Sunday, February 7, 2021

“Embracing Life-Affirming Death Awareness: How to Transform Yourself and Possibly Save Human Civilization”

“Embracing Life-Affirming Death Awareness: 
How to Transform Yourself and Possibly Save Human Civilization”
By Fred Branfman

“I never want to forget the prospect of death. Because, if I am ever able to block out those emotions, I will lose the sense of purpose and focus that cancer has given my own life." 
— Hamilton Jordan, "No Such Thing as a Bad Day" 

"My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood. The '80s were about acquiring. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. The country is caught up in moral decay. Our leaders must speak to  this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul." 
— Lee Atwater, "Life" Magazine, 1991

When he was 55, a newspaper mistakenly printed an obituary of Alfred Nobel, condemning him for his invention of dynamite and stating "the merchant of death is dead." Nobel was so shocked that he created the Nobel Peace Prize.

When he was 41, Anthony Burgess, working unhappily in the British colonial service, was given a terminal diagnosis with one year to live. He quit, wrote five novels in the next year and 11 including “Clockwork Orange” by age 46.

After serving as Jimmy Carter's chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan contracted several cancers. He wrote in his memoir that cancer was "a strange blessing," and that "after my first cancer, even the smallest joys of life took on a special meaning."

His Republican counterpart Lee Atwater, known for such dirty tricks as claiming off the record that a political opponent "had been hooked up to jumper cables," contracted cancer and then apologized to Michael Dukakis for his "naked cruelty" in running the Willy Horton ad, and repudiated the "Reagan Revolution" he had done so much to create. He wrote in a 1991 Life magazine article, "What power wouldn't I trade for a little more time with my family? What price wouldn't I pay for an evening with friends? It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth. My illness has taught me something about the nature of humanity, love, brotherhood and relationships that I never understood, and probably never would have. So, from that standpoint, there is some truth and good in everything."

Former CEO Eugene O'Kelley wrote in “Chasing Daylight: How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life”, that "the present felt to me like a gift. Living in it now, maybe for the first time, I experienced more Perfect Moments and Perfect Days in two weeks than I had in the last five years. (When a CEO) I had barely even considered limiting my office schedule. I wished I'd known then how to be and stay in the present, the way I now knew it."

These people are not alone. Countless lives have been transformed for the better over the centuries by breaking through their denial about their own deaths, whether due to a terminal diagnosis, surviving a serious illness or suicide, engaging in combat, having a serious accident, being a crime victim, or experiencing the death of a loved one.

Many people find their lives enriched by facing death voluntarily, not because they were forced to. In his famous Stanford commencement speech Steve Jobs said that since he was 17, "remembering that I'll be dead soon (has been) the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life, don't be trapped by dogma, and most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition."

Let It Come: In the summer of 1990, I was directing “Rebuild America”, a think tank whose advisors included Larry Summers, Paul Krugman, Robert Reich, and semiconductor inventor Robert Noyce, with Gov. Bill Clinton just having agreed to join as well. At 3am one night, I noticed a small fear of death arising, that I automatically pushed it away, and said to myself "Let it come!" I was plunged into the most painful experience of my life, as I felt I was disintegrating, followed by the most ecstatic moments I have ever known. The next morning I quit a sterile full-time politics that was burning me out, and embarked on a spiritual and psychological journey. After a time, I gradually returned to the world of social and political action, enriched and refreshed by my spiritual and psychological explorations.

One of my most moving experiences was spending several months with a psychologist named Jackie McEntee, after she had received a terminal diagnosis. She reported that the diagnosis was a wakeup call which led her to feel far more profoundly, deepened her relationship with her husband Bob, kids and community, and spend her time more purposefully and meaningfully. I asked whether she would rather have lived decades more as she had been living, or these few years as she was living now. She replied: "I call this my Year of Ecstasy. Sublime, incredible things have happened. That's why I wouldn't go back. Even though my previous life was good, it was not the bliss, the splendor, the ecstasy of how I live now."

I asked her what she felt her experience had to teach people who did not face a terminal diagnosis. "I think we need as a society to sustain death in our consciousness. Death is a reality by virtue of life. Our society has been in such a fog, evading death and dying, that I really think we don't live as fully because of that evasion. Well, I've learned to live fully now. And it's my deepest wish that everyone else will also—and without having to go through this kind of illness." That is a key question each of us faces. Do we want to wait for a terminal diagnosis, like Eugene O'Kelly or Jackie McEntee, before discovering that facing death could have transformed our lives for the better years earlier? Or do we wish to explore that question now?

There is no whitewashing the fact that feeling our sadness about our approaching deaths is more painful than defending against it. But, as adults, we can stand it. Doing so can release the enormous psychic energy we have been repressing, enriching our lives and leading to a far greater concern for those in need today and all who will follow us.

Feeling Our Sadness: The most important common feature of those whose lives have been enriched by facing their death is that they were willing to experience sadness and even intense pain about having to lose what they value in this life, and then used it as energy to transform their lives for the better.  One could hear that sadness pulsating through the voice of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., as he faced his own pain at social injustice and living under a daily threat of death. Sadness is the opposite of the closed, contracted state we call depression. As in the case of Dr. King, it can energize and activate, connecting people on a far deeper level than anger or outrage.

As Hamilton Jordan suggests, it is possible to "block out" much of the emotional pain that can arise even from a terminal diagnosis. We can use antidepressants, entertainment, constant activity, exercise, and a variety of other means to maintain the denial of death we have practiced since early childhood. As Jordan put it, "Nobody thinks too much on Desolation Row," especially about their own deaths, as long as they keep busy and occupied with other matters. But as he also found, daring to feel one's pain at the prospect of death can transform one's life.

I discovered this truth, to my amazement, when my life was transformed by facing my own eventual death at age 48. When the death anxiety I had been repressing burst to the surface I discovered that facing it, though painful, released enormous energy, appreciation for the preciousness of life, deep reservoirs of feeling I never knew existed, and a deep desire to contribute to the wellbeing of those who would follow me. Indeed, the more emotional pain I was consciously willing to feel about my death, the more truly alive, loving, empathetic and appreciative I felt. It was almost mathematical: more pain, more life; more life, more pain.  

The key was to consciously bring my pain to the surface. We normally avoid doing so as much as possible, and only react with denial, anger, bargaining or depression when we must, which can make it much harder to handle. But when we choose to bring our sadness to the surface so as to release energy for life, as Hamilton Jordan and Lee Atwater found, it can enhance our experience of life in ways we never dreamed possible—and transform our attitudes toward political action as well.

Facing death openly does not necessarily, of course, lead to political action. The opposite is often true. Many people in their retirement years react to reminders of death by turning to meditation and other spiritual and religious practices. They feel they've done enough politically, and they pursue long-deferred creative projects, focus on their grandchildren, face health issues, care for their mates, or conserve their declining energy.

Much of this is healthy for the individual and society. Spiritually inclined, serene and peaceful elders who have moved beyond materialism and frenetic activity can serve as important role models for an America that badly needs to move beyond the "acquisition," frenetic activity and mindless materialism Lee Atwater so rightly decried. "Don't just do something, sit there," as Buddhist teacher Sylvia Boorstein has written. If enough of us experienced “a touch of Enlightenment," the world would be a far better place.

Facing Our Deaths: Facing repressed death anxiety can benefit anyone at any age. In their book, "Beyond Death Anxiety: Achieving Life-Affirming Death Awareness", the psychotherapist Robert Firestone and Joyce Catlett explain how we first learn we will die between the ages of 3 and 8, and we automatically repress this frightening information. We continue this pattern as adults, rarely reexamining whether it make sense to continue this denial of our death, although we now have the tools to handle it.

They explain how our unconscious death anxiety influences every aspect of our adult lives, including our relationships and our sexuality. We often either unconsciously distance ourselves because true intimacy is so painful, or we violently turn against our partners when we realize they will not be the saviors we imagined. Our anxiety about death affects our child-rearing, as we often partly have children because we wish to live on through them, and then seek to control them so they will be the kind of "immortality vehicle" we seek. Death anxiety also lies at the heart of much of the midlife crisis many undergo, and explains many of our social behaviors as well. We identify with religious, ethnic or national "immortality vehicles" (USA! USA! USA!), because if the "other" triumphs, our own will fail. These processes are unconscious, which is why they have so much power.

The importance of Firestone and Catlett's work is that it is not based upon theory but the actual lived experience of a group of over 100 friends who have broken through much of the death-denial and openly discuss their death anxiety on a regular basis. This experience indicates, first of all, that people can bear it—while painful, surfacing repressed death anxiety does not destroy one's equilibrium, but enhances it. They have discovered that sharing their sadness together is a positive, life-enhancing experience. It also leads to greater empathy and compassion for each other and for the world as a whole.

Gifts of Death Awareness: Reports by people whose lives have been transformed by facing their own deaths reveal what might be called the gifts of death awareness. Examples of these gifts include:

• Increased aliveness and vitality: Feeling sadness about our mortality can release enormous reservoirs of psychic energy, aliveness and vitality that is otherwise wasted on repressing our death-feelings.

• A wider range of feeling: We cannot repress painful feelings without repressing joyful ones as well. Death awareness can widen and deepen our feelings. We find we can stand the painful feelings we have spent a lifetime avoiding. We open up new vistas of love, appreciation, tenderness, joy, compassion, and empathy.

• Deeper relationships: When we deny our pain about our own death and those of loved ones, we often unconsciously pull away from intimacy. Repressing feelings not only deadens us, but causes us to shrink from the pain that true closeness brings. Consciously facing death can lead to deeper intimacy and love for those closest to us. A friend recently wrote me about attending a funeral and sitting with the sister of the deceased, weeping side by side without saying anything for 15 minutes. It was their most intimate interaction in a decade, and it forged a lifelong bond between them.

• Increased life-purpose and passion: Like Hamilton Jordan, Steve Jobs and countless others, facing the shortness of time we have left often leads to a greater sense of purpose and focus. Our passion is increased, as we realize that with the time we have left we will create what we wish to create, and enjoy our most precious experiences.  

• Wider perspective: People facing death commonly report that they gain a greater sense of perspective, are less prone to petty fears, slights, jealousies, and anxieties, and have their sights raised to issues of meaning and the human condition. Facing our mortality broadens our perspective.

• Great lucidity and sanity: When one becomes exposed to death, often when parents die, many experience a painful but somehow liberating sense of clarity and sanity. As I was flying back to New York from Florida after my father's death, I found myself writing these words: "I have been living as if I will never die, which is a lie. And to live a lie is not really to live at all."

• Greater creativity: Increased passion often brings greater creativity. As Steve Jobs noted, death-awareness can lead us to commit to following our own path and not be trapped by the opinions of others.

• Greater compassion and empathy: Death awareness can lead us to focus on what we have in common with our fellow beings. It is not only that we are all going to die, but that we are all facing similar difficulties in dealing with this fact. As we become more feeling, our compassion can also deepen and extend to millions who suffer unnecessarily.

• The courage to be vulnerable: Though we tend to see courage as involving strength, decisiveness and risk-taking, the greater bravery is daring to feel and display our vulnerability. Facing death leads to a softer and more feeling appreciation of life and closer relationships with those around us.

• Gratitude, appreciation and awe:  Experiencing our vulnerability as creatures who will die can lead to the most precious possible experiences of appreciation and awe that life even exists, let alone that we have been privileged to participate in it. It is precisely because our time with loved ones, or our opportunity to experience life, is so limited that it is so precious. 

• Greater aesthetic appreciation: Death awareness opens us up to the beauty of life in space and in time. We become more aware of fleeting and infinitely precious moments of beauty.

• Spiritual openings and the experience of oneness with life: Death awareness can lead to unmediated, direct spiritual experiences in which the personal ego dissolves and we experience a sense of oneness with all life, including the countless humans who have preceded us and those who will follow us. 

• Greater concern for preserving civilization for future generations: Such death-influenced spiritual experiences can lead to a greater commitment to saving human civilization for our offspring and all who will follow us.

Exploring Life-Affirming Death Awareness: Words are cheap and only useful if they encourage us to experiment for ourselves whether they might be true. This is particularly true for an issue like whether to surface our sadness about death, which goes against the habits of a lifetime. The following exercises are meant to help us explore how we wish to respond to the fact of our eventual deaths. Many of us have never consciously considered this question as adults, continuing the denial of our feelings that we first learned as kids. But we may find now that exploring this issue can enrich and revitalize our lives, as well as all society.

These explorations are intended to help explore two basic issues: 1) feeling rather than denying painful feelings about our eventual death; 2) using these feelings as energy to live with more purpose and compassion. These exercise tend to yield the deepest results if they are preceded by some minutes of quiet reflection.

1. Focus on what unites us. Pick a time-period—a few hours, a day, longer—in which you focus on what you have in common with each person you see or interact with, whether you know them or not. They, like you, are going to one day die; they, like you, are confused and frightened by this knowledge, and tend to think or feel about it as little as possible; and they, like you, may have a dull look in their eyes, or rigid expression on their face, partly because they are using up precious psychic energy to repress their death anxiety.

Note what you are feeling as you engage in this exercise, particularly any feelings of compassion or empathy for yourself or others. How does this exercise make you feel? Does this exercise in any way change how you feel toward others? Perhaps extend this exercise by meeting with people you normally dislike or disagree with, and note whether any change in your normal feelings arise as a result.

2. Appreciate a last meal or walk. Set aside a time when you can eat a meal alone in a quiet place, and imagine it is the last meal you will ever eat. Eat slowly, noting each smell, how each component of the meal tastes, everything it took for this meal to reach you, from the life of the animal or plant involved to the apparatus—farmer, transport, supermarket, etc.—required to get this food to you. Note your feelings at the prospect that this will be the last meal you will ever eat in this lifetime.

