"Grocery shortages are becoming one of the most immediate concerns for consumers all across the nation. The rate of product stock-outs has continued to grow throughout the entire year, but a confluence of factors is making supplies even tighter during this final stretch of 2022 and into the winter. Food manufacturers are dealing with a lot of pressure to ramp up production to meet the growing demand, but many of these producers are facing challenges that do not allow them to do so at such short notice.
“Aluminum availability is still a concern. It may be more difficult to find those canned, ready-to-eat items on store shelves," said Oklahoma State University food economist Rodney Holcomb. Since the final quarter of 2021, a global shortage of aluminum has been impacting the U.S. manufacturing sector and resulting in a reduced supply of products like tomato paste, canned vegetables, beverages, teas, and soda. The canned goods you may still find are also likely to be far more expensive. "Aluminum prices have increased considerably over the course of this year, increasing over 40% since January and almost 9% in the past month," explained Jayson L. Lusk, a distinguished professor and head of the department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University. That's why the best and cheapest option is always to buy glass jars and sturdy lids to do the canning yourself at home.
Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Dr. Pepper, and Charmin are just a few of the brands reporting shortages and cutbacks on the production of some flavors to maintain supplies of their best-selling items. The carbon dioxide shortage and the squeezed supply of aluminum cans hit the supply of carbonated drinks particularly hard. Now we have fewer options available at the stores and we're seeing prices go through the roof. According to IRI, store stocks of carbonated drinks dropped by 15% in the third quarter, which represents a shortfall of 12 million cans and bottles of soft drinks.
On top of that, crop failures have been widespread this year, affecting a whole host of product categories at the stores. A lack of labor is also one of the reasons why we're still seeing so many empty shelves. According to Jim Dudlicek, a representative for the National Grocers Association, "there simply aren’t enough people to make the goods, move the goods and sell the goods." He also noted that supply is being affected by more people cooking and eating at home, especially now that the rising prices of restaurant menus are out of the reach of many financially-strained Americans. Demand remains very high, that's why we're having trouble finding grocery staples and some of our favorite products at our local supermarkets.
If there is something that you want to get your hands on, go out there and buy it while you still can because, given the pace at which things are disappearing from our stores, tomorrow it might be too late. Stockpile with conscience and kindness because your neighbor needs supplies to feed their family, too. This crisis is much more complex than it looks, and stocks will remain dramatically lower at the stores for quite some time. In 2023, a perfect storm of events may lead us to a far more nightmarish supply chain crisis than the one we saw in 2020, so we must be prepared for the worst."
"104 years ago today - at the 11th month, 11th day and 11th hour - the guns went quiet on the Western Front…And the white doves of peace took wing. Today we turn from the hurly-burly of the present. We turn from the world of manna, from the election, from the Bitcoin exchanges and the rest. Instead we reflect upon that morning of Nov. 11, 1918, so many years distant - a neglected chapter of history.
It is a tale of waste. It is a tale of tragedy. It is a tale of ambition. That is, it is a tale all too human...By 5 a.m. on Nov. 11, official word came down. Hostilities would cease at 11 a.m. The news went immediately fanning out across the Western Front. It would ultimately reach the remotest switch trench. The long, homicidal nightmare, beginning in August 1914, was ending - to the relief of all. More accurately, to the relief of most…
Not all were so eager to spike the guns and lay down the rifles that morning. Who were these recalcitrants? And why their reluctance? Historian Joseph Persico: "Allied commanders wanted to punish the enemy to the very last moment, and career officers saw a fast-fading chance for glory and promotion. Gen. John “Black Jack” Pershing, boss of American forces— for example - considered the armistice terms far too lenient. He was hot to teach the hell-sent Hun “a lesson.”
Thus Black Jack and his glory dogs reached for their lesson planners, grabbed the chalk and took to the blackboard…They chose to invade German positions that morning — clear through to 11. Not until the referee blew the whistle would they call a halt. One divisional commander promised court-martial for any artillery chief who hadn’t emptied out his entire magazine by 11.
They were claw-mad for battle. Near 8 a.m. the furious assaults commenced…American forces took a severe trouncing crossing the River Meuse that morning - a river they could have conquered unmolested had they only waited until 11.
Meantime, men of the 89th Division were ordered to seize the pinprick village of Stenay. Why? So the men could bathe. That is correct - so the men could bathe. The village housed public bathing facilities. And the 89th’s senior officer decided his grimy men should take the waters of the charming French village. You may not believe it. Yet that was the explanation on offer.
The attack commenced. Perplexed and disbelieving German gunners attempted to wave off the marauding Americans: “Der Krieg ist vorbei!”
But the men of the 89th steeled their nerves, lowered their chins and advanced, as if proceeding into sheets of hail…The reluctant Germans responded as they must. The war ended three hours later. Yet 61 men of the 89th would not see it. Another 304 would take their baths in a hospital… where they licked their needless wounds.
We hazard all 365 would have happily waited until 11:01 that morning — when the baths would have been theirs for the asking. In all: At least 320 Americans fell dead that needless and crimson morning of Nov. 11, 1918. More than 3,240 suffered grievous wounds.
