Oh Say Can You See?

Bridge Collapse a Symbol of Decline [The Daily Reckoning] March 30, 2024 [WEBSITE]( | [UNSUBSCRIBE]( Oh Say Can You See? Saratoga Springs, New York Editor’s note: In last Saturday’s reckoning, James Howard Kunstler created such a stir, we figured we’d turn him loose again. Today, James discusses the Key Bridge collapse and how it represents what he believes to be American decline. [James Howard Kunstler] JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER Dear Reader, Who was not impressed seeing the sudden and total collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge after getting its pylon bonked by the container ship Dali a few hours before the dawn’s early light in Baltimore harbor? The symbolism was hard to miss. In America’s ongoing death-of-a-thousand-cuts, that one literally severed a major artery, but it may take a while to know how badly the wounded colossus known as the USA is bleeding out. “Joe Biden” emerged from his crypt pronto to state that the federal government would pony up the cost of building the bridge back better, meant to reassure the public, you’d suppose. The federal government meaning your tax dollars, of course. It’s so easy to spend money when it’s not your actual money. But perhaps the real reason was to obviate an otherwise requisite investigation of the crash by shipowner Grace Ocean’s insurance company — since legal wrangling over responsibility would add more years to the already years-long estimated bridge replacement time frame. And Gawd knows what else they might discover about how the darn thing came to pass… rumors of a Ukrainian captain at the Dali’s helm… stuff that the ruling intel blob might not want to get out there, especially given the still-murky possible role of the joint USA-U.K. black-op blobs in the Moscow Crocus Theater Massacre just a week earlier. Putin’s Revenge? The Crocus op, you understand, was probably the worst screwup qua Three Stooges blob operational procedure in memory, since four of the six surviving Tajiki shooters were nabbed in a car enroute to the Ukraine border (where they would’ve been whacked into silence, since they failed to martyr themselves at the scene of the crime), and by now had surely sung their hearts out to persuasive interrogators of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) — the takeaway being that President VV Putin has got to be mighty ticked off and itching for revenge. Was the Key Bridge takedown the first repayment for that, lots of people inside and outside Blob Central were probably wondering? I’m not saying it was. The whole thing may well have been just an unfortunate accident, as the government says. Things happen, and sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. But you’d be naive to think it didn’t cross the blob’s mind. [Crypto Millionaire Reveals His #1 Coin for 2024]( [Click here for more...]( Did you miss the Bitcoin boom? Don't worry - James Altucher (who called BTC success at $114 in 2013) just revealed his top crypto for this year, with the potential to turn $100,000 into $10 MILLION by 2030. [Click Here To Get The Ticker 100% Free]( You’d also have to wonder, qua the bridge disaster itself, about the implied reverberations through the insurance industry. Consider that the insurance industry is a major cog in the machinery of finance and banking, since insurance company reserves are traditionally allocated in supposedly safe sovereign treasury bonds. Liquidations anyone? Maritime insurance was already groaning under the burden of all that monkey-business in the Red Sea, thanks to Houthi rocket and drone attacks on the shipping of Western Civ. Are the banks quaking harder now? Many across Western Civ were already trembling before the Key Bridge incident. 100,000 Potential Terrorists? While the awesome spectacle of the bridge collapse traumatized the country, I imagine that for many it also brought to mind the fantastic flow of 10,000 illegal border crossings a day, stage-managed by the “Joe Biden” Homeland Security team. Did you kind of wonder how many in that 10K-a-day flow might be the same species of Central Asian mutts who volunteered to slaughter over 150 (so far) Russian concert-goers? Nobody is checking who they are, you realize. They just step on U.S. soil, get issued smartphones, loaded debit cards, walking-around cash money, airplane and bus tickets and, voila, there they are in your home town tomorrow, looking for something to occupy themselves. Thanks a bunch, Alejandro Mayorkas! Are you wondering what sort of mayhem they might be capable of unleashing any place from Bangor to Burbank in the weeks and months ahead? (And, while you’re at it, think about all the food processing plant fires, train wrecks and other mysterious tribulations around the country the past couple of years). I imagine that the bridge collapse, regardless of its cause, gave some pretty bad people some ideas. [“I Am Deeply Disturbed by the Impending Aftermath of the Presidential Election.”]( [Click here for more...]( No one has been properly warned of the election threat facing our nation – until now. Former White House Advisor Jim Rickards explains the disturbing future that awaits us in November. [Click Here]( Consider that this very week alone, following the Key Bridge disaster, absolutely nothing has been done by our government to stem that flow of countless potential saboteurs into the country. The news media isn’t even talking about it (of course). Again, I’m not saying that the bridge collapse was a deliberate act of sabotage. But if even 1% of the illegals that have entered the U.S. over the past few years are up to no good, you’re looking at 100,000 potential bad actors. The prospects might look a bit unnerving, wouldn’t you agree? Things catching fire, blowing up and falling down here, there and everywhere… more of those thousand cuts adding up. Is It Just Incompetence? Just maybe, the dazed-and-confused (possibly hypnotized) American public, aka, the “voters,” might begin to suspect that “Joe Biden” and the Party of Chaos that owns him, are actively facilitating the on-going takedown of our country. After a certain point — now apparently passed — sheer incompetence is no longer a plausible explanation for what you are seeing. Oh, one other thing, look out for on-the-ground economic reverberations from the Key Bridge disaster. For instance, Baltimore is the USA’s top port for importing and exporting automobiles. Also, earth-moving and large farm equipment, fertilizer, lumber, coal and steel. Other arrangements must be made, for years ahead, considering the trucking links. It’s especially an interruption for trucking between the mid-Atlantic/New England states and much of Dixieland. How many years will it take for the government to build a new bridge, considering all the environmental impact studies that will have to be done and all the DEI standards that will have to be met. Think of its impact on the saltmarsh sparrow! And think of all the racially and sexually diverse engineers and contractors that’ll have to be found to design and build the bridge. It Ain’t Going Away Anytime Soon In the meantime, the collapse will affect the transport of fruits and vegetables to the Washington-Boston corridor. Things are going to cost more and we are already in an inflationary trouble zone. How will this thunder elsewhere through an economy which, despite the japes of “Joe Biden’s” statisticians, is actively disintegrating? The fluttering wings of this black swan already throw a chill on spring’s incoming zephyrs. And it ain’t going away anytime soon. Regards, James Howard Kunstler for The Daily Reckoning [feedback@dailyreckoning.com.](mailto:feedback@dailyreckoning.com) Editor’s note: Tech guru and entrepreneur James Altucher just placed a [most unusual bet.]( He put $100,000 into one strange idea. And if his thesis turns out to be right… He could walk away with a $10,000,000 fortune by 2030. More importantly, he’s even sharing [the name and ticker symbol of this idea]( so you can have the chance to target similar profit potential as well. What is it? Should you get in on it? [Get the full details here]( Thank you for reading The Daily Reckoning! We greatly value your questions and comments. Please send all feedback to [feedback@dailyreckoning.com.](mailto:feedback@dailyreckoning.com) [James Howard Kunstler] [James Howard Kunstler]( is perhaps best known for his 2005 book [The Long Emergency]( which predicted the financial meltdown and the implications of the peak oil problem. His 1993 book, [The Geography of Nowhere]( about the fiasco of suburbia, is a campus cult classic among the architecture and urban planning students. [Paradigm]( ☰ ⊗ [ARCHIVE]( [ABOUT]( [Contact Us]( © 2024 Paradigm Press, LLC. 1001 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, MD 21201. By submitting your email address, you consent to Paradigm Press, LLC. delivering daily email issues and advertisements. 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