Tuesday, February 7, 2023

"The Giant Earthquakes That We Just Witnessed In Turkey Are Just The Beginning" (Excerpt)

"The Giant Earthquakes That We Just 
Witnessed In Turkey Are Just The Beginning"
by Michael Snyder

Excerpt: "The complete and utter devastation that we are seeing in Turkey right now should break all of our hearts. Hundreds of buildings have collapsed, and thousands upon thousands of dead and injured people are trapped under the rubble. The magnitude 7.8 earthquake that hit Turkey early on Monday is the largest earthquake that the region has experienced in a century. Sadly, that giant quake was followed by a relentless series of aftershocks that included another giant quake. The shaking continues even as I write this article, and there are some parts of Turkey that will never be the same again after this.

Back on January 4th, I warned that 2023 would be “a year of great natural disasters”, and unfortunately that is exactly what is happening. Our planet continues to become even more unstable, and we have been witnessing large earthquakes and major volcanic eruptions occur with a frequency that is quite alarming.

The magnitude 7.8 earthquake that just struck Turkey is the most deadly seismic event that we have seen so far this year. It is being reported that it could actually be felt all the way in Greenland…"Tremors from the powerful earthquake that rocked Turkey and neighboring Syria on Monday were felt as far away as Greenland, the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland said. “The large earthquakes in Turkey were clearly registered on the seismographs in Denmark and Greenland,” seismologist Tine Larsen told AFP." I was stunned when I first read that. 

As buildings fell down all around them, some people in Turkey actually believed that “judgement day” had arrived. As I write this article, we are being told that “at least 3,500 people” have died, but that number will inevitably grow much larger as more bodies are pulled from the rubble…"At least 3,500 people in both countries are known to have been killed – 2,316 of these in Turkey, more than 700 people in opposition-controlled Syria and 538 in government-held areas of Syria, reports Sky. In Turkey entire apartment blocks crashed to the ground in a matter of seconds following the quakes, trapping families inside and killing thousands.

According to reports from the region, the magnitude 7.8 earthquake caused approximately 90 seconds of shaking, and social media is filled with videos of tall buildings collapsing into heaps in just moments."
Full article, with shocking videos, is here:
o
Full screen recommended.
"It's almost impossible, but Turkish rescue teams reacted to hysterics after they pulled the #earthquake victims alive under the rubble. In one footage, several small children and an adult man managed to get out safely which was greeted with joy and emotion."
Comments here:

The Daily "Near You?"

Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. Thanks for stopping by!

"Your Enemies..."

“Never hate your enemies. It clouds your judgment.”
- "Michael Corleone"

"Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names."
- John F. Kennedy

Bill Bonner, "Let Them... Keep Working"

"Let Them... Keep Working"
Revolt in France and the problem with cradle to grave Ponzi schemes...
by Bill Bonner

"Since the creation of the Fed, the dollar has lost 97% of its purchasing power. This more than one-hundred year trend is something you ignore at your own risk."
~ John Dienner

Youghal, Ireland - "We were in France last week. The big issue there is pension reform. Everybody talks about it. Everyone has an opinion. The Macron government wants to raise the retirement age, generally, from 62 to 64. The idea is to ‘save the system.’

The French took to the streets in protest, photo above. Many of the protestors were so young, they had barely entered the system. It probably wasn’t the pension reform itself that got them riled up, but the idea that the government mightn’t take care of them, cradle to grave. We have machines to do the physical work – and immigrants to operate them. And now AI can do the thinking, right? Many young people must wonder why they have to work at all.

Most western countries are in the same boat. Fewer people working. More people retired. All of these programs were set up as variations of Ponzi schemes, where the first to get in would do very well. Later, the systems would run out of money.

Tough Choices: What to do? There are only three possible solutions – raise taxes, lower payments to retirees, or raise the age of retirement. The Macron team chose the third option.

Points of view on it fall into two broad categories, pro and con. For an introduction to the ‘con’ side of the argument, we turn to one of our favorite columnists, J. Neilson, who writes, in English, for the Buenos Aires Times: "By the time men and women now in their 20s reach 64, they will live in a society which will be as different from the one they grew up in as today’s is from those of the final decades of the 20th century, when for every retiree there were over two workers who contributed to the system. In France there are now less than 1.7 and their number is rapidly dwindling.

