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"Alas, regardless of their doom, the little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come, nor care beyond today.”
- Thomas Gray,
“Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”
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The Moody Blues, "Don't You Feel Small"
So, we rise from the rubble...
StatCounter
Sunday, July 23, 2023
"Trinity’s Shadow" (Excerpt)
"Trinity’s Shadow"
by Edward Curtin
Excerpt: "I sit here in the silence of the awakening dawn’s stillness stunned by the realization that I exist. I wonder why. It is my birthday. The first rays of the rising sun bleed crimson over the eastern hills as I imagine my birth. The house and my family sleep.
Someday I will die and I wonder why. This is the mystery I have been contemplating since I was young. That and the fact that I was born in a time of war and that when my parents and sisters were celebrating my first birthday, my country’s esteemed civilian and military leaders celebrated another birth: the detonation of the first atomic bomb code-named Trinity.
Trinity has shadowed my life, while the other Trinity has enkindled my days. Sick minds play sick word games as they inflict pain and death. They nicknamed this death bomb “the Gadget,” as if it were an innocent little toy. They took and blasphemed the Christian mystery of the Trinity as if they were mocking God, which they were. They thought they were gods. Now they are all dead gods, their fates sealed in their tombs.
Where are they now? Where are all their victims, the innocent dead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Where are the just and the unjust? Where are the living now, asleep or awake as Trinity’s progenitors in Washington, D.C. and the Pentagon prepare their doomsday machines for a rerun, the final first-strike run, the last lap in their race to annihilate all the living? Will they sing as they launch the missiles – “So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night?”
Joseph Biden, the second Roman Catholic president, while mocking the essence of Jesus’s message, pushes the world toward a nuclear holocaust, unlike JFK, the first Catholic president, who was assassinated by the CIA for pushing for the elimination of nuclear weapons and the end of the Cold War.
The wheel turns. We count the years. We wonder why.
Years ago I started my academic life by writing a thesis entitled “Dealing With Death or Death Dealing.” It was a study of the transformation of cultural symbol systems, death, and nuclear weapons. The last hundred years and more have brought a transformation and disintegration of the traditional religious symbol system – the sacred canopy – that once gave people comfort, meaning, and hope. Science, technology, and nuclear weapons have changed all that. Death has been socially relocated and we live under the nuclear umbrella, a sinister “safeguard” that is cold comfort. The ultimate power of death over all life has been transferred from God to men, those controlling the nuclear weapons. This subject has never left me. I suppose it has haunted me. It is not a jolly subject, but I think it has chosen me.
Was I born in a normal time? Is war time our normal time? It is. I was."
Greg Hunter, "New BRICS Currency Boosts Gold & Destroys Dollar"
"New BRICS Currency Boosts Gold & Destroys Dollar"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"Seven-time, best-selling financial author James Rickards predicted in his most recent best-seller called “Sold Out” why broken supply chains would cause big inflation. He was right, and he still contends, “Supply chain problems and inflation are not over.” For an example of the supply chain still being in fragile shape, look no further than the failed grain deal between Ukraine and Russia last week. Rickards points out, “Putin has been very patient about this. He had a deal. Ukraine was not living up to their end of the deal. Putin says we are the ones getting attacked, so, screw the deal. What’s that going to do to the price of grain? It’s going to send grain prices up, and it’s already up 10% just in a matter of days.”
This brings us the new BRICS gold-weighted currency (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) that might be announced in the middle to the end of next month. Rickards calls one unit of currency a “BRIC.” This is a competitor to the U.S. dollar, but Rickards says, “It’s not a reserve currency. I think it may be 8 grams of gold to one “BRIC” (currency), but I don’t know. What I do know is it does not matter. What does matter is they are going to anchor it to a weight of gold. It’s NOT redeemable in gold, it is anchored to it. Let’s says a “BRIC” is worth one ounce of gold. Today that is $1,970 per ounce, except the “BRIC” is NOT anchored to the dollar. It is anchored to gold, which stands in the middle of this equation. So, the dollar price of gold is going to be going up and down all the time, which means the dollar/“BRIC” exchange rate is going to be going up and down all the time. They don’t have to defend the “BRIC.” They have gold, but they don’t have to back it up with gold. They actually don’t need any gold. If you have made your currency anchored to gold do you want the price to go up or down? You want the price of gold to go up because that means the “BRIC” is worth more dollars, and the dollar is crashing. It’s a way to destroy the dollar. You don’t need dollars and you don’t need gold. You just need to be smart enough to anchor your currency to gold, and when dollar inflation starts to go up, your currency is going to be worth more because of how you pegged it, not to dollars, but how you pegged it to gold.”
