"15 Facts Which Prove That A Massive Economic Meltdown Is Already Happening Right Now"

"15 Facts Which Prove That A Massive Economic 

Meltdown Is Already Happening Right Now"

by Michael Snyder

"Economic conditions just keep getting worse. As we prepare to enter 2023, we find ourselves in a high inflation environment at the same time that economic activity is really slowing down. And just like we witnessed in 2008, employers are conducting mass layoffs as a horrifying housing crash sweeps across the nation. Those that have been waiting for the U.S. economy to implode can stop waiting, because an economic implosion has officially arrived. The following are 15 facts that prove that a massive economic meltdown is already happening right now…

#1 Existing home sales have now fallen for 10 consecutive months.

#2 Existing home sales are down 35.4 percent over the last 12 months. That is the largest year over year decline in existing home sales since the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

#3 Homebuilder sentiment has now dropped for 12 consecutive months.

#4 Home construction costs have risen more than 30 percent since the beginning of 2022.

#5 The number of single-family housing unit permits has fallen for nine months in a row.

#6 The Empire State Manufacturing Index has plunged “to a reading of negative 11.2 in December”. That figure was way, way below expectations.

#7 In November, we witnessed the largest decline in retail sales that we have seen all year long.

#8 Even the biggest names on Wall Street are starting to let workers go. In fact, it is being reported that Goldman Sachs will soon lay off approximately 4,000 employees.

#9 The Federal Reserve is admitting that the number of actual jobs in the United States has been overstated by over a million.

#10 U.S. job cuts were 417 percent higher in November than they were during the same month a year ago.

#11 A recent Wall Street Journal survey found that approximately two-thirds of all Americans expect the economy to get even worse next year.

#12 A newly released Bloomberg survey has discovered that 70 percent of U.S. economists believe that a recession is coming in 2023.

#13 Inflation continues to spiral wildly out of control. At this point, a head of lettuce now costs 11 dollars at one grocery store in California.

#14 Overall, vegetable prices in the United States are more than 80 percent higher than they were at this same time last year.

#15 Thanks to the rapidly rising cost of living, 63 percent of the U.S. population is now living paycheck to paycheck.

In a desperate attempt to get inflation under control, the Federal Reserve has been dramatically increasing interest rates. Those interest rate hikes are what has caused the housing market to crash, but Fed officials insist that such short-term pain is necessary in order to tame inflation. But meanwhile our politicians in Washington are busy creating more inflation by borrowing and spending money at a rate that is absolutely unprecedented in our entire history.

This week, an abominable $1.7 trillion dollar omnibus spending bill is being rammed through Congress, but not a single member of Congress has read it. The bill is 4,155 pages long, and U.S. Senator Rand Paul just held a press briefing during which he wheeled it out on a trolley…"After the grossly bloated $1.7 trillion Omnibus spending bill advanced in the Senate by a vote of 70-25, GOP Senator Rand Paul held a press briefing during which he wheeled in the “abomination” on a trolley and demanded to know how anyone would be able to read it before the end of the week. Paul, along with the only other dissenting Senate Republicans Mike Braun, Ron Johnson, Mike Lee, and Rick Scott highlighted how ludicrous the fast tracking of the bill has been."

Unfortunately, this absurd spending bill has broad support on both sides of the aisle, and that just shows how broken Washington has become. Our system of government has failed time after time, and our politicians continue to spend money on some of the most ridiculous things imaginable. The following examples that were pulled out of the 1.7 trillion dollar omnibus spending bill were discovered by the Heritage Foundation…

• $1.2 million for “LGBTQIA+ Pride Centers”

• $1.2 million for “services for DACA recipients” (aka helping illegal aliens with taxpayer funds) at San Diego Community College.

• $477k for the Equity Institute in RI to indoctrinate teachers with “antiracism virtual labs.”

• $1 million for Zora’s House in Ohio, a “coworking and community space” for “women and gender-expansive people of color.”

• $3 million for the American LGBTQ+ Museum in New York City.

• $3.6 million for a Michelle Obama Trail in Georgia.

• $750k for the for “LGBT and Gender Non-Conforming housing” in Albany, New York.

• $856k for the “LGBT Center” in New York.

And have you noticed that our politicians often prefer to push these types of bills through just before major holidays when hardly anyone is paying attention? No matter who we send to Washington, the story remains the same.

As long as our politicians are borrowing and spending trillions of dollars that we do not have, Fed officials won’t be able to win their war against inflation. The Fed can send interest rates into the stratosphere, but inflation will continue to remain high because our politicians insist on showering the nation with giant mountains of cash.

We should all be deeply, deeply offended by what is happening, but most Americans simply do not know enough to care. But once economic conditions get even worse than they were in 2008 and 2009, the majority of the U.S. population will become extremely angry. Of course things could have turned out much differently if we had made better decisions during the years leading up to this crisis. Unfortunately, we have run out of time to change course, and that means that a tremendous amount of pain is ahead for all of us."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"How It Really Is"

 
Civility?! This is 'Murica, fool!

"Ah, You Miserable Creatures!"

"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."

- Frederic Bastiat

Civility? How much more evidence do you need to 

realize we as a society have lost our collective minds?

"Alert! Russia Declares Full Military Mobilization"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 12/21/22:

"Alert! Russia Declares Full Military Mobilization"

"On the same day that Zeke gets red carpet rollout in Washington, Putin gives military a blank check, deploys Sarmat 28 nuclear missiles and commits to full military mobilization."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Poet: Maya Angelou, "A Brave And Startling Truth"

"A Brave And Startling Truth"

by Maya Angelou

"We, this people, on a small and lonely planet

Traveling through casual space,

Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns,

To a destination where all signs tell us

It is possible and imperative that we learn

A brave and startling truth.

And when we come to it,

To the day of peacemaking,

When we release our fingers

From fists of hostility

And allow the pure air to cool our palms.

When we come to it,

When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate,

And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean.

When battlefields and coliseum

No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters

Up with the bruised and bloody grass,

To lie in identical plots in foreign soil.

When the rapacious storming of the churches,

The screaming racket in the temples have ceased.

When the pennants are waving gaily,

When the banners of the world tremble

Stoutly in the good, clean breeze.

When we come to it,

When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders,

And children dress their dolls in flags of truce.

When land mines of death have been removed,

And the aged can walk into evenings of peace.

When religious ritual is not perfumed

By the incense of burning flesh,

And childhood dreams are not kicked awake

By nightmares of abuse.

When we come to it,

Then we will confess that not the Pyramids

With their stones set in mysterious perfection

Nor the Gardens of Babylon

Hanging as eternal beauty

In our collective memory,

Not the Grand Canyon

Kindled into delicious color

By Western sunsets.

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe

Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji

Stretching to the Rising Sun.

Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,

Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores

These are not the only wonders of the world.

When we come to it,

We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe,

Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger

Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace.

We, this people on this mote of matter,

In whose mouths abide cankerous words

Which challenge our very existence,

Yet out of those same mouths

Come songs of such exquisite sweetness

That the heart falters in its labor,

And the body is quieted into awe.

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet,

Whose hands can strike with such abandon

That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living.

Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness

That the haughty neck is happy to bow,

And the proud back is glad to bend.

Out of such chaos, of such contradiction

We learn that we are neither devils nor divines.

When we come to it,

We, this people, on this wayward, floating body,

Created on this earth, of this earth,

Have the power to fashion for this earth

A climate where every man and every woman

Can live freely without sanctimonious piety,

Without crippling fear.

When we come to it,

We must confess that we are the possible,

We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world.

That is when, and only when,

We come to it."

○

“The Christmas Truce of 1914”

“The Christmas Truce of 1914”

by Simon Rees

The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting each other - 

instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.”

- Edward Abbey

“You are standing up to your knees in the slime of a waterlogged trench. It is the evening of 24 December 1914 and you are on the dreaded Western Front. Stooped over, you wade across to the firing step and take over the watch. Having exchanged pleasantries, your bleary-eyed and mud-spattered colleague shuffles off towards his dug out. Despite the horrors and the hardships, your morale is high and you believe that in the New Year the nation’s army march towards a glorious victory.

But for now you stamp your feet in a vain attempt to keep warm. All is quiet when jovial voices call out from both friendly and enemy trenches. Then the men from both sides start singing carols and songs. Next come requests not to fire, and soon the unthinkable happens: you start to see the shadowy shapes of soldiers gathering together in no-man’s land laughing, joking and sharing gifts. Many have exchanged cigarettes, the lit ends of which burn brightly in the inky darkness. Plucking up your courage, you haul yourself up and out of the trench and walk towards the foe…

The meeting of enemies as friends in no-man’s land was experienced by hundreds, if not thousands, of men on the Western Front during Christmas 1914. Today, 106 years after it occurred, the event is seen as a shining episode of sanity from among the bloody chapters of World War One – a spontaneous effort by the lower ranks to create a peace that could have blossomed were it not for the interference of generals and politicians.

The reality of the Christmas Truce, however, is a slightly less romantic and a more down to earth story. It was an organic affair that in some spots hardly registered a mention and in others left a profound impact upon those who took part. Many accounts were rushed, confused or contradictory. Others, written long after the event, are weighed down by hindsight. These difficulties aside, the true story is still striking precisely because of its rag-tagged nature: it is more ‘human’ and therefore all the more potent.

Months beforehand, millions of servicemen, reservists and volunteers from all over the continent had rushed enthusiastically to the banners of war: the atmosphere was one of holiday rather than conflict. But it was not long before the jovial façade was torn away. Armies equipped with repeating rifles, machine guns and a vast array of artillery tore chunks out of each other, and thousands upon thousands of men perished. To protect against the threat of this vast firepower, the soldiers were ordered to dig in and prepare for next year’s offensives, which most men believed would break the deadlock and deliver victory. The early trenches were often hasty creations and poorly constructed; if the trench was badly sighted it could become a sniping hot spot. In bad weather (the winter of 1914 was a dire one) the positions could flood and fall in. The soldiers – unequipped to face the rigors of the cold and rain – found themselves wallowing in a freezing mire of mud and the decaying bodies of the fallen.

