Full screen recommended.
- Charles Bukowski, "The Mind, Go All The Way"
Read by Tom O'Bedlam
So, we rise from the rubble...
Saturday, September 24, 2022
"Life Is Hard?"
"Life is hard? True - but let's love it anyhow,
though it breaks every bone in our bodies."
- Edward Abbey
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"When I hear somebody sigh, "Life is hard,"
I am always tempted to ask, "Compared to what?"
- Sydney Harris
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RedFrost Motivation,
"Be Unshakable - Ultimate Stoic Quotes Compilation"
"Powerful wisdom from Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and Epictetus"
Performed by Chris Lines
○"We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
You want to live but do you know how to live?
You are scared of dying but tell me,
is the kind of life you lead really any different to being dead?"
- Seneca
"'Have They Gone Completely Mad?' They Know That They Are Killing The Economy, But They Are Doing It Anyway"
"'Have They Gone Completely Mad?' They Know That
They Are Killing The Economy, But They Are Doing It Anyway"
by Michael Snyder
"They know exactly what they are doing. The “experts” that run the Federal Reserve know that if they dramatically hike interest rates it will cause countless American workers to lose their jobs and it will absolutely crush the housing market. And even though those two things are already starting to happen, they just announced another massive rate hike. If there was a school for central bankers, one of the very first things that they would teach you is that you should never, ever raise rates as an economy is plunging into a recession. Every Fed official knows what has happened in the past when rates have been hiked at the beginning of an economic slowdown, but they are doing it anyway. To call this “economic malpractice” would be a major understatement, and the American people should be deeply alarmed about what they are doing to us.
After everything that has already happened, it is hard to believe that Fed officials would continue to be so reckless. On Wednesday, it was announced that rates would be raised by another 75 basis points…"The Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate by 75 basis points for the third straight month as it struggles to bring scorching-hot inflation under control, a move that threatens to slow U.S. economic growth and exacerbate financial pain for millions of households and businesses.
The three-quarter percentage point hikes in June, July and September - the most aggressive series of increases since 1994 - underscore just how serious Fed officials are about tackling the inflation crisis after a string of alarming economic reports. Policymakers voted unanimously to approve the latest super-sized hike."
It was a unanimous vote. There wasn’t even one dissenting voice. Have they gone completely mad?
Wall Street certainly did not like this decision. The Dow plunged hundreds of points immediately after it was announced…"The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 522.45 points, or 1.7%, to close at 30,183.78. The S&P 500 shed 1.71% to 3,789.93, and the Nasdaq Composite slumped 1.79% to 11,220.19. The S&P ended Wednesday’s session down more than 10% in the past month and 21% off its 52-week high. Even before the rate decision, stocks were pricing in an aggressive tightening campaign by the Fed that could tip the economy into a recession."
For ages, the Fed coddled the financial markets, but now it is almost as if they don’t even care anymore. Personally, I am far more concerned about what will happen to ordinary hard working Americans in the months ahead. Even Jerome Powell is admitting that “an increase in unemployment” is likely because of what the Fed is doing…“I think there’s a very high likelihood we will have a period of… much lower growth and it could give rise to an increase in unemployment,” he said.
Will that mean a recession? “No one knows whether that process will lead to a recession or how significant a recession it will be,” Powell said. “I don’t know the odds.” Actually, we are in a recession right now. And Powell and his minions just made things a whole lot worse.
Even Democrats understand this. After the rate hike was announced, Senator Elizabeth Warren went on Twitter and warned that “millions of Americans” could soon lose their jobs… .@federalreserve’s Chair Powell just announced another extreme interest rate hike while forecasting higher unemployment. I’ve been warning that Chair Powell’s Fed would throw millions of Americans out of work - and I fear he’s already on the path to doing so."
This is one of the rare occasions when Elizabeth Warren is right on target. As I have been documenting on my website for weeks, large numbers of Americans have already been getting laid off. In fact, things are already so bad that even Facebook is trimming their numbers…"As growth stalls and competition intensifies, Facebook parent Meta has begun quietly cutting staff by reorganizing departments, while giving ‘reorganized’ employees a narrow window to apply for other roles within the company, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing current and former managers familiar with the matter. By shuffling people around, the company achieves staffing cuts “while forestalling the mass issuance of pink slips.”
So why would the Fed choose to raise rates when layoffs are already beginning to spike? Higher rates are also having a devastating impact on the housing market. This week, we learned that sales of existing homes have now fallen for seven months in a row…"Home sales declined for the seventh month in a row in August as higher mortgage rates and stubbornly high prices pushed prospective buyers out of the market. Sales of existing homes - which include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops - were down 19.9% from a year ago and down 0.4% from July, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors."
Someone should start putting “Jerome Powell did this” stickers on for sale signs all over the nation. Because this didn’t have to happen. Now the housing market is already in a “deep recession”, and the Fed just keeps making things even worse…"The prolonged downturn in confidence shows the housing market has been “in a tailspin for the whole of this year,” according to Pantheon Macroeconomics chief economist Ian Shepherdson.
“Activity tracks mortgage applications with a lag, and the early September numbers are grim, even before the full hit from the rebound in mortgage rates in recent weeks works through,” Shepherdson said in a note to clients on Monday. In short, the housing market is in a deep recession, which is already hammering homebuilders and will soon depress housing-related retail sales,” he added."
The Fed seems determined to kill the economy. But why? Why would they do this? One analyst that was just quoted by Fox Business is warning that “times are going to get tougher from here”… “With the new rate projections, the Fed is engineering a hard landing — a soft landing is almost out of the question,” said Seema Shah, chief global strategist of Principal Global Investors. “Powell’s admission that there will be below-trend growth for a period should be translated as central bank speak for ‘recession.’ Times are going to get tougher from here.”
Yes, times are definitely going to get tougher from here. In fact, we are eventually headed for a meltdown of epic proportions. But instead of working to prevent a historic crisis, the Federal Reserve is actually encouraging one. The American people deserve some answers, because there is something about all of this that really stinks."
"A Central Bank Goes Bust"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 9/24/22:
"A Central Bank Goes Bust"
"We are in the middle of an economic nightmare. Now we are seeing that central banks are going out of business. You have to prepare yourself because this does not end well."
Comments here:
"I Have Chosen My Side..."
"I make no bones about being partisan for my country. I also feel no shame whatever because of it. I absolutely disagree that "great thinkers don't let that affect the thoughts". I would say exactly the opposite: someone who refuses to let love-of-country affect their thoughts is a moral cripple irrespective of their intellectual prowess. I can look dispassionately at the situation, and I have done so repeatedly. But I will never forget which nation I love and support.
We Americans have a saying: “It’s more important what you stand for than who you stand with.” I do not rely upon peer opinion to decide what is right and what is wrong. I make those decisions for myself, and even if I discover that every other human alive chose differently, that doesn’t mean I was wrong.
There comes a time in every man’s life when he has to choose sides. I have chosen my side. I am comfortable with my decision. I do not think everyone on my side is a saint, but I know that those on the other side are much, much worse.
Sometimes a man with too broad a perspective reveals himself as having no real perspective at all. A man who tries too hard to see every side may be a man who is trying to avoid choosing any side. A man who tries too hard to seek a deeper truth may be trying to hide from the truth he already knows. That is not a sign of intellectual sophistication and “great thinking”. It is a demonstration of moral degeneracy and cowardice.”
- Steven Den Beste
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“Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and unexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may.”
- Mark Twain
Friday, September 23, 2022
"As We Move Closer To WW3, It’s A Good Time To Reassess Our Priorities In Life"
"As We Move Closer To WW3,
It’s A Good Time To Reassess Our Priorities In Life"
by Caitlin Johnstone
"As the US empire continues to escalate aggressions against both Russia and China, as Moscow warns that “strategic nuclear weapons” may be used to protect the territories it plans on annexing from eastern Ukraine even as Washington prepares to ramp up its proxy war spending in that nation once again, as nuclear-armed powers which refuse to compromise with each other accelerate toward direct confrontation with nobody’s foot anywhere near the brake pedal, it’s probably a good time to pause and re-evaluate our priorities in life.
One who is sincere and courageous about having an authentic relationship with reality will take seriously the very real possibility that this could all be ending fairly soon. They will face this possibility directly and let it inform the way their humanity expresses itself in the world, rather than compartmentalizing away from it and avoiding it.
It’s just a fact that based on what we know about what nuclear war would mean for life on this planet and how we’re hearing more and more often that we’re now already closer to armageddon than we were during the last cold war, humanity as we know it may not be around for much longer. Our end could very well come not in millennia or even centuries, but in months or years. And we can just be real with ourselves about that, and let it shape the way we live our lives.
"The US Empire Is Accelerating Toward Global Conflict On Two Fronts"
"And that's just Russia; tensions are rapidly escalating between the US-centralized empire and China as well." https://t.co/VS9wjUh54W
- Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) September 22, 2022
To be clear, I am not telling you that you should do this. Life is hard, and there’s only so much we can each deal with. You are under no obligation to directly confront humanity’s looming proximity to nuclear annihilation and let it inform your life if that’s not where you’re at right now.
But I’m not pointing toward this line of inquiry to make people depressed and despondent; just the opposite in fact. For those who are willing and able to face our situation where it stands, it’s a useful object of contemplation which brings up a lot of highly relevant questions about how to better live life to its fullest. Questions that kind of demand answers.
Questions like, would I be happy with the way I’ve been spending my time lately if it turned out that tomorrow is the day the ICBMs start flying?
Would I be content with the things that my interest and attention have been focusing on, not just in my outward expression but silently in my mind?
What would I wish I had done? What would I wish I had done more of? What would I wish I had stopped doing?
Are there any chances I’d wish I’d have taken? Chances on love? Chances on life? Things I’ve held off on saying to people because it would require making myself more vulnerable than I am comfortable?
Am I happy with who I’ve been spending my time with? Have they been making the experience of this life more fulfilling than it would be without them in it, or less? Are they the people I’d want with me in the end?
Has my political energy and attention been spent wisely? Have I been focusing on the most important issues I could choose to focus on, knowing that nuclear war could be right around the corner? Or have I been getting lost in vapid partisan bickering, sectarian infighting, or dopey culture war distractions?
Have I done everything I possibly can to prevent a nuclear exchange between the US power alliance and Russia and/or China? Could I have helped draw more public awareness to this supremely important issue?
Have I been doing my best to really be present in each moment, or is my attention mostly consumed by my churning mental monologue? Is there anything I can do to spend more time in the present instead of in my head?
