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Monday, January 10, 2022

"Breakdown: Basic Services And Supply Chains Are Rapidly Breaking Down All Over The Globe"

Full screen recommended.
"Breakdown: Basic Services And Supply Chains
 Are Rapidly Breaking Down All Over The Globe"
by Epic Economist

"We can't say we haven't been warned that things would get worse in 2022. Now, this is exactly what's happening. All over the nation, basic services are breaking down and supply chains are in total chaos due to a slowdown in production and a severe shortage of workers. All of these problems already existed last year, but our leaders decided to ignore them. The mainstream media didn't pay much attention to what was going on until things have gotten too bad. And now that the emergence of a new highly-contagious variant has taken these crises to an entirely new level, that's all they talk about. Over the past few days, countless stories covering the nationwide breakdown of services have started to become popular as conditions aggravated.

The Drudge Report recently exposed that all around the country, ambulances are seeping up to hospitals and then suddenly changing direction because hospitals are full. Employee shortages are causing delays in trash and subway services and diminishing the ranks of firefighters and emergency workers. Meanwhile, airport officials are shutting down security checkpoints at some of the biggest terminals in the U.S., and schools are deeply struggling to find teachers for their classrooms.

When people get to our hospitals, oftentimes they can't get treated in a timely manner simply because there are not enough health care workers to treat them. Even though hospitals are trying to hire as fast as they possibly can, finding qualified staff is exceedingly difficult these days. For instance, in the Community Hospital of McCook Nebraska, Troy Bruntz, who runs the facility has been trying to recruit an ultrasound technician for the past six months, but so far he didn't get one single application.

He explained that for lower-level positions, the hospital has to compete with the local Walmart store, where wages are rising much faster than in his facility. He has to keep track of the pay offered by the retailer and other large local employers, including a hose manufacturer, and an irrigation equipment supplier. That's how crazy today's job market has become. Today, there are over 10 million job openings in the United States, but in December, only 199,000 workers were added to the economy, according to the latest data released by the Labor Department. That was the fewest jobs added in any month of 2021, and a major disappointment to economists that had predicted jobs growth of double that number.

In the old days, a monthly job gain of 199,000 workers would have barely kept up with population growth. But our population has been declining at an alarming pace these days. Sadly, we may lose many more Americans this year given that our hospitals are absolutely overwhelmed, with hundreds of thousands of patients checking in week after week, and many of them are being left without treatment for days. Biden's mandates for health care workers have done unprecedented damages to the system, and as hospitals scramble to hire more workers, the National Guard is being forced to serve hospital duty in some states.

That means that if you show up at your local emergency room with a serious condition or illness, you may get treated by a member of the Nation Guard that has absolutely no medical training. On top of all that, our nightmarish supply chain crisis is being intensified by lockdown mandates on the other side of the globe. Last year, our leaders have assured us that the computer chip shortage would be gone by 2022. But due to widespread factory shutdowns in China and dismal domestic production in the U.S., that shortage has gotten even worse.

The bottom line is supply chain problems are becoming more widespread and are worsening despite the government's pledge to fix the mess. And thanks to the new surge in infections, we're also witnessing extensive shortages of meat and eggs at local supermarkets from coast to coast. Food inspectors and plant workers are calling in sick but the thousands, and while production and processing slow down, several American supermarkets are reporting incidents of bare shelves.

These days, our leaders keep patronizing us without opening a window to hear what we truly want and need. They keep imposing more rules, more restrictions, and more mandates that don't do anything but more damage since our population doesn't trust them anymore. The more they clamp down, the more our society breaks down. Without a doubt, 2022 is off to an ominous start, and the weeks and months ahead don't look very promising."

