Thursday, June 9, 2022

"Economic Market Snapshot 6/9/22"

Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
"Economic Market Snapshot 6/9/22"
Updated as available.
Latest Market Analysis, Updated 6/9/22
A comprehensive, essential daily read.
June 7th to June 9th
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."
Commentary, highly recommended:
"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
Oh yeah...
And now... The End Game...

Gregory Mannarino, "Get Your Popcorn Ready! Stocks Drop On Tomorrow's Inflation Report Fears"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 6/9/22:
"Get Your Popcorn Ready! 
Stocks Drop On Tomorrow's Inflation Report Fears"

"Major Real Estate Warning - Sellers Run For The Exits; Credit Cards Maxed Out; Don't Lose Your Job"

Jeremiah Babe, PM 6/9/22:
"Major Real Estate Warning - Sellers Run For The Exits; 
Credit Cards Maxed Out; Don't Lose Your Job"

The Daily "Near You?"

Bristol, Vermont, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Gregory Mannarino, "Shocker! ECB Admits That Inflation Is Going Much Higher! Economy Continues To Fail"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 6/9/22:
"Shocker! ECB Admits That Inflation Is Going
 Much Higher! Economy Continues To Fail"

"Oil and Gas Prices Only Go Up From Here"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 6/9/22:
"Oil and Gas Prices Only Go Up From Here"
"The experts agree that oil prices are going to go to an entirely new level. We have not seen anything close to where they are going to get to. Energy prices will destroy everyone. Oil could hit $150.00 per barrel."

Bill Bonner, "Decision of the Century"

"Decision of the Century"
Two years of short, sharp pain...
or a decade and a half of grinding depression?
by Bill Bonner

Youghal, Ireland -  "We have nothing but good news today. First, the US is in a good place, says White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre… a “good position to take on inflation.”

We are coming up to the Decision of the Century. There are only two real choices. One way or another, this scam economy is going to blow up. So, the question is whether the Fed blows it up by stopping inflation now. Or, it lets inflation rip and the whole thing blows up later.

Either way, there will be hard times ahead – with crashing stocks, bonds and real estate… and probably riots and maybe even revolution. But if the feds end the scam voluntarily, the wreck could be short and sweet, like ripping off a Band-Aid, with a crash followed by a depression, but ending in a fairly quick recovery. If the pre-Fed depressions (before 1913) are anything to go on, the whole thing could be over in 18 to 24 months.

A Money Problem: If inflation is allowed to run wild, on the other hand, the disease will fester… and metastasize. These intentional, government-policy inflations last about 16 years on average. In the end, the economy is almost completely destroyed…and the nation’s political and social institutions are left as burnt-out hulks.

And there’s the second bit of good news: in neither case will it last forever. We may even live long enough to see the end of it.

And still more good news: inflation can be easily (but not painlessly) stopped. Like obesity or drug addiction, all it takes is willpower. If the feds wanted to, they could bring inflation to a halt in a few months. Easy. Peasy. That’s because we don’t have a price problem. Prices are just information. What they tell us is that we have a money problem.

Let’s take a look at it more closely. Here’s The Washington Post: "Empty wallets, empty tanks: Surging gas prices leave drivers stranded." AAA fielded 50,787 out-of-gas calls in April, a 32 percent jump from the same month last year. More than 200,000 drivers have been similarly stranded this year, the automobile club said. And gas prices have risen precipitously since April."

People are running out of gas because they can’t afford to fill their tanks. The average gas tank holds about 26 gallons. At its low price 50 years ago, it cost about $6.50 to fill it up. That was nearly two hours of work at the average wage at the time. Today, it will cost about $130 to fill the same tank. At an average wage of $29, that’s four and half hours… more than twice as much time as it took a half century ago.

What happened? Did the oil industry forget how to pump the black goo? Did Vladimir Putin singlehandedly undermine the entire global energy business? Did the Covid 19… which only appeared two years ago, and killed so few people the population of the world actually grew in 2020… undo half a century of economic progress?

Fantasy Land: More likely, the feds lit the match 51 years ago. Now almost the whole world is on fire. But if they wanted to do so, it would be an easy fire to put out. Congress could begin by balancing the federal budget. Why should the feds spend more than ‘the people’ are willing to pay for? Why should they burden future generations with debt and inflation? Aren’t they just forms of ‘taxation without representation?’

The Fed could do its part too. It would only have to announce that it would no longer be backstopping the stock market or bailing out Wall Street. No more money-printing. No more rigging interest rates. No more loans to member banks. Better yet, it could announce its retirement. No more central bank to meddle in the world’s financial affairs and mislead investors and businesses with fake money lent out at phony rates! In a matter of minutes, the whole grotesque abomination… the scam economy… would be history. No more zombie businesses. No more ‘negative’ real yields. No more inflation.

