"Regulated Into the Ground"

"Regulated Into the Ground"

by Brian Maher

"How much wealthier - or poorer - would you be today absent 50 years of government economic regulation? That is, how much wealthier or poorer would you be... had the United States government stood paws off these past 50 years? Your choices are these:

A): 3.0 times wealthier

B): 1.86 times wealthier

C): 3.8 times poorer

D): 4.2 times poorer

Perhaps you would be identically rich or identically poor, despite the federal government’s chronic nosiness. Regulation counts neither plus nor minus. Let us then add a further selection:

E): No richer or poorer

Have you selected your letter? The correct answer shortly. First, a brief glance at today’s goings- on…

Business as Usual: The Federal Reserve concluded its FOMC confabulation this afternoon. As expected - widely - it sat upon its hands. No rate hikes. No foreseeable halt to quantitative easing. Mr. Jerome Powell babbled his usual mummeries… with winks and nods to Wall Street: "[The recovery is] uneven and far from complete… It will take some time before we see substantial further progress… Overall financial conditions remain accommodative, in part reflecting policy measures to support the economy and the flow of credit to U.S. households and businesses… The ongoing public health crisis continues to weigh on the economy, and risks to the economic outlook remain."

All inflationary bubblings, added Mr. Powell, are “transitory.” The stock market already guessed that rates would hold steady and that liquidity would keep pouring. Hence it met this afternoon’s announcement with shrugs. The Dow Jones lost 164 points on the day. The S&P took a 3-point trim… while the Nasdaq gave back 39 points of its own. Yields on the bellwether 10-year Treasury note advanced to 1.62%. Gold, meantime, worked a modest $2.80 gain.

But to return to our question: How much wealthier or poorer would you be today... absent 50 years of government economic regulation?

The Answer: Your choices, again, are these:

A): 3.0 times wealthier

B): 1.86 times wealthier

C): 3.8 times poorer

D): 4.2 times poorer

E): No richer or poorer

Here is the answer: A. That is, you would be thrice as wealthy absent 50 years of economic regulation. This we have on the grand authority of the Adam Smith Institute: "Federal regulations added over the past fifty years have reduced real output growth by about two percentage points on average...It's worth thinking about that for a moment. Each individual American, the society as a whole, would be three times richer than they are if there had not been that explosion of regulation of the economy since WWII."

Assume the calculations have accuracy… Every $1 in your wallet would be $3. Every $100 would be $300. Every $1,000 would be $3,000. If your account presently runs to $100,000… you would have $300,000 on your hands. And so on. And so on. And so on.

Maybe Some Regulations Are Worth the Cost? Are certain regulations worth their cost? Our minions have yet to complete their comprehensive cost/benefit analysis. But perhaps some are. For example: Industry may put a toxic chemical into the air - chemical X, hereforward. A less malign chemical substitute - chemical Y - may cost industry more money to implement. Yet government orders X’s replacement. The cost of business increases as Y comes in. Industry pushes these added costs onto its customers, who must reach deeper into their pockets for the identical product.

Is society poorer? No, it is not necessarily poorer. Society might have itself a good hard bargain... The higher price of widgets may be nothing against the future medical expenses to treat the cancers and other ailments resulting from the cheap - but toxic - chemical X. How much would society gain by substituting X for Y? None can say. All is guesswork. But the savings might be handsome. Here is the danger nonetheless…

The Camel’s Nose Under the Tent: The government is like the desert camel. Once the camel gets its nose under the tent, the body soon follows. It has the occupants in siege. And once the government noses its way into the economy through “sensible” regulation… it eventually has the economy in siege. ‘If this regulation, then why not this regulation? And why not the next?’

That is, why not more government? And as Monsieur Pierre-Joseph Proudhon once observed: "To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be [placed] under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality."

Government’s justice, yes; government’s morality, yes. But actual justice, actual morality?

Pettifoggers, Finger-Waggers and Junior Caesars: Over 70 federal regulatory agencies employ hundreds of thousands of pettifoggers, finger-waggers and junior caesars who hobble, harass and hagride enterprise. That is, over 70 federal regulatory agencies employ hundreds of thousands of pecksniffs, finger-waggers and junior caesars... to govern. Each year they put out some 3,500 fresh rules and regulations. The Federal Register bulges to an obscene 87,351 pages.

The St. James bible - meantime - runs to 1,281. Was God Almighty too lenient?

No hammer falls, no building rises, no plane, train or automobile budges without government say-so. Many of its edicts are idiotic. And idiocy is costly…

Regulation Costs $4 Trillion a Year: One study - coming by way of economists Dustin Chambers, Courtney Collins and Alan Krause - reveals this statistic:

A 10% increase in regulation raises overall prices 1%. Moreover, this trio concludes that the poor spend more on the goods and services most vulnerable to these price increases. Separate research indicates regulation subtracts some $4 trillion from the gross domestic product each year. The mathematics reduces $4 trillion to $13,000 for each man, woman, and child stabled happily within the United States.

Who Really Benefits? But if you believe all business withers under torrents of regulation, have a second guess. They sob about this or that rule. They moan about its added costs. But many cry the tears of the crocodile. The wealthiest businesses can absorb the added burden. Their lesser competitors cannot. Does an Amazon plump for the $15 minimum wage because it is hot to increase its labor costs - or to saddle competitors who cannot afford it? They must cut back somewhere else… or shutter their doors entirely. Either way, they are lesser than what they were. Competition, innovation slacken. Who wins? Not the people whom regulation is intended to benefit. And so regulation assists Goliath to butcher David.

The Seen vs. The Unseen: To judge a regulation’s visible benefits, we must investigate its hidden costs. As always, it is useful to seek the counsel of the late Henry Hazlitt. From "Economics in One Lesson:" "This is the persistent tendency of men to see only the immediate effects of a given policy, or its effects only on a special group, and to neglect to inquire what the long-run effects of that policy will be not only on that special group but on all groups…"

The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist also looks beyond… The bad economist sees only what the effect of a given policy has been or will be on one particular group; the good economist inquires also what the effect of the policy will be on all groups. To which we would add: The bad economist cannot see the $3 in your wallet... that 50 years of regulation have reduced to $1. The good economist can see the $3 in your wallet. Alas, you never will..."

- dailyreckoning.com

The Daily "Near You?"

Rittman, Ohio, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

“When We Can No Longer Tell the Truth”

“When We Can No Longer Tell the Truth”

by Charles Hugh Smith

“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.”

- Ron Paul

“When we can no longer tell the truth because the truth will bring the whole rotten, fragile status quo down in a heap of broken promises and lies, we’ve reached the perfection of dysfunction. You know the one essential guideline to “leadership” in a doomed dysfunctional system: when it gets serious, you have to lie. In other words, the status quo’s secular goddess is TINA – there is no alternative to lying, because the truth will bring the whole corrupt structure tumbling down.

This core dynamic of dysfunction is scale-invariant, meaning that hiding the truth is the core dynamic in dysfunctional relationships, households, communities, enterprises, cities, corporations, states, alliances, nations and empires: when the truth cannot be told because it threatens the power structure of the status quo, that status quo is doomed.

Lies, half-truths and cover-ups are all manifestations of fatal weakness. What lies, half-truths and cover-ups communicate is: we can no longer fix our real problems, and rather than let this truth out, we must mask it behind lies and phony reassurances. Truth is power, lies are weakness. All we get now are lies, statistics designed to mislead and phony reassurances that the status quo is stable and permanent. The truth is powerful because it is the core dynamic of solving problems. Lies, gamed statistics and false reassurances are fatal because they doom any sincere efforts to fix what’s broken before the system reaches the point of no return. We are already past the point of no return. The expediency of lies has already doomed us.

Honest accounts of hugely successful corporations that implode share one key trait: in every case, managers were pressured to hide the truth from top management, which then hid the truth from investors and clients. This is the key dynamic in failed oligarchies as well: if telling the truth gets you sent to Siberia (or worse), then nobody with any instinct for self-preservation will tell the truth. If obscuring the truth saves one’s job, then that’s what people do. That this dooms the organization is secondary to immediate self-preservation.

A distorted sense of loyalty to the family, community, company, institution, agency or nation furthers lying as the “solution” to unsavory problems. Daddy a drunk? Hide the bottle. Church a hotbed of adultery and thieving? Maintain the facade of holiness at all costs. Company products are failing? Put some lipstick on the pig. The statistical truth doesn’t support the party’s happy story? Distort the stats until they “do what’s needed.” The agency failed to fulfill its prime directive? Blame the managerial failure on a scapegoat.

Pathological liars and cheats rely on self-preservation and misplaced loyalty to mask their own failure and corruption. A hint here, a comment there, and voila, a culture of lying is created and incentivized. Obscuring the truth is the ultimate short-term expediency. Now that it’s serious, we have to lie. We’ll start telling the truth later, we say, after everything’s stabilized, we hope. But lying insures nothing can ever be truly stabilized, so there will never be a point at which the system is strong enough and stable enough to survive the truth.

We are now an empire of lies. The status quo – politically, socially and economically – depends on lies, half-truths, scapegoats and cover-ups for its very survival. Any truth that escapes the prison of lies endangers the entire rotten edifice.

In an empire of lies, “leaders” say what people want to hear. This wins the support of the masses, who would rather hear false reassurances that require no sacrifices, no difficult trade-offs, no hard choices, no discipline. The empire of lies is doomed. Lies are weakness, and they prohibit any real solutions. Truth is power, but we can no longer tolerate the truth because it frightens us. Our weakness is systemic and fatal.”

- http://www.oftwominds.com/

"So We All Ran Around..."

“So we all ran around in mad, mindless, meaningless circles, as if we were in a cotton-candy eating contest where the grand prize was getting kicked in the face. We were oblivious to everything around us that no truly sane person would ever tolerate. And we needed someone else to tell us to stop it.”

- Edward M. Wolfe

"Biggest Rip-Off in World History"

"Biggest Rip-Off in World History"

by Bill Bonner

YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "Finally, The Washington Post catches on… "The Fed helped fuel a stock market boom that benefited wealthy Americans – and left behind everyone else Ever since the Covid-19 pandemic struck, the Federal Reserve has gotten plenty of kudos for moves that have helped stabilize the economy, kept house prices from tanking and supported the stock market. But those successes have obscured another effect: the inadvertent impact the Fed’s ultralow interest rates and bond-buying sprees are having on economic inequality. Long-standing inequality in the United States has been exacerbated by the Fed’s role in touching off a multitrillion-dollar boom in stock markets – and stock ownership is heavily skewed toward the wealthiest Americans."

As we’ve been saying for years, the Federal Reserve’s money-printing is not “stimulus.” It’s a wealth transfer scheme. The rich get richer; the poor get poorer – thanks to the feds. Real economic growth actually slows down as the stimulus burden (debt and phony interest rates) grows heavier. The Fed’s key interest rate has been below the level of consumer price inflation for most of the last 11 years, while U.S. federal debt has more than doubled to $28 trillion. Yet, in the last four years, GDP grew at the lowest rate since the Great Depression.

Docile Capitalism: So, it’s not taxes… not greed… and not r > g (French economist Thomas Piketty’s observation that the return on capital generally exceeds the rate of economic growth) that is responsible for such a big gap between rich and poor in America; it’s the government. In his 2013 tome "Capital in the Twenty-First Century", Piketty claimed that the rich always get richer. He recognized that they “captured” the government and used it to help protect their wealth. But he missed the point. The elite always controls government… and always uses it to try to stay elite.

But mating capitalism with government gives birth to a corrupt and sterile offspring, where the motive force of real progress – creative destruction (the collateral damage of a constantly evolving economy) – has been bred out of it. In its new, gelded variety, capitalism becomes docile… and will do what it is told. Big businesses are no longer supposed to focus on their customers. Instead, they are expected to promote the elite agenda – money-printing, diversity, wars, global warming, racism… whatever the elite wants. In return, like young princes who will never wear the crown, they are subsidized… bailed out… made into celebrities… and treated like quasi-public institutions.

Comedy or Tragedy? Civilization is what you get when you allow vernacular rules – private property, math, speech, writing, real money, and “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” – to develop naturally. These rules – these “restraints” – are what make it possible. What we call “capitalism” is merely the expression of the rules in economics – that is, it lets people get on with their lives and do their win-win deals.

But what a boring church it would be if no one ever tippled the sacramental wine! And what a dull world it would be if people just went about their business… respecting the rules of civilization… doing their win-win deals… making each other happier and richer. What would history be without a jackass like Robespierre… or a monster like Cromwell… or a beast like Mao? And what would today be like without a Trump or a Biden?

No, Dear Reader… we live in the world we are given. And it is either a comedy or a tragedy, depending on how you look at it.

Fake Wealth: We prefer to see the amusing side, trying to avoid getting huffy about the imbecility and venal sins of our fellow man. (We bid him to do likewise.) So we laugh at The Washington Post. The leading news source for the Deep State elite is not about to come to the obvious conclusion – that stimulus money-printing should be stopped. Deficits and the fake money are how the elite protect and expand their wealth. They are the rewards they get for “capturing” the government.

Yesterday, we guesstimated the value of that reward at $30 trillion. That is the difference between the value of household financial assets in a normal, civilized economy and those in today’s corrupted, financialized capitalism.

Between the end of World War II and the end of the 1980s, financial assets averaged about 350% of GDP. They are overwhelmingly owned by the elite, so when they go up faster than GDP, the rich get richer, compared to the rest of the population. Today, financial assets are around 500% of GDP. By our rough calculation, that is at least $30 trillion more than they “should” be. And since GDP did not keep up with it, it does not represent new wealth, but only a new claim on the existing wealth of the rest of society.

Here’s another way to look at it. During that same “normal” period – the late 1940s to 1990 – the value of all the publicly traded stocks in America was about 80% of GDP. Today, it is 195%... more than twice the “normal” rate. That alone has added nearly $20 trillion to the wealth of those who own stocks – again, the elite. Any way you cipher it, it’s the biggest rip-off in the history of the world.

Fix Inequality: The Washington Post and the rest of the elite media, economists, politicians, and business leaders are not about to stop it. An honest money system is the last thing they want. Instead, they propose to take the rich behind the woodshed… and give them a good talking-to. Raising taxes on “the rich” gives them a controllable… lobby-able… way to at least appear to fix the “inequality” problem, without really fixing anything… without squeezing rich party donors too hard… and without interrupting the scam.

And they put Bernie Madoff in jail! Ha! Ha! More to come…"

- www.rogueeconomics.com

"How It Really Is"

"The Mass Exodus From The West Coast Is 

Driving Home Prices In Idaho To Insane Levels"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 4/28/21: "TODAY! The Supreme FREAK Speaks, And It Will Move The Markets"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 4/28/21:

"TODAY! The Supreme FREAK Speaks, And It Will Move The Markets"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"No Ways Tired in A Sea of Lies"

"No Ways Tired in A Sea of Lies"

by Chris Floyd

"I think we are living in a world of lies: lies that don't even know they are lies, because they are the children and grandchildren of lies. One of the hardest things to accept is that the reality of our world is buried under so many layers of official deception and well-cultivated public ignorance about our history and our political system. Even if you break through somehow, momentarily, and hold up a fragment of the truth, most people have no context for dealing with it. It's like a bolt from the blue, they can't process the information. And so the sea of lies closes over us again, and again, and again. And yet the reality of our future appears on the horizon, denial be damned, an irresistible tsunami of destruction, changing all our lives forever.

These are the facts, and they can't be altered. But how to respond to this catastrophe? Shall we weep, moan, rend our garments, cover ourselves with sackcloth and ashes? Shall we sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of republics? Shall we cower in the shadows and sing glamorous dirges for the Lost Cause, for vanished glories and broken dreams?

Or shall we come out fighting, unbowed, heads high, laughing fools to scorn, rejecting at every turn the moral authority of murderers and thieves to rule our lives, determine our reality, act in our name? Let's dispense with lamentation - give not a single moment to that emotional indulgence - and get right back to work, more determined than ever to bear down harder, dig deeper and excavate the radioactive nuggets of truth still glowing beneath the slag-heap of ruin.

Let's fight, let's reject, let's resist - without violence, the weapon of the stupid, the hormonal secretion of evolutionary backsliders in thrall to the chemical soup in their heads, dull primitives dressing up their ape-lust for power with scraps of religion, philosophy and cant. Let's fight these pathetic, malfunctioning wretches who lay their hands on our world and rape it like beasts in a mindless rut. Fight them with the truths we find, exposing their crimes and deadly hypocrisies to the people they've suckered, perverted and betrayed.

This is not an insurmountable task, no matter how impervious the Machine - that monstrous conglomeration of judicial bagmen, Congressional rubber stamps, psychopathic media moguls, dopehead radio ranters, sex-crazed theocrats, war profiteers, think-tank bleaters, Wall Street sharks, oilmen, Moonies, gun nuts and woman and man haters - might appear at the moment.

I don't know what else we can do, except to keep on telling as much of the truth as we can find, to anyone who will listen: reclaiming reality, fragment by fragment, one person at a time. It's an endless task - maybe a hopeless task - but the alternative is a surrender to the worst elements in our society - and in ourselves. It's worth the fight. Let's take it on. In the words of the old spiritual, let us be in no ways tired. The road back to sanity starts now."

- http://chris-floyd.com/

Greg Hunter, "Covid Lies Cost 100,000 Lives"

"Covid Lies Cost 100,000 Lives"

by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

“When you don’t have the data and you don’t have

 the actual evidence, you’ve got to make a judgment call." 

- Dr. Anthony Fauci, 3/11/21

"Michigan State Economics Professor Mark Skidmore revealed more than three years ago, there was $21 trillion in what he called “Missing Money” from government books. He’s doing some new number crunching surrounding public policy and the effects on the Covid 19 (CV19) pandemic. It’s all laid out in a brand new report. What he found is appalling. One big fact his research revealed is up to 100,000 lives could have been saved by using Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). Instead, the medical community and the mainstream media trashed it and told people it was “dangerous” and it “did not work.” That was a total lie. Dr. Skidmore explains, “So, we have all these countries that used it, and a number of countries, such as the United States, that for some reason did not use it and actually prevented it, claiming it was unsafe. So, our estimate is if the U.S. just allowed it and made it widely available from the beginning, we could have saved 80,000 to 100,000 lives.”

Dr. Skidmore said medical officials such as Dr. Fauci, who serves as the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, knew HCQ worked well against Corona Virus. In fact, Dr. Skidmore goes on to point out, “There was a paper published in the Virology Journal in 2005, this is the outfit that Dr. Fauci oversees. So, their journal published this paper that said HCQ was effective in treating the Corona Virus. The people who authored this study had been a part of the CDC at the time. So, we have known this for a long time. We also now know there are as many as 200 peer reviewed studies that say it is effective if taken early on when somebody gets sick. It’s pretty overwhelming evidence if you take it early on, it’s extremely effective.”

That’s not all that works, and this too was suppressed and trashed by most of the medical community.Ivermectin, Vitamin D, Vitamin C and Zinc are a few that are also proven scientifically effective to reduce or obliterate CV19. Dr. Skidmore says, “These are inexpensive ways to help protect yourself and your family. It’s overwhelming evidence that these different types of treatments are very effective.”

Another revelation of Dr. Skidmore’s study was the CDC changed the definition on how to count CV19 deaths. Skidmore says, “In the middle of the crisis last year, the CDC changed the definition on how you count fatalities, but they only did it for Covid. It amounts to this, basically, the way we counted how somebody died, was you ‘died of’ some disease of some condition. They changed the definition so that it was more characterized that you ‘died with.’ And, if the CDC would not have changed the definition for Covid deaths? Skidmore says, “I think we would have had far fewer deaths. The data suggests that if they used the old number, there would have been less (CV19 deaths).”

Dr. Skidmore’s study also points out that the vaccines were never approved by the FDA. Dr. Skidmore explains, “You can look it up. The vaccines are only authorized for emergency use, which means it’s experimental, and it’s still experimental. They are tracking it all. The (vaccine) fatalities are now up to 3,000, and there are many strange and unusual side effects that have occurred. It’s the same thing in Europe and other places. There are many reports of neurological problems, blood clots and a range of related issues. There are all kinds of negative reactions and the question, from a pure cost benefit, is how many lives are saved as opposed to how many lives are damaged from the treatment (vaccines), and we don’t really know what the injuries are, and we don’t know what the long run effects will be."

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with Michigan State University Professor Mark Skidmore, founder of Lighthouse Economics. (There is much more in the 45 minute interview.)

