Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/23/25
"Destroyed From Within,
3 Dominos Are Now Falling Faster Simultaneously"
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So, we rise from the rubble...
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Friday, May 23, 2025
"A Dying Man Will Try Any Medicine"
"A Dying Man Will Try Any Medicine"
by Chris MacIntosh
"Boy, oh boy are things… um… interesting. I almost miss the days of green-haired teenage girls with hairy armpits gluing themselves to the road to make the weather better. Now we have craziness at the international trade level. At its core, it’s all politics.
The now dead George Carlin had a skit where he told us why he doesn’t vote. To quote: "I don’t vote. Two reasons I don’t vote. First of all, it’s meaningless. This country was bought and sold and paid for a long time ago. The isht they shuffle around every four years… doesn’t mean a f* thing. And secondly, I don’t vote because I believe if you vote, you have no right to complain. If you vote, and you elect dishonest incompetent people and they get into office and screw everything up, well… you are responsible for what they have done."
We’ve had some conversations with clients who are questioning their own voting after the trade war kicked off. The problem with taking a position for or against any politician is that probability is not in our favour. We’re bound to be disappointed because the vast majority of these podium donuts aren’t there for our benefit. Sure, some of the things they may espouse are to our benefit, but then others aren’t. What to do? Well, I think it’s best not to get caught up in the mental gymnastics of it all and simply keep reviewing the actions and data and then making decisions for ourselves accordingly.
As far as the tariffs go, at first glance they make no sense. The orange man said they are "reciprocal," but any idiot with two thumbs and an interwebs connection can quickly do the math and determine this is hogwash. What they are is quite simple - they are based on other countries’ trade surplus with the US.
The supposition around "reciprocal" came unglued as soon as they tried to figure out why on God’s green earth there were tariffs on an uninhabited island that has only penguins. Wait… what!? Anyone then following their nose saw that the narrative fell apart faster than logic at a climate change gathering.
What this amounts to is an attempt to restructure creditors. It’s what you do in bankruptcy. Trump appears now to be bringing his experience in chapter 11 proceedings onto the global stage. This is a big deal! From where we sit, there are four big forces through history that drive everything, all of these are interconnected and in many instances causal to each other:
• The monetary and credit cycle where nations get into a sovereign debt problem, which needs to be dealt with.
• Domestic conflict, typically beginning as political disagreement, but where disagreement isn’t resolved by discourse.• A rising power challenging the existing power and causing international conflict.
• Technological changes that assist in disrupting the status quo.
So the first changes the monetary order. The second changes the political order. And the third changes the international order, while the fourth assists in ushering it in. How does this all play out? Well, let’s start with what we’ve been watching recently. No, not the Chinese laughing at bringing manufacturing back to the US…
Confucius philosophy says: "If you want to govern a country, you must first govern your family. If you want to govern your family, you must first govern yourself." The issue here isn’t about "fair trade." It is about survival, though. Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis dropped some hard truths about the real reason behind the US- China trade war:
1. The US doesn’t fear China because of "cheap labor" or "IP theft." What it truly fears is China’s capacity to undermine the US-led global financial order - the very system that allows America to print dollars and buy the world.
2. Wall Street’s aging financial architecture is losing its grip. It can’t control crypto flows. It can’t keep up with new financial ecosystems. China - with its digital yuan, vast industrial base, and rising global influence - is the first real threat to this system.
3. Trump’s "reciprocal tariffs" were never about balancing trade. They were a desperate attempt to slow down China’s rise and protect the dollar system from collapse. Because if China succeeds, the US loses its magic weapon: monetary dominance. See point 2 above.
4. Today, Trump is laser-focused on America’s financial core with the Treasury bond market (America’s lifeline) and the stock market (America’s wallet). Both are fragile. And any external pressure could trigger a chain reaction.
5. The US is now panicking over who’s selling off US Treasuries. China? Japan? Others? Trump reportedly wants to punish any surplus country that dumps Treasuries - with tariffs, of course. This is not about trade. It’s about a dying empire trying to stop the bleeding.
6. In short, America is no longer confident in its own financial fortress. And China is no longer playing by the old rules. This isn’t just a trade war - it’s a war for the future of global finance.
Further to this point, the famous Ben Rickert (for those who’ve watched "The Big Short") highlighted this issue:"For the first time ever, China’s CIPS (Cross-Border Interbank Payment System) surpassed SWIFT in single-day transaction volume. A red banner flashed across Bank of China’s HQ at 1:30AM on April 16, 2025. CIPS processed a jaw-dropping ¥12.8 trillion RMB in just one day-roughly $1.76 trillion USD. That volume, if verified, overtakes the greenback-dominated SWIFT system in sheer daily cross-border throughput.
No fireworks, no Western headlines. Just one quiet early morning in Beijing where the dollar’s crown slipped. The world’s financial plumbing just got a reroute - through China." This of course is known to those who DON’T rely solely on Western propaganda media.
Click image for larger size.
Now, consider the US bond market. The problem is that the US can’t just do what Milei is doing. The debt is too large, and because US treasuries are embedded in the very fabric of global financial markets, paying down that debt has ramifications that Milei simply doesn’t have to contend with.
To highlight the issue: consider that the most significant effort to cut government spending (DOGE) is set to yield $50 billion in annual savings. Awesome… until you realise that this is on the back of a $7.5 trillion budget. They haven’t even managed to cut 0.75% of spending. Furthermore, the US has to borrow over 10% of GDP annually to keep the lights on. Now they’re weaponizing the dollar and trade in a desperate attempt to "Make America Great Again." The rest of the world is preparing.
Click image for larger size.
Click image for larger size.
Gold has a long way to go. That being said, it is looking a bit frothy right now, so if you’re the sort that will freak out if you see a decent pullback in a bull market (20-30%), you may want to check yourself on going "all in" here. On the other hand, it’s a bull market, and if - like us - your timeframe runs into the years, then you’re simply ensuring your allocation is adequate and leaving the rest to the market gods. The old adage is worth considering - never sell a bull market and never buy a bear market. Bonds are in a bear market… and gold is in a bull market.
We are living through a rare and pivotal moment in financial history - a time when the old order is unraveling, and a new one is being born. The geopolitical chessboard is shifting, trade is being weaponized, and the dollar's dominance is quietly being challenged in real time. This isn’t business as usual. It’s a systemic clash."
Jim Kunstler, "Stumblebum's Legacy"
Saint Jake Tapper
"Stumblebum's Legacy"
by Jim Kunstler
"Every time I watch The View, I become even more misogynistic."
- Laura Loomer
"Bad as it was, “Joe Biden,” the figment president was merely one manifestation of a nation made mad by power-seeking demons, real-live, ill-intentioned human beings driving a runaway political machine, the party of hoaxes, hustles, and hatred. The country is just now struggling to exit a convulsion of mass mental illness. The demons are still there, though, and still hard at work trying to drag you all back into mass formation.
A central mystery is how the news media made itself the enemy of the people, and this conundrum is not at all explained by Jake Tapper and Alex Marshall in their book Original Sin. It’s actually just another hustle with overtones of hoax, like everything else in the evil cavalcade of narratives spun out in the news media’s war on reality. Tapper and Marshall want you to believe that a faceless collective they call “the White House” managed to conceal “Joe Biden’s” well-advanced disintegration from the voting public, and that was. . . that. The media wuz fooled! Goll-lee!
Of course, that fails to explain a whole lot — such as: how come anybody watching daily video clips of “Joe Biden” in action, could not fail to see the broken old puppet he is. Alex Marshall, receiving his “award for excellence” from the White House Correspondents’ Association weeks ago said, “We just missed it.” Yeah, sure... They also apparently missed the programmatic devastation to American society that was carried out in the old stumblebum’s name.
I will give you the key to that conundrum, and then you will understand why all this happened, and why the many lingering demons are still at it in their self-styled “resistance” to America-in-recovery. Mr. Marshall lied, you understand. The media connived with the demons. They were in on the gag the whole time.
If there is any “original sin” in the story, it revolves around Hillary Clinton. This monster emerged as the junior partner to her husband, political wonder-boy Bill Clinton. From the get-go, the narrative painted her as a wife sore-beset by her charismatic husband’s infidelities. (Forget that her only child, Chelsea, is a dead-ringer for her former law partner, Webb Hubbell.) However their connubial affairs worked, Hill and Bill had a deal: when he was done, she would eventually rise to become the first woman president, and they would go down in history as two era-defining, Boomer gen, political wonder-geniuses.
It was a flawed plan. For one thing, Hillary utterly lacked Bill’s political charisma, which was his ability to avidly engage with other people and their issues. Hillary didn’t care much for other people, and only pretended to be interested in their issues. Also, people could easily read that in her demeanor. Nobody was fooled. If anything, she had negative charm, anti-charisma. Her own interests were strictly limited to obtaining power and riches. With enough power, Hillary noticed, you didn’t need charm or charisma. You could simply order people around. But the power couple left the White House broke in 2001, and were caught trying to spirit away some of the presidential dinner-ware.
The next phase of Hillary’s career was fortune-building. The Clinton Foundation was set up in 1997, ostensibly to fund Bill’s presidential library. It would become a fantastic grift magnet in the years to come, taking them from broke-ass-broke to demi-billionaires. Her launching pad was a seat in the US Senate. (She ran and won in New York when she was still First Lady in the 2000 election.)
2008 was supposed to be Hillary’s apotheosis from senator to president. The setup was perfect. The country was tired of Double-ya Bush. The time was exactly right for a woman president. Hillary was the obvious choice by a country mile. Except that she was edged out in the primaries by the Democratic Party’s alternative play for something even more amazing, in a contest of historic firsts, than a woman president - a black president, proving to the world how morally upright the USA had become, America liked how it felt. We were good people, after all!
Barack Obama liked playing his role, and he seemed to have more charisma than Hillary (though he didn’t care much for other people either, really). His sketchy background included a lot of people tinged with Marxism, such as his mentor in Chicago, Bill Ayers, an infamous Sixties radical, rumored to have ghost-written Obama’s books. And he was ensorcelled by big bankers like Robert Rubin of CitiGroup, and by Globalist bigshots orbiting Davos and the WEF.
Yet, Senator Hillary Clinton was still aggregating power as leader of Democratic women voters, a massive base. It was clear that she would remain in the game, aiming for her eventual “turn” in the White House. So, Mr. Obama made a deal with her: he would elevate her to Secretary of State, further fortifying her credentials, and then stand behind her in a 2016 run.
Hillary used her years at State to also fortify the Clinton Foundation’s coffers in various pay-to-play schemes - such as the Skolkovo tech deal with Russia and the Uranium One deal that netted the Clinton Foundation combined pledges of over $275-million, according to Clinton Cash author Peter Schweizer. The 2010 Haiti earthquake crisis was another bonanza for the foundation and its partners. One might also surmise, from the recent DOGE reports, that the fabulous armature for grift that USAID became, spawning countless NGOs, was engineered by Obama appointees like Samantha Powers and Hillary’s State Department machine.
In 2015, Hillary, off-and-running, came to the rescue of the Democratic National Committee. The party was foundering in debt. It entered a joint fund-raising agreement with a PAC called Hillary for America (HFA) and the Hillary Victory Fund. The agreement gave Hillary control over the DNC’s finances, strategy, and staffing decisions that enabled her to snake out Senator Bernie Sanders for the nomination. Hillary’s nomination, the drive toward her “turn,” was when the trouble really blossomed.
Pitted against the rising outsider, Donald Trump, in 2016, Hillary’s lack of charisma was sinking her campaign. So, with a little help from John Brennan at the CIA, Glenn Simpson’s Fusion GPS political media company, the FBI under Director Jim Comey, and lawfare ninja Marc Elias at the Perkins Coie DC law firm, the Russia collusion hoax was dreamed up and put into action.
That was the “original sin” that set up the Party of hoaxes, hustles, and hatred to become greatest lie-spewing operation in US history, with reverberations for the decade-to-come. It also became the greatest ass-covering op in US history, with each successive raft of lies - the Mueller Investigation, impeachment #1, the stolen election of 2020 and installation of “Joe Biden,” the J-6 op, impeachment #2, the Trump prosecutions of 2024 - all requiring successive layers of cover-up and lies.
Since the news media despised Donald Trump, and was convinced by its own bullshit that Hillary would win the 2016 election, they all ran with the Russia collusion story and turned it into RussiaGate. They miscalculated, of course. Mr. Trump won, a stunning surprise, a shock really to everyone, including Mr. Trump himself, who utterly lacked experience running a government and was bamboozled, sand-bagged, and eventually hoaxed into defeat - Covid-19 being the coup-de-grace. The news media had to continue lying to the country throughout and beyond all of that to pretend that they were not equally culpable for all this mischief.
And so, they ran with every deception of “Joe Biden’s” ruinous term in office. Alas for them, the indefatigable Mr. Trump rallied, persevered through the concocted prosecutions cooked up by Norm Eisen, Mary McCord, Lisa Monaco, and the rest of lawfare ninjahood, and is now back in power with an assembled team of appointees who are the Left’s worst nightmare.
What kept it all going - all the lying, gaslighting, deception, prevarication, and sedition - was the lack of accountability. It was a fatal intoxicant. That’s over now, though turning in the direction of justice is necessarily difficult and delicate, considering the elevated level of derangement among the public, the fragility of the national psyche, and the danger signals emanating from the zeitgeist. It looks like the accounting will begin in earnest now. We are going to find out who was acting behind the empty figure of “Joe Biden,” and who ran the auto-pen. And working backward from there, this will all unspool in one, long, appalling thread of treason."
Bill Bonner, "Revenge of the Bond Yields"
"Revenge of the Bond Yields"
by Bill Bonner
From the ranch at Gualfin, Salta Province - For a change of pace, today, we look at someone else’s problem. And what we will see, alas, is that it is very similar to our own. Here’s colleague Tom Dyson: "Japanese government bonds have been cratering in price. The price of the 40-year government bond is down about 25% since August and made a new low today. It now yields 3.14%."
Bloomberg: "Japan Bonds Plunge as Weak Auction Adds to Fear Over BOJ Retreat." "The rout drove up the 20-year yield by about 15 basis points to the highest since 2000, while the yield on 30-year bonds climbed to the most since that maturity was first sold in 1999. Yields on the 40-year tenor rose to a record high. The Prime Minister’s comparison of his own nation’s fiscal position to that of Greece this week sharpened the focus on Japan’s huge debt burden." Bloomberg quoted a Japanese fund manager: “I don’t want to touch super-long bonds. The only way to improve market sentiment for super-long bonds is for the authorities to take action.”
But what action can it take? Can Japanese politicians do what Americans cannot - cut spending? Aren’t they trapped in the same ‘inflate or die’ prison as US politicians? Cut spending and the fake, credit-pumped economy collapses. Inflate…and it just gets worse, at least until interest rates rise and the whole shebang comes tumbling down.
The immediate problem as described by David Stockman: "After years of red-hot money printing and virtually zero central bank-pegged interest rates, the Bank of Japan has been forced into balance sheet shrinkage (QT), owing to a suddenly surging inflation rate that at 3.6% overall and 3.2% on the core CPI measure is actually higher than in the US, and represents a drastic break from decades of near zero inflation.
Take a good look at Japan. For there you will see key elements of our future too. Japan must now finance government debts two-and-a-half times the size of its GDP. And inflation and interest rates are going up. If the overall rate were just 2.5%, the interest payments alone would cost Japan about half its tax receipts.
The wonder of Japan’s enigmatic financial system was that the country could go so far into debt… and still pay the lowest interest rates in the world. Five years ago, the yield on a 10-year Japanese bond was 0.00%. Even today, the yield on a 10-year Japanese government bond is only 1.58%. This is despite the highest debt/GDP rank in the developed world.
In 1990, Japan’s public debt was about 30% of its GDP - even lower than the US. But then, both countries’ debt exploded. Today, US debt/GDP is over 120%. But Japan’s debt/GDP is 240%. And yet, until now…there was hardly a peep of discontent among lenders. Who would buy a bond with a 1% yield…from a country with more than twice as much debt as GDP? How would they expect to be repaid? This was an anomaly in the financial world - all-risk, no reward. It seemed to defy the rules of finance.
Some economists and political hacks argued that Japan’s example really did prove that ‘deficits don’t matter.’ At this very moment, no doubt, some ‘experts’ still cite the Japanese experience, claiming that the increased debt and deficits in the Republicans’ ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ won’t actually ‘crowd out’ private borrowing or slow the economic growth of the country. For more proof, they refer to the period in the US - 2000 to 2023 - when interest rates declined, even as federal debt ballooned. They insist that increased debt did not make it harder to borrow; it made it easier.
The simple explanation, however, is that the feds not only borrowed more money, they created it…as much as they needed…and lent it to themselves at lower and lower interest rates. This fake capital distorted the whole economy…leading both the US and Japan to the debt crises both now face, dead ahead."
The laws of finance may be flexible…frustrating…and fairly fickle… But that doesn’t mean you won’t get punished if you do something really stupid. And this week, the hanging judge was back in town and carpenters began work on the scaffold. Yields moved up all over the world - even in Japan. Tom adds an alarm: The worst case scenario is that government bonds all over the world - the supposed foundation of the global financial system - are not only NOT risk free, they may in fact be a ticking time bomb on countless balance sheets.
Note to Bondholders: that thing now being placed around your necks…it ain’t from Christian Dior."
Thursday, May 22, 2025
Canadian Prepper, "We're Fkd: Russia Massively Expands War; Trump Declares 'Nuclear Emergency!' Iran/Israel On Brink!"
Canadian Prepper, 5/22/25
"We're Fkd: Russia Massively Expands War;
Trump Declares 'Nuclear Emergency!' Iran/Israel On Brink!"
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Gerald Celente, "When Debt Bubble Explodes Markets And Economy Will Crash"
Strong Language Alert!
Gerald Celente, 5/22/25
"When Debt Bubble Explodes Markets And Economy Will Crash"
"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."
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"The Last Time This Happened 4 Major Banks Failed!"
Full screen recommended.
Steven Van Metre, 5/22/25
"The Last Time This Happened 4 Major Banks Failed!"
"The last time this happened four major banks collapsed within weeks and
the banking system nearly imploded. Now the warning signs are flashing again."
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"This Will Be Worse Than A Recession, Brace For Impact; Debt Bomb Ticking; Home Sales Slammed"
Jeremiah Babe, 5/22/25
"This Will Be Worse Than A Recession, Brace For Impact;
Debt Bomb Ticking; Home Sales Slammed"
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Musical Interlude: 2002, “The Emerald Way”
Full screen recommended.
2002, “The Emerald Way”
“This is the title track to our album, ‘The Emerald Way.’ The Emerald Way refers to that moment in life when a pivotal choice must be made – to choose the way that is customary and expected of us – or to head down the overgrown hidden path leading to the unknown.”
"A Look to the Heavens"
"No, hamburgers are not this big. What is pictured is a sharp telescopic view of a magnificent edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 3628, a puffy galactic disk divided by dark dust lanes. Of course, this deep galactic portrait puts some astronomers in mind of its popular moniker, The Hamburger Galaxy.
The tantalizing island universe is about 100,000 light-years across and 35 million light-years away in the northern springtime constellation Leo. NGC 3628 shares its neighborhood in the local Universe with two other large spirals M65 and M66 in a grouping otherwise known as the Leo Triplet. Gravitational interactions with its cosmic neighbors are likely responsible for the extended flare and warp of this spiral's disk.”
"Be That Thing..."
“In Rome just as America, in the forum just as on Facebook, there was the temptation to replace action with argument. To philosophize instead of living philosophically. Today, in a society obsessed with content, outrage, and drama, it’s even easier to get lost in the echo chamber of the debate of what’s “better.” We can have endless discussions about what’s right and wrong. What should we do in this hypothetical situation or that one? How can we encourage other people to be better? (We can even debate the meaning of the above line: “What’s a man? What’s the definition of good? Why doesn’t it mention women?”) Of course, this is all a distraction. If you want to try to make the world a slightly better place, there’s a lot you can do. But only one thing guarantees an impact. Step away from the argument. Dig yourself out of the rubble. Stop wasting time with how things should be, would be, could be. Be that thing.”
- Ryan Holiday
"Soon Or Late..."
“A craven can be as brave as any man, when there is nothing to fear. And we all do our duty, when there is no cost to it. How easy it seems then, to walk the path of honor. Yet soon or late in every man’s life comes a day when it is not easy, a day when he must choose.”
- George R.R. Martin
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
$7.6 Trillion Debt Wall Hits as US Scrambles For Buyers
Full screen recommended.
ITM TRADING, INC. 5/22/25
$7.6 Trillion Debt Wall Hits as US Scrambles For Buyers
"The U.S. faces a $7.6 trillion debt wall and no one wants to lend. The dollar’s credibility is spiraling, and central banks are buying gold. What does this mean for your savings and retirement? Taylor Kenney breaks it down–and what you can do before it’s too late."
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o
Full screen recommended.
Electric, 5/22/25
"Walmart Shuts Down Facilities In U.S. Over Trump’s Tariffs"
"In 2025, Walmart, America’s retail titan, stunned consumers with price hikes driven by Trump’s tariffs, which hit 145% on Chinese goods before settling at 30%. This shift shattered Walmart’s low-price identity, with staples like avocados, baby gear, and toys - like a Barbie doll jumping from $10.49 to $14.99 - seeing sharp increases. Beyond retail, Walmart’s response signals a broader economic pivot. The company rewired its supply chain, sourcing from Vietnam, India, and Mexico, and accelerated automation to offset rising costs, prioritizing survival over its Americana image. Critics called it a betrayal, while executives argued tariffs made domestic manufacturing unsustainable. President Trump’s fiery reaction, demanding Walmart absorb costs, ignited political backlash, with his base labeling the retailer unpatriotic. Walmart’s earnings revealed resilience - $165.61 billion in revenue - but profits suffered, propped up by cost-cutting, not retail strength. The ripple effects hit hard: small-town America faces job cuts, downsized distribution hubs, and sidelined local suppliers, shaking housing, schools, and healthcare in rural areas. Walmart’s tech-heavy, online-first stores need fewer workers, risking further community erosion. As tariffs fuel inflation and automation displaces jobs, Walmart’s pivot may lead other retailers abroad, challenging American economic stability. This isn’t just about retail - it’s about jobs, consumer wallets, and global power plays. Is Walmart’s move a necessity or a betrayal? The answer will shape the future of Main Street and beyond."
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Dan, I Allegedly, "There is No DOGE Payment Coming - Beware!"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, PM 5/22/25
"There is No DOGE Payment Coming - Beware!"
"Scammers are getting smarter, but we’re here to stay one step ahead. In today’s video, I’m exposing the Doge Refund Scam that’s targeting people with fake promises of $5,000 checks. Let me say this clearly - there is NO Doge stimulus or refund check! These scams are designed to steal your personal information, and they’re becoming more sophisticated by the day. Whether it’s fake IRS messages, bogus toll road fines, or cleverly disguised crypto scams, the goal is always the same: to trick you into giving up your data or money. I’ll also talk about common scams like fraudulent job offers, fake package delivery texts, and phishing attempts pretending to be from government agencies. Protect yourself by verifying everything and NEVER clicking on suspicious links. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
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"We Can Only Choose..."
"Our world is not safe. It is a toxic swamp populated by predators and parasites. The odds are stacked against us from the moment of conception. We survive only because we fight the elements, hunger, disease, each other. And, although civilization promises us safe harbor, that promise is a fairy tale. Only the storm is real. It comes for each of us. And we cannot win. We can only choose how we will suffer our defeat. We can meekly take our beatings, and die like lemmings, finding solace in the belief that we shall one day inherit the earth. Or, we can plunge into the chaos with eyes wide open, taking comfort instead from the bruises, scars, and broken bones which prove that we fought to live and die as gods. "
- J.K. Franko, "Life for Life"
○
"The worst part is wondering how you'll find the strength tomorrow to go on doing what you did today and have been doing for much too long, where you'll find the strength for all that stupid running around, those projects that come to nothing, those attempts to escape from crushing necessity, which always founder and serve only to convince you one more time that destiny is implacable, that every night will find you down and out, crushed by the dread of more and more sordid and insecure tomorrows. And maybe it's treacherous old age coming on, threatening the worst. Not much music left inside us for life to dance to. Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn't enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I've never been able to kill myself. "
- Louis-Ferdinand Celineo
○
"In the movie 'The Lion in Winter', when the sons, in the dungeon, think they hear Henry coming down the stairs to kill them:
Richard: "He's here! He'll get no satisfaction out of us! Don't let him see you beg! Take it like a man!"
Geoffrey: "You chivalric fool! As if the way one falls down matters!"
Richard: "Well, when the fall is all that's left, it matters a great deal. "
○
"The Quality of Information Within A Hierarchy"
"The Quality of Information Within A Hierarchy"
by Paul Rosenberg
"People very often expect authorities to possess superior information. After all, the assumptions of the 20th century were that those at the top of large systems have information the rest of us don’t, and that they make better decisions because of it. This was the lesson of the factory, the military and government. In all cases, those at the top were believed to have the best information.
In actual practice, however, those at the top don’t get the best information. An FBI agent in Minneapolis, to use a famous example, knew all about the bizarre behavior of the 9/11 hijackers, but that information never reached those who were expected to use it.
There are many more examples, of course. The military is full of them; ask a 20-year corporal or sergeant some time. Pretty much every mid-level manager at a corporation can tell you the same types of stories. And by now we should all know how deeply “out of it” high level politicians are.
The problem is not the people involved, however; the problem is the structure. All of these are hierarchies, and all, necessarily, pass information up and down between levels of the structure. And that is a problem. The crucial fact is this: As information is passed through the levels of a hierarchy, it is filtered.
This much is not seriously questionable. Corporate analysts have been talking about it for decades, trying to “flatten” the corporation. And again, this is caused by the structure itself, not by the quality of the individuals involved. A person with exceptionally high integrity will filter less, but since we’re talking about structures involving thousands of people, that’s not a significant factor. Hierarchies filter information because of their structure.
Filtered How?
Information flow in a hierarchy is filtered in any number of ways, with the political schemes of the participants being a major factor. (Political scheming in the corporate sense, that is: lining up allies, controlling others, and so on… relying upon influence more than substance.)
The more pervasive factor, however, involves the control of will. That sounds odd at first, and even irrelevant, but it isn’t. The constraint of individual will is the fundamental operating feature of hierarchy. The hierarchy must get individual humans to do the hierarchy’s will rather than their personal will, if it is to survive. Individuals within a hierarchy must obey orders. They must serve the goals of the system rather than their own. The hierarchy cannot survive without this. It is the fundamental operation.
Hierarchies obtain this sacrifice of will in a variety of ways, the chief of which are, Corporations offering paychecks in return for the correct sacrifice of personal will. Also offering status. Governments offering a sense of belonging in return for the correct sacrifice of personal will. Additionally the promise of protection, agreeing to stand as the responsible party (removing the threat of shame from the individual) and providing someone to blame, generally in the form of political parties and their leaders. (Allowing us to blame the parties, but not the overall structure.)
The general culture of a hierarchy, then, majors upon the control of individual will. The filtration of information in a hierarchy concentrates the control of individual will. In some cases this involves orders and punishments. In others, as in political campaigns, it focuses upon bending the will of the individual to the desires of the structure. That is, people are frightened or seduced rather than forced.
The quality of information within the hierarchy is distorted and tends to become anti-individual, pro-collective, pro-indoctrination and pro-authority. In the end, hierarchy tends to be contemptuous of stand-alone life, smaller systems and non-centralized systems. Hierarchy recognizes other hierarchies and treats non-hierarchies as foreign. Large recognizes large and sees small as a nuisance.
A Final Illustration: I’ll leave you with one final illustration of this effect. It’s something Bill Bonner passed along in 2009, quoting a US Senate functionary with whom he had recently met: "You don’t understand, these people live in a Bubble World. They’re protected from the real world by their staffs and by the system itself. You imagine that they would know what is going on. But they don’t. They know less than we do. And they’ll be the last to find out. They are so busy meeting constituents…dealing with donors…working out deals with their political parties and supporters… and feeling like big shots… they don’t really have any time to study the issues. So they count on staff and party committees to tell them what to say, how to vote… and what to think."
So, when you see people at the top of hierarchies disconnected from reality, remember that the structure itself is a big part of the problem."
"The Struggle Of Science"
"The Struggle Of Science"
by The ZMan
"For a while, it seemed like the human sciences might finally close the gap between metaphysics and morality that has plagued us for so long. The age of ideology has relied upon the blurry, unclear understanding of human nature to get away with moral systems that are objectively inhuman. If the sciences could clear up certain things about the human condition, then it would force the ideologues to rethink their claims about how humans ought to act and organize.
The ideologues had an answer to this and that was to declare much of the human sciences haram. The crazies were sent out to proliferate the term “race science” which simply means any science that contradicts the one true faith. The human biodiversity guys never got their head around it and as a result that scene has receded into the shadows of the internet. The people in the professional sciences took the path blazed by conservatives and bent the knee to the crazies.
Team science, in their shadowy warrens on the internet and secret gatherings within the institutions, takes solace in the belief that reality is that thing which does not go away when you stop believing in it. Eventually, the reality of the human condition, as understood by science, will prevail over the increasingly bizarre claims that we see from the ideologues. After all, math must eventually prevail over the people who think you are assigned a sex at birth.
That is most certainly true to a degree. The great snapback we are seeing in public attitudes on a range of issues is due to the excesses of the crazies. It is one thing for a man to put on a dress and parade around town in it. It is another for that man to insist everyone play make-believe with him. One of the truths about progressive values is they prevail only where they comport with general Christian values. When they collide with those values or physical reality, they crumble.
That is what we are seeing now. It was reasonable for the crazies to demand that normal people tolerate the guy in the dress. Tolerance has deep roots in Christian ethics to the point where it is a habit of mind for Western people. The crazies could appeal to that deeply held belief in favor of the pervert. When they demanded that the pervert in the dress have easy access to your kids, then things changed. In the fullness of time, it will be the lurch towards the kids that ended the woke terror.
This is not much help to team science, which remains in a defensive crouch, wondering if they will get a reprieve. The answer is probably no, at least not until the egalitarian ideology is defeated by other means. Intelligence studies, for example, are just about banned at this point and will remain so. If you want to do that work, you will find no funding and no support. The best you can do is bundle it up in another area of research that passes muster with the academic clergy.
It is a good example of how facts have no chance against feelings. Facts may not care about your feelings, but feelings are in charge. This has always been so and that is a fact that the fact-people never grasp. You get a sense of it in this hilarious thread by an old HBD guy on Twitter. You get the sense that he is completely baffled as to why people think he is the crazy one in the thread. Despite his “theory of the mind” pretensions, he has no idea how people think.
Another example is this post by Steve Stewart-Williams on the topic of homosexuality and its possible genetic causes. Since the dawn of time, humans have understood that some men are sexually attracted to men, rather than women. It was a problem to be managed, from a societal perspective. This remains true. The causes of homosexuality are not terribly important. Even if team science finally figures out the puzzle, no one will care because it is not important.
What is important, regarding homosexuality, is how society deals with it in the context of social health and fitness. Until recently, we had that worked out, so if science does crack the puzzle, the most likely result will be a eugenic solution to once again solve the homosexuality problem from a societal perspective. Couples will demand tools to make sure their child is not a homosexual. After all, no one has ever hoped their child would grow up to be a happy, healthy homosexual.
The reason science has lost every fight with belief since Galileo is that science is an unsatisfactory replacement for belief. Humans are believing machines, so if you destroy their current beliefs, they do not stop believing. They simply find something new to believe, often something ridiculous, like communism. This is something team science has never been able to grasp. Muttering “but it moves” does not help them and it did not help Galileo either.
That is not to say that science is bunk. Some of it is, for sure. The Covid revelations that are trickling out show how easily science is corrupted. The reason the HBD world is a bit of laughingstock now is they fell for the Covid nonsense. Science is a tool and like all of our tools, it will be used to make our world as we think it ought to be, for no other reason than we believe it should be so. If science is not the right tool for the job, then we find different tools and maybe hang the scientists.
As we enter the final phase of the last great ideology, it will not be the death of belief and the rise of reason. Instead, it will be the death of those old universal believes in favor of more practical and useful beliefs. Science will be a tool in the struggle, but it will not replace the dying ideology. This is not the future. The future will be what we make of it, and “we” will be those who win the great struggle for who rules. In the end, science tells us that it is always who shall overcome whom."
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”
o
"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."
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:
"We Are Looking Down The Barrel Of A Worldwide Credit Market Crisis That Threatens To Be Absolutely Horrific"
"We Are Looking Down The Barrel Of A Worldwide
Credit Market Crisis That Threatens To Be Absolutely Horrific"
by Michael Snyder
"National governments around the world are collectively more than 100 trillion dollars in debt. The United States accounts for about 35 percent of that total, China accounts for about 16 percent of that total, and Japan accounts for about 10 percent of that total. For a long time, national governments were able to fund their debt binges very cheaply, but now nervous investors are demanding higher interest rates to hold long-term government debt. This is driving up borrowing costs, and it has thrown credit markets around the globe into a state of chaos. If bond yields continue to rise at a very brisk pace, there is a risk that investors could become so nervous that credit markets actually start freezing up. If that were to happen, the entire global financial system would go completely haywire.
Yesterday, I specifically warned that we need to keep “a close eye on Japanese bond yields”.
Today, tepid demand for 20-year Japanese bonds pushed Japanese bond yields into extremely alarming territory…"The Tokyo tremor began on Tuesday, when the government tried to sell 1 trillion yen (£5.2bn) of March 2045 bonds and encountered lacklustre demand. The average bid-to-cover ratio, which measures investor appetite, dropped to 2.5 – the lowest since 2012. The 1.14-point gap between the average and lowest-accepted prices, known as the “tail”, was the longest since 1987. Investors responded by pushing the Japanese government 20-year yield to the highest this century, and the 30-year yield to a record."
This is a monster story. I don’t understand why this isn’t front page news all over the planet. The shaking of the financial system in Japan is unlike anything that we have seen in decades. Of course the U.S. financial system is being shaken as well. Moody’s just downgraded our credit rating, and Treasury bond yields continue to rise…
"The 30-year Treasury bond yield last traded around 5.08%, the highest level going back to October 2023. The benchmark 10-year Treasury note yield traded at 4.59%. Long-dated bonds sold off as traders worried a new budget bill would worsen the U.S. deficit. The measure is expected to pass as lawmakers reach a compromise on state and local tax deductions as investors head into Speaker Mike Johnson’s Memorial Day deadline. Yields spiked even higher after a poor afternoon auction for 20-year debt, raising fears investors may be losing their appetite for funding America’s deficits."
Just like we are witnessing in Japan, investors are quickly losing their appetite for our bonds. We are already spending about a trillion dollars a year just in interest on the national debt, and now our borrowing costs could be headed a lot higher. This is extremely bad news.
One analyst is warning that we have entered a time when “bond traders are willing to punish high-debt nations with large deficits”…“The pressure on both Japanese and US bonds this week is a sign bond traders are willing to punish high-debt nations with large deficits,” says Kathleen Brooks, an analyst at XTB."
In other words, the party is ending. But our politicians in Washington don’t seem to have gotten the memo. The spending bill that is currently going through Congress would add another 20 trillion dollars to the national debt in the years ahead. That is suicidal. We just can’t do that.
We have been able to defy the laws of economics for a long time, but now economic reality is catching up with us in a major way. Needless to say, the Europeans are in the same boat, and Google AI says that their bond yields have been rising as well this month…"European government bond yields have generally increased this month, particularly for longer-dated bonds. For example, TradingView reports that Eurozone government bond yields rose on Wednesday due to oil price increases, with Germany’s 10-year yield up 4 basis points. Over the month, Germany’s 10-year yield has increased by 18 basis points, while the UK’s 10-year yield has increased by 19 basis points."
What we are witnessing is truly a worldwide phenomenon. The global trade war has made everyone very jittery. GDP projections have turned negative all over the planet, and some nations such as Japan have already entered contraction territory. In an environment where global economic activity is slower, that is going to make it even more difficult for national governments to bring in sufficient revenue to service their debts. So investors are demanding higher rates, and that is going to push up borrowing costs. Of course higher borrowing costs will put additional pressure on the finances of national governments.
We could potentially be entering a vicious cycle of higher rates and higher borrowing costs, and that wouldn’t be good for any of us. If interest rates rise too quickly, that could spark a major derivatives crisis. According to Google AI, interest rate derivatives account for “about 80% of the total global OTC derivatives notional outstanding”…
"The global market for interest rate derivatives (IRDs) is a significant portion of the overall derivatives market. At the end of 2023, the notional outstanding for IRDs was approximately $579 trillion. This figure represented about 80% of the total global OTC derivatives notional outstanding, as of mid-year 2023. IRDs, including interest rate swaps, forward rate agreements (FRAs), and options, are used by financial institutions to manage interest rate risk."
A major derivatives crisis would be extremely destructive. For a moment, try to imagine a giant financial tsunami that smashes one enormous financial institution after another with no end in sight. That is what we are potentially facing. For years, I have been warning about the enormous amount of exposure that the largest U.S. banks have to derivatives. But for a long time, it seemed like everything would be just fine. Unfortunately, a day of reckoning is now upon us, and it appears that this crisis could soon get really, really messy.
o
Speaking of derivatives...
"$2.5 Quadrillion Disaster Waiting to Happen –
Egon von Greyerz"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"There is sufficiency in the world
for Man's need but not for his greed."
- Mahatma Gandhi
"Egon von Greyerz (EvG) stores gold for clients at the biggest private gold vault in the world buried deep in the Swiss Alps. EvG is a financial and precious metals expert. EvG is a former Swiss banker and an expert in risk. He says the risk in the global markets has never been this high.
EvG explains, “Credit has increased dramatically through derivatives. All instruments being issued now by banks, pension funds, stock funds, it’s all synthetic. There is no real underlying payments in anything almost. Therefore, my estimate for derivatives would be at least $2 quadrillion, and I think that is probably conservative. Then, we have debt on top of that of $300 trillion, and we also have a couple hundred trillion dollars of unfunded liabilities. So, we are talking about $2.5 QUADRILLION, and that’s with a global GDP of $88 trillion. So, there is a disaster waiting to happen, and especially because all this created money has created no value whatsoever. I always knew this would collapse, and it’s taken longer than I expected, but I think we are at the end of a major era.
These derivatives, at some point soon, will actually turn into debt. Central banks will have to cover all the outstanding liabilities of the commercial banks as we are seeing now with Credit Suisse, Bank of England and etc. This is going to happen across the board. Whether it’s called derivatives or called debt, as far as I am concerned, it’s the same thing. It will have the same effect on the world financial system, which will be disastrous, of course.”
EvG says the derivative markets were simply a way for financial institutions to carry debt and not show it on their balance sheets. In the end, everything will balance out. EvG goes on to say, “Nobody can repay the debt, and they can’t even pay interest. So, therefore, when the debt implodes, so will the assets that were financed by this debt. So, both sides of the balance sheet have to come down. Whether it comes down by 50%, 75% or 90%, I don’t know. All I think about is risk, and the financial system will not survive in its present form. Central banks only use one kind of medicine, and that is more printed money. Now, you are getting negative returns on printed money. So, that is not going to save anything.
Sadly we are looking at a situation when this system will start to implode. The rich are still rich, but the poor are really poor. Overall in the UK, Germany and most European countries, people don’t have enough money to live. This is a human disaster already. With food costs going up 25% and energy going up the same and gasoline, interest rates and rents, people don’t have enough money, and that is happening now. It’s a human disaster of mega proportions. It’s so sad, and governments will have no chance of doing anything about it. The risk is increasing exponentially, and it is going to get worse.” There is much more in the 43-minute interview.
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with Egon von Greyerz of Matterhorn Asset Management, which can be found on GoldSwitzerland.com.
o
Dan, I Allegedly, "Criminals in Government? No Way!"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 5/22/25
"Criminals in Government? No Way!"
"The shocking truth is out - government employees misusing credit cards for personal indulgences like gambling, luxury trips, and even adult entertainment has been exposed. Watch as I break down this outrageous scandal and discuss how billions of taxpayer dollars were wasted without accountability! Two senators, James Comer and Joni Ernst, are leading the charge to bring transparency to this madness. We also touch on other eye-opening topics, including the value of your genetic data being sold without your consent, Home Depot's response to the cooling housing market, and Elon Musk's recent announcements about his future plans. Plus, find out about the latest business closures and how crime is impacting small businesses across the country. Do you think these individuals should face jail time? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!"
Comments here:
Bill Bonner, "Capitol Farce"
"Capitol Farce"
by Bill Bonner
From the ranch at Gualfin - "‘Don’t f*** around with Medicaid...’ - -Donald Trump to House Republicans
We remind readers that we do not take sides...nor do we imagine that we know the future. Our goal is merely to try to understand the Primary Trend and thus avoid the Big Loss. Being on the right side of the Primary Trend is the real key to increasing long-term wealth. So far this century, investors beat the stock market (the Dow) three to one, just by being in the best, safest asset class - gold. Can that go for another 25 years? We don’t know...that’s why we’re paying attention to the farce now playing out on Capitol Hill.
We also remind ourselves that the Primary Trend is not determined by what people want...or what they expect. Instead, they get what they deserve... shaped by patterns of history rather than the conscious efforts of those who live in it. In the news yesterday... Barrons: "The bond market’s May meltdown has taken a turn for the worse. Long U.S. bonds sold off Wednesday, pushing their yields through their 5% ceiling…. Bond yields and prices move inversely. The rise in yields was exacerbated by a disappointing 20-year U.S. Treasury auction.
That 5% level has been the general cap on the 30-year for about two decades, and the security hasn’t closed above it since October 2023. The 10-year Treasury’s yield, at 4.539% on Wednesday, has moved past its own psychological threshold of 4.5%."
Why are bonds selling off? Congressman Thomas Massie told us yesterday. Bond buyers have eyes and ears. They see Congress recklessly passing another big spending/big debt budget...and they “realize we aren’t fiscally responsible.”
Bloomberg: "Congress Pulls Tax Cut All-Nighter With SALT Fight Unresolved." Once the House passes the bill, the Senate could take weeks - if not months - to revise and approve the legislation. The Republican budget proposal...already more than 1,000 pages of exceptions, qualifications, ifs and maybes... is getting more complicated all the time.
We can simplify. The idea is to pass a ‘big, beautiful bill’ that changes everything... but nothing. Some spending will be cut. Some will increase. Some people will get a juicy plum (keep reading)...others will get lumps of coal. The ‘all nighters’ determine which group has the stamina, insomnia, or lobbyists to get what it is after.
Here’s another headline from yesterday. USA Today: "Senate unanimously approves bill to create tax deduction for cash." The deduction would only apply to cash tips and could be claimed by people who earn up to $160,000, which would rise along with inflation. Wow. Not a single member of the Senate thinks that tips should be treated like any other form of income. Not a one of them, apparently, is worried about raising deficits by reducing taxes.
This is a sign of a country that is not ready for a major change in direction...one that is not desperate for reform. And how about this? Donald Trump went over to Capitol Hill. His mission: to make sure Republicans didn’t actually try to cut spending. In addition to telling them not to ‘f*** with Medicaid,’ he told them that he didn’t want ‘anything meaningful’ cut, but was instead focused on ‘waste, fraud and abuse.’
This is what you’d expect...from a leader who is not interested in real disruption. No need to make sacrifices. No need to change course. No need to cut ‘anything meaningful’. Things are basically OK; just trim out the ‘waste, fraud and abuse.’ Are we already headed to a $60 trillion national debt...with interest payments that will take up half of all tax receipts? What’s the big worry? We’ll cut taxes on tips...and make the deficits even larger.
Have Medicare rolls doubled...to 80 million people (Trump himself added 10 million of them during his first term) since Obama expanded the program? Do they not cost $11,600 per person? And couldn’t $4 trillion be saved by turning back the eligibility standards to the pre-Obama era? Couldn’t America really be made Great Again if some fundamental changes were made? Nah, never mind...don’t f*** with it."
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