"We Won’t Be Fooled Again – Inflation Is Most Definitely Not 'Under Control'”

"We Won’t Be Fooled Again –

 Inflation Is Most Definitely Not 'Under Control'”

by Michael Snyder

"Inflation is going down! Let’s all celebrate! We all knew that when the Federal Reserve began aggressively hiking interest rates it would have an impact on inflation. Higher rates have caused a new housing crash, they have crushed the tech industry, and they have sparked the biggest wave of layoffs that we have seen since the Great Recession. We have entered a significant economic downturn, so it was inevitable that the annual rate of inflation would start to moderate. But as I will explain below, that doesn’t mean that inflation is now “under control”. The real rate of inflation is much higher than we are being told, and people all over the country are being absolutely crushed by the rising cost of living.

Let’s start with the good news first. According to the Labor Department, the annual rate of inflation is rising at the slowest pace since October 2021…"Consumer prices increased 6.5% from a year earlier, down from 7.1% in November and a 40-year high of 9.1% in June, according to the Labor Department’s consumer price index, a measurement of what people pay for goods and services, which labor released on Thursday. The rise last month marks the slowest annual gain since October 2021 and matches economists’ estimates."

Okay, but Fox Business has just reminded us that the annual rate of inflation “remains about three times higher than the pre-pandemic average”…"Still, inflation remains about three times higher than the pre-pandemic average, underscoring the persistent financial burden placed on millions of U.S. households by high prices."

So we are still definitely in a high inflation environment. But let’s dig deeper. Most Americans don’t realize that the way that the inflation rate is calculated has literally been changed more than two dozen times since 1980. And every time it has been changed, the goal has been to make inflation appear to be lower than it actually is.

If the rate of inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, the real rate of inflation would be close to 15 percent right now. That would be comparable to the peak inflation that we witnessed during the Jimmy Carter era. So don’t let anyone try to convince you that inflation is “low” or “under control” or anything like that.

The main reason why the rate of inflation moderated somewhat during the month of December is because energy prices have been falling…"Americans saw some real reprieve last month in the form of lower energy costs, which fell 6.1% in December. Gas prices dropped 12.5% over the month, the biggest contributor to the overall headline decline in inflation in December."

That is great news, but it is already being projected that gas prices will rise significantly later this year. And once war in the Middle East erupts, gas prices will go to heights that most people never even dreamed was possible.

Meanwhile, services inflation has just spiked to a level that we haven’t seen in decades. The cost of living has become extremely oppressive, and the American people are becoming increasingly frustrated by this. Sadly, the truth is that over the past few years the cost of living has been rising faster than our paychecks have, and so U.S. families have steadily been getting poorer…"The average American family has lost the equivalent of more than a month’s salary in annual income since President Biden took office as high inflation and rising interest rates eat away at their finances, according to research by the Heritage Foundation.

Experts at the conservative think tank analyzed consumer prices and interest rates and found in their latest report released Thursday that the average American household has lost the equivalent of $7,400 in annual income since Biden’s inauguration Jan. 20, 2021. The income loss represents an increase of $200 from September, when the think tank’s research found a $7,200 decline in annual income for the average American household dating back to the start of Biden’s term."

Prior to the pandemic, we were in a low inflation and low interest rate environment. Now that the Federal Reserve has dramatically hiked interest rates, we now find ourselves in a high inflation and high interest rate environment. And higher interest rates are also hammering our standard of living…

"While their elected representatives in D.C. struggle to pay the nation’s bills, Americans are facing a similar challenge as their household budgets are stretched thin due to inflation and higher borrowing costs. Those financial challenges led more than one-third of households to rely on credit cards or loans to buy necessities in December. Average credit card interest rates reached a new record high of 19.14% APR compared to a Bankrate.com database.

“Americans are increasingly relying on credit cards to make it from paycheck to paycheck, resulting in higher levels of indebtedness. Rising credit card balances in an era of rising interest rates is a path to insolvency,” Antoni told FOX Business. “The average interest rate on credit cards is now around 20 percent while half of Americans cannot pay off their credit cards each month, and balances are growing at a 16 percent annual rate.”

We are getting hit from both ends. We have to pay more to buy the things that we need, and we have to pay higher interest rates when we borrow money to pay for those things. The Federal Reserve has lost control, and we are careening toward the sort of historic economic crisis that I have been warning about for years.

But those that are under the spell of the corporate media will continue to assume that everything is fine and that our leaders have a plan to get us out of this mess. I truly wish that was true. Unfortunately, the short-term economic outlook is extremely dismal, and prominent voices all over Wall Street are warning that 2023 will be a really rough year."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

Musical Interlude, 2002, "Stillpoint"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Stillpoint"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Who knows what evil lurks in the eyes of galaxies? The Hubble knows -- or in the case of spiral galaxy M64 - is helping to find out. Messier 64, also known as the Evil Eye or Sleeping Beauty Galaxy, may seem to have evil in its eye because all of its stars rotate in the same direction as the interstellar gas in the galaxy's central region, but in the opposite direction in the outer regions. Captured here in great detail by the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, enormous dust clouds obscure the near-side of M64's central region, which are laced with the telltale reddish glow of hydrogen associated with star formation. 

