Tuesday, October 18, 2022

"Economic Market Snapshot 10/18/22"

"Economic Market Snapshot 10/18/22"
Market Data Center, Live Updates:
Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
Latest Market Analysis, Updated 10/18/22
A comprehensive, essential daily read.
Financial Stress Index

"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: creditequity valuationfunding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United Statesother advanced economies, and emerging markets."
Job cuts and much more.
Commentary, highly recommended:
"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
And now... The End Game...

"How It Really Is"

 

Monday, October 17, 2022

"Doug Casey On The Likelihood Of Nuclear War With Russia"

"Doug Casey On The Likelihood Of Nuclear War With Russia"
by International Man

"International Man: Recently, we’ve seen what appears to be an escalation in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. There is an excellent chance the US government was behind the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, Russia has annexed four regions of Ukraine, and President Zelensky announced an accelerated bid to join NATO. What do you make of this?

Doug Casey: I’d say that the odds are extremely high, approaching certainty, that the US was complicit in the sabotage. It certainly had the Motive, Means, and Opportunity - the three elements necessary to warrant suspicion in a criminal investigation. The US has unique capabilities for this kind of mischief - an air-launched drone torpedo or a submarine aren’t available to just any terror group. It was a major operation, not something that a few scuba divers could pull off. Apparently, tons of explosives were used to blow these things up.

Biden and other US officials previously said they didn’t want the Nord Stream to go through and planned to prevent it. A boldly idiotic thing to say since the pipeline is neither its property or business. The narrative that the Russians did it is completely insane. Putin could simply turn off the gas until it was convenient to be turned back on; now that option is gone. The Russians wouldn’t limit their own options.

If it’s proven that the US did it, then the Russians and/or the Germans will have to engage in a tit-for-tat retaliation to punish the US for this sabotage. That may be tantamount to an act of war, but once the culprit is proven, they have to take action. This thing isn’t over. The culprit will be found.

As far as Russia annexing Crimea and the regions of the Ukraine in question, it seems to me - from a historical point of view - that would be par for the course. Remember that borders have been flowing and ethnic groups moving for a thousand years in that part of the world. In any event, it makes no sense to take sides in disputes between nation-states. In this case, it amounts to the US sticking its nose into a border war between two sh*t-hole countries.

That said, being as objective as possible, I’d say that the Russians have a certain amount of right on their side. They’ve been mightily provoked since the Maidan Revolution of 2014 and the attack by the Ukrainian Army on the Donbas. It’s too bad that this is spinning out of control - largely because of US intervention. In a rational world, it would basically be worth a couple of columns on the sixth page of the New York Times and then forgotten.

As for Zelensky accelerating the bid to join NATO, it’s insanely stupid. Zelensky is a corrupt nothing/nobody puppet who’s being manufactured into a hero. The strutting little megalomaniac has apparently been paid at least half a billion dollars to be an authoritarian, jailing opposition leaders, closing down dissident newspapers, and building a secret police force. Ukraine joining NATO at this point would be asking for World War 3. Of course, NATO should have been abolished after the collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1991. But now it’s become an institution, almost impossible to get rid of. The chances of a war between NATO and Russia are extremely high. Instead of talking about getting rid of Putin, the world would be better off if they got rid of Zelensky.

International Man: Vladimir Putin recently gave a speech in which he said: “The West is ready to cross every line to preserve the neo-colonial system which allows it to live off the world, to plunder it thanks to the domination of the dollar and technology, to collect an actual tribute from humanity, to extract its primary source of unearned prosperity, the rent paid to the hegemon. The preservation of this annuity is their main, real and absolutely self-serving motivation. This is why total de-sovereignization is in their interest. This explains their aggression towards independent states, traditional values and authentic cultures, their attempts to undermine international and integration processes, new global currencies and technological development centers they cannot control. It is critically important for them to force all countries to surrender their sovereignty to the United States.” What’s your take on this?

Doug Casey: I’ve listened to a number of Putin’s speeches. It’s fashionable to make him out as being not only the devil incarnate but irrational and somebody that wants to conquer Europe and perhaps destroy the world in the process. But in fact, compared to all of the other European leaders, he’s the most cool-headed, the most thoughtful, and the one with the most perspective.

He is absolutely right when he says that the West is acting as a hegemon. In particular, the US has been exporting dollars for decades - which have allowed it to live way above its means -and control the world by controlling the world’s monetary system. With the dollar accepted as the international reserve currency, backed up by institutions like the World Bank and the IMF, and a giant military with bases in over 100 countries, the US can basically call the shots for other cultures and countries.

Let me explain. I like American culture. Despite the fact the US is rapidly devolving into a police state, it’s still by far the most individualistic, liberty-oriented, and freewheeling culture the world has ever seen. But at the same time, I understand his resentment. The world is covered with McDonald’s and Pizza Huts, Hollywood movies, Coca-Cola, mass consumer advertising, and a thousand other trends, ideas, and artifacts generated in the US. Call them “good” or “bad,” but they have absolutely acted to destroy local cultures. T-shirts, blue jeans, and rock music assault your eyes and ears everywhere, from the biggest cities to the upper reaches of the Amazon and the Congo.

I think they’re mostly good things in themselves. But it’s easy to see how a traditionalist, someone who values cultural stability and diversity, could view them as aggressive threats, as cultural imperialism. In fact, we’ve destroyed the local culture everywhere. I understand his unhappiness with aspects of this.

Vlad makes some valid points. I know you’re not supposed to say that since he’s been designated the new enemy, in the mold of Saddam, Qadhafi, Assad, Noriega, and a dozen others in recent history. Unfortunately, though, Americans’ opinions are products of what they’re fed by the media, not actual facts. If they were well-informed and thought about it, they’d realize their real enemies weren’t foreign nonentities but the Bidens, Bushes, Obamas, and the US Deep State in general.

