Full screen recommended.
Liquid Mind, "Awakening (Cosmic Sea)"
So, we rise from the rubble...
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Wednesday, February 11, 2026
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Close to the Great Bear (Ursa Major) and surrounded by the stars of the Hunting Dogs (Canes Venatici), this celestial wonder was discovered in 1781 by the metric French astronomer Pierre Mechain. Later, it was added to the catalog of his friend and colleague Charles Messier as M106. Modern deep telescopic views reveal it to be an island universe - a spiral galaxy around 30 thousand light-years across located only about 21 million light-years beyond the stars of the Milky Way. Along with a bright central core, this stunning galaxy portrait, a composite of image data from amateur and professional telescopes, highlights youthful blue star clusters and reddish stellar nurseries tracing the galaxy's spiral arms.
It also shows off remarkable reddish jets of glowing hydrogen gas. In addition to small companion galaxy NGC 4248 at bottom right, background galaxies can be found scattered throughout the frame. M106, also known as NGC 4258, is a nearby example of the Seyfert class of active galaxies, seen across the spectrum from radio to X-rays. Active galaxies are powered by matter falling into a massive central black hole."
"Sleep and the Meaning of Life: Fernando Pessoa on the Existential Dimension of the Horizontal Hours"
"Sleep and the Meaning of Life: Fernando Pessoa on
the Existential Dimension of the Horizontal Hours"
by Maria Popova
"One of the most important things I have learned about living is that, in any life of purpose and creative vitality, you must be as religious and disciplined about your sleep as about your work. And yet one of the great self-betrayals of our culture is the way it wears the lack of sleep as a badge of honor on the lapel of the ego of achievement - the cult of productivity gone past the sacrifice of presence, sacrificing even that precious nightly absence of conscious thought and metabolic urgency necessary to recover, to reset, to recalibrate so that we may begin again, in the deepest sense, in the new day.
Trouble sleeping both troubles living and signals a troubled life - because sleep is how most of the body’s physical systems recover; because, ever since evolution invented REM in the bird brain, it has been helping us regulate our negative emotions; because sleep goes beyond the physical, the mental, and the emotional to touch the existential.
No one has written more passionately or more perceptively about that existential dimension of sleep than the Portuguese poet and philosopher Fernando Pessoa (June 13, 1888–November 30, 1935) throughout The Book of Disquiet (public library) - the posthumously published masterpiece that also gave us Pessoa on how to be a good explorer in the lifelong expedition to yourself, the trouble with love, and how to unself into who you really are.
Pessoa recognizes that, more than a biological impediment, all those unsolved disquietudes and subtle estrangements from ourselves that keep the eyelids from closing the curtain on the day are emissaries of our existential angst. Wrestling with his own, he writes: "I’m going to life’s bed wide awake, unaccompanied and without peace, in the ebb and flow of my confused consciousness, like two tides in the black night where the destinies of nostalgia and desolation meet."
While Kafka is reverencing the creative power of insomnia a dozen degrees of latitude north, Pessoa discovers in his sleeplessness a strange metaphysical power: "The clock in the back of the deserted house (everyone’s sleeping) slowly lets the clear quadruple sound of four o’clock in the morning fall. I still haven’t fallen asleep, and I don’t expect to. There’s nothing on my mind to keep me from sleeping and no physical pain to prevent me from relaxing, but the dull silence of my strange body just lies there in the darkness, made even more desolate by the feeble moonlight of the street lamps. I’m so sleepy I can’t even think, so sleepless I can’t feel. Everything around me is the naked, abstract universe, consisting of nocturnal negations. Divided between tired and restless, I succeed in touching - with the awareness of my body - a metaphysical knowledge of the mystery of things."
The portal into that mystery, Pessoa realizes, is the cessation of selfing that marks waking life: "To cease, to sleep, to replace this intermittent consciousness with better, melancholy things, whispered in secret to someone who doesn’t know me! … To cease, to be the ebb and flow of a vast sea, fluidly skirting real shores, on a night in which one really sleeps! … To cease, to be unknown and external, a swaying of branches in distant rows of trees, a gentle falling of leaves, their sound noted more than their fall, the ocean spray of far-off fountains, and all the uncertainty of parks at night, lost in endless tangles, natural labyrinths of darkness! … To cease, to end at last, but surviving as something else: the page of a book, a tuft of dishevelled hair, the quiver of the creeping plant next to a half-open window, the irrelevant footsteps in the gravel of the bend, the last smoke to rise from the village going to sleep, the wagoner’s whip left on the early morning roadside… Absurdity, confusion, oblivion - everything that isn’t life…Behind me, on the other side of where I’m lying down, the silence of the house touches infinity."
