Gregory Mannarino, PM 11/11/20:
"Alert! Public Enemy #1 Has Spoken:
'The stock market is NOT over-valued.'"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Wednesday, November 11, 2020
"Devil on the Loose"
"Devil on the Loose"
by Bill Bonner
"Just as every cop is a criminal,
And all the sinners saints,
As heads is tails
Just call me Lucifer,
‘Cause I’m in need of some restraint."
– "Sympathy for the Devil," by the Rolling Stones
"Hell is empty and all the devils are here."
- William Shakespeare, "The Tempest"
SAN MARTIN, ARGENTINA – "As expected, Joe Biden will speed up America’s encounter with disaster. That won’t be easy. Adding speed, we mean… Donald Trump already had the runaway bus in high gear and his foot to the floorboards. Government spending increased more under Trump than under any other president since World War II. From 2017 to 2020, it rose nearly twice as much as it did under Lyndon Johnson.
As a percentage of GDP, government spending rose to 56% in the second quarter of 2020. Of course, that included $1,200 checks to 160 million Americans, the vast majority of whom were still working and didn’t really need the money. And we remind dear readers that it is neither Supreme Court appointees… nor climate change initiatives… nor Black Lives Matter protests… nor face masks that will crash the U.S. empire. It’s money. Or fake money, to be more precise.
Lost Cause: Fake money is the Devil’s fodder; it makes it possible for the feds to do things they oughtn’t do – hand out free cash… invade Iraq… jack up stock prices. Not that they couldn’t do dumb things with real money; but fake money makes them bolder. Nearly 50 years ago, your editor – then a callow youth, naïve and foolish – played a small role in trying to force some restraint onto federal finances. He pushed for a Balanced Budget Amendment. He thought that requiring the feds to operate on a pay-as-you-go basis would keep the Devil on a diet. But the drive for a balanced budget amendment ran right into The Swamp, where it sank without a trace. Restraint was the last thing the insiders wanted.
And that was in the mid-1970s, when the deficit was running between $50 and $70 billion per year… and total U.S. debt, from the beginning of the Republic until the beginning of the Reagan administration, had still not reached $1 trillion.
Trouble Ahead: Now, it is 45 years later. We are no longer callow. And now, the sinners are saints. The cops are criminals… The U.S. owes $27 trillion… runs deficits of more than $1 trillion a year… and seems bound and determined to stick with this kind of Banana Republic financing until the jungle swallows it up, as though it were an ancient civilization lost in the vines.
The whole crackpot system now depends on out-of-whack budgets funded with fake money. As to the unbalanced budgets, no one cares. And as to the fake dollars, they are considered a mere monetary detail. But like lug nuts flying off the wheels, they are bound to cause trouble down the road.
More, More, More: And now, Sleepy Joe, assisted by thousands of lifelong Washington insiders, has found the overdrive button. It will be a challenge for him… racing towards destruction… to beat Trump’s speed. But he’s the man of the hour… with plenty of geezer friends in Congress – Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, et al. – who can help get the job done.
The Associated Press is on the story: "The former vice president and senator will pursue a drastic shift in America’s economic policy. He [Biden] has vowed to reverse much of the Trump administration’s aggressive deregulation and indifference to domestic spending and economic development in favor of big investments in education, infrastructure and clean energy. He wants stricter rules to rein in big tech companies and to fight climate change.
And to help pay for it all, the president-elect would turn to large tax increases for corporations and wealthy individuals by reversing much of President Donald Trump’s tax cuts. […] Biden’s view reflects the warning from most economists that until the virus is controlled, the economy cannot fully recover. […] That slower growth, in turn, could intensify calls for more stimulus spending. Most economists, along with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, are warning that the economy needs more rescue aid from Congress."
More “rescue aid.” More fake money. More unbalanced budgets. More power to the feds. More money to the insiders. Long live the Devil and the Deep Blue State!"
○
Since you insist...
"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 11/11/20"
by David Leonhardt
Nov. 11, 2020 2:25 PM ET:
The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 50,967,300
people, according to official counts, including 10,191,261 Americans.
Nov. 11, 2020 2:25 PM ET:
Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count◆
◆
Updated 11/11/20, 2:25 PM ET
Click image for larger size.
◆
A "Must Read":
Happy Veterans Day 2020!
"When the will defies fear, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate,
when honor scorns to compromise with death - that is heroism."
- Robert Green Ingersoll
"One Way Or The Other, Life in America Will Never Be The Same After This"
"One Way Or The Other,
Life in America Will Never Be The Same After This"
by Michael Snyder
How in the world will it be possible for America to have a bright future when about half the country is going to feel like the election has been stolen from them no matter what the final outcome is? There simply isn’t going to be any going back to the way that things were for the last four years. At this moment, tens of millions of Trump supporters believe that the Democrats stole the election. But if the courts agree with Trump’s legal team and Trump ends up getting a second term, tens of millions of Biden supporters will be convinced that Republicans stole the election. Either way, we are going to be a nation that is full of deeply angry people.
Right now, the mainstream media is assuming that Biden is going to be president. But the reality of the matter is that we are going to end up with either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris in the White House. Even if Biden is inaugurated, his rapidly deteriorating physical condition will not allow him to serve for very long. Whether it is a matter of years, months or days, everyone knows that a Biden administration will simply just be a bridge to a Harris administration.
If Trump’s legal challenges are not successful and Biden ultimately emerges victorious, Trump supporters should actually be praying really hard for Biden’s health, because things will actually go much worse for them under a Harris administration. I believe that Biden will at least try to maintain the facade that he is attempting to “unify” the nation, but once he is out of the picture Harris won’t hesitate to bring the hammer down on her opposition.
Harris was rated the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate during her time there. Yes, that makes her even more liberal than Bernie Sanders. And when she was the attorney general of California, she showed how utterly ruthless she can be at times. During the general election, she tried to show a softer side, but it didn’t really fool anyone. We all remember the far left policies that she embraced during her ill-fated run for the presidency, and her record as attorney general of California clearly demonstrates her authoritarian tendencies.
Of course many Trump supporters are hoping that a Harris administration will never materialize because Trump wins a second term. And without a doubt, that is definitely possible. On Tuesday night, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany showed Sean Hannity a stack of 234 pages of sworn affidavits from people that have testified that they witnessed election fraud in their states. Each day more evidence of voting irregularities continues to emerge, and I am sure that there will be more bombshells tomorrow.
But the clock is ticking. As I discussed earlier today, the Electoral College is going to cast their votes on December 14th, and any disputes regarding the selection of electors must be resolved by December 8th. So that means that Trump’s legal team has less than a month to flip the results in enough states to give Trump the victory, and that is going to be an exceedingly difficult task.
But for a moment, let’s assume that Trump’s legal team is successful. Do you think that the left is just going to back down and accept four more years of Trump peacefully? Just put yourself in their shoes. The mainstream media has been telling them over and over that they won the election legitimately and that there is “absolutely no evidence” of election fraud. When the big news networks called the election for Biden, they laughed, they cried and they danced in the streets. For many on the left, it was as if Christmas, their birthdays, and the 4th of July had arrived all at once.
Can you imagine how much fury they are going to feel if Trump’s legal team is able to flip state after state and swing the final outcome back in the other direction? It would definitely be enough to convince many of them that a peaceful solution is no longer possible. I believe that we would see violence in our streets on a permanent basis from this point forward, and it would be far worse than any of the civil unrest that we have witnessed so far.
Like I said, there is no going back to how things were before. Either a Biden administration will be a bridge to an absolutely ruthless far left Harris administration, or a second term for Trump will cause the left to go absolutely bezerk. I don’t see any other option at this point. Do you?
As it stands, we still do not know who is going to win. According to the U.S. Constitution, it is the Electoral College that elects the president, and that election is not going to be held until December 14th. So nobody should be claiming the title of “president-elect” yet. You can’t be a “president-elect” when the election hasn’t even happened.
Yes, if we get to December 8th and Joe Biden is still leading in the vote count in the states that he is currently leading, it will appear that time will have run out for the Trump campaign. But 234 pages of sworn affidavits is nothing to scoff at, and I am sure that Trump’s legal team is working night and day to uncover even more evidence of potential fraud.
It would take the biggest legal miracle in U.S. election history for Trump to pull this off, but it is definitely still possible. Right now, we are still playing a waiting game. Most Trump supporters still think that Trump will end up winning, and most Biden supporters are absolutely convinced that they have this election in the bag. But once the votes have been cast by the Electoral College, there will be no going back, and the sheer horror of what has happened will start to sink in for about half the country.
No matter what the outcome is, the years ahead are going to be incredibly painful as our society literally comes apart at the seams all around us. After everything that has already taken place, nobody is going to be able to “bring us together”, and life in America will never be the same again."
"The Deep State Vs The Deep Country"
"The Deep State Vs The Deep Country"
by The Saker
"I need to begin with the obvious: in spite of all the deep state, propaganda and “deep empire” (transnational) resources being used to declare that “Biden” (i.e. Harris) has won, as of right now nobody knows who got most votes and where. I would even suggest that we will never really find out who won, because who won depends on a large number of local laws and regulations and because it will probably never be possible to separate the fake votes from the legal ones. Finally, neither side will ever gracefully admit to having lost the contest. So now the country will enter a profound crisis.
That is the bad news. But there is also very good news. First, it has now become clear to the entire planet that the US “democracy” is anything but: the USA is an oligarchic plutocracy, plagued with a myriad of antiquated laws and corrupt to the bone. The special “trick” of this US oligarchic plutocracy is that is masquerades as an ochlocracy: there is *pretend* mob rule which serves as the microscopically small fig leaf hiding the real nature of the regime.
Second, while the Dems did their best to hide this, and they still are, it is now becoming evident that the sheer magnitude of the fraud made it impossible to conceal it. Now if we think of how the Empire has handled equally non-believable nonsense (9/11, Syrian gas attacks, Skripal, Navalnii, etc.) we know what they are going to do next: double down, which will reassure the brainwashed zombies, but will even further infuriate those still capable of critical thought.
Third, the behavior of the US media in this entire operation is so obviously disgraceful that nobody will ever take them seriously again (at least amongst the thinking people, the zombies glued to the Idiot Tube are beyond any rational arguments anyway). This is particularly important in regards to FoxNews who has shown that it was a pseudo-conservative propaganda outlet which, in reality, is completely committed to the political agenda of Rupert Murdoch and his family.
At this point in time, it is impossible to predict what will happen next, but the murder of JFK or the 9/11 false flag strongly suggest that the US deep state will win.
There seems to only be one way for Trump to stay in power and it will probably look similar to this: Giuliani, who I was told won over 4,000 lawsuits in his career, is a very tough guy (look at what he did to the mob in NY!) and he must realize that the lawsuits he will file this week will be the most important ones in his career. They will even probably define his legacy. The notion that he would go to the courts with no solid evidence in his files is simply ridiculous. I don’t see any mechanism which can stop Giuliani now, so the ball will now go to the state and federal courts next and, after that, to the Supreme Court. There the situation is hard to predict.
In theory, Trump probably has enough conservative Justices, especially with Ruth Bader Ginsburg gone and Amy Coney Barrett replacing her. That’s only in theory. In reality, things are much more complex. On one hand, the pressure of the deep state on the Justices will be immense, but on the other hand, once you are a SC Justice you cannot be attacked, at least not legally. Amy Coney Barrett will also face immense pressure to “prove” her “independence” (meaning, if she sides with Giuliani’s side she will be called a Trump shill and even much worse than that!). One thing is certain, any Justice siding with Giuliani will face immense pressures followed by a vicious denigration campaign. Who knows how many Justices would have the courage to face this?
However, there is also the possibility that any Justice siding with Giuliani’s conclusions will go down in history as yet another “profile in courage”, so I would not completely discard that possibility either.
[Sidebar: during my student years in the USA I had the chance to meet, and study with, such US officials as Paul Nitze or Admiral Zumwalt and I was always amazed at how candid former US officials were, but only once they retired. USSC Justices are not retired, of course, but, like retired officials, they are beyond the reach of any legal reprisals, and that might strengthen their willingness to honestly follow their conscience and speak their minds.]
Giuliani will certainly fight hard, but looking at the political correlation of forces I can’t see an outcome where Trump would successfully defeat a much stronger opponent. Think about it, the only possible ally for the Trump campaign would be the Supreme Court: the GOP, Congress, the Deep State, the legacy ziomedia, and even members of the Trump Administration (think Bolton or Esper here) all hate him with a passion. And now that Trump appears to be losing, they are not shy about it.
Still, as the proverb says, we need to hope for the best but prepare for the worst. That is, obviously, a Harris Administration in control of the Executive. So what can we expect from these folks?
First and foremost, a sustained campaign to completely negate the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution. Considering how truly sacred these two cornerstones of the US Constitution are for millions of US Americans, we can expect a lot of resistance from the “deplorables”, both legal and violent.
Second, the control of both the Executive and all the major IT giants will mean that free speech will be driven even further underground. This new reality will require a lot of thinking in the development of a strategy to protect the voices which the regime in DC will now openly try to silence.
[Sidebar: possibly the dumbest mistake made by Trump was not to create his own TV channel. He had the money, he could have found allies, but he simply lacked the intelligence to see the danger. Instead, this narcissistic fool thought that Twitter was the way to bypass the legacy media. Is there a possibility that if he is thrown out of the White House we might finally understand that what the USA now so urgently needs is, at the very least, a free TV channel and at least one free social media option? Maybe, but I am not holding my breath, Trump always had this ability to disappoint…]
Third, on the international front, we can expect even more hysterical Russia bashing (the Dems all hate Russia with a passion, especially since they have brainwashed themselves for four years that “Putin” had “attacked” the US elections). But there is really nothing the USA can do to Russia, it is way too late for that. So I would expect even more hot air than from the Trump Administration, and probably not much more action, although that is by no means certain, since a braindead nominal President like Biden would not have Trump’s intelligence to understand that a war against Russia, China or Iran would end in a disaster: Dems always start wars to try to convince the public that they are “tough” (Dukakis in his M-1 tank). Now that they not only appears as weak, but also illegitimate and even senile (did you see Biden trying to run to the podium?), they will have to prove their “virility” and send some cruise missiles flying somewhere (that kind of attack is what these cowards always use first).
As I mentioned in the past, the outcome of this election will not have much of an impact on US foreign policy: first, the US elites more or less all agree on continuing a policy of violent imperialism; but even more crucial is the fact that the Empire is as dead as the Titanic was when it hit the iceberg: not all passengers realized what was taking place, but that did not affect the outcome in the least.
Furthermore, as those familiar with Hegelian dialectics know, each action eventually results in a reaction and the notion that 70,000,000+ voters will simply accept what is self-evidently a coup against not only Trump, but also the US Constitution itself, is ridiculous. If anything, these people will now come to realize that while the US is facing no real foreign threats at all (except those it created itself), there is most definitely an internal threat, in the sense of the United States Uniformed Services Oath of Office, and that this reality gives them the right, and even duty, to “resist tyranny”.
You have probably heard Joe Biden declaring that he wants to heal the wounds, restore unity, rule for all US Americans and the like. I don’t think that this is only empty political rhetoric, though that is part of it too. Mostly, I believe that the Dems are terrified because they know for a fact that they stole the election and this is why after four years of the most divisive and irresponsible rhetoric against Trump, “the racist system” and all the rest of the crap, they are now making a 180 (they are experts at that!) and pleading for calm, peace and unity. That ain’t going to happen.
Finally, a word to those who like to say that there is no difference between the Dems and the GOP, that this is all a fake conflict: friends, you are both right and massively wrong. You are right when you say that the DNC and the RNC are like indistinguishable twins. But what you are missing are two crucial things:
1. Factions inside one party can actually go after each other much harder than against their common enemies. I think of the SS vs the SA in Nazi Germany or the Trotskysts vs the Stalinists in the Soviet Union and during the Spanish Civil war.
2. But, even more crucially, this is not a contest between the Democrats and the Republicans, it is a contest between a “rejected outsider” and both the DNC and RNC!
Conclusion: not the RNC vs the DNC but the Deep State vs the deep country:
Click image for larger size.
A quick look at a map tells the story: this struggle is most one of the deep state vs the deep (real) country. Yeah, I know, Trump is hardly a miner from West Virginia or a farmer in Alabama. But that doesn’t matter one bit. What does matter is that the deplorables from the “overfly country” felt that Trump speaks for them and that he is all that stands between them and the (pseudo-) Liberals of CNN, the Antifa/BLM thugs and the destruction of the United States as we all knew them. And yes, this is a simplistic view, but it is fundamentally correct one nonetheless."
"It's Perfectly Clear: Making The Vote Irrelevant Makes Secession Relevant"
"It's Perfectly Clear:
Making The Vote Irrelevant Makes Secession Relevant"
by Robert Gore
"If he gets anything approaching an honest
vote count Trump will win in a landslide."
“The Corruptocracy,” Robert Gore, October 25, 2020
"I stand by my statement. It’s obvious that Trump didn’t get “anything approaching an honest vote count.” One of the better crime scene investigations I’ve seen is “The 2020 Election: F**kery Is Afoot,” by blogger Correia45, and I’ve posted others as well. As the litigation-filled days go by, we’re sure to find out more about the Democrats’ electoral fraud.
I won’t venture a guess as to whether such disclosure and litigation will ultimately lead to awarding Trump the election, but I have my doubts. The corruption runs too deep. If Biden wins, his camarilla will try to explain away the obvious with talk of glitches and anomalies, all of which mysteriously broke their way. They shouldn’t bother; they’ll be fooling no one and it just adds to the rage.
Good often emerges from even the worst situations. The good emerging from this one is that the veil is completely lifted, the election provides transcendent clarity. Many have already peaked under the veil. Those who refuse to grasp what is now appallingly obvious are too dense, deluded or corrupt to be of concern, and should be left to whatever ignominious ends fate has in store for them.
This election has made it made perfectly clear that we live in a corruptocracy. We can’t vote corruptocracy out any more than the people of the Soviet Union could have voted out communism (also a corruptocracy) and for the same reason: the vote itself is fundamentally corrupt. If Trump loses, it clearly discredits the notion embraced by the losers of every election: wait til next time. Next time is likely to be even more corrupt.
What’s clear to those of us who voted for Trump is if we want to get back what we cherish about America, we’re going to have to fight for it. Freedom is not free, and neither are individual rights, the rule of law, capitalism, peace, or the opportunity to build a better life. Although I and others have suggested some sort of semi-amicable divorce for our bitterly divided country, that’s not going to happen because of the nature of the division. As I said in “The Corruptocracy,” the division is between the productive class and those it supports.
After this election there are undoubtedly millions of disgusted Trump supporters who would embrace a split in a heartbeat, but peaceful secession is precluded by the fundamental flaw at the core of every collectivist ideology: governments don’t produce, they steal. Leaches never desires separation. The blue needs the red; man cannot live on high tech, media, crony capitalism, and finance alone.
The battle is joined, collectivists versus producers. Tactically, there’s no dumber strategy than waging war against those who support you, but their pretensions notwithstanding, collectivists are never all that bright.
If Biden is declared the winner, Covid-19 restrictions are no longer necessary to hamstring the economy, discredit Trump, and justify mail-in voting fraud. The precedents have been set and a scary germ story can always be concocted when needed to frighten and subjugate those who are easily frightened and subjugated. If the collectivists have a brain in their collective head they’ll quickly lift all the restrictions to resuscitate economies so their collectivist governments will have something to steal. On any honest accounting for pension and medical liabilities, most of them are already bankrupt.
SLL reader SW Richmond recently commented: "If one looks at this map:
Click image for larger size.
2016 Electoral Map by county. “Centralia” states are predominantly red.
...one can see the geographic answer to our problem: “Centralia”. Centralia includes the entire South except Virginia, extends north and west to the mountain states, Midwest and Arizona. “Centralia” has copious access to ports and harbors, energy, food, internal transportation, manufacturing, fresh water, military assets including nukes. Centralia does not include VA, MD, PA, NY, etc, nor CA, OR, WA. MN, IL, WI and MI can choose. We may desire to include Jefferson. A not-so-great migration would ensue much like during the dust bowl. Voter registrations could be reviewed before migrants were accepted. This is not a drill. It is about survival."
This most definitely is not a drill, it is about the paramount issue that defines human history and philosophy: who decides the terms of an individual’s survival, the individual or those who rule by violence in the name of divine right, the collective, some other vicious justification, or naked force?
The idea of individual rights protected by the government was the foundation of the American experiment. It was and has been imperfectly realized; it is an ideal and humanity rarely attains its ideals. Government is and always will be the antithesis of that still revolutionary ideal. The US government’s massive expansion has been at the cost of the people’s liberty and has destroyed most of their rights. That destruction has been ongoing since the beginning of the republic and Trump has done nothing to stop or reverse it. Philosophical insight and consistency are not among his virtues.
Nevertheless, a Biden administration will be worse, much worse. The Democrats now openly aspire to the collectivist ideal - the complete subjugation of the individual to the state. We’ve gotten a preview of coming attractions with coronavirus totalitarianism, which has obliterated the few freedoms and joys left to Americans. For the millions of Americans who voted for him, including me, Trump represented the last, best hope for what we consider the American way of life.
There’s no going back, and the way forward is for those who cherish the American ideals of individual rights, freedom, limited government, the rule of law, and equality before that law to break away from Washington’s and it’s aligned states’ corruptocracy and sunder the ties that bind us. Nations and governments are not cast in stone for time and all eternity.
Certainly the bankrupt dis-United States and its government aren’t. The bill is coming due for the debt orgy and an unprecedented and catastrophic global economic cataclysm will take down whomever is unlucky enough to be the president. A defeated Trump would dodge that bullet. The resulting chaos will be unmanageable by a government that produces only debt, can steal little or nothing from a bankrupt economy, cannot borrow at anything but ruinous interest rates, and which must cover its soaring budget deficits with scrip it either prints or creates via computer entries, whether or not it outlaws real money (gold) or forces its increasingly worthless scrip to stay in the banking system.
At that time, an organized secession movement has a real chance. A house divided against itself cannot stand. Collapse will be freedom’s staunchest ally if the moment is seized. It won’t be easy and it won’t be without blood. Until it happens, prepare for the worst, it is assuredly coming and coming soon, but work towards a brighter future in a nation that does not yet exist.
For those who don’t want to wait, almost six years ago (January 7, 2015) I published “Revolution in America,” which presents a nonviolent way to take down the government by attacking it at its weakest point. It requires the collective action of millions of people and at that time I believed the recommended course of action would remain hypothetical. Things change. Although the hour is late, any significant fraction of Trump’s rightfully enraged 71 million voters could still put the plan into effect. The article merits a second look. Please pass it, and this article, on."
Tuesday, November 10, 2020
"Green Infrastructure Coming? Economic Recovery Plan; Oil Industry To Be Decimated; Welfare State"
Jeremiah Babe,
"Green Infrastructure Coming? Economic Recovery Plan;
Oil Industry To Be Decimated; Welfare State"
"The Entire World Is Spiraling Towards An Unprecedented Hunger Crisis"
"The Entire World Is Spiraling Towards
An Unprecedented Hunger Crisis"
by Epic Economist
"The entire world is spiraling towards an unprecedented hunger crisis. The UN has warned that over a tenth of the world’s population won’t have enough to eat this year. However, this calamitous global famine is not a consequence of a disruption in food production but directly related to the growing inequality that has been depriving most people to have access to healthy diets. In this video, we discuss how the health crisis has been causing more casualties due to the enormous increase in starvation levels worldwide than because of the viral infection itself.
An additional 132 million people are likely to go hungry by the end of this year, representing an increase in food insecurity that might be more than triple ever experienced throughout this century. The health crisis has prompted major obstacles in the access of food products, such as the unexpected surge in hoarding tendencies that led to supply chain disruptions, natural disasters that decimated crops around the world, struggling economies, and the sharp decline in consumers' purchasing power.
What makes this situation completely unparalleled is the fact that this is happening at a time of enormous global food surpluses. In theory, there's enough food to feed the whole world's population, but the number of those who can afford it has been steadily falling.
It is being projected that the sanitary outbreak will cause more casualties each day from hunger than from virus infections. By December, as many as 12,000 people could be fatally victimized per day from hunger linked to the outbreak's effects, possibly more than those perishing from the virus itself.
The current crisis has only exacerbated the already deep wealth inequality gap, now separating groups into those who can afford to eat and those who can't. Researchers found that the media-fed fear has triggered a second surge in the hoarding trend.
Anxious buying and food hoarding has not only affected the supply chain but also the amount of food waste produced in America. Supermarkets across the country have been stockpiling food and cleaning products to keep up consumers with demand.
On top of the economic downturn, lockdowns and broken supply chains have also enhanced the problem of food distribution. Also, the lack of seasonal migrant workers has made it impossible for farmers to harvest their entire produce, leading many of them to dump milk and smash eggs, left without viable alternatives to redirect their production to either grocery stores or food banks.
Most food banks rely on donations from food producers and grocery chains to deliver supplies to food-insecure households in many states, and ever since consumers started panic-buying huge amounts of food, donations have become scarce.
In face of such events, the UN forecasted that about a tenth of the world’s population won’t have access to enough food this year. The implications will transcend hunger itself and also reflect on other forms of food insecurity, with hundreds of millions unable to afford healthy diets, which might result in a spike of both malnutrition and obesity. By 2030, the number of undernourished people could reach as high as 909 million, and the effects of it will be long-lasting.
Increased malnutrition can debilitate the immune system, limit mobility, and even compromise brain functioning. Children who face malnutrition early in life can see its impact well into adulthood. Problems with physical and cognitive development in children and adolescents can undermine the chances of staying in school or getting a job, perpetuating a cycle of poverty.
Additionally, global food prices rose for the third straight month, which also relates to the dollar collapse. When the purchasing power of the US dollar falls, commodity prices in USD tend to go up. With that said, considering that many U.S. households are already living in poverty, they can't adjust their realities to keep up with increasingly high food costs. The American middle class isn't far behind and when the masses go hungry and can't find the means to feed themselves and their families, they take it to the streets.
The idea of not having the most basic needs for survival, such as food, fresh water, and shelter lead groups to react in desperation. And ever since stimulus talks have been indefinitely postponed aggravating the uncertainty about their situation, it appears that storm clouds are emerging on the horizon."
Musical Interlude: Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Footprints On The Sea"
Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Footprints On The Sea"
"A Look to the Heavens"
“To some, the outline of the open cluster of stars M6 resembles a butterfly. M6, also known as NGC 6405, spans about 20 light-years and lies about 2,000 light years distant. M6 can best be seen in a dark sky with binoculars towards the constellation of Scorpius, coving about as much of the sky as the full moon.
Like other open clusters, M6 is composed predominantly of young blue stars, although the brightest star is nearly orange. M6 is estimated to be about 100 million years old. Determining the distance to clusters like M6 helps astronomers calibrate the distance scale of the universe.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110906.html
"If You Do Not Know..."
"First of all, although men have a common destiny, each individual also has to work out his own personal salvation for himself in fear and trembling. We can help one another to find the meaning of life no doubt. But in the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for "finding himself." If he persists in shifting his responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence. You cannot tell me who I am and I cannot tell you who you are. If you do not know your own identity, who is going to identify you?"
- Thomas Merton
Chet Raymo, "On Saying 'I Don't Know'"
"On Saying 'I Don't Know'"
by Chet Raymo
“Johannes Kepler is best known for figuring out the laws of planetary motion. In 1610, he published a little book called “The Six-Cornered Snowflake” that asked an even more fundamental question: How do visible forms arise? He wrote: "There must be some definite reason why, whenever snow begins to fall, its initial formation is invariably in the shape of a six-pointed starlet. For if it happens by chance, why do they not fall just as well with five corners or with seven?"
All around him Kepler saw beautiful shapes in nature: six-pointed snowflakes, the elliptical orbits of the planets, the hexagonal honeycombs of bees, the twelve-sided shape of pomegranate seeds. Why? he asks. Why does the stuff of the universe arrange itself into five-petaled flowers, spiral galaxies, double-helix DNA, rhomboid crystals, the rainbow's arc? Why the five-fingered, five-toed, bilaterally symmetric beauty of the newborn child? Why?
Kepler struggles with the problem, and along the way he stumbles onto sphere-packing. Why do pomegranate seeds have twelve flat sides? Because in the growing pomegranate fruit the seeds are squeezed into the smallest possible space. Start with spherical seeds, pack them as efficiently as possible with each sphere touching twelve neighbors. Then squeeze. Voila! And so he goes, convincing us, for example, that the bee's honeycomb has six sides because that's the way to make honey cells with the least amount of wax. His book is a tour-de-force of playful mathematics.
In the end, Kepler admits defeat in understanding the snowflake's six points, but he thinks he knows what's behind all of the beautiful forms of nature: A universal spirit pervading and shaping everything that exists. He calls it nature's "formative capacity." We would be inclined to say that Kepler was just giving a fancy name to something he couldn't explain. To the modern mind, "formative capacity" sounds like empty words.
We can do somewhat better. For example, we explain the shape of snowflakes by the shape of water molecules, and we explain the shape of water molecules with the mathematical laws of quantum physics. Since Kepler's time, we have made impressive progress towards understanding the visible forms of snowflakes, crystals, rainbows, and newborn babes by probing ever deeper into the heart of matter. But we are probably no closer than Kepler to answering the ultimate questions: What is the reason for the curious connection between nature and mathematics? Why are the mathematical laws of nature one thing rather than another? Why does the universe exist at all? Like Kepler, we can give it a name, but the most forthright answer is simply: I don't know.”
- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/
"The Myth of 'Limited Government'"
"The Myth of 'Limited Government'"
by Brian Maher
"E-Day plus seven… and the ballots are still being counted. Many will be recounted. Others will undergo rigorous audit to determine their validity. Chesterton - G.K. Chesterton - wrote of the “democracy of the dead.” Yet he did not suggest the dead should vote in current elections… as many allegedly did last Tuesday. The president and his men are alleging colossal voter fraud. The challenger insists he won squarely and fairly.
Could they both be correct? We imagine it is possible. But we do not pretend to know. Yet we are confident the challenger will be crowned United States president no. 46 come January. The incumbent’s legal challenges will likely falter in the courts - justly or unjustly. Which judges will award Mr. Trump the election after the national media has declared him the loser? They would spend the next four years fleeing protesters with pitchforks in their hands… and vengeance on their minds.
Three Cheers for Gridlock: We are bitterly and ruthlessly bipartisan. That is, we denounce each party for its multiple atrocities. Yet if you’ll allow us this one partisan deviation: It is our sincere wish that the Republican Party retains its Senate majority. That is, we are out for gridlock.
The other party is hot to “get things done.” Yet we do not want it to get things done. That is because getting things done generally equates to massive raids upon our liberties… and our wallets. If government is to get things done for A, it must first do things to B. And so B is knocked about by his own government for A’s benefit.
If Democrats run the White House, Senate and House they would have two years to get things done - many things - until the midterm elections. It is not yet clear if Republicans will cling to their majority. Yet we pray upon two knees that they do, and for the reason listed. It is not because of their self-professed fidelity to “limited government.” Government has grown, debt and deficits have mushroomed under Republican management as they have mushroomed under Democratic management. Perhaps it was inevitable. And we do not necessarily fault them...
What Is Limited Government Exactly? "Limited government." It goes between the tongs of quotation marks for a reason. It of course sounds infinitely agreeable. Who among us declares for unlimited government? Even those who are for unlimited government keep it dark. Else they would be denounced as communist hellcats and packed off to the gallows. Yet here we file our brief against "limited government."
The term is as hollow as a jug, hollow as a drum, hollow as a congressman’s skull. Never before have so many used a term... so often... that meant so little. Government limited to what precisely? How does one define it in this, the 21st century?
Perhaps we can liken limited government to Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's 1964 definition of pornography - “I know it when I see it.” Some see limited government when federal spending is limited to $3.9 trillion rather than $4.3 trillion… or 19% of GDP as opposed to 21%. But do We the People truly desire limited government?
Thanks, but No Thanks: Ask the fellow next door if he believes in limited government. He will likely roar a hearty yes, bursting with the spirit of American independence. Proceed to ask him this question: Should Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Department of Education - to name some - be eliminated? Not reformed. Eliminated.
Ask him if he would prefer greater retirement benefits or limited government...Greater health care benefits or limited government...Saving the planet - or limited government.
Up in smoke goes his belief in limited government. Next we come to the politicians themselves... One minute they gloat about the virtues of limited government. The next minute they issue impassioned pledges to save Social Security or Medicare. Or to heave more money at the Department of Education.
Duller Than Dishwater: "Limited government." The term is not merely meaningless... It is duller than dishwater. It inspires as an Alan Greenspan lecture on accounting practices inspires. It excites as drying paint excites. We hear it and applaud... politely. We nod our heads dutifully. Limited government, yes, of course. But how dreadful.
There were two great orators of antiquity, the Roman Cicero and the Greek Demosthenes. When Cicero spoke the people said, "What a great speech." But when Demosthenes spoke? "Let us march," said the people.
How many march for limited government? Who goes to the barricades for limited government? Many will march for "Health Care for All." "Save the Planet." "Social Justice Now." These are the cries that awaken the blood. They summon the hormones. They are calls to action that inspire us to run off and enlist… and charge into the breach.
Limited government inspires us to… snooze. "Limited government" is a dismal marketing slogan. Would you wish to sell it for a living? Alas, you might starve.
Limited Government Is Defensive: Here is the cardinal sin of limited government: It is defensive. The sob mongers and tear-squeezers forever shout about this crisis or that crisis. Only energetic government action can put it down and scotch it. It may be the environment. Health care. Housing. Racism. Sexism. Income inequality. Bedbugs. Anything, everything, A through Z.
This bunch is commonly perceived as the angels on our collective shoulder. They stand for social justice… and equality. And who can come out against social justice and equality? Certainly not politicians seeking office. And so they must budge. Limited government therefore finds itself on the back foot, perpetually on the defense. Yet no successful defense can forever remain static. The enemy ultimately punches through. Limited government cedes ground year by year, decade by decade. It makes one tactical retreat after another. It gives a little here to gain a little there. But it loses ground in the aggregate. Thus limited government is a shifting line in the sand. It is erased and withdrawn as circumstances demand.
Goodbye, Limited Government: In the 1930s, New Deal critics sobbed and moaned about the end of limited government in America. And not - we may add - without cause. World War II was next. A nation mobilized for war is not a nation of limited government. The national security state came along in the 1950s. Then the Great Society in the 1960s.
To talk of limited government at that point was to talk of unicorns, of pink elephants, of circular squares, of honest liars. The surveillance state has since been riveted atop the administrative state. Not a sparrow falls in these United States - as it was once known - that escapes Uncle Samuel’s eagle eye. The Federal Register - meantime - runs to some 70,000 dense pages. It totaled 16 pages in 1936.
America is an empire now. Few dare whisper the word, of course. But it is a strange kind of empire - an “empire of debt,” as our own founders Addison Wiggin and Bill Bonner argued in 2006. It is certainly an empire in debt - some $27 trillion and counting.
The Most Important Election in Our Lifetime: Yet as the frog in the gradually warming pot of water, Americans have acclimated to the changes. Even now, many “conservatives” croon about our super-excellent system of limited government… as if the New Deal, Great Society and the rest were mere trifles.
Twenty years hence, we hazard they will still be crooning about our superexcellent system of limited government... but that it will be lost to time if Democrats win the next election. The 2040 election thus will be "the most important in our lifetime"... as were the 2008 and 2012, 2016 and 2020 elections. But this we can predict safely: Limited government will not be on the ballot..."
"Decide..."
“We're all going to die. We don't get much say over how or when, but we do get to decide how we're gonna live. So, do it. Decide. Is this the life you want to live? Is this the person you want to love? Is this the best you can be? Can you be stronger? Kinder? More Compassionate? Decide. Breathe in. Breathe out and decide.”
- “Richard”, “Grey’s Anatomy”
"The Story Of Man..."
“The sands of time blew into a storm of images... images in sequence to tell the truth! Glorious legends of revolutionaries, bound only by a desire to be true to themselves, and to hope! Parables of colliding worlds, of forbidden love, of enemies healing the wounds of circumstance! Projected myth of persecution through greed and selfishness... and the will to survive! The Will to survive! And to survive in the face of those who claim credit for your very existence! We survive not as pawns, but as agents of hope. Sometimes misunderstood, but always true to our story. The story of Man."
- Scott Morse
Vangelis, "Alpha"
This song always suggested the image of our relentless, idealized, noble, glorious March of Mankind through the ages. Despite it all, despite ourselves, we survive and march onward towards our unknown destiny.
Still, some wonder about our true nature as a species, as the Apex Predator of this planet, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did when he asked,“What can we know? What are we all? Poor silly half-brained things peering out at the infinite, with the aspirations of angels and the instincts of beasts.”
Indeed, Angelic aspirations regardless, the historical record suggests a less benevolent but far more accurate and truthful view of the instincts of beasts within Humanity...
Steve Cutts, "MAN"
“What a chimera then is man, what a novelty, what a monster, what chaos, what a subject of contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, yet an imbecile earthworm; depository of truth, yet a sewer of uncertainty and error; pride and refuse of the universe. Who shall resolve this tangle?”
- Blaise Pascal
"Pride and refuse," indeed...
Gregory Mannarino, "The Debt Bubble Is HYPER-BALLOONING. JPM Caught Rigging The Market AGAIN!"
Gregory Mannarino,
"The Debt Bubble Is HYPER-BALLOONING.
JPM Caught Rigging The Market AGAIN!"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)