The man at the Front could not help but have a degree of sympathy for his opponents who were having just as miserable a time as they were. Another factor that broke down the animosity between the opposing armies were the surroundings. In 1914 the men at the front could still see the vestiges of civilization. Villages, although badly smashed up, were still standing. Fields, although pitted with shell-holes, had not been turned into muddy lunarscapes. Thus the other world – the civilian world – and the social mores and manners that went with it was still present at the front. Also lacking was the pain, misery and hatred that years of bloody war build up. Then there was the desire, on all sides, to see the enemy up close – was he really as bad as the politicians, papers and priests were saying? It was a combination of these factors, and many more minor ones, that made the Christmas Truce of 1914 possible.

On the eve of the Truce, the British Army (still a relatively small presence on the Western Front) was manning a stretch of the line running south from the infamous Ypres salient for 27 miles to the La Bassee Canal. Along the front the enemy was sometimes no more than 70, 50 or even 30 yards away. Both Tommy and Fritz could quite easily hurl greetings and insults to one another, and, importantly, come to tacit agreements not to fire. Incidents of temporary truces and outright fraternization were more common at this stage in the war than many people today realize – even units that had just taken part in a series of futile and costly assaults, were still willing to talk and come to arrangements with their opponents.

As Christmas approached the festive mood and the desire for a lull in the fighting increased as parcels packed with goodies from home started to arrive. On top of this came gifts care of the state. Tommy received plum puddings and ‘Princess Mary boxes’; a metal case engraved with an outline of George V’s daughter and filled with chocolates and butterscotch, cigarettes and tobacco, a picture card of Princess Mary and a facsimile of George V’s greeting to the troops. ‘May God protect you and bring you safe home,’ it said. Not to be outdone, Fritz received a present from the Kaiser, the Kaiserliche, a large meerschaum pipe for the troops and a box of cigars for NCOs and officers. Towns, villages and cities, and numerous support associations on both sides also flooded the front with gifts of food, warm clothes and letters of thanks.

The Belgians and French also received goods, although not in such an organized fashion as the British or Germans. For these nations the Christmas of 1914 was tinged with sadness – their countries were occupied. It is no wonder that the Truce, although it sprung up in some spots on French and Belgian lines, never really caught hold as it did in the British sector.

With their morale boosted by messages of thanks and their bellies fuller than normal, and with still so much Christmas booty to hand, the season of goodwill entered the trenches. A British Daily Telegraph correspondent wrote that on one part of the line the Germans had managed to slip a chocolate cake into British trenches. Even more amazingly, it was accompanied with a message asking for a ceasefire later that evening so they could celebrate the festive season and their Captain’s birthday. They proposed a concert at 7.30pm when candles, the British were told, would be placed on the parapets of their trenches. The British accepted the invitation and offered some tobacco as a return present. That evening, at the stated time, German heads suddenly popped up and started to sing. Each number ended with a round of applause from both sides. The Germans then asked the British to join in. At this point, one very mean-spirited Tommy shouted: ‘We’d rather die than sing German.’ To which a German joked aloud: ‘It would kill us if you did’.

December 24 was a good day weather-wise: the rain had given way to clear skies. On many stretches of the Front the crack of rifles and the dull thud of shells ploughing into the ground continued, but at a far lighter level than normal. In other sectors there was an unnerving silence that was broken by the singing and shouting drifting over, in the main, from the German trenches. Along many parts of the line the Truce was spurred on with the arrival in the German trenches of miniature Christmas trees – Tannenbaum. The sight these small pines, decorated with candles and strung along the German parapets, captured the Tommies’ imagination, as well as the men of the Indian corps who were reminded of the sacred Hindu festival of light. It was the perfect excuse for the opponents to start shouting to one another, to start singing and, in some areas, to pluck up the courage to meet one another in no-man’s land.

By now, the British high command – comfortably ‘entrenched’ in a luxurious châteaux 27 miles behind the front – was beginning to hear of the fraternization. Stern orders were issued by the commander of the BEF, Sir John French against such behavior. Other ‘brass-hats’ (as the Tommies nick-named their high-ranking officers and generals), also made grave pronouncements on the dangers and consequences of parleying with the Germans. However, there were many high-ranking officers who took a surprisingly relaxed view of the situation. If anything, they believed it would at least offer their men an opportunity to strengthen their trenches. This mixed stance meant that very few officers and men involved in the Christmas Truce were disciplined. Interestingly, the German High Command’s ambivalent attitude towards the Truce mirrored that of the British.

Christmas day began quietly but once the sun was up the fraternization began. Again songs were sung and rations thrown to one another. It was not long before troops and officers started to take matters into their own hands and ventured forth. No-man’s land became something of a playground. Men exchanged gifts and buttons. In one or two places soldiers who had been barbers in civilian times gave free haircuts. One German, a juggler and a showman, gave an impromptu, and given the circumstances, somewhat surreal performance of his routine in the centre of no-man’s land.

Captain Sir Edward Hulse of the Scots Guards, in his famous account, remembered the approach of four unarmed Germans at 08.30. He went out to meet them with one of his ensigns. ‘Their spokesmen,’ Hulse wrote, ‘started off by saying that he thought it only right to come over and wish us a happy Christmas, and trusted us implicitly to keep the truce. He came from Suffolk where he had left his best girl and a 3 h.p. motor-bike!’ Having raced off to file a report at headquarters, Hulse returned at 10.00 to find crowds of British soldiers and Germans out together chatting and larking about in no-man’s land, in direct contradiction to his orders. Not that Hulse seemed to care about the fraternization in itself – the need to be seen to follow orders was his concern. Thus he sought out a German officer and arranged for both sides to return to their lines.

While this was going on he still managed to keep his ears and eyes open to the fantastic events that were unfolding. ‘Scots and Huns were fraternizing in the most genuine possible manner. Every sort of souvenir was exchanged addresses given and received, photos of families shown, etc. One of our fellows offered a German a cigarette; the German said, “Virginian?” Our fellow said, “Aye, straight-cut”, the German said “No thanks, I only smoke Turkish!” It gave us all a good laugh.’ Hulse’s account was in part a letter to his mother, who in turn sent it on to the newspapers for publication, as was the custom at the time. Tragically, Hulse was killed in March 1915.

On many parts of the line the Christmas Day truce was initiated through sadder means. Both sides saw the lull as a chance to get into no-man’s land and seek out the bodies of their compatriots and give them a decent burial. Once this was done the opponents would inevitably begin talking to one another. The 6th Gordon Highlanders, for example, organized a burial truce with the enemy. After the gruesome task of laying friends and comrades to rest was complete, the fraternization began.

With the Truce in full swing up and down the line there were a number of recorded games of soccer, although these were really just ‘kick-abouts’ rather than a structured match. On January 1, 1915, the London Times published a letter from a major in the Medical Corps reporting that in his sector the British played a game against the Germans opposite and were beaten 3-2. Kurt Zehmisch of the 134th Saxons recorded in his diary: ‘The English brought a soccer ball from the trenches, and pretty soon a lively game ensued. How marvelously wonderful, yet how strange it was. The English officers felt the same way about it. Thus Christmas, the celebration of Love, managed to bring mortal enemies together as friends for a time.’

The Truce lasted all day; in places it ended that night, but on other sections of the line it held over Boxing Day and in some areas, a few days more. In fact, there were parts on the front where the absence of aggressive behavior was conspicuous well into 1915.

Captain J C Dunn, the Medical Officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, whose unit had fraternized and received two barrels of beer from the Saxon troops opposite, recorded how hostilities re-started on his section of the front. Dunn wrote: ‘At 8.30 I fired three shots in the air and put up a flag with “Merry Christmas” on it, and I climbed on the parapet. He [the Germans] put up a sheet with “Thank you” on it, and the German Captain appeared on the parapet. We both bowed and saluted and got down into our respective trenches, and he fired two shots in the air, and the War was on again.’ The war was indeed on again, for the Truce had no hope of being maintained. Despite being wildly reported in Britain and to a lesser extent in Germany, the troops and the populations of both countries were still keen to prosecute the conflict.

Today, pragmatists read the Truce as nothing more than a ‘blip’ – a temporary lull induced by the season of goodwill, but willingly exploited by both sides to better their defenses and eye out one another’s positions. Romantics assert that the Truce was an effort by normal men to bring about an end to the slaughter. In the public’s mind the facts have become irrevocably mythologized, and perhaps this is the most important legacy of the Christmas Truce today. In our age of uncertainty, it comforting to believe, regardless of the real reasoning and motives, that soldiers and officers told to hate, loathe and kill, could still lower their guns and extend the hand of goodwill, peace, love and Christmas cheer. The Irish poet, Thomas Kettle, who was killed in the War in September 1916, captured that spirit in a poem he wrote to his little daughter, Betty, shortly before he died:

“So, here while the mad guns curse overhead,

And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor,

Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead,

Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor –

But for a dream, born in a herdsman’s shed,

And for the secret scripture of the poor.”

- http://www.firstworldwar.com/

"Coca Cola Warns That Prices Will Explode From Current Levels"

Full screen recommended.

"Coca Cola Warns That Prices Will 

Explode From Current Levels"

by Epic Economist

"Some of the world’s largest consumer goods giants have recently laid bare the impact of inflation on their operations and admitted that more price hikes will be passed on to shoppers over the next few weeks and months. Amongst them, one of the most notable warnings came from Coca-Cola. The leading brand in the beverage category reported a series of disruptions on its production line and said that although it has managed to navigate through the current turbulent environment, that doesn’t mean the company will be immune to the effects of a recession. With commodity price inflation shooting up higher than expected, Food Business News reports that Coca-Cola is going into 2023 prepared for the economy to take a turn for the worst. Unfortunately for consumers, that means double-digit price increases on their favorite products are coming, and shortages of some popular soft drinks are on the horizon, too.

