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Sep 29, 2023Liked by Trygve E. Wighdal

Great research work! Well done and thanks!

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Thanks!

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What happened to New Orleans was a window into "Government vs Citizenry!"

No one learned a lesson, they never do. So long as they wave a fucking flag, praise god, and think soldiers are cool, they are guilty of enabling their own collapse. I only have pity for the outliers.

But a great article for us echoes in the chamber. One of your best.

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Sep 29, 2023Liked by Trygve E. Wighdal

Whoa! Great essay ! Thanks for all the work Trygve! Follow the money. One might have to ask ‘who’ butters your bread? A retired school teacher friend of mine has been harping (value signaling really) since the beginning of the Covid fiasco about his personal rights as guaranteed by the Hippocratic oath and Nuremberg proceedings. Now he is doing the same thing with his alleged disgust with the Ukrainian conflict. I asked him if he knew in what his CalSTRS retirement fund was invested in. He didn’t know so I checked myself. Lotsa butter from big pharma and MIC. He owns 25 acres in the country, has vintage cars, a sailboat and massive *free time*. Make of that what you will. I know what I think.

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Thanks man! I tried and tried to delve deeper into the story you shared, only to fail at each turn. I found myself overwhelmed by the complexities hidden below the tip of the iceberg.

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Sep 30, 2023Liked by Trygve E. Wighdal

Sorry Trygve! I misled you. When I thought about when I did my research it was a while ago and I did it on CalPERS not CalSTRS. I can’t remember the path I took to get to enough of a bottom to confirm my theory. My friend did inform me when the topic came up that he was CalSTRS not the other. But the interesting thing for me was that he had a very emotional reaction to the initial Covid mandates and lockdowns. We had some very heated discussions where he was close to advocating revolution, and honestly I was right there as well. So at one point in our dialogue I said , “ ok, let’s burn this bitch down, but, are you willing to give up your pension, current monetary system and social structure along with that?” His revolutionary ire faded after that. And thus the paradox that I felt. This leads me to my bigger question; who have *we* become and are becoming ideologically, politically and economically, at this point in history? A synthesis of all the ways we as people on the planet came? It’s a globally interconnected and technocratic world. I recently reread For Whom The Bell Tolls. Chapter 10. When Pillar recounts the time when Pablo was still a ‘man’ and capable of the violence required for the resistance. The people(fascists) he forced to run the gauntlet and then over the cliff. Man, that shook me to the core. I look around me at the people in the business community when I’m in town and I see them…..and I see myself.

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I wrote a whole damn book on the topic of “What if I should discover that I myself am the enemy who must be loved? What then?” ~ Carl Gustav Jung.

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Oct 2, 2023Liked by Trygve E. Wighdal

I know! I’m afraid to read it! That cover is scary as hell! I’m gonna do Tycho first. 😜

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Sep 29, 2023Liked by Trygve E. Wighdal

Wow .. amazing piece of research. As money is just a claim on physical resources E.g, energy products such as oil and coal, plus minerals and raw materials that sit at the base of our economies, the numbers could in fact represent nothing more than entries on a ledger .. just an aspiration. The US state making commitments to spend x tells us nothing about its ability to provide x. In WW2 the US was a powerhouse of manufacturing and could make arms at a mind boggling scale. It has no ability to do so now .. it’s a hollow husk of the US that fought 80 odd years ago..

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Thank you. You wrote "In WW 2, the US was a powerhouse of manufacturing and could make arms at a mind-boggling scale." I remember my father, who was an engineer by trade and a history buff at heart, telling me stories about Liberty ships production and everything else that symbolized America, alongside its no-nonsense, straight-to-the-point men and beautiful women, in a country whose individual liberties enabled it to thrive.

As an immigrant deeply in love with both that mesmerizing land and the American myth and dream, I can't help but observe the sad state of that dream today. It's being butchered and murdered. It's truly unbelievable and painful.

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