"Biden Delivers a Sucker Punch"

"Biden Delivers a Sucker Punch"

By Bill Bonner

YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "You’ve already heard the news. Yesterday, Congress passed the latest spending lollapalooza… $1.9 trillion of rancid pork…money for working people… money for non-working people…money for cities… money for states…money for Planned Parenthood…money for “socially disadvantaged” farmers (We are puzzled… Does wheat grow less well for a farmer who is not a member of the local country club?)…money for K-12 schools… colleges… digital media companies (Why would they need money from the government?)…money for federal workers on leave… money for childcare and school lunches… for pregnant and postpartum women…for Amtrak and “communities under economic distress”…for testing animals for COVID-19…for foreign affairs…for science… for space! Wait… What’s all this got to do with COVID-19 relief?

No Sunset: Oh, don’t be silly, Dear Reader. Most likely, not a single life will be saved as a result of this boondoggle. Nor does it really redress the harm done by government busybodies, when they created a panic and shut down the economy.

GDP fell about 2.3% last year. That’s about $498 billion. Last year’s “relief” measures have already offset that with $3.1 trillion. This latest “relief” package brings the total “stimulus” handed out by the feds in response to the coronavirus pandemic to $5 trillion – more than 10 times the actual economic loss. And according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), many of these provisions in the latest “stimulus” package have sunset clauses… meaning they are scheduled to expire sometime in the future. That is how the total cost – as grand as it is – stays under $2 trillion.

But what will most likely happen is that as the sun begins to set, the politicians will agree to extend the programs. In the end, says the CRFB, the cost will probably end up closer to $4 trillion than to $2 trillion.

Pointless and Absurd: So what gives? Why bankrupt the nation? Here’s Joe Biden’s explanation: "This legislation is about giving the backbone of this nation – the essential workers, the working people who built this country, the people who keep this country going – a fighting chance."

What a strange thing to say. Every penny the feds give away must come from the taxpayers… one way or another, sooner or later. Even when they print up fungible tokens, representing dollars that haven’t even been earned yet… perhaps by people who have not even been born yet… all the wealth that those dollars claim must be produced by the taxpayers; there’s no other source.

And if they give to the backbone, they must take from somewhere else – the leg bone… or the skull. It is like a blood transfusion from the left arm to the right one – pointless and absurd – leaving the patient weaker than ever. And if they give money to the people who “keep this country going,” that is, to the truckers, the butchers, the ad men, the poets, and the chicken farmers – whose sweat and toil provides the products and services that keep the country housed, fed, clothed, and entertained – from whom will they take it? From people who don’t work?

Left alone, the taxpayer, present or future, spends his money as he pleases. How does taking it away from him in order to hand it over to people who neither need it, earn it, nor have any right to it make him better off? It is as if some magic happened… that this money – passing through the hands of the parasitic class of lobbyists, connivers, cronies, special interests, and the Deep State – is blessed, like holy water, so that it now gives the people from whom it is taken away a “fighting chance.”

No Fighting Chance: But this is La Bubble Epoch. Things don’t have to make sense. They don’t even have to add up. Logical thought is a faux pas. Common sense is a hindrance. Experience, wisdom, and real skill are just part of the burden of patriarchy, to be shucked off and hidden away, like a Confederate monument, as soon as possible.

Yes, the entire nation has taken off its thinking cap and suspended its disbelief… so that even the most unlikely, mysterious, or miraculous thing will be greeted with a straight face… and treated as though it were a proven, scientific fact. For who doesn’t believe that more money from the feds will produce a boom? The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says world growth is headed for 5.6% this year. Goldman Sachs is calling for 6.8% GDP growth in the U.S. in 2021.

For surely, with so much new liquidity sloshing about, there is bound to be an increase in spending. And gambling. And wild-eyed weirdness. Sure, consumer prices will rise. But that will be a good thing, no? Like giving the common man a pair of brass knuckles, no? At least, that’s what the pundits and sell-side philosophers will say. It will be a sign… that Joe Biden’s big spend-a-thon was paying off.

For surely then, the economy will “take off”… and we will all enjoy a “temporary prosperity”… before the “permanent ruin” settles in. Then, we will see that the fight was rigged all along… and that Joe Biden gave the working man not a “fighting chance.”

Savior of the Empire: Whatever happens, Joe Biden must be gambling that history will fumble… and give him credit, not for knocking out the poor working stiff with his reckless gamble, but for having been in his corner… helping him, encouraging him with a fantasy so obviously numbskull that it wouldn’t fool a six-year-old. And he’s probably right. We’re all on the internet now… and so well informed are we, that we’re ready to believe anything. And when the history books are written, we may find Biden revered – like that other big humbug, Franklin Roosevelt – as a great hero.

And maybe, sitting around campfires many generations from now (the technique of central heating having disappeared when the great economic/financial/social bubble of the 21st century blew up), people will sing rousing ballads about how Joe Biden brought the country out of its post-COVID funk with his bold programs.

