Strong language alert!
Full screen recommended.
George Carlin,
"It's A BIG Club & You Ain't In It!"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Tuesday, November 30, 2021
"You Pretend..."
"That life. This life. It looks as if you can have both. I mean, they're both right there, one on top of the other, and it looks as if they'll blend. But they never will. So, you take this thing. You take this thing you want, and you put it in a box and you close the lid. You can let your fingers trace the cracks, the places where the light gets in, the dark gets out, but the lid stays on. You don't look inside. You don't look at this thing you want so much, because you Can. Not. Have. It. So there's this box, you know, with the thing inside, and you could throw it away or shoot it into space; you could set it on fire and watch it burn to ashes, but really, none of that would make a difference, because you cannot destroy what you want. It only makes you want it more. So. You take this thing you want and you put it in a box and you close the lid. And you hold the box close to your heart, which is where it wants to go, and you pretend it doesn't kill you every time you feel yourself breathe."
- Megan Hart
The Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke, "I Want A Lot"
"I Want A Lot"
"You see, I want a lot.
Perhaps I want everything:
the darkness that comes with every infinite fall
and the shivering blaze of every step up.
So many live on and want nothing
and are raised to the rank of prince
by the slippery ease of their light judgments.
But what you love to see are faces
that so work and feel thirst...
You have not grown old, and it is not too late
to dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out its own secret."
- Rainer Maria Rilke
"Prices for Food and Gas are Sky High - What’s Next?"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, 11/30/21:
"Prices for Food and Gas are Sky High -
What’s Next?"
“'Investors' Get Bitten"
“'Investors' Get Bitten"
By Bill Bonner
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – "And what would you expect? Since the Money Madness began in earnest in March 2020, consumer spending – as measured by real retail sales – has gone up 13.5%. That’s thanks to the feds’ giveaways, stimmies, non-repayable loans, deficits, and other money-shuffling claptrap.
According to Say’s Law real demand (purchasing power) comes from output. In other words, you gotta have something to spend. And you get it by having something to sell (labor, product, service, etc.). In the same period, real output (real personal income less transfer payments) went up, too – but by less than 1%. So demand (based on phony money-printing, not output) rose more than 13 times faster than supply.
What You’d Expect: What should happen under these circumstances? Prices should rise. Which is exactly what happened. Last month, the median price of a new house climbed to over $400,000 – a 27% increase over two years ago. Even by the Federal Reserve’s own inflation mismeasurement, the “PCE deflator” (Personal Consumption Expenditures) – a measure of inflation based on changes in personal consumption – from October 2020 to October 2021, price hikes averaged over 5%. This is the highest reading in 31 years… and more than two and a half times the Fed’s own target.
And the PCE deflator for durable goods came in at its highest level in 41 years. This is very gratifying and reassuring to us. Night still follows day. Gravity still holds everything down to Earth, even in Australia. And the law of supply and demand still works.
Bonner’s Law: Not equal to Supply and Demand, or Say’s Law, but still on the books, is Bonner’s Law and its corollary. Bonner’s Law says that “when the money goes, everything goes.” The corollary tells us that things in the financial world, especially, get a little funky. So, when the Fed added another $5 trillion (no point in trying to be precise, we’re talking trillions here), it was bound to set off some weird stuff. And in these Diaries, we enjoyed laughing at many of them – cryptos, NFTs, Meme stocks, SPACs… Cathie Wood… Elon Musk… et al. And they keep coming!
From the St. Louis Fed comes news that U.S. bank deposits are up some 33% since the beginning of the pandemic. That’s a lot more cash in search of something to buy. Not surprisingly, the Russell 2000, the broadest measure of U.S. stocks, more than doubled in that time. Since May of this year, Goldman Sachs’ index of money-losing tech companies has gone up 14%.
Another Rug Pull: And also last week, we learned about yet another “rug pull” in the crypto casino. Here’s Benzinga: "Avalanche (CRYPTO: AVAX)-based meme coin Snowdog (CRYPTO: SDOG), themed after Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE), which was meant to last only eight days has ended in a rug pull. What Happened: As per a tweet from the project’s handle, on the eighth day after the launch of the coin, a “massive buyback” was to be orchestrated. The buyback was not successful and a single address rugged over $10 million by swapping SDOG for other cryptocurrencies."
As near as we can tell, people thought that they would make money by buying a crypto, which was yet another spoof… on the gag known as Shiba Inu (SHIB)… on the joke by Jackson Palmer and Billy Markus, known as Dogecoin (DOGE). The “greater fool” approach is as reliable as any other. It rests upon the assumption that there is always someone dumber than you, ready to buy your assets for more than you paid for them.
The creators of the Snowdog token weren’t taking any chances. If there were greater fools out there, they would find them. So they put out the word that they were going to spend $40 million buying the coins back in eight days. A “game theory experiment,” they called it. Only someone with an IQ substantially lower than his body temperature would believe such a thing. But many did; the Snowdog token rose to be worth more than $6,000. Then, the insiders quickly exchanged their holdings for other cryptos, taking out some $10 million worth in a matter of hours. This “rug pull” sent the price of the poor Snowdog down 99%.
This must have come as a shock to the buyers. The cute little puppy didn’t come when they called it. Instead, it pooped on the carpet, bit the hand that fed it, and took off running. How could it happen, they wondered? But it is a relief to us. God is in His heaven. The queen is on her throne. And investors didn’t get what they expected; they got what they deserved."