Am I really relishing my time here on this earth? Appreciating the thunderous beauty which surrounds me? Treasuring my encounters with my loved ones? Cherishing the sensory kiss of each moment? Adoring this world while it lasts? What intentions can I set for myself to help me really live this terrestrial life to its fullest?
Have I been living a life of truth and integrity? Have my behavior, speech and thinking aligned with what I know to be true? With what I believe to be valuable? With what I think of as an authentic human being?
Only you can answer these questions for yourself, but they do deserve answers. Whether this turns out to be the home stretch for humanity’s run on this planet or not, these are good things to come to terms with and integrate into our way of living. Whether we all say goodbye together or whether we end up saying goodbye separately, eventually we’ve all got to say goodbye."
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Listen To A Reading Of This Article:
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Canadian Prepper, “Red Alert! Share This Everywhere!”
Canadian Prepper, 9/23/22:
“Red Alert! Share This Everywhere!”
“This is not an exercise. The Government is stockpiling,
mass military mobilization is occurring. Mass exit is underway.”
Comments here:
○
Related:
"As Walmart Shelves Get Barer, Insiders Are Warning That Supplies Will Get Tighter In The Weeks Ahead"
Full screen recommended.
"As Walmart Shelves Get Barer, Insiders Are Warning
That Supplies Will Get Tighter In The Weeks Ahead"
by Epic Economist
"If you have been to your local supermarket lately, you probably have noticed empty shelves where some of the most popular grocery staples should be. This year, a series of food retailers, including big names such as Walmart and Target, are experiencing shortages of a wide range of products as a result of supply chain disruptions, higher costs of fuel and fertilizers, and extreme weather events. Now, industry insiders are telling us that the outlook for agricultural production in the U.S. is extremely grim. No one really knows for sure when the supply of many of these everyday essentials will bulk back up. And while shortages persist, prices continue to climb higher – with some painful increases that range from 10 to over 40 percent just over the past 12 months.
American farmers and ranchers – who have done everything in their power to keep the nation’s supermarket shelves supplied over the past two years, are now on the edge of desperation. They are seeing their crops being destroyed by the ongoing drought, their livestock headcounts have shrunk by the millions, and they’re also dealing with some of the most expensive prices of critical materials and energy ever recorded. Much of the food that has been grown in the past year won’t ever make it to our food system, and this means, we’re about to see shelves get even barer at our local stores in the coming weeks and months.
In 2022, nearly three-quarters of US farmers saw a reduction in harvest yields due to the dry weather, with 37% saying that they were tilling over fields that won’t produce anything because of a lack of water, a 13% increase from last year. According to Farm Bureau data, one-third of orchard farmers nationwide, and 50% in California, said they were ripping up trees, an increase from 17% in 2021. Ranchers are also having to make some very tough decisions. A new report revealed that two-thirds of the country’s ranchers are selling off animals or birds, with average herd sizes dropping by 36%. The biggest herd declines are in Texas (collapsing 50%), New Mexico (43%), and Oregon (41%), a clear example of the wide geographic distribution of the distress.
Those working at the very root of the U.S. food supply chain can’t catch a breath. They’re also facing labor shortages, surging processing costs, and transportation delays. Meanwhile, food retailers are specifically warning that current conditions are likely to prevent the industry from supplying enough supplies to the general population. Egg Innovations CEO John Bruunquell recently alerted that an uptick in demand coinciding with labor, freight and vendor issues may soon hamper grocery supplies. Bruunquell noted that businesses are already operating at 100 percent capacity, but that still may not solve the problem. "If that trend continues it’s going to put us in a challenging situation with meeting the demand," he stressed.
On social media, a flood of posts on Facebook and Twitter expose that even the world’s biggest retailer isn’t immune to shortages and supply chain challenges. In a series of short videos, shoppers exposed empty meat and produce aisles at Walmart. Of course, empty shelves are being spotted in many other supermarkets across the U.S., but the fact that the largest and most well-resourced big-box retailer on the planet is having supply issues should be a wake-up call for all of us. That’s a very ominous sign for US consumers, the retail sector, and the broader US economy. At this point, we all want the supply chain crisis to be resolved, inflation to go back down, and life to return to the way that it used to be. Unfortunately, none of those things are going to happen. We must start bracing for a future where scarcity is the new normal. Everyone in the industry is telling us to prepare for the worst, so it would be unwise to ignore their alerts."
Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Endless Horizon"
Full screen recommended.
Deuter, "Endless Horizon"
Be kind to yourself, relax and savor this...
"A Look to the Heavens"
"A gorgeous spiral galaxy some 100 million light-years distant, NGC 1309 lies on the banks of the constellation of the River (Eridanus). NGC 1309 spans about 30,000 light-years, making it about one third the size of our larger Milky Way galaxy. Bluish clusters of young stars and dust lanes are seen to trace out NGC 1309's spiral arms as they wind around an older yellowish star population at its core.
Not just another pretty face-on spiral galaxy, observations of NGC 1309's recent supernova and Cepheid variable stars contribute to the calibration of the expansion of the Universe. Still, after you get over this beautiful galaxy's grand design, check out the array of more distant background galaxies also recorded in this sharp, reprocessed, Hubble Space Telescope view.”
"For Nothing Is Fixed..."
"For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out."
- James Baldwin
"We are fast moving into something, we are fast flung into something like asteroids cast into space by the death of a planet, we the people of earth are cast into space like burning asteroids and if we wish not to disintegrate into nothingness we must begin to now hold onto only the things that matter while letting go of all that doesn't. For when all of our dust and ice deteriorates into the cosmos we will be left only with ourselves and nothing else. So if you want to be there in the end, today is the day to start holding onto your children, holding onto your loved ones; onto those who share your soul. Harbor and anchor into your heart justice, truth, courage, bravery, belief, a firm vision, a steadfast and sound mind. Be the person of meaningful and valuable thoughts. Don't look to the left, don't look to the right; we simply don't have the time. Never be afraid of fear."
- C. JoyBell C
The Poet: Wendell Berry, "The Circles Of Our Lives"
"The Circles Of Our Lives"
"Within the circles of our lives
we dance the circles of the years,
the circles of the seasons
within the circles of the years,
the cycles of the moon,
within the circles of the seasons,
the circles of our reasons
within the cycles of the moon.
Again, again we come and go,
changed, changing. Hands
join, unjoin in love and fear,
grief and joy. The circles turn,
each giving into each, into all.
Only music keeps us here,
each by all the others held.
In the hold of hands and eyes
we turn in pairs, that joining
joining each to all again.
And then we turn aside, alone,
out of the sunlight gone
into the darker circles of return,
Within the circles of our lives."
- Wendell Berry
"The Most Precious Gift I Have..."
"Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have - life itself. "
- Walter Anderson
"Stock Market Crippled Today, It's Time To Worry; Stop Laughing, The FED Ain't Gonna Save You"
Jeremiah Babe, 9/23/22:
"Stock Market Crippled Today, It's Time To Worry;
Stop Laughing, The FED Ain't Gonna Save You"
Comments here:
Gregory Mannarino, “Millions Will Die, And Not By Accident”
Gregory Mannarino, 9/23/22:
“Millions Will Die, And Not By Accident”
Comments here:
"Yes, Your Leftist Friends Are Mentally Ill. You’re Not. Share This Post With Them To Trigger Them." (Excerpt)
"Yes, Your Leftist Friends Are Mentally Ill. You’re Not.
Share This Post With Them To Trigger Them."
by John Wilder
Excerpt: "A Dutch dude named Erasmus of Rotterdam (who died in 1536) made a famous quote that I’m sure you’re all familiar with, namely, “In regione caecorum rex est luscus.” Presumably, Erasmus said this before he died. I was going to follow this up with a joke about the Dutch, but then I looked at my site statistics, and found that the Netherlands is number 5 on the countries that come to visit here at Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise.
So, my conclusion is this: people of the Netherlands are amazing people who have impeccable taste in fine writing and I’d be glad to give them all a free bikini wax, but I’m pretty sure that they’re so tall, blonde, disciplined and perfectly proportioned that they’ve trained their bodies to not grow hair where they don’t want it. Go Netherlands! I’m pretty sure they have flying cars in the Netherlands now.
Anyway, what Erasmus was saying was originally in Latin, but Latin isn’t a dead language – it’s still Roman around. My initial translation was, “Near the gas station in the skanky part of town, never pick up women after 3am.” These are wise words, but what Erasmus really meant was, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”
That’s one of those phrases that sounds really cool. In fact, I imagined being able to see in a country full of blind people. I mean, the only actor that would be able to play Batman would be Christian Braille. And, using my crazy superpower of sight, I’d be able to break into their houses at night and steal all of their PEZ®. But that’s not the way it would work.
I would probably try to explain to them that I could see – a sense that they didn’t have at all. The concept of photons and colors and would sound crazy to them. In fact, they’d probably think I was crazy and come at night while I was sleeping and give me blanket parties or worse until I shut up or left.
In the modern world, it’s similar, but it’s what’s commonly referred to as “Clown World” where everything is inverted. Things that are beautiful are corrupted, and people are expected to applaud the bravery inherent in people reveling in the corruption. I’ll let Stonetoss lead the introduction of the topic at hand.
If you’re not familiar with what Stonetoss is writing about, there is a “teacher” in Canada who decided, apparently, to wear comically large and obscene fake breasts to shop class. How do we know they’re obscene? YouTube® banned them.
But, yet, these Z-cups are allowed because a “teacher” showed up to work wearing them, and the school board is apparently afraid to confront the dude. When a parent tried to bring the subject up, the local school board shut down the meeting rather than confront the amazing amounts of silicone (or foam rubber?) being paraded in their classrooms. In fact, they say it’s illegal to criticize the “teacher”.
In my assessment of the situation, there are two possibilities. The first is that the “teacher” is so mentally insane that allowing him to dress like this is similar to allowing him to claim that he’s made of string cheese and now has a mouse phobia. That’s the first possibility. The second is that the “teacher” is gaming the system and seeing how far he can push things so he can get mental disability payments and not have to show up to work, or not be graded based on his job performance. I actually consider this more likely, but, hey, it’s 2022 so he just might be bonkers.
This was actually the plot to a South Park® episode where a teacher became more aggressively, explicitly gay in front of his students in an attempt (I recall) to get fired. Instead, the people celebrated his inappropriate behavior because of his bravery. So, yeah. Blame Canada. I’m sure that this is what the Canadian troops were thinking about when they hit the beach at D-Day, the freedom for shop teachers to don Z-cup fake breasts."