Rickards goes on to say, “So, if I were a BRICS member, and I were Russia in particular, and I had this currency tied to gold, and I wanted my currency to be more valuable and your currency (U.S. dollar) less valuable, one of the ways to do that is mess with the supply chain and drive up the price of oil, gasoline, grain, which drives up pork prices and chicken prices, and the list goes on. That’s one way to do it.”
Rickards also talks about deflation this year and big inflation coming after that. Rickards is predicting big inflation coming for people using dollars, and with his track record, you would be a fool to bet against his analysis." There is much more in the 52-minute interview.
https://usawatchdog.com/new-brics-currency-boosts-gold-destroys-dollar-jim-rickards/
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with Jim Rickards, seven-time, best-selling author, including his latest called “Sold Out: How Broken Supply Chains, Surging Inflation and Political Instability Will Sink the Global Economy.”
"No Sane Person Goes to War Against Russia"
Dmitry Orlov, 7/23/23
"No Sane Person Goes to War Against Russia"
Comments here:
"Russia, Belarus To Declare War Against NATO Nation Poland?"
Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times, 7/23/23
"Russia, Belarus To Declare War Against NATO Nation Poland?
Putin Hosts Lukashenko Amid Tensions"
"Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko is in Russia to meet President Putin to discuss a "strategic partnership." This is Lukashenko's first visit to Russia since he brokered a deal between Putin and Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in June. The meeting also comes amid rising tensions with the NATO nation Poland. Moscow has warned Poland against any aggression towards Russian ally Belarus."
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times, 7/23/23
"Belarus Preparing For War? NATO Worried As Putin
Ally Amasses Nearly 5,000 Troops On Polish Border"
"Fresh satellite images expose a significant military buildup in a Belarusian garrison located in central Belarus. The Tsel garrison showed a notable increase in vehicles and equipment, raising concerns among NATO members. Belarus, a Putin-friendly nation, has invited Wagner forces into the country, and joint military drills with Wagner fighters near the border with NATO member Poland are on the cards. The situation has alarmed neighboring countries, Ukraine and Poland. Ukrainian Border Guards have warned that the number of Wagner fighters in Belarus may reach about 5,000."
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times, 7/23/23
"Putin Targets Polish, German Mercenaries In Lviv;
Big Warning To Foreign Fighters In Ukraine"
"Russia claims to have killed a large group of foreign mercenaries in Ukraine. Russia's Defence Ministry said that the strikes were carried out on July 6 at a mercenary compound in Western Ukraine. Russia has warned that it will continue targeting foreign mercenaries in Ukraine. Foreign fighters have flocked to Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022."
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I assume you're aware of the possible consequences...
"Overwhelming Price Increases At Walmart! This Is Getting Ridiculous!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 7/23/23
"Overwhelming Price Increases At Walmart!
This Is Getting Ridiculous!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Walmart and are noticing some overwhelming price increases on groceries. Meat and produce are getting very high in price as we try to find the best deals possible! It's getting tough out here as many families struggle to put food on the table!"
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Saturday, July 22, 2023
Gerald Celente, "Inflation Cools Down, While War Heats Up"
Full screen recommended.
VERY strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 7/22/23
"Inflation Cools Down, While War Heats Up"
"In this video, world-renowned trends analyst Gerald Celente delves into the current state of our economy, looking at how inflation appears to be cooling down while the unsettling prospect of war continues to escalate."