They’ll recall how he scored his first success with his $1.9 trillion everything bailout… and was emboldened to go even bigger… with trillions more for a great infrastructure program (perhaps they will look around at unfinished highways… or the rusty tracks of a high-speed railway that never saw a locomotive…) “He had the courage to act,” they will chant (forgetting that former Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke had a copyright on the phrase).

Sucker Punch: Yes, Joe Biden continues in that heroic tradition… George W. Bush… Barack Obama… Donald J. Trump…all with the same basic, empire-destroying formula – make war abroad… spend money at home… bomb and print, murder and fraud…each administration taking it further and further…until finally, the poor working man is flat on his back. Then, we see more clearly that the fight was rigged… and he never had a chance…and that, in 2021, Joe Biden delivered the sucker punch."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

Musical Interlude: Talking Heads, "Road To Nowhere"

 

Talking Heads, "Road To Nowhere"

"All this had happened before, perhaps a million times, and because of this was doomed. There was no ordinary future any more, only this ecstatic tormented terrified present. The future had passed through the present like a sword. We were already, even eye to eye and lip to lip, deep in the horrors to come."

 - Iris Murdoch, "The Black Prince"

"How It Really Is"

 

Absolute Must View! "Shot in the Dark: Medical Doctor Exposes Deadly Dangers of Covid-19 Vaccines"

"Shot in the Dark: 

Medical Doctor Exposes Deadly Dangers of Covid-19 Vaccines"

- https://www.drtenpenny.com/

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Related:

• "The COVID Fraud Will Not Stay Hidden Forever"

• "Doctor Admits Masks Don’t Work: “All Viruses Can Get Through”

• "Redefining Death"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 3/11/21: "Economy In Free-fall Collapse; Stock Market New Record Highs"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 3/11/21:

"Economy In Free-fall Collapse; Stock Market New Record Highs"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"The 'Wait and See' Economy's Moment of Truth"

"The 'Wait and See' Economy's Moment of Truth"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"The defining phrase of the U.S. economy for the past year is "wait and see": every enterprise impacted by the pandemic that didn't close immediately has been in "wait and see" mode, clinging on to the hope that once the pandemic ends then everything will roar back to life, bigger and better than before.

With the promise of herd immunity fast approaching, the moment of truth for "wait and see" is also fast approaching. The conventional view is that the trillions of dollars in stimulus kept business as usual alive and ready to soar back to the good old days. The almost $2 trillion injection of financial smack currently in progress will ignite the afterburners and the economy will rocket higher than anyone can imagine.

The problem with this rosy view is the economy was on fumes before the pandemic, as Gordon Long and I highlighted in our 53-minute presentation, "The Coming Deflationary Tsunami", below. Interest rates had been falling for 40 years and there was little leeway for more of the magic of falling rates. The spending of the upper middle class had already rolled over as the awareness that the longest expansion in U.S. history was faltering seeped into financial decisions--and no wonder, since every trick in the book had been required to keep it alive: zero interest rates, quantitative easing galore, tax cuts, massive deficit spending and speculative bubbles in every asset class.

Then there was the spot of bother in the repo markets. Something had broken in the financial plumbing (a massive break in the sewers?) and the Federal Reserve rushed freshly printed billions to stop the sewage from seeping into the precarious economy. Though nobody dared discuss it, the economy was creaking under the burden of overcapacity in just about everything: too many cafes, too many channels of this and that, too many office towers built for get-rich-quick techies planning to sell out to Big Tech and retire at 25, too many resorts, and so on.

One driver of the overcapacity was the rise of Zombie Corporations - companies that only remain among the living if they can borrow ever more money at lower rates to fill the holes in their balance sheets and cash flow. The Fed's implicit goal was to never let a single Zombie die because that might send the wrong signal, i.e. that creative destruction was allowed. Creative destruction is no longer allowed by the Fed, never ever ever. So the economic landscape is cluttered with Fed zombies.

Also ignored was the inconvenient fact that wages for the bottom 95% have stagnated for decades and so where was all this money being blown coming from? From debt, of course, and the phantom wealth generated by speculative bubbles.

Then there are the demographic headwinds illuminated by Chris Hamilton, most recently in "The Narrative Of Inflation Amid Depopulation." The working-age population has leveled off, along with the expansion of employment, while the number of those with claims on future earnings - the elderly and those "permanently out of the workforce" - are rising.

As Chris points out, speculative asset bubbles are just peachy for those who already own the assets - the top 10% who own close to 90% of financial assets - but of little value to the bottom 90% who get a pathetic 3% of all capital income. Those greatly enriched by the Fed's bubble-blowing are mostly older, those who can't afford homes and other inflated assets are mostly younger, burdened with stagnant wages, student loan debts and an economy that's rigged to favor the few at the expense of the many.

A great many young people are delaying or foregoing marriage and having children because they don't have the means and security do so. So who's going to be paying all the taxes needed to fund the enormous retirement and healthcare costs of 70 million retirees? No problem, we'll just borrow another couple trillion a year forever. (Free fish for everyone forever!)

