"By Inviting Canada To Join, The EU Has Revealed Their Plan To Transform The European Union Into A 'Global Union'”

by Michael Snyder

"The European Union has a population that is larger than the United States, it has the second largest economy in the entire world, and now it wants Canada. Of course any form of membership in the EU will involve giving up at least some sovereignty to the bureaucrats in Brussels. Is Canada really this stupid? The EU likes to dangle the carrot of economic prosperity to tempt prospective members to agree to entangle themselves in their tyrannical web. Of course once you are locked in, it will be exceedingly difficult to ever get out.

The EU has always been an expansionist entity from the very beginning. There have been several ways of EU expansion, and once the Cold War finally ended the floodgates opened. Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia all joined the EU in 2004. Bulgaria and Romania followed suit in 2007. In 2013, it was Croatia’s turn.

Currently, there are nine other nations that are officially recognized “candidate countries”: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, and Ukraine. In order to be accepted as full members, they must fully comply with EU membership criteria and they must be unanimously voted in. So all nine of those “candidate countries” are working to conform to the tyrannical will of the EU.

Needless to say, all of the nations discussed above are located in Europe. But EU bureaucrats have always had bigger ambitions. They dream of transforming their political empire into a “global union”, and now Canada has handed them their first opportunity to expand outside of the borders of Europe on a silver platter. Officials from the EU and Canada have been quietly negotiating behind the scenes for quite some time, and now we have learned what they have decided to do.

During her State of the Union address, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen invited Canada to become “the first associate member of the European Union”… European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday she wants Canada to join the European Union as an associate member, as the North American nation is embroiled in a trade war with the U.S. “I would like to work with you on opening the door for Canada to being the first associate member of the European Union,” von der Leyen told Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who was in attendance for her annual State of the Union address.

This is enormous news. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney was present at the State of the Union address, and that was no coincidence. There is no way that Canada will become a full member of the EU right now, but during her speech Ursula von der Leyen boldly declared that she wants “to bring the relationship with Canada to the highest level possible”… Carney was a guest at von der Leyen’s state of the union address in Strasbourg, France, where she remarked that “in this new world we must urgently reimagine our partnerships and build global coalitions for our resilience and democracies.” “In short, we want to bring the relationship with Canada to the highest level possible,” she said.

The highest level possible would be full membership. That will take time, but that is the goal. The EU and Canada are scheduled to hold a summit in late October to discuss the details of associate membership.

A number of potential measures are on the table, including “redirecting pipelines to grant Europe access to Canadian gas” and “granting Canadians the right to live and work in Europe visa-free”…"According to a Wall Street Journal report at the weekend, among the things European and Canadian officials have discussed: reducing trade barriers; laying underwater cables linking Europe and Canada; redirecting pipelines to grant Europe access to Canadian gas; building new AI and tech infrastructure; and even granting Canadians the right to live and work in Europe visa-free.

Under these terms, Canada would have a relationship with the EU that is unprecedented for a country outside Europe. The EU’s ambassador to Canada told the Canadian Press last week that the partnership would be unlike anything that currently exists, without giving specifics."

Wow. I never imagined that something like this might happen. But it is happening. We all knew that Carney is a hardcore globalist, and from the very start of his term he has been looking for ways to turn Canada away from the United States and toward the EU… Earlier this month, the prime minister said the era of Canada relying on Washington was “over,” indicating his country was seeking out new trade partners. “Our plan, since I came into office, has been development and diversification,” the Canadian prime minister said in a video his office posted on YouTube. “Not denial, waiting to go back to some good old days, and not continued dependence.”

In the old days, there was no way that Canadians would have gone along with this. But public opinion has changed. At this stage, approximately 80 percent of Canadians want deeper cooperation with Europe, and nearly half of the population would support full membership in the EU… Canadians are largely in favor of strengthening relations with the EU, though support for full membership remains split, according to recent data.

A survey conducted earlier this month by Canadian polling firm Abacus Data found about 80% of Canadians said Canada should deepen cooperation with the EU on foreign policy, defense and economic priorities - a six-point increase from when the question was last asked in February. A further 56% of those surveyed said Canada has more in common with EU countries than with the US, according to the survey. Nearly half (49%) said they would support Canada joining the EU, with support higher among centrist and left-leaning voters.

Those numbers are chilling. Meanwhile, relations with the U.S. continue to deteriorate and a trade war has erupted. According to Fox News, Ohio could be hit harder by our trade war with Canada than any other state… “American manufacturers or American businesses who rely on Canadian inputs are going to start to feel the pain right in the lead up to going to the ballot box,” David Clement, policy director of the free market nonprofit Consumer Choice Center, told Fox News Digital. Clement identified Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as among the states most exposed to negative fallout, based on their current trade with Canada and the goods targeted by the tariffs. “Ohio is by far the most vulnerable state in terms of exposure from the Canadian retaliatory tariffs,” Clement said, estimating roughly $2.3 billion in exports to Canada are exposed.

This is so unfortunate. The United States needs Canada, and Canada needs the United States. We should be deepening ties with one another, but now Canada intends to get married to the European Union. Getting sucked into the EU’s tyrannical web is a horrible mistake, but it appears that there will be no turning back. Now that EU bureaucrats have secured Canada, who will they set their sights on next?"

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"Damage Coming from Trump’s Tariff Wars and his Iran War is Extreme, yet Trump Just Promised Something that Will Total America’s Economy"

"Damage Coming from Trump’s Tariff Wars and his

 Iran War is Extreme, yet Trump Just Promised

 Something that Will Total America’s Economy"

by David Haggith

Excerpt: "A number of people who have had to work closely around Donald Trump have reported his stench. Some say it is his body odor. Some say his diapers. I say it may be the sulfur from his native habitat. Now his nauseating stench has rubbed off on the United States. Today’s top headline reports that “the world economy is becoming wary of the US.” The world is trying to get away from us: “Global investors are balking at U.S. bonds. Talk of the dollar’s dwindling power is getting louder. Foreign governments are hauling their gold out of American vaults,” the New York Times reports.

All these are facts that I’ve been reporting and commenting on for months, pulled together in a single sentence by the Times. The US has become a threat to everyone: “Almost two years into President Trump’s second term, the world economy is increasingly looking for ways to distance itself from America. Concerns about a $40 trillion debt burden, the excessive use of sanctions to solve foreign policy problems and Mr. Trump’s penchant for pushing the limits of the rule of law are raising questions about the appeal of the United States as a haven for global investment.”

In short, we got a stink on us, and we got it from the guy I often refer to meaningfully as “TheRump.” Remember those big promised factory builds from corporate heads that Trump boasted about as coming to the US due to his tariff wars? “Despite pledges by foreign companies and nations to invest in the United States - in many cases to curry favor with the White House  - capital is starting to seek alternative destinations.”

As a net result, an article in The Atlantic announces, "The American Age Is Over." The American age that followed World War II was bound to end eventually. What’s shocking is how suddenly that moment has arrived. In the past six months, America’s power - long exemplified by the world’s best war fighting equipment and most highly trained military personnel, a global network of bases and logistics systems, and military and diplomatic partnerships with all corners of the world - has proved insufficient to defeat Iran, a repressive, economically stagnant regime armed with cheap missiles and drones.

It’s a sad state of affairs that makes America look and smell like a dinosaur after the big asteroid impact, lying on the clay, breathing hard and bleeding. Its downfall has come swiftly. O.K. the analogy is a little overreaching for where we are at this stage in the game, but dinosaurs didn’t all die in a year, either. Some lasted longer; but we know their rapid ignominious end.

The White House wrecking ball: With those two quoted articles and others that I’ll share below (and there is a rapidly swelling stream like them), the jury is now in on the proclamation I made at the start of Trump 1.0. You may recall my rebuking Trump’s White House prophets (yes, one of them actually has an office there), who had claimed to their large audiences that God had appointed Donald Trump to be president of America. I declared, “If he did, He must have appointed him to be God’s wrecking ball for America.”

(See; “TEN 2025 ECONOMIC PREDICTIONS as America’s Great Wrecking Ball Wipes out Huge Swaths of the Economy Every Hour of Every Day,” “Is Trump a Wrecking Ball or a Flaming Asteroid that Just Hit Earth?” and “Swinging Wildly toward Armageddon, the Wrecking Ball Gets Wrecked.”)

"If he and his horde of prophets are right, perhaps he has been chosen as God’s wrecking ball. The question that remains for me from that claim is, “Does God have a plan for redevelopment, or is it just time to destroy America in sweeping judgment?” I guess we’ll see what we have left to deal with a year down the road when the demolition phase is over - if the demolition even is over by then.

From there we’ll have to see whether Trump is also God’s developer, having done the dirty work of demolition. Can Trump rebuild from the rubble that remains, or will he just walk away from it as he has from many of his past failures, wiping the dust off his own silk suit and not caring at all about those he dusted?" (from the first article listed above)

It’s certainly clear now how that turned out. At least, I find it stunningly clear. America is being demolished and humiliated by Iran, and the rest of the world gets to take the ride with America into some fierce inflation and fuel shortages and economic destruction. Articles are appearing about it all over the world after the events that unfolded between last Wednesday and Friday."

Full, most highly recommended article is here:

- https://www.thedailydoom.com/

"Doug Casey on Trump’s $5,000 Checks and Buying Votes With Printed Money"

"Doug Casey on Trump’s $5,000 Checks 

and Buying Votes With Printed Money"

by International Man

"International Man: President Trump wants to send every adult American a $5,000 “dividend” if Republicans keep control of Congress. JD Vance went on Fox and defended the idea. We’re talking about roughly $1.3 trillion. What do you make of this?

Doug Casey: The US government, especially since it’s been led by Trump, is like a drunk gambler on tilt. Money means nothing; it’s become an abstract concept. Back in the 60s, a senator named Everett Dirksen joked: “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.” Now we’re talking about trillions. It won’t be long before Trump has to ask his science advisor, assuming he has one, what comes after a trillion.

It’s not the first time that an absurd thing like this has been proposed. In 1972, George McGovern, the Democrat running against Nixon, sincerely proposed giving a thousand dollars to every American, in today’s dollars, that’s the equivalent of about $8000. The proposition made him into something of a laughingstock. But the US was a different country then in many ways.

Today, I suspect Americans overwhelmingly approve of the concept. The middle class can rationalize it as a tax refund, welcoming the money to pay down their staggering debt load. The lower levels of society would use it to buy alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, and trinkets.

I doubt there would be any serious discussion based on economic or philosophical grounds. Boobus americanus sees it as “our” money. “Hey, the government has trillions. Most of it goes to rich guys and foreigners. It’s about time I saw some of that cash!”

International Man: The administration calls it a “dividend,” as though Americans were shareholders receiving profits from a successful enterprise. Isn’t it really just another transfer payment, welfare, financed by debt and money creation?

Doug Casey: Exactly. The US government runs a $2 trillion deficit and carries over $40 trillion in debt; it’s terminally and irretrievably bankrupt. Do you remember when Trump said that his disastrous tariffs would allow the government to eliminate the income tax? Or that DOGE was going to send everyone a check? The public has a short memory.

Trump made this $5000 offer as an overt bribe to naive Americans in order to win the midterm elections this November. He’s said as much. Who knows what he can get away with, but my understanding is that Congress will have to approve this handout. It’s very unlikely to happen. But, seeing that they’re almost certain to lose in November, the Republicans might somehow push it through. Yes, I know it’s a crazy thought. But insane things happen all the time within the DC Beltway.

Trump understands that without some “deus ex machina” he’s going to lose in the midterms. Then, with the Democrats in charge of both houses, impeachment proceedings would begin immediately, among many other things. I don’t know if they’ll succeed in impeaching and convicting him. But I’m willing to bet that Trump will not complete his term in office for any number of reasons - death, disability, the 25th Amendment, or simply quitting so that Vance can pardon him and his crew.

However, the fact that Vance is going along with Trump’s mad plans may kill his chances of being a candidate in 28. I don’t know who the Republicans will run, but they’ll all be viewed - correctly - as Trump sycophants.

Meanwhile, the Democrats only have people like Newsom, Kamala, and AOC - thoroughly loathsome socialists and opportunists. The government and politics are much more important than ever before in American history, but the quality of the people running for office is probably at the lowest level in history. This augurs very poorly. And that’s not counting what will happen if - when - the markets and the economy collapse, or World War 3 starts in earnest, or something like a civil war materializes.

At a minimum, Trump doesn’t seem to understand that adding $1.3 trillion of cash to the economy will supercharge inflation. Maybe we’ll muddle through. We always have. Or maybe AI will conjure up a dystopian sci-fi outcome for us.

International Man: Trump and Vance argue that tariff revenue could help pay for the checks. Can a government really create a genuine dividend by taxing Americans indirectly and then handing some of the money back to them?

Doug Casey: The idea is absurd. Tariffs are paid by citizens, not foreign exporters. They ultimately come out of the economy through higher prices and reduced trade. Tariffs result in a lower standard of living, more revenue in the hands of the government, and less in the hands of the people. The fact Trump wasn’t met with howls of laughter and boos when he floated the concept tells me that the economic understanding and the moral character of U.S. citizens has reached a new low.