Unsurprisingly, many feel let down by their political leaders who – like their counterparts throughout the democratic world – pretend they have “solutions” to the problems which are besetting voters but rarely manage to make things better.

The alluring sales pitch behind public pension schemes was that the typical contributor would get more out than he put in. That was the case for many years. But now, with fewer young people entering the system…and growth rates falling…politicians can still promise. But they can’t deliver. So, the ‘con’ argument is very simple; like it or not, the benefits must be scaled back. At the very least, tough choices will have to be made."

Unjust and Unaffordable: But wait. The other side of the retirement debate was taken up this weekend by Simon Kuper in the Financial Times. Mr. Kuper is reliably on the wrong side of almost all issues, so we can assume that he is wrong again.“The French have led the world in creating a glorious new life-stage,” he writes: “the first decade of retirement. Can’t afford it? Nonsense. “Their system remains just about affordable. Everyone ought to learn from them.

The typical Frenchman can now retire at 62 and enjoy another 20 years of life. The first 10 years of it should be great, he says, as retirees’ health initially improves (perhaps because they have more time to exercise?)…and… French pensioners enjoy higher median living standards than working people,” writes Kuper, “if you take into account the fact that retirees typically aren’t funding children or mortgages.”

How to stop the losses in the French pension system? Mr. Kuper: “Make the top 10 percent of earners work until, say 67. Since they are the highest taxpayers, that should help replenish the system. Let ordinary people have fun while they still can.”

The Last to Go: Which would you favor, dear reader – pro or con? Set the retirement age at 60…70…75? Make the rich work longer so the not-so-rich can frolic at 60? What fun it must be to organize the lives of others – millions of them. Tell them when they should work…and when they should rest? Sure, why not?

But wait… Is retirement anyone’s business but your own? Of course it is! In the modern world, pension systems are collectivized…and compulsory. And now that they have become hard to finance, we can expect to see more cuts, more compromises, and more claptrap. Government budgets are limited. So, if you want to retire at 62, for example, you might have to give up other great government programs…such as windmills, welfare, weapons or war.

Given the choice, the common citizen would readily take pension and medical benefits, and give the rest the heave-ho. But he doesn’t run the government. The elite do. And since the elite get their grift money from welfare and warfare boondoggles, where the dollars can dissolve into corporate profits, think tank financing, speaking fees and sinecures…they’ll be the last to go. Pensions, which go to ‘The People,’ will have to be reduced."

"Against All Odds..."

"There's a little animal in all of us and maybe that's something to celebrate. Our animal instinct is what makes us seek comfort, warmth, a pack to run with. We may feel caged, we may feel trapped, but still as humans we can find ways to feel free. We are each other's keepers, we are the guardians of our own humanity and even though there's a beast inside all of us, what sets us apart from the animals is that we can think, feel, dream and love. And against all odds, against all instinct, we evolve."
- "Grey's Anatomy"

"This is What They Are Not Telling You"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 2/7/23
"This is What They Are Not Telling You"
"It is funny that Janet Yellen steps forward and says that there is no way we are in a recession. All you have to do is look at America and see all the business closures right now. Everything is bad when it comes to big business."
Comments here:

"How It Really Is"

"Empty Shelves At Meijer! Shopping Fail! This Is Crazy!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 2/7/23:
"Empty Shelves At Meijer! Shopping Fail! This Is Crazy!"
"In today's vlog we are at Meijer, and are noticing Empty Shelves Everywhere! We are also noticing more price increases, and frozen food shortages! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
Comments here:

"Sometimes..."

"Sometimes you know something is going to happen, 
even though they are ample opportunities to prevent it. 
Even though you don't want it, you know it's inevitable.
- Augusten Burroughs, "Toil & Trouble"

Monday, February 6, 2023

"Losses In Ukraine"

"Turkish edition ''Hürseda Haber'' published ''Mossad'' data on the losses of the parties in Ukraine as of January 14, 2023:

Russia: 23 aircraft, 56 helicopters, 200 drones, 889 tanks, and other armored fighting vehicles, 427 artillery systems, 12 air defense systems, 44,500 wounded, 18,480 dead, and 323 prisoners.

Ukraine: 302 aircraft, 212 helicopters, 2,750 drones, 6,320 tanks, and other armored vehicles, 7,360 artillery systems, 497 air defense systems, 234,000 wounded, 157,000 dead, and 17,320 prisoners.

The West: 5,360 dead mercenaries, 2,458 dead military personnel of the armies of NATO member countries, and 234 dead military instructors of NATO."
o
Full screen recommended.
Redacted 2/6/23:
"Something BIG Is Happening In Ukraine And NATO Is Scared"
"NATO members over the past few days have started beating the drum that Ukraine is collapsing and are talking about next steps including putting western NATO forces into the battle. Putin just issued his strongest warning yet to NATO. Stay out or else."
Comments here:
o
Straight Calls with Douglas Macgregor, 2//7/23:
"On The Edge Of Essentially All Out War With Russia"
"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:

"Major Alert! Crisis In 10 Days - DEFCON 2? EMP Balloons?"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 2/6/23:
"Major Alert! Crisis In 10 Days - DEFCON 2? EMP Balloons?"
"Ukraines top intelligences sources indicate the 
big one is going to happen in the next 10 days."
Comments here:

"30 Biggest Bankruptcies In The Retail Apocalypse And Why They Failed"

Full screen recommended.
"30 Biggest Bankruptcies In 
The Retail Apocalypse And Why They Failed"
by Epic Economist

"Modern-day retail is at an inflection point as retailers face struggling physical storefronts, massive debt, and inefficient operations, among other issues. The pandemic initially compounded these issues and accelerated the fall of several retailers, which had faced dwindling sales and growing debt in the years prior as consumer preferences changed.

Department stores proved to be the most vulnerable, with the pandemic felling iconic names such as Neiman Marcus and JCPenney. Malls saw declining foot traffic even pre-pandemic, but stay-at-home orders further shifted shoppers to online shopping and spending cash on essential goods instead.

Following 2020, retail experienced a significant rebound as consumers returned to stores. While there were 52 retail bankruptcies in 2020, 2021 saw just 21 — a 60% drop year-over-year, according to Axios. In 2022, only a handful of companies went under. But this doesn’t mean that retail is out of the woods just yet. With retailers facing old challenges in addition to combating newly rising prices and a pullback in consumer spending, some reports indicate that retail bankruptcies may flare up once again in 2023.

We live in such troubled times, and things are only going to get more difficult in 2023 and beyond. Meanwhile, there are a couple of long-term trends that won’t be going away any time soon that are squeezing the life out of the industry from both sides. If those long-term trends cannot be reversed, we will soon see a lot more decaying buildings with boarded up windows where thriving retail establishments once existed. The health of the retail industry is critical to the health of the overall U.S. economy, and right now the outlook for the future of the industry is not good.

So I would encourage you to enjoy your favorite retail stores while you still can. Because as conditions continue to get even harsher for our retailers, many of them will soon be forced to close their doors for the last time."
Comments here:

"Small Businesses Barely Surviving; Home Builders Slash Prices; Households Burning Through Cash"

Jeremiah Babe, 2/6/23:
"Small Businesses Barely Surviving; Home Builders 
Slash Prices; Households Burning Through Cash"
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: 2002, “Cycle Of Time”

Full screen recommended.
2002, “Cycle Of Time”

"A Look to the Heavens"

“The beautiful Trifid Nebula, also known as Messier 20, is easy to find with a small telescope in the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. About 5,000 light-years away, the colorful study in cosmic contrasts shares this well-composed, nearly 1 degree wide field with open star cluster Messier 21 (top right).
Click image for larger size.
Trisected by dust lanes the Trifid itself is about 40 light-years across and a mere 300,000 years old. That makes it one of the youngest star forming regions in our sky, with newborn and embryonic stars embedded in its natal dust and gas clouds. Estimates of the distance to open star cluster M21 are similar to M20's, but though they share this gorgeous telescopic skyscape there is no apparent connection between the two. In fact, M21's stars are much older, about 8 million years old.”

