“Fish Are the Last to Notice the Water”

“Fish Are the Last to Notice the Water”

by Paul Rosenberg

“I ran into this phrase in a physics lecture, of all places, and knew it would be the title of my next article. And this is generally a true statement. Those who are immersed in something… who have always been immersed in it… are the last to see what it really is.

By now it should be obvious to the people of the West that they’re being held in a primitive bondage. And fortunately, more eyes are opening to this than ever before. But still, most people are so used to this particular “water” and have so long acclimated themselves to it, that they haven’t recognized it. There’s nothing inherently wrong with most of these people; they just haven’t stepped back far enough to see the obvious. So, let’s do that.

The Long View: A single model of human life has dominated the West for thousands of years. I can summarize by saying that this rulership model began to form in about 5400 BC, dominated Mesopotamia by about 4000 BC, took hold in Egypt by 3000 BC, and spread over the rest of the world from there. So, it has dominated for some 5,000 or 6,000 years, depending on which dates you prefer. This model is so common that it’s hard to make out at first. Here are its parts:

• A small minority of men hold a monopoly on making rules everyone else will live by.

• This minority enforces these rules on everyone else.

• The minority extracts regular payments from everyone else. This is said to be necessary for protection and justice.

• The minority fails to provide justice on a daily basis and very often sends the children of the majority to fight in battles to the death.

• A minority-aligned intellectual class assures the majority that this is the best that can be had and that it has been sanctified by some higher power (gods, ancestors, tradition, reason, experience, progress, or whatever).

• No one is permitted to escape this model. Those who try are punished as traitors and heretics.

This is the primary model of human organization and has been for some 5,000 years. And aside from arguing over details (or fury over the audacity to say it), there is no real challenge to this statement. Moreover, this model has been an abject failure – a demonstrable failure:

• Wars have continued throughout its entire reign.

• Justice has never been achieved and generally came closest in places away from power centers.

• Human happiness has not noticeably increased.

• Even when science has broken out, it has been recaptured and forced to serve the model. (The internet, for example.)

On top of that, this model has to be maintained by force. As noted above, straying from it is harshly punished. If this system was truly superior, force wouldn’t be required. After all, we don’t have to force people to buy houses or cars. So, by any number of measurable standards, this model fails, and very, very badly. The best defense one might make for it is that something else could be worse. But since we’re not permitted to test that assertion, the word bondage is perfectly fitting.

At a bare minimum, we can say this: Any system with no major upgrade in 5,000 years must be considered hopelessly obsolete, moribund, and degenerate. This is where we stand today. And it is crucial that we help our fellows see it.

How Do We Do Make Them See? First off, we cannot make people see. And truthfully, they generally see it quite well on their own. What they lack is inner strength to acknowledge what they see. It is not intellectual strength that most people lack; it is emotional strength. And so, you’ll have to be slow and gentle if you want success. Rigorous intellectual arguments are not enough, and in many cases they’re counterproductive.

In the end, the way to help your friends and neighbors is downright biblical: Plant seeds, wait for them to germinate, water them. Show kindness, love them, shine light on their path. It doesn’t matter if this sounds hokey to you or if you’d rather engage in brilliant arguments. This is what works. So, decide what you really want: for your friends and neighbors to see, or for you to “win.” The fish need faith to imagine a dry shore, and they’re not going to get it from intellectual badgering.”

- www.freemansperspective.com

"It's Just... Life"

“Bad things don’t happen to people because they deserve for them to happen. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s just… life. And no matter who we are, we have to take the hand we’re dealt, crappy though it may be, and try our very best to move forward anyway, to love anyway, to have hope anyway… to have faith that there’s a purpose to the journey we’re on.”

- Mia Sheridan

"Joe Biden’s Demonic Phase"

"Joe Biden’s Demonic Phase"

by Jim Kunstler

Joe Biden’s party must be thinking - if you call it thinking - that being psychotic isn’t enough… it’s time to go demonic! How else to explain the supernatural doings of the folks in charge of things in our nation’s capital. The casual observer might suppose that these things are spinning out of control, but you also have to wonder how much Joe Biden & Company are spinning them that way. Are they looking to start a war, for instance?

Three weeks ago, Ol’ White Joe called Vladimir Putin “a killer.” This week, Ol’ Joe called Vlad on the phone and suggested a friendly in-person meet-up in some “third country.” In the meantime, Ol’ Joe essayed to send a couple of US warships into the Black Sea to assert America’s interest in Ukraine, the failed state whose American-sponsored failure was engineered in 2014 by Barack Obama’s State Department. Turkey, which controls the narrow entrance to the Black Sea, was notified that two US destroyers would be steaming through its territory. Hours after the announcement, the US called off the ships. Then, hours after Ol’ Joe proffered that summit meeting, his State Department imposed new economic sanctions on Russia and tossed out a dozen or so Russian embassy staff. How’s that for a coherent foreign policy?

What’s going on in Ukraine, anyway? The US and NATO have prompted Ukraine to move troops and tanks toward the ethnically-Russian breakaway Donbass region. Russia countered by massing 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s border. Though supplied with Western armaments, Ukraine’s ragtag and incompetent army has no ability to control the Donbass, nor do either NATO and the US have any real will to interfere there with their own troops - the logistics are insane. Mr. Putin’s elegant solution: evacuate the three-plus million Russians stuck in Donbass into Russia - which needs labor - ceding the empty territory to foundering Ukraine - soon to be an ungovernable post-industrial frontier between East and West. For a rich rundown on these matters, read Dmitry Orlov’s mordant disquisition on the subject: "Putin’s Ukrainian Judo."

The lesson there is that the US has absolutely nothing to gain from continuing to antagonize Russia, and that the mentally weak Joe Biden is merely projecting the picture of a weakened and confused USA by keeping it up. Of course, a closer read might be that these hijinks are meant to distract from the more serious and consequential breakdown in relations between the US and China, currently engineered by the blundering team of Sec’y of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who went to Alaska recently to tell the Chinese delegation that they were morally unworthy of conducting trade negotiations, thereby torpedoing the trade negotiations that they went to Alaska to conduct. Smooth move fellas.

Unlike Russia, with its eleven time zones, which actually does not want or need any more territory, China is surely making hegemonic moves all over the place, not just around Hong Kong and Taiwan but in Africa and South America, while it strives to build the world’s largest navy, exports gain-of-function viruses, replaces the US in space exploration, and excels at weaponizing computer science. China’s weaknesses are a lack of sufficient domestic oil supply and food, which its current moves aim to correct. It was on its way to turning the US into a raw materials and food-crop colony when Mr. Trump came along and tried to put a stop to that. And now Ol’ Joe has cancelled that remedial action — after being on the receiving end of Chinese financial largesse in four years out-of-office. Nothing to see there, folks, says Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice, while in possession of Hunter Biden’s laptop, with its trove of incriminating memoranda.

On the domestic front, Joe Biden’s government only seeks to turn American life inside-out and upside-down, with the move to make the politics-neutral District of Columbia into a state, strictly to furnish two more senators for the DNC, and to pack the Supreme Court strictly to advantage the same DNC. Those Bills are being rushed through the House committees but something tells me they will die in the Senate. One also must wonder what exactly the rush is all about. I’ll tell you: something is up in the shadows. Something is lurking out there that is going to bring down Ol’ Joe Biden as an illegitimate chief executive. Could be some new non-ignorable evidence of his China grifting activities, or new non-ignorable evidence about the dubious ballot-tally in last November’s election. Could be something else.

Contrary to just about everybody I communicate with, I remain convinced that former US Attorney for Connecticut, now Special Prosecutor John Durham is still putting real cases together, and I suspect that his cases exceed the narrow spotlight of the origin of the Steele dossier, and I expect that indictments will be announced soon in a way that will shock the nation. Just sayin’… though nobody else is…

Meanwhile, the Wokester branch of Joe Biden’s party makes hay with the ambiguous killings of two more criminal suspects-of-color: first, Daunte Wright of Minneapolis, busy ignoring the open warrant out for him in failing to answer a previous warrant for his role in the 2019 aggravated burglary (that is, with a firearm) of a woman. He was out on $100,000 bail, but it was revoked in July 2020 when he got caught in possession of another gun. In the commotion of his resisting arrest, he got shot, tragically for officer Kim Potter, who somehow mistook her handgun for a taser. She is now teed up on a manslaughter case, while the Wright family is teed up for an $XX-million personal injury lawsuit settlement courtesy of ambulance-chaser Ben Crump. The city of Minneapolis is teed up for a municipal auto-da-fé of lootin-burnin-and-riotin in the name of “justice” - and the Derek Chauvin trial has not even concluded.

Secondarily, out comes the chest-cam video of Chicago police officer Eric Stillman shooting thirteen-year-old junior gang-banger Adam Toledo, in possession of a handgun, in a 3 a.m. chase down a West Side alleyway. So, Officer Stillman is teed up for some sort of career-ending action and Chicago is teed up for another round of lootin-burnin-and-riotin - sure to spread to other cities all over the country as the Woke vengeance campaign moves into its Satanic phase."