It is sleep, Pessoa comes to believe, that most readily allows us to empty ourselves of our selves and touch the infinite: "There are moments when the emptiness of feeling oneself live attains the consistency of a positive thing. In the great men of action, namely the saints, who act with all of their emotion and not just part of it, this sense of life’s nothingness leads to the infinite. They crown themselves with night and the stars, and anoint themselves with silence and solitude. In [them] the same feeling leads to the infinitesimal; sensations are stretched, like rubber bands, to reveal the pores of their slack, false continuity… And in these moments both types of men love sleep, as much as the common man who doesn’t act and doesn’t not act, being a mere reflection of the generic existence of the human species. Sleep is fusion with God, Nirvana, however it be called. Sleep is the slow analysis of sensations, whether used as an atomic science of the soul or left to doze like a music of our will, a slow anagram of monotony."
Pessoa eventually experiences one such moment himself - a moment of profound unselfing, on the other side of which he comes to feel that one is most awake to life, to its essence and its mystery, when asleep: "It was just a moment, and I saw myself. I can no longer even say what I was. And now I’m sleepy, because I think - I don’t know why - that the meaning of it all is to sleep."
This may be so because meaning is so often muddled by interpretation, but sleep disables the whipping hand of the analytical mind, quells all the rationalizations that pass for reason, returns us to a state of pure being before the storying of identities and opinions. Pessoa writes: "When asleep we all become children again. Perhaps because in the state of slumber we can do no wrong and are unconscious of life, the greatest criminal and the most self-absorbed egotist are holy, by a natural magic, as long as they’re sleeping.
[…]All life is a dream. No one knows what he’s doing, no one knows what he wants, no one knows what he knows. We sleep our lives, eternal children of Destiny. That’s why, whenever this sensation rules my thoughts, I feel an enormous tenderness that encompasses the whole of childish humanity, the whole of sleeping society, everyone, everything."
"I Pity You, Too"
“Said a philosopher to a street sweeper, “I pity you. Yours is a hard and dirty task.” And the street sweeper said, “Thank you, sir. But tell me, what is your task?” And the philosopher answered saying, “I study man’s mind, his deeds and his desires.” Then the street sweeper went on with his sweeping and said with a smile, “I pity you, too.”
- Kahlil Gibran
"A Great Madness Sweeps The Land"
"A Great Madness Sweeps The Land"
by Charles Hugh Smith
‘In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups,
parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.’
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"A great madness sweeps the land. There are no limits on extremes in greed, credulity, convictions, inequality, bombast, recklessness, fraud, corruption, arrogance, hubris, pride, over-reach, self-righteousness and confidence in the rightness of one's opinions. Extremes only become more extreme even as the folly of previous extremes wearies rationality.
Imaginary sins are conjured out of thin air to convict the innocent while those guilty of the most egregious fraud and corruption are lauded as saviors.
The national mood is aggrieved and bitter. The luxuries of self-righteousness, indignation, entitlement and resentment have impoverished the national spirit. Bankrupted by these excesses, what little treasure remains is squandered on plots of petty revenge.
Blindness to the late hour is cheered as optimism, confidence in the false gods of technology is sanctified while doubters of the technocratic theocracy are crucified as irredeemable infidels.
Witch-hunts and show trials are the order of the day as those who cannot stomach the party line are obsessively purged, as healthy skepticism is condemned as a mortal sin by brittle true believers who secretly fear the failure of their cult.
Mired in a putrid sewer of suspected subversion and disloyalty to The One True Cause, heretics are everywhere to those caught up in the mass hysteria. In this choking atmosphere of toxic hubris, self-righteousness, indignation, entitlement and resentment, humility is for losers, prudence is for losers, caution is for losers, skeptical inquiry is for losers.
Completely untethered from cause and effect, those confident in the inevitability of a glorious future of unlimited expansion cling to past glory as proof of future glory, even as their hubris leads only to a treacherous path of decay and decline. As they stumble into the abyss, their final cries are of surprise that confidence alone is not enough.
Those who see the madness for what it is have only one escape: go to ground, fade from public view, become self-reliant and weather the coming storm in the nooks and crannies where cause and effect, skeptical inquiry, humility, prudence and thrift can still be nurtured."
o
"Societal Collapse"
"Societal Collapse"
by The ZMan
"Most people think of societal collapse as something like a zombie apocalypse where everything suddenly stops working. Instead of people turning into brain eating zombies, they stop going to work. The “system” collapses, so everyone just stops doing what they normally do all of a sudden. The next day, people divide up into gangs and begin to guard their turf using what is left of modern weapons. Life quickly returns to a hunter-gatherer existence with modern clothes.
This image of collapse is a powerful one. Google the phrase “United States collapse” or some version of it and you get results going back many years. Most of them start with economics but some start with culture. Right now, the people we call the Left for some reason think America is on the verge of collapse because they cannot force people to nod along with their weird morality. Many normal people think collapse is coming because they see the food bill every week.
Of course, there is a market for taking the contrary view. This is a popular gag for internet characters on what we continue to call the Right. They counter the claims from their fellow anti-leftists with arguments for why the “founding principals” will prevail and avoid societal collapse. Maybe they will point out that the magic of the free market has conquered communism, so it will conquer whatever is happening now. It is a form of strategic gainsaying to get attention.
The thing is societal collapse is a real thing that does happen just as civil wars, revolutions, wars and social upheavals are real things. Thirty years ago, the Soviet Union collapsed and we got to watch lots of it on television. When people suddenly realized that the guards were not going to shoot them if they tried to escape to the West, it did not take long before order broke down. Once the process started, there was no way to stop it and the system collapsed.
The thing is it did not happen overnight. The collapse actually started much earlier but people did not notice it. Little things stopped working. For example, people in Hungary began to notice that the border to Austria was not always guarded. Maybe the guards were there and ignored their duty or they just abandoned their post. Over time the border was not much of a border. Similar breakdowns of small systems became common over the course of the 1980’s.
Of course, the collapse of the Soviet Union did not send these societies back to the stone age either. Politics became increasingly chaotic. Law and order broke down to the point where criminal gangs were imposing their will on whole cities, because the police no longer had the ability or desire to stop them. The people got poorer in many small ways, but mostly in the breakdown of trust. They could not rely on the system, so they slowly abandoned it for alternatives.
We do not think of social trust as a part of the poverty equation, but in realty it is the key component of social happiness. High trust societies may not have unlimited consumer goods, but the people trust the system, because they trust one another. This allows for long term planning. Africa will never be rich, despite having massive natural resources, because social trust is near zero. Finland will never be poor because the Finns can count on their fellow Finns to always be Finnish.
Social collapse, like war and revolution, will reflect the material relations of the age because those reflect the resources of society. Revolution in the 18th century was peasants with pitchforks, because that is how you can revolt in an agrarian society operating under feudal rules. In the 19th century revolution was workers hurling homemade bombs and shooting at the authorities, because that is how you can stage a revolt in an industrial urban society.
This is the information age, so revolution will reflect the weapons we choose to use in this age, which will be money and knowledge. Money in all of its forms is a type of information that says things about the general state of affairs. In completely financialized societies like the West, money is the big weapon. It is also other information, like the government hiring clowns and carnies to nudge people in the “right direction” during the Covid panic.
The great tumult in the West over the last decade has been centered on the things that are important in the information age. The rise of a new group of oligarchs was made possible by the technological revolution. Just as agrarian people measured wealth in land and industrial people measured wealth in capital, technological people measure wealth in control of information flows. The reason Mark Zuckerberg is richer than Bill Gates is he controls something more valuable than PC’s.
Societal collapse in the information age will, at least at the beginning, reflect the socioeconomic relations of the age. Trust in what we are told by the media has collapsed, because it is easier to see the lying than in prior ages. In 1985 you could think the New York Times was biased, but predictably so. Today, you cannot trust anything they say because it is false in unpredictable ways. Trust in the media has collapsed because their information is chaotically false.
The slow collapse of trust in our information is spreading. We used to think that the courts were predictable, if not always fair. Poor people might not get the same justice as rich people, but the reason was understood. If you could afford a competent lawyer, he would get the most from the system for you. Today, no one knows what the hell will happen in a courtroom. Alex Jones got fined a billion dollars because the regime supporters are still salty about the 2016 election.
Of course, trust in government is collapsing not because they do not fix the streets or make the buses run on time. Trust is falling because they lie. It is not about politicians lying, which is expected and predictable. It is the government itself. For example, they appear to be faking key economic data. Their inflation numbers are laughable as anyone who buys food will tell you. They also like to change the meaning of words, which puts an Orwellian spin on the lying.
Getting back to the topic of collapse, what happens in the information age when no one trusts the information? In a world where your bank may close down your account because they claim you hold the wrong opinions; how can you trust them to be straight about anything else? If the government is faking economic data, how can we trust anything else they are doing? When the people responsible for 100% of disinformation claim to be fighting disinformation, who can we trust?
When the Soviet system began to collapse, it was the symbols of its power that first came under pressure. When people stopped fearing the border guard, they slowly stopped fearing the system behind it. The same will be true in this age. When people stop trusting the information that runs this world, they will slowly begin to stop trusting the system behind it. It is at that point the system begins to slowly unravel as alternative trust networks form up to fill the void.
The bottom line is those waiting for collapse are mistaken. It is not a thing that is looming over the horizon. It is a thing that is happening now. Every day there is a new reminder that the system cannot be trusted. Maybe it is ten dollar gas in Germany or skyrocketing food prices in England and America or demonstrably false claims from the drug makers with regards to the Covid jab. These things chip away at trust in the system and like the game of Jenga, the result is inevitable."
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Related:
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Joseph Tainter,
"The Dynamics of the Collapse of Human Civilization"
Dan, I Allegedly, "Survival Mode Has Begun"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 2/11/26
"Survival Mode Has Begun"
"The economy has fundamentally changed - and no one is escaping the affordability crisis. From rising consumer debt and shrinking tax refunds to home equity borrowing, credit card delinquencies, and businesses cutting staff just to survive, the financial pressure is hitting individuals and business owners alike. Millions are moving because they can’t afford rent, 73% need tax refunds just to survive, and debt levels are reaching dangerous highs. In this episode, we break down the real numbers behind the cost-of-living crisis, credit tightening, data breaches, rising taxes, collapsing retailers, and why even millionaires are cutting back. This isn’t a temporary slowdown - it’s a structural shift in the economy. If you think things will go back to “normal,” think again. It’s time to question everything and prepare for what’s next."
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"Parades, There And Here"
Full screen recommended.
"Russia Victory Day 2024: Russian Weapons & 9,000
Soldiers Parade in Central Moscow"
"President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia would do everything to avoid a clash of global powers but would not let itself be threatened, in a speech to mark the anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two. Putin was addressing massed ranks of Russian servicemen on Red Square.
After calling for a minute of silence, Putin ended with the words: "For Russia! For victory! Hurrah!", providing the cue for thousands of troops to answer with three loud cheers. "Russia will do everything to prevent a global clash. But at the same time we will not allow anyone to threaten us. Our strategic forces are always in a state of combat readiness," Putin said in a short speech as flurries of snow whipped across the vast square.
Russia stages its main annual Victory Day parade in Moscow's Red Square marking victory in World War II. Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to make an address at the event. Russia on Thursday marks the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two as relations with the West spiral deeper into crisis over the advance of Russian troops against Ukraine's Western-backed forces.
Vladimir Putin, who rose to power just eight years after the Soviet Union broke up, will speak at the Victory Day parade on Red Square though there will be less military hardware on display than in parades before Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Putin now casts the war as part of a holy struggle with the West, which he says has forgotten the role played by the Soviet Union in defeating Nazi Germany and the lesson that neither Napoleon Bonaparte nor Adolf Hitler could defeat Russia."
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o
Then, there's America...
Full screen recommended.
"The Best of San Francisco Pride Parade, 2024"
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"The Side of Russia The Media Won't Show You"
Full screen recommended.
Moscow Uncut, 2/10/26
"The Side of Russia The Media Won't Show You"
"In this video, I take you deep into the Moscow Metro during rush hour to show you a side of Russia that Western media rarely shows - the everyday lives of ordinary people. Instead of politicians, headlines, and geopolitics, this is about real Russians coming home from work, thinking about their families, finances, careers, and future. Just like people in the UK, Europe, and the US, most people here are focused on paying rent, building a stable life, saving for retirement, and finding time to relax with friends and hobbies.
As we travel through the metro, you’ll see that hopes, fears, dreams, and daily routines are remarkably similar across countries. The vast majority of people are not constantly thinking about global politics - they’re thinking about life.
This journey starts at Mayakovskaya Station, one of Moscow’s most famous stations, before heading to Belorusskaya Station. From there, we change to the Circle Line and visit the beautiful Novoslobodskaya Station, before continuing to Mendeleevskaya Station.We then travel south to Cheryomushki Station, return to the centre at Pushkinskaya Station, and continue north to Polezhaevskaya Station. From there, we join the Big Circle Line at Khoroshyovskaya Station, pass through Petrovsky Park Station, and finish at Khoroshevo and Mnyovniki Station.
Along the way, I share my thoughts on life in Russia, how similar everyday concerns are to those in the West, and why this human side of the country is so rarely shown in international media. If you’re interested in real life in Moscow, the Russian metro, travel in Russia, and honest perspectives beyond the headlines, this video is for you."
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Full screen recommended.
Scottish Guy In Moscow, 2/3/26
"Russia’s Most Futuristic Metro Station! Shocking!"
"Come with my as I take you to what I think is Moscows Moscow modern and futuristic metros station - Rizhskaya on the Big Circle line. I’ll take you through and explain how it got its name. You will be blown away by the beautiful clean lines and minimalistic design"
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o
Full screen recommended.
"The Moscow They Don't Want You To See 🇷🇺 Russia 2026"
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OMG...
Travelling With Russell, "Russian Typical Provincial Shopping Mall Tour"
Full screen recommended.
Travelling With Russell, 2/11/26
"Russian Typical Provincial Shopping Mall Tour"
"What does a typical Russian shopping mall look like 1,500km from Moscow? Join me on a tour of one of the first flagship/major modern department-store-style shopping centers in the city of Ufa, Russia. Bashkiriya Mall first opened in 1987."
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"A Ton Of Snow And Severe Weather Is Coming"
Full screen recommended.
Max Velocity - Severe Weather Center, 2/11/26 3:35 AM EST
"A Ton Of Snow And Severe Weather Is Coming"
"In this video, we are talking about a TRAIN of winter storms that will dump snow across the Northeast, Rockies, and West Coast, with the risk of additional winter storms in other areas later this month across the Northern Plains and Midwest. Additionally, severe weather will likely return this weekend to the Southern Plains and Southeast, with tornadoes being possible. Get the latest details in this forecast!"
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"A Massive Global Storm is Developing Now"
Full screen recommended.
Stefan Burns, 2/11/26
"A Massive Global Storm is Developing Now"
Geophysicist Stefan Burns reports on the incredible once-in-a-lifetime energy convergence that has begun with eclipse season and the Saturn-Neptune Great Conjunction...
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Earth Evolution Energy Analytics:
"The Banality of Evil and Those Who Said No"
"The Banality of Evil and Those Who Said No"
by Charles Hugh Smith
"In the Realm of the Banality of Evil, saying yes is always easy. The hard part is saying no, for reasons that have nothing to do with getting ahead.
The Epstein files have unleashed a flood tide of bleatings of innocence and accusations of guilt by association. This is just what we'd expect in the Realm of the Banality of Evil, a phrase made famous by Hannah Arendt, who described the "terrifyingly normal" participants in systems that normalize evil of the sort that "could not be traced to any particularity of wickedness, pathology or ideological conviction in the doer, whose only personal distinction was a perhaps extraordinary shallowness."
Amidst this flood tide of proclaimed innocence, consider the forgotten few who declined invitations to enter Epstein's circle of influence. While the files record those who accepted an invitation, those who said no appear to be less well documented.
Was it really that difficult to make a few inquiries about the host before saying yes? Or was the attraction of obtaining favors, funding and flattery just too powerful to resist? Or was it the promise of rubbing shoulders with the rich and powerful that was impossible to resist? Or was it the discreet promise of self-indulgence without limit?
Yet some did make inquiries and declined. Some said no. These few are forgotten, for their refusal is an indictment of the entire status quo. In the rush to declare everyone's innocence, perhaps we should first consider those who refused the invitations for self-evidently sound reasons.
In the context of the Banality of Evil, those few who said no are the only real innocents. Everyone who said yes was manifesting ordinary obedience to the perverse rulebook of America's elite class and aspirants seeking to join this elite: when it comes to self-enrichment and ambition, the only question is: can you get away with it.
In other words, there isn't a low standard of morality and ethics: there is no standard at all, a complete absence of anything but by any means available. America's elites in all the fields Epstein harvested were part of a system that made their unquestioning, automatic acceptance of the invitation inevitable.
The ideal medium for the expansion of evil is the shallow passivity of taking every opportunity to climb the ladder of power and increase one's private wealth without hesitation. Rising into the ranks of the elites in America boils down to doing everything you can get away with to get ahead without any thought for the consequences borne by others or for the sacrifice of your integrity, because integrity has no value in today's America. Even saying the word integrity makes you a chump.
In the Realm of the Banality of Evil, saying yes is always easy. The hard part is saying no, for reasons that have nothing to do with getting ahead. As Hannah Arendt wrote: "The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil."
