"It's the Money, Stupid!"

Old engraved illustration of The execution of Queen Marie Antoinette

 on the "Revolution Square" (Place Louis XV.) on October 16, 1793.

"It's the Money, Stupid!"

A short history of the paper monies that cried wolf...

by Joel Bowman

Trondheim, Norway - "It’s the money, stupid! Every day, every moment, the world economy finds itself at another crossroads... one path leading down by the rushing rapids... the other headed over a cliff. It’s the “Decision of the Century,” as Bill reminded readers this week. “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.” Speaking of inflation, everybody is pointing at rising prices. They are, as you may have heard, increasing at the fastest clip in more than 40 years. (See below.)

But let us pause for a gentle reminder. Ultimately, it is not prices that matter; it’s the quality of the money in which they are denominated. Prices go up. Prices go down. In a properly functioning economy, one rolling along on the rails of a sound money, basic supply and demand corrects for natural market aberrations. (“The cure for high prices is high prices,” as they say. And vice-versa.)

But when the money becomes corrupted, printed up ex nihilo, the value of the information conveyed through each transaction becomes corrupted, too. Consequent price distortions lure investors into deals they otherwise wouldn’t make, for example, turning them into speculators chasing yield. Or they keep wary entrepreneurs on the sidelines, when they might otherwise boldly enter the fray.

Either way, a money nobody can trust ain’t no good for nobody. And the surest way to fiddle with the reliability, predictability and functionality of a money is to crank up the presses and have them go forth and (through the “miracle” of the fractional reserve banking system) multiply. In the end, individual currency units become like the Dollar that Cried Wolf; nobody believes a word from their mouth. That this is the preferred course of action for tyrants and demagogues throughout history leads us to believe this time will be no different. But that’s no good thing.

“Sticking with the inflation policy will be much worse,” Bill warned. “The longer it goes on the more distorted, indebted and fragile the economy becomes. ‘When the money goes, everything goes’ – including the political system… and the social norms that a civilized society depends on.”

As we spend the last few days with visiting family, here in one of the world’s priciest countries (more about which in future Sunday Seshes), we thought you might enjoy a look at what happens when a sound money really begins crying wolf. We published a version of this essay a couple of years ago, back when covid was just getting to be “a thing.” We’ve updated it some, so as to reflect the path on which our minders have since embarked. Please enjoy...

"It’s the Money, Stupid!"

by Joel Bowman

"Where goes sound money, so too goes civil society. From drachma debasement in ancient Greece… to clipped coinage during the Roman Empire. From the freshly-inked assignats rolling off the presses in the lead up to the French Revolution… to the hollowing out of the Weimar Republic during the hyper-inflationary period of the 1920s…It seems that everywhere we look, monetary pride goes before societal decline… and fall.

Whether denominated in Hungarian pengos, Polish zlotys, Brazilian reals or Venezuelan bolivars, experiments in monetary hijinks invariably end in tears. From where we usually spend our days in Argentina’s inflationista capital… to the ruinous state of Zimbabwe, once known as “Africa’s breadbasket” and now little more than an economic basket case… Literally from A – Z, in countries the world over, history is replete with cautionary tales of what happens when the feds crank up the printing presses.

And yet, that hoary old cry, “This time will be different!” urges us on, imploring us to ignore all past and documented experience to the contrary. Why do we fall for such an obvious ruse, over and over and again? Why do we suppose that the immutable laws of economics will be suspended, in our favor, just this once? Is it arrogance or ignorance that causes us to see ourselves as the precious exceptions to history’s iron-clad rule? Perhaps it’s a bit of both…

To Make and Do: We were pondering this phenomenon in light of the Labor Department’s latest inflation figures, published last week. In a nutshell, the report confirmed what ordinary Americans already know, but which appears utterly elusive to the 400+ PhD.s on the Fed’s payroll. Prices are skyrocketing. Here are a few salient line items, courtesy of Forbes:

• Meats, poultry, fish and eggs: 14.2% increase

• Fruits and vegetables: 11.8% increase

• Electricity: 12% increase

• Utility (piped) gas service: 30.2% increase

• Airline fares: 37.8% increase

• Household cleaning products: 9.9% increase

• Rent of primary residences: 5.2% increase

The energy index alone jumped 34.6% year-over-year, its biggest increase since 2005. Both natural gas and gasoline are up too, with prices at the pump hitting new records across the country. And since it’s hard to “make and do stuff” without significant energy input, the rising prices we see tend to be spread broadly, throughout the entire economy.

Of course, rising prices are not the cause of inflation, just as falling down the stairs is not to blame for drunkenness, nor are broken scales the cause of obesity. It is merely an unfortunate symptom of having had too much. Too much hooch. Too much cheesecake. And too much money-printing.

The Feds have created more than $8 trillion dollars this young century. And on February 1, 2022, the Treasury Department reported that the U.S. gross national debt surpassed $30 trillion for the first time ever. For those keeping count at home, that’s about $91k per citizen... or $242k per taxpayer.

A coupla trill’ here… another trill’ there… pretty soon, you’re starting to talk real money! (Or at least, real fake money…) Hmm… what might this potent profligacy portend for the empire’s future? Perhaps a look into the past can provide some clues…

Panem et Circenses: To take just one of the aforementioned examples, that of the French Revolution, the printing presses were rolling long before heads – royal and otherwise – were. Under Kings Louis XV and King Louis XVI, France had run up enormous debt loads, in part thanks to vast warfare expenditures abroad – including backing America in her own war of Independence – and lavish governmental expenses at home. Guns and butter, bread and circuses, welfare and warfare…the items on the shopping list change throughout the ages, but the net effect remains the same.

By the 1780s, France’s balance sheet was in tatters. The country’s General Assembly tried tax increases and spending cuts but such austerity measures proved, then as now, unpopular with the masses and so were soon abandoned. By the end of the decade, all honest options having been exhausted, the French did what so many mere mortals had done before: they looked around for a dishonest one. And they didn’t have to look far.