Nice, but the rest of the world has opted out of buying into our funny-money fantasies. So the Fed will have to buy all the trillions in bonds being issued, and that unleashes second-order effects that have the potential to go non-linear, i.e. actually have negative consequences in the real world.

Then there's the private changes in behaviors and risk assessment that add up to tidal changes in the economy. People are reassessing their exposure to risk, and letting go of activities and expenses they once took for granted. Maybe the $300 trips to the ballpark are no longer worth it; maybe the costs of eating out are recognized as unaffordable. The majority of residents in over-touristed locales no longer want tourism at the same scale. Residents discovered that once the tourists were gone, life was good, even if the tourist-dependent businesses closed and unemployment rose.

Everyone is holding their breath waiting to surface, but many of the enterprises that have clung on in "wait and see" mode will find that things have changed, and time cannot be reversed to summer 2019. All those holding defaulted loans based on a full return to summer 2019 are also holding their breath, hoping that the back rent will be paid in full, the overdue mortgages paid in full, and so on.

The reality is overcapacity, over-indebtedness and stagnant earnings are all deflationary. The "wait and see" economy is about to face its moment of truth, and one truth is the $1.9 trillion being passed out like candy is already spent - as is the economy and the Fed's bag of tricks."

- https://www.oftwominds.com

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Gordon T. Long, 

"Coming Deflationary Tsunami - w/ Charles Hugh Smith"

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Related:

"Too Busy Frontrunning Inflation, Nobody Sees the Deflationary Tsunami"

Greg Hunter, "As Rates Spike Bubbles Pop - Michael Pento"

"As Rates Spike Bubbles Pop"

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Money manager and economist Michael Pento warns the era of super low Fed manipulated interest rates is coming to an end. This is big trouble to the bond market and the overall economy. Pento explains, “I think what’s happening now is about 35 years of government manipulation of markets is about to end. The faith that we have in our government and the faith that we have in our central banks is coming to an end. As evidence of that, the 7-year note auction was the worst auction in U.S. history. It just goes to show you the faith in our bond market is eroding.”

Now, we are facing multiple bubbles as opposed to just the sub-prime crisis in 2007-2008. Pento points out, “So, we have another bubble in real estate, but back in 2007, all we had was a bubble in real estate. We really didn’t have a massive bubble in the stock market. The total market cap to GDP was only 100% back in 2007. Now, it’s 191% of GDP, and, of course, you have a massive bubble in the bond market. You have $15 trillion in negative yielding sovereign debt and a U.S. Treasury at .3% in March of 2020. So, we have a triumvirate of bubbles that are all held together by this artificially low interest rate. Here’s the catch 22... We are sending more checks to people, $1,400 checks in Biden’s Covid relief package. So, we are monetizing debt. We are creating inflation. If you continue to print money, borrow money and monetize that debt, inflation is going to wax higher and higher. You are going to blow up the bond market. If you blow up the bond market, you will blow up high yield, you will blow up credit, you will blow up the real estate market and then the stock market. If they stop, the only buyer of U.S. Treasury bonds is the Federal Reserve. If they lose the bid of the Fed and it stops printing money and buying, rates spike, and then you see a massive deflationary bubble from a massive fiscal and monetary cliff. It’s game over either way, and that’s where we are now. If you keep printing and keep manipulating markets, you have a bond market crisis. Stop printing, you have a deflationary crash of asset prices. That’s it, that’s where we are headed.”

When is this going to come undone? Pento predicts later this year and points to the third or fourth quarter of 2021. Pento says, “This is a very fragile economy. When you see the credit market freeze and these zombie companies can’t issue new debt, and borrowing costs go into double digits and companies start closing the doors and laying off people and you get a massive depression that follows, what is going to be the solution from the central banks? The Fed can’t lower interest rates. They can only increase QE (money printing). How do you bail out an inflationary crisis in the bond market by creating more inflation? That’s the problem.”

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One 

with economist and money manager Michael Pento.

- https://rumble.com/

"All At Once..."

"All at once I feel desperate, outraged. Why am I alone doomed to spend nights of torment, with an unseen jailer, when all the rest of the world sleeps peacefully? By what laws have I been tried and condemned, without my knowledge, and to such a heavy sentence, too, when I do not even know of what or by whom I have been indicted? A wild impulse comes to me to protest, to demand a hearing, to refuse to submit any longer to such injustice. But to whom can one appeal when one does not even know where to find the judge? How can one ever hope to prove ones innocence when there is no means of knowing of what one has been accused? No, there's no justice for people like us in the world: all that we can do is to suffer as bravely as possible and put our oppressors to shame."

-   Anna Kavan, "Asylum Piece"

"Commercial Real Estate Collapse Heading To Catastrophic Bankruptcies And Foreclosures"

Full screen recommended.

"Commercial Real Estate Collapse Heading To 

Catastrophic Bankruptcies And Foreclosures"

by Epic Economist

"The commercial real estate collapse has pushed countless retail chains over the edge throughout the past few years, but ever since the health crisis struck, we have seen big retailers that once seemed too big to fail going bankrupt and shutting down their entire operations overnight. Last year, we witnessed the closure of thousands of retail stores all across the country, and the trend is expected to continue in 2021, as several iconic brands already announced they will be closing hundreds of stores just on the first quarter, with many more to come as consumers are increasingly turning to online shopping.

The reopening scheduled to happen later this year will finally allow us to see how the devastating effects of the recession have emptied out our economic landscape, and the gap created by so many closures is putting the existence of shopping malls at risk According to experts, 25% of all U.S. shopping malls are forecasted to disappear until 2022, adding extra pressure to the commercial real estate collapse and possibly contributing to trigger another massive wave of lay-offs. That's what we are going to investigate in this video.

As e-commerce has been significantly rising, brick-and-mortar retail stores were being wiped out by the thousands every year, particularly those belonging to huge retail chains like Sears and J.C. Penney. Before the health crisis exploded in America, the widespread decay of the retail sector had been prompted by a variety of different factors, including market saturation and the shrinking of the middle class, as our living conditions have considerably deteriorated over the last decade.

Sadly, according to newly available data, as numerous retailers have experienced unrecoverable losses, many of our most beloved iconic brands are likely to fall victim to the retail apocalypse in the coming months. The findings outline that the health crisis might have been the final nail in the coffin of several brands that have been struggling in recent years.

Now, the future of these brands remains uncertain, and it is very unlikely they will ever come back to "normal". The rise of Amazon and other online retailers has pushed brick-and-mortar stores to the brink well before we ever imagined America would face a dramatic economic collapse triggered by a global sanitary emergency. But while it’s indisputable that retail stores were facing challenges for a long time, the impacts of the outbreak cannot be understated.

Measures introduced to supposedly control the spread of the virus, including nationwide lockdowns, accelerated the downfall of many of these companies. Some chains decided to close a portion of their stores to avoid further losses, while others faced a much more brutal fate and were forced to shut down completely or file for bankruptcy. In fact, a recent report from Coresight Research warned that things are bound to get worse as approximately 25,000 stores could be closing permanently as a result of the current recession, and at least 15,000 brick-and-mortar stores could disappear by the end of 2021.

The truth is that the retail apocalypse is leading mall operators to face a reckoning. Many Green Street analysts are highlighting that level of disruption experienced recently was expected to occur over five to 10 years instead of taking place over just two. According to Moody's commercial real estate, in 2020, the national retail vacancy rate increased to 10.5% in the fourth quarter, the highest since 2013, while the mall vacancy rate went up from 0.4% to 10.5%, the highest in decades. Right now, there's "trouble brewing" even at upper-tier malls that once seemed invulnerable to the problems of lower-tier ones.

As a matter of fact, the investment banking company Credit Suisse predicted 25% of all malls in America would be closed by 2022. That's why many experts have been worried the domino effect triggered by store closings and bankruptcies will not only worsen the commercial real estate crisis, as it will also decimate hundreds of thousands of jobs over the two coming years. With almost half of all mall-based department stores expected to close in 2021, at least 1,5 million jobs are on the line, which means the scenario won't only be apocalyptic to retailers but to a large chunk of the U.S. workforce. A massive wave of retail and mall-related lay-offs could potentially take place over the course of 2021. And the impacts of it will send us further away from a recovery than ever before. Darker days are still on the horizon as the widespread collapse of America has just begun."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

“Stimulus Crumbs Are A Joke; America Is Producing Massive Debt; Bubbles Are Overheating; Inequality”

Jeremiah Babe,

“Stimulus Crumbs Are A Joke; America Is Producing Massive Debt; 

Bubbles Are Overheating; Inequality”

"The Government’s Greatest Con Job"

"The Government’s Greatest Con Job"

by Brian Maher

"Dollar: a paper money, silver or cupronickel coin, and monetary unit of the United States, equal to 100 cents. So runs the dictionary definition. But if one dollar equals 100 cents… what then is a cent? The answer is one-hundredth of one dollar. And what again is one dollar? 100 cents. And so we begin an infinite chasing of the tail - one dollar is 100 times one cent, one cent is one dollar divided by 100.

Trillions upon trillions of dollars are rolling from the presses. Many more will follow. We should understand what in fact they are. We seek clarity. We must therefore turn to the Coinage Act of 1792: "The money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars or units… of the value [mass or weight] of a Spanish milled dollar as the same is now current, and to contain three hundred and seventy-one grains and four sixteenth parts of a grain of pure… silver." That is, the dollar was defined by weight - some 371 grains of pure silver - or 0.7734375 of one ounce.

The Coinage Act of 1792 further authorized the production of $10 gold Eagles - “each to be of the value of ten dollars or units and to contain two hundred and forty-seven grains, and four eighths of a grain of pure… gold." One ounce of gold equaled roughly 15 ounces of silver. The Gold Standard Act of 1900 later defined the dollar as “twenty-five and eight-tenths grains of gold nine-tenths fine” - or 0.05375 troy ounces.

Here is the central lesson: Defined in silver, defined in gold… the dollar was nonetheless defined by weight. Today the dollar is defined in cents — cents themselves defined by the dollar. A delirium of confusion surrounds it. In today’s reckoning, we track the evolution of a mighty swindle...

Good as Gold: We begin with this $10 banknote, dated 1928:

The 1928 $10 note bears this inscription: “Redeemable in gold on demand at the United States Treasury, or in gold or lawful money at any Federal Reserve Bank.” In those antique days, a fellow could march into a bank. He could hand the clerk a slip of paper, as illustrated above... And he could demand the denominated amount in gold coin - payable on the nail.

The system imposed a reasonable discipline upon banks… and held inflation in checkmate. Federal Reserve banks were required to keep a 35% reserve of “gold or lawful money" on hand, lest they make a liar of the United States Treasury secretary - in this case, the Hon. Andrew William Mellon. In effect, the private citizen locked the banking system behind golden bars.

Sorry, No Gold: But one Great Depression, one New Deal and one world war later… we come now to a $10 banknote, dated 1950:

In appearance, it is nearly a perfect twin to the 1928 model — with one infinitely telling exception. Can you sniff it out? Recall, the 1928 note claims it is: “Redeemable in gold on demand at the United States Treasury, or in gold or lawful money at any Federal Reserve Bank.”

But here reads the 1950 version: “This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private, and is redeemable in lawful money at the United States Treasury, or at any Federal Reserve Bank.” The fine print disguises a vast mischief: The gold provision was stricken from the record. The bankers had broken free from their golden prison… and no longer could a private citizen bring them to honest account. But what about “lawful money”? What is it?

‘I Want My Lawful Money’: In 1947, a certain gentleman - A.F. Davis by name - dispatched the following note to the United States Treasury, accompanied by a $10 note: "I am sending you herewith via registered mail one $10 Federal Reserve note. On this note is inscribed the following: "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private, and is redeemable in lawful money at the United States Treasury, or at any Federal Reserve bank." In accordance with this statement, will you send me $10.00 in lawful money?"

The acting treasurer, M.E. Slindee, responded after this fashion:

"Dear Mr. Davis,

Receipt is acknowledged of your letter of Dec. 9 with enclosure of one ten-dollar ($10.) Federal Reserve note. In compliance with your request, two five-dollar United States notes are transmitted herewith."

And so, Mr. Slindee began chasing his tail - what the philosophical men call circular reasoning.

The Government Gives Up: In exchange for his $10 note, Mr. Davis received by mail two $5 bills bearing the same pledge to redeem in lawful money. But this Davis fellow would not be so easily shooed off. He returned one of the $5 bills, once again demanding lawful money in exchange.

Finally, Mr. Slindee threw up the sponge:

"Dear Mr. Davis:

"You are advised that the term "lawful money" has not been defined in federal legislation. It first came to use prior to 1933 when some United States currency was not legal tender but could be held by national banking associations as lawful money reserves.

Since the act of May 12, 1933, as amended by the Joint Resolution of June 5, 1933, makes all coins and currency of the United States legal tender and the Joint Resolution of Aug. 27, 1935, provides for the exchange of United States coin or currency for other types of such coin or currency, the term "lawful money" no longer has such special significance. The $5 United States note received with your letter of Dec. 23 is returned herewith."

In 1963, all promises to redeem notes in lawful money were stricken from United States currency.

The Evolution of a Swindle: Here, in graphic detail, the devolution of American money:

A Modest Defense of Paper Money: Say what you will of paper money. But in one sense, it is redeemable - if you’ll forgive the expression in the present context. Like gold and silver, paper money files a claim upon Earth’s resources. It is woven from cotton and fashioned into linen. A paper dollar is tangible. A fellow can hold it in his hand, in his wallet, in his mattress. It cannot be erased at the stroke of a key. The paper dollar is also anonymous. Once out of your hands, it washes its hands of you.

None of these happy virtues apply to digital money… If paper money invites abuse... what about digital money?

Bound to Get Into Trouble: Digital money removes all natural checks on monetary production. It has no tangible existence. It is limited only by the discretion of men. Wispy as fog, slippery as oil, it is conjured into existence… as if by the magician’s wand. Digital money is therefore the type of money bound to get itself into trouble. And it gets around the world at electronic speeds.

It is the ideal money for a government swollen to ghastly dimensions - its issue being unlimited in theory. Digital money can also disappear at a keystroke. The bank can freeze you out of it. Every transaction goes on your permanent record. And if the electricity is out, if the power grid is ungridded, how do you purchase your essentials with digital money?

Paper money can see you through. Thus we raise a half-throated defense of paper money today... We cannot transact in lawful money as originally defined by statute - gold and silver. In its absence, we will settle for paper money. That is, a money we can at least keep our hands on… and our eyes on..."