Chet Raymo, "Know Thyself"

"Know Thyself"
by Chet Raymo

"The ancient Greek aphorism, attributed to Socrates and others. Good advice, I'm sure. If only we knew what it means. Is it the same as the "examination of conscience" we were asked to perform as young Catholics? "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned." Well, yes, it is good to ask ourselves if we have lived up to our highest moral aspirations. But surely "Know thyself" means more than that.

Does it mean to be aware of our self-awareness? That is to say, not to act impulsively, but reflectively. Thoreau's "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

Or perhaps it means to apply the method of scientia to the problem of consciousness, treat the mind like a fish that can be dissected at the lab bench, watch the brain flickering on the display of a scanning machine as the subject is stimulated with love, sex, fear, music, pain. Neuroscience. Daniel Dennet's book audaciously titled "Consciousness Explained." There is a line from a poem by Jane Hirshfield, in which she questions herself: "A knife cannot cut itself open/ yet you ask me both to be you and to know you."

Is it hopeless then? Is there an essential absurdity in a thing knowing itself? Does knowing necessarily imply a knower more complex than the thing known? Is it possible that we might fully understand, say, the neurology of the sea slug Aplysia, that favorite subject of experimental neurobiologists with only 20,000 central nerve cells, big nerve cells, ten times bigger than human neurons, but not the workings of the human brain, with its 100 billion nerve cells, each one connected to thousands of others?

Hirshfield's poem is titled "Instant Glimpsable Only For An Instant." Perhaps that is the best we can do. To know ourselves in those fleeting moments of recognition than come now and then, often unbidden, sometimes as the result of a chance encounter with beauty or with ugliness, sometimes bidden out of the silence and solitude of meditation - a flash upon one's inward eye that is, perhaps, all the ancients were asking for when they asked us to "know ourselves."
"Instant Glimpsable Only For An Instant"

"Moment. Moment. Moment.
- equal inside you, moment,
the velocitous mountains and cities rising and falling,
songs of children, iridescence even of beetles.
It is not you the locust can strip of all leaf.
Untouchable green at the center,
the wolf too lopes past you and through you as he eats.
Insult to mourn you, you who mourn no one, unable.
Without transformation,
yours the role of the chorus, to whom nothing happens.
The living step forward: choosing to enter, to lose.
I, who am made of you only,
speak these words against your unmasterable instruction -
A knife cannot cut itself open,
yet you ask me both to be you and to know you."
~ Jane Hirshfield

“Life, Explained To You”

“Life, Explained To You”
Author Unknown

“On the first day God created the dog. God said, “Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. I will give you a life span of twenty years.” The dog said, “That’s too long to be barking. Give me ten years and I’ll give you back the other ten.” So God agreed. 

On the second day God created the monkey. God said, “Entertain people, do monkey tricks and make them laugh. I’ll give you a twenty-year life span.” The monkey said, “Monkey tricks for twenty years? I don’t think so. Dog gave you back ten, so that’s what I’ll do too, okay?” And God agreed. 

On the third day God created the cow. “You must go to the field with the farmer all day long and suffer under the sun, have calves, and give milk to support the farmer. I will give you a life span of sixty years.” The cow said, “That’s kind of a tough life you want me to live for sixty years. Let me have twenty and I’ll give back the other forty.” And God agreed again. 

On the fourth day God created man. God said, “Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. I’ll give you twenty years.” Man said, “What? Only twenty years? Tell you what, I’ll take my twenty, and the forty the cow gave back, and the ten the monkey gave back, and the ten the dog gave back, that makes eighty, okay?” “Okay,” said God, “You’ve got a deal.” 

So that is why the first twenty years we eat, sleep, play, and enjoy ourselves; the next forty years we slave in the sun to support our family; the next ten years we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandchildren; and the last ten years we sit on the front porch and bark at everyone.”
“Life has now been explained to you.”

"The Chief Obstacle..."

