Thursday, November 24, 2022

"A Thanksgiving Nightmare! I Have Been Up For 30 Hours!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 11/24/22:
"A Thanksgiving Nightmare! I Have Been Up For 30 Hours!"
"In today's vlog I have been up for 30 hours after rushing my wife to the hospital. It's Thanksgiving today and we have a lot to be thankful for over the last few days! Thank you so much for watching and we'll see you in the next video!"
Comments here:
Related, sadly:

"We All Get Plucked in the End"

"We All Get Plucked in the End"
By Bill Bonner

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – "As our friend Nassim Taleb reminds us, there’s a downside to being a turkey. It’s called Thanksgiving. Every day for 1,000 days, it gets its food. The turkey gets used to it. It feels pretty good about things. Around the feed trough, it is common knowledge that the food “always” comes. And there is no turkey alive who can contradict it.

The more intellectual turkeys spin out theories to explain their good fortune. One says it’s because of turkey exceptionalism: “The food always comes because we’re turkeys, not starlings or pigeons. We are special. We don’t have to peck around on the ground trying to find crumbs or scratch in the dirt to find worms. We’re a superior bird; we have access to unlimited food.”

Another has a different hypothesis – better leadership: “We always get fed because our president has figured out how to make the farmers feed us. He’s the best turkey president ever. If the farmer is a little late, he knows how to make turkey life great again. Didn’t you notice? He takes three steps backward and makes a loud gobbling noise. That usually does it. If it doesn’t, he just keeps gobbling until the food comes. Always works. Always.”

And yet another pipes up: “Oh, enough with your fancy theories. We always get fed because that’s just the way it is. It’s nature.” “No, it’s not nature,” offers another. “It’s because the fix is in. The farmer has to feed us, or he’ll be charged with animal abuse. He has to keep the food coming; he has no choice.”

Bad Feather Day: But then, as the fourth Thursday of November approaches, the theories are put to the test. All are proved incorrect. The food doesn’t come. Instead, the turkeys are ushered into a special part of the farm complex where they’ve never been before. There is something disquieting about it. The turkeys begin to whisper among themselves. One says he hears cries coming from the next room. All of them notice the sounds of machinery… heavy machinery… and a few soft feathers floating through the air. “What’s going on…?” they wonder, one to another. And then, they begin to panic, running helter-skelter, hoping to escape.

Up until that day, the food came every day. Day after day… the sun shone… and along came the farmer with more grain. And then, without warning, everything changed for the turkey. Worse than a bad feather day… it was the final scene. The curtain fell. The court adjourned.

Rational and Normal: Meanwhile, over in the stock market, the sun still shines. Heck, the more danger signs we see, the more the market goes up. But as the SEC is quick to add: Past performance is no guarantee of future performance. You may flip a hundred coins and get heads every time. That doesn’t mean that the next one won’t come up tails.

We see the turkey’s life from the farmer’s perspective. It is not all gravy and sweet potatoes. But it is very predictable, with a definite beginning and a certain end. And a purpose. We’re tempted to make an analogy to the stock market. But there is nothing definite about the stock market. It can famously stay irrational a lot longer than you can stay solvent. But it can also stay solvent longer than you can stay irrational.

We assume that as long as the Federal Reserve is adding money to it, it will continue to go up. In other words, with the Fed adding so many fake billions, the turkeys might think higher prices are “rational” and “normal”… and that only rug-chewing doom-and-gloomers would expect it to go down.

Get Plucked: And yet… in the stock market, we’re the turkeys, not the farmers. We spin out our own theories. “Stock prices always go up over the long run,” says one simpleton. “Now, with the enlightened management of the Fed, we’re pretty much assured that nothing will go wrong,” says another. “The fix is in… They have to keep pumping up the stock market or the whole shebang will fall apart.”

But backstage, Mr. Market is sharpening his blades. He’ll decide for himself when we all get plucked. Have a nice Thanksgiving."

"Happy Thanksgiving 2022!"


Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving folks!

"Here’s The Real Story About Thanksgiving You’ve Never Heard"

“Here’s The Real Story About Thanksgiving You’ve Never Heard”
Especially the parts about Squanto the “friendly Indian.”
by Nick Bauman

“The Thanksgiving story you know probably goes a bit like this: English Pilgrims, seeking religious freedom, landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where they found a rich land full of animals and were greeted by a friendly Indian named Squanto, who taught them how to plant corn. The true story is more complicated. Once you learn about the real Squanto- also known as Tisquantum- you’ll have a great yarn to tell your family over the Thanksgiving table. 

I asked historian Charles Mann, the author of “1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus”, and Paula Peters, a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe and an expert on Wampanoag history, to tell me the real story. “This is not revisionist history,” Peters promised. “This is history that’s just been overlooked because people have become very, very comfortable with the story of happy Pilgrims and friendly Indians. They’re very content with that- even to the point where no one really questioned how is it that Squanto knew how to speak perfect English when they came.”

Here’s what really happened. In 1614, six years before the Pilgrims landed in modern-day Massachusetts, an Englishman named Thomas Hunt kidnapped Tisquantum from his village, Patuxet, which was part of a group of villages known as the Wampanoag confederation. (Europeans had started visiting the northeast of what is now the United States by the 1520s, and probably as early as the 1480s.) Hunt took Tisquantum and around two dozen other kidnapped Wampanoag to Spain, where he tried to sell them into slavery.