International Man: It seems tensions with Russia are reaching a crescendo. What do you think is the likelihood of the US or NATO becoming directly involved in combat?

Doug Casey: As I said, there’s no reason for any conflict between Russia and the US. In fact, there are now fewer communists in Russia than there are in US universities. Russia under Putin has tried to reach a rapprochement with Western Europe and the US numerous times, and they’ve been rejected. It makes me think that our leaders are more psychopathic than Russia’s.

Will the US become directly involved in combat? I don’t think so. The US has already pissed away $60 billion, or who knows how much, supporting the terminally corrupt Zelensky regime. More and more Americans are coming to the conclusion that it’s against our interests. I doubt there’s any support to send American soldiers over there, and it greatly increases the chances of nuclear blasts leveling most US cities. Direct involvement seems unlikely at this point, even though we’re dealing with sociopaths and, worse, who control the world’s major governments. So don’t accuse me of being a permabear… I’m an optimist.

International Man: There is a lot of talk in the mainstream media about whether Russia will use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. David Petraeus and other Deep Staters have suggested the US and NATO would directly attack Russian forces in Ukraine as a response. Could the media and Deep State be laying the groundwork for some sort of incident, staged or otherwise? What are the implications of people like Petraeus openly talking about directly attacking Russian forces?

Doug Casey: Again, once people reach a high level in any government, it’s proof - ipso facto -that they’re sociopaths. Many are narcissistic and power-hungry psychopaths. You don’t get the “best and brightest” walking the halls of Mordor or the Deathstar. That certainly includes generals or ex-generals like Petraeus. In today’s world, once a soldier reaches a general’s rank, he’s a self-promoting bureaucrat first and foremost.

I’ll draw your attention to the movie "Dr. Strangelove." Once someone gets enough stars on their shoulders, they start thinking like George C. Scott’s General Buck E. Turgidson or Sterling Hayden’s Jack D. Ripper in "Dr. Strangelove." It’s actually a type of psychosis that overtakes people once they have too much power. Anything’s possible with these people.

I don’t support either Washington or Moscow. At the moment - let me shock some readers -Washington is much more dangerous than Moscow, with the current administration totally controlled by Jacobins and other strident ideologues. Americans should be terrified that one of their politicians could push the wrong button and destroy the world, whether with nuclear, cyber, or biological weapons.

International Man: Is there such a thing as a limited nuclear war between the US and Russia? If not, what does full-scale nuclear war look like, and what is the likelihood of it happening? Is it worth risking this outcome over a country that most Americans cannot even find on a map?

Doug Casey: As you know, my belief is that a government - if you’re going to have government at all - should have nothing but police to protect citizens from violence within a country, a court system to allow them to adjudicate disputes without resorting to force, and a strictly defensive military, kept within our borders. Our current government, however, has a life of its own, detached from the country it rules. Seeing the kind of people that we have in Washington, with actual Jacobins in charge, it’s understandable how the Russians could be paranoid of the US military machine and the US government.

Could we have limited nuclear war? It’s possible. Perhaps the Russians will, if pushed up against the wall and invaded, set off a couple of small tactical nukes just as a warning to show they’re serious. But if it goes to a global thermonuclear war, it’s going to set civilization back hundreds of years.

The people that are in back of fomenting and promoting the Ukraine war should be hauled out of office and tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity. These fools are toying with what could soon be the biggest disaster in world history."

"Electricity Prices Are Skyrocketing As Fears Of A Deep Winter Rising"

Full screen recommended.
"Electricity Prices Are Skyrocketing 
As Fears Of A Deep Winter Rising"
by Epic Economist

"You’re about to get shocked by this winter’s electricity prices. If you already felt the pinch of soaring energy costs during the summer, get ready, and grab your winter coats, because turning up the heat in the coming months is going to be your next financial pain. Electric grid operators are warning about the highest price spikes since 2006 – even after the longest streak of energy bill increases in decades. Domestic reserves of energy supplies are hitting rock bottom, and everyone in the industry seems extremely anxious about this as temperatures start to drop and demand starts to rise. This also means that U.S. households are vulnerable to experiencing blackouts and shortages at a time they need a reliable source of power the most. The rising costs have been so unbearable for some families that more and more people are getting desperate about the worsening situation, and in some parts of the nation, cases of energy theft are already on the rise. Unfortunately, it’s undeniably clear now that the energy crisis that has been impacting numerous countries across the world over the past year has finally descended upon America, and its repercussions are going to be devastating for all of us.

With inflation running at 8.2% year-over-year, the jump in energy prices for both businesses and homes was more than double the official inflation rate. Yahoo Finances reports that during the first two quarters of the year, Americans were already spending 21% on energy compared to a year prior. The latest data shows another shock. In September, nat gas bills jumped 33%. While these bills are often confusing and filled with a barrage of surcharges and taxes, such as gas recovery and distribution charges as well as taxes, the dramatic increase in electricity bills has been hard for consumers to miss.

The outlook for the next couple of months is quite disturbing, too. The National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA) estimates the average family will pay more than $1,300 to heat their home this winter, a very notable sum considering that nearly 40% of families are already feeling financially strapped, according to a new NPR poll. Needless to say, the months ahead are going to further stretch the budgets of millions of U.S. households who are already being economically destroyed by the recession that’s unfolding before our very eyes.

Earlier this month, prices of natural gas, which account for 40% of the nation’s power generation, were trading about 94% higher than at the start of the year and 370% higher than the 2020 lows. As a result, power generation units at utilities will be even more expensive to operate, and operators will be forced to pass along costs to end users, something that’s worrying everyone in the industry."The rise in home energy costs this winter will put millions of lower-income families at risk of falling behind on their energy bills and having no choice but to make difficult decisions between paying for food, medicine, and rent," said Mark Wolfe, executive director of NEADA.

A winter of discontent and financial chaos is coming for us. The truth is that the greatest energy crisis of our lifetime will continue to accelerate and set the stage for the kind of historic meltdown of catastrophic proportions we’ve been warned about all along. There is no light at the end of the tunnel right now, and it’s safe to say that our leaders are just now realizing the proportions of the mess they’ve caused."

"You Will Be Challenged, Prepare Now; Banks Are Robbing You Every Day; Consumer Has Collapsed"

Jeremiah Babe, 10/17/22:
"You Will Be Challenged, Prepare Now; 
Banks Are Robbing You Every Day; Consumer Has Collapsed"
Comments here:

"Situation Update, Oct 17, 2022 - Russian 2nd Wave Attack On Ukraine Just Days Away As China Readies Economic Retaliation Against America"

"Situation Update, Oct 17, 2022:
Russian 2nd Wave Attack On Ukraine Just Days Away 
As China Readies Economic Retaliation Against America"
by Natural News

"With 300,000 troops mobilized and a reported 70,000 Belarusian troops ready to join the fight, Russia is staging tanks, personnel and even Mig-31 fighter jets in Belarus in what appears to be preparation for a 2nd wave assault against Ukraine. Adding to the clues about an imminent attack, China has issued an urgent warning for all its citizens to evacuate Ukraine. It also looks like China may be cooperating with Russia to jointly attack the West in a two-front war."
Get the full details in today's feature article and podcast here:

"The Times They Are a-Changin’"

"The Times They Are a-Changin’"
by Addison Wiggin

"This week on TWS: My good friend, James Howard Kunstler. Jim is a prolific author of both fiction and non-fiction books, a fellow bootleg podcaster and a serial blogger. He was a former writer at Rolling Stone Magazine. His 2008 novel, "World Made By Hand", was the first in a series of fiction novels imagining an American future post-oil.

His latest book is titled: "Living in the Long Emergency: Global Crisis, the Failure of the Futurists, and the Early Adapters Who Are Showing Us the Way Forward." All of his work is hosted on his website: Clusterf*ck Nation. In this Session we jammed about…

Jim’s book “The Long Emergency” juxtaposed against Superabundance, by our guest last week, Gale Pooley. Peak-oil versus “superabundance”; “mitigators” vs “early adapters”.

“Mass Formation Psychosis” – or what Jim likes to call “mind-f**kery” – and how it pertains to today’s crises... COVID lockdowns… Ukraine and the threat of nuclear war… broken supply chains… inflation… and the crumbling stock market.

We also discuss the de-industrialization of the Western World by the World Economic Forum… and our political and corporate leaders’ “techno-narcissism”! You can watch the full Session here:
Full screen recommended.
Follow your bliss,"

"The All-Important Doorman"

"The All-Important Doorman"
by Jeff Thomas

"Picture this: A tribal leader from a distant country visits the US. He’s brought to a large apartment building in New York City. When he gets out of the car, he looks up at the great building and is quite impressed. A uniformed doorman exits the foyer and comes out on the sidewalk. The tribesman sees the gold braiding and brass buttons of his coat and immediately decides that this is a very important person. Again he looks up at the building and says to the doorman, "This is a very great home you have. You must be very important indeed."

Of course, if we were present, we might chuckle at the tribesman’s naiveté. The owners of such a great building would never greet people at the entrance. They leave such trivial tasks to hired servants, whilst they run the real business without ever needing any direct contact with visitors as they enter the building. And, in addition, doormen come and go – they are, after all, disposable. The owners – those who control what happens in the building – retain their positions over the long term… and may remain anonymous, if they so choose.

We find this simple concept easy enough to understand, and yet we chronically have difficulty in understanding that, in most countries, the president, or prime minister, is not by any means the man who makes the big decisions in the running of the country. We assume that, because we were allowed to vote for our leader, he must actually be our leader. But, as Mark Twain has at times been credited as saying, "If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it."

Similarly, the man whose family took over the financing of Europe, Meyer Rothschild, said, "Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation and I care not who makes its laws." His family has been calling the shots for centuries, but like the owners of the apartment building, they keep a low profile. Remarkably, most people will nod their heads at the above quotes, yet somehow still imagine their elected leader to be in charge.

Most anyone will accept that the voting system in their country has been corrupted in one way or another and it’s even more likely that they’ll acknowledge that the central banks control the flow of money. Yet, they persist in believing that, even if elections are financed by the big banks, the military industrial complex, Big Pharma, etc., somehow, those who are elected remain loyal to the voters, not to those who paid for their election. And, they imagine these elected members to be running the show. Further, whilst they often acknowledge that the political party that they oppose is bought and paid for, they prefer to think that the one they favor is not.

At this point, both the EU and the US are run by the Deep State. In Europe it’s a bit more obvious, as the EU is a visible, unelected body that holds sway over all of the most significant developments in Europe.

In the US, it’s a bit less obvious, but it’s generally understood that the CIA, FBI and other similar organizations run independently of the president. (He has the power to fire a Director, but does not have the power to eliminate these organizations or change their agenda.) The US is run as a corporatist body – joint rule by big business and the state. The elected members are, like doormen, temporary. They are, of course, highly visible, which they’re intended to be, as they’re meant to distract the public eye away from those who are truly in charge. And, like doormen, they’re disposable. They can be unelected at four-year intervals and the agenda continues as planned. They are, in fact, largely irrelevant to the direction that the country takes.

The president in particular falls into this category. There have been quite a few presidents who rose to that post with little or no previous experience in elected office. Their election is a result of popularity. If they do a better job of creating campaign-promises than their opponents, they emerge as the winners, even if they have no political ties, associations with other legislators, or previous experience in the job. And yet, we somehow assume that those who really pull the strings would spend hundreds of millions of dollars on elections, then tolerate a newly-elected outsider to wash away their investment by actually taking charge.

To be sure, there have been presidents who have bucked the Deep State, but they tend to change their tune rather quickly and get back into line. Those who have refused have sometimes found themselves on the business end of a bullet, although, more recently, the preferred tactic has been to invent accusations of corruption and indecency, then to produce questionable witnesses to discredit the leader. (A leader who has been forced out in disgrace is just as gone as one that’s been assassinated.)

But, almost invariably, the "leader" sees that it’s in his interest to cave in to the Deep State, as, perennially, they hold the real power. Campaign promises are tossed into the dustbin and it’s back to the previous, ongoing agenda. This we’ve witnessed time after time.

Does this mean that the president is only a mouthpiece for the Deep State? Well, no, it’s actually advantageous for him to express his own opinions, ruffle the public’s feathers and push his pet projects. It adds to the distraction that he’s in charge. However, the larger issues – particularly the flow of tax dollars into the pockets of corporations, continue exactly as planned, regardless of who’s in office. Bankers continue to receive absurdly large bailouts when they’ve grossly mismanaged their banks. The military industrial complex continues to enjoy perpetual warfare, so that they can supply armaments to the government for unnecessary conflicts. Big Pharma enjoys legislation that forces people to be vaccinated against their will and accept outrageously high prices for medications that are generally inexpensive to produce.

But, yes, as long as a president remains the spokesman to explain why such policies are not only tolerable, but essential, he may be allowed to occupy the oval office until the voters tire of him. But, if this is true, why do people so quickly and so readily accept the "leader" to actually be unilaterally responsible for every facet of every governmental policy and action?

Well actually, nothing could be easier. It’s human nature to want to put a face to our praise and/or criticism. We can’t muster the same focus if we’re advised that we’re being ruled by a faceless group. We tend to respond more readily and more intensely to a single individual – a face we can conjure up immediately. "People desire certainty," Doug Casey once observed to me, when discussing a related subject, and that’s exactly so. If we’re uncertain during troubled times, we’ll instantly jump at the opportunity to put a single face to the problem, to blame one individual for whatever is troubling us.

This is evidenced by the presentation of photos of Lee Harvey Oswald and Osama bin Laden, mere hours after major events, as the certain culprits. They were immediately accepted, without any question, by a people desperately seeking certainty. Therefore, as soon as one leader is out and another takes his place, we’re able to immediately transfer our devotion or hatred to the replacement.

The concept of providing a single face to the public is one that was understood by George Orwell, who created the character of "Big Brother," who would be on the video screens incessantly, as the face of the government. But, in stating all of the above, it may seem that I’ve portrayed the doorman as insignificant and this is not the case. He does play quite an important role.

He’s absolutely essential, as he, more than any other legislator, creates a suitable distraction from those who really run the show. He’s in front of the microphone, does interviews, is filmed almost on a daily basis, and is constantly credited by the media as being either the saviour or the devil, depending upon which media outlet is providing the portrayal.

And the shakier an economy, and the greater the problems of a country, the more essential it is that the "leader" be visible. After all, when things go badly awry, someone has to serve as the fall guy. When this occurs, he is, of course, disposable. He leaves in disgrace or is voted out and a new puppet is voted in whose loyalty is again to the Deep State, not to the voters. And, most importantly, the real agenda continues, as planned, regardless of whatever new campaign promises got him elected. (This is not at all new. In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt introduced the Emergency Banking Act the day after his inauguration speech, in which he had assured the country that he would not mess with the currency.)

Campaign promises are dumped wholesale; the demeanor of the new leader may change dramatically, and the new leader’s very principles may suddenly evaporate after election day. However, the ongoing agenda does not. Regardless of who’s elected, or what party he professes to represent, we witness a continuation of the previous directions taken by those who truly hold the power.

What’s important to recognize is that, no matter how large the apartment building may be, no matter how impressive the presentation of the doorman may be, he is just that. He is only the front man, and he is disposable. The Deep State runs the show. Their presence is permanent and their agenda is both ongoing and impervious to the whims of the voting public."

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Sea of Dreams"

2002, "Sea of Dreams"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Why is this nebula so complex? When a star like our Sun is dying, it will cast off its outer layers, usually into a simple overall shape. Sometimes this shape is a sphere, sometimes a double lobe, and sometimes a ring or a helix. In the case of planetary nebula NGC 5189, however, besides an overall "Z" shape (the featured image is flipped horizontally and so appears as an "S"), no such simple structure has emerged. 
To help find out why, the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope has observed NGC 5189 in great detail. Previous findings indicated the existence of multiple epochs of material outflow, including a recent one that created a bright but distorted torus running horizontally across image center. Hubble results appear consistent with a hypothesis that the dying star is part of a binary star system with a precessing symmetry axis. NGC 5189 spans about three light years and lies about 3,000 light years away toward the southern constellation of the Fly (Musca)."

"We Plan Our Lives..."

