Tuesday, May 23, 2023

The Poet: Rolf Jacobsen, "When They Sleep"

"When They Sleep"

"All people are children when they sleep.
There's no war in them then.
They open their hands and breathe
in that quiet rhythm heaven has given them.
They pucker their lips like small children
and open their hands halfway,
soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters.
The stars stand guard
and a haze veils the sky,
a few hours when no one will do anybody harm.
If only we could speak to one another then
when our hearts are half-open flowers.
Words like golden bees
would drift in.
God, teach me the language of sleep."

- Rolf Jacobsen,
"The Roads Have Come to an End Now"

"‘I Cry Quietly’: A Soldier Describes the Toll of Russia’s War"

Full screen recommended.
"‘I Cry Quietly’: 
A Soldier Describes the Toll of Russia’s War"
"For Valentyn, a Ukrainian soldier in the Donetsk region, the war’s death toll is more than a statistic. He is tasked with moving wounded troops - and dead bodies - away from the front lines, often under Russian fire."

"Under Russian Fire, 
A Ukrainian Soldier Evacuates the Wounded"
By Yousur Al-Hlou and Masha Froliak

Near Kremmina, Ukraine - "The sound of artillery launching and landing along the front line punctures the stillness of the forest just a few miles away, where combat medics are waiting to receive the wounded. On the horizon, a military vehicle moves along a dusty road and screeches to a halt when it reaches the trees. A soldier named Valentyn parks it there for natural camouflage from Russian drones scouting for Ukrainian military positions.

A group of soldiers, visibly shaken, quickly unloads three bodies that have just been recovered from the front line, placing each one into a plastic body bag and zipping it closed. Their position was shelled and then attacked by a drone, they say. “They’re shooting at you from all sides. You turn, you run, they hit you, and it’s impossible to get away,” said Maksym, who survived the attack. “This is a big tragedy for us.” “One more body is left behind with the Russian soldiers,” he added.

While much of the world’s attention was fixated on the bloody urban battle taking place in Bakhmut, Russia’s campaign in eastern Ukraine is also raging in forests and fields about 50 miles north of the city, near Kreminna. Here, soldiers take positions in trenches surrounded by tall, slim trees, crouching to avoid the direct line of sight of their Russian enemies. “People say it’s harsh in Bakhmut,” said Valentyn, who joined the army seven months ago. “But it’s harsh here, too.”

For the past month, Valentyn has been stationed at this evacuation point, traveling back and forth to the front line almost daily to rescue wounded soldiers and recover the dead. His job requires him to drive directly toward Russian forces, and he has come under fire at times. “There is nothing good about it,” Valentyn said. “What is this war for?”

Ukrainian and Russian military officials have been reluctant to release data on casualties within their ranks, though the U.S. government and military experts estimate that both sides have suffered significant losses in the tens or hundreds of thousands.

For Valentyn, the work of responding to the casualties has been both grim and relentless. “There is blood everywhere,” he said, while cleaning it from his vehicle. “It has a smell. Especially fresh blood.” Bright red liquid trickled through his fingers as he rinsed out a bloodied cloth. He drained the cloth and used it again to wipe off the back seat. “It’s difficult to see young boys die,” Valentyn said. “Sometimes I cry quietly.”

In calmer moments when there is no one to evacuate, Valentyn travels deep into the forest to transport soldiers to and from the contact line, where Ukrainian and Russian soldiers are sometimes positioned just hundreds of meters apart. He said at least one group of soldiers couldn’t make it to their position because Russian troops had already taken it over.

“Every day is scary here,” said Viktor, a soldier who returned with Valentyn. “I feel constant anxiety, for our country and our lives.” His stoic face reflected the fear and horror known only to those who had witnessed the fight in the forest. “Those who haven’t been there will never understand.”

Don't you dare look away! You, and me and all of us have paid at least $120 billion for this nightmare! The blood he's cleaning up is on all our hands, too...

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 5/23/23

 

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 5/23/23
"Ukraine Fighting - What's Next, after Bakhmut?
 Larry Johnson fmr CIA"
Video and comments here:

Hindustan Times, 5/23/23
"Putin Ally's Chilling 'Nuclear Apocalypse' 
Threat After Ukraine Attacks Russian City"
"Russia is enraged after back-to-back drone attacks in its border city of Belgorod. Vladimir Putin's close aide and deputy chief of the Russian security council, Dmitry Medvedev, has issued a 'deadly' nuclear deterrent to Ukraine and its backers. Moscow threatens nuclear war after attacks in the Russian city of Belgorod. The Russian Defense Ministry has said that Ukraine is resorting to terrorism in the Belgorod region after its Bakhmut defeat."
Video and comments here:
o
Douglas Macgregor, 5/23/23
"A Real Battle in Bakhmut"
Video and comments here:

"How It Really Is"

  

"Global Debt Bubble Of $2.3 Quadrillion"

"Global Debt Bubble Of $2.3 Quadrillion"
by Egon Von Greyerz

"As I have outlined in many articles, these towers mentioned above have been instrumental in creating a global debt bubble of $300 trillion plus derivatives and unfunded liabilities of around $2 quadrillion, most of which will turn into debt in the next decade or less. So even if the world can avoid a major nuclear war, it is likely to suffer massive repercussions from the financial calamity coming next. As Gandhi said: “There is sufficiency in the world for Man's need but not for his greed.”