- https://rumble.com/

○

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 are free to the public. Click the link to read Dr. Skidmore’s latest work called “A Cross-Country Analysis of the Determinants of Covid-19 Fatalities” 

○

Related:

• "The Vaccines Aren’t Actually Vaccines"

• "Understanding mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines"

• "Vaccines Will Kill By Cytokine Storm"

• "Basic Arithmetic For Leftist Losers"

• "The COVID Fraud Will Not Stay Hidden Forever"

• "Straight Talk On Covid"

"The Everything Bubble Burst! Stocks, Bonds & Housing Will Face A Catastrophic Crash"

Full screen recommended.

"The Everything Bubble Burst! 

Stocks, Bonds & Housing Will Face A Catastrophic Crash"

by Epic Economist

"Real estate, bond, and stock markets are now in massive bubbles and all signs are pointing to a reckoning in all overly inflated assets. Homebuyers, investors, and the Federal Reserve have been fueling an unprecedented market mania, pouring more and more cash into overvalued investments. However, the frantic rally seems to be losing steam, and today we brought several evidences that indicate we're about to see a simultaneous explosion of epic proportions.

The Everything Bubble is a phenomenon that resulted from the simultaneous expansion of the amount of money made available for federal agencies, and, of course, favorable conditions provided by record-low interest rates. But speculators are not considering that nothing lasts forever. Easy money won't be delivered endlessly, interest rates won't stay down forever.

Problems are emerging in all sectors of our debt-driven economy, and they were here long before this crazy euphoria began. That is to say, the current market frenzy and the extraordinary demand are the determinants behind bloated valuations - not real tangible earnings, but behaviorism.

Just take a look at the housing market. In a year span, home prices soared nearly 20%, with the median sale price of an existing home reaching $329,100. But in all four major regions of the country are seeing homes selling for even higher than the asking prices.

In the Northeast, listing prices are up 21.4% from the median national price, whereas the Midwest registered a 13.5% increase, the South, 15.9%, and West 16.8%. Homes that spent decades in the market without a single offer are being snatched up right away by buyers that want to take part in the bubble and see their assets grow in value. As inventory continuously shrinks and widespread shortages of construction materials, such as lumber and plywood, are adding to the cost of homes, it is clear that there's a major asymmetry between supply and demand.

Adding low mortgage rates to the picture, we can clearly see that the housing bubble wasn't formed because the housing market has grown. Properties simply cannot keep registering surging prices eternally, as some suggest. And given that the affordability crisis is already pushing people out of the market's door, the home price bubble has to burst.

As for the bond market, the recent price action suggests the market is attempting to price-in much more economic activity than it can, creating mispricing risks, as it funds zombie companies to survive for longer, but disregards the prospects of delinquency. Bonds and yields are inversely proportional. So when bonds go down, yields go up. Up until now, the Fed has been maintaining “yield spreads” low in the entire credit spectrum to supposedly bail out the bond market, regardless of the threats of rising interest rates, inflation, and the latest CPI readings.

Once again, the problem here is balance. While 10-year yields have shot up some 240% from their lows at 0.5% in August of 2020, bonds have been collapsing to levels last seen in 2006. This yield-curve inversion reveals there are critical and structural problems with the bond market, which means it is losing its status as a safe bet and this is already causing investors to move away from bonds. The last time that happened, things did not end well.

In that sense, the bond market collapse will affect every existing bubble and trigger a domino effect of widespread failures. And that leads us to probably the greatest bubble of all - the stock market bubble. Even the New York Times recently published an article highlighting that the outstanding rally is being boosted mostly by boredom and stimulus checks, resulting in “bubbles across a wide variety of esoteric categories”.

"When you have reached this level of obvious super-enthusiasm, the bubble has always, without exception, broken in the next few months, not a few years. You can’t maintain this level of near-ecstasy. It can’t be done, because you’ve put in your last dollar. You are all in. What are you supposed to do beyond that point? You can’t borrow any more money. You can’t take any more risk. How do you keep that level of enthusiasm going indefinitely?" asked no one less than legendary investor Jeremy Grantham, adding that “the bull market’s over when the last bull puts in their last dollar. When those stimulus checks are gone, we could soon see a crash of historic proportions".

When the everything bubble bursts, simultaneously collapsing all overvalued assets, the citizenry will be crushed by debt. The signs are everywhere. Getting rich quickly has engulfed the entire nation in a madness never seen before in human history. But effortless enrichment is a delusion. And all delusions end in tears."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com

Gerald Celente, "Trends Journal: Freedom? How Dare You, We're in Charge!"

Gerald Celente,

"Trends Journal: Freedom? How Dare You, We're in Charge!"

- https://trendsresearch.com/

A Blues Musical Interlude: Foy Vance, "Make It Rain"

Foy Vance, "Make It Rain", Original

Ed Sheeran's cover version, "Make It Rain"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 4/27/21: "Critical Updates! A Total FReAksHOw TOMORROW! Watch for it"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 4/27/21:

"Critical Updates! A Total FReAksHOw TOMORROW! Watch for it"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Secret Shores"

Full screen!

2002, "Secret Shores"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"The W-shaped ridge of emission featured in this vivid skyscape is known as the Cygnus Wall. Part of a larger emission nebula with a distinctive outline popularly called The North America Nebula, the cosmic ridge spans about 20 light-years. Constructed using narrowband data to highlight the telltale reddish glow from ionized hydrogen atoms recombining with electrons, the two frame mosaic image follows an ionization front with fine details of dark, dusty forms in silhouette.

Sculpted by energetic radiation from the region's young, hot, massive stars, the dark shapes inhabiting the view are clouds of cool gas and dust with stars likely forming within. The North America Nebula itself, NGC 7000, is about 1,500 light-years away.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/

Chet Raymo, “To Sleep, Perchance To Dream”

“To Sleep, Perchance To Dream”

by Chet Raymo

“What is more gentle than a wind in summer?

What is more soothing than a pretty hummer

That stays one moment in an open flower,

And buzzes cheerily from bower to bower?

What is more tranquil than a musk-rose blowing

In a green island, far from all men's knowing?

More healthful than the leafiness of dales?

More secret than a nest of nightingales?”

"What indeed? The poet Keats answers his own questions: Sleep. Soft closer of our eyes. I've reached an age when I find myself occasionally nodding off in the middle of the day, an open book flopped on my chest. Also, more lying awake in the dark hours of the night, re-running the tapes of the day. And, in the fragile moments of nighttime unconsciousness, dreaming dreams that reach all the way back to my childhood.

I've read the books about sleep and dreaming. There has been lots of research, but not much consensus about why we sleep or dream. Sleep seems to be pretty universal among animals. Who knows whether animals dream. Do we sleep to restore the soma? To knit the raveled sleeve of care? Process memories? Find safety from predators? After 50 years of work, the sleep researcher William Dement opined: "As far as I know, the only reason we need to sleep that is really, really solid is because we get sleepy."

The Latin poet Martial supposed that sleep "makes darkness brief," a worry-free way to get through the scary hours of the night when wolves howl at the mouth of the cave (and goblins stir under the bed). That hardly explains my dropping off after lunch into a dreamless stupor that I neither desire nor welcome.

“Low murmurer of tender lullabies!

Light hoverer around our happy pillows!

Wreather of poppy buds, and weeping willows!”

Not quite! There are the nightmares too. The tossing and turning. The hoo-has. But enough of this idle speculation. I'm getting sleepy...”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"Surely..."

“It’s 3:23 A.M.

And I’m awake because my great great grandchildren won’t let me sleep.

They ask me in dreams,

‘What did you do while the planet was plundered?

What did you do when the earth was unraveling?

Surely you did something when the seasons started flailing?

As the mammals, reptiles and birds were all dying?

Did you fill the streets with protest?

When democracy was stolen, what did you do once you knew?

Surely, you did something…’”

- Drew Dellinger

“The Last Night of the World”

“The Last Night of the World”

Originally published in the February 1951 issue of Esquire.

by Ray Bradbury

“What would you do if you knew this was the last night of the world?”

“What would I do; you mean, seriously?”

“Yes, seriously.”

“I don’t know – I hadn’t thought.” She turned the handle of the silver coffeepot toward him and placed the two cups in their saucers. He poured some coffee. In the background, the two small girls were playing blocks on the parlor rug in the light of the green hurricane lamps. There was an easy, clean aroma of brewed coffee in the evening air.

“Well, better start thinking about it,” he said.

“You don’t mean it?” said his wife.

He nodded.

“A war?”

He shook his head.

“Not the hydrogen or atom bomb?”

“No.”

“Or germ warfare?”

“None of those at all,” he said, stirring his coffee slowly and staring into its black depths. “But just the closing of a book, let’s say.”

“I don’t think I understand.”

“No, nor do I really. It’s jut a feeling; sometimes it frightens me, sometimes I’m not frightened at all – but peaceful.” He glanced in at the girls and their yellow hair shining in the bright lamplight, and lowered his voice. “I didn’t say anything to you. It first happened about four nights ago.”

“What?”

“A dream I had. I dreamt that it was all going to be over and a voice said it was; not any kind of voice I can remember, but a voice anyway, and it said things would stop here on Earth. I didn’t think too much about it when I awoke the next morning, but then I went to work and the feeling as with me all day. I caught Stan Willis looking out the window in the middle of the afternoon and I said, ‘Penny for your thoughts, Stan,’ and he said, ‘I had a dream last night,’ and before he even told me the dream, I knew what it was. I could have told him, but he told me and I listened to him.”

“It was the same dream?”

“Yes. I told Stan I had dreamed it, too. He didn’t seem surprised. He relaxed, in fact. Then we started walking through offices, for the hell of it. It wasn’t planned. We didn’t say, let’s walk around. We just walked on our own, and everywhere we saw people looking at their desks or their hands or out the windows and not seeing what was in front of their eyes. I talked to a few of them; so did Stan.”

“And all of them had dreamed?”

“All of them. The same dream, with no difference.”

“Do you believe in the dream?”

“Yes. I’ve never been more certain.”

“And when will it stop? The world, I mean.”

“Sometime during the night for us, and then, as the night goes on around the world, those advancing portions will go, too. It’ll take twenty-four hours for it all to go.”

They sat awhile not touching their coffee. Then they lifted it slowly and drank, looking at each other.

“Do we deserve this?” she said.

“It’s not a matter of deserving, it’s just that things didn’t work out. I notice you didn’t even argue about this. Why not?”

“I guess I have a reason,” she said.

“The same reason everyone at the office had?”

She nodded. “I didn’t want to say anything. It happened last night. And the women on the block are talking about it, just among themselves.” She picked up the evening paper and held it toward him. “There’s nothing in the news about it.”

“No, everyone knows, so what’s the need?” He took the paper and sat back in his chair, looking at the girls and then at her. “Are you afraid?”

“No. Not even for the children. I always thought I would be frightened to death, but I’m not.”

“Where’s that spirit of self-preservation the scientists talk about so much?”

“I don’t know. You don’t get too excited when you feel things are logical. This is logical. Nothing else but this could have happened from the way we’ve lived.”

“We haven’t been too bad, have we?”

“No, nor enormously good. I suppose that’s the trouble. We haven’t been very much of anything except us, while a big part of the world was busy being lots of quite awful things.”

The girls were laughing in the parlor as they waved their hands and tumbled down their house of blocks.

“I always imagined people would be screaming in the streets at a time like this.”

“I guess not. You don’t scream about the real thing.”

“Do you know, I won’t miss anything but you and the girls. I never liked cities or autos or factories or my work or anything except you three. I won’t miss a thing except my family and perhaps the change in the weather and a glass of cool water when the weather’s hot, or the luxury of sleeping. Just little things, really. How can we sit here and talk this way?”

“Because there’s nothing else to do.”

“That’s it, of course, for if there were, we’d be doing it. I suppose this is the first time in the history of the world that everyone has really known just what they were going to be doing during the last night.”

“I wonder what everyone else will do now, this evening, for the next few hours.”

“Go to a show, listen to the radio, watch the TV, play cards, put the children to bed, get to bed themselves, like always.”

“In a way that’s something to be proud of – like always.”

“We’re not all bad.”

They sat a moment and then he poured more coffee. “Why do you suppose it’s tonight?”

“Because.”

“Why not some night in the past ten years of in the last century, or five centuries ago or ten?”

“Maybe it’s because it was never February 30, 1951, ever before in history, and now it is and that’s it, because this date means more than any other date ever meant and because it’s the year when things are as they are all over the world and that’s why it’s the end.”

“There are bombers on their course both ways across the ocean tonight that’ll never see land again.”

“That’s part of the reason why.”

“Well,” he said. “What shall it be? Wash the dishes?”

They washed the dishes carefully and stacked them away with especial neatness. At eight-thirty the girls were put to bed and kissed good night and the little lights by their beds turned on and the door left a trifle open.

“I wonder,” said the husband, coming out and looking back, standing there with his pipe for a moment.”

“What?”

“If the door should be shut all the way or if it should be left just a little ajar so we can hear them if they call.”

“I wonder if the children know – if anyone mentioned anything to them?”

“No, of course not. They’d have asked us about it.”

They sat and read the papers and talked and listened to some radio music and then sat together by the fireplace looking at the charcoal embers as the clock struck ten-thirty and eleven and eleven-thirty. They thought of all the other people in the world who had spent their evening, each in their own special way.

“Well,” he said at last. He kissed his wife for a long time.

“We’ve been good for each other, anyway.”

“Do you want to cry?” he asked.

“I don’t think so.”

They went through the house and turned out the lights and locked the doors, and went into the bedroom and stood in the night cool darkness undressing. She took the spread from the bed and folded it carefully over a chair, as always, and pushed back the covers. “The sheets are so cool and clean and nice,” she said.

“I’m tired.”

“We’re both tired.”

They got into bed and lay back.

“Wait a moment,” she said.

He heard her get up and go out into the back of the house, and then he heard the soft shuffling of a swinging door. A moment later she was back. “I left the water running in the kitchen,” she said. “I turned the faucet off.”

Something about this was so funny that he had to laugh. She laughed with him, knowing what it was that she had done that was so funny. They stopped laughing at last and lay in their cool night bed, their hands clasped, their heads together.

“Good night,” he said, after a moment.

“Good night,” she said, adding softly, “dear…”

- http://paulocoelhoblog.com/

”Ubuntu"

“An anthropologist proposed a game to the kids in an African tribe. He put a basket full of fruit near a tree and told the kids that who ever got there first won the sweet fruits. When he told them to run they all took each others hands and ran together, then sat together enjoying their treats. When he asked them why they had run like that as one could have had all the fruits for himself they said: ”Ubuntu, how can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?” ’Ubuntu’ in the Xhosa culture means: ‘I am because we are’. How many of you knew this?”

- Found in a group chat.

"Remaking American Society"

"Remaking American Society"

By Bill Bonner

YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "We suggested yesterday that, while the Biden administration’s “net zero” climate change project itself is unlikely to affect the world’s climate, Biden’s proposals will almost surely take a few weeks off our economy’s growing season. Today, we elaborate.

You’ll recall that when the money goes funny, everything goes funny. First, things get weird. Then, they get nasty. But that is all still ahead – the consumer price inflation… the financial controls… the depression… the crack-downs… and the crack-ups. We are still in the delightful, delusional, weird stage.

Good Intentions: Ordinary people, for example, are beginning to hallucinate that old-fashioned working and saving is a mugs’ game. They can make as much money in one hour trading Dogecoin as they can in a whole month stocking shelves… So why not? Dogecoin rocketed upward after Elon Musk signalled via Twitter that it might be important. Now, the coin – which began as a joke in 2013 – has a market cap of nearly $36 billion.

Or they believe the government can take care of them, by cancelling their student debt and sending them regular stimmy checks. Here’s CNBC: "In early April, President Biden asked the U.S. Department of Education to see if his executive authority gives him the ability to enact massive student loan forgiveness without congressional approval."

Some even think the feds should control the world’s temperature. Why not? The sky’s the limit! Others want to turn the entire U.S. into a “safe space,” where people are not allowed to voice any opinion that others might find offensive… And we all must be vaccinated and continue to wear triple masks, just in case.

Good intentions? Maybe. Power unchecked by real, limited money? Surely.

Green Agenda: The Biden Administration is enjoying a heady brew – a clear majority in the House and an edge in the Senate… widespread relief after four years of Trumpismo… and a national credit card with no apparent limit. So it has set out to remake American society… remold its economy… and reshape its politics to give the liberal wing of the Deep State unchecked control.

Just last week, we saw the Biden team unveil two major initiatives. First, its Green Agenda. From CNN: "Climate is a big focus of the President’s roughly $2 trillion infrastructure proposal. He has said his proposal would create hundreds of thousands of jobs while tackling the climate crisis, reducing emissions and building a “modern, resilient and fully clean grid.”

You can put people to work doing anything you want. They could generate power, for example, by tending thousands of caged hamsters running on wheels. But letting politicians decide how you generate electricity and allocate capital – as the Soviet Union proved – is more likely to result in a poorer society than a richer one.

Reducing Inequality: This climate change boondoggle is supposed to be paid for, at least in part, by raising taxes on the rich. It seems to bother no one that the “rich” – the top 5% of taxpayers – already pay more than 60% of the money collected by the feds. The bottom 50% of the population pays almost nothing. Fair? You decide.

But this is just another of the new administration’s conceits. It knows what the weather should be… and how much money we should have. The rich have too much, it believes; the poor have too little. And so what if the numbers don’t add up… The “facts” are only guesswork… and the Green Agenda doesn’t really alter the world’s climate? At least we’re trying! And the collateral benefits – reducing inequality, creating jobs – will make it worth it.

Wealth Shift: Most people will be pleased to hear about higher taxes on the rich. They think wealthy people are getting away with something. Perhaps they are. But it has nothing to do with loopholes and not paying their fair share. Instead, they are on the receiving end of a $30 trillion wealth shift – thanks to the Federal Reserve.

Total financial wealth (most of it owned by “the rich”) averaged about 350% of GDP from the end of World War II to the end of the 1980s. Now, it’s about 500%... or an extra $30 trillion. Where did all that extra wealth come from?

The Fed prints money. It buys Treasury bonds. The rich own bonds. Bond prices go up. And the “rich”… now joined by basement-dwelling, knuckle-dragging millennials… put their money into stocks in order to get a little yield (the Fed has pushed the real rate of return on savings down to under zero… where it has been for most of the last 11 years).

Fake Wealth: And since March of last year, the world’s central banks and governments have pumped some $27 trillion into their economies, supposedly to offset the damage done by COVID-19 shutdowns. What were people supposed to do with this money? They couldn’t go out and have a good time – bars, restaurants, cruise lines, theaters, et al. were closed. And there was no point putting it in a savings account, either; it would earn no interest.

But the investment markets? There’s the ticket! And guess what? The markets went up. And the rich got richer. The S&P 500 is up 45% in the last 12 months. Tesla (TSLA) is up more than 4 times. And bitcoin (BTC)… are you ready for this?… is up 7 times!

Any similarity between this and properly functioning, honest asset markets is purely coincidental. Real companies do not become four times as valuable in a single year. Real money – which bitcoin claims to be – does not go up 7 times. It does not go up at all. And governments do not create trillions of dollars out of nothing.

Even Weirder: But those are just some of the things that happen in the weird stage. And rather than curtail the weirdness… the Biden Administration is proposing to make them even weirder.

As for the stock market riches, the Democrats are in on the scam as much as the Republicans. They own stocks, too. They have their political “Big Daddies”… They have their lobbyists… And they, proportionally, are richer than Republicans. From the Washington Examiner: "Democrats are the party of the wealthy, a flip from decades ago when it was the party of the poor and middle class. Democrats represented 65% of taxpayers with a household income of $500,000 or more in 2020, according to IRS data, while 74% of taxpayers in Republican districts have household incomes of less than $100,000."

As you get wealthier, the “declining marginal utility” of money means that higher tax rates are not that significant to you – especially if you didn’t actually earn the money. The extra social value – from appearing to want to help the poor… or make society fairer – may have relatively more value.

Huge Gap: In any case, the tax increases to pay for the climate change boondoggle, such as they are, are likely to include big headline numbers, which will get moderated somewhat before rich Democrats have to pay them. That will leave a huge gap that will have to be filled – as usual – by printing more of the money that made the rich so rich in the first place. So, most likely, none of the goals will be reached. Temperatures will go whither they want… productive jobs will be destroyed so that the resources can be redeployed… the new jobs will be time wasters… and the rich will get richer.

Tomorrow, we will look at Biden’s more ambitious proposals. Not only do they aim to transfer trillions of dollars to unworthy causes, but also, to give the fantasists almost permanent control of Washington."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

The Daily "Near You?"

Mannford, Oklahoma, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Toads..."

“A man who has blown all his options can't afford the luxury of changing his ways. He has to capitalize on whatever he has left, and he can't afford to admit - no matter how often he's reminded of it - that every day of his life takes him farther and farther down a blind alley. Very few toads in this world are Prince Charmings in disguise. Most are simply toads, and they are going to stay that way. Toads don't make laws or change any basic structures, but one or two rooty insights can work powerful changes in the way they get through life. A toad who believes he got a raw deal before he even knew who was dealing will usually be sympathetic to the mean, vindictive ignorance that colors the Hell's Angels' view of humanity. There is not much mental distance between a feeling of having been screwed and the ethic of total retaliation, or at least the random revenge that comes with outraging the public decency.”

- Hunter S. Thompson

"Why Illinois Is In Trouble – 122,258 Public Employees Earned $100,000+ Costing Taxpayers $15.8 Billion Despite Pandemic"

"Why Illinois Is In Trouble – 122,258 Public Employees

Earned $100,000+ Costing Taxpayers $15.8 Billion Despite Pandemic"

by Adam Andrzejewski

"Illinois public employees and retirees with $100,000+ paychecks grew from 109,881 (2019) to an all-time high of 122,258 in 2020 – costing taxpayers $15.8 billion. Congressional “bailouts” made it possible. The recent $1.9 trillion American Rescue Act provided an additional $13.5 billion to Illinois state and local governments. (Look up your hometown here — $350 billion flowed to states and 30,000 communities.) Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com compiled the list of six-figure earners from Freedom of Information Act requests.

Barbers at State Corrections trimmed off $115,000; janitors at the State Toll Highway Authority cleaned up $123,000; bus drivers in Chicago made $174,000; line workers on the Chicago Transit Authority earned $222,278; community college presidents made $418,677; university doctors earned up to $2 million; and 171 small town managers out-earned the Illinois governor ($181,670).

Our interactive mapping tool allows users to quickly review the 122,258 public employees and retirees across Illinois making more than $100,000 (by ZIP code). Just click a pin at the interactive map and scroll down to see the results in your neighborhood rendered in the chart beneath the map.

Public schools (40,000) – Last year, nearly 24,500 educators earned a six-figure salary while more than 15,500 retirees received six-figure pensions. Most Illinois schools were not back to fulltime, in-person instruction as of March 2021.

Sixteen retired school superintendents pocketed $300,000+ in retirement pensions, among them Lawrence A. Wyllie (Lincoln-Way CHSD 210 – $351,250); Henry Bangser (New Trier Township HSD 203 – $341,433); Gary Catalani (Wheaton-Warrenville Unit SD 200 – $339,915); Laura Murray (Homewood-Flossmoor CHSD 233 – $334,418); and Mary Curley (Hinsdale CCSD 181 – $324,796).

Chicago (25,000) – We calculated that the city paid out $737 million in extra pay (overtime, vacation, supplemental, fitness, etc.) above base salaries. The Chicago police and fire departments paid nearly 1,000 employees between $200,000 and $430,000 in cash compensation last year.

The Chicago Transit Authority, operator of mass transit in the city including the “L” train, paid rail service supervisors up to $239,806, ironworkers as much as $225,579, and line workers collected $222,278. A signal maintainer took home $191,627, a telephone line worker was paid $190,030 and a customer service representative made $185,152.

Colleges & universities (17,100) – The state of Illinois paid University of Illinois basketball coach Bradley Underwood $3 million last year. Top paid junior college presidents included a hefty salary for Christine Jean Sobek (Waubonsee Community College — $418,677), and a big retirement pension for Vernon Crawley (Moraine Valley Community College— $406,600).

Current Illinois State University President Larry Dietz (salary: $364,820) was out-earned by retired ISU president Clarence A. Bowman, who collected a $422,039 pension.

Fady Toufic Charbel ($2 million); Mark Gonzalez ($1.2 million); and Konstantin Slavin ($1 million) are million-dollar doctors at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). A UIC pension paying out $540,591 goes to a retired doctor, Tapas Das Gupta. The retired doctor from University of Illinois –Springfield, Leslie Heffez, has the largest pension at $635,122.

State of Illinois (16,500) – Six-figure salaries and pension payouts amounted to nearly $2 billion last year. Eleven barbers at Corrections made between $100,000 and $115,000. Veterans, Human Services, and Corrections paid between $100,000 and $260,900 to 559 nurses.

The ten top paid sergeants at the State Police earned between $200,100 and $268,700 while 238 officers made between $150,000 and $268,700.

A court-ordered monitor, Dr. Stewart Pablo, was paid $352,000 by taxpayers to report on the barriers to access mental healthcare within the prison system – his pay amounts to nearly $1.4 million during the past four years.

Cities & villages (9,100) – Small town managers collect high pay, along with perks and pension benefits. Top paid managers were Richard Nahrstadt (Village of Northbrook – $336,722); Stephen Gulden (Village of Romeoville – $301,821); Michael J. Ellis (Village of Grayslake –- $294,980); Jeffrey Rowitz (Village of Northbrook – $291,875); and Reid Ottesen (Village of Palatine— $283,899). The interim village manager in Romeoville responded to our comment request and said that Stephen Gulden’s extra payments beyond $191,141 were the result of his retirement in November.

In the shadow of O’Hare International Airport, the small town of Rosemont (pop. 4,200) has three highly compensated officials: Patrick Nagle ($302,313—head of the Allstate Arena entertainment venue), Christopher R. Stephens ($295,813—Executive Director of the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center), and mayor Bradley A. Stephens ($269,998) – who also made $69,413 as an elected state representative. A village spokesperson noted that the two arenas were not mothballed during the last year, but continued to have a limited schedule.

The big dogs of Illinois - the systems conferring the most six figure salaries and pensions on public employees in 2020. Largest pay and pension systems in Illinois conferring $100,000 per employee or retiree. Private associations, nonprofits and retired lawmakers. There are several legal loopholes for individuals to access state funding through private associations, nonprofit organizations, and state legislative bodies.

Retired Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley (D) double dipped the pension system for nearly $238,000. Daley made $153,479 per year in state lawmaker pension payouts after a short eight-year career as a state senator plus another $83,784 per year in city pension payouts for his 22 years as the mayor of Chicago.

Three top paid earners within the municipal-government pension system work for private associations – not government. Brad Cole of the Illinois Municipal League pulled down $407,656, up from $313,997 (2019). Peter Murphy, executive director of Illinois Association of Park Districts, made $378,070, while Brett Davis, executive director of the Park District Risk management Agency, brought in $349,269.

These private nonprofits and associations muscled their way into the government system where taxpayers help fund and guarantee retirement annuities.

Peter B. Maggs and James J. Stukel are collecting government pensions of $453,512 and $439,575, respectively. Both retired from the University of Illinois Foundation, the nonprofit private fundraising agency for the University of Illinois.

Former Illinois Governor Jim Edgar (R) double dipped pension systems: General Assembly pension ($181,230 per year) and University Retirement System pension ($85,140). After “retiring” from the University of Illinois, he was hired back part time for another $62,769. Last year, Edgar’s total payout from all sources was $329,139.

We estimate that Edgar earned $2.4 million in compensation from the University of Illinois (2000-2013) and another $2.2 million in pension payments already paid-out from his career as legislator, secretary of state and governor.

Highly compensated locals: DuPage County employees have a history of hefty salaries and pensions. Top paid county employees included Richard Rushing ($263,509—deputy sheriff); Peter Balgemann ($241,168— chief deputy auditor); Ibrahim Khaja ($238,108—psychiatrist); Daniel Baran ($237,709—facilities manager); and Daniel Raysby ($227,959— detective).

Local park district administrators out earned the state director of parks ($156,900). These included James Pilmer ($256,256) at Fox Valley; Raymond McGury ($215,872) at Naperville; Michael Bernard ($212,708) at Wheaton. However, the top pension exceeded the highest salary: Elizabeth Kutska ($279,025) also from Wheaton.

Even water district employees tapped into the largess. David Miller pulled down $219,336 at the North Shore Water Reclamation District while Larry McFall made $214,901 at the Rock River Water Reclamation District. John Spatz made $214,479 at the DuPage Water Commission.

Possible solutions to the Illinois crisis: Last April, Illinois State Senate President Don Harmon wrote a letter to Congress asking for a $40 billion bailout. Congress eventually provided $13.5 billion. Then, in November, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker wanted to hike the income tax during pandemic and pushed for a state constitutional amendment to allow for a progressive income tax. However, the voters shot it down, 55-45.

Our updated analysis at OpenTheBooks.com shows that an Illinois family of four now owes more in unfunded pension liabilities ($98,000) than they earn in household income ($63,585). In a state of 13 million residents, every man, woman, and child owes $24,000 — on an estimated $317 billion pension liability. Illinois may have already crossed the Rubicon.

U.S. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell suggested another path last April, “I would certainly be in favor of allowing states to use the bankruptcy route.” McConnell specifically mentioned Illinois along with Connecticut, California, and New York."

- https://www.forbes.com/

And how are things where you are, Good Citizen?

"There Is Always The Hope..."

“What happens to people living in a society where everyone in power is lying, stealing, cheating and killing, and in our hearts we all know this, but the consequences of facing all these lies are so monstrous, we keep on hoping that maybe the corporate government administration and media are on the level with us this time. Americans remind me of survivors of domestic abuse. This is always the hope that this is the very, very, very last time one’s ribs get re-broken again.”

- Inga Muscio

"How It Really Is"

 

"Don’t Look Now"

"Don’t Look Now"

by Jim Kunstler

"There was Joe Biden, all masked-up at the Virtual Climate Summit Meeting, the only world leader with his face covered, like he was fixing to rob the joint. In reality - if such a place in space-time still exists - Joe was sitting all by himself in an otherwise empty room in front of a video camera, all vaxed-up, too, as is everybody else who comes and goes in the White House. So, what was the mask all about? Surely not the virus. Does Ol’ White Joe bethink himself some kind of international Lone Ranger?

This was only one of countless mysteries orbiting around the dimming star that is Joe Biden, the biggest one, the planet Jupiter of all puzzlements, is how the guy managed to get elected occupant of the oval office. Or, more to the point, how did others manage to get him elected? I mean, considering those few embarrassing campaign forays from the basement to a bunch of empty parking lots back in the fall of 2020, not to mention the supernatural victory on Super Tuesday that rescued his pitiful old ass from the glue factory of discarded candidates.

We may be about to find out as Arizona’s State Senate finally got around to approving a full audit of the November 3rd vote in Maricopa County, comprising Phoenix and its asteroid belt of suburbs, which amounts to more than two-thirds of the state’s population. The Democratic Party tried pretty hard to stop the durned thing, sending its gnarliest Lawfare warrior, one Mark Elias from the Clinton-indentured DC firm of Perkins Coie, and a posse of 70 other attorneys, to bury the proceedings in court orders. But all they got was a weekend pause from an Arizona judge who imposed a $1-million-dollar bond payment on the Democrats to cover expenses for the interruption — which would then be forfeited if the audit went forward. The Dems declined to pay up, so the pause was lifted and the audit goes forward today.

The usual suspects in the mainstream media attempted to bury the Arizona vote audit story or denigrate it - for instance the The New York Times, which characterized the inquiry in its Saturday lede as “false claims of a stolen election,” and then “a snipe hunt for skullduggery,” before asserting the boilerplate “baseless theories of election theft” to seal the deal with its avidly credulous readership. Rachel Maddow of MSNBC practically jumped up and down going woo-woo-woo to discredit the audit. What do you suppose they’re afraid of?

I’ll tell you: For one thing, if the vote turns out to have been compromised by fraud, Arizona is liable to lose a Democratic senator elected on Mr. Biden’s (possibly) phantom coattails - Mark Kelly (D) who defeated incumbent Martha McSally (R) - which would cancel the Democrat’s current one-vote majority grip on the body. The result of that would be the end of the party’s effort to jam various new laws down America’s craw: DC statehood, the HR-1 voter fraud act, the Supreme Court-packing bill, and, actually, anything else on the party’s Satanic wish-list for disassembling the republic.

Then, of course, there’s the tally for president. One thing probably for sure: if the audit uncovers any serious systematic mischief that would alter the November 3rd vote, revealing that Mr. Biden did not win Arizona’s electoral college votes, then there would be tremendous pressure to look into the results of other swing states likewise under suspicion of gross balloting irregularities. The local authorities in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia will, no doubt, attempt to demur. But you may be sure these matters will be back in the courts, perhaps even the US Supreme Court, and this time they might not be able to duck the issue. At the very least, proof of a reversal in Arizona will cast Joe Biden as an illegitimate president in even more minds than the current half of the nation.

Another outcome should be the end of efforts to block real reform of the voting process in the United States. That should mean no more janky-ass computer voting machines, like the Dominion and Smartmatic system that lobbyists sold to twenty-eight states, often lavishly dispensing grift to git’r’done. Also, no more voting without ID (as in most other civilized nations) to prove that you are, at least, a bonafide citizen, no more promiscuous mail-in vote hijinks that forego chain-of-custody rules, and nix expanded voting periods beyond the constitutionally-mandated election day (the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November). Of course, the details would have to be left to the fifty states themselves, since the constitution also mandates that they are in charge of election law. None of that will determine whether only schmucks and rogues run for high office in this land, but at least they might be elected fairly."

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/