“We plan our lives according to a dream that came to us in our childhood, and we find that life alters our plans. And yet, at the end, from a rare height, we also see that our dream was our fate. It’s just that providence had other ideas as to how we would get there. Destiny plans a different route, or turns the dream around, as if it were a riddle, and fulfills the dream in ways we couldn’t have expected.”
- Ben Okri

"The Long Dark"

"The Long Dark"
by Chris Floyd

"We are in the Long Dark now. Both hope and despair are the enemies of our survival. We must live in the awareness that we might not see the light come back, without ceasing to work - with empathy, anger and knowledge - for its return.

We must be here, in the moment, experiencing its fullness (whatever its horrors or joys), yet be elsewhere, removed from the madness pouring in from every side, the avalanche of degradation. We must be here, now, but also in a future we can’t see or even imagine.

We must see that we are lost, with no clear way forward, no sureties or verities to cling to, no roots to anchor us, no structures within or without that will always keep their coalescence in the chaotic, surging flow.

We must live in discrete moments of illumination and connection, pearls hung on an almost invisible string winding through the darkness. Striving, always striving, but not expecting; striving without hope, without despair, without any certainty at all as to the outcome, good or bad.

These are the conditions of the Long Dark, this is what we have to work with, this is where we find ourselves in the brief time we have in this vast, indifferent, astounding universe. As I once wrote long ago, quoting the old hymn: “Work, for the night is coming.”

So do we counsel fatalism, a dark, defeated surrender, a retreat into bitter, curdled quietude? Not a whit. We advocate action, positive action, unstinting action, doing the only thing that human beings can do, ever: Try this, try that, try something else again; discard those approaches that don't work, that wreak havoc, that breed death and cruelty; fight against everything that would draw us down again into our own mud; expect no quarter, no lasting comfort, no true security; offer no last word, no eternal truth, but just keep stumbling, falling, careening, backsliding, crawling toward the broken light.

And what is this "broken light"? Nothing more than a metaphor for the patches of understanding – awareness, attention, knowledge, connection – that break through our darkness and stupidity for a moment now and then. A light always fractured, under threat, shifting, found then lost again, always lost. For we are creatures steeped in imperfection, in breakage and mutation, tossed up – very briefly – from the boiling, chaotic crucible of Being, itself a ragged work in progress toward unknown ends, or rather, toward no particular end at all. Why should there be an "answer" in such a reality?

What matters is what works – what pulls us from our own darkness as far as possible, for as long as possible. Yet the truth remains that "what works" is always and forever only provisional – what works now, here, might not work there, then. What saves our soul today might make us sick tomorrow.

Thus all we can do is to keep looking, working, trying to clear a little more space for the light, to let it shine on our passions and our confusions, our anger and our hopes, informing and refining them, so that we can see each other better, for a moment – until death shutters all seeing forever."

"This Is Always The Hope..."

“What happens to people living in a society where everyone in power is lying, stealing, cheating and killing, and in our hearts we all know this, but the consequences of facing all these lies are so monstrous, we keep on hoping that maybe the corporate government administration and media are on the level with us this time. Americans remind me of survivors of domestic abuse. This is always the hope that this is the very, very, very last time one’s ribs get re-broken again.”
- Inga Muscio

"You Know..."

"You know, we never see the world exactly as it is. We see it as we hope it will be or we fear it might be. And we spend our lives going through a sort of modified stages of grief about that realization. And we deny it, and then we argue with it, and we despair over it. But eventually, and this is my belief, we come to see it, not as despairing, but as vitalizing. We never see the world exactly as it is because we are how the world is." 
- Maria Popova

Bill Bonner, "Louis 14th Has a Toothache"

"Louis 14th Has a Toothache"
A journey back in time to a poorer,
 less dignified, more painful past...
by Bill Bonner

Baltimore, Maryland - "The markets were on edge last week. Up. Down. Sideways. Mr. Market seemed undecided. Unsure. Was the Fed getting ready to ‘pivot?’ Was the recession going to be ‘softer’ than we expected? He didn’t know. But our guess is that the Fed will stick with its rate cuts a while longer… the recession will be deeper than expected… and stock prices have further to fall before finding the bottom.

In the meantime, we’re on our way south… driving down US 95… unarmed. And we’ll take this occasion to develop an old theme… and introduce a new one. We begin, today, by going back in time.

Louis the 14th was the Sun King. He was an ‘absolute monarch’ whose word was law. He was also at the head of what was the 17th century’s richest and most powerful nation: France. Whatever Louis wanted, he got. But he also got things he didn’t want. Dental caries, for example… and a toothache. Charles Spencer, Princess Diana’s brother, describes it: "In the autumn of 1685, Louis developed an agonizing and persistent toothache, and his doctors decided to extract the offending molar."

They did it without local anaesthesia, neither local nor general. And then, with no antiseptic, and limited understanding of post-operative hygiene, an infection soon set it. It spread to the King’s jawbone and threatened his life. The royal sawbones – the best in France – decided on more surgery. Mr. Spencer continues: "They removed all of the teeth from the top layer of his mouth, then punctured his palate and broke his jaw. This was all completed without anaesthetic; the king was awake throughout the procedure."

When the gruesome ordeal was over the medical team cauterized the wounds by placing red-hot coals in his mouth. His life was spared. But not his dignity. When drinking, liquid would sometimes come out of his nose.

Facts of Life: Antiseptics weren’t widely used until 200 years later, when Joseph Lister began applying what we call ‘phenol’ to wounds. Phenol is derived from petroleum distillates. Anaesthetics weren’t in service until a plethora of experiments – also in the 19th century – with chloroform, ether, cocaine and opium led to both general and local pain killing.

Public buildings in France weren’t centrally heated until the 20th century. The Palace of Versailles didn’t get heat until 1956.

Penicillin came on the scene in 1928 when Alexander Fleming extracted it from a laboratory mold. Root canals were done long before the birth of Christ, but the first modern root canal was performed in 1838. They became routine only in the 20th century, with anaesthetic.

At least Louis 14th ate well. For while Louis’s toothache occupied his attention, in the 1690s – 1.5 million people in the world’s richest nation – starved to death. Then, came another famine in 1709, with another 600,000 dead. Famine – like war and slavery – was a ‘fact of life’ in 17th century.

In famines, people do not necessarily die from starvation. Many are undernourished and weakened by hunger; then, they die of opportunistic diseases. Crops fail from time to time. Drought, heat, cold, too much rain… too little sun... all can cause a bad harvest. Then too, crops and farm animals are subject to common illnesses, blights and epizootics.

Working as hard as they could, families could usually produce enough to live on (or else they wouldn’t have survived) but they could rarely produce a substantial surplus… or save it ‘for a rainy day.’And even when they could produce more, food was hard to keep. Fruits and vegetables rotted. Grains were eaten by mice and birds. “Food security” as it is called today, was rare.

I, Breakfast: Throughout the middle ages, and up to the 18th century, there was a major famine almost every 10 to 20 years. Some of them were terrifyingly lethal. The great famine of 1315 killed some 7 million people… or about 1 out of every 13 Europeans. Even as late as the 1840s, the Irish famine killed more than a million – or nearly a quarter of the population. But by the middle of the 19th century, there were few famines in Europe.

The last major famine in France occurred in the years just before the French Revolution. Possibly caused by a volcanic eruption in Iceland, the French went hungry in 1787 and 1788. By 1789, they were ready for a change. Soon, they were cutting off heads by the thousands.

Over the years, the number of people who starve to death has dropped dramatically. Modern, civilized countries suffer more from obesity than from hunger. Food is cheap. Plentiful. And extremely varied. A person in Baltimore can sit down for breakfast and enjoy a bowl of muesli with nuts from California… quinoa from Bolivia… other grains from Iowa and South Dakota… dried raisins from Chile and cashews from Brazil. If he wishes to put in some fresh fruit, he will have no trouble cutting up a banana from the Philippines, blueberries from New Jersey, or strawberries from Florida.

What accounts for this dramatic abundance? Why did the number of starvation victims decline? While deaths from starvation have decreased, so have the number of victims from other natural disasters. Though there are far more people on planet earth than ever before, fewer and fewer of them succumb to nature’s torments.

Convenient Untruths: One of the myths from our last hurricane season is that storms are getting worse… and ‘climate disasters’ are becoming more frequent. When Hurricane Ian struck the west coast of Florida earlier this month, for example, the press was quick to point the finger: at climate change. The Financial Times reported that “hurricane frequency is on the rise.” The New York Times added that “storms are becoming more common in the Atlantic.” The Washington Post got the same memo; “climate change is rapidly fueling super hurricanes,” it told readers.

And then the president himself, Joe Biden, added: "I think the one thing this has finally ended is a discussion about whether or not there’s climate change, and [that] we should do something about it.”

But none of it was true. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had already studied the issue and concluded that “there is essentially no long-term trend in hurricane counts.” Nor were hurricanes becoming more intense or more dangerous. “We conclude that the data do not provide compelling evidence” the NOAA wrapped up, for neither more storms nor fiercer storms. If the storms were doing more damage, it was only because there was now more development on the Florida coast to do more damage to.

The reporters must have known the truth. You’d think someone would have clued in the president too. But they chose to ignore the facts in favor of the approved fantasy.

An Embarrassment of Riches: In the 1950s, when we were 8 years old, a snow storm closed the roads of Maryland for a full week. We walked for miles to the closest store to get supplies, pulling a sled behind us. Today, the roads are cleared quickly.

In general, people suffer much less from nature than they used to. When they get a toothache, they go to the dentist and have a fairly painless remedy. When it is cold, they have central heating. When it is hot, they turn on the AC. When the wind blows, they stay in their well-built houses, safe and sound. When it snows, they load up on food and toilet paper… and then drive around in 4-wheel -drive automobiles, waiting for trucks to clear the roads. Even floods are much less dangerous. Usually, the warnings come out hours… days… or weeks in advance. People are given plenty of time to get out of harm’s way… or ‘ride out the storm’ in a protected space.

What accounts for these changes? Nature has not changed much. She still has her tempers and her tantrums. But now they are much less lethal. Few people die, from cold, from heat, from tidal waves, from floods, or from wind. Whatever Mother Nature throws at us, we humans are generally able to cope with it fairly well.

In the very old days, nature was always a threat. Humans were hunters… and also prey. But today, few people are killed by wild beasts. Even tiny beasts – viruses, bacteria, and fungi – are no longer anywhere near as dangerous as they used to be. The Black Death in the 14th century killed an estimated one out of every 4 people in Europe. Then, in the summer of 1665, the Great Plague of London killed 15% of the population of the city. But during the Covid Crisis of 2020, the world’s population actually went up. Fewer than 1 person out of every 10,000 died, and he was usually over the average age of death anyway.

What made the difference? Tune in tomorrow."

The Daily "Near You?"

Ellijay, Georgia, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"How Did We Get Here?"

"How Did We Get Here?"
by John Wilder

“Dividing and mutating at the same time?”
– "The Andromeda Strain"

"I think it’s fair to look around and ask a very simple question: How did we get here?

Certainly, the United States is in a heck of a mess in almost any way one can look at it. When it comes to cohesion, half of the country is like dad sitting on his easy chair after a hard day working at the PEZ® mines. The other half just wants to pester him because he doesn’t care enough about The Current Thing. They have been careful to not make dad put the paper down. Yet. Because that’s when the spanking hand comes out.

