John Rubino is a former Wall Street financial analyst and author or co-author of five books, including The Money Bubble: What to Do Before It Pops and Clean Money: Picking Winners in the Green-Tech Boom. He founded the popular financial website DollarCollapse.com in 2004, sold it in 2022, and now publishes John Rubino’s Substack newsletter.
Not so long ago, the coming financial crisis looked more or less manageable. Currencies would plunge, inflation would spike, the monetary system would be reset, and something resembling normal life would return (though of course with gold bugs as the new financial elites).
Then the past few years happened, and now what’s coming looks a lot less manageable.
This post is the first in a series that chronicles just how ominously politics and geopolitics have evolved and why we should be turbo-charging our prepping for what might follow. Some recent examples:
(AP Sept 17) — Pagers used by hundreds of members of the militant group Hezbollah exploded near-simultaneously Tuesday in Lebanon and Syria, killing at least nine people, including an 8-year-old girl, and wounding several thousand, officials said. Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed Israel for what appeared to be a sophisticated remote attack.
An American official said Israel briefed the United States on Tuesday after the conclusion of the operation, in which small amounts of explosive secreted in the pagers were detonated. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the information publicly. The Israeli military declined to comment.
Among those wounded was Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon. The mysterious explosions came amid rising tensions between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, which have exchanged fire across the Israel-Lebanon border since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that sparked the war in Gaza.
(Zero Hedge Sept 18) – Axios and regional media are reporting a new wave of blasts in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, including explosions in the south of the country.
Israel has reportedly detonated hand-held personal radios used by Hezbollah members, the emerging reports say. The prominent regional news source War Monitor writes “Communications devices that exploded across Lebanon moments ago are hand-held radios, different to pagers that exploded on Tuesday, Security sources informed me.”
Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV is also confirming wireless devices exploded in the hands of those carrying them in several Lebanese areas. There are reports of at least nine new fatalities and over 300 injured in this second day of explosions.
(Reuters) – A large-scale Ukrainian drone attack on Russia triggered an earthquake-sized blast at a major arsenal in the Tver region on Wednesday, forcing the evacuation of a nearby town, war bloggers and some media reported.
Unverified video and images on social media showed a huge ball of flame blasting high into the night sky and multiple detonations thundering across a lake about 380 km (240 miles) west of Moscow.
NASA satellites picked up intense heat sources emanating from an area of about 14 square kilometres (5 square miles) at the site in the early hours and earthquake monitoring stations picked up what sensors thought was a small earthquake in the area.
(Axios) – Houthi rebels fired a long-range surface-to-surface missile into central Israel on Sunday, the Israeli Defense Forces said.
Why it matters: The attack, which Houthis said was launched from over 1200 miles away, is a mark of escalation from the Yemen-based militia group.
Yahya Saree, a Houthis spokesperson, said the group launched “a new hypersonic missile” towards a target in Jaffa, near Tel Aviv.
The IDF’s missile defense system didn’t intercept the missile before it entered Israel’s airspace and said the missile “exploded” in the air, scattering debris in open areas.
The IDF said fragments of air defense missiles launched to intercept the missile fell near a rail station and that a fire started near the Ben Gurion Airport.
(BBC) – A gunman hid for nearly 12 hours in bushes before Donald Trump played an unscheduled game of golf at his oceanfront club in Florida – leaving locals stunned at what authorities say appears to be the second attempt to assassinate the former president in as many months.
The former president was on the fifth fairway at 13:31 EDT (17:31 GMT), an area adjacent to busy roads near Palm Beach International Airport, when a member of his protection detail spotted a rifle poking out of foliage by the sixth hole.
Trump – who was evacuated unharmed – recounted on Monday night that he heard “probably four or five” shots ring out in the near-distance.
The gunman – who investigators say did not fire any shots – was concealed by the well-manicured shrubbery and tall palm trees that line the perimeter of the 27-hole course.
The suspect was equipped with two digital cameras, a black plastic bag of food, an SKS-style semi-automatic rifle – a weapon with a range of nearly 440 yards – and a scope to magnify its lens.
Not Normal
Until very recently, Israel couldn’t turn cell phones into bombs, Yemen didn’t have missiles capable of hitting Tel Aviv, Ukraine didn’t have drones capable of “earthquake-sized blasts” inside Russia, and US presidential assassination attempts were not a weekly occurrence.
2024 has a distinct “spinning out of control” vibe, so whatever we’ve been doing to prepare for strange times should probably be expedited. Just in case.
See the “Prepping” section of this newsletter’s Table of Contents for some quick ideas
STAY INFORMED! Receive our Weekly Recap of thought provoking articles, podcasts, and radio
delivered to your inbox for FREE! Sign up here for the HoweStreet.com Weekly Recap.