But wait… let us take a deep breath and come back down to earth. Can you imagine Joe Biden, Jerome Powell, and the 435 members of Congress actually doing these things? Of all the possible configurations of the future, this one seems least probable. It’s more likely that aliens from space will land on the White House lawn and take charge of US financial policies! And do a far better job, of course. So, tomorrow, let’s continue our look ahead… to what ought to happen."
Joel’s Note: Is case you missed Ms. Jean-Pierre’s good news bulletin, 
here she is, explaining the situation as if to a roomful of kindergarten children…

Hmm…“Thanks to our navigational expertise,” the Titanic’s captain announced to concerned passengers, “we’re in a good position to address the giant tear in the hull.”
Related:

"How It Really Is"

 

"The Crisis Is About To Go Parabolic"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 6/8/22:
"The Crisis Is About To Go Parabolic"
"Economists predict oil will go parabolic this summer and 
Iran just did something that may lock in a major conflict in the region."

"Empty Shelves Update At Kroger! What's Coming?"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 6/9/22:
"Empty Shelves Update At Kroger! What's Coming?"
"In today's vlog we are at Kroger, and are noticing Empty Shelves Everywhere! We are also noticing ridiculous price increases, and a major food shortage! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

"The Worst Economic Gloom In 50 Years"

"The Worst Economic Gloom In 50 Years"
by Michael Snyder

"We haven’t seen anything like this in decades. Energy prices are soaring to unprecedented heights. Food shortages in some parts of the world are starting to become quite severe. Rampant inflation is out of control all over the globe. Meanwhile, economic activity is slowing down everywhere that you look. Some are comparing this current crisis to the “stagflation” of the 1970s, but I believe that is a far too optimistic assessment. Just about everyone can see that economic conditions are rapidly deteriorating, and there is a tremendous amount of alarm about what the months ahead will bring.

According to a brand new Wall Street Journal-NORC survey that was just released, the percentage of Americans that believe that the state of the U.S. economy is “poor or not so good” is 83 times larger than the percentage of Americans that believe that the state of the U.S. economy is “excellent”…"A severe pessimism grips the U.S. economy and Americans report the highest level of dissatisfaction with their financial situation in at least half a century, poll results released Monday show. Eighty-three percent of Americans describe the state of the economy as poor or not so good, according to a Wall Street Journal-NORC Poll. Only one percent describe the economy as “excellent.”

I would like to talk to someone from the one percent of Americans that still believe that the U.S. economy is in “excellent shape”. To me, it is always fascinating to find someone that can completely deny reality even when all of the evidence points in the other direction.

The same survey found that the percentage of Americans that are “not at all satisfied with their financial condition” is the highest in at least 50 years…"Thirty-five percent said they are not at all satisfied with their financial condition, the highest level of dissatisfaction since NORC began asking the question every few years starting in 1972. Sixty-three percent of Americans say they are extremely or very concerned about the price of gas. Fifty-four percent say they are extremely or very concerned about the impact of high grocery prices on their household’s financial situation. Just 13 percent say they not very or not at all concerned about gas prices and 19 percent about grocery prices."

In other words, this is the gloomiest that Americans have been about their own personal finances in at least five decades. Wow.

One of the big reasons why people feel this way is because the price of just about everything is going up. In particular, the price of gasoline has been making national headlines just about every day. On Tuesday, it set another brand new record…"The national average price of gas is now $4.955, reflecting an over three-cent jump overnight, 28-cent rise in the last week, and nearly 64-cent rise in the last month. Diesel also hit another record on Tuesday, reaching $5.719.

Currently, 16 states are experiencing an average price of gas of $5.00 or more. That includes Maine ($5.023), Massachusetts ($5.21), New Jersey ($5.032), Pennsylvania ($5.031), Michigan ($5.214), Ohio ($5.061), Indiana ($5.234), Illinois ($5.532), Idaho ($5.025), Alaska ($5.469), Hawaii ($5.493), Washington ($5.489), Oregon ($5.485), Nevada ($5.564), Arizona ($5.181), and California ($6.390). California’s Mono County appears to be reporting the highest gas price average in the Golden State - $7.213."

Unfortunately, there is a growing consensus among the experts that this is just the beginning. Here is one example…"With the summer travel season just getting underway, demand for gasoline, coupled with the cut-off of Russian oil shipments due to the war in Ukraine, is sending oil prices higher on global markets. The national average for gasoline could be close to $6 by later this summer according to Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis for the OPIS, which tracks gas prices for AAA."

And here is another example…"GasBuddy head of petroleum analysis Patrick De Haan provided insight into record-high gas prices, warning on Wednesday that “we’re going to be swimming in these high prices for a while.” Speaking on “Varney & Co.” on Wednesday, De Haan also revealed his forecasts for how high prices at the pump will climb, arguing that they could reach a national average of $6 a gallon in the coming months, but “what seems like more of a guarantee is that $5 mark.”

Others are even more pessimistic. In fact, the head of commodity trading giant Trafigura just warned that the price of oil could actually make a “parabolic” move in the months ahead. Needless to say, energy prices have a domino effect throughout the entire economy. When commentator Anthony B. Sanders contacted moving companies about his coming move out of state, he could hardly believe the quotes that he was given…"As I line up my move from Fairfax VA to Columbus OH, I am getting a variety of quotes from moving companies. And wow! The cost of moving using a national moving company for a 4 bedroom house is $15,000 to $20,500. That includes International, North American and Bekins."

One of the reasons for the high cost of moving is the massive increase in diesel fuel used for trucking. Diesel fuel under Biden has risen 117%. And since it was revealed that natural gas often is used for electric charging stations, and NATGAS is up 281% under Biden (but there aren’t many electric moving trucks yet).

Could you imagine paying $20,000 to move from Virginia to Ohio? In the old days, you could purchase your own new vehicle for that much money.

In this crazy environment, some companies are attempting to hide inflation by shrinking their package sizes… “Joining the parade of downsized products is cereal stalwart Honey Bunches of Oats, which has seen the weight of its standard box, previously 14.5 ounces, lessen to 12 ounces — a reduction of roughly 17 percent,” the U.K. paper said. Angel Soft toilet paper has also reduced its size from 425 sheets per roll to 320, while Bounty paper towels have cut their rolls from 165 sheets per roll to 147 late last year. Gatorade also cut its bottle size from 32 ounces to 28 ounces."

Do they actually believe that we will not notice that the packages have changed? And this isn’t just happening here in the United States. At this point, this is taking place all over the globe…"In the U.S., a small box of Kleenex now has 60 tissues; a few months ago, it had 65. Chobani Flips yogurts have shrunk from 5.3 ounces to 4.5 ounces. In the U.K., Nestle slimmed down its Nescafe Azera Americano coffee tins from 100 grams to 90 grams. In India, a bar of Vim dish soap has shrunk from 155 grams to 135 grams."

Our standard of living is falling with each passing day, and that process is only going to accelerate during the second half of this year. In a desperate attempt to keep living the way that they always have, many Americans are turning to their credit cards at an alarming rate. Needless to say, that is only a short-term solution.

And at the same time, overall economic activity continues to slow down…"A closely followed measurement from the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank suggests the economy could be headed for a second-quarter decline in gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced in a country. The GDPNow tracker shows the economy grew at an annualized pace of just 0.9% in the spring, a steep decline from its previous estimate of 1.3% on June 1."

If U.S. GDP is actually negative for the second quarter, that will be two quarters in a row, and that will mean that we are officially in a recession right now. But what we are heading into in 2023 and beyond is not going to be just a “recession”. Ultimately, we are heading into the sort of “nightmare scenario” that I have warned about for years.

It took decades of very foolish decisions for us to reach this point, and our leaders in Washington continue to make very foolish decisions. So the truth is that there are no long-term solutions in sight. Only pain. So if the American people are this upset about the economy now, how will they be feeling six months down the road?"

"What Are the Prospects for Peace?"

"What Are the Prospects for Peace?"
by Paul Craig Roberts

"The American war machine consists of the economic and power interests of the US military/security complex and the hegemonic ideology of the neoconservatives. The former requires an enemy in order to justify the unaccountable power of the security agencies and the $1,000 billion annual budget of the complex. The latter believes in an exceptional and indispensable United States entitled to hegemonic power over the world. As armaments industry political campaign donations exercise control over elected officials and as the neoconservatives with their Wolfowitz doctrine are the main shapers of US foreign policy, there are no interest groups or political leaders capable of challenging their dominance. This means that the chances for peace are zero.

We are being led into nuclear war. Having provoked a Russian military intervention in Ukraine, the US and its NATO puppets have become combatants in the conflict by their provision of Ukraine with weapons, training, and diplomatic support. The US and UK are now equipping Ukraine with missiles that can be used for attacks on Russia’s Black Sea naval base in Crimea. Once such an attack occurs, the US and NATO will be at war with Russia, a situation China could take advantage of by occupying Taiwan.

Peace requires an event or events that shake the neoconservatives confidence in their ideology of hegemony and the willingness of elected officials to continue to accommodate the interests of the military security complex, or it requires Russian and Chinese acceptance of US hegemony, an unlikely prospect.

Had the Kremlin responded to the Ukrainian provocation with a blitzkrieg conquest of all of Ukraine, a stunned Europe and Washington would have opened to voices other than the neoconservative ones, and elected officials would have been more mindful of the threat posed by an unbridled military/security complex. But the limited, drawn out Russian intervention reinforced the West’s view that there was not much fight in the Kremlin. The Kremlin’s toleration for many years of continuous provocations and its toleration of Western-financed subversion inside Russia has conditioned the West to disregard Russian declaration of red lines. For example, at the initiation of the Russian limited intervention in Ukraine, the Kremlin said that all who intervened in behalf of Ukraine would be treated as combatants. But no Western government paid any heed. Even militarily impotent Denmark sends weapon systems to Ukraine.