To create $2.3 quadrillion of global liabilities has nothing to do with man’s need but only with the greed of a few at the expense of mankind. When the nuclear financial bubble bursts we will see an implosion of asset prices in real terms by 75-90% as I have outlined in many articles like here.

In my article “In The End The $ Goes To Zero And The Us Defaults” , I also explain that “there is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion” as von Mises stated.

So even if the world survives the threat of a nuclear war, a collapse of the financial system is absolutely inevitable. The greed and the adoration of the golden calf that some parts of the world have practiced in the last 50 years, will not go unpunished. This major transformation coming will be like a financial nuclear event. After a difficult transition, the world will not only come out of it with a much sounder foundation but also based on much better human values than currently."
o
o
Full screen recommended.
"US Debt of $30 Trillion Visualized in Stacks of Physical Cash"
For conceptualizing the amount of debt being discussed. This was 2 years ago when the debt was only $30 trillion. Now it's $34.1 trillion, and about to explode higher. Try to imagine $2.5 QUADRILLION of derivatives, an impossibility really, inconceivable. As the glorious Mogambo Guru said, "We're so freakin' doomed!" Oh, we are...
Comments here:
o
So, if it's truly hopeless, and it is, then why bother?
If you were facing a firing squad, and we all are...
wouldn't you at least want to know why? 
And who stood you against the wall? I would...

Bill Bonner, "Hard Choices Ahead"

"Hard Choices Ahead"
Having put off reality for long enough,
 the Feds finally face the flames...
by Bill Bonner

"Did you ever have to make up your mind?
Pick up on one and leave the other one behind,
It's not often easy, and not often kind,
Did you ever have to make up your mind?

Did you ever have to finally decide?
Say yes to one and let the other one ride.
There's so many changes, and tears you must hide,
Did you ever have to finally decide?"
~ The Lovin’ Spoonful

Youghal, Ireland -  "Uh oh. Hard choices ahead. Yahoo Finance: Time is running low to strike a deal…"Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen maintains that a deal needs to be reached and "it's not an acceptable situation for us to be unable to pay our bills." Her first priorities if there is no deal by June 1 would include paying for interest on existing debt as well as making sure Social Security recipients and military employees get their checks on time, she said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press. “There will be hard choices to make about what bills go unpaid” if the talks fail or are too slow.

Paying the army was always the top priority in ancient Rome. If the soldiers weren’t paid (especially late in the empire when they were mostly mercenary armies of Germans and Slavs) they might turn on Rome itself.

The Fed’s Pickle: But that is the pickle that the feds have gotten themselves into. They are hostage to their own bamboozles. Like reckless, petty swindlers, they owe money all over town. If they don’t pay up, there are likely to be consequences.

What a horrible situation (from Joe Biden’s, Ms. Yellen’s and the feds’ point of view). They’ve devoted their whole careers to avoiding hard choices and unpleasant consequences. When Joe Biden came to Washington, the feds owed only $400 billion. Now it’s nearly $32 trillion; every penny of the difference represents another hard choice not made. And why make a hard choice when you don’t have to? Go with them both. Blonde and brunette. Guns and butter. Aces and eights. Russia and China.

But hard choices are what the feds should have been making all along. And if they had, our choices today wouldn’t be so hard. We wouldn’t have an estimated $20 trillion debt more coming over the next 10 years. Or a war in the Ukraine and 800 military bases all over the world. Or 5% inflation. We wouldn’t have a $2 trillion budget deficit this year…or interest rates that have to be held down in order to avoid going broke. And America’s hard-working families (AHWF) wouldn’t be getting poorer.

Hey, wait…here comes another Deus ex Machina…AI. Are we saved? Why not just let it make the hard choices for us? It’s not swayed by emotions or prejudices, right? AI has no knees to jerk or necks to stiffen. It could just examine the federal budget logically and point out those things that aren’t really necessary…no? No need to raise the debt ceiling? Oh, dear reader, we need to put on our thinking caps, don’t we?

Human, all too Human: The feds are humans, too. And like all of us, they want to feel good about themselves…that they are top guns…big spenders. Patrons of the arts. They want to give alms to the poor and payoffs to the rich…and win re-election. They want to make things better for everyone, especially large campaign donors. And as long as the price tags are removed…and there are no real debt ceilings…and they are spending other people’s money, no hard choices are necessary. In any case, when you’re over 80, whatever the price – war, inflation, bankruptcy – someone else is likely to pay it, not you.

We happened to watch a tech expert giving a TED talk. He was telling us about the “evolving relationship between humans and computers.” It was “deeply profound,” he said. Our message today: it is probably only superficially profound.

Even using old-fashioned, natural intelligence, our species has been able to make extraordinary progress in the outside world. We add. We subtract. We find the hypotenuse. We use science and technology to level the forests and raise up huge concrete and glass towers. We use our brains to accelerate particles and slow down traffic. We can now push a few buttons and obliterate entire cities…and cause the heavens to fill with huge clouds of radioactive dust. That’s progress!

Pure Fantasyland: But science and technology are always faced with hard choices – Boyle’s law, the boiling point of water, the conductivity of copper, gravity – we bend to the laws of the natural universe. They do not bend to us.

Our internal world, however, evolves more slowly. It is a trickster. And much more difficult to manipulate. We are, more or less, still the same knuckle-dragging, rough animal that first rose up onto two legs. We have feelings, emotions – far beyond anything our thinking minds can comprehend or control. We fall in love. We paw the ground. We howl at the moon.

In our families and our businesses, there too, we are always constrained by tough choices. Take a vacation or fix the roof? Hire another employee or give existing employees a raise? But in war, economics, and politics we let the beast off the leash. A Cultural Revolution… Free the Holy Lands…DEI…On to Moscow!

For many years, in the federal budgeting process, the feds ignored the right side of the menu. There was no need to look at prices when you could borrow all the money you wanted…at real rates below zero…and never have to pay it back. There are no hard choices in fantasyland.

So, “Cry havoc! and let slip the dogs of war”…open the gates of Hell…hand out the stimmies…give free rein to jealousy, hate, envy, pride – all the seven deadly sins are still there…along with others we’ve picked up along the way. A large government, with the world’s reserve currency, a printing press and a military machine far larger than any rival can push off the hard choices for decades. But not forever.

Ms. Yellen knows perfectly well that the US government doesn’t really need to borrow more money. What then, is really going on? And what can AI do about it? Stay tuned..."

"Dan, I Allegedly 5/23/23"

Dan, I Allegedly 5/23/23
"They Are Doing It Now"
"The debt ceiling debacle is still not being resolved. Plus, we are seeing banks that want to know what you’re going to do with the cash you take out of the bank. This is a set up to make sure that they limit your spending power."
Video and comments here:

"Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/23/23"

"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it. 
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
o
Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/23/23
"OPEC Warns 'Much Higher Energy Prices';
 JPM Warns: More Bank Failures Coming"
Video and comments here:

"Stock Up Now At Meijer! Massive Holiday Sale! Don't Miss This!"

Adventures With Danno, 5/23/23
"Stock Up Now At Meijer!
 Massive Holiday Sale! Don't Miss This!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Meijer, and are noticing that they are having a huge sale on holiday baking items this month! We are stocking up and showing the best deals as we take you shopping with us. It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
Video and comments here:

Monday, May 22, 2023

"Red Alert! US Government Issuing Satellite Phones; Russia Evacuates Nuclear Weapons; F16s Will Be WW3"

Canadian Prepper, 5/22/23
"Red Alert! US Government Issuing Satellite Phones;
Russia Evacuates Nuclear Weapons; F16s Will Be WW3"
Video and comments here:
o
Redacted, 5/22/23
"OH SH*T, NATO Escalates War in Ukraine 
With Attack in Belgorod Using US Weapons"
"NATO and Ukrainian forces launched a surprise attack inside of pre-war Russia using American armored vehicles and weapons. They attacked civilians and residential buildings in broad daylight in the Russian town of Belgorod."
Video and comments here:

"Government Default Catastrophic; Dave Ramsey Is Very Wrong, Debt Clock Sends Ominous Warning"

Jeremiah Babe, 5/22/23
"Government Default Catastrophic; Dave Ramsey Is 
Very Wrong, Debt Clock Sends Ominous Warning"
Video and comments here:

Musical Interlude: 2002, "The End Is a Beginning"

Full screen recommended.
2002, "The End Is a Beginning"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“The Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) is one of the best known planetary nebulae in the sky. Its more familiar outlines are seen in the brighter central region of the nebula in this impressive wide-angle view. But the composite image combines many short and long exposures to also reveal an extremely faint outer halo. At an estimated distance of 3,000 light-years, the faint outer halo is over 5 light-years across.
Planetary nebulae have long been appreciated as a final phase in the life of a sun-like star. More recently, some planetary nebulae are found to have halos like this one, likely formed of material shrugged off during earlier episodes in the star's evolution. While the planetary nebula phase is thought to last for around 10,000 years, astronomers estimate the age of the outer filamentary portions of this halo to be 50,000 to 90,000 years. Visible on the left, some 50 million light-years beyond the watchful planetary nebula, lies spiral galaxy NGC 6552.”
"Our planet is a tiny porthole, looking over a cosmic sea.
Can we learn what lies beyond our own horizons of perception?"

"In The End..."

"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time;
it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable."
~ Sydney J. Harris

The Poet: Mary Oliver, “Evidence”

“Evidence”

“Where do I live?

If I had no address, as many people do not,

I could nevertheless say that I lived in the
same town as the lilies of the field,

and the still waters.


Spring, and all through the neighborhood
now there are
 strong men tending flowers.
Beauty without purpose is beauty without virtue.

But all beautiful things, inherently, have this function -

to excite the viewers toward sublime thought.

Glory to the world, that good teacher.

Among the swans there is none
called the least,
 or the greatest.
I believe in kindness. Also in mischief.

Also in singing,
especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.

As for the body,
it is solid and strong and curious and full of detail;

it wants to polish itself; it wants to love another body;

it is the only vessel in the world that can hold,

in a mix of power and sweetness:

words, song, gesture, passion, ideas,
ingenuity,
devotion, merriment, vanity, and virtue.
Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.”

- Mary Oliver
“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for! To quote from Whitman, ‘O me! O life! of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless - of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?’ Answer: That you are here - that life exists, and that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”
- “Dead Poets Society”

"I Urge All Of You..."

“To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special. I just got one last thing... I urge all of you, all of you, to enjoy your life, the precious moments you have.”
- Jim Valvano

"The Middle Class Is Being Systematically Destroyed"

"The Middle Class Is Being Systematically Destroyed"
by Michael Snyder

"If you wanted to destroy the middle class, one way that you could accomplish that goal would be to flood the system with money. Of course that is precisely what we have witnessed over the past few years. Our leaders have pumped trillions of new dollars into the system, and the wealthy have gotten much, much wealthier. But meanwhile, the rest of us have seen the cost of living rise much faster than our paychecks have. As a result, we are getting poorer and the middle class is shrinking.

Over time, our capitalist economy has steadily evolved into a system where almost all of the wealth and almost all of the power are concentrated in the hands of giant institutions. Collectively, big government and big corporations run virtually everything, and this system of “corporate socialism” funnels tremendous amount of wealth into the pockets of a very small minority of the population. If you are in that club, life is good. But if you are not in that club, life can be a struggle.

The gap between the rich and the poor has steadily grown, and now it is larger than it has ever been before. Even U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders acknowledges that we have a massive problem on our hands…"Today, half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck, 500,000 of the very poorest among us are homeless, millions are worried about evictions, 92 million are uninsured or underinsured, and families all across the country are worried about how they are going to feed their kids. Today, an entire generation of young people carry an outrageous level of student debt and face the reality that their standard of living will be lower than their parents’. And, most obscenely, low-income Americans now have a life expectancy that is about 15 years lower than the wealthy. Poverty in America has become a death sentence."

Meanwhile, the people on top have never had it so good. The top 1% now own more wealth than the bottom 92%, and the 50 wealthiest Americans own more wealth than the bottom half of American society – 165 million people. Of course Sanders believes that even more socialism is the answer, but more socialism is never the answer.

Centralizing wealth and power leads to widespread poverty. We have seen this same pattern over and over again all over the globe. Decentralizing wealth and power leads to boundless prosperity like we saw in early America. Unfortunately, our current system is what it is, and the middle class is being absolutely crushed.

Earlier today, I came across a tweet from Mike Cernovich that really resonated with me…"I made $10 an hour as a part timer worker in Home Depot style store. $12.50 on weekends. This was 1990’s in small town. Would be $19 an hour today and $24 on weekends. I checked and same job TODAY is $12.50 an hour."

This is what inflation has done to the working class. This is what so many of the “working poor” are facing today. Wages for many jobs have not moved much at all over the years, but the cost of living has been absolutely soaring.

Cernovich also pointed out that a couple of decades ago hardly anything that we bought on a regular basis “felt expensive”…"Gas was often 99 cents/gallon. Gallon milk was 99 cents to $1.29. This was in 1997-2000 era. Nothing felt expensive other than “nice stuff,” luxuries. Daily living, groceries, sure you had to budget but it didn’t feel like it does now."

Isn’t that so true? I remember that time well. I could fill up an entire grocery cart for just 25 dollars, and that even included an entire cake. Yes, I really liked to eat cake in those days. But now if you fill up an entire cart with food, you will feel like you are making a house payment when you get to the register.

Needless to say, house payments are also much higher than they used to be. In fact, it is being reported that the average existing home actually costs approximately 93,000 dollars more than it did in 2020…You read that right—existing homes cost around $93,000 more than they did in 2020. No wonder so many people feel like they can’t afford a house!

And newly built homes are even more expensive. In fact, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) estimates new homes will cost around $425,786 in 2023. Out of 132.5 million American households, 96.5 million of them won’t be able to afford that median price. So even if we see a ton of new houses being built, 7 out of 10 households will have a tough time paying for one.

$93,000 dollars! In the old days, you could get a really nice home for 93,000 dollars. But now the American Dream is out of reach for millions upon millions of families.

At this stage, many hard working families don’t even make enough money “to cover their most basic needs”…"More than a third of US families that work full-time do not earn enough money to cover their most basic needs, including housing, food and child care, a new study shows. Researchers at Brandeis University found 35% of American families do not meet the “basic family needs budget” — the amount needed to afford rent, food, transportation, medical care and minimal household expenses — despite working full-time year-round."

And thanks to inflation, it is getting worse with each passing month. According to one recent survey, approximately 70 percent of all Americans openly admit “to being stressed about their personal finances”…"Some 70% of Americans admit to being stressed about their personal finances these days and a majority — 52% — of U.S. adults said their financial stress has increased since before the Covid-19 pandemic began in March 2020, according to a new CNBC Your Money Financial Confidence Survey conducted in partnership with Momentive."

A lot of you out there are in the same boat. You are working as hard as you can, but it seems like there is never enough money at the end of the month. That is because the game is rigged. Our system has been so corrupted that now almost all of the economic rewards are being funneled to those at the very top of the food chain. Meanwhile, the middle class is being absolutely eviscerated, and poverty is spreading like wildfire all over the nation."

The Daily "Near You?"



Grand Prairie, Texas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Albanian Proverb..."

 

"15 Common Dynamics Of SHTF Collapses"

"15 Common Dynamics Of SHTF Collapses"
by Fabian Ommar

"When it comes to how we see and prepare for SHTF, thinking in terms of real and probable rather than fictional and possible can make a big difference. Even though SHTF has many forms and levels and is in essence complex, random, diverse and unsystematic, some patterns and principles are common to the way things unfold when it hits the fan. With Toby and Selco’s "Seven Pillars of Urban Preparedness" as inspiration, I came up with a different list of the 15 dynamics and realities of collapses.

#1 SHTF is nuanced and happens in stages: Thinking about SHTF as an ON/OFF, all-or-nothing endgame is a common mistake that can lead to severe misjudgments and failures in critical areas of preparedness. Part (or parts) of the system crash, freeze, fail, or become impaired. This is how SHTF happens in the real world. And when it does, people run for safety first, i.e., resort to more familiar behaviors, expecting things to “go back to normal soon.”

By “normal behaviors,” I mean everything from hoarding stuff (toilet paper?) to rioting, looting, and crime, and yes, using cash – as these happen all the time, even when things are normal. But no one becomes a barterer, a peddler, a precious metals specialist in a week. Society adapts as time passes (and the situation requires). That’s why preppers who are also SHTF survivors (and thus talk from personal experience) insist that abandoning fantasies and caring for basics first is crucial. This is not a coincidence. It is how things happen in the real world.

Recently I wrote about black markets and the role of cash in SHTFs, emphasizing these things take precedence except in a full-blown apocalypse – which no one can say if, when, or how will happen (because it never has?). Now, I don’t pretend to be the owner of the truth, but those insisting changes in society happen radically or abruptly should check this article about the fallout in Myanmar.

#2 Everything crawls until everything runs: Number two is a corollary to #1. SHTF happens in stair-steps, but most people failing to prepare and getting caught off-guard is evidence of the difficulty of the human brain to fully grasp the concept of exponential growth. It bears telling the analogy of the stadium being filled with water drops to illustrate this.

Let’s say we add one drop into a watertight baseball stadium. The deposited volume doubles every minute (i.e., one minute later, we add two more drops, then four in the next minute, eight in the next, then sixteen, and so on). How long would it take to fill the entire stadium? Sitting at the top row, we’d watch for 45 minutes as the water covered the field. Then at the 48-minute mark, 50% of the stadium would be filled. Yes, that’s only 3 minutes from practically empty to half full. At this point, we have just 60 seconds to get out: the water will be spilling before the clock hits 49 minutes.

This is an important dynamic to understand and keep in mind because it applies to most things. Another example: it took over 2 million years of human prehistory and history for the world’s population to reach 1 billion, and less than 250 years more to grow to almost 8 billion.

#3 The system doesn’t vanish or change suddenly: Based on history, the Mad Max-like scenario some so feverishly advocate is not in our near future. The Roman Empire unraveled over 500 years. We may not be at the tipping point of our collapse or the last minute of the flooding stadium, as illustrated in #2 above. But time is relative, and those 60 seconds can last five, ten, fifteen years. Things are accelerating, but there’s no way to tell at which point in the curve we are.


That doesn’t mean things will be normal in that period. A lot has happened to people and places all over the Roman empire during those five-plus centuries: wars, plagues, invasions, droughts, shortages, all hell broke loose. Our civilization has already hit the iceberg, and the current order is crumbling. There will be shocks along the way, some small and some big. But SHTF is a process, not an event.


#4 History repeats, but always with a twist: That’s because nature works in cycles, and humans react to scarcity and abundance predictably and in the same ways. Also, we’re helpless in the face of the most significant and recurring events. But things are never the same. Technology improves, social rules change, humankind advances, the population grows. This (and lots more) adds a variability factor to the magnitude, gravity, and reach of outcomes.

#5 SHTF is about scarcity: A shrink in resources invariably leads to changes in the individual’s standard of living or entire society (depending on the circumstances, depth, and reach of the disaster or collapse). Then it starts affecting life itself (i.e., people dying). Essentially, when things really hit the fan, abundance vanishes, and pretty much everything reverts to the mean: food becomes replenishment, drinking becomes hydration, sleeping becomes rest, home becomes shelter, and so on. Surviving is accepting and adapting to that.

#6 The consequences matter more than the type of event: I’ll admit to being guilty of debating probable causes of SHTF more often than I should, mainly when it comes to the economy and finance going bust. That’s from living in a third-world country, with all the crap that comes with it. It’s what I have to talk, warn, and give advice about. I still find it essential to be aware and thoughtful of the causes. But it’s for the consequences that we must prepare for: instability, corruption, bureaucracy, criminality, inflation, social unrest, divisiveness, wars, and all sorts of conflicts and disruptions that affect us directly.

#7 Life goes on: Humankind advances through hardship but thrives in routine. We crave normalcy and peace, and over the long term, pursue them. Contrary to what many think, life goes on even during SHTF. And things tend to return to normal after the immediate threats cease or get contained. At least some level of normal, considering the circumstances. For example, in occupied France, the bistros and cafés continued serving and entertaining the population and even the invaders (the Nazi army). It was hard, as is always the case anywhere there’s war, poverty, tyranny – but that doesn’t mean the world has ended.

#8 SHTF pileup: Disasters and collapses add instability, volatility, and fragility to the system, which can compound and cause further disruptions. Sometimes, unfavorable cycles on various fronts (nature and civilization) can also converge and generate a perfect storm. It’s crucial to consider that and try to prepare as best we can for multiple disasters happening at once or in sequence, on various levels, collective and individual – even if psychologically and mentally. And if the signs are any indication, we’re entering such a period of simultaneous challenges.

#9 Snowball effect: Daisy based her excellent article on the 10 most likely ways to die when SHTF on the principle of large-scale die-off caused by a major disaster, like an EMP or other. This theory is controversial and the object of endless discussions. Some say it’s an exaggeration. But in my opinion, that’s leaving a critical factor out of the equation.

Consider the following: according to WPR and the CDC, before COVID-19 and Vaxxes, the mortality rate in the US was well below 1% (2.850.000 per year, or about 8.100 per day). If the mortality rate increases to just 5%, this alone would spark other SHTFs, potentially more serious and harmful than the first. That five-fold jump in mortality would result in more than 16 million dead per year or 44.000 per day. That’s 5% we’re talking about, not 20 or 30. If there’s even a protocol to deal with something like that, I’m not aware. It would be catastrophic on many levels over a shorter period (say, a few months).

Early in the CV19 pandemic, some cities had trouble burying the dead, and the death rate was still below 1%. Sure, other factors were playing. But the point is, things can snowball: consequences and implications are too complex and potentially far-reaching. Think about the effects on the system.

#10 SHTF is a situation, but it’s also a place: Things are hitting the fan somewhere right now. Not in the overblowing media but the physical world: the Texas border, third-world prisons, gang-ruled Haiti, in Taliban-raided Afghanistan, in the crackhouse just a few blocks from an affluent neighborhood, under the bridges of many big cities worldwide, in volcano-hit islands. There are thousands of places where people are bugging out, suffering, or dying of all causes at this very moment. If you’re not in any SHTF, consider yourself lucky. Be grateful, too: being able to prepare is a luxury.

#11 Choosing one way or another has a price: Being unprepared and wrong has a price. However, so does being prepared and wrong. Though some benefits exist regardless of what happens, the investment in terms of time, finance, and emotion to be prepared could be applied elsewhere or used for other finalities (career, a business, relationships, etc.) rather than some far-out collapse.

Since so much in SHTF is unknown and open, and resources are limited even when things are normal, survival and preparedness are essentially trade-offs. We must read the signals, weigh the options, consider the probabilities, make an option, and face the consequences. That’s why striving for balance is so important.

#12 SHTF is dirty, smelly, ugly: This is undoubtedly one of the most striking characteristics of SHTF: how bad some places and situations can be. Most people have no idea, and they don’t want to know about this. Those who fantasize about being in SHTF should think twice. Abject misery and despair have a distinct smell of excrement, sewage, death, rotting material, pollution, trash, burned stuff, and all kinds of dirt imaginable. And insects. The movies don’t show these things. But bad smells and insects infest everything and everywhere, and it can be maddening.

During my street survival training, I get to visit some really awful places and witness horrible things. The folks eventually going out with me invariably get shocked, sometimes even sickened, when they see decadence up and close for the first time. Even ones used to dealing with the nasties – it’s hard not to get affected.

For instance, drug consumption hotspots are so smelly and nasty that someone really must have to be on crack just to stand being there. It’s hell on earth, and I can’t think of another way to describe these and other places like third-world prisons, trash deposits, and many others. Early on, being in these places would make me question why I do this. It never becomes “normal.” We just adapt. But seeing these realities changes our life and the way we see things.

#13 The Grid is fragile: It’s baffling how this escapes so many. Most people I know are in constant marvel with modern civilization. They look around, pointing and saying, “Are you crazy? Too big to fail! There’s no way this can go away! Nothing has ever happened!“.

We have someone to take our trash, slaughter, process our food, treat our sick, purify our water, treat our sewage, protect us from wrongdoers and evil people (and keep them locked), control the traffic, and defend our rights. Peeking behind the curtains is a red pill moment. What keeps The Grid up and running is not something small, but it’s fragile. The natural state of things is not an insipid, artificially controlled environment. On the positive side, it makes us feel more grateful, humble, and also more responsible.

#14 The frog in the boiling water: That’s you and me and everyone around us. There’s no other way around it. We’re the suckers who get squeezed and pay the bill whenever something happens, anywhere and everywhere. It’s always our freedom, rights, money, and privacy that gets attacked, threatened, stolen.

Not only because the 1% screws us at the top, but because we’re the big numbers, the masses. And only those who work and produce something can bear the brunt of whatever bad happens to society and civilization. Make no mistake: whenever the brown stuff hits the fan, it will fall on us. It’s no reason to revolt but to acknowledge that, ultimately, we’re responsible for ourselves.


Conclusion: Sometimes, the mechanics, brutality, and harshness of SHTF end up in the background of personal narratives and emotional accounts. Being more knowledgeable and cognizant of some general aspects of collapses may allow flexibility, creativity, improvisation, adaptation, resiliency, and other broad and effective strategies. Or, simply provide material for reflection and debate, really.

Either way, even those who haven’t been through collapse can still learn from history, from others’ experiences, from human behavior, from the facts. Just be sure to see the world for what it is and not from what you think. Because it will go its own way, and reality will assert itself all the same.

What are your thoughts about the dynamics of an SHTF scenario? Are there any you want to add? Does this match up with your personal expectations? Let’s discuss it in the comments."

"Whatever Your Fate Is..."

“Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, “This is what I need.” It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment - not discouragement - you will find the strength there. Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege! This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have a chance to flow. Then, when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures, followed by wreckage, were the incidents that shaped the life you have now. You’ll see this is really true. Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not. The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes.”
~ Joseph Campbell

"Knowing..."

“Knowing can be a curse on a person’s life. I’d traded in a pack of lies for a pack of truth, and I didn’t know which one was heavier. Which one took the most strength to carry around? It was a ridiculous question, though, because once you know the truth, you can’t ever go back and pick up your suitcase of lies. Heavier or not, the truth is yours now.”
- Sue Monk Kidd

"It's Official! Putin Just Entered The Most Dangerous Phase Of The War"

Redacted, 5/22/23
"It's Official! Putin Just Entered
 The Most Dangerous Phase Of The War"
"The Eastern city of Bakhmut is now known as the Russian name Artyomovsk after Russia claimed that it has taken full control of the battleground city. Ukrainian President Zelensky has been reluctant to admit it. When asked if Ukraine still controlled the city he said, “I think no.” He wouldn’t know first hand because he has been out of Ukraine since the Kremlin attack in early May. Bakhmut is in the Donetsk region, which voted to join Russia last September. Ukraine has been fighting to change their mind even as must of the city’s 70,000 residents have since fled. President Biden says that the Russians have suffered over 100,000 casualties in Bakhmut but no one knows where that number came from. He also said that Ukraine has "been able to lock down the Wagner group" but the head of the Wagner group says that the group will leave the area on Thursday and hand over control to the Russian military. No Western tanks or F-16s were used to defend Bakhmut and President Biden says that they wouldn’t have helped anyway. This is an important loss for Ukraine and the West and even still they say that a counteroffensive is coming. The Wall Street Journal reports that Ukraine didn’t fight very hard in Bakhmut anyway because they instead “used that time to rearm and to bulk up its military.” Do you buy that? Weapons, sure. The West has kept ‘em coming. But where do these extra personnel come from?"
Video and comments here:
o
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 5/22/23
Col. Doug Macgregor, 
"Bakhmut in Russian Hands, Now What? "
Video and comments here:

"Gregory Mannarino, 5/22/23"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/22/23
"There Are 4 Stages Leading To A Total Meltdown, 
We are Now In Stage 3"
Video and comments here:

Gregory Mannarino, PM 5/22/23
"Enter The Danger Zone, Global Bond Market Sell-Off 
Worsening. If This Keeps Up It's Over"
Video and comments here:

"How It Really Is"

  

"Fade To Black In Ukraine"

"Fade To Black In Ukraine"
by Jim Kunstler

“Following the ouster of Mr. Trump in 2020, this new-new-left had exactly what it had been clamoring for, a liberal Democrat in the White House. Given the sense of impending catastrophe at present, it may be difficult to remember precisely how much sniveling bullshit went into selling Joe Biden.” - Rob Urie

Have you noticed that the president of Ukraine (or, governor of America’s fifty-first state), Mr. Zelensky, has been globe-trotting for weeks: London, Helsinki, Paris, Hiroshima? That’s because this is one of those months when years happen; the world is changing at hyper-speed. He seems to be running scared, a little bit, trying to keep ahead of the changing game. What sounded like a great idea to a certain claque of so-called neo-cons in our country - to use Ukraine as a bear trap - has instead rather suddenly revealed Europe’s and America’s manifold bankruptcies and revolted the whole rest of the world outside of Western Civ. Oh, the wonder and nausea!

Try to imagine Mr. Zelensky’s predicament. Mighty America and redoubtable Europe conned the former comedian to thinking that if he went along with a genius scheme to ruin Russia and knock Vlad Putin off the global gameboard, his sad-sack country would be transformed into something like Ukro-Disneyworld, while he, Mr. Z, would be lionized and made rich beyond his wildest imaginings. His backup was the greatest hegemonic power the world has ever seen. The game was called Let’s You and Him Fight.

The poor schlemiel fell for it. He let NATO (that is, the USA) set-up, equip, and train the largest army in Europe, including battalions of bad-ass, hard-core Ukro-Nazis - who had previously been so useful in the American-sponsored 2014 Maidan “color revolution.” Mr. Z followed the US State Department’s orders to rain down rockets and artillery on Russian-speakers who lived in his own eastern provinces. He formally applied for membership in the NATO club. His country received billions of US dollars without audit oversight, just screaming to be creamed off by Ukraine’s leadership - who, after all, deserved a little something for all these goings-along. What could go wrong?

Thus, Western Civ kicked off Europe’s biggest hot war since the 1940s. So, in February, 2022, Mr. Putin had enough of the monkey business on his “front porch” and sent in a clean-up crew. Game on! The US neo-cons were ready to feed countless Ukrainian troops into a meat grinder that would, theoretically, exhaust the will and resources of the execrable bear and yield countless benefits reinforcing our dominant position in the world. Our hapless NATO “partners” went along with the program, despite being asked to commit economic suicide for the greater good of the alliance (or something like that). Anyway, they didn’t need that filthy Russian nat-gas. They were going “green” (Klaus Schwab said so, didn’t he?)

Meanwhile, the citizens of our country were groomed to perfection by the US Propaganda-Industrial Complex screaming “Russia, Russia, Russia,” at the behest of opinion-leader Hillary Clinton, a wannabe president. The news media demanded crucifixion for her opponent, Mr. Trump, who had idly tossed out the heinous idea that The USA and Russia could cultivate a friendly relationship, seeing as how the bear was no longer flying the red flag. Aye-yi-yi!!! He actually said that!?! The clueless orange boob!

Well, the folks running things in America - that is, the scores of unelected bureaucratic satraps guarding their nests throughhout the Okefenokee inside-the-Beltway, especially the gator-pit known politely as the Intel Community - decided to subject Mr. Trump to a one-man version of the exquisite torment intended for Russia, Russia, Russia: pain, ignominy, and ruin. They’re still at it six years later, since the relentless Mr. Trump will not give up his crusade to take back the White House and defenestrate all those attempting to defenestrate him. His enemies have captured all the levers of legal power, and yet, amazingly, they can come up with nothing but the most rinky-dink charges to railroad him in captured jurisdictions.

This internal political conflict in the USA has driven the populace plumb insane, while it has rendered our institutions rancid and left us subject to a pathocracy hiding behind a laughably fake chief executive. After a year-plus of America’s genius scheme to maintain world dominance, Russia is doing really well, thank you, in constructing a geo-economic framework for trade that will not be subject to the pranks of USA-led Western Civ. Russia is a nation of people who regard themselves as men and women, the toils of gender confusion happily absent. Ditto race hustles. Ditto banking Ponzis.

After two-plus years of “Joe Biden” - well, our country is bypassing the banana republic stage of dissolution and depravity and steaming quickly into a Hieronymus Bosch dystopia of financial, social, psychological and moral ruin. Every official utterance is a lie. Everything’s broken or breaking. And seemingly, on-purpose. The nagging question, of course, is on whose purposes?

And why is Mr. Zelensky flitting from one country to another the past month? Because the game of Let’s You and Him Fight is drawing to a close and Mr. Z may find himself fatally unpopular back on the home-front. He has managed to send upward of a hundred-thousand young Ukrainian men to their deaths in the meat-grinder, and perhaps a million more have hightailed it for other countries. Ukraine will now be a land of mostly women, children, and old folks - with just enough surviving soldiers left looking to hunt down the comedian who turned Ukraine into another one of history’s sick jokes."

"Food On A Budget! Hot Dogs, Hamburgers and Corn On The Cobb!"

Adventures With Danno, 5/22/23
"Food On A Budget!
 Hot Dogs, Hamburgers and Corn On The Cobb!"
"In today's vlog, we are grilling out some budget friendly food! We take you with us to the grocery store to pick up some Hamburgers, Hot Dogs, and some corn on the cobb, and show how to make a great meal with very little money."
Video and comments are here:

"Is Your Head in The Sand?"

Dan, I Allegedly 5/22/23
"Is Your Head in The Sand?"
"We are seeing more companies go bankrupt in the first quarter of this year than we have seen in almost 15 years. Peoples pensions are in big trouble here and abroad. People don’t want to look at this, are you ignoring the madness?"
Video and comments are here: