Wednesday, December 23, 2020

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 12/23/20"

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 12/23/20"
"The more I see of the moneyed classes, 
the more I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
Gregory Mannarino, AM 12/23/20: 
"Economic FREE-FALL COLLAPSE Worsening- 
No Relief In Sight"
MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates

CNN Market Data:

CNN Fear And Greed Index:

"A 'Case' You Probably Didn’t Read About"

"A 'Case' You Probably Didn’t Read About"
by Eric Peters

"A friend in Georgia called to let me know a junior high school student who attends the same school as her 13-year-old son tried to kill herself the other day. She was found hanging from a cord she’d wound over the shower head in her parents’ home. She was despondent over being denied her life – and so decided to take it.

The good news is she was discovered in time and is still alive. The bad news is there are many such “cases” – including the premature deaths-by-neglect of elderly people who haven’t got the ‘Rona but lost the will to live – and stopped eating or just faded away from depressive ennui resulting from being “locked down” in nursing homes for the past six-plus-months, by decree of the Gesundheitsfuhrers.
Mammals need the warmth and companionship of other mammals. Take that away – “lock them down”- and you sentence them to a slow but certain death, beginning with their spirit and ending with the mortification of their bodies.

This is not a minor inconvenience, a temporary and necessary sacrifice. It is an outrageous, criminal assault on the physical and psychological well-being of hundreds of millions of people (in this country alone) in the name of a fatuous hyper-precautionary Sickness Cult that regards a slight risk of a bad cold to most as finger-wagging justification – and you’d better not object to any of it.
It has worked – so far – because most people are kind and generous and no one wants to be accused of harming other people, let alone actually harming them. But it begins to wear thin, as the enjoining and finger-wagging waxes even as the evidence mounts that the damage being done is sickeningly disproportionate to the threat asserted.

Questioning is beginning. It is reasonable to alert people who come to eat at a restaurant that certain dishes may contain peanuts so that those who have allergies to peanuts can avoid those dishes. It is ridiculous to insist that all restaurants establish Peanut Free Zones for the sake of those with peanut allergies.

It is tyrannical to decree it. My gym has been open for the past four months and almost no one wears the Holy Rag as the gym is a secular joint; people come there to exercise, not perform religious rituals. Notwithstanding this heresy, no one is sick. Probably in no small measure because they are exercising – and breathing freely – both tending to improve one’s health.

But gyms around the country are “locked down” – denying more people than the number of people who’ve allegedly died of the ‘Rona (as opposed to with it, but actually because of old age compounded by poor health) access to the means by which to maintain and improve their physical as well as psychological health.
Being able to go out – and go within. To see your friends – and see their faces. To deny this to people is inhuman. To deny it to them in the name of what, for 99.8 percent of them, amounts to nothing more than than the slight threat of a bad cold is something worse. Particularly as regards children such as the one who almost took her life, mentioned earlier.

It is established fact – the “science” – that 13-year-olds like the girl who is the schoolmate of my friend’s son – are at less risk of dying from ‘Rona than they are of being killed in a car accident. Yet on the putative basis of an hysterically exaggerated “risk,” they are being abused in a manner that would have earned those responsible a felony conviction as recently as this same time last year.

Forced to stay at home. Forced to wear a muzzle – the sort of thing formerly applied to dangerous animals and for that reason just as degrading but without the justification. Denied their friends. Denied their outlets, such as team sports and just “hanging out” freestyle.
Fear the Bogeyman! Don’t Question! Wear a Mask! 

It is child abuse – or would have been so described, this time last year. This wears on kids, especially (see here) for whom six months might as well be six years as their time-sense is different than that of adults. If it seems as if this will never end to us – adults – imagine how it feels to a 13-year-old. Also, we have next year. They only get one shot at 7th grade. Or their senior prom.

It is not hard to understand why kids feel their lives are over before they’ve even gotten started. Just as it is easy to understand why many elderly people, imprisoned in “homes” and denied contact with their families (phone calls don’t suffice) despair of living. And just give up.

How did it happen that such control over our lives came to pass? It came in a blizzard storm of orchestrated terror, a manufactured emergency that has been maintained not with “science” and the free consent that an actual emergency would voluntarily engender – but by decrees that rely on threats. Issued by people who exempt themselves.

Life is becoming the equivalent of owning a car you’re not allowed to drive; of having a spouse you may not touch. A life you may not live. It is killing us. And kids, too."

"The Future..."

