Thursday, October 13, 2022

"A Multi-Stage Disaster"

"A Multi-Stage Disaster"
"Transitory" inflation remains persistent as
 investors look for the next shoe to drop...
by Bill Bonner and Joel Bowman

Baltimore, Maryland - "A lot of red on the screen this morning. The latest inflation readings were worse than expected. The Dow dropped 500 points. Remember, we’re only in the very first stage of what we believe will be a multi-stage disaster, like a traffic pile-up on I-95 during a foggy morning rush hour.

After the Bubble Epoch, created by misters Greenspan, Bernanke, (Ms.) Yellen, and Powell, came consumer price inflation. It is still with us. Bloomberg: "US Core Inflation Seen Returning to 40-Year High as Rents Rise." "CPI excluding food, energy probably rose 6.5% from year ago. Report expected to keep Fed on path to big November rate hike. A key US inflation measure due Thursday is set to return to a four-decade high, underscoring broad and elevated price pressures that are pushing the Federal Reserve toward yet another large interest-rate hike next month."

And here’s CNBC with the latest on wholesale prices: "Wholesale prices rose more than expected in September despite Federal Reserve efforts to control inflation, according to a report Wednesday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The producer price index, a measure of prices that U.S. businesses get for the goods and services they produce, increased 0.4% for the month, compared to the Dow Jones estimate for a 0.2% gain. On a 12-month basis, PPI rose 8.5%, which was a slight deceleration from the 8.7% in August."

The Next Shoe: The inflation numbers guarantee that we will stay in this deflation stage of the disaster at least a bit longer. Then, something will give. It could be a major pension fund, such as Calpers, with half a trillion in assets. It could be a Wall Street finance house, such as BlackRock, with $8.5 trillion in assets. Or it could be a big corporation forced into bankruptcy by rising interest payments.

The longer the Fed remains on course – to exterminate inflation – the closer we get to the ‘pivot,’ when a financial shock keeps it from getting the job done. The big questions are: when will the Fed do its pirouette? And what happens then? Most people think the Fed will soon go back to normal – which, for them, means rising stock prices, with inflation subdued.

Maybe it is just our imagination. But we notice a big difference between how young people look at the situation and how older people do. Anyone younger than 60 has no adult recollection of any financial world other than the one we’ve had since 1980. They think that was normal. And after this hissy fit is over, and the Fed turns around, they believe things will go back to the ‘normal’ they have known.

But there was nothing normal about the 1980-2020 period. Is it normal for stock prices to multiply 36 times – as the Dow did between 1982 and 2021? Is it normal for real bond yields to drop from the high teens down to under zero? Is it normal for the Fed to “print” more new money 18 months than it had in nearly 100 years… or for the federal government to multiply its debt by 30 times… even as its carrying cost (interest payments) went down?

Back to the Future: We could go on. There were more freaks in this show than in Barnum and Bailey’s circus – zombie corporations, goofy cryptos, billion-dollar valuations for companies with no plausible way to earn money. And yet… for so many callow investors… that was Planet Earth – the way things have been… the way they are… and the way they shall ever be. They think stocks always go up “over the long run.” Yes, there may be sell-offs, they admit, but a balanced portfolio of stocks and bonds will always pay off. Maybe. But not necessarily in your lifetime.

You’ve got to go back before the ‘80s… and you’ve got to look at it in terms of real money – gold – to see what ‘normal’ really looks like. If you’d bought stocks in the late 1920s, you would have gotten all 30 Dow stocks in exchange for 16 ounces of gold. Then, by 1933 you would have lost 90% of your money… and waited another 26 years to break even again.

Yes… prices move in cycles… but they are long cycles. Same thing in the 1960s. Inflation was dogging the economy then, as it is now. And then, a stockbroker would have told you what he will tell you now – “don’t worry about market timing; just get good companies and hold on.”

If you’d owned stocks in the mid-60s, your 30 Dow stocks would have been worth as much as 24 ounces of gold. Then, it took 15 years for the market to hit a bottom, in 1980… and you’d be down 93%. Then what? You would have waited another 17 years to breakeven. Altogether, if you’d bought stocks at age 40 in 1965, you’d be 72 years old in 1997… with not a penny of capital gain to show for it.

