Full screen recommended.
Albert Camus, "Life Changing Quotes"
Powerful quotations from the great French philosopher Albert Camus.
Narrated by Chris Lines
So, we rise from the rubble...
Wednesday, February 1, 2023
"14 Videos That Will Make You Want To Scream Out “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?”
"14 Videos That Will Make You Want To Scream Out
'ARE YOU KIDDING ME?'”
By Michael Snyder
Excerpt: "Every day we continue to get even more evidence that our society is going completely and utterly insane. I really wish that this wasn’t true. I really wish that we could just hit the rewind button and go back several decades to a time when most people tried to behave normally and there wasn’t rampant corruption all around us. Unfortunately, our social decay has shifted into “turbo mode” over the past several years, and at this point a lot of Americans actually celebrate the evil that is gnawing away at the foundations of our society like cancer. Some of the videos that I am about to share with you are really creepy, some of them are quite funny, and some of them are incredibly alarming. But ultimately they all have something to say about where we currently are as a society. The following are 14 videos that will make you want to scream out “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?”
Full article with videos is here:
"It’s Time To Go On Your Own"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 2/1/23:
"It’s Time To Go On Your Own"
"Why is it that we are paying real estate agents so much money to sell our homes? Maybe it’s time to get rid of them completely with this down market."
Comments here:
"700,000 Russian Soldiers Are Causing Ukraine To Collapse"
Full screen recommended.
Straight Calls with Douglas Macgregor, 2/1/23:
"700,000 Russian Soldiers Are Causing Ukraine To Collapse"
"Your home for analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of current geopolitical events in the United states and the world. Geopolitics. No ego descriptions. No small talk. Straight to the point. Calls with the relevant analysis only."
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Redacted News, 2/1/23:
"Scott Ritter: Portugal Just Entered WW3
And Made A HUGE Mistake, Putin Knows It"
"Portugal just entered WW3 with the dumbest move imaginable sending 1970's era Leopard tanks to Ukraine. Putin says that any escalation by NATO countries would open them up to retaliation by Russia. Portugal famously kept its nose out of WW2 to the best of its ability. Now it appears beautiful and peaceful Portugal has a death wish on its hands by kow towing to U.S. and NATO interests. Portugal needs to tell the U.S. and the E.U. to keep their war away from Iberia."
Comments here:
o
o
Brutally honest truth that YOU, Good Citizen, and all of us,
have paid for, tossing at least $121 BILLION onto this bonfire.
157,000 dead Ukrainian soldiers, 20,000 dead Russians...
A good thing there are no problems at all in this country, right?
o
Full screen recommended.
"Shopping At Target! Crazy Egg Prices! What's Next?!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 2/1/23:
"Shopping At Target! Crazy Egg Prices! What's Next?!"
"In today's vlog we are at Target, and are noticing some price increases on groceries, especially eggs! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and to search for items that have been hard to find in other grocery stores! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
Comments here:
The Poet: Rudyard Kipling, "The Gods of the Copybook Headings"
"The Gods of the
Copybook Headings"
by Rudyard Kipling
"As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while
we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress,
and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield,
or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market
Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming,
They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons,
that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said:
"Stick to the Devil you know."
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbor and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said:
"The Wages of Sin is Death."
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money,
there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said:
"If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled,
and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled
and began to believe it was true,
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings
limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!"
"Chart Of Doom"
"Chart Of Doom"
By Jim Quinn
"It took 215 years to accumulate $7 trillion of debt. We’ve added that much in the last three years. That which is unsustainable will not be sustained. This is the type of chart you see showing what happened to the Wiemar Republic in the 1920s. The only reason our currency hasn’t crashed is because the EU and Japan are in far worse shape. We are still the best looking horse in the glue factory. But even the best looking horse gets turned to glue eventually."
Hat tip to The Burning Platform for this material.