M64 lies about 17 million light years away, meaning that the light we see from it today left when the last common ancestor between humans and chimpanzees roamed the Earth. The dusty eye and bizarre rotation are likely the result of a billion-year-old merger of two different galaxies."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210329.html

"A Realistic Attitude..."

"It was the essence of life to disbelieve in death for one's self, to act as if life would continue forever. And life had to act also as if little issues were big ones. To take a realistic attitude toward life and death meant that one lapsed into unreality. Into insanity. It was ironic that the only way to keep one's sanity was to ignore that one was in an insane world or to act as if the world were sane."

- Philip José Farmer

Chet Raymo, “Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright…”

“Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright…”

by Chet Raymo

“Divinity is not playful. The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet.” You may recall these words from Annie Dillard’s “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.” There is nothing intrinsically cheerful about the world, she says. To live is to die; it’s all part of the bargain. Stars destroy themselves to make the atoms of our bodies. Every creature lives to eat and be eaten. And into this incomprehensible, unfathomable, apparently stochastic melee stumbles… You and I. With qualities that we have - so far - seen nowhere else. Hope. Humor. A sense of justice. A sense of beauty. Gratitude. But also: Anger. Hurt. Despair. Strangers in a strange land.

Galaxies by the billions turn like St. Catherine Wheels, throwing off sparks of exploding stars. Atoms eddy and flow, blowing hot and cold, groping and promiscuous. A wind of neutrinos gusts through our bodies, Energy billows and swells. A myriad of microorganisms nibble at our flesh.

We have a sense that something purposeful is going on, something that involves us. Something secret, holy and fleet. But we haven’t a clue what it is. We make up stories. Stories in which we are the point of it all. We tell the stories over and over. To our children. To ourselves. And the stories fill up the space of our ignorance. Until they don’t. And then the great yawning spaces open again. And time clangs down on our heads like a pummeling rain, like the collapsing ceiling of the sky. Dazed, stunned, we stagger like giddy topers towards our own swift dissolution. Inexplicably praising. Admiring. Wondering. Giving thanks.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

◆

“The Tyger”

“Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art.

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And watered heaven with their tears,

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?”

- William Blake

"Maya Angelou's Life Advice"

Full screen recommended.

"Maya Angelou's Life Advice"

"Maya Angelou born Marguerite Annie Johnson April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Angelou is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" (1969), tells of her life up to the age of 17 and brought her international recognition and acclaim."

The Daily "Near You?"

Princeton, Maine, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Worst Part..."

"Our world is not safe. It is a toxic swamp populated by predators and parasites. The odds are stacked against us from the moment of conception. We survive only because we fight the elements, hunger, disease, each other. And, although civilization promises us safe harbor, that promise is a fairy tale. Only the storm is real. It comes for each of us. And we cannot win. We can only choose how we will suffer our defeat. We can meekly take our beatings, and die like lemmings, finding solace in the belief that we shall one day inherit the earth. Or, we can plunge into the chaos with eyes wide open, taking comfort instead from the bruises, scars, and broken bones which prove that we fought to live and die as gods."

 - J.K. Franko, "Life for Life"

○

"The worst part is wondering how you'll find the strength tomorrow to go on doing what you did today and have been doing for much too long, where you'll find the strength for all that stupid running around, those projects that come to nothing, those attempts to escape from crushing necessity, which always founder and serve only to convince you one more time that destiny is implacable, that every night will find you down and out, crushed by the dread of more and more sordid and insecure tomorrows. And maybe it's treacherous old age coming on, threatening the worst. Not much music left inside us for life to dance to. Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn't enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I've never been able to kill myself."

- Louis-Ferdinand Celineo

"You’re Not Ready For This"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 1/12/23:

"You’re Not Ready For This"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Bonhoeffer on Stupidity"

"Bonhoeffer on Stupidity"

by Averett Jones

"Taken from a circular letter, addressing many topics, written to three friends and co-workers in the conspiracy against Hitler, on the tenth anniversary of Hitler’s accession to the chancellorship of Germany…

‘Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed - in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.

If we want to know how to get the better of stupidity, we must seek to understand its nature. This much is certain, that it is in essence not an intellectual defect but a human one. There are human beings who are of remarkably agile intellect yet stupid, and others who are intellectually quite dull yet anything but stupid. We discover this to our surprise in particular situations. The impression one gains is not so much that stupidity is a congenital defect, but that, under certain circumstances, people are made stupid or that they allow this to happen to them. We note further that people who have isolated themselves from others or who live in solitude manifest this defect less frequently than individuals or groups of people inclined or condemned to sociability. And so it would seem that stupidity is perhaps less a psychological than a sociological problem. It is a particular form of the impact of historical circumstances on human beings, a psychological concomitant of certain external conditions. 

Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or of a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence, and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.

Yet at this very point it becomes quite clear that only an act of liberation, not instruction, can overcome stupidity. Here we must come to terms with the fact that in most cases a genuine internal liberation becomes possible only when external liberation has preceded it. Until then we must abandon all attempts to convince the stupid person. This state of affairs explains why in such circumstances our attempts to know what ‘the people’ really think are in vain and why, under these circumstances, this question is so irrelevant for the person who is thinking and acting responsibly. The word of the Bible that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom declares that the internal liberation of human beings to live the responsible life before God is the only genuine way to overcome stupidity.