As the historian Andrew D. White recounted a century later in his rather unimaginatively titled book, “Fiat Money Inflation in France”: "Statesmanlike measures, careful watching and wise management would, doubtless, have ere long led to a return of confidence, a reappearance of money and a resumption of business; but these involved patience and self-denial, and, thus far in human history, these are the rarest products of political wisdom. Few nations have ever been able to exercise these virtues; and France was not then one of these few."

No doubt there were impassioned arguments on both sides, for and against money printing. Opponents pointed to historical disasters, such as the 1720 Mississippi Bubble, still relatively fresh in the Frenchmen’s collective memory.

Proponents, meanwhile, summoned that old saw, tried and true, against which so few politicians can hold their ground. “This time will be different,” they argued… same as always. And so it was that after long deliberation, the General Assembly agreed to a round of money printing…“juste cette fois,” (“just this once”) they’d have told themselves.

The bills, assignats, were to be backed by Church property… especially confiscated for this very purpose. And so, like magic, 400 million of them were put into circulation. And for a while, the old elixir seemed to do the trick. Commerce picked up, confidence rose and people got to work spending their newly inked notes. Oh, to be alive in the Summer of 1790, France! ‘twas surely the place to be!

Cometh the Fall: By the time the leaves had turned from green to yellow, economic activity had begun to slump and, along with it, the hopes of the monetary conjurers and printing press prestidigitators. And then, sure as one season follows the next, “The old remedy immediately and naturally recurred to the minds of men,” observed White, “Throughout the country began a cry for another issue of paper.” Rather than admit they had erred – borrowing from the future that which the present had not yet earned – the General Assembly did what all such assemblies of men in their position do: they doubled down on their devilish deed.

It was not the money-printing itself that was to blame, they rationalized, but rather the magnitude of issuance. 400 million units was simply not enough to stoke the embers and get the fire going again. Perhaps another round would help… But by then, the fix was in. The conversation has shifted from “to print, or not to print?” to how much should be printed. And so, the presses were cranked up once again, and the newly-inked bills were sent forth across the land… 300, 400 and 600 million units at a time...

Here again Mr. White describes the scene: "The consequences of these over issues now began to be more painfully evident to the people at large. Articles of common consumption became enormously dear and prices were constantly rising. Orators in the Legislative Assembly, clubs, local meetings and elsewhere now endeavored to enlighten people by assigning every reason for this depreciation save the true one. They declaimed against the corruption of the ministry, the want of patriotism among the Moderates, the intrigues of the emigrant nobles, the hard-heartedness of the rich, the monopolizing spirit of the merchants, the perversity of the shopkeepers, - each and all of these as causes of the difficulty."

And this was only the beginning. Where sound money had gone, civil society was about to follow… Slowly at first, then all of a sudden, peaceful protests turned violent, and angry mobs began smashing shopfronts and setting fire to businesses. A jilted peasantry thronged the cobblestones, demanding their daily bread, the price of which was cast adrift, afloat on an ever-rising tide of new fiat money.

By the time King Louis XVI received the guillotine’s closest shave, in 1793, there were some 3.5 billion assignats in circulation. And when his wife, Marie Antoinette, lost her own head later that same year, the price of her infamous cake was far beyond the reach of most peasants.

One wonders, when surveying the present-day landscape… with mobs again marching in the street, demanding their just desserts and decrying economic inequality, what role money printing has played in the current malaise.

Heads Will Roll: We see protesters, for instance, berating the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, for proposing to buy Twitter for $43 billion. “He could have cured world poverty for only $6 billion,” they chided. The Tesla CEO has been the beneficiary of the Fed’s EZ money economy, no doubt about it. But he did not print the dollars himself. He merely saw that they were being pumped into the market... and backed up his electric vehicle in anticipation.

Besides, the US alone spends more than the Twitter deal in foreign aid per year, plus countless times that amount pretending to fight poverty at home. (The CATO Institute puts the cost of the War on Poverty at more than $23 Trillion. The poverty rate in the US in 1972 was about 12%... almost exactly what it is today, half a century on...) And anyway, if the proposed buyer of the Little Blue Bird could have made an impact by donating some dollars, surely the proposed sellers – who, after all, stood to receive all the cash – could do the very same thing, no?

But all that’s beside the point. Had the protestors actually read their history, they might be inclined to redirect their righteous indignation toward the nation’s capital instead, specifically to those pulling the levers at the Federal Reserve building, whence the flood of new scrip gushes. Then again, if they really did know the story, they would know too that after the royal heads did roll, it was the Jacobin revolutionaries themselves whose necks were next on the block. Where goes sound money, indeed."

- https://bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Sao Jose Do Rio Preto, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Thanks for stopping by!

Edward Abbey, "Benedicto"

"Benedicto"

"May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets' towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you - beyond that next turning of the canyon walls."

- Edward Abbey

Musical Interlude: John Prine, "Summer's End"

Full screen recommended.

John Prine, "Summer's End"

"I went down the rabbit hole of youtube and John Prine and I

 found the video called “Summer’s End”. It must have been one of his last.

The humanity of this video just blew me away… it moved me to tears."

- Robert W. Malone, MD

- https://www.rwmalonemd.com/

It Takes Courage..."

"Failure is unimportant.

It takes courage to make a fool of yourself."

- Charlie Chaplin

"Are We Living In A 'Matrix'-like Superhologram?"

