“Alas, regardless of their doom, the little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come, nor care beyond today.”
- Thomas Gray,
“Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”
So, we rise from the rubble...
Thursday, February 23, 2023
The Poet: Wendell Berry, "The Circles Of Our Lives"
"The Circles Of Our Lives"
"Within the circles of our lives
we dance the circles of the years,
the circles of the seasons
within the circles of the years,
the cycles of the moon,
within the circles of the seasons,
the circles of our reasons
within the cycles of the moon.
Again, again we come and go,
changed, changing. Hands
join, unjoin in love and fear,
grief and joy. The circles turn,
each giving into each, into all.
Only music keeps us here,
each by all the others held.
In the hold of hands and eyes
we turn in pairs, that joining
joining each to all again.
And then we turn aside, alone,
out of the sunlight gone
into the darker circles of return,
Within the circles of our lives..."
- Wendell Berry
Free Download: Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged,”
"If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders - what would you tell him to do?"
"I... don't know. What could he do? What would you tell him?"
"To shrug."
- Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged”
○
"Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard - the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money - the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law - men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims - then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.
Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed."
Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed."
An excerpt from “Atlas Shrugged,” by Ayn Rand.
Full text of “Francisco’s Money Speech” is here:
Freely download "Atlas Shrugged", by Ayn Rand, here:
Gregory Mannarino, "Housing Bubble Bursting, Real Wages Plummet, Food Inflation Rises"
Gregory Mannarino, 2/23/23:
"Housing Bubble Bursting, Real Wages Plummet,
Food Inflation Rises"
Comments here:
o
Related:
"Is the Biden Administration Just Completely Brain-Dead?"
"Is the Biden Administration Just Completely Brain-Dead?"
By Martin Armstrong
"Russia has deployed tactical nuclear weapons on all its ships. The US arrogantly told China not to support Russia or that they would impose sanctions on China as they have done with Russia. That is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Once you make such a public demand on China, they now MUST act against it or their leadership will lose face.
I have dealt with governments for some 40 years +. Warnings of this nature have ALWAYS been communicated privately – NEVER publicly for that is confrontational and will necessitate the opposite side to vote against your demand. I cannot imagine that even I know far more about diplomacy than anyone in the Biden Administration. That suggests to me that this is deliberate. They just cannot be this stupid. They seem to be deliberately moving Russia and China together against the arrogant West in the very same manner that resulted in the Peloponnesian War with Sparta taking down Athens for its arrogance.
As the world teeters on the edge of World War III between Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran against the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, and Europe, diplomatic efforts to reach a peaceful settlement are seriously lacking. Europeans should be storming their own parliaments demanding the end to supporting Ukraine and honoring the Minsk Agreement to forestall a potential conflict the likes of which Europe has not seen since the end of the second World War and will certainly not survive.
The Biden Administration appears to be taking the advice of Adolf Hitler given the complete lack of any diplomacy whatsoever. China has offered a peace settlement but the Biden Administration wants war. China had no choice but to respond to Biden:
The United Nations has become a joke. The Security Council can take action to maintain or restore international peace and security under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. Sanctions measures, under Article 41, encompass a broad range of enforcement options that do not involve the use of armed force. The UN has refused to remain unbiased and should have imposed sanctions on Germany, France, the UK, and the United States for their bad faith in negotiating the Minsk Agreement and for their unwarranted sanction of Russia that even began before the 2022 invasion. The UN no longer represents an independent body of nations but has been usurped with lofty ideals of becoming the one world government thanks to Schwab’s World Economic Forum and the pressure from the American Neocons directing US foreign policy.
The United Nations took its marching order from the United States and suspended Russia from the Human Rights Council on April 7th, 2022. They have courted world war with the vision of emerging as the new one-world government. They self-proclaim: “Now, more than 75 years later, the United Nations is still working to maintain international peace and security, give humanitarian assistance to those in need, protect human rights, and uphold international law.” Sanctioning private individuals claiming that will put pressure on Putin was a blatant violation of international war. Under this theory, then the Republicans could confiscate all the personal assets of Democrats until the Democrats agree to their terms. This is absurd.The United Nations has REFUSED to be impartial and to prevent World War III. They are a total failure and a disgrace to humanity. Here is the simple pattern they should have investigated if they really cared about preserving world peace.
(1) In 2014 US installs an interim government in Ukraine which is unelected and immediately sends troops to attack the Donbas for wanting to separate from Ukraine after its own revolution.
(2) West engages in the Minsk Agreement whereby Merkel has come out and acknowledged it was in bad faith and intended only to allow Ukraine to build its army while making a fool out of Putin for trusting the West.
(3) Zelensky is elected promising to end corruption and the civil war with Russia.
(4) VP Kamila Harris at Munich Security Conference tells Ukraine they should join NATO.
(5) On February 23rd, 2022, Zelensky announces that Ukraine should rearm itself with nuclear weapons:
February 24th, 2022, Putin intervenes to support the Donbas when the West ignores their human rights. If the United States even exists after World War III which they are promoting, then we would no doubt have a similar investigation into the deliberate policies that have rejected any possible peaceful negotiations and promoted war for the total destruction of Russia.
When not just diplomacy fails we get war, but when the United Nations acts in its own self-interest against all the member states that fund it and ignores the very foundation upon which it claims any authority. That seems to be in line with the World Health Organization to dictate its policies to the world."
Bill Bonner, "Bad Luck of the Draw"
"Bad Luck of the Draw"
You win some, you lose some... then you lose everything.
By Bill Bonner
"Hi...you're young and you got your health...what you want with a job?"
~ Evelle, "Raising Arizona"
San Martin, Argentina - "We’re up in Northwest Argentina. First stop was the city of Salta, where we met with our trusty lawyer. Monday and Tuesday were holidays – Carnival. All was quiet. Wednesday, the city was back to its usual hustle and bustle. Streets crowded. Hotels full. It was Ash Wednesday, so we walked down to the central square to the magnificent cathedral of San Francisco. So many Christians were eager to get the smudge on their foreheads that the church ran full almost all day long, with services every hour.
Origins Stories: We couldn’t understand the sermon, partly because half of it was done with a faulty microphone, but we greatly admired the elaborate gilding and silverwork. The place is stunning.
Argentina claims to be ‘the most European country in the world.’ Here, people make a joke of it:
The Mexicans descended from Aztecs.
The Peruvians descended from Incas.
The Argentines descended from boats.
Argentina never had many African immigrants…and those it had, according to popular lore, were put on the front lines in the war against Paraguay in the 19th century. Whether this is true or not, we don’t know, but there are very few African-Argentinos today. As for the indigenous population, it was mostly exterminated or exiled in Julio Argentino Roca’s ‘Conquest of the Desert’ in the 1870s. Those few who are left are concentrated in Salta…and at our farm.
In the Cathedral of San Francisco was a mixture of mixtures. Most people in attendance seemed to have more than a little of the local Indian blood. Here, as elsewhere in the world, people tend to group together depending on their cultures and backgrounds, and find a place that suits them. Some neighborhoods are darker than others. Generally, the darker the skin, the poorer the people. When you are in affluent neighborhoods, such as the nearby town of San Lorenzo, you could be in Italy or France. Other ‘barrios’ are more like poor sections of Los Angeles.
Introducing The Colorometer™: These are just averages and stereotypes, of course. But statistics and stereotypes are the bread and butter of public policies. In the US, the Biden Administration has just ordered a campaign of ‘racial equity’ for the federal government. “Agency Equity Teams” are supposed to make sure they discriminate in favor of the people they want and against those they don’t want. But the problem with this, and all racist programs, is that they ignore quality and merit completely. It doesn’t really matter how much you deserve a break, or need one; it’s all about what category they put you into.
The program aims to give preferences to ‘people of color.’ But how much color do you need to qualify? Should the dark-skinned daughter of an Indian billionaire bio-physicist get a break…but not the fair-skinned son of West Virginia trailer trash?
Since the whole idea is to give preference to people with dark skins…and since, generally, the more melanin you have, the poorer you are…the simplest way to solve the problem, if there were one, would be to develop a ‘colorometer’ app. Yes, dear reader, here we offer our own claptrap contribution to a claptrap program run by claptrap people based on claptrap notions. You just point the ‘colorometer’ at the person and it gives you a number, which determines how much of a preference or punishment the person should get. The more color, the more ‘equity,’ whatever that is. Note to the feds: no need to thank us for that suggestion. If you’re dim enough to actually take it up, we’ll claim we had nothing to do with it. Meanwhile, Salta is booming.
Win, Lose or… Worse: “It’s hard to find an apartment to rent,” explained our legal advisor, “and if you find one, it’s going to be expensive.” This seemed odd. All the economic news coming out of Argentina is bad. What is the source of so much bustle in the North, we wanted to know? “It’s all based on one thing – lithium. It’s like a gold mining boom. Everybody wants to get in on it.”
The way it works, at least as it was told to us, sounds a lot like the way the telecom industry was developed in the US in the ‘90s. The government took applications for areas that would be served by a cellphone tower. Anyone could apply. The licenses were awarded by lottery. But then, you had to build out the service.
We applied, along with a group of friends. And we won one – out in South Dakota, if we recall correctly. The trouble was, there weren’t many people in the area. If we had been able to teach cows how to use cell phones, we would have had a winner, but there was not enough human traffic to justify the investment.
“I was in a lottery for a lithium area,” explained a man we met later. “There were only three bidders. A Chinese company. A Canadian company. And me. The Chinese and Canadians were represented by their lawyers. It was very old-fashioned. They put three numbers into a tumbler. I had #2. You could watch the numbers in the tumbler. I was chatting with the woman who was turning the crank. I knew her. She slowed up…and I could see that my number was not in position to win…so I asked her how her son was doing…and she turned the crank again while she answered. This time my number was in a good position, so I stopped talking. And guess what? She opened the chute…and my number came out. I won.”
Once again, the particular triumphed over statistics and theory. But wait, there’s more. Lithium is big business. Everybody says so. And the whole world, they say, is switching to battery power…and batteries require lithium, lots of it. But investors, lovers, parish priests and business people live in a different world…not one of statistics and headlines, but one of particulars…details…special situations, and keeping your eye on the tumbler. Our lithium lottery winner continued:
“I don’t have the money to develop a lithium mining operation. So, I went to the Canadian and the Chinese and offered to go into partnership with them. But they said they didn’t want partners. So, now I’m stuck…somehow, I’ve got to come up with millions of dollars…and someone who knows the mining business. So far, it’s not looking very good. And if I can’t develop it, I don’t just lose the concession; I could lose everything.” He pointed towards his house. More to come..."
"Things Are About To Get Chilly"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, 2/23/23:
"Things Are About To Get Chilly"
"Southern California is under a blizzard warning right now. It is unbelievable that things are as cold outside as they are in the economy right now."
Comments here:
"Price War At Kroger! The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly! Price Increases"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 2/23/23:
"Price War At Kroger! The Good, The Bad,
And The Ugly! Price Increases"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Traveling With Russell, 2/23/23:
"Russian Typical Hypermarket After 1 Year of Sanctions"
"What does a Russian typical hypermarket look like after 1 year of sanctions. Walking in Moscow shopping mall, then taking a walk inside a German owned hypermarket to see what affects sanctions against Russia have done to the retail and grocery industry."
Comments here:
Wednesday, February 22, 2023
"The Biggest Super Bubble In Human History Is Leaking Air"
Jeremiah Babe, 2/22/23:
"The Biggest Super Bubble In Human History Is Leaking Air"
Comments here:
Gerald Celente, "US Government: Reckless, Immoral, Illegal, and Unconstitutional War"
Gerald Celente, Judge Andrew Napolitano, 2/22/23:
"US Government: Reckless, Immoral,
Illegal, and Unconstitutional War"
"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:
Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, "Moment of Grace Part 1"
Full screen recommended.
Liquid Mind, "Moment of Grace Part 1"
"A Look to the Heavens"
“What powers are being wielded in the Wizard Nebula? Gravitation strong enough to form stars, and stellar winds and radiations powerful enough to create and dissolve towers of gas. Located only 8,000 light years away, the Wizard nebula, pictured above, surrounds developing open star cluster NGC 7380. Visually, the interplay of stars, gas, and dust has created a shape that appears to some like a fictional medieval sorcerer.
The active star forming region spans 100 about light years, making it appear larger than the angular extent of the Moon. The Wizard Nebula can be can be located with a small telescope toward the constellation of the King of Aethiopia (Cepheus) Although the nebula may last only a few million years, some of the stars being formed may outlive our Sun.”
"For Nothing Is Fixed..."
"For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out."
- James Baldwin
Chet Raymo, “Telling Stories”
“Telling Stories”
by Chet Raymo
by Chet Raymo
"When the pulse of the first day carried it to the rim of night, First Woman said to First Man, "The people need to know the laws. To help them we must write the laws for all to see"...And so she began, slowly, first one and then the next, placing her jewels across the dome of night, carefully designing her pattern so all could read it. But Coyote grew bored watching First Woman carefully arranging the stars in the sky: Impatiently he gathered two corners of First Woman's blanket, and before she could stop him he flung the remaining stars out into the night, spilling them in wild disarray, shattering First Woman's careful patterns."
This episode from the Navajo creation story of is from "How the Stars Fell Into the Sky", a children's book by Jerrie Oughton. It is a lovely story, full of ancient wisdom. For centuries, Navajo children heard the story at an elder's knee. The story was taken literally, or at least accepted with a willing suspension of disbelief. I heard a similar creation story in my youth - of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Serpent. I accepted the story with a willing suspension of disbelief.
All cultures, everywhere on Earth, have stories, passed down in scriptures, traditions or tribal myths, that answer the questions: Where did the world come from? What is our place in it? What is the source of order and disorder? What will be the fate of the world? Of ourselves? No people can live without a community story. The problem comes when the community story becomes so disconnected from empirical experience that it no longer commands a suspension of disbelief. For many of us in the West, that is the case with the creation stories that have undergirded Western civilization.
Today, a New Story exists for those who choose to accept it. It is the product of thousands of years of human curiosity, observation, experimentation, and creativity. It is an evolving story, not yet finished. Perhaps it will never be finished. It is a story that begins with an explosion from a seed of infinite energy. The seed expands and cools. Particles form, then atoms of hydrogen and helium. Stars and galaxies coalesce from swirling gas. Stars burn and explode, forging heavy elements - carbon, nitrogen, oxygen - and hurling them into space. New stars are born, with planets made of heavy elements.
On one planet near a typical star in a typical galaxy life appears in the form of microscopic self-replicating, carbon-based ensembles of atoms. Life evolves, over billions of years, resulting in ever more complex organisms. Continents move. Seas rise and fall. The atmosphere changes. Millions of species of life appear and become extinct. Others adapt, survive, and spill out progeny. At last, consciousness appears. One of the millions of species on the planet looks into the night sky and wonders what it means. Feels the spark of love, tenderness, responsibility. Makes up stories - of First Woman and Coyote, of Adam, Eve and the Serpent - eventually making up the New Story. The New Story places us squarely in a cosmic unfolding of space and time, and teaches our biological affinity to all humanity. We are inextricably related to all of life, to the planet itself, and even to the lives of stars.
This episode from the Navajo creation story of is from "How the Stars Fell Into the Sky", a children's book by Jerrie Oughton. It is a lovely story, full of ancient wisdom. For centuries, Navajo children heard the story at an elder's knee. The story was taken literally, or at least accepted with a willing suspension of disbelief. I heard a similar creation story in my youth - of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Serpent. I accepted the story with a willing suspension of disbelief.
All cultures, everywhere on Earth, have stories, passed down in scriptures, traditions or tribal myths, that answer the questions: Where did the world come from? What is our place in it? What is the source of order and disorder? What will be the fate of the world? Of ourselves? No people can live without a community story. The problem comes when the community story becomes so disconnected from empirical experience that it no longer commands a suspension of disbelief. For many of us in the West, that is the case with the creation stories that have undergirded Western civilization.
Today, a New Story exists for those who choose to accept it. It is the product of thousands of years of human curiosity, observation, experimentation, and creativity. It is an evolving story, not yet finished. Perhaps it will never be finished. It is a story that begins with an explosion from a seed of infinite energy. The seed expands and cools. Particles form, then atoms of hydrogen and helium. Stars and galaxies coalesce from swirling gas. Stars burn and explode, forging heavy elements - carbon, nitrogen, oxygen - and hurling them into space. New stars are born, with planets made of heavy elements.
On one planet near a typical star in a typical galaxy life appears in the form of microscopic self-replicating, carbon-based ensembles of atoms. Life evolves, over billions of years, resulting in ever more complex organisms. Continents move. Seas rise and fall. The atmosphere changes. Millions of species of life appear and become extinct. Others adapt, survive, and spill out progeny. At last, consciousness appears. One of the millions of species on the planet looks into the night sky and wonders what it means. Feels the spark of love, tenderness, responsibility. Makes up stories - of First Woman and Coyote, of Adam, Eve and the Serpent - eventually making up the New Story. The New Story places us squarely in a cosmic unfolding of space and time, and teaches our biological affinity to all humanity. We are inextricably related to all of life, to the planet itself, and even to the lives of stars.
It has been the task of many of us gathered here on this cyber porch to help wed the New Story to the spiritual quest, to create what Thomas Berry calls an "integral story." In his introduction to Kathleen Deignan's collection of Thomas Merton's nature writing, Berry writes: "Today, in the opening years of the twenty-first century, we find ourselves in a critical moment when the religious traditions need to awaken again to the natural world as the primary manifestation of the divine to human intelligence. The very nature and purpose of the human is to experience this intimate presence that comes to us through natural phenomena. Such is the purpose of having eyes and ears and feeling sensitivity, and all our other senses. We have no inner spiritual development without outer experience. Immediately, when we see or experience any natural phenomenon, when we see a flower, a butterfly, a tree, when we feel the evening breeze flow over us or wade in a stream of clear water, our natural response is immediate, intuitive, transforming, ecstatic. Everywhere we find ourselves invaded by the world of the sacred."
Berry reminds us that we will neither love nor save what we do not experience as sacred. The older creation stories locate the source of the sacred outside of the creation. The New Story, the scientific story of creation, provides unique opportunities to experience the creation itself as holy and good.
We should treasure the ancient stories for the wisdom and values they teach us. We can praise the creation in whatever poetic languages and rituals our traditional cultures have taught us. But only the New Story has the global authority to help us navigate the future. Of all the stories, it is certainly the truest. It is the only story whose feet have been held to the fire of exacting empirical experience.”
- http:www.sciencemusings.com/
"On These Faces..."
“The barbarian hopes, and that is the mark of him, that he can have his cake and eat it too. He will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being. We sit by and watch the barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles. “
- Hilaire Belloco
"Something Like Reverence..."
"When I see the blind and wretched state of men, when I survey the whole universe in its deadness, and man left to himself with no light, as though lost in this corner of the universe without knowing who put him there, what he has to do, or what will become of him when he dies, incapable of knowing anything, I am moved to terror, like a man transported in his sleep to some terrifying desert island, who wakes up quite lost, with no means of escape. Then I marvel that so wretched a state does not drive people to despair."
- Blaise Pascal
Ahh, but it does...
○
“When the pain of leaving behind what we know outweighs the pain of embracing it, or when the power we face is overwhelming and neither flight nor fight will save us, there may be salvation in sitting still. And if salvation is impossible, then at least before perishing we may gain a clearer vision of where we are. By sitting still I do not mean the paralysis of dread, like that of a rabbit frozen beneath the dive of a hawk. I mean something like reverence, a respectful waiting, a deep attentiveness to forces much greater than our own.”
- Scott Russell Sanders
Folks, I fear our time for such reverence has arrived.
God help us, God help us all...
"Retail is Broken"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 2/22/23:
"Retail is Broken"
"It was just announced that another 800 retail stores will be closing across the country. Retail giants are suffering all over the country. The final stop is the shopping mall. It is completely broken."
Comments here:
"Economic Market Snapshot 2/22/23"
"Economic Market Snapshot 2/22/23"
.jpeg)
Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
○
"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it.
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
○
○
A comprehensive, essential daily read.
○
Financial Stress Index
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
○
Job cuts and much more.
○
○
○
○
○
○
Commentary, highly recommended:
○
"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
○
Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
○
And now... The End Game...
"The Economy Is Crashing Even Faster Than A Lot Of The Experts Had Anticipated"
"The Economy Is Crashing Even Faster
Than A Lot Of The Experts Had Anticipated"
By Michael Snyder
"It’s happening. Throughout 2021 and 2022, a whole host of experts were warning that we were going to see another economic crisis like we witnessed in 2008 and 2009, and now it is here. In fact, it is unfolding at a pace that is even more rapid than most of the experts had anticipated. The housing market is crashing, hordes of retail stores are closing, the commercial real estate market is headed for a colossal disaster, food prices continue to surge, and the worst wave of layoffs in more than a decade just continues to get even worse. So many of the economic trends that I have been tracking on The Economic Collapse Blog are now reaching a crescendo, but most Americans still don’t understand how bad things will eventually become.
On Tuesday, we learned that existing home sales in the United States have now fallen for 12 months in a row…"U.S. existing home sales slowed for the 12th consecutive month in January as high mortgage rates, surging inflation and steep home prices sapped consumer demand from the housing market. Sales of previously owned homes tumbled 0.7% in January from the prior month to an annual rate of 4 million units, according to new data released Tuesday by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). On an annual basis, existing home sales are down 36.9% when compared with January 2021."
It is the slowest pace since November 2010, when the U.S. was still in the throes of the housing crisis triggered by subprime mortgage defaults. Just think about these numbers for a moment. Existing home sales have dropped every single month for an entire year. That is catastrophic. Overall, existing home sales are a whopping 36.9 percent lower than they were at this time last year. We haven’t seen anything like this since the last housing crash.
Meanwhile, rapidly rising interest rates and the work at home trend that began during the pandemic have combined to create a giant mess for the commercial real estate industry. At this point, projects are starting to fail at a furious pace…"The giant investment manager Brookfield Asset Management recently defaulted on a total of over $750 million in debt for a pair of 52-story towers in Los Angeles, according to a February securities filing. Real-estate firm RXR is in talks with creditors to restructure debt on 61 Broadway, a 34-story tower in Manhattan’s financial district, according to people familiar with the matter. Handing over the building to the lender is among the options under consideration, these people said."
In another sign of distress, a venture of an investment manager affiliated with Related Cos. and BentallGreenOak is in similar debt-restructuring talks over a $150 million warehouse-to-office conversion project in Long Island City, N.Y., that hasn’t filled up as much space as expected, according to people familiar with the matter.
Sadly, this is just the tip of the iceberg. As I discussed the other day, I believe that we will eventually see the worst commercial real estate crisis in the entire history of our nation.
Of course the whole economy is moving into very troubled times. The Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators has now dropped lower in each of the past ten months. The last time we witnessed a streak of this magnitude was in 2008. Even Walmart and Home Depot are acknowledging that a very challenging economic environment is in front of us, and bleak forecasts from both companies helped to spark another round of panic selling on Wall Street…"US stocks plunged on Tuesday after fourth-quarter earnings and forecasts from mega-retailers like Walmart and Home Depot raised concerns about the strength of the US consumer. The Dow and S&P 500 each closed with their worst day since December 15 – the Dow fell about 696 points, or 2.1%, while the S&P dropped by 2%. The Nasdaq Composite closed 2.5% lower."
Consumer spending accounts for about 70% of America’s gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the US economy, so a slowdown could weigh on growth and even send the United States into a recession. As economic activity slows down, major retailers are closing hundreds of locations all over the country…"America is bracing for a mass exodus of retail stores across the nation this year, with more than 800 big box locations set to close from California to New York. Among the iconic names to announce they are downsizing includes Bed Bath & Beyond, Walmart, Gap and Party City. At least 803 stores are set to be shuttered over the rest of 2023, with many forced into desperate cost cutting measures amid rampant inflation and declining bottom lines."
Sadly, there will be more. A lot more. Needless to say, a lot more layoffs are coming too. In fact, we just learned that McKinsey & Co “plans to eliminate about 2,000 jobs”…"McKinsey & Co. plans to eliminate about 2,000 jobs, one of the consulting giant’s biggest rounds of cuts ever. The firm known for devising staff-reduction plans for its clients is taking the ax to some of its own, with the move expected to focus on support staff in roles that don’t have direct contact with clients, according to people with knowledge of the matter."
So many people are going to lose their jobs in the months ahead. The tech industry is supposed to be one of the backbones of our economy, but they have been laying off workers faster than almost any other sector. And the numbers tell us that the pace of tech layoffs in 2023 is already way ahead of last year. If you do not have a job right now, I would recommend grabbing one while you still can. And if you do have a job that you value, I would try to hold on to it as hard as you can.
These are the times that we have been warned about, and eventually economic conditions will be even worse than they were in 2008 and 2009. Those running our economy were able to keep things propped up for quite a while by pushing interest rates all the way to the floor and by flooding our system with mountains of fresh money. But in the process they created a tremendous amount of inflation, and meanwhile our long-term economic problems just continued to get even worse. Now a day of reckoning has arrived, and our leaders are all out of solutions."
"Strange Prices At Sam's Club! Stock Up Now! What's Next?"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 2/22/23:
"Strange Prices At Sam's Club! Stock Up Now! What's Next?"
Comments here:
Bill Bonner, "On Quality"
"On Quality"
Plus, fibbing GDP numbers, F-35 flops and half
a century repose on a small, Greek island...
By Bill Bonner and Joel Bowman
Salta, Argentina - “There’s only one law that works in Argentina, the law of gravity.” Investors are still trying to make sense of it. If inflation is going away…why is the Fed threatening more rate increases? And if the economy is so great, why are wages and corporate profits slipping? Fox News: "The Fed’s been trying to put the brakes on, and it doesn’t look like the brakes are getting much traction," [Larry Summers] said."
Summers has a point. Inflation is easing…but not much. And debt is still going up. In other words, so far, the Fed has failed to turn the ship around. And it’s still taking on water. Here’s the latest from USA Today: "US credit card debt hit a record high as inflation leaves consumers financially stressed." "The latest data is a major reversal from two years ago when Americans were rapidly paying off credit card debt with stimulus money they received. And at the same time, they weren't taking on more debt to pay for big-ticket expenses such as vacations because of the pandemic."
Real Mischief: Additional debt means that additional money has been put in the system. More money in circulation means more inflation. Remember, it is borrowing that brings new money into existence. The money only disappears when the debt is paid. Or not paid and written off. Meanwhile, higher prices and lower real wages do their mischief. Here’s another tell-tale item from The Wall Street Journal: "Some 9.3% of auto loans extended to people with low credit scores were 30 or more days behind on payments at the end of last year, the highest share since 2010, according to an analysis by Moody’s Analytics."
But wait. These are just numbers. And here in Argentina, for example, the numbers are almost all bad. But the quality of life can still be very high. Quality is different from statistics. The statistics tell us that more cars are being repossessed. But first, the Repo man comes for the unemployed guy’s car. Then, he comes for your neighbor’s car. So what? It doesn’t really matter until the Repo man drives off in your car. That’s quality.
We’re reaching for a point, here. But we’re not sure what it is…so we will stretch out our arms and see what we can grab.
Time After Time: A few years ago, we saw an interesting story in The New York Times. A man in Chicago, a recent immigrant from Greece, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He decided to go home to die. So, he moved back in with his parents on a small Greek island. To fill the time, he began working in his garden. Gradually, he felt stronger, and worked more and more. And then, in the evening, he got together with his neighbors at the local bar. They drank wine and danced. Time went by. And he didn’t die; he lived for almost another 50 years.
This was altogether good news to him. But it was bad news to the US GDP. No heroic efforts to save him; the medical system earned nothing from him. No funeral was held. No flowers were bought. No wake was held. No hearse was hired. No casket was bought. No grave was dug and no lawyer got to read the will to the bereaved relatives. All in all, it was a very disappointing time for US GDP.
But thank God for the F-35. Odometer reports: "At a whopping $1.7 trillion, America’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is the most expensive weapon in human history. The highly advanced vertical take-off and landing aircraft was supposed to be the low-cost fighter of the future. But after numerous delays, costly overbudgeting, and international partners dropping out, the price tag of the plane has only ballooned. Things got especially bad when in 2015 the 5th Gen fighter lost in numerous dogfights to older F-16 and F-15 fighter jets."
The Cost of War: The cost of the F-35 program is now estimated – if all goes well – at about the same as Canada’s GDP…including all its new houses, its salaries, its government spending and maple syrup consumption. That money, in Canada, keeps people warm, fed, housed and entertained. Is it really equal to the value of a misbegotten fighter plane? GDP tells when the economy is ‘growing’ or when it is in ‘recession.’ If the F-35 were canceled, GDP would take a hit. Would we be worse off?
Numbers don’t fib intentionally. A 3 is fairly reliable. You can even trust a 5 most of the time. But put them into a BLS formula and they become a Congressman. Then, all the prime numbers, and all that are derived from them, become liars. Especially when they have decimals in them. More to come…"
Joel’s Note: "Speaking of quality… over the weekend we promised dear readers/listeners a full transcript of the latest Fatal Conceits podcast episode, which we recorded last week with long-time friend of Bonner Private Research, Mr. Byron King. We talk shadow Russian tanker fleets… where to next for gold… BRICS nations and the trend toward de-dollarization… potential war in the South China Sea… and plenty more during our hour-long discussion.
In case you missed it the first time around, you can listen in here… or read the complete transcript (just added under the recording, along with one of Byron’s essays, also promised in the episode, titled: "Gaming America’s Next War"). There’s plenty of material in there to help you while away the breezy afternoons as you’re relaxing, stress-free, on your small Greek Island…"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)