But these thoughts about stupidity also offer consolation in that they utterly forbid us to consider the majority of people to be stupid in every circumstance. It really will depend on whether those in power expect more from people’s stupidity than from their inner independence and wisdom."

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from "After Ten Years" in Letters and Papers from Prison (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works/English, vol. 8 ) Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010.

- https://forum.philosophynow.org/

"How It Really Is"

"(Not) Shocker! Inflation Continues To Rise, Food Prices Skyrocketing! Real Wages Crater!"

Gregory Mannarino, 1/12/23:

"(Not) Shocker! Inflation Continues To Rise, 

Food Prices Skyrocketing! Real Wages Crater!"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Massive Price Increases At Kroger! This Is Crazy! What's Coming!?"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 1/12/23:

"Massive Price Increases At Kroger! 

This Is Crazy! What's Coming!?"

"In today's vlog we are at Kroger, and are noticing massive price increases on groceries! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and the empty shelves situation! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

If they do this over a TV, what happens when there's no food?

"Nine Meals from Anarchy"

"Let’s Talk About The Catastrophic Rise Of Egg Prices…"

"Let’s Talk About The Catastrophic Rise Of Egg Prices…"

By Michael Snyder

"Do you remember when you could buy a dozen eggs for 99 cents? It seems like it was only yesterday, but unfortunately those days are now gone for good. Thanks to a variety of factors, egg prices have risen to levels that we have never seen before, and in some areas of the country significant shortages are being reported. In fact, things are so bad that Whole Foods is apparently “now limiting egg carton purchases to two per person”. This is extremely alarming, because millions of U.S. households have traditionally relied on eggs as a cheap source of protein. Unfortunately, it appears that eggs will not be “cheap” for the foreseeable future. According to an article that originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the average price of a dozen eggs in California actually reached $7.37 this week…

Egg cases were bare across Los Angeles County this week, from Trader Joe’s in Long Beach to Amazon Fresh in Inglewood, Target in MidCity to Ralphs in Glendale. Those such as Hodges who found cartons were shocked by the sudden spike in price. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Anna Sanchez, 32, who scoured the half-empty shelves at a Smart & Final in University Park looking for a dozen eggs for less than $10. “The cheaper ones just aren’t there.”

The average retail price for a dozen large eggs jumped to $7.37 in California this week, up from $4.83 at the beginning of December and just $2.35 at this time last year, data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show. Can you imagine paying 7 dollars for a carton of eggs? I certainly cannot.

Thankfully, prices are not quite as high elsewhere in the nation. One of the reasons why egg prices in California are so absurd is because of a new law that went into effect last January…"Since the law went into effect last January, all eggs sold in California have to be produced in cage-free settings. But cage-free production takes much more space than conventional egg production, and California producers aren’t able to keep up with demand. “They’re selling everything they can possibly grow,” Mattos said."

Of course egg prices have also been skyrocketing in states that do not have such laws. All over the nation, people are now paying 4 or 5 dollars for a dozen eggs, and many believe that our ongoing bird flu pandemic is the primary factor that is causing prices to go completely nuts…"But egg prices are up significantly more than other foods - even more than chicken or turkey - because egg farmers were hit harder by the bird flu. More than 43 million of the 58 million birds slaughtered over the past year to control the virus have been egg-laying chickens, including some farms with more than a million birds apiece in major egg-producing states like Iowa."

More than 50 million chickens and turkeys have also been wiped out in Europe. So when you combine the two totals, so far well over 100 million chickens and turkeys have been killed in just the United States and Europe. And there is no end to the bird flu pandemic in sight. This is a major crisis, but up to this point the mainstream media has not been focusing on it very much.

On top of everything else, egg farmers have had to deal with rapidly rising costs in recent months. In fact, there are some in the industry that insist that the huge cost increases that egg farmers have been hit with over the past year are even a bigger factor than the bird flu…"But the president and CEO of the American Egg Board trade group, Emily Metz, said she believes all the cost increases farmers have faced in the past year were a bigger factor in the price increases than bird flu. “When you’re looking at fuel costs go up, and you’re looking at feed costs go up as much as 60%, labor costs, packaging costs - all of that … those are much much bigger factors than bird flu for sure,” Metz said."

Many anticipate that these costs will only go higher in 2023. And that will mean even higher prices for the rest of us. I really feel badly for small bakeries. They use lots and lots of eggs, and if egg prices continue to go up many small bakeries could soon be forced to close… “Small businesses especially, you live and die by what your food costs are,” said Tracy Ann Devore, owner of KnowRealityPie in Eagle Rock, who recently let go a dishwasher to stem rising costs. “If this keeps up for another three to six months, it could be a tipping point for some bakeries to close.”

For Devore and many others, the new egg crisis, combined with uncertainty about when it could ebb, has been more unsettling than the gradual price creep of dairy products, flour and produce. “At some point, you can’t raise the price anymore,” Devore said. “There’s been points where I’ve cried recently, because I thought, ‘How are we going to keep going with this?’”

Our food industry was stable for so many years, but now we are witnessing a dramatic shift. Costs are going through the roof, and supply problems just keep popping up. Just like we have witnessed at other times, empty shelves are starting to be reported at certain supermarkets around the nation…"Social media is brimming with reports of missing food items at Kroger supermarket locations across the country. A repeat of early 2020 when toilet paper and other essentials ran bare, the start of 2023 is seeing “a lot of empty shelves” at Kroger, according to numerous reports, some containing video evidence of lingering supply chain problems."