"Restaurants Won't Survive; Mortgage Rates Accelerate; Housing Collapse"

Jeremiah Babe, PM 1/10/22:
"Restaurants Won't Survive; 
Mortgage Rates Accelerate; Housing Collapse"

Gregory Mannarino, "Markets Crashing! The Big Meltdown! Bitcoin To Zero"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 1/10/22:
"Markets Crashing! The Big Meltdown! Bitcoin To Zero"

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Land of Forever"

2002, "Land of Forever"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"These are galaxies of the Hercules Cluster, an archipelago of island universes a mere 500 million light-years away. Also known as Abell 2151, this cluster is loaded with gas and dust rich, star-forming spiral galaxies but has relatively few elliptical galaxies, which lack gas and dust and the associated newborn stars. The colors in this remarkably deep composite image clearly show the star forming galaxies with a blue tint and galaxies with older stellar populations with a yellowish cast.
The sharp picture spans about 3/4 degree across the cluster center, corresponding to over 6 million light-years at the cluster's estimated distance. Diffraction spikes around brighter foreground stars in our own Milky Way galaxy are produced by the imaging telescope's mirror support vanes. In the cosmic vista many galaxies seem to be colliding or merging while others seem distorted - clear evidence that cluster galaxies commonly interact. In fact, the Hercules Cluster itself may be seen as the result of ongoing mergers of smaller galaxy clusters and is thought to be similar to young galaxy clusters in the much more distant, early Universe."

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.”

“Luminarium”

“Luminarium”
by Anniina Jokinen

“This site combines several sites first created in 1996 to provide a starting point for students and enthusiasts of English Literature. Nothing replaces a quality library, but hopefully this site will help fill the needs of those who have not access to one. Many works from Medieval, Renaissance, Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries can be found here.

The site started in early 1996. I remember looking for essays to spark an idea for a survey class I was taking at the time. It seemed that finding study materials online was prohibitively difficult and time-consuming—there was no all-encompassing site which could have assisted me in my search. I started the site as a public service, because I myself had to waste so much time as a student, trying to find anything useful or interesting. There were only a handful of sites back then (read: Internet Dark Ages) and I could spend hours on search engines, looking for just a few things. I realized I must not be the only one in the predicament and started a simple one-page site of links to Middle English Literature. That page was soon followed by a Renaissance site.

Gradually it became obvious that the number of resources was ungainly for such a simple design. It was then that the multi-page “Medlit” and “Renlit” pages were created, around July 1996. That structure is still the same today. In September 1996, I started creating the “Sevenlit” site, launched in November. I realized the need to somehow unite all three sites, and that led to the creation of Luminarium. I chose the name, which is Latin for “lantern,” because I wanted the site to be a beacon of light in the darkness. It was also befitting for a site containing authors considered “luminaries” of English literature.

I wanted the site to be a multimedia experience in the periods. I find it easier to visualize what I am reading when there is a small illustration or a tidbit about the background of the author or his work. The music and art of the period serve to complement one’s rational experience of the site with the emotional. There are people who write to me who seem to think that if something has a beautiful wrapping, it cannot possibly have scholarly insides. But I do not see why something scholarly cannot at the same time be attractive. It is that marriage of form and function, so celebrated during the Renaissance, for which my site strives.” 

“The Web Gallery of Art”

“The Web Gallery of Art”

“The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassicism, Romanticism and Realism periods (1100-1850), currently containing over 51,400 reproductions. It was started in 1996 as a topical site of the Renaissance art, originated in the Italian city-states of the 14th century and spread to other countries in the 15th and 16th centuries. Intending to present Renaissance art as comprehensively as possible, the scope of the collection was later extended to show its Medieval roots as well as its evolution to Baroque and Rococo via Mannerism. More recently the periods of Neoclassicism and Romanticism were also included.

The collection has some of the characteristics of a virtual museum. The experience of the visitors is enhanced by guided tours helping to understand the artistic and historical relationship between different works and artists, by period music of choice in the background and a free postcard service. At the same time the collection serves the visitors’ need for a site where various information on art, artists and history can be found together with corresponding pictorial illustrations. Although not a conventional one, the collection is a searchable database supplemented by a glossary containing articles on art terms, relevant historical events, personages, cities, museums and churches.

The Web Gallery of Art is intended to be a free resource of art history primarily for students and teachers. It is a private initiative not related to any museums or art institutions, and not supported financially by any state or corporate sponsors. However, we do our utmost, using authentic literature and advice from professionals, to ensure the quality and authenticity of the content.

We are convinced that such a collection of digital reproductions, containing a balanced mixture of interlinked visual and textual information, can serve multiple purposes. On one hand it can simply be a source of artistic enjoyment; a convenient alternative to visiting a distant museum, or an incentive to do just that. On the other hand, it can serve as a tool for public education both in schools and at home.”

"There Was A Tale..."

“There was a tale he had read once, long ago, as a small boy: the story of a traveler who had slipped down a cliff, with man-eating tigers above him and a lethal fall below him, who managed to stop his fall halfway down the side of the cliff, holding on for dear life. There was a clump of strawberries beside him, and certain death above him and below. What should he do? went the question. And the reply was, Eat the strawberries. The story had never made sense to him as a boy. It did now.”
- Neil Gaiman

The Poet: Henry Austin Dobson, “The Paradox Of Time”

“The Paradox Of Time”

“Time goes, you say? Ah no! 
Alas, Time stays, we go; 
Or else, were this not so, 
What need to chain the hours, 
For Youth were always ours? 

Time goes, you say? – ah no! 
Ours is the eyes’ deceit 
Of men whose flying feet 
Lead through some landscape low; 
We pass, and think we see 
The earth’s fixed surface flee - 
Alas, Time stays, – we go! 

Once in the days of old, 
Your locks were curling gold, 
And mine had shamed the crow. 
Now, in the self-same stage, 
We’ve reached the silver age; 
Time goes, you say? – ah no! 

Once, when my voice was strong, 
I filled the woods with song 
To praise your ‘rose’ and ‘snow’; 
My bird, that sang, is dead; 
Where are your roses fled? 
Alas, Time stays, – we go! 

See, in what traversed ways, 
What backward Fate delays 
The hopes we used to know; 
Where are our old desires? 
Ah, where those vanished fires? 
Time goes, you say? – ah no! 

How far, how far, O Sweet, 
The past behind our feet 
Lies in the even-glow! 
Now, on the forward way, 
Let us fold hands, and pray; 
Alas, Time stays, – we go!”

- Henry Austin Dobson
“Time passes in moments. Moments which, rushing past, define the path of a life, just as surely as they lead towards its end. How rarely do we stop to examine that path, to see the reasons why all things happen? To consider whether the path we take in life is our own making, or simply one into which we drift with eyes closed? But what if we could stop, pause to take stock of each precious moment before it passes? Might we then see the endless forks in the road that have shaped a life? And, seeing those choices, choose another path?”
- Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully, “The X-Files”

"Oh! Had I The Ability..."

"Oh! Had I the ability, and could I reach the nation's ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced."
- Frederick Douglass

The Daily "Near You?"

Jasper, Tennessee, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Dollar Meltdown and Higher Inflation - Banks Issue Warnings"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly AM 1/10/22:
"Dollar Meltdown and Higher Inflation - Banks Issue Warnings"
"The big banks are issuing warnings on Inflation and interest rate problems. Our economy is not growing, it is shrinking, and the experts are finally admitted that employment is not an all time low."

"We Should..."

“Only the following items should be considered to be grave faults: not respecting another's rights; allowing oneself to be paralyzed by fear; feeling guilty; believing that one does not deserve the good or ill that happens in one's life; being a coward. We will love our enemies, but not make alliances with them. They were placed in our path in order to test our sword, and we should, out of respect for them, struggle against them. We will choose our enemies.”
- Paulo Coelho

"Economic Market Snapshot 1/10/22"

"Economic Market Snapshot 1/10/22"
Updated as available.
"The more I see of the moneyed classes, 
the more I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw

MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates
CNN Market Data:

CNN Fear And Greed Index:
Latest Market Analysis, Updated 1/10/22
https://www.asktraders.com/analysis/
A comprehensive, essential daily read.
Jan 8th to 12th 2022
Financial Stress Index
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: creditequity valuationfunding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United Statesother advanced economies, and emerging markets."
Daily Job Cuts

Commentary, highly recommended:
And now, the End Game...

"Coups d’etat… for Dummies"

"Coups d’etat… for Dummies"
by Bill Bonner

Poitou, France - “I will stand in this breach. I will defend this nation. And I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of our democracy.” ~ Joe Biden

"The holiday season is over… now comes the long slog through winter… First, we would like to thank Dear Readers for sticking with us. We’re trying something new. Just straight talk. No advertising. No big promises. If we get through the coming bomb cyclone – the financial/political one – with our wits and wealth in tact, we will consider it a success.