Set a time to take a walk, imagining it is the last walk you will ever take on this earth. Walk extremely slowly, taking the time to smell every smell, hear every sound, see every sight. Note the feelings that arise, whether sadness that you will never have this experience again, or gratitude that you have been able to have this experience of life. As you return to daily life, reflect on whether these experiences change how you might want to eat or take walks from here on out.

3. Appreciate the preciousness of life. Reflect upon those experiences of life you most value at this point in your life, perhaps making a list of them in order, e.g. your experiences of loved ones, travel, learning, contributing, nature, art, and so on and so forth.

Now notice the feelings that emerge as you go through the list, and imagine never being able to have those experiences again. Note where the feelings of sadness, loss or worse, are most intense. Although you are likely to experience a range of feelings, including a distancing from feeling, focus on any feelings of sadness that arise as you understand dying as losing the experiences of life that you most value. Reflect on what your sadness tells you about the parts of your life you value most, your deepest regrets, your deepest desire for developing the qualities you desire, your relationship to the violence and injustice of the world, the unfinished business of your life, internal and external. 

4. Appreciate loved ones and friends. Pick a moment when you can gaze upon a loved one or close friend. Either with eyes closed or open, imagine her head as the skull it will be, her body as the skeleton it will become after she dies. Feel the sadness, the pain of it. Now return to the present, feel your love for her, your appreciation of the fact that you can have this experience of her. Note your feelings of appreciation for the fact that you can now experience her, the preciousness of this opportunity to know, interact with and love her.

5. Feel valued by society. Imagine that you had died today and were reading your obituary in the newspaper. Write out what you imagine it might say. Imagine you have another 10 years to live, and then write out your obituary as you would like it to appear then. Conclude by noting the key changes you need to make in your life so as to have your obituary read as you would like it to a decade from now.

6. Set priorities, inner and outer. Imagine that you are on your deathbed, looking back on your life. (This exercise is best conducted while lying on your back, in a dark room, in the actual position you are most likely to be in while facing your actual end.) Note the outer events—your accomplishments, impact on your kids, grandkids, community, America, the world—that are the most meaningful to you at this point. Note the inner events that are most meaningful—ways in which you developed internally, touching experiences with loved ones, friends, nature, the cosmos, moments of spiritual transcendence, etc. Note which kinds of experiences are the most meaningful, inner and outer, past and present, or the impact your life will have after you have gone. Note your feelings about the state of the world you are leaving behind.

Think of those people who have wronged you whom you wish to forgive, or those from whom you wish to ask forgiveness. Perhaps write letters to the most important ones. After conducting this exercise, reflect on whether the thoughts and feelings you had have any implications for how you want to lead your life from here on out. Did you note any enhanced experiences of aliveness and energy, compassion or love for yourself or others, the world, greater serenity, a greater sense of direction and life-purpose, a greater concern for the environment and the world you are leaving behind, a deeper sense of spirituality and connection to all things?

7. Looking backward, looking forward. Reflect on the next 10 years of your life— the people with whom you will interact, the places you will visit, the countless feelings you will experience, and so forth. Reflect upon how long these 10 years seem, how rich the many experiences you will have. Now reflect back on the last 10 years of your life, note how it all seems to have passed in an instant.

Now imagine that you are on your deathbed, looking back on the time between now and when you die. Reflect on how it, too, will seem to have passed in an instant. Reflect on any implications this may have for how you want to live from here on out, whether it helps illuminate what is and isn't important to you, whether it seems to call for an increased commitment to any sort of activities or experiences, and so forth.

8. The precious shortness of life. Imagine your doctor has just told you that you have three years to live in full possession of your health, after which you will decline precipitously and die. Reflect on what you imagine your priorities, internal and external, would be if you knew you had but three more years to live. Would you change anything about your present life? Relationships? External projects? Inner development? Would you live with greater purpose and waste less time? Would you devote yourself to artistic creation, travel or political activity? How would your relationships with people change? Then imagine that your doctor tells you he was mistaken, and you can look forward to a normal lifespan. If you would have lived differently if you had only three years to live, does this have any implications for your future now?”

"Premonitions: Yes, We Do Have A Sixth Sense”

No, this is not an animated GIF...
"Premonitions: Yes, We Do Have A Sixth Sense”
By Sarah Chalmers

"On Friday, October 21, 1966, a mountain of coal waste, perched above the Welsh mining village of Aberfan, broke loose and came flowing down uncontrollably. Destabilized by recent rains, a river of black coal sludge, water and boulders bore down on Aberfan. It steamrollered over a tiny cottage halfway down the slope, thundered through Pantglas Junior School, obliterated a further 20 houses - then finally came to rest. A total of 144 people, including many children, were crushed or suffocated to death in one of Britain's most horrific peacetime tragedies. Every life lost was precious. But the death of 116 innocent children, killed in the school, tore at the very heart of the nation. In a cruel irony, the youngsters had been making their way back to their classrooms after singing "All Things Bright And Beautiful" at morning assembly when the disaster struck. No one in the close-knit community was unaffected by the tragedy and the bereaved parents would never recover from their loss.

But for one family, the overriding grief was even more acute. For one of those killed - ten-year-old Eryl Mai Jones - had not only predicted the catastrophe, but had warned her mother of it, too. In the days leading up to the atrocity, Eryl had told her mother she was 'not afraid to die'. 'I shall be with Peter and June,' she added. Eryl's busy mother offered her imaginative daughter a lollipop and thought no more about it. Then, on October 20, the day before the disaster, Eryl said to her mother: 'Let me tell you about my dream last night. I dreamt I went to school and there was no school there. Something black had come down all over it!' The next day, Eryl's horrific premonition came to pass and she was killed alongside schoolfriends Peter and June. They were buried side-by-side in a mass grave, just as the youngster had predicted. You can only guess at the torment Eryl's mother must have suffered - perhaps berating herself for not keeping her child off school or warning everyone in the village.

Tales like this, of horrific events 'seen' in dreams, litter history. And now a comprehensive new book by medical doctor Larry Dossey - who has himself experienced premonitory dreams - collates some of the most extraordinary examples.

September 11th : The terrorist atrocities of September 11, 2001 were preceded by a slew of premonitions. A week before the attack, one North Carolina mother dreamt about spinning into blackness and heard a man's voice repeating '2,830, 2,830' and a name she couldn't make out. 'It sounded like Rooks or Horooks,' she said. Disturbed by the dream, the woman cancelled tickets the family had to fly to Disneyland on September 11, despite protestations from her husband that she was over-reacting. When news emerged on September 11 of the planes flying into New York's Twin Towers - with another hitting the Pentagon and a fourth crashing into a field in Pennsylvania - the woman's caution was vindicated. Most bizarrely, 2,830 - the number repeated over and over in her dream - was the confirmed tally of deaths at that time. And the name - 'Rooks or Horooks?' - was that of Michael Horrocks, first officer of United Airlines flight 175, which crashed into the South Tower.