- Full article, well illustrated, is here:
"World War III Has Already Begun, But The Truth Is Being Withheld From The Public"
"World War III Has Already Begun,
But The Truth Is Being Withheld From The Public"
by Mike Adams
"World War III has already begun. You simply aren't being told this because your government and dishonest media outlets are dedicated to keeping you in the dark. Conditions are already long past the point of negotiation or de-escalation between Russia and the west. Unfortunately, the insanity of western nations has escalated this conflict to a condition where whoever launches nukes first has the advantage.
Anyone living in Western Europe should prepare for economic collapse, famine and nuclear war. Those living in North America should prepare for economic collapse and worldwide nuclear fallout that will disrupt crops for years to come. Those who don't store food will end up eating radioactive food, if they can find any at all."
Get the full story in today's article and podcast here:
Judge Napolitano, "Scott Ritter - Ukraine Russia War Update"
Full screen recommended.
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 9/23/22:
"Scott Ritter - Ukraine Russia War Update"
Russia-Ukraine war latest:
what we know on day 212 of the invasion.
Comments here:
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Related:
"'Return To Our Historical Motherland':
4 Ukrainian Regions Vote In Referendums On Joining Russia"
Excerpt: "On Friday Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine kicked off voting in referendums on joining the Russian Federation, according to announcements by a series of separatist leaders, in the biggest political development on the ground thus far in the seven-month long invasion.
These 'popular referendums' are taking place in four areas of Ukraine in the east and south, namely the self-declared republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, and in large parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia - despite these not yet being under full Russian military control. The voting is expected to continue over a period of five days.
In total the four regions make up nearly 20% of Ukraine's territory, and signals huge escalation given this week President Vladimir Putin vowed to use "all the means at our disposal" - including the potential of nuclear arms - to defend Russia's "territorial integrity". Of course, by bringing whole swathes of Ukraine into Russia, Putin effectively issued a 'by all means' declaration for military defense of these territories."
Full article here:
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"Ex-CIA Ray McGovern:
Conditioned For War With Russia"
Excerpt: "Thanks to Establishment media, the sorcerer apprentices advising President Joe Biden - I refer to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jacob Sullivan and China specialist Kurt Campbell - will have no trouble rallying Americans for the widest war in 77 years, starting in Ukraine, and maybe spreading to China. And, shockingly, under false pretenses.
Most Americans are oblivious to the reality that Western media are owned and operated by the same corporations that make massive profits by helping to stoke small wars and then peddling the necessary weapons. Corporate leaders and Ivy-mantled elites, educated to believe in U.S. “exceptionalism,” find the lucre and the luster too lucrative to be able to think straight. They deceive themselves into thinking that (a) the U.S. cannot lose a war; (b) escalation can be calibrated and wider war can be limited to Europe; and (c) China can be expected to just sit on the sidelines. The attitude, consciously or unconsciously, “Not to worry. And, in any case, the lucre and luster are worth the risk.”
The media also know they can always trot out died-in-the-wool Russophobes to “explain,” for example, why the Russians are “almost genetically driven” to do evil (James Clapper, former national intelligence director and now hired savant on CNN); or Fiona Hill (former national intelligence officer for Russia), who insists “Putin wants to evict the United States from Europe. As he might put it: “Goodbye, America. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
Full article here:
"Workingman’s Dead"
"Workingman’s Dead"
by Addison Wiggin
“I ain't no communist necessarily,
but I been in the red all my life.”
- Woody Guthrie
"Sacco and Vanzetti are rolling in their graves. Never in a million years would they have imagined the strength of the Federal Reserve in dictating the lives and liberties of the American people and their jobs. And yet we listen – and cringe – as “the Growth Recession” is slowly but surely realized with every coming Powell interest rate hike.
“We think it's necessary to have a growth slowdown,” preaches the Chairman. He continues: "Growth is going to be slowing down this year for a couple of reasons. One of which is that we’re coming off of the very high growth of the reopening year of 2021. You're also seeing tighter monetary policy. We actually think we need a period of growth below potential, in order to create some slack so that the supply side can catch up."
You know Powell's theory. It’s simple. The Fed raises rates in an effort to lasso inflation by purposefully slowing “aggregate demand.” As Jim Rickards kindly explained in our latest Wiggin Session, much of the inflation in the system right now is the result of the government lockdowns and subsequent supply chain issues.
The Fed is a bank. It doesn’t drill, ship or refine oil. It can’t unload Samsung TVs from cargo barges off the coast of Long Beach. It can’t drive a truck full of oranges from Central Florida to a Wegmans in King of Prussia, PA. What the Fed can do is crush the consumer’s spirit… and try to dampen the demand for gas, flat screens and morning meditation smoothies.
Kill the demand. Supply will catch up, eventually. The unfortunate and very real side effect rears its fugly head in Powell’s next statement: "We also think that there will be, in all likelihood, some softening in labor market conditions. And those are things that we expect, and we think that they're probably necessary if we were to have – to get inflation."
The Fed’s original mandate from the 1913 Federal Act was “price stability.” In 1978, the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act, better known as the Humphry-Hawkins Act, allowed the Fed mandate to include “full employment.”
Every Fed Chair since Arthur Burns has considered employment as part of their dominion. With Powell’s mutterings about “creating some slack” in the system, he has effectively jettisoned the full employment mandate of 1978. Strangely, there’s still more slack in the system than your garden variety inflation-fighting scenario…
When the “barbarians of specialization” locked down the economy during the Pandemic, millions of Americans simply quit their jobs. The result: Despite two… maybe three… quarters of negative growth, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) hasn’t officially declared a recession. One reason is the massive number of “Help Wanted” signs still hanging on storefronts across the country.
The sharp uptick on the right is “The Great Resignation” of 2020.
(Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics)
What makes this “recession” different? If the Fed keeps raising rates, as Goldman and others of their ilk expect, those job openings will magically dissipate. Rising rates will knock out zombie businesses, zombie households, zombie college students… and inject the debt-virus into small businesses. Borrowing to expand or make payroll is easy when rates are low to negative.
Doing the same when interest rates are high and projected to go higher, businesses find themselves working on smaller margins. Find it harder to pay back debts. Find it more difficult to hire new employees. Business owners find themselves spending more money on interest than on strategizing the “next level.” They may even find themselves laying off otherwise trustworthy old employees.
Expect a “soft labor market,” Powell sweet talks…it’s exactly what he wants! When you’re rich and, ahem, powerful, you don’t worry about this kind of thing. But if you ain’t, well… it matters a lot. You’re less likely to finance that new Hyundai Iconiq 5 if you’re not sure you’ll even have a job in the next few months. This winter is going to be rough.
So it goes,
P.S. Another unintended consequence of an extended recession… “labor” gets busy.
Workers line up to vote on unionization at Amazon's
warehouse in Staten Island. (Source: Associated Press)
“We, as workers,” brays Chris Smalls, man on the street in New York, “the working class, we got to realize our value. If we don't go to work, these CEOs don't make their money. So if workers can realize that no matter where you work in this country, what you're doing, then you will realize that you can form something that can collectively bargain.” Yep. Here we go again."
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Related:
"Shopping At Sprouts Farmers Market! Very Expensive Prices!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 9/23/22:
"Shopping At Sprouts Farmers Market! Very Expensive Prices!"
"In today's vlog we are at Sprouts Farmers Market, and are noticing some very high prices! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and the empty shelves situation around the country! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
Comments here:
"Billionaires Issue More Warnings About the Economy"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 9/23/22:
"Billionaires Issue More Warnings About the Economy"
"Carl Icahn and Ray Dalio are issuing more warnings about the economy. Carl Icahn says it’s time to pay up. We have nothing but problems with all the free money that has been given out to people and businesses. This ends badly."
Comments here:
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Related:
Gregory Mannarino, "A Dire Warning From Gregory Mannarino: Prepare For A Worst Case Scenario; Critical Updates"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 9/23/22:
"A Dire Warning From Gregory Mannarino:
Prepare For A Worst Case Scenario; Critical Updates"
Comments here:
Jim Kunstler, “'Joe Biden’s' Last Stand"
“'Joe Biden’s' Last Stand"
That thing that many of you have worried about,
and some of you have prepared for - well, it’s here. We’re in it now.
by Jim Kunstler
"Historians of the future, grilling spatchcocked plovers over their campfires, will need not ponder for even a New York minute who started World War Three in the rockin’ 2020s. They will point straight to the waxy, furtive, larval figure known as “Joe Biden,” by then judged a moral weevil of such epic low degree that he became an embarrassment to all the other sewer-dwelling denizens of the dank DC underworld, including the roaches, the rats, the humble shipworms eating through sunk oaken foundations of buildings long forgotten, the writhing maggots rinsed from a thousand restaurant dumpsters, the slithering hellgrammites, millipedes, silverfish, pillbugs, termites, dung-beetles, woodlice, and, not least, the scaly lawyers spawned out of the infestation beneath K Street called Perkins Coie LLP. Even these would loathe and disdain the thing that came into this world as “Joe Biden.”
Let us agree that the place called Ukraine was never any of America’s business. For centuries we ignored it, through all the colorful cavalry charges to-and-fro of Turks and Tatars, the reign of the dashing Zaporozhian Cossacks, the cruel abuses of Stalin, then Hitler, and the dull, gray Khrushchev-to-Yeltsin years. But then, having destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia and sundry other places all on a great hegemonic lark, the professional warmongers of our land and their catamites in Washington made Ukraine their next special project. They engineered the 2014 coup in Kiev that ousted the elected president, Mr. Yanyukovich, to set up a giant grifting parlor and international money-laundromat. The other strategic aim was to prepare Ukraine for NATO membership, which would have made it, in effect, a forward missile base right up against Russia’s border. Because, well, Russia, Russia, Russia!
An early beneficiary of these arrangements, you might recall, was one Hunter Biden, the drug-addicted, sex-obsessed, no-account son of Barack Obama’s no-account vice-president then known simply as Joe Biden sans quote-marks - because in 2014, he was a closer approximation of a real person than is sadly now the case. In fact, he was known as “The Big Guy” among Hunter’s business coterie (though listed as “Pedo Peter” on Hunter’s speed-dial). After the 2014 coup, and for years beyond, Hunter pulled a steady revenue stream out of Ukraine’s Burisma Holdings, a natgas distributor (among other things), serving as a know-nothing, no-show board member. When this monkey business came to the attention of President Trump, and he made a telephone inquiry about it, he was instantly beset by swarms of DC swamp vermin hoisting writs of impeachment.
Fast forward through the past eight years and you have Kiev’s persecution of the Russian-speaking Donbas provinces, the constant shelling and harassment by Banderite Nazis. Between that and the ever more strident urgings for Ukraine to join NATO, President Putin of Russia, Russia, Russia apparently had enough. In February of this year, he started the Special Military Operation to put an end to these hostilities. By April, when whole battalions of Ukrainian Nazis had been exterminated, a call to peace talks was issued by Mr. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister. This was shot-down without ceremony by “Joe Biden” (that is, by the junta behind him). The genius strategists in Foggy Bottom aimed to “weaken” Russia. To what end? (you might ask). Okay: Reasons….
Hence, many hard-fought battles on-the-ground later, Ukraine has lost roughly 70,000 troops killed to Russia’s roughly 6,000 KIA. The USA pours $10-billion-a-month into this venture, including missiles aplenty and other ordnance, in a stupid effort to prolong the conflict and bankrupt our own land. Thus, Mr. Putin has decided to stop pussyfooting around Ukraine, and declared an upgrade in Russia’s effort to put a conclusive end to these shenanigans. He set this forth clearly in a sober speech Wednesday, which included a reminder to the geniuses in the White House basement game room that Russia is a nuclear power.
“Joe Biden” (looking like the ghost of Konstantin Chernenko) answered in a speech to the UN General Assembly the next day, a maundering recitation of sanctimonious bluster, larded with climate hysteria to alarm and bamboozle the UN’s scores of Third World delegates, with not a word about any possible peace talks - because peaceful resolution of the conflict is the last thing that our government wants. It wants war, meaning we citizens of this land will get it, good and hard, if the puppeteers working “Joe Biden’s” mouth get their way. Prepare to live in an ashtray.
From our side, it may just add up - as I said - to plain bluster. The “Joe Biden” regime has already done enough to hurtle the USA and the rest of Western Civ into a new dark age. The nations of the EU have no idea how they will conduct economic activity without the cheap Russian natgas they used to depend on. They are about to get a harsh lesson on the realistic limits of “green energy” they’ve been prattling about for years. So far, it doesn’t look good for them. A few more months of this and the populace from Riga to Lisbon will be stringing up whole parliaments from the boulevard light standards.
Even if “Joe Biden” doesn’t go for the ashtray option, consider the $350-trillion in leveraged financial derivatives orbiting high above the scene like a numberless fleet of death stars primed to blow at the next interest rate uptick. The Euroland stock markets are already tanking hard as I write at 8:30 EDT today. US futures indicate a week-ending bloodbath on Wall Street. This is nature’s way of registering its no-confidence vote in “Joe Biden’s” management of our affairs. All this is on top of the sucking chest wound that Washington DC has become - the necrotic corruption of every agency, the gathering “vaccine” holocaust, the indecent firehose of lies from high places, the Gestapo sleaze of the DOJ/FBI nexus, and the astounding new twists in officially-promoted sexual degeneracy revealed in our schools and hospitals.
Not to put too fine a point on it: the shit has already hit the fan. We are where we were going. If you truly believe those 2020 national election results, then this is what you voted for, America. Feeling any buyer’s remorse yet? Got the feeling that something must be done? Okay then, what?"
Bill Bonner, "The Fed's Fix"
"The Fed's Fix"
Inflate... or the Zombies must die
by Bill Bonner
Youghal, Ireland - "Larry Summers, ex US Secretary of the Treasury, went way out on a limb on Wednesday. Fox News was there: "Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers predicts there will 'almost certainly' be a 'downturn in the economy.' Larry Summers, who served as U.S. Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton and was a White House economic adviser to President Barack Obama, predicted Wednesday that the economy will experience a "downturn" in the coming months as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates to combat inflation." Note to Larry: that’s the idea.
Three times so far this century, Mr. Market tried to correct the nonsense and distortions caused by the Fed. In 2000 – with the Nasdaq crash. In 2008 – when the mortgage finance collapse caused a crisis on Wall Street. And then again, in 2020, when the feds panicked and shut down the economy to keep people from getting sick.
Each time, Mr. Fed rebuffed the attempt with more money and debt. The Fed refused to allow a correction. Zombie businesses that should have gone broke were kept on low-interest life support. Zombie investments that should have been wiped out were allowed to refinance at even lower rates. And the zombie feds themselves, their pockets as empty as their heads, were given trillions more dollars to spend as they saw fit.
Then, in the beginning of 2022, the party was over. A ‘downturn in the economy’ was for real. For the first time in 40 years, it was open season on zombies.
90 Trillion Reasons: It’s either inflate or… the zombies must die. Right now, the Fed’s campaign of raising the cost of borrowing is death to zombies. But it is life to the dollar; it has made the dollar the world’s strongest currency. And it’s why the best thing you could have done with your money so far this year was simply to leave it in dollar cash.
But in protecting the dollar, the Fed is also protecting the value of $90 trillion worth of US debt. Thirty trillion of that is the debt of the US government – which the feds desperately want to get rid of. And the question we left off with yesterday was how they were going to do it.
They can’t pay it – especially not at higher interest rates. And the higher rates greatly reduce their room to maneuver. They used to be able to spend as much as they wanted… confident that the Fed would ‘print’ enough to keep up with them. They simply issued a bond; the Fed bought it with cash it created especially for that purpose. And since interest rates were going down, their carrying costs actually went down as their debt went up.
But now… all that has changed. Now it is time for Mr. Fed to be a hero again. The Fed claimed to have saved the economy in 2008. It aims to do it again… this time, not by re-flating the economy… but by de-flating it. But the Fed-as-hero story ignores important flaws.
Forgotten is the long period in which the villainous Fed transferred trillions of dollars to the richest and most powerful people in the country, favoring the country’s deciders with its unnaturally-low interest rates. Forgotten too are the many years when the incompetent Fed failed to notice the nation’s debt reaching up to $90 trillion… and inflation creeping up on its flank.
We will also draw a veil over the Fed’s ignorance, in which it thought inflation would be ending before it had even started…and the monumental conceit of former Fed head Ben Bernanke who tried to portray his own cowardly money-printing as “The Courage to Act” …and the preternatural imbecility of its former chief – now directing the US Treasury – Ms. Janet Yellen: “Would I say there will never, ever be another financial crisis?” she asked herself in 2017. “I do think we’re much safer and I hope that it will not be in our lifetimes and I don’t believe it will be,” she concluded. Since then, there have been two financial crises. And she’s still alive.
Apocalypse When? But we put all of that behind us… let bygones be bygones… Now, if we can believe it, this band of brothers and sisters is all that stands between us and the apocalypse. Either the Fed squashes inflation…or it squashes us. The Fed’s leading man has been reborn as Paul Volcker; he will stomp on inflation with both feet.
What remains to be seen is how our hero will resolve the apparent contradiction in the plot. He serves at the pleasure of the US government… which is controlled by the elite. If he follows through on his program, and ‘normalizes’ asset prices, the top 10% of the country – the elite – will lose as much as $50 trillion in stock, bond and real estate values. Congress, too, will be in a helluva jam, with $30 trillion in debt and – at much higher interest rates – no way to refinance it. It will be unable to continue borrowing and spending at today’s pace. Horrors…it might even be forced to balance the budget.
Inflation destroys the economy... punishes consumers… and unsettles government and civil society. Runaway inflation is always a terrible thing for a nation to suffer. It should be stopped as quickly as possible. But if you owe $30 trillion…and you can’t pay it back…you might see things differently. You might see, for example, that inflation is not such a bad thing after all. More to come…"
Joel’s Note: It was only a few days ago (Sept. 20, to be exact) when a Barron’s headline dared to wonder… “Will the Dow go under 30,000?” The answer, swift and decisive, came at this morning’s opening: Why, yes. Yes it will.
CNBC was on the scene…"Stocks slumped on Friday and were on pace for another losing week as investors feared the Federal Reserve’s aggressive hiking campaign to fight inflation will lead to an economic downturn. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 340 points, or 1.1%, while the S&P 500 slid 1.3%. The Nasdaq Composite lost 1.2%.
Friday marked the fourth negative session in a row for the major averages, with the Dow falling below its June closing low and the 30,000 mark. The Fed on Wednesday enacted another super-sized rate hike of 75 basis points and indicated it would do another at its November meeting.
The action comes as “Growling Powell” inspired Goldman Sachs to cut its year end forecast for equities… again. “The expected path of interest rates is now higher than we previously assumed,” wrote David Kostin, Goldman’s chief U.S. equity strategist, “which tilts the distribution of equity market outcomes below our prior forecast.” Goldman lowered its year-end target for the S&P 500 from 4,300 to 3,600. As we type these words to you this morning, the broader US index is within 100 points of that very mark. Look out below…"
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Market Data Center, Live Updates:
Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 9/23/22"
"Weekly News Wrap-Up 9/23/22"
Russia May Nuke, Dems Will Cheat,
Economy Already Tanking
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"Putin is making some serious moves to put Russia on a war footing in what is being called a “partial mobilization of national forces.” Some reports say they are calling up 1 million people for a possible future war effort. Maybe this is why many military aged Russians are trying to escape the country. Meanwhile, a top Russian Security Council member is hinting that nuclear warfare is an option to defend recently annexed parts of Ukraine. There are zero peace talks, and the only thing you are seeing is more money for war from the west. It is now only a matter of when, not if, there is a nuclear exchange between Russia and NATO. Lord, please help us.
A Bill passed in the House of Representatives that will make it easier for Dems to win another presidential race by limiting grounds for electors to object. The Bill also opens up the possibility of voting after Election Day. Of course, post-Election Day voting can only happen if there is some sort of “catastrophe.” So, I guess we can expect a “catastrophe” every presidential election from now on. The Dems continue to look for other ways to cheat and intimidate voters who don’t vote for them. There are some bright spots for voter integrity that are continuing. There are also more and more top Democrats telling Democrat voters to vote for a Republican. One example is Dems are rallying around Republican candidate for Governor Lee Zeldin from New York.
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see the economy tanking before our eyes. Housing data is trending down, and inflation is trending up. According to Nerd Wallet, it now costs the average family an extra $11,500 to live this year over last year. Meanwhile, the Fed just raised rates again, and it is on track to raise them again and again and again to fight inflation, or is the Fed crashing the economy? Maybe it’s both. I think the Fed is really just supporting the U.S. dollar and the hell with everything else. If the dollar crashes and loses reserve currency status, it’s game over. Buckle up."
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about these
stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 9/23/22:
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