In the days ahead, we will also give you a fuller explanation for our move… and hit the refresh button on many of the core ideas we’ve developed over the last two decades. They may seem a little exotic, or even frightening, to new readers. But here at the re-born Diary, we hide nothing. One of our almost treasonous notions, for example, is our take on modern, American democracy… and the role of America’s mainstream media in destroying it.

Last week was the anniversary of the Jan. 6 2021 ‘insurgency’ at the US Capitol. The press was in full throated alarm mode. Just google “American democracy in peril” and you will get millions of suggestions. Johns Hopkins and Harvard have convened panels of scholars to explore the idea. Joe Biden, along with almost every Democrat-leaning polemicist, politician and DC hanger-on, has warned about it. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of books have endorsed the idea. Writes one of the most popular writers on Substack, Heather Richardson Cox: "On January 6, 2021, insurrectionists determined to overturn an election and undermine our democracy carried that flag [the Confederate flag] into the seat of our government."

Horrors!

Up north, the Canadians are worried. This morning, MSNBC carries this story from Toronto’s Globe & Mail: “American Democracy Could Collapse.” It goes on to say that a ‘right wing’ dictator could take over in 2030. [A ‘left wing’ dictator, apparently, is out of the question.]

The danger is imminent! The Atlantic, that paragon of Elite Establishment Wisdom opines: "America is running out of time. One year after Donald Trump led his supporters in an attempted coup against the United States, the nation is still very much in the throes of that attack."

The Coup that Wasn't: But we all saw it on TV. What kind of coup d’etat was this? The mob invasion of the Capitol appeared to be just the opposite of a real coup. It was more like a takeover organized by the Three Stooges. The invaders had not a single weapon. Not a single preparation had been made – no plan… no supplies… no press conferences… no tanks, airplanes, TV stations… nothing had been made ready.

Even such a low IQ crowd could have searched for it on the internet: “How to engineer a successful coup d’etat in 10 simple steps.” Look it up for yourself; it’s right there. Apparently, no one did. Instead, the leaderless mob entered the Capitol building, milled around, took selfies, then… as clueless and lost as tourists without a guide, it left.

Nobody appeared on TV announcing a state of emergency and a new government. Beltway traffic was not interrupted. No columns of olive drab troop carriers crossed the 14th Street Bridge.

Caesar crossed the Rubicon with an army of loyal, hardened troops at his back…. after crisscrossing all of Gaul, on foot or on horseback, and defeating, outsmarting, and humbling dozens of barbarian tribes. He was strong, bright, and remarkably resourceful. No one doubted that he meant business.

And Mr. Trump? On Jan. 6, 2020, Mr. Trump was already firmly ensconced on the banks of the Potomac, hamburger and diet coke in hand. As Commander and Chief of the whole of US forces, he could have gone along with the media’s ‘terrorist attack’ claptrap, called out the army to restore order… suspended the transfer of power…and given his troops, as did the president of Kazakhstan, the command to ‘shoot to kill’ anyone who objected. Surely there was at least one silly colonel, passed over for promotion, who was dumb enough to follow his orders!

But no. No coup. No undermining of democracy. No nothing… except a great media hubbub, broken glass, mock anxiety, and one unarmed, and now dead woman, shot point-blank by a trigger-happy Capitol guard.

Et tu, Media? Why then does the mainstream media persist in portraying the Capitol invasion as something it wasn’t? That is our question for today… and tomorrow. It’s a question about consensual democracy itself… and how it pitches head first into something a whole lot less ‘consensual’… and how it connects to the economic collapse we see coming.

First, we need to elaborate on an idea that we take for granted… one that most people take for absurd. That is, we don’t think the right to vote is such hot stuff. Few people will say so. But given the opportunity, even in a hotly contested election such as in 2016, 43% of eligible voters didn’t bother.

We don’t want to use the government to force others to do what we want. We’d appreciate it if they would return the favor. But many people think that a ‘democracy’ is controlled by ‘the people,’ and getting a majority of these yahoos together gives you the right to tell everyone what to do.

