"Economic Market Snapshot AM 1/5/21"

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 1/5/21"

"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will

do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."

- John Maynard Keynes

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"Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...

Only the consequences are real - to you!

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Gregory Mannarino, AM 1/5/21:

“Important Market Updates Plus:

U.S.A. "Property Of" The Federal Reserve”

- https://traderschoice.net/

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"The more I see of the monied classes, 

the better I understand the guillotine."

- George Bernard Shaw

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MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates

- https://www.marketwatch.com/tools/marketsummary

CNN Market Data:

- https://money.cnn.com/data/markets/

CNN Fear And Greed Index:

- https://money.cnn.com/data/fear-and-greed/

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A comprehensive, essential daily read.

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

Daily Updates, Jan 4th to 7th

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Daily Job Cuts

- https://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

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- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

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- https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

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- https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

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Commentary, highly recommended:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

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And now, the End Game...

"Statistician: Lockdowns Don't Work Because They Force People To Congregate In Fewer Places"

"Statistician: Lockdowns Don't Work Because They 

Force People To Congregate In Fewer Places"

by Paul Joseph Watson

"Author and statistician William M. Briggs argues that lockdowns don’t work because they force people to gather in fewer places like supermarkets and therefore spread viruses faster than if people were allowed to spread out. Writing on his blog, Briggs states, “A lockdown will spread this bug faster than allowing people to remain at liberty.”

The author notes that a lockdown is not the same as a quarantine. Under lockdown, people only have a limited selection of venues at which they are allowed to gather, meaning those locations are busier and therefore make a virus more transmissible. “Lockdowns are merely forced gatherings,” writes Briggs. “People in lockdown are allowed to venture forth from their dwellings to do “essential” activities, like spending money at oligarch-run stores. These stores are collection points, where people are concentrated. Some are allowed to go to jobs, such as supporting oligarch-run stores.”

Briggs notes that lockdown concentrates people into fewer areas outside before it “then it forces them back inside to mingle with a vengeance.” “It’s clear that our 100% transmissible bug will spread much faster when people are forced to spend more time indoors with each other. Once one person gets it, he will spread it to those at his home immediately. If people were at liberty, and therefore more separated, the bug would still spread to everybody, but more slowly (the speed here is relative),” he writes.

“Lockdowns force people together. The venues they are allowed to venture to are restricted, and therefore concentrate contact, and they force people inside their homes where it’s obvious contact time increases. Lockdowns concentrate contact spaces and times,” concludes Briggs.

Briggs writes further that before 2020 it was obvious that lockdowns (with then only weather forcing people to gather inside for long periods) not only did not stop the transmission of bugs, but helped spread them. A look (below) at the all-cause death numbers peaking every single winter without exception (this year, too) proved that. It was in no way controversial. It was so well known that forced contact spread bugs that mentioning it was like saying the sun rose in the east. Then came 2020 and the “expert” idea of lockdowns would do the opposite of what everybody had always known they would do. Suddenly, instead of spreading bugs, as they always did before, they would stop or at least slow the spread. Experts said so.

Why? Models. Specifically, the two-step Model Circular Jerk. It works like this. A modeler says “X is true.” He builds a model that assumes “X is true”. He runs the model, which output consists of “X is true” and its variants. He then announces, “X is true, confirmed by my sophisticated computer model.”

In our case, we have a Ferguson claiming some new variant of the coronavirus has a higher transmissibility, an assumption. He says to himself “Lockdowns slow and stop the spread of bugs”. He builds a model that assumes “Lockdowns slow and stop the spread of bugs”. He runs the models, which consists of “This lockdowns will slow and stop the spread of this new bug variant.” And he announced he has confirmed the efficacy of lockdowns via his sophisticated model. And he is believed.

This happens everywhere, not just with coronavirus. Briggs’ assertion is also backed up by how people spend their leisure time under lockdown. With most shops, cinemas and other entertainment venues closed, people in major cities pour en masse into parks or beaches where ‘social distancing’ is virtually impossible because there are so many people around. In London, rates of COVID-19 infection were higher after the November lockdown than before it started."

- https://summit.news/

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

"The U.S. Has Lost More Than 110,000 Restaurants, Setting The Stage For A Commercial Real Estate Collapse Of Epic Proportions"

"The U.S. Has Lost More Than 110,000 Restaurants, Setting The

 Stage For A Commercial Real Estate Collapse Of Epic Proportions"

by Michael Snyder

"The restaurant industry is in the midst of a complete and total meltdown that is unlike anything that we have ever seen before. If you ask Google how many restaurants there are in the United States, it will tell you that there are 660,755, although that number is a few years old. But for the purposes of this article, that is a good enough estimate. Americans love to eat out, and restaurant workers are some of the hardest working people in the entire country. So it is incredibly sad to see more restaurants constantly going under. In some cases, restaurants that have served their communities for decades are deciding to permanently close their doors. For example, over the weekend Sammy’s Roumanian Steakhouse in New York City announced that it had finally reached the end of the road:

"Landmark New York City restaurant Sammy’s Roumanian Steakhouse has closed its iconic basement-level doors as the coronavirus pandemic continues to cripple the restaurant industry. The Lower East Side fixture was famous for its latkes spreads, chopped liver, and vodka bottles frozen in blocks of ice and was known as a boisterous party spot frequented by celebrities. Unfortunately, Sammy’s is far from alone.