"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future."
But this we do know...
"The future ain't what it used to be."
- Yogi Berra

"I Can't Believe It: I Agree With AOC"

"I Can't Believe It: I Agree With AOC"
by Simon Black 

"Since the beginning of March, the US federal government has spent more than $5 trillion battling the Coronavirus and the effects of COVID-19. And governments around the world, from Europe to China, have spent trillions more. And that amount doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the long-term economic toll, including then incalculable cost of shutting down the economy.

Government-imposed lockdowns have wiped out trillions of dollars, pushing businesses to failure and costing millions of jobs. And this economic toll also affects tax revenue; with the economy notably weaker, government tax revenue is almost nonexistent this year. So they’re spending record sums of money while generating minimal revenue. Unsurprisingly, debt levels have spiraled out of control.

We’re supposed to cancel everything, avoid friends and family, pepper spray anyone who isn’t wearing a mask, and cower in fear in our homes… all because of a virus that, by one recent estimate in the European Journal of Epidemiology, has a survival rate of 99.9%. But even still, they’re back at it. More lock downs, more endless spending, more debt.

The United States Congress just passed yet another ‘Covid relief’ bill. Technically it includes general spending provisions for Fiscal Year 2021 (to avoid yet another government shut down). But the biggest chunk of it is COVID relief, which comprises nearly $1 trillion of the spending. The total bill is more than FIVE THOUSAND PAGES, and it embodies the old political phrase, “Never let a crisis go to waste.”

If the purpose of the bill really is to provide relief to Americans, then the bill should (in theory) be a few paragraphs at most. But this bill is literally 5,593 pages… and contains some of the most absurd provisions imaginable.

For starters, Americans will receive $600 in ‘relief’. So, you’re not allowed to operate your business and earn a living for yourself. And in exchange, the government will will send you enough money to buy some new clothes so you can stay warm while you stand in line at the soup kitchen.

But that doesn’t even begin to showcase the utter waste in this bill:

Page 1,461 of the bill, for example, authorizes nearly $135 million for BURMA (aka Myanmar) “to promote ethnic and religious tolerance... in Kachin, Karen, Rakhine, and Shan states”. What bureaucrat could possibly come up with something so absurd? You get $600. But a bunch of corrupt generals in Burma get to rake in US taxpayer funds under the guise of ethnic and religious tolerance… but ONLY in FOUR out of Burma’s 14 states. (Tough luck if you’re a Burmese warlord living in the state of Bago or Yangon… because obviously it would be ridiculous to give those states any money.)

Another $45 million of taxpayer money (page 1,491) will be awarded to key government officials in Central America– places like El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala– in order to “combat corruption”. You can’t make this stuff up– they are giving money to corrupt politicians to fund anti-corruption programs. It’s genius!

Another $10 million of taxpayer money (page 1,486) will be given to the government of Pakistan SPECIFICALLY for gender studies programs.

They’re giving boatloads of money to plenty of foreign countries, including Ukraine ($453 million), Sudan ($700 million), the Republic of Georgia ($132 million), Bangladesh ($198 million), Vietnam ($170 million), and several others.

Then there’s the small matter of $33 million for “democracy programs” in Venezuela. I’m sure Nicholas Maduro will use those funds well. (The real irony is that, while allocated $33 million for Venezuela on page 1498, page 1347 of the bill expressly prohibits any funding for Venezuela. Unbelievable.)

Perhaps most noteworthy is that Members of Congress didn’t receive the final bill yesterday until roughly two hours before the scheduled vote.

Now, Anne Jones, the six-time World Speed Reading Competition champion is able to read an average of 4,200 words per minute with 67% comprehension. So it would take her more than nine hours to read this bill in its entirety, and she’d still lose about a third of it.There’s no way anyone in Congress was able to read this bill, or even thumb through enough of it to understand the big picture. And yet they still voted in favor of it, costing taxpayers another trillion dollars.

And that led a very angry Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to take to Twitter and lament, “This is why Congress needs time to actually read this package before voting on it. Members of Congress have not read this bill. It’s over 5000 pages, arrived at 2pm today, and we are told to expect a vote on it in 2 hours. This isn’t governance. It’s hostage-taking.”

For once I actually agree with AOC. This is an absurd process that exemplifies everything wrong with government: it’s wasteful, ignorant, out of touch, oblivious, embarrassing, shameful, and corrupt. As an aside, Joe Biden praised the process by which the bill was passed, saying “I applaud the bipartisan Congressional economic relief package” and called it “a model for the challenging work ahead.”

Something tells me he didn’t read the bill either."