Of course, her vision was not specific enough for her to have done anything to avert the tragedy, but it was nonetheless disturbing - as was the experience of another woman holidaying in Washington DC two weeks before the atrocity. She was dozing in a car as her husband drove. But when she opened her eyes, she had a vision of the Pentagon with huge billows of thick black smoke pouring from it. She screamed, slammed her hands on the dashboard and became so hysterical that she hyperventilated. The woman had had visions all her life, but was traumatised by this one. Two weeks later, American Airlines flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon, killing 184 people, and causing clouds of thick black smoke, exactly as she had dreamt it. [No, it did not, do a Search for 9/11 on this blog, you'll see. - CP]

In an even more chilling example, World Trade Centre employee Lawrence Boisseau had a dream in September that the towers were crashing down around him. A few days later, his wife dreamt the streets of Manhattan were littered with debris. The images were not specific enough to prevent Boisseau from going to work on September 11 - and he perished there. But not before helping to rescue several children stuck in a care centre on the ground floor.

Sometimes, premonitions allow the person to pinpoint a specific time and place, leaving the dreamer enough time to alter the course of the disaster. In one such instance, Dossey recounts the tale of a mother living in Washington State who awoke at 2.30am from a nightmare. She had dreamt that a large chandelier that hung above her baby's crib had fallen and crushed him. In the dream, a violent storm was raging and the time on the clock read 4.35 am. Alarmed, the woman woke up, went into the next room and took the baby back to her bed. Two hours later, the couple were woken by a loud crash. They dashed into their child's room to find the crib demolished by the chandelier, which had fallen directly onto it. In a further twist, a storm was raging - and the time on the clock read 4.35 am.

Not all of those who dream of future events manage to interpret them correctly. Indeed, one of the common features of premonitions is that they are often fragmentary and vague. But Dossey believes we all have the ability to predict the future and points to studies by Dean Radin, a Californian researcher. Radin sat subjects in front of a blank computer screen and told them an image would appear in five seconds. Remarkably, before the image appeared, the subjects would become more agitated if the image was of something grisly or upsetting than if it was of something pleasant. It seems the subjects could sense what they were about to be confronted with. This is supported by data from train and plane accidents. One famous study from the Fifties found that trains involved in accidents often had fewer passengers than the same service the week before.

The theory is that commuters have some sense of an approaching accident and alter their travel plans. When the Titanic made her first - and last - voyage in 1912, many passengers had a sense of foreboding. J. P. Morgan, one of the richest men in the world, cancelled his passage at the last minute because of a hunch. Interestingly, the vacancy rate on all four flights that crashed on September 11, 2001, was high. On the Boeing 757 that crashed into the Pentagon, only 64 of 289 seats were taken. Meanwhile, the planes that crashed into the World Trade Centre's North and South Towers were 74 and 81 per cent empty. Indeed, the occupancy rate of all four doomed planes that day was a mere 21 per cent - despite being commuter services.

Dossey's explanation for humans' ability to predict the future is rooted in evolution. He says it makes sense that we would develop our ability to see impending dangers and take appropriate measures. 'From the standpoint of evolutionary biology, the ability to bypass the physical senses is the sort of ability that an intelligent, survival-oriented organism might sooner or later develop.' Furthermore, he believes we are more likely to have premonitions about those to whom we are emotionally attached. Through history, neurologists have proved a telepathic connection between some particularly close individuals, such as twins. One of the most common forms of premonition is forewarning of illness in a loved one.

But this sixth sense is not confined to humans. There are countless examples of apparent premonitions among animals. Just before the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, flamingoes on India's southern coast fled, monkeys at Sri Lanka's Yala National Park stopped accepting bananas from tourists and the elephants began to trumpet. In one tale recounted by Dossey, a woman was driving her car with her cat on the back seat. The cat became increasingly agitated, before jumping into the front and biting the woman, forcing her to stop. At just that moment, a large tree crashed onto the road, just a few yards ahead of the woman. If she had continued driving, she would have been killed.

Coincidence? Or proof of something more mysterious at work? Dossey, and others like him, believe it is the latter. What's more, he thinks our only hope of utilizing the power of prediction effectively is to act immediately and not let embarrassment get in the way. He cautions: 'If premonitions are to aid survival, we cannot afford the luxury of not thinking about them.”

"Two Possibilities Exist..."

"Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone
 in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."
"I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. 
It's just been too intelligent to come here."
- Arthur C. Clarke

"How It Really Is"

Sounds like here... lol

Free Download: Erich Fromm, “The Fear of Freedom”

“Automaton Conformity”
by Erich Fromm

“In the mechanisms we have been discussing, the individual overcomes the feeling of insignificance in comparison with the overwhelming power of the world outside himself either by renouncing his individual integrity, or by destroying others so that the world ceases to be threatening. Other mechanisms of escape are the withdrawal from the world so completely that it loses its threat (the picture we find in certain psychotic states), and the inflation of oneself psychologically to such an extent that the world outside becomes small in comparison. Although these mechanisms of escape are important for individual psychology, they are only of minor relevance culturally. I shall not, therefore, discuss them further here, but instead will turn to another mechanism of escape which is of the greatest social significance.

This particular mechanism is the solution that the majority of normal individuals find in modern society. To put it briefly, the individual ceases to be himself; he adopts entirely the kind of personality offered to him by cultural patterns; and he therefore becomes exactly as all others are and as they expect him to be. The discrepancy between “I” and the world disappears and with it the conscious fear of aloneness and powerlessness. This mechanism can be compared with the protective coloring some animals assume. They look so similar to their surroundings that they are hardly distinguishable from them. The person who gives up his individual self and becomes an automaton, identical with millions of other automatons around him, need not feel alone and anxious any more. But the price he pays, however, is high; it is the loss of his self.”
- Erich Fromm, “The Fear of Freedom”

Freely download “The Fear of Freedom”, by Erich Fromm, here:

"Truth Is..."

"Truth is always stranger than fiction. We craft fiction to match our sense of how things ought to be, but truth cannot be crafted. Truth is, and truth has a way of astonishing us to our knees, reminding us that the universe does not exist to fulfill our expectations. Because we are imperfect beings who are self-blinded to the truth of the worlds stunning complexity, we shave reality to paper thin theories and ideologies that we can easily grasp and we call them truths. But the truth of a sea in all its immensity cannot be embodied in one tidewashed pebble." 
- Dean Koontz

Gregory Mannarino, AM Feb 7, 2021: "Markets, A Look Ahead"

Gregory Mannarino, AM Feb 7, 2021
"Markets, A Look Ahead: 
Keep Your Eyes On The 10-Year Yield And The Dollar"

Saturday, February 6, 2021

"The Storm Is Coming! Get Prepared For A Catastrophic Stock Market Crash"

"The Storm Is Coming! 
Get Prepared For A Catastrophic Stock Market Crash"
by Epic Economist

"Warnings that the stock market bubble is about to burst are becoming increasingly more frequent amongst experts as the GameStop rally has intensified asset overpricing tendencies that have been making the current stock valuations extremely unsustainable. Doomsday predictions for a sharp market correction were already popping way before the whole battle between online investors and hedge funds had started, but now several signs are pointing out to an imminent and violent crash that is likely to suddenly happen, sparking even more chaos in Wall Street. That's what we investigate in this video.

