Monday, March 15, 2021

"Kool-Aid Time"

"Kool-Aid Time"
by Jeff Thomas

"Recently, the Los Angeles school district introduced a Microsoft-developed COVID tracking app, to allow students to collect data relative to their own COVID testing and that of their fellow students. In addition to the social implication of students judging each other based upon test results, all data will be reported to health authorities, should they wish to take action. The app will generate a QR code for each student and staff member, so that each can be regularly monitored. Superintendent Austin Beutner commented that the code is "Sort of like the golden ticket in ‘Willy Wonka.’ Everyone with this pass can easily get into a school building."

Of course, this makes no sense whatever. Most schools are not even open in California, due to the strength of the Teachers’ Union’s demands, but if and when schools do open, they will do so with a new paradigm: that all those attending the school can be named and shamed, should their COVID passes not be up to scratch.

A mere decade ago, such an autocratic development would have been big news. The very idea of a school district’s interference in the personal lives of students would have stood out dramatically. But the ’20s decade is no ordinary one. 2020 itself was the year of The Great Upset, in which all that seemed safe and predictable was tossed into the air. Police stood by as rioters created destruction in cities across the US. 

A national election was turned by both parties into an utter shambles. And an overactive media convinced entire nations of people that a seasonal virus was a pandemic for which every citizen must take an injection, in spite of the admission that the vaccine will not cure the virus nor even stop the transmission of it. And yet, should people refuse to take the vaccine, they may be deprived of the right to travel, go to work, or even congregate with others. Their punishment may be imprisonment within their own homes, should they refuse to get the unnecessary jab.

2021 will be even more chaotic, but the theme of the chaos will differ from that of 2020. The groundwork of confusion and uncertainty is now well in place and the next phase has begun – that of the removal of reality from the consciousness of the populace. This will be the period in which logic is tossed out on a wholesale basis.

As observed above, dramatic restrictions will be placed on schoolchildren as to whether or not they may attend, even though schools may remain closed. Non-citizens will be encouraged to cross the border into the US in their thousands, yet actual US citizens in Florida will be limited as to whether they are allowed to travel north, into Georgia, as punishment for having largely beaten the virus with minimal restrictions on personal movement.

Full-blown riots in cities across the nation will be tolerated, but the equivalent of a frat party break-in at the Capitol Building will be treated as a terrorist attack.

Children’s books will be banned due to racist content that clearly does not exist.

Children will be taught to respect over one hundred genders, even though the instructors themselves have difficulty making any sense of them all. We’ve already reached the point that any school-age child could accurately say, like the White Queen in Alice in Wonderland, "Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

What we shall experience in 2021 will be a rolling-out of logic that’s not just skewed but turned on its head. One Mister Orwell warned of this concept in his excellent books, "Animal Farm" and "1984." In the former, the leadership morphed from a state in which the motto was "All animals are equal," into a tyrannical one in which the motto became, "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."

In the latter book, the Ministry of Truth had three slogans: "War Is Peace," "Freedom Is Slavery," and "Ignorance Is Strength." Additionally, the Ministry created doublethink – the ability to hold two completely contradictory beliefs at the same time, yet to believe that both are true. "Truth" was malleable. It was whatever was convenient for the Powers that Be to dictate at any given time. And we are seeing that begin to play out larger in today’s world.

"Conspiracy theory" has now come to mean any explanation that does not entirely agree with the official narrative. "The science" has become a catch phrase that, when attached to any narrative, with or without supporting evidence, is intended to give the narrative a seal of approval as fact.

We are in the early stages of the elimination of Truth as a basis of belief. To many, this Orwellian development may seem unprecedented, but in fact, it’s been used many times in the past. Vladimir Lenin, Chairman Mao, Idi Amin and many other despots made use of it. Adolf Hitler, with the help of Joseph Goebbels, made it an art form.

Yet we need not look to political leaders to see evidence of the elimination of Truth. It’s been around in one form or another for as long as mankind has existed. Although there have been prophets throughout history who have sought to expand the general awareness of truth, most of them have been co-opted over the millennia to create organized religions, which accomplish the exact opposite of Truth. Once religion becomes an institution, it’s the institution itself that becomes sacrosanct. Strict rules are created, with accompanying punishments either in this world or the hereafter.

