda party a complete pass? I find it to be like the case of "the dog that did not bark", meaning the silence reveals a very fickle moral compass at the heart of the western press. The demonization of Putin as the bad guy here is near complete in western media. But there’s plenty of mischief all around and, as usual, the US finds itself with some pretty strange bedfellows as it seeks an outcome it likes.