One of the points I'm trying to make here is that the surveys of the Epstein files are prone to Survivorship bias: "the logical error of concentrating on entities that passed a selection process while overlooking those that did not." In other words, the data points of who accepted Epstein's invitations to parties (both the conventional parties of bigshots and those on his island) are becoming known, while the data points of who declined the invitations (those who said no)--and why they chose to decline/say no--are not known.
Yet those are the most interesting data points, as the few who refused to enter Epstein's circle of influence tell us more about the moral rot of our culture and the realm of the Banality of Evil than all those who joined the herd saying yes. And it was a large herd, extending into the upper reaches of virtually every sector's elite.
Self-absorbed ambition and self-gratification have no use for pondering good and evil, and that's the banality of evil that's consumed America's culture, society and economy."
"Optimism About The Future Plunges To An All-Time Record Low And Credit Card Debt Soars To An All-Time Record High"
by Michael Snyder
"As long as you have hope, you can face whatever challenges are ahead. Sadly, Americans have been losing hope at a rate that is absolutely unprecedented. As you will see below, optimism about the future has fallen to the lowest level ever recorded. One of the biggest reasons why people are losing hope is because we have been in a historic cost of living crisis for almost this entire decade. It is getting harder and harder just to pay the bills. Nobody can deny this. For most of the country, just surviving from month to month is a real struggle. When there just isn’t enough money coming in, it can be very tempting to bridge the gap with debt.
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, credit card debt has risen to the highest level in the entire history of the United States… Americans ended 2025 more in debt than ever before. Credit card balances hit a fresh high in the fourth quarter, rising by $44 billion to $1.28 trillion, according to a new report on household debt by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released Tuesday. That’s a 5.5% jump from a year earlier.
The central bank’s monthly Survey of Consumer Expectations, released Monday, also found that fewer consumers expect their households’ financial situations to be better off a year from now - and a larger share expect to be worse off.
Once you start piling up credit card debt, it can be exceedingly difficult to ever get it paid off. Credit card rates are higher than ever, and this is allowing large financial institutions to rake in enormous profits. But many on the other end of the equation feel like they are suffocating. Needless to say, credit card debt is not the only type of debt that is becoming a major national problem. Delinquency rates are rising for all types of debt, and this is particularly true for low income Americans…
"That’s not just apparent in the number of auto loan, credit card and home equity lines of credit delinquencies, the New York Fed researchers said. “You also see that in rising mortgage delinquency rates,” the researchers said, referring to the growing number of homeowners who are falling behind on their mortgage payments. Across the board, “elevated delinquency rates are more pronounced in the lowest-income areas,” the Fed researchers also found."
Everyone should be able to see that this crisis is not going to end well. It is just a matter of time. Americans have traditionally been very optimistic about the future, but a recent Gallup survey discovered that optimism about the future has now fallen to the lowest level ever recorded…"The percentage of U.S. adults who anticipate high-quality lives in five years declined to 59.2% in 2025, the lowest level since measurement began nearly two decades ago. Since 2020, future life ratings have fallen a total of 9.1 percentage points, projecting to an estimated 24.5 million fewer people who are optimistic about the future now versus then. Most of that decline occurred between 2021 and 2023, but the ratings dropped 3.5 points between 2024 and 2025."
Of course Americans are less optimistic about the present as well. In fact, U.S. consumer confidence just dropped to a level that we have not seen since 2014…"The most dangerous economic divergence isn’t in wealth. It’s in confidence. U.S. consumer confidence collapsed to 84.5 - it's lowest level since 2014, below even pandemic-era lows, the Conference Board recently reported. The Expectations Index fell to 65.1, well under the 80 threshold that historically signals recession. Across income levels, Americans earning under $15,000 remain the least optimistic of any group."
I am not surprised that Americans that are earning the least money are the most pessimistic. For those with very limited resources, just going to the grocery store can be a traumatic experience. From March 2025 to December 2025, the average price of beef rose nearly 20 percent…"That demand is also reflected in the meat case, where beef accounts for more than half of all fresh meat dollars, far outpacing other protein options like chicken, pork and seafood. According to U.S. Department of Agriculture data, the average price of beef in grocery stores climbed from about $8.40 per pound in March to $10.10 per pound by December 2025, a roughly 20% increase over that period."