Tuesday, December 22, 2020

"Trump Kicks COVID Bill Back To Congress; Demands $2,000 Stimulus, Shreds Lawmakers Over Mountain Of Pork"

"Trump Kicks COVID Bill Back To Congress; 
Demands $2,000 Stimulus, Shreds Lawmakers Over Mountain Of Pork"
by Tyler Durden

TUESDAY, DEC 22, 2020 - 19:46: "President Trump appeared to threaten to veto the COVID-19 stimulus package that Congress passed almost 24 hours earlier, telling lawmakers to boost checks for Americans to $2,000 as well as "get rid of wasteful and unnecessary items" in the spending bill. Trump said "Throughout the summer, Democrats cruelly blocked COVID relief legislation in an effort to advance their extreme left wing agenda and influence the election..." "It's taken forever" to get a package and the bill passed "is much different than anticipated." "It really is a disgrace," he added.

Then he reeled off a list of disgusting 'pork' (read the details here) that has been piled into this record-breaking 5,593 page bill. As Axios notes, many of the items Trump listed, such as foreign aid, which were not related to COVID-19, are not part of the coronavirus relief package. These form part of the government funding bill, which was passed alongside the coronavirus relief package.

Then he took a shot at Biden and the election: "Send me a suitable bill or else the next administration will have to deliver a COVID relief package, and maybe that administration will be me and we will get it done."

Watch the full statement here: pic.twitter.com/v9Rdjz6DNu - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2020

And the market is not happy...
"Get back to Mrs.Pelosi!"

Must Watch! “Millions Will Meet The Boogeyman; Economic Risk Everywhere; Depression Will Be Historic; Repos”

Jeremiah Babe,
“Millions Will Meet The Boogeyman; Economic Risk Everywhere; 
Depression Will Be Historic; Repos”

"The Arctic Is Melting"

"The Arctic Is Melting"
by Brian Maher

"Earth is down with a fever. Even the polar ice has vanished. Reports The Washington Post: "The Arctic seems to be warming up. Reports all point to a radical change in climatic conditions, and hitherto unheard-of high temperatures in that part of the earth's surface. Expeditions have sailed as far as 81 degrees 29 minutes north in ice-free water. The eastern Arctic has steadily gotten warmer, and today the Arctic of that region is not recognizable as the same region of about 50 years ago. Many old landmarks have changed as to be unrecognizable. Where formerly great masses of ice were found, there are now often moraines, accumulations of earth and stones. At many points where glaciers formerly extended far into the sea they have entirely disappeared."

Thus the Arctic sweats: "Formerly the waters around Spitzbergen (Norway) held an even summer temperature of about 3 degrees Celsius; this year recorded temperatures up to 15 degrees, and last winter the ocean did not freeze over even on the north coast of Spitzbergen." Spitzbergen sits far within the Arctic Circle, incidentally. Imagine an ice-free winter deep within the Arctic Circle - if you can. As well imagine hell without its fires. But there you are.

To deny climate change is to deny the very nose upon your face - or gravity itself. Wait… When? But what is this? Could it be? The article here cited bears the date of November 2... 1922. That is correct - November 2, 1922. The Arctic was iceless in 1922… if you accept the verdict of The Washington Post.

But the internal combustion engine was a mere adolescent in 1922, a junior menace, a future bugaboo. Industry was up and going - but enough to melt the stubborn Arctic ice? We are filled with doubt. We must therefore credit an alternate heat source. But what? We do not know. We lack credentials within the climatic sciences.

Yet there is the sun to consider - it gives off a varying glow. Might shifting ocean currents explain it… or wind patterns? We hazard they might. Again, we do not know. But we slant heavily towards the natural explanation.

So much for 1922. What about 2020? Has an additional century of fuel-burning raised the earthly temperature?

Carbon Dioxide: It cannot be denied, carbon dioxide emissions are greater than in 1922. We ordered our minions to investigate the literature. This morning they dropped the report upon our desk. Thus we learn: Carbon dioxide represents a vanishing 0.04% part of Earth’s atmosphere.

Imagine - if you will - this atmosphere as 100 cases of one-liter bottles. That is, imagine this atmosphere as 2,400 one-liter bottles. Of those 100 cases, 99 are not greenhouse gases. They are therefore irrelevant to our inquiry.

A mere one case of the 100 represents greenhouse gases. Of the one case that represents greenhouse gases, one bottle of the 24 represents carbon dioxide. Of the one bottle that represents this demon molecule, perhaps 50 milliliters represents mankind's annual contribution - roughly one shot glass. And so... of our theoretical atmosphere of 2,400 liters, humans account for perhaps one shot glass of carbon dioxide.