Greg Hunter, "War, Market Meltdown & More War for 2023"
"War, Market Meltdown & More War for 2023"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"Renowned trends researcher and publisher of “The Trends Journal,” Gerald Celente, predicted last February on USAWatchdog.com that “World War III has already started.” Fast forward to today, and the global war is increasing at an alarming rate. Celente says, “American troops are on the ground in Ukraine, they are just not wearing the uniforms. So, we are at war there, and so is NATO. I say send me a hand gun because I want to blow the guy’s brains out across the street. Are you an accessory to the crime? Are you part of it? Of course you are. Look at the budget that Congress just passed. It’s a $1.7 trillion budget, and over half went to the military industrial complex.”
The economy is in big trouble, and that means war is a lock, according to Celente. “The global economy is crashing. It was artificially built up when they started the Covid war. There were countless trillions of dollars that they pumped into it. This thing is going to crash big. When all else fails, they take you to war. What followed the Great Depression? WWII. What followed the dot com bust? The war on terror, and the same thing is going to happen now.”
Celente says the economy is already falling apart, and the tip-off is the mass firing of temporary workers. Add in inflation, and real pain is happening in the economy right now. Celente says, “They bought less in terms of dollars, but it’s way worse because they don’t factor in inflation. In other words, people paid a lot more to buy a lot less.”
Celente also predicts a huge commercial real estate meltdown. The meltdown in residential real estate will be a bit less.
In closing, Celente warns about not just war in Ukraine overheating, but in the Middle East too. Celente explains, “The United States is doing drills with Israel at a level never seen before. If there is a military confrontation with the U.S. and Israel against Iran, you are going to see oil prices spike to above $130 per barrel. That will crash the global economy. If the Ukraine war and the Middle East war explodes at the same time, everything is finished.” There is much more in the 52-min interview.
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with the top trends researcher on the planet, Gerald Celente, publisher of “The Trends Journal” for 2/1/23:
"Rigging The Game"
"Rigging The Game"
By John Wilder
"It’s a strange, new world. During my childhood, there was an active focus on one concept: we’re all humans, regardless of race. We should all be treated the same, and have the same rules. Sure, there were programs like affirmative action, but the primary impact of those was (for the most part) in making sure that minority candidates were considered for jobs. The rule (generally) remained that the most qualified person got the job. Meritocracy reigned.
I won’t pick the date this changed, because it’s been a continuum, a bit here, a bit there. But if you had seen the following headline in 1980 or 1990, I think the first thought of people would have been, “How can that even be legal?”
The idea isn’t just at Bank of America®, it’s also at Wells Fargo™, too, you can look it up. The concept is that companies attempting to get their ESG (link to my previous post on this monstrosity here) score up are setting up programs like that. To be clear, any loan by any bank that’s not rooted in the ability of the borrower to repay is awful, and immoral. It’s also shenanigans like this that led directly to the 2008 housing bubble and Great Recession. In a related story, I wonder if Pelosi shorted them yet?
If a country is searching for a solid economy, this isn’t it. If a country is looking to make actual equality the measure, this also isn’t it. If it were just this, it would just be (outside of being illegal) just a limited number of bad business decisions, but it’s not limited to just this. How about electric cars? I mean, I’m as much into having children dig for toxic cobalt in the Congo so rich people in California can have electric cars and feel smug about it as the next person, but to create a tax incentive? Seems a bit like we’re rubbing it in.
Not to mention reparations. It’s odd that the people who want to abolish debt for people that borrowed money are also the ones that want to pay people for things that never happened to them. I guarantee that, no matter how much is offered it won’t be accepted. Why? It will never be enough. Ever. Another symptom of the Kleptocracy.
What about the Biden family themselves? Is their economy wrecked like they’ve wrecked the nation? No. Joe went from $0 net worth in 2015 to $9,000,000 (latest info I could find) today. How’d he do that? I’m sure he cut back on Starbucks®. According to reports, Hunter asked a donor to set up a job for his “pled guilty to a felony for $100,000 credit card fraud for makeup” niece.
Click image for larger size and vomit bag.
They agreed to hire this felon for $85,000 a year. She refused. She wanted no less than $180,000. To be fair, from the pictures it does look like she needs that much makeup.
Again, that’s small potatoes, when looking at the billions that have already been looted from the open checkbook that is the Ukraine.
And yet, there’s more! I’ll skip over the massive payments for illegal aliens to play computer games and stay in hotels at taxpayer expense while actual Americans are homeless and face bankruptcy to medical bills inflated by donor companies like Pfizer®. I’m sure that doesn’t make anyone mad.
In point of fact, what we are seeing is the looting of an economy. Our economy. I think it’s been going on for years, but the looting wasn’t so visible because it was papered over, literally. After the 2008 Great Recession, there wasn’t really any attempt to make the economy better, rather, the idea was to just keep printing money – Qualitative Easing is what they called, it, which was a fancy way to say that the money would be printed and buy up the weakest assets of the companies that the Fed® had desired to support. Bank of America™ and Wells Fargo© were among them.
COVID-19 was the lynchpin, though. As the tide receded and undulated, we could finally see who didn’t have a swimsuit on. It turned out, it was most of the economy. Now, inflation. And, to top it off, eggs appear to be the 2023 version of toilet paper, so I guess this year that Halloween pranks will actually add value to the house. It also looks like the plan that The Mrs. was brooding on, “let’s get some chickens that lay eggs” will finally hatch. Maybe.
Oddly, it gets even worse. Since 1988, the United States has paid $13 trillion in interest to...use its own currency – the government needs currency, the Treasury prints bonds, the Fed® creates cash, the United States owes interest and pays fees to the Fed™ member banks. That’s weird, because the United States used to just issue its own cash. Without debt. Sure, if you print too much, that causes inflation.
Oh. I see we’re soaking in inflation. And the Fed® actively plans for inflation as a part of the business plan. The looting can’t continue forever. And that’s a good thing. This made-up economy filled with economic nonsense that, at times, makes Lenin look like an economic genius, has a time limit. Merit will return, just as the "Gods of the Copybook Headings" have always predicted. There can be no other outcome."
Tuesday, January 31, 2023
"Warning! The Whole System is Going to Implode. WW3 on 4 Fronts"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 1/31/23:
"Warning! The Whole System is Going to Implode.
WW3 on 4 Fronts"
Comments here:
o
Judge Napolitano, 1/31/23:
Douglas Macgregor,
"The US Wants Russia to Collapse"
"It's Not Just A Car Loan Crisis: This Is A Perfect Storm!"
Full screen recommended.
"It's Not Just A Car Loan Crisis:
This Is A Perfect Storm!"
by Epic Economist
"What happens in the U.S. auto sector is usually seen by economists and financial advisers as a presage to what will happen in the U.S. economy, and we have to admit that conditions are getting critical right now. Several key datasets are pointing to an ominous inflection point and a crushing auto loan crisis as consumers can’t afford their car payments and the rate of repossessions continues to rise. Experts say this is also an indication that a full-blown recession is near, and that U.S. drivers should brace for a turbulent 2023, with interest rates expected to soar even higher and souring credit conditions at major lending institutions.
Americans are using unprecedented amounts of debt to fund record car prices. Numbers released in December showed a dramatic spike in the number of new car loans, with the average loan increasing by more than $2,000 in a single quarter, from just over $38,000 (a record), to $40,155 (a new record).
Evidently, the reason why new car loans have hit record highs is simply that new car prices have also soared to all-time highs. But the discussion of whether record new car prices are the result of easy record credit, or whether record new car loans are simply following the explosive surge in car prices, seems irrelevant at this point. Instead, let’s focus on something even more alarming: the massive surge in the average interest rate on new 60-month auto loans. According to Bankrate, as of January 27, the rate was just over 6.67%, almost doubling since the start of 2022, and the highest in 12 years.
“It is this surge in nominal auto debt as well as the unprecedented spike in new auto loan rates, that we believe has finally pushed the US car sector to the infamous Wile Coyote point of no return,” wrote financial analysts with ZeroHedge.
Less than a month ago, citing an NBC report, the analysts noted that a soaring number of consumers were falling behind on their car payments. “A trend which will only accelerate in 2023 -- in a sign of the strain soaring car prices and prolonged inflation are having on household budgets,” they wrote. And it looks like their predictions are spot on.