Trump’s tariffs aren’t being used as a substitute for other taxes, but in addition to other taxes. I know Trump thinks that tariffs will reinvigorate manufacturing in the US, but he’s wrong. The way to bring manufacturing back to the US is to make it the best country in the world to start a business. That means radically reducing regulations, bureaucracy, and red tape, radically reducing taxes, eliminating welfare, and instituting a sound currency. Unfortunately, none of that’s going to happen for many reasons that we can’t discuss here.

Furthermore, the arbitrary and aggressive way that Trump is applying his tariffs is making active enemies around the world. Foreigners will reciprocate and punish Americans in any way they can, as the Canadians are doing.

People don’t realize how serious this can be. The War Between the States from 1861 to 1865 was not, contrary to popular belief, about slavery. Tariffs were the largest single driver of Southern secession. Although slavery was hotly debated in both the North and the South, the South seceded mainly because tariffs were raised to almost 50 percent. At that time, tariffs covered about 90% of the U.S. government budget, and the South paid about 85% of those tariffs with its imports from Europe. It made no sense for the South to stay in the Union. But it seemed to make a lot of economic sense for the Union to force it to remain.

Of course, conditions are totally different now. But the U.S., like the world at large, has become very unstable. Trump is playing with fire by creating chaos with his whims.

International Man: This seems like an important escalation, with politicians openly promising thousands of dollars in cash shortly before an election. Where does that lead once voters come to expect direct payments from Washington?

Doug Casey: De Tocqueville said: “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” I’d say that day has arrived.

This is genuine Bread and Circuses stuff. Trump’s $5000 “dividend” is an overture to a guaranteed annual income. The state already controls most aspects of citizens’ lives through its taxes, regulations, and money creation. Direct payments from the government put another nail in the coffin. The idea of America is being buried before our eyes.

Those who believe that the Republicans will save the day if they win in November are worse than naive. I’d say they’re stupid. I define stupidity as an unwitting tendency to self-destruction. Like Trump, the Republican Party has no guiding morality or principles. Their only redeeming characteristic is that they’re not as bad as the Democrats. But maybe they’re even worse because, by pretending to be capitalists, they give capitalism a bad name.

International Man: Suppose Washington does inject another $1.3 trillion into an economy with inflation already running hot. What happens next, and how can investors prepare?

Doug Casey: The fate of the dollar is basically sealed. Inflation is going to go much higher, along with interest rates. The bond market is in big trouble. If you have any bonds, you should dump them. The extra funny money might prop up the stock market for a while, but it’s already at ultra-bubble levels. When it eventually crashes, the government will be forced to “step in” and create even more debased fiat currency."

- https://internationalman.com/

"Truth About Iranian Missile Strikes On U.S. Airbases Finally Emerges"

"Truth About Iranian Missile Strikes On U.S. Airbases 

Finally Emerges, And It Doesn’t Line Up With What 

Trump And Hegseth Have Been Telling Us About The War"

by Leo Hohmann

"We are into the seventh month of the U.S./Israel-Iran war and the true cost in terms of damage to U.S. airbases is finally starting to leak out, no thanks to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, whose job it is to make sure the American public gets accurate information about the state of the military in which their sons and daughters serve.

Soldiers have been sending anonymous photographic images of U.S. bases in Kuwait, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to the media and CBS News has published some of them. One soldier's words: “We're not defending these bases. We're just watching them get destroyed.” Take a look at the short clip below (for those desiring a deeper analysis see Col. Douglas MacGregor’s insights in the video embedded at the end of this article.)

Full screen recommended.

If you listen to Hegseth and Trump, U.S. interceptors shoot down 98 percent of incoming Iranian missiles and every now and then a “squirter” slips through the ironclad shield. This is pure nonsense. And now we are only starting to see the damage caused by Iranian missiles, delivered with pinpoint accuracy right into aircraft, buildings and other military targets. If they will lie about the damage, or refuse to acknowledge it, why wouldn’t they lie about the number of human casualties on these American military bases?

This is what happens when a presidential administration goes to war without the support of the people, illegally, under false pretenses, and without proper authorization from Congress. They inevitably will hide the truth about how well the war is going. Because it’s their war. It’s not the people’s war.

Trump has declared more than 40 times that this war is essentially over and has already been “won” by the U.S., and that any remaining operations are essentially mop-up duty. I am here to tell you, it’s all lies. U.S. bases in the Middle East have been decimated and the U.S. is on the verge of being kicked out of the region altogether, which of course is Iran’s goal. This is a goal that Iran probably never envisioned being attainable until Trump came along and made it possible.

But Trump won’t go quietly. And for this reason, the war is far from over. The worst is yet to come. The next phase of this war will cost more lives and involve more countries than we’ve seen to date.

Something big is in the works, militarily, and I think it will take place before the midterm elections, perhaps as an “October surprise?” But we can only guess as to the timing and it’s also possible it might be put off until after the November elections.

There was reportedly a secret meeting in Germany last week between the head of CENTCOM, Bradley Cooper, and the top military commanders from Israel, Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE. You only meet in person like this with military chiefs of staff to solidify serious battle plans and iron out any potential conflicts to make sure everyone is on the same page before a large-scale military operation.

Secondly, look at the military package the U.S. just announced for Israel. We are talking about $2.8 billion worth of weapons, including 40,000 2,000-pound bombs and 20,000 1-2000 penetrator warheads designed to punch through soil, rock and concrete before detonating, according to a New York Times report. This mass assemblage of lethal firepower was not sold to Israel, it was given to Israel.

The 2,000-pound bombs have a lethal blast radius exceeding 1,000 feet and leave a crater up to 50 feet deep. Similar U.S.-made bombs have repeatedly drawn criticism over their use by Israel in densely populated urban areas of Gaza.

Is this a plan to shift the war effort against Iran from the U.S. to Israel? That could certainly serve as a work-around if Congress pulls its support for the war, as it looks like it’s doing given the war powers resolution that passed yesterday in which seven House Republicans joined all Democrats in a vote to put limitations on Trump’s ability to conduct the war.

Or, more likely, Trump is not worried about Congress and will just ignore any restrictions they attempt to place on his ability to wage war against Iran. In this scenario, Trump still needs to send his arsenal of weapons to the Middle East and position the assets for the next big attack on Iran, which involves dropping bombs on civilian targets in a final attempt to break the will of the Iranians and get them to rise up against their government. In this scenario, Israel is simply serving as an aircraft carrier for U.S. weapons, a convenient dropoff point for U.S. troops to place them in position for mobilization against Iran. And let’s face it: Iran has destroyed all the other dropoff points in the region.

Either way, Iran has at least one more big test coming of its will to survive as an intact sovereign state. And I’m afraid this one will be designed to kill many more innocent civilians than the previous waves of airstrikes and bombings conducted by the globalist leaders of the modern Babylonian financial system based out of London, New York and Washington, D.C. If this next round of strikes fail to achieve the mission of toppling the Iranian regime, look for modern Babylon to resort to its most evil final solution - a thermonuclear solution. ​Do not wait for mainstream news to confirm the strikes after the fact. Prepare your families now for the possibility of disastrous war-time economic and physical hardships.

