So, we rise from the rubble...
Sunday, February 26, 2023
Free Download: Bertrand Russell, "The Conquest Of Happiness"
"Bertrand Russell on the Secret of Happiness"
by Maria Popova
"In my darkest hours, what has saved me again and again is some action of unselfing - some instinctive wakefulness to an aspect of the world other than myself: a helping hand extended to someone else’s struggle, the dazzling galaxy just discovered millions of lightyears away, the cardinal trembling in the tree outside my window. We know this by its mirror-image - to contact happiness of any kind is “to be dissolved into something complete and great,” something beyond the bruising boundaries of the ego. The attainment of happiness is then less a matter of pursuit than of surrender — to the world’s wonder, ready as it comes.
That is what the Nobel-winning philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell (May 18, 1872–February 2, 1970) explores in "The Conquest of Happiness," the 1930 classic that gave us his increasingly urgent wisdom on the vital role of boredom in flourishing.
Russell writes: "The world is vast and our own powers are limited. If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give. And to demand too much is the surest way of getting even less than is possible. The man* who can forget his worries by means of a genuine interest in, say, the Council of Trent, or the life history of stars, will find that, when he returns from his excursion into the impersonal world, he has acquired a poise and calm which enable him to deal with his worries in the best way, and he will in the meantime have experienced a genuine even if temporary happiness."
In a sentiment he would expand in his final years as he contemplated what makes a fulfilling life, he adds: "The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile."
Couple this fragment of the wholly nourishing "The Conquest of Happiness" with Kurt Vonnegut on the secret of happiness, then revisit Russell on the key to the good life, how to heal a divided world, and his magnificent Nobel Prize speech about the four desires driving all human behavior."
Freely download "The Conquest Of Happiness",
by Bertrand Russell, here:
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“Your Whole Life Is Borrowed Time”
“Your Whole Life Is Borrowed Time”
by David Cain
“I can’t remember if this is a real movie plot, or if I just want it to be. A man with a boring job is on his way to work when his attention is caught by some unexpected detail in his otherwise familiar routine – a peculiar insect, a pattern in the concrete, a cryptic slogan on a t-shirt. This detail seems extremely significant to him, but he doesn’t know why.
The strange sight wakes him up from the autopilot-mode by which he has been living his life. He is suddenly aware, for the first time, how complex and interesting his local high street is, and he stops to take it in. Around him pass hundreds of distinctly different people, each a unique individual, driven by some unseen personal motivation. Shops are filled with thousands of trinkets, tools, snacks, and books. Delivery trucks roll past, music plays from somewhere, buildings rise above him. The scene is miraculous to him.
As he surveys the street, he witnesses something surreal: another version of himself is walking away from him, towards his usual bus stop, evidently not having had this same moment of self-awareness. For reasons he is never told, at that moment his life had apparently split in two. However, his double does not make it onto the bus: as he waits, an air conditioning unit falls from a window above, killing him instantly. In a very unexpected and unstorylike way, his life ends.
The man has no idea what has happened, and never receives an explanation. The authorities never identify the person beneath the air conditioner, and the man never tells anyone what he witnessed because nobody would ever believe it. There is nothing to do but carry on with his life. But he is a changed man.
Every morning he is amazed to find another whole day awaiting him. Every meal, every phone call, every greeting from his doorman feels like an undeserved gift, as though he’d mistakenly been given the honeymoon suite at a hotel. He feels grateful even for his problems.
None of the details of his life have changed, except one thing. He now lives with an awareness that he was never truly entitled to be alive; he just happened to be, and still is. His ability to breathe, see, feel, and make choices now seems to him like an unearned, arbitrary status- one that he may freely enjoy, but which can be revoked at any time without explanation. He hopes he never loses this sense that his life is essentially a bonus round, consisting entirely of borrowed time, not just from the day of his strange experience, but from the beginning.
I once attended a networking event for entrepreneurs, in Toronto. The host had booked a private room beneath a restaurant in Greektown. I was early, so I spent some time in a nearby park, then checked out the shops and restaurants on Danforth Avenue. I stopped in front of a church to tie my shoe. I remember being nervous about meeting a bunch of new people. Of course, it went fine and I had a good time. I had interesting conversations with entrepreneurs in all sorts of spaces: fitness, web development, beard grooming, venture capital. The food was excellent.
The experience was distant enough from my normal routine that, during the event, I was struck by how easily we find ourselves in moments we could not have pictured. For all the certainty we feel when we plan for (or ruminate about) the future, life unfolds in ways that are ultimately unpredictable. We just end up places. Two weeks after that event, a deranged man with a gun walked down the same stretch of Danforth Avenue and shot fourteen people at random, then shot himself.
I don’t mean to sound dramatic. It wasn’t a close call, at least for me. I’m sure a hundred thousand people walked down that stretch of road in the weeks surrounding the incident. There are people who literally dodged the bullets. But when I watched videos of eye-witness accounts, including some in front of the church where I tied my shoes and the corner where I nervously loitered, it gave me a vital bit of perspective: I happen to be alive, and there’s no cosmic law entitling me to that status. Being alive is just happenstance, and not one more day of it is guaranteed.
This thought instantly relieved me of any angst over that particular day’s troubles: technical issues on my website, an unexpected major expense, an acute sense that I’m getting old. Those problems remained, and they are real problems. But they immediately became only relatively important. They lost their sense of absolute importance. In fact, any personal problem I could think of now seemed to be a small, aesthetic complaint about the grand, mysterious gift of being randomly, unfairly alive that day.
This perspective made it easy to tackle the problems I could, and live at peace with the others, all with a breezy sense that this is just a bonus round anyway. Despite the awful news, it was a productive and enjoyable day, and I would like to live all my days that way. That was a few weeks ago. Not surprisingly, the breezy feeling now comes and goes – too many years of seeing my latest dilemma as absolutely important, rather than just relatively important.
This “I could be dead” perspective isn’t a sentimental thinking exercise. I think it’s a more honest view of our ever-tentative situation, one that respects the impersonal, flippant way in which fate handles our lives. The shooting just forced me to see my day in that way, but a random crime is only one of many possible (and still possible) endings. There are always speeding cars, rare diseases, gas explosions, and treacherous stairwells. And none of these events, when they do happen, are negotiable.
The universe is not at all sentimental – aliveness is always going to be an arbitrary status that can be revoked at any time. No recourse, no due process.
Equally mysterious is that our lives began at all. As my favorite philosopher, Douglas Harding, tried to remind us before he died: “It’s the very last thing, isn’t it, that we feel grateful for: having happened. You know, you needn’t have happened. You needn’t have happened. But you did happen.”
And we needn’t still be happening. But we are. I suppose the trick is to remember that fact even in the throes of our worst moods and toughest dilemmas. Maybe I’ll get a reminder tattooed on my wrist, for whenever my complaints start to seem absolutely important: This is borrowed time, all of it. Would you rather give it back?”
Saturday, February 25, 2023
“For Those Who Have Died”
“For Those Who Have Died”
“Eleh Ezkerah” (“These We Remember”)
“Tis a fearful thing
To love
What death can touch.
To love, to hope, to dream,
And oh, to lose.
A thing for fools, this,
Love,
But a holy thing,
To love what death can touch.
For your life has lived in me;
Your laugh once lifted me;
Your word was a gift to me.
To remember this brings painful joy.
Tis a human thing, love,
A holy thing,
To love
What death can touch.”
- Chaim Stern
Graphic: “Into The Silent Land”,
by Henry Pegram, 1905
I lost someone I loved today, cancer took her away and there was nothing more they could do. I held her close as her breathing slowed, then stopped. She passed to a better world, and I cried pitifully in shock and disbelief, heartbroken, and will again as I grieve the loss of someone so precious to me. I'll resume the blog as soon as I can, thanks for your understanding...
We shall meet again...
Full screen recommended,
Moody Blues, "The Day We Meet Again"
Until then...
Full screen recommended.
Moody Blues, "Candle of Life"
"If Your Money Is In A Bank Or 401K You're In Trouble"
Jeremiah Babe, 2/25/23:
"If Your Money Is In A Bank Or 401K You're In Trouble"
Comments here:
"Time for a New Start"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 2/25/23
"Time for a New Start"
"You have to look at the numbers that are all around us. We just got the personal consumption expenditure numbers and they are up to the highest level since summer. People are not saving money anymore. This is because they don’t have any money and they’re in debt to their eyebrows."
Comments here:
"A Terrifying Thought About What Happens After"
Canadian Prepper, 2/24/23:
"A Terrifying Thought About What Happens After"
Comments here:
Friday, February 24, 2023
"Fake Millionaires Will Be Exposed; Home Equity Disappearing"
Jeremiah Babe, 2/24/23:
"Fake Millionaires Will Be Exposed;
Home Equity Disappearing"
Comments here:
"15 Great Depression Foods We Will All Be Eating Again Soon"
Full screen recommended.
"15 Great Depression Foods
We Will All Be Eating Again Soon"
By Epic Economist
"The reality of millions drastically changed after the 1929 stock market crash. All of a sudden, affluent Americans lost everything, middle-class families became poor, and poor households fell into misery. For over a decade, our citizens struggled to make ends meet and many of them didn’t have enough to eat.
Parents would skip meals to feed their children as they were forced to survive on next to nothing. Bread lines extended for miles, and food insecurity became an epidemic. Fast forward to today, and we have what experts call the biggest stock market bubble in history just ready to burst. Even though we have learned a lot since the 1930s, our leaders continued to make the same mistakes. And now more than ever, it’s looking like history is about to repeat itself. The question is: when everything collapses will you be prepared?
According to a very detailed article published on Ask A Prepper by Katherine Paterson, for us to be truly ready for the challenges that are coming for us, we will all need to get creative with our meals. To understand how Americans survived the dark times of the Great Depression, we need to understand how to make our resources last. Back then, essentials including meat, eggs, and milk were in extremely short supply, and people often had to make a little go a long way, as explained by Paterson.
We are already seeing the same shortages happening today. And it’s just a matter of time before another financial disaster throws our economy into disarray. With a little bit of preparation, you won’t have to panic when staples start disappearing from store shelves if you know how to adapt. You don’t need many different ingredients, and you definitely don’t need expensive foods to cook delicious dishes.
Culinary is something very important for our culture. It was through such hearty meals that people had the drive to keep fighting to get out of such challenging situations. Food connects us and gives us a sense of purpose and identity. That’s why it is so crucial to make preparations for when the essentials we rely upon aren’t available anymore. The warning signs of an impending financial and economic meltdown are everywhere. And once it happens, vulnerable supply chains can be broken in a snap of fingers.
Our leaders may have made the same wrongful decisions that put us where our grandparents and great-grandparents were almost a century ago. But that doesn’t mean we can’t make more conscious choices this time around. So get ready now while we’re still experiencing the calm before the storm, because when start to spiral out of control, it may be too late. That’s why in today’s video, we listed some very popular meals that previous generations used to eat during that era because those recipes may soon become handy for all of us as well."
Gregory Mannarino, "Debt Market Time Bomb Countdown!"
Your guide...
Gregory Mannarino, PM 2/24/23:
"Debt Market Time Bomb Countdown!"
Comments here:
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Separated by about 14 degrees (28 Full Moons) in planet Earth's sky, spiral galaxies M31 at left, and M33 are both large members of the Local Group, along with our own Milky Way galaxy. This narrow- and wide-angle, multi-camera composite finds details of spiral structure in both, while the massive neighboring galaxies seem to be balanced in starry fields either side of bright Mirach, beta star in the constellation Andromeda. Mirach is just 200 light-years from the Sun. But M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, is really 2.5 million light-years distant and M33, the Triangulum Galaxy, is also about 3 million light years away.
Although they look far apart, M31 and M33 are engaged in a gravitational struggle. In fact, radio astronomers have found indications of a bridge of neutral hydrogen gas that could connect the two, evidence of a closer encounter in the past. Based on measurements, gravitational simulations currently predict that the Milky Way, M31, and M33 will all undergo mutual close encounters and potentially mergers, billions of years in the future.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150926.html
o
"Everything passes away - suffering, pain, blood, hunger, pestilence. The sword will pass away too, but the stars will still remain when the shadows of our presence and our deeds have vanished from the earth. There is no man who does not know that. Why, then, will we not turn our eyes towards the stars? Why?"
- Mikhail Bulgakov, "The White Guard"
The Poet: Czeslaw Milosz, “A Song On The End Of The World”
“A Song On The End Of The World”
“On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.
On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.
And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.
Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
There will be no other end of the world,
There will be no other end of the world.”
~ Czeslaw Milosz
"At Last..."
“At last, the answer why. The lesson that had been so hard to find, so difficult to learn, came quick and clear and simple. The reason for problems is to overcome them. Why, that’s the very nature of man, I thought, to press past limits, to prove his freedom. It isn’t the challenge that faces us, that determines who we are and what we are becoming, but the way we meet the challenge, whether we toss a match at the wreck or work our way through it, step by step, to freedom.”
- Richard Bach, “Nothing by Chance”
Judge Napolitano, "Ukraine/Russia War - What's Next with Scott Ritter"
Full screen recommended.
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 2/24/23:
"Ukraine/Russia War - What's Next with Scott Ritter"
Comments here:
"More Than A Million Americans Are Dead, But Our Leaders Do Nothing About The Raging Crisis In Our Streets"
"More Than A Million Americans Are Dead, But Our
Leaders Do Nothing About The Raging Crisis In Our Streets"
by Michael
"In our rotting, decaying society, there are literally hordes of rotting, decaying people in the streets. In this article, I am going to tell you about an immensely powerful drug that is taking America by storm. It makes people stagger about like zombies, and it also causes raw, gaping wounds that will literally rot away arms and legs if left untreated. Of course the U.S. was already facing an unprecedented drug crisis even before this new “zombie drug” started to spread like wildfire. More than a million Americans have died of a drug overdose since 1999, and the drug overdose epidemic has actually greatly accelerated within the past few years. At this point, more than 100,000 Americans a year are dying from a drug overdose. According to the CDC, someone dies from an overdose in this country every five minutes, and most of those drug overdose deaths are being caused by a drug known as fentanyl. An amount of fentanyl equivalent to a grain of rice is enough to kill a person, and right now fentanyl is actually the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45…
"Fentanyl has become the leading cause of death for adults aged between 18 and 45, the CDC confirmed. Former White House drug policy advisor Professor Keith Humphreys told The U.S. Sun: “The US has an established population of several million people who are already addicted to opioids. “This creates a lucrative market for drug traffickers selling blends of opioids with other drugs included.”
Thanks to our unprotected borders, it is quite easy for other countries to absolutely flood our communities with fentanyl. For example, last week state troopers in Arizona discovered “enough fentanyl to kill nearly 800,000 people”…"Arizona state troopers last week seized enough fentanyl to kill nearly 800,000 people. The fentanyl had been smuggled in a pickup truck and made it nearly 150 miles north of the border, authorities said."
The stuff gets over the border so easily because the politicians in Washington have turned our border security into a joke. The only reason why state troopers were able to intercept it 150 miles north of the border is because the vehicle it was being transported in was involved in a terrible accident.
Fentanyl was bad enough, but now it is being combined with an extremely powerful animal tranquilizer known as Xylazine…"Xylazine is thought to be 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more powerful than morphine, which is why it has taken over at the No. 1 drug in Philadelphia.The combination of Fentanyl and Xylazine is known as “Tranq Dope”, and it is being sold on the streets of our major cities “for just a few dollars”…"When cut with fentanyl, xylazine has a bigger hit with it inducing a semi-conscious state which leaves people’s upper bodies hanging over their legs in the street and they move very slowly or not at all."
This is where it gets its name “zombie drug” from, however with a bigger hit comes a bigger need for addicts to buy it. The drug is sold on the street for just a few dollars and is often injected into the body.
In this footage from the streets of Philadelphia, you can see what this “zombie drug” does to people. We have never seen anything quite like this before.
Recently, authorities in Philadelphia tested 39 different drug samples, and they found Xylazine in every single one of them…"The city’s public health department recently found Xylazine in every sample of drugs tested. While the sample of 39 was small, health experts are alarmed at the trend and the wounds they are seeing.
Of course it isn’t just Philly that is dealing with “Tranq Dope”. This new combination is now being bought and sold in communities all over America, and users are discovering that it literally causes raw, gaping wounds to appear on their bodies…"Tranq users have found raw wounds erupting on their skin at the injection sites which have rotted the surrounding skin and caused infection, sometimes leading to amputation. The wounds turn into a crust of dead tissue called eschar, which if untreated will cause people to lose limbs. Some former addicts have even spoken about seeing people continue to inject the drug into their stumps."
Sadly, most addicts are not able to quit. These drugs are just too strong. So even though their wounds just keep getting worse and worse, most addicts just keep injecting themselves with this poison.
One user named Sam told Sky News about the holes that have appeared in his legs and feet…"Tranq is basically zombifying people’s bodies. Until nine months ago, I never had wounds. Now, there are holes in my legs and feet. Just cleaning them is so painful. The wound care truck put on band aids but I kept them on for a week in the rain and it all looked a hundred times worse."
And a 39-year-old user named Tracey McCann actually told the New York Times that her arms are “dying” from the wounds that she has developed…"Last month, one Philly user suddenly developed xylazine-specific wounds near her opioid injection sites. “I’d wake up in the morning crying because my arms were dying,” Tracey McCann, 39, told the New York Times."
But most of them simply cannot stop, so they will just keep going back to the dealers to buy more. When I say that our major cities have become rotting, decaying hellholes, I am not exaggerating one bit. And what is truly tragic is that our leaders could stop all of this is they really wanted to do so. But they won’t do it. Even though more than a million Americans are already dead, they refuse to take action.
For a long time I have been relentlessly warning my readers about what was happening to our cities, and now the deterioration has greatly accelerated. If you currently live in a drug-infested area, I would encourage you to move somewhere safe while you still have the opportunity to do so. Unfortunately, the number of safe areas continues to shrink, because these drugs just continue to infest more communities with each passing year."
o
Full screen recommended.
kimgary, 2/24/23:
“'True Story' Streets of Philadelphia"
"It Just Won't Stop"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, 2/24/23:
"It Just Won't Stop"
"The banking nightmare continues. When will it stop? People woke up two days ago and found out that they had duplicate transactions in their account and the bank had no logical explanation for this. Some got double deposits. Some got double withdraws. It was just a plain nightmare."
Comments here:
Bill Bonner, "True Wealth"
"True Wealth"
As opposed to the Fed's flimsy, flimflam fiat...
by Bill Bonner
"Money is gold. Everything else is credit."
~ J.P. Morgan
San Martin, Argentina - "Yesterday, late in the evening, we arrived at the farm. It was a happy homecoming. Ojito, Elgardo, Antonio, Sulma…much of the ‘family’ – including several generations – was there. Hugs and kisses were exchanged. But there was no time for extended conversation. Night was falling, best to get across the river before dark. This time of year, you can’t drive across the river – not even with a 4-wheel-drive. Our luggage was loaded onto a trailer, hitched behind a tractor. Then, we mounted up too, using the tailgate of the pick-up as a giant step to get onto the high trailer.
The trailer bounced and trundled along…across the river and up through an allee of Lombardy poplars to the house, where we were warmly greeted by Ines, who had a warm meal waiting for us.
This afternoon, we will saddle up and go to look at the farm. More to come…
Flimflam Figures: Meanwhile, we were trying to understand the meaning of numbers. More specifically, the numbers used by economists and policymakers. Do they really mean anything at all? Here’s a tweet that came in yesterday:
Twitter avatar for @mnicoletos
Michael Nicoletos @mnicoletos
When a country builds a bridge or a building, this activity is added to the GDP. When the bridge or the building is demolished, this activity is not subtracted from the GDP. You can understand now what happens to China's GDP if #China constantly repeats this activity.
Fascinating @fasc1nate
China destroying unfinished high-rises https://t.co/f0UWjN0itd
11:20 PM ∙ Feb 22, 2023
77Likes15Retweets
This is not just an ‘academic’ discussion. The fishy-est number of all is the one followed by a dollar sign. It is also one of the most important. Exploring its fishy-ness helps us understand what is going on…and where it is likely to lead. Our view is that there will be no ‘soft landing.’ Because the Fed can’t stop raising rates “until something breaks.” Here’s a headline from MarketWatch: "Fed Wants ‘Substantially’ Lower Inflation Before Easing Interest Rates - And Some Officials Backed More Aggressive Hikes."
"With inflation continuing to run hotter than expected, the Federal Reserve is showing no signs of backing down on its aggressive monetary policy, according to notes from the Fed's policy-setting committee released Wednesday, an unwelcome sign for investors clinging to hopes of a less hawkish central bank."
Inflation is now embedded in the financial system. Household, corporate, and government debt are still going up. Some people borrow because they need to. Some borrow to speculate. And some (the feds) borrow never intending to pay it back. As long as the cost of money is below the inflation rate, people will continue borrowing…thus increasing the amount of (borrowed) ‘money’ in circulation.
What they borrow is money. And it’s fake. It is born as credit…and matures as debt. You get rid of it (and the extra ‘money’ that came with it) only when it dies. And it only dies when it is 1) paid…2) repudiated…or 3) inflated away. For both political and practical, financial reasons, #3 is the obvious choice. Which means, inflation won’t go away…and the Fed can’t stop raising rates. It will keep at it… until something really bad happens. Then, and only then, can it ‘come to the rescue’ by ‘pivoting’ to lower rates.
That is the ‘short story.’ But, dear reader, you’re not getting away that easy. Here’s the longer story…or at least the beginning of it.
Midas Money: Real money – gold – can’t be lent into existence. It has to be dug out of the ground….slowly, and at great expense. And then, gold money can’t be ‘printed’…it has to be earned, by producing goods or services. So, there’s a limit on how much ‘money’ is available…and how much of it can be lent out as credit. Speculators can still get excited, make mistakes and blow themselves up. But since debt is limited, they can’t blow up the whole world economy.
When the money is fake, all the financial numbers fall under suspicion. Mr. Nicoletas, above, is describing a suspicious ‘churn,’ for example. The rush of new money increases transactions…that the feds measure, tax, and use to justify their policies. But nobody knows what is really going on. Dan elaborates: "Buying and selling taken by themselves don't create value….
Think of the stock market. Does the huge daily volume of transactions create any additional value? Does it aid in price discovery? Does it make each publicly listed company exactly as valuable as it should be, given everything we know right now, and based on the present value of future earnings? Of course not. It's activity for the sake of generating commissions for Wall Street. No real value was created. Much of GDP is like that now too. It measures transactions, not value."
Worse for Wear: Imagine that you bought a nice coat that would last the rest of your life. You add a one-time purchase to GDP. But imagine that the quality was so bad that you needed to buy a new coat every year. Voila…now you’re giving a boost to GDP every year.
And good for you! Sales and profits go up. Commissions are paid. Salaries are paid. Taxes are paid. And nobody is any better off. Au contraire, you’re worse off, because now you must buy a new coat every year. But almost all public policy decisions are based on these fake numbers, faddish categories, and crackpot theories. The Fed, for example, takes its (largely phony) inflation statistics seriously. With them, it deflates nominal wage gains and (largely meaningless) GDP numbers. Then, it imposes a completely ersatz interest rate… and thereby jumbles and fumbles the economy.
Just as imposing ‘racial equity’ on the basis of skin color and statistics is fake and futile…so is trying to control a $24 trillion economy with phony measures and scam formula. It is like flying an airplane with fake instruments…or hiking in the Canadian wilderness with a faulty compass. It’s not that you won’t get somewhere…it just won’t be where you wanted to go."
"Douglas Macgregor: A Ferocious Offensive"
In Focus, 2/24/23:
"Douglas Macgregor: A Ferocious Offensive"
Comments here:
o
"Straight Calls with Douglas Macgregor, 2/24/23"
"Your home for analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of current geopolitical events in the United states and the world. Geopolitics. No ego descriptions. No small talk. Straight to the point. Calls with the relevant analysis only."
Comments here:
Jim Kunstler, "The World Has Enough Trouble"
"The World Has Enough Trouble"
by Jim Kunstler
“This is what happens when you invent your own reality.
You end up bamboozling yourself."
- The Sirius Report on Twitter
"If you think about it at all, can you come up with any good reasons why our country has involved itself in the Ukraine war? To defend democracy, many say? An emptier platitude does not exist in the vast slippery lexicon of spin. To thwart Russia’s imperial overreach? You apparently have no clue about Ukraine’s history, ancient or modern. To incite an overthrow of the wicked Putin by his own people? The Russian president is more popular there now than even John F. Kennedy was here in 1962.
There actually are no good reasons for what we are doing in Ukraine, only bad reasons. Mainly, stoking the war there diverts Americans attention from our own problems, which is to say the titanic failures of America’s political establishment. The USA is falling apart from a combination of mismanagement, malice, and negligence. Our economy is a tottering scaffold of Ponzi schemes. Our institutions are wrecked. The government lies about everything it does. The news industry ratifies all the lying. Our schoolchildren can’t read or add up a column of numbers. Our food is slow-acting poison. Our medical-pharma matrix has just completed the systematic murder and maiming of millions. Our culture has been reduced to a drag queen twerk-fest. Our once-beautiful New World landscape is a demolition derby. Name something that hasn’t been debauched, perverted, degenerated, or flat-out destroyed.
And so, the “Joe Biden” show is busy ginning up nuclear war hysteria because that’s all it has left for manipulating public emotion. The Covid-19 derangement lost its mojo in 2022 and the population has only just begun to grok the all-causes death disaster underway courtesy of Pfizer and Moderna (and the CDC with the FDA). Did you notice, by the way, that the CDC just added those unapproved, still-experimental shots to the childhood vaccine schedule, considered official “guidance” that is followed by virtually every school system in America. Rochelle Walensky did that despite massive evidence that the “vaccines” damage childrens’ hearts, nervous systems, reproductive systems, and immune systems.
Do you know why Ms. Walensky did that? Because adding the mRNA shots to the childhood schedule supposedly confers permanent immunity from legal liability for the drug companies, even after the current emergency use authorization (EUA) runs out. The catch to that cozy arrangement is if there was any fraud committed on the public in the release and administration of those products, the companies lose their immunity and can be sued until there is nothing left of them but the paperclips. Plus, the executives may be liable for criminal prosecution. Hard time.
One Brooke Jackson, a technician involved in the sketchy Pfizer drug trials, and who directly witnessed the procedural violations as they occurred, is currently suing Pfizer under the False Claims Act (31 U.S. Code § 3729) saying that the company defrauded the government. Pfizer’s lawyers have asked the judge to dismiss the case on the grounds, they said in court, that, “We did not defraud the government. We delivered the fraud that the government ordered.” So now, millions of schoolchildren in this land will be subject to compulsory harmful mRNA shots in order to cover the Pharma companies’ multi-billion-dollar asses. Doesn’t that sum up our national predicament nicely? Way to go, Rochelle. Don’t think nobody noticed.
It’s also worth pondering whether we are neck-deep in the Ukraine morass because Volodymyr Zelensky is blackmailing “Joe Biden” over the mysterious Biden Family business operations that took place there directly following the US-orchestrated Maidan revolution that overthrew Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovich in 2014. Remember “The Big Guy’s” earnest efforts to get rid of the Ukrainian state prosecutor who was looking into the affairs of the Burisma gas company that invited Hunter Biden and his associate Devon Archer onto the board of directors. Of all people in Western Civ… these two Americans… with no knowledge of or experience in the natgas industry. Weird, a little bit. Do you suppose Mr. Zelensky still has the prosecutor’s files in his possession?
Then, of course, there is the bizarre matter of the Nord Stream pipelines caper, lately disclosed by the scrupulous reporter, Seymour Hersh, as a US naval operation. We blew them up. Four EU member Nations (also US NATO allies) held a combined half-ownership in the pipelines (the other half held by Russia). European industry and households depended on a steady supply of that reasonably-priced gas to continue modern life there. Both President “Joe Biden” and Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, promised the news media (and the American public) that the pipeline would “be no more” if a Russian military operation crossed into the Donbas. Well, sonofabitch, the pipelines were “no more” as of last September.
Was that an injury to Russia? Well, yes, though Russia has found work-arounds for selling its natgas elsewhere than northern Europe. Do you realize, though, that it was every bit as much an act-of-war against our supposed allies. None of the NATO countries with a stake in the North Streams have made a peep so far about the shocking disclosure. Which may lead a casual observer to ask whether Western Civ has gone plumb insane. Maybe so, in which, case perhaps, it deserves to suffer. After a while - not such a long while, either - modern life will be but a memory in northern Europe.
Somehow the specter of unintended consequences looms over all this mischief. My guess is we just haven’t seen them yet… and when we do, they will be ferocious. For starters, NATO will be another thing that is no more. And our country will have to go about our blustering war-hawkery without any back-up or convenient staging-areas for fomenting more shenanigans in a far-away region where we have no real national interest, just a certain zeal for creating unnecessary trouble and hardship in a world that already has more than it requires.
Remember what his old boss, Barack Obama said about the former Veep: “You can never overstate Joe’s ability to f*ck things up.” What a prophet that man is! Under “Joe Biden,” the USA has been slip-sliding sideways and backwards into a realm of darkness unimaginable a few years ago. But now, something is heaving through the public sensibility, as spring marches north in America. It feels like a sharp change in attitude, a refusal to continue acting like a reality-optional society. It’s crackling through the air like a rumor of liberation in a hostage crisis. Can you hear it?"
"Massive Price Increases At Walmart! Meat Prices Are Ridiculous!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 2/24/23:
"Massive Price Increases At Walmart!
Meat Prices Are Ridiculous!"
Comments here:
"Breaking News! Russian Troops Head to Moldova; Poland Prepares Border; Nuclear Tests In Arctic!"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 2/23/23:
"Breaking News! Russian Troops Head to Moldova;
Poland Prepares Border; Nuclear Tests In Arctic!"
"Moldova is about to flare up, NATO on high alert, Poland prepares borders for Russian invasion?! Nuclear tests to recommence?"
Comments here:
Thursday, February 23, 2023
Gerald Celente, "Trends In The News 2/23/23"
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, "Trends In The News 2/23/23"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what’s next in these increasingly turbulent times."
Comments here:
"People Will Freak Out When Car Prices Collapse 60% From Current Levels"
Full screen recommended.
"People Will Freak Out When Car Prices
Collapse 60% From Current Levels"
by Epic Economist
"The U.S. car price bubble has burst, and according to Bloomberg, fear of an impending collapse is gripping the auto industry because demand is rapidly disappearing due to the impact of soaring interest rates on auto loan costs. This time around, not even the electric vehicle market is going to be immune. Believe it or not, right now Tesla prices are $5,000 cheaper than the average U.S. car, and leading industry experts are telling manufacturers, dealers, and lenders to brace for some huge price crashes in 2023 as unsold inventory starts to pile up. But if you think that means you’ll just be able to go out there and get yourself a brand-new vehicle at super cheap costs, we’re sorry to break it to you, but that won’t be the case for the foreseeable future. Affordability issues are likely to persist throughout the year, and in today’s video, we will tell you why.
The value of new and used cars is about to come crashing down after two years of record highs, according to big names in the auto industry. After skyrocketing almost 80% from 2019 levels, used car prices are sliding at the fastest pace since 2011, data from AutoLenders shows. New car prices are seeing more modest declines, but they’re still significant after years of robust price growth.
Automakers are reporting more supplies of the chips they need, and manufacturing is finally recovering. This has certainly taken a toll on the used car market, which has already seen a 15% price crash so far this year, according to the Manheim price index, marking the biggest-ever year-over-year decline since the firm began tracking this data.
The damage is spreading to the electric-vehicle market. Believe it or not, today, Tesla’s Model 3 sedan now sells for US$4,930 less than the average new vehicle sold in the U.S. That’s the cheapest price Tesla has ever had relative to the typical U.S. vehicle, Bloomberg reports. It’s a similar story for Tesla’s more expensive Model Y sport utility vehicle, which started off the year with a staggering $13,000 price crash.
Executives are starting to sound the alarm about the impact double-digit drops of 40, 50, and even 60% could have on manufacturers' and lenders' bottom lines in 2023. “If that fear is realized and prices plummet, it will be detrimental to automakers and their in-house lending units, which likely will have to write down the value of lease contracts that had assumed vehicles would retain greater value,” the report highlighted.
And even though everyone is expecting the moment when car prices get back to down-to-earth levels again, the ongoing price drops actually have a negative effect on car buyers by reducing the value of the vehicle they hope to trade in. Cox shows that the average trade-in value in January was down nearly $3,000, or 11%, to $22,605, from the record high hit in June of 2022. That drop in the value of trade-ins could also be a headwind on car prices by reducing what buyers are able to pay.
At the same time, we still have nearly 17 million car owners that own vastly overpriced used vehicles. More than half of these cars are financed, potentially resulting in many car owners with car loans that are or will be underwater very soon. According to Moody's, some 9.3% of auto loans extended to people with low credit scores are at least 30 days late, the highest rate since 2010, the WSJ reports. The truth is that the auto loan crisis is a ticking time bomb that threatens to explode, unleashing economic devastation on a scale not seen since the Great Recession."
Comments here:
"Americans Have More Credit Card Debt Than Savings; Auto Delinquencies Hitting Record High"
Jeremiah Babe, 2/23/23:
"Americans Have More Credit Card Debt Than Savings;
Auto Delinquencies Hitting Record High"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Along the High Ridges"
Full screen recommended.
Deuter, "Along the High Ridges"
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud by chance has assumed this recognizable shape. Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula, it is some 1,500 light-years distant, embedded in the vast Orion cloud complex.
About five light-years "tall", the dark cloud is cataloged as Barnard 33 and is visible only because its obscuring dust is silhouetted against the glowing red emission nebula IC 434. Stars are forming within the dark cloud. Contrasting blue reflection nebula NGC 2023, surrounding a hot, young star, is at the lower left. The gorgeous featured image combines both narrowband and broadband images."
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