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times, 7/22/23
"Putin Threatens U.S. After American Cluster
Munition Attack Killed Russian Journo In Ukraine"
"Russia's Foreign Ministry has issued a warning after an attack on a group of journalists. Moscow alleged that the Ukrainian Army used cluster munitions in the attack on journalists. A Russian war reporter was killed and three were wounded in the attack in the Zaporizhhia region. Soon after the incident, Russia launched a scathing attack on Washington over supplying cluster munitions to Ukraine"
Comments here:
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Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, “My Orchid Spirit (Extragalactic)”
Full screen recommended.
Liquid Mind, “My Orchid Spirit (Extragalactic)”
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Colorful NGC 1579 resembles the better known Trifid Nebula, but lies much farther north in planet Earth's sky, in the heroic constellation Perseus. About 2,100 light-years away and 3 light-years across, NGC 1579 is, like the Trifid, a study in contrasting blue and red colors, with dark dust lanes prominent in the nebula's central regions.
In both, dust reflects starlight to produce beautiful blue reflection nebulae. But unlike the Trifid, in NGC 1579 the reddish glow is not emission from clouds of glowing hydrogen gas excited by ultraviolet light from a nearby hot star. Instead, the dust in NGC 1579 drastically diminishes, reddens, and scatters the light from an embedded, extremely young, massive star, itself a strong emitter of the characteristic red hydrogen alpha light."
Chet Raymo, “Try To Remember…”
“Try To Remember…”
by Chet Raymo
“In a sleepless hour of the night, I was trying to remember the last name of a person I have known well for more than forty years. When my spouse stirred in her sleep, I asked her. She couldn't remember either. One again I started mentally through the alphabet. "I think it starts with B," I said. Ten minutes later she rolled over and said, "The next letter is R." Bingo! The name popped into my head. Or I should say, "popped out of my head." Because it was in there somewhere, recorded in a tangle of neurons as materially as if it were written on a piece of paper.
•
Graphic: Salvador Dali, "The Persistence of Memory"
The Poet: Wendell Berry, "The Circles Of Our Lives"
"The Circles Of Our Lives"
"Within the circles of our lives
we dance the circles of the years,
the circles of the seasons
within the circles of the years,
the cycles of the moon,
within the circles of the seasons,
the circles of our reasons
within the cycles of the moon.
Again, again we come and go,
changed, changing. Hands
join, unjoin in love and fear,
grief and joy. The circles turn,
each giving into each, into all.
Only music keeps us here,
each by all the others held.
In the hold of hands and eyes
we turn in pairs, that joining
joining each to all again.
And then we turn aside, alone,
out of the sunlight gone
into the darker circles of return,
Within the circles of our lives..."
- Wendell Berry
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“We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust,
swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of Infinity.
Life is Eternal.
We have stopped for a moment to encounter
each other, to meet, to love, to share.
This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in Eternity.”
- Paulo Coelho
o
"We all know that something is eternal. And it ain't houses and it ain't names, and it ain't earth, and it ain't even the stars... Everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you'd be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There's something way down deep that's eternal about every human being."
- Thornton Wilder
"Decide..."
“We're all going to die. We don't get much say over how or when, but we do get to decide how we're gonna live. So, do it. Decide. Is this the life you want to live? Is this the person you want to love? Is this the best you can be? Can you be stronger? Kinder? More compassionate? Decide. Breathe in. Breathe out and decide.”
- “Richard”, “Grey’s Anatomy”
"Fate..."
"I can control my destiny, but not my fate. Destiny means there are opportunities to turn right or left, but fate is a one-way street. I believe we all have the choice as to whether we fulfill our destiny, but our fate is sealed."
- Paulo Coelho
"Breaking Alert, Biggest Red Flag Ever Happened!"
Canadian Prepper, 7/22/23
Full screen recommended.
"Breaking Alert, Biggest Red Flag Ever Happened!
Poland Will Enter Ukraine; 2500 Troops To Iran"
Comments here:
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Colonel Douglas Macgregor, Straight Calls 7/22/23
"The Russians Have Annihilated The Depots In Odessa"
"Analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of
current geopolitical events in the United States of America and the world."
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended.
"Russian MP’s Big Claim:
Putin Planning to Attack NATO's Underbelly?"
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And it all seems so unstoppable, so inevitable...
We can't help ourselves, just gotta do it...
Full screen recommended.
"There are a multitude of fuses affixed to dozens of powder-kegs and little kids with matches are on the loose. I don’t know which of the fuses will be lit and which powder-keg will blow, but someone is bound to do something stupid, and then all hell will break loose. It could happen at any time. One military miscue. One assassination. One violent act that stirs the world. And the dominoes will topple, setting off fireworks not seen on this planet since 1939 – 1945. I can see it all very clearly." - Jim Quinn
"Our Alaric Moment"
"Our Alaric Moment"
by The ZMan
"If you were living in the Western Roman Empire in the fourth century you probably knew that things were not going well. This assumes that you were prosperous enough to have time to think about these things. You could see that the infrastructure was failing and that the empire was struggling to maintain order. On the other hand, the decline had been happening for a long time so things may have seemed normal. Without some way to compare the present to the past, you only have instinct.
Today we have mountains of facts and figures to tell us how things are doing in the Global American Empire. There was a time not so long ago when these facts and figures made up the bulk of news coverage. Economists became court wizards, explaining the latest unemployment figures or trade numbers. They were also called upon to bless whatever polices were being debated in Congress. In the Obama years, economic data was the way we measured the glories of the empire.
That has all changed now. One reason is no one in their right mind takes anything the government says at face value. People had grown used to the way the media biased the numbers depending upon who was in office, but the mortgage crisis cratered the public’s confidence in the numbers themselves. If all of the court wizards explaining the numbers could not see the mortgage fiasco coming, then why should anyone believe them about unemployment or inflation?
Then you have the general lying that has become a feature of government. The lying about Covid not only disgraced the medical profession, but it finished off whatever trust people had in the official numbers. If the government lies about how many people are dying from Covid just to move more product for the drug makers, the government will lie about how many people are working or the inflation numbers. No one trusts the numbers because no one trusts the people issuing the numbers.
The point here is we cannot trust the numbers if the numbers have no relationship to anything we have experienced. When the end of the world has the same numbers as what most consider to be a golden era for the empire, those numbers cease to have any meaning to us. Throw in the fact that most people do not feel like they are richer than their ancestors and those inflated stock figures carry even less weight. We are left to rely on our instincts to judge things.
Of course, our sense of things, that gut feeling, is the result of a many small things that we experience every day. Three-quarters of Americans think the country is going in the wrong direction because they go to the grocery store every week. They see that despite the crowing about inflation coming down, food remains expensive. Granted, no one is starving in America due to a lack of affordable food, but it is that thing they see every day that gives people a sense of things.
Think about something simple like a pint of premium ice cream. A few years ago, a pint was sixteen ounces. “A pint is a pint the world around” was true from peak of the British empire until just a few years ago. Now a pint is fourteen ounces. The price for the new pint is not the same as the old pint. The price is more than the old pint. A few years ago, the old pint of ice cream was five dollars. That is about 31¢ per ounce. Today the new pint is over seven dollars or 51¢ per ounce.
That is a seventy percent change in the price. This is one example and probably not a representative one, given that butterfat prices drive dairy prices. Even so, this is something people see all over the marketplace. Shrinkflation is a word because it is a thing that exists. People notice that the containers are getting smaller, or they are getting less full in the case of things like snacks. Meanwhile, prices go up. This subtly tells people that something is going wrong.
This is probably why we are no longer getting a parade of court wizards analyzing the latest economic numbers. According to the numbers, Joe Biden should be dozing into reelection with an insurmountable lead, as his court wizards flood the airwaves with the good news about the economy. Instead, no one talks about the numbers and Biden is as popular as rectal cancer. It is possible he could lose the election to a man sitting in prison or be deposed by the secret police.