For a deeper dive on the true state of the U.S. debacle in the Middle East, watch Lt. Col. Daniel Davis’s interview with Col. Douglas MacGregor below:

Full screen recommended.

- https://leohohmann.substack.com/

Canadian Prepper, "Before Mass Starvation Begins... 2027"

A must view! 

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 9/16/26

"Before Mass Starvation Begins... 2027"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Michael Bennett, "After I Pass Away"

Full screen recommended.

Michael Bennett, "After I Pass Away"

"The viral singing sensation "Michael Bennett" is entirely AI-generated.  He does not exist in real life, and his emotional performances, guitar playing, voice, and tear-jerking backstories are completely fabricated using artificial intelligence."

- https://www.forbes.com/

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Planetary nebula Abell 78 stands out in this colorful telescopic skyscape. In fact the colors of the spiky Milky Way stars depend on their surface temperatures, both cooler (yellowish) and hotter (bluish) than the Sun. But Abell 78 shines by the characteristic emission of ionized atoms in the tenuous shroud of material shrugged off from an intensely hot central star. The atoms are ionized, their electrons stripped away, by the central star's energetic but otherwise invisible ultraviolet light. 

The visible blue-green glow of loops and filaments in the nebula's central region corresponds to emission from doubly ionized oxygen atoms, surrounded by strong red emission from electrons recombining with hydrogen atoms. Some 5,000 light-years distant toward the constellation Cygnus, Abell 78 is about three light-years across. A planetary nebula like Abell 78 represents a very brief final phase in stellar evolution that our own Sun will experience... in about 5 billion years.”

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

"When That Day Comes..."

"If you had one last breath - what would you say? If you had one hour to use your limbs before you would lose the use of them forever - would you sit there on the couch? If you knew that you wouldn't see tomorrow who would you make amends with? If you knew you had only an hour left on this earth - what would be so pressing that you just had to do it, say it, or see it? Well there is something that I can guarantee - that one day you will have one day, one hour and one breath left. Just make sure that before that day that you have said, done and experienced everything that you dream of doing now. Do it now - that is what today is for. So pick up the phone and call an old friend that you have fallen out of touch with. Get out and run a mile and use your body and sweat. Seek out someone in your life to say you're sorry to. Seek someone In your life that you need to thank. Seek someone in your life that you need to express your feelings of love to. Then when that day comes you will be ok with it all."

- John A. Passaro

"If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make,

who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?"

~ Stephen Levine

“Get busy living or get busy dying.”

- Stephen King, "Shawshank Redemption"

"Unknowingly..."

"Unknowingly, we plow the dust of stars,

blown about us by the wind,

and drink the universe in a glass of rain."

- Ihab Hassan

"Where The Soul Rests In The Mountains"

Full screen recommended.

Walter’s Puppet Box,

"Where The Soul Rests In The Mountains"

"Along forgotten mountain roads, beyond the noise of crowded cities and rushing lives, there is a quieter world - a world where rivers whisper through the valleys, fog drifts between pine trees, campfires glow under endless skies, and tired souls slowly learn how to breathe again. Where 'The Soul Rests In The Mountains' is a peaceful surreal AI music film about wandering hearts, forest silence, old hiking trails, rainy mornings in tents, tiny campfires, distant owls, soft rivers, and the quiet beauty hidden inside nature. Here, backpacks carry more than supplies. They carry memories. Healing. Freedom. And the small pieces of ourselves we forgot somewhere along the way. Mountains rise above sleeping valleys. Morning mist moves slowly through the trees. Boots dry beside the fire. Coffee steams quietly at sunrise. Birds sing through cold forest air. And every little moment feels alive again. This film was made for those who dream about forests, peaceful roads, cold rivers, soft campfire nights, handmade memories, and the feeling of disappearing into nature for a little while. This is not a story you need to solve. It is a place to rest. A place to breathe slowly. A place to remember what peace feels like."

Native American Elder, "Wisdom When You Feel Completely Lost"

Full screen recommended.

Native American Elder, 

"Wisdom When You Feel Completely Lost"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"When You Realize You Were Never Meant to Fit Here"

The Silent Grace,

"When You Realize You Were Never Meant to Fit Here"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Delta King's Blues, "Common Sense Ain’t That Common"

Full screen recommended.

Delta King's Blues, 

"Common Sense Ain’t That Common"

"Some things get clearer with age. Other things just get louder. “Common Sense Ain’t That Common” is Delta blues wrapped in dry humor and hard-earned observation. Raw resonator guitar, patient and grounded. Harmonica drifting between irony and truth. Blues for those who’ve watched the world long enough. Because noise is everywhere… But sense? That’s another story."

The Daily "Near You?"

Weatherford, Texas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Martin Armstrong, "It's Getting Worse And Worse..."

Martin Armstrong, 9/16/26

"It's Getting Worse And Worse..."

"Martin Armstrong delivers a stark warning about rising tensions between Israel and Iran - and the possibility of a much broader Middle East conflict. He discusses Netanyahu, shifting alliances involving Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, capital flows out of Israel, and the growing geopolitical risks surrounding nuclear weapons. Could the Middle East be heading toward a dangerous new war? Martin Armstrong explains what he’s watching - and why investors should pay attention. Watch until the end for his full analysis."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Get Ready For Bankruptcies To Explode! Private Equity is Failing"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 9/16/26

"Get Ready For Bankruptcies To Explode! 

Private Equity is Failing"

"Companies are going bankrupt, and a lot of them were bought by private equity first. In this video the people on the inside tell what happened, in their own words: vendors who were never paid, small business owners who lost everything, staff at a store in the middle of a bankruptcy, and nurses and dentists watching private equity take over. Private equity firms buy companies with borrowed money and load the debt onto the business. Then come the cuts, the cheaper supplies and the higher prices. When sales drop, the payments keep coming, and the company files. The firm moves on. The workers, the suppliers and the towns are left with the damage. 

What this video covers: • A Painted Tree vendor left stranded when the company went bankrupt .• A small business owner forced to file after four years of building. • A multi-million dollar retail store that ended in Chapter 7 and let its staff go. • A Neiman Marcus employee's exit interview during the bankruptcy. • Private equity buying hospitals, stripping them, and closing them. • Private equity taking over dental offices and pushing overcharging. • Why one owner dissolved his business during bankruptcy. • What this wave of corporate bankruptcies means for working families. Every clip is a real person, filmed on their own phone, in their own words. Nothing here is staged. Do you work for a company owned by private equity? Tell us what changed below."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Douglas MacGregor, "Insane Panic Has Begun..."

Full screen recommended.