“It caused quite a commotion when this guy showed up trying to sell these people,” Mann said. “A bunch of people in the church said no way.” Tisquantum escaped slavery- with the help of Catholic friars, according to some accounts- then somehow found his way to England. He finally made it back to what is now Massachusetts in 1619. As far as historians can tell, Tisquantum was the only one of the kidnapped Wampanoags to ever return to North America, Peters notes.

As far as historians can tell, Tisquantum was the only one of the kidnapped Wampanoags to ever return to North America. But while Tisquantum was in Europe, an epidemic had swept across New England. “The account that’s recorded by Gov. Bradford of Plymouth Plantation is that there’s a shipwreck of French sailors that year on Cape Cod,” Mann said. “One of them carried some disease and it wiped out a huge percentage of the population in coastal new England. The guess is it was some kind of viral hepatitis, which is easily communicated in water. It exploded like chains of firecrackers.” 

When Tisquantum returned to Patuxet, he found that he was the village’s only survivor. “Into this bumbled the Pilgrims,” Mann said. “They had shown up in New England a few weeks before winter. Up until the Pilgrims, the pattern had been pretty clear. Europeans would show up, and Indians would be interested in their trade goods, but they were really uninterested in letting [Europeans] permanently occupy land.” Often, armed native people would even force Europeans to leave if they attempted to stay too long. 

This time, the Europeans wanted to stay, and the disease that had decimated Patuxet ensured that they had a place to settle. “Patuxet ultimately becomes Plymouth,” Peters explained. “They find this cleared land and just the bones of the Indians. They called it divine providence: God killed these Indians so we could live here.” A website Peters helped create for the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival puts it even more bluntly: “The graveyard of [Tisquantum's] people became Plymouth Colony.”

Massasoit, a local Wampanoag leader, didn’t trust Tisquantum. “He looks at this guy and smells trouble,” Mann said. Massasoit kept Tisquantum under what was essentially house arrest until the Pilgrims showed up and promptly started starving to death.

Patuxet wasn’t the only native village decimated by the plague. The entire Wampanoag confederation had been badly hit – as much as 75 percent of the Wampanoag population was wiped out, Mann said. But the Narragansett, a rival neighboring group, basically weren’t affected by the disease at all. That put the Wampanoag in a precarious strategic position. Massasoit had an idea. “He decides we’ll ally with these guys, set up a good trading relationship, control supply of English goods, and the Narragansett won’t be able to attack us,” Mann said. On March 22, 1621, Massasoit went to meet with the Pilgrims. He brought Tisquantum along to translate.

Mann described the meeting in a 2005 article in Smithsonian Magazine: “Tisquantum most likely was not the name he was given at birth. In that part of the Northeast, tisquantum referred to rage, especially the rage of manitou, the world-suffusing spiritual power at the heart of coastal Indians’ religious beliefs. When Tisquantum approached the Pilgrims and identified himself by that sobriquet, it was as if he had stuck out his hand and said, “Hello, I’m the Wrath of God.”

Massasoit was right not to trust Tisquantum, who soon tried to pit the Pilgrims against him. But the plan didn’t work: Massasoit “is just pissed off and demands the Pilgrims hand him over because he’s gonna execute him,” Mann said. The Pilgrims didn’t. Instead, Tisquantum stayed in the colony with them, helping them prepare for the next winter. 

“Never did the newcomers ask themselves why he might be making himself essential,” Mann wrote in Smithsonian. “But from the Pilgrims’ accounts of their dealings with him, the answer seems clear: the alternative to staying in Plymouth was returning to Massasoit and renewed captivity.”

It’s all a lot more complicated – Machiavellian, even – than the story you might have learned. Mann in Smithsonian again: “By fall the settlers’ situation was secure enough that they held a feast of thanksgiving. Massasoit showed up with “some ninety men,” Winslow later recalled, most of them with weapons. The Pilgrim militia responded by marching around and firing their guns in the air in a manner intended to convey menace. Gratified, both sides sat down, ate a lot of food and complained about the Narragansett. Ecce Thanksgiving.”

So what does this all mean? “While it was by far not the first occasion of human trafficking conducted by European explorers to the new world, the capture of Squanto and his fellow tribesmen would forever alter the course of history for people on two continents,” Peters wrote on the anniversary website. “We learn about Columbus landing in 1492 and it’s as if nothing happened for over 100 years until the Pilgrims landed,” Mann added. “But the Tisquantum story gives you this tiny peek into that all the people involved had been interacting for more than a century. And today, of course, the Wampanoag are still around.”

Wednesday, November 23, 2022

"Breaking: ALL Ukraine Nuclear Reactors Shut Down, Nationwide Blackouts, Europe Gets Ready for War"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 11/23/22:
"Breaking: ALL Ukraine Nuclear Reactors Shut Down, 
Nationwide Blackouts, Europe Gets Ready for War"
"All of Ukraines nuclear power plants have been disconnected from the grid. Germany moves closer to conflict, Czech Republic gets ready for conflict with Russia. Russia assembles hundreds of thousands of troops and new equipment for winter offensive. Bird flu is OUT OF CONTROL, China is stockpiling gold as biggest outbreak of virus to date is forcing lockdowns; Chinese are rioting in response. The Canadian government amends bill to practically take ALL of Canadians semiautomatic firearms. Dystopia or Mad Max? Get ready for both!"
Comments here:

"Customers Are Pulling All Their Money Out Of The Banks, Is It Time For You?"

Jeremiah Babe, 11/23/22:
"Customers Are Pulling All Their Money Out 
Of The Banks, Is It Time For You?"
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"The Day America Died, the Government Killed It"

Full screen recommended.
Gerald Celente, Judge Andrew Napolitano, 11/23/22:
"The Day America Died, the Government Killed It"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in these increasingly turbulent times."
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"Amazon Retail Stores Are Closing Down As Jeff Bezos Warns Hard Times Are Coming"

Full screen recommended.
"Amazon Retail Stores Are Closing Down As 
Jeff Bezos Warns Hard Times Are Coming"
by Epic Economist

"As the holiday season approaches, fears of a deep recession continue to grow, and now the world’s largest e-commerce retailer, Amazon, has started to close several brick-and-mortar locations, shut down warehouses, sharply downsize its headcounts and abandon expansion plans amid declining sales. Founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos recently shared an ominous warning telling consumers and business owners that hard times are coming. Now it is time to hope for the best but prepare for the worst, according to Bezos, who is urging people to start holding off their purchases and save money to navigate through the downturn that is ahead. More and more high-profile executives are sharing their concerns about the challenges we will be facing as we enter 2023. The numbers are grim and the outlook is even grimmer.

The holidays are a time when American consumers typically prepare for making some big-ticket expenses amid retail discounts and big sales events such as Prime Day and Black Friday. But according to one of the world’s richest men and founder of e-commerce giant Amazon, Jeff Bezos, that might not be a good move this year. As economic conditions in the United States continue to deteriorate, the billionaire is telling shoppers and business owners that intend to make big purchases in the coming months to postpone their spending plans for the time being because holding a balance right now may throw them into trouble later on.

Bezos said American families should avoid big-ticket purchases such as cars and televisions not to compromise their finances as we head to a period of economic uncertainty. "If you are an individual and you are thinking about buying a large-screen TV, maybe slow that down, keep that cash, and see what happens. Same thing with a refrigerator, a new car, whatever. Just take some risk off the table,” the billionaire advised.

Amazon, which will update investors early next month, is grappling with a decline in its e-commerce sales. In October, weaker-than-expected earnings results led the company’s shares to crash by 20% in a single day. The e-commerce retailer has started to tighten its belt, too. Under the command of new CEO Andy Jassy, the company has made some cutbacks, including a hiring freeze and canceled or delayed new projects. All in all, the company is closing almost 70 retail stores, with 66 of them located in the US.

The company also announced that it is scrapping plans to build dozens of warehouse facilities across the United States as sales slow down. In the second quarter, Amazon disclosed plans to reduce its workforce by 99,000 after consumers started to back off from discretionary spending, CNBC said. A couple of weeks ago, the e-commerce behemoth announced that it will start to lay off about 10,000 this month. The job cuts are expected to target retail, human resources departments, and tech jobs, even as the holiday shopping season gets underway.

On Thursday, Amazon said it will continue to lay off employees in the coming year as the company is still in the middle of its annual operating planning process, and business leaders are still determining the need for further job cuts. According to Bezos, it’s difficult to predict when this massive downturn will end, so “you just have to try and be reasonable about it, and take as much risk off the table as you can for yourself”. “Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst,” the billionaire stressed because very challenging times are coming for all of us."
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Musical Interlude: Deuter, "East of the Full Moon"

Deuter, "East of the Full Moon"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1055 is a dominant member of a small galaxy group a mere 60 million light-years away toward the aquatically intimidating constellation Cetus. Seen edge-on, the island universe spans over 100,000 light-years, a little larger than our own Milky Way galaxy. The colorful, spiky stars decorating this cosmic portrait of NGC 1055 are in the foreground, well within the Milky Way. But the telltale pinkish star forming regions are scattered through winding dust lanes along the distant galaxy's thin disk.
With a smattering of even more distant background galaxies, the deep image also reveals a boxy halo that extends far above and below the central bulge and disk of NGC 1055. The halo itself is laced with faint, narrow structures, and could represent the mixed and spread out debris from a satellite galaxy disrupted by the larger spiral some 10 billion years ago."

"For Nothing Is Fixed..."

"For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out."
- James Baldwin

Free Download: R.D. Laing, "The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness"

"The Divided Self: 
An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness"
by R.D. Laing

"Ronald David Laing (7 October 1927 – 23 August 1989), usually cited as R. D. Laing, was a Scottish psychiatrist who wrote extensively on mental illness – in particular, the experience of psychosis. Laing's views on the causes and treatment of serious mental dysfunction, greatly influenced by existential philosophy, ran counter to the psychiatric orthodoxy of the day by taking the expressed feelings of the individual patient or client as valid descriptions of lived experience rather than simply as symptoms of some separate or underlying disorder. Laing was associated with the anti-psychiatry movement, although he rejected the label. Politically, he was regarded as a thinker of the New Left..”