"Are We Living In A 'Matrix'-like Superhologram?"

by David Talbot

"In 1982 a remarkable event took place. At the University of Paris a research team led by physicist Alain Aspect performed what may turn out to be one of the most important experiments of the 20th century. You did not hear about it on the evening news. In fact, unless you are in the habit of reading scientific journals you probably have never even heard Aspect's name, though there are some who believe his discovery may change the face of science. Aspect and his team discovered that under certain circumstances subatomic particles such as electrons are able to instantaneously communicate with each other regardless of the distance separating them. It doesn't matter whether they are 10 feet or 10 billion miles apart. Somehow each particle always seems to know what the other is doing. The problem with this feat is that it violates Einstein's long-held tenet that no communication can travel faster than the speed of light. Since traveling faster than the speed of light is tantamount to breaking the time barrier, this daunting prospect has caused some physicists to try to come up with elaborate ways to explain away Aspect's findings. But it has inspired others to offer even more radical explanations.

University of London physicist David Bohm, for example, believes Aspect's findings imply that objective reality does not exist, that despite its apparent solidity the universe is at heart a phantasm, a gigantic and splendidly detailed hologram. To understand why Bohm makes this startling assertion, one must first understand a little about holograms. A hologram is a three- dimensional photograph made with the aid of a laser. To make a hologram, the object to be photographed is first bathed in the light of a laser beam. Then a second laser beam is bounced off the reflected light of the first and the resulting interference pattern (the area where the two laser beams commingle) is captured on film. When the film is developed, it looks like a meaningless swirl of light and dark lines. But as soon as the developed film is illuminated by another laser beam, a three-dimensional image of the original object appears.

The three-dimensionality of such images is not the only remarkable characteristic of holograms. If a hologram of a rose is cut in half and then illuminated by a laser, each half will still be found to contain the entire image of the rose. Indeed, even if the halves are divided again, each snippet of film will always be found to contain a smaller but intact version of the original image. Unlike normal photographs, every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole. The "whole in every part" nature of a hologram provides us with an entirely new way of understanding organization and order. For most of its history, Western science has labored under the bias that the best way to understand a physical phenomenon, whether a frog or an atom, is to dissect it and study its respective parts. A hologram teaches us that some things in the universe may not lend themselves to this approach. If we try to take apart something constructed holographically, we will not get the pieces of which it is made, we will only get smaller wholes. 

This insight suggested to Bohm another way of understanding Aspect's discovery. Bohm believes the reason subatomic particles are able to remain in contact with one another regardless of the distance separating them is not because they are sending some sort of mysterious signal back and forth, but because their separateness is an illusion. He argues that at some deeper level of reality such particles are not individual entities, but are actually extensions of the same fundamental something.

To enable people to better visualize what he means, Bohm offers the following illustration. Imagine an aquarium containing a fish. Imagine also that you are unable to see the aquarium directly and your knowledge about it and what it contains comes from two television cameras, one directed at the aquarium's front and the other directed at its side. As you stare at the two television monitors, you might assume that the fish on each of the screens are separate entities. After all, because the cameras are set at different angles, each of the images will be slightly different. But as you continue to watch the two fish, you will eventually become aware that there is a certain relationship between them. When one turns, the other also makes a slightly different but corresponding turn; when one faces the front, the other always faces toward the side. If you remain unaware of the full scope of the situation, you might even conclude that the fish must be instantaneously communicating with one another, but this is clearly not the case.

This, says Bohm, is precisely what is going on between the subatomic particles in Aspect's experiment. According to Bohm, the apparent faster-than-light connection between subatomic particles is really telling us that there is a deeper level of reality we are not privy to, a more complex dimension beyond our own that is analogous to the aquarium. And, he adds, we view objects such as subatomic particles as separate from one another because we are seeing only a portion of their reality. Such particles are not separate "parts", but facets of a deeper and more underlying unity that is ultimately as holographic and indivisible as the previously mentioned rose. And since everything in physical reality is comprised of these "eidolons", the universe is itself a projection, a hologram.

In addition to its phantomlike nature, such a universe would possess other rather startling features. If the apparent separateness of subatomic particles is illusory, it means that at a deeper level of reality all things in the universe are infinitely interconnected.The electrons in a carbon atom in the human brain are connected to the subatomic particles that comprise every salmon that swims, every heart that beats, and every star that shimmers in the sky. Everything interpenetrates everything, and although human nature may seek to categorize and pigeonhole and subdivide, the various phenomena of the universe, all apportionments are of necessity artificial and all of nature is ultimately a seamless web.

In a holographic universe, even time and space could no longer be viewed as fundamentals. Because concepts such as location break down in a universe in which nothing is truly separate from anything else, time and three-dimensional space, like the images of the fish on the TV monitors, would also have to be viewed as projections of this deeper order. At its deeper level reality is a sort of superhologram in which the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. This suggests that given the proper tools it might even be possible to someday reach into the superholographic level of reality and pluck out scenes from the long-forgotten past.

What else the superhologram contains is an open-ended question. Allowing, for the sake of argument, that the superhologram is the matrix that has given birth to everything in our universe, at the very least it contains every subatomic particle that has been or will be - every configuration of matter and energy that is possible, from snowflakes to quasars, from blue whales to gamma rays. It must be seen as a sort of cosmic storehouse of "All That Is." Although Bohm concedes that we have no way of knowing what else might lie hidden in the superhologram, he does venture to say that we have no reason to assume it does not contain more. Or, perhaps the superholographic level of reality is a "mere stage" beyond which lies "an infinity of further development."

- https://www.goodreads.com/

Paulo Coelho, "Killing Our Dreams"

"Killing Our Dreams"

by Paulo Coelho

"The first symptom of the process of our killing our dreams is the lack of time. The busiest people I have known in my life always have time enough to do everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the little amount of work they are required to do. They complain constantly that the day is too short. The truth is, they are afraid to fight the Good Fight.

The second symptom of the death of our dreams lies in our certainties. Because we don't want to see life as a grand adventure, we begin to think of ourselves as wise and fair and correct in asking so little of life. We look beyond the walls of our day-to-day existence, and we hear the sound of lances breaking, we smell the dust and the sweat, and we see the great defeats and the fire in the eyes of the warriors. But we never see the delight, the immense delight in the hearts of those who are engaged in the battle. For them, neither victory nor defeat is important; what's important is only that they are fighting the Good Fight.