- dailyreckoning.com

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Related:

"The Greatest Swindle in American History… 

And How They’ll Try It Again Soon"

Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, "I Am Willing"

Liquid Mind, "I Am Willing"

Beautiful playlist follows.

"A Look to the Heavens"

“This colorful skyscape features the dusty, reddish glow of Sharpless catalog emission region Sh2-155, the Cave Nebula. About 2,400 light-years away, the scene lies along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy toward the royal northern constellation of Cepheus.  

Astronomical explorations of the region reveal that it has formed at the boundary of the massive Cepheus B molecular cloud and the hot, young, blue stars of the Cepheus OB 3 association. The bright rim of ionized hydrogen gas is energized by the radiation from the hot stars, dominated by the bright blue O-type star above picture center. Radiation driven ionization fronts are likely triggering collapsing cores and new star formation within. Appropriately sized for a stellar nursery, the cosmic cave is over 10 light-years across.”

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

Chet Raymo, “Trying To Be Good”

“Trying To Be Good”

by Chet Raymo

“A few lines from Mary Oliver's poem "Wild Geese":

    "You do not have to be good.
    You do not have to walk on your knees
    for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
    You only have to let the soft animal of your body
    love what it loves."

"I've quoted these lines before, if not here, then elsewhere. When I first read them back in the late 80s, they resonated with what I felt at the time. I had spent part of my earliest adulthood walking on my knees, both literally and metaphorically, seeking to tame what I took to be the animal within. Saint Augustine was whispering in my ear, and Bernanos' gloomy country priest walked at my side. I was ready to follow Thomas Merton into the desert; indeed, I once took myself briefly to the monastery at Gethsemane, Kentucky, where Merton was in residence. That was a journey of more than a hundred miles, and I was busy repenting, although of what I don't know.

As I read those lines from Mary Oliver in middle age, I had long been cultivating the "soft animal" within, immersing myself in the is-ness of things, the flesh and blood, the gorgeously sensual. No more walking on my knees, repenting. I walked proudly upright, with my sketchbook and my watercolors, my binoculars and my magnifier, sniffing the world like an animal on the prowl. I was letting my body learn to "love what it loves." Those were the years I wrote "The Soul of the Night" and "Honey From Stone" - the most intensely creative years of my life. The world offered itself to my imagination, if I may borrow another line from "Wild Geese."

And now, another half-lifetime has passed. The soft animal dozes, the body seeks repose. And I think of the first line quoted above: "You do not have to be good." What could the poet have possibly meant by that? Of course one has to be good. In a cell at Gethsemane or on the bridge over Queset Brook, one has to be good. And so one tries, one tries. The soft animal of the body that nature has contrived for us is not fine-tuned for goodness.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

•

“Wild Geese”

"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things."

- Mary Oliver

"The Only Absolute..."

"Never perceive anything as being inevitable or predestined.

The only absolute is uncertainty."

- Lionel Suggs

"Humans may crave absolute certainty; they may aspire to it; they may pretend, as partisans of certain religions do, to have attained it. But the history of science- by far the most successful claim to knowledge accessible to humans- teaches that the most we can hope for is successive improvement in our understanding, learning from our mistakes, an asymptotic approach to the Universe, but with the proviso that absolute certainty will always elude us."

- Carl Sagan

Gregory Mannarino, Post-market 3/10/21: "And I Wonder Who Bought All The Debt Today? Guesses?"

Gregory Mannarino, Post-market 3/10/21:

"And I Wonder Who Bought All The Debt Today? Guesses?"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Gerald Celente, Trends Journal: "The Wizard of Covid, Who is Behind the Curtain?"

Gerald Celente, Trends Journal: 

"The Wizard of Covid, Who is Behind the Curtain?"

"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over hype and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in the increasingly turbulent times ahead."

- https://trendsresearch.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Hoschton, Georgia, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"It Takes Courage..."

"Failure is unimportant.

It takes courage to make a fool of yourself."

- Charlie Chaplin

"To Wall Street, the Greatest Money Laundering Operation and Generator of False Wealth Ever Conceived"

"To Wall Street, the Greatest Money Laundering 

Operation and Generator of False Wealth Ever Conceived"

By Chris Black

"The people who are in the know get a front row seat to the biggest train wreck of all time. It takes around 1-2 years for the initial effects of an event to truly show up in the economy. Right now you are beginning to see the real effects of shutting down the entire country one year ago.

Businesses are going to go bankrupt in numbers never seen before in history over the next year. It doesn’t matter if everything opens up, the supply chain was destroyed, the core of small business America is gone, and the only source for income is now the government. Entire cities are now boarded up with nothing left of commerce.

The things that drove people to the city, like shopping, and restaurants, are still shut down. You went to those things after you sought entertainment. Without the entertainment venues, everything else fails. How is anything outside Fenway going to survive when only 2000 people are allowed to go to a Red Sox game? How is the stadium going to survive? 5000 people at a Patriots game? The team doesn’t survive.