Why the needless bloodspilling… when peace was but hours away? Careers hung in balance. As did ambition…Recall the divisional chieftain who condemned 61 of his men to the grave that morning so that others might bathe - a certain William Mason Wright. This human gem received promotion to Executive Assistant to the Chief of Staff of the Army after war’s end. He could claim the distinction, after all, of capturing the final American objective of the war.
A less gaudy distinction fell to a young man under this man’s command that morning of Nov. 11, 1918. We refer here to Sgt. Henry Gunther, aged 23 years, of our former city of Baltimore. This poor fellow was the last allied fatality of that fateful morning - and of the Great War itself. His time of death: 10:59 a.m.
The United States Army was so decent as to decorate Sgt. Gunther for “exceptional bravery and heroic action that resulted in his death one minute before the Armistice.” Yet true decency would demand a formal apology from the same United States Army. True decency would demand a formal apology, that is, for ordering Baltimore’s Sgt. Henry N. Gunther, aged 23 years, needlessly into battle that morning… True decency would demand a formal apology, that is, for placing this man’s life beneath the career ambitions of a Gen. Wright - the subsequent Executive Assistant to the Chief of Staff of the Army.
You deserved far better, Sgt.Gunther. You deserved a chance in life… the chance denied you that morning of Nov. 11, 1918…One minute before the doves flew."
"For the first time in what feels like forever, rent prices are actually going down! While housing costs are still far greater than what they were pre-pandemic, this might be the first time in a long while that the landlord market has shifted to being a renter’s market. Meaning that landlords are actively seeking out renters through sales, schemes, and such.
It feels a little too good to be true, right? Well, you might be right to be skeptical, because some analysts believe it won’t last for too long. Has the housing market crashed? What’s the cost of renting an apartment in metropolitans? And why aren’t analysts more enthusiastic? Let’s find out!"
“What's happening behind those houses? Pictured here are not auroras but nearby light pillars, a nearby phenomenon that can appear as a distant one.
In most places on Earth, a lucky viewer can see a Sun-pillar, a column of light appearing to extend up from the Sun caused by flat fluttering ice-crystals reflecting sunlight from the upper atmosphere. Usually these ice crystals evaporate before reaching the ground. During freezing temperatures, however, flat fluttering ice crystals may form near the ground in a form of light snow, sometimes known as a crystal fog. These ice crystals may then reflect ground lights in columns not unlike a Sun-pillar. The featured image was taken in Fort Wainwright near Fairbanks in central Alaska.”
"That life. This life. It looks as if you can have both. I mean, they're both right there, one on top of the other, and it looks as if they'll blend. But they never will. So, you take this thing. You take this thing you want, and you put it in a box and you close the lid. You can let your fingers trace the cracks, the places where the light gets in, the dark gets out, but the lid stays on. You don't look inside. You don't look at this thing you want so much, because you Can. Not. Have. It. So there's this box, you know, with the thing inside, and you could throw it away or shoot it into space; you could set it on fire and watch it burn to ashes, but really, none of that would make a difference, because you cannot destroy what you want. It only makes you want it more. So. You take this thing you want and you put it in a box and you close the lid. And you hold the box close to your heart, which is where it wants to go, and you pretend it doesn't kill you every time you feel yourself breathe."
"In 1880, Theodore Roosevelt wrote to his brother, “My happiness is so great that it makes me almost afraid.” In October of that year, life got even better. As he wrote in his diary the night of his wedding to Alice Hathaway Lee, “Our intense happiness is too sacred to be written about.” He would consider it to be one of the best years of his life: he got married, wrote a book, attended law school, and won his first election for public office.
The streak continued. In 1883, he wrote “I can imagine nothing more happy in life than an evening spent in the cozy little sitting room, before a bright fire of soft coal, my books all around me, and playing backgammon with my own dainty mistress.” And that’s how he and Alice spent that cold winter as it crawled into the new year. He wrote in late January that he felt he was fully coming into his own. “I feel now as though I have the reins in my hand.” On February 12th, 1884 his first daughter was born.
Two days later, his wife would be dead of Bright’s disease (now known as kidney failure). His mother had died only hours earlier in the same house, of typhoid fever. Roosevelt marked the day in his diary with a large “X.” Next to it, he wrote, “The light has gone out of my life.”
As they say, life comes at you fast. Have the last 12 months not been an example of that? In December of 2019, the Dow was at 28,701.66. Things were good enough that people were complaining about the “war on Christmas” and debating the skin color of Santa Claus. In January, the Dow was at 29,348.10 and people were outraged about the recent Oscar nominations. In February 2020, when the Dow reached a staggering 29,568.57, Delta Airlines stock fell nearly 25% in less than a week, as people argued intensely over a message from Delta’s CEO about passengers reclining their seats. Even in early March, there were news stories about Wendy’s entering the “breakfast wars” and a free stock-trading app outage that caused people to miss a big market rally.
And that was just in the news. Think about what you busied yourself with at home during that same period. Maybe you and your wife were looking at plans to remodel your kitchen. Maybe you were finally going to pull the trigger on that Tesla Model S for yourself - the $150,000 one, with the ludicrous speed package. Maybe you were fuming that Amazon took an extra day to deliver a package. Maybe you were frustrated that your kid’s room was a mess. And now? How quaint and stupid does that all seem? The global economy has essentially ground to a halt.
Life comes at us fast, don’t it? It can change in an instant. Everything you built, everyone you hold dear, can be taken from you. For absolutely no reason. Just as easily, you can be taken from them. This is why the Stoics say we need to be prepared, constantly, for the twists and turns of Fortune. It’s why Seneca said that nothing happens to the wise man contrary to his expectation, because the wise man has considered every possibility-even the cruel and heartbreaking ones.
And yet even Seneca was blindsided by a health scare in his early twenties that forced him to spend nearly a decade in Egypt to recover. He lost his father less than a year before he lost his first-born son, and twenty days after burying his son he was exiled by the emperor Caligula. He lived through the destruction of one city by a fire and another by an earthquake, before being exiled two more times.
One needs only to read his letters and essays, written on a rock off the coast of Italy, to get a sense that even a philosopher can get knocked on their ass and feel sorry for themselves from time to time.
What do we do? Well, first, knowing that life comes at us fast, we should be always prepared. Seneca wrote that the fighter who has “seen his own blood, who has felt his teeth rattle beneath his opponent’s fist… who has been downed in body but not in spirit…” - only they can go into the ring confident of their chances of winning. They know they can take getting bloodied and bruised. They know what the darkness before the proverbial dawn feels like. They have a true and accurate sense for the rhythms of a fight and what winning requires. That sense only comes from getting knocked around. That sense is only possible because of their training.
In his own life, Seneca bloodied and bruised himself through a practice called premeditatio malorum (“the premeditation of evils”). Rehearsing his plans, say to take a trip, he would go over the things that could go wrong or prevent the trip from happening - a storm could spring up, the captain could fall ill, the ship could be attacked by pirates, he could be banished to the island of Corsica the morning of the trip. By doing what he called a premeditatio malorum, Seneca was always prepared for disruption and always working that disruption into his plans. He was fitted for defeat or victory. He stepped into the ring confident he could take any blow. Nothing happened contrary to his expectations.
Second, we should always be careful not to tempt fate. In 2016 General Michael Flynn stood on the stage at the Republican National Convention and led some 20,000 people (and a good many more at home) in an impromptu chant of “Lock Her Up! Lock Her Up!” about his enemy Hillary Clinton. When Trump won, he was swept into office in a whirlwind of success and power. Then, just 24 days into his new job, Flynn was fired for lying to the Vice President about conversations he’d had with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States. He would be brought up on charges and convicted of lying to the FBI, and eventually pardoned by President Trump.
Life comes at us fast… but that doesn’t mean we should be stupid. We also shouldn’t be arrogant.
Third, we have to hang on. Remember, that in the depths of both of Seneca’s darkest moments, he was unexpectedly saved. From exile, he was suddenly recalled to be the emperor’s tutor. In the words of the historian Richard M. Gummere, “Fortune, whom Seneca as a Stoic often ridicules, came to his rescue.” But Churchill, as always, put it better: “Sometimes when Fortune scowls most spitefully, she is preparing her most dazzling gifts.”
Life is like this. It gives us bad breaks - heartbreakingly bad breaks - and it also gives us incredible lucky breaks. Sometimes the ball that should have gone in, bounces out. Sometimes the ball that had no business going in surprises both the athlete and the crowd when it eventually, after several bounces, somehow manages to pass through the net.
When we’re going through a bad break, we should never forget Fortune’s power to redeem us. When we’re walking through the roses, we should never forget how easily the thorns can tear us upon, how quickly we can be humbled. Sometimes life goes your way, sometimes it doesn’t.
This is what Theodore Roosevelt learned, too. Despite what he wrote in his diary that day in 1884, the light did not completely go out of Roosevelt’s life. Sure, it flickered. It looked like the flame might have been cruelly extinguished. But with time and incredible energy and force of will, he came back from those tragedies. He became a great father, a great husband, and a great leader. He came back and the world was better for it. He was better for it.
Life comes at us fast. Today. Tomorrow. When we least expect it. Be ready. Be strong. Don’t let your light be snuffed out."
"Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love. "
"The stock market can do anything at once because it doesn’t reflect reality. People are going through a very difficult time right now. Companies are laying people off and people are not buying anything. People are tapped out."
"In today's vlog we are at Sam's Club, and are stocking up. We take you shopping with us so we can show you what products are coming in, and what's not. With food prices on the rise again we have to save money any way we can!"
One by one, the pillars of American wealth begin to wobble and give way...
by Bill Bonner
Baltimore, Maryland - "Wow…Wall Street popped up yesterday after the latest inflation number came in at 7.7%...only 50 little basis points below the last inflation reading. But watch out. Mr. Market is a trickster. During a long bull market – say, from 1982 to 2021 – his occasional sell-offs shook out investors. Later, they had to buy back in at higher prices. Those that did best were those that just stuck with the program, ignoring the sell-offs.
And now that the buy-and-hold lesson has been learned, the primary trend seems to be going in the other direction. Mr. Market lures investors into the falling market with occasional rallies. They ‘buy the f*ing dip’ and then Mr. Market takes prices down again. Then, they lose even more money.
But our focus today is not on the ups and downs of the stock market. Yes, the current downturn hits 401ks, pension funds, and family portfolios. But it is just a part of something bigger – a Middle Class Massacre.
CNBC: "Dow pops 1,200 points, S&P 500 jumps 5% in biggest rally in two years after light inflation report. Stocks mounted their biggest rally since 2020 after October’s reading of consumer prices raised investor hopes that inflation has peaked."
Falling inflation readings will give the Fed reason to ‘pause’ on its drive to normalcy – or, so investors believe. Perhaps they’re right; if inflation keeps falling, as it might, the Fed will let down its guard…and ease off. Then again, it may not. But investors are a pollyannish lot, at least for now. And with no recent memory of a prolonged bear market, it will take a number of disappointments to squeeze the ‘buy-the-f*ing-dip’ reflex out of them. In the meantime…
Doomed Dow: Stocks and bonds still aren’t cheap. Nor are the Chinese still turning millions of peasants into cheap factory labor. Nor is the oil and gas industry adding new, cheap sources of energy. And by the way, real interest rates are still at record lows, with a long way to go before they come close to ‘normal.’
We elaborate: With a Fed Funds rate of 4% and a CPI of 7.7%, the Fed is still lending money at more than 3 percentage points BELOW inflation. As far as we know, consumer price hikes have never been brought under control by lending out money at negative real rates. So, we have to believe that either inflation will persist…or the Fed will have to continue to raise rates, “until something breaks.”
Either way, the rally in the stock market is doomed. At best it will be scrawny and short-lived…like the runt of a litter. But something else also dooms Dow earnings…the Dow itself…and America’s middle class. Three things determine the financial health for middle class families – their houses, their jobs, and the value of their money. On all three scores, they are getting killed.
After-inflation wages began going down in April of last year. They’ve been negative ever since. That’s why savings are down too – with a household savings rate of 3.1%, less than half what it was a year ago. So far, the official statistics show jobs still available. But Elon Musk just fired half of the Twitter staff. Many other companies are following his lead. Fortune Magazine: "The jobs that built America’s middle class are disappearing, intensifying its downfall." "A lurking recession is now threatening the livelihoods of white-collar workers: Those higher-salaried management roles - the jobs once heralded in American society as the key to obtaining the middle class American Dream - may be axed in waves.
As these jobs vanish in favor of blue-collar workers at more manageable costs, that pipeline to the middle class could be chopped at the knees, reports The Financial Times: "But at least middle class households still have a roof over their heads, right? And at least they have accumulated wealth as house prices rose, right? And at least they can take out some of that ‘equity,’ if they need to, right?"
Oh dear reader – thanks for the softball pitch. The answer is no! BusinessInsider: "US home sales will keep falling…Redfin said it expects home sales to keep falling through 2023, as it laid off 13% of its workforce. Rising mortgage rates and high inflation are key pressures pulling down the number of home sales.
Many families took advantage of the lower interest rates to refinance their houses, often ‘taking out equity’ for new kitchens or baths. But now they have to refinance once more – at much higher rates, while house prices are falling. Mortgage payments have more than doubled since July 2020."
Submerging Markets: Let’s see – incomes going down…jobs disappearing…house prices falling… Fortune Magazine draws a conclusion: "The middle class is in a tight spot, squeezed between the disappearing wealth Americans squirreled away during the pandemic and projected layoffs at the hands of a looming recession."
But wait. It’s just ‘transitory,’ right? Not exactly; Bloomberg: "Once-in-a-Generation Wealth Boom Ends for America’s Middle Class." "In March of this year, the average real wealth of the American middle class - including home equity and other physical assets as well as retirement and other savings - peaked at $393,300, the highest it’s ever been, according to data assembled by economists at the University of California, Berkeley.The March pinnacle for middle-class wealth capped a five-year period of accumulation - spanning two presidencies and made possible by historically low interest rates - that has been the most remarkable in the past half-century."
But that era is fading, if not over. The average wealth of adults in what the Berkeley economists call the “middle 40%” - the population whose wealth falls in the 50th to 90th percentile - had by the close of business Oct. 25 fallen about 7%, or by more than $27,000 to $366,100, since that March peak, they estimate. That’s already the biggest hit seen since the 2007-09 global financial crisis.
Transitory? If this is a serious bear market, stocks may not recover for 15 to 20 years. If Powell pivots (as we think he will) the economy will go into a period of inflation, recession and chaos that could last for 20-50 years. And house prices? Who knows? It took generations of hard work to build America’s middle class wealth. It will only take a few years of delusion and incompetence to tear it down."
"This is a high-intensity audio brainwave entrainment session, using isochronic tones. Listen to this when you need a strong burst of intense focus to concentrate and study things like advanced mathematics, scientific formulas, financial analysis or any other complex mental activity. Listen to this track with your eyes open while doing the task/activity you want to focus on. Use this session in the morning, afternoon or early evening, to train your brain for better cognition, focus and thought processing. You can either sit somewhere quiet and comfortable with your eyes closed and give your brain a nice workout, or you can also listen to this while doing an activity that requires a boost in concentration.
Headphones are NOT REQUIRED for this video.
Although headphones are not required you may find they produce a more intense effect, because they help to block out distracting external sounds.
Isochronic tones are a fast and effective audio-based way to stimulate your brain. Among many of the benefits, they can help improve focus, relaxation, energy levels, sleep and more, without taking drugs or needing any special equipment. What isochronic tones essentially do is guide your dominant brainwave activity to a different frequency while you are listening to them, allowing you to influence and change your mental state and how you feel."
