Friday, October 23, 2020

"The Sometimes Hidden Beauty of ‘This Too Shall Pass’

"It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent a sentence to be ever on view and which would be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words, 'And this, too, shall pass away.'"

"The Sometimes Hidden Beauty of ‘This Too Shall Pass’
By Richard Haddad

"“This too shall pass.” This proverb has no doubt been repeated millions of times in many different languages since the COVID-19 pandemic started. The sentiment may be difficult to accept amidst so many hardships from lost jobs, lost businesses and lost lives.

This adage grew from the roots of a Persian fable and became known in the Western world primarily through a 19th-century retelling by the English poet Edward FitzGerald, who crafted the fable “Solomon’s Seal” in 1852 illustrating how the adage had the power to make a sad man happy but, conversely, a happy man sad. The fable was reportedly also employed in a speech by Abraham Lincoln before he became the sixteenth President of the United States.

But the version I want to share today that I think is most beautiful and powerful was written in 1867 by American newspaper editor and abolitionist Theodore Tilton. He reworked the fable into a poem called “The King’s Ring.” Here again, the retooled adage wields a double-edged sword. It can help us endure the passage of difficult times, or keep our perspective and humility during good times. Here is the Tilton poem:

"The King’s Ring"

Once in Persia reigned a King,
Who upon his signet-ring
Graved a maxim true and wise,
Which, if held before his eyes,
Gave him counsel, at a glance,
Fit for every change or chance;
Solemn words, and these are they:
“Even this shall pass away.”

Trains of camels through the sand
Brought him gems from Samarcand;
Fleets of galleys through the seas
Brought him pearls to rival these.
But he counted little gain
Treasures of the mine or main.
“What is wealth?” the King would say;
“Even this shall pass away.”

In the revels of his court,
At the zenith of the sport,
When the palms of all his guests
Burned with clapping at his jests,
He, amid his figs and wine,
Cried, “O loving friends of mine!
Pleasures come, but do not stay:
Even this shall pass away.”

Lady fairest ever seen
Was the bride he crowned the queen.
Pillowed on his marriage-bed,
Whispering to his soul, he said,
“Though no bridegroom never pressed
Dearer bosom to his breast,
Mortal flesh must come to clay:
Even this shall pass away.”

Fighting on a furious field,
Once a javelin pierced his shield.
Soldiers with a loud lament
Bore him bleeding to his tent.
Groaning from his tortured side,
“Pain is hard to bear,” he cried,
“But with patience day by day,
Even this shall pass away.”

Towering in the public square
Twenty cubits in the air,
Rose his statue carved in stone.
Then the King, disguised, unknown,
Gazing at his sculptured name,
Asked himself, “And what is fame?
Fame is but a slow decay:
Even this shall pass away.”

Struck with palsy, sere and old,
Waiting at the Gates of Gold,
Spake he with his dying breath,
“Life is done, but what is Death?”
Then, in answer to the King,
Fell a sunbeam on his ring,
Showing by a heavenly ray -
“Even this shall pass away.”

I believe enduring well is an essential part of the test we must pass while on this Earth together. I am still taking this test. We all are. I also believe we must have a certain amount of faith and hope as we do all in our power to make things right in this world while also accepting that we don’t have the power to control all outcomes. I’ve been learning these truths and striving to apply them more in my own life. In the past I have sometimes hearkened to gloomy voices in the world. Many a time I entertained unnecessary doubt and worry. But I am learning that worry works against faith and hope. My mother once shared this other saying with me that I have tried to apply in my older years - “Worry is interest paid on money never borrowed.”

May we all strive to endure, live and love well, for this too shall pass."

"Everything We Assume Is Permanent Is Actually Fragile"

"Everything We Assume Is Permanent Is Actually Fragile"
by Charles Hugh Smith

"The great irony of the past 75 years of expanding consumption is the belief that all these decades of success prove the system is rock-solid and future success is thus guaranteed. The irony lies in the systemic fragility that's built into the large-scale industrial production that generates endless surpluses of energy, food, fresh water, etc. and the global financial system that delivers endless surpluses of capital and credit to be distributed by public authorities and private owners of capital.

The key driver of increasing efficiencies has been scaling up production by concentrating ownership and capacity into a few quasi-monopolies/cartels. In industry after industry, where there were once dozens of companies, there are now only a handful of behemoths with outsized market and political power which they wield to retain their dominance.

For example, where there were dozens of large regional banks in the U.S. not that long ago, relentless consolidation has led to a handful of supergiant too big to fail banks which can take extraordinary risks (and undertake criminal skims) knowing that the federal government will always bail them out and leave the banks' corporate criminals untouched.