"First published in 1960, this watershed work aimed to make madness comprehensible, and in doing so revolutionized the way we perceive mental illness. Using case studies of patients he had worked with, psychiatrist R. D. Laing argued that psychosis is not a medical condition but an outcome of the 'divided self', or the tension between the two personas within us: one our authentic, private identity, and the other the false, 'sane' self that we present to the world.”
Freely download “The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness”,
by R.D. Laing, here:
"Insights Of R.D. Laing"
"Decades ago, psychiatrist R.D. Laing developed three rules by which he believed a pathological family (one suffering from abuse, alcoholism, etc.) can keep its pathology hidden from even its own family members. Adherence to these three rules allows perpetrators, victims, and observers to maintain the fantasy that they are all one big, happy family. The rules are: 
Rule A: Don't talk about the problems and abject conditions; 
Rule A1: Rule A does not exist; 
Rule A2: Do not discuss the existence or nonexistence of Rules A, A1, and/or A2."

“From the moment of birth, when the stone-age baby confronts the twentieth-century mother, the baby is subjected to these forces of violence, called love, as its mother and father have been, and their parents and their parents before them. These forces are mainly concerned with destroying most of its potentialities. This enterprise is on the whole successful.”

“Children do not give up their innate imagination, curiosity, dreaminess easily. You have to love them to get them to do that.”


“We are all murderers and prostitutes - no matter to what culture, society, class, nation one belongs, no matter how normal, moral, or mature, one takes oneself to be.”

“Insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.”

“We are bemused and crazed creatures, strangers to our true selves, to one another, and to the spiritual and material world - mad, even, from an ideal standpoint we can glimpse but not adopt.”

"Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent."

The Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke ,"A Walk"

"A Walk"

"My eyes already touch the sunny hill.
going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has inner light, even from a distance-
and changes us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it,
we already are; a gesture waves us on
answering our own wave...
but what we feel is the wind in our faces."

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Canadian Prepper, "Alert! Warning: Stock Up Now, They Are Coming for Everything"

Canadian Prepper, 11/23/22:
"Alert! Warning: Stock Up Now, 
They Are Coming for Everything"
"This Is Unbelievable! They finally did it, 
this is your last chance before the bill goes through."
Comments here:

The Daily "Near You?"

Burnley, Lancashire, United Kingdom. Thanks for stopping by!

A Must View! "Where Does It Go From Here?"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 11/23/22:
"Where Does It Go From Here?"
"There’s so much happening in the economy that’s absolutely amazing. Just when you think you’ve heard it all there’s more stuff to talk about."
Comments here:

"Trillions Upon Trillions Of Dollars Of Wealth Is Being Wiped Out As The 'Everything Collapse' Accelerates"

Full screen recommended.

"Trillions Upon Trillions Of Dollars Of Wealth Is Being 
Wiped Out As The 'Everything Collapse' Accelerates"
by Michael Snyder

"Have you checked on the health of your investments lately? If not, you may be surprised to find out where things currently stand. As the “everything collapse” accelerates, trillions upon trillions of dollars of wealth is being wiped out. Many that thought that they were financially set for the rest of their lives are now in panic mode as asset values rapidly crumble. Just look at what happened to Sam Bankman-Fried. He was worth 16 billion dollars coming into this month, and now the value of his assets has been “reduced to zero”. In fact, when you factor in all the money that he owes to creditors, it is likely that his net worth is actually less than zero. That is how fast it can happen.

Overall, the cryptocurrency industry “has lost more than $1.4 trillion in value this year”…"The cryptocurrency market has lost more than $1.4 trillion in value this year as the industry has been plagued with problems from failed projects to a liquidity crunch, exacerbated by the fall of FTX, once one of the world’s largest exchanges."

FTX wasn’t the first domino to fall, and it certainly won’t be the last. In fact, now we are being warned that Genesis “may need to file for bankruptcy”…"Digital-asset brokerage Genesis is struggling to raise fresh cash for its lending unit, and it’s warning potential investors that it may need to file for bankruptcy if its efforts fail, according to people with knowledge of the matter."

Ouch. If Genesis fails, that is going to hurt. So why is Genesis in so much trouble? Well, it turns out that Genesis had “$175 million locked in an FTX trading account”…"Genesis has spent the past several days seeking at least $1 billion in fresh capital, said the people, who asked not to be identified because discussions are private. That included talks over a potential investment from crypto exchange Binance, they said, but funding so far has failed to materialize. The rush for funding was precipitated by a liquidity crunch at the lender after the sudden collapse of FTX, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges. Genesis halted redemptions shortly after revealing on Nov. 10 that it had $175 million locked in an FTX trading account."

Needless to say, that 175 million dollars is now gone and it isn’t coming back. Meanwhile, Coinbase continues to spiral downhill as well. According to Axios, the market cap for Coinbase has now fallen under 10 billion dollars…"The market capitalization of Coinbase just dropped below $10 billion. This time last year, it was more than $70 billion."

Of course it isn’t just the crypto industry that is in enormous trouble. For years, Tesla’s stock price just kept going higher and higher. But now Tesla’s market value is about 670 billion dollars lower than it was at this time last year…"Business Insider reports that Tesla’s market valuation has plummeted by nearly $700 billion from its peak a year ago. Insider notes that the $670 billion decline is equivalent to the market value of three Disneys, four Nikes, or six Starbucks."