But imagine that you followed your broker’s advice… and you just stuck with the program. Today, you’d be 97 years old. And instead of stocks worth 24 ounces of gold, as they were in 1965, they would be worth 17 ounces! Congratulations, your stocks lost 30% of their value over the last 57 years. (Not including dividends).

Is there a better way? Maybe. Tune in tomorrow..."
Joel’s Note: We asked Bill yesterday what he sees coming down the pike next, now that the three sources of modern superabundance are, in their own ways, coming to an abrupt end?That is, if we’re witnessing the end of cheap and abundant energy… as the situation in Europe, vis-a-vis Russia, plus news of a 2 million bpd reduction in output from OPEC Plus countries, seems to be indicating…

And the end of cheap and abundant manufactured goods, now that China is weaponizing its supply chains and the geopolitical world order has been pitched into disarray as sovereign nations scramble to ink energy and strategic alliances…

And, arguably the grand daddy of them all, the end of cheap and abundant credit… which has been gushing forth from the spigots of the world’s central banks now for decades, inviting malinvestments and price distortions of truly epic proportions… the kind that beckon, and even deserve, commensurately epic repricing, potentially to the tune of trillions of dollars in losses…

Meanwhile, Bonner Private Research’s Investment Director, Tom Dyson, has been on the case since the inception of this humble, Substack project, warning readers about the end of what he calls the “Greatest Financial Experiment in History.” Here he was yesterday, bringing members up to speed with the latest…

"Over the last 30 years, the Feds inflated a gigantic bubble. Every time the bubble burst, they doubled down, bailed out Wall Street and blew an even bigger bubble, culminating in a post-pandemic Everything Bubble. Not only did this Everything Bubble go global, but it seeped into every area of finance, including the government bond market and the savings of nations.

And as we’ve seen in the UK, the low interest rates which enabled the bubble also encouraged bad risk taking. Hedge fund managers, pension funds, and banks all resorted to massive borrowing at low rates (leverage) to try and goose returns. Now, you’re seeing a global margin call. To meet that margin call, you sell whatever you can (usually what is most liquid).

In short, the bubble has burst and the world economy is now deleveraging. This is just the beginning. The Fed is still in rate hiking mode. But even if the Fed relented, I’m not sure it would make any difference. Once the dam breaks…"

"Massive Price Increases At Kroger! This Is Ridiculous! Not Good!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 10/13/22:
"Massive Price Increases At Kroger! 
This Is Ridiculous! Not Good!"
"In today's vlog we are at Kroger, and are noticing massive 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!"
Comments here:

Canadian Prepper, "Russia Prepares its People... NATO's Nuclear 'Exercise'"

Canadian Prepper, 10/12/22:
"Russia Prepares its People... NATO's Nuclear 'Exercise'"
"Is Russia advising its citizens to prepare for nuclear conflict? Shanghai is Stockpiling water, France gasoline and USA fried chicken and winter hasn't arrived yet!"
Comments here:

Wednesday, October 12, 2022

"The West’s $1 Trillion Bid To Collapse Russia’s Economy'

Full screen recommended.
"The West’s $1 Trillion Bid To Collapse Russia’s Economy'
by Epic Economist

"Seven months have passed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The United States along with its European allies has so far slapped more than 11,000 coordinated Sanctions on Russia. Economic experts agree that Russia is wounded, but despite the embargos Putin’s aggression only escalates. Ukraine remains under siege and the economic sanctions are bleeding many unintended victims.

The answer to whether the Sanctions work or not is certainly subjective. However, the one indicator of failure is that even after months of sanctions, Russia is keeping the war going.

What the West really wanted was to take away Moscow's ability to finance the war. However, Putin remains dedicated to his war and even announced the annexation of Donbas - an area that makes up 18% of Ukraine's total land and is home to 6 million people.

Even the early passionate Ukraine supporters and backers aren't as confident now. Elon Musk for example, recently invited a Twitter war over his controversial comments urging Ukraine to be neutral and suggesting that they should let Russia have the annexed Territories. Any Impact desired from the sanctions will be gradual, however, the Suffering of the War is immediate and not just for its direct victims but for millions of unintended victims around the world.