And, finally, the third symptom of the passing of our dreams is peace. Life becomes a Sunday afternoon; we ask for nothing grand, and we cease to demand anything more than we are willing to give. In that state, we think of ourselves as being mature; we put aside the fantasies of our youth, and we seek personal and professional achievement. We are surprised when people our age say that they still want this or that out of life. But really, deep in our hearts, we know that what has happened is that we have renounced the battle for our dreams  we have refused to fight the Good Fight.

When we renounce our dreams and find peace, we go through a short period of tranquility. But the dead dreams begin to rot within us and to infect our entire being. We become cruel to those around us, and then we begin to direct this cruelty against ourselves. That's when illnesses and psychoses arise. What we sought to avoid in combat- disappointment and defeat-  come upon us because of our cowardice.

And one day, the dead, spoiled dreams make it difficult to breathe, and we actually seek death. It's death that frees us from our certainties, from our work, and from that terrible peace of our Sunday afternoons."

- http://paulocoelhoblog.com/

○

"Children of Hope, to life we fondly cling,

Though woe on woe bitter hour may bring;

the spirit shrinks, and Nature dreads to brave,

The doubt, the gloom, the stillness of the grave.

But what is death? A wing from earth to fee, 

a bridge o'er time into eternity."

- Michelle, in "The Fear of Death Considered"

"The Only Cure..."

"We're all susceptible to it, the dread and anxiety of not knowing what's coming. It's pointless in the end, because all the worrying and the making of plans for things that could or could not happen, it only makes things worse. So walk your dog or take a nap. Just whatever you do, stop worrying. Because the only cure for paranoia is to be here, just as you are."

- Dr. Meredith Grey, "Grey's Anatomy"

"The Inflation Crisis Is Worse Than Admitted – Will Interest Rates Go To Record Highs?"

"The Inflation Crisis Is Worse Than Admitted – 

Will Interest Rates Go To Record Highs?"

by Tyler Durden

"Inflation is not a new problem in the US; there has been a steady expansion of price inflation and a devaluation of the dollar ever since the Federal Reserve was officially made operational in 1916. This inflation is easily observed by comparing the prices of commodities and necessities from a few decades ago to today.

The median cost of a home in 1960 was around $11,900, which is the equivalent of $98,000 today. In the year 2000, the median home price rose to $170,000. Today, the average sale price for a home is over $400,000 dollars. Inflation apologists will argue that wages are keeping up with prices; this is simply not true and has not been true for a long time.

In today's terms, a certain measure of home price increases involve artificial demand created by massive conglomerates like Blackstone buying up distressed properties. We can also place some blame on the huge migration of Americans out of blue states like New York and California during the pandemic lockdowns. However, prices were rising exponentially in many markets well before covid.

Americans have been dealing with higher prices and stagnant wages for some time now. This is often hidden or obscured by creative government accounting and the way inflation is communicated to the public through CPI numbers. This is especially true after the inflationary crisis of the late 1970s and early 1980s under the Carter Administration and Fed Chairman Paul Volcker.

It's important to understand that CPI today is NOT an accurate reflection of true inflation overall, and this is because the methods used by the Fed and other institutions to calculate inflation changed after the 1970s event. Not surprisingly, CPI was adjusted to show a diminished inflation threat. If you can't hide the price increases, you can at least lie about the gravity of those increases.

Today, the official CPI print from the Fed came in much hotter than expected at 8.6%. For market investors hoping for a lower print and more Fed stimulus, the dream is dead, or it should be treated as such. There is very little chance that the central bankers will reverse course in the midst of the largest inflationary crisis since the 1970s. What they aren't telling you, though, is that REAL inflation is much worse that what the CPI shows us.

By the 1990s the Fed and the government had effectively upended the traditional calculation methods for inflation and, ever since, the CPI has been subdued. If we look at numbers from Shadowstats, which uses the same calculation methods that were used in the 1980s, we can see that CPI is actually closer to 17%. This makes much more sense given the dramatic increases in food and energy prices, as well as home and rent costs just in the past two years. The 1970's crisis peaked at around 14.5%.

It's also important to note that the crisis of the 1970s was the product of a decade long decline in the US economy. The real trigger event happened in 1971 when Richard Nixon fully removed the US dollar from the gold standard. It was not long after in 1973 that CPI rose to around 8%. By 1980 inflation was officially at 14%. Volcker and the Fed responded by dramatically increasing interest rates to a record high of 15.8% by 1981. Recession hit hard and unemployment grew to 10%. High inflation followed by high interest rates also made manufacturing in the US difficult and likely helped to precipitate the exodus of factories from America to Asia.

The difference between the 1970's crisis and today's crisis is that we are facing far worse conditions. Our crisis started around 2008 after the credit bubble collapse, which facilitated an endless stream of bailouts and stimulus packages. The Federal Reserve has printed or created tens of trillions of dollars over the course of the past 14 years.

The official US national debt has tripled in that time. In 2020 alone, the Fed created over $6 trillion from thin air and injected it directly into the economy through covid relief checks and PPP loans. Unemployment is low, for now, but this is a fleeting condition created by covid stimulus. Joblessness will likely skyrocket over the next year now that covid checks are spent and the average consumer has maxed out their credit cards.

If the Fed takes the same actions as they did in the 1970s, then it is likely that interest rates will be aggressively hiked within the next couple of years to levels even beyond those seen in 1981. The current planned pace of rate increases by the Fed will do nothing to stall rising inflation, and they know this is a fact though they will not admit it to the public until it's too late. Inflation will continue to climb well beyond current CPI. They will have to hike to the point of extreme economic pain, and this may still not stop rising prices.

Obviously, interest rates anywhere beyond 2%-3% will lead to a stock market crash, because stocks are highly dependent on corporate buybacks fueled by cheap loans. The central bank has yet to even begin true rate hikes and already we are seeing stocks decline in response to the mere prospect that the easy money train is over.