"Fear And Loathing"
"Fear And Loathing"
by The Zman
"Since the Great Panic began almost two years ago, the question on the minds of the curious has been how long will it last? Panics are not new in human society and they are not new to recent times either. The satanic panic that started in the 1980’s never really ended completely. The “face on a milk carton” meme is still with us, despite the fact few people remember is started in a panic. That was close to half a century ago, suggesting panics never really end.
The missing kid panic changed American society. Prior to that time, it was not unusual for children to walk to school with just the older kids supervising. Kids spent their after-school time playing outside, usually unsupervised. In big cities, kids would ride public transit to school. No one thought it was strange. After the panic, supervised activities became the norm. Video games found a target-rich environment of kids stuck inside by themselves or within earshot of their parents.
That suggests the Covid panic has a long way to go and may never end. That should be obvious at this point. First it was two weeks to bend the curve so hospitals could avoid being overrun by flu patients. That gave way to a regime of total fright with people required to wear amulets reminding everyone of the great fear. The vaccine should have broken the fear, but here we are facing new lockdowns due to the omicron strain, which reportedly attacks the vaccinated for some reason.
The omicron variant is probably the most amusing twist in the great Covid panic so far, because it suggests someone in the system has a sense of humor. As many have pointed out, the word “omicron” is an anagram for “moronic”. There is also the reference to a classic Star Trek episode. The spores on Omicron ceti iii made people euphoric and gave them everlasting health in exchange for a desire to never leave. The plants and the humans became two sides of a blissful relationship.
Part of what is driving this is belief. Humans are believing machines and with the collapse of traditional religion, people are falling into cultural and political cults that scratch the same itch as the old gods. Nature cults have been a staple of human existence since the beginning. At a certain level, the people swept up in the cult of Covid feel they are being punished for a sin against nature. Covid is nature’s vengeance against mankind.
That is why good news is always bad news with Covid. The new mysterious variant that does not make people sick is “symptomless Covid” rather than the natural weakening the virus with each new mutation. The omicron variant is similarly a weaker mutation, but it is setting off panic around the world. Covid is a proxy for a new mystery god, one that reveals itself only through it actions. Like all gods, it is eternal, so its manifestations will be eternal as well. Covid is here forever.
The main driver of the panic from the beginning has been the ruling class, which is looking like Howard Hughes at the end. Instead of shutting themselves up in their mansions and wearing tissue boxes on their feet, they are obsessed with conquering death itself. The actors they hire to perform the rituals off democracy are not quite as bad, but they are a gerontocracy now. As such, they startle at the slightest touch, assuming it must be the Grim Reaper.
There is also the weird isolation of the managerial class. It is not a physical isolation as they do leave their compounds to explore the land of the Dirt People. It is a psychological and cultural isolation. They can imagine hospitals overflowing and people dying in the streets, even though they see no evidence of these things, because they are conditioned by their existence to trust their coevals over their own eyes. If they see it in their media, it is true, no matter what reality has to say.
This combination of old and isolated has created a ruling class that is deeply paranoid about what happens outside the safety of their safe zones. Note how often the word “safe” comes up in their rhetoric. They see themselves as the protectors of society, so they are constantly going on about safety. The reason for that is they assume everyone shares their fear and paranoia about the world. Covid is powerful juju for a ruling class hiding from nature, reality and their own mortality.
Of course, a big part of the panic is the opportunity for the deranged to inflict themselves on the rest of us. Covid has been manna from heaven for the sort of person who sees herself as everyone’s den mother. These people will never get enough of the state of emergency, which provides the panic stricken elite with an amen chorus giving them the allusion of consent. One side pleads to be made safe while the other side pleads to be the savior of mankind.
This brings us back to the original question. When does this panic end? Most likely, it will require a generational turnover. The gerontocracy will die off and be replaced by something worse, but something younger. That means these health panics are probably a feature of the empire now. Like superhero movies, Covid will be rebooted and reimagined every few years. If you want a picture of the future, imagine an ornamental mask on a human face - forever."
Gregory Mannarino, "Alert! More Fear, Propaganda, and Misinformation"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 11/30/21:
"Alert! More Fear, Propaganda, and Misinformation"
“The Great Global Depopulation Project: An Overview” (Excerpt)
“The Great Global Depopulation Project:
An Overview” (Excerpt)
by Clive Maund
"This is not just another article. I have spent a long time pulling together the videos featured in it, which comprise the majority of the most important and informative that I have come across in recent weeks, so you should spend a long time on it, especially if it really want to take it in. This is obviously a serious and potentially depressing subject so I have included some “gallows humor” in an effort to brighten it up a little, especially as this is being posted at Thanksgiving, but at least, given that it is Thanksgiving, you will have more time to read it and watch the videos, especially if you have some relatives that you are keen to get away from.
When I left school many years ago, human population growth was already becoming an issue. Back then it had reached about 3.7 billion, but now it has arrived at 7.9 billion, in other words it has more than doubled during my adult life. In 1800 it was 1 billion and even by 1900 it was still well under 2 billion. So just in the past 120 years it has exploded 5-fold. What made this possible was mechanization in the factory and on the farm that boosted output, and improved medicine and living conditions that reduced infant mortality and lengthened lifespans."
Please view this complete, critically important article here:
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Related:
Free Download: "The Vaccine Death Report" (PDF)
Evidence of millions of deaths and serious adverse events
resulting from the experimental COVID-19 injections.
By David John Sorenson & Dr. Vladimir Zelenko MD
"The purpose of this report is to document how all over the world millions of people have died, and hundreds of millions of serious adverse events have occurred, after injections with the experimental mRNA gene therapy. We also reveal the real risk of an unprecedented genocide.
Facts: We aim to only present scientific facts and stay away from unfounded claims. The data is clear and verifiable. Over one hundred references can be found for all presented information, which is provided as a starting point for further investigation.
Complicity: The data suggests that we may currently be witnessing the greatest organized mass murder in the history of our world. The severity of this situation compels us to ask this critical question: will we rise to the defense of billions of innocent people? Or will we permit personal profit over justice, and be complicit? Networks of lawyers all over the world are preparing class-action lawsuits to prosecute all who are serving this criminal agenda. To all who have been complicit so far, we say: There is still time to turn and choose the side of truth. Please make the right choice."
Download "The Vaccine Death Report" here:
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Related, essential:
"Millions Of Americans Are Scrambling To Become Independent Of The System As It Collapses All Around Them"
"Millions Of Americans Are Scrambling To Become
Independent Of The System As It Collapses All Around Them"
by Michael Snyder
"Once upon a time, all of the major institutions in our society were running super smoothly, and most people could rely on the fact that they would always be there when they were needed. But now things are going haywire everywhere that you turn. We are in the midst of the worst supply chain crisis in our entire history, the crime and violence in our largest urban areas is starting to spiral out of control, millions upon millions of our fellow citizens are absolutely seething with hate, and this pandemic is causing officials to make extremely irrational decisions that would have been unthinkable during “normal times”. Earlier today, I was horrified to hear that one of my readers had just been denied access to a local hospital. He was taking his wife in for a very important reason, but there were people at the entrance that were checking the vaccination status of everyone that attempted to enter. He and his wife had not been vaccinated, and so they were turned away. That means that they will not be able to have access to any services at that hospital for the foreseeable future.
Did you ever imagine that a day would come when you might not even be allowed to go inside your local hospital? In other cases, hospitals are not providing certain services any longer due to severe staffing shortages. In fact, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that some institutions may lose up to a third of their employees due to Biden’s mandate for health care workers.
That is madness, and I never imagined that we would see such a thing happen in America. But here we are. Moving forward, many Americans are going to have to start figuring out how to provide their own health care, because our health care system is being shaken like never before.
Meanwhile, we are seeing a “historic burst in entrepreneurship and self-employment” as millions upon millions of Americans seek to create jobs for themselves. Thanks to Biden’s mandates, there are millions upon millions of Americans that may soon be ineligible to work for any company that employs 100 or more workers. For now, that particular mandate has been put on hold, but it could be reinstated at any time by the courts.
In any event, many Americans have decided that now is the time to leave the system and start working for themselves. So far this year, a whopping 4.54 million new small businesses have applied for a federal tax identification number. That is up 56 percent from 2019…"Entrepreneurs applied for federal tax-identification numbers to register 4.54 million new businesses from January through October this year, up 56% from the same period of 2019, Census Bureau data show. That was the largest number on records that date back to 2004. Two-thirds were for businesses that aren’t expected to hire employees."
I have always encouraged entrepreneurship as a way for people to become more independent from the system.The good news is that there are literally millions of different ways to work for yourself in this country today. If you are considering taking such a leap, focus on what you are good at. Personally, I would be an absolutely horrible auto mechanic, and if I tried to be a hair stylist it would be a complete and utter disaster. But I can write, and so that is what I do. Others can’t write, but they are incredibly talented in other areas. The key is to find something that will add value to the lives of others.
The global energy crisis is another factor that is pushing people to become more independent of the system. This year, Pennsylvania residents are being warned that their energy bills could increase by approximately 50 percent…"Energy costs in Pennsylvania are set to rise as much as 50% in some parts of the state beginning Dec. 1, according to the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC). “Most Pennsylvania regulated electric utilities are adjusting the price they charge for the generation portion of customers’ bills on December 1 for non-shopping customers, also known as the ‘Price to Compare’ (PTC),” the PUC explained in a press release. “The PTC averages 40% to 60% of the customer’s total utility bill. However, this percent varies by the utility and by the level of individual customer usage."
And as the global energy crisis escalates, we could see more painful energy shortages like we recently witnessed in China, India and Lebanon. This has motivated a lot of Americans to take matters into their own hands, and at this point demand for wood burning stoves is off the charts…"At Central Arkansas Fireplaces in Conway, a suburb of Little Rock, the flood of orders for woodstoves has been so overwhelming that units purchased today won’t be delivered in time for this heating season. “You can’t get a stove until at least April,” says Lakin Frederick, an employee at the store."
Needless to say, demand for firewood has also soared, and this is pushing prices into unprecedented territory…"At Firewood by Jerry in New River, Arizona, a cord of seasoned firewood — roughly 700 pieces or so — goes for $200 today. That’s up 33% from a year ago. At Zia Firewood in Albuquerque, the price is up 11% since the summer to $250. And at Standing Rock Farms in Stone Ridge, a bucolic, little town in the Hudson Valley that’s become popular with the Manhattan set, the best hardwoods now fetch $475 a cord, up 19% from last year." But those that prepared ahead of time don’t need to pay through the nose, because they already have all the firewood that they need.
For years, I have been pleading with people to make preparations in advance for the difficult times that were coming. Now those difficult times have started to arrive, and things are beginning to get really crazy out there.
Even entire communities are trying to become more independent of the system. In California, the insanity coming from Sacramento just became too overwhelming, and so the entire city of Oroville decided to declare itself a constitutional republic…"Oroville declared itself a constitutional republic. A place where the local leaders pledge to fight mandates they say go too far. “Any executive orders issued by the State of California or by the United States federal government that are overreaching or clearly violate our constitutionally protected rights will not be enforced by the City of Oroville against its citizens,” read the declaration passed this month by the City Council."
That is a pretty dramatic move, but the truth is that communities all over the nation are going to have to try to do what they can to insulate themselves from the authoritarian measures that are being instituted on the state and federal levels. If you live in a city or a state where things are particularly bad, you may need to pick up and move to an entirely different part of the country. I know that sounds extreme, but we live in extreme times.
If you want a normal life, you will want to find a place where people are still determined to live relatively normal lives. Because as the system continues to collapse all around us, things are only going to get even crazier. Our country is literally starting to come apart at the seams, and a lot more “change” is on the way."
Monday, November 29, 2021
Musical Interlude: 2002, "Falling Through Time"
Full screen recommended.
2002, "Falling Through Time"
"How small a portion of our life it is that we really enjoy. In youth, we are looking forward to things that are to come; in old age, we are looking backwards to things that are gone past; in manhood, although we appear indeed to be more occupied in things that are present, yet even that is too often absorbed in vague determinations to be vastly happy on some future day, when we have time."
- Charles Caleb Colton
"Not Such An Easy Business..."
“Over the years you get to see what a struggle life is for most people, how tough it is, how easy it is to be judgmental and criticize and stand outside of situations and impart your wisdom and judgment. But over the decades I've gotten more tolerant of people's flaws and mistakes. Everybody makes a lot of them. When you're younger you feel: "Hey, this person is evil" or "This person is a jerk" or stupid or "What's wrong with them?" Then you go through life and you think: "Well, it's not so easy." There's a lot of mystery and suffering and complication. Everybody's out there trying to do the best they can. And it's not such an easy business.”
- Woody Allen
"Vitae Summa Brevis"
"Vitae Summa Brevis"
"They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.
They are not long, the days of wine and roses;
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream."
- Ernest Dowson
“Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam”
is a quotation from Horace’s “First Book of Odes”:
“The shortness of life prevents us from entertaining far-off hopes.”
Chet Raymo, "Know Thyself"
"Know Thyself"
by Chet Raymo
"The ancient Greek aphorism, attributed to Socrates and others. Good advice, I'm sure. If only we knew what it means. Is it the same as the "examination of conscience" we were asked to perform as young Catholics? "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned." Well, yes, it is good to ask ourselves if we have lived up to our highest moral aspirations. But surely "Know thyself" means more than that.
Does it mean to be aware of our self-awareness? That is to say, not to act impulsively, but reflectively. Thoreau's "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Or perhaps it means to apply the method of scientia to the problem of consciousness, treat the mind like a fish that can be dissected at the lab bench, watch the brain flickering on the display of a scanning machine as the subject is stimulated with love, sex, fear, music, pain. Neuroscience. Daniel Dennet's book audaciously titled "Consciousness Explained." There is a line from a poem by Jane Hirshfield, in which she questions herself: "A knife cannot cut itself open/ yet you ask me both to be you and to know you."
Is it hopeless then? Is there an essential absurdity in a thing knowing itself? Does knowing necessarily imply a knower more complex than the thing known? Is it possible that we might fully understand, say, the neurology of the sea slug Aplysia, that favorite subject of experimental neurobiologists with only 20,000 central nerve cells, big nerve cells, ten times bigger than human neurons, but not the workings of the human brain, with its 100 billion nerve cells, each one connected to thousands of others?
Hirshfield's poem is titled "Instant Glimpsable Only For An Instant." Perhaps that is the best we can do. To know ourselves in those fleeting moments of recognition than come now and then, often unbidden, sometimes as the result of a chance encounter with beauty or with ugliness, sometimes bidden out of the silence and solitude of meditation - a flash upon one's inward eye that is, perhaps, all the ancients were asking for when they asked us to "know ourselves."
Does it mean to be aware of our self-awareness? That is to say, not to act impulsively, but reflectively. Thoreau's "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Or perhaps it means to apply the method of scientia to the problem of consciousness, treat the mind like a fish that can be dissected at the lab bench, watch the brain flickering on the display of a scanning machine as the subject is stimulated with love, sex, fear, music, pain. Neuroscience. Daniel Dennet's book audaciously titled "Consciousness Explained." There is a line from a poem by Jane Hirshfield, in which she questions herself: "A knife cannot cut itself open/ yet you ask me both to be you and to know you."
Is it hopeless then? Is there an essential absurdity in a thing knowing itself? Does knowing necessarily imply a knower more complex than the thing known? Is it possible that we might fully understand, say, the neurology of the sea slug Aplysia, that favorite subject of experimental neurobiologists with only 20,000 central nerve cells, big nerve cells, ten times bigger than human neurons, but not the workings of the human brain, with its 100 billion nerve cells, each one connected to thousands of others?
Hirshfield's poem is titled "Instant Glimpsable Only For An Instant." Perhaps that is the best we can do. To know ourselves in those fleeting moments of recognition than come now and then, often unbidden, sometimes as the result of a chance encounter with beauty or with ugliness, sometimes bidden out of the silence and solitude of meditation - a flash upon one's inward eye that is, perhaps, all the ancients were asking for when they asked us to "know ourselves."
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"Instant Glimpsable Only For An Instant"
"Moment. Moment. Moment.
- equal inside you, moment,
the velocitous mountains and cities rising and falling,
songs of children, iridescence even of beetles.
It is not you the locust can strip of all leaf.
Untouchable green at the center,
the wolf too lopes past you and through you as he eats.
Insult to mourn you, you who mourn no one, unable.
Without transformation,
yours the role of the chorus, to whom nothing happens.
The living step forward: choosing to enter, to lose.
I, who am made of you only,
speak these words against your unmasterable instruction -
A knife cannot cut itself open,
yet you ask me both to be you and to know you."
~ Jane Hirshfield
"A Killing Of The Mind: Mass Psychosis and Totalitarianism"
"A Killing Of The Mind: Mass Psychosis and Totalitarianism"
by Martin Armstrong
“Logic can be met with logic, while illogic cannot - it confuses those who think straight. The Big Lie and monotonously repeated nonsense have more emotional appeal in a cold war than logic and reason. While the enemy is still searching for a reasonable counter-argument to the first lie, the totalitarians can assault him with another.”
- Joost A.M. Meerloo, “The Rape of the Mind:
The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing”
Please view this video here:
"Holiday Shopping Juiced By Credit Cards; Shoppers Going Deep In Debt; Economic Collapse Accelerates"
Jeremiah Babe, PM 11/29/21
"Holiday Shopping Juiced By Credit Cards;
Shoppers Going Deep In Debt; Economic Collapse Accelerates"
"Why Inflation Is a Runaway Freight Train"
"Why Inflation Is a Runaway Freight Train"
by Charles Hugh Smith
"Inflation, deflation, stagflation - they've all got proponents. But who's going to be right? The difficulty here is that supply and demand are dynamic and so there are always things going up in price that haven't changed materially (and are therefore not worth the higher cost) and other things dropping in price even though they haven't changed materially.
So proponents of inflation and deflation can always offer examples supporting their case. The stagflationist camp is delighted to offer a compromise case: yes, there are both deflationary and inflationary dynamics, and what we have is the worst of both worlds: stagnant growth and declining purchasing power.
What's missing in most of these debates is a comparison of scale: deflationists point to things like big-screen TV prices dropping. OK, fine: we save $300 on a TV that we might buy once every two or three years. So we save $100 a year thanks to this deflation.
Meanwhile, on the inflationary side, healthcare insurance went up $3,000 a year, childcare went up $3,000 a year, rent (or property taxes) went up $3,000 a year and care for an elderly parent went up $3,000 a year: that's $12,000. Now how many big-screen TVs, shoddy jeans, etc. that dropped a bit in price will we have to buy to offset $12,000 in higher costs?
This is the problem with abstractions like statistics: TVs dropped 20% in cost, while healthcare, childcare, assisted living and rent all went up 20% - so these all balance out, right?
There are two glaring omissions in all the back-and-forth on inflation and deflation:
1. Price is set on the margins.
2. Enterprises cannot lose money for very long and so they close down.
Let's start with an observation about the dynamics of price/cost: supply and demand. As a general rule, things that are scarce and in high demand will go up in price, and things that are abundant and in low demand will drop in price. Whatever is chronically scarce and necessary for life will have a ceaseless pressure to cost more, whatever is abundant and no longer desirable will have a ceaseless pressure to cost less.
Now we come to the overlooked mechanism #1: Price is set on the margins. Housing offers an example: take a neighborhood of 100 homes. The five sales last year were all around $600,000, and so appraisers set the value of the other 95 homes at $600,000.
Things change and the next sale is at $450,000. This is dismissed as an outlier, but then the next two sales are also well below $500,000. By the fifth sale at $450,000, the value of each of the 95 homes that did not change hands has been reset to $450,000. The five houses that traded hands set the price of the 95 houses that didn't change hands. Price is set on the margins.
The biggest expense in many enterprises and agencies is labor. Those who own enterprises know that it's not just the wage being paid that matters, it's the labor overhead: the benefits, insurance and taxes paid on every employee. These are often 50% or more of the wages being paid. These labor overhead expenses have skyrocketed for many enterprises and agencies, increasing their labor costs in ways that are hidden from the employees and public.
It's important to recall that roughly 3/4 of all local government expenses are for labor and labor overhead - healthcare, pensions, etc. Where do you think local taxes are heading as labor and labor-overhead costs rise? What happens to pension funds when all the speculative bubbles all pop?
The cost of labor is also set on the margins. The wage of the 100-person workforce is set by the five most recent hires, and if wages went up 20% to secure those employees, the cost of the labor of the other 95 workers also went up 20%. (Employers can hide a mismatch but not for long, and such deception will alienate the 95% who are getting paid less for doing the same work.)
Labor is scarce for fundamental reasons that aren't going away:
1. Demographics: large generation is retiring, replacements are not guaranteed.
2. Catch-up: labor's share of the economy has declined for 45 years. Now it's catch-up time.
3. Cultural shift in values: Antiwork, slow living, FIRE - all are manifestations of a profound cultural shift away from working for decades to pay debts and enrich billionaires to downshifting expenses and expectations in favor of leisure and agency (control of one's work and life).
4. Long Covid and other chronic health issues: whether anyone cares to admit it or not, Long Covid is real and poorly tracked. A host of other chronic health issues resulting from overwork, stress and unhealthy lifestyles are also poorly tracked. All these reduce the supply of labor.
5. Competing demands of family and work. Work has won for 45 years, now family is pushing back.
Put these together - diminishing supply of labor and labor being priced on the margins - and you get a runaway freight train of higher labor costs. Add in runaway increases in labor overhead and you've got a runaway freight train with the throttle jammed to 11.
Deflationists make one fatally unrealistic assumption: that enterprises facing sharply higher costs for labor, components, shipping, taxes, etc. will continue making big-screen TVs, shoddy jeans, etc. even as the price the products and services fetch plummets below the costs of producing them.
The wholesale price of the TV can't drop below production and shipping costs for very long. Then the manufacturers close down production and the over-abundance of TVs, etc. goes away. Nation-states can subsidize production of some things for a time, but selling at a loss is not a long-term winning strategy: subsidizing failing enterprises and money-losing state-owned companies is a form of malinvestment that bleeds the economy dry.
The only thing that will still be super-abundant as demand plummets is phantom-wealth "investments", i.e. skims, scams, bubbles and frauds. The value of these super-abundant follies will trend rapidly to zero once margin calls and other bits of reality drastically reduce demand. Real-world costs: much higher. Speculative gambles: much lower. As in zero."
Gregory Mannarino, "If You Do Not Comply They Will Take Everything From You"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 11/29/21:
"If You Do Not Comply They Will Take Everything From You"
"Rising Mortgage Rates About To Pop The Housing Bubble: Prepare Yourself For Housing Crash!"
Full screen recommended.
"Rising Mortgage Rates About To Pop The Housing Bubble:
Prepare Yourself For Housing Crash!"
by Epic Economist
"The US housing market has been silently watching the uncontrolled growth of a nationwide home price bubble over the past few months. However, third-quarter numbers suggest that the market may have been stretched to the limit as home sales significantly collapsed for the first time in almost 18 months due to sky-high prices and the prospects of higher interest rates. Worsening affordability means that fewer Americans can actually make the dream of owning a home come true, and as a result, the market slows down and prices start to come down to Earth again. The latest reports indicate that we're at the end of a euphoric market, and a downward trend is right around the corner.
Skyrocketing home prices will have to readjust and meet our economic reality. In other words, even though people are too conservative to bluntly say it these days, the US housing market is set for a crash. That's what Ivy Zelman, a housing analyst who became famous on Wall Street for calling the top of the 2008 bubble, has warned in a recent interview. Zelman revealed that she's seeing several red flags once again. In less than two years, the U.S. housing market has seen a historic run-up in property values like anything we've ever seen before. But we're now at the peak of the bubble.
She’s alerting her clients that overheated areas with heavy concentrations of investors are likely to face “corrections” -- the industry's term of choice not to spark panic on the public. But, in essence, we all know that "corrections" stand for "sharp crashes in overinflated property values". Zelman says that even a small rise of 1%, setting rates at 4%, would bring demand to a halt. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, she said that cracks are already appearing everywhere.
The analyst says that today's fundamentals are different from the last bubble, which was supported by risky subprime mortgage lending. "But the signs of trouble look familiar," she says. "Investors are distorting the market by driving up prices beyond the reach of primary buyers, and builders with growing construction pipelines are bidding up land values". Given that the Federal Reserve has signaled that it will start to roll back its bond purchasing program and raise rates in the coming weeks, Zilman says that some of her predictions may not "come to fruition this year," but probably early on 2022. "But we definitely see a storm brewing," she continues.
The analyst argues that excess liquidity in the markets led investors to fuel a speculative bubble in the housing sector, with iBuyers, private equity firms, and sovereign wealth funds propping up property values in an attempt to collect higher returns. When asked if she sees a housing market crash coming, the analyst warned that property values have to go down. "There are going to be corrections. And I think there are going to be corrections that are even more pronounced if rates go higher than 1%," she cautioned.
Just like Zilman, many others in the market are also suggesting that the third quarter of 2021 likely marked the peak for the housing market's price bubble, and from now on, real estate prices are bound to collapse. In many cases, the drop will likely be a painful one. According to economists at Fannie Mae, housing inflation is expected to drop by at least 2 percent this quarter, as the bubble loses some steam. The industry consensus right now is that there's no way to support the continuing rise in home prices.
Already, due to increasing affordability challenges and the estimates of higher mortgage rates, home sales fell 5.8% from a year ago. Fresh data from the National Association of Realtors point that actual sales of all types of existing homes fell 8.2% year-over-year to 526,000 homes, and sales of condos and co-ops dropped by 8.1% year-over-year to 57,000 units. Considering today's sky-high prices, the housing market is much more susceptible to higher mortgage rates than in prior years, which means that property prices will have to sharply readjust to reduce the affordability gap.
Some industry cheerleaders can say that today's overinflated prices are a matter of “simple supply and demand”. But the truth is that demand means having buyers who can actually afford to buy. Unfortunately, those who entered the bubble thinking they would have massive returns are set to disappointment. Millions of Americans are about to see the value of their homes dramatically crashing. Just as every bubble artificially inflated by the Federal Reserve over the past year, the housing bubble is headed to burst. And that meltdown will begin as soon as interest rates start going up."
Musical Interlude: Graham Nash and David Crosby, “Wind On The Water”
"As I rocked in the moonlight,
And reefed the sail.
It'll happen to you
Also without fail,
If it happens to me.
Sang the world's last whale."
- Pete Seeger
○
“Wind On The Water”
by Graham Nash and David Crosby
"Over the years you have been hunted
by the men who threw harpoons,
And in the long run we will kill you
just to feed the pets we raise,
put the flowers in your vase,
and make the lipstick for your face.
Over the years you swam the ocean
Following feelings of your own,
Now you are washed up on the shoreline,
I can see your body lie,
It's a shame you have to die
to put the shadow on our eye.
Maybe we'll go,
Maybe we'll disappear,
It's not that we don't know,
It's just that we don't want to care.
Under the bridges,
Over the foam,
Wind on the water
Carry me home."
by Graham Nash and David Crosby
"Over the years you have been hunted
by the men who threw harpoons,
And in the long run we will kill you
just to feed the pets we raise,
put the flowers in your vase,
and make the lipstick for your face.
Over the years you swam the ocean
Following feelings of your own,
Now you are washed up on the shoreline,
I can see your body lie,
It's a shame you have to die
to put the shadow on our eye.
Maybe we'll go,
Maybe we'll disappear,
It's not that we don't know,
It's just that we don't want to care.
Under the bridges,
Over the foam,
Wind on the water
Carry me home."
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Sprawling emission nebulae IC 1396 and Sh2-129 mix glowing interstellar gas and dark dust clouds in this 10 degree wide field of view toward the northern constellation Cepheus the King. Energized by its bluish central star IC 1396 (left) is hundreds of light-years across and some 3,000 light-years distant. The nebula's intriguing dark shapes include a winding dark cloud popularly known as the Elephant's Trunk below and right of center. Tens of light-years long, it holds the raw raw material for star formation and is known to hide protostars within.
Located a similar distance from planet Earth, the bright knots and swept back ridges of emission of Sh2-129 on the right suggest its popular name, the Flying Bat Nebula. Within the Flying Bat, the most recently recognized addition to this royal cosmic zoo is the faint bluish emission from Ou4, the Giant Squid nebula."
Kurt Vonnegut, "Requiem"
"Requiem"
“The crucified planet Earth,
should it find a voice and a sense of irony,
might now well say of our abuse of it,
"Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do."
The irony would be that we know what we are doing.
When the last living thing has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up perhaps
from the floor of the Grand Canyon,
"It is done. People did not like it here.”
- Kurt Vonnegut
"There Are Times..."
"There are times the lies get to me, times I weary of battering myself against the obstacles of denial, hatred, fear-induced stupidity, and greed, times I want to curl up and fall into the problem, let it sweep me away as it so obviously sweeps away so many others. I remember a spring day a few years ago, a spring day much like this one, only a little more sun, and warmer. I sat on this same couch and looked out this same window at the same ponderosa pine.
I was frightened, and lonely. Frightened of a future that looks dark, and darker with each passing species, and lonely because for every person actively trying to shut down the timber industry, stop abuse, or otherwise bring about a sustainable and sane way of living, there are thousands who are helping along this not-so-slow train to oblivion. I began to cry.
The tears stopped soon enough. I realized we are not so outnumbered. We are not outnumbered at all. I looked closely, and saw one blade of wild grass, and another. I saw the sun reflecting bright off the needles of pine trees, and I heard the hum of flies. I saw ants walking single file through the dust, and a spider crawling toward the corner of the ceiling. I knew in that moment, as I've known ever since, that it is no longer possible to be lonely, that every creature on earth is pulling in the direction of life - every grasshopper, every struggling salmon, every unhatched chick, every cell of every blue whale- and it is only our own fear that sets us apart. All humans, too, are struggling to be sane, struggling to live in harmony with our surroundings, but it's really hard to let go. And so we lie, destroy, rape, murder, experiment, and extirpate, all to control this wildly uncontrollable symphony, and failing that, to destroy it."
- Derrick Jensen,
"A Language Older Than Words"
Paulo Coelho, “The Chess Game”
“The Chess Game”
by Paulo Coelho
“A young man said to the abbot from the monastery of Melk: "I’d actually like to be a monk, but I haven’t learned anything in life. All my father taught me was to play chess, which does not lead to enlightenment. Apart from that, I learned that all games are a sin."
"They may be a sin but they can also be a diversion, and who knows, this monastery needs a little of both," was the reply. The abbot asked for a chess board, sent for a monk and told him to play the young man. But before the game began, he added: "Although we need diversion, we cannot allow everyone to play chess the whole time. So, we only have the best players here; if our monk loses, he will leave the monastery and his place will be yours."
The abbot was serious. The young man knew he was playing for his life, and broke into a cold sweat; the chess board became the center of the world. The monk began badly. The young man attacked, but then saw the saintly look on the other man’s face; at that moment, he began playing badly on purpose. After all, he would rather lose, a monk is far more useful to the world.
Suddenly, the abbot threw the chess board to the floor. "You have learned far more than was taught you," he said. "You concentrated yourself enough to win, were capable of fighting for that which you desire. Then, you had compassion, and were willing to make a sacrifice in the name of a noble cause. Welcome, because the secret of life is to know how to balance discipline with compassion.”
"I Promise You This...
"One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am- a reluctant enthusiast... a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards."
- Edward Abbey
"Passing the Cup"
"Passing the Cup"
by Bill Bonner
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – "It was a marvelous Thanksgiving holiday. The weather was perfect – brisk and sunny…It recalled a Thanksgiving of long ago… We were working with our uncle, “getting up” firewood. Our crew included the two of us and a black tenant farmer, Joe. We stopped for a drink at the pump. Joe pumped up the water. We held up the tin, filled it, and passed it to him. Joe pointed to our uncle. The custom then was for whites to drink first. But trees grow… and rules and customs evolve.
This Year’s Thanksgiving Project: This year, the house was full. We typically have children, grandchildren, and visitors joining us. And we typically find a “project” that keeps them busy before we sit down to dinner. In the past, these have mostly focused on barn repair. One year, we put on a new roof. Another, we shored up a foundation. The physical work – especially for those who aren’t used to it – prepares the group for evening meals, calm reflection, and early bedtimes. It also helps us solve maintenance issues at the farm.
This year, we decided to “get up” some firewood. We rented a large splitter. And we went at it for three days – with one son, one son-in-law, and one grandson. By Saturday, our pants were ripped… our fingernails were broken… and we were prepared for an Ice Age.
“Getting up” the firewood.
Suspect Celebration: Yes, it was a nice Thanksgiving. A warm fire… a grandchild’s giggles… pumpkin pie – what more could you ask for? But it was an odd one. For this year, the cause of celebration was suspect.
We were told, for example, that the world would be a better place if Christopher Columbus had never “discovered” America… the Pilgrims had never landed at Plymouth Rock… or Squanto had cut their throats as soon as they got off the Mayflower. Myths can be dangerous – especially those developed by people with an axe to grind. If they decide that they are a superior race, or that they have a mission to conquer the world… or spread Islam… or Democracy… they are headed for trouble.
When we were children, scarcely anyone questioned the dominant Thanksgiving myth. We were Americans, and damned proud of it. Did we handle the Indians roughly? Maybe… But that was just the price of progress. Did we keep blacks in shackles? Yes, but we saw the error of our ways… and paid for it dearly, with nearly a million white, Civil War deaths.
And while slavery was no picnic, it would have been a vast lifestyle upgrade for the million or so killed in the English conquest of Ireland…the 55 million “indigenous peoples” who died after European diseases arrived in the New World…
(Footnote: The term “Indian” was a mistake; the Spanish explorers thought they were in the East Indies. And “indigenous people” is a lie; everyone knows they were immigrants, too, not indigenous to the Americas)…
…the 40,000 who were killed in the French Revolution…or the hundreds of millions who died in the Bolshevik Revolution, the Soviet Union’s wars, purges, and gulags, Mao’s communist revolution, and the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s.
“You can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs,” say the world improvers. And as bad as slavery was, the slave owner had a keen interest in keeping his slaves from getting cracked. They were valuable property.
Superiority Complex: That was the Thanksgiving zeitgeist of the 1950s and 1960s… We were unapologetic, glad to be alive… and glad to be Americans. We remembered the young tree of liberty, too, so vigorous and straight… and expected to continue our upward growth – with more wealth and more freedom – as long as we lived. We suspected, too, that the “whites drink first” custom would soon be history… And we were happy to see it go.
Even as late as the end of the 20th century, a large majority of Americans believed themselves to be a light unto the world… an “exceptional” people, with a unique position in world history. “We stand tall and see farther” than other peoples, said then secretary of state Madeleine Albright in 1998. But as the tree grew… the creed bent… and the successful tribe over-reached.
Today, American troops are all over the planet; but the U.S. has not won a real war since 1945. Millions are targeted by U.S. sanctions, but foreigners still won’t do as they are told. Trillions of dollars of fake money are printed and spent, leaving us $29 trillion in debt and with only one way to pay for it – print more money.
Day of Mourning: Now, the tree is gnarled and old. It has become a nest for scoundrels, martinets, and race baiters. And this Thanksgiving, we were told to hang our heads in shame… take the knee… and beat our chests, simply for being who we are. “We” – presumably, anyone with a majority European ancestry – almost exterminated the indigenous people… got rich on slave labor… and are working hard to destroy Planet Earth.
It was like having a huge, rotten tree limb hanging over our heads. We were urged to hang black crepe on the windows and lay the whip on our own backs. We white men have a lot to answer for; we are all racists and cads… climate change deniers and vaccine resistors. USA Today reminded us that it was a “Day of Mourning.” MSNBC told us that the Pilgrims “brought genocide and violence” to the New World.
What Matters Most: And now, the macro aggressions of the past are forgotten. The suffering of generations – before the settling of America – counts for nothing. Nor are the millions of murders and government-caused starvations outside of U.S. borders, committed in the name of the prevailing myth, worthy of mention. According to the press, public life today goes no deeper than yesterday’s news… filtered through a sour, narrow funnel of race, gender, viruses, and climate change.
The rest is mere obiter dicta. And yet, it is still “the rest” – stacks of firewood, win-win deals, and passing the cup – that really matter."
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