Meanwhile, ordinary U.S. consumers are losing a tremendous amount of wealth as well. According to the New York Post, U.S. homeowners “lost a staggering $1.3 trillion in home equity in the third quarter”…"US homeowners lost a staggering $1.3 trillion in home equity in the third quarter during a major slump in the housing sector, according to data published by mortgage analytics firm Black Knight on Tuesday."

Home equity – broadly defined as the value of a homeowner’s property minus what is still owed on their mortgage – has plummeted during a rapid market correction. The equity losses in just three months were “by far the largest quarterly decline on record by dollar value and the largest since 2009 on a percentage basis,” according to Black Knight data & analytics president Ben Graboske. We have never seen a quarter like that before. Not even during the crisis of 2008 and 2009 did we see such a huge quarterly loss.

A new housing crash is here, and it has already gone global. In fact, Spain has already developed a plan to offer “mortgage support relief” to over a million Spanish households…"Spain’s cabinet on Tuesday gave its approval to mortgage relief support for more than one million vulnerable households and help for middle-class families a day after the government and banks reached an agreement in principle. The measures are subject to final negotiations with banking associations, Economy Minister Nadia Calvino said, adding that banks had a month to sign up ahead of their planned implementation next year."

Sadly, we will see much more government intervention all over the western world as this nightmare gets even worse in the months ahead. The pace of layoffs is really starting to pick up, and there is a lot of fear out there right now. Just about everyone can feel that very tough times are in front of us, and some experts are now issuing bold pronouncements that are quite chilling.

For example, Nouriel Roubini is warning that what we are facing is probably going to be “as bad as during the Global Financial Crisis”… “History suggests it’s going to be near mission impossible to avoid a hard landing. You’re going to get not only inflation, not only a recession, but what I call the ‘Great Stagflationary Debt Crisis.’ So it’s much worse than the ’70s, and it’s probably as bad as during the Global Financial Crisis.”

Actually, if all we go through is a repeat of what we experienced in 2008 and 2009 we would be extremely fortunate. Because the truth is that it isn’t just the economy that is failing. As I have repeatedly warned my regular readers, what we are now witnessing is literally the collapse of everything. Our entire society is slowly but surely coming apart at the seams all around us, but most people still expect that conditions will eventually return to “normal”. Unfortunately, “normal” has left the building, and a tremendous amount of pain is ahead."
Related:

Bill Bonner, "Beyond Turkey"

"Beyond Turkey"
The fate of fake meat, SBF's woke dynasty, 
the meme stock mess and plenty more...
by Bill Bonner

Baltimore, Maryland - "We saw yesterday that – like it or not – leaves fall in the cool autumn air. Like it or not, the stocks that rise the most in the bubble…tumble furthest in the bust. And, boo hoo, the greatest geniuses of the low-interest era turn out to be the biggest dumbos when rates revert to normal.

We watched the meteoric rise of SBF, for example. Readers wondering who, exactly, is in the ‘elite’ that we keep talking about, have to look no further than Sam Bankman-Fried. James Kuntsler explains: "The Bankman-Fried extended family is the quintessence of Woke aristocracy. Dad Joe Bankman and mom Barbara Fried are both law professors at Stanford. She also acted as a money-bundler for the Democratic Party and ran two non-profit “voter registration” orgs (against the IRS laws which only permit non-partisan organized voter registration).

Brother Gabe Bankman-Fried headed a non-profit named Guarding Against Pandemics (funded by Sam), which lobbies Congress to construct new platforms for medical tyranny. Aunt Linda Fried is Dean of Columbia U’s Public Health school, and is associated with Johns Hopkins, which ran the October 2019 Event 201 pandemic drill (sponsored by the Gates Foundation) months before the Covid-19 outbreak.

Sam’s girlfriend, Caroline Ellison, ran the Alameda Investments arm of the FTX empire (that is, FTX’s own money laundromat). Her dad, Glenn Ellison, is chair of MIT’s Econ School. His former colleague on the MIT Econ faculty, Gary Gensler, who specialized in blockchains there, is now head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, an agency that Sam Bankman-Fried was attempting to rope into a regulation scheme to eliminate FTX’s crypto-currency competitors."

But all those illustrious, Deep State connections didn’t stop Mr. Market from kicking SBF in the pants. And lo! Mr. Market now has his butt-kicking boots on.

Beyond Hope: Yesterday, the major indexes rose; the bounce continues. But it won’t save the disruptors. They’re getting disrupted anyway. Bankman is bankrupt. Carvana crashed when used car prices went back to normal. Zillow was wrecked when its algorithm failed to notice mortgage rates heading back to normal. Meme stocks – like GameStop – are being un-memed. And Beyond Meat – the turkey’s great hope – is almost beyond hope.

During its heyday…which was only about a year ago…GameStop lovers would buy the stock just to show themselves how cool they were. All it took was a suspicion on Reddit that a big, savvy investor – preferably a hedge fund – was selling the stock short and they were on the case like flies in an outhouse. The little, un-savvy guys bought the stock. The price soared. And the ‘short’ lost money. (Or, the ‘short’ had merely given out the word that he was short, while actually having a big long position, and made a lot of money as the stock went up.) Now, we’re still far from ‘normal,’ but we can see it from here. GameStop has lost 70% from its peak. And in ‘normal’ times investors don’t buy stocks just to spite the pros. They buy them because they think they offer good value.