Recession is a commonly used word in the media for what we are facing, but this is a softball term that misrepresents reality. It's more accurate to say that the party is over – The deflationary crisis we should have dealt with in 2008 will return with a vengeance, but this time we have the added inflationary pressures caused by years of fiat money printing. In other words, it's a stagflationary disaster that needs to be taken far more seriously in the mainstream than it currently is."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

"Crazy Prices At Big Lots! This Is Ridiculous!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 6/12/22:

"Crazy Prices At Big Lots! This Is Ridiculous!"

"In today's vlog we are at Big Lots, and are noticing some strange price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

"Curveballs..."

"Just when we think we figured things out, the universe throws us a curveball. So, we have to improvise. We find happiness in unexpected places. We find ourselves back to the things that matter the most. The universe is funny that way. Sometimes it just has a way of making sure we wind up exactly where we belong."

- "Dr. Meredith Grey", "Grey's Anatomy"

"How It Really Is"

 

"The only difference between the Republican and Democratic parties is the velocities with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock on their door. That's the only difference." - Ralph Nader

"Alan Shore Closing Argument On The Abuses Of Government"

"Epic closing argument from ABC's "Boston Legal" that illustrates the erosion of our Constitutional liberties and abusive government. This can no longer be defined as a Republican versus Democrat issue. Both parties are equally responsible, as are we, the electorate, for we continue to vote the same quality of politician(s) into office over and over."

Greg Hunter, "CV19 Vax Deaths & Injuries Are An Ignored Humanitarian Catastrophe"

"CV19 Vax Deaths & Injuries Are An 

Ignored Humanitarian Catastrophe"

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"World renowned CV19 critical care and pulmonary expert Dr. Pierre Kory says his clinic is seeing an explosion of people seeking treatment for CV19 vaccine sickness and injury. Dr. Kory reports, “We just started seeing more and more vaccine injured, and they are really quite ill. It’s a very complex illness. We are working on treatments that work and understanding the path of physiology. By the way, there is not a lot published on vaccine injury. As you know, they don’t want to call attention to it. The big high impact (medical) journals will not publish on it. It’s hard to become an expert on vaccine injury when it’s a disease that is being ignored. Nobody has a post vaccine injury clinic, and there are really no suggestions on how to treat it.”

Dr. Kory is developing new treatment protocols for treating the vax injured. Dr. Kory and his team at Front Line Covid 19 Critical Care Alliance (flccc.net) have an “Updated Post-Vaccine Syndrome Protocol.” Dr. Kory says it’s not a cure - yet, but it’s a good start. Dr. Kory explains, “I think it is a good general guide, but we need to know a lot more. I will tell you that what I was doing two months ago with these patients is a lot different than what I am doing now.”

Dr. Kory, who is writing a book called “The War on Ivermectin,” said early treatment for CV19 with medication such as Ivermectin could have saved nearly a million lives. Now, Dr. Kory’s base medicine for the vax injured is also Ivermectin. It’s a drug that won a Nobel Prize in medicine in 2015 because it is safe and effective. Dr. Kory says, “For different reasons, Ivermectin is my first go-to medicine. There are a number of reasons for that. Number one, it’s one of the most tightly binding medicines to the spike protein. The vaccine injured are causing what I call a spike-opathy (or spike disease). It’s the spike protein, which is triggering a bunch of pathologic mechanisms. The lipid nanoparticles are also a problem, but for the spike protein, specifically, the Ivermectin seems to counter it. Also, Ivermectin is a very potent anti-inflammatory. It’s the medicine that works the best, but it does not work in everybody.”

Dr. Kory freely admits there is “a lot we don’t know about CV19 vaccine injury,” and, thus, a lot to learn to treat it. What Dr. Kory is sure of is there are massive amounts of deaths and injuries from the CV19 injections that are being ignored by the government regulators, medical community and the mainstream media. Dr. Kory contends, “This is a humanitarian catastrophe, and it has been ignored. It has been suppressed. It has been censored, but you cannot hide from this data when it’s in your face. The system is going to have to address this in some way at some point. We figured out how to treat Covid, and we did a good job. Now, we have to try and do the same thing with the vaccine injured, and it’s a much different problem.”

In closing, Dr. Kory points out one big thing with all the CV19 vaccines, “It’s all experimental. That’s right, experimental. We don’t have long-term safety data. We don’t know the long-term consequences. We don’t know the true rise in cancers and what it has to do with the immune system. These are all worries and concerns. There has been no approved vaccine used in America since the beginning of Covid, it’s all experimental.” There is much more in the nearly 57 min. interview.

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with Dr. Pierre Kory, one of the top Pulmonary and Covid Critical Care experts on the planet, who is co-founder of the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance (flccc.net) and author of the upcoming book “The War on Ivermectin.”

- https://rumble.com/

All the information is free on Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance website flccc.net.

"Insane Gas Price Prediction - This Is Nuts!"

Canadian Prepper, PM 6/11/22:

"Insane Gas Price Prediction - This Is Nuts!"

"A well known market analyst makes a bold prediction..."

"Real Estate Market Is Screwed; Americans Can't Pay Utility Bills; Household Wealth Evaporates"

Jeremiah Babe, PM 6/11/22:

"Real Estate Market Is Screwed; 

Americans Can't Pay Utility Bills; Household Wealth Evaporates"

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Stillpoint"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Stillpoint"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"NGC 1333 is seen in visible light as a reflection nebula, dominated by bluish hues characteristic of starlight reflected by interstellar dust. A mere 1,000 light-years distant toward the heroic constellation Perseus, it lies at the edge of a large, star-forming molecular cloud.

This telescopic close-up spans about two full moons on the sky or just over 15 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 1333. It shows details of the dusty region along with telltale hints of contrasty red emission from Herbig-Haro objects, jets and shocked glowing gas emanating from recently formed stars. In fact, NGC 1333 contains hundreds of stars less than a million years old, most still hidden from optical telescopes by the pervasive stardust. The chaotic environment may be similar to one in which our own Sun formed over 4.5 billion years ago."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Free Download: Aldous Huxley, "Brave New World"

“O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here!