"The chief obstacle to the progress of
the human race is the human race."
- Don Marquis

"In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority 
of fools and knaves, who, singly from their number, 
must to a certain degree be respected,
though they are by no means respectable."
- Philip Stanhope

"Welcome To The Death Spiral"

"Welcome To The Death Spiral"
By John Rubino

"Gold bugs and other long-suffering critics of fiat currency and endless credit expansion have for decades been predicting that soaring debt would eventually blow up the financial world.
As the story went, governments with unlimited printing presses would spend and borrow too much, forcing their central banks to keep interest rates unnaturally low to make interest costs manageable, which would encourage even more credit growth, causing inflation to spike, and so on, until everyone loses faith in fiat currencies and the misbegotten things fall to their intrinsic value of zero.

That’s a bit hard to visualize when it’s explained in long, convoluted sentences. But it’s a lot clearer when you line up the relevant charts. So let’s start with US government debt, which has gone parabolic.
Click image for larger size.
Ever-increasing debt is manageable if interest rates fall concurrently so the interest on that debt doesn’t change. And that’s what happened between 1980 and 2021. The Fed pushed down interest rates, which minimized interest costs, which lulled a shockingly gullible investment community and political class into the belief that this process could continue forever.
Click image for larger size.
But of course it couldn’t continue forever. As the critics predicted, soaring debt required ever greater currency creation which eventually caused the cost of living to jump by 10% in 2022, leading regular people to demand that it stop. So the Fed now has to raise interest rates to counter inflation. You can see this happening on the far right of the above chart.

Here’s where the death spiral kicks in: As the US borrows more money and its existing debts roll over at higher rates, the cost of that debt is soaring. This year the government’s annual interest bill will break $1 trillion. Combine that with the soaring cost of Medicare and Social Security as millions of Baby Boomers retire, and Washington is looking at $2 trillion a year just in just interest and entitlements, which it will have to borrow to fund, which will send interest costs even higher, which will require more borrowing, and so on, until it all comes crashing down.
Click image for larger size.
Here’s another useful way of visualizing the problem. As debt rises, the interest rate required to keep debt service costs from eating all of a government’s tax receipts falls. In the US case, those two lines are in danger of crossing in the next few years. No society has ever survived that kind of fiscal crisis.
Click image for larger size.
To the extent that the Fed knows anything, it knows this, and really, really wants to force that blue line down into negative territory if possible. But it also knows that doing so will send prices spiraling out of control – which is another way of saying the dollar will crash (not necessarily against the euro and the yen, which have similar problems, but against oil, lumber, eggs, milk, cars, and all the other things voters buy regularly). The result? Political and financial chaos.

And there’s nothing that the monetary authorities can do to stop it, because either choice – keep interest rates high or push them back down – leads to the same place, which is a currency crisis. Meanwhile, each turn of the wheel makes the problem more intractable and the collapse more imminent. That’s what the term “death spiral” refers to: a process that feeds on itself until the system implodes."
o
Related:

Musical Interlude: Moby, Love of Strings"

Full screen recommended.
Moby, Love of Strings"

Life, magnificent Life...

The Poet: Theodore Roethke, “The Geranium”

“The Geranium”

“When I put her out, once, by the garbage pail,
She looked so limp and bedraggled,
So foolish and trusting, like a sick poodle,
Or a wizened aster in late September,
I brought her back in again
For a new routine -
Vitamins, water, and whatever
Sustenance seemed sensible
At the time: she’d lived
So long on gin, bobbie pins, half-smoked cigars, dead beer,
Her shriveled petals falling
On the faded carpet, the stale
Steak grease stuck to her fuzzy leaves.
(Dried-out, she creaked like a tulip.)
The things she endured!
The dumb dames shrieking half the night
Or the two of us, alone, both seedy,
Me breathing booze at her,
She leaning out of her pot toward the window.
Near the end, she seemed almost to hear me -
And that was scary -
So when that snuffling cretin of a maid
Threw her, pot and all, into the trash-can,
I said nothing.
But I sacked the presumptuous hag the next week,
I was that lonely.”
- Theodore Roethke

"Grave Faults..."

“Only the following items should be considered to be grave faults: not respecting another's rights; allowing oneself to be paralyzed by fear; feeling guilty; believing that one does not deserve the good or ill that happens in one's life; being a coward. We will love our enemies, but not make alliances with them. They were placed in our path in order to test our sword, and we should, out of respect for them, struggle against them. We will choose our enemies.”
- Paulo Coelho, "Like the Flowing River"

"If..."