Cleveland Ohio is now a ghost town. The current situation makes the dark times of the 1970s look like the roaring twenties.

People thought 1929 was crazy and it could never happen again. It took 70 years but it happened.

1999 was insane and everyone knew it. But Wall Street was given a huge bailout and financial deregulation allowed a new massive bubble to form.

They called 2008-09 a financial crisis. Compared to what has happened over the last decade, it was nothing. Now every other bubble in history, including the South Seas and Tulip mania look like tiny blips.

Apple has fallen below $2 trillion, wiping out the entire valuation of the company prior to 2018.

That is how insane this bubble is. A company can have its total market cap after nearly 40 years of being a publicly traded company wiped out 100%, AND STILL BE WORTH $1.9 TRILLION!!!!! If Apple drops back to $1 trillion in market value, it would be the greatest crash of market valuation in history, and still leave the company worth nearly double what it was three years ago.

Global Macro is clearly filled with idiots.

The incomes of millions of workers have been permanently destroyed. The businesses aren’t coming back. What will be opened will be opened with diminished capacity. The supply chains are ruined and costs have skyrocketed. The only things that came through unscathed were the massive megacap companies that have been destroying the sustainable economy for decades.

Inflation is running at rates not seen since the 1970s and incomes are dropping. The things left alive have increased prices 25% since September. Restaurant meals that were $12 are now $17, you can’t even feed three people at Applebee’s for under $50. The entire leisure and hospitality industry is decimated and Covid regulations won’t be going away for a long time. This will keep a lid on the recovery in this sector.

The United States is dead. China is the new king of the world.

GDP is simply a measure of the transfer of money, not real economic activity. Sending a couple hundred billion to Israel, so that Israel can send it back to their agents around the world to buy up property and businesses doesn’t grow anything. It just concentrates power. But those transfers count as growth in GDP.

The vast majority of Americans do not care about stocks, even less care about crypto. The Wall Street Bets crowd is going to learn the hard way about what happens when the SEC and the IRS get involved.

If you actually made money and pay taxes, the “stimulus” is just a forward payment of a tax credit. Those who normally expect to get $2000-3000 back at tax time are in for a rude surprise. If you thought you were getting an extra couple thousand dollars, you’re wrong. You just got your refund early.

The wealthy don’t care about $1400, but they’ll claim that the stimulus is great for stocks, because if stocks go up 1%, they will make a lot more than $1400 on their holdings. The stimulus was really nothing but a gift to those of our society that live off government hand-outs. Because they pay no taxes, they just get to keep the cash. The “thank you” note for voting more big government I guess…"

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

"The Marauders Are Coming...In A Month!"

"The Marauders Are Coming...In A Month!"

by Pinball Preparedness

"The rent/mortgage moratorium ends on March 31st. Up to 20 million people are gonna be homeless on April 1st. This is WORSE than the great Depression. What are you gonna do when they come to your door for help…hundreds of them?"

"How It Really Is"

 

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 3/10/21"

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 3/10/21"

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"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!

Your guide:

Gregory Mannarino, AM 3/10/21

"Critical Alert! 

Today Especially Watch The Bond Market- Here's Why"

- 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/

March 9th and 10th, Updated Daily 

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Financial Stress Index

"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."

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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/

"The Fed’s Most Convenient Lie: A CPI Charade"

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And now, the End Game...

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Oh yeah...

"Let’s Compare The U.S. Military To The Russian Military And The Chinese Military"

"Let’s Compare The U.S. Military To 

The Russian Military And The Chinese Military"

by Michael Snyder

"A couple decades ago, the U.S. military was an unparalleled fighting machine. Both Russia and China seemed hopelessly behind, and nobody dared to challenge America’s military superiority. Everyone else was battling for second place in the pecking order, and they knew it. But since that time, Russia and China have engaged in extremely aggressive modernization programs, while the U.S. military has chosen to focus on becoming more “diverse” and “inclusive”. As a result, the balance of power has changed dramatically. In this article, I would like to focus on a few examples that demonstrate the shift that has taken place.

For instance, the Russians are extremely excited about their new ultra-quiet Borei-class submarines that can rain death and destruction down upon their enemies from thousands of miles away: "Each of the submarine’s sixteen R-30 Bulava (“Mace”) missiles typically carries six 150-kiloton nuclear warheads designed to split apart to hit separate targets. This means one Borei can rain seventy-two nuclear warheads ten times more destructive than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima on cities and military bases over 5,800 miles away. The Borei is the most advanced SSBN in the Russian Navy, and is designed to replace its seven Soviet-era Delta-class SSBNs."

In China, scientists have been feverishly working to develop fearsome biologically-enhanced “super soldiers” that could potentially be far superior to standard western soldiers in a future war: "U.S. intelligence shows that China has conducted “human testing” on members of the People’s Liberation Army in hope of developing soldiers with “biologically enhanced capabilities,” the top U.S. intelligence official said Friday."

