Full screen recommended.
2002, "Well Of Wisdom"
So, we rise from the rubble...
StatCounter
Wednesday, September 2, 2026
"A Look to the Heavens"
"This intergalactic skyscape features a peculiar system of galaxies cataloged as Arp 227 some 100 million light-years distant. Swimming within the boundaries of the constellation Pisces, Arp 227 consists of the two galaxies prominent right of center, the curious shell galaxy NGC 474 and its blue, spiral-armed neighbor NGC 470.
The faint, wide arcs or shells of NGC 474 could have been formed by a gravitational encounter with neighbor NGC 470. Alternately the shells could be caused by a merger with a smaller galaxy producing an effect analogous to ripples across the surface of a pond. The large galaxy on the top lefthand side of the deep image, NGC 467, appears to be surrounded by faint shells too, evidence of another interacting galaxy system. Intriguing background galaxies are scattered around the field that also includes spiky foreground stars. Of course, those stars lie well within our own Milky Way Galaxy. The field of view spans 25 arc minutes or about 1/2 degree on the sky."
The Poet: Maya Angelou, "A Brave And Startling Truth"
"A Brave And Startling Truth"
by Maya Angelou
"We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space,
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns,
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth.
And when we come to it,
To the day of peacemaking,
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms.
When we come to it,
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate,
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean.
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass,
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil.
When the rapacious storming of the churches,
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased.
When the pennants are waving gaily,
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze.
When we come to it,
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders,
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce.
When land mines of death have been removed,
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace.
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh,
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse.
When we come to it,
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory,
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets.
Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun.
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world.
When we come to it,
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe,
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace.
We, this people on this mote of matter,
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence,
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor,
And the body is quieted into awe.
We, this people, on this small and drifting planet,
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living.
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow,
And the proud back is glad to bend.
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines.
When we come to it,
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body,
Created on this earth, of this earth,
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety,
Without crippling fear.
When we come to it,
We must confess that we are the possible,
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world.
That is when, and only when,
We come to it."
○
"From Stardust to Sapiens: A Stunning Serenade to Our Cosmic Origins and Our Ongoing Self-Creation"
"From Stardust to Sapiens: A Stunning Serenade to
Our Cosmic Origins and Our Ongoing Self-Creation"
by Maria Popova
"We were never promised any of it - this world of cottonwoods and clouds - when the Big Bang set the possible in motion. And yet here we are, atoms with consciousness, each of us a living improbability forged of chaos and dead stars. Children of chance, we have made ourselves into what we are - creatures who can see a universe of beauty in the feather of a bird and can turn a blind eye to each other’s suffering, creatures capable of the Benedictus and the bomb. Creatures who hope.
A generation after Maya Angelou held up a cosmic mirror to humanity with “A Brave and Startling Truth,” Pattiann Rogers - who writes with uncommon virtuosity about the intersection of the cosmic and the human, and whose poems have therefore been a frequent presence in "The Universe in Verse" - offers a poignant cosmogony of our self-creation in the stunning final poem of her book "Flickering" (public library).
"Homo Sapiens: Creating Themselves"
by Pattiann Rogers, read by Maria Popova
I.
"Formed in the black-light center of a star-circling
galaxy; formed in whirlpool images of froth
and flume and fulcrum; in the center image of herring
circling like pieces of silver swirling fast, a shoaling
circle of deception; in the whirlpool perfume of sex
in the deepest curve of a lily’s soft corolla. Created
within the images of the creator’s creation.
Born with the same grimacing wrench of a tree-covered
cliff split wide suddenly by lightning and opened
to thundering clouds of hail and rain.
Cured in the summer sun as if in a potter’s oven,
polished like a stone rolled by a river, emboldened
by the image of the expanse beyond earth’s horizon,
inside and outside a circumference in the image
of freedom.
Given the image of starlight clusters steadily silent
above a hillside-silence of fallen snow… let there be sleep.
II.
Inheriting from the earth’s scrambling minions,
images of thorn and bur, fang and claw, stealth,
deceit, poison, camouflage, blade, and blood…
let there be suffering, let there be survival.
Shaped by the image of the onset and unstoppable
devouring eclipse of the sun, the tempestuous, ecliptic
eating of the moon, the volcanic explosions of burning
rocks and fiery hail of ashes to death… let there be
terror and tears. Let there be pity.
Created in the image of fear inside a crawfish
skittering backward through a freshwater stream
with all eight appendages in perfect coordination,
both pincers held high, backing into safety beneath
a fallen leaf refuge… let there be home.