It was a strategic blunder for the Kremlin to suppose its operation could be limited. The US and most of Europe are now involved. The limited and time-consuming Russian intervention provided time for the West to fashion a narrative of Russian defeat and to organize weapons shipments. Once the Russians complete the task of driving the Ukrainians out of the Donbass region, the Russians are likely to confront a new Ukrainian army raised in Western Ukraine. In other words, the Kremlin’s goal of demilitarizing Ukraine is unlikely to result from partial conquest.

It seems clear that the situation is set for a wider war. As Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, said: “The Horsemen of the Apocalypse are galloping ahead.” The Kremlin Continues to Inform the West that the West is Courting Nuclear War. But No One Listens. Excerpt from Lavrov UK press conference:

Question: "Britain has said it is giving Ukraine multiple rocket launchers to help it defend itself against Russian forces. The U.S. is doing the same thing. You called it a risky path. But if Russia had not attacked Ukraine and there had been no Russian invasion, there would have been no transfer of weapon systems. Do you agree?"

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov: "You don’t even want to hear our arguments. It’s not about “if we hadn’t attacked, you wouldn’t have sent weapons.” The point is that for twenty years, in fact, you (the British), the Americans, all other NATO member countries have been urged by us to do what everyone signed up to in 1999: no one will strengthen their security at the expense of the security of others. Why can’t you do that? Why did what your prime minister, presidents and prime ministers of all other OSCE countries signed turn out to be a lie? Instead, you tell us that NATO membership is “none of your business” – whoever you want in NATO, you accept. Five times you approached our borders. When the Warsaw Pact and the USSR disappeared, who were you defending against? This is megalomania.

Now Jens Stoltenberg says that it is necessary to globally ensure NATO’s responsibility in the Indo-Pacific region. So your next line of defense will be in the South China Sea. If you look at what is happening, it becomes completely clear: you considered yourself entitled all these years to commit lawlessness far from your borders. I understand that nostalgically this is the British Empire, you have left there thrown “seeds”. You have such nostalgia. They declare areas across the ocean from the United States, where there is allegedly a threat to Washington. Then Iraqi Mosul, then Syrian Raqqa, then Belgrade. In Libya, lawlessness is happening, states have been destroyed.

Imagine for a moment if, in neighboring Ireland, which occupies half of the island concerned, English was abolished, or Belgium, say, abolished French, Switzerland abolished French, German or Italian. How would Europe look at this? I won’t even elaborate on that thought. Europe looked calmly at how the Russian language was banned. It happened in Ukraine. Education, the media, daily communication – all this was forbidden to the Russian language. At the same time, the Russians in Donbass were bombed for eight years by a regime that openly professed and glorified Nazism.

I understand that you need to drill your “truth” into the heads of your audience with “chopped phrases”: “if you had not attacked, we would not have delivered MLRS.” Vladimir Putin commented on the situation that will develop in connection with the arrival of new weapons. I can only add that the more long-range weapons you supply, the further we will move westward from our territory the line from which neo-Nazis threaten the Russian Federation."

In other words, as neo-Nazis sit in Brussels, London and Washington as well as in Kiev, the protection of Russia expands the targets far beyond Donbass."

MUST READ: "The War in Ukraine Marks the End of the American Century" (Excerpt)

"The War in Ukraine Marks the End of the American Century"
by Mike Whitney

Excerpt: “The ferocity of the confrontation in Ukraine shows that we’re talking about much more than the fate of the regime in Kiev. The architecture of the entire world order is at stake.” - Sergei Naryshkin, Director of Foreign Intelligence.

"Here’s your ‘reserve currency’ thought for the day: Every US dollar is a check written on an account that is overdrawn by 30 trillion dollars. It’s true. The “full faith and credit” of the US Treasury is largely a myth held together by an institutional framework that rests on a foundation of pure sand. In fact, the USD is not worth the paper it is printed on; it is an IOU flailing in an ocean of red ink. The only thing keeping the USD from vanishing into the ether, is the trust of credulous people who continue to accept it as legal tender.

But why do people remain confident in the dollar when its flaws are known to all? After all, America’s $30 trillion National Debt is hardly a secret, nor is the additional $9 trillion that’s piled up on the Fed’s balance sheet. That is a stealth debt of which the American people are completely unaware, but they are responsible for all the same.

In order to answer that question, we need to look at how the system actually works and how the dollar is propped up by the numerous institutions that were created following WW2. These institutions provide an environment for conducting history’s longest and most flagrant swindle, the exchange of high-ticket manufactured goods, raw materials and hard-labor for slips of green paper with dead presidents on them. One can only marvel at the genius of the elites who concocted this scam and then imposed it wholesale on the masses without a peep of protest. Of course, the system is accompanied by various enforcement mechanisms that swiftly remove anyone who tries to either break free from the dollar or, God help us, create an alternate system altogether. (Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi come to mind.) But the fact is – aside from the institutional framework and the ruthless extermination of dollar opponents – there’s no reason why humanity should remain yoked to a currency that is buried beneath a mountain of debt and whose real value is virtually unknowable."
Please read this complete article here:

Wednesday, June 8, 2022

"15 Signs That The Social Decay In America Is Worse Than It Has Ever Been Before"

Full screen recommended.
"15 Signs That The Social Decay In America 
Is Worse Than It Has Ever Been Before"
by Epic Economist

"The social fabric of the United States is rapidly deteriorating. Right now, virtually any measure of social welfare is showing us that social decay in America is accelerating at a very shocking pace. Our main institutions are either being dismantled or falling apart. At the same time, civil disorder continues to trigger unprecedented chaos in several parts of our country. Millions of Americans don't have access to proper housing, food, and education, and the gap between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' has never been wider.

