Monday, January 10, 2022

"Economic Market Snapshot 1/10/22"

"Economic Market Snapshot 1/10/22"
Updated as available.
"The more I see of the moneyed classes, 
the more I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw

MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates
CNN Market Data:

CNN Fear And Greed Index:
Latest Market Analysis, Updated 1/10/22
https://www.asktraders.com/analysis/
A comprehensive, essential daily read.
Jan 8th to 12th 2022
Financial Stress Index
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: creditequity valuationfunding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United Statesother advanced economies, and emerging markets."
Daily Job Cuts

Commentary, highly recommended:
And now, the End Game...

"Coups d’etat… for Dummies"

"Coups d’etat… for Dummies"
by Bill Bonner

Poitou, France - “I will stand in this breach. I will defend this nation. And I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of our democracy.” ~ Joe Biden

"The holiday season is over… now comes the long slog through winter… First, we would like to thank Dear Readers for sticking with us. We’re trying something new. Just straight talk. No advertising. No big promises. If we get through the coming bomb cyclone – the financial/political one – with our wits and wealth in tact, we will consider it a success.

In the days ahead, we will also give you a fuller explanation for our move… and hit the refresh button on many of the core ideas we’ve developed over the last two decades. They may seem a little exotic, or even frightening, to new readers. But here at the re-born Diary, we hide nothing. One of our almost treasonous notions, for example, is our take on modern, American democracy… and the role of America’s mainstream media in destroying it.

Last week was the anniversary of the Jan. 6 2021 ‘insurgency’ at the US Capitol. The press was in full throated alarm mode. Just google “American democracy in peril” and you will get millions of suggestions. Johns Hopkins and Harvard have convened panels of scholars to explore the idea. Joe Biden, along with almost every Democrat-leaning polemicist, politician and DC hanger-on, has warned about it. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of books have endorsed the idea. Writes one of the most popular writers on Substack, Heather Richardson Cox: "On January 6, 2021, insurrectionists determined to overturn an election and undermine our democracy carried that flag [the Confederate flag] into the seat of our government."

Horrors!

Up north, the Canadians are worried. This morning, MSNBC carries this story from Toronto’s Globe & Mail: “American Democracy Could Collapse.” It goes on to say that a ‘right wing’ dictator could take over in 2030. [A ‘left wing’ dictator, apparently, is out of the question.]

The danger is imminent! The Atlantic, that paragon of Elite Establishment Wisdom opines: "America is running out of time. One year after Donald Trump led his supporters in an attempted coup against the United States, the nation is still very much in the throes of that attack."

The Coup that Wasn't: But we all saw it on TV. What kind of coup d’etat was this? The mob invasion of the Capitol appeared to be just the opposite of a real coup. It was more like a takeover organized by the Three Stooges. The invaders had not a single weapon. Not a single preparation had been made – no plan… no supplies… no press conferences… no tanks, airplanes, TV stations… nothing had been made ready.

Even such a low IQ crowd could have searched for it on the internet: “How to engineer a successful coup d’etat in 10 simple steps.” Look it up for yourself; it’s right there. Apparently, no one did. Instead, the leaderless mob entered the Capitol building, milled around, took selfies, then… as clueless and lost as tourists without a guide, it left.

Nobody appeared on TV announcing a state of emergency and a new government. Beltway traffic was not interrupted. No columns of olive drab troop carriers crossed the 14th Street Bridge.

Caesar crossed the Rubicon with an army of loyal, hardened troops at his back…. after crisscrossing all of Gaul, on foot or on horseback, and defeating, outsmarting, and humbling dozens of barbarian tribes. He was strong, bright, and remarkably resourceful. No one doubted that he meant business.

And Mr. Trump? On Jan. 6, 2020, Mr. Trump was already firmly ensconced on the banks of the Potomac, hamburger and diet coke in hand. As Commander and Chief of the whole of US forces, he could have gone along with the media’s ‘terrorist attack’ claptrap, called out the army to restore order… suspended the transfer of power…and given his troops, as did the president of Kazakhstan, the command to ‘shoot to kill’ anyone who objected. Surely there was at least one silly colonel, passed over for promotion, who was dumb enough to follow his orders!

But no. No coup. No undermining of democracy. No nothing… except a great media hubbub, broken glass, mock anxiety, and one unarmed, and now dead woman, shot point-blank by a trigger-happy Capitol guard.

Et tu, Media? Why then does the mainstream media persist in portraying the Capitol invasion as something it wasn’t? That is our question for today… and tomorrow. It’s a question about consensual democracy itself… and how it pitches head first into something a whole lot less ‘consensual’… and how it connects to the economic collapse we see coming.

First, we need to elaborate on an idea that we take for granted… one that most people take for absurd. That is, we don’t think the right to vote is such hot stuff. Few people will say so. But given the opportunity, even in a hotly contested election such as in 2016, 43% of eligible voters didn’t bother.

We don’t want to use the government to force others to do what we want. We’d appreciate it if they would return the favor. But many people think that a ‘democracy’ is controlled by ‘the people,’ and getting a majority of these yahoos together gives you the right to tell everyone what to do.

The great Italian economist, Wilfredo Pareto showed that whatever you call your government – a monarchy, a theocracy, a democracy… it just doesn’t matter. Government it is never actually controlled by ‘the people.’ They are too busy just trying to earn a living. Instead, there is always a small group of insiders and movers & shakers – a rich, powerful elite he called “the foxes” – who take charge.

In the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Cuba and other totalitarian countries, they were the Party insiders. In pre-revolutionary France, they were the aristocracy. In strong-man dictatorships, they are the cronies, enablers and fixers. And in America today, the elite includes Wall Street, universities, the Fed, both political parties, the bureaucracy, lobbyists, think tanks, no-profits, the military/industrial/pharmacological/medical/welfare surveillance complex… and notably, the press.

Not coincidentally, these are by and large the people who own America’s public companies… and whose wealth has increased by about $30 trillion over the last 12 years – thanks to policies controlled by the elite themselves.

What makes a consensual democracy tolerable is not the democracy part, it’s the consensual nature of it. People respect each other’s opinions and their rights to do with themselves and their property as they please. When that consensus is lost, the result is misery – a civil war… oppression… resistance… a breakdown of law and order… or other disagreeable trends.

Follow the Money: Of particular interest to us is the monetary flimflam. One of our Diary dicta: when the money goes, everything goes. And as the elite tightens up its control, it inevitably strangles business and investment. And it must also bribe the discontented mobs with stimmies and giveaways. This leaves it in need of finance, which it typically gets by distributing “printing press” money… leading to further discontent and economic discombobulation.

But wait. What is the media’s role? As we will see tomorrow, the press is meant to question authority. It is supposed to represent the public in its desire to get to the bottom of things. Does this war really make sense? Should we spend the public’s money on this? Why do you think this will make voters better off? But instead of asking the tough questions, the mainstream media became a shill for the government and the leading propagandist for the whole elite agenda. Now it just passes along the party line… no matter how at odds with the reality people see before their own eyes.

Mr. Trump was never clever enough to be a real Caesar. And the press despised him for it. Even when he spoke the truth, rarely, and if only by accident, the press excoriated him. So, what were the flyover voters supposed to think? Could they depend on the elite to count the votes fairly… or the press to report the results honestly? And when the real Caesar appears, won’t the public rejoice? We don’t know. But the toady media, after a little tidying up, will make damned sure to croak his praises. Stay tuned."

"How It Really Is"

 

Gregory Mannarino, "Fear Is Gripping The Markets. Dollar Meltdown, Much Higher Inflation, Surging Debt"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 1/10/22:
"Fear Is Gripping The Markets. Dollar Meltdown,
 Much Higher Inflation, Surging Debt"

“Fourth Turning 2022 - Bad Moon Rising” (Excerpt)

“Fourth Turning 2022 - Bad Moon Rising” (Excerpt)
by Jim Quinn

“Try to unlearn the obsessive fear of death (and the anxious quest for death avoidance) that pervades linear thinking in nearly every modern society. The ancients knew that, without periodic decay and death, nature cannot complete its full round of biological and social change. Without plant death, weeds would strangle the forest. Without human death, memories would never die, and unbroken habits and customs would strangle civilization. Social institutions require no less. Just as floods replenish soil and fires rejuvenate forests, a Fourth Turning clears out society’s exhausted elements and creates an opportunity.” 
– Strauss & Howe, "The Fourth Turning"

“Institutions will be increasingly bossy, limiting personal freedoms, chastising bad manners, and cleansing the culture. Powerful new civic organizations will make judgments about which individual rights deserve respect and which do not. Criminal justice will become swift and rough, trampling on some innocents to protect an endangered and desperate society from those feared to be guilty. Expect a loss of personal privacy. Fourth Turnings can be dark times for the free spirit: Just as one kind of official may have new authority to do something for you, another kind - some hastily deputized magistrate - may have new authority to do something to you.” 
– Strauss & Howe, "The Fourth Turning"

It’s been almost a year since my annual look ahead at the upcoming year. Last year’s article "FOURTH TURNING DETONATION" was a big picture overview of where we stood during the thirteenth year of this ongoing Fourth Turning Crisis. I had given up trying to make specific predictions because the twenty-year length of a Crisis period does not lend itself to specificity within a given year. My comment at the beginning of the article was:

“Predicting the actual events which will occur over a short-term time frame is a fool’s errand, so I prefer to try and discern the direction and amplitude of the ongoing Crisis to gauge how we should prepare for what is coming.”

The consistent drivers of this Fourth Turning are the three unequivocal factors – debt, civic decay, and global disorder. The specific events creating the daily trials and tribulations of this Fourth Turning all have their basis in one or more of these three driving factors. As we entered 2021, my big picture view was: “The globalist elite want to keep the fear at a high level to institute their global reset, where you will own nothing and be happy, or you will be brought to heel by the truncheon.”

It is clear I nailed that one. The fear level was ramped to 11 on the volume dial. It was truly one of the worst years for liberty minded, critical thinking, self-sufficient individuals in the last eighty years. We know history does not repeat, but it certainly rhymes. Fourth Turnings always sweep away the existing social order and we are in the midst of a whirlwind of transformation with an entirely uncertain outcome that could result in reviving the founders’ idea of the Republic or mark the end of this experiment born in the blood of patriots in 1776."
Please view this complete article here:

Sunday, January 9, 2022

"BREAKDOWN: Basic Services And Supply Chains Are Rapidly Breaking Down All Over The Globe"

"BREAKDOWN: Basic Services And Supply Chains
 Are Rapidly Breaking Down All Over The Globe"
by Michael Snyder

"I warned you that things would get even worse in 2022, and that is exactly what is happening. Throughout the latter stages of 2022, I documented how basic services were breaking down all across the country, but this was a trend that was largely ignored by the mainstream media until now. Fear of the Omicron variant has taken things to an entirely new level, and at this point things have gotten so bad that even the mainstream media is full of stories about this crisis. For example, over the weekend this was one of the Drudge Report’s main headlines: “NATIONWIDE BREAKDOWN OF SERVICES”. The following is an excerpt from that story

"Ambulances in Kansas speed toward hospitals then suddenly change direction because hospitals are full. Employee shortages in New York City cause delays in trash and subway services and diminish the ranks of firefighters and emergency workers. Airport officials shut down security checkpoints at the biggest terminal in Phoenix and schools across the nation struggle to find teachers for their classrooms."

The current explosion of omicron-fueled coronavirus infections in the U.S. is causing a breakdown in basic functions and services - the latest illustration of how COVID-19 keeps upending life more than two years into the pandemic. This is happening almost everywhere, and it is deeply affecting industry after industry.

Last week, I wrote about how one man in St. Louis had to wait 10 hours for an ambulance to show up. I still can’t get over that. And once people get to our hospitals, often they can’t get treated in a timely manner because there aren’t enough workers. Of course hospitals are trying to hire as fast as they can, but finding qualified people is extremely difficult these days. For example, one hospital in Nebraska has been advertising for an ultrasound technician for six months and still has not received one single application…

"Troy Bruntz runs Community Hospital, a 25-bed critical access facility in McCook, Nebraska. He’s been trying to recruit a third ultrasound technician for at least six months without getting a single application. For lower-level positions, the hospital competes with the local Walmart store, where wages are rising. He monitors the pay offered by the retailer as well as the other large local employers, a hose manufacturer and an irrigation equipment supplier."

Isn’t that nuts? There are more than 10 million open jobs in the United States today, but the U.S. economy only added 199,000 workers during the month of December… "The US economy added 199,000 jobs in December, the Labor Department reported Friday. That was the fewest jobs added in any month of 2021." That was a major disappointment: Economists had forecast jobs growth of double that number.

So how could forecasts be so off again? In the old days, adding 199,000 workers would have barely kept up with population growth. But we can’t really talk about “population growth” these days, can we?

Our hospitals are being absolutely overwhelmed with the sick and the dying, but most of those same hospitals are now severely undermanned thanks to Biden’s absurd mandate for healthcare workers. As a result, members of the National Guard are being forced to serve hospital duty in quite a few states… "An incoming tide of patients is slowly drowning UMass Memorial Medical Center, and the US military’s National Guard is working to plug the gaps. In wave after daily wave, the emergency crews pull up to the ambulance bay, dropping off patients for which there is no room. “It’s just the perfect storm for a nightmare here in the emergency department,” says Dr. Eric Dickson, the CEO of the hospital and an emergency physician."

So if you show up at your local emergency room because you are dying, you may get “treated” by a member of the National Guard with no medical training whatsoever.

Meanwhile, our nightmarish supply chain crisis just continues to escalate. In the waning days of 2021, optimists assured us that the computer chip shortage would soon go away, but the numbers are telling us that it has gotten even worse. In fact, the wait time for chip delivery is now the longest that it has ever been… "Delivery times for chips jumped in December, signaling the semiconductor shortage is worsening into the new year, according to research by Susquehanna Financial Group. On average, lead times increased six days to approximately 25.8 weeks last month compared with November. This is the longest wait time since the firm began monitoring the data in 2017."

And thanks to fear of Omicron, we are starting to see very alarming shortages of meat and eggs at supermarkets from coast to coast… "SEVERAL American supermarkets are reporting incidents of “bare shelves” as fears grow over an imminent meat and egg shortage amid a surge in Omicron cases. Food chains have been one of the first to be disrupted by the new super strain as workers fall ill and productivity drops."

If you are a “meat and potatoes” kind of person, I have some more bad news for you. It turns out that there is a “growing global potato shortage” too… "There’s a growing global potato shortage - a real problem for a planet addicted to french fries and chips. A number of popular items, including marmite and cream cheese, have faced scarcities amid supply chain disruptions wrought by the coronavirus pandemic and extreme weather. Potatoes are the latest to join the list, becoming unevenly available in some countries and fast-food chains because of a confluence of factors."

I tried to warn everyone that this was coming. If you don’t want a spoiler about where all of this is eventually headed, then definitely don’t read my latest book. The economic optimists assured us that the shortages would be gone by 2022, but instead we are starting to see truly bizarre things happen.

In Norway, the military is actually issuing used underwear to the troops because shortages have become so intense… "Coronavirus supply chain issues have hit fuel supplies, led to shortages of masks, vaccines and electronic components, and snarled up holiday gift deliveries. In Britain, truck driver shortages led to fears last summer of pubs running dry. Now, Norway’s military is facing a supply shortage that is particularly personal: New recruits are being asked to wear previously used undergarments – including socks, bras and underwear – returned by conscripts after they complete their service."

Doesn’t that sound fun? Unfortunately, if you are in the military you have to do what you are told to do. Of course our politicians seem to think that they can treat all of us like we are in the military these days. They just keep imposing more rules, more restrictions and more mandates. And the more they clamp down, the more our society is going to break down.

2022 is certainly off to an inauspicious start, and the weeks ahead certainly do not look very promising at all." I warned you that things would get even worse in 2022, and that is exactly what is happening. Throughout the latter stages of 2022, I documented how basic services were breaking down all across the country, but this was a trend that was largely ignored by the mainstream media until now.

Of course our politicians seem to think that they can treat all of us like we are in the military these days. They just keep imposing more rules, more restrictions and more mandates. And the more they clamp down, the more our society is going to break down. 2022 is certainly off to an inauspicious start, and the weeks ahead certainly do not look very promising at all."

Musical Interlude: 2002, "We Meet Again"

Full screen recommended.
2002, "We Meet Again"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"What will become of Jupiter's Great Red Spot? Gas giant Jupiter is the solar system's largest world with about 320 times the mass of planet Earth. Jupiter is home to one of the largest and longest lasting storm systems known, the Great Red Spot (GRS), visible to the left. The GRS is so large it could swallow Earth, although it has been shrinking. Comparison with historical notes indicate that the storm spans only about one third of the exposed surface area it had 150 years ago. NASA's Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program has been monitoring the storm more recently using the Hubble Space Telescope. 
The featured Hubble OPAL image shows Jupiter as it appeared in 2016, processed in a way that makes red hues appear quite vibrant. Modern GRS data indicate that the storm continues to constrict its surface area, but is also becoming slightly taller, vertically. No one knows the future of the GRS, including the possibility that if the shrinking trend continues, the GRS might one day even do what smaller spots on Jupiter have done - disappear completely."

"Be Ready For A Catastrophic Stock Market Crash With 90% Drop"

Full screen recommended.
"Be Ready For A Catastrophic Stock Market Crash With 90% Drop"
by Epic Economist

"Although 2022 started on a hopeful note of new promises and new beginnings, our old problems have continued to follow us. And in Wall Street, things are starting to look quite ugly. It appears that the wheels have come off the bull-market wagon, and several indexes have significantly tumbled on the last few days, with the tech sector recording the worst start in over a decade -- a major signal that a broader stock market crash is fast approaching. Market watchers, insiders, and veteran investors have been warning since November that risky assets that have propped the stock market bubble to extraordinary levels over the past two years would be the first to go down at the end of the bullish cycle. And now that has become pretty evident, as the tech bubble bursts and the sector faces acute losses.

One of the financial analysts who correctly predicted previous crashes, Harry Dent, has recently explained that the sharp losses that occurred up until this point are just the beginning, because the sell-off of risky assets will come in waves, and the first wave is likely to push stocks down around 40%, but the broader stock market crash that will lead us to a bear market is going to be much more aggressive, totaling up to a loss of 90% -- a very similar outcome to what happened during the dot-com burst of 2000. In a recent interview, Dent said that we're on the verge of the biggest crash and market downturn of modern history. "The whole crash is going to be 80% to 90%," he warned. The initial collapse will happen extremely fast and many won't even notice what is going on until it's too late. "If you wait to see if I'm right and take that risk, you are going to be hit very, very hard and history is very clear about that," added Dent, noting that stocks are going to drop 40 to 50% in the first wave.

By looking at the current conditions, it seems that Dent is right, and we're already witnessing the first selloff wave, with a series of stocks plunging more than 50% over the past week. The tech-heavy index has some of the most popular tech names, including Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla, and Google - the five companies that led the rally and earned 51% of all market gains from April through December 2021.

As the sector loses steam and the bubble collapses, a near-record number of tech stocks have dropped by roughly 50% last week, a figure that was only surpassed by the March 2020 crash and the global financial crisis, according to analysts with Sundial Research. Four in every 10 companies on the Nasdaq Composite have seen their market values plunge by 50% or more from their 52-week highs, while a vast majority of index constituents are already mired in bear markets, said Jason Goepfert, chief research officer at Sundial. Many other experts seem to agree with Dent's prediction that a historic downturn is ahead. Amongst them, Bank of America's Savita Subramanian and Michael Hartnett, along with Stifel's Barry Bannister - top strategists at their respective banks - are also pointing worrying similarities to the 2000 meltdown and alerting that a bear market is coming next.

All of the experts are calling for dismal returns for the markets in the years ahead, mostly because the current valuations are out of touch with reality and cannot be supported without more liquidity injections. On top of that, Warren Buffett's favorite indicator jumped by 211%, a major signal of a market downturn. The Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index reached a new intraday high of $48.99 trillion last Tuesday. Meanwhile, the latest estimate for third-quarter GDP is $23.20 trillion, putting the Buffett indicator at 211%. When the market gauge soared during the dot-com bubble, it should have been a "very strong warning signal" of an imminent crash, he noted. Moreover, investors who buy stocks when the metric approaches 200% are "playing with fire," Buffett cautioned.

In short, that means that a correction can occur in January, which can be a buying opportunity for some, and a total nightmare for others. With all that said, gloomy forecasts such as Dent’s don’t seem too far away from reality. In a matter of days, everything can change in the market. And a 90 percent stock market crash doesn’t seem too crazy given today’s absurd valuations. Those who want to wait and see may find themselves unpleasantly surprised in the weeks ahead. The latest plunge isn’t a ‘buy the dip’ opportunity as some may think, but the beginning of a bear market era that will lead us to the deepest financial downturn of our lifetime."

"Grocery Shopping At Dollar Tree! What Deals I Found!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 1/9/22:
"Grocery Shopping At Dollar Tree! What Deals I Found!"
"In today's vlog we are at Dollar Tree with a lot of empty shelves. We are here to pick up a few cheap items as prices are soaring at the grocery stores. It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

Gregory Mannarino, "Markets, A Look Ahead"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 1/9/22:
"Markets, A Look Ahead"

The Daily "Near You?"

Collinsville, Oklahoma, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

“24 Life Lessons By An Old Greek Shepherd”

“24 Life Lessons By An Old Greek Shepherd”
by George Giotis, Greece by Greeks

1. “The road to the destination is never straight. To reach out to the winter shelter someone must take a lot of turns, travel along rough roads, suffer losses. You have to make sure that you always take food supplies with you.

2. Leave the past behind. If a wolf eats your goat, you can’t do anything about it. Just make sure that next time you will be more careful.

3. Don’t live just for saving money and don’t be stingy. Don’t postpone the tasting of joy for future times. Do it now, while you are still young. Make your hard work worth even more.

4. Struggle, fight. You are the only one in charge of yourself. Don’t be truant, don’t expect your dogs to do all the work in herding the sheep.

5. Ask for the respect you deserve, don’t let others use you as a doormat. Set limits, put up fences, protect your animals.

6. Blessed are the ones who make mistakes. Make mistakes. These are life lessons, we call these experience. Don’t forget who you were until yesterday. Start today and define with your actions who you are going to be from now on.  Learn to forgive, starting with yourself. Don’t feel guilty, you have no time for that.

7. Blessed are those who doubt. Don’ t let your life be ruled by dogmas. Remember that if some people hadn’t doubted previous knowledge, mankind would have still lived in caves. Examine the information, be skeptical, think critically, think rationally, revise. You haven’t seen any fairies and ghosts in the forest, just wolves.

8. Be careful. Observe others. Look them in the eyes. Like a Greek saying, “If it is not shown in the goat, it is shown by the horn.”

9. Life is a journey, not a destination. And it is valuable. The previous word you read already belongs to the past.

10. Don’t advise the young constantly, it’s a waste of time. There is no right way to teach them pain or misery, solely experience will do that.

11. Go travel! Trips are experiences that stay with us forever. Get out, try, taste, savor images greedily. Let your senses free. Expose yourself, let it go, crumble, lose your self-control from time to time. Not just your self-control, but stop controlling others too.

12. You have been isolated enough in your winter shelter, get out. Go find your friends and companionship.

13. Do not try to control others. You condemn in anxiety and suffering not only yourself, but also those who you try to control. Let others live, and live for yourself. Leave the other flocks to their shepherds, take care of yours. 
14. Life is not fair. The universe does not owe you any solace, and it is certain that at the end of the road you die. Hurry up.

15. You can be a winner. Learn from those around you. Become a child with children, play with them, but also go to the cafe and talk to the elderly. You can learn from their accumulated experience.

16. Do not take everything into account. Do not take everything seriously. You are probably overreacting today. What bothers you or you are afraid of now, most likely tomorrow will seem lukewarm or insipid. Try to see yourself from a distance, take a look at the sight of your flock from the hill.

17. Have patience. The goats do not give birth every month. But when that happens you need to be there because they need you.

18. Quarrel with your partner if necessary, it is not terrible, let the feelings be defused. Make decompression in anger. The fire is sometimes beneficial. If an area of kermes oak get burnt, spring will give again vegetation, fine food for goats and their young. Careful though, the words you say you can’t take them back. Watch what your goats eat, they don’t know how to pick. If they eat the shoots of trees, the forest cannot be created again, the place will be left bare fallow.
  
19. Be balanced. Enjoy the food and your drink. Do not forget that the world’s poor walk miles for their daily food while the rich walk miles to digest it.

20. There is no perfect time, the circumstances and conditions will never be ideal. Start from where you are now! Do not postpone.

21. Be polite. A smiling face reflects similar behavior. Make gifts. Even the gift of a good word is important. Behave well to the elderly, you will soon be like them. Behave well to animals, they are not mean or envious, they have no obsessions or selfishness. They forgive without limit.

22. If you know how to read, read a lot! Those who read live extra lives. Not only their own but also all of those who you have read about.

23. Be bold. The fear keeps you tied but it is not real, it just comes from the unknown which is not in your head.

24. Do not get attached to things. Life is like the path of the pastures and the shepherd’s bag. The more you fill it, the harder you will walk. Take only the necessary things with you. The flock keeps walking, it will not wait for you if you can’t move because of too many heavy things. Let them go, release them, feel more flexible and free.”
Translated by Eleni Vafeiadou

The Poet: Langston Hughes, “Life Is Fine”

“Life Is Fine”

“I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn’t,
So I jumped in and sank.
I came up once and hollered!
I came up twice and cried!
If that water hadn’t a-been so cold
I might’ve sunk and died.
But it was cold in that water! It was cold!