“If you work for a living, why do you kill yourself working?”
- Tuco, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”

"All men and women are born, live suffer and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things, and what we do to make them come about... We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live."
- Joseph Epstein

"You Are My Brother..."

“You are my brother, but why are you quarreling with me? Why do you invade my country and try to subjugate me for the sake of pleasing those who are seeking glory and authority?

Why do you leave your wife and children and follow Death to the distant land for the sake of those who buy glory with your blood, and high honor with your mother's tears?

Is it an honor for a man to kill his brother man? If you deem it an honor, let it be an act of worship, and erect a temple to Cain who slew his brother Abel.

Is self-preservation the first law of Nature? Why, then, does Greed urge you to self-sacrifice in order only to achieve his aim in hurting your brothers? Beware, my brother, of the leader who says, "Love of existence obliges us to deprive the people of their rights!" I say unto you but this: protecting others' rights is the noblest and most beautiful human act; if my existence requires that I kill others, then death is more honorable to me, and if I cannot find someone to kill me for the protection of my honor, I will not hesitate to take my life by my own hands for the sake of Eternity before Eternity comes.

Selfishness, my brother, is the cause of blind superiority, and superiority creates clanship, and clanship creates authority which leads to discord and subjugation.

The soul believes in the power of knowledge and justice over dark ignorance; it denies the authority that supplies the swords to defend and strengthen ignorance and oppression - that authority which destroyed Babylon and shook the foundation of Jerusalem and left Rome in ruins. It is that which made people call criminals great men; made writers respect their names; made historians relate the stories of their inhumanity in manner of praise.

The only authority I obey is the knowledge of guarding and acquiescing in the Natural Law of Justice.

What justice does authority display when it kills the killer? When it imprisons the robber? When it descends on a neighborhood country and slays its people? What does justice think of the authority under which a killer punishes the one who kills, and a thief sentences the one who steals?

You are my brother, and I love you; and Love is justice with its full intensity and dignity. If justice did not support my love for you, regardless of your tribe and community, I would be a deceiver concealing the ugliness of selfishness behind the outer garment of pure love.”
- Kahlil Gibran

"How It Really Is, And Will Be"

"Going to be?" It already is, and you ain't seen nuthin' yet!
Brace for impact...

Scott Ritter, "Ukraine Military is a Defeated Army"

Full screen recommended.
Scott Ritter, "Ukraine Military is a Defeated Army"
Comments here:
o
Why should this concern you? Well, Good Citizen, YOU and all of us have tossed at least $121 BILLION on this bonfire, resulting in at least 157,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed, and 20,000 Russians dead. Do your own research, discover the truth...this never had to happen, and we caused it, the blood is on all our hands... - CP

"It Failed So Badly"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 2/6/23:
"It Failed So Badly"
"Could you imagine an industry that raised hundreds of millions of dollars before it sold one item? That once they raised all that money people didn’t like the product. That’s fake meat."
Comments here:

Gregory Mannarino, "We Have A Problem... The Global Debt Market Is Flashing A Warning Signal"

Gregory Mannarino, 2/6/23:
"We Have A Problem... 
The Global Debt Market Is Flashing A Warning Signal"

"Economic Market Snapshot 2/6/23"

"Economic Market Snapshot 2/6/23"
Market Data Center, Live Updates:
Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it. 
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
A comprehensive, essential daily read.
Financial Stress Index

"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: creditequity valuationfunding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United Statesother advanced economies, and emerging markets."
Job cuts and much more.
Commentary, highly recommended:
"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
And now... The End Game...

"Ridiculously High Grocery Prices! Oh SNAP! Inflation? What's Coming?!"

Adventures With Danno, 2/6/23:
"Ridiculously High Grocery Prices!
 Oh SNAP! Inflation? What's Coming?!"
"This video is about grocery store prices getting way to expensive, and how we can can save money on many items. With massive price increases at the grocery stores we have to find ways to save money any ways we can these days!"
Comments here: