Wednesday, May 15, 2024

John Wilder, "Economic Doom? You’re Soaking In It"

"Economic Doom? You’re Soaking In It"
By John Wilder

“Two Purple Hearts – Leningrad and Siberia. Youngest man to be decorated by the president. You robbed the Federal Reserve Depository. Life sentence, New York Maximum Security Penitentiary. I’m ready to kick your ass out of the world, war hero.” – "Escape From New York"

"I’m a bit under the weather (sniffles). The good news is that some of the memetic content/graphs I found on the Internet about the current economy probably speak mostly for themselves. So, comments may be shorter than usual. I guess I’ll offer you this shorter post and an IOU for a longer one sometime in the future when I sober up get better.

First off – the dollar and gold used to have (depending on the era) a very similar volatility – at one point dollars were gold. What if the dollar was more volatile than gold, for the first time in 45 years?
Click image for larger size.
Normally, longer term bond and notes have higher interest rates than shorter ones. The reason is uncertainty – if I was going to borrow money for thirty years, there’s more risk of crazy things happening, like Civil Wars or George Lucas selling Star Wars™ to Disney© in a thirty-year time span than in a three month time span. But when things get uncertain, that ratio flips. If you look below, note that even a small inversion is a strong, strong signal of an impending recession. Well.
Click. image for larger size.
How bad has Biden been? Median mortgage payments (average selling price and current interest rates) are higher than Hunter Biden at a Burning Man®.    
Click image for larger size.
Homeowners aren’t the only ones paying huge interest payments. Here’s what’s happening on the national debt.
Click image for larger size.
But it didn’t have to be that way. If someone remotely intelligent was in charge at Treasury, it wouldn’t be an issue at all. Don’t know where this snip came from, but it’s spot on:
Janet should be managing a grade school lunch kitchen. How deep does the rot run in the Banking Industrial Complex? O’Keefe tells us tons with one of his people hacks:
Click image for larger size.
Thankfully the Fed™ has infinite money to lend. Or, at least the balance sheet shows that. In this case, this shows the economy as needing three times as much cash injected into the system as in 2008 to prop it all up and keep everything from draining into the abyss. In this case, the big vertical line represents the Silicon Valley Bank© failure.

That happened because Silicon Valley Bank™ had a lot of low interest, long term assets. Let’s just say I’m happy with my 4% mortgage right now, since I actually lose money by paying it back, since I can get 5%+ from banks. Silicon Valley Bank© had lots of crappy, long positions, and exploded.
When that happened, I really expected that the vibrations would shake the system into a bigger failure by that October – this stuff takes a while to propagate. Instead, the Fed pulled a very cunning move: it printed buttloads of cash, allowed the banks to deposit the crap they had with the Fed™ and then the Fed™ took the losses. Of course, since they haven’t sold the crap the banks gave them, those are “realized” yet, so those losses are like a girlfriend so ugly you make her hide in the closet when your friends come over.

In addition to that, the Fed© has also lost at least $161 billion, according to the Fed©. Total? A trillion? Who knows? It’s not like anyone’s counting.
Click image for larger size.
Back in the Before Time, the Fed™ never bought the debt of the United States. Why would they? They debt of the United States was to Ma and Pa Citizen, central banks all around the world, and, (oddly) to the United States when it spent the Social Security funds on Popcorn, PEZ™, Pantyhose, and Pachyderm Rides. Yup, the United States would spend the Social Security cash, and then write itself an IOU and put it (seriously!) into a filing cabinet in D.C.

Can you imagine a job that’s more futile? It’s like I wrote myself an IOU for stealing money from my kid’s college fund to buy beer, and then made my kid file the IOU, knowing full well that the file would experience “surprise combustion” in the backyard fire pit when I sobered up.

You really should be concerned. Unless you want to send me your cash so I can send you an IOU. I promise I won’t blow it on Popcorn, PEZ™, Pantyhose, and Pachyderm Rides."

Tuesday, May 14, 2024

Musical Interlude: Dr. John, "Right Place, Wrong Time"

Dr. John, "Right Place, Wrong Time"

"Alert! Mass Evac Underway; Nationwide Power Outages; Ukraine Collapse; 45 Chinese Warplanes; USA Starts War Economy"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 5/14/24
"Alert! Mass Evac Underway; Nationwide Power Outages; 
Ukraine Collapse; 45 Chinese Warplanes; USA Starts War Economy"
Comments here:

"Israel Is On Red Alert After Türkiye And Saudi Arabia Cut Off Trade"

Full screen recommended.
Larry Johnson, 5/14/24
"Israel Is On Red Alert After 
Türkiye And Saudi Arabia Cut Off Trade"
Comments here:

Gerald Celente, "With God's Help We Will Be Victorious! Netanyahu...You Mean Satan's Helper"

Strong Language Alert!
Gerald Celente, 5/14/24
"With God's Help We Will Be Victorious! 
Netanyahu...You Mean Satan's Helper"
"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:

"15 Retailers Going Out Of Business In 2024"

Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 5/14/24
"15 Retailers Going Out Of Business In 2024"

"The American retail landscape isn't the same as it was just a few years ago. Businesses that used to be a synonym of success are dying at a pace that is simply astonishing. Brands that used to have thousands of stores across the U.S. are going out of business after struggling for years. Many of them have done everything they could to prevent this from happening, or at least, delay their disappearance. But the economic decline gripping our nation has been unforgiving.

Over the past few years, we've lost more purchasing power than at any other point since the 1970s. We've seen the income gap get wider, with many middle-class Americans falling into the cracks and straight into poverty. The soaring cost of living has made it almost impossible for average U.S. households to save for their future. People are being very careful about their spending because, with each passing month, the cost of bare necessities like rent, food, and gas is getting higher.

That's why seeing boarded up storefronts has become the new normal. In this environment, American retailers are literally fighting for their survival. Now, they are taking every step to streamline their operations and cut costs. That includes reducing their store count even further in order to improve profitability and save their businesses from bankruptcy.

Although for some of them that's too little, too late, others are acting fast before conditions deteriorate any further. If you have a favorite brand or store, make sure to visit it while you can, because the truth is that it might not be there a few months from now. Today, we listed 15 big retailers that announced mass store closings or are going out of business in 2024. Without further ado, let's check out this list."
Comments here:

"New Homes Are Built Like Trash; Home Depot Warns Of Economic Slowdown; Restaurants On Life Support"

Jeremiah Babe, 5/14/24
"New Homes Are Built Like Trash; Home Depot 
Warns Of Economic Slowdown; Restaurants On Life Support"
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Believe"

Full screen recommended.
2002, "Believe"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Massive stars, abrasive winds, mountains of dust, and energetic light sculpt one of the largest and most picturesque regions of star formation in the Local Group of Galaxies. Known as N11, the region is visible on the upper right of many images of its home galaxy, the Milky Way neighbor known as the Large Magellanic Clouds (LMC).
The above image was taken for scientific purposes by the Hubble Space Telescope and reprocessed for artistry by an amateur to win the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures competition. Although the section imaged above is known as NGC 1763, the entire N11 emission nebula is second in LMC size only to 30 Doradus. Studying the stars in N11 has shown that it actually houses three successive generations of star formation. Compact globules of dark dust housing emerging young stars are also visible around the image.”

Free Download: "The Essential Rumi"

"All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there. Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul? I cannot stop asking. If I could taste one sip of an answer, I could break out of this prison for drunks. I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way. Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home."
- Rumi, "The Tavern," Ch. 1:, p. 2, from "The Essential Rumi"

Freely download "The Essential Rumi" here:

"Teach Them..."

"Teach them a spider does not spin a web. Spiders spin meaning. 
Cut one strand and the web holds. Cut many, the web falls. 
With the web's fall, so too falls the spider. 
Break the web. Break the spider. So breaks the circle of life."
- Frederic M. Perrin

"Life Changing Poems for Hard Times"

RedFrost Motivation, 
"Life Changing Poems for Hard Times"
Read by Shane Morris
Poems:
 "Defeat" by Khalil Gibran
 "A Psalm of Life" by H. W. Longfellow
"If" by Rudyard Kipling
 "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley
 "Desiderata" by Max Ermann

The Daily "Near You?"

Stevenson, Alabama, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Times..."

"The times might be unpleasant, repulsive. The ghastly chaos, the abhorrent incivility might be intolerable, might force us into argument or leave us panic-stricken. On such occasions people build within themselves a conviction that the world outside is diabolical. The whimsical insults test our level of endurance, causing us to plead for mercy, wanting us to be pitied than exploited and victimized. Often this grief and shame form a delusion within us that there no longer exists good in this world, that good people are fictitious, and that goodness has lost its definition altogether. But such is not true because there are still people who are virtuous, unselfish, willing to help and possessing the ability of restoring our faith in humanity. To disregard them, their presence, would be as heinous as the deeds of the people who are unlike them. The times might be unpleasant, repulsive, but we'll come out it, unharmed and liberated."
- Chirag Tulsiani
o
Sam: "It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it's only a passing thing, this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something even if you were too small to understand why. But I think Mr. Frodo, I do understand, I know now folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Sam: That there's some good in the world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for."
- Samwise Gamgee, "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers"

“The Meaning Of Good And Evil In Perilous Times”

“The Meaning Of Good And Evil In Perilous Times”
by Brandon Smith

"Perhaps the most destructive idea ever planted in the minds of the general public is the notion that nothing in this world is permanent – that all things can and must be constantly changed to suit our whims. The concept of impermanence fuels what I call “blank slate propaganda.” The usefulness of the blank slate as a weapon for social control should be explained before we examine the nature of good and evil, because these days it infects everything.

The push for never ending social “evolution” has been called many things over the decades. In the early 1900s in Europe it was called “futurism;” an art and philosophical movement that helped spawn the rise of communism and fascism in politics.The argument that all old ideas and longstanding traditions should be abandoned to make way for new ideas, new technologies, news systems etc., assumes that the supposedly new ways of doing things are superior to the old ways of doing things. Things are rarely this simple, and in most cases the new methods so proudly championed by movements for social change are usually recycled and repackaged old ideas that are notorious for failure.
The blank slate theory is designed to confuse people with self-doubt and to misrepresent the constructs of nature as constructs of society. It most effectively disrupts people’s relationship to their own moral compass by suggesting that moral compass should be completely ignored as artificial. The argument by blank slate proponents is that all boundaries are created by society instead of by inborn conscience, and that these boundaries often hold us back from achieving our goals, bettering ourselves as a species and generally getting what we want out of life.
But the things we want are not always the things we need, and this is something that movement’s for social change often refuse to grasp. If we are all blank slates and if morality and the human soul are myths, why not do whatever the hell we want, whenever we want and live life as if it is one big Roman orgy of feasting, self-medicating and overall addiction to sensation?
The problem with the blank slate concept is that while it purports that all restrictions in the human psyche are taught to us rather than being inborn and that they can be abandoned any time we want, we still can’t seem to avoid the consequences of breaking those restrictions.  People lose their sanity, societies crumble and nations fall to ruin over time the more we cast aside our principles in the name of social evolution or short term gain. It is unavoidable.
The only people who seem to benefit from the spread of the blank slate are the people already in political and economic power. For if they can convince the masses to ignore their conscience, they can then convince us to accept almost any other conditions.
To act in a manner consistent with inherent conscience, or to ignore conscience and act destructively, is a choice. It is the core pillar of free will. The choice to act destructively does not erase the reality of inherent conscience; in fact, people often have to be fooled into believing that a destructive and immoral action is a “good thing” before they are convinced to carry it out. Inherent conscience must be bypassed through trickery.
The problem with choosing to stick by one’s principles is that it is easy during times of relative stability, but increasingly difficult during times of struggle. In perilous days, the temptation to use destructive tactics to maintain an expectation of comfort or to merely survive can be high. It is no coincidence that power elites, the same people that tend to promote blank slate propaganda, also tend to deliberately engineer social crisis and chaos. But perhaps this needs a deeper explanation. We must define something most of us already understand intuitively. We must define “evil.”
Like inherent conscience and moral boundaries, blank slate theorists and social change advocates attempt to muddy the waters of what constitutes evil. Some will say there is no such thing — that evil is whatever we deem it to be in any given era depending on our biases.  Others will claim that tradition, permanence and anything in society that remains static is evil. The only “good” for them is constant change.
But evil is not as illusory and changing as these people suggest. In fact, most men and women recoil automatically from certain specific behaviors regardless of how they were raised, what environment they come from, what culture they were born into or what era they lived.  The people who don’t recoil at these behaviors are the people we have to watch out for because they are missing something integral to the heart and mind that makes the rest of us human.
In psychological terms, the characteristics of high level narcissists and sociopaths match most closely with our historic concept of evil.  And, in my view, most great evils done in history are in fact done by people with multiple narcissistic traits.  As far as global elitists are concerned, they represent a rather insidious threat, because they are narcissistic sociopaths that have organized into a predatory gang, so all the traits consistent with the behavior of your average serial killer are now magnified a thousandfold by their access to unlimited resources.
How do we identify these people? Well, this is a difficult prospect at times because narcissistic sociopaths commonly hide in plain sight.  Some people live with them for years before realizing exactly what they are. They also like to insert themselves into nonprofit organizations that claim to do good for the community as a cover for their more insidious motives.
Some traits and behaviors that are common are a lack of normal emotional response to traumatic events or joyous events, or they will mimic the responses of others to blend in but they come off as “forced” or “fake.” They have no concept of empathy; it does not exist for them.
They seek out centers of power and are drawn to positions of authority. They always seem to be demanding the efforts of others while rarely offering their own help. They make terrible leaders, always attempting to lead from a place of safety while letting their conscripts take the risks. Leading by example is a foreign concept to them.
They will lie repetitively about their accomplishments and their accolades. They will misrepresent their professional achievements in order to gain people’s trust. Ask them to prove through actions that they can do all the things they claim they can do, and they will try to avoid the test or respond indignantly and angrily.
They will gaslight their ideological enemies or people they are trying to control. They will accuse others of being “narcissists” or “sociopaths” or fascists or any moniker that will push the buttons of their target. Whatever evils they are guilty of, they will try to flip and lay at the feet of their enemies.
They always seem to have “minions” to do their dirty work for them and attack those that oppose them. People that have dealt with narcissistic sociopaths in their personal lives sometimes refer to these minions as “flying monkeys,” referencing the flying monkeys enslaved by the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz. Flying monkeys are essentially useful idiots that the narcissist employs through fraud and sometimes through pay. Whenever the narcissist is under threat of being exposed, they unleash their flying monkeys onto the streets or onto the internet to undermine truth tellers.
They do not believe in moral or personal boundaries which is why they are always trying convince people that such boundaries are a myth.  They will cross moral lines, always testing the fences for weaknesses; trying to wear others down until they give up and stop fighting back.
They desperately want to come out of the shadows and into the light of day. They want to be adored as the monsters they are, rather than the fake philanthropists they portray themselves as. In order to do this, every narcissistic sociopath makes it their duty to erase the idea of conscience, whether they are part of the globalist cabal or just another ghoul down the street. Their natural inclination is to corrupt whatever they touch, and if they cannot corrupt a thing, they will attempt to destroy that thing.
Most of all, narcissistic sociopaths want everyone around them to believe that we are just like them. That “deep down” all of us are unprincipled and morally bankrupt and all it takes is a crisis or calamity, just a little chaos to bring out the devil in everyone.
But if this were really the case, then humanity would have died out long ago through endless self-destruction; something keeps bringing us back from the brink in our personal lives and in society as a whole. Conscience keeps defeating evil by refusing to grant evil people the utopia of blank slate chaos they want so badly. And this is what give me confidence that no matter how terrible our days might become there is something on our side that goes beyond the physical world.
Every crisis is a test, a test of each person and a test of our culture. Can we act with reason and courage and principle even in the worst of times, or will we be lured to make our struggle easier through malicious means? Will we do right by those around us, or will we happily trample over them in the name of “survival?”
In the end, the worst men bring the best men to the surface. This is the only “good” they will ever do.”

"Look How Civilized Israelis Are"

Full screen recommended.
Richard Medhurst, 5/14/24
"Look How Civilized Israelis Are"
Comments here:
o
"Israeli is Evil personified,
Israel is Evil embodied."
- Scott Ritter
o
o
"2023: The Year Humanity Died"
By Seraj Assi

"As a Palestinian who was born two generations apart from the Nakba, I have never imagined that one day I would witness the genocide of my people unfold before my eyes in broad daylight. While I always feared the prospect of a Second Nakba, as many Palestinians do, I have never dreamed, not even in my worst nightmares, that I would live it, witness it, and write about it.

In my happy Palestinian innocence, I believed that even if Israel was keen on repeating the Nakba, or attempting to “finish the job of 1948,” as many Israeli officials have threatened over the years, the Free World would not allow it to happen. In my wishful thinking, I believed that the world had learned its lesson since the Nakba. Yes, the world failed the Palestinian people in 1948. Yes, it allowed Israel to carry out its ethnic cleansing and mass expulsion of Palestinians. Yes, it abandoned the Palestinian refugees, and rewarded Israel with a United Nations recognition and membership. But that was 75 years ago, the age of genocides and holocausts. A lot of progress had been made since, I told myself. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted. The U.N. evolved. Human rights groups mushroomed. Mandela won the Nobel Peace. True, genocide would occur so often and so uncontested in the decades since, but after the horrific genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia, the leaders of the Free World seemed to have had enough! They seemed adamant not to allow another genocide to happen - Never Again! Not in Palestine, not again!

Summit after summit, they vowed that such atrocities had no place in the new century. Even when the new century in Palestine ushered in the Second Intifada and the collapse of the Oslo Accords, I still believed that the horrors of the past were in check. Even when Israel mushroomed in size, and the settlements tripled, and the apartheid system was closing in on the Palestinians in the West Bank, and the merciless siege suffocating those in Gaza, where one million children were born and raised in captivity, I still believed that that was the peak of our suffering and nothing remotely close the terrors of Rwanda or Bosnia, or indeed the First Nakba, would happen to us, because the world was watching, and it was ready to dispatch its postwar moral arsenal to stop it!

As a Palestinian, as a human being, I feel that part of me has died in this war.

I was dead wrong. For eight bloody months since the Gaza Genocide first unfolded, the Free World has sat there watching, and cheering, and mocking us to death. During the first weeks, I still held onto my naïve optimism. True, the Free World betrayed Palestinians in Gaza; it allowed Israel to act with impunity; it tolerated its war crimes and mass atrocities; it denied the children of Gaza even the pretense of humanity. But ultimately it was bound to come to its senses and unleash its moral diplomacy to end this horror. So I persisted in my optimism. Perhaps the world needed more time to fathom what was happening. Perhaps it was waiting for a few more thousands of Palestinians to be killed before making its drastic move. Yet week after week, the world remained silent, blind to our deaths, deaf to our sufferings.

One month into the bloodshed, after Israel had killed 1,000 children, I said that’s it; the world would make its move now, if only to save the children! But the U.S. responded by vetoing a humanitarian cease-fire that could have saved thousands of innocent lives! A month after, when the death toll of children reached 10,000, I said enough is enough; it’s high time the world acted NOW, because humanity itself is at stake! U.N. officials had already sounded the alarm that Gaza was becoming a “graveyard for children,” so no one could pretend they did not know. The time to act was now or never! Yet there was another U.S. veto; another cold hand was raised to issue a new death sentence for Palestinians. Another spit in the face of humanity!

Now I’m lost for words. I have lost faith in humanity. The staggering death toll in Gaza is humanly impossible to fathom or accept without losing our sense of shared humanity. As a Palestinian, as a human being, I feel that part of me has died in this war. I know for certain that I will not emerge from this tragedy the same person I was before. None of us will.

Gaza may be annihilated, but it’s not going anywhere. When the dust of war settles, it will sit on our global conscience for generations to come. It will be a permanent stain on our humanity. The children of Gaza will not forget, if they survive. The living will remember, and the dead will haunt us forever. Gaza will be remembered not only as the crime of the century, but also as the site of our greatest shame, where humanity failed. 2023 will go down in history as the darkest in Palestine - the year humanity died."
o

"A “Restaurant Apocalypse” Is Starting To Sweep Across America, And That Is Really Bad News For The U.S. Economy"

"A “Restaurant Apocalypse” Is Starting To Sweep Across America, 
And That Is Really Bad News For The U.S. Economy"
by Michael Snyder

"You can get a really good idea how the U.S. economy is doing by watching restaurants in your area. When the economy is booming, restaurant parking lots are full and chains are feverishly establishing new locations. But when the economy is struggling, restaurants get a lot less traffic and poor performing locations get shut down. Sadly, in 2024 it appears that a “restaurant apocalypse” has started to sweep across America. Most people have very little discretionary income to spend as a result of our cost of living crisis, and that is particularly true for our young adults. Americans under the age of 40 love to eat out, but these days most of them are experiencing financial stress, and this is having an enormous impact on the restaurant industry.

In 2023, visits to sit-down restaurants dropped by about five percent compared to 2022…"Americans are eating out less as inflation weakens the dollars in their pocket, which is leading to some harsh consequences for restaurants across the country. Visits to sit-down restaurants were down nearly five percent in 2023 from the year prior, according to location analytics firm Placer.ai. So this is a trend that has stretched on for over a year."

People just aren’t eating out as much as they once did. As a result, we are seeing a wave of closures all over the country. Even in the Big Apple, large numbers of restaurants are being shut down…Even big metropolitan areas in the US known for their great dining spots are struggling to maintain an environment where it’s profitable to run a restaurant.

Eater NY reported that over 40 bars and restaurants closed in New York City from December 2023 to January 2024, with some of the owners saying business simply never picked up after the COVID lockdowns in 2020.

When times get tough, difficult decisions need to be made. After closing 46 restaurants last year, Applebee’s has decided to close another 35 locations this year…"Applebee’s is to close another 35 further locations this year, after shutting 46 in 2023. The restaurant chain has shut at least three locations so far this year and has plans to close even more, president Tony Moralejo said in an earnings call on Wednesday. Closing restaurants was ‘an incredibly difficult decision’ and a ‘last resort’ for the company, Moralejo said."

And I am very saddened by what has happened to Boston Market.

At one time they had almost 1,000 locations all over the United States, but now the entire chain is about to go belly up…"In the case of Boston Market, a chain that once had nearly 1,000 locations nationwide, the company’s death has been slow, but the pace of its demise has picked up over the past few months. Now, with its store count continuing to dip, the chain seems to have reached the end even if it won’t confirm that given that there no longer appears to be anyone around to make that decision.

Boston Market owner Jignesh “Jay” Pandya was recently denied Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time and has been barred from filing again for six months. That leaves his company, which faces massive financial obligations, unable to gain court protection from its creditors."

Our ongoing inflation crisis is the primary reason why this is happening. Consumers simply have a lot less discretionary income now. Meanwhile, restaurants are facing much higher costs…"Jessica Dunker, the president and CEO of the Iowa Restaurant Association, said the reason restaurants are shuttering is because the cost of goods is up 30 percent and they are having to shell out higher wages to keep staff on."

Unfortunately, things aren’t going to get any better any time soon. For example, the cost of orange juice is expected to go up dramatically because of a very bad harvest in Brazil…"Breakfast lovers are in for another jolt as orange juice prices surge to near-record levels. A new report released on Friday indicates that Brazil, the leading global exporter of OJ, is facing its worst harvest in over three decades. This alarming development compounds existing issues in Florida’s citrus groves, which have been plagued by disease and are experiencing collapsing production levels to the lowest in decades.

Fundecitrus wrote in a note that Brazil will produce 232.4 million boxes—each weighing about 90 pounds—for the growing season this year. That’s a 24% collapse from a year earlier and the lowest production levels in 36 years."

We have reached a point where the vast majority of Americans just can’t afford to eat out on a regular basis. Needless to say, that is really bad news for fast food chains like McDonald’s. At one time, serving middle class families was their core business. But now most middle class families just can’t afford to eat at McDonald’s very often.

In a desperate attempt to lure them back, McDonald’s will soon introduce a five dollar meal deal…"McDonald’s is looking to launch a $5 meal in the US in a move to bring back price-sensitive customers. The meal includes four items, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg and Restaurant Business. Customers would choose between two of the chain’s signature burgers - a McChicken or a McDouble - and get four-piece McNuggets, fries, and a drink. The $5 promotion would last for a month, Bloomberg reported."

So they are going to bring back affordable food for one month. That’s just great. Unless they make the five dollar meal deal permanent, I don’t expect that it will make much of a difference.

Consumers are really hurting right now. In fact, consumer sentiment just fell to the lowest level in six months…"Consumer sentiment plunged to the lowest level in six months as price increases reaccelerated, according to the latest University of Michigan survey of consumers, released Friday. Additionally, consumers are bracing for even higher price increases in the year ahead compared to readings from prior months, the survey found.

The gauge, which is closely tracked by the Biden administration, plunged 13% from April’s 77.2% reading, to 67.4%. That’s the biggest one-month drop since mid-2021. Economists polled by FactSet were expecting consumer expectations to fall to just 76.9%."

As I have discussed previously, the American people are deeply pessimistic about the economy at this stage. And they have good reason to be pessimistic, because even though our politicians in Washington are engaging in an unprecedented spending spree in a desperate attempt to keep the economy propped up, the truth is that the wheels are starting to come off and tremendous chaos is ahead.

Ed Dowd agrees that big trouble is coming during the months ahead. He just told Greg Hunter that he expects the U.S. economy “to take a nosedive sometime in the next 12 months”…"What happens to the Biden economy? Dowd says, “The economy is going to take a nosedive sometime in the next 12 months. The real economy is not doing well. The only thing that has been holding up the GDP growth is government spending. We are spending $1 trillion every 100 days. That’s adding $1 trillion to the deficit. The only job creation is government jobs, and they don’t actually add to the economy. Reports are coming out now that the low-income consumer is getting absolutely hammered. McDonald’s talked about it in their most recent earnings call. So, low-income and the middle-class are getting squeezed while the rich continue to plug along.”

I agree. Of course we don’t have to wait for the economy to come apart at the seams, because that is already happening. At one time, the entire world marveled at the greatness of the mighty U.S. economy, but our leaders have completely wrecked it. There is no way that we are going to be able to avoid disaster, and so I would encourage you to prepare for very hard times while you still can."

"How It Really Is"

 

"US National Debt, Real Time"

Bill Bonner, "The King's Head"

"The King's Head"
That government is best... which is occasionally decapitated.
by Bill Bonner

"The best government is a monarchy…with an occasional beheading."
~ Voltaire

Baltimore, Maryland - "Yes, Karl Marx was right about one thing. There’s a difference between people who work on the assembly lines and the people who own them. About $20 million of difference, per family. That’s the 21st century gap between what the average non-asset owner gained from his wages and what the average member of the asset-owning elite 1% gained. Our friend, David Stockman clarifies:

"Since money-printing went into permanent high gear after the dotcom crash in 2000, the top 1% of households have gained $20 million each in inflation-adjusted net worth. Likewise, the top 0.1% or 131,000 households at the tippy top of the economic ladder have gained $88 million each in inflation-adjusted net worth.

During the last 22 years the median real annual wage, as tracked by Social Security payroll tax records, has risen by only 14.5% or just $235 per annum. And, no, we didn’t omit any zeros from that figure. These piddling gains amount to just $4.50 per week on average.

These annual inflation-adjusted gains in the median wage compare to real net worth gains of nearly $1 million and $4 million per annum for the top 1% and top 0.1%, respectively. In relative terms, these annual wealth gains for the top 1% were 4,250X larger than the median real wage gain and 17,000X larger for the top 0.1%."

We, the Rabble: Pity the “People’… the non-deciders…the middle class… hoi polloi…the majority…the voters! They are like hungry mice waiting for crumbs to fall from the table. But ours is not a whine about ‘inequality.’ We take it for granted that all people are not created equal. Some are leaders. Most are followers. Some are thinkers; most leave the thinking to others. Inequality is inevitable…undeniable…part of the ‘way we are;’ we sort ourselves into teams, tribes, classes, castes, sects, clubs, nations and races. Some become members of the ‘upper’ class of deciders and influencers. Others, mostly do what they are told.

The elites – whether by conquest or ballot box – set themselves up as government…and use their power to rip everyone else off. We are exaggerating, of course. There’s always more to the story. And the ‘more’ here is that the elites are also very useful. They’re responsible for the administration of justice…for much of our science…some of our learning and great breakthroughs of capitalism…for making the trains run on time…keeping the airplanes from falling from the sky…and for much of the output that makes our modern lives more agreeable.

A Government of Laws: But over time, the deciders get more and more power. Power leads to corruption. That’s why the American Constitution was not meant to give them power, but to keep them in check. It expressly limits the power of government to certain things. Of the rest, it says: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people, respectively.” The idea was to prevent Washington from getting too big for its britches. This is also why Jefferson remarked that we may need a revolution every 10 years or so. “God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion,” he said.

Closer to our own time, Dwight Eisenhower warned, specifically, against the elite that he knew best: "We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

All that was foreseen – by Jefferson, Voltaire and Eisenhower – has now come to pass. And now, a revolt of the masses is not only unavoidable; it’s necessary. Kings are fine. But you need to chop their heads off from time to time. And it falls to the young and the outsiders to do the job.

Not surprisingly, the young voters want a change. They turn neither to the Left nor to the Right… They know the game is rigged against them; they know, too, that both Republicans and Democrats are in on it. So, they turn to upstarts, unknowns…and mavericks. The promise of democracy is that (eventually) the masses will wake up and ‘throw the bums out.’ But both Democrats and Republicans, and all the Powers-that-Be, are desperate to keep the bums right where they are..."

"Does Anyone Know?"

"All sins, of course, deserve to be treated with mercy: we all do what we can, and life is too hard and too cruel for us to condemn anyone for failing in this area. Does anyone know what he himself would do if faced with the worst and how much truth could he bear under such circumstances?"
- Andre Comte-Sponville
Joe South, "Walk A Mile In My Shoes"

Gregory Mannarino, "Disaster! Inflation Report Comes In Worse Than Expected, And It's Not Going To Stop"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/14/24
"Disaster! Inflation Report Comes In Worse Than Expected, 
And It's Not Going To Stop"
Comments here:

Adventures With Danno, "Food Is Getting Expensive At Meijer! Saving On Whatever We Can!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 5/14/24
"Food Is Getting Expensive At Meijer! 
Saving On Whatever We Can!"
Comments here:

"Wars And Rumors Of Wars, 5/14/24"

"War Theater: U.S. Aircraft Carriers 
And The Illusion Of Global Dominance"
By Mike Adams
View video here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Times Of India, 5/13/24
"Trouble For Israel? Big Nuclear Shocker From Iran; 
Lawmaker Reveals 'Already In Possession Of Nukes'"
"Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program and can decimate Israel with a surprise attack. We now have a blatant admission from an Iranian official who says Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program, confirming the warning of US Def. Dept. leaders in 2023 who warned that Iran could build a nuclear weapon in just "12 days." Now, we estimate Iran has 100+ nuclear warheads and the ability to deliver them with precision ballistic missiles. This means the situation in the Middle East is far more volatile than most people realize."
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Times of India, 5/14/24
"'Attacks Won't Stop': Hezbollah Chief Roars 
Against Israel & Arab Leaders Over Gaza Onslaught"
"Hezbollah Chief Hassan Nasrallah has sent shockwaves through Israel with his bold declaration to persist in the fight against the nation. Nasrallah's pledge comes amidst escalating tensions, as he warns Israel of an impending historical dilemma in Gaza. He predicts Israel will face either defeat or plunge into an abyss if it continues its military campaign. Moreover, Nasrallah celebrates the recent October 7 attack, hailing it as a revitalization of the Palestinian cause and underscoring the significant support for Palestine's full UN membership. The region braces for further developments as the conflict intensifies." 
Comments here:
o
"In 219 days, 35,034 killed,
78,755 injured by 'Israel' in Gaza"
by Al Mayadeen

"The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza announced on Wednesday that the number of Palestinians killed in the ongoing Israeli genocide in the Strip since October 7 has now reached 35,034, with 78,755 injured as the war marks its 219th day. The Ministry also reported that the Israeli occupation carried out eight massacres against families in the past 24 hours in the Strip, killing 63 people and injuring 114.


Thousands of victims of the aggression remain trapped under the rubble and roads remain inaccessible to ambulance and civil defense crews, as the occupation continues to prevent rescue teams from reaching them, the ministry added.

In this context, the Ministry confirmed the death of 500 medical staff and 138 nurses as a result of the Israeli bombing of the Strip so far, calling on the international community to protect medical teams and healthcare institutions in Gaza, and to press for the opening of the crossings to bring medical aid into the Strip.

Earlier this week, the Government Media Office in Gaza said that the Israeli occupation has committed 3,094 massacres during the ongoing genocidal war on Gaza, resulting in a toll of 44,844 martyrs and missing persons. The number of children killed by the occupation has reached 15,002, the office said, adding that 30 others died due to the famine brought on by the Israeli siege and blockade.

With the ongoing Israeli invasion of Rafah launched on Monday, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) stated that approximately 300,000 people have been forcibly displaced from the city of over 1.3 million residents, emphasizing the lack of safe havens within the Strip.


In conjunction with the Israeli ground offensive on Rafah, the Israeli occupation army announced launching a new operation targeting areas across northern Gaza, due to failure in "eliminating" the Resistance there despite seven months of a brutal war unprecedented in recent history.

Al Mayadeen's correspondent reported on Sunday that occupation vehicles are advancing eastward from the Jabalia camp towards al-Sikka Street, extending to Mazaya Street amid heavy confrontations with Resistance fighters. Additionally, vehicles are stationed west of Mazaya Street in the Riad al-Salheen area. He also noted that the Israeli incursion into the northern regions was accompanied by intense artillery fire, along with support from helicopters and Quadcopter drones.

In Jabalia, the re-intensified Israeli aggression forced the displacement of thousands of Palestinians, now looking for shelter among the rubble of destroyed schools and any standing facility."
o
"Truth is incontrovertible, ignorance can deride it, 
panic may resent it, malice may destroy it, but there it is."
- Winston Churchill
o
A Comment: Are you proud, Americans, with all that blood on your hands? Hang your head in shame and disgrace! YOU paid for every bomb, every bullet, every tank, every weapon, every single thing these psychopathically degenerate genocidal monsters are using to slaughter all these people, whom these ZioNazis openly call "human animals"! 15,000 CHILDREN murdered! Don't pretend you don't see, don't know! The entire world can now see what these creatures really are, what rabidly vicious mad dogs they are and always have been. So what do you do with a mad dog? Stipendium peccati mors est, Israel...Inshallah, so be it... - CP

Monday, May 13, 2024

Canadian Prepper, "IISS Nuclear Attack; Putin Preps Cabinet For WW III"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 5/13/24
"IISS Nuclear Attack; Putin Preps Cabinet For WW III
Mass Evac, Full Mobilization"
Comments here:

"Food Shortages, Price Increases, and Some Empty Shelves! Be Prepared! It's Getting Worse!"

Adventures With Danno, PM 5/13/24
"Food Shortages, Price Increases, and Some Empty Shelves! 
Be Prepared! It's Getting Worse!"
Comments here: