Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
Your guide...
Gregory Mannarino, AM 11/26/21:
"Imagine My Shock... New Covid Variant Slams Stocks"
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Real time updates:
DJIA 9:18 AM: - 1,033.06
So, we rise from the rubble...
Friday, November 26, 2021
Thursday, November 25, 2021
"I Wish Everyday was Thanksgiving - The Calm Before the Storm"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, PM 11/25/21:
"I Wish Everyday was Thanksgiving - The Calm Before the Storm"
"I wish everyday was Thanksgiving. People are so nice. This is the calm before the storm. The Market will crash before the end of the year."
"Avoid Complacency, Prepare For Market Crash Now; Southern California Cuts Power; Home Sales Slow"
Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, PM 11/25/21:
"Avoid Complacency, Prepare For Market Crash Now;
Southern California Cuts Power; Home Sales Slow"
"A December Stock Market Crash Is About To Burst With 80% Catastrophic Drop"
Full screen recommended.
"A December Stock Market Crash Is About
To Burst With 80% Catastrophic Drop"
by Epic Economist
"Wall Street's top investors are bracing for the biggest stock market crash of our lifetime, with the tech bubble burst leading the meltdown that will start over the next few weeks. The stage is set for an epic financial disaster, and after the explosion, we will be headed to the worst economic depression we've ever faced in the history of the United States. That's what one of the most successful investors and market strategists of modern times is telling us. Harry Dent, the founder of HS Dent Investment Management, is warning that we're about to enter some exceedingly difficult times, but most people don't even know what's truly going on.
As Dent noted, "You can blow up a balloon only so far, and then it pops". The government tried to keep this bubble going no matter how ridiculous it is, he says, but this time around, "additional stimulus won’t help. Enough is more than enough." In a recent interview, Dent asserted that 21% of all US companies are “barely limping along” and are doomed to bankruptcy in the recession he sees occurring shortly after the crash. “We’ll have the biggest recession, or a depression, of our lives” next year and “the economy isn’t going to get strong again until 2024,” the investor alerted. Now, he's saying that “stocks are on their last legs,” reaffirming that the market will face an 80 percent catastrophic drop.
First, it will crash by around 50 percent, he argues, the remaining 30 will come as investors start to feel the impact of rising interest rates. The most critical problem we face now is that the market bubble is expanding at the same time the economy is rapidly slowing. He is not alone in this forecast. In recent weeks, even Bank of America strategists said that investors are overestimating earnings growth. In fact, the bank said that speculation is far higher today than during the dot-com bubble, and that's setting up the market to a 25 to 50 percent correction as investors dismiss the bigger picture: the Fed starts tapering its bond purchasing program soon and that will be the pin to pop this gigantic bubble.
On the same note, the founder and partner of Oxbow Advisors, Ted Oakley said in an interview with Kitco News that the greatest threat facing investors today is the unsustainable stock market valuations that are about to revert. If we take a look at the standard deviations of valuations relative to where the market is, it is clear that stock pricter of time, and it shouldn't come as a surprise when it happens, because anyone with basic common sense can see it coming. The expert also highlights that this is an "everything, speculative" bubble, and the higher risks are in the stock market, but real estate and equity aren't immune.
The market is peaking and it will only take a single shock to reverse this trend and trigger a sharp sell-off. The odds of a meltdown are increasing by the day, whether people believe it or not. There's a famous Warren Buffett quote for times like these: “Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.” Needless to say that today stocks are extremely overbought because of greediness. Investor euphoria has gotten out of control and rampant speculation is heightening the risk of disappointment. Lance Roberts, the Chief Investment Strategist at Real Investment Advice told Business Insider that the market is being pushed to the limit and nothing good will come out of this market mania.
"Over the last month, investors pushed the stock market to extremely overbought, extended, and deviated levels. Currently, the deviation from the long-term bullish monthly moving average is at the most extreme since 1997," Roberts said. "Furthermore, the stock market is now highly overbought, which has typically preceded more significant market corrections."
In short, there's essentially no way around it. Just about every economic recession and market meltdown America has ever faced has been sparked by rising interest rates. Whenever interest rates rise more than 2 percent, a downturn follows and the coming downturn is going to be the greatest in history due to the extraordinary magnitude of this bubble. At this point, everyone can see that a stock market crash is coming. Everyone is already expecting it. And considering the series of warnings making the headlines over the past few weeks, that shouldn't come as a surprise for you either. Get ready for the worst while you still can."
Musical Interlude: Procol Harum, "A Salty Dog"
Procol Harum, "A Salty Dog"
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"Ulysses"
"There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me -
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads - you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Gorgeous spiral galaxy NGC 3521 is a mere 35 million light-years away, toward the constellation Leo. Relatively bright in planet Earth's sky, NGC 3521 is easily visible in small telescopes but often overlooked by amateur imagers in favor of other Leo spiral galaxies, like M66 and M65. It's hard to overlook in this colorful cosmic portrait, though. Spanning some 50,000 light-years the galaxy sports characteristic patchy, irregular spiral arms laced with dust, pink star forming regions, and clusters of young, blue stars.
Remarkably, this deep image also finds NGC 3521 embedded in gigantic bubble-like shells. The shells are likely tidal debris, streams of stars torn from satellite galaxies that have undergone mergers with NGC 3521 in the distant past."
The Poet: Grace Schulman, “Blessed Is The Light”
“Blessed Is The Light”
“Blessed is the light that turns to fire, and blessed the flames
that fire makes of what is burns.
Blessed the inexhaustible sun, for it feeds the moon that
shines but does not burn.
Praised be hot vapors in earth's crust, for they force up
mountains that explode as molten rock and cool like
love remembered.
Holy is the sun that strikes sea, for surely as water burns
life and death are one. Holy the sun, maker of change,
for it melts ice into water that bruises mountains, honing
peaks and carving gullies.
Sacred is the mountain that promises permanence but
changes, planed by rockslides, cut by avalanche,
crushed, eroded, leeched for minerals.
Sacred the rock that spins for centuries before it shines,
governed by gravity, burning into sight near earth's
orbit, for it rises falling, surviving night.
Behold the arcs your eyes make when you speak. Behold
the hands, white fire. Branches of pine, holding votive
candles, they command, disturbed by wind, the fire that
sings in me.
Blessed is whatever alters, turns, revolves, just as the gods
move when the mind moves them.
Praised be the body, our bodies, that lie down and open
and rise, falling in flame.”
~ Grace Schulman
"Because..."
"There is much asked and only so much I think I can or should answer, and so, in this post I would like to give a few thoughts on what seemed to be the overwhelming question: "WHY?" And here is the best answer I can give: Because. Because sometimes, life is damned unfair. Because sometimes, we lose people we love and it hurts deeply. Because sometimes there aren't really answers to our questions except for what we discover, the meaning we assign them over time. Because acceptance is yet another of life's "here's a side of hurt" lessons and it is never truly acceptance unless it has cost us something to arrive there. Why, you ask? Because, I answer. Inadequate yet true."
- Libba Bray
"I Keep Saying That..."
"Angel: Well, I guess I kinda worked it out. If there's no great glorious end to all this, if nothing we do matters... then all that matters is what we do. 'Cause that's all there is. What we do. Now. Today. I fought for so long, for redemption, for a reward, and finally just to beat the other guy, but I never got it.
Kate Lockley: And now you do?
Angel: Not all of it. All I wanna do is help. I wanna help, because I don't think people should suffer as they do. Because, if there's no bigger meaning, then the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world.
Kate Lockley: Yikes. It sounds like you've had an epiphany.
Angel: I keep saying that, but nobody's listening."
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:
Greg Hunter, "Natural Immunity is Best, Election Fraud, Inflation & Thanksgiving Message"
"Natural Immunity is Best, Election Fraud,
Inflation & Thanksgiving Message"
by s USAWatchdog.com
"There is a new Harvard study out, and it says people who recovered from CV19 have natural immunity that is “far stronger than vax protection. “ Also, it says you have very little chance of being re-infected. Why is the CDC and FDA constantly lying to us and telling us the vax is much better when, scientifically, it is clearly not!!
The mainstream media will not report on the massive election fraud and the battle to expose it. That does not mean it is not being exposed. In Wisconsin, criminal charges are coming down for election officials in one county, and, in Texas, big forensic audits are now funded by the state legislature. The fraud is being exposed one county at a time, and it will continue. The Dems’ cheating will get much tougher to do in 2022.
Inflation is here to stay, and the Thanksgiving meal you are eating is the most expensive on record. The cost is up 14% and this means inflation is here, and many think it’s just getting started and going much higher."
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about
these stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up 11/25/21:
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After the Interview: "Biotech analyst and former Pfizer employee Karen Kingston will be the guest for the Saturday Night Post. She will tell us why money and corruption will keep the CV19 hoax and the bioweapon injection push going for a long time. She also has good news for some who got vaxed and warns not to get a booster. She will break it all down."
"We All Get Plucked in the End"
"We All Get Plucked in the End"
By Bill Bonner
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – "As our friend Nassim Taleb reminds us, there’s a downside to being a turkey. It’s called Thanksgiving. Every day for 1,000 days, it gets its food. The turkey gets used to it. It feels pretty good about things. Around the feed trough, it is common knowledge that the food “always” comes. And there is no turkey alive who can contradict it.
The more intellectual turkeys spin out theories to explain their good fortune. One says it’s because of turkey exceptionalism: “The food always comes because we’re turkeys, not starlings or pigeons. We are special. We don’t have to peck around on the ground trying to find crumbs or scratch in the dirt to find worms. We’re a superior bird; we have access to unlimited food.”
Another has a different hypothesis – better leadership: “We always get fed because our president has figured out how to make the farmers feed us. He’s the best turkey president ever. If the farmer is a little late, he knows how to make turkey life great again. Didn’t you notice? He takes three steps backward and makes a loud gobbling noise. That usually does it. If it doesn’t, he just keeps gobbling until the food comes. Always works. Always.”
And yet another pipes up: “Oh, enough with your fancy theories. We always get fed because that’s just the way it is. It’s nature.” “No, it’s not nature,” offers another. “It’s because the fix is in. The farmer has to feed us, or he’ll be charged with animal abuse. He has to keep the food coming; he has no choice.”
Bad Feather Day: But then, as the fourth Thursday of November approaches, the theories are put to the test. All are proved incorrect. The food doesn’t come. Instead, the turkeys are ushered into a special part of the farm complex where they’ve never been before. There is something disquieting about it. The turkeys begin to whisper among themselves. One says he hears cries coming from the next room. All of them notice the sounds of machinery… heavy machinery… and a few soft feathers floating through the air. “What’s going on…?” they wonder, one to another. And then, they begin to panic, running helter-skelter, hoping to escape.
Up until that day, the food came every day. Day after day… the sun shone… and along came the farmer with more grain. And then, without warning, everything changed for the turkey. Worse than a bad feather day… it was the final scene. The curtain fell. The court adjourned.
Rational and Normal: Meanwhile, over in the stock market, the sun still shines. Heck, the more danger signs we see, the more the market goes up. But as the SEC is quick to add: Past performance is no guarantee of future performance. You may flip a hundred coins and get heads every time. That doesn’t mean that the next one won’t come up tails.
We see the turkey’s life from the farmer’s perspective. It is not all gravy and sweet potatoes. But it is very predictable, with a definite beginning and a certain end. And a purpose. We’re tempted to make an analogy to the stock market. But there is nothing definite about the stock market. It can famously stay irrational a lot longer than you can stay solvent. But it can also stay solvent longer than you can stay irrational.
We assume that as long as the Federal Reserve is adding money to it, it will continue to go up.
In other words, with the Fed adding so many fake billions, the turkeys might think higher prices are “rational” and “normal”… and that only rug-chewing doom-and-gloomers would expect it to go down.
Get Plucked: And yet… in the stock market, we’re the turkeys, not the farmers. We spin out our own theories. “Stock prices always go up over the long run,” says one simpleton. “Now, with the enlightened management of the Fed and a very money-savvy president, we’re pretty much assured that nothing will go wrong,” says another. “Dow 40,000,” adds a third. “The fix is in… They have to keep pumping up the stock market or the whole shebang will fall apart.”
But backstage, Mr. Market is sharpening his blades. He’ll decide for himself when we all get plucked. Have a nice Thanksgiving."
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Related:
"Plucked" alright...
"Consider A Turkey..."
“Consider a turkey that is fed every day. Every single feeding will firm up the bird’s belief that it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race ‘looking out for its best interests,’ as a politician would say. On the afternoon of the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, something unexpected will happen to the turkey. It will incur a revision of belief.“
- Nassim Taleb
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble.
It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
- Mark Twain
"A Judge Stands Up to a Hospital: 'Step Aside' and Give a Dying Man Ivermectin"
"A Judge Stands Up to a Hospital:
'Step Aside' and Give a Dying Man Ivermectin"
by Mary Beth Pfeiffer
"A Chicago-area judge saved a grandfather’s life with the single question that exposes hospitals blocking doctors from using a safe, FDA-approved drug: Why? Sun Ng, a retired contractor from Hong Kong, traveled to Illinois to celebrate his only granddaughter’s first birthday. He got covid and was near death in a Chicago-area hospital. All other options were exhausted, but the hospital refused to give Mr. Ng a generic, FDA-approved drug with an extraordinary safety record that a doctor believed could safe his life.
Finally, a judge asked the right question about ivermectin. “What’s the downside?” Put another way: If a man is dying of covid in an ICU and all else has been tried, why not order a hospital to give a safe, last-ditch drug?
Edward Hospital, located near Chicago, offered three arguments as to why Sun Ng, seventy-one, should not be given ivermectin:
• There could be side effects.
• Ordering ivermectin would violate its policies.
• Forcing the issue would be “extraordinary” judicial overreach.
On each argument, DuPage County Circuit Court Judge Paul Fullerton firmly disagreed. “I can’t think of a more extraordinary situation than when we are talking about a man’s life,” he said in a November 5 decision that is a model of rational decision-making in an irrational era. “I am not forcing this hospital to do anything other than to step aside,” he continued in a Zoom hearing. “I am just asking - or not asking - I am ordering through the Court’s power to allow Dr. Bain to have the emergency privileges and administer this medicine.” The hospital ultimately stepped aside. Dr. Alan Bain, an internist, administered a five-day course of 24 milligrams of ivermectin, from November 8 through November 12.
Ng, who with his wife, Ying, had come from Hong Kong to celebrate their granddaughter’s birthday, was able to breathe without a ventilator within five days - he, in fact, removed the endotracheal himself. He left the ICU Tuesday, November 16, and, although confused and weak, was breathing Sunday without supplemental oxygen on a regular hospital floor. “Every day after ivermectin, there was accelerated and stable improvement,” said Dr. Bain, who administered the drug in two previous court cases after hospitals refused. “Three times we’ve shown something,” he told me. “There’s a signal of benefit for ventilator patients.”
Ng’s remarkable progress stands in sharp relief to the repeated attempts by Edward-Elmhurst Health, the hospital’s managing system, to thwart the use of ivermectin. It succeeded in having the court’s initial November 1 order dismissed by claiming Ng was in better health than his lawsuit contended (he wasn’t). It then defied the November 5 order, saying Dr. Bain was not vaccinated (a negative test resolved the issue). Moreover, after Ng’s treatment was complete, the hospital system filed notice that it would appeal the order that had already been carried out. It did this even though Sun Ng seemed to have benefited greatly. The patient’s improvement, or condition generally, did not seem to matter.
At the outset, the hospital argued against court intervention, saying, “Mr. Ng is not terminal at this point.” But it was forced to admit that he had for days teetered on the brink of death after Ng’s daughter and only child, Man Kwan Ng, spoke to a hospital doctor November 3 - and took copious notes that were submitted to the court.
The doctor told Dr. Ng, who holds a PhD in mechanical engineering, “He has been in the same state for many, many days…critically ill,” according to a court affidavit. A nurse, meantime, suggested that Dr. Ng “stop all this aggressive care and let [her father] die naturally.” The hospital doctor estimated that “someone in his condition being on a ventilator like that has a 10 or 15 percent chance of survival,” the judge recounted in his decision. That bleak prediction wasn’t an option for Ng’s wife of forty years or the daughter fighting on his behalf. “We love him dearly,” Dr. Ng said in court papers. “He is our world…I cannot give up on him, even if the Defendants have.”
The judge’s finest moment may have been when he dashed the most glaring myth about ivermectin - that it is not safe, despite decades of use that shows otherwise. Noting that all drugs have side effects, Judge Fullerton listed ivermectin’s effects from a government website. “(N)umber one, generally well tolerated; number two, dizziness; number three, pruritus; number four, nausea/diarrhea. These are the side effects for the dosage that’s being asked to be administered,” he said. “The risks of these side effects are so minimal that Mr. Ng’s current situation outweighs that risk by one-hundredfold.”
Dr. Alan Bain gave a supplemental affidavit testifying to his successful use of ivermectin to treat covid-19 in gravely ill patients. Judge Fullerton ordered the hospital to “step aside” and allow him to give the drug that saved Mr. Ng’s life. If he hadn’t yet made his position clear, the judge then addressed the statement by a hospital doctor who, the judge said, “testified that the risk is that there is no benefit.” On the contrary, the judge said, “The possible benefit this Court sees is helping save Mr. Ng’s life with this drug.”
Ralph Lorigo is a Buffalo, New York, attorney who represented Ng and has received inquiries on behalf of fifty more patients since September. He said the Ng case was by far the costliest so far with three decisions, four court appearances, and now an appeal that is certainly moot. “That’s a terrible set of circumstances that people have to hire a lawyer to save a loved one’s life,” Lorigo told me. “That is a crime.”
Lorigo battled another hospital in the Edward-Elmhurst Health system last spring in a similarly drawn-out case to get ivermectin for Nurije Fype, sixty-eight. Her case inspired Dr. Ng to file suit - for good reason. Desareda Fype, who was a fierce advocate on her mother’s behalf, texted me last week: “Mom is doing sooo good, thank God! It’s been 4.5 months. Mom is home from the hospital and getting stronger each day!”
In an interview Sunday, Dr. Ng said her father is not out of the woods yet. But ivermectin made a clear difference, she said. Before given the medication, every attempt to wean her father even briefly from the respirator failed. Within eight hours on the medication, he was able to undergo a one-hour breathing trial. “I am positive,” she told me when I asked if she credits ivermectin.
While Dr. Bain was well aware of ivemectin’s ability to fight the covid virus in early infection, even he was surprised to discover its late-stage effectiveness. “It quells the fire of the inflammatory storm and also helps to lower the progression of stiffened lungs - aka pulmonary fibrosis,” he said. “That’s the beauty of this drug. I’m not saying it’s a cure. It’s just amazing.”
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"Relax. They're not going to kill us. They're going to
TRY and kill us. And that is a very different thing. "
- Steve Voake, "The Dreamwalker's Child"
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Hat tip to The Burning Platform for this material.
Wednesday, November 24, 2021
Musical Interlude: Soothing Relaxation, "Quiet Night - Deep Sleep Music"
Full screen recommended.
Soothing Relaxation, "Quiet Night - Deep Sleep Music"
"Deep sleep music ("Quiet Night") that hopefully will help you fall asleep. This ambient music is produced by Soothing Relaxation and composed by Peder B. Helland. The video fades to black after 10 minutes. Good night and sleep well!"
"The Regime Is Collapsing"
"The Regime Is Collapsing"
by Brian Maher
"The year is 1991…Contrary to Mr. Khrushchev’s boast decades prior, the United States had buried the Soviet Union. Its forces had just trounced the world’s fourth-largest army - Iraq’s - within weeks. America bestrode the world like a new colossus… and put all potential rivals in its shade. Its armies bossed the four corners of the globe. Its fleets commanded the Seven Seas.
It was the Pax Americana… the “end of history.” American capitalism, American democracy represented civilization’s apex, its zenith, its perfection. Yet here was the United States, proud Icarus... up high on waxen wings... flying too close to the searing sun… Earthward he plunged, fatally.
Perhaps Russian political scientist Georgi Arbatov sneered at the end of Soviet rule, with great relish: “We are going to do the worst thing we can do to you.” Which was what precisely? “We are going to take your enemy away from you.” We fear he proved correct. Absent an enemy, a superpower loses its animating energies. It loses its vigor, its purpose. It is a heavyweight champion of the world without a contender to prod him along. His inner fire winks out. He loafs. Flab forms around his midsection. He is aimless and rudderless.
Between world wars, berserker Winston Churchill lamented “the bland skies of peace” that stretched above Earth. Those same bland skies of peace overhung Earth at the Cold War’s conclusion. Now jump ahead 30 years… after heavy weather has rolled on through… America has had another go at Iraq — to liberate it from its own ruler and introduce it to Thomas Jefferson. And if Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires… the American empire is entombed within, six feet under the sod. “You Americans have the watches,” said the Taliban. “But we have the time.” They did - have the time. The Americans did not.
As we have argued previously: Americans are a restless, fitful people. We are eternally on the jump. We are forever hunting the next opportunity. We are perpetually peeking over the next hill. We Americans are poor imperialists. We simply lack the requisite patience.
We have the watches, yes. But not the time. Meantime, the past year and one-half have dazzled the world with the high glories of American democracy…American cities have been scenes of riot, of mayhem, of chaos. Statues of old heroes have come down, “obedient to the rope.”
The nation’s founding myths are called into contempt and ridicule. Millions and millions believe last year’s presidential election was rigged and thieved, fraudulent and illegitimate - correctly or incorrectly. If masses of American voters no longer trust the electoral process… what does it speak for American democracy? Is this the alabaster city shining on the hill, glistening in the mists? Is this the model the world would mimic?
China has ventured so far as to label American democracy a “joke.” We do not appreciate the jest. As an American patriot in whose veins course the reddest blood, we mourn. Yet we are not surprised. “Empires have a logic of their own,” Bill Bonner and our intrepid leader Addison Wiggin wrote in "Empire of Debt," concluding: “That they will end in grief is a foregone conclusion.”
Below, Jeffrey Tucker shows you why he believes the United States, like the Soviet Union at the end, faces a crisis of legitimacy. Vast swaths of the American people have lost faith in their government and their institutions. Can it be recaptured? What if it cannot? Read on."
"The Looming Legitimacy Crisis"
by Jeffrey Tucker
"Those were glorious days in 1989 when governments all over Eastern Europe were tumbling and being replaced. States were seceding from the old Soviet Union. The Berlin Wall was torn down by the people. Citizens were raiding offices of the secret police and destroying records. Political prisoners were being freed.
Those days were especially great for those of us in the United States because we didn’t have to be there experiencing it. We could watch it all on TV! And it made for magnificent theater. It was a movie except it was real. And we all congratulated ourselves in those days: their system is dying, while our system is doing just great. Freedom triumphs over tyranny.
And yet, it was only a few months later, sometime in 1990, when my mind began to wander. True, the states that collapsed had systems called socialism and they were ruled by a single party. The government lost legitimacy. That much was clear. As David Hume said in the 18th century, governments ultimately hold power only due to the complicity of the citizenry. A government that loses that cannot hold power for long. Eventually it will find itself issuing edicts to which no one listens. Power devolves into illusion. The mighty are suddenly reduced to people just like you and me.
As that event showed, it can happen much more quickly than anyone really imagines. The Hume rule applies not just to totalitarian states but to democratic ones, and states that are evolving from one to the other.
Democracy and Dictatorship: The question I kept asking myself at the time (and I don’t recall ever writing about) was: what are the conditions under which something like this could happen in Western democracies? The whole idea of democracy is to institutionalize and schedule change in governments thus civilizing the revolutionary impulse. Revolutions are costly and often bloody; they are certainly disruptive to normal life. Best to have elections instead.
Does the existence of democracy somehow insulate the ruling class from being overthrown by the angry masses? Does our Constitution mean that nothing remotely like what happened in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe can ever happen here? If so, that is both good and bad. The good part is that we are spared the costs of revolutionary upheaval. The bad part is that democracies can thereby develop an entrenched deep state that imagines itself to be impregnable from mass pressure. That can be corrupting.
And that’s where things have stood for the better part of 30 years, with a ruling elite growing ever more entrenched and ever more despotic in both quiet and aggressive ways. Clearly in 2020, they decided to push their luck all the way. They used all their power to shut down our lives in the hope of causing some kind of great reset.
I wonder if they thought it would be easy. Maybe. But it has not been easy. They not only closed and nearly destroyed institutions on which we rely for the good life: churches, schools, business, and even took over our homes by telling us how many people we can have inside. They willfully ignored all laws and liberties on which we’ve depended for the whole of our lives. They made an enormous mess of it, and then topped it off by not even achieving the ostensible goal of disease mitigation.
It’s almost like the elites forgot that they were dealing with actual human beings with lives. We were nothing but data in their models. They moved us around as if we were mere digits and expected outcomes in real life to mirror what they were seeing on their computer screens. Sounds crazy, but they seemed to lack awareness that we all have volition, dreams, hopes, and determination to achieve them regardless of the obstacles.
Sometime in 2021, there seemed to be an emerging awareness that something had gone very wrong. Drug deaths, demoralization, public anger, ruined lives and businesses were very obvious. The economic carnage - economics is the ultimate reality-based enterprise — was everywhere, especially the rise of inflation and massive government debt.
How does a ruling class deal with that? Admit they made a mistake? No way. They had gone this far. The best approach, they must have decided, was to double down as if to show people who is boss. Thus the vaccine mandate. Roll up the sleeve. Get the jab. Take the shot. What’s in this stuff? Doesn’t matter: just trust the elites.
The Meltdown: The whole thing was just too much. The courts have even started to work again, invoking things like the Constitution (“it’s in the drawer around here somewhere”). The regulatory agencies have decided that they cannot actually completely ignore the courts. So even the Department of Labor has backed down. The deep state blinked. Very interesting.
Now I’m looking at this absolute meltdown in popularity of the Biden administration. It goes step by step down down down. The split in approval and disapproval is 13%. When Trump lost reelection, the split was 6%. And this is what people are willing to tell pollsters! They are defying every expectation to go along.
What is doing this? It’s a whole series of events. The Afghanistan fiasco alerted the public to the incompetence. The jab mandate has been a disaster. The unfolding economic crises (inflation, shortages, declining wages, disappearing workers) plus a health crisis - actually a crisis in everything! - further eroded support.
What Happens Now? A rule of thumb I've always used is that at least one third of the public believes in something/anything no matter how crazy or insane. You name it, one third believes it. Biden's approval rating is moving close to that one third mark. When it hits 33%, you can assume that the regime has lost all legitimacy.
It’s not only about those polls. It’s about the protest music and art now flooding YouTube. It’s the marches. It’s the rallies. It’s the school-board meetings. It’s my inbox being flooded daily. It’s the Twitter accounts blowing up. It’s all the new applications like Telegram and Signal that are taking over from legacy businesses. It’s everything and it feels like revolution.
We are now experiencing a trajectory of history of which we have no prior experience, a previously prosperous and stable democracy facing a complete loss in public confidence in government, public health, media, and experts in general. They went too far. Something has to give way soon to protect us from chaos."
"In Early 2022, Prices Will Be Going Up 20 To 25 Percent On Thousands Of Different Products"
Full screen recommended.
"In Early 2022, Prices Will Be Going Up 20 To 25
Percent On Thousands Of Different Products"
by Epic Economist
"If you think that inflation is bad now, just wait until we get into early next year. As you will see below, some of the biggest corporations in the entire country have just announced major price increases which will take effect during the first few months of 2022. So if there are some things that you want to stock up on, you may want to do it now, because your money won’t stretch as far once we get a few months down the road. I really wish that I had better news for you. I really wish that I could tell you that prices are going to level off and that economic conditions will return to normal soon. Unfortunately, the truth is that it appears that our problems will soon be accelerating. For some items, prices will go up by around 20% beginning next year. Ouch.
When you go to the grocery store after the holiday season is over, get ready for a case of severe sticker shock. Right now, a single shopping cart of food can easily run more than 250 dollars at the grocery store. Once these price increases go into effect, will it take 300 or 400 dollars to purchase a typical shopping cart full of food? Just thinking about that gives me the shivers. It was inevitable that this day would come, but it is still very sad to see it actually happen.When I was growing up, I remember going to the “five and dime”, and in those days you could actually buy things for a nickel or a dime.
Many readers may think that a 25 cent increase is not that big of a deal, but for the millions of impoverished Americans that regularly shop at dollar stores that will really add up. Suddenly moving from $1.00 to $1.25 is a 25 percent price increase, and that change will literally apply to thousands upon thousands of different products. Inflation is rapidly eroding our standard of living, and the American people are not happy about it.
These are the days of the great currency meltdown that so many have been warning you about. The dollar is in the process of dying, there are shortages all over the country, our economy is being shaken in hundreds of different ways, and the worst global energy crisis in decades has suddenly erupted. Unfortunately, things are going to get even worse in 2022. So hold on tight, because a really bumpy ride is ahead of us."
Gregory Mannarino, "Be Ready! Another Crisis Coming! Expect Food Shortages And Skyrocketing Prices"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 11/24/21:
"Be Ready! Another Crisis Coming!
Expect Food Shortages And Skyrocketing Prices"
Musical Interlude: Prelude, "After The Gold Rush"
Prelude, "After The Gold Rush", Studio version.
Prelude, "After The Gold Rush", Live
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Have you ever seen the Pleiades star cluster? Even if you have, you probably have never seen it as large and clear as this. Perhaps the most famous star cluster on the sky, the bright stars of the Pleiades can be seen without binoculars from even the depths of a light-polluted city. With a long exposure from a dark location, though, the dust cloud surrounding the Pleiades star cluster becomes very evident. The featured exposure, taken from Florida, USA, covers a sky area several times the size of the full moon.
Also known as the Seven Sisters and M45, the Pleiades lies about 400 light years away toward the constellation of the Bull (Taurus). A common legend with a modern twist is that one of the brighter stars faded since the cluster was named, leaving only six of the sister stars visible to the unaided eye. The actual number of Pleiades stars visible, however, may be more or less than seven, depending on the darkness of the surrounding sky and the clarity of the observer's eyesight."
"A Person..."
“A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet ‘for sale’, who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence – briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing – cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity.”
- Erich Fromm
“US Government Is A Facade, Make-Believe Myth”
Full screen recommended.
Gerald Celente, Judge Andrew Napolitano,
“US Government Is A Facade, Make-Believe Myth”
Everybody should listen to EVERY SINGLE WORD that The Judge Andrew Napolitano says about our Rights, our Freedom, who we are & what's happened to us in this new podcast episode. "Government is the negation of Liberty. We are born free. Government only exists because we permit it to take our Liberty from us."
"The Economy is Going to the Birds - Banks are Getting Nervous"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly PM 11/24/21:
"The Economy is Going to the Birds -
Banks are Getting Nervous"
"The warnings continue on the Economy. Our Economy is going to the birds. From inflation, cargo ships to the supply chain mess. Nothing seems to be right and now the banks are admitting that they’re getting worried about their customers."
"The Emergency Has Only Just Begun"
"The Emergency Has Only Just Begun"
by Bill Bonner
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND - "A news flash. You’ll recall that it was only 18 months ago that the world had so much oil, its price fell below zero. CNN Business: "US crude finished April 20, 2020, at minus-$37 a barrel, blowing past the zero mark that few imagined would ever be crossed. Negative oil is the equivalent of getting paid by your local Starbucks to take coffee off its hands. Since then, governments and private companies, so covered with greenwash that they look like giant vegetables, have worked tirelessly to lower supplies of the dreadful fossil fuel. There are subsidies for electric cars… for windmills and solar panels – and penalties for producing oil.
England just announced that new houses will have to be equipped with a charging station for electric vehicles. Internal combustion engines are to be banned from new autos by 2030. The European Union says it will put speed governors on autos so they won’t go so fast, kill so many people, or use so much oil."
Oil Industry Takes the Hint: Also in Europe, thanks to U.S. meddling, the gas pipeline from Russia to Germany ran into more trouble this week. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced new restrictions on Russian gas sales to Europe, suggesting that there was something underhanded about it. The pipeline is completed. But it is still not in service. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says the “transition” to a green economy will cost as much as $150 trillion over the next three decades.
Naturally, oil companies have taken the hint. They’re not about to invest a lot of money drilling new holes when the feds are trying so hard to put them out of business. Biden’s pick for Comptroller of the Currency, Saule Omarova, made it clear where this is headed. The New York Post reports: "President Biden’s controversial, Soviet-born pick to lead a key branch of the Treasury Department admitted in a newly unearthed video that she “wants” traditional fuel industries “to go bankrupt.”
And here’s Oilprice.com: "Reinvestment rates among US shale oil producers hit an all-time low in the third quarter of 2021, resulting in a record free cash flow for the quarter, and are projected to fall even lower by year-end according to a Rystad Energy analysis. The analysis focused on a peer group of 21 public US shale oil producers, excluding majors, that together account for 40% of the expected 2021 output. The peer group’s combined reinvestment rate in the third quarter of 2021 was 46%, down from 53% over the same period in 2020 and way lower than the historical average of above 130%."
And the disinvestment is not just in shale oil. Total, BP, Chevron, Exxon, and Shell – the biggest producers in the world – have been reducing investment for almost 10 years.
Bad Move: What would you expect to happen? Faced with so many discouraging words, the oil industry has backed off… output has gone down… and the price of oil has gone back up… Brent crude is now $82 a barrel. And since oil is critical to modern economies… and crucial to the standard of living of most voters… and since the Biden team is getting worried about winning the next election… suddenly, there’s an emergency. Here’s the headline story: "Biden Announces 50 Million Barrels SPR Release To Lower Oil Prices."
"US President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday that the Department of Energy would release 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in a bid to lower high gasoline prices in a coordinated effort with other major oil-consuming nations. The U.S. Department of Energy will make available releases of 50 million barrels from the SPR, of which 32 million barrels will be in the form of an exchange over the next several months, releasing oil that must be returned to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the years ahead. Another 18 million barrels will be an acceleration into the next several months of a sale of oil that Congress had previously authorized, the White House said on Tuesday."
Oh my. Oil supplies getting tight? Prices going up? Future availability in doubt? What is the very worst thing you could do? Drain the strategic reserve!
Consequences of Feds’ Actions: There are knowns, unknowns, and things about which we haven’t a damn clue. Here at the Diary, we are reasonably sure that given a choice of two alternatives, the feds will always choose the worst one. But the consequences vary.
Biden’s “Build Back Better” Boondoggle will make us poorer. And we’re reasonably sure that it won’t make life more agreeable for most people. As for their energy policies, the fire the feds are playing with will almost certainly burn somebody’s fingers. Fossil fuels don’t just allow us to watch Netflix. They make it possible to feed seven billion people. Our guess is that the emergency has scarcely begun."
"Some Oddities..."
“There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world. The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”
- Douglas Adams
"Marcus Aurelius: How To Live Without Fear”
"Marcus Aurelius: How To Live Without Fear”
Developing strength by having power over the mind.
by Harry J. Stead
“The Roman Emperor Antoninus died in 161 and Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus assumed the roles of co-emperors. But, Aurelius’ rule was a challenging period for the Roman Republic. He spent the first years of his reign fighting the Roman–Parthian War of 161–166. During this war, the Empire suffered great difficulties and losses but eventually re-occupied Edessa in Greece where the deposed king was returned to the throne. However, the returning soldiers brought back with them a plague that would torment much of Europe for years, killing around five million people.
Later, from 166 to the end of Aurelius reign in 180, the Empire fought the Marcomannic Wars, where Germanic tribes continuously invaded Roman territory across the northern frontier regions. The Roman army, after a long struggle, managed to push back the invaders and re-establish the frontiers of the Empire.
Marcus Aurelius acquired the reputation of a philosopher king within his lifetime, and the title would remain his after death. He was a practitioner of Stoicism, and his personal philosophical writings, which later came to be called Meditations, are a significant source of the modern understanding of ancient Stoic philosophy.
Marcus Aurelius wrote the majority of the twelve books of the “Meditations” at Sirmium (modern day Serbia), where he spent time planning military campaigns and strategy during the Marcomannic Wars. A few of the books were written while he was positioned at Aquincum on campaign in Pannonia. And, the internal notes tell us that the first book was written when he was campaigning against the Quadi on the river Granova (modern-day Hron in Slovakia).
“Meditations” served as Aurelius’ journal, a private source of his own guidance and wisdom during times of darkness. His words are simple and honest, and the sentences are delivered like entries in a diary; the pages seem to be a list of quotations, all varying in length from one sentence to long paragraphs. It is unlikely that Marcus Aurelius ever thought someone would publish these writings. He simply wished to record what he believed to be true.
But, when reading “Meditations”, we do not get the sense that the author was, at the time, the most powerful man on the continent. The vulnerability of Aurelius’ words falls onto one’s heart, and you feel yourself empathising not with the vast fears of a Roman Emperor, where war and power are all that must occupy the mind, but, instead, with the melancholy struggles of a rather lonely man. For Aurelius was a man with no equals, a man who had all the wealth and beauty in the known world, yet no one to share it with. So sad are his words that the reader imagines the author to be a fragile being with the same worries and doubts as ourselves, rather than a head of state with a breast plate and a red cloak.
The journal was an attempt to counsel himself through his own darkness. The reader feels comfortable and calm with his words; we cannot help discover ourselves in each of his little splashes of wisdom. But, I suppose this is the nature of the diary. For diaries are intimate and individual, they allow the author to open their hearts and express their deepest passions.
And, by expressing our own unique message, the lyrics of our hearts, we touch upon a universal truth that speaks to everyone. Here lies the beauty of Meditations and the reason why it has been a major source of guidance to a great many people for almost two thousand years.
“A blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it.”
- “Meditations”, Marcus Aurelius
John Dalberg-Acton, a 19th century British politician, expressed this opinion in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” He was correct. Power does tend to corrupt the individual, but only because power exposes the true nature of the ruler, not because it turns the ruler sour.
Marcus Aurelius is, perhaps, the exception to this law in Western history. He was the only ruler that somewhat resembled Plato’s idea of the philosopher king – he was the last Good Emperor. This is easy to see when reading his journal.
The central theme to “Meditations” is that if one wishes to keep a tranquil soul, then he should live according to nature. This is the underlining idea of almost every sentence he wrote in “Meditations.” Clearly, he tried hard to remind himself of this wisdom lest he become a tyrant just as those who came before and after him did.
“If you are distressed by anything external,
the pain is not due to the thing itself,
but to your estimate of it;
and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
- Marcus Aurelius, “Meditations”
The temptation to control and handle every movement of the European continent must have been overwhelming. Because, as an emperor, Aurelius had to stand firm against the weight of a vast and over stretched Empire; he was a god, waving a red sword over a map of the entire world. Yet, he was also a man among men, carrying the same limitations and burdens of those who served him. He was not all-powerful or all-seeing, but the people expected him to be.
But, nature made Aurelius an emperor and so he believed it his calling to live up to his greatest potential. He did not lose himself in wine and women and become a victim of lust and desire, as many others had done, nor did he rule from fear and anxiety. The man had a beautiful soul. He could have had everything he wanted, he could have fulfilled his deepest passions and desires, yet he chose instead to pursue the end that was good for everyone. Power does not corrupt, power entertains the irrational and exposes the dirt within the soul.
“You have power over your mind – not outside events.
Realize this, and you will find strength.”
- Marcus Aurelius, “Meditations”
The wise man, the truly good man, Aurelius thought, is in control of his own soul. This is all that concerns him – to be at peace with his own spirit. He only fears making chaos of his soul for it is the only power that he has responsibility for. If he loses control, then he loses himself and is powerless to fulfill his obligation to nature. And, tranquility requires that one releases all that which he cannot control. But, how great of a challenge must this have been for an emperor! For Aurelius stood over a kingdom that faced continuous threats of invasion from all sides, even from within.
Marcus Aurelius lived with a radical acceptance of nature. He moved through his days with no expectations; he never struggled against his fate nor did he resign himself in self-pity if the world betrayed him. No event should be mourned or celebrated. Because the victories of today may well be the cause of our demise tomorrow. Acceptance, only acceptance. And, with acceptance you will be able to find pleasure in each thunder and lightning that befalls you. Each event, in the eyes of a wise man, is a teacher, a lesson, a chance, a sign.
Aurelius believed that life never ought to be different from what it is and so he was able to greet the future with joy and compassion. Life continues to unfold and we should rejoice in every page for it is our fate, the will of nature.
Nature is unchangeable; we must not fight against it. Fighting against that which does not fall is foolish and will only leave us with a troubled spirit. Nothing outside of yourself should have power or friction over your peace.
Leave that which you do not control in the hands of God or nature. But, for that which you do control – your soul, your emotions, your thoughts – learn to steer them in your favor. Because every man suffers a great deal in their life, but not all people pity themselves. There is a choice.
Aurelius constantly reminded himself of this message in his journal so that he could practice its wisdom in his day-to-day life. And, in doing so, he freed himself from all that which could harm the peoples of his Empire – grief, fear, anger, and anxiety. For the peace of the Empire mirrored the peace of the emperor — he was the embodiment, the great incarnation of the kingdom. Because, in an autocracy, when the emperor falls sick, so must the Empire.
“The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to
look things in the face and know them for what they are.”
- Marcus Aurelius, “Meditations”
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Marcus Aurelius’ work “Meditations,” written in Greek while on campaign between 170 and 180, is still revered as a literary monument to a government of service and duty. It serves as an example of how Aurelius approached the Platonic ideal of a philosopher-king and how he symbolized much of what was best about Roman civilization.”
Freely download, in PDF format, “Meditations,” by Marcus Aurelius, here:
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