Over the past weeks, several market and industry experts have been publishing an alarming number of convincing statistics and arguments that stock markets worldwide are in a dangerous ‘bubble’ territory. As stock prices are now trading at unsustainably high levels, particularly driven by investors' unreasonably rosy expectations for a V-shaped economic recovery, but when those expectations start to be crushed by the real facts, prices will return to normal, violently collapsing in the process. 

After a record rebound from a health-crisis-induced market crash last March, most stock benchmarks around the world have registered new record-highs in the early days of 2021. However, as stock prices continue to climb, numerous top banks are getting increasingly worried this unprecedented boom, which considerably resembles the dot-com bubble, will result in a similar bust. At this point, stock prices are truly at what experts define an "insanely high" level. Almost every research and analysis using price-based indicators are signaling that the bubble continues to grow, and the larger the bubble, the steepest the crash. 

Traditionally, a stock market bubble is formed when investors get overly optimistic about a new development or possibility, which then prompts fast price surges as they pump money into these stocks. Oftentimes, caution is thrown to the wind and a speculative frenzy starts supported by future prospects for that asset that might never come true. Right now, the leading stocks in the market are Facebook, Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and they account for 24% of the index, and the reality of it is they don’t really participate in the reopening of the economy per se. Those stocks are already trading at extremely high multiples. They’ve got regulation issues coming down the pipeline and the reality of it is they’ve benefited the most from us being locked inside.

One of the most alarming pieces of evidence pointing out to an excessive market speculation is the fact the Tesla shares are trading at unprecedented highs while there's no guarantee the company's future growth will match investors expectations. Even though some may defend that risk in the markets has vanished due to the latest bullish run, bubble markets often present bizarre behavior right before they collapse. The current rally is very similar to what was witnessed during the dot-com crash of the late 1990s, when stocks have sharply risen and then dramatically fell. In recent days, global stocks have been facing extra pressure as millions of online investors gathered up to send the share prices of the unprofitable U.S. video game store chain GameStop to sky highs.

One of the world's top market experts, Mohamed El-Erian said that there will be "serious and widespread unintended consequences" if global output fails to return to pre-virus levels. He stressed that there is "no doubt" that company valuations have become "massively disconnected" from the economy, and if the crash doesn't happen as a result of the investor frenzy, the current bubble will certainly pop if the economy fails to catch up with record-breaking valuations. Mr El-Erian added that the staggering amount of stimulus money unleashed by governments and central banks is inflating shares instead of boosting the economy. 

Furthermore, the US Securities and Exchange Commission came reported that "extreme stock price volatility" has the potential to cause "rapid and severe losses" for investors and to undermine market confidence. On every front we look, there are several warnings that the markets are hanging by a thread and could collapse with the blink of an eye. As Richter outlines in his article, the stock market has been broken for a long time, but now it has finally blown into the open for all to see. The growing risks, speculation, manipulation, and frenzy are spiraling out of control and soon we will be witnessing an astronomical explosion that will reset the course of the financial markets for once and for all."

“Don’t Be Dumb, Be Your Own Central Banker; Humans Will Be Replaced; Hyperinflation Can Happen Fast”

Jeremiah Babe,
“Don’t Be Dumb, Be Your Own Central Banker; Humans Will Be Replaced;
Hyperinflation Can Happen Fast”

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Deep Still Blue"

2002, "Deep Still Blue"
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.”
"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

"Never Forget..."

"Take risks! That is really what life is about. We must pursue our own happiness. Nobody has ever lived our lives; there are no guidelines. Trust your instincts. Accept nothing but the best. But then also look for it carefully. Don't allow it to slip between your fingers. Sometimes, good things come to us in a such a quiet fashion. And nothing comes complete. It is what we make of whatever we encounter that determines the outcome. What we choose to see, what we choose to save. And what we choose to remember. Never forget that all the love in your life is there, inside you, always."
- Linda Olsson

Paulo Coelho, "The Bird And The Cage"

"The Bird And The Cage"
by Paulo Coelho

"Once upon a time, there was a bird. He was adorned with two perfect wings and with glossy, colorful, marvelous feathers. One day, a woman saw this bird and fell in love with him. She invited the bird to fly with her, and the two travelled across the sky in perfect harmony. She admired and venerated and celebrated that bird. But then she thought: He might want to visit far-off mountains! And she was afraid, afraid that she would never feel the same way about any other bird.

And she thought: “I’m going to set a trap. The next time the bird appears, he will never leave again.” The bird, who was also in love, returned the following day, fell into the trap and was put in a cage. She looked at the bird every day. There he was, the object of her passion, and she showed him to her friends, who said: “Now you have everything you could possibly want.”

However, a strange transformation began to take place: now that she had the bird and no longer needed to woo him, she began to lose interest. The bird, unable to fly and express the true meaning of his life, began to waste away and his feathers to lose their gloss; he grew ugly; and the woman no longer paid him any attention, except by feeding him and cleaning out his cage.

One day, the bird died. The woman felt terribly sad and spent all her time thinking about him. But she did not remember the cage, she thought only of the day when she had seen him for the first time, flying contentedly amongst the clouds. If she had looked more deeply into herself, she would have realized that what had thrilled her about the bird was his freedom, the energy of his wings in motion, not his physical body.

Without the bird, her life too lost all meaning, and Death came knocking at her door. “Why have you come?” she asked Death. “So that you can fly once more with him across the sky,” Death replied. “If you had allowed him to come and go, you would have loved and admired him ever more; alas, you now need me in order to find him again.”

The Daily "Near You?"

Tijeras, New Mexico, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Having One Of Those Days?"

 

"It Simply Means..."

“Never be ashamed of a scar. 
It simply means you were stronger than whatever tried to hurt you.” 
- Unknown

"The Truth Virus: The Most Dangerous Virus in the World"

"The Truth Virus:
The Most Dangerous Virus in the World"
by Dog Poet

"I’ve got a virus. It doesn’t have a common name because it isn’t a common virus. It’s difficult to catch this virus because there are only so many ways for it to enter your system. You can catch it as a result of extreme trauma which results in all of your defenses being shut down. This includes all subconscious resistance and all systemic defenses. You can catch it as a result of long term abuse. This includes abuse visited upon you or abuse you visit on yourself. Often this abuse comes about because the virus is already looking for a foothold and it will attract one of these two kinds of abuse. You can catch it through diligent and repeated efforts to catch it, in an environment of quietude, created by a relentless persistence of the mind to cease from the production of thought. There are a few other ways.

Once you’ve got this virus there’s no cure for it. Every cell in your body is going to be replaced and the world will gradually- and sometimes not so gradually- take on the appearance of an insane asylum, while also becoming remarkably predictable. People think insanity is unpredictable but that’s just one of the illusions that are part of the ordinary mindset of the collectively insane.

People who have this virus can understand one another without having to say anything at all and if they should speak they are also understood by people who are vulnerable to this virus. This is one of the ways that the virus spreads. The impact of the virus speaking induces trauma that naturally moves toward the extreme. People who do not have the virus- and who are not susceptible to catching it- will not understand a single word being said. It will make them uncomfortable and sometimes it will make them angry but at no time will it be understood.

There’s a lot of news, noise and argument about Howdy Doody’s comprehensive health plan for the Teletubbies. Most people think that some permutation of universal health care is going to be a major step up for American society. They seem to think that having it is somehow going to lead to a more general state of well being among the population. There are several reasons why this isn’t going to make the slightest difference no matter what kind of a program finally gets decided on.

It doesn’t really matter whether you can see a doctor of your choice or not and have some amount of it paid for. It isn’t going to have any positive effect on your health. Health is the result of a few basic things and one of them is youth. The other things are diet and ones mental and emotional state. An awareness of ones relationship to all of these leads to making the right decisions about how one lives their life. A conscious awareness of diet has a profound effect on one’s well being. One’s mental and emotional states also play significant roles. One needs only to study how many stress-related diseases there are to understand this. If you factor bad diet into unbalanced mental and emotional states you’ve got a problem no doctor can deal with, especially if your medical system is of the allopathic variety.

The people who decide what doctors can and cannot do and what doctors can and cannot tell you are permanent bed-partners with various corporations for whom good health is a bad thing. These are the pharmaceutical concerns; the AMA, the hospital equipment industry and related suppliers of related products. These corporations have another relationship with the various food industries in the sense that they will not write or permit policy that impinges on major enterprises that bring you processed foods, fast foods, mystery meats, candy and soft drinks and whatever else hides under that umbrella. What this means is that, according to the capitalist mentality that rules this society, it is possible; it has to be possible and it damn well will be possible to eat anything you want, avoid exercise and generally break any and every rule of intelligent behavior and if there’s a problem they will either cut it out of you or suppress the symptoms until they have to cut it out of you.

Because the will of corporations is the rule of the land, there will be no change in the profit line for participating corporations. What will change will be the language that the non-change is presented in. To see into the black heart of the system in charge of American life you have only to look into the prison industry where 5% of the American public and 25% of the world’s prison population are incarcerated in American prisons. Why is this? It’s a business. Is it coincidence that America uses 60% of the world’s resources as well?

The unstated objective of American society is that a small percentage of its members shall possess the greatest amount of wealth at the expense of everyone else and will then be lauded for their efforts to assist the less fortunate where no such efforts exist. Such a system cannot survive and will not survive and is presently at the state where a number of shell games are being used to give the impression that the system is doing fine and going to get better as it approaches the lip of a high cliff. As things begin to fall from the cliff, you will see charts and graphs appear that indicate the true state and direction of the culture and economy but they will probably be holding these charts and graphs upside down.

I see these things and many other things because I have this virus. Others have this virus too and many more are on the verge of infection. The biggest concern of the TPTB is the proliferation of this virus. Their concern about all other viruses, which they manufactured to begin with, is just Slim Shady dining at the Red Herring Restaurant.

With this virus I can see that the appetites and desires being milked by corporations in order to promote and sell their products leads directly to aberrant behavior which leads to the prison industry for those who are not making the laws that route the unfortunate toward the prison or the grave with that long interlude of enslavement at the looping track of life where they chase the uncatchable dream rabbit that is already steaming in the pot of their betters.

With this virus I can look directly at the lies of politicians and religious leaders and hear the truth that spotlights the pies around the corner and their relationship to the pies in the sky which are moving on conveyor belts behind unbreakable Plexiglas. I can see that there are no pies because the pies are only video projections of pies bounced off of a series of mirrors. I can see the people who do no have the virus and I can see the world they are looking at and it turns out that this world is also just a projection bouncing off of mirrors and one of those mirrors is their minds. These projections then activate the furnace in the visceral brain which causes those without the virus to dance like millions of chickens on a hot griddle that somehow got the impression that they are auditioning for American Idol.

It is not possible to create a society, based on the principles that some of us have read and most of us have heard about, when corporations are the ruling authority of the land, because the intent of a corporation is diametrically opposed to the principles that some of us have read and most of us have heard about. You can’t make Beef Stroganoff out of pork rinds and Velveeta but you can convince people that that is what they are eating and that is the point.

There’s a debate that has been going around since Cain brained Abel and that debate centers on whether it is better to have this virus or some form of all the other viruses. The awareness that comes with having this virus can lead to the rack, the auto da fe and other less pleasant locations. Having the other viruses can lead to being a hamster or some part of a compost pile and a fire burns there as well. They can lead to being cannon fodder and the merciless hands of those who practice a form of medicine that has little to do with the stated intentions of the art. The hands of these practitioners are often more dangerous than the problem that brought you there.

Most people spend more than ninety percent of everything they have saved in their lives in the last year of their life on an industry whose purpose is exactly for that reason.

This virus of mine- and perhaps you have it too- is not an easy burden to bear. You can never pull the covers over your head again. You know there’s no monster in the closet but you also know where the real monsters dwell. You are doomed to an unending quarantine even as you move among your fellows. One thing you do acquire as a result of this virus is compassion and, as Lao Tzu said long ago, “Compassion is a weapon from the sky against being dead.” Realization may not be all the things we imagine it to be, but it is preferable to the restless sleep of nightmares wielded by the whip hand of psychopaths."
"They Live," "Sunglasses"
If you know, you know...

"For Nothing Is Fixed..."

"For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out."
- James Baldwin

The Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke, "Book of Hours II, 16"

"Book of Hours II, 16"

"How surely gravity's law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the strongest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.
Each thing-
each stone, blossom, child-
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we belong to
for some empty freedom.
If we surrendered
to earth's intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.
Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.
So, like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God's heart;
they have never left him.
This is what the things can teach us:
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly."

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

"How It Really Is"

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 2/6/21"

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 2/6/21"
• There were 131,146 new COVID-19 cases reported in the U.S. on Friday.
• The drop in new daily cases is being felt in all four regions of the country. 
• In the Midwest, the seven-day average for new daily cases per capita has now dropped to a quarter of what it was during the region’s peak in late November.
• Hospitalizations remained below 90,000 on Friday at 86,373.
• There were 3,543 new fatalities reported just a day after the country's deadliest 24 hours.
• The national death toll now stands at 459,360 and more than 26.8million have been infected with the virus."
"When you have eliminated the impossible, 
whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
- "Sherlock Holmes", Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• "Doctor Admits Masks Don’t Work: “All Viruses Can Get Through”
FEB 6, AT 9:50 AM: "CDC And TSA Form Federal Mask Police... And Enforcement Is Up To Officer Discretion" "Back in early 2020, would you ever have imagined that your decision of whether to wear a face-covering or not could one day be a federal crime?"
 Feb 6, 2021 12:09 AM ET: 
The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 105,379,000 
people, according to official counts, including 26,851,698 Americans.
Globally at least 2,297,900 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.
https://covidtracking.com/
Feb. 6, 2021 8:14 AM ET
Where I Live:
- CP

"Clarity In Trump's Wake"

"Clarity In Trump's Wake"
by Angelo Codevilla

"Either the Constitution matters and must be followed... or it is simply a piece of parchment on display at the National Archives."
- Texas v. Pennsylvania et al.