Alternately: consider the atmosphere a 100-story building. The human CO2 concentration amounts to the linoleum on the ground floor. Yet this relative trifle is scorching the planet? We request the authenticated documentation - chapter, verse, line - footnotes included. It is fully plausible that fuel-burning has tinkered Earth’s temperature. And carbon dioxide is but one variable in the mix. The science is… complex. It is beyond our slender comprehension.

But if Earth’s climate was so exquisitely sensitive to minor carbon dioxide rises… why hasn’t it burned up? This planet has previously endured CO2 levels 25 times or greater than today’s, we are informed. Yet the match never struck.

Why are we tackling climate change today? This publication centers on money and markets, after all. The answer is because the Federal Reserve is enlisting under the banner of climate change… and entering the fray.

A Risk to Financial Stability: For the first time in its 107 years... it has labeled climate change a risk to financial stability - a risk greater, ostensibly, than even itself. Federal Reserve grandee Lael Brainard: "Chronic hazards, such as slow increases in mean temperatures or sea levels, or a gradual change in investor sentiment about those risks, introduce the possibility of abrupt tipping points or significant swings in sentiment… Acute hazards, such as storms, floods, or wildfires, may cause investors to update their perceptions of the value of real or financial assets suddenly."

That is, the Federal Reserve must keep an eye upon the weather. It is not alone. To the European Central Bank (ECB), climate change is a mighty fee-fi-fo-fum that menaces financial stability. ECB President Christine Lagarde says caging it is “mission critical.”

The central bankers can moan about climate change all they please. But is it within their power to address? After all, you say, they cannot even squeeze 2% inflation out of their economies. How then can they command Nature herself… and dictate her temperature across all four corners of Earth? Your question is our question. We do not know how they can. Yet they are answering the klaxon… and clearing for action. How might central banks rout the evil enemy, how might they break the fiery siege?

The Central Bank Battle Plan: By putting “carbon-intensive” industries on ice. Reports the New Economics Foundation, regarding the Europeans specifically: "In the ‘lower-carbon’ scenario, the ECB stops buying bonds issued by fossil fuel companies and by companies with relatively high carbon intensity that belong to the energy-intensive, non-renewable utilities and carbon-intensive transportation sectors. Instead, the ECB would purchase bonds of potentially green and renewable sectors, as well as green bonds and bonds of ‘other’ non-carbon-intensive sectors. The second, ‘low-carbon’ scenario excludes all the bonds issued by carbon-intensive sectors..."

The same remedy holds for the Federal Reserve. Central banks must therefore abandon “market neutrality.” That is, they must place their thumbs upon the scales. That is, they must choose winners. And they must choose losers. That is, they must allocate resources through political consideration.

“We have to ask ourselves,” says Ms. Lagarde … “whether market neutrality should be the actual principle that drives our monetary-policy portfolio management.” The question itself is the answer.

The Green Behind Green Energy: The scheme is green in this one sense: It would green the “clean energy” industry. Jim Rickards: "Central bank support for the climate change agenda is more than just rhetoric. Central banks regulate commercial banks and control payments systems. They may decide that loans to energy companies should be discouraged and finance for wind and solar systems should receive favorable treatment. They can also require disclosures by banks intended to cast carbon-intensive sectors in a bad light."

A term exists for it - crony capitalism. The scoundrels and frauds will be holding out their hats… promising to lower Earth’s temperature and its sea levels… in exchange for easy financing. But is cleaner wind and solar energy not desirable? Should the world burn coal instead… and choke? We take no position. If the world prefers wind over oil, solar over coal, let it have wind and solar over oil and coal. Yet the world must evidently come to terms with fundamental physics…

The Point of Diminishing Returns: Mr. Mark Mills co-directs Northwestern University’s Institute on Manufacturing Science and Innovation. From whom: "All sources of energy have limits that can’t be exceeded. The maximum rate at which the sun’s photons can be converted to electrons is about 33%. Our best solar technology is at 26% efficiency. For wind, the maximum capture is 60%. Our best machines are at 45%. So we’re pretty close to wind and solar limits. Despite big claims about big gains coming, there just aren’t any possible."

If this fellow is correct - our minions inform us he is - we begin to suspect we are being taken for a sleigh ride. Wind and solar energy would be vastly inadequate to energy needs… and would remain inadequate to energy needs. Yet they may become highly efficient absorbers of capital.

We hazard many green energy businesses will prosper... with central banks helping to push them along… though few will produce much by way of value. That is, they will grab valuable capital from worthier and more productive hands. They will likely form a lovely bubble in time. But at least they are saving the planet..."

Musical Interlude: Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Ballerina"

Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Ballerina"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Here is one of the largest objects that anyone will ever see on the sky. Each of these fuzzy blobs is a galaxy, together making up the Perseus Cluster, one of the closest clusters of galaxies. The cluster is seen through a foreground of faint stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy. 

 
Near the cluster center, roughly 250 million light-years away, is the cluster's dominant galaxy NGC 1275, seen above as a large galaxy on the image left. A prodigious source of x-rays and radio emission, NGC 1275 accretes matter as gas and galaxies fall into it. The Perseus Cluster of Galaxies, also cataloged as Abell 426, is part of the Pisces-Perseus supercluster spanning over 15 degrees and containing over 1,000 galaxies. At the distance of NGC 1275, this view covers about 15 million light-years.”

"Just Because..."

"Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, 
that doesn’t mean we deserve to conquer the Universe."
- Kurt Vonnegut

"Learn To Distinguish..."

"If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders - what would you tell him to do?"
"I... don't know. What could he do? What would you tell him?"
"To shrug."

"Learn to distinguish the difference between errors of knowledge and breaches of morality. An error of knowledge is not a moral flaw, provided you are willing to correct it; only a mystic would judge human beings by the standard of an impossible, automatic omniscience. But a breach of morality is the conscious choice of an action you know to be evil, or a willful evasion of knowledge, a suspension of sight and of thought. That which you do not know, is not a moral charge against you; but that which you refuse to know, is an account of infamy growing in your soul. Make every allowance for errors of knowledge; do not forgive or accept any break of morality."
- Freely download "Atlas Shrugged", by Ayn Rand, here:

Gregory Mannarino, PM 12/22/20: "Post-Market Wrap Up: I Dare You To Make This Stuff Up"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 12/22/20:
"Post-Market Wrap Up: I Dare You To Make This Stuff Up"

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 12/22/20"

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 12/22/20"
 Dec. 22, 2020 2:27 PM ET: 
The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 77,735,800 
people, according to official counts, including 18,188,744 Americans.
At least 1,710,500 have died.

"The COVID Tracking Project"
Every day, our volunteers compile the latest numbers on tests, cases, 
hospitalizations, and patient outcomes from every US state and territory.

"Poof!"

"Some people center the universe around themselves; while making other people nothing but decorations to their existence. "I will do this and then I will do that and then people will think this about me and then people will think that about me, and then I will add that person to my life when the convenient time arrives, and this person over here would make a very convenient addition as well..." They build their own thrones for themselves, and add decorations all around their thrones. The problem with that is: it does not bring happiness. A throne must be built for you; it must not be you who builds your own throne. If so, everything that you think you are is only an illusion! And illusions dissolve one day. Poof!"
- C. JoyBell C.

The Daily "Near You?"

Sha Tin, Hong Kong, China. Thanks for stopping by!

"He Cannot Help Doubting..."

"A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet for sale, who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing, cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity." 
- Erich Fromm

"Can Democracy Hold Us Together?"

Click image for larger size.
"Can Democracy Hold Us Together?"
by Pat Buchanan 

"If America were a company and not a country, we would have long ago dissolved the corporation, split the blanket, and gone our separate ways. What still holds this disputatious and divided people together?

Consider. In announcing the $900 billion stimulus bill to deal with the pandemic, Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not mention that the gifts for her distressed countrymen and women at Christmas would have been twice as large had she taken President Trump’s offer of $1.8 trillion in October. Why did the speaker slap that offer away? “The President only wants his name on a check to go out before Election Day and for the market to go up,” she told House Democrats. Rather than let Donald Trump take credit, Pelosi stiffed millions of Americans.

Sunday, however, the speaker took time for a statement to hail the removal of Robert E. Lee’s statue from Statuary Hall. “Welcome news,” said the speaker. “Congress will continue our work to rid the Capitol of homages to hate.” Lee had stood in a place of honor in the Capitol for decades. When exactly did the statue of the general become a homage to hate?

Both episodes point up an unpleasant truth. Our dysfunctional American family agrees upon less and less. By mid-November, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, 52% of Republicans thought Donald Trump had “rightfully won.” Sixty-eight percent of Republicans thought the election was “rigged.” A third of independents, and even 10% of Democrats, agreed. This month, a Fox poll found that a third of all registered voters believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, with 78% of those who voted for Trump expressing that view.

In the long term, not only is the election of 2020 going to be suspect. Also, belief in one of the sacraments of secular democracy, universal suffrage, is going to suffer. Moreover, the issues that divide us now go increasingly to the faith of what defines us as a nation and a people.

A slice of our intellectual elite emphatically agrees with the New York Times’ Project 1619, which decrees that the real birth date of this nation was neither 1776 nor 1789, but the year that the first slave ship arrived in Virginia. To this influential cohort, enslavement of Black people brought from Africa and dispossession and destruction of the indigenous tribes that European settlers found here are the defining events of our history. And all who participated in these crimes against humanity or refused to condemn them are undeserving of exaltation.

Not only Lee, but Columbus and Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, TR and Wilson are all racist white men whose disgraceful and even criminal conduct disqualifies them from a place of honor in the American pantheon of 2020. All statues of such men need to come down to cleanse us of the stain of having honored them. Pelosi says that such statues are “homages to hate.” She may not have thought so five or 10 years ago, but she believes that now. What has taken place is a mass conversion.

Yet, there is another America that still cherishes the nation these men created. And, as did their fathers, grandfathers and ancestors, these Americans have shown a willingness to fight and die in her defense. Thus do we Americans disagree on the most fundamental of issues.

Was America, is America, with all its sins and virtues and all its achievements, a country to be cherished, loved and defended? Or is America a country of whose history we should all be ashamed?

Part of America also believes that discovery in the Constitution of a woman’s right to an abortion and a right of homosexuals to marry were major milestones of progress toward a more moral America. Others see these as long strides away from the Christian country we used to be, a social and moral decline toward the same quiet death that has come to other civilizations and nations that went before us.

In short, we Americans disagree on whether our country is a good and great nation worth defending, or a place that needs a deep cultural cleansing of its sins. And we have no common code of morality. One side is rooted in modernism and secularism and the other in the teachings of the Old and New Testament, Christian tradition and a natural law written on the human heart that is superior to man-made law. People who disagree upon such basic beliefs naturally drift apart, as we Americans are doing today. Political questions arise out of these fundamental differences, and they are not insignificant.

Can a republic as fractured and splintered as ours is - racially, ethnically, politically, culturally, morally - with a population who do not share the same belief about whether their nation is good and great or failed and evil, endure? And for how long? What successful models from history do we see of nations that took the kind of risks we are taking with our republic?"
Strong language alert!
"The Most Honest Three Minutes In Television History"

"Market Fantasy Updates AM 12/22/20"

"Market Fantasy Updates AM 12/22/20"
"Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
"The more I see of the monied classes, 
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
Gregory Mannarino, AM 12/22/20:
"Updates: Propaganda, Stocks, Market, Gold, Silver, Bitcoin, Ripple"
Updated live.
"Social Security Is A Mess: There Are 6 Million Active Accounts Of People Aged 112+" "Our friends at Open The Books continue to expose government waste - and fraud - and in their latest investigation, they have shone the spotlight on one of the largest wastes in the US government: the Social Security Administration. What they have uncovered is that last year alone, Social Security admitted to $8 billion in improper and mistaken payments. The punchline: when they dug deeper, they found that there are six million active social security numbers of people aged 112 and older... even though only 40 or less or those people exist in the world."
Daily Update (Dec. 22nd to 23rd)
Insanity... 
And now... The End Game...

"Big Media: Selling the Narrative and Crushing Dissent for Fun and Profit"

"Big Media: Selling the Narrative 
and Crushing Dissent for Fun and Profit"
by Charles Hugh Smith


"The U.S. has entered an extremely dangerous time, and the danger has nothing to do with the Covid virus. Indeed, the danger long preceded the pandemic, which has served to highlight how far down the road to ruin we have come.

The danger we are ill-prepared to deal with is the consolidation of the private-sector media and its unification of content into one Approved Narrative which is for sale to the highest bidders. This is the perfection of for-profit Totalitarianism in which dissent is crushed, dissenters punished and billions of dollars are reaped in managing the data and content flow of the one Approved Narrative.

So don't post content containing the words (censored), (censored) or (censored), or you'll be banned, shadow-banned, demonetized, demonized and marginalized. Your voice will be erased from public access via the Big Media platforms and you will effectively be disappeared but without any visible mess or evidence - or recourse in the courts.

That's the competitive advantage of for-profit Totalitarianism - no legal recourse against the suppression of free speech and dissent. And if you're shadow-banned as I was, you won't even know just how severely your free speech has been suppressed because the Big Tech platforms are black boxes: no one outside the profit-maximizing corporation knows what its algorithms and filters actually do or exactly what happens to the disappeared/shadow-banned.

Shadow-banning is an invisible toxin to free speech: if you're shadow-banned, you won't even know that the audience for your posts, tweets, etc. has plummeted to near-zero and others can no longer retweet your content. You only see your post is online as usual, because this is the whole point of shadow-banning: you assume your speech is still free even as its been strangled to death by Big Tech black box platforms.

Since Andy Grove's dictum only the paranoid survive is my Prime Directive, I've paid a bit more to have access to server traffic data. So I can pinpoint precisely when I was shadow-banned: my overall traffic fell off a cliff and the number of readers visiting from links on Big Tech platforms fell from thousands to near-zero.

The new consolidated Big Media Totalitarians play an interesting game of circular sources: in the traditional, now-obsolete/suppressed form of journalism, a reporter would be required to identify a minimum of three different sources for the story, and make at least a desultory effort to present two sides of the issue.

That model is out the window in the USSA's Big Media Totalitarian regime. Now reporters only have to use a completely bogus, fabricated source in another Big Media story. Just being in another Big Media platform/publication is now "proof" that the source is legitimate.

In other words, investigative journalism is nothing but a Potemkin Village of circular sources conjured out of thin air by Big Media. Here's an example from my own experience of being shadow-banned.

1. A completely bogus organization pops up out of nowhere and doesn't bother identifying its owners, managers or sources.

2. This complete travesty of a mockery of a sham fabrication then issues a list of websites which it claims, with zero evidence, are stooges / outlets of Russian propaganda.

3. With zero investigation of this slanderous, evidence-free "source," the venerable Washington Post (owned by Jeff Bezos) publishes an evidence-free hit piece glorifying this fabrication on Page One.

4. The other Big Media giants then amplify the bogus slander because it came from a "legitimate source," the Washington Post.

Do you understand how circular sourcing works now? Once a flagrantly bogus bit of propaganda is embraced by one Big Media giant as part of the Approved Narrative, then every other Big Media/Big Tech corporation promotes the fabrication as "real news" even as it is obviously the acme of "fake news", a complete fabrication.

The fake "source" was called PropOrNot, and the list included dozens of well-respected independent websites, all slandered with a completely fake accusation for one reason: each site had published some content that cast a skeptical eye on the crowning of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and the crushing of Bernie Sanders' campaign by Big Media's Approved Narrative.

As long as you post videos of kittens and kids dancing, you're OK because your content (owned and controlled by the platform you posted it on - read the terms of Service) is free to the platforms and they use your content to "engage" users which generates billions in profits. But if you question the Approved Narrative, you put a big day-glo target on your back. Now if you're a multi-millionaire, you know, a top 0.1% per-center, you can afford to keep posting dissenting views even after you've been demonetized and your income falls to near-zero.

The rest of us aren't quite so privileged. This is another of the toxic elements in Big Media/Big Tech's consolidated control of what was once known as free speech: They don't have to ban your content outright, which might cause a few ripples of tame protest; all they have to do is starve you into submission by strangling your source of income.

Thanks to watertight terms of service, even a multi-millionaire is legally powerless against the USSA's Big Media Totalitarian regime. By posting content, you already gave away all your rights. So you can go solo and post content on some obscure corner of the web that no one knows exist, but that's the functional equivalent of being banned and demonetized.

So go right ahead and enter a sound-proof box and scream your head off; nobody can hear you. Welcome to the totally privately owned, legally untouchable Big Tech/Big Media Totalitarian regime that will let you know what's in the Approved Narrative because that's all you're allowed to see.

Gordon Long and I cover these topics and many more in our latest video "Buying the Narrative" (35:41) Since I'd like the video to actually be viewed more than 11 times, I avoided using the terms (censored), (censored) or (censored), and that's the final fatal poison delivered by our profit-maximizing Big Tech/Big Media Totalitarian regime: self censorship. You know what you can't say, so don't say it. Stick with the kitten videos and you'll be just fine.

You'll be just fine but you no longer live in a functioning democracy. The profit-maximizing Big Tech/Big Media Totalitarian regime hasn't just strangled free speech and civil liberties; it's also strangled democracy.

It's all fun and games until the pendulum of Totalitarian Consolidation and its Approved Narrative reaches an extreme (like, say, right now) and the pendulum swings back to an equal extreme at the other end of the spectrum. Keep in mind that hubris and money are no match for history: the more powerful you claim to be, the greater your fall. The way of the Tao is reversal."
Related:
 (December 8, 2020)

"How It Really Is"

 

Monday, December 21, 2020

"Stop Spending Money On Dumb Stuff; Bank Closures; Mindset Is Everything; American Zombies"

Jeremiah Babe,
"Stop Spending Money On Dumb Stuff; Bank Closures; 
Mindset Is Everything; American Zombies"
Related:

"Capitalism tries for a delicate balance: It attempts to work things
out so that everyone gets just enough stuff to keep them from
getting violent and trying to take other people’s stuff."
- George Carlin

Musical Interlude: Live, "Overcome"

Live, "Overcome"

"For Millions Of Americans, No Money = No Christmas In 2020"

"For Millions Of Americans, No Money = No Christmas In 2020"
by Epic Economist

"Just as we've seen through the course of the year, this holiday season is being marked by tragic events. Days before Christmas and New Year's Eve, millions have been freshly unemployed as the new restrictions are forcing numerous businesses to shut down once again. The traditional banquets and holiday dinner celebrations are being replaced by increasingly empty cardboard boxes distributed by swamped food banks across the country. Demand for food assistance this year has expanded by 60%, considering multiple American families have fallen deep into poverty and are now right at the bottom of the economic food chain. However, jobless workers aren't the only ones suffering from food insecurity. According to a new study, a considerable amount of active workers is having their hours cut and earning 20 percent less than they used to before the crisis burst. 

For that reason, recent reports are describing that during this festive period, several households will have absolutely nothing under their Christmas trees. In fact, those who can still place a tree in their homes are amongst the privileged ones, since more and more people are fearing the coming evictions and already started to live in their cars. The rental debt accumulated so far is surpassing the 70 billion dollar range, which signalizes that next year much more economic pain will be registered, especially because of the grim economic prospects that are causing gradually lower reinsertions on the labor market. In this video, we expose the reality of the millions who won't have Christmas this year as well as the staggering level of financial instability our citizens have been coping with. 

In modern times, we have never witnessed so much pain, despair, and poverty amongst jobless Americans as we are seeing right now. In a time when festivities used to warm our citizens' spirits, a large share of our population is undergoing heart-breaking situations all across the country. Numerous unemployed Americans are experiencing acute financial desperation. According to the latest estimates, an additional 8 million people have fallen into poverty since the summer. At this stage of the crisis, millions of households have thousands in back rent debt, and in about 10 days they are bound to face a renewed threat of eviction as the CDC's order is programed to lapse on the 31st. 

Unless dramatic action is taken to avoid the occurrence of an unprecedented wave of evictions at the beginning of 2021, the suffering that our citizens are going to experience is going to be off the charts. According to recent projections, nearly 16% of Americans, or about 52 million people, were already among the ranks of the poor in November. However, the poverty ranks aren't being solely constituted by unemployed workers. In reality, a substantial figure of those who are still working had their hours cut, and aren’t able to make as much in tips, commissions, or bonuses as they did before the recession has started. Latest forecasts suggest that employment among those who are paid less than $27,000 a year was still down 20% from pre-outbreak levels in mid-November.

A similar survey found that a whopping 42 percent of U.S. households have affirmed their income is way below what it was before the outbreak struck. The survey also discovered that most workers saw their incomes decline as a result of shutdowns, layoffs, pay cuts or reduced hours. Additionally, almost 85 percent of the polled are worried about a lasting negative impact on their income moving forward. Evidently, with lockdowns depressing what is left of our economy, it is understandable why so many Americans can feel harder days approaching.

Small businesses are being obliterated while big corporations keep struggling to make it through the winter by reducing their activities or temporarily closing down their stores and cutting off their staff. Even leading tech companies such as Apple just announced the closure of all of their stores in the entire state of California. Every day it passes, more restrictions are issued and more individuals feel the weight of the financial strains brought by the repercussions of the health crisis. Without money, several households disclosed they won't have ways to celebrate Christmas. In some cases, nothing is going under their trees, there simply will not be any presents at all.

Painful stories are being documented everywhere. The enormous financial difficulties experienced by millions of Americans have pushed several charity and assistance programs over the edge. Toy drives and food banks are reporting shortages of volunteers and donations, as demand continues to climb. This Christmas is going to be an exceptionally bitter one, and the worst part is the year ahead is not looking promising at all. This is what an economic depression looks like, and what we have experienced so far is just the start."

Musical Interlude: Deuter, "East of the Full Moon"

Deuter, "East of the Full Moon"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Is the heart and soul of our Galaxy located in Cassiopeia? Possibly not, but that is where two bright emission nebulas nicknamed Heart and Soul can be found. The Heart Nebula, officially dubbed IC 1805 and visible in the below view on the right, has a shape reminiscent of a classical heart symbol. Both nebulas shine brightly in the red light of energized hydrogen.
Several young open clusters of stars populate the image and are visible above in blue, including the nebula centers. Light takes about 6,000 years to reach us from these nebulas, which together span roughly 300 light years. Studies of stars and clusters like those found in the Heart and Soul Nebulas have focussed on how massive stars form and how they affect their environment.”