Two of these too big to fail banks recently paid fines in the billions of dollars, yet no one went to prison or even faced criminal charges. This highlights the systemic problem with concentrating capital and power in the hands of the few: too big to fail means corporate wrongdoers have a permanent get out of jail free card while the small-fry white-collar criminal will get a fiver (five-year prison sentence) for skimming a tiny fraction of the billions routinely pillaged by the too big to fail banks.

The net result is a two-tier judicial/law enforcement system: the too big to fail "essential" companies get a free hand and the citizenry get whatever "justice" they can afford, i.e. very little.

This concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few corporations is of course state-cartel socialism in which the public good has become subservient to the profits of corporate owners and insiders, and the skims paid to the state's insiders. The state enables and enforces this concentration of private wealth and power in a number of ways: regulatory capture, the polite bribery of lobbying, the revolving door between government and private industry, and so on.

The public good would best be served by competition and transparent markets and regulations, but these are precisely what's been eliminated by relentless consolidation and the paring down of the economic ecosystem to a handful of too big to fail nodes which work tirelessly to eliminate competition, transparency and meaningful public oversight.

This ruthless pursuit of efficiencies and profits has stripped the economy of redundancies and buffers. Production supply chains have been engineered to function in a narrow envelope of quality, quantity and time. Any disruption quickly leads to shortages, something that became visible when meatpacking plants were closed in the pandemic.

Supply chains are long and fragile, but this fragility is not visible as long as everything stays within the narrow envelope that's been optimized. Once the envelope is broken, the supply chain breaks down. Since redundancies and buffers have been stripped away, there are no alternatives available. Shortages mount and the entire system starts breaking down.

Quality has been stripped out as well. When markets become captive to cartels and monopolies, customers have to take what's available: if it's poor quality goods and services, tough luck, pal, there are no alternatives. There are only one or two service providers, healthcare insurers, etc., and they all provide the same minimal level of quality and service.

The moral rot in our social, political and economic orders is another source of hidden fragility. I'm constantly told by readers that corruption has been around forever, so therefore nothing has changed, but these readers are indulging in magical nostalgia: things have changed profoundly, and for the worse, as the moral rot has seeped into every nook and cranny of American life, from the top down.

There is no "public good," there is only a rapacious, obsessive self-interest that claims the mantle of "public good" as a key mechanism of the con.

As I discussed in "Everything is Staged", everyone and everything in America is now nothing more than a means to a self-interested end, and so the the entirety of American life is nothing but 100% marketing of various cons designed to enrich the few at the expense of the many. That America was a better place without endless marketing of Big Pharma meds and colleges hyping their insanely costly "product" (a worthless diploma) has been largely forgotten by those indulging in magical nostalgia.

What few seem to realize is all the supposedly rock-solid permanent foundations of life are nothing more than fragile social constructs based on trust and legitimacy. Once trust and legitimacy have been lost, these constructs melt into the sands of time.

A great many things we take for granted are fragile constructs that could unravel with surprising speed: law enforcement, the courts, elections, the value of our currency -- these are all social constructs. Once legitimacy is lost, people abandon these constructs and they melt away.

It's clear to anyone who isn't indulging in magical nostalgia that trust in institutions is in a steep decline as the legitimacy of these institutions, public and private, have been eroded by incompetence, corruption, dysfunction and the rapacious self-interest of insiders.

What we've gotten very good at is masking the rot and fragility. Masking the rot and fragility is not the same thing as strength or permanence. The nation is about to discover the difference in the years ahead."

"I Promise You This..."

"One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast... a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards."
- Edward Abbey

"The Beginning Of A New Day..."

"This is the beginning of a new day.
You have been given this day to use as you will.
You can waste it or use it for good.
What you do today is important because 
you are exchanging a day of your life for it.
When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever;
in its place is something that you have left behind...
let it be something good."
- Author Unknown

The Daily "Near You?"

Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire, United Kingdom.
Thanks for stopping by!

"US Moral Compass"

"Moral compass?!

 Surely you jest... This is 'Murica!

"Down in a Blaze of Glory"

"Down in a Blaze of Glory"
By Bill Bonner

SAN MARTIN, ARGENTINA – "The river that was so wide and deep, we couldn’t cross when we got here in March, is down to a small stream… as if a fire hydrant had been opened upstream. And every drop of it needs to be shunted off to water the onions or the alfalfa. The alfalfa is ready to cut and bale. We begin at the northern field… and keep going… day and (sometimes) night – leaving round bales in the fields, spaced out as if they were practicing some kind of social distancing of their own.

Then, we start at the top again. This continues, almost without interruption, for about six months – cutting, raking, baling… until we have ricked up some 3,000 bales. Or until the water gives out. We make sure no water is wasted by carefully shoveling out the canal – by hand. A crew of 13 paleadores starts at one end… and keeps going for the next four days – digging a total of about two miles’ worth of trench. Then, the river is blocked off, forcing the water into our two major irrigation ditches, one on each side. The water flows for a week at a time. After seven days, we break up our dike so people downriver will get some of the precious liquid.

