Ive toyed around with the thought of a few possibilities:

1) Military vassals states. Large standing armies using advanced weapons require large economies to support. Relative periods of wealth can be supported to develop the infrastructure needed for these ends. The US acts as the military vassal state of the international despots. There are parallels in history with the Ashina/Sogdian clan using the Gokturk empire as their military vassal. The military vassals are deployed against nations wishing to establish governments and economies outside of the international cabal.

2) Technological control. Allowing the funding and advancement of technology for means of greater control. Note that the internet, financial system, transportation infrastructure could be built in a more efficient way which grants greater quality of life compared to how its currently implemented. Yet its always built and rolled out in a way that grants greater centralized control and surveillance.

3) Economic churn. Bubbles are created and popped to cause social crises, extract resources, and enrich the money changers. By creating fiat currency, expanding and contracting credit, and causing currency crises, the central bankers can cripple entire nations. Foreknowledge of events allows them to profit off losses, buy up assets for a song, and sell them off at the top of centrally created bubbles. During the bubble inflation, many people experience the false sense of a ‘boom time’. Currency crises and depressions allow them to buy up land and assets off desperate and struggling natives.

4) Destruction of social fabric. By forcing people to place economic success before the community, nation, and family, you can subvert all of them. Once times of economic depression hit, there are no bonds for most people to fall back on. This is a fundamental strategy in destroying nations (divide and conquer).

Occassional periods of prosperity may be employed by TPTB when they accomplish the above goals.

Do you think that ‘The powers that be’, and I mean the real deal here, allow a boom time once every x years/generations to keep people sold on the idea of ‘The way things are’ being ‘The way things should be’. The overall cost to them when compared to the rest of the ‘boot stamping on a human face/inflating away his purchasing power’ time would be minimal. Speculate to accumulate. If we go right back to the Feudal times, I don’t mean the peasants ever had a boom themselves, rather that the boom would have been something to aim for, or that they would have been too lowly even to register.

The obvious parallel is a war every x years/gens to keep the population in check,

These people work in multiple lifespans I’m led to believe, with no one generation actually seeing the end result, whatever it is.

Bikes are no good or I’d consider using my 750 big trailie, but the super-scoots have such a big ‘boot’ I can cram what would need panniers on a bike in there

You never hear that they are ready for peace just as much as for war:

“AP, Mar. 8, 2017 BEIJING — China’s foreign minister said Wednesday that North Korea could suspend its nuclear and missile activities in exchange for a halt in joint U.S.-South Korea military drills, in an unusually public proposal that analysts said showed Beijing’s growing alarm over the tensions.”

Notice how those US “drills” are always conveniently omitted in the media.

It’s like deja vu all over again, except not funny:

Why dejavu, because this?

“The annual Team Spirit exercise, held every spring, involved transporting thousands of U.S. troops to Korea, to conduct training exercises designed to repel a simulated North Korean attack upon the South. The North hated this exercise—it was an annual reminder to them of their humiliation in 1950, when President Harry S. Truman had shocked them by sending U.S. troops to repel their original invasion. In response to Team Spirit, North Korea always put itself on an extremely high military alert level, and sent out waves of propaganda against the “American warmongers and their South Korean lackeys.”

After a good deal of pushing and pulling, General Robert RisCassi and I got the Pentagon and the Korean Ministry of Defense to agree to cancel the 1992 Team Spirit exercise. They jointly announced this late in 1991. Shortly thereafter, the two Koreas signed a pair of significant agreements. The “Basic Agreement,” signed on December 13, 1991, pledged both countries to work toward “reconciliation, nonaggression, exchanges and cooperation.”

On December 18, President Roh announced that there were no nuclear weapons in South Korea. On December 31, North and South Korea signed the “Joint Declaration” calling for a denuclearized peninsula and pledging to allow inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The signing of these agreements ushered in a period of good feelings between North and South Korea. A series of eight prime ministerial meetings was held, and the prospects for a major reconciliation were higher than ever before.

Unfortunately, this happy period did not last long. At the annual security consultation meeting held at the Pentagon in the autumn of 1992, the Team Spirit exercise was reinstated for March 1993. Both military establishments had cited the invaluable training that this exercise provided, and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney reinstated the exercise without consulting either the State Department or me.”

Former ambassador to SK Donald P. Gregg, which brings it back to stereotypes, they are true about Cheney, there is no peace effort he didn’t personally undermine!

Here is a recent youtube clip of said ambassador, and another.

Have you ever heard this perspective in the MSM?

Ever heard that they are just waiting for an US administration that will talk to them?

I don’t think so.

You’ll be wanting the modern equivalent of a cx500 then sir, step this way….

Fantastic expression, I’m going to have to use in conversation at some point

Right about scooters, the works 400cc scooter had a new F.I. pump and clutch/gearbox components about 4000 miles ago, expired with a shrieking noise and lots of swarf all over the place last week. As the bike is the key transport to making my work in London somewhat unique and therefore viable, the knock on effects go beyond a bill and I bet the parts will be on an order only basis. Utilitarian to the bike shop’s accountants maybe, me not so much…

Sadly a C90 won’t carry tools and cruise at 80mph