In the second quarter of 2022 alone, the company raised its average selling prices by around 12%, according to Reuters. In recent reports, its executives noted that the cost of aluminum for cans climbed about 60% over the course of a year. Labor, shipping, and other supply chain challenges also contributed to making the cost of production significantly more expensive. CCEP, a part of the company that is responsible for making, transporting, and selling products including Fanta and Sprite across 29 countries, recently said it had been experiencing “a number of logistics challenges”. “There are still logistical challenges and issues, as with every sector, and the shortage of aluminum cans is a key one for us now, but we are working with customers to manage this,” executives noted.

The combined effect of all of those issues has led the company’s executives to warn that a shortage of Coca-Cola products may be coming soon. “My analogy [about product shortages] would be it’s a bit like an earthquake,” Quincey said during an interview with CNBC. “You get further shock waves coming through, but they tend to be of diminishing magnitude,” he highlighted. However, it’s not possible to mitigate all challenges. He presented a second analogy, comparing the supply chain headaches to a game of whack-a-mole. “Some shortages are ongoing and structural, and some appear for a quarter and disappear again,” he added.

The CEO further elaborated that with costs still rising and supply bottlenecks showing little signs of easing, the coming price hikes will likely not be enough to fully cushion the company’s profit margins. But despite the new increases, Quincey acknowledges that Coca-Cola can’t keep on raising prices on their customers, especially because at some point those higher costs will hurt the beverage maker’s bottom line too. “Coca-Cola has been able to stay ahead of inflation so far, but consumers won’t swallow inflation endlessly,” Quincey told CNBC.

He observed that consumers are facing “a squeeze on purchasing power”. Now, U.S. markets are going through “a typically recessionary pattern,” he added, and companies must be very careful not to push consumers over the edge. It’s safe to say that with soda prices going up over 45% in less than four years, American shoppers are dangerously close to that edge. Very challenging times are approaching, and the economic recession that’s unfolding will certainly make things more chaotic this winter. We will continue to track this crisis and provide you with the latest information, warnings, and forecasts so you can stay ahead of the shortages and product stockouts at your local supermarket."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

"2023 Will Be A Nightmare - What Will You Do When It Really Gets Bad? Stop Buying Toys And Prepare"

Jeremiah Babe, 12/21/22:

"2023 Will Be A Nightmare - What Will You Do 

When It Really Gets Bad? Stop Buying Toys And Prepare"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Chrysalis"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Chrysalis"

“Oceans of strings and choirs, flutes and keyboards lift us

out of the trials and tribulations of our daily lives as though

we were on a ship with gossamer sails, sailing on the moonlight.”

– Steve Ryals

"A Look to the Heavens"

"One of the brightest galaxies in planet Earth's sky is similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy: big, beautiful Messier 81. Also known as NGC 3031 or Bode's galaxy for its 18th century discoverer, this grand spiral can be found toward the northern constellation of Ursa Major, the Great Bear. The sharp, detailed telescopic view reveals M81's bright yellow nucleus, blue spiral arms, pinkish starforming regions, and sweeping cosmic dust lanes. 

Some dust lanes actually run through the galactic disk (left of center), contrary to other prominent spiral features though. The errant dust lanes may be the lingering result of a close encounter between M81 and the nearby galaxy M82 lurking outside of this frame. M81's faint, dwarf irregular satellite galaxy, Holmberg IX, can be seen just below the large spiral. Scrutiny of variable stars in M81 has yielded a well-determined distance for an external galaxy - 11.8 million light-years."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210312.html

"That's Where It All Begins..."

"That's where it all begins. That's where we all get screwed big time as we grow up. They tell us to think, but they don't really mean it. They only want us to think within the boundaries they define. The moment you start thinking for yourself- really thinking- so many things stop making any sense. And if you keep thinking, the whole world just falls apart. Nothing makes sense anymore. All rules, traditions, expectations - they all start looking so fake, so made up. You want to just get rid of all this stuff and make things right. But the moment you say it, they tell you to shut up and be respectful. And eventually you understand that nobody wants you to really think for yourself.

- Ray N. Kuili

“An Act of Legislative Barbarism”

“An Act of Legislative Barbarism”

by Brian Meyer

"Have you the time to scour 4,155 pages - finely printed and single-spaced - within the span of three days? If so we would dispatch you at once to Washington. There you can announce the full contents of the $1.7 trillion omnibus bill, so-called, under present consideration by the United States Senate. Released Tuesday morning, it must face a vote by midnight Friday - else the federal government “shuts down.” What precisely do we know about this omnibus? That it is loaded to the gunwales and packed to suffocation with pig products - “pork.”

Spending “Priorities”: The bill authorizes for example:

$1.2 million for “LGBTQIA+ Pride Centers”...

$1.2 million for "services for DACA recipients” (aka helping illegal aliens with taxpayer funds) at San Diego Community College…

$477,000 for the Equity Institute in Rhode Island to indoctrinate teachers with “antiracism virtual labs”...

$1 million for Zora’s House in Ohio, a “coworking and community space” for “women and gender-expansive people of color”...

$3 million for the American LGBTQ+ Museum in New York City…

$3.6 million for a Michelle Obama Trail in Georgia…

$750,000 for “LGBT and gender non-conforming housing” in Albany, New York…

$2 million for the Great Blacks in Wax Museum in Baltimore…

$856,000 for the “LGBT center” in New York…

$750,000 for the TransLatin@ Coalition to provide “workforce development programs and supportive services for transgender and gender nonconforming and intersex immigrant women in Los Angeles.

This we learn from the conservative Heritage Foundation.

It’s Nothing Personal: We have no heat against the LGBTQIA+ among us — though we concede that we do not know which group each individual letter represents. Nor are we certain which group “+” represents. We merely harbor grave reservations that this museum here… or that center there… constitutes a worthwhile expenditure of federal tax monies. The money adds up, and plentily.

Politics is of course the art of the possible. To get, one must give. Horses must be traded, backs must be scratched, palms must be greased, arms must be twisted and skulls must be cracked. And so Senate Republicans emerged from the business with their own pretty little plums.

You Get Your Butter and We Get Our Guns: Notes Wisconsin’s Republican Sen. Ron Johnson: "It’s interesting to note on the Republican side, we actually have a conference resolution that we don’t support earmarks. Well, we’re supporting over $4 billion worth. Democrats are getting $5.4 billion worth of earmarks."

Republicans will get their $858 billion for “defense” — a nearly 10% increase over last year’s spending. They will likewise receive an additional $45 billion in Ukrainian assistance. About which, argues Republican Senate Minority Leader Addison Mitchell McConnell III: "Providing assistance for the Ukrainians to defeat the Russians, that’s the No. 1 priority for the United States right now, according to most Republicans."

Is it? We are in regular contact with several Republicans. Not one among them - to our knowledge at least - has labeled Ukrainian assistance their No. 1 priority. To a man they wish Ukraine the best in the world. Yet they rank other priorities higher.

Dissension in the Ranks: We are bitterly and ruthlessly bipartisan. That is, we denounce each party for its multiple atrocities. Yet in fairness, there are several dissenting Republican senators raising a royal rumpus over the bill. For example, Indiana Republican Sen. Michael Braun: "Huge spending bills like this one are how we got into trillion-dollar deficits, $31 trillion in debt and an inflation crisis hurting every American family."

Sen. Rand Paul of the majority leader’s same state of Kentucky has taken to the warpath: "When was the 4,155-page omnibus spending bill] produced? In the dead of the night. One-thirty in the morning when it was released. Well, whose job is it to produce this? The people in charge of spending. The people in charge of both of the parties. When did they know that this would be necessary? Well, it’s in the law. Sept. 30. You got nine months, almost 10 months to produce a plan, to have a spending plan. They weren’t ready on Sept. 30, so they voted themselves 90 more days. They weren’t ready last week either. So they voted themselves another week. And now we have it at 1:30 this morning…"

Republican leadership likes to say, ‘Oh, but it’s a win, it’s a big win. We’re getting $45 billion for the military.’ So which is more important? Which threatens the country more? Are we at risk for being invaded by a foreign power if we don’t put $45 billion into the military? Or are we more at risk by adding to a $31 trillion debt? Utah’s Republican Sen. Mike Lee has ventured so far as to label the bill “an act of legislative barbarism.”

“Every Nation Gets the Government It Deserves”: The entire business can wear the soul out of the stoutest fellow. He rages against it. Yet he is powerless to stop it - and well does he know it. Yet we must consider an unflattering possibility. As we are fond to note… “Every nation gets the government it deserves,” said 18th-century French philosopher Joseph de Maistre. If true - we suspect it is - the United States is a nation of scoundrels, cads, wastrels and spongers. For it is we who elect the politicians under discussion.

There are simply too many interests angling to get a bucket in the stream, to get a snout in the trough, to catch a penny… to pick a pocket or two. Is the glad-handing, vote-seeking politician solely to blame for the nation’s desperate finances? No, argues Paul Van de Water, senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Look thyself in the mirror, citizen, says he: "Even voters who say they’re against deficits would also prefer lower taxes. That is, the average voter sniffs the free lunch… and orders up a plateful."

We must agree with this analysis.

Everyone Wants a Free Lunch: The cost-free lunch has eternal appeal. It is a painless gain… and what a gain it can be. Once it goes upon the menu it never comes off. But ultimately the waiter lays the check upon the table… as warned Mr. Benjamin Franklin: "When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic."

Do we condemn the voter for biting the bait? No, we do not pass judgment - we have yet to decline an expenseless meal. We merely observe… and reflect… as a man may reflect upon his own shortcomings and failures.