In fact, in a recent article that he penned for Fox Business, Adam Piper lamented the fact that more than 100,000 U.S. restaurants have gone out of business during this pandemic: "State and local governments have wielded the coronavirus pandemic as license to steal freedom and opportunity in pursuit of unprecedented omnipotence. Unreasonable, unnecessary and hypocritical actions have forced over 100,000 restaurants to close and endanger countless others."

And according to Bloomberg, the true number of dead restaurants is now over 110,000: "More than 110,000 restaurants have closed permanently or long-term across the country as the industry grapples with the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic."

Just think about that. More than one out of every six restaurants in the U.S. is already gone, and the National Restaurant Association is warning that there will be more carnage in the months ahead because the industry is in “an economic free fall”: “The restaurant industry simply cannot wait for relief any longer,” Sean Kennedy, executive vice president of public affairs at the association, said in a letter to Congress. “What these findings make clear is that more than 500,000 restaurants of every business type — franchise, chain and independent — are in an economic free fall.”

This is what an economic depression looks like. With tens of thousands of restaurants sitting empty, and with tens of thousands of others not paying rent, the stage has been set for a commercial real estate disaster of unprecedented scope and size.

Of course there are millions of square feet of office space and retail space that are not being productive right now as well. In a recent article, Lee Adler referred to this looming commercial real estate nightmare as “a monster in the room”: "I think that if there’s anything that illustrates the head in the sand problem of the banks, it’s this. Commercial real estate (CRE) finance. There’s a monster in the room. All that empty space. No longer income producing."

For now, big financial institutions are doing their best to hide their coming losses, but according to Adler for certain sectors the losses will simply be unavoidable: "Multifamily will take a haircut but will survive. My guess is that industrial, while overpriced and overvalued, will produce enough income to get by. Office and retail? Kiss it goodbye. It’s done. Over. Kaput."

Sadly, he is right on target. The coming commercial real estate crisis is going to make the subprime mortgage meltdown of 2008 and 2009 look like a Sunday picnic. And the longer this pandemic stretches on, the larger the losses will ultimately become.

For residential real estate, the big story is that hordes of Americans are fleeing both coasts and are moving to smaller communities in the middle of the country. So even as housing prices drop substantially in major cities on the east coast and the west coast, they are rising rapidly in cities such as Pittsburgh, Boise and Austin: "Smaller metropolitan markets like Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Boise, Idaho, Austin, Texas, and Memphis, Tennessee are seeing some of the strongest price gains in the nation now, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Prices in those cities are now at least 10% higher than with a year earlier."

And as I discussed yesterday, we are actually starting to see hyperinflation for high end properties in desirable rural and suburban areas of the country. Just recently, a friend sold a home that is located not too far from us for a price that almost made my eyes bug out of my head. I literally had a difficult time believing the insanely high price that they were able to get, but this is what happens in a hyperinflationary environment.

2020 may have been a “personal financial disaster” for 55 percent of all Americans, but thanks to the hyperinflation in the stock market the wealthy have more money to throw at high end real estate than ever before.

Unfortunately, all of this wild money printing is not going to be able to prevent the coming crash in commercial real estate. No matter how much money they have, many Americans are simply too afraid of COVID to eat out right now, and that will remain the case for the foreseeable future. And we are going to continue to see more Americans migrate away from the large cities on both coasts, and more businesses in those core urban areas will continue to fail. As the commercial real estate crash unfolds, a lot of financial institutions simply won’t be able to make it without government help.

So will the federal government bail them out? You never know, but every dollar the federal government borrows and spends just makes our long-term problems even worse. All of the dominoes are starting to fall, and we are still in the very early chapters of this horrifying economic collapse. Unfortunately, most Americans still don’t understand what is happening, and most of them have no idea that economic conditions will soon get even worse."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

Americans Are Burning Through Stimulus Checks And Savings; The Dollar Is In Big Trouble; Gold, Silver”

Jeremiah Babe,

“Americans Are Burning Through Stimulus Checks And Savings;

The Dollar Is In Big Trouble; Gold, Silver”

"The United States Has Become A Banana Republic"

"The United States Has Become A Banana Republic"

by Epic Economist

"The U.S. dollar is being rapidly destroyed by the current money printing policy. Several experts have been warning the collapse may happen sooner than expected, which means we will be seeing the debasement of our purchasing power as prices continue to soar amid the astronomical surge of inflation in all fronts of our economy. 

If the central bank keeps enacting Quantitative Easing policies at the current pace, it won't be long until our fiat currency becomes worthless paper. Investors across the world are already realizing the dangers of keeping their assets in U.S. dollars, that's why economists are arguing that our currency's hegemony is declining. And with other currencies performing strongly, the U.S. is at risk of losing its position as the owner of the leading global reserve currency. That's what we are going to expose in this video

Once the health crisis hit America, our policymakers decided to go on "full Weimar" mode and never look back. The expansion of our monetary supply almost went vertical, and it continues to climb as more money printed out of thin air keeps being pumped into the economy. The Federal Reserve has set an official target rate of inflation to hit 2% per year. But as financial expert Marin Katusa has recently explained, by hitting its target the Fed is essentially leading the dollar to lose around one-third of its current value.