Which brings us to Beyond Meat. Anytime a company advertises itself as doing good…rather than merely trying to make a buck (such as FTX, which claimed to be only making money so it could contribute to charities)…watch your wallet. Beyond Meat makes plant-based food that looks like meat. For people who like meat but don’t want to eat dead animals…it offered a solution. And for investors who worried about the flatulence of bovines…or the energy required to raise animals…or the cruelty of slaughtering them, Beyond Meat offered an opportunity. They could put their money where their mouths were.

Beyond Reason: The trouble was…they didn’t seem to want to put their mouths where the Beyond products were. But we’ll come to that in a minute. The Wall Street Journal reports: "In May 2019, Beyond launched one of the most successful initial public offerings by a major company in more than two decades…Then…While Beyond’s sales grew 56% to $465 million between 2019 and 20121, its costs and debt grew far faster.

In May, 2019, the stock was trading at $66. By July it was over $200. Another Bubble Epoch success story. Beyond was disrupting the whole animal protein business. Why go to all the trouble – not to mention incurring the environmental costs – of raising, feeding, and slaughtering animals if you could get the same taste and nutrition from something produced in a factory?

But while the Bubble Epoch sows success stories, the Bust Era reaps failures. WSJ continues: "US grocery sales of plant-based meat substitutes are declining, and rival imitation-meat makers are capturing market share. Beyond’s stock is down 83% in the last 12 months. Beyond’s losses deepened from $12 million to $182 million while its debt climbed to $1.1 billion between 2019 and 2021. The company’s losses in the nine months that ended Oct.1 were $299 million…"

Let’s see… Falling sales. A profit margin of about NEGATIVE 80% (for every $1 in sales, the company loses 80 cents). More than a billion in debt. The sales and margin figures make Beyond’s debt very high risk. And the carrying cost of high-yield business debt is rising fast. Too bad for the turkeys, but Beyond Meat may soon be dead meat."

"Massive Shrinkflation At Dollar Tree! This Is Ridiculous! Not Good!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 11/23/22:
"Massive Shrinkflation At Dollar Tree! 
This Is Ridiculous! Not Good!"
"In today's vlog we are Dollar Tree, and are noticing massive food products that have shrunk in size! We are also noticing a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
Comments here:

"One Can Fight Evil..."

Boobus Americanus, champion of willful ignorance.
They don't know because they don't want to know...
'One can fight evil but against stupidity one is helpless.'
- Henry Miller
 "Alas, regardless of their doom,
The little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day..."
Oh, we so deserve what we get...

"The Real Glory..."

“The real glory is being knocked to your knees and then coming back.
That’s real glory. That’s the essence of it.”
- Vince Lombardi
“How Buster Douglas Beat Mike Tyson” 
by johnnysmack7

“Going into the fight, Mike Tyson was the undefeated and undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. He held the WBC, WBA, and IBF titles. Despite the several controversies that marked Tyson’s profile at the time, such as his notorious, abusive relationship with Robin Givens; the contractual battles between longtime manager Bill Cayton and promoter Don King; and Tyson’s departure from longtime trainer Kevin Rooney, Mike Tyson was still lethal in the ring, scoring a 93-second knockout against Carl “The Truth” Williams in his previous fight. Most considered this fight to be a warm-up bout for Tyson before meeting up with then-undefeated number 1 heavyweight contender Evander Holyfield (who was ringside for the fight). Tyson was viewed as such a dominant heavyweight that he was not only viewed as the world’s top heavyweight, but often as the number one fighter in the world pound-for-pound (including by “Ring Magazine”), a rarity for heavyweights.

Buster Douglas was ranked as just the #7 heavyweight by Ring Magazine, and had met with mixed success in his professional boxing career up to that point. His previous title fight was against Tony Tucker in 1987, in which he was TKO’d in the 10th round. However, a string of six consecutive wins gave him the opportunity to fight Tyson. In the time leading up to the fight, Douglas faced a number of setbacks, including the death of his mother, Lula Pearl, 23 days before the fight. Additionally, the mother of his son was facing a severe kidney ailment, and he had contracted the flu on the day before the fight.”
Full screen mode recommended.
At 2:40 of this video Douglas takes a tremendous uppercut and goes down, kneeling to clear his head; look closely...you can see him wondering to himself if he should get up. No one at all expected him to, but he reached for something deep inside himself, found an inner strength perhaps even he was unaware of, and got back up to continue the fight. The rest, as they say, is history… and real glory. – CP

"Thurber's Tail: How My Dog Brought Joy To My Elderly Dad"

"Thurber's Tail: 
How My Dog Brought Joy To My Elderly Dad"
by Tom Purcell

"My Lab puppy, Thurber, was born on Christmas Day, 2020 - the best Christmas blessing I ever received. But he bestowed even greater blessings on my mother and father. In his 87th year, my father was facing a series of health challenges. Waiting for the other shoe to drop - waiting for a middle-of-the night call to help pick him up from a fall - had become the norm. Visits to my parents’ house were becoming less joyful and more stressful as my dad, with limited mobility, needed help getting in and out of his chair and had to ask his kids to assist with the many daily tasks he used to do himself so effortlessly.

We gave my father endless support as his needs grew but his decline brought sadness, and the sadness began permeating my parents’ home, hitting us hard every time we entered the front door. That all changed the day I brought my puppy Thurber home.

Thurber's first visit: The day I picked Thurber up in Punxsutawney, Pa., my plan was to drive directly to my mom and dad’s house. I slipped into their house quietly through the garage and sneaked up the back steps. I knew they’d be in the family room watching an old movie. That’s what they often did in the afternoons - and, sure enough, that is what they were doing.

In I walked, a soft cuddly puppy in my arms - and the room lit up like a Christmas tree. The joy was immediate and, just like that, my mom and dad were transformed from their late 80s into giddy, 10-year-old children. I set Thurber on my father’s lap and the puppy was in his glory, his tail wagging wildly. Dogs always loved my father and sensed instantly, and correctly, that he was the alpha male in the room. The two played and cuddled a good long while as Thurber climbed all over my dad and found an especially comfortable spot between him and the arm of his recliner.

I brought Thurber over to my mom and she too was thrust into instant joy and affection. We never think of our parents as being children, but with a puppy in her arms my mother became a happy little girl. It was as if her father, who died when she was only 19, was watching over her again - providing her with the warmth and security he did so well in her childhood.

After a time, my mother set Thurber on the floor, where I lay enticing him to play with me. I laughed aloud as he jumped on me and showered me with his affection, but it was more than just puppy affection that brought me so much joy. It was wonderful to feel the undivided love and playfulness my puppy directed solely at me. Better yet, it made my mother and father happy to see their middle-aged son being made so happy by the puppy who would now be an integral part of his world.

An angel of joy: I stayed a few hours that Friday afternoon, the first time in months we were able to forget about my dad’s health woes - the first time we laughed in I don’t recall how long. The power of a puppy is transformative, and my transformation was just beginning then, and continues still.

There is a saying I came across in which God is talking to a puppy and he says, “I removed your wings so they won’t know you are an angel.” Well, on the day I brought Thurber home, he became an angel of joy to my father and mother.

I didn’t know that for the next year and a half I’d be able to bring him to my parents’ house for multiple visits that inevitably resulted in childlike happiness for us all - sadness left their home instantly every time Thurber visited. And when Thurber celebrated his first birthday on Christmas Day of 2021, we had the celebration in my parents’ home, and it was a grand event full of laughter and joy.

I didn’t know last Christmas that my father would leave us nine months later - he’d leave us a few days after we’d celebrated his 89th birthday. But I will treasure forever the many joyful visits Thurber and I made to my parents’ home, in which their difficult days were made so much brighter by a furry angel with hidden wings!"

Editor's note: This column is an excerpt from Tom Purcell’s new book, “Tips from a New Dog Dad.” Read more chapters at ThurbersTail.com.

"How It Really Is, For Far Too Many"

"How Much Is That Turkey In The Window?”

"How Much Is That Turkey In The Window?”
by Peter Roff

"This week, people from all walks of life - from the many different faiths, races, and ethnicities who inhabit this wonderful place we call America - will gather together and give thanks, grateful for the blessings they’ve received over the last twelve months.

In previous years, they might have given thanks for health, for family, for children, for grandchildren, for employment, and for that special hope or dream that was unexpectedly realized. This year, in 2022, they’ll no doubt also be giving thanks the turkey dinner with all the trimmings they’re about to enjoy didn’t break the bank.

Like everything else, Tom Turkey’s risen in price, up by a record high 20% over last year, according to the folks that feed the nation and the world over at the American Farm Bureau. The average meal for ten, the Farm Bureau says, will cost about $64, which may not seem like a lot to some people but, as just under $6.50 a person, is considerably more than people are used to paying.

That pumpkin pie on the table? Inflation’s eating into it faster than Uncle Ed will when he raids the refrigerator after everyone else has gone to sleep. Never before in the group’s 37-year history of tracking the price of what is usually found on the Thanksgiving table have prices risen so quickly in so short a time.

Who’s to blame? The Farm Bureau says it’s the continuing increase in inflation month over month of between 7 and 9% and the 12% hike on the most recent Consumer Price Index numbers regarding food consumed at home.

“Farmers are working hard to meet growing demands for food — both here in the U.S. and globally — while facing rising prices for fuel, fertilizer, and other inputs,” said Farm Bureau Chief Economist Roger Cryan said – and we should all be thankful they are. They’re not responsible for the rise in prices.

Neither are the truckers who bring the turkeys and boxes of stuffing and loaves of bread and sweet potatoes and the bags of those tiny marshmallows, without which no Thanksgiving table is complete. Or the hardworking people who stock the shelves and ring up your purchases in the checkout line while wishing you a “Happy Holiday!”

The hike in prices also isn’t the fault of the people who own and manage the stores that sell us the dinner fixings or run the distribution centers and the freight companies that move products from one place to another.

No, the ones responsible for making your Thanksgiving dinner the most expensive ever are the turkeys in Washington who keep spending your money like it was their own. Inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods and services. Higher demands fuel higher prices.

How did all that money get into circulation? The Fed printed it so Congress could spend it on the American Rescue Plan and other so-called relief programs that paid people not to work and producers not to produce from what was left over after the scammers and rip-off artists got who knows how many tens or hundreds of millions of your hard-earned tax dollars.

Then there’s the effort to eliminate oil and natural gas from the receipt for American energy that’s raised the cost of everything from the industrial processes required to produce the food items we expect to enjoy to the price of the diesel fuel consumed to bring it to your local grocers – if it’s available.

The Washington crowd doesn’t want you to put all the pieces together. Policymakers would prefer you focus on the ceremonial presidential pardon of the Christmas turkeys so they can continue to blame greedy businessmen for the fact you had to pinch pennies on your holiday meal while they dined like the Middle Eastern potentates of old.

Don’t be fooled. The cost of the food on your table this year and every year at the end of November has everything to do with how you voted earlier in the month. It may seem crass to some to point this out at a time when we’re supposed to feel thankful that will live in a country where expressions like these are allowed. But it’s important to think about the role policy made in Washington has on the aspects of everyday life. Some people call it “pocketbook economics.” Others call it just plain old common sense. In either case, it's important to keep at least in the back of your mind how the policies made by the politicians ostensibly in your best interests work against you.

Hopefully, it will different next year, when you gather around the same table to give thanks for your blessings once again – that is if higher rents and rising interest rates haven’t forced you to move to a new place, or homeless, by then."

Tuesday, November 22, 2022

The Markets Are Fake, The Crash Is Real, Prepare Now"

Jeremiah Babe, 11/22/22:
"The Markets Are Fake, The Crash Is Real, Prepare Now"
Comments here:

"There's No Place Like Home(less) For The Holidays"

Very strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 11/22/22:
"There's No Place Like Home(less) For The Holidays"
"The Trends Journal" is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Find out more here: https://trendsjournal.com
Comments here:

"1000s Of Cattle Are Disappearing From The US Food Supply Chain As Global Starvation Plan Accelerates"

Full screen recommended.
"1000s Of Cattle Are Disappearing From The US Food
 Supply Chain As Global Starvation Plan Accelerates"
by Epic Economist

"Don’t you think that’s strange that thousands upon thousands of cattle heads are simply vanishing from our food supply chains every week? Ranchers are warning America that a meat recession is coming as our beef cattle herd continues to shrink by large numbers. A major sell-off this summer led to the liquidation of countless livestock herds, but the mass slaughter hasn’t stopped during the fall, and it is in fact, at historical highs for this time of the year. Now, farmers are telling us that it will take years for supplies to come back to normal levels, and this means we will have to get used to paying much more expensive prices for meat from now on. This situation is triggering widespread alarm across the food industry, and in today’s video, we’re going to investigate what is driving the silent collapse of the largest agricultural industry in the United States.

A convergence of many disruptions has made farmers and ranchers deal with some of the toughest conditions for livestock raising in more than a decade, and they’re telling us that it will take several years to rebuild our national cattle production. In a recent publication to clients, meat distributor Good Ranchers warned that “a meat recession is knocking and supply is about to be tight” as the US cattle herd continues to decline. “The cattle herd has shrunk due to droughts,” Good Ranchers wrote. “Our total meat supply for the coming year is down significantly. This is one of the main reasons a meat recession is coming.”

Many other factors are also contributing to this crunch. The truth is that way before ranchers witnessed the worst drought and the most intense heatwaves in over a century during the summer, the U.S. beef cattle herd has been decreasing. The National Agricultural Statistics Service reported that as of January 1, 2022, the herd was down by 2.6 million cattle head compared to the same period a year earlier. In April, way before scorching temperatures started to dry up water reserves and burn grass, Northstar Commodity market analyst Mark Schultz revealed that cow liquidation was about 9% to 9.5% higher than a year prior, and that meant that the daily cattle slaughter was at 126,000 - to 128,000-head range.

In the summer months, things have gotten exponentially worse. With drought impacting the vast majority of U.S. farmland, and particularly affecting Texas ranchers, an unprecedented selloff started to take place due to the lack of water, high feed prices, and financial pressures weighing on farmers and ranchers. By July 1, the volume of cattle going to auction was up about 20% from the same time in 2021, and the proportion of the animals over 600 pounds was way below normal.

In other words, our meat supply will keep going down, and we’re not rebuilding production at the same pace as we’re consuming those supplies, and that’s worrying food industry executives who have been warning about worsening food shortages for months. The mass slaughter shows no sign of slowing in November, and with that extraordinary level of liquidation, price pressures are likely to keep meat off the table of many Americans. Sadly, even though we’re one of the world’s largest meat producers, millions of Americans won’t be able to access the goods we produce in our country. The cost of food is becoming way too unaffordable for many households out there, and if you thought 2022 was a hard year for your finances, brace for more pain in 2023 because these are just the first few chapters of this horrifying crisis."
Comments here:

Gregory Mannarino, "Post Market Wrap-up: Three Things To Watch, Consumer Debt Skyrocketing"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 11/22/22:
"Post Market Wrap-up: Three Things To Watch, 
Consumer Debt Skyrocketing"
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Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Sea and Silence"

Deuter, "Sea and Silence"