We aren’t in the 1990s anymore. The economic environment that we are living in today is completely different from what we experienced a few decades ago. The middle class is being systematically eviscerated, and every day more Americans on the bottom half of the economic spectrum are simply giving up…"Today, the bottom half of the K-shaped economy is entering a new era. Call it the Quiet Riot.
This is the threshold where financial strain becomes behavioral exit—when people stop optimizing and start opting out. It is not through public unrest, but through millions of small, rational decisions that add up to something destabilizing: staying stuck instead of moving up, abandoning long-term planning, choosing short-term survival over long-term compounding.
It follows a simple framework. Fuel: affordability strain, debt stress, declining job quality. The oxygen is missing; a lack of agency, when people can’t see a credible path to mobility. The spark here is the shock that pushes households from “stressed but functioning” into opt-out mode. That can be job loss, medical bills, rent jump, or simply one more month where the math doesn’t work."
Most of the population is just one accident way from financial disaster. If you can avoid going to the hospital or getting laid off, you get the opportunity to try to scrape by for another month. But if the unexpected strikes, you can suddenly lose your spot in the middle class. Our society has been transformed into a very twisted game of musical chairs, and for those that get bumped out of the game each round it can be absolutely soul crushing.
Alarmingly, it appears that some near the top of the economic spectrum are also becoming very alarmed about what is coming, because last week we witnessed “a notable wave of insider selling across multiple sectors”…"This week is shaping up to be an important one for rotation trades, particularly as insider activity continues to lean heavily toward selling. On Friday, February 6, we saw a notable wave of insider selling across multiple sectors. Two transactions stood out. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares each of GOOG and GOOGL, while CoreWeave’s Chief Strategy Officer sold over USD 23 million worth of shares, reducing his position to zero."
Signs of trouble are erupting all around us. And if a major conflict with Iran begins during the weeks ahead, that will greatly accelerate our economic problems. It has taken decades of very bad decisions for us to reach this point, and now our society is peering down into the abyss. U.S. households are 18.8 trillion dollars in debt, the federal government is 38.5 trillion dollars in debt, and the U.S. dollar has been rapidly losing value. We have accumulated the greatest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and there is no easy way out."
"America Hits the Wall: Jobs Lost, Debt Soars, Insiders Know What’s Coming"
Jeremiah Babe, 2/10/26
"America Hits the Wall: Jobs Lost,
Debt Soars, Insiders Know What’s Coming"
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"The 'Empire Killer' Strikes Again"
"The 'Empire Killer' Strikes Again"
by Nick Giambruno
"One of the most potent and underappreciated forces responsible for the downfall of the most powerful empires throughout history has been debt. While military defeats, political upheavals, and external invasions often dominate historical accounts of the fall of great powers, excessive debt - the "Empire Killer" - has quietly but relentlessly eroded the foundations of empires across the centuries.
From Rome to the Soviet Union, the over-extension of resources, poor financial management, and the inability to service massive debts have led to economic collapse, social unrest, and, ultimately, the demise of these once-mighty empires. Understanding how debt has played a role in the fall of these empires gives us insight into the role it could play in the collapse of the US Empire. Here is a summary of some prominent historical examples of this clear pattern.
The Roman Empire: One of the most iconic examples of debt’s destructive force is the Roman Empire. At its height, Rome was the center of the known world, controlling vast territories, including much of Europe, North Africa, and parts of the Middle East. Maintaining a vast empire required immense financial resources. The Roman government needed to fund its sprawling military, build infrastructure such as roads and aqueducts, and support the grandeur of its capital city.
Emperors financed the resulting debt by debasing the currency - reducing the silver content in Roman coins. However, this led to rampant price increases and economic instability. The more the Roman government tried to print its way out of debt, the worse the problem became. As debt and inflation strangled the Roman economy, the empire struggled to pay its soldiers, undermining military morale and effectiveness.
Weakened by internal financial collapse, Rome became vulnerable to external threats. The combined weight of financial mismanagement, social unrest, and military decline led to the empire’s collapse.
The Spanish Empire: In the 16th century, the Spanish Empire was a global superpower. The discovery of the New World brought an influx of gold and silver, filling the Spanish government’s coffers beyond imagination. However, this newfound wealth bred complacency and extravagance. The Spanish monarchy became embroiled in costly wars across Europe - including the Eighty Years’ War with the Dutch and conflicts with France and England - and indulged in lavish expenditures without regard for fiscal sustainability.