Douglas MacGregor, 9/16/26

"Insane Panic Has Begun..."

"Douglas is a Retired U.S. Army Colonel and decorated combat veteran. He offers a stark assessment that the Middle East conflict is fundamentally a Jewish war with no vital strategic interest for the United States, describing it as already regional and increasingly merging with other global flashpoints."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Dispatch from Moscow: The Collapse Narrative Keeps Missing the Real Russia'

"Dispatch from Moscow: 

The Collapse Narrative Keeps Missing the Real Russia'

by Larry C. Johnson

"I am back in Moscow for the first time in ten months, and the first thing that strikes you is the distance between the city in front of you and the city as it is described five thousand miles away. Moscow and St. Petersburg are thriving, modern, and - this is the word I keep reaching for - vibrant. The streets are clean and safe. They are not lined with the homeless or the begging. In two weeks I saw exactly one man asking for money, on a stoop in St. Petersburg, and he stood out precisely because he was such a rarity. Set that against New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Atlanta - name any major American city - and the contrast is not marginal. It is an order of magnitude.

I start with the streets because they are the simplest test of the claim the West has been pushing for three years: i.e., that Russia is an economy on the edge, its people pulling their cash out, its cities sliding toward crisis. That story does not survive contact with the pavement.

Vladimir Putin is not paying me to post a sunny story. I am reporting what I see and what I hear from ordinary Russians going about their lives - and what I see is an economy that, sanctions and all, is doing better than the Western economies it is measured against. The shelves are full. The restaurants are full. People are working, spending, building. There is none of the visible distress the West insists is just around the corner. Ask the people who actually live here and you will not find a nation bracing for collapse. You will find one that has absorbed everything the West could throw at it and kept moving.

That is the part the Western press cannot bring itself to say. For three years it has forecast a Russian financial crisis that never arrives, and the reason it never arrives is visible from any café window on Nevsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg or Tverskaya Street in Moscow. There is no bank run here, no ruble in freefall. The sanctions were supposed to break this country. They did not. Compare the mood on these streets to the anxiety in London or the decay in America’s great cities, and the question is not whether Russia is surviving the sanctions. The question is why the West ever assumed it would not.

Dinner with Lavrov: A week ago Monday I had dinner with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. I was in the company of John Mearsheimer, Judge Andrew Napolitano, and Alastair Crooke. The dinner was informal and genuinely candid, and Lavrov answered questions directly - and anyone who has sat with Mearsheimer knows he does not ask soft ones. I came away with two clear impressions.

The first is that Russia’s negotiating position toward the West has not moved an inch since Putin addressed his foreign ministry on June 14, 2024. In that speech he made the terms explicit, and they are the terms still on the table: the West must recognize Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson, along with Crimea, as permanent Russian territory. These former Ukrainian oblasts are not going back. In Moscow that is treated not as an opening bid but as a settled fact. Beyond it, Russia is building buffer zones through its advances in Sumy, Kharkiv, and Dnipropetrovsk. Those territories could, in time, be incorporated as well - though officials frame that as something that would follow a vote or plebiscite rather than a foregone conclusion. It is not formally on the menu. But it is, in my read, very much in the cards.

The second impression is that the space for a negotiated settlement is extremely narrow - narrower than Western capitals want to admit - because Russia is simply not willing to make the concessions the West requires, and does not believe it has to. My own assessment, after listening to how officials here talk, is that the war effort will not stop until Odessa and Kyiv are firmly under Russian control. I hold that as a judgment, not a certainty. But nothing I heard this week moved me off it.

What “root causes” actually means: Putin talks constantly about the “root causes” of the conflict having to be addressed, and Americans are rarely told what the phrase means. So I asked directly, in a conversation in Moscow with Alexander Babakov, a Duma member and a senior figure in the International Unity Club.

The simplest way to translate it for my fellow citizens is this: the American project of pulling Ukraine into NATO’s orbit and using it as a battering ram against Russia has to end. Not be paused - ended. There will be no more tolerance of NATO activity in Ukraine, and Ukraine’s foreign and military policy has to be severed from that Western embrace for good. From Moscow’s chair, that is the non-negotiable core, and everything else is detail.

It helps to remember how old this really is. Ukraine joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace in 1994, and from that point the Western military relationship with Kyiv grew steadily, whatever the absence of a formal membership card. The Yavoriv military base in western Ukraine became a recurring venue for Western exercises through the 1990s and, from 2015, hosted a standing US-led training mission. Over the years Ukraine became one of the most frequent hosts of NATO exercises of any country outside the alliance - drills whose scenarios never named Russia as the adversary but left no doubt, from their structure, who the target was. By Trump’s first term these were running to several a year, some with a submarine component that had nothing to do with chasing pirates. Through all of it, Moscow’s read is that Putin showed a patience the West mistook for weakness.

You do not have to accept every element of that account to grasp its force. This is the realist reading of the war - the one Mearsheimer has argued about as well as it can be argued - and it is the frame through which the men I dined with see the entire conflict. It is contested in Washington, obviously. But you cannot understand why the Russian position is so immovable unless you understand that in Moscow it is not seen as aggression at all, but as the closing of a wound the West spent thirty years opening.

The view from here: The war is not what occupies the average Russian. It is still, in daily life, a “special military operation,” and the streets of the two great cities carry on as if it were happening on another continent - which, from Moscow, it nearly is. That gap between the fixed, maximalist position of the state and the near-normalcy of civilian life is itself the story: a country settled enough at home to wait, and convinced enough of its terms not to bend.

What the officers told me: I spoke this week with three Russian military men, retired and serving - Colonel Eduard Basurin, retired; General Evgeny Buzhinsky, retired; and, on active duty, Lieutenant General Apti Alaudinov, the commander of the Akhmat special forces. Different men, different vantage points, and one message held across all of them: Russia is not going to attack Europe. It has no military designs on Europe, none, and no intention of starting that fight.

What Russia does see, they told me, is a Europe preparing to attack it - and not merely in the rhetoric coming out of the mouths of leaders like Germany’s Chancellor Merz and the British prime minister, though Moscow takes that rhetoric seriously enough. It is the concrete steps behind the words: the weapons systems, the missiles specifically, being built to be used against Russian territory. The officers were blunt about where that leads. If those activities continue, Russia will have no alternative but to deal with the threat, and the prospect of a war with Europe becomes real. That is not an imaginary danger conjured to frighten anyone. It is how these professionals read the trajectory. Russia is not looking for the fight. But it is neither deaf nor blind to what is being prepared against it.