Argentina Lockdown: It’s mid-spring. And we’re still here – in Northwest Argentina – with a quarantine tighter than ever. The Argentines have used the toughest “lockdown” approach in the world. We are in an extremely rural area – much like Nevada or Montana. But even on our dirt road, there are police roadblocks every 20 miles or so.

The lockdown approach seems to be able to delay the disease, but not stop it. Every time the door is opened, in it comes. Then, a “spike” in cases causes the authorities to slam the door shut again. How long this can go on is anyone’s guess. Thanks to government policies over the last 70 years, the gauchos are far from rich. Many are sinking into extreme poverty.

Back in the early part of the 20th century, the Argentines were about even with Western Europeans, in terms of income per capita. Now, the country is number 68 on the list, below Russia and Romania. And now, Argentina’s economy is in a depression, with the peso falling like a stone in a well. It was on par with the U.S. dollar when we first came to the country 20 years ago. Yesterday, on the black market – which is where most of the money gets exchanged – it was at 181 pesos to one single dollar.

It would be a marvelous time to go out to a fine restaurant. A thick, delicious Argentine steak… a bottle of the best wine on the menu – the meal would cost barely more than a visit to McDonald’s in Baltimore. That is a curious and surprising consequence of an economic catastrophe; it has its advantages.

Alas… the restaurants nearby are all closed… What a marvelous place to be quarantined! Always beautiful… always interesting… and always on edge. And we feel as though we are getting a preview of things to come in the USA, too. But back to our U.S. election preview…

Two Poor Candidates: The two surest ways to wreck a great nation are war and inflation. Donald Trump failed to stop the former (though he had promised to do so and, as Commander in Chief, had the power to do so). Instead, he actually increased funding for the warmakers. In domestic matters, too, Trump did nothing to bring spending under control (he didn’t veto a single spending bill).

Au contraire, he brought spending, deficits, and “inflation” – the money-printing necessary to cover budget shortfalls – to a level never before seen in the U.S. In 2020, the budget deficit hit a sh*thole country record – at 18% of GDP.

Trump did one other calamitous thing worth mentioning. In response to a health challenge – the coronavirus – he allowed his bureaucrats to put the country on a war footing… taking on extraordinary powers that are normally limited to matters of national survival. But as unsuccessful as he was, we’ve also seen that his opponent is unlikely to be any better.

As far as we can tell, Joe Biden never met a boondoggle that he didn’t like. He is likely to back scams and bamboozles – green programs, universal basic income, expanded free medical care – far beyond those of Mr. Trump. If Biden has his way, the feds’ printing presses will probably run hotter than ever. So what will happen?

Trump Fatigue: First, who will win? Most likely, Biden will win. But not because his policies are better. Nor even because he is the overwhelming favorite of the Deep Staters. Both candidates are socialists. Both are committed to a large role for the government in the economy. Both will continue in the Bush/Obama/Trump tradition… less freedom, more control, less prosperity, more inequality, more fake money.

But our guess – and it is only a guess – is that the marginal voter is a little tired of the Big Man. Trump has dominated the news cycle for the last five years, beginning even before he was elected. He captured the headlines largely because he was willing to say “outrageous” things – many of which were true.

Back in 2016, for example, he said “all lives matter.” And of course, they do. But now, you’re not allowed to say so without being branded a “racist.” Then, hardly a month ago, he urged Americans not to let the coronavirus “dominate your life.” The core of the message was little different from the advice of the Harvard Medical School in March – “Don’t let coronavirus anxiety take over.” But coming from Trump’s mouth, it was deemed too dangerous for public consumption. The press went wild with indignation. Health “experts” branded it “irresponsible.”

A few months earlier, an interviewer, hoping to lure the Big Man into another sensational headline, touched on the California forest fires. The Donald was invited to opine on whether or not the fires were caused by man-made climate change. “I don’t think science knows,” the president responded. This, too, was right on the money. Of course, “science” doesn’t know. It has hypotheses that, in the fullness of time, are sure to be amended and updated. As of today, nobody knows for certain which way it will go… nor what really is the cause.

But while this maverick approach was welcomed… and captivated the media and the public for 60 months… now, the lumpen electorate seems to have gotten weary of it. The voters yearn for a return to normal.

Trump’s unkind epithet for “Sleepy Joe” Biden, may have backfired. Sleepy is what the public wants. People want an anaesthetic president… a dreamtime leader… who will put the bitter conflicts and sour dramas behind us.