This brings us back to where we started. There were those in the Roman Empire who sensed the true state of affairs. No doubt some of them lived and died expecting things to fall apart, only to stagger on long past their time. Then there were others who internalized this reality and just accepted that no matter how grim things might appear, the empire was a permanent feature of life. The people probably just tried to make the best of things, even as they noticed the decline.
All of that changed on August 24, 410 AD when Alaric led the Visigoths into the eternal city, sacking Rome and setting off the collapse of the Western empire. The empire staggered on for a bit longer, but it was over at that point. All of those bad signs people had sensed probably seemed obvious in retrospect. Even so, the sack of Rome by the Visigoths was a shock to the world. The signs seemed obvious, but people still thought that the imperial order was permanent.
This is most likely the fate of the American empire. There are lots of signs that things are going poorly for the empire. Getting whipped by a collection of bronze age goatherds in the graveyard of empires should have been a wakeup call, but the empire is now picking fights with Russia and China. Meanwhile things deteriorate domestically, both economically and culturally. Yet, we stagger on, but somewhere out there is an Alaric moment just waiting to happen."
"It’s Mourning In America"
"It’s Mourning In America"
Now that America has been transformed from a high-trust
social order into a low-trust social order, there’s no going back.
by Charles Hugh Smith
"The birth of financialization in the early 1980s was morning in America because finance– the collateralization of previously low-risk assets and the resulting explosion of credit and leverage–gooses demand and asset valuations. Now that we’ve at long last reached the demise of financialization, it’s mourning in America as the hyper-stimulation has reached its zenith and is beginning its inevitable end-game of uncontrolled implosion. The hyper-financialization of American life has fatally distorted the nation’s production, politics, values and social order.
Regardless of our political persuasion, we’re all mourning for what’s been lost to either decay or erosion, both of which are so gradual that we cannot discern the full extent of the damage. We sense it, though, and this fuels the nation’s distemper. The decay, erosion and distemper remind me of a quote from French author Michel Houellebecq: “I have the impression of being caught up in a network of complicated, minute, stupid rules, and I have the impression of being herded towards a uniform kind of happiness, toward a kind of happiness that doesn’t really make me happy.”
Substitute con for happiness and we have an insight into the source of mourning in America: we’re being conned 24/7, on every level and in every nook and cranny of the economy and society. The key to any good con is to persuade the mark (victim) that it’s not a con. The most direct approach is to claim the con is true, factual, etc. Once this claim starts unraveling, then the con switches to an alternative reality that has enough shreds of credibility to be plausible.
This is why so many confuse the con and propaganda. Both are self-serving, of course, as the goal of propaganda is to generate compliance and conformity in the populace by constructing an emotionally compelling context that is both appealing and plausible. Those spewing the propaganda do so to secure their power and further their own self-serving agenda.
For example, that we’re all enjoying unprecedented prosperity in the best of all possible worlds. Look at all the low-quality rusting junk we can buy from manufacturers in totalitarian nations at low, low prices–wow! It doesn’t get any better than this. Stainless Steal (February 26, 2023).
The difference is that those spewing propaganda can be true believers in whatever cause is being pushed. In most cases, propaganda is issued by cynical, manipulative sociopaths who are merely hired guns for whomever seeks all the advantages of persuading people that enriching and empowering the few at the expense of the many is not only allowable, it’s the right thing, the only option, etc. But propaganda works best when it converts the previously uncommitted or apathetic into true believers, much like a religious conversion.
A con, on the other hand, is a swindle, a fraud, a bezzle, that takes advantage of the mark’s naive trust. This trust might be in a blood relative, a friend, an enterprise, an organization or an institution. The con exploits this trust to defraud or break the mark into an unknowing patsy. The fundamentals of the con are:
1. The gains are guaranteed, i.e. low risk.
2. The benefits are exaggerated while the costs and consequences are left unsaid.
Here’s the metaphor the con presents: I’m leading you to a glorious fruit tree loaded with ripe fruit. All you have to do is harvest as much as you want. Since we’re all still hunter-gatherers in Wetware 1.0, this greatly appeals to us. We’re inherently risk-averse and greedy to exploit windfalls, and the con promises us near-zero risk and one windfall to stripmine after another. It’s irresistible. The con always has an end date, when the mark discovers they’ve been fleeced. Trust is destroyed, and the mark, bitterly enlightened to their own credulity, laziness and greed, vows to never fall for such a con again.