They also confirmed something I had already sensed on my own: Russia has entered a decisive new phase in the war with Ukraine, a deliberate push to bring it to a faster end than anyone previously anticipated. For the first four years, Russia fought to hold down its own casualties. That is why it did not throw mass formations against fixed positions, where the losses would have been severe, but relied instead on small-unit tactics. That restraint is over. The new phase closes Ukraine’s Black Sea coast to trade in both directions, subjects logistics hubs in Kyiv and other cities - western Ukraine especially - to sustained targeting, and steps up ground advances all along the line of contact. This is a considered shift by the Russian general staff, and it is already paying off: the moves to encircle Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, and key gains in Zaporizhzhia. My own read is that by the end of November, Donetsk will once again be wholly under Russian control, and Zaporizhzhia - a major industrial city and regional capital on the Dnipro - will be under direct threat of occupation.

A vibrant democracy on its own terms: The Russian people go to the polls this Sunday, and I will be there to observe it. There are at least five parties are contesting seats in the Duma. Russia is not the monolith it is made out to be. It is, despite the Western caricature, a vibrant democracy - one built according to Russian culture and Russian ideals rather than a copy of anyone else’s, and it is long past time the West set aside its prejudice and took Russia as it actually is. This is not a regime run by international communists, whatever the popular meme of the 1960s and 1970s held. It is now, deservedly, the fourth-largest economy in the world by purchasing power parity, innovative in its technology and richly endowed with resources.

That is my update for now. I will be back with further insights as my journey continues."

- https://larrycjohnson.substack.com/

"Why Nobody's Eating McDonald's Anymore"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 9/16/26

"Why Nobody's Eating McDonald's Anymore"

"People are eating at McDonald's less, and the reason is simple: prices got too high. McDonald's was the cheap meal working families counted on. In this video customers and employees show what a McDonald's run looks like now, in their own words. A Big Mac meal for $17.99. A $3 bundle that turned into a $5 bundle. Fries and a pie for seven dollars. Smaller portions, deals that keep changing, and an app you have to download before you get a decent price. Inside the restaurant, staff are cut and kiosks go in, so the few workers left run the whole rush on their own. What this video covers: • A $17.99 Big Mac meal • McDonald's pricing that feels like a landmine • Kiosks that round your total up, and being forced onto the kiosk • A Happy Meal and a frappe cup that shrank • Refunds denied because the store was understaffed • Injury restrictions ignored by the store • People who stopped buying McDonald's and compared it to cooking at home. Every clip is a real person, filmed on their own phone, in their own words. Nothing here is staged. When the cheapest meal in town becomes a luxury, it tells you a lot about this economy. What do you think? Tell us below."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is"

All U.S. debt in real time...

- https://www.usdebtclock.org/

"Snyder Reports, 9/16/26"

Full screen recommended.

Snyder Reports, 9/16/26

"'I Quit My Job' Due To High Oil Prices"

"Diesel prices just hit all-time highs and oil executives say the GREAT fuel crisis is already here. Here’s what it means for your wallet. The fuel crisis is no longer a warning - 10% of global refineries are offline from Middle East and Russia-Ukraine wars, US refineries are maxed at 98%, and oil prices are back above $100 after strikes on Iranian tankers. Moody’s reports US households have paid an extra $1,760 since the conflict began, with over $121 billion in extra energy costs. In this video we break down why 58 diesel prices and gas prices rising are forcing Americans to stop driving, bike to work, carpool, and even quit jobs over commute costs, why 60 fuel supply through the Strait of Hormuz and the East-West pipeline is at risk, why heating oil could jump 30% this winter, and what $6 gas would do to cars, insurance, food prices, and the cost of living .What would YOU do if gas hit $6 a gallon? What do you keep your heat at in winter? Let me know in the comments below."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Snyder Reports, 9/16/26

"Breaking: Fed Raises Rates –

 What Just Got More Expensive For You"

The Fed just raised rates for the first time since 2023 - and your credit card, HELOC, and new loans just got more expensive. In this video I break down the September fed rate hike in plain English: why the Fed voted 12-0 to hike to 3.75%-4%, why inflation stuck at 3.4% forced their hand, and the $1,700 per-household hit from oil, rates and war spending. You'll learn exactly how fast credit card payments rise, why HELOCs are next, why only new auto loans cost more, how mortgage rates 2026 follow the 10-year Treasury, why savings pay more but slower, and how tighter business credit hits jobs. This is essential personal finance news for anyone navigating today's economy."

"The Oil Shortage Is Here - Everything Is About To Get More Expensive"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 9/16/26

"The Oil Shortage Is Here -

 Everything Is About To Get More Expensive"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Trumpflation: The Aftermath of the Houthi 'Tet Offensive'”

"Trumpflation: 

The Aftermath of the Houthi 'Tet Offensive'”

by David Haggith

"I’m going to have to start using the term “Trumpflation” more often since Trump keeps denying any of the current inflation is his fault. His tariff wars, he always claimed, couldn’t possibly cause inflation. Then when they did cause some, he removed tariffs where the inflation, such as beef, was too scorching hot. His real war with Iran couldn’t be causing it either. So, yesterday he claimed that none of the present inflation was coming from the war with Iran and blamed it all on Zelensky attacking Russia. (Who is, of course, helping Trump out in getting that inflation up with so much successfully and deeply crippling bombing of Russian refineries. (See the headline below on the MASSIVE impact that is having on fuel inside of Russia. It reads and looks in photos like the seventies in America, which is likely where we headed in the months ahead.)

Today, Team Trump dropped back to blaming all the fuel price increases and the derivative increases to other products on Biden. So, I want to make sure the blame rests solidly where it should. That’s why, though there are a number of stories in the news today about the Iran war in general, I’m going to focus today just on the impacts the war is having on prices of oil and fuel. The most critical news comes from Chevron’s CEO who put out a stark warning that we have hit a major inflection point in the pain we will be feeling from fuel prices.

Mike Wirth [the CEO] told an Austin energy conference that the mechanisms cushioning the market have largely played out and the system no longer has the slack it had when this started. Asked where prices go, he said he wished he could point to a reason things would ease and could not. Commercial stocks worldwide have been draining for six months, strategic reserves are near the end of what they can give, and last week’s pipeline strike stranded an estimated 2.5 million barrels a day.

Diesel hit a record $6.23, gas is back to $4.32. Everything I’ve read has said the pipeline carries from 4-7-million per day, but maybe it was only running at low capacity already before the Houthis blew up the pumping station, so Wirth is talking about the remaining flow that got taken out. That would make sense due to all the other damage to oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, including particularly major damage done to the world’s largest refinery that feeds in at the other end of the pipeline, which was bombed by the Iraqis with drones not too long ago.

So, the buffers holding fuel prices down are pretty well exhausted, and Wirth is saying that means the fuel crisis has arrived… but he’s not saying, “We’ve now hit the peak.” He’s warning that the eye wall of this hurricane hasn’t even made landfall yet. We are now in the outer bands of this full-force move up in the price of everything because the buffers are finally gone. For me, that looks like this tonight at one of the fuel stations nearest where I live in a semi-rural area of Washington State:

That’s the cash price for diesel. They add ten cents at the pump if you are paying with debit or credit. The highest prices ever seen for diesel, and RoadRunner isn’t even top-tier fuel around here.