Reality is now tough enough. The recovery is stalling. The rich are getting much richer; the poor much poorer. And the coronavirus shows no sign of going away, suggesting that we have gotten ourselves into another unending, unwinnable war. Many people blame the president – even for things that aren’t his fault.

But if they pull the lever for Mr. Biden, what difference will it make? Can they nod off… and make yesterday’s mistakes and today’s challenges… disappear? The deficits? The jackass programs? The deepening Swamp? The growing debt? The widening gap between rich and poor? The 76 million baby boomers in need of pensions and medical care? The crisp new bills – albeit in electronic form – flying off the printing presses?

Nope. Things – at least the things that matter most, war and inflation – will go on, much as they have for the last 20 years.

Appreciate What We Lost: But let us, uncharacteristically, depart from our usual doom and gloom. Yes, of course, the American empire is on the downslide. And no… there’s nothing we can do to stop it. But between the dimming light of today and the crack of doom tomorrow is at least a little time…

Like the once-rich families on the pampas, there will be time to light candles… time to enjoy the dusky scenes… to reach into our once-bulging liquor cabinet and pour out the last drops from a bottle of Highland Malt that we bought when we were flush…and time to sit at an ancient table… as the last rays of the southern sun steal through the cracked windowpanes… the old wallpaper peeling down…

And finally, at peace after so many guerras inutiles… so many battles fought trying to hold the line against waste and foolishness… so many fights lost against lunatic enemies…there, finally, there will be time to appreciate the fruits of a civilization that is no more.

Sordid Spectacle: Yes, enantiodromia works both ways. It casts down… but it raises up, too. Sleepy Joe might win… but the “conservatives” might reawaken. When in power, people become proud and practical, eager to take advantage of their opportunity to punish their enemies, reward their friends, and steal whatever they can. It is usually a sordid spectacle. That is why winning a war… or an election… is often one of the worst things that can happen to a people.

The Romans had won so many battles for so many years that they began to believe their armies – although composed largely of barbarians – were invincible. In the 5th century, rather than protect the homeland… their armies remained deployed at the fringes of the empire – often fighting each other…until the Barbarians marched into Rome… raped the women… slaughtered the men… burned down the city… and carried off anything of value.

The Germans handily defeated the French in 1870… and took away the idea that they could so again. (The French learned nothing.) In the next war, Germany – following essentially the same strategy – was ruined… bankrupted… with 2 million of her young men dead.

And wouldn’t the U.S. have been better off if it had had its butt kicked a little harder by the Vietnamese? Instead, its military considered that the withdrawal was a “political” decision. And then, eager to regain its pride, led by Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf, it attacked Iraq in 1991. Wouldn’t it have been better if it had lost there, too? Most likely. Then, it never would have thought it could pull off a Second Gulf War.

Our point is that you learn more from failure than from success… You think more clearly, too, when the boot is at your neck. Failure, especially if it is indisputable, excites the brain. And the first thing you realize is that war is not always a paying proposition. Minding your own business becomes a virtue, not a sign of cowardice. Conservatism – learning from the past, sticking with the traditional rules of an honest, open society – pays.

As for the warmongers… the world improvers… the activists and empire builders – you begin to see them in a different light… as the clowns and numbskulls they really are. And you realize that these morons who are ruining the empire are actually doing us all a favor.

Bright Side: And so, Dear Reader, looking on the bright side, as usual, we see a blaze of glory at the end of the tunnel… Defeated, we will be a smarter, nicer race. Humbled, we will be less inclined to try to boss others around. Broke, we will spend our money more carefully.

And out of power, following a Biden win, our erstwhile “conservatives” might suddenly come to their senses and eschew war, deficit spending, grandiose scams, fake money, giveaways, tariffs, phony interest rates, meddling in the economy, restricting, confining, controlling… and all the flimflams and swindles of both parties over the last 50 years. The born-again conservatives might even regain the clarity and courage to prevent the Biden administration from doing more harm!

Yes, we see much better things ahead. After the crack-up… of course."

"Against All Odds..."

“Maybe we accept the dream has become a nightmare. We tell ourselves that reality is better. We convince ourselves it’s better that we never dream at all. But, the strongest of us, the most determined of us, holds on to the dream or we find ourselves faced with a fresh dream we never considered. We wake to find ourselves, against all odds, feeling hopeful. And, if we’re lucky, we realize in the face of everything, in the face of life the true dream is being able to dream at all.”
- Dr. Meredith Grey, "Grey's Anatomy"

"Bleeding Out"

"Bleeding Out"
by Jim Kunstler

“The difference between you and me,” Mr. Trump said to the ever more ghostly Joe Biden, fading mentally late in the action on the debate stage, “is that I’m not a politician and you are, and you’re a crooked politician.” Millions watching this spectacle might not have noticed, due to the media’s near-complete blackout of news detailing the Biden family’s adventures in systematic global moneygrubbing, but the Democratic candidate for president has political Ebola, a hemorrhagic fever of credibility, now gushing out of every pore and orifice.

Twitter and Facebook may try to squelch the story, but the evidence is all over the Internet now, like blood on a crime scene, in verifiable emails, texts, Snapchats, memoranda, and bank records that Ol’ White Joe Biden is at the center of a decades-long influence-peddling spree, selling his personal services to China, Russia, Ukraine, and any other country seeking favors in US government policy, and that this slime-trail of grift disqualifies him from holding high office as much as the irreversible rot of his cognitive abilities.

The “Laptop from Hell” affair has twelve more days to play out before the November 3 vote and the Democratic Party is in a terrible jam. Do they ask Mr. Biden to step aside, or do they keep running with him while the barrage of allegations and hard evidence pours down on them like so many mortar rounds on a besieged bunker? It’s obvious now that one way or another, voters are actually being asked to elect Kamala Harris president - but who asked for her? Only the disgraced and disabled head of the ticket, Joe Biden, desperate for a non-white running mate. Elsewise, she was so disliked by voters that she skulked out of the Iowa caucuses, ending her own run. Is Hillary ironing her purple pantsuit up in Chappaqua, awaiting the emergency call from her DNC?

The early 2020 impeachment gambit has finally blown up in the Democrats’ faces, too, as it’s now obvious the phony furor over Mr. Trump’s phone call to Ukraine President Zelensky was ginned up to smother any inquiry into Hunter Biden’s $83,000-a-month services to the Burisma gas company and its crooked chief, Mykola Zlochevsky, with help from then US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and several of her staff, as well as then Secretary of State John Kerry.

Interestingly, figures associated with Mr. Kerry (the 2004 Democratic party nominee), Devon Archer and Christopher Heinz (Mr. Kerry’s stepson) also happened to be business associates of Hunter Biden’s, and therefore the Biden family syndicate. Mr. Archer is currently under conviction, awaiting sentencing, on a federal securities fraud rap. If US attorneys out of the DOJ have any interest in talking to him, they have a lever to incentivize his testimony about many of the transactions involving Burisma in Ukraine and the Chinese companies that were funneling payments to the Bidens for “introductions” to US persons of influence.

The Democrats have a whole lot of bad behavior to defend, ranging far beyond the Bidens to the decades-long activities of the Clintons in their charity frauds, the related Uranium One matter - in which $150-million in Russian money found its way into the Clinton Foundation - and the deal that set up transfers of US secret computer tech to Russia’s Skolkovo project, which eventuated in Russia’s development of hypersonic weapons. Not to mention the RussiaGate coup operation to overthrow the president using false allegations supplied by Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, and scores of high officials in a range of executive agencies.

Ironically many of those same schemers are at it again in the recent letter by a long list of former Intel spooks trying to discredit The New York Post’s reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop as “having all the earmarks” of a Russian disinformation op. At the top of the list of that letter’s signers, you’ll find John Brennan, CIA chief under Obama, and James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence - both of them progenitors of the RussiaGate coup and liable to prosecution for seditious conspiracy. Can you smell their desperation?

Something else may be turning now, though, on this titanic hairball of corruption and deceit: mainstream media reporters starting to jump into lifeboats to save their reputations by actually reporting honestly on developments in this web of stories. The few early adapters to truth-telling may be the only survivors. The ones who stick with the ship of deception are going down into cold and darkness. And if President Trump wins reelection - a possibility despite polling that, in many cases, is just propaganda - the public will learn exactly how the Democratic Party became the enemy of the people."
Related:

"How It Really Is"

 

Gregory Mannarino, AM 10/23/20: "Election Plays, Markets, More"

Gregory Mannarino,
AM 10/23/20: "Election Plays, Markets, More"

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 10/23/20"

by David Leonhardt
10/23/20

"• Reopened elementary schools do not seem to be causing significant virus outbreaks, according to data from random testing in the United States and Britain.
• Hospitalizations in Europe are rising steadily. This map shows which countries are being hit hardest.
• The Food and Drug Administration formally approved remdesivir as the first drug to treat Covid-19."

Oct 23, 2020, 8:36 AM ET:
The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 41,798,700 
people, according to official counts, including 8,455,282 Americans.

      Oct 23, 2020 8:36 AM ET: 
Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count
Updated 10/23/20, 6:24 AM ET
Click image for larger size.

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 10/23/2020"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up 10/23/2020"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"If you are a staunch Biden supporter, you probably thought he did pretty well in the last Presidential debate of the 2020 election season. If you are a Trump supporter, you probably thought the President won. The fact is this debate did not settle much, but it did draw some gaping wounds on former Vice President Biden. Biden finally admitted that he does want to do away with the oil and natural gas business. That is going to hurt him in States like Texas and Pennsylvania. Also, news of his son Hunter’s damning emails showing the Biden family cashing in was not denied by Joe, but simply passed off as Russian propaganda.