We are getting dangerously close to the days that I have been warning about. As we are hit by one crisis after another throughout 2023, I expect our supply chain problems to continue to intensify. So I would encourage you to stock up while you still can. Yes, prices may seem ridiculously high now, but the truth is that they aren’t going to be getting any lower than they are at this moment."

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

o

Related:

"Grocery Stores In New York City Are Considering 

Locking Up Food Because Theft Has Become So Rampant"

"The Joke..."

"The joke was thinking you were ever really in charge of your life. You pressed your oar down into the water to direct the canoe, but it was the current that shot you through the rapids. You just hung on and hoped not to hit a rock or a whirlpool."

- Scott Turow

"Death of an Empire"

"Death of an Empire"

Eisenhower's warning and America's great insecurity complex.

by Bill Bonner and Joel Bowman

Normandy, France - "Fish gotta swim. Birds gotta fly. And late, degenerate empires gotta get out of the way. Here at Bonner Private Research, we focus on money. And we see that the Primary Trend seems to have reversed. What was up is now down. Left is right. The Fed was playing fast and loose for the last 3 decades; now it is sitting up straight and tightening its tie. And those who made money in lighter-than-air ‘securities’ in the 2009-2020 boom are now losing money as they come down with a thud.

The latest headline from Bloomberg: "Super-Prime Real Estate in New York and Florida Has Hit a Wall." But this market correction is only one of a catastrophic ‘cluster’ of trends that we looked at yesterday: 

● The continued exploitation of the middle class by the elite, which is why the correction will not be allowed to complete its work.

● The decline of the American Empire, beginning about 1999 and continuing.

● Abandoning the ideas that made the US so successful. Free trade, free enterprise, free speech, equal protection under the law –who believes in these principles anymore? Not the deciders.

● A fanatical, unquestioning fear of global warming and a belief that the earth’s climate can be and must be controlled.

●The unchallenged political power of what Eisenhower called the ‘military, industrial complex.’

Let’s start from the bottom and work our way up.

Insecurity Complex: The military is supposed to provide security, so that ordinary people can go about their lives without worrying about a foreign invasion. Subordinate to civilian control, in the US, the gold-braided general is supposed to be kept like a guard dog – on a leash, held firmly by people in civies.

But over time, the ‘military, industrial, surveillance, think tank complex’ has become just what Dwight Eisenhower warned that it would become – unstoppable…unanswerable…and unpalatable. This year’s appropriations bring US military spending to more than is spent by China, the UK, Russia, India, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, France, and South Korea – combined. With the money, the armed wing of the Deep State, the richest single enterprise in the world, has bought control of the press, the universities, the administration, and Congress itself. It pays an army of lobbyists and a phalanx of scholars to explain and persuade…to twist arms and bend public opinion – always in favor of more and more military spending.

The war industry keeps the public’s attention fixed on one conflict after another. Vietnam, Nicaragua, Kuwait, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria…and now the Ukraine…to be followed by a showdown with China. But what was the point of any of these wars?

US Offense Industry: Communism failed because a centrally-controlled economy is inherently weak; in Vietnam, the Pentagon got 58,000 American soldiers killed for nothing. In Nicaragua, Danny Ortega, one of the original Sandinistas, still rules. In Iraq, there are more terrorists than ever before, now that there is no Saddam Hussein to keep them in check. In Afghanistan, the Taliban – a designated ‘terrorist’ group – runs the country. And is Russia really a threat to Europe? Will she invade Germany? France? Do you watch the news? Putin has his hands full just getting control of a Russian-speaking area on his southeastern flank, where the local people actually begged him to come in.

The US ‘defense’ industry has long since given up any pretense to be defending the US. Since the Second World War, all of its undertakings have been ‘wars of choice’…offensive operations in which it meddled in the affairs of sovereign foreign nations. And yes, language evolves along with the purpose to which it is put. The new chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Republican Mike Rogers, no longer speaks of proud citizen soldiers defending the Republic. Now they are more accurately “warfighters” who can “deter and, if necessary defeat, any adversary anywhere in the world.”

Why taxpayers would want to support ‘warfighters’ has never been explained. And who do they fight? Do we have adversaries in Ouagadougou? How about in Mogadishu or Reykjavik? Only if we want to have them. And the only plausible reason for wanting to have them is to justify shifting wealth from the public to the war industry.

In practice, the grift has been easy. Put some money on the table – a campaign contribution, support to a favorite think tank, a contract, a sinecure – and deciders are easily convinced. As for the public, it needs no convincing; it hardly has time to think through the particulars. Instead, as soon as the game begins, it puts on the home-team jersey.

Long Range Imbeciles: It’s the theory that poses a problem – at least to those few who bother to think about it. America is, after all, protected by two vast oceans. It is almost impossible for an adversary to get anywhere close to Long Beach, CA or Ocean City, MD. And even the fastest long-range missiles take time to reach their destinations, during which they are vulnerable to ‘interdiction.’ In the context of an $860 billion budget, defensive missiles cost a pittance.

It’s the short-range missiles that pose a more immediate threat. That’s why President Kennedy insisted that the Soviets remove their missiles from Cuba. And that is why Mr. Putin is so keen to keep NATO away from the Donbass. Alas, in disregarding the Kremlin’s desire for the same security that it finds indispensable for itself, the US commits an error typical of late stage empires…a failure of reciprocity. It has gotten too big for its britches.

But there are limits to everything. Great armies rise. And then – under the weight of their own booty, bureaucracy and brass – they fall. Already, the Pentagon’s target-rich environment is in the US House of Representatives, not in enemy territory. In the nation’s capitol, it can toss a grenade at random and take out nothing but its own supporters. Real enemies might not be so easy.

Meanwhile, the more time and stuff the ‘military, industrial complex’ squanders, the less is left over to fuel economic growth. Productivity is falling in the US at the fastest rate in four decades. Growth rates have fallen since the 1950s, and now are nearly negative. Savings are the precious “secret sauce” of a real economy. But the savings rate is at a 17-year low. And instead of using money carefully and wisely, billions of dollars go to the shysters of Kiev, in the Ukraine, as well as those in McLean, in the Virginia.

Fearing the death of its empire, America commits suicide. "

Joel’s Note: "When this year’s spending bill was flown to President Biden – who was vacationing in St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands at the time – the man with the magic pen tweeted: “It’ll invest in medical research, safety, veteran health care, disaster recovery, (Violence Against Women Act) funding – and gets crucial assistance to Ukraine.” The signing represented a “year of historic progress,” the president crowed, adding that he was “Looking forward to more in 2023.” (Whether more spending or more Virgin Islands vacations was not stipulated.)

Jam-packed with goodies, the 4,000+ page bill – almost certainly unread by a single member of the human species – promised all kinds of fuzzy, feel-good giveaways, like childcare development programs and housing assistance for low income families. No doubt there’s a few pennies in there for the study of mythological insects and scholarships for one-legged trans soccer players, too. Something for everythey.

In fact, there’s so much conspicuous non-violence in the bill’s non-defense spending, one might be tempted to forget about the larger, decidedly meatier slice of the pie… that is, the part that’s full of B-2 stealth bombers, Predator drones, Hellfire missiles, nuclear submarines and 11 aircraft carriers, boasting around 80 fighter jets each, the combined deck space of which is more than twice that of the rest of the world’s carriers… combined. Then there’s the 1.4 million active military personnel, with their fidgety fingers on the trigger, who keep the whole operation running...

All in, so-called “defense” spending now eats up a much larger portion of the federal government’s spending than does non-defense spending… by almost $100 billion. That’s more than the total spent on social service programs (the entire Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid programs, combined), plus transportation, education, housing, urban development… all the things that government officials like to tout when they’re selling their massive spending bills to ordinary working citizens, whose generous hearts are reliably won over by such well-meaning, community sounding allocations.

At $858 billion for fiscal year 2023, not only is America’s defense spending larger than those of the aforementioned nations in Bill’s column, combined, it’s also roughly equal to the entire GDP of Saudi Arabia, the world’s second largest oil producer (11 MMB/D).

Were that money deployed at home, $858 billion would be enough to hire 11 million full-time registered nurses… or 15.6 million kindergarten teachers… or 17.1 million firefighters...It’s enough to fund 28.6 million in-state physics degrees… or to fully graduate 4.2 million engineers from MIT… or to hire every single Diversity, Equity and Inclusion consultant in the entire country… and pay them double time to never come to work again.

Alternatively, the US could pay a fortune to shoot itself in the foot, the ultimate price for ignoring Eisenhower's dire warning. Bang, bang."

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

"Urgent: DEFCON Flights Grounded; Russian Command Shift To War With NATO!"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 1/11.23:

"Urgent: DEFCON Flights Grounded;

Russian Command Shift To War With NATO!"

"Major escalation has just happened in the Russian ranks signalling a big move is on the way. The flight cancellations may have been a test?"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Will This Be America's Next Big Bankruptcy?"

"Will This Be America's Next Big Bankruptcy?"

By Mike Palmer

"The ultra-wealthy entrepreneur Bill Bonner wrote a fascinating piece in his daily e-letter last week. Bonner, who built one of the largest financial research firms in the world, with offices across the globe starting in the late 1970’s says three trends made the period of 1980 to 2022 one of the most investment-friendly episodes in history. Bonner describes these three investor-friendly trends as:

Cheap energy...

Cheap labor (mostly from China)...

And cheap credit, in the form of ultra-low interest rate loans.

But now... says Bonner, all three of these trends have radically reversed. And as a result, businesses, ideas, and plans based on these trends are quickly collapsing... and even going bankrupt!

You can see the wreckage beginning to pile up all around us...The cryptocurrency company FTX, for example, which at one point was worth $32 billion and counted Blackrock and the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan as shareholders, recently went bust. The millions in losses from this collapse are just beginning to be tallied.

Before that, nearly half of England's 400 pension funds almost collapsed. They were saved only by the intervention of the country's central bank. Then, there are the formerly "hot" tech businesses like Carvana, a company that was being touted as a way to reinvent the car business. It's fallen 98% in roughly a year... and is on the verge of bankruptcy.

Many more former tech darlings, like Arrival (electric cars), Vapotherm (healthcare), and Porch (home buying and selling) are also all down more than 95% in the past year. But here's the really scary part...