I took the elevator
Sixteen floors above the ground.
I thought about my baby
And thought I would jump down.
I stood there and I hollered!
I stood there and I cried!
If it hadn’t a-been so high
I might’ve jumped and died.
But it was high up there! It was high!

So since I’m still here livin’,
I guess I will live on.
I could’ve died for love -
But for livin’ I was born.
Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry -
I’ll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.

Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!”

- Langston Hughes

"When We Have 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, “Lacon”
“The problem is, you believe you have time.”
- Buddha

"How It Really Is"

 

Greg Hunter, "Huge Number of Vax Deaths & It’s Getting Worse – Dr. Pierre Kory"

"Huge Number of Vax Deaths & It’s Getting Worse – Dr. Pierre Kory"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"World renowned CV19 critical care and pulmonary expert Dr. Pierre Kory says the data is clear the CV19 injections are “not safe, not effective” and shows they are causing a huge number of deaths. It’s going to get much worse if we don’t stop the shots. Dr. Kory warns, “They already broke death records with these vaccines almost a year ago. Now, you are starting to see it in actuarial data with life insurance companies. The life insurance companies have been paying out claims like they never have before, and they are noticing the deaths cannot be explained by Covid. If you look at the actual morbidity and mortality from the CDC   2019, 2020 and 2021 in the ages of 18 to 64 you’ll see in America, starting in quarter two of the year 2021 (when the vaccines started), the mortalities started to rise, and it rose from 120% above normal to 140% above normal, and it’s far exceeded the death rates in 2020. 

The difference in 2020 and 2021, we had covid in both years. In 2021, we had the vaccines. They know the amount of deaths they are reporting cannot be explained by Covid. There is something else driving a huge and extremely terrifying mortality signal in the U.S. population. To think that it is anything but the vaccines, if we get this wrong and if you keep saying they are safe, that line which is already in a significant and steep incline will continue the more we boost and the more we vaccinate. This has to stop. We have to stop, people are dying.”

Meanwhile, the captured regulatory agencies like the CDC and FDA are trashing and cutting off proven scientific cures for Covid such as Ivermectin. Dr. Kory says Ivermectin has been proven effective in defeating Covid infections, and he says, “It is “one of the safest drugs ever brought to market.” Dr. Kory also says the so-called experimental vaccines “are not safe and not effective.” So, why do government agencies push them anyway? Dr. Kory says, “I have had a front row seat to see this.” And he goes on to say government agencies are suffering from “regulatory capture” by big Pharma. Meaning, the FDA and CDC push ineffective and dangerous vaccines so Big Pharma can make money off them, while disregarding cheaper, safer and more effective drugs like Ivermectin. 

 Dr Kory gives a real-world example during the pandemic and explains, “Prescriptions in this country (for Ivermectin) in August were hitting 90,000 per week. So many doctors were using it for Covid that it spooked the pharmaceutical companies. In response to the massive uptake in the use of Ivermectin by physicians with prescriptions and pharmacists filling them, the CDC went on the attack. They sent a bulletin to every state department of health which was full of propaganda and misinformation screaming the FDA has not approved Ivermectin (for treating Covid) and it’s not a proven drug, and it’s dangerous and there are overdoses and all of these things that were false. It went to all state departments of health. But guess what happened next? 

The medical boards and the pharmacy boards started sending that to every licensed physician and pharmacist in the land. The average physician and pharmacist, I am sorry to say this, is not well read. They are not keeping up with data. They are overwhelmed and they are easily influenced. That’s why in this country you have a war between the physicians that know that Ivermectin is effective and are at war with the pharmacies. A huge proportion of pharmacists will refuse to fill a decades-old safe drug for Covid because they have been threatened and manipulated by their boards. They are afraid to lose their licenses. It all smoke. It’s all B.S. because you cannot lose your license for use of a safe drug. We need our doctors to do doctoring, and we need our pharmacists to do pharmacy and stop being influenced by propaganda by pharmaceutical companies who don’t want you to use this drug. We have to stand up, and we have to resist on behalf of our patients. We are finding that with compounding pharmacies and small pharmacies we can still get access (to Ivermectin), but it is a battle and you do have to navigate.”

Former Pfizer VP Dr. Michael Yeadon said this week, “Max vaccination is leading to mass death.” Dr. Kory agrees and explains, “It’s not only data from a life insurance company that came out this week that is based on CDC data that can’t be explained by Covid alone, there are huge increases of dying in this country this year. They have done huge analysis of the European mortality data as well as the U.S. mortality data and they controlled for vaccination status. They found that for every age range that they looked at, the all-cause mortality of the vaccinated were increased over the unvaccinated. All-cause mortality and that means that you are more likely to die of something if you are vaccinated. All-cause mortality are coming out of actual databases by credible scientists. 

You have life insurance companies showing the data, and you have our own federal government showing unexplained large rises in dying. Don’t you think a good scientific question and a good hypothesis to test would be ‘Could these be the vaccines?’ The answer is ‘the vaccines,’ and I cannot find a better fit to answering that hypothesis than that, it’s this mass explosion of this vaccination policy with single, double and booster shots. It’s going like wildfire through the population. If the mortality of the vaccinated is higher than the unvaccinated, you have the data that you can safely and confidently conclude the vaccines are associated with and causing death.”

In closing, Dr. Kory says, “What has happened in the last month or so is the data for adverse reactions and effects are no longer hidden and suppressed. They are coming out on servers  and actuarial tables.” Dr. Kory tells people to go to the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance website and get any and all information for treating Covid-19 for free."

"Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with Dr. Pierre Kory, one of the top Pulmonary and Covid Critical Care experts on the planet, who is co-founder of the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance (flccc.net). (There is much more in the nearly 59 min. interview)."

"What If The Largest Experiment On Human Beings In History Is A Failure?"

"What If The Largest Experiment On 
Human Beings In History Is A Failure?"
by Dr. Robert Malone

"A seasoned stock analyst colleague texted me a link, and when I clicked it open, I could hardly believe what I was reading. What a headline. “Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64”. This headline is a nuclear truth bomb masquerading as an insurance agent’s dry manila envelope full of actuarial tables.

People frequently write to Jill and myself. People we have never met. They call, they arrive at the farm by appointment or unannounced, they fill our email in boxes with their inquiries. They all want something; time, attention, an interview. Many want to tell us about their fear, illness, nightmares, or (what often seems like) outright paranoid conspiracies. And then, over time, these fears and “conspiracies” keep getting confirmed. As Jan Jekielek (a senior editor with The Epoch Times) recently said to me, it is getting harder and harder to tell which ones are mere conspiracy theories and which are true reality.

One farm visitor told me of his foreshadowing massive numbers of deaths within three years consequent to the genetic vaccines, and that this was all about the “Great Reset” and the depopulation agenda of the World Economic Forum (WEF). I tried to reassure him that, in my opinion, this was highly unlikely - while privately thinking about how easily people fall into this type of conspiracy ideation, and how I need to be careful to avoid going there when confronting so many public health decisions that appear either incompetent or nefarious. At the time, I only knew of the WEF as the host of a big annual party in Davos Switzerland where the uber rich and the hoi oligoi of the Western nations went to watch Ted talks, drink the best wine, see and be seen. Silly me. What a long, strange trip this has been. I doubt that even Hunter S. Thompson could have imagined it in his most drug and booze addled state. Suffice to say, I nominate Ralph Steadman as official illustrator of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Or a resurrected Hieronymus Bosch.

But I am wandering from a point that I am afraid to clearly state. It is starting to look to me like the largest experiment on human beings in recorded history has failed. And, if this rather dry report from a senior Indiana life insurance executive holds true, then Reiner Fuellmich’s “Crimes against Humanity” push for convening new Nuremberg trials starts to look a lot less quixotic and a lot more prophetic.

Here is what lit me up in this report from The Center Square contributor Margaret Menge: “The head of Indianapolis-based insurance company OneAmerica said the death rate is up a stunning 40% from pre-pandemic levels among working-age people. “We are seeing, right now, the highest death rates we have seen in the history of this business – not just at OneAmerica,” the company’s CEO Scott Davison said during an online news conference this week. “The data is consistent across every player in that business.”

OneAmerica is a $100 billion insurance company that has had its headquarters in Indianapolis since 1877. The company has approximately 2,400 employees and sells life insurance, including group life insurance to employers in the state.

Davison said the increase in deaths represents “huge, huge numbers,” and that’s it’s not elderly people who are dying, but “primarily working-age people 18 to 64” who are the employees of companies that have group life insurance plans through OneAmerica. “And what we saw just in third quarter, we’re seeing it continue into fourth quarter, is that death rates are up 40% over what they were pre-pandemic,” he said. “Just to give you an idea of how bad that is, a three-sigma or a one-in-200-year catastrophe would be 10% increase over pre-pandemic,” he said. “So 40% is just unheard of.””

So, what is driving this unprecedented surge in all-cause mortality?\ “Most of the claims for deaths being filed are not classified as COVID-19 deaths," Davison said.“What the data is showing to us is that the deaths that are being reported as COVID deaths greatly understate the actual death losses among working-age people from the pandemic. It may not all be COVID on their death certificate, but deaths are up just huge, huge numbers.””

Take a moment to read the entire article. Now. Then let’s continue on, assuming that you have.

AT A MINIMUM, based on my reading, one has to conclude that if this report holds and is confirmed by others in the dry world of life insurance actuaries, we have both a huge human tragedy and a profound public policy failure of the US Government and US HHS system to serve and protect the citizens that pay for this “service”. IF this holds true, then the genetic vaccines so aggressively promoted have failed, and the clear federal campaign to prevent early treatment with lifesaving drugs has contributed to a massive, avoidable loss of life.

AT WORST, this report implies that the federal workplace vaccine mandates have driven what appear to be a true crime against humanity. Massive loss of life in (presumably) workers that have been forced to accept a toxic vaccine at higher frequency relative to the general population of Indiana.

FURTHERMORE, we have also been living through the most massive, globally coordinated propaganda and censorship campaign in the history of the human race. All major mass media and the social media technology companies have coordinated to stifle and suppress any discussion of the risks of the genetic vaccines AND/OR alternative early treatments.

IF this report holds true, there must be accountability. We are not just talking about running over the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States and grinding it into the mud with an army of artificial intelligence-powered heavy infantry. This article reads like a dry description of an avoidable mass casualty event caused by a mandated experimental medical procedure. One for which all opportunities for the victims to have become self-informed about the potential risks have been methodically erased from both the internet and public awareness by an international corrupt cabal operating under the flag of the “Trusted News Initiative”. George Orwell must be spinning in his grave.

I hope I am wrong. I fear I am right."
"The Vaccine Death Report"
by David John Sorenson and Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, MD

"Purpose: 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."
Freely download "The Vaccine Death Report" here:

Saturday, January 8, 2022

"Coming Financial End Game Has Begun; Homeless Epidemic; Economy Already Collapsed; Bad Choices"

Jeremiah Babe, PM 1/8/22:
"Coming Financial End Game Has Begun; 
Homeless Epidemic; Economy Already Collapsed; Bad Choices"

"Brace for More Economic Fireworks - Banks Closed, Inflation and Supply Chain Issues"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly PM 1/8/22:
"Brace for More Economic Fireworks - 
Banks Closed, Inflation and Supply Chain Issues"
"There is so much happening in the coming week with the economy. From bank closures, supply chain issues and economic earnings that will dramatically affect the stock market. We have a very busy week ahead."

"Supply Chain Crisis Threatens Perfect Storm For Bankruptcies As Freight Rates Soar 500 Percent"

Full screen recommended.
"Supply Chain Crisis Threatens Perfect Storm For
 Bankruptcies As Freight Rates Soar 500 Percent"
by Epic Economist

"If you thought last year's shortages were bad, and the price increases were absurd, you'll probably be very upset to know that the situation is going to get a whole lot worse this year. Our global supply chains are broken, and there isn't a simple solution to fix it. One of the biggest problems we had last year were the lack of enough containers in the right places and the excess of empty containers in the wrong places, which has exacerbated port congestion and delivery delays, and contributed to long lead times, surging freight and transportation costs, increasingly empty retail shelves, and higher prices at the stores.

The problems associated with the shortages will continue to grow as the new wave of virus cases spreads around the globe. We're already witnessing a new round of lockdowns, disruptions in production, and widespread factory shutdowns in major manufacturing countries. And as our issues at ports compound, industry executives are reporting that there's a huge buildup of empty containers in the wrong places right now, and travel and movement restrictions are only aggravating the problem. As a result, ocean freight skyrocketed by 121.2% from a month ago, with the cost of a single shipping container rising by a further 16.3% in December. The increase is sparking outrage amongst shippers, who already had to cope with a more than 400% surge in freight rates over the past two years.

Some shipping companies and freight forwarders have seen their net profits rise to unprecedented levels, as they dealt with increased cargo volumes and benefit from higher freight rates in 2021. Amongst them, Cosco Shipping Holdings recorded a profit surge of a staggering 1651% last year. All in all, revenues rocketed by 117.5% to $33.24 billion across the shipping industry over the past 12 months. On the other hand, millions of businesses worldwide are deeply struggling to pay higher transportation costs to ship their products or get imports delivered. The rate hikes are effectively making it harder for them to stay afloat.

On top of all that, road transport prices are also spiking. In the U.S., a shortage of truckers and rising fuel costs are making it significantly more expensive to move goods around the country. According to Joel Fierman, president of New York-based Joseph Fierman and Sons Inc., when companies finally find available truckers, they're having to pay exorbitant fees. “It’s really a pity when your cost for transportation pretty much is as high as your cost for goods,” he said. “It’s a terrible, terrible thing that this country is experiencing right now. Nothing in the industry has gone up at the same rate as freight has," he continued.

As it gets harder and harder to move goods around the planet, companies are bracing for more steep increases in shipping and logistics prices in the months ahead, and much of these higher costs will be absorbed by consumers. The emergence of a new virus variant is only adding more stress to our domestic supply chains, given that some workers are leaving their jobs and others are getting sick. In the food industry, this means trouble for the processing of perishable food items, and most worryingly, it means that more shortages at grocery stores are all but certain. Just like two years ago, lockdowns are being reinstituted and panic buyers are clearing store shelves of food staples, such as canned goods, rice, pasta, flour, and - of course - toilet paper. Only this time, things are different. Local supermarkets are struggling to get their products into stores because so many staff members have been calling in sick.

Given that energy prices jumped by 33.3% in December, while gasoline is up by 58.1%, and food prices already rose 31.4% since 2020, inflationary pressures will hit American workers particularly hard in 2022. Even though gross pay has increased 4.8% over the past year, real average hourly earnings accounting for inflation dropped another 2%, according to data released by the Labor Department. In short, people's wages aren't keeping up with the sharp increases in the price of consumer goods. Right now, at least $24 billion in goods are still stuck outside the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach alone, according to Goldman Sachs estimates, and our domestic supply chain crisis is likely to persist "at least" through the middle of the year, in the best-case-scenario. Unfortunately, given the chaos going on on a global level, these problems will stay with us for a long time. So we should all prepare accordingly."

"Streets of Philadelphia, After Snowstorm, January 07, 2022"

Full screen recommended.
"Streets of Philadelphia, After Snowstorm, January 07, 2022"
Full screen recommended.
"Code Blue in Kensington!" 1/8/22:
"See what it's like when Philadelphia officials issue a Code Blue emergency. The temp is dropping and so are the homeless. We apologize in advance for the breaks in play on this video. We decided to post it in spite of to show there is still compassion for human life."