Back when I was first claiming this war was going to cause huge fuel inflation this summer, a few folks did not think so. Well, it’s still summer; and, as I warned back then, when we saw this time hit, that would only be the start of the trouble that is coming. We haven’t even seen much sign of the fuel shortages popping up yet, but I am going to lay out for you now how we’ve reached this juncture where shortages do appear and prices climb even faster.

Two more things worth knowing. Wirth said he hasn’t spoken to Trump since August 3, when the president publicly told oil companies to bring prices down NOW. And in March the CEOs of Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips warned this administration that a long closure of Hormuz would produce exactly this diesel shortfall.

We do remember that warning, reported here because I knew it was one we’d want to keep an eye on… as in I was certain we would get there. Unsurprisingly, the Trump administration’s response to Wirth was the usual round of lies: Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told reporters in Houston to make sure the word “temporary” appears in their coverage, and argued prices would have been this high under Biden anyway.

The White House is betting on Venezuelan production and new refining capacity, both of which take years. He should have used the word “transitory.” It has more panache now that the Fed leaned so heavily on it when giving all of its false assurances that this inflation would go away on its own. We now know they could never fully beat it down with a club, so now we have all the new inflation piling in on top. So, if he used that word, we probably could agree with him and say, “Yes, this inflation is transitory… per the Fed’s revised definition.”

And, of course, there is that typical baby-style blame it all on Biden that we get from Trump between his diaper changes. He never has the manly guts to own any damage he creates. That’s a sure sign of a baby.

The president, as already reported, is making millions off of his oil stocks since day three of this war, as reported in The Daily Doom. So, he’s just grandstanding when he barks at oil companies and tells them, “Bring prices down NOW!” Here’s the headline: "Trump’s oil investments have gained millions during Iran war as his accounts keep trading."

A bright glint of Trumpflation: If you want to see just a little piece of what is going to be driving up the price of fuel more in the near future, but its a very sharp piece, look at this report that just came in about the cost of hiring a supertanker. You may recall I reported yesterday that tanker costs had soared to an all-time record of $800,000 per day! Well look at where they reached today:

Over a million dollars PER DAY! Higher than what were the highest tanker rates in history just yesterday BY FAR. “Yeah, some of us will risk our lives to get that oil through Trump’s safe corridor for you, but it’ll cost you some serious hazard pay.”

As far as the east is from the west: Right now going from east to west in Saudi Arabia is an almost impossible distance for oil unless you want to take it one tiny little tank truck at a time through the scorching desert. So, because of that successful shutoff of the east-west pipeline that I recapped in the Deeper Dive on Saturday when giving an update on how bad the damage was, the Saudis are already terminating oil shipments that had been scheduled. Saudi Arabia has informed European customers that some late-September crude shipments are being cancelled following the closure of the East-West pipeline.

This is not a minor disruption. The pipeline has been carrying 4–5 million barrels per day (approx 4–5% of global oil supply) and has become a critical alternative route while shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains severely disrupted.

Europeans are paying the equivalent of between US$9 and $11 per US gallon for diesel. Well, you can be sure that went up with today’s announcement on tanker costs! That is a cost that gets tagged onto the prices of WTI and Brent. Crude prices have been holding since the pipeline shut down at a global price of around $105/bbl for WTI and$108 for Brent. But when you don’t get any delivered to your neck of the woods, you’re probably going to pay a hefty premium to squeeze delivery out of somewhere else so you can keep refining. The price of WTI—because the US has a lot of it, making it is the market many are turning to—has now nearly caught up with North Sea Brent, even though it is not as useful for making diesel so usually sells for around ten bucks less a barrel; but refineries are squeezing diesel out wherever they can.

In fact, the latest news I have on that refinery that shut down due to power failure in Illinois is that it appears the power failure came from running their section of the electrical grid too hot for too long by refining at maximum capacity, though the cause has not been nailed down for certain, and the repairs are still ongoing. If that’s the correct diagnosis, the all-out squeeze just created a hot friction point.

Of course, Europe is somewhat the cause of its own problems, too, due to its very liberal policies restricting oil production and refining. However, don’t think this stays contained to Europe. As Europe reaches to other sources to make up what was just taken away by Saudi Arabia (thanks to the Houthis), they will reach for your source. That means you get to compete. It’s a global market.

Beyond a diesel shortage in the West, Europeans are also dealing with low natural gas stockpiles heading into the Northern Hemisphere winter, with prices reaching their highest level since December 2022.

The damage is done: Here is the pumping station before and after the attack as was shown in that Deeper Dive very shortly after the satellite imagery was made available, though it is all over the news now:

Pretty well burned to a crisp. There are several more photos in the article in the headlines below. Of course Trump’s energy secretary said the big conduit across the desert will be back up and running in a 4-5 weeks. Nah, I don’t think that’s something you snap together in a few weeks. It may take that long just to do the demolition and cleanup … if they RUSH. And don’t you think replacement parts and major pumps might be starting to get a little hard to come by in the Middle East? These guys routinely spout nonsense off the tops of their heads. They make it up as they go. If you think I’m wrong, please wait until next month to tell me when they get the pipeline back to fully operational.

Of course, harvest season is here in the northern hemisphere right as diesel is running out and prices are going trough the roof, so you can guess what that is going to do to your food prices this fall and winter, and clearly that will be worse for people in Europe.

Here’s a video I’ll post for everyone that summarizes the war action I covered in my Deeper Dive back on Saturday, comparing their sweeping takeover of West Yemen for importance to the Vietnam Tet Offensive:

Full screen recommended.

The escalation trap: All of this is part of the Iran Plan, which is to say the “escalation trap” I laid out two Deeper Dives back. Those who read that Deeper Dive can now see how the parts are coming together one step at a time, constantly turning up the heat in the Middle East without tripping Trump into full-on war because he really wants out. Last week brought a major tightening of the screws with the wipeout of this pipeline and seizure of full control over the Bab al-Mandeb (Gate of Tears).

The overall goal of that plan is stated in another article below: Iran’s leaders were never going to passively submit to slow strangulation. Facing Donald Trump’s blockade of their ports and the near-total loss of their oil exports, the regime is now striking back across the Middle East, aiming to inflict enough damage to force America to relent. Having locked down Hormuz pretty well, it looks like Iran is doing a darn good job of locking down the other side of Saudi Arabia as phase two of the Iran Plan: "Iran is now doing everything possible to wreck this alternative, which is why the Houthis have strengthened their hold on the choke point, where they have positioned Iranian-supplied anti-ship missiles."

