Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 12/24/24
"Your Boss is About to Quit - Corporate Meltdown"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
Tuesday, December 24, 2024
"Russia's Largest Shopping Mall 3 Days Before Christmas"
Full screen recommended.
Travelling with Russell, 12/24/24
"Russia's Largest Shopping Mall 3 Days Before Christmas"
"What is it like to shop at Russia's largest shopping mall during Christmas? Avia Park Shopping Mall is the largest shopping center in Russia. Are people in Russia shopping at Christmas? Join me 3 days before Christmas to find out."
Comments here:
Absolutely incredible...
Monday, December 23, 2024
"Alert! U.S. Nuclear Bomb Scare, Major Event Imminent? What Are They Hiding?"
Canadian Prepper, 12/23/24
"Alert! U.S. Nuclear Bomb Scare, Major Event Imminent?
What Are They Hiding?"
Comments here:
"Get Your Cash Out Of The Bank, If The Internet Goes Down You're Done"
Jeremiah Babe, 12/23/24
"Get Your Cash Out Of The Bank,
If The Internet Goes Down You're Done"
Comments here:
"A Christmas Musical Interlude: Il Divo, "O Holy Night"
Full screen recommended.
Il Divo, "O Holy Night"
A Christmas Musical Interlude: Peder B. Helland, "O Holy Night"
Full screen recommended.
Peder B. Helland, "O Holy Night"
"A Look to the Heavens, With Chet Raymo"
“Reaching For The Stars”
by Chet Raymo
“Here is a spectacular detail of the Eagle Nebula, a gassy star-forming region of the Milky Way Galaxy, about 7,000 light-years away. This particular spire of gas and dust was recently featured on APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day). The Eagle lies in the equatorial constellation Serpens. If you went out tonight and looked at this part of the sky - more or less midway between Arcturus and Antares - you might see nothing at all. The brightest star in Serpens is of the third magnitude, perhaps invisible in an urban environment. No part of the Eagle Nebula is available to unaided human vision. How big is the nebula in the sky? Hold a pinhead at arm's length and it would just about cover the spire. I like to think about things not mentioned in the APOD descriptions.
If the Sun were at the bottom of the spire, Alpha centauri, our nearest stellar neighbor, would be about halfway up the column. Sirius, the brightest star in Earth's sky, would be near the top. Let's say you sent out a spacecraft from the bottom of the spire that travelled at the speed of the two Voyager craft that are now traversing the outer reaches of the Solar System. It would take more than 200,000 years to reach the top of the spire.
The Hubble Space Telescope cost a lot of money to build, deploy, and operate. It has done a lot of good science. But perhaps the biggest return on the investment is to turn on ordinary folks like you and me to the scale and complexity of the universe. The human brain evolved, biologically and culturally, in a universe conceived on the human scale. We resided at its center. The stars were just up there on the dome of night. The Sun and Moon attended our desires. "All the world's a stage," wrote Shakespeare, and he meant it literally; the cosmos was designed by a benevolent creator as a stage for the human drama. All of that has gone by the board. Now we can travel in our imagination for 200,000 years along a spire of glowing, star-birthing gas that is only the tiniest fragment of a nebula that is only the tiniest fragment of a galaxy that is but one of hundreds of billions of galaxies we can potentially see with our telescopes.
Most of us still live psychologically in the universe of Dante and Shakespeare. The biggest intellectual challenge of our times is how to bring our brains up to speed. How to shake our imaginations out of the slumber of centuries. How to learn to live purposefully in a universe that is apparently indifferent to the human drama. How to stretch the human story to match the light-years.”
The Poet: Arthur O’Shaughnessy, "Music and Moonlight"
"Music and Moonlight"
"We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone seabreakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world forever, it seems…
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Ninevah with our sighing,
And Babel itself in our mirth;
And o’erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world’s worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth."
- Arthur O’Shaughnessy
○
Full screen recommended.
Harry Bidgood and His Broadcasters,
"Music and Moonlight" (1928)
o
"The Dreamers Of Dreams..."
"The division of one day from the next must be one of the most profound peculiarities of life on this planet. We are not condemned to sustained flights of being, but are constantly refreshed by little holidays from ourselves. We are intermittent creatures, always falling to little ends and rising to new beginnings. Our soon-tired consciousness is meted out in chapters, and that the world will look quite different tomorrow is, both for our comfort and our discomfort, usually true. How marvelously too night matches sleep, sweet image of it, so nearly apportioned to our need. Angels must wonder at these beings who fall so regularly out of awareness into a fantasm-infested dark. How our frail identities survive these chasms no philosopher has ever been able to explain."
- Iris Murdoch
"Maybe..."
"Maybe we're not supposed to be happy. Maybe gratitude has nothing to do with joy. Maybe being grateful means recognizing what you have for what it is. Appreciating small victories. Admiring the struggle it takes to simply be a human. Maybe, we're thankful for the familiar things we know. And maybe, we're thankful for the things we'll never know. At the end of the day, the fact that we have the courage to still be standing is reason enough to celebrate. "
- "Grey's Anatomy "
"10 Gross Facts That Confirm the Middle Ages Were Beyond Filthy"
"10 Gross Facts That Confirm
the Middle Ages Were Beyond Filthy"
by Selme Angulo
"The Middle Ages weren’t the cleanest and most hygienic time to be alive. People didn’t live nearly as long as they do today, and a big part of that was because the medical care, basic hygiene practices, and quality of food were all horrific compared to what we are used to now. It’s difficult to state just how bad those things really were, though. After all, we’re talking about an era of time that is now multiple centuries in the past. It’s difficult to conceive of just how gross daily life must have been like back then!
Well, that’s why we’re here today. In this list, we’re going to take a look at the actual situation on the ground for medieval peasants. Their lives were brutal, their work was difficult, and their happiness was limited to very fleeting moments of joy. And they were filthy all around! This is the real story of how disgusting life was back in the Middle Ages…
Bathing? Nah! Upper-class people during the Middle Ages most often had access to tubs in which they could bathe with water. However, even many of the middle-class folk - or what was roughly considered to be middle class by our modern-day designations - didn’t. And if you were poor? Well, forget about it.
Peasants had to make do with very infrequent access to public baths if they were lucky, but most of them were plain unlucky. So they were forced to haul huge buckets of dirty and grimy river water or illegally gained well water to their homes by hand. Then, with the unheated and dirty water, they had to bathe by hand. Better not waste any water, though! The buckets weren’t huge and there was no faucet or pipe to easily pump in more if they were liberal in applying it to their bodies. For those who were lucky enough to live near rivers or lakes, they simply jumped in every day when it was time for a bath. That was easy, but it also brought its own dangers. Obviously, the river water was completely untreated. In many cases, it carried its own germs and parasites.
Peasants mostly didn’t have access to soaps (and certainly not to shampoos!) at that time. So all they were really doing was washing off the dirt and grime that had accumulated on their bodies after a long, hard day of manual labor. They’d go to sleep, get up, do it all over again, and repeat the cycle endlessly. Peasants who were less fortunate or not situated near bodies of water bathed a lot less often. And some didn’t bathe at all. We know it must have smelled crazy in there.
When Ya Gotta Go…Well-to-do people living in castles and on estates had benches with holes in them to use as primitive toilets during the medieval era. But normal people mostly didn’t have access to even simple and rudimentary things like that. Instead, they were forced to use outhouses at best - and share them with large community groups all at once.
At worst, they were given chamberpots or waste buckets. When the urge came to use the bathroom, they had to go in the little pot and then somehow manage not to ruin their tiny hovels with the stench. When the chamberpots started to become filled up, they had to drag them out, careful not to spill any waste on their stuff, and get rid of the mess.
Disgusting, right? Well, it gets worse. There were no pipes to run sewage and human waste along like we have nowadays. So, there were only two places for peasants to toss their excrement when their chamberpots filled up. The first was at the local river. Yes, that would be the very same river from which peasants were pulling out water to bathe or jumping in to get cleaned off. Gross!
The second spot was the street. Peasants would simply take their chamberpots out to the street, turn them over, and dump their wet contents all over the cobblestones. And that was that. See, back then, people believed that the smell of waste was what caused disease, and not the germs in it. So, they were keen on getting rid of the smell as quickly as possible. If only they knew…
Clothing Conundrums: Many people who had means in medieval times dressed in several layers of clothing. Among other reasons, that was so they could avoid having to wash their outer garments too often. But peasants didn’t own several layers of clothing. They pretty much just wore one thing day after day after day.
Now, impressively, etiquette books from the time actually counseled people to wash their clothing regularly. They even advised that one should change their underwear every day! Peasants mostly couldn’t read and didn’t have access to those books, but culturally, the practices nevertheless made it down to them. Seems less disgusting than you would have expected, right? Well, it wasn’t all sunshine and roses like that.
As we’ve already learned, the average peasant really only had access to regular water if it was in a nearby river or lake. So they would go down to the river once a week or so and try to scrub their dirty clothes in the water. If they were lucky, they had access to some lye soap to clean their clothes as best they could. If they were unlucky - and most were unlucky - they could only use the dirty river water alone. And as we’ve seen so far in this list, that water was filled with all kinds of nasty bacteria.
In addition to nature’s regular onslaught, rivers were horribly polluted, with people upstream thoughtlessly dumping their waste into it. Downstream, then, peasants were forced to wash their clothes in that same water. How’d you like to put those garments back on your body afterward?
Look Out for Lice: When it came to living in medieval times, head lice and fleas were simple facts of life. Parasites like that were ubiquitous because nobody had any idea what shampoo was. And soap, as we’ve learned, was really a hit-or-miss affair. Plus, horribly dirty water from rivers and lakes was the best people could do to “bathe,” if you can even call it that.
So comb makers had to get creative with how they produced their products to make up for all that. And create, they did: During the Middle Ages, comb makers started putting more and more fine-toothed fingers on their combs. The hair of the average medieval peasant was so thick with lice that the combs with tight, tiny fingers could actually yank them out. Of course, sleeping in squalor meant the lice just went right back in the next day. But at least they were trying, right?
That’s not all, either. Peasants eventually got around to figuring out ways to delouse themselves and each other. And the delousing groups were so important to overall health and so fun to take part in that they actually became a social activity! Sure, we might think of a social outing as a trip to a bar, going to see a baseball game, visiting the zoo, or something like that.
However, in the Middle Ages, people routinely took their social time by helping to delouse one another and get as clean as they could. Women who were skilled at delousing even made a bit of a side hustle out of it, successfully charging militaries and other groups to come along and do the delousing of a large group of people for a fee. Anything for a buck, right?
Hangin’ at the Cesspit: In the modern era, we flush our toilets, rinse our hands in the sinks, and go on about our day. Way back when, peasants would all, uh, hang out at the cesspit. Sadly, we’re not totally kidding about that. See, whenever a chamberpot became too full with excrement, peasants had to haul it off to the local cesspit. In many cities, towns, and villages back then, this was a communal cesspit in which everybody would dump their waste together.
Many people also dumped old food, rotten fruits and vegetables, and other forms of garbage into the pit. Can you even imagine how bad it must have smelled? And it’s even worse to think about how those cesspits would inevitably leak into the ground, contaminate the groundwater, and make the surrounding soil for quite a considerable area absolutely disgusting.
However, that wasn’t even the worst part! The worst part is that much of the contamination likely traveled very quickly to areas where water had descended, including rivers and lakes. Water always finds the lowest point, of course. And so, too, does the waste that tracks along with it. Just imagine a big area right on the outskirts of a city in which everybody is tossing out their human waste with nary a care in the world. They’d lug and dump horse and livestock waste, too, with nowhere else to leave it. Gross, right?
In bigger cities, the cesspits were even worse. That’s because, in those cities, many people would dump their chamberpots from second and third-story balconies where they lived right onto the street below! Inevitably, the mess would attract mice, rats, and other vermin. And that’s not to mention the smell - and the splatter zone that would inevitably be created around the mess…
Horrible Sleeping Habits: The average medieval peasant slept on a bed made of straw - and some slept on hay and other bedding. But while that might seem better than, say, sleeping on the floor, it came with its own major problems. Sure, peasants were comfortable and relatively insulated from the cold by sleeping on straw. But they were also sleeping with rats, mice, and tons of things they couldn’t see, including bedbugs, fleas, and lice!
People in the Middle Ages didn’t exactly understand how germs worked, and they didn’t have a pressing drive to get rid of them. They did do one thing, though: They used scented flowers and herbs to try to make things seem cleaner. You know how you tend to spray Febreze to liven up a place? It was sort of like that. But it didn’t kill any of the bugs!
There were other issues when it came to medieval bed and sleeping rituals, too. Namely, peasants often slept in tandem or group bedding situations. Entire families would sleep together in bed either to keep warm together or because they lacked the money for multiple beds. Some even lacked the place to put down multiple beds in their tiny hovels.
This meant that if one person was even slightly sick, they would immediately and undoubtedly spread those germs to everyone else around them. Can you imagine the issues with flu season when it came to people sharing beds like that? We need to take some Vitamin C just thinking about it!
Women’s Woes: If you think all peasants had it equally bad in the Middle Ages when it came to hygiene, we have news for you: Women had it much, much worse. (Certainly, any woman reading this list right now is probably nodding along, knowing the whole time that this was coming, right?) Women have so often had it worse throughout history, and the medieval era was no exception. And specifically for the purposes of this list, it’s their menstruation that is drawing attention.
Unfortunately, tampons and other period products were very much not a thing way back then. In their places, many women resorted to absolutely insane methods to collect and soak up blood during their monthly cycles. Most notably, some women used dirty and soiled pieces of rags to do the job. Others wrapped strips of cloth around tiny twigs to use as a de facto tampon. Still, others resorted to using absorbent moss as an impromptu pad. Yes, really -sticks, twigs, and moss as period products.
Even worse than that, religious authorities at the time regarded menstruation as being shameful and disgusting. So, many women of the Middle Ages felt significant pressure to hide their monthly movements from the men in their lives. Lots of women carried around scented herbs and flowers in a bid to mask the smell so men wouldn’t be able to tell.
Also, you have to remember that women’s lives were so brutally hard and their overall health so poor during the Middle Ages that it is likely that they may have routinely missed periods. That would at least get them off the hook when it came to soaking up the blood and masking the smells, but it certainly wasn’t easy on their bodies. Truly, women suffered worse than men during that period in so many ways - monthly menstrual cycles chief among them.
Primitive Dental Care: There were no such things as toothbrushes around during the Middle Ages. So, without them on hand to clean teeth, peasants resorted to using twigs to brush out any excess food particles. Well, the ones they could find and root out, at least. Plaque and gingivitis and all that were completely unknown, of course. Some peasants would even go so far as to place a piece of wool over their teeth and then rinse their mouths out with water.
Those who were slightly better off and had access to salt would create a mixture of that and sage to form a very primitive paste that could freshen their breath. It would even whiten their teeth - you know, ‘whiten’ being a relative term considering how terrible dental care was way back then.
Now, as disgusting as all this sounds, things weren’t so bad for peasants. That’s in large part because sugar was virtually entirely absent from their diets. They had no money to pay for sugar being imported from faraway lands (in the rare cases that it even was imported at all). So, without it, their teeth held up better than you’d expect.
Still, if they had to remove a problem tooth, the work was absolutely barbaric. There was no such thing as anesthesia. And dentists at the time weren’t doctors as much as they were butchers. Peasants would often get extremely drunk before having their teeth pulled just to try to dull the pain as much as possible. It rarely worked.
Wine for Wounds: Alcohol wasn’t only used to dull peasants’ senses when it came time for primitive dental work. Wine was also used as a medical option to help cure ailments - and help anesthetize patients in early ways. As you might expect, most peasants believed that prayer was the answer to all their health issues.
They had minimal schooling if any at all, and with the church functioning as such an important part of their lives, that’s where they turned for help. Slowly, however, knowledge of science and medicine began to spread across Europe. And when it did, it manifested itself in some strange (but actually understandable) ways.
Take the use of wine to clean wounds as an example. At the most primitive hospitals and surgery centers of the medieval era, doctors had figured out that alcohol could be used to successfully clean wounds. They also learned that any lacerations they made could be cauterized to get closed back up nice and tight. So, if you went in for an operation of any kind in the Middle Ages, you were going to be doused with wine and then burned back until your skin closed at the end of it. As you might expect, a great many people died from infections in this context since nobody knew the first thing about hygiene. But at least you could maybe get drunk and bathe in wine while perishing. Yay?
But They DID Wash Their Hands! Here is possibly the most crazy fact of them all: many medieval peasants washed their hands. Like, very often! Keeping one’s hands clean was seen as an important custom of the Middle Ages. It went back to showing that one took pride in one’s appearance. It was also considered common etiquette to keep one’s hands clean and free from dirt and grime. People in the Middle Ages knew nothing of unseen germs and bacteria, but they nevertheless wanted to keep their hands routinely washed just to showcase their civility to others. And so they did!
There were a few things people did when it came to hand-washing etiquette. First, they always washed their hands and face in whatever water they had available after they woke up. Then, they continued to wash their hands at various points throughout the day. After work and before dinner, they very often washed their hands to ensure that they were clean enough for the meal.
That was particularly important, too, since silverware wasn’t really a thing. Virtually all people in the Middle Ages - and certainly all peasants - ate with their hands and typically grabbed food with their grubby fingers from out of a communal bowl or dish. Better hope everybody else washed their hands, too, in that scenario!"
"Don't Wonder..."
"Don't wonder why people go crazy. Wonder why they don't.
In the face of what we can lose in a day, in an instant,
wonder what the hell it is that makes us hold it together."
- "Grey's Anatomy"
"John Deere Fires 2,000 Workers as 3 Factories Shut Down"
Full screen recommended,
Market Gains, 12/23/24
"John Deere Fires 2,000 Workers
as 3 Factories Shut Down"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Orlando Miner, 12/23/24
"Party City Shuts Down:
16,500 Laid Off and 850 Stores Closed!"
Comments here:
"How Will You Cope With A Lower Standard Of Living?"
"How Will You Cope With A Lower Standard Of Living?"
by Milan Adams
"The forces are mounting that will eventually overwhelm most Americans and send their standard of living to unknown depths. Americans that have only known the post WWII prosperity are ill equipped and educated to deal with depression level living. Easy credit and instant gratification have created a nation of whining, self absorbed, entitlement minded people with no moral or mental toughness.
Doug Casey believes we are headed for what he calls a super depression created by the ending of a debt super cycle. The bigger the debt cycle the bigger the depression that follows. That’s how reality works and most people are not prepared for reality.
When this depression, which has already started, gets momentum, it will overwhelm the plans of a society that is expecting to get things like social security, pensions and payouts from retirement plans they have paid into for many years. All of those things will disappear almost overnight and leave society gasping and stupefied over what to do. Their reactions will be to yell and scream and try to identify who to blame but the only person they should blame is the one in the mirror.
Many very smart people have raised the alarm and done their best to warn the sleeping public, but those slumbering masses have ignored the warnings and hit the snooze button one more time. The masses do not understand economics, do not want to understand economics and they will pay dearly for that ignorance in the coming days.
When the real unemployment rate becomes common knowledge as it increases substantially, people will be left to survive on what resources they have saved up outside the banking system that cannot be stolen by the politicians and bankers. That is a key point here. The assets you have outside the system that cannot be stolen from you with a few key strokes on some computer.
Those hoping for some miraculous event that will send the U.S. back to the days of manufacturing might and jobs for all will never see it happen. Those days are gone. The west line theory tells us our economy will slow down and become more modest as the shipping center of the world moves west to the next powerhouse region which is Asia. This is what history teaches us.
When people suddenly wake up one morning and they have no job, their retirement is gone and they need to care for their family, what will they do? When government services have collapsed and they suddenly realize they are now living in a third world country with few government services, what will they do? When the banks are closed and only a select few connected people have any type of money or access to goods, what will they do?
This is the reality that many people will face in the future and they have no idea how bad it can get. They refuse to contemplate the harsh reality they will be living in and take steps to mitigate the effects. To do so would be to acknowledge it could happen and they are taking personal responsibility. Personal responsibility is a dirty phrase in today’s entitlement society. To see some of the effects one only has to look at the collapse of society in Venezuela today to see what awaits.
When it happens it will all fall back to you to take responsibility for your family and take care of them for the duration. To do that you need to plan now for that eventuality and build up the resources you will need to provide food, shelter, clothing and security when the system fails to do it for you. You need to be Noah on his ark not the people watching as he floated away.
Having resources stored up is a must but it may not get you all the way through if the situation lasts for many years. That is why you need some type of plan to replace those resources as time goes by and have some way to generate some type of income or at least items to trade. Usable goods are for the short term and things like gold ,silver and production equipment are for the long term to help you get through the crisis with the least amount of pain.
Even with proper planning the days ahead will not be easy as the standard of living of society will fall substantially to levels only seen in failed third world countries or old pictures. The assets actually owned by people today is very small compared to how they live. They will default on their home loan, their car loan, and their credit card debt leaving them with very few real possessions and few ways to move what they have left even if they have some place to go. Ultimately these people will become the new serfs to the wealthy class that will take possession of anything of value. Feudalism will once again rule.
The lack of planning by society will make this a reality if it is allowed. What will you do when everything you have worked a lifetime for is suddenly taken away? Do you have a plan to keep what you have? Do you have a plan to make money when you cannot find a job? Do you have a way to take care of your family until things stabilize? Do you have a home you will not lose if the whole system breaks down? What will you do if electricity or fuel is too expensive to buy or not available to the general population? These are the questions you should be asking yourself now and you better have a good answer because your family will be asking them when the greater depression sets in."
"How It Really Is"
"The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under
the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
– Thomas Jefferson, “Letter to John Taylor,” May 28, 1816
o
"Debt to the Penny"
"Total debt of the U.S. government reported daily. Contains information on intragovernmental holdings and debt held by the public. The Debt to the Penny dataset provides information about the total outstanding public debt and is reported each day. Debt to the Penny is made up of intragovernmental holdings and debt held by the public, including securities issued by the U.S. Treasury. Total public debt outstanding is composed of Treasury Bills, Notes, Bonds, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), Floating Rate Notes (FRNs), and Federal Financing Bank (FFB) securities, as well as Domestic Series, Foreign Series, State and Local Government Series (SLGS), U.S. Savings Securities, and Government Account Series (GAS) securities. Debt to the Penny is updated at 3:00 PM EST each business day with data from the previous business day."
An official website of the U.S. government.
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Related:
"11 Signs That The Slow-Motion Collapse Of The U.S. Economy Is Far More Advanced Than Most People Think"
"11 Signs That The Slow-Motion Collapse Of The
U.S. Economy Is Far More Advanced Than Most People Think"
by Michael Snyder
"The fact that economic conditions are getting worse is certainly not good news, but it is better to know in advance what is coming. After four years under Joe Biden, the U.S. economy is a giant mess. We have been witnessing a slow-motion collapse right in front of our eyes, and those at the bottom levels of the economic food chain have been experiencing more pain than anyone else. Of course this is one of the biggest reasons why Donald Trump won the election. Large numbers of poor and working class Americans are desperate for change. Unfortunately, economic conditions have continued to deteriorate since early November. The following are 11 signs that the slow-motion collapse of the U.S. economy is far more advanced than most people think…
#1 When the economy is in good shape, holiday spending increases each year. In 2024, only 16 percent of Americans say that they are going to spend more than last year and 35 percent of Americans say that they are going to spend less… Americans this holiday season say they are seeing a ghost of Christmas past: inflation.
The CNBC All-America Economic Survey finds inflation is still haunting the buying public, leading to what’s shaping up to be just an average season for retailers. Just 16% of respondents say they will spend more, down two points compared to last year. Forty-eight percent said that they’ll lay out the same amount for holiday gifts, up five points. At the same time, 35% say they’ll spend less, down two points as well.
#2 The number of job openings in the U.S. is now the lowest it has been since January 2021, but unlike January 2021 we don’t have a pandemic to blame our poor performance on… US job openings tumbled last month to their lowest level since January 2021, a sign that the labor market is losing some momentum. Still, posted vacancies remain well above pre-pandemic levels. The Labor Department reported Tuesday that the number of job openings dropped to 7.4 million in September from 7.9 million in August. Economists had expected the level of openings to be virtually unchanged. Job openings fell in particular at healthcare companies and at government agencies at the federal, state and local levels.
#3 The manufacturing numbers that we are getting are extremely dismal. For example, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Manufacturing Index just experienced an extremely sharp decline…The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Manufacturing Index, a critical gauge of the general business conditions in Philadelphia, has reported a significant drop. The actual figure stands at -16.4, a sharp decline that suggests worsening conditions for manufacturers in the region.
This figure starkly contrasts with the forecasted number of 2.9, highlighting a more severe downturn than initially predicted. Analysts had anticipated a positive shift, indicating improving conditions, but the actual data presents a different, more concerning situation. Moreover, when compared to the previous index value of -5.5, the current reading of -16.4 further emphasizes the severity of the decline. This continuous drop indicates a concerning trend for manufacturers within the Philadelphia Federal Reserve district.
#4 Thanks to rapidly rising mortgage rates, the average U.S. homebuyer just lost $33,250 in purchasing power in just six weeks…Mortgage rates hit 7% on October 28, the highest level since the start of summer and up nearly one percentage point from the 18-month low they dropped to in mid-September. A homebuyer on a $3,000 monthly budget can afford a $442,500 home with a 7% mortgage rate, the daily average 30-year fixed rate on October 28. That buyer has lost $33,250 in purchasing power over the last six weeks; they could have purchased a $475,750 home with the 6.11% average rate on September 17. That was the lowest level since February 2023.
#5 Our cost of living crisis is officially out of control. According to Bank of America, almost a third of all households “spend more than 95% of their disposable income on necessities such as housing costs, groceries and utility bills”…Many Americans are still in a tough spot: Nearly 30% of all US households this year said they spend more than 95% of their disposable income on necessities such as housing costs, groceries and utility bills, according to a Bank of America Institute report, up from 2019 levels.
#6 A recent Lending Tree survey discovered that nearly a quarter of all households couldn’t pay their entire power bill at some point within the past year…LendingTree’s findings about electricity bill costs comes as it reported 23.4% of Americans experienced an inability to cover their entire energy bill or portions of it in the last year, based on Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey data.
#7 The same Lending Tree survey found that about a third of all households had to reduce spending “on necessary things” within the past year in order to pay utility costs…Needing to cover utility bills prompted 34.3% of Americans to curb their spending on necessary things – or eliminate some altogether – in at least one instance in the prior year, LendingTree said.
#8 As I discussed last week, demand is at record levels at food banks all over the nation…Why is demand at food banks all over the country higher than it has ever been before? The media keeps insisting that economic conditions are just fine, but it has become quite obvious to everyone that this is not true. In particular, the rising cost of living has been absolutely crushing households from coast to coast. In the old days, most of the people that would show up at food banks were unemployed. But now food banks are serving large numbers of people that actually do have jobs but that don’t make enough to pay for all of the basics. The ranks of the “working poor” are growing very rapidly, and this is creating an unprecedented crisis all over America.
#9 During normal times, troubled retailers would at least wait until after the holiday season to throw in the towel. But we haven’t even reached Christmas and Party City has already announced that it will be closing all stores…Party City is closing down all of its stores, ending nearly 40 years in business, CNN has learned. CEO Barry Litwin told corporate employees Friday in a meeting viewed by CNN that Party City is “winding down” operations immediately and that today will be their last day of employment. Staff were told they will not receive severance pay, and they were told their benefits would end as the company goes out of business.
#10 Not to be outdone, Big Lots has announced that all 936 of their remaining stores will be shutting down on a permanent basis…Big Lots is beginning ‘going out of business’ sales at all its stores across the US, as it prepares to close its remaining locations. The discount retail chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September, and has already shut hundreds of stores nationwide. In a press release Thursday, the company said it would begin the sales at its 963 remaining locations, after a sale to a private equity firm fell through.
#11 As of the end of November, more than 7,000 store closings had been announced in the United States. That is a 69 percent increase from last year… According to a report from CoreSight Research, U.S. retailers had announced more than 7,100 store closures through the end of November 2024, which represents a 69% increase compared to the same time in 2023. These closures are spread across numerous different sectors of retail from auto parts to restaurants to pharmacies, leaving many consumers wondering which companies will survive. This brings us to GameStop, the beloved retail gaming store, which has not only been closing hundreds of retail store locations since 2020, but also appears to be on track to close hundreds more of its locations in the very near future.
This is what a failing economy looks like. Last week, a prominent mall in downtown San Francisco was empty of shoppers in the middle of the afternoon…Look at all of these beautiful Christmas decorations at the Crocker Galleria mall in San Francisco. It’s 4:47 PM and everybody should be shopping and buying Christmas presents for their family, but nobody is in this mall. There are only three stores left that are open here. The escalators hum on inside this beautiful but empty decorated mall. Outside on Market Street the fentanyl addicts lay folded over while a street performer sings Last Christmas to an empty Street.
Of course the lack of shoppers at that particular mall is just the tip of the iceberg. Unfortunately, the truth is that downtown areas all over California “are crumbling under the weight of homelessness and drug addiction”…California’s biggest downtown areas are crumbling under the weight of homelessness and drug addiction, causing a vital part of its economy to dry out. Cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco have made countless headlines since the pandemic about their drug-infested streets where businesses are quickly pulling out due to high crime rates and low consumer passage.
The number of drug addicts in America is at the highest level ever. The number of homeless people in America is at the highest level ever. They are victims of our slow-motion economic collapse, and the holidays will not be very happy for them. So if you still have food on the table and a warm home to sleep in, you should consider yourself to be incredibly blessed. Sadly, more Americans are being forced out into the streets with each passing day as the slow-motion collapse of our economy accelerates."
"Banks Are Getting Sued for Fraud - Your Money Isn't Safe!"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 12/23/24
"Banks Are Getting Sued for Fraud -
Your Money Isn't Safe!"
"Banks sue over Zelle fraud! The shocking truth about this payment platform and the legal battle with banks. Is your money safe? Today we're diving into the wild world of Zelle fraud and the banks fighting back. Plus, I've got some insights on the housing market, bankruptcy trends, and even luxury brands trying to lure you in."
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Bill Bonner, "Big Money"
"Big Money"
We are watching a struggle between money and power.
Money wants a freer economy... with the usual grift and corruption.
Power wants what it always wants - more power.
by Bill Bonner
Baltimore, Maryland - "Forbes: "Biden forgives $4.28 billion in student debt for 54,900 borrowers." The relief is a result of fixes the U.S. Department of Education made to the once-troubled Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. Where did Joe Biden get the power to spend Americans’ money without asking Congress? Who knows?
But while the president was doing unconstitutional acts... the markets were making unconscionable moves. Fortune: "Fartcoin hits $1 billion market cap as memecoin market explodes."
And then, as expected... rather than force the feds to actually reduce spending, Republicans got together and agreed to spend even more. Tampa Free Press: "House Republican leaders have announced an internal agreement on a stopgap spending bill, also known as a continuing resolution (CR), to fund the government through March 2025, averting a looming shutdown set for Friday night. The proposed CR includes $110 billion in disaster relief for victims of Hurricanes Milton and Helene, along with a one-year extension of the farm bill, according to multiple reports."
What a lovely Christmas pageant it is! A grand parade of fools and knaves. A circus of freaks and clowns. Yes, here at Bonner Private Research we are enjoying the show. But we’re closing up shop for the holidays. Our readers have more important things to think about than politics, economics, or investments. But our goal is to prevent you from taking the Big Loss... and to that end, we bring some last-minute thoughts.
We believe we are watching a struggle between money and power... between Musk and Trump…between the Primary Political Trend of at least the last 50 years and (possibly) a new direction. Money wants a freer economy... with the usual grift and corruption. Power wants what it always wants - more power. The outcome is in doubt... but many investors are anticipating a huge ‘melt-up.’ They think they face a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, a new era created by the new MAGA-istas. We hope it works out. But just in case ... here’s our contrary view…
Almost all commentators, on the left and the right, have it wrong. They think we are looking at a struggle between conservatives Trump/Musk/etc on one side and the establishment, wokish, war-mongering liberals on the other. If that were true, we could take our places in the bleachers, rooting for a victory for the conservative cause, hoping for lower deficits, lower inflation, lower interest rates - and a less expensive, less powerful government. Then, we might even expect a business revival. Manufacturing would return to the US... and thousands of rapists and murderers would leave. But that is not what is on offer.
The Republican elite, now including Donald Trump, have a very different agenda from Elon Musk. They spent a lot of time and a lot of money getting power. They’re not going to want to give it up. Instead, they’re going to use it in the same way elites always use government - to take money and power away from ‘The People’ and give it to themselves.
That has been the Primary Political Trend for at least 50 years. It will change at some point, but typically, not until some catastrophe comes along and the elites run out of other peoples’ money. And that suggests that at some point in the not-too-remote future, Messrs. Musk and Trump are headed for a showdown. Mr. Trump is now the most powerful man in the world. He wouldn’t want to see his face taken down from Rushmore... even before it gets there, or share power with a rich guy from South Africa.
Besides... he has his weight to throw around. Bloomberg: "President-elect Donald Trump warned the European Union that its exports will get hit with US tariffs if its member states don’t buy more American oil and gas. “I told the European Union that they must make up their tremendous deficit with the United States by the large scale purchase of our oil and gas. Otherwise, it is TARIFFS all the way!!!,” he said on Truth Social".
Big Man politics require a Big Stick... which costs Big Money. It seems very unlikely that Trump would give up the pleasure of power for reasons he neither understands nor appreciates. Look for bigger deficits, not smaller ones. And lower asset prices, not higher ones. And if we’re wrong...Well, it won’t be the first time. Happy holidays."
Adventures With Danno, "Grocery Shopping At Target Right Before Christmas"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 12/23/24
"Grocery Shopping At Target Right Before Christmas"
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Jim Kunstler, "A Christmas Prayer"
"A Christmas Prayer"
by Jim Kunstler
"If it's time for you to go, leave willingly, as you would to
accomplish anything that can be done with grace and honor."
- Marcus Aurelius
"The longest and coldest night of the year is upon us with its portents of endings, the death of things, of people like ourselves, and also bodies of thought, movements of culture and politics. And for all the cold and darkness, you feel the stirrings of things waiting to be born. Christmas is the lovely distraction for a brief spell, and after that, the difficult labor of the nation commences for-real in the long night of the year.
This moment in the cold and dark is also the climax of the Great Pretending. You knew it would come to this for “Joe Biden,” that he would be found-out. That in the waning days of his woebegone term in office, the people around him in the White House would betray him with the truth: that he was mentally unfit for the job from even before the get-go, from those drear days in the fall campaign of 2020 when he hid himself at home in Delaware while the FBI covered-up the massive bribery-and-treason story concealed in Hunter’s laptop. And that for four years since then those people around “Joe Biden” have pretended to the world that he was doing his job, that he was okay, when he was absolutely not okay, as they well knew.
It was only one big lie among the thousands of lies put over by the conspiracy between that gang in the White House and the perfidious organs of the news, especially The New York Times. If you want to see how stupendously dishonest the employees of that newspaper are, read this “roundtable” column of several Times pundits attempting to chew over the state of their patron, the Democratic party. Forgive me for quoting myself in the comment I posted there a half hour ago:
"You’re all quite remarkably clueless and dishonest. Your party is in ruins because your policies are intolerable and often insane: censorship, war, gender lunacy, flooding the country with illegal immigrants - no, not “undocumented” in your parlance, as if it was just some clerical error. And you: Democratic Party aligned journalists are even worse than the politicians, because you’re supposed to make an effort to determine the truth, and you deliberately gaslight the public instead. Shame on you and the Democratic Party. It’s that simple."
It’s hard to know for sure, but it looks an awful lot as though these journalists - in fact, the whole elite intelligentsia across America - are gaslighting themselves, still pretending that they didn’t know what went on, a coup against their own country. Everything they have been saying and publishing is the opposite of reality. And now it is about to all spill out because other people are about to take over the levers of power.
For instance: can the CDC and other agencies of public health continue to lie about disastrous Covid-19 vaccines, about the deaths and disabilities they have caused in millions of people? Under “Joe Biden,” there was no other way for the likes of Rochelle Walensky and Mandy Cohen except to lie. And get this: women were chosen to front for the CDC because you’re not supposed to believe that “Mommy” would lie to you, especially in matters of life and death. There was no other way because the crime was so great and they were all in it so deep - not just Rochelle and Mandy but the hundreds of high-ranking bureaucrats in CDC, FDA, and NIH who went along with all this.
Of course, it’s hard to know whether the Covid-19 affair was just a venal and insane project by Anthony Fauci and his colleagues to play “hero” while making a ton of money...or whether it was actually a deliberate effort by the Intel Blob to queer the 2020 election by forcing a change in the voting procedure that would allow for wholesale fraud, in the service of cancelling Donald Trump. Possibly, it was a mash-up of both.
The truth about all this, and a lot more, is going to come out, whether or not Bobby Kennedy, Kash Patel, and other nominees get confirmed in their jobs, because there are many other figures just as capable behind them who would be nominated and eventually confirmed to run these departments. Those New York Times journalists are gaslighting themselves further if they think that blocking a few nominations is going to save their reputations. This populist revolution is bigger than that. It’s about overturning a paradigm of lies.
We really don’t know if our country is too far gone. The wreckage accomplished under the fakery of “Joe Biden” is prodigious. The financial quandaries alone are enough to sink the Republic in penury, and it will be hard to dodge the truth about that, too, because individual citizens and households know when they are hurting. When they hurt enough, they move to action, visibly, loudly, and you will not miss it.
This ought to be a sobering Christmas then. This is the pause at the end of things when we might consider how important it is to tell ourselves the truth. Chew on that with the sugarplums of the season while we wait for that something that is busy being born."
"Honey Badgers"
Full screen recommended.
Oneindia News, 12/23/24
"Houthi Strikes Paralyze U.S. Defenses in Yemen;
American F-18 Warplane Destroyed"
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o
Full screen recommended.
"Scott Ritter has humorously described the Yemeni Houthis as "the honey badgers of the Middle East, absolutely fearless and relentlessly ferocious." They just simply don't care. They've declared war on Israel while all the other Muslim states just talk, and daily send missiles and drones to attack Israel and attack any ships connected to Israel in any way. They totally control the 12 mile wide Bab-el-Mandab ("Gate of Grief") strait connecting the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea, which transits 40% of the world's oil. Closing that is having catastrophic consequences on global economies, and the Houthis know it. And so it is...
Honey badgers are the Italian mafia of the animal kingdom. No one, and I mean no one, wants to mess with these savages. They literally wake up and choose violence daily. They are regarded as the most fearless animal in the wild and they back that up every day, all while looking like a ferret on steroids.
Honey badgers woke up and chose violence. They'll combat anything from lions, leopards, hyenas and even cobras and pythons. But how did they become so fearless? How do these compact sized danger-weasels take on the deadliest predators like it was a regular Sunday’s brunch with the girls? These are moments of honey badgers being straight up savages."
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o
Sunday, December 22, 2024
Canadian Prepper, "Alert! Nuclear Black Swan Event?"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 12/22/24
"Alert! Nuclear Black Swan Event?"
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God help us...
"So, How Do You Beat The Odds..."
“So, how do you beat the odds when it’s one against a billion? You’re just outnumbered. You stand strong, keep pushing yourself against all rational limits, and never give up. But the truth of the matter is despite how hard you try and fight to stay in control, when it’s all said and done, sometimes you’re just outnumbered.”
- "Meredith", "Gray's Anatomy"
"WTF! Walmart Food Sprayed With Poison By TikTok Loser; More Proof Economy Is Falling Apart"
Jeremiah Babe, 12/22/24
"WTF! Walmart Food Sprayed With Poison By TikTok Loser;
More Proof Economy Is Falling Apart"
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"MUST VIEW: A Staged Crisis is Set - Party Closes 850 Stores and Fires 16,500 Employees Same Day! Many Others!"
Full screen recommended.
ThisisJohnWilliams, 12/22/24
"A Staged Crisis is Set: Party Closes 850 Stores and Fires
16,500 Employees Same Day! Many Others!"
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"Kroger Is About To Break Financially As Multiple Stores Go Out Of Business"
Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 12/22/24
"Kroger Is About To Break Financially
As Multiple Stores Go Out Of Business"
“What happened to my local Kroger?” That's a question millions of Americans have been asking in 2024. Thousands of grocery stores are disappearing all over the country, and people deserve to know what is truly going on. Kroger customers, in particular, are seeing store closures happening more frequently than in the past. After decades in business, the company has been closing up shop and leaving hundreds of U.S. communities. From the third quarter of 2023 to the third quarter of 2024, more than 600 locations were shut down by the company, and hundreds of others ceased operations over the past couple of months across Washington state, Oregon, Texas, and Colorado. The closings were a necessary step, according to the grocer."
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Christmas Music, "Wishing You a Warm and Peaceful Christmas"
Full screen recommended.
"Wishing You a Warm and Peaceful Christmas"
"Join us in celebrating the joy of Christmas with our extensive collection of beautifully sung Christmas carols and songs. Our top-notch choir brings each carol to life, perfect for singing along at performances, concerts, church, or right at home.
Christmas is a time for love, for sharing joy and warmth with those around us. I wish you a peaceful Christmas, overflowing with love. May you always have wonderful moments with your family, friends, and loved ones. Thank you for always being there for me. Merry Christmas and wishing you a prosperous and happy New Year!"
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Absolutely, incredibly beautiful!
"Traditional Christmas Classics🎄 Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Bing Crosby"
Full screen recommended.
"Traditional Christmas Classics🎄
Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Bing Crosby"
"A Look to the Heavens"
“The Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) is one of the best known planetary nebulae in the sky. Its more familiar outlines are seen in the brighter central region of the nebula in this impressive wide-angle view. But the composite image combines many short and long exposures to also reveal an extremely faint outer halo. At an estimated distance of 3,000 light-years, the faint outer halo is over 5 light-years across.
Planetary nebulae have long been appreciated as a final phase in the life of a sun-like star. More recently, some planetary nebulae are found to have halos like this one, likely formed of material shrugged off during earlier episodes in the star's evolution. While the planetary nebula phase is thought to last for around 10,000 years, astronomers estimate the age of the outer filamentary portions of this halo to be 50,000 to 90,000 years. Visible on the left, some 50 million light-years beyond the watchful planetary nebula, lies spiral galaxy NGC 6552.”
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