The higher-order con never lets trust be completely destroyed. Instead, the con-man either rushes to console the mark and apologize for the unexpected loss, (Jeez, this never happened before – it must have been a glitch in the Matrix), or the con-man brazenly blames the victim for misjudging the situation and failing to take advantage of the unbeatable deal. "You blew it, pal, I can’t help you with that. But hey, since I’m such a nice guy, and you’re deserving of a second chance, I’m gonna let you in on another deal, not quite as good as the one you blew, but still a gem."
This is America in a nutshell: a continuous cacophony of cons. This is why trust in institutions such as the media, corporations, political interest groups, government and education are in free-fall, along with social trust in our fellow Americans. Every node of power is dominated by people out to maximize their personal gains at the expense of the public, customers, voters, members, students, etc.
"Listen, kid, you’re gonna be on Easy Street if you go borrow $120,000 and give it to us for a college diploma. You’ll be set for life, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel once you pony up the dough and we give you the paper. Don’t be a chump, kid, you gotta look out for yourself, and we’re trying to help you here."
"This medication is safe and non-addictive, you’re gonna feel a lot better as soon as you start taking it. Here’s ten pages of side-effects, but don’t worry about all that, it’s just boiler-plate. We’re here to help you, pal, and the $27,000 a month cost is mostly on the government, so it’s a slam-dunk win for you."
"Gee, I’d like to answer your questions about the district budget, employee salaries and overtime, it must be in this 293-page annual statement somewhere. You can buy a copy for only $25."
And so on, in an endless profusion of self-serving cons. Ernest academics ponder this decay and propose all sorts of scholarly possibilities, while never mentioning the obvious source: every node of power in America is hopelessly corrupt, covering its cons with tsunamis of propaganda aimed at “trust-building” among “stakeholders,” whipping up the conned faithful, cherry-picking evidence to string along the marks just a little longer, and pointing to the long history of the institution as trustworthy – a reputation that is being pillaged to benefit the few at the expense of the many.
The most successful cons divert attention from the con-men to some other group of marks/ victims. You got fleeced because of them. The fact that everyone outside the nodes of power has been fleeced is left unsaid, as this realization might generate a common cause of the marks against those benefiting so richly from the cons. It was fun while it lasted, exploiting the supercharged-cons of hyper-financialization and hyper-globalization, but those cons have been tapped out and there are no replacements. It’s tough recognizing that we’ve been credulous, naively trusting, and greedy for low-risk riches. Every one of the countless skims, scams and cons has exploited our willingness to trust and our self-interest in easy wealth.
Now that America has been transformed from a high-trust social order into a low-trust social order, there’s no going back. This is why it’s mourning in America. Trust can only be rebuilt slowly, first by opting out of all the self-serving cons and then re-establishing trust at the local level."
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"Cash Is King"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 7/22/23
"Cash Is King"
"We need to support small businesses by paying in cash. This expression was developed to discuss how liquid certain people are, and the positivity of not using credit cards and supporting the big banks."
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"Inconvenience Stickers Are Back At Kroger! Food Shortage Report & What's Coming!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 7/22/23
"Inconvenience Stickers Are Back At Kroger!
Food Shortage Report & What's Coming!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Kroger and are noticing inconvenience stickers on a lot of grocery items. This is not good as usually when we see these, it's not long after that we deal with a major shortage of that product. We are preparing accordingly and stocking up on these items now, before thery'e gone."
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Friday, July 21, 2023
"A Reckoning Is Coming, Are You Ready? Credit Cards Keep Americans Spending"
Jeremiah Babe, 7/21/23
"A Reckoning Is Coming, Are You Ready?