An economic winter was predicted with hopes that the Russian economy will shrink by more than 15%. A fortified currency isn't always an indicator of a functioning economy but other markers show why the Russian Collapse hasn't happened at the pace it was predicted.

Unemployment hasn’t shown a noticeable surge and 7 months later, Moscow's restaurants and bars remain busy as ever. Grocery shelves are stocked, and shopping malls are filled with people. The International Monetary Fund has revisited its initial gloomy forecasts and now thinks that Russia's economy will contract by just over 4 percent.

What the West really wanted was to take away Moscow's ability to finance the war. However, Putin remains dedicated to his war and even announced the annexation of Donbas - an area that makes up 18% of Ukraine's total land and is home to 6 million people. Even the early passionate Ukraine supporters and backers aren't as confident now. Elon Musk for example, recently invited a Twitter war over his controversial comments urging Ukraine to be neutral and suggesting that they should let Russia have the annexed Territories."

"We Have A Serious Situation, Inflation Is Breaking People"

Jeremiah Babe, 10/12/22:
"We Have A Serious Situation, Inflation Is Breaking People"
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Even Now"

Full screen recommended.
2002, "Even Now"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Planetary nebula Abell 78 stands out in this colorful telescopic skyscape. In fact the colors of the spiky Milky Way stars depend on their surface temperatures, both cooler (yellowish) and hotter (bluish) than the Sun. But Abell 78 shines by the characteristic emission of ionized atoms in the tenuous shroud of material shrugged off from an intensely hot central star. The atoms are ionized, their electrons stripped away, by the central star's energetic but otherwise invisible ultraviolet light. 
The visible blue-green glow of loops and filaments in the nebula's central region corresponds to emission from doubly ionized oxygen atoms, surrounded by strong red emission from electrons recombining with hydrogen atoms. Some 5,000 light-years distant toward the constellation Cygnus, Abell 78 is about three light-years across. A planetary nebula like Abell 78 represents a very brief final phase in stellar evolution that our own Sun will experience... in about 5 billion years.”

"Unknowingly..."

"Unknowingly, we plow the dust of stars,
blown about us by the wind,
and drink the universe in a glass of rain."
- Ihab Hassan

The Poet: Theodore Roethke, “The Return”

“The Return”

“Suddenly the window will open
and Mother will call,
it's time to come in.
The wall will part,
I will enter heaven in muddy shoes.
I will come to the table
and answer questions rudely.
I am all right, leave me
alone. Head in hand I
sit and sit. How can I tell them
about that long
and tangled way?
Here in heaven mothers
knit green scarves;
flies buzz.
Father dozes by the stove
after six days' labor.
No - surely I can't tell them
that people are at each
other's throats.”

- Theodore Roethke

Judge Napolitano, "Col. Doug Macgregor: Ukraine - Russia War Latest"

Full screen recommended.
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 10/12/22:
"Col. Doug Macgregor: Ukraine - Russia War Latest"
"Ukraine slams Crimea bridge arrests; 
power restored at occupied nuclear power plant."
Comments here:

"The Gold Standard is Back"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 10/12/22:
"The Gold Standard is Back"
"A congressman out of West Virginia has proposed bringing back gold backed money. He wants to implement this as soon as possible. Will it work?"
Comments here:

The Daily "Near You?"

Auburndale, Florida, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Canadian Prepper, "Hold On! The Next 6 Months Will Be Chaos"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 10/12/22:
"Hold On! The Next 6 Months Will Be Chaos"
"In this video I discuss my predictions for how things play out, war economies; USA troop deployments to Europe; NATO dissolves, record energy prices; Russias official declaration of war; Poland clashes with Belarus, enters conflict; Taiwan straight flare up; Nuclear incident; market crash; cyberattacks on critical infrastructure; hard times ahead."
Comments here:
Full screen recommended.
Firstpost, 10/12/22:
"Belarus Joins Forces with Russia, Threatens Ukraine from the North"
"Russia’s so-called special military operation against Ukraine is now eight months old and running. The United States and NATO countries have provided Ukraine with military and financial aid worth several billions of dollars. Ukraine though, does not really miss an opportunity to berate the West for what it views is insufficient military aid. Ukraine has gone as far as accusing its backers of fearing Russia and trying to avoid direct conflict with Moscow. Joe Biden is understood to have taken up Ukraine’s ungrateful behaviour with Volodymyr Zelensky. According to the Washington Post, Biden told his Ukrainian counterpart that it would be difficult for him to keep asking money from the U.S. Congress if Zelensky appeared ungrateful and kept saying the aid being provided was not enough. That means there is a degree of annoyance against Ukraine’s behaviour that has taken hold of the United States’ political leadership."
Comments here:

"In A Nation Ruled By Swine..."

“In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upwardly mobile - and the rest of us are f****d until we can put our acts together: not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely. We owe that to ourselves and our crippled self-image as something better than a nation of panicked sheep.”
- Hunter S. Thompson, “The Great Shark Hunt”

"I'd Still Swim..."

"If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told
 the nearest land was a thousand miles away, I'd still swim. 
And I'd despise the one who gave up." 
- Abraham Maslow

"World War III: Do We Really Want To Do This?"

"A wise man once said you can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it. What he meant is nothing comes without a price. So before you go into battle, you better decide how much you're willing to lose. Too often, going after what feels good means letting go of what you know is right, and letting someone in means abandoning the walls you've spent a lifetime building. Of course, the toughest sacrifices are the ones we don't see coming, when we don't have time to come up with a strategy to pick a side or to measure the potential loss. When that happens, when the battle chooses us and not the other way around, that's when the sacrifice can turn out to be more than we can bear."
- Dr. Meredith Grey, "Grey's Anatomy"
Full screen recommended.
Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, "How Russia Might Win WW3"
"What we are seeing is a fiction... the bigger conflict is coming."
Comments here:
Full screen recommended.
"How the Russia-Ukraine War Could Turn into a Nuclear Nightmare"
"Since the beginning of Russia's invasion Ukraine, nuclear weapons have loomed in the background. The rhetoric sharply increased after Ukraine's successful counterattacks. Although we are still many steps away from serious nuclear problems, the groundwork for concerns has been laid. This video explains what tactical nuclear weapons do, how Russia might try to deploy them, and what might deter Putin from taking such steps."
Comments here:
Full screen recommended.
"The US Can’t Defend Against Hypersonic Missiles"
"Hypersonic missiles are proliferating. In the last several years, Russia added its Tsirkon missile and China added 2 or possibly 3 such system types to their inventories. This video explores those hypersonic missile threats in existence today as well as US defenses against those." 
Comments here:
Full screen recommended.
Sub Brief, "Russia's Status-6"
"Russia's strange love of nuclear weapons takes a dark turn. The Status-6 Poseidon nuclear torpedo is designed to render entire coastal regions uninhabitable for 100's of years. This new threat is unlike anything we've seen since the Cold War."
Comments here:
Do we really want to do this?

"How It Really Is"

What maniac? I wonder... no I don't, and neither should you!

Greg Hunter, "Inflation 75 Year High, Unemployment 24%"

"Inflation 75 Year High, Unemployment 24%"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Economist and founder of ShadowStats.com, John Williams says the government’s “phony numbers” don’t show the public how bad things really are with the economy. Williams prides himself in giving you the actual economic numbers without “accounting gimmicks” that make things look better than they actually are. For example, the latest official government number on inflation shows 8.3%. It’s officially a 40-year high. It gets worse when you strip away all the “accounting gimmicks,” and you see the real number that is burdening real people in the real world. John Williams explains, “My inflation number shows a 17.3% peak in June, and right now it is 16.5%. That is at a 75-year high. I think you will find people are having a more difficult time than they were having 40 years ago.”

On the unemployment front, the government is touting a 3.5% unemployment rate. What are the real numbers when you count all unemployed people no matter how long they have been looking for work? Williams says, “The unemployment numbers are frightening. I think we are seeing what I consider a phony number of 3.5%. After a year, the ‘discouraged worker’ disappears as an issue. The unemployment number is really 24.4% the way it used to be counted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).”

Williams is not expecting things to get better anytime soon. Williams contends, “I think the economy is going to get a lot worse. If you listen to what (Fed Head) Jay Powell said at his last press conference, he said he’s looking to create a recession. That’s effectively what he was saying, and they are doing it. I think you have higher inflation ahead. I would try to get my cash into assets that adjust for inflation such as gold and silver. You also need to get something that has a long shelf life. The problem here is going to be in the next year. You are going to see the economy getting worse and inflation getting worse. I don’t see the Fed cutting back on the money supply, and they are already telling you they are going to keep raising the interest rate. Good buys are things that will spike with inflation. Stock up on canned food. I think you are going to see a few more percentage points on the government numbers coming up. That can, and I think will, happen as things deteriorate here.” There is much more in the 42-minute interview.

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with John Williams, 
as he explains how bad the economy really is.

Gregory Mannarino, “Surprise! Inflation Continues To Rise Faster Than ‘Expected’”

Gregory Mannarino, AM 10/12/22:
“Surprise! Inflation Continues To Rise Faster Than ‘Expected’”
Comments here:

"Strange Prices At Meijer! Some Empty Shelves, And Crazy Prices!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 10/12/22:
"Strange Prices At Meijer! 
Some Empty Shelves, And Crazy Prices!"
"In today's vlog we are at Meijer, and are noticing 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!"
Comments here:

Tuesday, October 11, 2022

"What If..."

"What if when you die they ask, "How was Heaven?"
~ Author Unknown

A truly terrifying thought...

"Alas..."

“Alas, regardless of their doom, the little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come, nor care beyond today.”
- Thomas Gray,
“Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”

Gerald Celente, "The Battle Is Spiritual, War Or Peace, Good Or Evil;. Which Side Do You Chooses?"

Full screen recommended.
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 10/11/22:
"The Battle Is Spiritual, War Or Peace, Good Or Evil;
 Which Side Do You Chooses?"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in these increasingly turbulent times."
Comments here:

"Brace For Stock Market Crash Because Things Are About To Get Really Crazy"

Full screen recommended.
"Brace For Stock Market Crash Because
 Things Are About To Get Really Crazy"
by Epic Economist

"This is not a drill. An October stock market crash can break out at any moment, experts alert. 2022 has already been a very painful year for investors, with all three major indexes falling into a bear market, stock market volatility remaining at its bumpiest level on record, and over $46 trillion in financial wealth being wiped out from global markets since January. But things could get a whole lot worse as we enter the most dangerous weeks of the year – and previous October crashes offer an eye-opening warning.

Last week, Morgan Stanley offered a detailed breakdown of the impending economic dangers that are likely to result in further market losses in the weeks ahead. “This is one of the toughest macro forecasting environments most companies have ever encountered. It seems companies are reaching the point where they can’t take it anymore,” the bank noted. Morgan Stanley strategist Michael Wilson highlights that the “key question in the minds of many investors has once again shifted to when the Federal Reserve is turning — not if,” adding that the economy has entered a “danger zone” in which the Fed policies have become restrictive and the growth outlook is compromised.

Wilson says “it’s only a matter of time” before a “quick and furious” market event takes place. Even if September inflation levels do improve, Fed officials have repeatedly said they plan to continue with their policy of elevated rate hikes and have publicly said they’re worried that markets refuse to listen to their messaging. The central bank’s goal of 2% inflation means that an over 6% decline is still needed, which consequently implies that stocks still have a lot of room to fall.

Morgan Stanley predicts that the S&P will end the year in a bear market low of between 3,000 and 3,400 points — suggesting that the index, which is already down 21.5% this year, with face another 20% crash. But still, these estimates seem a little too conservative when considering how unhinged stocks really are right now.

Many market veterans are even more downbeat about future performance. For instance, John Hussman, who correctly called the dot-com bubble, is warning that stocks will end the current bear market 50 to 70% lower from current levels, “as investor positioning remains inconsistent with fundamentals and valuations linger at historically extreme levels,” he noted. "The way that bubbles unfold into preposterous losses – 89%, 82%, 50%, 55%, and I expect this time between 50-70% – is through multiple periods of decline and even free-fall, punctuated by fast, furious 'clearing rallies' that offer hope all the way down," Hussman said. "By the time investors experience the second or third free-fall, the psychology of investors is not 'this is the bottom' – but rather, 'there is no bottom.'”

That thinking, however, is set to cause a lot of shock in the coming weeks. If history is a guide, the next few weeks could throw the market into disarray.Research releas ed by the analyst Clive Hale, head of Clive Hale Consulting, points out that the cumulative impact of escalating geopolitical conflicts, China’s economic slowdown, energy supply shortages, rising interest rates, lower consumer spending, a decline in property prices, and many other problems are setting the stage for the worst October shock seen since 1987 and 1929.

In other words, there’s nothing that supports the idea that better days are coming for stocks. The carnage is starting to spread everywhere and the market continues to break. It’s safe to say that this isn’t going to end well, and we have already gotten to a point where this should be obvious to everyone."

"You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet, It's About To Get Really Bad; Credit Card Debt Will Crush You; Restaurants Will Not Survive"

Jeremiah Babe, 10/11/22:
"Credit Card Debt Will Crush You; 
Restaurants Will Not Survive; Economic Downturn Accelerates"
Comments here:
"When people pile up debts they will find difficult and perhaps even impossible to repay, they are saying several things at once. They are obviously saying that they want more than they can immediately afford. They are saying, less obviously, that their present wants are so important that, to satisfy them, it is worth some future difficulty. But in making that bargain they are implying that when the future difficulty arrives, they'll figure it out. They don't always do that."
- Michael Lewis, "Boomerang"

Musical Interlude: Yanni, “The Storm”

Full screen recommended.
Yanni, “The Storm”

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 is truly a majestic island universe some 200,000 light-years across. Located a mere 60 million light-years away toward the chemical constellation Fornax, NGC 1365 is a dominant member of the well-studied Fornax galaxy cluster.
This impressively sharp color image shows intense star forming regions at the ends of the bar and along the spiral arms, and details of dust lanes cutting across the galaxy's bright core. At the core lies a supermassive black hole. Astronomers think NGC 1365's prominent bar plays a crucial role in the galaxy's evolution, drawing gas and dust into a star-forming maelstrom and ultimately feeding material into the central black hole.”

The Poet: W.H. Auden, "September 1, 1939"

"September 1, 1939"

"Defenseless
under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out
wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame."

- W.H. Auden
On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland,
starting World War II.

"Do Not Live For Others..."

"Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you."
- Christopher Hitchens

"When That Day Comes..."

"If you had one last breath - what would you say? If you had one hour to use your limbs before you would lose the use of them forever - would you sit there on the couch? If you knew that you wouldn't see tomorrow who would you make amends with? If you knew you had only an hour left on this earth - what would be so pressing that you just had to do it, say it, or see it? Well there is something that I can guarantee - that one day you will have one day, one hour and one breath left. Just make sure that before that day that you have said, done and experienced everything that you dream of doing now. Do it now - that is what today is for. So pick up the phone and call an old friend that you have fallen out of touch with. Get out and run a mile and use your body and sweat. Seek out someone in your life to say you're sorry to. Seek someone In your life that you need to thank. Seek someone in your life that you need to express your feelings of love to. Then when that day comes you will be ok with it all."
- John A. Passaro

"If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make,
who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?"
~ Stephen Levine

“Get busy living or get busy dying.”
- Stephen King, "Shawshank Redemption"

Bill Bonner, “How Does It All End?”

“How Does It All End?”
by Bill Bonner

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."
 - Soren Kierkegaard

“‘How does this all end?’ It’s a regular subject for guesswork here at the Diary. Of course, to see what’s coming, you have to look back on what’s come before.

Fantastic vision: In 1900, a survey was done. ‘What do you see coming?’ asked the pollsters. All of those people questioned forecast better times ahead. Machines were just making their debut, but already people saw their potential.

You can see some of that optimism on display today in the Paris Metro. In the Montparnasse station is an illustration from the late 1800s of what the artist imagined for the next century. It is a fantastic vision- of flying vehicles…elevated sidewalks…incredible mechanical devices, all elaborated from the Machine Age technology as it was understood at the time. There is no sign of hydraulics, jet engines, or electrical devices, for example, just gears and pulleys…and flying machines that flapped their wings like a bird.

But when asked what lay ahead, the most remarkable opinion, at least from our point of view, was that the government would decline in size and power. Almost everyone thought so. We wouldn’t need so much government, they said. People will all be rich. Wealthy people may engage in fraud and finagling. But they don’t wait in dark alleys to bop people over the head and steal their wallets. They don’t need government pensions or government health care either. Nor do they attack their neighbors.

The great illusion: In 1909, British politician Norman Angell published a bestselling book, "The Great Illusion," in which he explained why. Wealth is no longer based on land, Angell argued. Instead, it depended on factories, finance, and delicate relationships between suppliers, manufacturers, and consumers. And as this capitalism made people better off, he said, they wouldn’t want to do anything to interfere with it. It would only make them poorer.

One of his most important readers was Viscount Esher of Britain’s Committee of Imperial Defence. Set up in 1904, its task was to research and coordinate military strategy for the empire. Esher told listeners that ‘new economic factors clearly prove the inanity of aggressive wars.’ One of the most important components of the wealth of the late 19th century was international commerce. Capitalism flourishes in times of peace, sound money, respect for property rights and free trade. It was clear that everyone benefitted. Who would want to upset that apple cart?

‘War must soon be a thing of the past,’ Escher concluded. He was wrong. In August 1914, the cart fell over anyway. The Great War began five years after Angell’s book hit the bestseller lists. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme- 106 years ago- there were more than 70,000 casualties.

By the time Americans arrived in 1917, the average soldier at the front lines had a life expectancy of only 21 days. And by the time of Armistice Day- on the 11th day of the 11th month at 11:00am of 1918- the war had killed 17 million people, wounded another 20 million and knocked off the major ruling families of continental Europe- the Hohenzollerns, the Hapsburgs, and the Romanoffs (the Bourbons and Bonapartes were already gone from France).

The age of ‘isms’: After the Great War came a 30-year spell of trouble. In keeping with the metaphor of the Machine Age, the disintegration of pre-war institutions broke the tie rods that connected civilized economies to their governments. Reparations imposed on the Weimar Republic after the war sparked hyperinflation in Germany. The US, meanwhile, enjoyed a ‘Roaring 20s’, as Europeans paid their debts- in gold- to US lenders.

But that joyride came to an end in 1929. Then the feds flooded the carburetor, in their disastrously maladroit efforts to get the motor started again- including the Smoot-Hawley Act, which restricted cross-border trade. The ‘isms’- fascism, communism, syndicalism, socialism, anarchism- issued forth, like carbon monoxide. They offered solutions!

Finally, the brittle rubber of communism (aided by modern democratic capitalism) met the mean streets of fascism in another six-year bout of government-led violence: the Second World War. By the end of this period, the West decided enough was enough. Europe settled down with bourgeois governments of various social-democrat forms. The US went back to business, with order books filled and its factories still intact.

The end of history? The ‘isms’ held firm in the Soviet Union and moved to the Orient- with further wear and tear on the machinery of warfare in Korea…and later Vietnam. Finally, in 1979, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping announced that, although the ruling Communist Party would stay in control, the country would abandon its Marxist-Leninist-Maoist creed. China joined the world economy with its own version of state-guided capitalism. Then, 10 years later, the Soviet Union gave up even more completely…rejecting both the Communist Party and communism itself.

This was the event hailed in a silly essay by American political scientist Francis Fukuyama, ‘The End of History?’ Finally, the long battle was won. It was, wrote Fukuyama, the ‘endpoint of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.’"

Graphic: Salvador Dali, “The Persistence of Memory”

The Poet: T. S. Eliot, "Four Quartets,"

“Little Gidding”, Excerpt

"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring 
Will be to arrive where we started 
And know the place for the first time. 
When the last of earth left to discover 
Is that which was the beginning; 
At the source of the longest river 
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree.

Not known, because not looked for 
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always - 
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded 
Into the crowned knot of fire 
And the fire and the rose are one.”

- T.S. Eliot

The "Little Gidding" is the last of T. S. Eliot's "Four Quartets," 
which you may freely download here:

"Message From the Future: Your Acceptance of Evil Has Condemned Us All"

"Message From the Future: 
Your Acceptance of Evil Has Condemned Us All"
by Chris Floyd

"Sometime in December 2016, a strange transmission began bleeding through, ghost-like, on various computers around the world. It would suddenly appear for a few flickering moments while people watched movies or shopped on-line or looked at social media, then it would fade away. It purported to be “a message from the future” and showed an aged man who claimed he was a “chrono-quantum technician” whose work had been banned by the authorities “to prevent me from doing exactly what I am doing now, at long last - sending a warning to our ancestors.” The message was brief, but it was usually badly garbled by visual and aural static; it took weeks to compile, through crowd-sourcing, the full text. For what it’s worth, the message - minus the brief intro - is presented below.

“You are taking a path into darkness. It began years ago, with your acceptance of crimes and inhuman practices on a vast scale. In the late 20th century, your leaders once confessed on national television that they had killed 500,000 innocent children with death-dealing sanctions - then declared this atrocious massacre was “worth it.” Yet there was no outcry, no outrage, no uprising, not even a peep of protest. Indeed, the leader who carried out this massive slaughter of innocent children ended his reign at new heights of popularity and forever after was considered a beloved elder statesman. Your next leader lied brazenly to start a war that killed a million innocent people and led directly to decades of murderous instability in numerous countries. He too ended his days in wealth and comfort and public regard. Your next leader refused to prosecute the crimes of aggression and torture openly committed by his predecessor; instead, he continued his practices, enshrining many of the heinous practices into settled law, waging undeclared war in more than half a dozen countries and personally signing off on extrajudicial murders every week of his reign. 

By this time, the moral degradation of the people was so complete - they had countenanced, cheered or ignored so many crimes and so much corruption on so many levels - that they easily fell prey to a voracious, half-crazed demagogue and the forces of fascism, feudalism and lawless rule that he brought into power. This was the nominal end of your democracy, but it was already deeply rotted from within - rotted by your years of turning a blind eye to monstrous crimes committed in your name by both factions in your power structure.

Because of your shameful acquiescence, your shallow understanding of the forces that ruled you and used you and manipulated you, your bedazzlement by public image, your astonishing credulity at the transparent lies and hollow, sinister pieties you were fed, we, your descendants, have lived in squalor, rancor, violence and despair all our lives, for generations. There is no hope for us unless you abandon your slavish ignorance, your adherence to partisan fantasies about the factions of the power structure that rules you and rise up to overthrow it. Instead bring fearless clarity to bear on the reality of what you have accepted. The murder of 500,000 children. The millions murdered in the wars you started and the wars bred by your wars. Assassination. Torture. Dehumanization and demonization of your fellow human beings, both at home and abroad.

It is your acceptance of these things that has brought you to the final turning point represented by a berserk demagogue’s rise to power. Now there is nothing left for you to do but resist: resist with all your might, with every means at your disposal - but always, always, with the full knowledge of how you came to this place, and your own connivance and collusion in this descent. Keep this in mind as you fight, so that it doesn’t happen again. You are not exceptional, you are not plucked out by God for special favor: you are human beings like all the rest, and like so many human beings in so many societies down through the ages, you have failed to look your own evil in the eye, you have failed to confront and condemn acts that make you shudder with horror when you hear of them committed by  other nations.

Own this knowledge - this terrible, tragic knowledge - and let it guide as you fight the putrescence that past crimes have now brought gushing forth, and as you build something better in the aftermath. Otherwise, you are lost, and we are lost, the world itself is lost.”

"Don't Wonder..."

"Don't wonder why people go crazy. Wonder why they don't.
In the face of what we can lose in a day, in an instant,
wonder what the hell it is that makes us hold it together."
- "Grey's Anatomy"

The Daily "Near You?"

Covesville, Virginia, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Russian Steel Archangels Of General ‘Armageddon’"

Full screen recommended.
Odo Puiu Events, 10/11/22:
"Russian Steel Archangels Of General ‘Armageddon’"
"Russia moving all her military equipments to front line in Ukraine newly annexed Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia, including Georgia. Is war between Russia, West and NATO imminent?"
Comments here:
The gloves come off...
Full screen recommended.
"How the Secret Russian Tsunami Bomb Poseidon Works"