It may be suggested that the elimination of Truth that we’re being expected to accept at present is of no real consequence, that it’s just a trend that will fizzle out at some point and the world will return to normal. But when entire governments, along with their henchmen in the media, make the elimination of Truth a major campaign, for its own sake, we should take caution.

As to how far this can go once we give in and play along, we can look to Guyana in 1978, where hundreds of people, by complying blindly with their leader, accepted an ongoing cancellation of logic until they willingly drank the Kool-Aid that would kill them. These were otherwise normal people, who had made the one mistake of continuing to go along each time they were told yet another "Truth" that was impossible.

As easy as it is to go along with political correctness, the dumbing down of our children and the general acceptance of "science" that’s clearly not science, it’s risky indeed. It’s clear there are some ominous social, political, cultural, and economic trends playing out right now. As you know, government bureaucrats never let a crisis go to waste. It’s their modus operandi. And those who promote the elimination of Truth should be looked upon as a very real danger."

"A Refining Process..."

“Life is a refining process. Our response to it determines whether we’ll be ground down or polished up. On a piano, one person sits down and plays sonatas, while another merely bangs away at “Chopsticks.” The piano is not responsible. It’s how you touch the keys that makes the difference. It’s how you play what life gives you that determines your joy and shine.”
- Barbara Johnson

"Stimulus Addiction Disorder: The Debt-Disposable Earnings Pyramid"

"Stimulus Addiction Disorder: 
The Debt-Disposable Earnings Pyramid"
by Charles Hugh Smith

"For those who suspect the status quo is unsustainable but aren't quite sure why, I've prepared a simple chart that explains the financial precariousness many sense. The chart above depicts the two core elements of a debt-based, consumerist economy: disposable earnings, defined as the earnings left after paying for essentials which can then be used to service debt and debt.

In other words, if all the household earnings are spent on non-discretionary expenses (rent or mortgage, taxes, food, utilities, healthcare, etc.) then there is no money left to pay the interest and principal on a loan. Lenders consider this household uncreditworthy for the simple reason that their earnings cannot support the monthly nut of debt service (interest and principal).

Note the word earnings as opposed to income. Social entitlements such as Social Security are income but they are funded by taxes paid by those with earnings. (All of America's social entitlements are pay as you go - the trust funds are PR fiction.) The investment income (interest) paid to owners of Treasury bonds is also paid by taxes on earnings.

All the interest and principal of debt is ultimately paid out of earnings, either private-sector debt paid directly out of wages or public-sector debt paid out of taxes which are paid out of earnings.

The problem with servicing debt out of income is two-fold: one, earnings of the bottom 95% have been stagnant for decades, which means earnings aren't actually rising in terms of the goods and services they can buy, and two, the cost of non-discretionary expenses (essentials) has been rising, especially the big-ticket costs such as housing, healthcare and higher education.

You see the problem: since earnings are flat and the cost of essentials are steadily rising, there is less disposable earnings left every month to service debt. This is a problem in an economy like America's that depends on debt-funded consumption to fuel "growth." No increase in debt means no increase in consumption which means no "growth."

In response, the status quo - the Federal Reserve and the federal government - have played two financial tricks to maintain the illusion that earnings can support more debt: one, the Fed has lowered interest rates to near-zero, reducing the costs of mortgages (but not the sky-high interest rates charged on student loans or credit cards, of course) so the same stagnant earnings can support a much larger mortgage, and two, the federal government has increased its own borrowing to fund various stimulus programs, most of which are corporate welfare to monopolies and cartels in the form of subsidies, tax breaks, government contracts, etc. But as the consumerist economy weakens, the government is increasing its stimulus to households as well - all with borrowed money that is theoretically serviced by taxes on earnings.

Alas, these tricks are not sustainable. Interest rates can't go lower than zero without bankrupting the banking sector, and federal spending is completely untethered from tax revenues. The "solution" is obvious: borrow the money needed to service new and existing debt. This is the definition of a zombie economy comprised of zombie companies and zombie consumers that need to borrow more to sustain the illusion of solvency, i.e. that their disposable earnings are sufficient to service all their debts.