This is a brainwave entrainment audio session using isochronic tones combined with music. The isochronic tones are the repetitive beats you can hear on top of the music throughout the track. If you are new to this type of audio brainwave entrainment, find out how isochronic tones work and how they compare to binaural beats here:
Listen folks, we're out of time! Whether you want to know it or not we're literally in the fight of our lives, for our lives right now, and it's going to get much, much worse. Some of you reading this will not survive, and I may not either, so I'll take any edge I can get, and you should too... This works for me. Prepare yourself, brace for impact...
“I cling like a miser to the freedom that disappears
as soon as there is an excess of things.”
- Albert Camus, "Lyrical and Critical Essays"
"Let me tell you a story about a haunted house and all the thoughts it evoked in me. Do we believe we can save ourselves by saving things? Or do our saved possessions come to possess their saviors? Do those who save many things or hoard believe that there are pockets in shrouds? Or do they collect things as a magical protection against the shroud?
These are questions that have preoccupied me for weeks as my wife and I have spent long and exhausting days cleaning out a friend’s house. Many huge truckloads of possessions have been carted off to the dump. Thousands of documents have been shredded and thousands more taken to our house for further sorting. Other things have been donated to charity. This is what happens to people’s things; they disappear, never to be seen again, just as we do, eventually.
Tolstoy wrote a story – “How Much Land Does A Man Need’’ – that ends with the answer: a piece six feet long, enough for your grave. As in this story, the devil always has the last laugh when your covetousness gets the best of you. Yet so many people continue to collect in the vain hope that they are exceptions. Ask almost anyone and they will reluctantly admit that they hoard to some degree.
In capitalist consumer societies, getting and spending and hoarding not only lays waste our powers, but it is done on the backs of the poor and destitute around the world. It is a system built to inflame the worst human tendencies of acquisitiveness and indifference since it teaches that one never has enough of everything.
It denies the primal sympathy of human care for all humans as it teaches that if you surround yourself with enough things – have ten pair of shoes, twenty shirts, an attic filled with things in reserve – you will be safe from the fate of the majority of the world’s poor who have next to nothing. It is an insidious form of soul murder wherein one pulls the shades on the prison-house, counts one’s possessions, and shakes hands with the Devil. And it is sadly common.
From attic to cellar to garage, every little cubbyhole, closet, and drawer in this relative’s house was filled with “saved” items. Nothing was ever thrown away. If you walked in the front door, you would never know that the occupants were compulsive keepers. While there were plenty of knick-knacks in evidence like so many houses where the fear of emptiness rules (the emptiness that is the source of freedom and creativity), once you opened a drawer or closet, a secreted lunacy spilled out seriatim like circus clowns from a small car.
Like all clown shows, it was funny but far more frightening, as though all the saved objects were tinged with the fear of death and dissolution, were futile efforts to stop the flow of time and life by sticking a finger in a dike.
Let me begin with the bags. Hidden in every corner and closet, there were bags stuffed in bags. Big bags and little bags, hundreds if not thousands, used and unused, plastic, paper, cloth bags with price tags still on them. The same was true for boxes, especially empty jewelry boxes. Cardboard boxes that once held a little something, wooden boxes, cigar boxes, large cartons, boxes from every device ever purchased – all seemingly being saved for some future use that would never come.
But the bags and boxes filled each other so that no emptiness could survive, although desolation seemed to cry out from within: “You can’t suffocate me.”
Tens of thousands of photographs and slides were squirreled into cabinets, closets, and their own file cabinets, each neatly marked with the date and place of their taking. Time in a “bottle” from which one would never drink again – possessing the past in a vain attempt to stop time. These photos were kept in places where their taker would never see them again but could find a weird comfort that they were saved somewhere in this vast collection. Cold comfort by embalming time.
It so happens that while emptying the house, I was rereading the wonderful novel, Zorba The Greek, by Nikos Kazantzakis. There is a passage in it where a woman has died, and while her corpse lies in her house, the villagers descend on her possessions like shrieking vultures on a carcass.
Old women, men, children went rushing through the doors, jumped through the open windows, over the fences and off the balcony, each carrying whatever he had been able to snatch – sauce pans, frying pans, mattresses, rabbits... Some of them had taken doors or windows off their hinges and had put them on their backs. Mimiko had seized the two court shoes, tied on a piece of string and hung them round his neck – it looked as though Dame Hortense were going off astraddle on his shoulders and only her shoes were visible….
The avidity for things drives many people mad, to get and to keep stuff, to build walls around life so as to protect themselves from death. To consume so as not to be consumed. Kazantzakis brilliantly makes this clear in the book. "Zorba, the Greek" physical laborer and wild man, is different, for he knows that salvation lies in dispossession.
"One day he encounters five little children begging in a village. Their father has just been murdered. “I don’t know why, divine inspiration I suppose, but I went up to them.” He gives the children his basket of food and all his money. He tells his interlocutor, a writer whom he calls “Boss,” a man whom Zorba accuses of not being able to cut the string that ties him to a life of living-death, that that was how he was rescued.
Rescued from my country, from priests, and from money. I began sifting things, sifting more and more things out. I lighten my burden that way. I – how shall I put it? – I find my own deliverance, I become a man."
In the jam-packed attic where there is little room to move with boxes and objects piled on top of each other, I found a large metal four-drawer file cabinet packed with files. In one file folder there was a small purse filled with the following: four very old unmarked keys, six paper clips, two old unworkable watches, a bobby pin, a circular case that contained what looked like a piece of a human bone, a few old medallions, tweezers, four buttons, an eye screw, a safety pin, a nail, a screw, two ancient tiny photos, and a lock of human hair.
Similar objects were stored throughout the house in various containers, bags, boxes, the pockets of clothes, in old ancient furniture in the basement, on shelves, in cigar boxes, in desks, etc.
Old receipts for purchases made forty years ago, airline baggage tags, ticket stubs, school papers, jewelry hidden everywhere, old foreign and domestic coins, perhaps twenty-five old unworkable watches, clocks, radios, clothes and more clothes, more than anyone could ever have worn, scores of old pens and pencils, hand-written notes with no dates or any semblance of order or meaning, chaos and obsessive account-keeping hiding everywhere in contradictory forms shared by two people: one the neat freak and the other disorganized.
One dead and the other forced by fate to let her stuff go, to stand naked in the wind.
How does it help a person to record that they bought a toaster for $6.98 in 1957 or a bracelet for $20 in 1970 or that they called so-and-so some undated time in the past? What good does it do to save vast correspondences documenting your complaints, bitterness, and quarrels? Or boxes upon boxes of Christmas cards received thirty years ago? Or brochures and receipts from a trip taken long ago? Old sports medals? Scrapbooks?
Photos of long dead relatives no one wants? Fashion designer shoes and coats and handbags hidden in a dusty attic where you don’t even know they are there. An immigrant mother’s ancient sewing machine weighing seventy-five pounds and gathering dust in the cellar?
Nothing I could tell you can come close to picturing what we saw in this house. It was overwhelming, horrifying, and weirdly fascinating. And aside from the useful things that were donated to charity and some that were taken to the woman’s next dwelling, ninety percent was dumped in a landfill, soon to be buried.
In his brilliant novel "Underworld", Don DeLillo writes about a guy named Brian who goes to visit a collector of old baseball paraphernalia – bats, balls, an old scoreboard, tapes of games, etc. – in a house where “a mood of mausoleum gloom” fills the air. The man tells Brian: "There’s men in the coming years they’ll pay fortunes for these objects. Because this is desperation speaking. Men come here to see my collection. They come and they don’t want to leave. The phone rings, it’s the family – where is he? This is the fraternity of missing men."
Men and women hoarders, collectors, and keepers are lost children, trying desperately to secure themselves from death while losing themselves in the process. In my friend’s house I found huge amounts of string and rope waiting to tie something up neatly someday. That day never came.
Zorba tells the Boss, who insists he’s free, the following: "No, you’re not free. The string you’re tied to is perhaps no longer than other people’s. That’s all. You’re on a long piece of string, boss; you come and go and think you’re free, but you never cut the string in two. And when people don’t cut that string...
It’s difficult, boss, very difficult. You need a touch of folly to do that; folly, d’you see? You have to risk everything! But you’ve got such a strong head, it’ll always get the better of you. A man’s head is like a grocer; it keeps accounts. I’ve paid so much and earned so much and that means a profit of this much or a loss of that much!
The head’s a careful little shopkeeper; it never risks all it has, always keeps something in reserve. It never breaks the string. Ah, no! It hangs on tight to it, the bastard! If the string slips out of its grasp, the head, poor devil, is lost, finished! But if a man doesn’t break the string, tell me what flavor is left in life? The flavor of camomile, weak camomile tea! Nothing like rum – that makes you see life inside out."
On the way out the door on our final day cleaning the house, I found a beautiful boxed fountain pen on a windowsill. I love pens since I am a writer. This one shone brightly and seemed to speak to me: think of what you could write with me, it said so seductively. I was sorely tempted, but knowing that I didn’t need another pen, I left it there, thinking that perhaps the next occupants of this house would write a different story and embrace Camus’ advice about an excess of things.
Look around you, see all the fine possessions you have, how proud you are of it all. Then ask yourself how many of them you will take back into eternity when your time comes. None. No, you will take out exactly what you brought in... nothing, "and all your money won't another minute buy." Fill a bowl with water, and place your hand in it, then take it out. The hole left in the water is how long you'll be remembered. You are, as we all are, "dust in the wind..."
Kansas, "Dust In The Wind"
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Hat tip to "The Burning Platform" for this material.
"If you listen only to the lying legacy media (LLM) you would think the 2022 Midterm Election was a huge loss for President Donald Trump. Trump won big despite the cheating, glitches ballot drops (for losing Dems) and the huge psyop that carried on after election day. If you question the cheating, which few do on the LLM, you are an “election denier.” How dare anyone question or object to the massive cheating that has been taken to a well-oiled art form. The “Swamp” or “Uni-party” consisting of Communist Democrats and RINO Republicans work together for a common goal. The two parties just take turns ripping us off.
Trump won because he crisscrossed the country on his own dime backing candidates in the House and the Senate that would try to “Make America Great Again.” Yes, MAGA! To the elite like Schumer, McConnell, Pelosi and the rest of the treasonous political weasels that attack “We the People,” that is crazy talk. Trump’s election record of backing candidates in the 2022 election is a lopsided 219 Wins to only 16 Losses, and it’s hard to tell if the losses were only because of the massive cheating campaign that even LLM dog FOX News will not mention. The Republicans owe Donald Trump a huge thank you for winning back the House and the Senate!!! Let’s hope the Uni-party doesn’t pull another mysterious ballot dump and “win” by cheating again.