III.
Made in the image of the moon, where else
would the name of ivory rock craters shine
except in our eyes… let there be language.
Displayed in the image of the rotting seed
on the same stem with the swelling blossom…
let there be hope.
Homo sapiens creating themselves after the manner
and image of the creator’s ongoing creation - slowly,
eventual, alert and imagined, composing, dissembling,
until the right chord sounds from one brave strum
of the right strings reverberating, fading away
like evening… let there be pathos, let there be
compassion, forbearance, forgiveness. Let there be
weightless beauty.
Of earth and sky, Homo sapiens creating themselves,
following the mode and model of the creator’s creation,
particle by particle, quest by quest, witness by witness,
even though the unknown far away and the unknown
nearby be seen and not seen… let there be goodwill
and accounting, let there be praise resounding."
Complement with astronomer-poet Rebecca Elson’s ode to dark matter and the mystery of being, “Let There Always Be Light,” non-speaking autistic poet Hannah Emerson’s astonishing “Center of the Universe,” and Jane Hirshfield’s “To Be a Person,” then revisit Pattiann Rogers’s harmonic of the human and cosmic perspectives, read by David Byrne and illustrated by Maira Kalman."
"The Worst Part..."
"People cry not because they are weak.
It's because they've been strong for too long."
- Johnny Depp
"The Key To Happiness"
"The Key To Happiness"
Expect the worst and you'll never be disappointed.
by Radio Far Side
“O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
His canon ’gainst self-slaughter!”
- "Hamlet," Act I, Scene 2, Shakespeare
"The global economic system is crumbling, in part by design but also because the laws of physics don’t allow you to defy gravity without a balancing force in the equation. The insiders are clearly emptying the coffers into their pockets before the masses suddenly catch on to the game. The world, which is typically 50 shades of gray, is clearly deconstructing into hard-edged black-and-white camps. And the thing is, there’s no good guys.
One of my favorite TV series of all time is "I, Claudius," based on the novels by Robert Graves. In the course of 13 brilliantly written and performed hours, we witness generations of Roman leadership collapse into its own intrigue and filth. Another example is Shakespeare’s masterful Macbeth. Everyone is corrupt; no one is sympathetic, and the foundations of empire are disintegrated as we watch.
There is literally no social or public institution that can be trusted. Governments exist only to denude their populations of their wealth and property. Religious institutions have become predatory, preying on the weak and frightened. Corporations create greed and scarcity to generate obscene profits. Health care institutions create illness to generate revenues. Financial institutions serve the rich at the expense of everyone else, by controlling access to wealth.
Even entertainment has been turned into mind-bending propaganda machines, generating conformity over celebrating humanity. The arts have been perverted into hideous celebrations of degradation and filth. Life itself is a commodity, exploited and hoarded for the benefit of a few. There is precious little left that can be trusted and depended on. Our world is founded on contradiction, where debt is wealth, slavery is freedom, deception is reality, and perfidy is truth. The president of peace now has a Department of War.
There is only one way forward, as it always has been. Civilization must collapse in order to be renewed. As Chauncy the gardener noted in "Being There," the world is like a garden that has its seasons. There can be no explosion of life in spring, without the wholesale death of winter. History is full of examples: Sumer, Babylon, Rome, the Mongols Perhaps the only difference is scale, but that doesn’t change the inevitable cycle of death and renewal.
Perhaps those of us trying to drive time backward, to restore dimly remembered days of vino et veritas, we should instead do everything possible to hurry along the collapse. Attempting to hold back the inevitable and postpone reality is a futile endeavor. Just because we refuse to harvest or collect firewood doesn’t mean fall and winter will halt in their tracks, or even reverse into eternal spring and winter.
We cannot return to real wealth until the vast systemic debt has been destroyed. Our institutions cannot be repaired and reformed because society itself is corrupted. Replacing old rotted timbers with new rotted timbers is not an improvement. Rather creating a bonfire with the old will provide essential minerals to spur the growth of the new.
One of my favorite if not most bizarre of Edgar Allan Poe’s works is “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar”. In it, a man dying of tuberculosis is hypnotized at the moment of death, where he remains in a middle state - not dead, not alive. After a year of begging to be released, he is finally “awakened,” whereupon the body begins to rot and putrefy before the witnesses’ horrified eyes.