According to Bill Bonner, these collapses and bankruptcies are just getting started. In fact, Bonner says the next big bankruptcy and next big collapse is likely to come from a place few people are even thinking about right now. Bonner says this looming fall is going to catch almost everyone by surprise and could lead to some very difficult years in America.

I strongly encourage you to check out Bonner's recent analysis. You're unlikely to hear this message anywhere else, and the mainstream press likely won't report on it for months to come, when it's far too late. Click here to view it for free..."

- WigginSessions@email.5minforecast.com

Chet Raymo, “Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright…”

“Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright…”

by Chet Raymo

“Divinity is not playful. The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet.” You may recall these words from Annie Dillard’s “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.” There is nothing intrinsically cheerful about the world, she says. To live is to die; it’s all part of the bargain. Stars destroy themselves to make the atoms of our bodies. Every creature lives to eat and be eaten. And into this incomprehensible, unfathomable, apparently stochastic melee stumbles… You and I. With qualities that we have - so far - seen nowhere else. Hope. Humor. A sense of justice. A sense of beauty. Gratitude. But also: Anger. Hurt. Despair. Strangers in a strange land.

Galaxies by the billions turn like St. Catherine Wheels, throwing off sparks of exploding stars. Atoms eddy and flow, blowing hot and cold, groping and promiscuous. A wind of neutrinos gusts through our bodies, Energy billows and swells. A myriad of microorganisms nibble at our flesh.

We have a sense that something purposeful is going on, something that involves us. Something secret, holy and fleet. But we haven’t a clue what it is. We make up stories. Stories in which we are the point of it all. We tell the stories over and over. To our children. To ourselves. And the stories fill up the space of our ignorance. Until they don’t. And then the great yawning spaces open again. And time clangs down on our heads like a pummeling rain, like the collapsing ceiling of the sky. Dazed, stunned, we stagger like giddy topers towards our own swift dissolution. Inexplicably praising. Admiring. Wondering. Giving thanks.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

◆

“The Tyger”

“Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art.

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And watered heaven with their tears,

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?”

- William Blake

"Bank Runs And Food Runs Imminent; Your Church Failed You; Household Debt Danger"

Jeremiah Babe, 1/11/23:

"Bank Runs And Food Runs Imminent; 

Your Church Failed You; Household Debt Danger"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Americans Don’t Realize They’re Being Cooked"

"Americans Don’t Realize They’re Being Cooked"

by Brian Maher

Annapolis, Maryland - "Your editor entertains a theory: We Americans are frogs. We are frogs wallowing blissfully in a pot of fatally warming water. We boil gradually away, unaware… comfortable… arrogant… and ignorant. That is, we the American people have grown so accustomed to the warmth enwombing us - and for so long - we are incapable of detecting the ratcheting heat. We will never jump the pot. We are simply too comfortable inside it.

We refer specifically and unequivocally to the warming water of the American fiscal setting. The nation is spending itself into hot water. Why? The United States national debt runs to $31.5 trillion, approximately. The nation’s debt-to-GDP ratio comes in at 124%... the highest since 1949.

In 1949 the United States was still shoveling its way out of the World War II spending blitz. What is today’s justification? Where is Herr Hitler and his conquesting Nazis? Where is Mr. Tojo and his imperializing Japanese? What bank-busting Manhattan Project is the United States government funding? To our knowledge there is no worldwide war. There are then no attending requirements for vast fleets and mighty armies. And yet the nation’s debt-to-GDP ratio registers at 124%.

Yes, the pandemic with its lockdowns threw the nation’s finances into wild discombobulation. Yet even before the pandemic the debt-to-GDP ratio exceeded 100%. That is, the United States churned out more debt than domestic product, grossly measured. That is, the pot water was already warming dangerously and the frog lolling therein was already disnoticing the increase.

The Great Heat Generator: “Entitlement” spending - the quote marks are necessary - account for much of the warming. On this topic former colleague David Stockman is shouting an alert. As David explains, entitlement outlays have heavily rotated the oven dial clockwise… from the lower heat settings… to the higher settings: "The long-term growth of government transfer payment entitlements benefits since 1954 are self-evidently the heart of the nation’s fiscal doomsday machine.

Dollar outlays have grown by a staggering 290 times - from $16 billion in 1954 to $4.64 trillion in 2021. And even when you make allowance for inflation and economic growth, the story is no less relentless. Back in the heyday of postwar prosperity (1954), America was booming and middle-class living standards were rising rapidly. Yet these transfer payment entitlements cost just 4.0% of GDP.

Needless to say, that’s a tiny fraction of today’s entitlement spending at 20.0% of GDP. And this staggering fiscal burden sits atop a national economy that is barely creeping forward on a trend basis - even as virtually every single dime of these expenditures has been authorized in perpetuity."

Hence your pot of increasingly warming water. Or in David’s telling, the “nation’s fiscal doomsday machine.” Mr. Stockman was President Ronald Reagan’s director of the Office of Management and Budget. That is, he commands a very rich knowledge of the topic under discussion. Thus we are willing to lend him a listening ear.

Guns AND Butter: In the famous “guns vs. butter” duality, entitlements represent butter. This tempting goo - people enjoy entitlements and clamor for them - has greased our way into the water, the water presently accumulating heat. Yet as David explains: the “guns” have likewise eased our way in. It is thus a bipartisan raising of the water temperature, both gun and butter merchants working the oven dials clockwise:

The true threats to America’s national security today are a mere fraction of those posed by the nuclear-armed Soviet Union at the peak of the Cold War. That the current defense budget is nevertheless nearly two times larger in real terms is due to the fact that the constitutional processes for managing the nation’s fiscal affairs have essentially become vestigial.

What we have instead is history’s greatest log-rolling machine. This year, for example, the domestic spenders gave the military hawks in both parties the obscene sum of $858 billion for national defense in return for $773 billion of domestic pork. The combination amounted to $101 billion more than last year’s already capacious budgets.

Warmer Water: $101 billion more than even last year! Can you believe it? What do the American people receive for the extra $101 billion? Additional debt and an increase of the debt-to-GDP ratio. Beyond that, very little we suspect. In words other, we will receive another counterclockwise working of the oven dial - that is, another increase to the water temperature.

Yet what is the one factor that may raise the water temperature to unendurable and fatal settings? Here is the answer: Interest payments on the debt. That is correct - interest payments on the debt.

It’s All Fun and Games While Interest Rates Are Low: For years and years Congress borrowed and borrowed on very easy terms. Interest rates were abnormally low, therefore interest payments were abnormally low. They could afford to spree. They were after the free lunch and very nearly received one… because of suppressed interest rates. Once again, David: "Like so much else, the Fed’s previous money printing madness resulted in rampant borrowing by Congress, even as artificially low interest rates drastically suppressed the annual interest bill.

Consequently, Congress got the wrong message - the delusion that there is essentially a free fiscal lunch. Just since the year 2000 the public debt soared from $5.7 trillion to $31.4 trillion at present, a 450% gain. At the same time, however, interest expense grew by barely 80% during the same 22-year period…

That bit of arithmetical magic in which the debt grew nearly six times as fast as interest expense happened because the weighted average cost of net debt service dropped from 4.0% at the turn of the century to just 1.3%."

The Days of Wine and Roses Are Over: Yet the cost of lunching has undergone a magnificent increase. Interest rates have been on the jump since the summer of 2020. After guttering along near 0.50% that peculiar summer, the 10-year Treasury yield presently exceeds 3.5%. It recently exceeded 4%. Interest payments on the debt have jumped in consequence.

In 2017 - merely five years distant - interest payments scarcely exceeded $200 billion. During the plague year of 2020 they hovered near $300 billion. In 2022 interest payments verged upon $400 billion.

Meantime, the Congressional Budget Office projects these expenditures will triple over the decade ahead. Glancing further out, CBO projects interest payments will near $66 trillion over the following 30 years. They will likewise absorb nearly 40% of all federal expenditures by 2052. The frog in its pot will be well and truly cooked.

What if Interest Rates Rise Even Higher? Yet CBO’s crystal-gazings assume a reasonable increase to the interest rate. What if rates rise unreasonably, at substantially higher paces? Yet again, David: "CBO’s latest federal spending projections tell you all you need to know. Even with its relatively moderate forecast rise in Treasury debt yields, outlays for interest expense are projected to rise by 200% over the next decade. That’s triple the projected growth of health and Social Security entitlements and 7X the baseline gain in defense and nondefense discretionary appropriations.

Needless to say, the impending massive explosion of mandatory debt service has not been in the playbook of either the Washington pols or the Wall Street speculators. It was just assumed that wildly growing public debt would never present a carry cost problem. No longer." No longer - indeed.

Meantime, debt runs riot, the economy runs to conditions nearly recessionary, the debt-to-GDP ratio ticks remorselessly higher… And the American citizen wallows away in the increasingly warming water that envelops him. He mistakes it for comfort. He will one day learn otherwise. Alas… he will learn too late."

- dailyreckoning.com

“'Threats To Democracy' And So On"

“'Threats To Democracy' And So On"

By Addison Wiggin

“Common sense will tell us that the power which hath endeavored 

to subdue us is of all others the most improper to defend us.”

- Thomas Paine

"Our Session this week is called “The Real Anthony Fauci with Filmmaker Jeff Hays.” Jeff, known in Hollywood for his work on the documentary Fahrenhype-9/11, spent the last four years chasing the leads around vaccine policy and the manipulative, corruptive power of what he calls “American Royalty.” His way into the backrooms: Robert “Bobby” Kennedy, Jr, the notorious son of RFK and nephew of JFK.

Bobby is nestled in the trenches of American political decision-making. Most notably, he claims that everything that happened during the COVID “plandemic” is a “threat to democracy.” These are heavy words. I pushed back during our discussion:

Addison: You’re going to have to explain that phrase to me. “Threats to democracy” have been thrown around a lot recently. Challenges to the establishment are what make democracy function properly, right?

Jeff: You’re right. We may end up losing the right to even use this phrase and have it make any sense to somebody who hears it.

What Bobby means when he says “threats to democracy” is that during COVID, every article in our Bill of Rights, except for the Second Amendment, was attacked and set to the side. We had 3.3 million businesses shut down by the government without compensation. That was one of our basic rights. We had freedom of speech that we lost. We had freedom to gather that we lost. We had freedom of religion that we lost.

So when Bobby says “threat to democracy,” he is talking about our Constitution and our Bill of Rights. And the basic rights that this country was built on were taken away without hearing from the bureaucrats. That’s the threat. And we sat by and let this happen. Some people are even saying freedom of speech is somehow a threat to democracy!

Unfortunately this kind of jingoistic political dissolution of which Jeff and Bobby speak– these “threats to democracy” coming from within the bureaucratic establishment– are all too prevalent. Just last week my son Henry was asking questions about the Federal Reserve and interest rate hikes after reading one of my missives. “What’s so bad about the Fed dictating monetary policy? Isn’t the question really: How much socialism do we want?”

I didn’t think I would ever reach a point in my life where my own progeny would say this back to me! We are truly in a moment of reorganization and change when it comes to our American values, and the COVID daze was fuel on the fire.

“It is irrational to look for solutions to problems from the people who caused the problems in the 1st place,” reader Howard S writes in an email simply titled Madness. “A good place to start is to make sure there are consequences for bad behavior.”

“You know damn well this is all part of an orchestrated agenda!” echoes Wayne J and the conspiracy begins again. So it goes..."

- https://5minforecast.com/wiggin-sessions/

You can watch the full Episode 88 of TWS with Jeff Hays here. His exposé into the world of American politics – what’s really going on behind the curtain – is eye-opening:

"What Is Happening To Our Wealthiest Cities Clearly Demonstrates America’s Rapid Decline"

Full screen recommended.

"What Is Happening To Our Wealthiest Cities

 Clearly Demonstrates America’s Rapid Decline"

by Epic Economist

"The wealthiest cities in the United States are getting infested by addicts, delinquents, and homeless people, and no matter what alleged “solutions” our politicians come up with those issues just continue to get worse. The landscape of once-prosperous areas just looks disgusting -- almost like something out of a post-apocalyptic horror movie. If things are this bad right now, what will those streets look like when the recession depression starts gaining steam in the months ahead, and deteriorating economic conditions begin affecting everyone’s lives?

We’re watching our major urban centers rot from within. Even in the richest cities in the whole country, filth and misery are everywhere. Places like New York, the financial capital of the entire globe, and San Francisco, one of the greatest tech hubs in the world, are not spare from rampant rates of delinquencies and severe offenses, people using illicit substances in the middle of the streets in broad daylight, and a surge in the homeless population that is just gut-wrenching.

In fact, local reports detail that New York City’s homeless problem does not appear to be getting any better despite the almost $6 billion in federal funds sent to the local government to introduce programs that could help alleviate the issue. According to the Coalition for the Homeless, the numbers have actually hit an all-time high. They claim the average number of people sleeping in a shelter every night climbed to nearly 66,000 in the past quarter. However, the city’s homeless population is estimated at 126,000 people, which means that a large share of that group is sleeping on the streets. The coalition stressed that the main reason these numbers are this high is because the city has failed to provide adequate affordable housing.

At the same time, the downward spiral that we are witnessing in San Francisco is unquestionably disturbing. On Twitter, one resident share footage of what downtown San Francisco looks like on any given day, and the images are truly shocking. “This is what the kids in San Francisco are forced to walk past every day,” the user wrote. Substance abuse, feces, needles, adults slumped over with exposed wounds, and addicts suffering from mental illness screaming in the streets. “The streets are truly scary to walk down,” she emphasized.

It seems that everywhere we look, we can see that some of our beloved communities are degenerating into rapidly decaying hellholes and our streets are filled with ruthless predators. It is clear that America is descending into lawlessness. The thin veneer of civilization that we all depend upon every day is disappearing at an alarming pace, and if we stay on this path our society will soon be completely unrecognizable. Once upon a time, the United States was such a lovely place to be. But now, this is what our country is looking like. We are rapidly becoming a dystopian society, and that is because we have rejected the values that this nation was founded upon.

If nothing changes, we’re going to be swallowed up by these issues. Ignoring what is happening is not going to make it go away. Social decay is systematically destroying the foundations of our civilization, and at this point, it has become evident that America’s decline is really starting to accelerate."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

SBC News, 1/1-2/23:

"Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Ave"

"Problems with drugs and crime on Kensington Ave, Philadelphia's most dangerous street. In Philadelphia as a whole, violent crime and drug abuse are major issues. The city has a higher rate of violent crime than the national average and other similarly sized metropolitan areas. The drug overdose rate in Philadelphia is also concerning. Between 2013 and 2015, the number of drug overdose deaths in the city increased by 50%, with more than twice as many deaths from overdoses as homicides. 2 Kensington's high crime rate and drug abuse contribute significantly to Philadelphia's problems.

Because of the high number of drugs in the neighborhood, Kensington has the third-highest drug crime rate by neighborhood in Philadelphia, at 3.57. The opioid epidemic has played a significant role in this problem, as it has in much of the rest of the country. Opioid abuse has skyrocketed in the United States over the last two decades, and Philadelphia is no exception. In addition to having a high rate of drug overdose deaths, 80% of Philadelphia's overdose deaths involved opioids, and Kensington is a significant contributor to this figure. This Philadelphia neighborhood is said to have the largest open-air heroin market on the East Coast, with many neighbors migrating to the area for heroin and other opioids. With such a high concentration of drugs in Kensington, many state and local officials have focused on the neighborhood in an attempt to address Philadelphia's problem."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Bruce Springsteen, "Streets of Philadelphia"