Things have escalated so quickly that today, more Americans are falling behind on their car payments than during the financial crisis, Fitch reports. This month, the percentage of subprime auto borrowers who were at least 60 days late on their bills rose to 5.67%, up from a seven-year low of 2.58% in April 2021. That compares to 5.04% in January 2009, the peak during the Great Recession.
Consequently, the number of car repossessions is rapidly climbing all over the nation. Auto auction company Manheim reveals that the rate of repossessed cars increased 11% in 2022 compared to the prior year, -- “it is still rising fast, and unless something major changes, it will soon overtake most recessionary benchmarks,” the analysts highlighted.
Moreover, credit conditions are souring at major lending institutions as banks brace for soaring delinquencies, defaults, and catastrophic writedowns. New loan originations have also collapsed, not only because of higher loan standards but because most Americans suddenly realize they can't afford monthly payments at the current rates. A tidal wave of delinquencies is on the horizon, and banking institutions are already preparing for the worst. The implosion of the U.S. auto sector is coming, and it is going to be spectacular."
Gerald Celente, "We Are Still In School, Obey Or Be Punished"
Very strong language alert.
Gerald Celente, Trends Journal, 1/31/23:
"We Are Still In School, Obey Or Be Punished"
Comments here:
"A Look to the Heavens"
"How did galaxies form in the early universe? To help find out, astronomers surveyed a patch of dark night sky with the Very Large Telescope array in Chile to find and count galaxies that formed when our universe was very young. Analysis of the distribution of some distant galaxies (redshifts near 2.5) found an enormous conglomeration of galaxies that spanned 300 million light years and contained about 5,000 times the mass of our Milky Way Galaxy. Dubbed Hyperion, it is currently the largest and most massive proto-supercluster yet discovered in the early universe.
A proto-supercluster is a group of young galaxies that is gravitationally collapsing to create a supercluster, which itself a group of several galaxy clusters, which itself is a group of hundreds of galaxies, which itself is a group of billions of stars. In the featured visualization, massive galaxies are depicted in white, while regions containing a large amount of smaller galaxies are shaded blue. Identifying and understanding such large groups of early galaxies contributes to humanity's understanding of the composition and evolution of the universe as a whole."
Free Download: T.S. Eliot, "Four Quartets"
“Little Gidding”, Excerpt
"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree.
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always -
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.”
- T.S. Eliot
The "Little Gidding" is the last of T. S. Eliot's "Four Quartets,"
which you may freely download here:
- https://www.fadedpage.com/
"It'll Do..."
Deputy Wendell: "It's a mess, ain't it Sheriff?"
Sheriff Ed Tom Bell: "Well, if it ain't, it'll do till the mess gets here."
- "No Country For Old Men"
Oh, the mess is here alright...and you ain't seen nothin' yet...
Brace for impact.
And if they act like this over a TV,
what happens when there's no food?
Robert Palmer,
"You're Gonna Get What's Coming"
"The Recession Is On It's Way"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 1/31/23:
"The Recession Is On It's Way"
"The Recession is near. Everything points to catastrophic problems with the global economy. Manufacturing is down and interest rates are up. What is next?"
Comments here:
"I'm Only Human..."
And, of course, the universal and inevitable excuse…
“A person who is going to commit an inhuman act invariably
excuses himself to himself by saying, “I’m only human, after all.”
- Sydney J. Harris
I've always wondered...
Everyone says “I'm only human…” compared to what?
“Are You Sane?”
“Are You Sane?”
by Charles Hugh Smith
“A sane person to an insane society must appear insane.”
– Kurt Vonnegut, “Welcome to the Monkey House”
“Madness has engulfed the entire world, with a concentration of power in the hands of a few psychopathic financial elite wielding an inordinate and dangerous expanse of power over the lives of the common man. They are a modern day version of Al Capone, except their weapons of choice aren’t machine guns, but a printing press, peddling debt, creating derivatives of mass destruction, and peddling heaping doses of disinformation. The contemporary criminal class wears Hermes suits, Rolex watches and diamond studded pinky rings, drops $500 to dine at Masa in NYC, travels by chauffeured limo, lives in $10 million NYC penthouse suites, occupies luxurious corner offices in hundred story glass towers, and spends weekends hobnobbing with the other financial elite at their villas in the Hamptons. They have nothing but utter contempt for the lowly peasants who depend upon a weekly paycheck to make ends meet. Why work when you can steal $1 or $2 billion from farmers with no consequences?
The willfully ignorant masses are kept at bay by the selling them a false dichotomy of Republicans versus Democrats, conservatives versus liberals, and capitalism versus socialism. The ruling class distracts the public with fake wars on poverty, drugs and terror, while using these storylines to further enrich themselves and keep the public alarmed and frightened. We’ve been “fighting” the wars on poverty and drugs for over four decades and poverty is at record levels, while drugs are easier to obtain than candy in a candy store. The war on terror is nothing more than a corporate arms dealer welfare plan. The end of the Cold War put a real crimp in the bottom lines of Lockheed Martin and the rest of the peddlers of death. 9/11 and the subsequent undeclared wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, with Iran on the horizon, have been a godsend to the bottom lines of the corporations Eisenhower warned about in 1961.
In reality, the politicians are interchangeable and bought off by corporate and special interests. The people are sold a fable, and controlled opposition is the fairy tale. They perpetuate the welfare/warfare state that enriches Wall Street, the military industrial complex, the healthcare service complex, politically connected mega-corporations and the corporate media propaganda complex. The American people are given the illusion of choice by their keepers. The system is rigged. The real decisions are made by unelected secretive men who operate in the shadows and use their wealth to direct the decision making of the politicians, government bureaucrats, and corporate entities that benefit from those decisions. Edward Bernays described a society that existed in the 19th Century, 20th Century, and has now grown to immense proportions in the 21st Century:
“Political campaigns today are all sideshows. A presidential candidate may be ‘drafted’ in response to ‘overwhelming popular demand,’ but it is well known that his name may be decided upon by half a dozen men sitting around a table in a hotel room. The conscious manipulation of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.” – Edward Bernays
The manipulation of the masses has been perfected by the ruling class through decades of corporate mass media messaging the purposeful dumbing down of the populace through government public school education that teaches children how to feel rather than how to think. The conscious manipulation of the masses has been designed to produce obedient non-thinking consumers of corporate products, educated to believe the accumulation of material goods with debt constitutes wealth, to fear whatever the government tells them to fear, and never look up from their iGadgets long enough to actually think for themselves. We are bombarded with Orwellian memes designed to keep us sedated and pliant, as the ruling class pillages the national wealth and expands their power and control over our lives.
Conform; Stay Asleep; Do Not Question Authority; Obey; Consume; Reproduce; Submit; Watch TV; Buy; Follow; Doubt Humanity; No New Ideas; Feel, Don’t Think; Fear; Accumulate; Honor Apathy; Believe Experts; Surrender; Spend; No Independent Thought; Win; Want More; Hate; Succumb To Desire; Yield To Power; Choose Safety Over Liberty; Choose Security Over Freedom
This insane world was created through decades of bad decisions, believing in false prophets, choosing current consumption over sustainable long-term savings based growth, electing corruptible men who promised voters entitlements that were mathematically impossible to deliver, the disintegration of a sense of civic and community obligation and a gradual degradation of the national intelligence and character.
Vonnegut and Huxley’s social commentary reveals a basic truth that societies and human beings have been prone to bouts of madness over the course of decades and centuries. Humans are a weak species, susceptible to the vagaries of greed, lust, gluttony, wrath, sloth, envy and pride. The seven deadly sins are in full bloom today, as the American empire descends through Dante’s inferno of reality TV, celebrity worship, religious zealotry, adulation of wealthy titans, military conquest and worship of false idols.
This is where the interests of those in power and those being ruled have coincided, as a fiat based monetary system allowed unlimited spending to keep the welfare/warfare state growing, enriching the crony capitalists, deepening the power of the state, and providing the masses with foreign made trinkets, baubles, corporate logoed clothing, techno-gadgets, and pimped out financed wheels. The concepts of self-restraint, discipline, saving for a rainy day, prudence, discretion, and deferred gratification are rarely displayed in modern day America.
In a case of mass delusion, Americans have convinced themselves to live for today, recklessly ignore their futures, irresponsibly spend money they don’t have on things they don’t need, neglect their civic duty towards future generations, choose ignorance over knowledge, and vote for spineless politicians who promise them entitlements that are mathematically impossible to honor. The public’s foolish attitude towards debt accumulation matches the arrogance of our gutless intellectually dishonest leaders.”
"The Next Stage in Western Escalation" (Excerpt)
"The Next Stage in Western Escalation"
by Batiushka
Excerpt: Introduction: The Story So Far: "So far the US has carried out regime changes and created military conflicts in countries friendly to or important to Russia: Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq (again), Georgia, Syria, Libya. All this was to make Russia lose important interests or deploy its own forces. It has also staged PR events such as Litvinenko, Pussy Riot, MH17, Skripals, Navalny, Bucha, the destruction of Nordstream – in order to try and blame Russia and make it into a pariah state.
In particular, in 2014 in the Ukraine it carried out a $5 billion coup with the murder of and terror against Russian-speakers. It then installed a puppet government, promoted Nazism through racist indoctrination, besmirched the historic legacy through rewriting history and toppling memorials, terrorized and banned all opposition, set up US military biolabs, supplied and trained an army, made military threats against Russia, threatened the Crimea, and promised that the Ukraine could soon join the US-puppet NATO and install nuclear weapons."
Full, highly recommended article is here:
Gregory Mannarino, "IMF Warns Again On Global Economy"
"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it.
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
Gregory Mannarino, 1/31/23:
"IMF Warns Again On Global Economy"
Comments here:
"Strange Prices At Meijer! This Is Crazy!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 1/31/23:
"Strange Prices At Meijer! This Is Crazy!"
"In today's vlog we are at Meijer and noticing some strange price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
Comments here:
o
"Strange prices?" Yes indeed...
"We Just Witnessed An Economic Sign That Hasn’t Happened Since The Peak Of The Great Depression In 1932"
"We Just Witnessed An Economic Sign That Hasn’t
Happened Since The Peak Of The Great Depression In 1932"
by Michael Snyder
"Economic conditions are much worse than you are being told. Throughout the past year, prices have been rising much faster than most of our incomes have. As a result, our standard of living has been rapidly declining. It has become increasingly difficult for U.S. households to make it from month to month, and as you will see below, more than a third of all U.S. adults are actually relying on their parents to pay at least some of their bills at this point. But even more alarming is what has been happening to real disposable income. According to Fox Business, the most recent GDP report revealed that the decline in real disposable income that we witnessed in 2022 was the largest that has been measured since 1932…
The most troubling information in the GDP report is the precipitous drop in real disposable income, which fell over $1 trillion in 2022. For context, this is the second-largest percentage drop in real disposable income ever, behind only 1932, the worst year of the Great Depression.
Just think about that for a moment. The last time real disposable income declined this quickly was literally during the peak of the Great Depression. And as our incomes get squeezed tighter and tighter, more Americans are starting to fall behind on their bills. For example, the proportion of subprime auto borrowers that are at least 60 days behind on their payments has just surged to the highest level that we have seen since 2008…
In December, the percentage of subprime auto borrowers who were at least 60 days late on their bills climbed to 5.67% - a major increase from a seven-year low of 2.58% in April 2021, according to Fitch Ratings. It marks the steepest rate of Americans struggling to make their car payments since the 2008 financial crisis."
We are already beginning to witness the largest tsunami of repossessions that we have seen since the “Great Recession”, and it is only going to get worse in the months ahead. One woman in San Antonio that knows that her vehicle could be repossessed at any time has decided that hiding it is the best strategy for now…"For some, however, the only lesson is to try and outsmart the repo man: hardly the best long-term strategy. Take San Antonio native Zhea Zarecor who is currently trying to negotiate with her lender so her 2013 Honda Fit won’t get repossessed. In the meantime, she’s hiding it.
The 53-year-old, who is currently in school for her bachelor’s in information technology (and raking up massive student loans for an education she should have had some 35 years ago) splits the monthly bill for the car - about $178 - with her roommate. But then the roommate lost his job, and with prices for groceries and everyday items increasing, there just wasn’t enough for the car payments.
Zarecor is trying to make extra money with odd jobs like contract secretarial work and participation in medical studies, but it often feels hopeless, she said. “Our money doesn’t go as far as it used to,” she said. “I don’t see prices going down, so the only relief I see is when I get my degree.”
Sadly, most of the country is just barely scraping by at this juncture. As I discussed in a previous article, one recent survey discovered that 57 percent of Americans cannot even afford to pay a $1,000 emergency expense right now. And a different survey has found that a whopping 35 percent of all U.S. adults are still relying on Mom and Dad to pay at least some of the bills…
"More than one third of adults (35%) admit they still have at least one bill on their parents’ tab. According to a new poll of 2,000 Americans, the top three expenses their parents still pay for are rent (19%), groceries (19%), and utilities (16%). In fact, almost one-quarter (24%) of millennials say their parents cover their rent."
Are things really this bad? Unfortunately, economic conditions are only going to get even worse in the months ahead as countless more Americans lose their jobs. On Monday, I was quite saddened to learn that electronics giant Philips will be giving the axe to another 6,000 workers…"Philips announced Monday that it’s cutting another 6,000 jobs worldwide as it works to boost profitability.
The workforce reduction will occur over the next two years with the first 3,000 cuts taking place this year, the Dutch consumer electronics and medical equipment maker said on Monday. In its earnings report, the company revealed it suffered a net loss of 1.6 billion euros in 2022, which is down from a net profit of 3.3 billion euros last year." And it is also being reported that one of my favorite toymakers has decided to eliminate approximately “15% of its global full-time workforce”.
I could go on and on if you would like. In fact, every day I could fill up my articles with nothing but job loss announcements. We have entered a very painful economic downturn, and one prominent Wall Street economist is warning that the full impact of this crisis will not be felt until the second half of 2023…"According to one Wall Street economist, a looming recession this year will feel more like the 1970s than a 2008-07 slump. “People are too focused on ‘08 and 2020. This is more like 1973, 74 and 2021,” Piper Sandler chief global economist Nancy Lazar said on “Mornings with Maria” Monday. Lazar predicted feeling the full impact of a recession in the second half of 2023 as lag effects from the Federal Reserve’s rate hikes take hold."
Actually, it would be quite wonderful if her seemingly gloomy forecast is accurate. Because I don’t believe that we are heading into a slowdown like we experienced during the early 1970s. Rather, I see all sorts of evidence that indicates that we are in the very early stages of the economic equivalent of “the Big One”. I believe that things will be very rough this year, and I believe that the long-term outlook is even worse.
Our leaders assured us that everything would be okay even as they were flooding the system with money and engaging in the greatest debt binge in all of human history. Now a day of reckoning has arrived, and we will get to suffer the consequences of their very foolish decisions."
"Ukraine, The War That Went Wrong" (Excerpt)
"Ukraine, The War That Went Wrong"
By Chris Hedges
Excerpt: "NATO support for the war in Ukraine, designed to degrade the Russian military and drive Vladimir Putin from power, is not going according to plan. The new sophisticated military hardware won't help...Empires in terminal decline leap from one military fiasco to the next. The war in Ukraine, another bungled attempt to reassert U.S. global hegemony, fits this pattern. The danger is that the more dire things look, the more the U.S. will escalate the conflict, potentially provoking open confrontation with Russia. If Russia carries out retaliatory attacks on supply and training bases in neighboring NATO countries, or uses tactical nuclear weapons, NATO will almost certainly respond by attacking Russian forces. We will have ignited World War III, which could result in a nuclear holocaust."
Full, most highly recommended article is here:
"Warning! The Harsh Reality of SHTF No One Is Ready For"
Canadian Prepper, 1/30/23:
"Warning! The Harsh Reality of SHTF No One Is Ready For"
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Monday, January 30, 2023
"Judgement Day Is Coming, Are You Ready? Consumers Freak Out; Banks Brace For Impact"
Jeremiah Babe, 1/30/23:
"Judgement Day Is Coming, Are You Ready?
Consumers Freak Out; Banks Brace For Impact"
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