This is essentially what has happened with our social, religious and financial institutions—they are clearly dead, but we refuse to let them die. It’s time to release their soulless husks so that we can all move on. The longer they linger, the more of our lives and treasure they will consume, until there is nothing left but corpses."
"Dr. Gilbert Doctorow: Russias Plan to Depopulate Ukraine, Mass Evac, Fuel Shortages"
Full screen recommended;
Canadian Prepper, 9/2/26
"Dr. Gilbert Doctorow:
Russias Plan to Depopulate Ukraine,
Mass Evac, Fuel Shortages"
Comments here:
Gerald Celente, "World Paying for War as Hormuz Lies Continue"
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 9/2/26
"World Paying for War as Hormuz Lies Continue"
"As geopolitical tensions rise, markets continue their march upward while energy costs surge, creating the perfect recipe for what Gerald Celente calls Dragflation: slowing economic growth, rising living costs, and declining living standards. From Wall Street's disconnect from Main Street to the continuing erosion of humanity amid endless wars and global suffering, Celente delivers the facts, trends, and forecasts the mainstream media won't."
Comments here:
"Trump Regime Bombs Wedding Party In Iran, Killing Five People, Injuring Dozens Of Civilians"
"Trump Regime Bombs Wedding Party In Iran,
Killing Five People, Injuring Dozens Of Civilians"
by Leo Hohmann
"You’re probably not going to see it reported many places in the Western press so you might as well see it here. The U.S. military reportedly struck a wedding party Tuesday in its renewed bombing attacks on Iran, killing five people and wounding at least 60. Dave DeCamp at antiwar.com reports: A U.S. strike in southern Iran on Tuesday hit a residential building where a wedding reception was taking place, according to local Iranian officials and the Iranian Red Crescent.
Ahmad Nafisi, the deputy governor of Iran’s Hormozgan Province, told Iranian media the strike hit a home in the city of Kuhestak in Hormozgan’s Sirik county and killed at least five people, including a young child, and wounded 68 people. According to Iran’s PressTV, Hormozgan’s Red Crescent Society described the attack as “a US missile strike that sent shrapnel into a residential home in Kuhestak, where a wedding celebration was taking place.” Watch video report below from France 24:
Full screen recommended.
This is the type of military action, whether it was by accident or on purpose, that will only strengthen the Iranian people’s resolve against the American military operation and make the U.S. even more of an international villain in the eyes of people worldwide.
There is simply no legitimate national security objective for what the United States military is doing in Iran under orders from Trump. In fact, it’s the opposite. We are becoming an international pariah hated by most of the world, and that doesn’t help keep us safe as Americans in any way. If you are planning to travel internationally, I would advise you to hold off on those plans until tensions die down. Amerians are not going to be safe in foreign countries in the wake of Trump’s vicious assault on Iranian sovereign territory.
Meanwhile, you’ve got Secretary of State Marco Rubio making bizarre statements, warning other countries not to conduct trade with Iran. Rubio told Fox News anchor Brian Kilmeade: “I don’t think there’s a trade deal between India and Iran… I think what ultimately happens, though, is - and the President’s been very clear - is no country should be helping Iran evade sanctions. No country should be out there helping them create mechanisms by which they can generate revenue that they will then use to sponsor terrorism and to build a nuclear weapon. And if countries decide to do that, then we’re going to have to sanction them, too.”
How tone deaf could Rubio get? Under the leadership of this administration, there is no bigger sponsor of terrorism than the U.S. government. The U.S. killed 165 Iranian school girls and their teachers on the first day of this war on February 28.
Also on February 28, U.S. Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM) struck the Iranian city of Lamerd, killing at least 21 civilians, including four children, and injuring approximately 100 others. Independent analyses by The New York Times, BBC Verify, and Airwars confirmed the use of U.S. missiles, which detonated in mid-air and sprayed tungsten pellets over a sports hall used by a volleyball team, an adjacent elementary school, and residential neighborhoods. The Trump regime has not apologized or even acknowledged any of this civilian carnage. And until I hear an apology, I can only assume these were not accidental targets.
I’m not going to sugarcoat it, folks. They killed female volleyball players. They killed school girls. They killed teachers. They’ve bombed hospitals. They’ve destroyed bridges and power plants and they’ve weaponized our American dollar to create economic pain for countless civilians in multiple countries around the world, simply because we don’t like their governments. Now they’ve wiped out a wedding party in a residential home. You can say what you want about Iran, and we all know they are not ruled by good people, but the United States government right now is in no position to talk. The United States has the most bloodthirsty, warmongering government of any country in the world. Anyone who thinks this war on Iran is anything but evil needs to check themselves. Why do you think the Secretary of the U.S. Army, General Dan Driscoll, just resigned, following other high-level military resignations this year? They don’t want to be a party to this illegal and unwinnable war.
