Thursday, June 9, 2022

"Revelation 6:5-6"

"Revelation 6:5-6"
by Jim Rickards

"My team and I want to make sure you’re caught up on our fast-moving event - and the sinister market forces we expect to play out next week. So, expect to see a “daily” update at 7pm each night…This is your next missive. And it’s vital. For long term readers, you know I’ve written many best-selling books. ("Currency Wars" - 2011, "The Death of Money" - 2014, and "Road to Ruin" -2016)

But today I want you to focus on my 2019 book, "Aftermath." In "Aftermath", I outline what we’re already seeing here in 2022. In particular, I’m talking about the 3rd horseman from the book of Revelation (chapter 6 verse 5-6.) “I looked, and there before me was a black horse. Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “Two pounds of wheat for a day’s wages, and six pounds of barley for a day’s wages.”

Scholars have determined that a day’s pay, one silver denarius for a soldier of Rome or a common laborer, was an unusually HIGH price for a day’s ration of wheat. The 3rd horseman is scarcity and famine. You don’t have to look too far in the daily news flow (specifically May and June) to see the drumbeat of famine. Like I showed you earlier today, the famine has already begun.
There are plenty more examples, too. In fact, some are predicting this to be the “Summer of Starvation” - something that could lead to more political and social unrest than the Arab spring.

But…I’m not here to talk about the 3rd horseman. It’s clear to me that it’s already here, and the recourse for our world is unstoppable. More urgent for today is my big prediction for next week. It’s the 4th horseman that you should be concerned with. That’s “death”.

And the way I see it, the market is about to see an unavoidable “death step” next week. The probability of the 4th horseman, “death step” is 100%. This is it. The end is near for the global financial system. And it all happens next week.

That’s why it’s vital that you stay up to speed for my Dow Drop Summit on Sunday night at 7pm. Over the next few days I’ll give you all the details you need to know. Plus, you’ll see even more data about this unavoidable “death step”... and a historic market crash. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, I hope you saw my message from earlier today. If you haven’t read that important update or added your name to my urgent SMS reminder list, you’ll want to do that right away. Click here to visit my “Dow Drop" event page, and get caught up."
I’ll talk to you soon."

"The Tragic Legacy of Lockdowns"

"The Tragic Legacy of Lockdowns"
by Jeffrey Tucker

"An 18-year-old kid recently slogged a powerful weapon into a Buffalo, New York, grocery store and started shooting people based on race. Ten people were slaughtered. His goal was to start a race war, along the lines of the fiction books that inspired his online gurus. He livestreamed the carnage and left a manifesto explaining his motives. His ideology - which has deep roots and has spawned genocides - is the kind of demonic gibberish that unstable kids find on the internet when they are looking for some mission and meaning in life.

Why might this kid have allowed his brain to become poisoned in this way? He was a high school junior when the schools in his town were closed by the government, from March 2020 through September at the earliest. That cut him off from peers and normal social life and the civilizing effect that they have. He lived online in isolated loneliness. He admits this in his revolting “manifesto”:

"Before I begin I will say that I was not born racist nor grew up to be racist. I simply became racist after I learned the truth. I started browsing 4chan in May 2020 after extreme boredom, remember this was during the outbreak of COVID… I never even saw this information until I found these sites, since mostly I would get my news from the front page of Reddit. I didn’t care at the time, but as I learned more and more I realized how serious the situation was. Eventually I couldn’t take it anymore, I told myself that eventually I was going to kill myself to escape this fate. My race was doomed and there was nothing I could do about it."

These words reflect grave pathology. Recent surveys of people in forced COVID isolation have found that some 30% develop strong symptoms of PTSD over the course of weeks. In this case, an already imbalanced kid found personal meaning through his own perceived “race” identity. He invented a sense of belongingness through an imagined artificial solidarity with others of his tribe. The next steps are obvious: the demonization of others who are blamed for his plight, the manufacturing of a mission and the valorization of his own violent longings. The grotesque ideology he adopted was the replacement for what he lost or never had.

The disruption of closures and quarantines affected millions of others without the same results but the tendency is there: People are robbed of a moral center and a clarity about life’s meaning. In Freudian terms, the last two years provided every pathway for the id (the primitive instinct) to displace the ego, which consists of social norms, social realities, etiquette and rules when deciding how to behave.

This displacement can leave nothing but instinct fueled by resentment and hate. Along with this comes the search for the “other” on which to blame all problems. Whether that is the racial identity, political deviants, the COVID non-compliant, the unvaccinated or make up any other category, we see the same dynamic at work: the attempt to stigmatize, exclude, dehumanize and eventually eliminate.

Below, I show you why this incident is a deep moral failure - and also a warning. Read on."
"Lockdowns and the Loss of Moral Clarity"
by Jeffrey Tucker

"This kid’s behavior is but a sign, a marker, an extreme example of the loss of moral center. It is also a warning. Millions more have been so affected, as we lost two years, not only of education, but also of socialization opportunities. Networks have been shattered. Expectations that life can be stable and good, and always will be, are gone for many among a whole generation. Even the surgeon general has commented on the crisis for a generation, without of course identifying the most obvious causes.

What kinds of things unleash this Freudian id that is always just beneath the surface? What breaks the barrier created by sublimation? Isolation. Despair. Deprivation. This is linked to a shattering of social bonds (via “social distancing”) and also material loss. These cause hope to evaporate. A happy future starts to seem unattainable, and so there is a loss of desire to work toward that end. Instead, the psychology of reversion takes place: to behave in a primitive, anomic and violent way.

Freud is a good guide to this tragic process, but to see the other end of the moral spectrum, we can turn to Adam Smith’s masterwork "The Theory of Moral Sentiments." It is heavy on the analysis of what it means to feel empathy, and not only to feel it, but to rely on it to the point that our own well-being is connected to the belief that others too are experiencing something like a good life.

What instills this higher sense in our minds? It is the practical experience of depending on others and finding value in their labor, productivity and contribution to community life and coming to see our own well-being as bound up with the fates of others. This is what the market and socializing encourages: the gradual recognition that others, and indeed all people, are worthy of being treated with dignity and respect.

The universalization of this sense is never complete, but as civilization and prosperity grow, we make progress toward that end. This is what grants us ever better lives. Without it, we can very quickly descend into barbarism in the way Lord of the Flies describes. This is particularly true in the volatile years of youth, when the search for meaning is active and the mind is malleable in both good and dangerous ways.

Take away community and you take away the thing that instills that Smithian sense of empathy that extends from a conscience trained by socialization. All of this is contingent on a functioning market and social order. Without that, a decline in mental health can lead to violent outbursts and even genocide. Like you, I never wanted to live in a society that is devolving ever deeper into moral decay. Along with that is, inevitably, a fall in overall prosperity.

Years ago, I was having lunch with one of the great economists who had dedicated his life to studying economic freedom the world over. He developed the metrics to quantify this progress and ranked countries. I asked him the big question, whether there was ever a chance that in the West we could lose what we take for granted and find ourselves falling back to ever more primitive ways, eventually losing both freedom and prosperity.

His answer came quickly: There is almost zero chance of that. Markets are too complex, law is mostly good and humanity has learned the right path. The foundations of civilization are so strong that it would require a mighty effort to break them. People would never stand for it. I was relieved to hear this and went on with my naive ways.

Two years ago, in spring, this confidence in the future was shattered. A friend just now described it to me as a nightmare unfolding in real-time as ruling class elites play willy-nilly with sacred rights and liberties, while smashing so much of what it has taken hundreds of years to create.

The results of compulsory closures and shutdowns are all around us. It’s not only about educational losses, falling optimism, declining health, inflation, weakened financials, empty shelves and shortened lives. Above all else, it is about the decline of society’s moral sense. We saw public officials engaged in the unthinkable - locking people in their homes, closing schools and churches, shutting down venues for fun and therapy, excluding people from public accommodations based on vaccine status - and that sent a message to everyone else.

We’ve been through more than two years of isolating, segregating, dividing, excluding and dehumanizing. The message: There are no more rules based on equality and rights. Nothing that we thought matters really does matter. The replacement is not rationality but primitivism and the destructive mindset.

Many are now asking the unthinkable: Just how bad can this get? Polls say that the No. 1 concern of Americans today is inflation, a direct outgrowth of terrible pandemic policy. We have examples from history of how forces like inflation can prompt rapid devolution.

Venezuela is a good example: a prosperous and civilized country falling into the abyss when the money fails, after which civil society collapses too. Germany and Russia too come to mind. One or two things going wrong can cause a crack in civilized life that exposes whole social orders to the unthinkable. What’s awesome and terrifying to contemplate is just how many things have gone wrong all at once. The quality of money has taken a huge hit that will likely endure many more years.

But we also have a health crisis, a psychological decline, massive learning loss, dependency on government largess, a loss of work ethic, an ideological putsch against basic tenets of traditional liberalism, a revolt against religion, a denial of basic biology and science, a wholesale loss of trust in elites, the valorization of war, even as the administrative state alongside intellectual elites remain firmly in control of the apparatus of power at all levels.

This is an extremely dangerous mix, so much so that it is hard to find historical examples. Our moral sense is getting dulled by the day. We are getting used to rising crime, falling purchasing power, the loss of opportunity, diminished hopes for the future, rising social chaos and the normalization of hate. It can happen gradually and then all at once.

Over two years, our friend networks have been shattered, our communities broken, small businesses beaten and many of our leaders co-opted into a machinery of corruption, while the censorship of open dialogue about the causes and consequences is intensifying. The tools we thought would save us and lead us into the light - our laws and technologies - have betrayed our rights, privacy and liberties.

Perpetual decline and fall are not inevitable. They are fixable but every powerful force out there, especially mainstream media, seems to stand against that. It is all designed to demoralize us and cause us to give up. We cannot accept this fate. There is still time, providing that we understand what is happening and the grave consequences of letting it all take place without a fight."
Related:

A Blues Musical Interlude: Foy Vance, Ed Sheeran, "Make it Rain"

Foy Vance, "Make it Rain"
The original, Ed Sheeran's version is the cover.
Ed Sheeran, "Make it Rain"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Magnificent island universe NGC 2403 stands within the boundaries of the long-necked constellation Camelopardalis. Some 10 million light-years distant and about 50,000 light-years across, the spiral galaxy also seems to have more than its fair share of giant star forming HII regions, marked by the telltale reddish glow of atomic hydrogen gas. The giant HII regions are energized by clusters of hot, massive stars that explode as bright supernovae at the end of their short and furious lives.
A member of the M81 group of galaxies, NGC 2403 closely resembles another galaxy with an abundance of star forming regions that lies within our own local galaxy group, M33 the Triangulum Galaxy. Spiky in appearance, bright stars in this colorful galaxy portrait of NGC 2403 lie in the foreground, within our own Milky Way.”

Chet Raymo, “At Home In An Infinite Universe”

“At Home In An Infinite Universe”
by Chet Raymo

“They are questions that bedeviled thinkers for thousands of years: Is the universe infinite or finite, eternal or of a finite age?  It is certainly hard to imagine a universe that extends without limit in every direction, or a universe without a beginning or end. It is equally difficult to imagine a finite universe; what is beyond the edge? Or a beginning or end in time; how can something come from nothing? how can what is cease to be?

The problems are so intractable philosophically that their resolution has generally been left to the theologians, which from a philosophical (or scientific) perspective offers no solution at all. Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for proposing a philosophical resolution (an infinite universe) that offended theology.

An escape from befuddlement is provided by Einstein's theory of general relativity, which- for example- can describe a finite universe without a boundary, as the "two-dimensional" surface of a sphere is finite and without an edge. Unfortunately, multi-dimensional curved space-time is so counterintuitive that it is difficult to get one's head around it without mastery of the mathematics. Given a choice between the ancient myths of your local preacher and the obtuse mathematics of the physics professor, it's not hard to guess what most folks will opt for.

Meanwhile, I'm reading a meditation on infinity by physics professor Anthony Aguirre, in a collection of essays called "Future Science." He discusses contemporary cosmological theories based on general relativity, and in particular the rehabilitation of the idea of an infinite and eternal universe, or, more precisely, that our universe might be just one of an infinity of infinite universes. He writes in conclusion: “What seems clear, however, is that infinity can no longer be safely ignored; beautifully constructed, empirically supported, self-consistent theories have brought infinity from idle curiosity to central player in contemporary cosmology. And if correct, the worldview these theories represent constitutes a perspective shift unlike any other: in comparison to the universe, we would be not just small but strictly zero. Well, I can't imagine many folks racing to embrace that conclusion.

Oh, but wait. Aguirre adds one final sentence: "Yet here we are, contemplating- if not quite understanding- it all.”
Full screen recommended.
 Vangelis, “Cosmos: A Tour of the Universe”

"Soon Or Late..."

“A craven can be as brave as any man, when there is nothing to fear. And we all do our duty, when there is no cost to it. How easy it seems then, to walk the path of honor. Yet soon or late in every man’s life comes a day when it is not easy, a day when he must choose.”
- George R.R. Martin

"The Essence Of Human Existence..."

"Curiosity is the essence of human existence.
'Who are we? Where are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?'
I don't know. I don't have any answers to those questions.
I don't know what's over there around the corner. But I want to find out."
- Eugene Cernan

"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