Professional Wrestling: What is the only surprise about this pending budget deal? Here is the answer: That anyone could be surprised by this pending budget deal. Republican and Democrat leadership might stage a splendid combat for the crowd. They may batten upon each other with seemingly savage and vicious blows. Yet watch closer…

The combatants rarely strike at the vitals. And the blood is fake. When it comes to borrowing and spending… most Republicans and Democrats are twins. If you threatened to cut them off the artificial warfare would halt immediately… and the hands of peace come extending from both sides. This we are presently witnessing.

Sold Down a River, Bipartisan Style: And so today we drop another mournful tear on the ashes of fiscal responsibility. As we have noted before, Republicans once defended the approaches to the United States Treasury. But they have since sold the pass. And as we have further noted before: Both parties have sold us all down a river…"

- https://dailyreckoning.com/

"Insider-Outsiders"

"Insider-Outsiders"

A major change in the primary trends, 

from politics to finance to society at large...

by Bonner and Joel Bowma

Youghal, Ireland - "Today is the first day of winter. The sun, now barely clearing the roof of our garage, at midday, can begin to rise again. One season gives way to another. Darkness (it gets dark here at 4 in the afternoon) gives way to light. Things change.

In Japan, the deciders have finally decided to let savers earn a little interest. Bloomberg: "Global Era of Negative Yields Is Ending as Japan Note Tops Zero." "Japan’s two-year yield rose above zero for the first time since 2015, bringing the global era of negative yields closer to an end.

The rate added as much as two basis points to 0.01% on Wednesday, according to Japan Bond Trading Co. data, as the country’s debt extended declines after the central bank doubled its cap on 10-year yields on Tuesday. All other benchmark tenors have yields above zero and Bloomberg’s gauge of global negative-yielding debt only contains short-term Japanese bonds."

And in the US, higher interest rates are beginning to sting. Bloomberg again: "US Housing Starts, Permits Fall on Slide in Single-Family Homes." "New US home construction continued to decline in November and permits plunged as high borrowing costs paired with widespread inflation eroded housing affordability and demand."

Outside Insiders: Central banks are not letting interest rates rise because they want to, but because they have to. Otherwise, inflation will get out of control and bad things will happen. But wait. Inflation is bad for the economy. It is bad for almost everyone in the economy. So, the feds, who represent almost everyone in the economy will stop it, right?

Don’t count on it. Over the last few days, we’ve been ruminating on why what is best for the deciders is not necessarily best for everybody else. The ‘government’ is not the same as ‘The People.’ And the people who run the government do not have the same interests as the citizens they rule over. Unlike in 1776, when the elite who started the revolution were outsiders who valued the right to free speech and a free economy and needed The People with them in their fight with George III, today, the deciders are insiders. Free speech threatens their narratives, their ideas and their programs. A free economy threatens their status and their wealth.

For the moment, the deciders have decided to let interest rates rise. But push comes to shove…what will they decide next? Here’s the situation now. Two big milestones were passed in the last 2+ years. First, a 38-year run of lower and lower interest rates ended in July 2020. The 10-year US note hit a record low yield below 0.6%...and bounced. Now, the 10-year yield is over 3.5%. The other milestone came 18 months later, when the stock market hit an all-time high over 36,000 on the Dow. It too reversed. Now the Dow is below 33,000.

Passing these two milestones tells us that the primary trend has changed. What was going up is now going down. What was going down is now going up. Light gives way to darkness. And if we’re right, that this is not just ‘noise’ or ‘random motion,’ but a real change of the primary trend, both stocks and bonds will continue going down for many years. First, they will regress to the mean (go back to normal). Then they will overshoot…with price levels we haven’t seen in the last 30 years.

More to the Story: If that were all there were to the story, it wouldn’t be much of a story. But there is a lot more going on. One of those things is the effort by the elite (who run the government) to control the economy and its markets. This is a major departure from the ‘free market’ philosophy embedded in the US Constitution. The Constitution is the highest law of the land. There is no mention of stimmie checks in it.

“You’re going to take from some citizens to give to others,” James Madison might have asked? “You’re going to tax future generations – with inflation – in order to pay off the present generation,” Thomas Jefferson might have wondered? “You’re going to manipulate interest rates,” Ben Franklin might have raised the query; “I don’t see where the federal government is given that power.”

Nor does the Constitution make any provision for the Fed, the SEC, FTC, Fannie Mae, FDA, BAFT, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the Appalachian Regional Commission or any of the 2,000 agencies and offices that ‘regulate’ our lives. Nor is there any provision for trade sanctions, proxy wars, overseas military bases, destroying gas lines that belong to others, assassinating foreign military officials or any other foreign misadventures. The founding fathers specifically advised against them.

But these boondoggles and fantasies expanded…almost from the founding of the Republic right up to today. And they are our suspect Number 1 for why US economic growth rates and wealth levels have declined. At home, output is stifled. Regulations, edicts, rules – multiplying like rabbits on viagra – cut off innovation and output. As Joel showed on the weekend, if regulations had remained at the level they were when we were born – 1948 – we would all have more than 3 times as much wealth as we have today.

Abroad, trillions of dollars are squandered on senseless wars, with the current ‘empire budget’ – the Pentagon, foreign aid, diplomatic missions etc – approximately equal to the entire nation’s savings.

“Show Us the Money!” Thanks to these public policies, the wealth of the nation has slumped. But the relative wealth of the elite – who get most of the money – has soared. Over the past 20 years, in nominal terms, the average wealth of Americans has risen about 2.4% per year. But the income of the top 1% has gone up at a 3.4% rate. Also, the Fed tilted the playing field in favor of the rich by funneling trillions of dollars to Wall Street, thus lifting the values of assets owned by the elite…while leaving wages untouched.

The health of the nation has declined, too. According to the latest survey numbers, US life expectancy has fallen to 46th place in the world – below Cuba and French Guiana.

In terms of GDP/capita (a rough measure of wealth), the US has now dropped to 7th place…way behind Ireland. Here in Ireland, the GDP/capita is over $100,000. In the US, it is barely over $75,000. What a difference a couple hundred years makes. Ireland was the poorest country in Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. By mid-century, it lost a million people to starvation and another million to emigration. Where did they go? To America, where a relatively free economy allowed them to support themselves…and then to prosper. By the 1960s, Irish Catholics in the US were the second richest group, after Jews.

The world turns. Ireland is no longer dreadfully poor (it is the second richest country in the world) and the US is no longer undeniably rich. And the descendants of the free speech, free market outsiders of 1776 became the Deep State insiders of 2022…eager to suppress free speech and control every aspect of the economy.

And so we wonder…when push comes to shove…what will they do? That is, when recession/stagflation settles over the country like a thick blanket of snow. Electric lines bend and break under the weight and the power goes out. And poor people, cold…and hungry, demand succor.

Rich people will be looking for relief too. Their stocks, now trading at a P/E of around 20, will fall 20% more to get to a more average P/E. Then, they will ‘overshoot’ by another 20%, putting the Dow below 20,000. The inflation rate by then could have dropped to 5% or 4%. It hardly matters. Because that is when, rich and poor alike, all cry and howl…scream and whimper…“Forget inflation. Forget the Constitution. We want the damned money!” What will the deciders do then?"

Joel’s Note: A quick correction to yesterday’s missive. Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was not published in 1776, as many of you wrote to observe, but rather in 1859. Thanks for calling us out! (Bill penned the words… but it’s up to a good editor – who was, ahem… apparently out to lunch – to catch any oversights. Mea culpa!)

Some dear readers kindly offered up a few examples of other works from 1776 that could stand in to make the point, such as Thomas Paine’s "Common Sense" or Edward Gibbons' "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" (Volume 1), both instructive in their own ways.

One wonders, when reviewing these great thinkers of the past, what Messrs. Paine or Gibbons or the authors of that other pivotal political document of the year, the Declaration of Independence (ratified by the Continental Congress on the 5th of July… we jest, we jest!) would think about the current state of the nation, almost two and a half centuries on?

Take, for instance, the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill free-for-all extravaganza that hit the Senate floor (predictably with a grand thud!) yesterday. Actually, as Senator Rand Paul pointed out, the 4,155 page bill actually landed at 1:30am, in the dead of the night, when visions of greasy earmarks were still dancing in politicians’ sleeping heads.

The bill, equal to about 3.5 times the length of Leo Tolstoy’s "War & Peace" (1869), is to be voted on by the end of the week… or else! As the hyperventilating Washington Post couldn’t wait to remind us: "Senate begins debate on $1.7 trillion deal to fund government, avert shutdown." "Lawmakers must act swiftly to approve the measure, known as an omnibus, before a temporary spending agreement lapses at the end of this week According to the story, “Democrats and Republicans raced to avert a shutdown in the final days of the year.”

And yet, lawmakers had until September 30 (almost ten months) to draft their spending plan for the new year… a deadline that lapsed without much hoopla and which the responsible parties voted to extend anyway. That second deadline lapsed last week and, similarly, dawdling politicos were unready…

But now… now, in the fading twilight of the year, all of a sudden the urgency is upon our great leaders. They must race to “get the job done”… to loot the coffers… to spend, spend, spend until the barman rings the bell for last call! $858 billion in “defense” spending, including an additional $44.9 billion for the Ukraine (apparently now a semi-permanent line item in any federal budget)…?

Sure! How about $772.5 billion in non-defense discretionary spending? Why the heck not? What’s another $1.7 trillion in total spending, anyway? Senator Paul convened a news conference to voice his dismay at both the process itself and the impact the bulging bill will have on working Americans, already struggling under persistently high inflation.

“The American people don’t want this,” said Paul. “They are sick and tired of it. They are paying for it through the nose with inflation. We’re standing up, and we’re going to say no.” Alas, the senator from Kentucky seems not to have received the message. To paraphrase George Orwell’s "1984" (published in 1949):

"War is Peace

Freedom is Slavery

Ignorance is Strength…"

and Spending is Saving.

Oh yeah, and nobody likes a grinch."

- https://bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com/p/