"Texas v. Pennsylvania et al. did not deny setting rules for the 2020 election contrary to the Constitution. On December 10, 2020, the Supreme Court discounted that. By refusing to interfere as America’s ruling oligarchy serves itself, the court archived what remained of the American republic’s system of equal justice. That much is clear.

In 2021, the laws, customs, and habits of the heart that had defined the American republic since the 18th century are things of the past. Americans’ movements and interactions are under strictures for which no one ever voted. Government disarticulated society by penalizing ordinary social intercourse and precluding the rise of spontaneous opinion therefrom. Together with corporate America, it smothers minds through the mass and social media with relentless, pervasive, identical, and ever-evolving directives. In that way, these oligarchs have proclaimed themselves the arbiters of truth, entitled and obliged to censor whoever disagrees with them as systemically racist, adepts of conspiracy theories. 

Corporations, and the government itself, require employees to attend meetings personally to acknowledge their guilt. They solicit mutual accusations. While violent felons are released from prison, anyone may be fired or otherwise have his life wrecked for questioning government/corporate sentiment. Today’s rulers don’t try to convince. They demand obedience, and they punish.

Russians and East Germans under Communists Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker in the 1970s lived under less ruling class pressure than do today’s Americans. And their rulers were smart enough not to insult them, their country, or their race.

In 2015, Americans could still believe they lived in a republic, in which life’s rules flow from the people through their representatives. In 2021, a class of rulers draws their right to rule from self-declared experts’ claims of infallibility that dwarf baroque kings’ pretensions. In that self-referential sense, the United States of America is now a classic oligarchy.

The following explains how this change happened. The clarity that it has brought to our predicament is its only virtue."
Please view this complete and highly recommended article here:

Friday, February 5, 2021

Musical Interlude: Spirit Tribe Awakening, "Raise Positive Vibration"

Spirit Tribe Awakening, "Raise Positive Vibration"
"Peaceful, empowering and soothing music and nature to nurture your 
mind, body, and soul. Supporting and empowering you on your life journey.
 528Hz positive energy healing music with 417Hz Solfeggio frequency.
These frequencies have a specific healing effect on your subconscious mind."
Be kind to yourself, savor this extraordinarily beautiful
 video in full screen. Headphones recommended, not required.

Gregory Mannarino, "IMPORTANT! A Possible EARLY WARNING SIGN From The Bond Market"

Gregory Mannarino,
"IMPORTANT! A Possible 
EARLY WARNING SIGN From The Bond Market"

"GameStop Was A Warning: They Are Weaponizing Censorship To Keep Outsiders Out"

"GameStop Was A Warning: 
They Are Weaponizing Censorship To Keep Outsiders Out"
by Epic Economist

It's not news that the financial system is extremely rigged, but the battle between Reddit Raiders vs. hedge funds has uncovered a much darker reality behind the scenes of Wall Street. The unprecedented restrictions imposed on the trading of GameStop stocks were just a warning. The elites are using their influence to weaponize censorship to keep outsiders out of the markets. It's systemic: the average American is doomed to failure, while the establishment will, of course, always win. Evidently, the ultra-wealthy wouldn't be happy seeing a handful of young online traders profiting from a game created to keep concentrating power on the hands of the powerful while also standing up against institutionalized speculation and the widespread manipulation of the stock markets. The elites are prepared to smash the WallStreetBets' movement and destroy its participants one by one. That's what we expose in this video. 

The founder of Yammer, Craft Ventures, and co-founder of PayPal, David Sacks has recently published an excellent article arguing why the trading ban on GameStop stocks was just a warning coming from the elites. The first issue for the online traders’ group occurred when the digital distribution platform Discord banned the WallStreetBets account after the close Wednesday accusing the group of promoting “hate speech, glorifying violence, and spreading misinformation". At the same time, WallStreetBets investors faced yet another coup. As of Thursday morning, they were locked out of their trading accounts by several online brokerage firms, including Robinhood. Needless to say, that provoked a major backlash and enraged users began registering their discontentment by leaving over 100,000 one-star reviews of the Robinhood app in the Google Play Store, but Google deleted them. 

Keeping in mind that those investors were clumsy outsiders, their primary tools to keep the movement running were online trading and social networking, but both were halted during the peak of the market frenzy, while hedge fund insiders were let off the hook. That is censorship plain and simple, being weaponized to shut up dissonant voices. Currently, tech companies have all the power on their hands, and they benefit from it as much as they can. So whenever is convenient to shutdown a platform, a forum, an account, or whatever means are used to express varying opinions, they will do it on a finger-snap. At a time when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ted Cruz voice similar concerns over what happened to WallStreetBets, we should all be realizing that this isn't a political issue of Left vs. Right anymore. We're now talking about the force of insiders vs. outsiders. 

What social media provided to outsiders was the opportunity to organize themselves so that their actions could have real power to effect change, and also to express their disgust and expose the way incompetent elites protect each other. That's why the elites of Big Business, Big Media, Wall Street, and Washington are completely panicked about the Reddit movement and are willing to leverage any censorship power to keep the outsiders away. 

Radio host Rush Limbaugh has also recently that the establishment will always censor or cancel anything that doesn’t match with the interests of the ruling class, whether it’s free speech or even attitude. Apparently, right now the elite's biggest fear is social media. For that reason, we constantly see them targeting whatever groups disrupt the status quo by accusing them without evidence of spreading hate and misinformation, just like they did with WallStreetBets. Wall Street has just felt the power that organized social networks can have and how, for the first in history, people can find loopholes in the system created by the elites to infiltrate into it and threaten to take over control. Thanks to social media, the outsiders are threatening to seize the Tower for themselves, and the insiders have never been more terrified."

Must Watch! “I See Red Flags - When Will The Economy Crash?”

Jeremiah Babe,

“I See Red Flags - When Will The Economy Crash?”

Musical Interlude: Ludovico Einaudi, "Experience"

Ludovico Einaudi, "Experience"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“While drifting through the cosmos, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud became sculpted by stellar winds and radiation to assume a recognizable shape. Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula, it is embedded in the vast and complex Orion Nebula (M42). A potentially rewarding but difficult object to view personally with a small telescope, the above gorgeously detailed image was recently taken in infrared light by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope in honor of the 23rd anniversary of Hubble's launch.
The dark molecular cloud, roughly 1,500 light years distant, is cataloged as Barnard 33 and is seen above primarily because it is backlit by the nearby massive star Sigma Orionis. The Horsehead Nebula will slowly shift its apparent shape over the next few million years and will eventually be destroyed by the high energy starlight.”

"Life's Funny..."

"And It Was Pointless..."

