“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, and a proxy war with Russia 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.”

- http://www.theburningplatform.com/

"The Psychology of Manipulation: 6 Lessons from the Master of Propaganda"

"The Psychology of Manipulation: 

6 Lessons from the Master of Propaganda"

by Ryan Matters

"Edward L. Bernays was an American business consultant who is widely recognized as the father of public relations. Bernays was one of the men responsible for “selling” World War 1 to the American public by branding it as a war that was necessary to “make the world safe for democracy”. During the 1920s, Bernays consulted for a number of major corporations, helping to boost their business through expertly crafted marketing campaigns aimed at influencing public opinion.

In 1928, Edward Bernays published his famous book, "Propaganda", in which he outlined the theories behind his successful “public relations” endeavours. The book provides insights into the phenomenon of crowd psychology and outlines effective methods for manipulating people’s habits and opinions. For a book that’s almost 100 years old, "Propaganda" could not be more relevant today. In fact, its relevance is a testament to the unchanging nature of human psychology.

One of the key takeaways of the book is that mind control is an important aspect of any democratic society. Indeed, Bernays maintains that without the “conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses”, democracy simply would not “work”.

We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. According to Bernays, those doing the “governing” constitute an invisible ruling class that “understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses”.

In "Propaganda", Bernays draws on the work of Gustave Le Bon, Wilfred Trotter, Walter Lippmann, and Sigmund Freud (his uncle!), outlining the power of mass psychology and how it may be used to manipulate the “group mind”. If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it?

I recently explored this topic in an essay about how occult rituals and predictive programming are used to manipulate the collective consciousness, influencing the thoughts, beliefs and actions of large groups of people, resulting in the creation of what occultists call “egregores”. Here I have extracted some key insights from Bernays in an attempt to show how his book "Propaganda" is, in many ways, the playbook used by the globalist cryptocracy to process the group mind of the masses.

1. If You Manipulate The Leader Of A Group, The People Will Follow: Bernays tells us that one of the easiest ways to influence the thoughts and actions of large numbers of people is to first influence their leader. If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway.

In fact, one of the most firmly established principles of mass psychology is that the “group mind” does not “think”, rather, it acts according to impulses, habits and emotions. And when deciding on a certain course of action, its first impulse is to follow the example of a trusted leader.

Humans are, by nature a group species. Even when we are alone, we have a deep sense of group belonging. Whether they consciously know it or not, much of what people do is an effort to conform to the ideals of their chosen group so as to feel a sense of acceptance and belonging.

This exact method of influencing the leader and watching the people follow has been used extensively throughout the last few years. One notable instance that comes to mind is the horrendously inaccurate epidemiological models created by Neil Ferguson, which formed the basis for Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s lockdown policies. Once Johnson was convinced of the need to lockdown and mask up, the people gladly followed.

2. Words Are Powerful: The Key To Influencing A Group Is The Clever Use Of Language: Certain words and phrases are associated with certain emotions, symbols and reactions. Bernays tell us that through the clever and careful use of language, one can manipulate the emotions of a group and thereby influence their perceptions and actions. By playing upon an old cliché, or manipulating a new one, the propagandist can sometimes swing a whole mass of group emotions.

The clever use of language has been employed throughout the Covid-19 pandemic to great effect. An obvious example of this was when the definition of “vaccine” was changed to include injections utilizing experimental mRNA technology. You see, the word “vaccine” is associated in the public mind with a certain picture – that of a safe, proven medical intervention that is not only life-saving but absolutely necessary.

If governments had told people to go get their “gene therapies”, the vast majority of the public would likely question the motives behind such a campaign; they would feel extremely skeptical because the phrase “gene therapy” is not associated with the same images, emotions and feelings as “vaccine”.

The same goes for the word “pandemic”, the definition of which was also changed. The word “pandemic” is generally associated in the collective consciousness with fear, death, chaos and emergency (largely thanks to Hollywood and the myriad virus films it has released over the years).

3. Any Medium Of Communication Is Also A Medium For Propaganda: Any system of communication, whether phone, radio, print, or social media, is nothing more than a means of transmitting information. Bernays reminds us that any such means of communication is also a channel for propaganda. There is no means of human communication which may not also be a means of deliberate propaganda.

Bernays goes on to stress that a good propagandist must always keep abreast of new forms of communication, so that they may co-opt them as means of deliberate propaganda. Indeed, systems that most people would associate with freedom of speech and democracy are none other than means of circulating propaganda. Facebook fact-checkers, Big Tech censorship and YouTube’s Covid banners certainly fall into this category.

Other examples of this include the recent algorithm updates made by various search engines (including Google and DuckDuckGo) to penalize Russian websites, although this should come as no surprise (Google has been engaging in this type of “shadow propaganda” for many years).

4. Reiterating The Same Idea Over And Over Creates Habits And Convictions: Although Bernays terms this a technique used by the “old propagandists”, he, nonetheless, recognizes its usefulness. It was one of the doctrines of the reaction psychology that a certain stimulus often repeated would create a habit, or that the mere reiteration of an idea would create a conviction.

Repeating the same idea or the same “mantra” again and again is a form of neuro-linguistic programming aimed at instilling certain concepts or emotions into the subconscious mind. Indeed, people who are feeling sad or depressed are often advised to repeat to themselves an uplifting saying or affirmation.

There are many examples of this simple, yet effective, technique being used to great effect over the last few years. Think Q’s “trust the plan”, the globalist favourite, “build back better” or the incessant repetition of that twisted phrase, “trust the science”. Included in this category are the 24/7-in-your-face death statistics and case numbers, aimed at promoting the illusion of a pandemic.

There are more obvious examples of this as well, such as news anchors in different areas all reading from the exact same script.

5. Things Are Not Desired For Their Intrinsic Worth, But Rather For The Symbols That They Represent: After studying why people make certain purchasing decisions, Bernays observed that people often don’t desire something for its usefulness or value, but rather because it represents something else which they unconsciously crave. A thing may be desired not for its intrinsic worth or usefulness, but because he has unconsciously come to see in it a symbol of something else, the desire for which he is ashamed to admit to himself.

Bernays gives the example of a man buying a car. From the outside, it may appear as if the man is buying the car because he needs a means of transport, but in actuality, he is buying it because he craves the elevated social status that comes with owning a motor vehicle.

This idea, too, applies to the events over the last few years. For example, masks are a symbol of compliance. Everyone knows they don’t work but they wear them because of their desire to “fit in”, and to be seen as an upstanding citizen who follows the rules. Covid-19 injections are also a symbol and many people choose to get them because they have a desire to avoid being called an “anti-vaxxer” or a “conspiracy theorist”.

6. One Can Manipulate Individual Actions By Creating Circumstances That Modify Group Customs: Lastly, Bernays tells us that if one wishes to manipulate the actions of an individual, the most effective way to do so is to create circumstances that engender the desired behavior. What are the true reasons why the purchaser is planning to spend his money on a new car instead of on a new piano? […] He buys a car, because it is at the moment the group custom to buy cars. The modern propagandist therefore sets to work to create circumstances which will modify that custom.

For example, why all of a sudden does everyone “stand with Ukraine”? According to Bernays, it’s not because there is a war going on and innocent people need our love and support, but rather because it is the new “group custom” to do so. The process of altering group customs begins from the top down. In every nation or social clique, there are leaders, public figures and influencers. Manipulating those with the most sway eventually filters down into the public mind. That is why when a celebrity decides to wear something extravagant on the red carpet, a whole new trend can arise overnight.

Similarly, at the beginning of the Covid saga and then the Russia-Ukraine war, the media were quick to circulate stories of celebs “catching Covid” and urging people to stay home, or public figures condemning Russian actions and calling for stricter sanctions (which just so happened to hurt the West more than they hurt Russia).

The Propaganda Playbook: The world is a volatile place right now. Things seem to change quickly and no one knows what might happen next. However, amid all this chaos there is one thing that has not changed and is unlikely to change any time soon, and that is human psychology. Because of this, the tactics used to manipulate people’s thoughts, beliefs and actions have not changed either. In fact, most of them were outlined in detail 100 years ago by Edward Bernays in his 1928 book, "Propaganda."

That’s right, the Puppet Master’s playbook isn’t a secret. It’s right there, freely available to anyone who cares to understand how the powers that be seek to influence them on a daily basis."

- https://off-guardian.org/

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Freely download "Propaganda", by Edward L. Bernays, here:

- https://www.newbraveworld.org/

"Tyranny of the Mobjority"

"Tyranny of the Mobjority"

Notes from the road to nowhere, plus war, 

pregnant Russians and modern representative democracy...

by Joel Bowman

"We're on a road to nowhere,

Come on inside.

Taking that ride to nowhere,

We'll take that ride."

~ Talking Heads, "Road to Nowhere" (1985)

"Welcome to yet another Sunday Sesh, dear reader, that time of the week when we poke our head above the parapet, feel for flesh wounds and praise the heavens we’re still among the quick.,Grateful to answer in the affirmative, we begin today’s epistle with a lively enough observation: There are pregnant Russian women everywhere!

Since the onset of war in Eastern Europe, millions of people have been displaced, conscripted... and worse. Among the masses are an exodus of young Russians, twenty- and thirty-somethings who grew up with dreams that didn’t include marching off to the battle front or dying face down in a muddy trench.

War is indeed the health of the state, as Randolph Bourne once observed, but it is quite another thing for the poor souls who must actually fight it. Understandably, desperate people do desperate things... even fly to the other side of the planet, to a country with 100% inflation and rolling economic crises, where they speak a foreign language and where there is little enough hope, even for the locals.

Since the start of last year, more than 22,000 Russians have arrived on these fair shores... including 5,000 pregnant women in the past few months alone. There were 33 of them on a single Ethiopian Airlines flight.

At stake for these refugees: An Argentine passport. And not just for the baby, who automatically qualifies having been born here on rich, pampas soil, but for the parents, too. This is a non-trivial upside, as Argentine passport holders can travel to 170 countries visa free; Russian passport holders, 87. (Also, Argentina is not at war with a foreign power... only with itself.)

We asked some of our porteño friends how they felt about the sudden influx of foreign nationals to their already crowded capital. Their response was uniformly welcoming, exactly as one would expect from people accustomed to separating the actions of individuals from the diktats of their governmental overlords.

And yet, the scourge of warfare exists so long as the simple-minded “Us vs. Them” narrative is allowed to persist... on both sides. Bill has been expounding on his Bad Guy Theory of late, noting what ought to be obvious to even the most uninterested bystander: the situation is always more complicated than we, “The People,” are led to believe.

And yet, whipped into a foaming, chest-thumping frenzy, there is scarcely a great cause Homo Credulous won’t get behind, provided he finds himself happily ensconced in the false security of the mobjority. Yes, dear readers, we speak here of the most sacred, fattened heifer of them all: modern, representative democracy, the very subject of today’s musing...

"Tyranny of the Mobjority"

By Joel Bowman

"Man: He’ll go along with just about anything. Given the right circumstances…a little programming…and enough time for it all to marinate in his soft, mammalian brain…there is almost nothing Homo Credulus will not learn to embrace. Don’t believe us?

Take a look at the historical record; you’ll soon wonder how we ever got this far. Sure, you’ll discover gizmos and flying contraptions…art and agriculture…music and mathematics. You’ll witness spectacular scientific breakthroughs, the number “0” and a man’s footprint on the moon. You’ll also find automobiles with so many cup holders, you won’t know where to holster your oversized 7/11 Big Gulp.

But you’ll also scratch your head. Perhaps you’ll even weep. And if you think hard enough, you’ll put a few things to serious question…“Central banks?” “Modern democracy?” “The Chelsea Handler Show?” How has mankind survived such atrocities? Self inflicted, no less! And why, moreover, does he rush so earnestly to repeat and replay his worst mistakes? (Ms. Handler has been on air since 2006!)

Don’t be too hard on yourself, Dear Reader. After all, repetition is nothing new…You’ll recall that it was the Greeks who first gave the world democracy – from the Greek, dēmokratía, literally “Rule by ‘People’”. (And yes, it was those very same Greeks who put their own beloved Socrates to death…by a majority vote of 361-140.)

The beatings will continue until voter morale improves! 

Today, democracy is a cherished tenet of “the West.” It is woven into the civic religion, sewn into the social fabric. Men march off eagerly to fight for it, to proselytize it…and to die in forgotten ditches defending it. At least, that’s what they believe they’re doing. As usual, the poor saps have been duped. Herewith, a little historical context…

The phrase “Making the world safe for democracy” was actually a marketing slogan, coined back in the 1910s, as a way to sell “The Great War” to America. Weary from their own disastrous Civil War just a few decades earlier, in which hundreds of thousands of her finest sons gave up the ghost, Americans were mostly inward looking at the time. That is to say, they wanted little to do with what they largely saw as a “European affair.”

Polls might have indicated no appetite for battle…but the nation’s politicians were nonetheless starved for military misadventure. They sensed big profits abroad, both in manufacturing armaments and making onerous bank loans to foreign lands. Sure, “the nation” would have to fill tank and trench with warm young bodies…but very few soldiers would carry senatorial surnames along with their rifles. And so, after a public relations campaign of truly epic proportions, America marched off to war…wrapped in the delusion they had freshly been sold.

Eddie Bernays, the man who coined the phrase and, thus, peddled the war to America, made a fortune for his efforts. He was even invited by Woodrow Wilson to attend the Paris Peace Conference, in 1919, as a show of gratitude for his services. There, Bernays learned the full impact of his “democracy” slogan. An obviously bright fellow, the surreal experience caused him to think…"If people will line up to kill one another under the influence of a mere marketing campaign…they could surely be convinced to do, say and buy just about anything!"

Bernays was right. In fact, he wrote a series of books, detailing his insights. They included "Crystallizing Public Opinion" (1923), "A Public Relations Counsel" (1927) and a neat little number titled "Propaganda" (1928), in which Bernays laid out the blueprint for mass social and psychological manipulation. The collected works went on to become a runaway success…and the favorite of none other than Joseph Goebbles, Reich Minister for Propaganda in Nazi Germany between 1933-45.

Bernays himself, writing in his 1965 autobiography, recalls a dinner at home in 1933 where…"Karl von Wiegand, foreign correspondent of the Hearst newspapers, an old hand at interpreting Europe and just returned from Germany, was telling us about Goebbels and his propaganda plans to consolidate Nazi power. Goebbels had shown Wiegand his propaganda library, the best Wiegand had ever seen. Goebbels, said Wiegand, was using my book "Crystallizing Public Opinion" as a basis for his destructive campaign against the Jews of Germany. This shocked me. […] Obviously the attack on the Jews of Germany was no emotional outburst of the Nazis, but a deliberate, planned campaign."

It is indeed chilling to think of such a heinous undertaking as being engineered, blueprinted, premeditated and carried out according to some kind of script. And yet, there it is… in Bernays’ own words, the “Father of Propaganda.” "Having acquired somewhat of a tainted reputation-by-association, propaganda, itself, underwent a “strategic rebranding” after WWII. But make no mistake, the very same métier thrives to this day, under the more socially palatable designation, “Public Relations.” Still, a ruse by any other name...

Bread and Circuses: “Could we be so stupid again?” wonders the gentle reader. “Might the mob still be swayed by what Charles Mackay termed ‘extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds?’” Why, of course! That’s the nature of the mobjority!

Whether in love, finance, politics or any other matter, man is wont to be convinced, assured, persuaded, often against his own best interests. Few are the absurdities in which he will not take refuge, invest his hard-earned capital or squander his morality. All he needs is a good story, something to arrest his imagination and cauterize his capacity for reason. A distraction from his lonely, quotidian existence, what Henry David Thoreau called the life of “quiet desperation.” A carefully constructed narrative, in other words, and a few crumbs to pass his lips.

The Roman poet, Juvenal, recognized as much when he mocked the panem et circenses (bread and circuses) stratagem almost two millennia ago. In his "Satire X", he referred to the Annona (a kind of grain dole) and the famous circus games, held in the Colosseum and elsewhere, as designed to keep the unthinking population fed and happy.

Look around you today, Dear Reader. What do you see, two millennia later, in the Year of Their Lord, 2023 AD? We’ve got reality television and Rhianna on the Super Bowl halftime show, plus food stamp programs and a Niagara of leaky bucket transfer payments. We’ve got China to the left of us, Russia to the right, and the whole bogus pretense of safety and security in between. There’s $31.6 trillion in national debt and government spending out the wazoo, all set against a nationwide crime wave, a fentanyl epidemic raging from sea to shining sea, while emotionally incontinent social justice warriors rewrite our precious culture, one children’s book at a time...

And behind it all, the greatest bread and circuses show ever invented: modern representative democracy. Now, as then, the show goes on!"

- https://bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com/

o

Talking Heads, "Road To Nowhere"

"How It Really Is"

 

Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, "My Orchid Spirit (Extragalactic)"

Liquid Mind, "My Orchid Spirit (Extragalactic)"

Full screen highly recommended.

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"In this galaxy, there's a mathematical probability of 3 billion Earth-type planets. And in all of the universe, 2 trillion galaxies like this. And in all of that... and perhaps more, only one of each of us."

- "Dr. Leonard McCoy"

"A Look to the Heavens"

Will the spider ever catch the fly? Not if both are large emission nebulas toward the constellation of the Charioteer (Auriga). The spider-shaped gas cloud on the left is actually an emission nebula labelled IC 417, while the smaller fly-shaped cloud on the right is dubbed NGC 1931 and is both an emission nebula and a reflection nebula.

About 10,000 light-years distant, both nebulas harbor young, open star clusters. For scale, the more compact NGC 1931 (Fly) is about 10 light-years across.”

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180129.html

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" I do not question the presence of intelligent life on other planets;

 but I do question its existence on this one."

- Dr. Ivan Desantis

"2nd Biggest Bank Failure In U.S. History: On The Verge Of A Much Bigger Collapse Than 2008"

Full screen recommended.

"2nd Biggest Bank Failure In U.S. History: 

On The Verge Of A Much Bigger Collapse Than 2008"

By Epic Economist

"The wait for the next “Lehman Brothers moment” is over. On Friday, we witnessed the second biggest bank failure in U.S. history. The stunning collapse of Silicon Valley Bank is shaking the financial world to the core. As of the end of last year, the bank had $175 billion dollars in deposits, and approximately $151 billion dollars of those deposits were uninsured. In other words, a lot of wealthy individuals and large companies are in danger of being wiped out. In particular, this is being described as an “extinction level event” for tech startups, because thousands of them did their banking with SVB. I cannot even begin to describe how cataclysmic this is going to be for the tech industry as a whole.

The closure marks the biggest bank failure since the 2008 financial crisis and the second-largest in U.S. history after Washington Mutual collapsed during that industry-wide meltdown, according to FDIC data.

Worries over a run at SVB led Wall Street investors to dump other bank stocks as well. Shares of some prominent West Coast lenders took sharp nosedives Friday, including First Republic Bank, PacWest Bancorp and Western Alliance Bancorporation.

Once the dominoes start falling, it will be difficult to stop the process. In fact, the situation is already so dire that Peter Schiff is proclaiming that we are “on the verge of a much bigger collapse than 2008”…“Banks own long-term paper at extremely low interest rates. They can’t compete with short-term Treasuries. Mass withdrawals from depositors seeking higher yields will result in a wave of bank failures.” Of course a lot of the “experts” in the mainstream media never saw this coming.

Unfortunately, SVB’s situation is not unique. Thanks to rapidly rising interest rates, many other banks are also sitting on mountains of Treasury bills that have lost a lot of value…As I have been telling my viewers, our system simply cannot handle higher rates at this point. But the “experts” at the Fed assured all of us that they knew exactly what they were doing. Now they have caused one of the biggest bank failures in U.S. history, and much worse is on the way if they do not reverse course.

But I don’t expect the “experts” at the Fed to listen to any of us. They are just going to keep doing what they are doing, and we are all going to have to live with the consequences."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"This Is the Start of the Bank Crash"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly PM 3/11/23:

"This Is the Start of the Bank Crash"

"Silicon Valley Bank is going to dramatically affect multiple industries. You will see companies file bankruptcy within the week. There are hundreds of companies that have zero chance of getting their money out of the bank."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Jim Cramer Told You To Buy Silicon Valley Bank - Big Mistake; Stay Calm, Your Money Is Gone"

Jeremiah Babe, 3/11/23:

"Jim Cramer Told You To Buy Silicon Valley Bank - 

Big Mistake; Stay Calm, Your Money Is Gone"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Daily "Near You?

South Pittsburg, Tennessee, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

The Poet: Robert Service, "Prelude"

"Prelude"

"In youth I gnawed life's bitter rind

And shared the rugged lot

Of fellows rude and unrefined,

Frustrated and forgot;

And now alas! it is too late

My sorry ways to mend,

So sadly I accept my fate,

A Roughneck to the end.

Profanity is in my voice

And slag is in my rhyme,

For I have mucked with men who curse

And grovel in the grime;

My fingers were not formed, I fear,

To frame a pretty pen,

So please forgive me if I veer

From Virtue now and then.

For I would be the living voice,

Though raucous is its tone,

Of men who rarely may rejoice,

Yet barely ever moan:

The rovers of the raw-ribbed lands,

The lads of lowly worth,

The scallywags with scaley hands

Who weld the ends of earth."

- Robert Service

"In The End..."

"What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end,

of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do."

- John Ruskin

"How It Really Is"

 

"The Housing Crash is Looming"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 3/11/23:

"The Housing Crash is Looming"

"The numbers are in and we are seeing that the housing market is taking another hit. Interest rates are absolutely destroying new purchases and people are canceling contracts that record rates."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Poet: Neil Gaiman, "What You Need To Be Warm "

"What You Need To Be Warm" 

 "A baked potato of a winters night to wrap

your hands around or burn your mouth.

A blanket knitted by your mother's cunning fingers. 

Or your grandmother's.

A smile, a touch, trust, as you walk in from the snow

or return to it, the tips of your ears pricked pink and frozen.

The tink tink tink of iron radiators waking in an old house.

To surface from dreams in a bed, 

burrowed beneath blankets and comforters,

the change of state from cold to warm is all that matters, and you think

just one more minute snuggled here before you face the chill. Just one.

Places we slept as children: they warm us in the memory.

We travel to an inside from the outside. 

To the orange flames of the fireplace

or the wood burning in the stove. 

Breath-ice on the inside of windows,

to be scratched off with a fingernail, melted with a whole hand.

Frost on the ground that stays in the shadows, waiting for us.

Wear a scarf. Wear a coat. Wear a sweater. 

Wear socks. Wear thick gloves.

An infant as she sleeps between us. A tumble of dogs,

a kindle of cats and kittens. 

Come inside. You're safe now.

A kettle boiling at the stove. Your family or friends are there. 

They smile.

Cocoa or chocolate, tea or coffee, 

soup or toddy, what you know you need.

A heat exchange, they give it to you, you take the mug

and start to thaw.

While outside, for some of us, the journey began

as we walked away from our grandparentshouses

away from the places we knew as children: 

changes of state and state and state,

to stumble across a stony desert, or to brave the deep waters,

while food and friends, home, a bed, even a blanket become just memories.

Sometimes it only takes a stranger, in a dark place,

to hold out a badly-knitted scarf, to offer a kind word,

 to say we have the right to be here, 

to make us warm in the coldest season.

You have the right to be here. "

- Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman reads "What You Need To Be Warm" here:

- https://soundcloud.com/brainpicker/

The Poet: Czeslaw Milosz, “A Song On The End Of The World”

“A Song On The End Of The World”

“On the day the world ends

A bee circles a clover,

A fisherman mends a glimmering net.

Happy porpoises jump in the sea,

By the rainspout young sparrows are playing

And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.

On the day the world ends

Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,

A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,

Vegetable peddlers shout in the street

And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,

The voice of a violin lasts in the air

And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder

Are disappointed.

And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps

Do not believe it is happening now.

As long as the sun and the moon are above,

As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,

As long as rosy infants are born

No one believes it is happening now.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet

Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,

Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:

There will be no other end of the world,

There will be no other end of the world.”

~  Czeslaw Milosz

"Bank Run USA Panic – Second USA Bank Collapses in 3 Days, Run of Withdrawals Causes Liquidity Crisis"

"Bank Run USA Panic – Second USA Bank Collapses

 in 3 Days, Run of Withdrawals Causes Liquidity Crisis"

By IWB

(Reuters) – "U.S. lenders First Republic Bank (FRC.N) and Western Alliance (WAL.N) said on Friday their liquidity and deposits remained strong, aiming to calm investors worried of a spill-over of risks from troubled startup focused-bank SVB Financial Group (SIVB.O). Shares of the three banks slumped between 20% and 60% in choppy trading that led to halts and resumptions. The disclosures come after banking regulators shut California-based SVB after a failed share sale that triggered worries of a liquidity crisis, hammered bank stocks and rippled through global markets.

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

- https://twitter.com/PeterSchiff/

o

● "Global Banking Collapse Has Begun"

● "Alert: Bank Dominoes Falling"

● "300 Billion Reasons Why SVB Contagion 

Is Spreading To The Broader Banking System"

Greg Hunter, "$2.5 Quadrillion Disaster Waiting to Happen"

"$2.5 Quadrillion Disaster Waiting to Happen – 

Egon von Greyerz"

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"There is sufficiency in the world 

for Man's need but not for his greed." 

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Egon von Greyerz (EvG) stores gold for clients at the biggest private gold vault in the world buried deep in the Swiss Alps. EvG is a financial and precious metals expert. EvG is a former Swiss banker and an expert in risk. He says the risk in the global markets has never been this high.

EvG explains, “Credit has increased dramatically through derivatives. All instruments being issued now by banks, pension funds, stock funds, it’s all synthetic. There is no real underlying payments in anything almost. Therefore, my estimate for derivatives would be at least $2 quadrillion, and I think that is probably conservative. Then, we have debt on top of that of $300 trillion, and we also have a couple hundred trillion dollars of unfunded liabilities. So, we are talking about $2.5 quadrillion, and that’s with a global GDP of $80 trillion. So, there is a disaster waiting to happen, and especially because all this created money has created no value whatsoever. I always knew this would collapse, and it’s taken longer than I expected, but I think we are at the end of a major era. 

These derivatives, at some point in the coming few years, will actually turn into debt. Central banks will have to cover all the outstanding liabilities of the commercial banks as we are seeing now with Credit Suisse, Bank of England and etc. This is going to happen across the board. Whether it’s called derivatives or called debt, as far as I am concerned, it’s the same thing. It will have the same effect on the world financial system, which will be disastrous, of course.”

EvG says the derivative markets were simply a way for financial institutions to carry debt and not show it on their balance sheets. In the end, everything will balance out. EvG goes on to say, “Nobody can repay the debt, and they can’t even pay interest. So, therefore, when the debt implodes, so will the assets that were financed by this debt. So, both sides of the balance sheet have to come down. Whether it comes down by 50%, 75% or 90%, I don’t know. All I think about is risk, and the financial system will not survive in its present form. Central banks only use one kind of medicine, and that is more printed money. Now, you are getting negative returns on printed money. So, that is not going to save anything. 

Sadly we are looking at a situation when this system will start to implode. The rich are still rich, but the poor are really poor. Overall in the UK, Germany and most European countries, people don’t have enough money to live. This is a human disaster already. With food costs going up 25% and energy going up the same and gasoline, interest rates and rents, people don’t have enough money, and that is happening now. It’s a human disaster of mega proportions. It’s so sad, and governments will have no chance of doing anything about it.”

In closing, EvG says, “This is why it is getting closer for implosion because the whole system can’t take this. The risk is increasing exponentially. So, I think people should be prepared. Most asset markets have lost money, and it is going to get worse.” There is much more in the 43-minute interview.

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with Egon von Greyerz of Matterhorn Asset Management, which can be found on GoldSwitzerland.com. 

- https://rumble.com/

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Related:

- https://brokerchooser.com/