The ability of our economy to manufacture critical goods has been outsourced around the world, because, let’s face it, no one is better at sewing up a soccer ball than an 8-year-old Pakistani kid. And if we took the time to teach them and spent the money to build the factories, no one is better at making iPhones™ than Chinese women who are locked in those factories who have to put up nets to keep people from actually killing themselves when they try to jump off that same factory roof. I think the Chinese even charge the women an “amusement park ride fee” when they jump.

So, how did we get here? The United States has always had an ornery streak. I think Andrew Jackson would have happily had every single central banker in the United States executed – of course, the central bankers retaliated by putting his face on the $20 bill, but I assure you they waited until they were certain he was dead.

How, then, do you take a country that has divided in a massive War Between The States, been brought back (mostly) together, and divide the nation again? In many ways the three items I’ll bring up are intertwined and feed off of each other, but I’ll take each one in turn.

Propaganda. The first part is to skew the definition of America. America was a nation even up into the 1960s, where most (85%-90%) of people had a common ancestry in northwestern Europe, with Great Britain having the largest contribution. Scots may have had problems with the Irish, and the Irish with the English, they might have been neutral about the Swiss, and all of them might have been irritated by the French and Germans, but the common bounds of country and culture were there.

What changed? The idea that if you came to America, it would be expected that you would assimilate to America. Sure, your name might have been Giuseppe, but your grandkid’s name might be Colin, or Brandon, or Brayden. You left that old world behind and consciously gave it up for the new culture. The American culture.

The first lie is the lie that there is no American culture. I can understand that from the point of view of most of the world. How would a fish know about water when he’s swimming in it? American culture (with due credit to Great Britain for kickstarting it) became the most pervasive in the world, spinning off ideas and music and clothes and food at an amazing rate.

Now, of course, propaganda would tell us that we have no culture, and it is evil for us to expect people who come to our country to learn our language, and respect our culture first. No, that’s inverted. It does no good to a person who would divide a country for that to happen. Instead? It’s evil to ask people to learn English. If they kill chickens to sacrifice to Gorbo and marry off their eight-year-old kids to 32-year-old first cousins? We are expected to celebrate that.

No. That’s an inversion. They came here. If they can’t assimilate into American culture and American norms? Out. And take the chickens.

Other ways that propaganda has hurt America are numerous, probably enough for a book. One that’s still hurting us is the idea that nuclear power is evil. It isn’t. It’s funny that all the Green® power seems to be either more polluting or require those 8-year-old kids in Pakistan to learn how to mine lithium rather than sew up soccer balls to make batteries for cars fueled on pure Hopium. No, if you don’t like oil and gas, the only real solution is either condemning the country to an unending abject poverty or to build nuclear power plants.

The warfare culture post 9/11 has also been difficult. What, exactly, were we doing in Afghanistan after Osama Bin Laden assumed ocean temperature? Don’t know. Why did we go into Iraq? Don’t know. Why did we overthrow governments in Libya, Syria, and Ukraine?

Don’t know. But the propaganda that accompanied all of those divided the country, though it’s not nearly as bad as the race grievance industry that’s been in full tilt in the last two decades – but I’ll save that for a future post.

Pathological Altruism. If I have a puppy, and it piddles on the floor and everyone laughs and it’s cute, well, when it’s a big dog no one laughs. Then the dog wonders why I’m beating it for something I was laughing about. No one wants to be the bad guy and say, “No, you have to be punished for your actions so you won’t do it again.” Everyone wants to give people another chance.

A friend of mine had his house broken into. They were able to catch the criminals, and he attended the trial. Result of them stealing thousands and thousands of dollars of his property? A suspended sentence for one guy (who had multiple prior felony convictions) and two years for the other. What message, exactly, is that sending?

The Hart-Cellar Immigration Reform Act of 1965 (plus the amnesties that have followed and will follow) are horrifying in their pathological altruism and use of propaganda. The composition of the country has changed - it's no longer a nation. Where once there was a central culture, now every viewpoint is expected to be equally valid, and (I’m not making this up) the incoming medical school class pledged to honor “all indigenous ways of healing that have been historically marginalized by western medicine.”

Let’s go kill some chickens, because that will get rid of the gunshot wound. Oh, right, don’t forget the Ouija® board.

Corruption. The United States has always been corrupt, let’s get that out first. But the beauty of the corruption early on is that, mostly, it was limited because the scope of the Federal government was limited. Sure, Sheriff Smith over in Mount Pilot would take bribes, but he’d eventually be caught. And did several members of the state legislature take bribes to get the “right” senator into office?

Sure. That happened, too. Three events ushered in eras of nearly unfettered power for the Federal government: the Civil War, the 16th and 17th Amendments, and the New Deal. The Civil War ended the idea that the Several States were sovereign – they became mere political subdivisions of the United States. The 16th and This level of corruption concentrated power at the Federal level and made the farces we see today where people who are on the Right receive massive sentences at the Federal level for minor crimes, but people on the Left are not even indicted, and almost anyone who has power has a free pass for anything but killing someone on-screen at halftime during the Superbowl™, and that only counts as a delay of game penalty.

Amendments made it possible to tax and ended the appointment of Senators. Now, Senators became Representatives with six-year terms, rather than appointed representatives of the Several States – a huge difference.

I originally had more items here, but had to delete them because otherwise this could become a book. I’m certain, though, that the top three cover it well enough for now. I do think that America is getting ready to get out of the easy chair. And the spanking hand is getting ready. "

"Shopping At Walgreens! Crazy High Prices! This Is Ridiculous!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 10/17/22:
"Shopping At Walgreens!
 Crazy High Prices! This Is Ridiculous!"
"In today's vlog we are at Walgreens, and are noticing very high prices! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and find ways to save money! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
Comments here:

"This Is The New Normal"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 10/17/22:
"This Is The New Normal"
"Experts from several different banks are telling us that we need to get ready for a prolonged inflationary spike and interest rates to explode. Business will never be the same because we are in a recession right now and this will turn into a depression."
Comments here:

Gregory Mannarino, "Factory Activity Craters As Economic Freefall Worsens"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 10/17/22:
"Factory Activity Craters As Economic Freefall Worsens"
Comments here:

"Has Our Luck Finally Run Out?"

"Has Our Luck Finally Run Out?"
by Charles Hugh-Smith

"Long-term cycles escape our notice because they play out over many years or even decades; few noticed the decreasing rainfall in the Mediterranean region in 150 A.D. but this gradual decline in rainfall slowly but surely reduced the grain harvests of the Roman Empire, which coupled with rising populations resulted in a reduced caloric intake for many people. This weakened their immune systems in subtle ways, leaving them more vulnerable to the Antonine Plague of 165 AD. The decline of temperatures in Northern Europe in the early 1300s led to “years without summer” and failed grain harvests which reduced the caloric intake of most people, leaving them weakened and more vulnerable to the Black Plague which swept Europe in 1347.

I’ve mentioned the book "The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire" a number of times as a source for understanding the impact of natural cycles on human civilization. It’s important to note that the natural cycles and pandemics of 200 AD didn’t just cripple the Roman Empire; this same era saw the collapse of the mighty Parthian Empire of Persia, the kingdoms of India and the Han Dynasty in China.

In addition to natural cycles, there are human socio-economic cycles of debt and decay of civic values and the social contract: a proliferation of parasitic elites, a weakening of state finances and a decline in the purchasing power of wages/labor. The rising dependence on debt and its eventual collapse is a cycle noted by Kondratieff and others, and Peter Turchin listed these three dynamics as the key drivers of decisive discord of the kind that brings down empires and nations. All three are playing out globally in the present.

In this context, the election of Donald Trump in 2016 was a political expression of long-brewing discontent with precisely these issues: the rise of self-serving parasitic elites, the decay/corruption of the social contract and state finances and the decades-long decline in the purchasing power of wages/labor.

Which brings us to karma, a topic of some confusion in Western cultures more familiar with Divine Retribution than with actions having consequences even without Divine Intervention, which is the essence of karma. Broadly speaking, the U.S. squandered the opportunities presented by the end of the Cold War 30 years ago on hubristic Exceptionalism, wars of choice, parasitic elites and an unprecedented waste of resources on unproductive consumption.

Now the plan – for lack of any real plan – is to borrow trillions of dollars to fund an even more spectacular orgy of unproductive consumption, on the bizarre belief that “money” can be conjured out of thin air in essentially infinite quantities and squandered, and there will magically be no consequences of this trickery in the real world.

Actions have consequences, and after 30 years of waste, fraud and corruption being normalized by the parasitic elites while the purchasing power of labor decayed, the karmic consequences can no longer be delayed by doing more of what’s hollowed out the economy and society.

Which brings us to luck. As a general rule, historians seek explanations which leave luck out of the equation. This gives us a false confidence in the predictability and power of human will and action and cycles. Yes, cycles and human action influence outcomes, but we do a great disservice by shunting luck into the shadows as a non-factor.

If Emperor Pius had chosen someone other than Marcus Aurelius as his successor, someone weak, vain and self-absorbed like so many of Rome’s late-stage emperors, then Rome would have fallen by 170 AD as the Antonine Plague crippled finances and the army, and the invading hordes would have swept the empire into the dustbin of history. It can be argued that only Marcus Aurelius had the experience and character to sell off the Imperial treasure to raise the money needed to pay the soldiers and spend virtually his entire term in power in the front lines of battle, preserving Rome from complete collapse. That was good judgement by Pius but also good luck.

As we ponder luck, consider the estimate that had the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago struck the Earth 30 minutes earlier or later, it would not have generated the Nuclear Winter that destroyed the dinosaurs. (A direct hit in deep water would have spawned a monstrous tsunami, but no dust cloud. A direct hit on land would have raised a dust cloud but without the water vapor/steam generated by the vaporization of millions of gallons of sea water, the cloud wouldn’t have risen high enough to encircle the planet.) That was bad luck for the dinosaurs, and good luck for the mammals who replaced them.

The global economy has been extraordinarily lucky for 75 years. Food and energy have been cheap and abundant. (If you think food and energy are expensive now, think about prices doubling or tripling, and then doubling again.)

In our complacency and hubris, we attribute this to our wonderful technologies, which we assume guarantee us permanent surpluses of energy and food. The idea that technology has reached hard limits or that it could fail doesn’t occur to us. We’ve taken good luck to be our birthright because it’s all we’ve known. We attribute this good fortune to things within our control – technology, wise investments and policies, etc. The possibility that all these powers that we consider so godlike are insignificant doesn’t occur to us because we’ve enjoyed the favorable winds of luck without even being aware of it.

We are woefully unprepared for a long run of bad luck. My sense is the cycles have turned and the good luck has drained from the hour-glass. Energy and food will no longer be cheap and abundant, our luck in leadership will vanish, and our vaunted technologies will fail to maintain an abundance so vast that we can squander the finite wealth of soil, water, resources and energy on mindless consumption.

I’m reminded of a line from an Albert King song, "Born Under a Bad Sign" (composed by Booker T. Jones and William Bell): “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all.” The next five years might have us singing this line with feeling."
Albert King, "Born Under a Bad Sign"