The great Italian economist, Wilfredo Pareto showed that whatever you call your government – a monarchy, a theocracy, a democracy… it just doesn’t matter. Government it is never actually controlled by ‘the people.’ They are too busy just trying to earn a living. Instead, there is always a small group of insiders and movers & shakers – a rich, powerful elite he called “the foxes” – who take charge.

In the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Cuba and other totalitarian countries, they were the Party insiders. In pre-revolutionary France, they were the aristocracy. In strong-man dictatorships, they are the cronies, enablers and fixers. And in America today, the elite includes Wall Street, universities, the Fed, both political parties, the bureaucracy, lobbyists, think tanks, no-profits, the military/industrial/pharmacological/medical/welfare surveillance complex… and notably, the press.

Not coincidentally, these are by and large the people who own America’s public companies… and whose wealth has increased by about $30 trillion over the last 12 years – thanks to policies controlled by the elite themselves.

What makes a consensual democracy tolerable is not the democracy part, it’s the consensual nature of it. People respect each other’s opinions and their rights to do with themselves and their property as they please. When that consensus is lost, the result is misery – a civil war… oppression… resistance… a breakdown of law and order… or other disagreeable trends.

Follow the Money: Of particular interest to us is the monetary flimflam. One of our Diary dicta: when the money goes, everything goes. And as the elite tightens up its control, it inevitably strangles business and investment. And it must also bribe the discontented mobs with stimmies and giveaways. This leaves it in need of finance, which it typically gets by distributing “printing press” money… leading to further discontent and economic discombobulation.

But wait. What is the media’s role? As we will see tomorrow, the press is meant to question authority. It is supposed to represent the public in its desire to get to the bottom of things. Does this war really make sense? Should we spend the public’s money on this? Why do you think this will make voters better off? But instead of asking the tough questions, the mainstream media became a shill for the government and the leading propagandist for the whole elite agenda. Now it just passes along the party line… no matter how at odds with the reality people see before their own eyes.

Mr. Trump was never clever enough to be a real Caesar. And the press despised him for it. Even when he spoke the truth, rarely, and if only by accident, the press excoriated him. So, what were the flyover voters supposed to think? Could they depend on the elite to count the votes fairly… or the press to report the results honestly? And when the real Caesar appears, won’t the public rejoice? We don’t know. But the toady media, after a little tidying up, will make damned sure to croak his praises. Stay tuned."

"How It Really Is"

 

Gregory Mannarino, "Fear Is Gripping The Markets. Dollar Meltdown, Much Higher Inflation, Surging Debt"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 1/10/22:
"Fear Is Gripping The Markets. Dollar Meltdown,
 Much Higher Inflation, Surging Debt"

“Fourth Turning 2022 - Bad Moon Rising” (Excerpt)

“Fourth Turning 2022 - Bad Moon Rising” (Excerpt)
by Jim Quinn

“Try to unlearn the obsessive fear of death (and the anxious quest for death avoidance) that pervades linear thinking in nearly every modern society. The ancients knew that, without periodic decay and death, nature cannot complete its full round of biological and social change. Without plant death, weeds would strangle the forest. Without human death, memories would never die, and unbroken habits and customs would strangle civilization. Social institutions require no less. Just as floods replenish soil and fires rejuvenate forests, a Fourth Turning clears out society’s exhausted elements and creates an opportunity.” 
– Strauss & Howe, "The Fourth Turning"

“Institutions will be increasingly bossy, limiting personal freedoms, chastising bad manners, and cleansing the culture. Powerful new civic organizations will make judgments about which individual rights deserve respect and which do not. Criminal justice will become swift and rough, trampling on some innocents to protect an endangered and desperate society from those feared to be guilty. Expect a loss of personal privacy. Fourth Turnings can be dark times for the free spirit: Just as one kind of official may have new authority to do something for you, another kind - some hastily deputized magistrate - may have new authority to do something to you.” 
– Strauss & Howe, "The Fourth Turning"

It’s been almost a year since my annual look ahead at the upcoming year. Last year’s article "FOURTH TURNING DETONATION" was a big picture overview of where we stood during the thirteenth year of this ongoing Fourth Turning Crisis. I had given up trying to make specific predictions because the twenty-year length of a Crisis period does not lend itself to specificity within a given year. My comment at the beginning of the article was:

“Predicting the actual events which will occur over a short-term time frame is a fool’s errand, so I prefer to try and discern the direction and amplitude of the ongoing Crisis to gauge how we should prepare for what is coming.”

The consistent drivers of this Fourth Turning are the three unequivocal factors – debt, civic decay, and global disorder. The specific events creating the daily trials and tribulations of this Fourth Turning all have their basis in one or more of these three driving factors. As we entered 2021, my big picture view was: “The globalist elite want to keep the fear at a high level to institute their global reset, where you will own nothing and be happy, or you will be brought to heel by the truncheon.”

It is clear I nailed that one. The fear level was ramped to 11 on the volume dial. It was truly one of the worst years for liberty minded, critical thinking, self-sufficient individuals in the last eighty years. We know history does not repeat, but it certainly rhymes. Fourth Turnings always sweep away the existing social order and we are in the midst of a whirlwind of transformation with an entirely uncertain outcome that could result in reviving the founders’ idea of the Republic or mark the end of this experiment born in the blood of patriots in 1776."
Please view this complete article here:

Sunday, January 9, 2022

"BREAKDOWN: Basic Services And Supply Chains Are Rapidly Breaking Down All Over The Globe"

"BREAKDOWN: Basic Services And Supply Chains
 Are Rapidly Breaking Down All Over The Globe"
by Michael Snyder

"I warned you that things would get even worse in 2022, and that is exactly what is happening. Throughout the latter stages of 2022, I documented how basic services were breaking down all across the country, but this was a trend that was largely ignored by the mainstream media until now. Fear of the Omicron variant has taken things to an entirely new level, and at this point things have gotten so bad that even the mainstream media is full of stories about this crisis. For example, over the weekend this was one of the Drudge Report’s main headlines: “NATIONWIDE BREAKDOWN OF SERVICES”. The following is an excerpt from that story

"Ambulances in Kansas speed toward hospitals then suddenly change direction because hospitals are full. Employee shortages in New York City cause delays in trash and subway services and diminish the ranks of firefighters and emergency workers. Airport officials shut down security checkpoints at the biggest terminal in Phoenix and schools across the nation struggle to find teachers for their classrooms."

The current explosion of omicron-fueled coronavirus infections in the U.S. is causing a breakdown in basic functions and services - the latest illustration of how COVID-19 keeps upending life more than two years into the pandemic. This is happening almost everywhere, and it is deeply affecting industry after industry.

Last week, I wrote about how one man in St. Louis had to wait 10 hours for an ambulance to show up. I still can’t get over that. And once people get to our hospitals, often they can’t get treated in a timely manner because there aren’t enough workers. Of course hospitals are trying to hire as fast as they can, but finding qualified people is extremely difficult these days. For example, one hospital in Nebraska has been advertising for an ultrasound technician for six months and still has not received one single application…

"Troy Bruntz runs Community Hospital, a 25-bed critical access facility in McCook, Nebraska. He’s been trying to recruit a third ultrasound technician for at least six months without getting a single application. For lower-level positions, the hospital competes with the local Walmart store, where wages are rising. He monitors the pay offered by the retailer as well as the other large local employers, a hose manufacturer and an irrigation equipment supplier."

Isn’t that nuts? There are more than 10 million open jobs in the United States today, but the U.S. economy only added 199,000 workers during the month of December… "The US economy added 199,000 jobs in December, the Labor Department reported Friday. That was the fewest jobs added in any month of 2021." That was a major disappointment: Economists had forecast jobs growth of double that number.

So how could forecasts be so off again? In the old days, adding 199,000 workers would have barely kept up with population growth. But we can’t really talk about “population growth” these days, can we?

Our hospitals are being absolutely overwhelmed with the sick and the dying, but most of those same hospitals are now severely undermanned thanks to Biden’s absurd mandate for healthcare workers. As a result, members of the National Guard are being forced to serve hospital duty in quite a few states… "An incoming tide of patients is slowly drowning UMass Memorial Medical Center, and the US military’s National Guard is working to plug the gaps. In wave after daily wave, the emergency crews pull up to the ambulance bay, dropping off patients for which there is no room. “It’s just the perfect storm for a nightmare here in the emergency department,” says Dr. Eric Dickson, the CEO of the hospital and an emergency physician."

So if you show up at your local emergency room because you are dying, you may get “treated” by a member of the National Guard with no medical training whatsoever.

Meanwhile, our nightmarish supply chain crisis just continues to escalate. In the waning days of 2021, optimists assured us that the computer chip shortage would soon go away, but the numbers are telling us that it has gotten even worse. In fact, the wait time for chip delivery is now the longest that it has ever been… "Delivery times for chips jumped in December, signaling the semiconductor shortage is worsening into the new year, according to research by Susquehanna Financial Group. On average, lead times increased six days to approximately 25.8 weeks last month compared with November. This is the longest wait time since the firm began monitoring the data in 2017."

And thanks to fear of Omicron, we are starting to see very alarming shortages of meat and eggs at supermarkets from coast to coast… "SEVERAL American supermarkets are reporting incidents of “bare shelves” as fears grow over an imminent meat and egg shortage amid a surge in Omicron cases. Food chains have been one of the first to be disrupted by the new super strain as workers fall ill and productivity drops."

If you are a “meat and potatoes” kind of person, I have some more bad news for you. It turns out that there is a “growing global potato shortage” too… "There’s a growing global potato shortage - a real problem for a planet addicted to french fries and chips. A number of popular items, including marmite and cream cheese, have faced scarcities amid supply chain disruptions wrought by the coronavirus pandemic and extreme weather. Potatoes are the latest to join the list, becoming unevenly available in some countries and fast-food chains because of a confluence of factors."

I tried to warn everyone that this was coming. If you don’t want a spoiler about where all of this is eventually headed, then definitely don’t read my latest book. The economic optimists assured us that the shortages would be gone by 2022, but instead we are starting to see truly bizarre things happen.

In Norway, the military is actually issuing used underwear to the troops because shortages have become so intense… "Coronavirus supply chain issues have hit fuel supplies, led to shortages of masks, vaccines and electronic components, and snarled up holiday gift deliveries. In Britain, truck driver shortages led to fears last summer of pubs running dry. Now, Norway’s military is facing a supply shortage that is particularly personal: New recruits are being asked to wear previously used undergarments – including socks, bras and underwear – returned by conscripts after they complete their service."

Doesn’t that sound fun? Unfortunately, if you are in the military you have to do what you are told to do. Of course our politicians seem to think that they can treat all of us like we are in the military these days. They just keep imposing more rules, more restrictions and more mandates. And the more they clamp down, the more our society is going to break down.

2022 is certainly off to an inauspicious start, and the weeks ahead certainly do not look very promising at all." I warned you that things would get even worse in 2022, and that is exactly what is happening. Throughout the latter stages of 2022, I documented how basic services were breaking down all across the country, but this was a trend that was largely ignored by the mainstream media until now.

Of course our politicians seem to think that they can treat all of us like we are in the military these days. They just keep imposing more rules, more restrictions and more mandates. And the more they clamp down, the more our society is going to break down. 2022 is certainly off to an inauspicious start, and the weeks ahead certainly do not look very promising at all."

Musical Interlude: 2002, "We Meet Again"

Full screen recommended.
2002, "We Meet Again"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"What will become of Jupiter's Great Red Spot? Gas giant Jupiter is the solar system's largest world with about 320 times the mass of planet Earth. Jupiter is home to one of the largest and longest lasting storm systems known, the Great Red Spot (GRS), visible to the left. The GRS is so large it could swallow Earth, although it has been shrinking. Comparison with historical notes indicate that the storm spans only about one third of the exposed surface area it had 150 years ago. NASA's Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program has been monitoring the storm more recently using the Hubble Space Telescope. 
The featured Hubble OPAL image shows Jupiter as it appeared in 2016, processed in a way that makes red hues appear quite vibrant. Modern GRS data indicate that the storm continues to constrict its surface area, but is also becoming slightly taller, vertically. No one knows the future of the GRS, including the possibility that if the shrinking trend continues, the GRS might one day even do what smaller spots on Jupiter have done - disappear completely."

"Be Ready For A Catastrophic Stock Market Crash With 90% Drop"

Full screen recommended.
"Be Ready For A Catastrophic Stock Market Crash With 90% Drop"
by Epic Economist

"Although 2022 started on a hopeful note of new promises and new beginnings, our old problems have continued to follow us. And in Wall Street, things are starting to look quite ugly. It appears that the wheels have come off the bull-market wagon, and several indexes have significantly tumbled on the last few days, with the tech sector recording the worst start in over a decade -- a major signal that a broader stock market crash is fast approaching. Market watchers, insiders, and veteran investors have been warning since November that risky assets that have propped the stock market bubble to extraordinary levels over the past two years would be the first to go down at the end of the bullish cycle. And now that has become pretty evident, as the tech bubble bursts and the sector faces acute losses.

One of the financial analysts who correctly predicted previous crashes, Harry Dent, has recently explained that the sharp losses that occurred up until this point are just the beginning, because the sell-off of risky assets will come in waves, and the first wave is likely to push stocks down around 40%, but the broader stock market crash that will lead us to a bear market is going to be much more aggressive, totaling up to a loss of 90% -- a very similar outcome to what happened during the dot-com burst of 2000. In a recent interview, Dent said that we're on the verge of the biggest crash and market downturn of modern history. "The whole crash is going to be 80% to 90%," he warned. The initial collapse will happen extremely fast and many won't even notice what is going on until it's too late. "If you wait to see if I'm right and take that risk, you are going to be hit very, very hard and history is very clear about that," added Dent, noting that stocks are going to drop 40 to 50% in the first wave.

By looking at the current conditions, it seems that Dent is right, and we're already witnessing the first selloff wave, with a series of stocks plunging more than 50% over the past week. The tech-heavy index has some of the most popular tech names, including Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla, and Google - the five companies that led the rally and earned 51% of all market gains from April through December 2021.

As the sector loses steam and the bubble collapses, a near-record number of tech stocks have dropped by roughly 50% last week, a figure that was only surpassed by the March 2020 crash and the global financial crisis, according to analysts with Sundial Research. Four in every 10 companies on the Nasdaq Composite have seen their market values plunge by 50% or more from their 52-week highs, while a vast majority of index constituents are already mired in bear markets, said Jason Goepfert, chief research officer at Sundial. Many other experts seem to agree with Dent's prediction that a historic downturn is ahead. Amongst them, Bank of America's Savita Subramanian and Michael Hartnett, along with Stifel's Barry Bannister - top strategists at their respective banks - are also pointing worrying similarities to the 2000 meltdown and alerting that a bear market is coming next.

All of the experts are calling for dismal returns for the markets in the years ahead, mostly because the current valuations are out of touch with reality and cannot be supported without more liquidity injections. On top of that, Warren Buffett's favorite indicator jumped by 211%, a major signal of a market downturn. The Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index reached a new intraday high of $48.99 trillion last Tuesday. Meanwhile, the latest estimate for third-quarter GDP is $23.20 trillion, putting the Buffett indicator at 211%. When the market gauge soared during the dot-com bubble, it should have been a "very strong warning signal" of an imminent crash, he noted. Moreover, investors who buy stocks when the metric approaches 200% are "playing with fire," Buffett cautioned.

In short, that means that a correction can occur in January, which can be a buying opportunity for some, and a total nightmare for others. With all that said, gloomy forecasts such as Dent’s don’t seem too far away from reality. In a matter of days, everything can change in the market. And a 90 percent stock market crash doesn’t seem too crazy given today’s absurd valuations. Those who want to wait and see may find themselves unpleasantly surprised in the weeks ahead. The latest plunge isn’t a ‘buy the dip’ opportunity as some may think, but the beginning of a bear market era that will lead us to the deepest financial downturn of our lifetime."

"Grocery Shopping At Dollar Tree! What Deals I Found!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 1/9/22:
"Grocery Shopping At Dollar Tree! What Deals I Found!"
"In today's vlog we are at Dollar Tree with a lot of empty shelves. We are here to pick up a few cheap items as prices are soaring at the grocery stores. It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

Gregory Mannarino, "Markets, A Look Ahead"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 1/9/22:
"Markets, A Look Ahead"

The Daily "Near You?"

Collinsville, Oklahoma, USA. Thanks for stopping by!