“And it was pointless… to think how those years could have been put to better use, for he could hardly have put them to worse. There was no recovering them now. You could grieve endlessly for the loss of time and for the damage done therein. For the dead, and for your own lost self. But what the wisdom of the ages says is that we do well not to grieve on and on. And those old ones knew a thing or two and had some truth to tell… for you can grieve your heart out and in the end you are still where you were. All your grief hasn’t changed a thing. What you have lost will not be returned to you. It will always be lost. You’re left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is to go on or not. But if you go on, it’s knowing you carry your scars with you.” 
- Charles Frazier

"The Debt Death Trap"

"The Debt Death Trap"
by Jim Rickards

"This morning we got our first look at what we can expect for the next two years (assuming Joe Biden lasts that long). The Senate voted on Biden’s $1.9 trillion budget resolution last night. The vote broke along partisan lines, ending in a 50-50 stalemate. Republicans had proposed a package that would cost about $600 billion. Vice President Kamala Harris cast the deciding vote at 5:30 this morning, breaking the tie. Harris’s role is key because she’s essentially a 51st senator who will break 50-50 ties in favor of Democrats. You can expect many more of these types of votes.

This morning’s vote allows the legislation to go forward. But that doesn’t mean the process is over. The Senate added amendments to the bill that the House had already passed. For example, Senate Democrats reversed previous Republican provisions that would have supported the Keystone XL pipeline and fracking for oil and natural gas. Cancellation of the Keystone Pipeline will destroy tens of thousands of high-paying jobs with benefits. Denying new gas and oil leases will increase energy prices and diminish America’s newfound energy independence from foreign suppliers.

I’m not going to get too deep in the weeds here, but because the Senate added amendments to the bill, it had to go back to the House, which needed to sign off on the changes. This afternoon it did. The House passed the resolution. A final bill will be drafted and passed through an obscure process called reconciliation, which would deprive the Republicans of the ability to filibuster the bill (although under Senate rules this can only be used once per fiscal year and for that reason is usually reserved for major legislation such as tax law changes).

Difficult To Comprehend: The size and scope of this spending program are difficult to comprehend. Nothing like it has ever occurred in U.S. history, except for FDR’s effort to redirect the entire U.S. economy as part of the effort to win World War II. It will provide aid to some in need but, it will also supply windfalls to favored political interests, whether they are in need or not.

This $1.9 trillion comes on top of the $900 billion spending package passed last month and the $3 trillion of spending packages passed by Congress between April and June in 2020. Of course, this entire run of (essentially) $6 trillion in COVID and economic relief is in addition to the $1 trillion baseline budget deficits already built-in for fiscal 2020 and fiscal 2021. The total deficit spending tab for both years, pandemic and non-pandemic, comes to $8 trillion.

More economic stimulus is waiting in the wings. After the new $1.9 trillion package passes, the White House and Congress will likely pursue another multi-trillion dollar deficit spending program focused on infrastructure, education and aid to state and local governments. Republicans may complain about such big-ticket spending, but their complaints will carry little weight. When Republicans were in control of the White House and Senate in 2020, they passed over $3 trillion in deficit spending programs to deal with the pandemic.

Right now, there is no fiscal discipline. COVID has become an all-purpose excuse for practically unlimited spending. What it will not do is stimulate the economy or end the no-growth and slow-growth depression we are now in. Obviously, the policy response to the pandemic caused the new depression.

The Worst Decline Since 1946: The final numbers on the economy for 2020 are in (subject to the usual adjustment processes). GDP growth in the U.S. for 2020 was negative 3.5%. How bad is that? It is worse than in 2009 when growth collapsed by about 2.4%. It is worse than the 2000 and 1990 recessions, which were both quite mild. It is worse than the severe recession of 1982 when growth fell about 2%. In fact, it is the worst decline since 1946 in the midst of the demobilization after World War II.

Before that, you have to go back to the Great Depression years of 1930, 1931 and 1932 to find a worse collapse. In a $22 trillion economy, a 3.5% collapse equates to about $770 billion in lost output. The actual damage was far greater because output figures and GDP do not capture lost wealth in the form of failed businesses, lost skills, and declining asset values in commercial real estate, airlines, resorts, cruise ships and many other endeavors.

The 2020 collapse was bad enough, but where do we go from here? How will the Biden policy plans play out in the real economy regarding growth, jobs, inflation or deflation? Most analysts and TV commentators say that growth will come roaring back in 2021, and we’ll be back to 2019 levels of output by mid-year. Don’t believe it.

The Biden plan will hurt growth, destroy jobs and produce a new recession as early as the first half of 2021. The overall effect will be deflationary (although inflation will follow in 2022 and later as the effects of deflation become unsustainable due to debt burdens and reduced consumption). The pillars of Biden's program boil down to two things. One is his monetary policy, which consists of zero rates and money printing. The second is his fiscal policy, which includes deficit spending and a higher debt-to-GDP ratio. This will be exacerbated by higher taxes, lower wages (due to more immigration) and more regulation. It’s a recipe for economic disaster.

No Velocity: Monetary policy will fail because velocity is falling faster than money can be printed. Velocity measures turnover, the rate at which money changes hands. Velocity peaked in 2008, just ahead of the global financial crisis, and it has continued to plunge until it took a total cliff dive in 2020 during the pandemic. This is why the Fed has been printing so much money. It takes more money just to keep GDP constant when velocity is collapsing. When velocity drops, you get less “bang for the buck” in terms of economic growth.

The Fed has very little control over velocity. That’s because velocity is driven by psychology and inflationary expectations. Right now, expectations of inflation are low. People don’t want to spend; they want to save or pay down debt. The result is that velocity continues to drop, which is a major headwind to growth.

The Fed’s solution (now endorsed by Janet Yellen, former Fed Chair and new Secretary of the Treasury) is more deficit spending by the Congress. The idea is that if citizens won’t spend, Congress will. The goal is to accelerate money velocity. That might work when you have little debt. But that’s obviously not the case today.

Like Greece, Lebanon, Italy and Japan: The debt-to-GDP ratio is the total amount of U.S. government debt divided by GDP. The U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio is about 125% today. That ratio will get worse once the new Biden spending bills pass, pushing the debt-to-GDP ratio to 130%. The only other developed countries with debt ratios that high are Greece, Lebanon, Italy and Japan.

This debt-to-GDP ratio is highly significant. The research shows that at debt-to-GDP ratios of 90% or less, there is a Keynesian multiplier from government borrowing and spending. You can borrow a dollar, spend a dollar and get, say, $1.25 of GDP. The multiplier drops as the ratio gets higher, but as long as you do not surpass a 90% ratio, there is still some bang for the buck. Once you hit 90%, the multiplier is less than one. The U.S. crossed this critical threshold in 2011.

This means if you borrow a dollar and spend a dollar, you get less than $1.00 of GDP. You’re now in a debt death spiral. When the debt is that high, you can’t borrow your way out of it. Each dollar of additional borrowing adds a dollar to the debt but adds less than a dollar to GDP.

An economic time bomb is ticking. Velocity is dropping. Debt is growing. Growth is slowing. The explosion will come in the form of asset bubbles bursting, stocks crashing and soaring gold prices. It’s a debt death trap."