James Turk stated in a recent tweet that prices are already rising in soybeans, stock indices, crude oil, copper, BTC & many more items. “Money printing by the Federal Reserve means inflation in 2021 is baked into the cake," he warned. M1 increased by over 50 percent in 2020. The blow-up of the money supply is truly alarming. It practically makes all the inflation that has come before look quite insignificant as compared to what we're experiencing right now. 

Whenever new money enters the financial system, every dollar that people currently own becomes less valuable. As our paychecks won't rise at the same speed as the money supply, they will become less valuable as well. So we will buy increasingly less as products and services become considerably more expensive. 

As several economies and global trade completely stalled, governments around the world collectively started to move towards the introduction of negative rates and money printing policies. And once countries start to massively pump liquidity into the economy, there’s no going back. A clear demonstration of it can be seen in stocks. 

Consequently, in view of the incredible amount of printed money, the dollar has gotten weaker and its weakness has reverberated through the markets and pave the way for real assets to perform exceptionally well. Now, it currently faces its largest short position since 2014. That is to say, investors have been betting against U.S. dollars at levels not seen in years.

While it loses its credibility amongst investors, the dollar's position as the most dominant global reserve currency gets greatly shaken. The status of hegemony is what guarantees the support to the ballooning US government debt, the Fed’s money-printing frenzy, and Corporate America’s ambition to offshore production to cheap countries, which in turn, creates an enormous trade deficit. They all have become dependent on the willingness of other central banks to hold large amounts of dollar-denominated paper. However, apparently, those central banks are getting cold feet. 

The global share of US-dollar-denominated exchange reserves has dropped to 60.5% in 2020's third quarter, hitting the lowest level since 1995. With a stable Euro and a rise in the share of the Japanese yen as second and third reserve currencies that actually have large trade surpluses with the rest of the world, the dollar's trade deficit might become a liability. 

The only ones that have been actively benefiting from the inflated money supply are the ultra-wealthy. According to a report by economy writer Martha C. White, one of the main drives of billionaire wealth concentration was the "unprecedented" monetary policy response to stabilize financial markets during the burst of the sanitary outbreak, resulting in the "stock market’s gravity-defying rise". From then on, the United States gained 56 new billionaires.

Meanwhile, almost 60% of our population has experienced or is still experiencing financial setbacks and since our authorities are likely to keep responding to every crisis with more money, we're headed to a hyperinflationary path and to the total degradation of our fiat currency. In short, as the dollar collapses, the inequality gaps widen and economic deterioration gets a whole lot worse." 

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com

"Here’s What’s Coming in 2021"

"Here’s What’s Coming in 2021"

by Brian Maher

"The calendar has scrolled to 2021, mercifully. The plague year has ended. As a financial newsletter, we are duty-bound to give our annual market forecast - such as it is. So today we fetch our crystal ball from storage… blow away the dust... and gaze for images of the year ahead. How long will the virus menace us? Will the economy continue its recovery? Where will the stock market end the year? Gold? Bitcoin? The answers - the guaranteed answers - anon. But before we glimpse how markets will end 2021, let us glimpse how they began 2021… If today is a preview, the stock market is in for heavy weather this year.

Stocks Open 2021 in the Red: The Dow Jones shed 382 points. The S&P gave back 55; the Nasdaq, 189 points of its own. Gold, meantime, had itself a day at the races... up a rollicking $51.50 in all. Bitcoin presently goes at $31,083 - plenty handsome considering it was under $20,000 three weeks prior - but not as handsome as yesterday’s $34,339.

What strange, occult forces frightened the horses today? CNBC offers its diagnosis: "Data compiled by Johns Hopkins University showed more than 20 million Covid-19 infections have been confirmed in the U.S. Several cases of a new coronavirus strain have also been confirmed across the country. Globally, more than 85 million cases have been confirmed."

Just so. Yet infections have been on the jump for months. Stocks nonetheless posted record highs to close the year. Why the sudden jolt? And are markets not aware of the vaccines? Here CNBC fishes up another clue - in our estimate, a stronger clue: "Wall Street is also keeping an eye on Georgia as the state prepared for a Senate runoff election on Tuesday, which could give Democrats a majority in the chamber."

A Blue Wave? Online betting market Predictit presently places the odds of a Democratic sweep near 50%. Last Thursday those same odds came in at 35%. That is, the odds of a “blue wave” have surged within the space of days. The joker card is in play. And so the stock market is off-guard ahead of tomorrow’s runoff election… off-balance… off-center.

But we are not concerned with the transient shakes and fevers of the stock market. Its daily moods fail to fluster us. They entertain us, it is true… as a circus or a joust might entertain us. But they do not fascinate us. It is the longer view that seizes our interest.

Does the House of Cards Come Down in 2021? Daily Reckoning contributor James Howard Kunstler has peered into his own crystal ball. It is filled with horrific scenes, dismal premonitions of 2021. Dow 10,000? Nasdaq 3,000? S&P 550? A 40% GDP plunge? A return of the black plague? These and other ghoulish visions parade before his disbelieving eyes:

• The stock market will enter long, deep asset value deflation through first and second quarters and bottom-bounce the rest of the year. S & P falls to 550 range; DJI under 10,000; Nasdaq under 3000...

• U.S. GDP down by 40-percent year-end 2021.

• U.S. oil production (minus natural gas liquids) will be down by 40-percent, year-end 2021.

• The banking system will be thrown into disarray due to the non-payment of rents and mortgages. The federal government will intervene with direct renter relief payments. Homeowners in default will be allowed to remain in their houses on a provisional basis (which is never reconciled).

• A bubonic plague outbreak will spread among the homeless of Los Angeles as rats proliferate in their encampments.

• Pension funds collapse as the broken chain of rent-and-mortgage payments destroys Real Estate Investment Trusts.

• The Federal government will be forced to organize massive food giveaway programs.

• General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford will once again seek bankruptcy protection. This time, their assets will be sold and reorganized into smaller companies. No bailouts.

• Covid virus fades from the scene by the 3rd quarter, but economic carnage remains. A huge amount of restaurant equipment will be sold for dimes on the dollar.

• Bitcoin “Hodlers” will become Bitcoin “Sodlers” as cryptos tank.

How many of James’ projections will manifest this year? All of them? None of them? Two of them?

Two Scenarios: Another Daily Reckoning contributor - Charles Hugh Smith - divines no specific 2021 events. He merely holds out two scenarios. The one scenario is hopeful. The second is not hopeful. Yet even the most hopeful outcome is dire, grim. Here Charles sketches the scene in very dark colors: "The most hopeful scenario for 2021 is that the obsolete, inefficient, ineffective and sclerotic sectors and agencies, no matter how sacrosanct, collapse or downsize quickly. This drastically reduces the cost and pain to levels that the economy as a whole can absorb.

The worst-case scenario is our weak and/or corrupt government and central bank keep all the doomed zombies on life support, a process that bleeds the economy of adaptability, flexibility, innovation and resilience. The path of least resistance, the politically expedient path - over-borrowing and devaluing the currency by over-issuing "money" - leads to decay and collapse. There is no other possible result, no other possible outcome."

We have little doubt about which outcome officials will pursue. It is not the most hopeful scenario… incidentally. So now we come to our own tub-thumping predictions for 2021 - predictions guaranteed to knock you to the floor…

Three Stunning Predictions:

Prediction No. 1: In 2021 the stock market will rise. Or fall. Or - or - it will end the year precisely where it began.

Prediction No. 2: Bitcoin, gold, oil, United States Treasury notes and all remaining assets will rise, fall... or hold steady.

Prediction No. 3: The economy will expand in 2021 - unless it contracts. Bear in mind: the economy may do neither. There you are - three thundering predictions for 2021.

And fortune favors the bold.

Sure Bets: But you say you are dissatisfied with our cowardly refusal to hazard a guess? You want specific predictions? Then specific predictions you will have...

The virus will cease to be a menace by summer. The economy will expand 2.3% this year. The budget deficit will come in at $2.41 trillion. Interest rates will remain at zero. The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet will near $9.77 trillion. The Dow Jones will close the year at 28,617. Gold will close the year at $3,893.51. Bitcoin will close 2021 at $47,588.26.

There is 2021 for you - down to the last jot, down to the last tittle - down to the last decimal point. We advise you to invest accordingly. Of course, The Daily Reckoning is a free publication. We charge nothing for the advice posted above. And this you must admit: At least you are receiving the advice you pay for…"

dailyreckoning.com

Musical Interlude: Dan Fogelberg, "Nether Lands"

Dan Fogelberg, "Nether Lands"

Full screen recommended.

"A Look to the Heavens"

“These three bright nebulae are often featured in telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius and the crowded starfields of the central Milky Way. In fact, 18th century cosmic tourist Charles Messier cataloged two of them; M8, the large nebula left of center, and colorful M20 on the right. The third, NGC 6559, is above M8, separated from the larger nebula by a dark dust lane. All three are stellar nurseries about five thousand light-years or so distant. 

The expansive M8, over a hundred light-years across, is also known as the Lagoon Nebula. M20's popular moniker is the Trifid. Glowing hydrogen gas creates the dominant red color of the emission nebulae, with contrasting blue hues, most striking in the Trifid, due to dust reflected starlight. The colorful skyscape recorded with telescope and digital camera also includes one of Messier's open star clusters, M21, just above the Trifid.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

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"When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged

in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams,

to add, divide, and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where

he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars."

- Walt Whitman

"Man Has One Name..."

"Man has one name, and many more than two natures. But the essential 

two are these: that he shall strive to impose order on chaos, 

and that he shall strive to take advantage of chaos…

A third element of man's nature is this: 

that he shall not understand what he is doing."

- John Brunner

“Some Things You Need To Know”

“Some Things You Need To Know”

by Marc Chernoff

“I know you’re reading this. And I want you to know I’m writing this for you. Others will be confused. They will think I’m writing this for them. But I’m not. This one’s for you.

I want you to know that life is not easy. Every day is an unpredictable challenge. Some days it can be difficult to simply get out of bed in the morning. To face reality and put on that smile. But I want you to know, your smile has kept me going on more days than I can count. Never forget that, even through the toughest times, you are incredible. You really are. So smile more often.  You have so many reasons to. Time and again, my reason is you.

You won’t always be perfect. Neither will I. Because nobody is perfect, and nobody deserves to be perfect. Nobody has it easy, everybody has issues. You will never know exactly what I’m going through. And I will never know exactly what you’re going through. We are all fighting our own unique war. But we are fighting through it simultaneously, together.

Whenever somebody discredits you, and tells you that you can’t do something, keep in mind that they are speaking from within the boundaries of their own limitations. Ignore them. Don’t give in. In this crazy world that’s trying to make you like everyone else, find the courage to keep being your awesome self. And when they laugh at you for being different, laugh back at them for being the same.

Remember, our courage doesn’t always roar aloud. Sometimes it’s the quiet voice at the end of the day whispering, “I will try again tomorrow.” So stand strong. Things turn out best for people who make the best out of the way things turn out. And I am committed to making the best of it along with you.”

- https://www.marcandangel.com/

The Poet: Aldous Huxley, “Lightly My Darling”

“Lightly My Darling”

"It’s dark because you are trying too hard. 

Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. 

Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. 

Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. 

I was so preposterously serious in those days, 

such a humorless little prig. 

Lightly, lightly - it’s the best advice ever given me. 

When it comes to dying even. 

Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic. 

No rhetoric, no tremolos, 

no self conscious persona putting on its 

celebrated imitation of Christ or Little Nell. 

And of course, no theology, no metaphysics. 

Just the fact of dying and the fact of the clear light. 

So throw away your baggage and go forward. 

There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, 

trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. 

That’s why you must walk so lightly. 

Lightly my darling, 

on tiptoes and no luggage, 

not even a sponge bag, 

completely unencumbered."

~ Aldous Huxley

"Giving Up the Ghost"

"Giving Up the Ghost"

by Jim Kunstler

"Things are shaking loose. Secrets are flying out of black boxes. Shots have been fired. The center is not holding because the center is no longer there, only a black hole where the center used to be, and, within it, the shriekings of lost souls. Will the United States go missing this week, or fight its way out of the chaos and darkness?

Whatever occurs in this strange week of confrontation, Joe Biden will not be leading any part of it. Where has he been since Christmas? Back to hiding in the basement? Did the American people elect a ghost? Even if this storm blows over, could Joe Biden possibly claim any legitimacy in the Oval Office? And then what happens with the rest of the story - which is an epic economic convulsion sharper than the Great Depression - as time is unsuspended and the year 2021 actually unspools?

Only the bare outlines of this week’s fateful game are visible. Mr. Trump has not conceded the election. An action will play out in congress under rarely-used constitutional rules as to how the electoral college votes are awarded to whom. The rancor around this action is already epic. Few of the political players are beyond suspicion of dark deals and shifty allegiances. Persistent rumor has the president laying out a royal flush of deadly information about his antagonists, enough to make heads explode among the formerly cocksure and vaporize the narrative they’ve been running for four years.

A whole lot of people are converging in the nation’s capital at midweek, maybe even the touted million. It is a moment, possibly, not unlike the Bastille in Paris, 1789. They will be clamoring right outside Congress as the electoral vote ceremony proceeds. If the battle is not joined in the chamber, it’s a little hard to believe the crowd will just heave a million sighs, trudge back to their cars, and drive quietly home.

Senator Ted Cruz has come up with a pretty sound plan: a ten-day emergency audit of the balloting with an electoral commission consisting of five Senators, five House Members, and five Supreme Court Justices - to consider and resolve the disputed returns. The proposal is based on the 1877 procedure for resolving the contested Hayes-Tilden election. “Once completed, individual states would evaluate the Commission’s findings and could convene a special legislative session to certify a change in their vote, if needed,” the proposal stated. Naturally, the Democratic Party’s news media handmaidens denounced it as “embarrassing” - which raises the question: who exactly will be embarrassed if the plan goes ahead?

On Sunday, Mr. Trump had a telephone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, ostensibly to discuss efforts made by his office to authenticate the validity of the Nov. 3rd balloting in that state. This is being portrayed by The WashPo, The New York Times, and the rest of the gang as a virtual replay of the Ukraine phone call that eventuated in the 2019 impeachment. Consider that the notorious Ukraine phone call was an attempt to inquire about the influence-peddling of Hunter Biden at the time when his father was vice-president. Does anyone doubt now, a year-and-a-half later, with the release of Hunter B’s laptop evidence, that there was some legitimate concern there? Might anyone suspect that there is also some genuine concern about the Georgia balloting - and Mr. Raffensperger’s failure to audit the vote? Did Mr. Raffensperger stupidly walk into a trap in that phone call? I doubt that the call was casual or impulsive on the president’s part.

What I wonder, given the eerie silence at Joe Biden’s end of things, is whether there is some negotiation underway for Mr. Biden to concede the election before events move forward into official inquiries. I wouldn’t be hugely surprised if that is the case. A US election has never concluded under such an enormous cloud, and with such a show of weakness by the putative winner. Joe Biden is but a ghost in the machine, and the machine is infernally corrupt, and now just about everybody knows it, including the figures fighting so hard to pretend that it isn’t so. Something like a war is underway both within the USA and from without. Mr. Trump is a war president and he’s not shirking his duty. War goes where it will and a genuine leader goes out to meet it where it comes."

- https://kunstler.com/

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

"Danger..."