Notice that the debt-disposable pyramid is inverted: an ever-larger amount of debt is being piled on an ever-shrinking amount of disposable earnings. The trick of borrowing more to make the payments on the existing debt and fund new consumption results in a compounding of debt, not an arithmatic (linear) increase in debt: debt grows geometrically while the disposable earnings needed to service the debt remain stagnant.

The only "solution" left is Stimulus Addiction Disorder (SAD): the Fed must create trillions of dollars out of thin air to buy the Treasury bonds that are sold to fund trillions of dollars in stimulus - not once or twice, but from now on until the entire travesty of a mockery of a sham collapses under its own weight of flim-flammery and fraud.

Artifice, illusion and simulacra are not real, and what's not real vanishes back into the air whence it came. One glance at the chart above explains why the status quo is locked on run to fail and will implode in a spectacular collapse of the unsustainable debt super-nova. SAD, to be sure."

"Could Be Worse..."

“I’d been in hairier situations than this one. Actually, it’s sort of depressing, thinking how many times I’d been in them. But if experience had taught me anything, it was this: No matter how screwed up things are, they can get a whole lot worse.”
- Jim Butcher

"Beware The The Ides Of March"

Plotting, premonition and chaotic violence – 
an ancient account of Caesar’s demise.
by Voices of the Past
‘The body of Caesar lay just where it fell, ignominiously stained with blood – a man who had advanced westward as far as Britain and the Ocean, and who had intended to advance eastward against the realms of the Parthians and Indians, so that, with them also subdued, an empire of all land and sea might be brought under the power of a single head. There he lay.’

Nicolaus of Damascus was a prominent Jewish writer, philosopher and statesman of the first centuries BCE and CE. More than earning his multi-hyphenate status, during his life he served as a tutor to the children of Antony and Cleopatra and met, as an emissary, the emperor Augustus, writing, among other works, his biography – from which this vivid account of Julius Caesar’s assassination is excerpted. A haunting depiction of one of the most infamous moments in history, his retelling is rich with context, dramatic ironies and illustrative details, including glimpses into the Roman Senates’ plotting and the chaotic violence of the ultimate act."
As depicted by HBO's "Rome:
"Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous."
-  William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"
HBO, "Rome", The murder of Julius Caesar.
The aftermath...
HBO, "Rome", Octavian Vs. the Senate

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

"A Bad Bet"

"A Bad Bet"
By Bill Bonner

"Caesar: The Ides of March are come.
Soothsayer: Ay, Caesar, but not gone."
– "Julius Caesar," Act III, Scene I

YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "We’re having a jolly time here in Ireland. We just finished our quarantine (two weeks after arrival). But the whole country is buttoned down. We’re not permitted to go more than 3 miles (5 kilometers) from home… unless we have a good reason. Whether the lockdowns have done any good or not, we don’t know. But Ireland has only 93 deaths per 100,000 population. The U.S. is up to 163.

In any case, lockdowns are okay with us. We work from home, anyway. And there’s nowhere we especially want to go. We do need provisions, however. “Can we go into town?” we asked our handyman, Matt. “It’s a little further than 5 kilometers.” “Oh… don’t worry about it. This is the countryside. Everybody goes more than 3 miles. The roads twist around and soon, you’ve gone 3 miles and gotten nowhere. “Besides,” he added with a sly smile, “it’s three miles as the crow flies.”

As the Crow Flies: Stopped by the Gardai (the local constabulary)… in a roadblock: “You’re a bit far from home, aren’t you?” “Not as the crow flies,” we replied. “Now what kind of crows are these? You must be at least 10 miles from Youghal. Must be some American crows. Go along with you… and remember the 3-mile limit.” “Yes, sir. I’m on my way.”