The lack of proper education to help Americans thrive and accomplish financial stability is another sign of societal breakdown. Most colleges and universities are failing in one of their most basic missions: to equip students with the tools they need for a career. Millions of students graduate each year totally ill-prepared to earn a living and pay off the debt they’ve accumulated getting their degrees — at least 40% of those who start college don’t finish within six years. Despite these problems, colleges continue to raise tuition and to pay for these ever-increasing costs, students are borrowing more money and taking on more and more debt. And with federal loans accounting for much of the $1.5 trillion in outstanding student loan debt, and more than a million people defaulting on their loans, taxpayers are picking up much of the tab for this broken system while our younger generations remain utterly unprepared for the challenges of adult life.

In the world’s wealthiest country, more and more people are living on the streets. Homelessness is a significant indicator of social decay. There are 750,000 Americans who are homeless on any given night, with one in five of them considered chronically homeless. Around 70% of the homeless are individuals, and families with children make up for the remaining 30%. Living without proper access to housing puts many people in very a vulnerable position, oftentimes, their lives are at risk. An examination of 20 US urban areas found that around 13,000 homeless people are victimized by disease, extreme weather, and substance abuse every year. The number of victims shot up by 77% in the five years ending in 2020. Today, the average life expectancy of a homeless person in America is just 50 years.

There will be no future for us if we stay on this highly self-destructive path. The choices that we make individually and collectively as a nation are critical for the health of our society. Throughout all human history, great empires have fallen because societies have consistently made the wrong choices. So if we want to prevent the downfall of America, we must start making better choices. But if we are going to change direction, we better start doing it now because time is running out, and it won’t be too long before it is gone completely.

Today, we decided to expose some worrying facts about the social breakdown happening all around us."

Gregory Mannarino, "Be Ready! A Series Of "New Crises" Is Coming Straight At You, And You Will Fund It All"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 6/8/22:
"Be Ready! A Series Of "New Crises" Is Coming 
Straight At You, And You Will Fund It All"
Related:

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Deep Still Blue"

Full screen recommended.
2002, "Deep Still Blue"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“How far do magnetic fields extend up and out of spiral galaxies? For decades astronomers knew only that some spiral galaxies had magnetic fields. However, after NRAO's Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope (popularized in the movie Contact) was upgraded in 2011, it was unexpectedly discovered that these fields could extend vertically away from the disk by several thousand light-years. The featured image of edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 5775, observed in the CHANG-ES (Continuum Halos in Nearby Galaxies) survey, also reveals spurs of magnetic field lines that may be common in spirals.
Analogous to iron filings around a bar magnet, radiation from electrons trace galactic magnetic field lines by spiraling around these lines at almost the speed of light. The filaments in this image are constructed from those tracks in VLA data. The visible light image, constructed from Hubble Space Telescope data, shows pink gaseous regions where stars are born. It seems that winds from these regions help form the magnificently extended galactic magnetic fields.”

Chet Raymo, “Living In The Little World”

“Living In The Little World”
by Chet Raymo

"My wisdom is simple," begins Gustav Adolph Ekdahl, at the final celebratory family gathering of Ingmar Bergman's crowning epic “Fanny and Alexander.” I saw the movie in the early 1980s when it had its U.S. theater release. Now I have just watched the five-hour-long original version made for Swedish television. Whew!

But back to that speech by the gaily philandering Gustav, now the patriarch of the Ekdahl clan and uncle to Fanny and Alexander. The family has gathered for the double christening of Fanny and Alexander's new half-sister and Gustav's child by his mistress Maj. A dark chapter of family history has come to an end, involving a clash between two world views, one - the Ekdahl's - focussed on the pleasures of the here and now, and the other - that of Lutheran Bishop Edvard Vergerus, Fanny and Alexander's stepfather - a stern and joyless anticipation of the hereafter. It is not the habit of Ekdahls to concern themselves with matters of grand consequence, Gustav tells the assembled guests. "We must live in the little world. We will be content with that and cultivate it and make the best of it."

The little world. I love that phrase. This world, here, now. This world of family and friends and newborn infants and trees and flowers and rainstorms and- oh yes, cognac and stolen kisses and tumbles in the hay. The Ekdahl's are a theatrical family; we will leave it to the actors and actresses to give us our supernatural shivers, says Gustav. "So it shall be," he says. "Let us be kind, and generous, affectionate and good. It is necessary and not at all shameful to take pleasure in the little world."

"When You Get Right Down To It..."