Finally, we have a report from the Congressional Budget Office that says, yes, the Iran war most certainly is driving up Trumpflation. Well, they don’t call it by that name, of course, but they do make clear that his war in now spilling over into the prices of many other things, blaming more than 40% of current inflation on the Trump-Iran War. So, I’m just going to call it as it is. Thank you, Donald Trump for you inflation.

If there remains anyone who is not inclined to blame Trump and his ill-advised war yet, let’s see how they feel in the cold of winter. Maybe that’ll turn the heat up a little on Trump when the heat goes off for many others or, at least, gets turned down to where they can see their breath at the kitchen table. (Note: Some sources say the Houthis made this attack on the east-west pipeline. Some say Iraq. The Saudis, last I read, believed it was the Houthis. The fog of war.)

As a footnote, I’m noticing most of the stories in the news about the Trump-Iran War still have not caught up to the map of Houthi conquests I presented in my Deeper Dive for paying subscribers, showing the full swath of regions they took over in Yemen like a landslide.

I saw one other person commenting on another site about how hard that information is to find in the mainstream news, making him wonder as I was also wondering whether some of the information is being shut out. It’s also possible, of course, that I got false information since I had only one original source, as I noted at the time made me a little less than fully confident; but I don’t think so. I think it will prove over time the Houthis have taken that full region, unless the Saudis, who are now fighting back with more intensity than they showed earlier, reclaim some of it.

One of the stunning things of that victory that made it for the Houthis what Biden did for the Taliban, was that the Saudi forces left much of their heavy artillery behind when they fled so quickly. So, the Houthis captured some great war plunder that they are now putting to use in round two, better armed, thanks to Saudi Arabia leaving its American-built equipment behind.

Anyway, there are lots of headlines below now covering events of the full past week of the war for the first time, just stopping a little short in their boundaries of what has been taken over by the Houthis from what I presented. Those headlines, even if you don’t read the articles behind them, will give you a good picture of the growing troubles that are coming that will cause significant additional upward pressure on crude oil and fuel prices and then the price of everything."

- https://www.thedailydoom.com/

John Wilder, "Oil, Oil, Toil And Trouble, Plus? Raccoons."

"Oil, Oil, Toil And Trouble, Plus? Raccoons."

by John Wilder

"Arguably, the biggest machine humanity ever built is the hydrocarbon industry. Annually over half of a trillion dollars are spent exploring for it. Oh, sure, that’s what a Big Mac© will cost in 2036, but right now I wouldn’t turn it down. That’s just finding and getting it out of the ground. All in, with pipelines, ships, rail cars, and refineries, it costs about $1.2 trillion a year. Well, that was last year. This year it will be more.

The killer is supply and demand. Less oil is getting on a boat and going to Rotterdam, so that takes it off the market. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is nearing levels that some have said risk damaging the storage infrastructure itself, but it’s in Louisiana and Texas, so they’re used to the smell of oil in the morning. Smells like . . . money.

But what people miss is that it’s a finely tuned industry. It’s not like there are extra wells sitting around, waiting to produce. And, after Ukraine sent all those flying lawnmowers covered in C4 into refineries in Russia, that stung. It ended up taking out millions of barrels of capacity versus their peak refining capacity. That’s less bubbling crude being turned into diesel.

Thankfully, we also have Gulf War VII, Part 58, so that the oil produced is actually even lower than the capacity of the refineries. The IEA© (That stands for International House of Pancakes®, but in French, I think?) is guessing that things are rapidly falling apart when it comes to the amount of oil available and the fuel we can make out of it.

We have an oil tank. And its level is dropping. Even when the oil comes back, we still need to figure out how to mash it into diesel, which won’t happen overnight. What does that leave?

Demand destruction. Those are fancy words, but the short version is that the solution to high oil prices is high oil prices. Yes, I used to drink gasoline like it was milk back in the day, because despite trillions of dollars being spent to find it, drill it, pump it, pipeline it, smash the dead dinosaur molecules around so the T. Rex bones don’t get stuck in the bottom of my gas tank, gas was cheaper than bottled water. Was. Now it’s expensive, so people will stop drinking gasoline and diesel. And they’ll stop driving. And they’ll stop idling their cars so they use less of that wonderful fuel.

As we’ve discussed before, the poorer nations will be hit first, and hit hardest. For me, it means, well, nothing as far as my fuel purchases. I drive about four miles a day on the average day, so add the three and carry the two... that’s about 120 miles a month. At $4.50 a gallon and 20 miles per gallon, that’s, dang, complicated. It’s too complicated to figure out. You’d have to use multiplication or some other tool of the Devil.

As gas. Not as the economy, and it’s an isolated view. But the cost of fuel is a tax that hits every physical object that is moved in space to be bought and sold. I know that now that if I want steak, because it’s steak and who doesn’t want steak, it will now cost more. It costs more to get food to the cattle, move the cattle, convince the cattle politely to disassemble themselves into Wilder-sized portions, and move their soon-to-be-grilled-ribeyes to my house.

If that gets too expensive, maybe I’ll have chicken. But for the person who can already only afford chicken, I think they have to move to something like mouse. The short version is that demand destruction means people don’t buy as much of whatever demand is being destroyed because they can’t afford it. Demand destruction is just a fancy way of saying, “you’re all getting poorer, so learn to catch raccoon”.

There’s other positive news!10 of 11 postwar (World War II, not the Franco-Prussian War) recessions were produced by... oil price highs that exceeded the three-year high. Which is right where we are. This didn’t happen in 2022, because everyone just decided to print money so we could build all the data centers we can eat instead of having a recession, so in my mind we just kicked the can down the road a bit. Money printing is magic! Do you think they’ll stop now?

No. But what about oil. We make and export oil now. Surely, John Wilder, that will save us! No, it won’t. I mean, sure, it’s nice that roughnecks will be getting some more hours in down in Texas, but that doesn’t help much when you’re a farmer trying to harvest the crop with diesel that’s now twice as expensive as you planned on. On balance, my money is still on this increase in oil prices resulting in not only demand destruction but salary deconstruction.

Salary deconstruction? Oh, nevermind that. It’s just a fancy name for people getting fired, or not getting hired. Raises will be down right at the time that people will be feeling more costs, and it will be harder to get a job. In the 1970s we had stagflation. I wish this would be Epsteinflation, because at least then we’d never see it.

No, this will be Zendayaflation, because even though no one wants Zendaya, Zendaya is everywhere and in everything. Like the inflation we’re starting to see, small, mean looking, but you know that it’s going to grow and resemble a linebacker.

How do you get $1.2 trillion? Just jam up the world’s biggest machine, and then create ones and zeros so we can spend them faster. The downside of that Big Mac© that costs only $1.2 trillion? You don’t get any fries. And the burger isn’t exactly made of beef."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/