Credit Cards Keep Americans Spending"
Comments here:
"Domino's CEO Warns Large Number Of Stores Will Disappear As Fast Food Bankruptcies Continue To Rise"
Full screen recommended.
"Domino's CEO Warns Large Number Of Stores Will
Disappear As Fast Food Bankruptcies Continue To Rise"
by Epic Economist
"Domino’s store closings are soaring in 2023. The biggest pizza chain in the entire globe has admitted that it raised prices way too fast, and now it is facing the consequences of this decision as sales continue to fall in most of its locations in the U.S. and the world. The company is facing a perfect storm as financial losses hit the highest level since 2011. That has led corporate executives to warn that nearly 20% of the chain’s underperforming restaurants will likely disappear before the end of the year. The announcement comes as a new Bloomberg report shows that bankruptcies in the restaurant sector are rapidly rising amid worsening macroeconomic factors. The outlook is getting gloomier for the entire industry, and experts say one single disruption in the system could push Domino’s and other major chains over the edge in the next few months.
During its latest earnings call, the chain’s U.S. CEO Russell Weiner revealed that the company’s sales dropped by roughly 8.3% in the first quarter, after falling 6.6% in the fourth quarter of 2022. The company's same-store delivery sales fell for the third consecutive quarter in Q2. The decline in delivery may stem from consumers hitting their breaking point on inflation, as delivery fees stack on top of product price hikes.
“As we saw in the last recession, delivery moves with the economy, especially for customers with lower disposable income, who represent a significant portion of our business,” Weiner highlighted. Predicting more financial volatility ahead, global corporate executives are now conducting mass store closings to save on costs. In the U.S., the number of store shutdowns can hit up to 250 in the second half of the year, according to a source familiar with the matter who talked on condition of anonymity with Insider.
At least another 150 locations are set to close in Australia, Japan, France, and Germany. This year, the company also shuttered all of its locations in Denmark and Italy due to years of underperformance, the source said. Executives announced that several unprofitable stores would be gone by the end of the year. “Domino’s will reduce the size of its current corporate store network by 15 to 20 percent, through closing underperforming stores and accelerating the refranchising of corporate stores in a major ‘turnaround’,” the company said in a statement.
Not only Domino’s but many other big fast-food franchises are likely to default on their debt as the recession accelerates. That could spur more of them to file bankruptcy in the coming months, analysts warned. Although Domino's large number of franchisees can be a major advantage during times of economic prosperity, it can also be a major liability during economic downturns due to the increased exposure to debt, and limited access to credit. If operators continue to be squeezed by higher operational costs and falling sales, many of them may become insolvent, and the company may suddenly find itself drowning in debt and stuck with zombie stores. That's what happening with Burger King right now. After three franchisees filed for bankruptcy this year, the burger chain is closing 400 locations and trying to renegotiate its debt in an attempt to stay afloat and restore profitability. This situation shows that it doesn't matter how big a company is, a series of small failures can make it rot from within. Considering the size and scope of Domino's troubles, we're not that far from seeing a similar outcome."
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Musical Interlude: Chuck Wild, "Liquid Mind, Dream Ten”
Full screen recommended.
Chuck Wild, "Liquid Mind, Dream Ten”
"Liquid Mind" (aka Chuck Wild) originally wrote this music to deal with the anxiety and stress of overwork and the serious illness of friends. The gentle ebb and flow of the music has an immediate "slowing down" effect, providing a serene escape from tension-filled days. Ideal for stress relief, falling asleep at night and to enhance meditative and therapeutic practices. There are few composers with as much love for slowness in their music as Wild. Chuck draws from classical and pop influences as varying as Beethoven and Brian Eno, Bartok and Rachmaninoff, Bach, Chopin and Fauré, Duruflé and Brahms."
- http://www.liquidmindmusic.co
"A Look to the Heavens"
“The constellation of Orion holds much more than three stars in a row. A deep exposure shows everything from dark nebula to star clusters, all embedded in an extended patch of gaseous wisps in the greater Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. The brightest three stars on the far left are indeed the famous three stars that make up the belt of Orion. Just below Alnitak, the lowest of the three belt stars, is the Flame Nebula, glowing with excited hydrogen gas and immersed in filaments of dark brown dust.