"You go up to a man, and you say, 'How are things going, Joe?' and he says, 'Oh fine, fine... couldn't be better.' And you look into his eyes, and you see things really couldn't be much worse. When you get right down to it, everybody's having a perfectly lousy time of it, and I mean everybody. And the hell of it is, nothing seems to help much."
- Kurt Vonnegut

"People are sad. People are broke. People are worried about money, people are worried that they're not enough and not amounting to anything and they don't feel good about themselves. People have rough times, and everybody's pretending it's not true, and we need to break that veneer."
- Eve Ensler

The Poet: Henry Austin Dobson, “The Paradox Of Time”

“The Paradox Of Time”

“Time goes, you say? Ah no! 
Alas, Time stays, we go; 
Or else, were this not so, 
What need to chain the hours, 
For Youth were always ours? 

Time goes, you say? – ah no! 
Ours is the eyes’ deceit 
Of men whose flying feet 
Lead through some landscape low; 
We pass, and think we see 
The earth’s fixed surface flee - 
Alas, Time stays, – we go! 

Once in the days of old, 
Your locks were curling gold, 
And mine had shamed the crow. 
Now, in the self-same stage, 
We’ve reached the silver age; 
Time goes, you say? – ah no! 

Once, when my voice was strong, 
I filled the woods with song 
To praise your ‘rose’ and ‘snow’; 
My bird, that sang, is dead; 
Where are your roses fled? 
Alas, Time stays, – we go! 

See, in what traversed ways, 
What backward Fate delays 
The hopes we used to know; 
Where are our old desires? 
Ah, where those vanished fires? 
Time goes, you say? – ah no! 

How far, how far, O Sweet, 
The past behind our feet 
Lies in the even-glow! 
Now, on the forward way, 
Let us fold hands, and pray; 
Alas, Time stays, – we go!”

- Henry Austin Dobson
“Time passes in moments. Moments which, rushing past, define the path of a life, just as surely as they lead towards its end. How rarely do we stop to examine that path, to see the reasons why all things happen? To consider whether the path we take in life is our own making, or simply one into which we drift with eyes closed? But what if we could stop, pause to take stock of each precious moment before it passes? Might we then see the endless forks in the road that have shaped a life? And, seeing those choices, choose another path?”
- Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully, “The X-Files”

Paulo Coelho, "The Dead Man Who Wore Pajamas "

"The Dead Man Who Wore Pajamas"
by Paulo Coelho

"I remember reading a piece of news on the Internet that a man was found dead in Tokyo on 10 June 2004, dressed in his pajamas. So what? I imagine that most people who die wearing their pajamas either a) died in their sleep, which is a blessing, or b) were in the company of their relatives or on a hospital bed, death did not come quickly, so they all had time to grow used to the undesirable one, as Brazilian poet Manuel Bandeira called it. The news goes on: when he died, he was in his room. So, the hospital hypothesis is out and we are left with just the possibility that he died in his sleep, without suffering any, without even realizing that he would not see the light of day. But there is still another possibility: assault followed by death.

Those who have visited Tokyo know that the gigantic city is at the same time one of the safest places in the world. I remember once stopping to eat with my editors before taking a trip to the interior of Japan all our suitcases were in sight on the rear seat of the car. Immediately I said that it was very dangerous, someone was sure to come along, see all those bags and make off with our clothes, documents and so on. My editor just smiled and told me not to worry, he knew of no such incident in all his long years of life (in fact, nothing happened to our suitcases, although I kept tense all through dinner).

But to return to our dead man in pajamas: there was no sign of struggle, violence or anything of the sort. In an interview, a Metropolitan Police officer stated that it was almost certainly a case of a sudden heart attack. So the hypothesis of homicide was also eliminated. The body had been found by workers of a construction company on the second floor of a building in a housing complex that was about to be torn down. Everything led to the idea that the dead man in the pajamas, unable to find anywhere to live in one of the most densely and expensive cities in the world, had simply decided to settle where he did not have to pay any rent.

And now for the tragic part of the story: our dead man was only a skeleton dressed in pajamas. At his side was an open newspaper dated 20 February 1984; a calendar on the table nearby gave the same date. In other words, he had been there for twenty years. And nobody had noticed his absence.The man was identified as a former employee of the company that had built the housing complex, where he had moved to in the early 80s soon after his divorce. He was just over fifty years on the day that all of a sudden, reading the newspaper, he left this world.

His ex-wife never sought for him. It was discovered that the company where he worked had gone bankrupt right after the building had been finished, since no apartment was sold, and so they did not find it odd that the man never turned up for his daily activities. His friends were looked up, and they put his disappearance down to the fact that he had borrowed some money and could not pay it back.

The news ends informing us that the mortal remains were delivered to the ex-wife. I finished reading the article and wondered at the last sentence: the ex-wife was still alive, and for twenty years had not even looked up her husband. What must have gone through her head? That he no longer loved her, that he had decided to remove her for ever from his life? That he had met another woman and disappeared without a trace? That life is like that, once the divorce procedures are over there is no point in carrying on a relationship that has been legally terminated. I imagine what she must have felt upon finding out the fate of the man with whom she had shared a good part of her life.

Then I thought of the dead man in his pajamas, of solitude so utter and abysmal that for twenty years nobody in this whole wide world had realized that he had simply disappeared without leaving a trace. And my conclusion is that worse than feeling hunger and thirst, worse than being jobless, suffering for love, in despair over some defeat, worse than all this is to feel that nobody, absolutely nobody in this world, cares for us. Let us at this moment say a quiet prayer for this man and let us offer him our thanks for making us reflect on how important our friends are." 

The Daily "Near You?"

Holly, Michigan, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Greg Hunter, "CV19 Vax Deadliest Fraud in History"

"CV19 Vax Deadliest Fraud in History"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Wall Street money manager Edward Dowd has made billions of dollars for companies such as Black Rock picking good businesses with good products. He can also spot a fraud, and Dowd says Pfizer simply made up the research that said it’s CV19 vaccine was safe and effective. According to Dowd, it was neither safe or effective. Dowd says, “The data was garbage. As far as I am concerned, they made up the data. It was garbage.” 

Dowd thinks the CV19 injections will be the deadliest fraud in history. Dowd explains, “This is something we have never seen in the history of our country and the history of the world for that matter. We have a product (CV19 Vax) that is so fraudulent and so deadly from an acute basis and kills you right away, but the long-term implications of this health impact we don’t know yet. It’s looking grim. This is going to be with us for decades. This is going to change the face of the world. We have to try to control the outcome because people are going to try to take advantage of this and spin it and turn it into the ‘great reset.’ We are not going to allow the ‘great reset’ to happen. If it happens, it’s going to happen under our power, and we are going to take control and not some nameless elites that say I am going to own nothing and eat bugs.”

Some people say the perpetrators of the deadly vax fraud are going to get away with it. Dowd says not a chance and explains, “The problem with this fraud is it is a bridge too far. 220 million Americans took the vax (at least one shot). Three million Americans are disabled, and it’s probably higher, and those disabilities are going to continue to grow. The economic impact, the young working age men and women dying in their families and the psychological effects show this is not your run of the mill financial fraud. This is a different kind of fraud, and this is a trust issue. It violated trust on so many levels that the politicians are going to turn on these people at some point. These things don’t end until the elite pay a personal price, and that’s where we are headed. Some of these people are going to pay a very personal price. I don’t wish that on them, and this is why they need to come forward and start whistleblowing so they can be protected in jails. These crimes are so difficult to hide that there will be that kind of action. If you look at the story of Marie Antoinette and the saying “Let them eat cake,” the French Revolution did not end well for the elites. The consciousness is rising in this country at an alarming fast rate...”

How does Dowd know we have passed an inflection point? Dowd says, “In October, November and December of last year, people all over the media, celebrities and people I knew were saying the unvaccinated are the problem and they need to be put in camps. Well, that chatter has disappeared. They have not apologized for that, but doubts are starting to enter people’s minds. It’s like the stages of grief. The first one is denial, then anger, then depression and then acceptance. We are in the denial/anger stage. We are still in the denial part, but we are quickly approaching anger.”

In the economy and what’s coming, Dowd points out, “What’s going on is we are basically at the end of the super bubble. We are going to have to have a new economic system and what’s going on is the collapse of that. The defaults are coming, and they are going to start in other countries first and make their way here. It’s going to be a disaster, and we are going to see a huge amount of defaults, bankruptcies and collapse of the economy. 99.9% of the world does not know the social contract has been broken. What does that mean? It means all the entitlements, social security, the pensions, and there are a lot in Europe, they are gone. They are not going to get paid. That’s the bottom line.” There is much more in the 50 min. interview.
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he as he goes 
One-on-One with money manager and investment expert Edward Dowd:
Related:
"The current world population is 8.0 billion as of June 2022 according
 to the most recent United Nations estimates elaborated by Worldometer."

So, they intend  to "reduce the number of people in the world by 50% by 2023."
4 BILLION people "reduced"? Tell me any other possible explanation for this...
- CP

"I Hope..."

“To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer. To suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy then is to suffer. But suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you’re getting this down.”
- Bertrand Russell

Must Watch! Gonzalo Lira, "What Russia Has To Do After Russia Wins"

Full screen recommended.
Gonzalo Lira, 6/8/22:
"What Russia Has To Do After Russia Wins"
Related:

Bill Bonner, "Neuter or Bobbit?"

"Neuter or Bobbit?"
Either the Fed controls inflation... or inflation controls the Fed
by Bill Bonner

Youghal, Ireland - "What ought to happen does happen… but you can go broke waiting for it. Inflation is happening, as it should. The feds inflated the money system. And consumers are now reeling from price increases. We’re just waiting to find out what happens next. In a broad-brush way, there are really only two possibilities. Either the Fed controls inflation... or inflation controls the Fed. Either it neuters inflation…or inflation ‘Bobbits’ the Fed.

As we’ve been describing, inflation ought to be self-correcting. Higher prices should motivate producers and discourage consumers. People should drive less. Buy less. They should stay at home and turn the lights off. Prices ought to come down. But ‘don’t hold your breath,’ was Janet Yellen’s message yesterday: “I do expect inflation to remain high, although I very much hope it will be coming down now." Ms. Yellen has a remarkable ability not to notice what’s really going on. We will only know that inflation is on its way out, for sure, when she tells us it is eternal.

Money We Can Trust: In the meantime, let’s try to figure out which way it will go: who will end up singing in a high-pitched, ‘castrati’ voice? The Fed? Or its inflation?

Governments use ‘printing press money’ the way a pickpocket uses his fingers. It gives them access to money that they oughtn’t have. With it, they finance programs and giveaways that neither taxpayers nor lenders would willingly pay for. Naturally, they want to keep the racket going as long as possible.

But inflation is the worst form of taxation. It strangles the goose even before it lays its golden egg. An economy needs money it can trust. High rates of inflation make business, investment and even consumer decisions much more difficult. Few people are willing to make long-term, wealth-creating investments when price increases appear to be ‘out of control.’ Factories don’t get built. Highways aren’t repaired. Innovations and improvements don’t happen. People get poorer.

Prices in the US are rising at an official rate over 8%. The things people really care about – food, shelter, fuel – are going up much faster. A Fox News headline: Gas prices climb 5 cents overnight; Americans are paying nearly $2 more from just one year ago. The national average gas price climbed five cents Monday night into Tuesday and 10 cents since Saturday, now hitting a record $4.92 per gallon, according to the American Automobile Association.

Redfin says house prices were up 15%. And the FAO says food prices worldwide are up 60% over the last two years. So what ought to happen next? Let’s look more closely at how it works.

As Bust Follows Boom: Some inflation is a natural by-product of the business cycle. In boom times, demand goes up… and prices with them. Then comes the bust and prices go back down. And sometimes prices move up simply because demand goes up or supply goes down. The approach of a hurricane, for example, has a stimulating effect on sales of generators; plywood prices rise. Likewise, Covid lockdowns, war and sanctions, too, play a role in today’s price increases.

But there’s something else at work… something more sinister and less responsive to the natural feedback loops of an honest economy. It is something that was underway long before the Covid Panic or the Russo-Ukrainian war. It is intentional… self-inflicted… a feature of US fiscal and monetary policy… and by extension… a mashup of the world’s monetary system.

As long as the feds keep their policies in place, we should continue to see rising prices. In fact, inflation should get worse. That’s what ought to happen too. Because, natural business cycle inflation is self-correcting… wars end…and hurricanes move on. But premeditated inflation is self-intensifying.

That is, as prices rise, purchasing power goes down. Then, ‘inflation’ takes on a life of its own. People must have more money just to maintain their standards of living. Businesses, investors and the government become accustomed to having more and more money. As prices rise, they need more money to stay in the same place. If more money is not forthcoming, sales fall… prices drop… and a recession takes hold – all the things the authorities are so eager to avoid. That’s the ‘inflate or die,’ trap we’ve been describing. Once you start inflating, you have to inflate more or the inflation-dependent economy dies.

The Strongest Recovery Never: What’s more, when people come to see that inflation is not going away, they get used to it. They become eager to get rid of their money as soon as possible. Instead of saving money, they spend it quickly, before it loses more of its value. This increases the ‘velocity’ of money, which in turn increases the rate of price increases.

‘Inflation expectations’ are even harder to control than inflation itself. It’s why a central bank, wishing to reduce inflation, must ‘get ahead of it.’ It must show that it is serious, by tightening up more than expected. That is what Paul Volcker did in 1980… raising the Fed’s key lending rate to a breathtaking 20% – nearly 700 basis points ABOVE the consumer price inflation number. For reference, the current Fed’s lending rate is about 700 basis points BELOW the CPI. ‘Nuff said,’ as Howard Ruff used to put it.

Neither is the White House serious about reducing inflation. It is the “strongest recovery in modern history,” say Biden et al. “We’re in a good position to really take on inflation,” added the White House press secretary yesterday. But the federal deficit is still on track to exceed $1 trillion this year. If you can’t balance the budget in the ‘strongest recovery’ ever… when can you? Never. And if you don’t get serious about tightening monetary policy when the CPI is over 8%, when will you? The answer is simple – when you can’t do anything else. Stay tuned."

bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

Joel’s Note: "In the meantime, you might wish to assuage any concerns you have over the state of the economy with some reassuring words from your commander in chief. Here he is, completely in touch with the plight of the American worker…
Can you feel that, Dear Reader? That undeniable economic vitality? Never mind the price at the pump or the 40-yr high inflation or the violence in your cities or the moral decay you see all around you… read POTUS’s lips: “most robust recovery in modern history.” And then remember what George Orwell wrote in 1984, “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

"How It Really Is"