John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, included the explosive claim in a long Wall Street Journal op-ed in which he made the case that China poses the pre-eminent national security threat to the U.S.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden says that the U.S. military is “making good progress” on feminist issues. Some of the current priorities include “creating maternity flight suits” and loosening hairstyle requirements: "You know, some of - some of it is relatively straightforward work where we’re making good progress designing body armor that fits women properly; tailoring combat uniforms for women; creating maternity flight suits; updating - updating requirements for their hairstyles."

Of course any of the old-timers that dare to object to the new “woke military” are being purged, and so soon there won’t be any dissenting voices standing in the way of the social justice reforms that the Biden administration wishes to implement.

Over in Russia, “diversity” is not a military priority. Instead, they are getting ready to introduce the new Sarmat intercontinental nuclear missiles into service. These new missiles can travel at speeds of up to 15,000 mph, and a single missile has enough firepower to “wipe out Texas”: "RUSSIA is poised to test an “unstoppable” 15,000 mph nuclear missile it boasts can beat any defense and wipe out Texas. The RS-28 Sarmat doomsday rocket is now primed to replace the much-feared R-36 – once dubbed the “Satan” nuke by Nato. The Kremlin brags it has a range of around 6,200 miles, can carry 16 warheads and is able to dodge any missile defense system.

At the same time, the Chinese are rapidly developing highly advanced missile delivery systems that look just like “standard international shipping containers”: "This missile would be a land-attack variant of an advanced anti-ship missile that would be deployed in launchers appearing to be standard international shipping containers from the outside. Such containers are being used all around the world for moving millions of tons of goods, and are often placed on the deck of large freighters.

The YJ-18C is China’s version of the Club-K cruise missile built by Russia that also uses a launcher disguised as a shipping container. Israel also is working on a container-launched missile called the Lora. Rick Fisher, a China military affairs expert, said he is not surprised China is copying the Russian Club container-launched missile. “It fits with China’s penchant for seeking asymmetric advantages against its enemies,” he said.

Of course the U.S. military is modernizing as well. In fact, it has been reported that U.S. strategic nuclear forces are no longer using 8-inch floppy disks from the 1970s: "In 2014, “60 Minutes” made famous the 8-inch floppy disks used by one antiquated Air Force computer system that, in a crisis, could receive an order from the president to launch nuclear missiles from silos across the United States. But no more. At long last, that system, the Strategic Automated Command and Control System or SACCS, has dumped the floppy disk, moving to a “highly secure solid state digital storage solution” this past June, said Lt. Col. Jason Rossi, commander of the Air Force’s 595th Strategic Communications Squadron."

That is exciting news. What is next? Will they finally get rid of all of their old rotary phones? Meanwhile, President Biden is making it exceedingly clear that the U.S. military will have a culture of “inclusiveness” from this point forward: "That’s why we moved so quickly to overturn the discriminary - discriminatory ban on transgender service, and why General Austin’s first memo was a directive to take sexual assault in the military seriously. Every single person, no matter their gender identity, sexual orientation, race, or religious background, deserves to feel safe in the ranks and to have their contributions valued."

I could go on and on with more examples, but I think that most of you get the point. The U.S. military is being transformed into an institution of social change, and at the same time Russia and China are tightly focused on trying to figure out how to fight and win World War III.

When it comes time to fight a real war, do you think that we will actually win? Just because the U.S. military was overwhelmingly dominant at one time, that does not mean that it is still that way today or that it will be that way in the future. One of the only things that is constant about our world is change, and right now the U.S. military is definitely changing in the wrong direction."

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "The Emerald Way"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "The Emerald Way"

"This is the title track to our album, "The Emerald Way." The Emerald Way refers to that moment in life when a pivotal choice must be made – to choose the way that is customary and expected of us – or to head down the overgrown hidden path leading to the unknown."

"A Look to the Heavens"

“A now famous picture from the Hubble Space Telescope featured Pillars of Creation, star forming columns of cold gas and dust light-years long inside M16, the Eagle Nebula. This false-color composite image views the nearby stellar nursery using data from the Herschel Space Observatory's panoramic exploration of interstellar clouds along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. Herschel's far infrared detectors record the emission from the region's cold dust directly. 

The famous pillars are included near the center of the scene. While the central group of hot young stars is not apparent at these infrared wavelengths, the stars' radiation and winds carve the shapes within the interstellar clouds. Scattered white spots are denser knots of gas and dust, clumps of material collapsing to form new stars. The Eagle Nebula is some 6,500 light-years distant, an easy target for binoculars or small telescopes in a nebula rich part of the sky toward the split constellation Serpens Cauda (the tail of the snake).”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160728.html 

"Let Us Not Make Any Mistake About It..."

"We have got some very big problems confronting us and let us not make any mistake about it, human history in the future is fraught with tragedy. It's only through people making a stand against that tragedy and being doggedly optimistic that we are going to win through. If you look at the plight of the human race it could well tip you into despair, so you have to be very strong."

- Robert James Brown