The Hunter Biden emails are real, and the trouble for Joe Biden is real too. Now, two of Hunter’s business associates are rolling over on the Bidens. They are confirming the emails and providing new material damning to Joe and family. This opens Joe up for many more questions about son Hunter and family with news of money received from places like China, Ukraine and Iraq. This is not going away before Election Day.

Another 787,000 people filed for first time unemployment claims last week. That was less than the week before, but not a good indicator as more than 60 million have filed claims since March. The good news is GM will invest $2 billion in the USA to get ready for new electric vehicles coming out under the General Motors brand. Why did they decide to build in the USA and not China? Maybe somebody at GM got nervous doing business with a totalitarian communist regime?"

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he talks 
about these stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up.

Thursday, October 22, 2020

"Hunger Crisis Getting Worse! 1 In 3 US Families Don't Have Enough Food To Put On The Table"

"Hunger Crisis Getting Worse! 1 In 3 US Families 
Don't Have Enough Food To Put On The Table"
by Epic Economist

"Kitchen tables across America are the clearest picture of the damages brought by the economic collapse. As the sanitary outbreak lingers, millions upon millions are fighting against the hunger crisis. In recent times, demand for food banks has spiked so high that projections already show pantries won't have enough to feed everyone. Food insecurity levels are surging for several different groups and no one is really immune - from children to college students to the middle class, and many others. 

At the same time, while the World Food Program was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its fight against hunger, recent U.S. data points out that tighter crop supplies could aggravate even more the food-inequality crisis that’s expanding around the globe. For that reason, we decided to gather the most recent figures that can translate the reality no one wants to show us: the rising famine emerging amongst American families. Today, we are going to analyze the U.S. hunger crisis by the numbers, exposing this harsh situation that has been growing by the day. So stay with us, don't forget to give this video a thumbs up, share it with friends, and subscribe to our channel not to miss the next chapters of the 21st-century economic depression.

Before all of this meltdown has started, rates for American families facing food insecurity had been gradually declining. Right now, the number of groups who are lacking consistent access to enough food is skyrocketing. As the economic downturn and a second wave of viral cases have been severely disturbing people's prospects to resume their lives, new estimates present some of the worst rates of hunger spikes in America in decades. 

This crisis has been challenging families, communities, and the social safety net in a very disconcerting manner. However, since last year a significant amount of U.S. households were already experiencing food insecurity, and this year's economic disaster has just made the situation much worse. In 2019, approximately 13.7 million households, or 10.5% of all U.S. households, undergone food insecurity at some point. That accounts for over 35 million Americans who were either unable to purchase enough food to meet their needs or unsure of where their next meal would come from, reported the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

From those 35 million, over a third had limited access to food to the point of having their eating patterns critically impacted and their food intake was reduced. The other two-thirds managed to obtain enough food but had to survive on less varied diets or use the help of food assistance programs. 

This year, on the other hand, the number of food-insecure groups more than doubled, hitting as many as 23% of all U.S. households, roughly 1 in every 4 families were affected as a result of the economic havoc that has been pushing millions out of their jobs, according to one estimate by researchers at Northwestern University. Even more concerningly, 1 in every 3 families with children is coping with food insecurity - which is double the rate since 2018, and a higher proportion than at the peak of the Great Recession, according to a new analysis from The Hamilton Project.  During "regular" times, households with children were almost 1.5 times more likely to face food insecurity than households without children, USDA data pointed out. 

Tragically, the food insecurity issue is hardly unique to the U.S. In a recent assessment, Bloomberg estimated that over "132 million more people globally might fall into the grip of hunger this year, including in many places that used to have relative stability". The projections are related to the USDA announcement that says world soybean stockpiles will be smaller than expected amid the growing competition over global wheat shipments, while dry weather is becoming a threat to crops in parts of South America and Europe. All things considered, global food prices are forecasted to keep climbing, as result, adequate nutrition will become even more expensive as millions are still being pushed out of work and the economic downfall deepens.

In conclusion, the UN's chief economist, Arif Husain signaled this crisis as "a hammer blow for millions more who can only eat if they earn a wage. Lockdowns and global economic recession have already decimated their nest eggs. It only takes one more shock to push them over the edge". All the factors are mounting together and leaving many with the worrying question: Has the sanitary outbreak unleashed not only a public health and economic crisis but also a humanitarian one? That's what we are going to find out on the next unfoldings of the global economic catastrophe. So keep tuned with our channel, and we see you on the next one!"

"America Has the Government It Deserves"

"America Has the Government It Deserves"
by Brian Maher

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want,
and deserve to get it good and hard."
-  H. L. Mencken

“Every nation gets the government it deserves,” said 18th-century French philosopher Joseph de Maistre. "If true - we suspect it is - the United States is a nation of scoundrels, cads, wastrels and spongers. For the nation has a spendthrift government perpetually on the borrow, perpetually holding out an empty hat. By some metrics, the United States presently takes on more debt in one year than it did in its first 200 years of existence. This was true before the virus invaded its shores. Now all previous projections go into the fireplace, discarded and useless.

In 2018 - merely two years past - the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected the national debt would exceed $23 trillion by 2020. Exceed. We suspect the 2018 forecast was intended to raise the hair. Yet here we are in 2020… staggering, groaning under a $27 trillion debt… which counts higher with each swing of the clock. A $27 trillion debt exceeds a $23 trillion debt nearly as a half-foot exceeds an inch, as a foot exceeds a yard. It is not merely “more.”

‘What Can I Do?’ Yet somehow the business seems beyond all human agency, beyond all control. ‘What can I do?’ a fellow wonders. His shoulders he shrugs. His head he bows. He may cluck-cluck his opposition to it all - and who does not?

The Modern Monetary Theory zanies may not oppose it. They would argue greater debt is the proper medicine. But they are not our concern today. Come back to our normal man… He is largely a man resigned. Besides, he bellows, today’s obscene debts are the fault of the big-spending politicians sitting at Washington. Not himself.

But are they? Is the glad-handing, vote-seeking politician solely to blame for the nation’s desperate finances? No, argues Paul Van de Water, senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Look thyself in the mirror, citizen, says he: "Even voters who say they’re against deficits would also prefer lower taxes. That is, the average voter sniffs the free lunch… and orders up a plateful."

We must agree with this analysis. The cost-free lunch has eternal appeal. It is a painless gain… and what a gain it can be. Once it goes upon the menu it never comes off. But ultimately the waiter lays the check upon the table… as warned Mr. Benjamin Franklin: "When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic."

And in Aristotle’s telling: "Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms."

Do we condemn the voter for biting the bait? No, we do not pass judgment - we have yet to decline an expenseless meal. We merely observe… and reflect. But is it necessarily in the nature of democracies to run down the nation’s finances - to lunch free of charge? Perhaps it is not democracy as such to blame… but the character of a particular people.

Look to Athens: Ancient Athens - a democracy (with noticeable exceptions) - amassed a vast public treasury in its Golden Age. That treasury remained unmolested until the Peloponnesian War, though it was perpetually there for the taking. The citizens of Athens were free to vote themselves the bounty as they pleased. Yet they did not.

Author Freeman Tilden, from his neglected 1935 masterwork "A World in Debt": At one time the Athenians had in their citadel more than 10,000 talents of silver [roughly $165 million in 2016 dollars]; and what is more significant, they did not tap the resources until forced by the necessity of war."

Tilden cited 18th-century British philosopher David Hume on the Athenian character: "What an ambitious and high-spirited people was this, to collect and keep in their treasury a sum which it was every day in the power of the citizens, by a single vote, to distribute among themselves!"

Nor did Athens resort to swindle in its bleakest hour - no clipping of coins, no debasing the currency. Again, Tilden: "The most brilliant democrats that ever lived, the Athenians, made tragic mistakes of policy… But with all their blunders, the Athenians never, as free men, indulged in the final madness of debasing their currency: They never became swindlers… Athens rose in trade by means of establishing good credit and by safeguarding the honor of her coin. In the most terrible years of her history, when the treasury was empty… she was indeed obliged to strike emergency coins of gold and bronze, but never consented to debase her coinage."

Safeguarding the honor of its coin? Might the Federal Reserve take notice? Might we... the American people... take notice?

America’s Debased Coinage: We might remind you… The United States dollar has lost some 95% of its value since the Federal Reserve came on duty in 1913. Yet out of respect for the nation’s monetary authority and the high dignity of its office… we refrain.

But this question we will ask: Were the ancients hammered from nobler metal than us moderns? Had they greater virtue? Again, we refer you to Athens. Yes, it murdered a Socrates. But its people kept their hands in their pockets. So much for Greeks. But what of Rome?

Rome: The American founders feared democracy as the devil fears holy water. Republican Rome was their model. But was not Rome a bedlam of vice and debauchery? Did not Nero fiddle while Rome burned? Did not Caligula famously name his horse a consul? Was Rome not corrupted by its bread and its circuses? Yes, yes and yes. And yes. But America’s Founders looked to the early Roman Republic for its example - before Caesar went across the Rubicon River… before Nero fiddled. Virtue, honor, public service were the pole stars, the North stars of the early Roman Republic.

Consider the Battle of Cannae in 216 B.C. Hannibal was moving on Rome. He met the Roman army at Cannae, the other side of the Italian boot from Rome. The battle resulted in carnage literally unprecedented... Rome lost perhaps 50,000 men to Hannibal’s berserkers in one single day (Roman soldiers went actually mad, digging holes in the ground and lowering their heads into them, ostrich-like, to shut out the carnage surrounding them). Once again for emphasis… Rome withstood 50,000 dead in one single day.

America scarcely exceeded that one-day bloodletting in a decade of Vietnam. Was it merely the underclass, the rabble of Rome that died for its glory that day? It was not. The Roman Senate lost nearly one-third of its members in the Battle of Cannae. “This suggests,” notes historian Peter Turchin, “that the senatorial aristocracy was more likely to be killed in wars than the average citizen.”

If a nation gets the government it deserves…we must conclude the citizens of the early Roman Republic were a deserving lot.

Imagine - for one passing moment if you can - a United States senator on the front lines of battle. Then return to your sober senses.

Meantime, Turchin informs us that the wealth of Rome’s top 1% was perhaps 10–20 times a commoner’s at the height of the Roman Republic. By the time of Rome’s terminal imperial decline… that figure may have risen to 10,000 times. Have you seen the latest income discrepancies?

“If You Can Keep It”: America’s numbers are not quite so out of joint - yet. But this we must ask: Does America’s domestic condition today more resemble the Roman Republic… or the Roman Empire? Legend holds that a grand Philadelphia belle confronted the aforesaid Benjamin Franklin as he vacated the Constitutional Convention in September 1787. Legend further claims she asked old Ben what form of government the assembled had handed the American people. “A republic, Madam,” came his reply - “if you can keep it.” We - We the People - could not..."

Gregory Mannarino, "Watch For It! Trillions In More Debt Will Propel Stocks Much Higher"

Gregory Mannarino,
"Watch For It! Trillions In More Debt Will Propel Stocks Much Higher"
And you know very well how much help the rest of us will get...
Right, Good Citizen? 

Musical Interlude: Medwyn Goodall, “Eyes of Heaven”

Medwyn Goodall, “Eyes of Heaven”
Full screen mode recommended.

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Separated by about 14 degrees (28 Full Moons) in planet Earth's sky, spiral galaxies M31 at left, and M33 are both large members of the Local Group, along with our own Milky Way galaxy. This narrow- and wide-angle, multi-camera composite finds details of spiral structure in both, while the massive neighboring galaxies seem to be balanced in starry fields either side of bright Mirach, beta star in the constellation Andromeda. Mirach is just 200 light-years from the Sun. But M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, is really 2.5 million light-years distant and M33, the Triangulum Galaxy, is also about 3 million light years away. 

Click image for larger size.
Although they look far apart, M31 and M33 are engaged in a gravitational struggle. In fact, radio astronomers have found indications of a bridge of neutral hydrogen gas that could connect the two, evidence of a closer encounter in the past. Based on measurements, gravitational simulations currently predict that the Milky Way, M31, and M33 will all undergo mutual close encounters and potentially mergers, billions of years in the future.”
"Everything passes away- suffering, pain, blood, hunger, pestilence. The sword will pass away too, but the stars will still remain when the shadows of our presence and our deeds have vanished from the earth. There is no man who does not know that. Why, then, will we not turn our eyes towards the stars? Why?"
- Mikhail Bulgakov, "The White Guard"

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.”

"In the Inbox"

"In the Inbox"

"From: Coordinator of Volunteer Services

We have a young man, thirty-six, on hospice who has a very young child. They want someone to help him do a life review and perhaps put some pictures together for he and his wife so the child will know him. Call me if you are willing to do this."

"The next time, friend, your life seems too hard, check your Inbox."

- Jose Orez

The Poet: Fernando Pessoa, “I Don’t Know If The Stars Rule The World”

 “I Don’t Know If The Stars Rule The World”

“I don’t know if the stars rule the world,
Or if Tarot or playing cards
Can reveal anything.
I don’t know if the rolling of dice
Can lead to any conclusion.
But I also don’t know
If anything is attained
By living the way most people do.

Yes, I don’t know
If I should believe in this daily rising sun
Whose authenticity no one can guarantee me,
Or if it would be better (because better or more convenient)
To believe in some other sun,
One that shines even at night,
Some profound incandescence of things,
Surpassing my understanding.

For now...
(Let’s take it slow)
For now
I have an absolutely secure grip on the stair-rail,
I secure it with my hand –
This rail that doesn’t belong to me
And that I lean on as I ascend...
Yes... I ascend...
I ascend to this:
I don’t know if the stars rule the world.”

- Fernando Pessoa

The Daily "Near You?"

 
El Tejo, Cantabria, Spain. Thanks for stopping by!

"A Very Close Resemblance..."