How beauteous mankind is!

O, brave new world, That has such people in't!”

- William Shakespeare, “The Tempest” (V, 1)

○

“Till at last the child's mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too - all his life long. The mind that judges and desires and decides - made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions...”

- “Brave New World: Suggestions from the State”

○

Freely download “Brave New World", by Aldous Huxley, here:

- https://fb2bookfree.com/uploads/files/

"The Illusion Of Freedom..."

“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”

- Frank Zappa

"It was strange, she thought, to obtain news by means of nothing but denials, as if existence had ceased, facts had vanished and only the frantic negatives uttered by officials and columnists gave any clue to the reality they were denying."

- "Atlas Shrugged," Ayn Rand, 1957

The Daily "Near You?"

Wytheville, Virginia, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Kim Dotcom Breaks Down The True Scale Of US Government Debt"

"Kim Dotcom Breaks Down 

The True Scale Of US Government Debt"

by Alexandra Bruce

"New Zealand tech CEO, Kim Dotcom did the math on the United States’ sovereign debt and he tweeted a thread about it, saying it may the most important thread that he may ever make. Kim explains that US spending and debt have spiraled out of control and the Government can only raise the money it needs by printing more of it, which means that hyperinflation is guaranteed.

He says this has been going on for decades and there’s no way to fix it and that the US got away with this for so long because US dollar is the world’s reserve currency. When the US Government prints trillions, it is thereby robbing Americans and the entire world in what he calls the biggest theft in history.

He says the total US debt is at $90 trillion, which together with $169 trillion in US unfunded liabilities totals $259 trillion, which is $778,000 per US citizen or $2,067,000 per US Taxpayer. Now, the value of all US assets combined: every piece of land, real estate, all savings, all companies, everything that all citizens, businesses, entities and the state own is worth $193 trillion.

Our total debt, $259 trillion minus our total net worth, $193 trillion equals negative $66 trillion of debt and liabilities after every asset in the US has been sold off. So even if the US could sell all assets at the current value, which is impossible, it would still be broke.

This is where the ‘Great Reset’ comes in and he asks, “Is it a controlled demolition of the global markets, economies and the world as we know it? A shift into a new dystopian future where the elites are the masters of the slaves without the cosmetics of democracy?”

He notes how the world has changed so much in recent years and how nothing seems to make sense anymore. He sees the blatant corruption and the obvious gaslighting propaganda media and the erosion of our rights but he doesn’t know where it’s all going and he finishes the thread asking, “What’s the end game?”

As Harrison Smith from the American Journal says, “It’s a pyramid scheme. The people perpetrating the pyramid scheme are in charge of everything…they’re going to sacrifice humanity in order to maintain their system…The world economy is being collapsed, the food supply system is being destroyed, the energy that we rely on to maintain civilization is being curtailed and eliminated and we’ll be forced into the Great Reset where we will own nothing.”

Former BlackRock stockpicker, Ed Dowd believes that the entire COVID sham was created as a cover for the financial collapse and that new lockdowns are coming, to try to mitigate the inevitable violence and chaos that we can expect to be witnessing in the streets.

We also saw how Dr Mike Yeadon, former Pfizer VP also believes that COVID and the death shot are an elaborate hoax to engineer a collapse of sovereign currencies to bring in the Great Reset and the introduction of programmable central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), for a wholly-controlled population, in which people will not be able to buy food, etc. unless the algorithms permit and the undesirables can basically be starved to death via artificial intelligence."

Kim Dotcom June 5, 2022 Thread:

"This may be the most important thread I ever make. Big picture stuff about the major global collapse that is coming. I will try to help you understand why the future is not what we’re hoping for. It’s worse than most can imagine. Our leaders know. But what are they planning?

The United States did not have a surplus or a balanced budget since 2001. In the last 50 years the US only had 4 years of profit. In fact all the profit the US had would not be enough to pay for 6 months of the current yearly deficit. So how did the US pay for things? US spending and debt have spiraled out of control and the Govt can only raise the money it needs by printing it. That causes inflation. It’s like taxing you extra because you pay more for the things you need and all your assets decline in value.

See the US money printing frenzy: The reason why the US got away with it for so long is because USD is the worlds reserve currency. Nations everywhere hold USD as a secure asset. So when the US Govt prints trillions it’s robbing Americans and the entire world. The biggest theft in history. The problem is that this has been going for decades and there’s now no way to fix it. The reality is that the US has been bankrupt for some time and what’s coming is a nightmare: Mass poverty and a new system of control. Let me explain why this isn’t just doom and gloom talk.

Total US debt is at $90 trillion. US unfunded liabilities are at $169 trillion. Combined that’s $778,000 per US citizen or $2,067,000 per US tax payer.

Remember, the only way the US Government can operate now is by printing more money. Which means hyperinflation is inevitable. The total value of ALL companies listed on the US stock market is $53 trillion. The real value is much lower because the US has been printing trillions to provide interest free loans to investment banks to pump up the stock market. It’s a scam. Most of the $53 trillion is air.

The value of all US assets combined, every piece of land, real estate, all savings, all companies, everything that all citizens, businesses, entities and the state own is worth $193 trillion. That number is also full of air just like the US stock market:

US total debt: $90 trillion

US unfunded liabilities: $169 trillion

Total: $259 trillion

Minus all US assets: $193 trillion

Balance: – $66 trillion

That’s $66 trillion of debt and liabilities after every asset in the US has been sold off. Do you understand? So even if the US could sell all assets at the current value, which is impossible, it would still be broke. The US is beyond bankrupt. This patient is already dead. This patient is now a zombie.

You probably wonder why are things still going? Why didn’t everything collapse yet. It’s all perception, denial and dependency. The perception is that the US has the largest economy and the strongest military in the world. But in reality the US is broke and can’t afford its army. The denial is that all nations depend on a strong USD or global markets collapse. The reason why the US zombie keeps going is because the end of the US is the end of western prosperity and an admission that the current system failed as a model for the world. It doesn’t change the reality. The collapse is inevitable and coming.

What are our leaders planning? You may have heard about the ‘great reset’ or the ‘new world order’. Is it a controlled demolition of the global markets, economies and the world as we know it? A shift into a new dystopian future where the elites are the masters of the slaves without the cosmetics of democracy?

Without a controlled demolition the world will collapse for all, including the elites. The world has changed so much and nothing seems to make sense anymore, the blatant corruption is out in the open, the obvious propaganda media, the erosion of our rights. What’s the end game?"

- https://forbiddenknowledgetv.net/

○

Dotcom asks, "I will try to help you understand why the future is not what we’re hoping for. It’s worse than most can imagine. Our leaders know. But what are they planning? What’s the end game?" Unbelievably, hideously horrifying, absolutely, incomprehensibly totally insane, this may be the rationale for "the greatest organized mass murder in the history of our world." I strongly urge you to view this article, and at least understand why you may die... - CP

- https://coyoteprimeblog2.blogspot.com/

"Democracy..."

"Democracy is also a form of worship.

It is the worship of jackals by jackasses."

- H.L. Mencken

“Thucydides in the Underworld”

“Master, what gnaws at them so hideously their lamentation stuns the very air?”

“They have no hope of death,” he answered me…”

- Dante Alighieri, “The Inferno”

“Thucydides in the Underworld”

by J. R. Nyquist

“The shade of Thucydides, formerly an Athenian general and historian, languished in Hades for 24 centuries; and having intercourse with other spirits, was perturbed by an influx into the underworld of self-described historians professing to admire his History of the Peloponnesian War. They burdened him with their writings, priding themselves on the imitation of his method, tracing the various patterns of human nature in politics and war. He was, they said, the greatest historian; and his approval of their works held the promise that their purgatory was no prologue to oblivion.

As the centuries rolled on, the flow of historians into Hades became a torrent. The later historians were no longer imitators, but most were admirers. It seemed to Thucydides that these were a miserable crowd, unable to discern between the significant and the trivial, being obsessed with tedious doctrines. Unembarrassed by their inward poverty, they ascribed an opposite meaning to things: thinking themselves more “evolved” than the spirits of antiquity. Some even imagined that the universe was creating God. They supposed that the “most evolved” among men would assume God’s office; and further, that they themselves were among the “most evolved.”

Thucydides longed for the peace of his grave, which posthumous fame had deprived him. As with many souls at rest, he took no further interest in history. He had passed through existence and was done. He had seen everything. What was bound to follow, he knew, would be more of the same; but after more than 23 centuries of growing enthusiasm for his work, there occurred a sudden falling off. Of the newly deceased, fewer broke in upon him. Quite clearly, something had happened. He began to realize that the character of man had changed because of the rottenness of modern ideas. Among the worst of these, for Thucydides, was that barbarians and civilized peoples were considered equal; that art could transmit sacrilege; that paper could be money; that sexual and cultural differences were of no account; that meanness was rated noble, and nobility mean.

Awakened from the sleep of death, Thucydides remembered what he had written about his own time. The watchwords then, as now, were “revolution” and “democracy.” There had been upheaval on all sides. “As the result of these revolutions,” he had written, “there was a general deterioration of character throughout the Greek world. The simple way of looking at things, which is so much the mark of a noble nature, was regarded as a ridiculous quality and soon ceased to exist. Society had become divided into two ideologically hostile camps, and each side viewed the other with suspicion.”

Thucydides saw that democracy, once again, imagined itself victorious. Once again traditions were questioned as men became enamored of their own prowess. It was no wonder they were deluded. They landed men on the moon. They had harnessed the power of the atom. It was no wonder that the arrogance of man had grown so monstrous, that expectations of the future were so unrealistic. Deluded by recent successes, they could not see that dangers were multiplying in plain view. Men built new engines of war, capable of wiping out entire cities, but few took this danger seriously. Why were men so determined to build such weapons? The leading country, of course, was willing to put its weapons aside. Other countries pretended to put their weapons aside. Still others said they weren’t building weapons at all, even though they were.

Would the new engines of destruction be used? Would cities and nations be wiped off the face of the earth? Thucydides knew the answer. In his own day, during an interval of unstable peace, the Athenians had exterminated the male population of the island of Melos. Before doing this the Athenian commanders had came to Melos and said, “We on our side will use no fine phrases saying, for example, that we have a right to our empire because we defeated the Persians, or that we have come against you now because of the injuries you have done us – a great mass of words that nobody would believe.” The Athenians demanded the submission of Melos, without regard to right or wrong. As the Athenian representative explained, “the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.” 

The Melians were shocked by this brazen admission. They could not believe that anyone would dare to destroy them without just cause. In the first place, the Melians threatened no one. In the second place, they imagined that the world would be shocked and would avenge any atrocity committed against them. And so the Melians told the Athenians: “in our view it is useful that you should not destroy a principle that is to the general good of all men – namely, that in the case of all who fall into danger there should be such a thing as fair play and just dealing. And this is a principle which affects you as much as anybody, since your own fall would be visited by the most terrible vengeance and would be an example to the world.”

The Athenians were not moved by the argument of Melos; for they knew that the Spartans generally treated defeated foes with magnanimity. “Even assuming that our empire does come to an end,” the Athenians chuckled, “we are not despondent about what would happen next. One is not so much frightened of being conquered by a power like Sparta.” And so the Athenians destroyed Melos, believing themselves safe – which they were. The Melians refused to submit, praying for the protection of gods and men. But these availed them nothing, neither immediate relief nor future vengeance. The Melians were wiped off the earth. They were not the first or the last to die in this manner.

There was one more trend that Thucydides noted. In every free and prosperous country he found a parade of monsters: human beings with oversized egos, with ambitions out of proportion to their ability, whose ideas rather belied their understanding than affirmed it. Whereas, there was one Alcibiades in his own day, there were now hundreds of the like: self-serving, cunning and profane; only they did not possess the skills, or the mental acuity, or beauty of Alcibiades. Instead of being exiled, they pushed men of good sense from the center of affairs. Instead of being right about strategy and tactics, they were always wrong. And they were weak, he thought, because they had learned to be bad by the example of others. There was nothing novel about them, although they believed themselves to be original in all things.

Thucydides reflected that human beings are subject to certain behavioral patterns. Again and again they repeat the same actions, unable to stop themselves. Society is slowly built up, then wars come and put all to ruin. Those who promise a solution to this are charlatans, only adding to the destruction, because the only solution to man is the eradication of man. In the final analysis the philanthropist and the misanthrope are two sides of the same coin. While man exists he follows his nature. Thucydides taught this truth, and went to his grave. His history was written, as he said, “for all time.” And it is a kind of law of history that the generations most like his own are bound to ignore the significance of what he wrote; for otherwise they would not re-enact the history of Thucydides. But as they become ignorant of his teaching, they fall into disaster spontaneously and without thinking. Seeing that time was short, and realizing that a massive number of new souls would soon be entering the underworld, the shade of Thucydides fell back to rest.”

- https://www.financialsense.com/

"Why You Can Do Anything You Want… And Why You Can’t"

"Why You Can Do Anything You Want…

And Why You Can’t"

by Paul Rosenberg

"People frequently tell children “You can do anything you want.” And this causes a lot of confusion, because in the real world, they can’t. And after their first clash with the aforesaid real world, the child is left wondering all sorts of unpleasant things:

Did mom and dad lie to me?

Are they just ignorant?

Am I defective?

Should I find someone to blame?

The worst thing about this, however, is that the child is likely to have their opinion of themselves reduced. And that’s tragic. As I’ve noted many times, we are magical creatures. Humans, alone in the known universe, are able to create willfully… are able to reverse entropy willingly. The child should think of his and her self as magical… because they really are! So, let’s make some sense of this problem.

Why You Can: Humans are radically amazing. Sure, we’ve been long trained to consider each other to be sacks of crap – a belief that’s essential to rulership – but it simply isn’t true. We are stunningly capable beings, and we generally behave pretty well, even under the reign of self-debasement.

Take a look around you. Wherever you live, you’re surrounded by buildings, roads, and cars. All of them exist only because of human virtues. Without human creativity, they could not exist. Without human cooperation, they could not exist. And they are everywhere. We’ve filled the Earth with hospitals and airplanes and food and computers and medicine. And the list could go on almost indefinitely.

More than that, we’ve learned how to cooperate very well. Forget wars; they’re run by competing states and will exist as long as states do. Instead, look at your local soccer league, little league, church choir, and family gathering.

And remember that we’ve been trained to see one flaw in a cooperative group and condemn the whole from it. (And to hypnotically accept any and every flaw of the state.) A few flaws are meaningless compared to modes of cooperation that thrive over decades, centuries, and millennia. Does being less than perfect make us monsters? Does anything less than 100% equal zero?

So, we are wonderful creatures. And how much better might we be if we dared consider that possibility? Here’s a quote from G.K. Chesterton that I’d like you to read: "There runs a strange law through the length of human history – that men are continually tending to undervalue their environment, to undervalue their happiness, to undervalue themselves. The great sin of mankind, the sin typified by the fall of Adam, is the tendency, not towards pride, but towards this weird and horrible humility."

Can we dare imagine that Chesterton was right? And if not, why not? That kind of imagination is what the child needs, and it is that kind of imagination that results in human thriving, as noted by Leon Battista Alberti, the epitome of the Renaissance Man: "A man can do all things if he will."

Yes, that’s a bit overstated, but we have the essential ability to do amazing things, and if we thought and acted like it – thought and acted like Leon Battista Alberti – we’d do a lot more amazing things.

Why You Can’t: There are two reasons you can’t do anything at all. The first is simple: Nature stands in your way. No matter how much we imagine we can do something, if nature doesn’t agree, we can’t do it. We can work with nature to do “impossible” things (building flying machines for example), but we can’t simply violate it.

The second reason is also simple: Other human wills oppose us and stand ready to use violence against us. This second reason is habitually cloaked in confusing and deceptive terminology of course, but the truth is that adversarial wills and their violence oppose us all.

What we lack is what we can call “a life affording scope.” Limitations of our scope – weaponized wills set against us – have been colorfully covered by Reason magazine’s “Brickbats” section for decades, but the problem goes much farther than that. I’ll give you a few thoughts on that, then bring this column to a close:

• Regulation forbids adaptation.

• Obligation supplants compassion.

• Only violent and corrupt human wills deserve restriction.

And one more, the "14 words" we used in a previous article: "We are a beautiful species, living in a beautiful world, ruled by abusive systems." This is why I’ve been drawn to the cryptosphere. Our scope of life within that realm is not obstructed by weaponized wills. It’s a special place."

- https://freemansperspective.com/

The Poet: Galway Kinnell, "Another Night in the Ruins"

"Another Night in the Ruins"

"How many nights must it take

one such as me to learn

that we aren't, after all, made

from that bird that flies out of its ashes,

that for us

as we go up in flames,

our one work is

to open ourselves,

to be the flames?"

~ Galway Kinnell

"Red Hot Inflation is Worldwide - How Did They Get It So Wrong?"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 6/11/22:

"Red Hot Inflation is Worldwide - How Did They Get It So Wrong?"

"No matter what you’ve been told you have to understand that inflation is not stabilizing, it’s accelerating. No matter where you live around the world inflation is Red Hot right now. This is going to be a business, country and world destroyer. We have to get inflation under control as soon as possible."