Marvelous Stone Lodge: This past weekend, we took up our regular pastime – building things. Wherever we go, we usually have projects underway. And when we return, we find our tools and pick up where we left off. About a quarter mile from the house was an overgrown, abandoned gatehouse. So covered in vines was it, that we didn’t even know it was there when we bought the place. Then, when winter came, among the vines and briars, we found a marvelous little lodge, built of cut stone, with an octagonal center and two wings. “This would make a great office,” said Elizabeth. And so, we set to work.

It is a small project. And we intended to do it ourselves and had already done some clearing the year before. We intended to return to it last May. But along came the COVID-19. Trapped in Argentina, we could make no progress, so we gave the job to our friend, Mick, a local Irish builder. He tore off the old roof and put back a new one… took down the wobbly walls and rebuilt them, pointing up the joints of the others.
Mick “pints” up the joints.

This Is Ireland: And now, we are insulating, sheathing… and electrifying. While we can do these things ourselves, we are not good at them. So, we let the professionals continue and turn our attention to simpler, rougher work outside. Specifically, we are putting up a shed, where we’ll be able to stack our firewood and keep a few tools.

Normally, you build walls before you put on the roof. But this is Ireland, and it rains a lot. We need to get the space covered as soon as possible. Stonemasonry is fun to do. But it takes time. Instead, we propped the roof ridge on top of the old stone wall… and ran the rafters down to a 2x10, attached to two posts. Builders will notice that the rafters are neither on 18” centers, nor 24” centers. They’re on 1-meter (about 3-foot) centers. Ireland has gone metric. And with no snow load to worry about, and lightweight tin, roofing frames tend to be on the light side, too.
A shed in a hurry.
Thus, in a couple of days, we were able to get the roof on. Now, with some protected space available, it will be easier to go back and fill in the missing stone walls.

World of Money: Meanwhile… In the world of money, everything is possible. Everything is at play. Nothing is true. Nothing is straight or on-the-level. Everything is subject to interpretation and manipulation, lies and humbuggery. It’s La Bubble Epoch. The best of times… and the worst of times. Grand and squalid. An information age, where nobody knows anything, and even the surest lessons of history are forgotten.

Over the weekend, the sober financial press began taking stock of Joe Biden’s remarkable $1.9 trillion boondoggle. The Wall Street Journal, for example, notes that the giveaways are likely to become permanent. It is already fretting about the taxes that will be needed to pay for them: "A group of progressive lawmakers including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) recently proposed a so-called ultra-millionaire tax. The legislation would create a 2% annual tax on the net worth of households and trusts between $50 million and $1 billion and an additional 1% surtax on those above $1 billion."

The Financial Times, meanwhile, takes a more historical view. Biden is “country-building,” it says. And the whole nation is edging away from Ronald Reagan’s small government and back towards the big, fat budgets of Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. And why not? With so much free money available, says Maya MacGuineas, of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, lawmakers are “almost numb” to fiscal restraints.

Adds Chattanooga mayor, Andy Berke: “People have been knocking on our doors asking for affordable housing, job training and enhanced transit… The public is excited to see the federal government taking action after way too many years of dysfunction.”

No Turning Around: At least The Economist notices the cliff ahead. "Yet, though today’s policymakers have a guaranteed place in economic history, they may not come to be seen as heroes. That is because America is running an unpredictable three-pronged economic experiment that features historic levels of fiscal stimulus, a more tolerant attitude at the Fed[eral Reserve] towards temporary overshoots in inflation, and huge pent-up savings which no one knows if consumers will hoard or spend. This experiment has no parallel since the second world war. The danger for America and the world is that the economy overheats…

Mr. Biden’s stimulus is a big gamble. If it pays off, America will avoid the miserable low-inflation, low-rate trap in which Japan and Europe look stuck. Other central banks may copy the Fed’s new target. Massive fiscal stimulus may become the normal response to recessions. The risk, however, is that America is left with rising debts, an inflation problem and a central bank facing a test of its credibility."

Big gamble? What are the odds? 

No, there’s no theoretical reason to think that real output can be replaced with fake money.

No, there’s no example in history where money-printing has proven successful at creating sustained, real economic growth and prosperity.

No, there’s no way to stop the money-printing. Households, businesses, and the government now rely on it.

No, there’s no painless way to return to normal interest rates and normal fiscal/monetary policies.

No, there’s no plausible reason to think that this won’t end in disaster, just like every other episode of runaway money-printing in history.

But heck… this is La Bubble Epoch… everything is possible… even things that are impossible. Hand out $1.9 trillion in money you don’t have… to people who don’t need it, haven’t earned it, and don’t deserve it? No one will lend you that much, so just print it up yourself. A gamble? Perhaps. But we’ll take the other side of that bet."

"How It Really Is"

 

"This Is What You Voted For"

"This Is What You Voted For"
by Jim Kunstler

"Well, naturally, Woke Hollywood staged a riot in tribute to George Floyd at this year’s Grammy awards, complete with “police” (actors) shooting a black man (another actor) in the back, a demagogic harangue for “justice, equity, policy, and everything else,” and a stage-set of burning buildings in the background - a harbinger of things-to-come? Haven’t riots become another form of entertainment this restless pandemic year of lockdowns and shutdowns? And how else might youth occupy itself, especially these fervid days that presage the loamy heavings of springtime?

It’s about “systemic racism,” you understand, because how else do you explain the rather spectacular failure-to-thrive in such a big demographic chunk of the US population? By an odd coincidence, in the slot just before the Grammys, CBS’s 60-Minutes showed how: spotlighting St. Louis’s Circuit Attorney (equivalent of DA) Kim Gardner’s battle with the city’s police department, who arrest too many black men. Left out of the argument by CBS correspondent Bill Whittaker was why they are arrested. Might it be for committing crimes, you know, robbing stuff, killing folks. 60-Minutes didn’t want to know and didn’t ask.

It happened anyway that the weekend was ripe for fighting in the streets. After the long, dull, semi-lockdown winter, riots resumed in the irascible West Coast cities of Seattle, Portland, and LA, purportedly in honor of Breonna Taylor, member of a Louisville, KY, drug-trafficking outfit who got shot in a police raid on her apartment after her boyfriend opened fire on the cops. This was a few years after the dead body of one Fernandez Bowman was found in her rent-a-car, and she was unable to explain to the police how it got there. She must have been turning her life around when she got shot. Now, it’s game-on for Antifa and BLM. The coronavirus hasn’t been hard enough on small business owners, so let’s smash some storefront windows and, by the way, attempt another insurrection at Portland’s long-besieged federal courthouse.

So far, not a peep out of Washington, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and company. They are still too busy objurgating over the January 6 “insurrection” at the US Capitol building, which has so far led to charges against 400 people. Federal prosecutors have asked for a 60-day delay in further action, saying, “While most of the cases have been brought against individual defendants, the government is also investigating conspiratorial activity that occurred prior to and on January 6, 2021.” Yet last week federal prosecutor Kathryn Rakoczy told federal district court Judge Amit Mehta that there was “no evidence of conspiracy” in the matter. I guess will have to wait for the new Attorney General Merrick Garland to sort all that out.

Meanwhile, up in Minneapolis, where jury selection is underway in the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd, the City Council approved 13-to-0 a $27-million wrongful death civil settlement to Mr. Floyd’s family. Say, what…? The way it’s supposed to work is that a civil case for wrongful death follows the criminal trial - for how would you know what’s rightful or wrongful in a matter before the facts in the case have been adjudicated? Sounds like Hennepin County, MN, may not be the right venue for these proceedings.

Should Mr. Chauvin face a jury that will likely have heard news reports that the city council already decided the verdict, and in the most imprecise terms possible? “Mr. Floyd died because the weight of the entire Minneapolis Police Department was on his neck,” Floyd family Attorney Ben Crump said when the suit was filed. Systemic racism, you see. Following the George Floyd riots last year, the Minneapolis City Council announced its plan to defund the police. In February 2021, the council announced the release of $6.4-million to hire more police, following a dramatic uptick in crime. Such are the strange inconsistencies of life under the crypto-Jacobin revolution in America today.

Speaking of Joe Biden, alleged to be president, he was oddly absent altogether on the front page of Monday’s New York Times, leading the curious to wonder if last Tuesday night’s Coronavirus Action speech drained his dwindling mojo for the rest of the month. The curious might also seek to know why Mr. Biden’s “team” is still so wound up about eradicating Coronavirus, yet eager to let tens of thousands cross the border illegally from Mexico, many of them live vectors of the virus, who are then bussed all over the USA under the revived “catch-and-release” policy. Mr. Biden’s “honeymoon” period is about over. The country had not quite discovered just how leaderless it is. Will it come as a shock to find out? After all, isn’t this what you voted for?"

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 3/15/21"

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 3/15/21"



March 15, 2021 8:48 AM ET:
The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 119,925,600
people, according to official counts, including 29,461,663 Americans.
Globally at least 2,653,900 have died.

March 15, 2021 8:48 AM ET:
"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.
March 15, 2021 9:25 AM ET
Where I Live:
3/15/2021: "Pinal County is at a very high risk level.The test positivity rate in Pinal County is very high, suggesting that cases are being significantly undercounted. We’ve recommended additional precautions below."
 

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 3/15/21"

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 3/15/21"
"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will
do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."
- John Maynard Keynes
"Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
Your guide:
Gregory Mannarino, AM 3/15/21

"Important Updates: Stocks, Bonds, Cryptos"

"The more I see of the monied classes, 
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates

CNN Market Data:

CNN Fear And Greed Index:
A comprehensive, essential daily read.
March 14th and 16th, Updated Daily 
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."
Daily Job Cuts

Sunday, March 14, 2021

The Poet: David Whyte, “The Sea”

“The Sea”

“The pull is so strong we will not believe
the drawing tide is meant for us,
I mean the gift, the sea,
the place where all the rivers meet.

Easy to forget,
how the great receiving depth
untamed by what we need
needs only what will flow its way.
Easy to feel so far away
and the body so old
it might not even stand the touch.
But what would that be like
feeling the tide rise
out of the numbness inside
toward the place to which we go
washing over our worries of money,
the illusion of being ahead,
the grief of being behind,
our limbs young
rising from such a depth?

What would that be like
even in this century
driving toward work with the others,
moving down the roads
among the thousands swimming upstream,
as if growing toward arrival,
feeling the currents of the great desire,
carrying time toward tomorrow?

Tomorrow seen today, for itself,
the sea where all the rivers meet, unbound,
unbroken for a thousand miles, the surface
of a great silence, the movement of a moment
left completely to itself, to find ourselves adrift,
safe in our unknowing, our very own,
our great tide, our great receiving, our
wordless, fiery, unspoken,
hardly remembered, gift of true longing.”

~ David Whyte,
“Where Many Rivers Meet”
“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute.
 We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. 
And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law,
 business, engineering – these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. 
But poetry, beauty, romance, love – these are what we stay alive for.”
- “Dead Poets Society”
Gnomusy, "Footprints On The Sea"

"Housing Crash Is Coming! Mortgage Rate And Lumber Shortages About To Pop The Housing Bubble"

Full screen recommended.
"Housing Crash Is Coming! Mortgage Rate And 
Lumber Shortages About To Pop The Housing Bubble"
by Epic Economist

"The U.S. housing price bubble is facing extra pressure as soaring lumber prices are slowing the construction of new housing units, keeping inventory tight, and pushing prices even higher. Meanwhile, inflation fears are mounting as the coming 1.9 trillion dollar stimulus package has just passed, which consequently led mortgage rates to unexpectedly hike over the past few weeks. Record-low interest rates were the main booster of the latest housing market rally, but experts say they are expected to trend higher this year. Thus, amid expensive inputs, supply shortages, heightened rates, and skyrocketing home prices a housing market crash looms, as the price bubble grows increasingly more unsustainable with each passing day. That's what we're going to discuss in this video.

The red-hot U.S. housing market has outperformed pretty much every sector of the economy during the current recession, primarily supported by historically low mortgage rates and an elevated demand. However, rising mortgage rates are about throw cold water on the market and cool off demand, as housing prices continue to soar to unprecedented levels and buyers face further difficulties to find a place to call home.

This means that demand is not only being crushed by the dangerous housing price bubble but also by the prospect that lenders will keep rising mortgage rates buyers won't be able to pay. On the other hand, the bubble continues to be expanded as supply remains tight. All across the country, homebuilding dropped more than expected in January, falling 2.3% on a year-on-year basis, while housing starts declined 6.0%. The housing rally is being threatened by lack of land and expensive inputs, as builders have been alerting that record-high lumber prices were adding thousands of dollars to the cost of a new home and causing some builders to abruptly halt projects.

Lumber prices have almost tripled, with boards used in residential construction jumping 250% since last spring, says the letter. Now, lumber is trading at $1,000 per thousand board feet, an all-time high, and this extraordinary hike has lifted the national average price of a new single-family home in the U.S. by more than $24,000 since April 2020. Prices for wood are still expected to record further gains this year, as Forest Economic Advisors experts pointed out that home building and will renovations cause demand to outstrip production, and production is going to have a hard time keeping up with demand growth.

Consequently, on top of enabling the expansion of the price bubble, and increasing the imminence of a dramatic housing crash, the affordability crisis will financially impair the next generations, as homes are the main asset of a large part of the population, and if there aren’t enough homes to meet the growing demand, the largest generation of the U.S. won’t be able to start building equity, which will in turn make them more economically vulnerable than previous generations.

More importantly, the looming housing market crash, the affordability crisis, higher mortgage rates, and widening wealth gaps are all a result of growing inflation. Central banks have fueled the housing price bubble by enacting near-zero rates in a time inventory was lean. In that way, they artificially created a "wealth effect" that was simply not sustainable.

The 1.9 trillion dollar stimulus package will send interest rates to pre-outbreak levels of about 3.5%. That is to say, once the economy reopens and more money flows into the economy, if demand doesn't bounce back soon enough, central banks won't be able to sustain the bubble unless they keep pouring enormous amounts of money inside the market, but that won't remove the dangers of a crash, it will simply slow down the process.

If house prices are going up, but incomes and population aren’t going up, then you’re either going to have a crash or the market is going to move to a permanent level of being less affordable. Even if higher interest rates temper demand a little bit, it could take years before the supply of housing can meet demand, and throughout this process, millions of Americans will remain priced out of the market.

Although no one can accurately predict when a housing market crash will occur, we have to keep in mind that the more assets are inflated and prices get out of touch with our economic reality, the fewer people will be able to afford such exorbitant prices. Let's remember the two things that were boosting the rally: record-low interest rates and an elevated demand. Mortgage rates are already spiking, and if demand drastically drops, that's the end game no central bank will be able to reverse. A price correction is just a matter of time, and we shouldn't ignore the warning signals."

Greg Hunter, "Financial System Fake La La Land"

"Financial System Fake La La Land"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Michigan State Economics Professor Mark Skidmore revealed three years ago there was $21 trillion in what he called “Missing Money” from the Department of Defense (DOD) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD). To hide what was going on with the federal books, Congress made all government accounting a national security issue, making it impossible to get real accounting of money “We the People” pay in taxes. Now, even more unofficial and unaccounted for cash has been revealed from the DOD. It’s an eye popping $94 trillion from the years 2017 to 2019. So, add in the $30 trillion in official debt, and that means there is at least $145 trillion in overt and covert money floating around in the federal government, not counting Social Security and Medicare commitments. This story sounds like a fantasy or a cartoon, but it’s totally backed up with facts you will never hear on the legacy media. Dr. Skidmore, who is an expert in public budgets, explains, “In my mind, it does not follow the principles laid out in our Constitution in accounting for revenues coming in and expenditures going out. It’s fraudulent in my mind.”

The entire accounting system of the federal government is fraudulent? Dr. Skidmore says, “I think it is. It doesn’t have any integrity. The federal government can modify the financial statements for the public, and they are not going to tell you how or to what degree. So, you get a financial statement or a report that’s available to the public, but it means nothing. What does that mean? It’s totally fraudulent. It’s fake. We are in La La Land. I’m just a normal professor of economics who has a background in budgeting, and I am just stating the obvious. It’s not rocket science. I am just not pretending. I am just saying what it is.”

What are the risks to the public? Skidmore says, “The risks are really kind of unknowable. The derivatives market is so enormous and so complexed, and who knows if some of the money that we are not able to account for in the government books is pushing into a quadrillion dollar derivatives market? We don’t know that. It could be. It would be small potatoes in quadrillions (in the derivative market). It’s incomprehensible. My gut tells me this ends awfully with a very abrupt disruption of some sort that could include a transition to some sort of new financial system, and potentially a much more draconian system.”

In closing, Skidmore says, “For me, we are talking about a whole bunch of money we don’t know about. You have about $115 trillion unsupported unverified transactions that we can’t know about and about $30 trillion in official debt. Also, we still have made promises in the form of Social Security and Medicare that are underfunded. You have a $100 trillion to $200 trillion depending on the assumptions you make, and we know that is unsustainable, as well. We are burning through it faster than we anticipated because of Covid and other things. It’s so out of whack it’s like a cartoon.”
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One
 with Michigan State University professor Mark Skidmore.
Dr. Skidmore has a new website called Lighthouse Economics, and you can find it at Mark-Skidmore.com. Dr. Skidmore is a prolific writer, and his work and analysis is free to the public. To contact Dr. Skidmore click here.

Musical Interlude: Kevin Kern, "Another Realm"

Kevin Kern, "Another Realm"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Over 400,000 light years across NGC 6872 is an enormous spiral galaxy, at least 4 times the size of our own very large Milky Way. About 200 million light-years distant, toward the southern constellation Pavo, the Peacock, the remarkable galaxy’s stretched out shape is due to its ongoing gravitational interaction, likely leading to an eventual merger, with the nearby smaller galaxy IC 4970. IC 4970 is seen just below and right of the giant galaxy’s core in this cosmic color portrait from the 8 meter Gemini South telescope in Chile.
The idea to image this titanic galaxy collision comes from a winning contest essay submitted last year to the Gemini Observatory by the Sydney Girls High School Astronomy Club. In addition to inspirational aspects and aesthetics, club members argued that a color image would be more than just a pretty picture. In their winning essay they noted that “If enough color data is obtained in the image it may reveal easily accessible information about the different populations of stars, star formation, relative rate of star formation due to the interaction, and the extent of dust and gas present in these galaxies.”

Chet Raymo, “Try To Remember…”

“Try To Remember…”
by Chet Raymo

“In a sleepless hour of the night, I was trying to remember the last name of a person I have known well for more than forty years. When my spouse stirred in her sleep, I asked her. She couldn’t remember either. One again I started mentally through the alphabet. “I think it starts with B,” I said. Ten minutes later she rolled over and said, “The next letter is R.” Bingo! The name popped into my head. Or I should say, “popped out of my head.” Because it was in there somewhere, recorded in a tangle of neurons as materially as if it were written on a piece of paper.

There was a time, back when I was a young man, when some scientists thought memory might be molecular – stored as proteins or RNA molecules that have somehow been modified by experience. The molecule theory of memory rested on experiments with worms (I remember the cover illustration on Scientific American). The worms were taught to navigate a simple maze. Then they were ground up and fed to untrained worms, which seemed to navigate the maze without training. Only molecules, it was thought, could have survived the transfer. Those experiments have been discredited. Scientists now overwhelmingly believe that memories are stored as webs of connections between spider-shaped brain cells called neurons. Each neuron is connected through electrochemical connections to thousands of others. According to the current view, experience fine-tunes the connections, strengthening some, weakening others, creating a different “trace” of interconnected cells for each memory.

But truth be told, memory is still deeply mysterious. How exactly are a lifetime of memories stored and retrieved at will? We know how it works for computers, but how for the human brain? What is self-consciousness? What are dreams? This is the primary scientific agenda for the 21st century. In the middle of the night I go fishing, in that sea of potentiated synapses that are the human soul, for a name that becomes ever more difficult to extract as I get older. I troll the alphabet: A, B, C, D… The name is in there, along with a face and more that forty years of interactions. The Nobel Prizes are waiting.”
Graphic: Salvador Dali, “The Persistence of Memory”