Jeremiah Babe, 2/28/23:
"If You Can't Afford A Car You Can't Afford A House -
Home Prices Are Only Going Down"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
StatCounter
Wednesday, March 1, 2023
Tuesday, February 28, 2023
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Point your telescope toward the high flying constellation Pegasus and you can find this expanse of Milky Way stars and distant galaxies. Centered on NGC 7814, the pretty field of view would almost be covered by a full moon. NGC 7814 is sometimes called the Little Sombrero for its resemblance to the brighter more famous M104, the Sombrero Galaxy.
Both Sombrero and Little Sombrero are spiral galaxies seen edge-on, and both have extensive central bulges cut by a thinner disk with dust lanes in silhouette. In fact, NGC 7814 is some 40 million light-years away and an estimated 60,000 light-years across. That actually makes the Little Sombrero about the same physical size as its better known namesake, appearing to be smaller and fainter only because it is farther away. A very faint dwarf galaxy, potentially a satellite of NGC 7814, is revealed in the deep exposure just below the Little Sombrero.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap131025.html
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/
"What Keeps You Going..."
"What keeps you going isn't some fine destination but just the road you're on, and the fact that you know how to drive. You keep your eyes open, you see this damned-to-hell world you got born into, and you ask yourself, 'What life can I live that will let me breathe in and out and love somebody or something and not run off screaming into the woods?'"
- Barbara Kingsolver
The Poet: Edward Hirsch, "I Was Never Able To Pray"
"I Was Never Able To Pray"
"Wheel me down to the shore
where the lighthouse was abandoned
and the moon tolls in the rafters.
Let me hear the wind paging through the trees,
and see the stars flaring out, one by one,
like the forgotten faces of the dead.
I was never able to pray,
but let me inscribe my name
in the book of waves,
and then stare into the dome
of a sky that never ends,
and see my voice sail into the night."
- Edward Hirsch
Free Download: Barbara W. Tuchman, "The Guns of August"
“Before the Leaves Fall From the Trees”
by Simon Black
"The morning of June 28, 1914 began like any other normal day. It was a Sunday, so a lot of people went to church. Others prepared large meals for family gatherings, played with their children, or thumbed through the Sunday papers.
At that point, tensions had been high in Europe for several years; the continent was bitterly divided by a series of complex diplomatic and military alliances, and small wars had recently broken out. Italy and the Ottoman Empire went to war in 1912 in a limited, 13-month conflict. And the First Balkan War was waged in early 1913. Overall, though, the continent clung to a delicate peace. And hardly anyone expected that most of the next three decades would be filled with chaos, poverty, and destruction. And then it happened.
That Sunday afternoon, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire was assassinated during an official visit to Sarajevo. And the world changed forever. Five weeks later the entire continent was at war with itself. But even still, most of the ‘experts’ thought it would be a simple, speedy conflict. Germany’s emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, famously told his troops who were being shipped off to the front line in August 1914, “You will be home before the leaves fall from the trees...” It took four years and an estimated 68 million casualties to bring the war to a close. But that was only the prelude.
Following (and even during) World War I, a series of bloody revolutionary movements took hold in Europe, including in Russia, Greece, Spain, Turkey, and Ireland. Then came the Spanish flu, which claimed the lives of tens of millions of people. Later, Germany sunk into one of the worst episodes of hyperinflation in human history.
Communism began rapidly spreading across the world almost as quickly as the Spanish flu, often through violent fanatics who engaged in murder and arson in order to intimidate their opponents; this became known as the ‘Red Scare’ in the United States.
Of course there were some good years during the 1920s when people generally felt prosperous and happy; but it all came crashing down at the end of the decade when a severe economic depression strangled the entire world. It lasted for more than ten years, during which time the world was once again brought to an even more destructive war that didn’t end until atomic weapons obliterated the civilian populations of two Japanese cities.
Again – go back to June 1914. Who would have thought that the next 30+ years would play out so destructively? Even for the people who did predict that Europe would go to war in 1914, most leaders thought it would be over quickly. And almost no one expected it would spawn decades of chaos.
Today we’re obviously living in different times and under different circumstances. But we may be standing at a similar precipice as in 1914, staring at enormous trends that could shape our lives for years to come. Covid only scratches the surface.
We now know without a doubt, for example, how governments will respond the next time they feel there’s a threat to public health. They’ll say, “We’re listening to the scientists.” Really? The same scientists who told people they couldn’t go to work, school, or church, but it was perfectly fine for peaceful protesters to pack together like sardines without wearing masks because they’re apparently protected from the virus by their own righteousness? The same scientists who wanted to lock everyone down to prevent Covid, but are happy to accept skyrocketing rates of cancer, depression, suicide, heart disease, and domestic abuse as a result of those very lockdowns and so-called "vaccines'?
The public health consequences from this pandemic and "vaccine" will reverberate for years to come. And that doesn’t even begin to take the economic consequences into consideration. Western governments have taken on trillions of dollars in new debt this year and central banks have printed trillions more. Even with all that stimulus, however, there are still hundreds of millions of people worldwide who lost their jobs, and countless businesses that have closed.
Future generations who haven’t even been born yet will spend their entire working lives paying interest on the debts that are being accumulated today. The long-term consequences of all this are incalculable.
And then there are the social trends – the rise of neo-Marxism that’s sweeping the world so fast. It’s the Red Scare of the 21st century. They despise talented, successful people. They believe it’s greedy for you to keep a healthy portion of what you earn, but it’s not greedy for them to take it from you and spend it on themselves.
Many of the people in this movement, of course, are violent fanatics who routinely engage in arson, assault, and vandalism. Same for the social justice warriors who are just as quick to violence and intimidation; plus they’ve already commandeered the decision-making of some of the largest, most powerful companies in the world. You can’t even watch a football game or a TV commercial anymore without some commentary on oppression and victimization. And any intellectual dissent is met with intimidation or censorship.
In fact the largest consumer technology companies in the world have become our censors. We’re not allowed to share scientific information that doesn’t conform to the Chinese-controlled World Health Organization’s guidance. And news articles that don’t match their ideology are blocked.
Let’s not kid ourselves – these trends are not going away any time soon. It’s great to be optimistic, hope for the best, and enjoy the good years as they come. But it makes sense to at least be prepared for the possibility that we could be at the very beginning of a period of enormous instability that may last a very long time."
○
"The Guns of August"
"In this landmark, Pulitzer Prize–winning account, renowned historian Barbara W. Tuchman re-creates the first month of World War I: thirty days in the summer of 1914 that determined the course of the conflict, the century, and ultimately our present world. Beginning with the funeral of Edward VII, Tuchman traces each step that led to the inevitable clash. And inevitable it was, with all sides plotting their war for a generation. Dizzyingly comprehensive and spectacularly portrayed with her famous talent for evoking the characters of the war’s key players."
Freely download here:
○
○
“It is history that teaches us to hope. It is well that war is
so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it.”
- Robert E. Lee
But we've learned nothing from history, nothing at all,
and our fondness, no, love of war, has only improved the weapons...
"March Of Folly: Fall Of American Empire" (Excerpt)
"March Of Folly:
Fall Of American Empire" (Excerpt)
By Jim Quinn
“Folly is a child of power.” - Barbara W. Tuchman, "The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam"
“A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests. Mankind, it seems, makes a poorer performance of government than of almost any other human activity. In this sphere, wisdom, which may be defined as the exercise of judgment acting on experience, common sense, and available information, is less operative and more frustrated than it should be. Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests? Why does intelligent mental process seem so often not to function?” - Barbara W. Tuchman, "The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam"
Excerpt: "The term “folly” is particularly apt at this stage in the decline of the great American empire. Folly is defined as: criminally or tragically foolish actions or conduct; an excessively costly or unprofitable undertaking. If ever a word captured the actions of American political leaders in the 21st Century and reflect the tragic downfall of an empire borne out of the ashes of the Second World War, it is the term “folly”.
For the last two decades I’ve been befuddled by the inane foolishness of our leaders, as they have driven the nation into a bottomless pit of debt at an astoundingly ridiculous pace, initiated military conflict across the globe, and in the last three years initiated anti-human policies guaranteed to destroy our economic system, depopulate the planet, increase human suffering, and turn the world into a techno-gulag where we will own nothing, eat bugs, and bow down to the commands of globalist overlords.
None of what is being jammed down our throats is based upon reason, facts, or common sense. Why do governments initiate policies destined to destroy the nations they have been entrusted to administer? Is it purely incompetence and stupidity, or is it purposeful and evil?"
Full article here:
Greg Hunter, "The Fed's Biggest Fear Is 'Complete Economic Collapse'
"The Fed's Biggest Fear Is 'Complete Economic Collapse' -
Peter Schiff Warns 'You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet'"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"Money manager and economist Peter Schiff said in October the Federal Reserve “could NOT win the fight on inflation by raising interest rates.” As inflation just turned up anew, it looks like he was right - again. Schiff explains, “Based on the recent data we got the inflation curve has bent back up. The months of declining inflation are in the rearview mirror. Now, we are going to see accelerating inflation, and I think before the year is over, we are going to take out that 9% inflation high last year in year over year CPI (Consumer price Index), and what that is going to show is what the Fed has done thus far in its inflation fight is completely ineffective. If the Fed is serious about fighting inflation, and I do not believe it is, it’s going to have to fight a lot harder than it has. Interest rates need to go up much higher than anybody thinks, but that alone is not going to do the trick. We also have to see a big contraction in consumer credit and lending standards rising so consumers can’t keep spending. Consumers are running up credit card debt. That is inflationary. That is an expansion of the supply of credit.”
It gets worse when the Fed has to save the economy again. Schiff predicts, “I think the Fed is going to have to throw in the towel on the inflation fight because it will be fighting something it fears more, which is a complete economic collapse. The federal government may be legitimately forced to cut Medicare and Social Security instead of illegitimately cutting it through inflation. We have this collapsing standard of living, but think about it as a tax. This is what Americans are paying. This is the price of big government. Higher prices are the price we pay for big government, and inflation is a tax. Instead of raising our taxes, they are just printing money, and that devalues the money we have.”
What is the answer? Schiff says, “We have to let the phony economy collapse so we can build a real economy on the rubble of this economic house of cards.” There are going to be lots of losers in the coming collapse. Schiff says, “People are going to suffer the consequences of this experiment gone bad. We know how this experiment is going to end. They are not doing anything that Zimbabwe didn’t try, or Argentina didn’t try or the Weimar Republic. They didn’t reinvent inflation. It’s the same old thing.”
As a result, Schiff predicts big losses in many stocks (but not all), bonds and bank deposits. Schiff contends, “They can’t cover the deposits at the FDIC. They have to acknowledge that the FDIC is bankrupt and people are going to lose money at a bank. The losses are going to dwarf those in the Great Depression because we have a far more leveraged system now thanks to government intervention.”
In closing, Schiff says, “We already have inflation. So, prepare for the consequences of inflation. It is going to raise prices, but it is also a massive transfer of wealth. You have to position yourself to be a winner and not a loser. Creditors are going to get wiped out. People think they are playing it safe in a bond portfolio. Look how bad bonds did last year. It was the worst year in history, and you ain’t seen nothing yet.” There is much more in the 47-minute interview.
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with money manager and
economic expert Peter Schiff, founder of Euro Pacific Asset Management.
"Streets of Philadelphia, 2/28/23"
Full screen recommended.
kimgary, 2/28/23
"Streets of Philadelphia, 2/28/23"
"Problems with drugs and crime on Kensington Ave, Philadelphia's most dangerous street. In Philadelphia as a whole, violent crime and drug abuse are major issues. The city has a higher rate of violent crime than the national average and other similarly sized metropolitan areas. The drug overdose rate in Philadelphia is also concerning. Between 2013 and 2015, the number of drug overdose deaths in the city increased by 50%, with more than twice as many deaths from overdoses as homicides. Kensington's high crime rate and drug abuse contribute significantly to Philadelphia's problems.