Below the frame center and just to the right of Alnitak lies the Horsehead Nebula, a dark indentation of dense dust that has perhaps the most recognized nebular shapes on the sky. On the upper right lies M42, the Orion Nebula, an energetic caldron of tumultuous gas, visible to the unaided eye, that is giving birth to a new open cluster of stars. Immediately to the left of M42 is a prominent bluish reflection nebula sometimes called the Running Man that houses many bright blue stars. The above image, a digitally stitched composite taken over several nights, covers an area with objects that are roughly 1,500 light years away and spans about 75 light years.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120212.html
The Poet: Theodore Roethke, “The Return”
“The Return”
“Suddenly the window will open
and Mother will call,
it's time to come in.
The wall will part,
I will enter heaven in muddy shoes.
I will come to the table
and answer questions rudely.
I am all right, leave me
alone. Head in hand I
sit and sit. How can I tell them
about that long
and tangled way?
Here in heaven mothers
knit green scarves;
flies buzz.
Father dozes by the stove
after six days' labor.
No - surely I can't tell them
that people are at each
other's throats.”
- Theodore Roethke
Paulo Coelho, "The Water Pitcher"
"The Water Pitcher"
by Paulo Coelho
"A legend tells of a man who used to carry water every day to his village, using two large pitchers tied on either end of a piece of wood, which he placed across his shoulders. One of the pitchers was older than the other and was full of small cracks; every time the man came back along the path to his house, half of the water was lost. For two years, the man made the same journey. The younger pitcher was always very proud of the way it did its work and was sure that it was up to the task for which it had been created, while the other pitcher was mortally ashamed that it could carry out only half its task, even though it knew that the cracks were the result of long years of work.
So ashamed was the old pitcher that, one day, while the man was preparing to fill it up with water from the well, it decided to speak to him. "I wish to apologize because, due to my age, you only manage to take home half the water you fill me with, and thus quench only half the thirst awaiting you in your house."
The man smiled and said: "When we go back, be sure to take a careful look at the path." The pitcher did as the man asked and noticed many flowers and plants growing along one side of the path. "Do you see how much more beautiful nature is on your side of the road?" the man remarked. "I knew you had cracks, but I decided to take advantage of them. I sowed vegetables and flowers there, and you always watered them. I've picked dozens of roses to decorate my house, and my children have had lettuce, cabbage and onions to eat. If you were not the way you are, I could never have done this. We all, at some point, grow old and acquire other qualities, and these can always be turned to good advantage."
- http://paulocoelhoblog.com/
The Universe
"Friends are friends because they've discovered how much they have in common. Opponents, adversaries, and foes are friends too, who have not yet discovered this. It's as if a band of amazing angels got together, before time even began, to celebrate their common heritage, sense of adventure, creativity and savoir faire, and decided to meet in the distant future, amongst the jungles of time and space, upon a distant little blue planet, to see how long it would take for each and every one of them to discover who they really are. 8 billion angels, to be precise."
"Your friend,"
The Universe
"Thoughts become things... choose the good ones!"
"US Playing With Fire - Putin Issues Dire Warning"
Full screen recommended.
"Putin Mocks 'Inferior' Western Weapons;
Deems Ukraine's Counteroffensive 'Futile'"
"Russian President Putin has scorned Ukraine's counteroffensive, claiming it to be futile. Despite the Kyiv regime receiving extensive resources and Western aid, the efforts to reclaim territories have yielded no results. Putin emphasized that "colossal" resources and supplies of Western weapons, including tanks, artillery, armored vehicles, and missiles, have not aided Ukraine's cause."
Comments here:
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Aren't you proud, Good Citizen, as you virtue-signal waving your cutesy little Ukrainian flags? After all, look at what the $150 billion you and I and all of us bought. 350,000 dead Ukrainian soldiers, 30,000 dead Russians, and the very real possibility of a world-ending nuclear war. You bought it, you own it. Be real proud...
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