- https://kunstler.com/

Gregory Mannarino, AM 4/16/21: "Alert: A False Flag Event Is Being Set Up NOW!"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 4/16/21:

"Alert: A False Flag Event Is Being Set Up NOW!"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"How It Really Is"

 

"How to Eliminate the Drug Trade Overnight"

"How to Eliminate the Drug Trade Overnight"

by Fred Reed

"As perhaps most now know, China is preparing a digital currency with which it intends to replace cash entirely, and other countries, including the US, are considering the idea. Conservatives and libertarians will shriek, pull their hair, and turn blue at the idea, perhaps with good reason - which doesn’t matter since it is going to happen anyway.

How would it work? Digital currencies have many interesting qualities, but here we will look only at a few relevant to this column. First, you download the app like any other. It gives you a QR code and requires a face scan and perhaps a fingerprint scan, so that only you can use your money. Second, details of every transaction are recorded: time, place, name, and amount of every payment., from whom to whom. Most people won’t care since most people don’t do anything illegal, which will facilitate acceptance.

What effects would it have? Many and astonishing. A universal digital currency, combined with cashlessness, would wipe out the illegal drug trade overnight. At street level, every speedball sold would be paid for by the addict to the corner dealer, with the time, place, amount, buyer, and seller being recorded. The pattern caused by a dealer’s making repeated sales would be easily detected by AI algorithms. When the street-level guy bought a new kilo or whatever from his own dealer, this would instantly be flagged. When Pedro of Mexico wanted to sell a large batch to DeShawn in Chicago, the deal would stand out like sanity in a Democratic administration. Getting around this would be extremely difficult if not (more likely) impossible.

Arrests would not be necessary. Freezing the dealer’s account would be sufficient. As they say in Asia in another context, no money, no honey. Political effects? The current mass incarceration of blacks for drug crime would cease, and the drug trade would cease to ravage black neighborhoods. Reflection will show that many kinds of crime would disappear.

Money laundering? You would have to explain how you got it in the first place but if a crooked bank, which may mean all of them, accepted huge deposits of mysterious origin, lights would flash and bells go ringadingding at watchdog agencies. If the central authority wondered why Willy Bill had suddenly gotten seven million bucks from someone else who could not explain where he got it, the bank could simply freeze the money until Willy Bill dropped in to explain.

This isn’t fantasy. The technology exists. It is in use. In China, eighty percent of transactions are by cellphone apps. The Chinese predict that they will have digital currency up and running for the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Corruption? Many forms would become harder. When a congressman receives twenty times his annual salary from somebody working for Lockheed-Martin the road to Leavenworth would loom. Bribery would not be impossible, but harder to hide.

Another effect would be that the (encrypted) digital currency of one country would be independent of and opaque to other countries and thus secure against foreign (read American) meddling. This has begun to worry Washington. The city seems to have noted that China could pay Iran for oil in digital yuan, circumventing American sanctions. Many countries would like to get themselves out from under the American financial boot. Once the dijjywan becomes functional a rush to use it, probably in addition to the dollar, would not be surprising.

On a slightly different subject, note that a great deal of the annoyance and bureaucracy of modern life come from the use of different means of identifying ourselves. We carry credit cards, ID cards, library cards, passports, and suchlike. At airports we have to produce tickets and ID. We have driver’s licenses and scuba-certification cards. On and on.

All of this could be eliminated by a combination of reliable biometric identification (face-recognition, fingerprints, iris scan, what have you) and cloud storage. At the airport a face scan identifies you, checks to see that you have paid for a ticket to France, checks to see that you hold a valid passport, and you board your flight by simply walking aboard. At a restaurant you pay by saying, “Visa.” No cards, no forms to sign. Reliable biometric ID would also allow getting rid of keys, passwords, and the like since all these do really is to identify you.

Would all of this endanger privacy? Usually, no. For example, the software could ensure that no one could see your scuba cert except with your permission, that border enforcement could check your passport information and visas but no one else could, and so on. However, the government could see anything it wanted. Exactly as the shrieking blue libertarians and conservatives say. When, whether, and to what extent this would matter to most of us can be debated, but it would assuredly be possible. Again, this is not Fred’s fevered imagination. All of the technology exists, right now.

But…how different is this from today’s America? Visa and your bank record every purchase you make with a credit card, time, place and amount. Gmail or Outlook saves all your emails. Every check you write, every deposit or withdrawal becomes a record. Your smartphone knows where it is and therefore, usually, where you are: In Mexico I say to my iPhone, “Hey Siri, where am I?” she knows exactly. Cell towers know within a fairly short radius where your phone is, usually with you, and time correlation can show who you spent time with. The sites you visit on the web go into data bases. If you have been visiting porn sites involving donkeys, Google, which is as much a part of government as Congress, knows it. If you have “Hey Siri” activated, and perhaps if you don’t, your phone is always listening. Amazon knows all your purchases and reading habits. (Incidentally, it disappears books those in charge don’t like. A book is equally gone regardless of whether the vanishment is done by Washington or a quasi-governmental tech company.)

It gets worse. Our television - I am inclined to say “telescreen” - has control by gesture, meaning that it has a camera, as well as voice control. In principle, it listens only when we use the remote to tell it to. In practice, who knows? We have two Alexa boxes in the house If we accidentally say “Alexa” in one room, the box two rooms away will come alive and ask what we want. Would - does = Jeff Bezos let the government use this facility? I don’t know. With shaky search warrants and bunkum about national security, what choice would he have? And of course cameras are everywhere.

Most of this is innocuous. Nobody will look at the Seven-Eleven video of me buying a six-pack of Tecate unless there is a robbery, which would not involve me. But the watchfulness is there, everywhere, all the time, if anyone wants to get at it We seem to be getting the surveillance so many fear, but not the benefits."

- https://www.unz.com/

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 4/16/2021"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up 4/16/2021"

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Is the USA and Russia headed for war? The Russians are building up 40,000 troops on Ukraine’s Eastern border. There are also some 40,000 Russian troops in Crimea that Russia annexed in 2014. There are warnings from people like former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of nuclear war that would cause dire consequences for all Americans. Some say Russia is preparing to invade Ukraine, but Russia says no, it is not. My question is: Why is all this flaring up now? Is it the weak dollar? Is the election fraud of 2020 about to get broken wide open? Who knows, but something is up behind the scenes.

Project Veritas has done it again. It has caught on camera what many have long suspected–that CNN is just a “propaganda” operation to shape public opinion. One of its top managers says the goal for the so-called news organization was to get President Donald Trump out of office. This manager also admitted the network helps out Joe Biden and the Democrats on a routine basis. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I say it’s not only CNN, but other networks are really nothing but pure propaganda and, as President Trump said, the “Fake News is the Enemy of the People.”

The Fake News is also responsible for misinforming the public on CV19 and the need for vaccines. The phony so-called news outlets would never tell the public that CV19 could be cured early on with Ivermectin, Hydroxychloroquine, Zinc and other non-vaccine remedies that have much scientific peer reviewed evidence backing this up. The networks would also not tell the public that the vaccines were experimental DNA altering human trials, and they have no idea what the outcome will be long term. Now, the vaccine companies are saying we need more “top-up” doses of these experimental vaccines. Don’t expect the MSM to bring you any scientific debate such as Dr. Mike Yeadon, a former Pfizer VP, who says do not take “top-up” (or booster) vaccines because the vaccine was not necessary in the first place."

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about these 

stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 4/16/2021.

- https://rumble.com/

"Texas Power Crisis Continues: Prices Soar 10,000% As Grid Emergency Causes Power Supply Shortages"

Full screen recommended.

"Texas Power Crisis Continues: Prices Soar 10,000% 

As Grid Emergency Causes Power Supply Shortages"

by Epic Economist

"Texas is facing another threatening power grid emergency just months after a polar vortex sparked chaos all across the state, and resulted in billions in collateral damages for millions of Texan households and businesses. The new power-grid scare happened last Tuesday night, less than 60 days after generalized blackouts left large swaths of the Texan population without light and heat for several days due to a deep winter freeze. The grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas issued an energy conservation appeal in an attempt to avert another catastrophe. On Twitter, ERCOT requested energy conservation for nearly four hours, writing that "consumers and businesses are urged to reduce their electricity use this afternoon and into the evening".

The operator came under immense pressure for mishandling the devastating winter storm that happened in mid-February when the Lone Star state suffered from disastrous power supply interruptions amid freezing temperatures with nearly half of the state’s generation capacity being completely knocked out, which fatally impacted over 100 people, pushed energy prices to unprecedented highs, and lead to billions in damages. One more time, ERCOT failed to correctly forecast weather conditions and was caught off guard when an unexpected cold front stalled in one part of the state, leaving demand for power much more elevated than experts anticipated.

ERCOT cited that cloudy conditions have blocked numerous solar panels in West Texas, therefore, wind power was lower than expected. Also, there were higher than expected temperatures in some parts of the state adding more pressure on the power grid. The main problem was that the cold front started moving through Texas when almost 25% of the state's electricity generating capacity was off-line for maintenance related to the February freeze and to get ready for the summer months. However, Texas residents were not enthused by the grid warnings and reacted on Twitter, complaining about the companies' lack of efficiency to adapt and handle the crisis.

But the outages and the conservation appeals aren't the only determinants making residents extremely frustrated with the energy company. According to a Bloomberg report, "the average spot on-peak electricity at Ercot’s North Hub jumped more than 10,000% to $2,012 a megawatt-hour as of 5:30​ p.m". A FOX San Antonio article warned Texan residents should expect a sizable spike in this month's electricity bill once again. The price controversy stems from the 32-hour period during the freeze when prices were left high, resulting in $16 billion in unnecessary charges to power companies and others. And according to ERCOT's vice president “we could be in the same situation in the next few weeks."

The financial pain experienced by power companies is making experts fear that reversing electricity prices from the winter storm could make things even worse. While state regulators try to pass repricing measures on Congress, Joshua Rhodes, research associate at the Webber Energy Group at the University of Texas at Austin, said the prospect of repricing the market “might actually do more harm than good”. Caitlin Smith, an energy adviser in Austin underscored that when repricing a market “you don’t know who you’re hurting. And you think you’re protecting the consumer, and it turns out you’re bankrupting someone else.” Already, numerous companies and entities at every tier of the state’s energy system have been severely affected and a wave of bankruptcies has started. Most notably, Brazos Electric Power Cooperative, which supplies electricity to over 1.5 million customers, registered massive losses and filed for bankruptcy, citing a $1.8 billion debt to ERCOT.

Repricing initiatives are likely to trigger more shutdowns and bankruptcies over the next few months, adding to the strains faced by the companies and threatening to provoke a calamitous and prolonged power supply crisis. “We are facing a disaster right now,” CPS chief executive Paula Gold-Williams said. “If we can’t have access to the financial markets and come through with a plan that works, then we really can’t maintain operations". In short, the Lone Star State will have to address the tricky dilemma of either letting energy operators and distributors charge exorbitant prices to consumers or risking seeing the downfall of companies that provide an essential service to the Texan society. It seems that the energy crisis is far from over, and if leaders want to avoid a brutal catastrophe and much more turbulence in the months ahead, they have to start acting right now."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

“Retail Boom - Use Extreme Caution; Economy Gutted; Masses Spending Heavily; Someone Is Lying”

Jeremiah Babe,

“Retail Boom - Use Extreme Caution; Economy Gutted; 

Masses Spending Heavily; Someone Is Lying”

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Believe"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Believe"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Massive stars, abrasive winds, mountains of dust, and energetic light sculpt one of the largest and most picturesque regions of star formation in the Local Group of Galaxies. Known as N11, the region is visible on the upper right of many images of its home galaxy, the Milky Way neighbor known as the Large Magellanic Clouds (LMC).

The above image was taken for scientific purposes by the Hubble Space Telescope and reprocessed for artistry by an amateur to win the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures competition. Although the section imaged above is known as NGC 1763, the entire N11 emission nebula is second in LMC size only to 30 Doradus. Studying the stars in N11 has shown that it actually houses three successive generations of star formation. Compact globules of dark dust housing emerging young stars are also visible around the image.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130211.html

Chet Raymo, “Mortal Soul: The Great Silence”

“Mortal Soul: The Great Silence”

by Chet Raymo

“If there is one word that should not be uttered, it is the name of – no, I will not say it. Any name diminishes. In the face of whatever it is that is most mysterious, most holy, we are properly silent. It is appropriate, I think, to praise the creation, to make a joyful noise of thanksgiving for the sensate world. But praising the Creator is another thing altogether. When we make a big racket on His behalf we are more than likely addressing an idol in our own image. What was it that Pico Iyer said? “Silence is the tribute that we pay to holiness; we slip off words when we enter a sacred place, just as we slip off shoes.” The God of the mystics whispers sweet nothings, as lovers do.

In a diary entry for “M.”, near the end of his too-short life, Thomas Merton wrote: “I cannot have enough of the hours of silence when nothing happens. When the clouds go by. When the trees say nothing. When the birds sing. I am completely addicted to the realization that just being there is enough.” The natural world was for Merton the primary revelation. He listened. He felt a presence in his heart, an awareness of the ineffable Mystery that permeates creation. It was this that drew him to the mystical tradition of Christianity, especially to the Celtic tradition of creation spirituality. It was this that attracted him to Zen.

There come now and then, perhaps more frequently in late life than previously, those moments of being (as Virginia Woolf called them) when creation grabs us by the shoulders and gives us such a shake that it rattles our teeth, when love for the world simply knocks us flat. At those moments everything we have learned about the world – the invaluable and reliable knowledge of science- seems a pale intimation of what is. In Virginia Woolf’s novel “The Waves”, the elderly Bernard says: “How tired I am of stories, how tired I am of phrases that come down beautifully with all their feet on the ground! Also, how I distrust neat designs of life that are drawn upon half sheets of notepaper. I begin to long for some little language such as lovers use, broken words, inarticulate words, like the shuffling of feet on the pavement.”

In moments of soul-stirring epiphany, it is reassuring to feel beneath our feet a floor of reliable knowledge, the safe and sure edifice of empirical learning so painstakingly constructed by the likes of Aristarchus, Galileo, Darwin and Schrodinger. But at the same time we are humbled by our ignorance, and more ready than ever to say “I don’t know,” to enter at last the great silence. Erwin Chargaff, who contributed mightily to our understanding of DNA, wrote: “It is the sense of mystery that, in my opinion, drives the true scientist; the same blind force, blindly seeing, deafly hearing, unconsciously remembering, that drives the larva into the butterfly. If the scientist has not experienced, at least a few times in his life, this cold shudder down his spine, this confrontation with an immense invisible face whose breath moves him to tears, he is not a scientist.”

The whole thrust of the mystical tradition, the whole thrust of science, is toward the great silence- an awareness of our ignorance and a willingness to say “I don’t know.” A lifetime of learning brings one at last to the face of mystery. We live in a universe of more than 2 trillion galaxies. Perhaps the number of galaxies is infinite. And the universe is silent. Achingly, terrifyingly silent. Or, rather, the universe speaks a little language such as lovers use, broken words, inarticulate words, like the shuffling of feet on the pavement.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

Gregory Mannarino, PM 4/15/21: “10yr Yield DIVES! Stocks Hit NEW RECORD HIGHS”

Gregory Mannarino, PM 4/15/21:

“10yr Yield DIVES! Stocks Hit NEW RECORD HIGHS”

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Jerome Powell, Arsonist"

"Jerome Powell, Arsonist"

by Brian Maher

"An unwitting menace - perhaps four years of age - seizes a book from a tabletop… It is not a child’s book. It is a matchbook. This innocent sets upon his discovery with the ferocious curiosity of a child typical of its years. Eventually… a match slides across a rough surface... and a flame is born. The arsonist cheers his triumph and his bulldog tenacity But within seconds, the drapes are ablaze. Within minutes, the house is a conflagration of flame.

Within the hour, it is an embering heap. Today we propose an analogy: The match-playing child is Jerome Powell. Inflation is the match... And the dollar is the house.

Playing With Matches: For years the Federal Reserve has been toying furiously with matches. It is frantic to strike a 2% inflationary flame. A mild inflation is an economic blessing, they argue. A 2% inflation burns through a dollar at 2% per year - a bearable rate. But the consumer smells the smoke wafting from his wallet. He senses heat against his hip He is eager to pass his dollars along to someone else… as he would pass along a potato too hot to the touch.

And so inflation prods the consumer to spend. He purchases goods this year because his dollar fetches him more than it will next year. This year’s purchases - in turn - post a gain to the gross domestic product. A controlled burn of the dollar therefore keeps consumers on the jump, the economy on the hum… and business in funds. Under deflation, conversely, the opposite dynamic obtains…

The “Evils” of Deflation: Next year’s dollar collars more goods than this year’s dollar. The item that costs a man $1,002 this year may cost him $979 next year. He therefore postpones his purchase until the price falls to him. What is the evil result of deflation’s postponed purchasing? Goods wallow upon shelves, stockrooms overflow, industry loses its bustle. The greater the deflation... the greater the headaches it inflicts. If left alone, the entire economy may plunge into the vortex of deflation… and the hell flames of depression will soon be licking at the door. Thus is deflation the chief bugaboo, the king hobgoblin of most economists.

Is Deflation so Bad? But is it true? Is deflation really the supreme monetary evil? Why then do consumers keep purchasing computers and large-screen televisions? Their prices drift lower year after year. Yet computers and large-screen televisions do a very brisk trade – despite consumer expectations of falling prices to come.

If deflation was so vicious… why do consumers continue purchasing them...rather than waiting for next year? Never you mind, says the Federal Reserve. It is hot for inflation. And the matches are out… "The Fed wants higher inflation,” says Goldman’s crackerjacks. And "what the central bank wants is usually what it gets, sooner or later.” After years of misstrikes, the Federal Reserve may finally be kindling an inflationary flame. But like the child untutored in the arts of arson, it may ignite a blaze - a blaze that could ultimately tear through and gut the dollar.

Future Kerosene: The M1 money supply represents the stock of cash, coins and checking account deposits. It is the most liquid money supply. Within the space of one year, M1 has ballooned from $4.5 trillion to $18.1 trillion - a preposterous 450%. The M2 money supply, meantime, includes saving deposits, time deposits, certificates of deposit, and money market funds. These deposits and money market funds are considered “near money.” They are non-cash assets. But they convert easily to cash. Hence, “near.”

M2 has jumped 30% within this past year… from $15 trillion… to nearly $20 trillion. Not since the Federal Reserve began tracking it has the money supply expanded at such delirious rates. That is, never has the Federal Reserve toyed so recklessly with matches.

We mention - in passing - that the Federal Reserve has ceased reporting M1 and M2 data. Why? We have our theories. But we will keep them dark for now. Regardless, inflation is beginning to bubble and percolate…

Surging Commodities: World Bank data reports energy indexes have jumped 192% since April last. Metals have leapt 68%. Agricultural products, 27%. Copper prices have soared 67%, gasoline 50%, lumber 193%. In some locations, a plywood sheet that went for $15 one year ago may go for as much as $65 today.

The Federal Reserve is convinced the inflation is a fleeting spark, a transient effervescence, a temporary flash. It is the result of pandemic-induced shortages colliding with surging demand as economies reopen. And so the Federal Reserve is willing to permit inflation to “run hot.” Inflation must exceed 2% for a long, long while before it reaches for the hoses.

Timetables of Inflation: But as the report of a distant cannon lags the blast that produced it... price inflation lags the money creation that produces it. Recall, M1 money supply has erupted 450% since last March. M2 has risen 30%. The barrage has yet to impact. When will the inflation come down?

Johns Hopkins economist Steve Hanke gives the timeline: "The dramatic growth in the U.S. money supply… that began in March 2020 will do what increases in the money supply always do. Money growth will lead in the first instance (1–9 months) to asset-price inflation. Then, a second stage will set in. Over a 6–18-month period after a monetary injection occurs, economic activity will pick up. Ultimately, the prices of goods and services will increase. That usually takes between 12 and 24 months after the original monetary injection. Given this sequence, it’s as clear as the nose on your face that we’re going to see more - perhaps much more - inflation entering the system in the coming months… the recent March year-over-year CPI inflation rate of 2.6% is simply a harbinger of what is coming in the future: more inflation."

Assume price inflation emerges 12-24 months after the March 2020 unleashing. Inflation would barrel in anytime between now and March 2022. Jim Rickards - incidentally - also believes inflation will menace in 2022. Increasing commodity prices suggest its advance scouts are already upon us. But the main force will follow.

The official Consumer Price Index (CPI) is up 2.6% year-over-year. But what if true inflation runs higher than 2.6% - far higher?

Is 10% The True Inflation Rate? Like an arsonist who conceals his mischief, the Federal Reserve conceals true inflation. It hides behind the smoke of “hedonic adjustments” and similar razzle-dazzle. Mr. John Williams - proprietor of the ShadowStats site - is on to its tricks. Mr. Williams claims inflation runs to 6% if tracked by 1990 standards. And if calculated by the metrics of 1980? Inflation goes at 10%. What might the true inflation rate read next year? We hesitate to hazard an estimate.

Wrong About Subprime, Wrong About Inflation: Jerome Powell says any inflationary gurgles will pass. Have another guess, says macroeconomist Peter Schiff: Powell is assuring everybody that there is nothing to worry about. Well, inflation is every bit as transitory as subprime was contained. The Fed was wrong then and they are even more wrong now.

More: "In order to fight inflation, especially inflation as high as it’s going to be after the Fed is finally satisfied that it’s high enough, the degree to which they would have to raise interest rates... and reduce the money supply would destroy this recovery… The minute the Fed starts to fight inflation, the recovery is over and the depression begins, which means they will resist picking that fight as long as possible. But again, eventually, it’s not just depression that we’re going to get, but massive inflation…"

Will a terrible inflation sweep on through? Will it follow the timetable set forth above? We are not fool enough to claim we hold the answers. Phantom fires have foxed us before. But this we do know: If a child toys with matches long enough… he will eventually set the house ablaze…"

- dailyreckoning.com

The Daily "Near You?"

Tijeras, New Mexico, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

The Poet: Langston Hughes, "Dreams"

"Dreams"

"Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow."

- Langston Hughes

"At This Point..."

“At this point I reveal myself in my true colors, as a stick-in-the-mud. I hold a number of beliefs that have been repudiated by the liveliest intellects of our time. I believe order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. 

On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology. I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven’t changed much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence we must try to learn from history. History is ourselves.

I believe in courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people’s feelings, by satisfying our own egos. And I think we should remember that we are all part of a great whole, which for convenience we call nature. All living things are our brothers and sisters.”

- Kenneth Clark, “Civilization”

"Voodoo Guesswork"

The economy, 2021

"Voodoo Guesswork"

By Bill Bonner

When your outgo exceeds your income, your upkeep is your downfall.

– Sid Taylor, former research director, National Taxpayers Union

YOUGHAL, IRELAND – Yesterday, we began our look at the Big Bang… the end of an empire… the grand finale in a Katastrophenhausse. That’s when the you-know-what hits the fan. Trouble is, you-don’t-know-when… or exactly how. Our observation is that inflation is not always and everywhere a purely monetary phenomenon. In fact, it never is. Instead, part cause and part effect, it unsettles and disrupts. It mixes with politics and social movements… and like nitro and glycerin, the combination is inherently unstable… and explosive.

Civilization Is Restraint: Whenever and wherever there is great inflation, so is there great trouble. The French Revolution and the inflation of the assignats and land warrants, for example…Hyperinflation in Russia and the Bolshevik Revolution…Germany’s Weimar Republic inflation and the rise of the Nazis…Yugoslavia, 1994-1996… inflation of 62% PER DAY… and the end of the country.

Civilization is restraint, as Sigmund Freud put it. It requires rules… discipline. Weeds must be pulled up. Trees must be pruned. Property must be protected. Roofs must be fixed. Contracts must be respected. Two plus two must equal four. And money must be neither dear nor cheap, but true.

Order must be maintained. And order requires energy… expense… and time. Slack off… or squander your time and energy – How many women are on your board? Sanction the Russians? More stimmy money for everyone! – and things fall apart…and then blow up.

Empty Gestures: At least, that’s our hypothesis. To which we add… that by our count, in the U.S., the nitro and the glycerin have been edging towards each other for two decades. People still go about their business, more or less as before. Congress still meets and pretends to govern. People still vote, pretending to select worthy representatives. Wall Street still pretends to allocate precious capital to productive businesses. Prices still pretend to reflect the real value of stocks and bonds. The press still pretends to report the news. The Federal Reserve still pretends to offer real money. But the gestures are empty… the facts are fake… and the numbers don’t add up.

Outgo > Income: Forty years ago, in the month of March, the federal government collected $44 billion in tax revenue and spent $53 billion. Even then, the feds were $9 billion in the hole. But they could borrow the money honestly; no big deal.

In March 2021, the feds collected some $267 billion in tax receipts. But they spent $927 billion – a new record. And a record monthly deficit of $660 billion, approximately equal to the entire U.S. annual budget during the Ronald Reagan administration.

Not only do income and outgo not match… they’re never going to get together. Losing money at this rate implies a loss for the year of about $8 trillion… More likely, March was an outlier, and the loss will be “only” about $3-$4 trillion, still far more than can plausibly be borrowed. And this is on top of other big numbers that don’t add up, either.

Trouble Ahead: And here is where it leads. Here’s Business Insider: “…In our view, the risk is investors are going to experience an acceleration in economic growth and inflation of a magnitude economists and the Fed are totally unprepared for,” said Hans Mikkelsen, head of high-grade credit strategy at Bank of America.

And here’s economist Nouriel Roubini: "Over the next few years, loose monetary and fiscal policies will start to trigger persistent inflationary – and eventually stagflationary – pressure, owing to the emergence of any number of persistent negative supply shocks."

Make no mistake: Inflation’s return would have severe economic and financial consequences. We would have gone from the “Great Moderation” to a new period of macro instability. Even Larry Summers, former director of the National Economic Council, who is rarely right about anything, sees trouble coming. Speaking on Bloomberg TV, he said: "This is the least responsible fiscal macroeconomic policy we’ve had for the last 40 years."

Nothing to Worry About: But wait… What are we worried about? The Biden team “modeled” various scenarios. It found that inflation will not be a problem. Here’s The New York Times: "A monthslong effort to monitor and model economic trends inside the White House and the Treasury Department found little risk of prices spiraling upward faster than the Fed can manage."

What a relief! No cause for concern, sayeth the feds’ models. Of course, Rudolf von Havenstein, who ran the German central bank from 1908 to 1923, had models, too. So did Gideon Gono, jefe of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe from 2003 to 2013. And Ben Bernanke, in charge at the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014, had models that told him that the mortgage finance crisis was nothing to worry about, either. On Thursday, May 17, 2007 said the great man: "We believe the effect of the troubles in the subprime sector on the broader housing market will likely be limited, and we do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy or to the financial system."

The models sound scientific. But they are nothing more than voodoo guesswork."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

"How It Really Is, And Will Be, For A Long, Long time"

 

Gregory Mannarino, AM 4/15/21: "MORE #LIES #PROPAGANDA AND #MANIPULATION"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 4/15/21:

"MORE #LIES #PROPAGANDA AND #MANIPULATION"

- https://traderschoice.net/