Because of the high number of drugs in the neighborhood, Kensington has the third-highest drug crime rate by neighborhood in Philadelphia, at 3.57. The opioid epidemic has played a significant role in this problem, as it has in much of the rest of the country. Opioid abuse has skyrocketed in the United States over the last two decades, and Philadelphia is no exception. In addition to having a high rate of drug overdose deaths, 80% of Philadelphia's overdose deaths involved opioids, and Kensington is a significant contributor to this figure. This Philadelphia neighborhood is said to have the largest open-air heroin market on the East Coast, with many neighbors migrating to the area for heroin and other opioids. With such a high concentration of drugs in Kensington, many state and local officials have focused on the neighborhood in an attempt to address Philadelphia's problem."
o
Full screen recommended.
Bruce Springsteen, "Streets of Philadelphia"
"The Horrific Reality of the Ukrainian Government"
Scott Ritter, 2/28/23:
"The Horrific Reality of the Ukrainian Government"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Redacted, 2/28/23:
“'You have only 4 hours to live!'
Ukraine Faces Crushing Truth As Putin Closes In"
"It’s over… those are the words being told to Ukrainian president Zelensky about the war… it’s over. While at the same time the US is openly admitting that the U.S. is actively attacking Russia using Ukrainians as cannon fodder to do it."
Comments here:
o
In Focus, 2/28/23:
"Douglas Macgregor:
Unstoppable Russian Offensive in Ukraine"
Comments here:
"Global Food Inflation Rises; Debts And Deficits Skyrocket; Market Risk Worsen"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 2/28/23:
"Global Food Inflation Rises;
Debts And Deficits Skyrocket; Market Risk Worsen"
Comments here:
"Do What Rich People Do"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, 2/28/23:
"Do What Rich People Do"
"All of a sudden, we are getting some serious advice from the billionaires again. Do you take this advice? The majority of them are giving their real estate and inflation advice."
Comments here:
"Massive Sales At Meijer! Stock Up Now! Don't Miss This!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 2/28/23:
"Massive Sales At Meijer!
Stock Up Now! Don't Miss This!"
Comments here:
Monday, February 27, 2023
"Sorry You're Being Lied To, Prepare For A Bumpy Ride; Crazy Gas Bills; Subprime Auto Lender Done"
Jeremiah Babe, 2/27/23:
"Sorry You're Being Lied To, Prepare For A Bumpy Ride;
Crazy Gas Bills; Subprime Auto Lender Done"
Comments here:
"HOLY $#!% Moldovan WW3 Front Conformed; Romania Prepares; China on High Alert"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 2/27/23:
"HOLY $#!% Moldovan WW3 Front Conformed;
Romania Prepares; China on High Alert"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Alan Parsons Project, “Ammonia Avenue”
Full screen recommended.
Alan Parsons Project, “Ammonia Avenue”
"A Look to the Heavens"
"A gorgeous spiral galaxy some 100 million light-years distant, NGC 1309 lies on the banks of the constellation of the River (Eridanus). NGC 1309 spans about 30,000 light-years, making it about one third the size of our larger Milky Way galaxy. Bluish clusters of young stars and dust lanes are seen to trace out NGC 1309's spiral arms as they wind around an older yellowish star population at its core.
Not just another pretty face-on spiral galaxy, observations of NGC 1309's recent supernova and Cepheid variable stars contribute to the calibration of the expansion of the Universe. Still, after you get over this beautiful galaxy's grand design, check out the array of more distant background galaxies also recorded in this sharp, reprocessed, Hubble Space Telescope view.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130116.html
"Benedicto"
"The summit is believed to be the object of the climb. But its true object - the joy of living - is not in the peak itself, but in the adversities encountered on the way up. There are valleys, cliffs, streams, precipices, and slides, and as he walks these steep paths, the climber may think he cannot go any farther, or even that dying would be better than going on. But then he resumes fighting the difficulties directly in front of him, and when he is finally able to turn and look back at what he has overcome, he finds he has truly experienced the joy of living while on life's very road."
- Eiji Yoshikawa
○
"Benedicto"
“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets' towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you - beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.”
- Edward Abbey
"The Full Obliteration of the Ukrainian Army is Here"
Straight Calls with Douglas Macgregor, 2/27/23:
"The Full Obliteration of the Ukrainian Army is Here"
"Your home for analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of current geopolitical events in the United states and the world. Geopolitics. No ego descriptions. No small talk. Straight to the point. Calls with the relevant analysis only."
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
In Focus, 2/27/23:
"Douglas Macgregor:
Gigantic Offensive on Ukraine"
Comments here:
"A Third Of All U.S. Shopping Malls Are Closing As ‘Space Available’ Signs Go Up All Over America"
Full screen recommended.
"A Third Of All U.S. Shopping Malls Are Closing As
‘Space Available’ Signs Go Up All Over America"
by Epic Economist
"The ominous signs of a retail collapse are everywhere, looming like dark clouds over the American economy. If one were to look past the facade of "Space Available," they would see the ghostly remains of shopping malls, once thriving epicenters of commerce, now empty and abandoned. The forecast is dire - nearly one-third of all malls in the United States are set to close, and the number of distressed retailers has spiked to levels not seen since the last recession. It's a haunting reality that strikes fear into the hearts of even the most optimistic observers.
The retail apocalypse is upon us, and it's spreading like a contagion. Walmart, JCPenney, and countless other once-reliable retailers are shuttering stores across the country, leaving a trail of devastation in their wake.
It's a scene straight out of a horror movie - the once-bustling corridors of shopping malls now eerily silent, abandoned storefronts with "Space Available" signs as the only indication of their former occupants. The retail industry is in disarray, and the impact is felt far beyond just the companies themselves. The economy is at risk of collapsing under the weight of these unprecedented closures, and the future looks bleak.
The retail apocalypse is a warning sign of what's to come, a chilling reminder of the fragility of our economy. It's a wake-up call to take action, to find ways to support and protect our businesses and communities before it's too late.
If the U.S. economy was actually doing as well as the stock market says that it should be doing, all of these retail chains would not be closing stores and going bankrupt. But of course the truth is that the stock market has become completely disconnected from economic reality.
We live at a time when middle class consumers are tapped out. According to one recent survey, 68 percent of all Americans do not even have enough money in the bank to write a $400 check for an unexpected expense.
Despite the significant decline of the U.S. economy, it is quite astonishing that the Federal Reserve is most likely going to increase interest rates at their upcoming meeting.
Beware! The giant bubble of false economic stability that we are currently basking in is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. This financial mirage has persisted far longer than it should have, but make no mistake, we are living on borrowed time. The truth is that nothing has changed about the long-term economic outlook, and it's only a matter of time before the entire system comes crashing down.
America is hurtling towards an "economic Armageddon", a catastrophic event that will leave our nation reeling and gasping for breath. The retail industry, once a cornerstone of our economy, is now a canary in the coal mine, a harbinger of doom, warning us that our day of reckoning is rapidly approaching. The warning signs are all around us, and those who refuse to acknowledge them will pay a heavy price. Brace yourselves, for the end is near!"
Comments here:
"Raise The Bar"
"Raise The Bar"
Elevated standards create elevated results.
by Brain Food
"You notice this whenever you work with an outlier. The bar they set for themselves and others is beyond what most people imagine. Standards apply not just to the quality of work you produce but the opportunities you work on. If you accept substandard work from yourself, you'll only get average work from others. If you say yes to average projects, you'll have no time for exceptional ones. Raise the bar to raise the results."
"A Quick Post On The Decline Of The West"
"A Quick Post On The Decline Of The West"
by John Wilder
"The evening got away from me. I’d love to tell you that I was doing something productive, but I was really just goofing around. I felt a bit blah (not sick, mind you, but blah) all week. So, I decided to goof around. If today’s thoughts are a bit shorter than usual, that should explain it.
When I was a young adult, I read "Atlas Shrugged." Now, I said, I read it, but when it got to the part where John Galt hacked into the radio to give a (what seemed like to me) 700-page speech that was just reiterating every point Rand had already made in the book, but this time with crayon, I skipped it. So, I read most of it. Except 90% of the speech.
One thing that stuck with me about the tone of the book was that it took place in a world that had moved on. Stuff just didn’t work. I seem to recall a broken clock, and broken rails, and the image of a society that had done great things but was no longer capable of them.
The mission of NASA used to be to send people and things up into space. The goal was to learn more about the Solar System, the planets, and the Universe beyond. The other part of the goal was to make man an interplanetary and, hopefully, an interstellar species.
NASA was doing one of the hardest things that had ever been done – inventing technology at the very edge of what humans were capable of, and then using it. It was one of the grandest adventures of the 20th Century. It was also staffed by young people. Gene Kranz, the “Failure is not an option guy” was the Flight Director for several Apollo missions, most notably Apollo 13. When Apollo 13 happened? Kranz was 36.
Our nation at that point had failures, sure. But now it seems like that’s the definition. And the things we’re failing on aren’t even new tech. East Palestine (The Mrs. told me, “It’s pronounced Palesteen, Froderick”) Ohio is suffering from one of the biggest failures of tech that is nearly 200 years old.
Then there was a fire at Oak Ridge involving uranium. Normally, one tries to avoid burning radioactive things. I mean, it’s not like this is Russia and all of us are protected from radiation via the consumption of massive amounts of vodka. There are others, of course. The Jackson, Mississippi water plant appears to not work (sometimes) because the people running it don’t know how to run it. I could go on and on.
In one sense, it almost appears that we’re suffering a crisis of people who just don’t care or are, well, stupid. I hate to say stupid, because water treatment has been around for hundreds of years, too, and is far simpler than the Apollo project.
One symptom, perhaps, of the increasing and accelerating rate of change (notice I didn’t say improvement, I said change) in the world is increasing failures of the basic systems of life. Sure, we can have Doordash™* deliver tacos, but the justice system is failing, too. And how many readers here trust our elections? In the race to be “efficient” we’ve made it easy to cheat. Even if there wasn’t cheating, creating systems that are opaque enough so they’re not shenanigan proof is a failure in itself.
Our social systems are failing. Our infrastructure is failing, and it becomes ever more obvious the things that bind us together are failing. Here in Modern Mayberry, the power has worked pretty well, but investment in power and infrastructure has made the system nearly third-world in some places.
I expect it to get worse. I don’t even think we’re close to the level of failure we’ll be seeing due to the incompetence of the leadership in the country. I see no real thoughts that our leadership will get better, since the idea of hiring smart young folks like Gene Kranz is out the window, and hiring people who share the same ideology, regardless of ability, is in.
We are living in the time science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein called, “The Crazy Years” – in his words: “Considerable technical advance during this period, accompanied by a gradual deterioration of mores, orientation and social institutions, terminating in mass psychoses...”
I believe the signs are there that we are in that “mass psychoses” and that is the end of this cycle. The mere fact that truth can no longer be spoken in public due to the offense that it might give shows that the mental bending is built deep into discourse today. To be clear, there is little of today’s society when it comes to values and morality left to conserve – the Left has taken it all. No, where we are going into our future has nothing to do with conservation, it’s going to be about restoration. Failure is not an option. *There is no Doordash™ in Modern Mayberry, unless it's raining."
Bill Bonner, "Distort and Destroy"
"Distort and Destroy"
How the Feds manipulate the numbers
to wreak havoc on the economy...
by Bill Bonner
San Martin, Argentina - "Bear markets take time. They also provide countless occasions to lose money. With each bounce comes an opportunity for investors to buy higher so they can later sell lower." ~ MN Gordon
“Here’s an article in the French newspaper, Le Figaro, from yesterday,” Elizabeth reported cheerfully. “A woman was found cut into pieces in a freezer, in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. Her husband has been arrested.” “Gee, I guess Paris isn’t safe anymore,” responded another member of the family. “Wait a minute. There are 2 million women in the Paris area,” your author introduced a statistical analysis. “The odds of getting hacked to pieces is very low." “Unless you live in the 9th arrondissement,” Elizabeth suggested. “Or, you’re married to a guy who cuts up his wife,” we replied.
Manipulate, Distort… and Destroy: In a few sentences, we had identified the problems with statistics. One part useful, one part misleading, and one part a damned lie – they are always a menace. The ratio of butchered women/population is interesting. But not particularly helpful to the woman in the freezer.
Warren Buffett made the same point in his famous speech in Sun Valley, 1999; it’s the particular that matters: "The key to investing is not assessing how much an industry is going to affect society, or how much it will grow, but rather determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the durability of that advantage. The products or services that have wide, sustainable moats around them are the ones that deliver rewards to investors."
Last week, we explored the numbers used by the Fed to manipulate, distort and destroy the US economy. Today, we look at the headlines and wonder where the next dismembered body turns up. Benzinga: "Larry Summers Points Out US Never Evaded A Recession At These Unemployment, Inflation Levels: 'Powerful Historical Truth.'
Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers reportedly highlighted the absence of past examples in which the U.S. managed to avoid a recession when the unemployment rate fell below 4% and inflation rose above 4%. That's a powerful historical Higher for Longer."
We asserted on Friday that inflation is now ‘embedded’ in the system. Like a weed in a garden, it will grow until it is pulled out. The Fed is on the case. Here’s the latest from Bloomberg: "Fed’s Preferred Inflation Gauge Accelerates, Adding Pressure for More Rate Hikes." "The personal consumption expenditures price index rose 5.4% from a year earlier and the core metric was up 4.7%, both marking pickups after several months of declines. Consumer spending, adjusted for prices, jumped 1.1% from the prior month, the most in nearly two years."
And more…Bloomberg continues: "Fed May Need to Hike to 6.5% to Cool Prices, Study Says." "In a paper presented Friday at a conference in New York, a quintet of Wall Street economists and academics argue that policymakers still have an overly-optimistic outlook and they will need to inflict some economic pain to get prices under control."
Oh yeah? The Fed may have to go even higher. Here is Research Affiliates, with more bad news: "Given the recent US inflation rate, which has been above 6% for the last 12 months and above 8% for the last 7 months, history tells us that the median number of years to reduce inflation below 3% is 10 years, with a 20th to 80th percentile range of 6 to 19 years. How many economists—let alone pundits and policy “experts”—have suggested we may have elevated inflation for six years, much less the longer outliers?
That is the good news. The bad news is at 6% and higher inflation, cresting inflation is the exception, not the rule: inflation usually marches to the next threshold. When inflation subsequently rises to the next threshold, we call these cases accelerating inflation. Indeed, once the 8% threshold is surpassed, as happened this year in the United States and much of Europe, inflation marched to the next threshold, and often well beyond, over 70% of the time.iii The lesson we should take from this is not that inflation is destined to move to new highs in the months ahead (after all, nearly 30% of the time, it is, in fact, cresting!), but that we dismiss that possibility at our peril.
Is it possible that inflation will recede to 4% and then to 2% in the coming year or two? Of course it’s possible! History says it is unlikely. Our fiscal and monetary policies have done far more harm than good in recent years. truth and I think it's one that's relevant to our current situation," Summers said."
Heads They Win, Tails You Lose: In other words, inflation ain’t going away anytime soon. When it goes over 8%, it usually goes higher. The Fed knows this too. So, now – with its many statistical obfuscations and ideological delusions – it is committed to continuing to raise rates. That will inevitably lead to lower stock prices, higher bond yields, and a recession.
Making a long story short, the Fed has to continue raising rates until one of two things happens – either the inflation rate falls (below the Fed’s key rate)…or higher interest rates cause something to break…and the Fed panics.
Our guess is that the second hypothetical will happen before the first one. Then, the situation will get worse, for a long, long time."
"They Could Steal Your Home"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 2/27/23:
"They Could Steal Your Home"
"People are falling behind in their bills. People that do not have their property taxes paid are finding themselves the victims of losing their homes. The equity is being stolen."
Comments here:
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)