Bill Bonner, "The Coming Global Monetary Reset"

"The Coming Global Monetary Reset"

by Bill Bonner

Poitou, France -  "We stood on the veranda Wednesday night...about 8:30 in the evening. A rectangle of thick, smoked glass...taken from a welder’s screen...was held up to our eyes. Then, turning to the sun, we saw a rare celestial spectacle - an eclipse of the sun.

The temperature is expected to rise to 100 degrees today. The trees are dying. The rivers are running out of water; the ponds are mere puddles of scummy green sludge. And now this...the heavens themselves have turned against us...blotting out the source of light, warmth, and energy to which we owe our lives.

An End Time-ish feeling was irresistible. “I wonder how many ancient astronomers went blind trying to figure it out,” said Elizabeth. The phenomenon must have had the ancients scratching their heads. The moon was in motion. The sun rose in the East and set in the West, surely it was in motion too. And the Earth?

Aristarchus of Samos was a 3rd century BC mathematician who was probably the first to get a grip on it. He proposed a ‘heliocentric’ solar system (with the sun at the center). The Earth went around the sun one time per year, he said, and it rotated on its own axis once a day. He also supported the idea, not original to him, that the sun was but just one of a multitude of stars. But just because an idea is correct doesn’t mean you can’t be roasted for saying so. David Myton:

"On February 17, 1600 Giordano Bruno, naked, hands bound behind his back, was led out onto Rome’s crowded Piazza Campo de’ Fiori where he was tied to a large wooden stake and then burned to death. It would have been a ghastly sight, Bruno writhing and screaming until mercifully he passed out, choking on the smoke as his life turned to ashes. The Pope himself, Clement VIII, had given the order. Clement was God’s man on Earth. Bishops and cardinals represented Clement. Priests and executioners merely did their duty. You might think anything you want; but there are times to keep your mouth shut."

Elites - whether they be dressed in the elegant frocks of the high priests or the blue serge of the low-bred dictators - wield power as a combination of fraud and fear. Nine times out of ten, fraud is enough. Fear is brought into service, like a hitman by the mob, when fraud alone won’t do the job. The medieval church claimed a monopoly on truth - and enforced it, when necessary, ruthlessly. That is still the same formula, more or less, for today’s secular authorities.

When the scourge of Covid stuck in 2020, we were told to ‘follow the science’ and obey the feds. You might think you risked nothing by going for a walk, or swimming in the ocean, but the authorities had other ideas. And if you defied them, you could be fined...or put in prison. And if you dared to defend yourself, ultimately, there was the stake. The circumstances change, the patterns of human behavior...from Eden to Pennsylvania Ave...not so much.

It has been so hot this week, about all we could do was stay indoors and read. Fortunately, our old friends have written new books. Porter Stansberry sent us two of them, newly minted. In one, Porter brings his ‘End of America’ theme up to 2026 and adds a surprising insight. Hundreds of years before the Pope roasted Bruno, Philip the Fair, king of France, burned his own heretic - Jacques de Molay -  head of the Knights Templar.

The Templars had become the richest group in Europe. And while King Philip charged them with heresy, the real reason for arresting thousands of them and burning their leader on the banks of the Seine was an ancient one: money. Philip had already robbed the Jews. He had plundered the Lombard banks. He had debased the currency - the silver livre. But his purse was still empty. So, he rounded up the Templars from all over the kingdom and stole their land, their buildings, their art, and their wealth. And to make sure it looked like a religious crusade and not a shakedown, he grilled poor Jacques.

Porter smells smoke. And he warns us that the feds today can be just as conniving and ruthless as Philip the Fair. The US government is deep in debt. And it is spending money as if it were printing it up in the basement. Neither party can object; shutting down the money machine would bring mobs into the streets and mean almost certain defeat in the next elections. As we opined yesterday, the pin is patient. But Porter sees it reaching the debt bubble in 2029.

The other volume Porter sent is the result of years of trailing Warren Buffett. It is a remarkable piece of work in which Porter identifies ‘what went wrong’ at Berkshire Hathaway. In a couple very short sentences, he reveals: "When Buffett bought pieces of great public companies, he outperformed. When he bought whole private companies, he did not." Porter’s book is not just a look at Buffett, but it is also a great study of how to make exceptional returns...slowly and steadily...without taking on more risk.

Finally, comes another book from another comrade — Chris Mayer. We haven’t gotten our hands on the book yet, but we know Chris’s investment strategy well. Here’s how the book jacket describes it: “In The Investor’s Odyssey, Mayer provides the beeswax and the mast to lash yourself so you can ignore the voices of the sirens. In investing, they go by names like ‘take profits’, ‘rebalance’, and ‘the market is overvalued.’ Using the Odyssey as a powerful organizing metaphor, he walks readers through every major challenge the long-term investor faces. Packed with financial history, memorable case studies—The Investor’s Odyssey is an essential guide for anyone serious about playing the long game.”

Chris’s message is also his method. Buy good businesses at reasonable prices. And hold on. They don’t always go up, but they ought to. Good reading!

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

"Trapped Aboard the Lincoln"

"Trapped Aboard the Lincoln"

by Redacted

"USS Abraham Lincoln was reportedly the scene of a deadly clash that left seven Navy personnel dead, raising questions about the carrier's prolonged deployment and neglect of its crew. The incident received no apparent coverage from U.S. media.

The conflict was said to have begun when an adviser to CENTCOM chief Brad Cooper came aboard to address complaints and concerns raised by family members. The adviser was booed and pelted with water bottles, and the situation escalated. What followed was a deadly knife fight among sailors, with seven reportedly killed and others wounded. What did this all stem from?

While the carrier has been deployed for 263 days, spending 208 consecutive days at sea, which is the longest continuous run for any U.S. carrier, the roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines aboard have dealt with desperate conditions.

Meals have shrunk to half a cup of rice and two scraps of meat, with reports of rotten food being served. But there's plenty of food at Mar-a-Lago, and plenty of food in the U.S. Capitol, right? The laundry facilities have been down for weeks, and mold in the showers has caused fungal infections. All of this while being stuck in what some describe as a pressure chamber for months on end. Conditions have been unbearable to the point where multiple sailors have attempted to jump overboard. These men and women are risking their lives for our country and they're being neglected like this?

In an attempt to protect these service members, Sen. Richard Blumenthal sent a letter to Hegseth and Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao demanding answers: "There have been widespread reports of shortages of basic supplies, water contamination, plumbing issues, deteriorating mental health, deck safety concerns, and disruptions in the mail system." Yet United States Secretary of War Pete Hegseth brushed off the reports as "completely misrepresented." So he's calling the parents and the ship's crew are lying?

Now that the neglect has been brought to light, something is finally being done about it, despite the fact that CENTCOM is denying all allegations. They're sending the USS George Washington to take the Lincoln's place. So now... another batch of sailors and Marines will be put in harm's way as well.

Here's an idea. How about ending this useless war instead and bringing our men and women home?"

- https://redacted.inc/

"The Butcher's Bill Comes Due: A Military Run Past Its Limits, and the Leaders Who Keep Saying Everything Is Fine"

"The Butcher's Bill Comes Due: A Military Run Past 

Its Limits, and the Leaders Who Keep Saying Everything Is Fine"

by Larry C. Johnson

"Larry’s note: This article discusses suicide. Service members, veterans, and family members in crisis can reach the Veterans/Military Crisis Line by dialing 988 and pressing 1, texting 838255, or visiting VeteransCrisisLine.net.

When the Secretary of the Army orders every officer and sergeant in the force to personally check on every soldier, every single day, that is not a routine holiday gesture. It is an alarm. And in the ten months since Dan Driscoll issued that order, the alarm has kept ringing - from a carrier in the Arabian Sea, from a secretive command at Fort Meade, from the families of sailors who can no longer get a straight answer about why their children are hungry. The stories arrive from different branches and different missions, but they add up to a single indictment: the American military is being run past the limits of the people inside it, and too many of its leaders have responded not by fixing the problem but by denying it exists.

The order that was an admission. Start with what Driscoll’s November 2025 memo actually conceded. “Last year, we lost 260 soldiers to suicide,” he wrote. “Soldiers aren’t getting the help they need.” Read that again. The civilian head of the Army, in writing, told the entire force that its existing suicide-prevention apparatus - years of briefings, mandatory training, awareness campaigns, and dedicated prevention offices - was failing to reach the people who needed it. His solution was to fall back on the most basic human intervention available: order a person to call another person, once a day, and ask if they are okay.

There is nothing wrong with that instinct. A daily check-in is humane, and Driscoll deserves credit for making it personal and mandatory rather than performative. But strip away the sentiment and the memo is a confession. The Pentagon’s own data shows active-duty suicide rates rising more or less steadily from 2011 through 2023, through multiple administrations and countless “prevention initiatives.” When the fix for a decade-long institutional failure is to command individuals to manually watch each other, the institution is admitting its systems don’t work. The daily check-in treats the symptom. It does nothing about the conditions generating the wound - and those conditions were about to get worse.

The food fight the Navy tried to wave away: By April 2026, the strain had moved from statistics to meal trays. USA Today published photographs - from the families of service members aboard the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and the assault ship USS Tripoli - showing half-empty trays, small portions, and a gray slab of processed meat. A sailor reportedly told his mother the crew “eat when they can” and split food evenly when someone got more than the others. The Lincoln had been pulled into the war with Iran and was grinding through a deployment that would stretch past 250 days.

Here is where accountability stops being abstract. Confronted with photographs and firsthand accounts, the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, did not order an inquiry or promise to look into it. He went on social media and called the reporting “FAKE NEWS.” That response is the pattern this whole story turns on: when evidence of strain surfaces, the reflex from the top has too often been to attack the messenger rather than examine the condition. It is difficult to fix a problem you have publicly declared does not exist - and a denial from the Secretary of War sends an unmistakable signal down the chain of command about which answer leadership wants to hear.

Fort Meade: where the tempo became fatal: Then came the gravest signal, and it did not come with photographs. In August, Bloomberg reported that US Cyber Command - the force that defends American networks and runs offensive cyber operations - was investigating a cluster of deaths among its people. As many as five individuals who worked in or closely with the command died by suicide between early June and early July 2026, according to internal communications, records, and interviews the outlet reviewed. The concentration was abnormal enough that Cyber Command reportedly invoked the Pentagon’s “suicide cluster” designation; leadership had acknowledged three deaths in an internal email as early as June.

Precision matters here, and it cuts toward accountability rather than away from it. Officials have not established a common cause, and there is no public evidence connecting the deaths beyond their timing — no one should imply otherwise. But what the reporting does establish is the backdrop: a workforce hit by a workload surge driven by foreign conflicts, the Iran war above all, with the deaths landing in one of the most intense stretches of that war. Cyber Command had reportedly started embedding mental-health clinicians at Fort Meade in May - before the public knew anything - which tells you the leadership already understood its people were in trouble.

That is the accountability question in its sharpest form. If commanders were worried enough to move clinicians in during the spring, who was accountable for the operational tempo that made those clinicians necessary? Burnout in an elite cyber force is not weather. It is the downstream result of decisions about missions, staffing, and pace - decisions made by people with names and ranks. The Senate Armed Services Committee is reportedly now discussing more mental-health resources, and a House committee has called the rise in suicides a “critical issue.” Congressional attention is welcome, but it arrives after the deaths, not before, and more counselors do not answer the prior question of why the load was allowed to grow unchecked.

The Lincoln, again - and the same reflex: If the April food dispute could be waved off as a one-time supply hiccup, August removed that excuse. The outlet MS Now reported - citing about a dozen family members and recordings of meetings between families and Navy leadership - that the Lincoln’s crew was contending with food shortages, long meal lines, broken toilets, mold in the showers, dead laundry machines, missing soap and toothpaste, and collapsing morale after roughly 250 days at sea. The reporting raised safety concerns and, in some family accounts, attempted suicides aboard a crew worn to the bone.

And the institutional reflex held. A 5th Fleet spokesman allowed that a 250-day deployment “is challenging for the crew and their equipment” but insisted the sailors “remain resilient and ready” and the ship “remains fully capable of meeting all mission tasking.” Fact-checkers still listed elements of the allegations as under investigation. The specific claims are not all settled, and honest accounting requires saying so. But notice the shape of the answer: not “we are pulling this crew home,” not “we failed to resupply them,” but a reassurance that the mission can still be accomplished. That is the tell. When the reflexive priority is defending readiness rather than the readiness of the human beings, you have learned exactly whose welfare sits at the bottom of the ledger.

Who is accountable: It would be dishonest to collapse four situations into one conspiracy, and equally dishonest to pretend they are unrelated coincidences that happened to land in the same year across the same military. The truth is structural, and it has an address.

The common accelerant is a war with Iran now in its sixth month, layered on top of years of high operational tempo - and operational tempo is not an act of God. It is a policy choice about how many missions to run, how long to keep carriers forward-deployed, and how hard to push a cyber force that never appears on a casualty list. Someone chooses that pace. The recurring second thread is the response to evidence: an Army secretary who at least named the failure in writing, set against a Defense Secretary who called firsthand reporting “fake news” and a fleet that answered allegations of a broken crew with assurances about mission capability. A military that cannot admit its people are breaking cannot protect them, because the first step in every prevention program ever written is to acknowledge the problem out loud.

Driscoll’s daily check-in, viewed from here, looks less like a holiday courtesy and more like a quiet vote of no confidence in everything above it - an acknowledgment that the formal systems have failed and the only thing left is to have one exhausted person watch over another. That may save lives at the margin. It should. But it is a tourniquet, and a tourniquet is what you reach for when the institution responsible for preventing the wound has already let it open. The people who set the tempo, who cut the resupply, who reached for “fake news” instead of an investigation - they are the ones with the authority to actually stop the bleeding. So far, too many of them have chosen to insist there is no blood.

If you or someone you know is a service member, veteran, or military family member in crisis, the Veterans/Military Crisis Line is available 24/7: dial 988 then press 1, text 838255, or visit VeteransCrisisLine.net. This is a sensitive subject; anyone struggling personally is encouraged to reach out to that line or another trusted source of support."

https://larrycjohnson.substack.com/

Adventures With Danno, "Everything's Getting Crazy... Where Do We Begin?!"

Adventures With Danno, 8/13/26

"Everything's Getting Crazy... 

Where Do We Begin?!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Breathing Light"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Breathing Light"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"The small, northern constellation Triangulum harbors this magnificent face-on spiral galaxy, M33. Its popular names include the Pinwheel Galaxy or just the Triangulum Galaxy. M33 is over 50,000 light-years in diameter, third largest in the Local Group of galaxies after the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), and our own Milky Way. About 3 million light-years from the Milky Way, M33 is itself thought to be a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy and astronomers in these two galaxies would likely have spectacular views of each other's grand spiral star systems.

As for the view from planet Earth, this sharp image shows off M33's blue star clusters and pinkish star forming regions along the galaxy's loosely wound spiral arms. In fact, the cavernous NGC 604 is the brightest star forming region, seen here at about the 4 o'clock position from the galaxy center. Like M31, M33's population of well-measured variable stars have helped make this nearby spiral a cosmic yardstick for establishing the distance scale of the Universe."

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

“In The Long Run… We Are All Alive”

“In The Long Run… We Are All Alive”

by MN Gordon 

“In 1976, economist Herbert Stein, father of Ben Stein, the economics professor in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, observed that U.S. government debt was on an unsustainable trajectory. He, thus, established Stein’s Law: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” Stein may have been right in theory. Yet the unsustainable trend of U.S. government debt outlasted his life.  Herbert Stein died in 1999, several decades before the crackup. Those reading this may not be so lucky.

Sometimes the end of the world comes and goes, while some of us are still here. We believe our present episode of debt, deficits, and state sponsored economic destruction, is one of these times.. We’ll have more on this in just a moment. But first, let’s peer back several hundred years. There we find context, edification, and instruction.

In 1696, William Whiston, a protégé of Isaac Newton, wrote a book. It had the grandiose title, “A New Theory of the Earth from its Original to the Consummation of All Things.” In it he proclaimed, among other things, that the global flood of Noah had been caused by a comet. Mr. Whiston took his book very serious. The good people of London took it very serious too. Perhaps it was Whiston’s conviction. Or his great fear of comets. But, for whatever reason, it never occurred to Londoners that he was a Category 5 quack.

Like Neil Ferguson, and his mathematical biology cohorts at Imperial College, London, Whiston’s research filled a void. Much like today’s epidemiological models, the science was bunk. Nonetheless, the results supplied prophecies of the apocalypse to meet a growing demand. It was just a matter of time before Whiston’s research would cause trouble…

Judgement Day: In 1736, William Whiston crunched some data and made some calculations. He projected these calculations out and saw the future. And what he witnessed scared him mad. He barked. He ranted. He foamed at the mouth to anyone who would listen. Pretty soon he’d stirred up his neighbors with a prophecy that the world would be destroyed on October 13th of that year when a comet would collide with the earth.

Jonathan Swift, in his work, “A True and Faithful Narrative of What Passed in London on a Rumour of the Day of Judgment,” quoted Whiston: “Friends and fellow-citizens, all speculative science is at an end: the period of all things is at hand; on Friday next this world shall be no more. Put not your confidence in me, brethren; for tomorrow morning, five minutes after five, the truth will be evident; in that instant the comet shall appear, of which I have heretofore warned you. As ye have heard, believe. Go hence, and prepare your wives, your families, and friends, for the universal change.”

Clergymen assembled to offer prayers. Churches filled to capacity. Rich and paupers alike feared their judgement. Lawyers worried about their fate. Judges were relieved they were no longer lawyers. Teetotalers got smashed. Drunks got sober. Bankers forgave their debtors. Criminals, to be executed, expressed joy.

The wealthy gave their money to beggars. Beggars gave it back to the wealthy. Several rich and powerful gave large donations to the church; no doubt, reserving first class tickets to heaven. Many ladies confessed to their husbands that one or more of their children were bastards. Husbands married their mistresses. And on and on…

The Archbishop of Canterbury, William Wake, had to officially deny this prediction to ease the public consternation. But it did little good. Crowds gathered at Islington, Hampstead, and the surrounding fields, to witness the destruction of London, which was deemed the “beginning of the end.” Then, just like Whiston said, a comet appeared. Prayers were made. Deathbed confessions were shared. And at the moment of maximum fear, something remarkable happened: the world didn’t end. The comet did not collide with earth. It was merely a near miss.

The experience of Whiston, and his pseudoscience prophecy, shows that predictions of the end of the world come and go while people still remain. Sometimes the fallout of these predictions, and the foolishness they provoke, is limited. Other times the foolishness they provoke leads to catastrophe. Here’s what we mean…

“In the long run we are all dead,” said 20th Century economist and Fabian socialist, John Maynard Keynes. This was Keynes rationale for why governments should borrow from the future to fund economic growth today. Of course, politicians love an academic theory that gives them cover to intervene in the economy. This is especially so when it justifies spending other people’s money to buy votes. Keynesian economics, and in particular, counter-cyclical stimulus, does just that.

U.S. politicians have attempted to borrow and spend the nation to prosperity for the last 80 years. Over the past decade, the Federal Reserve has aggressively printed money to fund Washington’s epic borrowing binge. Then Fed Chair Jay Powell confirmed that the Fed will pursue policies of dollar destruction to, somehow, print new jobs.

The world as it was once known – where a dollar was as good as gold – has come and gone. Today, in life after the end of that world, we are witnessing the illusion of wealth, erected by four generations of borrowing and spending, crumble before our eyes. Moreover, contrary to Keynes, in the long run we are not all dead. In fact, in the long run we are all very much alive. And we are all living with the compounding consequences of shortsighted economic policies.”

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

"Figuring Forward in an Uncertain Universe"

"Figuring Forward in an Uncertain Universe"

by Maria Popova

"We make things and seed them into the world, never fully knowing - often never knowing at all - whom they will reach and how they will blossom in other hearts, how their meaning will unfold in contexts we never imagined. (W.S. Merwin captured this poignantly in the final lines of his gorgeous poem “Berryman.”)

Today I offer something a little apart from the usual, or sidelong rather, amid these unusual times: A couple of days ago, I received a moving note from a woman who had read "Figuring" and found herself revisiting the final page - it was helping her, she said, live through the terror and confusion of these uncertain times. I figured I’d share that page - which comes after 544 others (here are the first), tracing centuries of human loves and losses, trials and triumphs, that gave us some of the crowning achievements of our civilization - in case it helps anyone else.

Click image for larger size.

Meanwhile, someplace in the world, somebody is making love and another a poem. Elsewhere in the universe, a star manyfold the mass of our third-rate sun is living out its final moments in a wild spin before collapsing into a black hole, its exhale bending spacetime itself into a well of nothingness that can swallow every atom that ever touched us and every datum we ever produced, every poem and statue and symphony we’ve ever known - an entropic spectacle insentient to questions of blame and mercy, devoid of why.

In four billion years, our own star will follow its fate, collapsing into a white dwarf. We exist only by chance, after all. The Voyager will still be sailing into the interstellar shorelessness on the wings of the “heavenly breezes” Kepler had once imagined, carrying Beethoven on a golden disc crafted by a symphonic civilization that long ago made love and war and mathematics on a distant blue dot.

But until that day comes, nothing once created ever fully leaves us. Seeds are planted and come abloom generations, centuries, civilizations later, migrating across coteries and countries and continents. Meanwhile, people live and people die - in peace as war rages on, in poverty and disrepute as latent fame awaits, with much that never meets its more, in shipwrecked love.

I will die.

You will die.

The atoms that huddled for a cosmic blink around the shadow of a self will return to the seas that made us. What will survive of us are shoreless seeds and stardust."

- https://www.brainpickings.org/

“Fish Are the Last to Notice the Water”

“Fish Are the Last to Notice the Water”

by Paul Rosenberg

“I ran into this phrase in a physics lecture, of all places, and knew it would be the title of my next article. And this is generally a true statement. Those who are immersed in something… who have always been immersed in it… are the last to see what it really is.

By now it should be obvious to the people of the West that they’re being held in a primitive bondage. And fortunately, more eyes are opening to this than ever before. But still, most people are so used to this particular “water” and have so long acclimated themselves to it, that they haven’t recognized it. There’s nothing inherently wrong with most of these people; they just haven’t stepped back far enough to see the obvious. So, let’s do that.

The Long View: A single model of human life has dominated the West for thousands of years. I can summarize by saying that this rulership model began to form in about 5400 BC, dominated Mesopotamia by about 4000 BC, took hold in Egypt by 3000 BC, and spread over the rest of the world from there. So, it has dominated for some 5,000 or 6,000 years, depending on which dates you prefer. This model is so common that it’s hard to make out at first. Here are its parts:

• A small minority of men hold a monopoly on making rules everyone else will live by.

• This minority enforces these rules on everyone else.

• The minority extracts regular payments from everyone else. This is said to be necessary for protection and justice.

• The minority fails to provide justice on a daily basis and very often sends the children of the majority to fight in battles to the death.

• A minority-aligned intellectual class assures the majority that this is the best that can be had and that it has been sanctified by some higher power (gods, ancestors, tradition, reason, experience, progress, or whatever).

• No one is permitted to escape this model. Those who try are punished as traitors and heretics.

This is the primary model of human organization and has been for some 5,000 years. And aside from arguing over details (or fury over the audacity to say it), there is no real challenge to this statement. Moreover, this model has been an abject failure – a demonstrable failure:

• Wars have continued throughout its entire reign.

• Justice has never been achieved and generally came closest in places away from power centers.

• Human happiness has not noticeably increased.

• Even when science has broken out, it has been recaptured and forced to serve the model. (The internet, for example.)

On top of that, this model has to be maintained by force. As noted above, straying from it is harshly punished. If this system was truly superior, force wouldn’t be required. After all, we don’t have to force people to buy houses or cars. So, by any number of measurable standards, this model fails, and very, very badly. The best defense one might make for it is that something else could be worse. But since we’re not permitted to test that assertion, the word bondage is perfectly fitting.

At a bare minimum, we can say this: Any system with no major upgrade in 5,000 years must be considered hopelessly obsolete, moribund, and degenerate. This is where we stand today. And it is crucial that we help our fellows see it.

How Do We Do Make Them See? First off, we cannot make people see. And truthfully, they generally see it quite well on their own. What they lack is inner strength to acknowledge what they see. It is not intellectual strength that most people lack; it is emotional strength. And so, you’ll have to be slow and gentle if you want success. Rigorous intellectual arguments are not enough, and in many cases they’re counterproductive.

In the end, the way to help your friends and neighbors is downright biblical: Plant seeds, wait for them to germinate, water them. Show kindness, love them, shine light on their path. It doesn’t matter if this sounds hokey to you or if you’d rather engage in brilliant arguments. This is what works. So, decide what you really want: for your friends and neighbors to see, or for you to “win.” The fish need faith to imagine a dry shore, and they’re not going to get it from intellectual badgering.”

- www.freemansperspective.com

Joel Bowman, "Death in the Afternoon"

"Death in the Afternoon"

by Joel Bowman

"To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, 

all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death; 

what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know that one is mortal."

~ Jorge Luis Borges

"Everything is illuminated against its opposite; truth against fallacy; light against darkness; life against death. And who would have it any other way, even if they could? What would life on this mortal coil be, for instance, without the eternity of its terminally mysterious counterpoint?

If there exists a perfect setting for these and associated meditations, it must surely be the magnificent Recoleta Cemetery, located right here in Buenos Aires. On any given weekend, this sacred resting place for thousands of the city’s most famous – and infamous – people is found to be one of the liveliest places in town. Notable interments include a who’s-who list of Argentine writers, painters, poets, musicians, scientists and luminaries from other noble fields of interest. And, because nothing, including death, is beyond the law of equilibrium, a handful of politicians also rot underfoot.

Tourists pour in to adorn Maria Eva Duarte de Perón’s grave with flowers, for instance, bypassing the resting place of a Nobel Prize-winning chemist and a dozen honest writers to do so. Other, temporary attendees pose with Colgate smiles to have their picture taken beside weeping cement angels, frozen, as they are, in a state of perpetual sorrow. Young boys give the “peace” symbol next to the generals’ tombs whose armies laid to waste to tens of thousands of men, not much older than they, the bodies of whom are long forgotten, their makeshift graves unmarked.

Nowhere does irony live a fuller life than in a cemetery. Walking among the deceased, reading bookend dates on the bronze plaques, one is reminded of the finite nature of all things; organisms, currencies, political regimes, class structures. When the cemetery was constructed, back in 1822, it must have been a good ride from the exclusive barrios of San Telmo and Montserrat. The rich probably wouldn’t have been caught dead around the grounds of the Monks of the Order of the Recoletos, nor near the shabby, patchwork graveyard that was built there the same year the group disbanded.

Half a century later - and with Argentina still reeling from the War of the Triple Alliance and its own, subsequent civil war - a yellow fever epidemic tore through the capital city. Its wealthier, southern quarters were among the worst hit areas. Death toll estimates range from thirteen to twenty-five thousand. The clase alta packed up and moved north, largely into and around the Recoleta barrio. As such, the marbled vaults came to be populated with members of this same aristocracia, who, though they escaped the fever, came to rest here eventually just the same.

Today, you could buy an entire building in San Telmo for the same price as some of the finely appointed homes in Recoleta. An entire block in Montserrat might go for half that much.

And so it goes. People die…cities and empires crumble to the ground…and time, indifferent to the fleeting anguishes and triumphs of men, presses on.

At the turn of the 20th century, Argentina was ranked as the 8th most prosperous nation on earth. Only Belgium, Switzerland, Britain and a handful of former English colonies - including the United States – were more favorably positioned, economically. In 1913, Argentina’s bustling, cosmopolitan capital, Buenos Aires, had the thirteenth highest per capita telephone penetration rate in the world. Her per capita income was, around this time, 50% higher than in Italy, almost twice that of Japan and five times greater than its northern neighbor, Brazil. Argentina’s industry churned out quality textiles and leading edge, refrigerated shipping containers carried her prized beef, first introduced in 1536 by the Spanish Conquistadors, from the fertile plains of the pampas to the farthest reaches of the known world.

As the century wore on, protectionist policies at home and increased competition from the export-led, post-WWII economies – particularly from Japan and Italy – undermined Argentina’s international advantage. From 1900 through to the beginning of the new millennium, Argentina’s real GDP per person grew at a rate of 1.88% per year. Brazil outpaced her handily, clocking a 2.39% annualized growth rate. Japan, starting with a real GDP per person of just over $1,500 (2006 dollars) at the turn of the twentieth century, grew an average of 2.76% per year. By the middle of last decade, Japan’s real GDP per person had doubled that of Argentina. By 2020, it was more than quadruple.

The phenomenon is so conspicuous, the local Argentines even have a joke for it. “There are four types of countries in the world,” they lament. “First world. Third world. Japan, where nobody can figure out how they did so much with so little. And Argentina, where nobody can figure out how we did so little with so much.”

War, currency debasement, civil unrest, military rule and the catalyzing agent of political aspiration, harbored by the equally corrupt and inept, all conspired to stultify this once-proud nation’s potential. The great Argentine poet and essayist, Jorge Luis Borges, described one such retarding factor with characteristic flare and wit: “The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb.”

On a comfortable Sunday afternoon in late February, an elderly group of well-dressed gentlemen met at their favorite restaurant, right by the gate to the Recoleta Cemetery, for lunch. They took a table outside, one in the shade and with a view of the passing foot traffic. The waiters, having brought the regulars the same thing, more or less, every Sunday for as long as they could remember, immediately set about filling their table. There was bife de lomo and chorizo sausages, mozzarella and buffalo tomatoes and papas fritas by the pile. Rich, Argentine Malbecs and Cabernets flowed freely and the merriment of the group soon became infectious. They flirted with the pretty waitresses and joked with patrons at the nearby tables.

After more than a few bottles, one of the gentlemen got chatting with an Australian editor of no particular importance. “I am a judge here,” he eventually told the younger man. “My friends and I have seen it all in this city…riots, economic crises, war, people’s entire life savings wiped out overnight.”

One of his friends lent over and placed a knowing hand on the judge’s shoulder. “Today, we enjoy the moment,” he said to his lifelong friend, before adding, one long finger pointed over the cemetery wall, “because tomorrow…ha ha…well, you know our next stop old man.” And the table erupted in laughter, as the sun set over the angel’s heads in the background.

Cheers,"

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

Gerald Celente, "More U.S. Lies to Rig Markets, Israel Violence Keeps Escalating"

Strong language alert!

Gerald Celente, 8/13/26

"More U.S. Lies to Rig Markets, 

Israel Violence Keeps Escalating"

"In this episode of Trends in the News, Gerald Celente breaks down the latest developments shaking the globe: renewed accusations and narratives surrounding the Strait of Hormuz, escalating violence in Israel and the Middle East, and what Celente calls continued U.S. deception used to manipulate markets. While Western powers struggle with mounting debt, geopolitical tensions, and economic uncertainty, China continues expanding its influence through trade, technology, infrastructure, and global partnerships. Tune in as Gerald separates hard facts from political theater, exposes the agendas driving today's biggest stories, and reveals the current events forming future trends. The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What's Next in these increasingly turbulent times."

- https://trendsjournal.com/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Jackson, Tennessee, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"There Comes A Time..."

"I make no bones about being partisan for my country. I also feel no shame whatever because of it. I absolutely disagree that "great thinkers don't let that affect the thoughts". I would say exactly the opposite: someone who refuses to let love-of-country affect their thoughts is a moral cripple irrespective of their intellectual prowess. I can look dispassionately at the situation, and I have done so repeatedly. But I will never forget which nation I love and support.

We Americans have a saying: “It’s more important what you stand for than who you stand with.” I do not rely upon peer opinion to decide what is right and what is wrong. I make those decisions for myself, and even if I discover that every other human alive chose differently, that doesn’t mean I was wrong.

There comes a time in every man’s life when he has to choose sides. I have chosen my side. I am comfortable with my decision. I do not think everyone on my side is a saint, but I know that those on the other side are much, much worse.

Sometimes a man with too broad a perspective reveals himself as having no real perspective at all. A man who tries too hard to see every side may be a man who is trying to avoid choosing any side. A man who tries too hard to seek a deeper truth may be trying to hide from the truth he already knows. That is not a sign of intellectual sophistication and “great thinking”. It is a demonstration of moral degeneracy and cowardice.”

- Steven Den Beste

○

“Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and unexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may.”

- Mark Twain

"James Baldwin on How to Live Through Your Darkest Hour and Life as a Moral Obligation to the Universe"

"James Baldwin on How to Live Through Your Darkest Hour 

and Life as a Moral Obligation to the Universe"

by Maria Popova

“Yesterday has already vanished among the shadows of the past; to-morrow has not yet emerged from the future. You have found an intermediate space,” Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote of life’s most haunting hour. But what we find in that intermediate space between past and future, between the costumed simulacrum of reality we so painstakingly construct with our waking lives and reality laid bare in the naked nocturnal mind, is not always a resting place of ease - for there dwells the self at its most elemental, which means the self most lucidly awake to its foibles and its finitude.

The disquietude this haunted hour can bring, and does bring, is what another titanic writer and rare seer into the depths of the human spirit - James Baldwin (August 2, 1924–December 1, 1987) - explored 130 years after Hawthorne in one of his least known, most insightful, and most personal essays.

In 1964, as the Harlem riots were shaking the foundation of society and selfhood, Baldwin joined talent-forces with the great photographer Richard Avedon - an old high school friend of his - to hold up an uncommonly revelatory cultural mirror with the book "Nothing Personal" (public library). Punctuating Avedon’s signature black-and-white portraits - of Nobel laureates and Hollywood celebrities, of the age - and ache-etched face of an elder born under slavery and the idealism-lit young faces of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Georgia, of the mentally ill perishing in asylums and the newlyweds at City Hall ablaze with hope - are four stirring essays by Baldwin, the first of which gave us his famous sobering observation that “it has always been much easier (because it has always seemed much safer) to give a name to the evil without than to locate the terror within.”

At no time does the terror within, Baldwin argues in the third essay, bubble to the surface of our being more ferociously than in that haunting hour between past and future, between our illusions of permanence and perfection, and the glaring fact of our finitude and our fallibility, between being and non-being. He writes:

"Four AM can be a devastating hour. The day, no matter what kind of day it was is indisputably over; almost instantaneously, a new day begins: and how will one bear it? Probably no better than one bore the day that is ending, possibly not as well. Moreover, a day is coming one will not recall, the last day of one’s life, and on that day one will oneself become as irrecoverable as all the days that have passed."

It is a fearful speculation - or, rather, a fearful knowledge - that, one day one’s eyes will no longer look out on the world. One will no longer be present at the universal morning roll call. The light will rise for others, but not for you.

Half a century before the physicist Brian Greene examined how this very awareness is the wellspring of meaning to our ephemeral lives and a century after Tchaikovsky found beauty amid the wreckage of the soul at 4AM, Baldwin adds: "Sometimes, at four AM, this knowledge is almost enough to force a reconciliation between oneself and all one’s pain and error. Since, anyway, it will end one day, why not try it - life - one more time?"

After singing some beautiful and heartbreaking Bessie Smith lyrics into his essay - lyrics from “Long Road,” a song about reconciling the knowledge that one is ultimately alone with the irrepressible impulse to reach out for love, “to grasp again, with fearful hope, the unwilling, unloving human hand” - Baldwin continues: "I think all of our voyages drive us there; for I have always felt that a human being could only be saved by another human being. I am aware that we do not save each other very often. But I am also aware that we save each other some of the time."

That alone, Baldwin insists, is reason enough to be, as Nietzsche put it, a “yea-sayer” to life - to face the uncertainty of our lives with courage, to face the fact of our mortality with courage, and to fill this blink of existence bookended by nothingness with the courage of a bellowing aliveness.

In a passage that calls to mind Galway Kinnell’s lifeline of a poem “Wait,” composed for a young friend on the brink of suicide, Baldwin writes: "For, perhaps - perhaps - between now and the last day, something wonderful will happen, a miracle, a miracle of coherence and release. And the miracle on which one’s unsteady attention is focused is always the same, however it may be stated, or however it may remain unstated. It is the miracle of love, love strong enough to guide or drive one into the great estate of maturity, or, to put it another way, into the apprehension and acceptance of one’s own identity. For some deep and ineradicable instinct - I believe -causes us to know that it is only this passionate achievement which can outlast death, which can cause life to spring from death."

And yet, so often, we lose faith in this miracle, lose the perspective we call faith - so often it slips between the fingers fanned with despair or squeezes through the fist clenched with rage. We lose perspective most often, Baldwin argues, at four AM: "At four AM, when one feels that one has probably become simply incapable of supporting this miracle, with all one’s wounds awake and throbbing, and all one’s ghastly inadequacy staring and shouting from the walls and the floor - the entire universe having shrunk to the prison of the self - death glows like the only light on a high, dark, mountain road, where one has, forever and forever! lost one’s way. And many of us perish then."

What then? A generation after Little Prince author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry composed his beautiful manifesto for night as an existential clarifying force for the deepest truths of the heart, Baldwin offers: "But if one can reach back, reach down - into oneself, into one’s life - and find there some witness, however unexpected or ambivalent, to one’s reality, one will be enabled, though perhaps not very spiritedly, to face another day… What one must be enabled to recognize, at four o’clock in the morning, is that one has no right, at least not for reasons of private anguish, to take one’s life. All lives are connected to other lives and when one man goes, much more goes than the man goes with him. One has to look on oneself as the custodian of a quantity and a quality - oneself - which is absolutely unique in the world because it has never been here before and will never be here again."

Baldwin - whom U.S. Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks described as “love personified” in introducing his last public appearance before his death - wedges into this foundational structure of soul-survival the fact that in a culture of habitual separation and institutionalized otherness, such self-regard is immensely difficult. And yet, he insists with the passion of one who has proven the truth of his words with his own life, we must try - we must reach across the divides within and without, across the abysses of terror and suspicion, with a generous and largehearted trust in one another, which is at bottom trust in ourselves.

Echoing his contemporary and kindred visionary Leonard Bernstein’s insistence that “we must believe, without fear, in people,” Baldwin adds what has become, or must become, the most sonorous psychosocial refrain bridging his time and ours: "Where all human connections are distrusted, the human being is very quickly lost."

More than half a century later, "Nothing Personal" remains a masterwork of rare insight into and consolation for the most elemental aches of the human spirit. For a counterpoint to this nocturnal fragment, savor the great nature writer Henry Beston, writing a generation before Baldwin, on how the beauty of night nourishes the human spirit, then revisit Baldwin on resisting the mindless of majority, how he learned to truly see, the writer’s responsibility in a divided society, his advice on writing, his historic conversation with Margaret Mead about forgiveness and responsibility, and his only children’s book."

- https://www.themarginalian.org/

Freely download "Nothing Personal",

 by James Baldwin and Richard Avedon, here:

- https://monoskop.org/

"Where Your Gaze Lingers..."

“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that has nothing to do with you, this storm is you. Something inside you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step. There’s no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up the sky like pulverized bones.

You have to look! That’s another one of the rules. Closing your eyes isn’t going to change anything. Nothing’s going to disappear just because you can’t see what going on. In fact, things will be even worse the next time you open your eyes. That’s the kind of world we live in. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won’t make time stand still.”

- Haruki Murakami

“Closing your eyes won’t make the awfulness go away. It may be that nothing will. But dwelling on it, dreading the evil, playing out the misery in your head – doesn’t this feed the monster? You can’t close your eyes to life, but you can choose where your gaze lingers.”

- Richelle E. Goodrich

"Something Big Is Developing, Agencies On High Alert; Iran Joining BRICS"

Jeremiah Babe, 8/13/26

"Something Big Is Developing, 

Agencies On High Alert; Iran Joining BRICS"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Record Fuel Prices Blast Off in US Right on Schedule!"

"Record Fuel Prices Blast Off 

in US Right on Schedule!"

by David Haggith

"Welcome to the summer arrival, as promised, of the most expensive gasoline prices ever seen in the US at this time of year. One has to compare apples to apples, in terms of seasonality, so … Gasoline prices climbed on Wednesday, marking their highest level on record for this time of year. The national average [at $4.03/gal] “is now at its highest ever level this late in the calendar year,” GasBuddy head of petroleum research Patrick De Haan noted on X, “meaning the national average has never been above $4/gal after Aug. 12 in any previous year- ever.”

So, I guess the arrival I promised of soaring fuel prices this summer, to hit shortly after our fuel and oil reserves effectively bottomed out, wasn’t really off at all. There is still lots of summer left, and prices suddenly bounced up to the highest ever seen for this time in the summer. I’m not sure how one can hit it more accurately than that, though I had conceded it felt like it was dragging on a tiny bit longer than I originally thought, but what is a couple of weeks in the grand scope of the highest prices “ever”?

I did warn, too, about how suddenly this could happen in a recent Deeper Dive for paying subscribers: "The safety net keeping oil prices from spiking is nearly gone, and one analyst warns that when it runs out, the move could be sudden and severe…The move … may be less gradual than I suggested; therefore, arrive with a little more delay, but be more sudden and severe when it arrives."

And, yet, we have not begun to see the worst of it, even though prices suddenly spiked to the worst they’ve ever been for this part of summer … or, for that matter, for the remaining part of the year. We haven’t begun to see the worst of it because we have not begun to see actual shortages hit gas stations in this country. We are seeing prices rise as shortages appear in other countries, as I said earlier this week we would experience as a spill-over effect because we are pumping as much fuel toward those countries as our refineries can manage, and those countries are bidding up the price of fuel. So, that didn’t take long either. And we are seeing it happen, even without crude oil prices going back up that much … yet … as I also explained was possible when shortages in fuels start to appear due to refinery destruction outpacing crude destruction.

And we are seeing more continuing refinery destruction as I said we would … even in today’s news: (And, as said, the soaring prices are not just in gasoline, reported above, but in diesel, the fuel that delivers the rest of the economy to our doorsteps.)

Refinery Attacks Deepen Global Diesel Supply Crunch: Diesel prices are surging as Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries and Houthi attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure are deepening an already severe global fuel shortage. U.S. diesel futures jumped 7.4% this week, while retail prices reached $5.32 per gallon.

All of this is also why I said yesterday to discount this month’s inflation reports, which include the Producer Price Index that came in today (see headlines below) because its soft spot is for the same reason we saw in yesterday’s CPI report—FUEL prices and other energy prices fell while most other prices rose, and that, as I have been saying, was purely temporary due to Trump’s blabbergassing about Iran being desperate to make a deal—a charade that might still work with the bidding bots in oil futures, but that can’t do anything with the price increases that actually count—the rising price of fuel at the pumps for everyone, including businesses and airlines. Those are going to keep rising because the war is going to stay hot and destructive, maybe even more destructive. And they push up the priced of everything over time.

No good comes out of an environment of deep corruption

Of course, we have a twisted story today where the completely inane Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, tells more public lies, by repeating Donald Trump, saying that the US now controls the strait. That’s so laughable it isn’t funny. It is a marvel that they are so brazen as to make claims so readily provable as completely false: If the strait is “completely controlled” by the US, why doesn’t Trump just open it up completely … today? If the strait is completely controlled by the US, that means the strait’s continued closure has to be entirely Donald Trump’s fault because he’s the one in control of the strait. So, open up or shut up, Donny Boy!

It is mind boggling that the Trump administration thinks ANYONE will believe such obvious lies when they are so clearly contradicted by reality that everyone can see, However it is mind blowing that so many still don’t see it and keep believing and supporting the Liar-in-Chief. Support the guy who lies to you in the most obvious ways every single day even as you watch his personal profits off the war soar (also in the headlines below today) beyond any profits any president in history has ever made off of any decisions while in office.

Watch him amass a fortune while he takes down your living with higher costs due to his war, and then praise him as the best president ever! Do this while he makes decisions that kill people and destroy the global economy. So, the Demonrats (oh, the audacity of their Trump-hating ways) are finally going after him for the worst insider trading in White House history. 

The most obscene part of this insider trading is that it works by flashing war on and off and betting on the changes those moves will bring to markets just before you announce the decision. The bets have been so blatantly obvious and reported here a number of times that even the sleepy Democrats in congress are finally ginning up a political war over it, getting excited, I guess, that they may win congress entirely this fall so that they can actually go somewhere with this.

Well, they could, except, of course, our brilliant, supposedly conservative Supreme Court has ruled the president can do anything he wants so long as it is an official decision, and what could be more official than presidential decisions to TACO in and out of war on a daily basis? This is what you get when you give absolute power to someone who cravenly craves it. The Dems can impeach him, but they probably cannot bring any criminal charges against him. Meanwhile the Republicans who were enraged at Hunter & Dad are completely benign about the president declaring war (supposedly congress’s constitutionally reserved and mandated power) for insider trading and massive profiteering, and they even provide him cover! Politics in the US has never been more obscene.

In that corrupt environment where the flash-on/flash-off war has been hugely profitable for the president, the war will continue; and Iran promises in the headlines below that it is going to get much more aggressive in bringing the war home to the US. (So, no, fuel prices are not going to see any reprieve, and that means the soft inflation data is, as stated, meaningless because it all rises when energy goes back on the rise, which is what is being reported here today. It’s on the rise!)

Iran’s war threats go into hyperdrive: First off, Iran announced today that it intends to keep the war hot ALL THE WAY THROUGH TO THE END OF THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY in order to teach the US to never attack it again! (So, prices of fuel to go down? Inflation to stay soft due to falling energy prices? I think, NO WAY! Hormuz under US control? NO WAY. Bessent a liar. Yes, daily, along with his blabbergassing boss.)

Iran has suggested it could deliberately prolong the war with the US until Donald Trump leaves office, in order to send a message that attacking the country has lasting consequences. Mohammad Reza Naghdi, senior adviser to the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, said dragging out the war would show any future US administration that “there is a cost” to hostile endeavours against Iran. “We have to attain deterrence so that the enemy never dares to attack us, so we can live with security,” he told PBS NewsHour.

His comments came as Iran again rejected Donald Trump’s claims that the US has “total control” over the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority said “the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked” and it will not be opened until Iran’s conditions are accepted. The conditions? Pay us a ton of money—enough to cover the full cost of EVERYTHING you damaged. Get your butts completely out of our neighborhood, except that your own ships stay stranded as our hostages inside the gulf, and leave our enriched uranium alone while we now tell you up front that we are going to build build a bomb with it.

Going to be accepted by Trump and Bessent? No. And that, as I’ve said all along, is the way Iran wants it. They want to hold Trump in the war in order to keep punishing the US for attacking them. As I noted for the last few months, they are not interested in negotiating.

Trump earlier said that “praise be to Allah”, Washington has “total control over the Strait of Hormuz”, adding: “I THINK WE WILL KEEP IT!” Liar-in-chief. Every word completely delusional. The only people more delusional are those who continue to believe him when the real truth all around them is so obvious and is now as close as their nearest gas pump! If anyone thinks Trump has total control over the Strait of Hormuz, they should go buy some gas or diesel today and send me a photo of the price. Then send me another one next week. Or they can look a little further away from home to what other watchers are telling them:

Just 13 vessels transited the waterway on Tuesday, around 90 per cent below the pre-war daily average. Or they can listen to how Iran is telling them this is going to go because the Iranians (to our great shame) have been the ones telling us the truth every time Trump has lied to us. “Look, we have to attain deterrence so that the enemy never dares to attack us, so we can live with security,” Naqdi said in an interview with PBS. “One way is to prolong this war until we get to the next term of the presidency and cause attrition, so that if anyone else wants to attack Iran, they will know there is a cost.” It keeps being the war of attrition I said from the start Iran was determined to create.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Houthi allies attacked Saudi Aramco again today, which sent Crude prices back up, because that is how you make sure it remains a war of attrition. And Ukraine attacked another Russian refinery—this time a 200,000 bpd Gazprom facility in the Urals. Kyiv intensified attacks that have already forced Moscow to curb fuel exports and even import gasoline…. Another Urals refinery is in worse shape. The 120,000-bpd Orsknefteorgsintez plant in the Orenburg region has completely halted operations following Ukrainian drone strikes, regional governor Yevgeny Solntsev said Thursday…

But the bigger threat is this from Iran: “Whenever the conditions are favorable and the order is issued, we must be able to take the operation into enemy territory.” That be us. Iran noted that its prewar doctrine was anchored on defense. Its new doctrine is based on the principle that the best defense is a good offense. Military.com underscores that “Iran has reorganized its military to be more aggressive abroad as talks on ending the war with the U.S. remain mired in stalemate, a sign that Tehran is preparing for a protracted era of regional conflict.”

So, if anyone tells you oil prices are falling, send them this article. Share And if anyone tells you inflation has just started coming down, remind them that just about the only thing that came down in inflation was energy, which fell enough to offset all the other areas where prices rose, and then send them this article about what just happened to fuel prices. Share. Like I say, “The news before it happens.”

- https://www.thedailydoom.com/