Inflation cooled, according to the latest government numbers, to 7.7%. The markets rocked higher, and everyone is once again talking about a Fed pivot to stop the rate hikes and continue the easy money for a few more years. Don’t count on the party to last this time. Layoffs are rocking the country, and mortgage applications just hit an all-time low. The real economy is still sinking, and the numbers don’t lie." There is much more in the 55-minute news cast.
"Over the past 24 hours both Taiwan and the U.S. say China is closing in on an invasion. Why is the U.S. actively trying to provoke a war with China? Col. Douglas MacGregor joins us to discuss. Also new data on excess deaths is troubling. We'll look at the latest data from the U.S. and U.K."
“These three bright nebulae are often featured in telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius and the crowded starfields of the central Milky Way. In fact, 18th century cosmic tourist Charles Messier cataloged two of them; M8, the large nebula left of center, and colorful M20 on the right. The third, NGC 6559, is above M8, separated from the larger nebula by a dark dust lane. All three are stellar nurseries about five thousand light-years or so distant.
The expansive M8, over a hundred light-years across, is also known as the Lagoon Nebula. M20's popular moniker is the Trifid. Glowing hydrogen gas creates the dominant red color of the emission nebulae, with contrasting blue hues, most striking in the Trifid, due to dust reflected starlight. The colorful skyscape recorded with telescope and digital camera also includes one of Messier's open star clusters, M21, just above the Trifid.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html • "When I heard the learn’d astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars."
"One of life's best coping mechanisms is to know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire – then you’ve got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One needs to learn the difference."
"The housing market is cratering and the latest numbers reveal some really disturbing trends. With mortgage rates reaching 20-year-highs, owning a home in America has never been so expensive. Potential home buyers have been completely tapped out by now. That’s why over the past eight months, home sales have been consistently dropping and sellers are being forced to slash prices as demand cools down. At the same time, renters are having to cope with an even heavier financial burden. But the situation of homeowners isn’t any better – they’ve already lost $1.3 trillion in home equity since the crash began, and the number of borrowers at risk of going underwater more than doubled at this point. This is going to be worse than 2008, folks. This is a disaster in the making, and economists say we should all buckle in because a wild ride is ahead. In today’s video, we compiled the fresh numbers that you need to know about the ongoing housing crash, as well as the analyses of real estate industry experts who say that “no market will be immune” and that “housing is in free-fall”:
Homeowners are at serious risk as surging mortgage rates scare away buyers and accelerate the housing slump, analysts warn. The signs of distress can be seen everywhere. The latest numbers show that home sales plunged for the eighth consecutive month - the longest slide since 2007 - falling by 25% in October. Homebuilding starts also declined, and the number of new home listings went down by 22%.
Fueling the deterioration of the housing market, the Federal Reserve just pushed mortgage rates to 20-year-highs to 7.23%, which has “significantly weakened demand, particularly for first-time and first-generation prospective home buyers,” explains NAHB Chairman Jerry Konter. “This situation is unhealthy and unsustainable. Policymakers must address this worsening housing affordability crisis,” he stressed.
Every rate hike pushes on average an additional 9 million potential buyers out of the market, according to estimates released by Redfin. The growing concerns about the recession are also prompting buyers to back off, as some of them can feel that a repeat of 2008 may be happening again.
This means sellers will be forced to cut prices even further to readjust to an environment where buyers’ purchasing power is significantly lower than it was just a couple of years ago. "Buckle in,” warns chief economist at Moody's Analytics, Mark Zandi. Given that the housing market is “the most interest-rate-sensitive sector of the economy. It's on the front lines of the fallout from the Fed's efforts to bring down inflation. There's going to be a coast-to-coast downturn in the housing market. It's going to be brutal. No part of the market is immune," he emphasized.
The alarm bells are also being sounded by Ian Shepherdson, the chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. Shepherdson says the steep drop in home sales has just begun, and even buyers who set their sights lower to cheaper houses will still face bigger mortgage payments."In short, housing is in free fall. So far, most of the hit is in sales volumes, but prices are now falling too, and they have a long way to go."
No matter what happens, the struggle to find affordable housing will only intensify. Americans are overwhelmed and hopeless. And if all of this sounds too familiar to you is because we’ve seen it happen before. But the proportions the current crisis will reach in the coming months will be unlike anything we’ve ever seen."
"It makes no difference where you live. We are feeling the effects of this economy. FedEx is not flying their normal fleet and deliveries are not being made by trucking companies. Core inflation was down a bit and everyone is rejoicing. Ridiculous."
The ghosts of America's past weigh in on the state of the Union...
by Bill Bonner And Joel Bowman
Baltimore, Maryland: "The local Ford dealership turned out to be a good place to find out what the deplorables are thinking. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t even bother to vote yesterday,” said a wiry man with slicked-back wavy hair. He wore a shiny black jacket advertising his participation in the Vietnam War… and sunglasses that might have been used there during the Tet Offensive. “I figure it doan make any difference." “You’re right,” said another, a stout man, nearly bald, with a hunting jacket on. “I’m losing faith in them all. Trump was my man. But he seems more interested in himself than in anything else. He should have stayed out of it.” “You can’t trust none of them. Say one thing. Do another.”
We sat in the waiting room as our truck was being serviced, listening to the conversation around us. Almost all the people in the waiting room were retired factory or construction workers. This was East Baltimore, hon, and all the denizens have pick-ups, notably America’s most popular model – the F150. And with the midterm elections winding up in the usual mix of comedy and disgrace, ‘The People’ try to make sense of it.
Nonsense Politics: Predictably, The New York Times worried about diversity: “How Diverse Are the Candidates in the Midterm Elections?” What the Times is really concerned about is that the voters and the candidates all share the delusions and prejudices of today’s elite – including ‘diversity.’ Yesterday’s elite might have had very different ideas, but who cares about them? They don’t buy newspapers… or vote!
Pennsylvania was the focus of press coverage. The key race featured a tattooed, billy-goateed candidate with recent brain damage… up against a muslim doctor who served in Turkey’s army to maintain his Turkish citizenship and later went on to TV stardom in America. A local political operative explained that Pennsylvania was a “diverse and welcoming community.” He meant that the voters did not shy away from choosing misfits and weirdos.
But the voters in Pennsylvania’s 32nd district took diversity to a whole new level. Green Party challenger, Zarah Livingston, must have been the weakest candidate ever to mount a soapbox. She was overwhelmingly trounced by a corpse. Here’s Business Insider: "Pennsylvania state lawmaker won big in the midterm elections despite being dead. Rep. Tony DeLuca, who died at the age of 85 on October 9 from lymphoma, crushed Green Party challenger Zarah Livingston in Tuesday's midterm elections."
Yes, the voters wisely preferred a dead Tony to a live Zarah. And had we been a voter in the district, we would have voted for DeLuca too. Voters there proved they were the most open minded in the nation. They elected a man to represent the most dissed, ignored and despised group in the country – the shades. Their books are banned. Their monuments are torn down. Their heroes are shamed. The corpses must chuckle to themselves: ‘Damned jackasses!’"
Status and Dissatisfaction: But The Old Gray Lady need not fret. The guys in the waiting room explained: “I’m sick of them all. You know what George Wallace said about the Democrats and the Republicans? He said ‘there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between them.’ He was right."
“You know what really gets me. I remember back in the old days, I was working down at Sparrows Point [steel mill]. But the politicians would all come and try to get us to vote for them. There were a lot of us there… and over at GM [General Motors also had a nearby assembly plant]. At least they would pretend to care about us. Now, nothing. They get their money from Wall Street. I guess they don’t need us.”
“No, they don’t need us anymore. They certainly don’t.” No, they don’t need the common man. Or dead men. They’ve got each other. Right here. Right now.
CovertAction: Two former CIA officers, Abigail Spanberger and Elissa Slotkin, won reelection on Tuesday night…"Spanberger, a Democrat, defeated her Republican challenger Yesli Vega with 51.9 percent of the vote in Virginia’s 7th district, while Slotkin, also a Democrat, defeated Tom Barrett, a former army pilot, with 50.8 percent of the vote in Michigan’s 7th district."
America’s wealth… and, indirectly, its status as well as the satisfaction of its people…comes from its Main Street economy, which was largely built by people who are now dead. But few of the candidates have had anything to do with real work or the real people who do it – past or present. One might now represent gay men. Another might be a stand-up for Asian-American cripples. One is in the pocket of the trial lawyers. Another was bought by the ‘defense’ industry. But where are the steelworkers? The longshoremen? The auto repairmen? The philosophers, bakers, and Thai masseuses? Where are the captains of industry…and the hewers of wood?
Nope. These candidates were almost all ‘government men’ …and eager to make government even bigger. They don’t represent ‘The People;’ neither those of the past nor of the present. They represent the people who rip ‘The People’ off. "
Joel’s Note: "When Benjamin Franklin emerged from Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention in 1787, a member of the crowd gathered there supposedly shouted out to him, “What have we got, doctor… a monarchy or a republic?” To which the Founding Father famously replied, “A republic… if you can keep it.”
That’s the story, anyway… now an indelible part of American folklore. We wonder what Messrs. Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, et al. would have thought after witnessing yesterday’s midterm election circus… As usual, there was plenty of gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands following (and during) the counts… accompanied, of course, with the now-expected charges of fraud, farce and fanaticism emanating from both sides.
The constitutional idea, of course, was to establish a government of laws, not of men. But look around… what do you see? In place of hallowed institutions… spineless candidates. In place of tradition… “progress.” In place of common sense and equality for all... “diversity,” “inclusion” and “equity.” And in place of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness… strife, insecurity and a breathtaking sense of entitlement.
Could it have been otherwise? Might our better angels have protected us from the tyranny of the majority? Might those checks and balances have secured us against the whims and caprices of mere men? The world watches the great American experiment with intense interest… as though we masses huddled on foreign shores were peering into our own future.
But no empire lasts forever… no currency stands eternal… just as no one here gets out alive. Four score and ten years after Mr. Franklin emerged from Independence Hall, dreams of a republic dancing in his head, the writing was already on the wall.
Lysander Spooner, in his classic pamphlet "No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority," sensed already the rot within the system: But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist."