Spain borrowed heavily from European bankers to finance its ambitions, accruing enormous debts. At first, the influx of colonial wealth allowed Spain to service its debts, but as wars dragged on, the costs began to outstrip the income from the New World. Spain’s creditworthiness diminished as the debts mounted, and the economic decline became irreversible. The inevitable consequence was a series of bankruptcies in 1557, 1575, and 1596. Each bankruptcy weakened Spain’s creditworthiness, making it more difficult to borrow money on favorable terms. The once-dominant empire lost its influence, illustrating how an abundance of wealth, when mismanaged and coupled with excessive debt, can precipitate a rapid descent from power.
The French Monarchy: The fall of the French monarchy in the late 18th century provides another stark example of how debt can destabilize a powerful country. France’s involvement in costly wars, such as the Seven Years’ War and the American Revolution, strained the country’s finances. Meanwhile, the extravagant lifestyle of the French court, epitomized by King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, drained the treasury further. France was deeply in debt, and the government struggled to service its loans.
By the late 1780s, the French government was spending more on interest payments than its military. The French monarchy imposed heavy taxes on commoners to pay the cost of its debts, while the nobility and clergy were largely exempt. It led to widespread anger among the population, fueling social unrest. In 1789, the situation reached a tipping point, igniting the French Revolution.
When empires reach the late stages of the debt cycle, they don’t regain discipline - they reset the system. Today’s exploding debt, rising interest costs, and currency debasement point to the same outcome: a more centralized, digital reset that protects government solvency while quietly transferring wealth from the unprepared to those who act early.
The Qing Dynasty: The Qing Dynasty was the last imperial dynasty of China. It was a leading world economic power, but spending and foreign borrowing in the 19th century was a significant factor in its decline. The Qing Dynasty faced enormous financial strain due to prolonged conflicts, including the Opium Wars, the Taiping Rebellion, and the Boxer Rebellion. These wars forced the Qing Dynasty to borrow heavily from foreign lenders. The Qing government increased taxes on peasants and small landholders to manage its debt. The tax burden, widespread corruption, and inefficiency in the imperial bureaucracy led to social discontent and weakened the central authority’s control over the provinces. Debt was a critical factor that exacerbated the already unstable political and social situation in the late Qing Dynasty.
The British Empire: The sun never set on the British Empire at the height of its power. However, the two World Wars strained the empire’s resources beyond its limits. The cost of fighting in WW1 and WW2 left Britain deeply in debt, particularly to the US. The financial strain of debt made maintaining control over its vast territories impossible, and Britain’s role as a world superpower diminished. The pound ceased being the world’s leading reserve currency.
How Debt Destroys Empires: A Familiar Pattern: The typical pattern in these examples of collapsing empires (and numerous others I didn’t have time to mention) is:
Stage #1: Empires achieve success and become overconfident.
Stage #2: Overconfidence leads to extravagant spending on luxuries and wars.
Stage #3: Empires finance this lavish spending by going into debt.
Stage #4: The debt grows to an unsustainable level and creates a crushing burden.
Stage #5: Empires finance the debt through taxation and currency debasement.
Stage #6: The populace bears the brunt of debt repayment as empires raise taxes and debase the currency - to the maximum extent - until it causes internal instability.
Stage #7: Empires cannot finance their militaries because of their debt burden. This is usually the tipping point.
Stage #8: Underfunded militaries plus internal instability make empires vulnerable to foreign invasion, domestic revolution, civil war, and other existential dangers.
Stage #9: The empire collapses.
The US federal government has the biggest debt in the history of the world. And it’s continuing to grow at a rapid, unstoppable pace. While the US government can extend the charade of solvency longer than any other entity on the planet, not even the most powerful empires in human history can do so forever, particularly when they start to struggle to pay the interest costs. The situation has reached a tipping point. That’s because the federal debt’s annualized interest cost exceeded the defense budget for the first time last year. It’s on track to exceed Social Security and become the BIGGEST item in the federal budget.
As a result, the US Empire is somewhere between Stage #6 and #7 in the empire collapse pattern I described above. History rarely repeats in perfect detail - but it does rhyme, and the rhyme is getting louder. When an empire hits the late stages of the debt cycle, the real damage doesn’t arrive with a headline or a single crash. It shows up in the quiet erosion of purchasing power, the creeping "emergency" policies, and the accelerating need to debase currency just to keep the machine running.
If the US really is drifting from Stage #6 toward Stage #7, then this isn’t just an abstract history lesson - it’s a live setup. And the people who come through periods like this intact are usually the ones who recognize the pattern early and position themselves before the crowd is forced to react."
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"National Debt Clock"
Real time: - https://www.usdebtclock.org/
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