“At the approach of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal force in the heart of man: one very reasonably tells the man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of avoiding it; the other, even more reasonable, says that it is too painful and harassing to think of the danger, since it is not a man’s power to provide for everything and escape from the general march of events; and that it is therefore better to turn aside from the painful subject till it has come, and to think of what is pleasant. In solitude a man generally yields to the first voice; in society to the second.”

- Leo Tolstoy, “War and Peace”

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“All our mortal lives are set in danger and perplexity: one day to prosper,

and the next – who knows? When all is well, then look for rocks ahead.”

- Sophoclese, “Philoctetes”

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A little light reading from Tolstoy…

Freely download “War and Peace”, by Leo Tolstoy, here:

- https://planetpdf.com/planetpdf/

"The Frogs Will Boil Themselves"

"The Frogs Will Boil Themselves"

by Jeff Thomas

"There’s a well-known old fable that describes a frog being boiled alive. It states that if a frog is dropped in boiling water, it will hop out. But if it’s placed in lukewarm water, it will be comfortable. Then, if the heat is turned up slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be boiled to death. In political terms, this translates into a slow increase, say, the slow rise of taxation or the gradual removal of freedoms.

But there’s another way to boil the electorate of a country: have them become willing participants in their own demise. This method is a common practice in many countries, particularly the US. Americans have repeatedly been conned into begging for their second amendment rights to be diminished. The method is to make use of the media to shine a light on the horrific murder of innocents through the use of firearms.

In recent years, this effort has been ramped up through regular senseless massacres of people, particularly children, in public places, such as schools and movie theaters. Whether or not these incidents are actually created by the ruling elite is a moot point. What matters is that their proliferation has been extremely effective in providing the media will the fodder to repeatedly ask, "When is the Government going to make the possession of guns illegal so that the killing will stop?"

Many citizens are wary of such suggestions, but countless others quickly take the bait and demand that the Government "do something." Eventually, this becomes a point of pride for many citizens - a badge of righteousness - for standing up for those who have been victims. Through such efforts, the US Constitution has slowly lost its ability to serve as a limitation to Government power. A proliferation of laws that redefine what the Constitution means has, over time, eviscerated the Constitution.

Not surprisingly, those who support this effort are largely liberal, which creates a backlash from those who are conservative and vehemently oppose any erosion of the Constitution. Those who are liberal may reinforce their beliefs by watching propaganda networks on television and regularly pump up the dangers of the Constitution. Likewise, conservatives have their propaganda network, which can be counted on to reinforce their views.

Whichever side Americans take on such issues, they would be wise to keep an eye out for what may be the next development in this wrangle. Those who dutifully watch the liberal "news" networks may soon see pundits despairing that the failings of the aging Constitution must be dealt with. It must be updated if it is to serve changing needs. After all, the Founding Fathers cannot be blamed that they didn’t foresee the existence of AK-47s. Surely, it falls to the present administration to "correct" the failings of the well-intentioned old document.

Conservatives, of course, are likely to be more cautious, but what we may see is for the pundits on their favored network to express frustration that the Left is seeking to erode traditional values and must, at some point be stopped, or the country will be destroyed. There can be no question that the Founding Fathers were correct - that unless the Constitution and its amendments are not clarified once and for all as to what they were meant to express, American liberty is at stake.

Americans, like citizens of most countries, love a good battle between good and evil. Every four years, a massive three-ring circus is staged in which the political leader is decided and both sports teams - Democrats and Republicans - go all out in seeking a victory on the playing field. However, in most cases, neither candidate is trustworthy or qualified for the job, but this is of no importance. The essence of the battle is not to select a wise and capable leader but to win.

Similarly, once the populace has been wound up on both sides to believe that only a pitched battle can "re-establish the Constitution" or "modernize the Constitution," the battle shall be met. At present, this eventuality may seem mere speculation. But then, the media campaign has not yet begun.

At present, all that exists is pundits in the media bemoaning the injustice of the present situation. What is needed is the prediction of pundits that, whatever side an individual takes on the issue, his side is sure to win.

On the liberal side, social warriors must come out daily in the media with demands for change and the certainty of success once the battle has begun. On the conservative side, pundits need to guarantee that the battle will be won once and for all, but that the situation is in dire need of immediate attention, or all may be lost.

The result will not be immediate, but, with repetition, eventually, the American people on both sides of the fence may well not only suggest, but demand that the matter be sorted. At that point, the Government may announce that a Constitutional Review will be undertaken. It would not matter that most of those making the demand are the pundits on the media networks. What would be presented would be that "a majority of Americans demand that the review take place as soon as possible."

Although at the time, the propaganda may imply that the review will be focused on one part of the Constitution, such as the Second Amendment, Americans will soon discover that the entire document is up for grabs. Under the terms of the review, all facets of the Constitution may be questioned.

Then what would the outcome be? Each side will hope that their elected representatives will emerge as the heroes, but that is not how politics works. In truth, elected leaders do not seek to serve the public but to dominate them. Invariably, their recommendations for change will be whatever transfers greater power to themselves.

Both Democratic and Republican members will argue forcefully for the rights of the American citizen. However, in the end, a "compromise" shall be made - one in which the rights of the populace are diminished and the Government has new powers to allow it to bypass the electorate in the future. If this does occur, the public will, in effect, "boil themselves." They will have demanded that the Government act, and, when the dust has settled, each side will claim some sort of victory but will fail to understand that they have brought about their own loss of rights.

