Salem, Ohio, USA. Thanks for stopping by!
So, we rise from the rubble...
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Tuesday, December 29, 2020
"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 12/29/20"
"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 12/29/20"
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DECEMBER 29, 2020 AT 2:52 PM: "Colorado Confirms 1st Case Of "Mutant" COVID; California Extends Lockdown Order: Live Updates"
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Dec. 29, 2020 2:04 PM ET:
The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 81,625,000
people, according to official counts, including 19,421,685 Americans.
At least 1,781,600 have died.
Dec. 29, 2020 2:04 PM ET:
Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count○
"The COVID Tracking Project"
Every day, our volunteers compile the latest numbers on tests, cases,
hospitalizations, and patient outcomes from every US state and territory.
- https://covidtracking.com/
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Every day, our volunteers compile the latest numbers on tests, cases,
hospitalizations, and patient outcomes from every US state and territory.
- https://covidtracking.com/
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"We All Got Problems..."
"We all got problems. But there's a great book out called "Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart. " Did you see that? That book says the statute of limitations has expired on all childhood traumas. Get your stuff together and get on with your life, man. Stop whinin' about what's wrong, because everybody's had a rough time, in one way or another. "
- Quincy Jones
“Welcome to Life. There Are Only Hard Facts and Harder Decisions”
“Welcome to Life.
There Are Only Hard Facts and Harder Decisions”
by Ryan Holiday
“One thing this pandemic has shown is that people have a problem facing facts. I don’t mean facts in the sense of the scientific data, although that’s clearly a problem as well judging by the litany of conspiracy theories that have become acceptable even in polite company. I mean “facts” in the more colloquial sense – of coming to terms with reality and accepting it on reality’s terms. Just look at COVID-19.
We’ve taken a merciless, apolitical, indifferent but pretty well-understood virus, scientifically speaking, and turned it into a divisive, partisan argument. Every molecule seems subject to debate, because we have somehow come to believe that what we think about it, or our own personal needs in relation to it, have some relevance to its airborne spread from person to person, and its ability to kill with ruthlessness and painful efficiency.
Perhaps nothing captures this impotent rage better than a tweet I saw from Laura Ingraham:
OK, Karen, would you like to speak to COVID-19’s manager?
Back here in reality where the rest of us live, it is an inescapable truth of human existence that there are some crises and problems so bad that they force those affected by them to live with the uncertainty that the crises create. They force us to stop doing things we’d like to do. They cost us things we really can’t afford. But, alas, there is no degree of forcefulness to an opinion nor staggering amount of need that can change those facts.
Imagine someone living in America in 1942. No one could have told them when they’d be able to travel to Europe to see their aging parents again. No one could have told them when the rationing would stop. No one would have been able to say when their son would be released from the Army. No one could promise them that they were safe in their homes and would ultimately survive. The world war was a fact, and everybody had to deal with it. Like it or not.
Life is like this. It’s uncertain. It’s uncomfortable. It doesn’t really care whether we really want or need something. It doesn’t care about us at all, really, it just is.
Many years ago, I wrote a piece about our tendency to think that we could “vote on reality,” and how the internet was designed to encourage this impulse. From Twitter to Facebook to blogging, the platforms of social media are designed around the insidious idea that your opinion about things changes what they unflinchingly are.
I think this is what Foster the People is singing about in their song, “The Truth”:
“Well an absolute measure won’t change with opinion
no matter how hard you try
It’s an immovable thing…”
We are seduced by the idea that not liking some element of reality is powerful enough to will it to be different. That a simple objection is more powerful than objectivity. Of course, the Stoics had no time for this. Facts are facts, they say. Fate or Fortune or death have no care for your opinion.
They were like Civil War historian James McPherson who, responding to Abraham Lincoln’s 1862 claim that European allies seemed to care more about tiny Northern defeats than his major victories, said simply: “Unreasonable it may have been, but it was a reality.”
When we talk about facing facts, we are in part talking about making the hard choices that life demands – which usually means doing the harder thing. “At the top,” Secretary of State Dean Acheson once observed about the presidency, “there are no easy choices. All are between evils, the consequences of which are hard to judge.” He meant that all the simple, easy stuff gets handled by people lower down on the chain. The obvious stuff never makes it to the Oval Office. And so it is with life, too – the easy stuff is never much of an issue. There’s never any uncertainty about the things that don’t require any sacrifice and pain.
I think he also means that it’s not the choices that are hard. In fact, the right thing is often obvious. It’s the consequences and the costs of that choice that are hard. It’s the complicated, difficult, unpleasant stuff that we adults end up having to wrestle with on the other side of our decisions that make the decisions seem so difficult.
In reality, when it comes to a pandemic or a bankruptcy or a failing marriage, the choices are easy to the extent that they are simple and clear. It’s this or this. It’s A or B or C. The difficulty comes with the hard facts that must be swallowed as a consequence of picking one of those easy choices. Don’t you dare think that Acheson, when he said the consequences were hard to judge, was excusing leaders who preferred their own fantasies or wishful thinking to the hard realities of geopolitics.
I see this with some of my friends, now considering whether to send their kids back to school. Even though most of the advice is against it; even though they regularly go overboard protecting their families from all sorts of much less dangerous things than a pandemic; even though they are otherwise good people who care about how their actions affect others—here they are saying something to the effect of “Well, it’s just so hard to know what the right thing is.” Or my favorite: “How much longer can this go on?” Truth goes on as long as it’s true!
What we’re saying when we throw up our hands at something like reopening the schools is, “I have a sense that I’m not making the right decision, but if I act bewildered, it excuses me from the consequences.” Or they are saying, “I get that generally this is a really bad idea, but my specific circumstances should be exempt from the otherwise unfavorable facts because it hasn’t been a problem in my town yet and the consequences of the other choice are more difficult than I’m comfortable with.” No!
How has the track record for not listening to expert opinion gone in the United States over the last 10 months? Oh, right, it’s created one of the worst coronavirus breakouts in the world, one that has seen US citizens banned from international travel en masse, and has mayors from Texas to New York City requesting extra freezer trucks to support their overflowing morgues. 1,764,300 dead worldwide! 588 9/11s. 31 Vietnams. 90 times more than the American Revolution. (And the fact that lots of people also die of heart disease is not a response. They are dying of that too.) The country that, for a century, was called to rescue other countries from natural disasters is now the unlikely recipient of pity from New Zealand, Italy and Denmark. People love to talk about American exceptionalism – well, we are being exceptionally stupid.
And so we are now entering another phase of the crisis that will undeniably be shaped by people who, instead of dealing honestly and critically with the reality of the situation, are letting all sorts of other factors shape what they’re seeing (note: obviously the real blame lies with the feckless leaders who put them in the position in the first place). No sane person would look at a country with 500,000 new cases and 2,196+ deaths a day and think: “I should probably send my kid to hang out with thousands of other kids in small rooms, right?” Yet here we are, talking about how life has to go back to normal sometime… But kids need school! you reply.
I am reminded of a conversation between Col. Harry G. Summers and a North Vietnamese colonel after the Vietnam War. Summers pointed out that the US was never beaten on the battlefield. The man replied, “That is true. It is also irrelevant.”
We need a lot of things. My kids certainly do. But the facts come first, so we’re staying home. Not because we want to, but because, in truth, there is no choice. It’s why my businesses remain closed too.
There is not much upside in a pandemic – not one that has killed 336,400 Americans and 1,764,300 people worldwide. But there is a lesson in it. It’s a lesson that we have done our best not to learn, that we have fought for some time now. That lesson is this: Life is hard. It is filled with hard facts and hard decisions. You cannot flee it. You can only defer the consequences for so long or, perhaps, if you are content to be an assh*le, shirk them onto some other innocent person.
Facts don’t care how hard they are. Just because you can’t bear something doesn’t mean it doesn’t have to be borne. Just because you have an opinion – or a need – doesn’t mean it’s relevant. “There is a truth,” it says in the song I mentioned earlier, “I can promise you that.”
It’s time to wake up, put on our big boy pants, and accept that we are living through a period of great discomfort and frightening uncertainty, and what you think or feel about that fact has precisely zero impact on the truth of our new reality We have to face the truth. Do the hard thing.”
Musical Interlude: Moby, "Love Of Strings"
Moby, "Love Of Strings"
Full screen highly recommended!
Life, magnificent, precious Life...
"Economic Market Snapshot AM 12/29/20"
"Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
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Gregory Mannarino,
"Important Updates: "Stock Market, Ripple,
Bitcoin, Gold, Silver, Dollar, Debt, More!"
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"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
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"Economic Market Snapshot AM 12/29/20"
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MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates
CNN Market Data:
CNN Fear And Greed Index:
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A comprehensive, essential daily read.
Daily Updates, Dec 28th to 29th
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Daily Job Cuts
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And now, the End Game...
$600 Stimulus Checks Won't Pull America Out Of This Mess"
$600 Stimulus Checks Won't Pull America Out Of This Mess"
by Michael Snyder
"Well, it looks like we are going to get $600 stimulus payments from the federal government after all. Oh goody! For the millions of Americans that are on the brink of being evicted from their homes, that will be enough for about half a mortgage payment or about half a month of rent. Many are referring to this as America’s “let them eat cake moment”, and that probably is not too far off target. As our politicians spend hundreds of billions of dollars on other nonsense, we are supposed to be deeply grateful to them for tossing a few hundred bucks our way. But the truth is that $600 dollars does not go as far as it once did. 20 years ago, it would have bought more groceries than any of us could have possibly put into a single vehicle, but today it will buy about two carts of food and maybe a tank of gas.
If we are going to go “full Weimar” and destroy any hope of ever getting our national finances under control, we might as well make the checks big enough to smile about.
But while you get a measly $600, the federal government is spending $6,900,000 on a “smart toilet” which can actually recognize a user’s “analprint”: "In his latest report on federal government waste, a project he completes every year, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) highlights $54.7 billion in government spending that he deems wasteful. Among the items noted this year is the creation of a $6.9 million “smart toilet,” which operates with three cameras, one of which can identify a user’s “analprint.” As explained in The Festivus Report 2020, researchers at Stanford University used $6,973,057 in funds granted through the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to create a so-called “smart toilet.”
Really? Just when I think that it can’t possibly get any worse, the federal government comes up with even more bizarre ways to waste our tax dollars. At least if we were only spending what we brought in I could live with that. But instead, we have been stealing more than $100,000,000 dollars from future generations of Americans every single hour of every single day ever since Barack Obama first entered the White House.
I am not just picking on the Democrats. At this point most Republicans have abandoned any pretense of fiscal responsibility, and that fact makes me sick to my stomach. Today, we are 27.5 trillion dollars in debt, and soon it will be 30 trillion dollars.
If we are going to liquidate the nation anyway, let’s give people checks that are so large that they will be dancing in the streets. Because giving people $600 checks in this economic environment is essentially the equivalent of spitting into Niagara Falls. Let me try to illustrate what I am talking about. Right now, there are 12 million U.S. renters that are more than $5,000 behind on their rent and utilities: "The newest data from Moody’s Analytics shows about 12 million renters are now at least $5,850 behind in rent and utilities payments - and eviction protections expire in weeks."
Okay, so let’s assume that all of those people get $600 payments on a timely basis. In the end, on average they will still be about $5000 behind on their payments, and the start of a new month is right around the corner. And there are millions of other Americans that are living so close to the edge financially that they have been putting their rent payments on a credit card:
"There’s been as much as a 70% percent increase from last year in people paying rent on a credit card, according to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. “If you’re putting your rent payments on to a credit card, that shows you’re really at risk of eviction,” says Shamus Roller, executive director of the nonprofit National Housing Law Project. “That means you’ve run out of savings; you’ve probably run out of calls to family members to get them to loan you money.”
Yes, $600 will help. But not much. For 32-year-old Jo Marie Hernandez, $600 might buy a little bit of time, but what she really needs is a new job: "Jo Marie Hernandez doesn’t know how she and her 4-year-old daughter will survive after her unemployment aid lapsed this weekend. Hernandez, who lives in Olean, New York, is on the brink of losing her home in days after she lost her job as a customer service associate at a gas station in the spring. Enduring prolonged unemployment, she’s struggled to make ends meet and has nothing left in savings to keep her afloat."
I can’t even imagine the emotional pain that she must be going through right now. When you have a young child and you are about to be thrown out into the streets, nothing else really matters: “I only have $100 left to my name. My whole world is shattered,” says Hernandez, 32, who was forced to put her car up for sale. “We can’t wait a few weeks for help. We’re starving and will be out on the street soon.”
Sadly, there are millions and millions of other Americans that are facing similar scenarios right now. This is what an economic depression looks like, and economic conditions are going to continue to deteriorate moving forward.
Many on the left are assuming that future stimulus checks will be bigger once Joe Biden gets into the White House. But every additional dollar that we borrow makes our long-term problems even worse. Our national debt continues to spiral wildly out of control, the money supply is shooting up at an exponential rate, and we are mired in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s despite unprecedented government intervention. This is the big meltdown that everyone has been waiting for, and we are still only in the very early chapters.
So no, $600 stimulus payments won’t actually fix anything. But hopefully they will ease the suffering slightly as the U.S. economy continues to relentlessly steamroll toward oblivion."
"Today Is Mine..."
"Today is mine. It is unique.
Nobody in the world has one exactly like it.
It holds the sum of all my past experiences and all my future potential.
I can fill it with joyous moments or ruin it with fruitless worry.
If painful recollections of the past come into my mind,
or frightening thoughts of the future, I can put them away.
They cannot spoil today for me. "
Free Download: Jack London, "The Iron Heel"
"I know nothing that I may say can influence you. You have no souls to be influenced. You are spineless, flaccid things. You pompously call yourselves Republicans and Democrats. You are lick-spittlers and panderers, the creatures of the Plutocracy."
- Jack London
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Freely download "The Iron Heel", by Jack London, here:
Read online The Project Gutenberg eBook
of "The Iron Heel", by Jack London, here:
"Get Up, Get Up..."
Michael Bolton,
"When I'm Back On My Feet Again"
"You can never tell what people have inside them
until you start taking it away, one hope at a time."
- Gregory David Roberts
Monday, December 28, 2020
“Americans Living Paycheck to Paycheck; 2021 Economic Crisis Unavoidable; Credit Destruction”
Jeremiah Babe,
“Americans Living Paycheck to Paycheck;
2021 Economic Crisis Unavoidable; Credit Destruction”
"Delusions of Grandeur… Or Cloak of Modesty?"
"Delusions of Grandeur… Or Cloak of Modesty?"
By Bill Bonner
"A dear reader objects to our use of the “royal we”:
“Hello Bill, for the most part, I enjoy reading your Diary. However, I do find your use of the ‘royal we’ in all your writings very off-putting. Even though I’m Canadian, I despise the monarchy, and I’m sure that many in your great republic to the south share my feelings on this. Am I missing something? Has it already been explained, perhaps? If not, what is the rationale for this?”
The Queen uses the “royal we” to signify that she is not speaking for herself, but for the Crown… an institution that was around for hundreds of years before she was born and will, presumably, outlast her by hundreds more.
Here at the Diary, we do not use the “royal” we. We use the “common” we… a plebian, down-market, gutter kind of we, with no pretension to grandeur, nor even mediocrity.
For here we are, writing from a house we didn’t build… in a country that is not ours… wearing clothes we didn’t design… looking out on rain we didn’t cause… and passing along ideas that are not original. Even when we think we have had a new idea, we discover later that someone had the same idea 2,000 years ago.
Not one molecule in our body, thought in our brain, or feeling in our heart is of our own making. It would be vanity to use first-person singular; there is nothing singular about who we are or what we do.
No, we have neither scepter nor orb; all we have is a laptop computer.
We wear no royal purple. We favor brown and grey. We dress in dull colors so we may think in vivid ones.
We have no throne, no influence, no privilege, no position, and no armed guards to protect us.
We speak not for the Crown, but for all those common people who try to put two and two together… And we use “we” to recognize all those real thinkers whose ideas we have dragooned into our service… all those tortured poets whose songs we have misunderstood and misused… all those clever people whose insights we have purloined and presented as if they were our own… all those scientists, statisticians, and economists whose numbers we have hijacked and abused… and all those generations that have come before us and – by bad luck, bad manners, and bad judgment – learned painful lessons so we might be spared from learning them again…
“We” speak for them all – as best as we can.
Time and Love: As time passes, the conceits of youth… the illusion of timelessness… the passions and competitions – to have the biggest bank account, the biggest car, the biggest house, the biggest muscles, and the biggest you-know-what – all get dropped along the way, like discarded pianos on the Oregon Trail. All that is left is the shriveled up, naked reality… of time, love… and death.
And “I”? Does it matter what “I” do? What “I” want? “I” am too small… too nothing… too ephemeral. “I” am here, but “I” will be gone soon… in a flash, vanished, like a lost civilization or a forgotten language. Not even I care what “I” think.
So let us at least speak for a group… not of royals, but of commoners… and use “we” in sympathy with all those sinners, geniuses, half-wits, saints, and jackasses that came before and will come after us…
Those who will delight in Heaven for reasons we will never understand… or cry in Hell for all eternity because they forgot to fill out their census form. Yes, let us speak for all those who feel most intensely and horribly the vacant truth… They are as meaningless as we are."
"The Only Time..."
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"If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call
you could make, who would you call and what would you say?
And why are you waiting?"
- Stephen Levine
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“This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time.
Every breath is a choice.
Every minute is a choice.
To be or not to be.
Every time you don't throw yourself down the stairs, that's a choice.
Every time you don't crash your car, you re-enlist.
If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume
and come back as a new character...Would you slow down? Or speed up?"
- Chuck Palahniuk
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