And anyone who thinks these repeated bombings of civilians will do anything but harden the Iranian people against us is living in Trump’s deranged world of make-believe American Golden-Age greatness. This is not how great nations act. Pray for peace but prepare for war. Because when the inevitable payback comes our way, it is going to more brutal than anyone would imagine possible."
"Liberty Without a People, a Border, or a Moral Center Is Just a Corridor"
"Morals? We ain't got no morals! We don't need no morals!
I don't have to show you any stinking morals!"
Concept gleefully stolen from here:
"Moral compass?!"
Morals? Surely you jest, fool... This is 'Murica!'
"Liberty Without a People, a Border,
or a Moral Center Is Just a Corridor"
by John Wilder
"To give context to what follows, I was a Libertarian. Yes, a capital “L” version, which is what this post is about. I had the card and everything, and this was back when I had to use MS-DOS® to get anything done. C:/DOS. C:/DOS run. Run DOS Run!
It was also before Libertarianism became rabidly open border and I was always more of a nationalist than a libertarian, so there’s that. I have since realized that libertarianism is a road only to globalism, socialism, and gay communism in 2026. Honestly, libertarianism in the United States doesn’t work for any date past, say the 1880s or so.
Let me elaborate. I’ll start by being fair and noting that not every libertarian believes the same exact things, because the difference between a libertarian wedding and a libertarian funeral is one less opinion.
First, let’s explore the concept of the basic unit of society. As I’ve mentioned before, the basic unit, the atom of society is the family, not the individual. Individuals don’t reproduce unless they’re lower forms of life like paramecium, which only accounts for bankers and Hollywood© executives, and most politicians. Last I checked, only a man and a woman can reproduce.
Libertarianism, like communism, is based on freedom and the removal of constraints. What constraints? Well, family, religion, tradition, ancestors, culture, border, community, and hierarchy. The first thing the reds did when they took over Spain was burn the churches, kill the nuns, and abolish marriage. Let me assure you, Francisco Franco was far too kind to these people when he won.
Libertarianism, like communism and globalism, depends on Homo Economicus. What’s a person? Well, one Homo Economicus is very much like another. So much so, that they have the same desires, the same wants, the same potential, the same value. In extremes of this viewpoint, they even have the same intellectual potential. Don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but smart kids very, very rarely come from dumb parents. "Idiocracy" was right in that respect.
Is it any wonder that rabid Libertarians and Communists both want open borders and free trade? The problem is that ripping out family, religion, tradition, ancestors, culture, border, community, and hierarchy removes all of the intermediate steps that prevent communism or GloboLeftism from even existing. If you view your nation as something given to you on loan by your ancestors to bequeath to your kids, well, that’s an entirely different mindset than “Let’s go shopping at Wal-Mart© or let in infinity foreigners for cheap strawberries”.
These institutions and traditions, and, yes, collective beliefs that Libertarianism wants to remove are the real anti-communist and anti-globalist technology. Where Libertarianism is strongest is against the state as a monopolist of violence and against price controls. To be clear, when the firearm was invented, the state monopoly of violence disappeared, and they knew it. The idea of how governments should be configured was in play.
And this occurred in Europe. Why Europe? Because European nations typically had a dominant state religion, a national people, a single language, borders, and some with ancestors going back thousands of years in the same plot of land. These people had all of that in common, and could therefore ask the question of, “how should we set up a government?”
As an example, if the Founding Fathers had consisted of Somalians, Indians, and Nigerians, they would have just spent their time in tribal warfare against each other. No, the Founding Fathers were mainly Welsh, Irish, Scottish, and English. Franklin was pretty sure the Germans were suspect. The United States wasn’t conceived for moslims. Nope. It was conceived for a predominantly white, Christian, moral people with low time-preference, trust, honesty, deferred gratification, and a shared sense of ownership of the nation as a whole.
And Libertarianism was okay for that group. Don’t like the rules in Pennsylvania? Move west to Ohio. Don’t like the rules in Ohio? Move west to Utah. I mean, move there if you’re Mormon. This might have continued to work okay, but we ran out of land, and we started importing people from cultures that atomized the nation. And slavery. That was a stupid idea. Guys, always pick your own cotton. And your own strawberries. And write your own programs.
Soon enough, we had “the oppressed” and “the marginalized” which are fodder for a client class for socialists. Add in the Libertarian desire to remove every cultural constraint as an “illegitimate barrier to trade” and you get, well, chaos. Honestly, you get India after you’ve spent down the cultural inheritance of what was formerly a nation.
Free trade doesn’t mean free to trade anything, it means trade free from coercion. Libertarians spend forever and a day criticizing closed borders, tariffs, vice laws, industrial policy, and cultural constraints that have made it into law.
But HR? The credentialization of every job? Payment processors excluding people based on politics? Universities spewing out carbon-copy socialists? Social media where people aren’t even allowed to utter the phrase “Great Replacement”? NGOs? Asset managers? Everything a company does is fine. That’s free trade. No!
Marxism 1.0 wanted the party to own everything. Now, GloboLeftism is fine with private ownership. The companies and the media do the heavy lifting and shift coercion into forms that don’t look exactly like the “State” that Libertarians love to hate.
Libertarianism fails because it calls collective self-defense “collectivism” when America is being assailed by collectives of Indians and Mexicans and moslems and other groups that all have a collective strategy to protect themselves at the expense of the rest of society. If you try to get a job in certain sectors of the economy, if you don’t speak Spanish, aren’t a Brahmin, don’t bow to Allah, or don’t go to synagogue, well, you’re never going to get that job. They’ll pick people more like them.
Markets really are the main engines of prosperity, but random, chaotic markets aren’t the predictor of economic success, it’s the people. In Sweden, all adopted (non-European) foreign children perform well below the norm on IQ tests. Except the Koreans. Go figure. People make a difference. I’d rather live in socialist all-Dane Denmark than in multicultural Johannesburg.
Libertarianism fails because it cannot generate or defend the particular social order that limited government requires. Full stop. The Founding Fathers didn’t spring forth from a Libertarian Eden. Nope. They were forged in plain-old British values. Liberty without a people, a border, and a moral center is a corridor, and corridors get occupied by whoever shows up, and whoever owns the institutions. Limited government isn’t a software package that works on any computer, it is very particular on what platforms it works. So, don’t treat it like a software program and skip to the end and hit, “I agree.”
Bill Bonner, "It’s the Debt Stupid, Part Duh"
Click image for larger size.
"It’s the Debt Stupid, Part Duh"
by Bill Bonner
Poitou, France - "Reuters: "Japan’s benchmark 30-year bond yield hit the 3% level for the first time since 1996 on Tuesday amid a broad-based global bond sell-off."
MarketWatch: "From the UK to Japan, bond yields are jumping as US bonds tumble."
Sometimes, the most obvious problems are the easiest to solve. An alcoholic has problems. His wife doesn’t understand him. His boss doesn’t like him. He needs a new car. His head aches and his friends desert him. But his major problem: he drinks too much. This is very easy to correct. Just stop drinking. The simplicity of it makes it almost unbearable...and unthinkable.
Japan has been on a bender for 35 years. Its stock market bubble popped in 1990. Its feds have been pumping like crazy ever since, trying to get the buzz back on. They’ve inflated Japanese government debt to the largest in the world - at 250% of GDP, twice the US level - hoping to revive those glorious, intoxicating go-go years of the 1980s. That was when Japan Inc. was the envy of every business school in the world. Back then, in the ‘80s, Japan’s industries —Mitsubishi, Toyota, Honda - dominated the financial pages. Then, after the crash, Japan continued to lead the world, but in borrowing. And now Japan has one massive hangover.
When you stop drinking your recovery begins almost immediately. But as Marc Antony said over the body of Caesar, ‘the evil that men do lives after them.’ You can stop spending, but the shadow of the past -- debt -- stays with you.
And Japan is not the only one living in the shade of debt. It’s been party time, worldwide, ever since Alan Greenspan revealed his ‘put option’ for the stock market. Free drinks. No closing time. Stock prices could go up all they wanted; but if they began to fall, the Fed would cut rates to catch them.
As a result, world debt is estimated at $329 trillion - or more than three times GDP. The US is right in line with more than $100 trillion in debt...or, about three times GDP. That doesn’t include the $15 trillion or so the feds are legally obligated to pay their own government retirees. The dipsomaniac may be jolly or morose...rich or poor...smart or dumb. But until he gets that monkey off his back, he’s going to have trouble.
The US has problems too. Iran. Canada. A ‘heat dome.’ Water shortages. Hurricanes. Illegal immigrants. Obstreperousness overseas. Lawlessness at home. Mosquitoes. But the big ape on the back of the US is obvious. It’s the one neither political party wants to talk about. And no wonder; they put it there.
It’s the debt, stupid - the price of all the dumb ‘problem solving’ of the past. Who wants to remember them? Old girlfriends. Empty bottles and cigar stubs. Yesterday’s newspapers. The Gulf War of 1991...Obama’s record $1.4 trillion deficit in 2009, LA riots of 1992...Hurricane Andrew...Oklahoma City bombing...Monica Lewinsky?
All have faded from public memory...but the bills, great or small, are still unpaid. They are among the $40 trillion worth of accumulated federal debt that must be serviced every year, for ever and ever, Amen. At just 5% interest, the annual charge will soon come to $2 trillion per year, whether anyone remembers what the money was spent on or not. Federal tax receipts last year were $5.2 trillion. So, nearly half of the feds’ revenue is now headed to pay for things that were always a waste of money...and now, are largely forgotten.
Politicians don’t want to talk about it because solving the debt problem will hurt. Like cutting off a gangrenous finger without anesthetic or going ‘cold turkey’ in an asylum, neither party has the stomach for it. The voters will howl. The press will harrumph. Wall Street will quake. And, most likely, some fringy politician will take charge...and start a war to take our minds off of it.
You can ignore a debt build-up; for a long time, it will seem ‘manageable.’ But then, after a party, you end up in a ditch. Drying out (aka deflation) won’t be pleasant. People only do it because the alternative is worse.
A debt hangover is hard to shake off. Short term interest rates are lower...and closer to ‘cash.’ So, the feds moved more of their borrowing to the short end of the yield curve. This leaves them needing to ‘rollover’ their debt more frequently - even as interest rates go up. Even if they balanced the budget tomorrow, they’d still need to refinance more than $1 trillion per month.
A report from Armstrong Economics tells us that $29 trillion will be borrowed this year: "Governments and corporations are expected to borrow a record $29 trillion from global bond markets in 2026, according to the OECD. That is $4 trillion more than in 2024 and twice the amount borrowed only ten years ago. This is the Ponzi structure underlying modern government finance."
Carlo Ponzi might be proud. Practically all of the world’s post-war western governments adopted his model. But where are we going with this? Where else, the same place it took Ponzi himself: to Hell in a handcart! Ponzi died in a charity ward in Brazil, with only $75 to his name. And now, there is no way a society can devote half its government’s revenues to paying for the bad investments of the past...at least, not indefinitely. And the most likely ‘solution’ is the most dangerous and painful one - inflating away the debt...which is like curing the hangover with a bottle of gin before breakfast.
But we shouldn’t be too surprised if a more audacious leader - such as Jean-Luc Melenchon in France - comes along with a more radical plan. The French leftist proposes to simply renege on a portion of French debt. And maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad idea...Stay tuned..."
Epic Economist, "This Just Happened At Target... And Americans Are Done"
Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 9/2/26
"This Just Happened At Target...
And Americans Are Done"
"Target used to be the fun store. Now shoppers are pulling their phones out in the aisles - and what they are filming is not fun at all. A $130 trip with $35 of charges for items that were never in the cart. A camera order that showed up as a 20-pound dumbbell. An $86 toy that sits on a Costco shelf for $57. Sweaters that went from $20 to $28 and got thinner at the same time. Shampoo, deodorant and toothpaste locked behind plexiglass. Self-checkout lanes closed with almost no cashiers open. Sealed collectibles cut open by staff. A return policy that makes a grown adult bring a second person's ID. Dynamic pricing that nobody announced. And a Target employee of five years saying, on camera, that she would never shop there as a customer. Every clip is a real shopper, filmed inside a real store, in their own words. Nothing here is staged and nothing here is rare - that is the part that should worry Target."
Comments here:
Dan, I Allegedly, "The Next Financial Crisis Has Started"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 9/2/26
"The Next Financial Crisis Has Started"
"The bond market is sending a major warning about the global economy, and the consequences could reach far beyond Wall Street. Rising government bond yields in the United States, Japan, Germany and Britain are putting pressure on governments, banks, businesses and consumers. The bond market affects the cost of mortgages, car loans, credit cards, business financing and government debt, making this a story everyone needs to understand. Is this where the next financial crisis begins? In this video, Dan breaks down the global bond market selloff, rising interest rates, inflation, government debt, the Federal Reserve, Japan's changing monetary policy, European borrowing costs and the growing pressure on financial institutions. We also look at why higher bond yields matter to your money, your bank, your retirement, your investments and the overall economy. As governments and corporations take on record amounts of debt, the financial system is becoming increasingly precarious. Pay attention to the bond market - because the next major financial crisis may not begin where most people expect."
Comments here:
"Hundreds of Thousands of Walmart Workers Are Losing Their Jobs - Who’s Paying the Price?"
Full screen recommended.
Global Discovery Documentary, 9/2/26
"Hundreds of Thousands of Walmart Workers
Are Losing Their Jobs - Who’s Paying the Price?"
"Walmart jobs and Walmart workers are changing as Walmart 2026 expands technology across stores and supply chains. This documentary examines Walmart layoffs, retail jobs, retail workers, automation, AI jobs, Job losses, U.S. jobs, the U.S. labor market, retail automation, Walmart automation, the future of work, and employee reskilling without assuming one cause explains every change. Recent Walmart jobs changes include corporate restructuring, while Walmart Workers also face evolving technology and operations. Walmart layoffs should therefore be separated from broader retail jobs trends. For retail workers, automation and AI jobs can change tasks as well as staffing. Job losses, U.S. jobs, and the U.S. labor market require context. Retail automation and Walmart automation may improve efficiency while changing skills needed in the future of work. Employee reskilling can help people adapt. This analysis asks what Walmart 2026 means for Walmart jobs, Walmart workers, and Walmart layoffs while examining retail jobs and retail workers across America. The goal is practical: strengthen transferable skills, use training opportunities, and explore new career paths as Walmart 2026 evolves.'
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"The Terrible Cost of Living Crisis in America in 2026 - And It’s Getting Worse"
Full screen recommended.
Global Discovery Documentary, 9/2/26
"The Terrible Cost of Living Crisis in America
in 2026 - And It’s Getting Worse"
"Why has the cost of living become so difficult for many households? This documentary examines the cost of living crisis, the changing cost of living in America, and the pressures shaping America 2026. From Inflation in America to the U.S. economy, we explore why everyday expenses remain a major concern. The American economy affects households through food prices, housing costs, grocery prices, and gas prices. For Americans in debt, these expenses can make living paycheck to paycheck more difficult while adding pressure on the Middle Class and contributing to broader financial struggles. But the cost of living crisis has no single cause. Understanding the cost of living in America requires examining inflation in America, housing, energy, wages, consumer behavior, and the U.S. Economy together. In America 2026, higher food prices and grocery prices can affect household budgets differently from housing costs and gas prices. For Americans in debt, smarter budgeting, reducing high-interest debt, comparing essential expenses, and building emergency savings can help. Households living paycheck to paycheck may also benefit from prioritizing fixed costs and avoiding unnecessary financing. This documentary does not blame consumers, businesses, or policymakers. Instead, we examine the cost of living, the American economy, the Middle Class, and today's financial struggles through evidence and context."
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"Grocery Stores Just Made a Shocking Shift & It's Hurting Everyone"
Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 9/2/26
"Grocery Stores Just Made a Shocking Shift &
It's Hurting Everyone"
"Food prices keep rising, but the real shock is WHO is now shopping at dollar stores. Dollar Tree and Dollar General just posted strong sales while Kroger and Publix are struggling. Why? Americans with the same $100 are being forced to buy cheaper options - and now even households making over $100,000 a year are trading name brands for store brands. Dollar Tree is opening nearly half its new stores in wealthier neighborhoods, right next to luxury car dealerships, while Dollar General is closing hundreds of underperforming locations to move upscale. In this video I break down what this shift means for grocery prices, inflation, and your wallet — including why Hormel just cut its sales forecast because consumers can't even afford Spam. In this video: Why dollar stores are winning while traditional grocers hurt; How Dollar Tree is chasing wealthy shoppers into rich neighborhoods; Why Dollar General closed 117 stores in 2024, 290 in 2025, and 66 so far in 2026; What Hormel's sales cut tells us about how desperate consumers have become This is what is happening in our current economy and what it means for you."
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Adventures With Danno, "This Is Not A Tutorial... Maybe It Should Be"
Adventures With Danno, 9/2/26
"This Is Not A Tutorial... Maybe It Should Be"
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Tuesday, September 1, 2026
"Alert! SHTF In Iran! NATO: 'Air Space Closed In Russia'; China Prepares Military Draft"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 9/1/26
"Alert! SHTF In Iran! NATO: 'Air Space Closed In Russia';
China Prepares Military Draft"
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Gerald Celente, "Trump Ramps Up Iran War, Market Crash Coming"
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 9/1/26
"Trump Ramps Up Iran War, Market Crash Coming"
""In this episode of Trends in the News, Gerald Celente breaks down the rapidly escalating tensions between the United States, Israel, and Iran, warning that the push toward a broader Middle East conflict could have devastating consequences for global markets and economic stability. Celente examines how rising geopolitical risks are fueling volatility across financial markets as investors react to growing uncertainty."
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"The Dysfunctional System Is Crashing, Global Panic, This Is Getting Serious"
Jeremiah Babe, 9/1/26
"The Dysfunctional System Is Crashing,
Global Panic, This Is Getting Serious"
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Musical Interlude: 2002, "Courting the Moon"
Full screen recommended.
2002, "Courting the Moon"
"A Mayan legend says that the hummingbird is actually the sun
in disguise, and he is trying to court a beautiful woman, who is the moon."
"A Look to the Heavens"
“The constellation of Orion holds much more than three stars in a row. A deep exposure shows everything from dark nebula to star clusters, all embedded in an extended patch of gaseous wisps in the greater Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. The brightest three stars on the far left are indeed the famous three stars that make up the belt of Orion. Just below Alnitak, the lowest of the three belt stars, is the Flame Nebula, glowing with excited hydrogen gas and immersed in filaments of dark brown dust.
Below the frame center and just to the right of Alnitak lies the Horsehead Nebula, a dark indentation of dense dust that has perhaps the most recognized nebular shapes on the sky. On the upper right lies M42, the Orion Nebula, an energetic caldron of tumultuous gas, visible to the unaided eye, that is giving birth to a new open cluster of stars. Immediately to the left of M42 is a prominent bluish reflection nebula sometimes called the Running Man that houses many bright blue stars. The above image, a digitally stitched composite taken over several nights, covers an area with objects that are roughly 1,500 light years away and spans about 75 light years.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120212.html
Chet Raymo, “Try To Remember…”
“Try To Remember…”
by Chet Raymo
“In a sleepless hour of the night, I was trying to remember the last name of a person I have known well for more than forty years. When my spouse stirred in her sleep, I asked her. She couldn't remember either. One again I started mentally through the alphabet. "I think it starts with B," I said. Ten minutes later she rolled over and said, "The next letter is R." Bingo! The name popped into my head. Or I should say, "popped out of my head." Because it was in there somewhere, recorded in a tangle of neurons as materially as if it were written on a piece of paper.
•
Graphic: Salvador Dali, "The Persistence of Memory"
"The Light Beyond The Familiar"
Full screen recommended.
"The Light Beyond The Familiar"
"There are moments in life when something inside us quietly whispers: "There must be more than this." This film was made for that feeling, a cinematic story about fear, routine, courage, and the invisible boundaries we build around our lives. This film was never really about the moon. It was about all the things we stop ourselves from chasing because they feel unfamiliar. About the routines that slowly become invisible cages. About the voices that tell us to stay where it is safe, even when our hearts quietly dream of something more. The boy saw a light no one else believed in. Not because he was stronger. Not because he was smarter. But because he was willing to wonder. Sometimes the greatest risk is not failing. Sometimes the greatest risk is spending an entire life standing on the shore, never discovering what was waiting just beyond the horizon. This story is for anyone who has ever felt a pull toward something unknown. A dream. A new beginning. A different path. Because beyond fear, beyond habit, beyond everything familiar... there may be a life brighter than anything we imagined. And sometimes all it takes to find it... is the courage to take the first step."
Native Elder, "Why Men Stopped Being Men"; "Why Women Stopped Being Women"
Full screen recommended.
Native Elder,
"Why Men Stopped Being Men"
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Full screen recommended.
Native Elder,
"Why Women Stopped Being Women"
"Good Things Come to Those Who Wait"
Full screen recommended.
"Good Things Come to Those Who Wait"
“Good Things Come to Those Who Wait” is a patient, soulful blues about trusting the timing of life. The singer reflects on years of rushing, chasing, and wanting everything right away, only to discover that some of the best things arrive after you've learned to slow down and let life unfold. Driven by warm blues guitar and the gentle, soulful cry of the harmonica , the song carries an easygoing groove filled with patience, hope, and hard-earned wisdom. The voice is weathered but peaceful, like a man who no longer feels the need to chase every opportunity that passes by. Some things can't be rushed… They just need time to find you."
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