It is hoped that, when the day comes that a Constitutional Review is proposed, Americans refuse to take the bait. The best you can and should do is to stay informed so that you can protect yourself in the best way possible."

- internationalman.com

The Daily "Near You?

 
Liberty, Maine, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"I Remember..."

"I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more, the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort, to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires, and expires, too soon, too soon, before life itself. "

- Joseph Conrad

This feels like a metaphor for the country now...

"The Point..."

 

"Where Did All the Fake Money Go?"

"Where Did All the Fake Money Go?"

By Bill Bonner

WEST RIVER, MARYLAND – "Our Christmas tree is still up. The eggnog still flows. We are not ready for 2021. We entered a new year on Friday. But there is still so much to figure out about the last one. It was the most preposterous year of our lives… and, we think, a real hinge point in our history. It will take historians many decades to decipher it… which is to say, to make up convenient and flattering lies about it. But here, today, with the corpse of 2020 still unburied… having barely cooled to room temperature… we will attempt a dissection. Trigger warning: It ain’t gonna be pretty.

Mathematical Conundrum: Let us begin by getting out the Sawzall to open up the cranial cavity. Surely, there was something wrong in there. It was supposed to be a Plague Year. Even at the end of it, our holiday festivities were greatly limited. Few friends or family stopped by for Christmas cheer. Our church held a virtual service on Christmas Eve. And BWI airport, where we went on New Year’s Day to drop off one of the children, was almost empty.

Early in the year, COVID-19 sent almost everyone into a panic. Already, there were signs of mental distress. All over the world, governments – rather than make a serious effort to identify and protect their vulnerable citizens – closed down their economies. Travel and leisure industries – any business where people congregate – were hit especially hard.

But they weren’t the only ones. Offices and parking lots emptied out. Gasoline sales slowed to a trickle. The whole economy tightened up. Instead of growing by 4%, as forecast, the global economy shrank by 4%.

In the U.S., the feds pretended to offset the real losses – which included some 30 million people losing their jobs – by printing and distributing fake money. During the entire year, the loss of income caused by the lockdowns toted to less than $300 billion. But the feds pumped an additional $4.4 trillion into the economy.

Dear readers will notice that the two numbers have little to do with each other. One explanation is that members of Congress cannot add and subtract. A better one is our chief insight for the year ahead: Inflate or die.

Third Option: The feds have gotten the nation into a classic debt trap. When you owe too much money, every setback is a crisis. You either borrow more… or you admit that you can’t pay your bills. But sovereign governments have a third option. They have “printing presses,” on which they can create the cash they need (thus inflating the currency). That does not solve the problem. But it distorts and delays it. And as it runs its course, it turns a simple, honest bankruptcy into a corrupt, catastrophic disaster.But we’ll get to that anon. For the moment, let’s just focus on 2020.

Rising Stocks: What happened to all that money the feds put into the system? Like water, it has to go somewhere. Some of it was used to buy drugs. Some bought new cars. Some paid off political debts and bought off cronies. Some went into normal consumer spending. But much more went into capital markets. For, while the Main Street economy turned down, Wall Street turned up. Worldwide, stocks were worth about $80 trillion when the crisis began. Less than a year later, they are worth $100 trillion.

Huh? How come stocks can be worth $20 trillion – 25% – more… in less than 12 months… while the companies they represent are seeing fewer sales and lower profits? In the U.S., earnings are nearly 30% below projections made at the start of 2020.

Pie in the Sky: And look at the electric car manufacturer Tesla. It ended the year at a valuation higher than all the other major automakers put together. It has cumulative losses of $6 billion… and no plausible way to ever be worth $6 billion, let alone $600 billion. At least Tesla makes something. There are other companies that have no products at all. Companies with neither products, sales, nor profits are supposedly worth more than some of the biggest titans of the Industrial Age.

Just look at QuantumScape. It is said to be developing a battery. But it has no battery… no sales… no showrooms… no service network… no revenue… and no profits. But just before Christmas, its market cap – the market value of all its shares – was almost as much as GM’s.

Over the holidays, we found we could buy a mince pie for $15, a price that had changed little from the previous year. At the beginning of 2020, one bitcoin sold for less than $8,000. So one bitcoin would have bought you 533 mince pies. By the end of the year, that same bitcoin would have paid for 2,000 pies. Mince pie has many things in it – sugar, salt, flower, meat, suet, molasses, apples, raisins, and God knows what else.

By contrast, Bitcoin has no physical being, no profits, no CEO, no press secretary, no coffee breaks, no enlightened, gender-conscious management, no sales, no office. Bitcoin has nothing. And yet, there it is… worth more than $30,000 per coin, and with a total market cap of $579 billion – almost equal to Tesla.

Pie-in-the-Sky Inflation: And that’s where the feds’ new money went. Not into mince pies. But into pie-in-the-sky inflation. Which makes us wonder even more about the gray matter of those handing out the fake money… and those buying the shares. Tomorrow, we probe deeper…"

- www.rogueeconomics.com

"2020 Was a Snack, 2021 Is the Main Course"

"2020 Was a Snack, 2021 Is the Main Course"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"One of the dishes at the banquet of consequences that will surprise a great many revelers is the systemic failure of the Federal Reserve's one-size-fits-all "solution" to every spot of bother: print another trillion dollars and give it to rapacious financiers and corporations.

Though 2020 is widely perceived as "the worst year ever," it was only a snack. The real banquet of consequences will be served in 2021. The reason 2020 was only a snack is that systems didn't break down in 2020. The reason 2021 is the main course is that systems will break down, and once broken, they cannot be restored.

I made the chart below to explain how systems fail and why they cannot be restored. Systems have numerous sources of potential fragility:

1. Systems can be tightly bound to other fragile systems, setting up the potential for a domino-like cascading collapse that starts with one system failure that then brings down every connected, interdependent system.

2. Systems can be hollowed out by self-interested insiders who mistakenly believe the system can survive endless looting.

3. Systems can be weakened by perverse incentives that provide strong incentives to under-invest in core functions and divert revenues to profiteering and extraction (stock buybacks, bonuses to managers, etc.)

4. Systems can appear robust to casual observers because insiders cloak the decay of function, accountability and transparency.

5. The decline of functionality/results can be hidden by bureaucratic obscurity (accounting statements in which all the important information is buried in footnotes starting on page 217, etc.) and by complexity thickets that reduce accountability to near-zero: no one is responsible for the decay of function, accountability and transparency.

6. Process replaces results as the Prime Directive of the system. Devoting resources to following processes rather than to getting results generates an illusion of functionality even as the ability to evolve and adapt is lost.

7. Buffers that enabled effective responses to crisis are stripped to the bone as redundancy and resilience are discounted as "hurting profits" or "needless expenses."

8. Insiders and the public/customers wrongly assume money can solve all of these systemic frailties. But money cannot buy trust, competence, institutional depth, productive incentives or anything else that is essential to robust, anti-fragile systems.

Americans are unprepared for the collapse of core systems. The secular faith holds that corporate ownership of core systems, centralized state control and the relentless pursuit of infinite greed will magically manifest the best of all possible worlds because self-enrichment by any means available is what perfects systems.

Unfortunately for America, this faith has it exactly backwards: self-enrichment by any means available is what hollows out and fatally weakens systems. The relentless pursuit of infinite greed ("investing" in stock buybacks, legalized looting, etc.) has destroyed the moral foundation of society and the economy: there is no civic virtue or public good left. These empty phrases cannot hide that America is a moral cesspool so corrupted by greed and self-interest that the nation can no longer even recognize its own moral dissolution.

The second graphic I prepared a decade ago depicts the lifecycle of bureaucracy which can be either private-sector or public: the initial purpose of the organization that inspired the innovators and initial managers is slowly replaced by self-interest, and those who were willing to sacrifice to serve this purpose quit in disgust or are marginalized as "threats" to self-serving insiders.

The competent leave or are forced out, leaving those of supreme incompetence in power, managers who've been selected for loyalty to the Prime Directive, protecting insider looting from outside interference via a mastery of public relations ("managing the narrative") and obfuscation.

The core function of the organization becomes masking dysfunction, ossification, sclerosis and the looting of insiders. The loss of function, accountability and transparency are hidden from prying eyes, and whistleblowers--the most dangerous threats to self-serving insiders--are hunted down and destroyed.

It is not coincidence that America's "growth sectors" are corruption and public relations ("managing the narrative") because the best way to cloak corruption and systemic failure is to manage the narrative by suppressing dissent and eradicating whistleblowers.

Unbeknownst to most Americans, many core systems are already in the first stages of collapse. No corporate sector does a better job of masking dysfunction and profiteering than healthcare, and so the collapse of healthcare systems will surprise everyone who swallowed the sector's glossy PR.

The entire financial system is hopelessly compromised, corrupt, self-serving and obsessed with maximizing personal gains by any means available. One of the dishes at the banquet of consequences that will surprise a great many revelers is the systemic failure of the Federal Reserve's one-size-fits-all "solution" to every spot of bother: print another trillion dollars and give it to rapacious financiers and corporations.

I suggest dining lightly on the feast of consequences because the courses of systemic failure will continue being served the entire year. So save some appetite for the really big systemic collapses that are only now being slid into the oven."

- https://www.oftwominds.com/

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Greenred Productions,

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Memory Music: https://youtu.be/Tv4Jg66KbJ0 

Overcome Depression: https://youtu.be/1UUL0B0xKj8 

Super Intelligence: https://youtu.be/nMdoCK7r_j4

"How It Really Is"

 

"Too Much Rain Will Kill Ya "

"Too Much Rain Will Kill Ya" 

by Bruce Krasting

"My first week on Wall Street was in August of 1973. I was newbie to NYC. My office was on the south side of 100 Wall, on the second floor, looking out over Front Street. There was a tremendous thunderstorm one afternoon. I looked out the window as the street filled with water. The flood poured into a street gutter and overwhelmed it. With the gutter flooded, the rats were drowning. They came out of every hole. In twenty minutes, 500 came out of the one gutter I was watching. The rain stopped and the flooding abated. The rats on the street followed the receding water back into their holes. A memorable first impression of life in the financial district."

- http://www.zerohedge.com/