Wednesday, July 19, 2023

Bill Bonner, "The $300 Trillion Hangover"

"The $300 Trillion Hangover"
Looming corporate bankruptcies, a commercial real 
estate crisis and the junk bond time bomb...
by Bill Bonner

Poitou, France - "Yesterday, the morning trading on Wall Street took a now-familiar form: stocks went up. By the end of the day, the Dow was up another 1%. What are we to make of it? Is it ‘risk on’ again? Is it time to load up on stocks? The answer is ‘no.’ And today we give you ‘no-plus,’ the real secret to Wall Street’s boom-y-ness.

‘Don’t fight the Fed’ has been one of the most successful formulae on Wall Street. But it’s not foolproof. And not complete. When the Fed switched from enabling inflation with zero rates in 2020…to trying to curb it by increasing rates in 2022…an investor would have been well advised to switch too – from buying the dips to selling the bounces. Stocks went down.

Doom, Gloom and Boom: But then, they didn’t go down. The ‘bounce’ has now gone on for 9 months. It has created a whole new group of rich people – the AI Millionaires. And it has produced what looks to many like a new bull market…with the best 6 months for the Nasdaq in history…and more to come. Not only that, but the US economy, too, has so far resisted its long overdue rendezvous with the business cycle. Where’s the recession? Where’s all the doom & gloom we promised?

A broader question worth asking: did the geniuses at the Fed finally get the hang of managing a $24 trillion economy…so that their own errors disappear, without pain or embarrassment? The Fed put interest rates far too low and left them there far too long, resulting in far too much debt throughout the world economy. What happens next? Economists argue over a ‘hard landing’ or a ‘soft landing’…but what if there’s no landing at? What if the party never ends?

Maybe so. But buckle your seat belts; turbulence ahead. Here’s a headline story from Bloomberg: "A $500 Billion Corporate-Debt Storm Builds Over Global Economy." "Fears of a credit crisis have receded. But a wave of corporate bankruptcies is building now that an era of easy money has come to an end."

And here’s another: "The $785 Billion Junk-Bond Maturity Wall Has Never Been So Close." "The world’s riskiest borrowers are starting to run out of easy-money era financing and feeling the pinch as they return to a tougher market shadowed by aggressive central banks. Junk-rated companies staring down a $785 billion maturity wall are in a race against time to replace debt that they secured when major central banks across the world slashed rates and boosted quantitative easing programs to keep economies afloat in 2020. On average, these companies now have 4.7 years to put fresh financing in place, the least amount of time ever, according to a Bloomberg global index."

Bloomberg is not letting up. The stewards should take their seats: "The World’s Empty Office Buildings Have Become a Debt Time Bomb." "From San Francisco to Hong Kong, higher interest rates and falling property values are bringing the commercial real estate market to a perilous precipice. In New York and London, owners of gleaming office towers are walking away from their debt rather than pouring good money after bad. The landlords of downtown San Francisco’s largest mall have abandoned it. A new Hong Kong skyscraper is only a quarter leased.

The creeping rot inside commercial real estate is like a dark seam running through the global economy. Even as stock markets rally and investors are hopeful that the fastest interest-rate increases in a generation will ebb, the trouble in property is set to play out for years."

$300 Trillion Overhang: Remember that we are in a transition period, from one primary trend to another. After 4 decades of lower and lower interest rates…which reached ridiculous lows after the 2009 crisis in housing finance…the world now has a $300 trillion overhang of debt. Some government debt. Some corporate. Some household. All of this debt is subject to interest rates…that are now going up. Debt does not get refinanced overnight. It takes time. But when it is time to go back to lenders, debtors find their interest charges approximately twice what they were a few years ago.

Meanwhile, households are still running down their savings – which were built up during the Trump/Biden stimmie giveaways. And the US government – the world’s biggest consumer, as well as its biggest debtor – is now spending more than $2 trillion more than it receives in taxes, each year. That too must be financed…at rising cost.

So far, the giant balloon is still floating along nicely. Full employment. Rising stock prices. Joe Biden crows about what a great economy he has created. But the real secret is that the ‘tightening’ has hardly begun. There are lots of ways of measuring inflation. The most reliable is the ‘trimmed mean’ index…which puts today’s inflation at about 5%. Interest rates have moved up dramatically. Inflation has come down. But so far, the real, after inflation cost of credit (money) – based on the Fed Funds rate – is still only about zero. The Fed is not exactly fighting inflation tooth and nail, in other words. But interest rate hikes are only a part of the inflate-or-die picture. While monetary policy sobers up, fiscal policy turns to the bottle. More…tomorrow."
o
And all this caused by pure greed...
"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw

"Heaven And Hell"

Full screen recommended.
Travelling with Russell, 7/19/23
"AviaPark, Moscow: Largest Russian 
Shopping Mall After 500 Days of Sanctions"
Comments here:

I am literally, absolutely speechless...
Comments?
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Meanwhile, elsewhere...
Full screen recommended.
kimgary, 7/19/23
"Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Ave."
"Problems with drugs and crime on Kensington Ave, Philadelphia's most dangerous street. In Philadelphia as a whole, violent crime and drug abuse are major issues. The city has a higher rate of violent crime than the national average and other similarly sized metropolitan areas. The drug overdose rate in Philadelphia is also concerning. Between 2013 and 2015, the number of drug overdose deaths in the city increased by 50%, with more than twice as many deaths from overdoses as homicides. Kensington's high crime rate and drug abuse contribute significantly to Philadelphia's problems.

Because of the high number of drugs in the neighborhood, Kensington has the third-highest drug crime rate by neighborhood in Philadelphia. The opioid epidemic has played a significant role in this problem, as it has in much of the rest of the country. Opioid abuse has skyrocketed in the United States over the last two decades, and Philadelphia is no exception. In addition to having a high rate of drug overdose deaths, 80% of Philadelphia's overdose deaths involved opioids, and Kensington is a significant contributor to this figure. This Philadelphia neighborhood is said to have the largest open-air heroin market on the East Coast, with many neighbors migrating to the area for heroin and other opioids. With such a high concentration of drugs in Kensington, many state and local officials have focused on the neighborhood in an attempt to address Philadelphia's problem."
Comments here:
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"Kiev vs. Philly"
"One city is in the midst of a war. 
The other has been run by Democrats since 1955."
View video here:
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A comment: Shakespeare wrote in "Macbeth", "Hell is empty and all the devils are here." I once saw another quote about Hell, maybe Sartre, "This is Hell, cleverly disguised just enough to keep us from escaping." Look around, what do you see? Our society and economy, civilization itself is totally collapsing in every way, and it's doing it right now, and life as we knew it is already gone forever. The more I see, the more I think that thought about Hell just might be true, at least in America...
You tell me...comments?

"When Will It End? Homelessness and the Hollywood Strikes"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 7/19/23
"When Will It End? 
Homelessness and the Hollywood Strikes"
"We have seen Los Angeles completely fall apart. Homelessness is destroying everything from businesses to increased crime. Plus, Hollywood is striking. The writers and the actors are on strike. When does it all end?"
Comments here:

"Strange Things Going On At Sam's Club! Major Price Increases!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 7/19/23
"Strange Things Going On At Sam's Club! 
Major Price Increases!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Sam's Club and are noticing some very high price increases on groceries! We also are seeing some strange things going on as Sam's Club is moving stuff around to fill in some major holes around the store. Hopefully these are not future food shortages."
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Tuesday, July 18, 2023

Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Along the High Ridges"

Full screen recommended.
Deuter, "Along the High Ridges"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“These three bright nebulae are often featured in telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius and the crowded starfields of the central Milky Way. In fact, 18th century cosmic tourist Charles Messier cataloged two of them; M8, the large nebula left of center, and colorful M20 on the right. The third, NGC 6559, is above M8, separated from the larger nebula by a dark dust lane. All three are stellar nurseries about five thousand light-years or so distant.
The expansive M8, over a hundred light-years across, is also known as the Lagoon Nebula. M20's popular moniker is the Trifid. Glowing hydrogen gas creates the dominant red color of the emission nebulae, with contrasting blue hues, most striking in the Trifid, due to dust reflected starlight. The colorful skyscape recorded with telescope and digital camera also includes one of Messier's open star clusters, M21, just above the Trifid.”
"The eternal silence of infinite spaces frightens me. Why now rather than then? Who has put me here? By whose order and direction have this place and time have been ascribed to me? We travel in a vast sphere, always drifting in the uncertain, pulled from one side to another. Whenever we find a fixed point to attach and to fasten ourselves, it shifts and leaves us; and if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips past us, and vanishes for ever. Nothing stays for us. This is our natural condition, most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desires to find solid ground and an ultimate and solid foundation for building a tower reaching to the Infinite. But always these bases crack, and the earth obstinately opens up into abysses. We are infinitely removed from comprehending the extremes, since the end of things and their beginning are hopelessly hidden from us in an encapsulated secret; we are equally incapable of seeing the Nothing from which we were made, and the Infinite in which we are swallowed up."
- Blaise Pascal

"Reflect On What Happens..."

“Reflect on what happens when a terrible winter blizzard strikes. You hear the weather warning but probably fail to act on it. The sky darkens. Then the storm hits with full fury, and the air is a howling whiteness. One by one, your links to the machine age breakdown. Electricity flickers out, cutting off the TV. Batteries fade, cutting off the radio. Phones go dead. Roads become impassible, and cars get stuck. Food supplies dwindle. Day to day vestiges of modern civilization – bank machines, mutual funds, mass retailers, computers, satellites, airplanes, governments – all recede into irrelevance. Picture yourself and your loved ones in the midst of a howling blizzard that lasts several years. Think about what you would need, who could help you, and why your fate might matter to anybody other than yourself. That is how to plan for a secular winter. Don’t think you can escape the Fourth Turning. History warns that a Crisis will reshape the basic social and economic environment that you now take for granted.”
– Strauss and Howe, “The Fourth Turning”

"Oh Sh*t, It's Starting, Putin Launching Massive Offensive - Scott Ritter "

Redacted, 7/18/23
"Oh Sh*t, It's Starting, Putin Launching 
Massive Offensive - Scott Ritter "
Ritter segment begins at 36:45, Ends 1:00:00
"What will happen now that Ukraine has launched so many attacks on civilian infrastructure? Scott Ritter joins us to talk about Putin's next play and what it will cost Ukraine to "go slow" during the next stage of the counteroffensive."
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended. 
Redacted, 7/18/23
"Scott Ritter: They're All Dead, 
And Ukraine Has No Real Men Left"
"What will happen now that Ukraine has launched so many attacks on civilian infrastructure? Scott Ritter joins us to talk about Putin's next play and what it will cost Ukraine to "go slow" during the next stage of the counteroffensive."
Comments here:

"20 Fast Food Chains That Are Getting More Expensive In 2023"

Full screen recommended.
"20 Fast Food Chains That Are Getting More Expensive In 2023"
By Epic Economist

"Inflation is still impacting every industry in the U.S., including fast food. Restaurant prices are rising 7.1 times faster than prices at the grocery store, according to new data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Many famous brands point to the skyrocketing cost of ingredients as the main driver of menu price increases. Meat, poultry, fish, egg, and dairy prices all soared in the past couple of years. At the same time, milk, flour, sugar, and coffee prices faced the largest price hikes in BLS history. Now, some of the biggest fast-food chains in America are announcing further menu changes in 2023 as they continue to pass along those increased costs to their customers. Unfortunately, if you’re on a tight budget, this means you may no longer afford to visit your favorite restaurants in the months ahead.

For instance, Chick-fil-A customers may be noticing that prices at the chain keep going up. And it seems there’s no end in sight for that trend as new CEO Andrew Cathy just announced another price increase for 2023. The famous chicken sandwich restaurant raised menu prices by 15% in the past year. Now, the company announced another menu-wide price hike of 6% on average. In other words, Chick-fil-A items are a whopping 21% more expensive than they were just a couple of years back. That’s definitely a hefty sum for many American workers, who lost on average 24.7% of their purchasing power due to inflation, according to the Pew Research Center.

Meanwhile, from 2020 to 2022, Taco Bell’s prices went up by 14.6%. In the first two quarters of this year alone, the chain’s fans saw items going up by half of that rate, marking an additional 7.4% on Taco Bell’s menu costs. Some of the brand’s most popular products have seen the steepest increases, according to customers, who have also been also remarking on the apparent "shrinkflation" of some items, including the Crunchwrap. "All this while continuing to increase prices. I rarely eat at TB anymore now," said one former devotee on a Reddit post. Another noted that their order of 3 chicken tacos at Taco Bell came to a total of $8.34—while a similar order of 3 chicken tacos at Chipotle came out to $8.20, making Taco Bell the more expensive option. "I remember getting 4 tacos for like $3 as a teen," lamented one responder. In the past, the restaurant’s cheap prices were a small comfort for hungry Americans trying to save. But that’s no longer the case in 2023.

Similarly, Wendy’s rose prices twice in the past two years. Last year, the company increased its menu prices by 6%, according to CFO Gunther Plosch. In 2022, prices went up by another 6%. And in March, the executive said that Wendy’s stores would start implementing another 5% hike in the summer and into the third quarter of 2023. According to Pricelisto’s analysis, in Q2, most of its cheeseburger offerings went up between 32 and 39 cents. Today, we compiled 20 fast food chains where menu prices are getting more expensive this year."
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, PM 7/18/23
"Grain Deal Ends! Prices Will Skyrocket! Get Prepared!"
"Russia ends grain deal with the United Nations, and we go over how this is most likely gonna affect the entire world. 58 countries are already going to be affected by this tragedy!"
Comments here:

"We Work In The Dark..."

"We work in the dark. We do what we can to battle the evil that would otherwise destroy us. But if a man's character is his fate, it's not a choice but a calling. Sometimes the weight of this burden causes us to falter from the fragile fortress of our mind, allowing the monster without to turn within. We are left alone staring into the abyss, into the laughing face of madness."
- Fox Mulder, "X-Files"

The Daily "Near You?"

Alexander City, Alabama, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

“Standing Up When It’s Too Late”

“Standing Up When It’s Too Late”
By JR Nyquist

“This article is a comparison between America and another great empire faced with rot in high office and a decline of the state – Rome. The writer, JR Nyquist, artfully points out it’s not the big events that sink an empire but many seemingly little ones. You could call what is happening to the U.S. “death by a thousand cuts.” Except in this story, people are not really aware how deep the cuts are and exactly who is doing the cutting. I loved this piece, and I hope you do as well.” – Greg Hunter
“There is a letter by Marcus Tullius Cicero, dated 18 December 50 B.C. This letter was written to his friend Atticus on the eve of the Roman Civil War. He wrote as follows: “The political situation alarms me deeply, and so far I have found scarcely anybody who is not for giving Caesar what he demands rather than fighting it out.” To explain the situation in brief, G. Julius Caesar had demanded the right to circumvent the Roman constitution, to break laws with impunity, to extend his command over a large army by using that army to threaten the Senate of Rome. “And why should we start standing up to him now?” asked Cicero. The next day he wrote to Atticus: “We should have stood up to him [Caesar] when he was weak, and that would have been easy. Now we have to deal with eleven legions…” Though he hated the idea of civil war, the only course, said Cicero, was to follow “the honest men or whoever may be called such, even if they plunge.”

And who were these “honest men”? “I don’t know of any,” wrote Cicero in the same letter. “There are honest individuals, but there are no honest groups.” Then he asked rhetorically if the Senate was honest, or the tax farmers, or the capitalists. None were frightened of living under an autocracy, he lamented. The capitalists, especially, “never have objected to that, so long as they were left in peace.” But civil war occurred nonetheless, because people are not free to be dishonest forever. They must admit to certain responsibilities, and oppose the advance of evil. The previous inclination to look away, to do nothing, to shrug off responsibility, proves in the end to be no more than a delaying tactic. They attempted to put off calamity, Cicero suggested, and made it all the more calamitous. That is all.

Why did the Roman Senate suddenly stand up to Caesar? What triggered their resistance? As with all free people, they began with policies of procrastination and appeasement. They hoped that the problem (i.e., Caesar) would go away. In the end, however, they discovered their mistake. Everyone still hoped for peace, though none believed it was possible. Everyone wanted to avoid war, but nobody saw a way out. Pompey stood before the Senate and gave voice to what everyone thought. “If we give Caesar the consulship, it will mean the subversion of the constitution.” In other words, it would mean the end of Rome, the end of the republic, the destruction of their country.

In a fitting preface to John Dickinson’s “Death of a Republic,” George L. Haskins wrote, “that the history of Rome is the history of the world, that, as all roads lead to Rome, so all history ends or begins with Rome.” Why do free people fall into complacency? Why are threats ignored until the eleventh hour?

“Surely,” wrote Cicero at the end of Caesar’s dictatorship, “our present sufferings are all too well deserved. For had we not allowed outrages to go unpunished on all sides, it would never have been possible for a single individual to seize tyrannical power.” Caesar’s cause was not right, but evil, Cicero explained. “Mere confiscations of the property of individual citizens were far from enough to satisfy him. Whole provinces and countries succumbed to his onslaught, in one comprehensive universal catastrophe…” As for the city of Rome, Cicero lamented, “nothing is left - only the lifeless walls of houses. And even they look afraid that some further terrifying attack may be imminent. The real Rome is gone forever.”

Republics are slow to defend themselves against enemies that advance, like Caesar, under camouflage. But make no mistake, republics always defend. Groups and categories of men may not be honest or brave, but when they are finally confronted with the truth – as individuals – they see no other course. They stand up and fight. We should not be surprised, therefore, that Caesar was struck down in the Senate and killed by thrusting daggers.

It is all too true, of course. “We should have stood up to him when he was weak,” Cicero lamented. The problem with republican government is its tardiness; or rather, tardiness in the face of danger. As Machiavelli wrote, “The institutions normally used by republics are slow in functioning. No assembly or magistrate can do everything alone. In many cases, they have to consult with one another, and to reconcile their diverse views takes time. Where there is a question of remedying a situation that will not brook delay, such a procedure is dangerous.”

Machiavelli concluded, therefore, “that republics in imminent danger, having no recourse to dictatorship, will always be ruined when some grave misfortune befalls them.” This is the weakness of republican government. Here is the ground on which it dies. An obvious threat, like 9/11 or Pearl Harbor is not the greatest danger. It is the subtle, camouflaged threat, that creeps up from behind. It is this camouflage that gives reluctant men a way out. “We need not fight. We need not make a fuss. There is nothing to fear.”

When this is the prevailing view, people who understand a given threat may ask: “What is to be done?” As long as we are isolated individuals, there is nothing to do. The individual may be honest with himself, but groups are not honest. What prevails overall is an optimistic dismissal. “The threat isn’t real.” This is how Hitler got so far. This is how Communism took over so many countries, and continues today under camouflage. There is nothing the individual can do that will sway the crowd. And as we are a republic, our political system operates according to the psychology of a crowd. The majority are caught up in the fads and media trends of the moment. Cynical and empty publicity characterizes much of our public discourse. But one day the country will awaken. Then, and only then, Americans will stop going along as if nothing serious hangs over them. Will it be too late? Perhaps it will be too late to save the republic. But it will not be too late to save the country.”

Greg Hunter ,"CV19 Vax Ongoing Global Criminal Experimentation"

"CV19 Vax Ongoing Global Criminal Experimentation"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com 

"Karen Kingston is a biotech analyst and former Pfizer employee who was one of the first to warn of the dangers of the so-called CV19 “vaccines.” Kingston showed the danger of the nanotechnology called mRNA, which Big Pharma patents say is, in fact, an electromagnetic device. Kingston was also one of the first to warn the CV19 vax was the “Beginning of Transhumanism,” a bioweapon, and not a vaccine at all. With all the negative facts about the vaccines and mRNA nanoparticle biotech, the shots are still being injected unabated. 676 million CV19 injections have been given in the USA alone with more than 13 billion CV19 injections worldwide. This is a massive global crime, and it’s still going on. Kingston explains, “These (vaccines) were designed to cause harm, disease, and we are being experimented on. A lot of people say, well, why don’t they just kill us? That’s like a mouse saying to a scientist, ‘Why don’t you just kill us?’ Because scientists are experimenting on the mice to figure out a way to benefit themselves. These psychopaths are experimenting on humans to figure out a way to benefit artificial intelligence. That’s what’s going on. It’s criminal human experimentation with weapons. What I just said sounds like a conspiracy theory. You can go through my letter, which is all Pfizer documents and government documents. I have the military’s DMED (Defense Medical Epidemiology Database) documents in there. All the hard evidence is there.”

Kingston also says people were not told they were being experimented on by Big Pharma. Kingston points out, “The clinical trials were never designed to demonstrate they could prevent infection and protect against disease. No one was given informed consent in the clinical trials and also under the EUA (Emergency Use Authorization). People were not told about the risks that the FDA knew about in October 2020, which was a dozen neurological disorders and cardiovascular problems. So, they were not told any of this. So, that is not bona fide research. That’s criminal research. Pfizer, who was going to make $50 billion, was put in charge of safety, ethics and data interpretation. So, this was not bona fide research. It was criminal experimentation.”

Kingston says the mRNA/nanoparticles are still being injected, and they are also being used in other products without the public’s knowledge. Kingston wants to start with getting local sheriffs to start pulling the CV19 vaccines off the market because they are killing and disabling an uninformed public. Kingston says, “Once the shots are seized for the Covid 19 injections, I want people to wake up and say where else is this nanotechnology? Big Pharma companies are putting this technology in a lot of injectables. So, there are other people being injected and dying. They are putting it into cosmetics like Botox and fillers. We need to stop this now, but we need to start with the Covid 19 injections. These are not vaccines. These are nanoparticle injections. These nanoparticles are known to be toxic agents. In 2017, the nanoparticles are registered as duel-use weapons of biowarfare. So, the nanoparticles are weapons, and the sheriffs need to seize those weapons. That’s what needs to happen.”

Kingston says if the spread of nanoparticles is not stopped, it will eventually destroy all natural lifeforms on planet Earth. Yes–it is that bad. Kingston has a Bible verse to make a profound point, and she reads, “This is talking about ‘The End of Days.’ The prophecy reads, ‘But woe to those who are pregnant and those who are nursing babies in those days. For those will be a time of tribulation such has not occurred since the beginning of creation, which God created until now and never will. Unless the Lord shortened those days, no life would have been saved but for the sake of the elect who he chose.’ This is talking about how God created all life forms perfectly. He created mankind perfectly in his image. There is now this other entity that is creating life. That’s synthetic biology and artificial intelligence. That’s what it is. We have an opportunity to stop this.” There is much more in the 1-hour and 5-minute interview.

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with renowned biotech analyst Karen Kingston as she gives another update on the bioweapon mRNA/nanoparticle injections and why this “synthetic biology” needs to be stopped.

"Gerald Celente, Trends Journal 7/18/23"

Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, Trends Journal 7/18/23
"Banking Crisis Coming: The Office Building Bust"
"In today's broadcast Gerald Celente highlights the inevitable office building bust which will tank community banks. Celente also goes into to detail on the latest developments in Ukraine. The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present facts and truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what’s next in these increasingly turbulent times."
Comments here:
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ThisisJohnWilliams, 7/18/23
"Urgent: Nationwide Banks Halt Lending, Consumers in Crisis!"
Comments here:

"How It Really Is"


Bill Bonner, "Celsius Meltdown"

"Celsius Meltdown"
The great crypto rollercoaster, from Nakamoto to Mashinsky...
by Bill Bonner

Poitou, France - "What makes the investment world so entertaining is that it puts on display the vanity, stupidity and cupidity of our beloved race. Gypsies, tramps and thieves – they’re all there. Mountebanks, fantasists, and dreamers too. Whatever else can be said about them, they’re fun to watch. And every story, though recounted in financial industry mumbo-jumbo, is essentially an ‘I-told-you-so.’

Last week, the world of crypto finance opened up for inspection. It was like visiting a joint session of Congress – scammy, goofy and repulsive. In this instance, Celsius executives were charged with fraud. The SEC: "Defendants made numerous false and misleading statements to induce investors to purchase CEL [a crypto currency] and invest in the Earn Interest Program. Among other false representations, Defendants misrepresented Celsius’s central business model and the risks to investors by claiming that Celsius did not make uncollateralized loans, the company did not engage in risky trading, and the interest paid to investors represented 80% of the company’s revenue." None of these claims was true.

The Nakamoto Moment: Backing up… it was an exhilarating moment when bitcoin was unveiled by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009. Here was a new form of money, created by a shadow, using ‘open source’ software; it needed no banks and no government. And it offered to make financial transactions simpler, cheaper, and faster. It could not be fiddled. It appeared to be anonymous. Nor could the money supply be inflated. There were no banks or KYC rules to deal with. No banking fees to pay. No hacked credit cards.

At the time, the internet, with its vast reservoir of bids and offers, buyers and sellers, goods and services, seemed ready for a new form of money. The taxi business had been ‘disrupted.’ Retailing, too. Hotels. Bookstores. Movie theaters. Why not money itself? Money is, after all, just ‘information.’ It is a way of ‘keeping score in life,’ said T. Boone Pickens. It tells us who has what and who owes what to whom. BTC seemed to offer a way to make the information purer – without the intermediaries, hustlers and grifters to muddy the waters.

If a man has a million dollars, the ‘money’ itself is meaningless. What he really wants is a claim on a million dollars’ worth of things he doesn’t have – things that belong to other people – their goods, their services, their time…and their respect.

Bitcoin seemed well suited to the purpose. It could make money much more efficient; it could be the most important disruption of the whole Information Revolution. We advised readers to experiment with it…to play it safe…and to see how the new money worked out. We even made a ‘training video’ to show readers how easy it was to open an account. But our attempt to find a ‘wallet’ and buy coins failed. The show ended up like one of those ‘Jackass’ videos… without the broken bones.

“Better than Gold”: That was very early in the crypto cycle. And the theory was one thing. The practice was another. Gold has been reliable money for at least 3,000 years. A couple of seasons in the crypto sun made investors and entrepreneurs giddy with delight; bitcoin was ‘better than gold,’ they said.

Only government can counterfeit money – legally. But it didn’t take the hustlers long to figure out that if some reclusive Japanese guy could create money, so could they. Soon, there thousands of these new ‘crypto monies’ on the market. The classic program was to create millions of worthless ‘coins.’ You kept most of them to yourself, but a few were allowed out in public, where they were traded on crypto exchanges. A coin might have a value, for example, of 1/100th of a penny. So, with just $1,000, you could launch 10 million of them…each guaranteed to be worth something. You then began buying your own coin. At minimal cost, you bid up the coin to 1/10th of a penny. Then, the other players began to notice. Your coin had already gone up by 1,000%; there was money to be made. And here is where it gets interesting.

A new ‘coin’ was much like a new, publicly-traded tech company. You might not have any idea what the company did, if anything. The actual value of its stock might be zero. Still, the price could shoot up. Maybe it was called “Texla,” for example, and investors hit the wrong key. Maybe it spread a rumor – not officially! – that it had found a cure for aging. But manipulating the value of a publicly-traded stock is against the law. A crypto coin, on the other hand, was something new. Was it a ‘security’ under SEC rules? Were buyers of BTC the investors the SEC was meant to protect? Nobody knew.

With so little ‘float’ on the market…and such low prices…new crypto prices were easily coaxed upward. Then, as the price went up, guess what – all those millions of coins you held back suddenly appeared to be valuable. On paper. Sort of. As long as you didn’t try to sell them. What fun that must have been…trading your worthless cryptos for someone else’s worthless cryptos…all of them going ‘to the moon’…and everybody getting rich!

Mashinsky’s Millions: By 2021, cryptos were said to be worth almost $3 trillion. This was new ‘money’ that, like the dollars created by the Fed, had not existed before. And everybody wanted some of it. FOMO had set in amongst investors. They had heard – almost daily – about how much money was being made from cryptos. The competition became fierce. How to get the public into the casino…and how to get them to buy your crypto rather than someone else’s?

That was where Alex Mashinsky saw an opportunity. At the height of the madness came word that Mashinsky’s company, Celsius, had made a breakthrough. It was financing the crypto industry. And it would share its gains with ‘depositors’ – paying as much as 17% ‘interest,’ or about 30 times more than traditional banks. There was little risk; Celsius had millions in assets (based mainly on its own crypto currency, CEL) and its loans were backed by good collateral. Mashinsky: “These loans are collateralized. This means the institutions give Celsius assets or dollars to hold onto before we give out the digital assets. This protects the community and keeps them whole.”

This was a deal that was too good to pass up. But it was also too good to be true. You can’t earn 17% ‘interest’ in a world where the norm is 3% or 4% even with good collateral. What Mashinsky was really doing was operating a Ponzi scheme. Depositors put in money. Mashinsky gambled with it. As long as cryptos rose and the gambles paid off…new money came in the front door and he was able to pay the ‘interest’ out the back. But when the lights dimmed in the casino, Mashinsky’s ‘collateral’ turned out to be nothing more than the worthless cryptos he started with."

"Here They Come"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 7/18/23
"Here They Come"
"We have heard stories about how the IRS is coming after people that make under $50,000. Now the IRS is saying that enough is enough and they’re coming after people that make much more money. The days of getting away with not paying your taxes are over."
Comments there:

"Frustrating Trip To Meijer! This Is Ridiculous!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 7/18/23
"Frustrating Trip To Meijer! This Is Ridiculous!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Meijer and are noticing some frustrating prices on groceries! We are here to check out very strange prices and the empty shelves situation! It's getting rough out here as many families are struggling to put food on the table!"
Comments there:

"Emergency Alert: 24 Hours Of Chaos; Peace Is Impossible; WW3 Starting In Black Sea; 100,000 To Kharkiv"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper 7/17/23
"Emergency Alert: 24 Hours Of Chaos; Peace Is Impossible; 
WW3 Starting In Black Sea; 100,000 To Kharkiv"
Comments here:
o
Colonel Douglas Macgregor, Straight Calls 7/18/23
"The Arrival Of Russian Troops On The Polish Border"
 "Analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of current
 geopolitical events in the United States of America and the world."
Comments here:
o

Monday, July 17, 2023

"Ominous Sign For Weakening Consumer And Economy; Prepare For Economic Crisis ASAP"

Jeremiah Babe, 7/17/23
"Ominous Sign For Weakening Consumer And Economy; 
Prepare For Economic Crisis ASAP"
Comments here:

"The Ukraine Counter-Offensive is a Disaster"

Douglas Macgregor, 7/17/23
"The Ukraine Counter-Offensive is a Disaster"
Comments here:

"Best Buy Reports Massive Price Hikes On Thousands Of Different Products In The Coming Weeks"

Full screen recommended.
"Best Buy Reports Massive Price Hikes On Thousands
 Of Different Products In The Coming Weeks"
by Epic Economist

"It seems like America's financial problems are set to continue with Best Buy reporting major price increases, declining sales and an economic downturn for the rest of the year. Just a few years ago Best Buy stores were filled with buzzing shoppers huddled around displays carrying the latest gadgets from the likes of Microsoft and Apple. Every aisle was busy, video game counters were filled with gaming enthusiasts, and employees were racing to help out customers. From flat-screen TVs to the latest mobile phones, there were lines at the checkout counter. However, in recent years, it has all gone wrong for the Biggest American retailers who are now facing a nightmare scenario.

High inflation has forced shoppers to cut spending on not just non-essential items but also some of the necessities. One of the great American Success stories "Best Buy" is caught up in this retail gloom which will hurt American consumers further.

Telsey Advisory Group expects Best Buy sales to drop as much as 11 percent for the current quarter. The falling profits are backed up by the company's own figures showing a 28% decline from last year. The drop in sales is not a recent phenomenon either. As this will be the sixth consecutive quarter where sales have fallen at Best Buy.

These trends are particularly worrying because personal electronics were a hot seller not so long ago. Any update from Microsoft, every new gadget launched by Apple resulted in massive lines of shoppers waiting to get the newest item on the market. With more innovative products on the market, Americans rushed to upgrade their devices. But right now, Americans are thinking of consolidation. They are going for fixes rather than upgrades and for a business like Best-Buy that relies on selling the newest gadgets, this spells disaster. The downwards sales pattern is reflected in sales forecasts from every retailer in the country. Home Depot, Walmart, and Target are all in the same boat and are sharing disappointing outlooks for the year.

As for Best-Buy, the company is scrambling for answers. Shares of Best Buy are down nearly 14% so far this year, a considerable drop in the current economic climate. The company is trailing many of the S&P 500 companies during this slide. Pushed by the circumstances, Best Buy has decided to end its popular rewards program and made it exclusive to only those who have a store credit card. Despite all the clamorings about strong employment numbers, Best Buy has cut down its labor force. During the last two years, they have reduced overall numbers by 20%. So more than 25,000 people have been laid off and those numbers are still increasing. In a restructuring effort, the company also plans to shut down 30 large format stores.

The truth is that inflation-induced anxiety has taken over America. Everyone is planning to save up which puts the country's economy in a desperate spot. Despite continuous claims of improvement from the officials, no one is entirely sure how much longer they have to continue on this pattern. America’s best-known retailers are reporting a loss of earnings, the shoppers are contending with stubbornly high inflation, and all forecasts point to a grim conclusion: Conditions are about to get much, much worse."
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: 2002, “Even Now”

Full screen recommended.
2002, “Even Now”

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Riding high in the constellation of Auriga, beautiful, blue vdB 31 is the 31st object in Sidney van den Bergh's 1966 catalog of reflection nebulae. It shares this well-composed celestial still life with dark, obscuring clouds recorded in Edward E. Barnard's 1919 catalog of dark markings in the sky. All are interstellar dust clouds, blocking the light from background stars in the case of Barnard's dark nebulae. For vdB 31, the dust preferentially reflects the bluish starlight from embedded, hot, variable star AB Aurigae.
Exploring the environs of AB Aurigae with the Hubble Space Telescope has revealed the several million year young star is itself surrounded by flattened dusty disk with evidence for the ongoing formation of a planetary system. AB Aurigae is about 470 light-years away. At that distance this cosmic canvas would span about four light-years.”

"The Worst Part..."

 

"I Don't Want..."

“I don’t want to pass through life like a smooth plane ride. All you do is get to breathe and copulate and finally die. I don’t want to go with the smooth skin and the calm brow. I hope I end up a blithering idiot cursing the sun - hallucinating, screaming, giving obscene and inane lectures on street corners and public parks. People will walk by and say, “Look at that drooling idiot. What a basket case.” I will turn and say to them, “It is you who are the basket case! For every moment you hated your job, cursed your wife and sold yourself to a dream that you didn’t even conceive. For the times your soul screamed yes and you said no. For all of that. For your self-torture, I see the glowing eyes of the sun! The air talks to me! I am at all times!” And maybe, the passersby will drop a coin into my cup.”
- Henry Rollins

Fred Reed, "Eugenics, Yet"

"Eugenics, Yet"
by Fred Reed

"It is curious. Eugenics, meaning approximately the control of breeding to produce desired traits was once a popular idea, espoused by Charles Darwin, as well as such illustrious liberals as H. G. Wells and George bernard Shaw, a raft of feminists including Margaret Sanger, and countless officials from Churchill to Gandhi. The field is now in very bad odor. Why, precisely?

Eugenics is of course routinely practiced today in various forms. For example, students at CalTech are chosen for very high intelligence and, when they marry, doubtless hope for and expect intelligent children. Eugenics. When a woman patronizing a sperm bank asks for an intelligent and healthy donor, she is practicing eugenics. In many jurisdictions, prenatal screening detects various defects which are then aborted. Eugenics.

The place of genetics in public policy is fraught, to put it mildly. An observation often made is that modern medicine keeps alive to reproductive age people with genetic defects that would in earlier times have killed them in childhood. These are many, running from anaphylactic shock and death from allergies to Down’s syndrome to diabetes to Celiac disease and Tay-Sachs. Since these are no longer eliminated from the gene pool, they become progressively more common.

Not good, but what to do about it? Detect these in utero and abort them? Tell a bright and otherwise normal young woman that she cannot have children because they might have Celiac’s? (This would include one of my daughters, so I am not wildly enthusiastic.)

A common thread in the thinking of the many often-leftish proponents of eugenics was that various forms of public assistance encouraged prolific breeding by people of low intelligence and other genetic defects. The result would be an increasing load of imbeciles and approximations thereunto, constituting a burden on society. This thought, today almost meriting a death sentence, was once widely accepted. Biologically speaking, it was correct. But what, if anything, to do about it?

Most crime is committed by young men of low intelligence and poor impulse control, the two being closely associated, and such men are seldom employable in a technological society. This is easily demonstrated. But what to do about it? As their numbers increase, the problem worsens. What to do about it? Keep building more jails?

Another observation is that the more intelligent people are, the fewer children they have. There seem to be several reasons for this. Previously all women, including the very bright, were expected to stay in the house and to have and care for children. Dull-witted women couldn’t imagine doing anything else, and the bright had no choice. Today smart women can become biochemists or lawyers or pretty much anything else, and often find these more interesting than changing diapers. Anyone moving in the professional classes of, say, Washington, will know very bright women either unmarried or childless by choice.

The result of low fecundity among the smart and exuberant reproduction by the dim is, at least according to those who study these things, a slow diminution of the national mean IQ. Or maybe not so slow.

This observation will be furiously attacked by the woke, presumably innocent of high-school biology. The politics of the day holds that if you pretend a problem doesn’t exist, it won’t. In a deeply anti-intellectual America steeped in resentment of superiority and rapid endumbment of the schools and the entire culture, nothing can be discussed that might unsettle the mob. The consequences are going to be fascinating.

Yet it is interesting to consider policies offered by the advocates of eugenics. These will be shocking to the modern mind, such as it is. But remember that in former times things could be discussed that today are verboten.

One approach, widely practiced both in America and Europe, was compulsory sterilization of what were called idiots, moron, or imbeciles. This was not then regarded as just-like-Hitler, and seemed to many good-hearted people as preferable to having such defectives living miserably at public expense. Recently I have seen it said that we should not eliminate Down’s syndrome because those suffering from it were a desirable form of societal diversity.

Another suggestion was to offer to pay the hopelessly dull to undergo voluntary sterilization. I don’t know whether this was ever done. Given that such people cannot raise children, this might be the best available idea.

At the other end of the scale, paying the intelligent to reproduce was thought a good idea. This had the advantage that it did not compel anyone to do anything. Nor was it impractical. If couples of mean IQ 150 were offered a thousand dollars a month per child with a guarantee of having the university expense of the resulting rugrats paid, many might go for it. At the 150 level takers would be few enough and the payoff arguably high enough in gifted Americans that the expense would be worth it. Regression toward the mean, yes, but keeping good genes in the pool matters. Or would if we did it.

To me it is interesting that so many major figures favored eugenics and supported its compulsory application. Yet oddly, at least by today’s standards, many conservatives were against eugenics, as for example Chesterton, often on religious grounds. But it was widely accepted that the good to society justified the inconvenience to the retarded.

Well and good, and interesting. However it is obvious that nothing will be done that smacks of eugenics, at least as regards intelligence, impulse control, and criminality. But genetic diseases? In the case of things like hemophilia, Tay-Sachs, and cystic fibrosis, in utero screening is done. But should we end up aborting fetuses for every detectable anomaly? A gluten allergy for example? In a society in which a fair few favor partial-birth abortion, what if a defect is noticed three minutes after birth? Slippery slopes and such.

Crime and welfare dependency are another matter. The link between crime and low intelligence is well established with its concomitant of poor awareness of the future, and poor impulse control. People of low IQ can seldom read and make poor employees. Pockets of this sort of thing exist in the slums of London and did, maybe still do, in the back hollers of West Virginia and are rampant in American cities.

What to do? Would it make sense to encourage the most intelligent in the urban underclass to have children while discouraging the retarded? I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter as nothing will be done. We will on average become less intelligent, less healthy, and more criminal. Whoopee."

The Daily "Near You?"

Marana, Arizona, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

The Poet: Mary Oliver, "One"

"One"

"The mosquito is so small
it takes almost nothing to ruin it.
Each leaf, the same.
And the black ant, hurrying.
So many lives, so many fortunes!
Every morning, I walk softly and with forward glances
down to the ponds and through the pinewoods.
Mushrooms, even, have but a brief hour
before the slug creeps to the feast,
before the pine needles hustle down
under the bundles of harsh, beneficent rain.

How many, how many, how many
make up a world!
And then I think of that old idea: the singular
and the eternal.
One cup, in which everything is swirled
back to the color of the sea and sky.
Imagine it!

A shining cup, surely!
In the moment in which there is no wind
over your shoulder,
you stare down into it,
and there you are,
your own darling face, your own eyes.
And then the wind, not thinking of you, just passes by,
touching the ant, the mosquito, the leaf,
and you know what else!
How blue is the sea, how blue is the sky,
how blue and tiny and redeemable everything is, even you,
even your eyes, even your imagination."
~ Mary Oliver

"When I Am Old"

"When I Am Old"
Author Unknown

"When I am old… I will wear soft gray sweatshirts… and a bandana over my silver hair… and I will spend my social security checks on my dogs. I will sit in my house on my well-worn chair and listen to my dogs breathing. I will sneak out in the middle of a warm summer night and take my dogs for a run, if my old bones will allow… When people come to call, I will smile and nod as I show them my dogs… and talk of them and about them…the ones so beloved of the past and the ones so beloved of today… I will still work hard cleaning after them, mopping and feeding them and whispering their names in a soft loving way. I will wear the gleaming sweat on my throat, like a jewel, and I will be an embarrassment to all… especially my family… who have not yet found the peace in being free to have dogs as your best friends… These friends who always wait, at any hour, for your footfall… and eagerly jump to their feet out of a sound sleep, to greet you as if you are a God, with warm eyes full of adoring love and hope that you will always stay,

I’ll hug their big strong necks… I’ll kiss their dear sweet heads… and whisper in their very special company… I look in the mirror… and see I am getting old… this is the kind of person I am… and have always been. Loving dogs is easy, they are part of me. Please accept me for who I am. My dogs appreciate my presence in their lives… they love my presence in their lives… When I am old this will be important to me… you will understand when you are old, if you have dogs to love too."
Hat tip to The Burning Platform for this material.

"I Can Pretend..."

“I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they're always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here I can pretend... I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come and Gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don't last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust. But I can pretend...”
- Olethros, in “Sandman”

Jim Kunstler, "Situational Awareness"

"Situational Awareness"
by Jim Kunstler

“All across the board, illness, disability, cancer, heart, autism, fertility…WeFkdUp !!!” - The Ethical Skeptic on Twitter

"What if Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche is correct? The Dutch virologist said at the outset of the Covid-19 episode in 2020 that vaccinating the world in the midst of an epidemic was insane because it would train the virus to evolve more dangerously while disabling human immune systems.

Last week he issued a warning that the world was within weeks of just such a new and deadly immune escape variant outbreak that would bring on a shocking wave of sickness and death among people who received multiple Covid-19 vaccinations. This would happen on top of an already accelerating rise in latent vaccine adverse reactions manifesting as aggressive cancers, blood disorders, cardiac injury, neurological disease, and much, much more.

To this point in the Covid-19 story, Western Civ in general, and the USA in particular, have descended into an epic group psychosis as a result of the managed mind-f**kery induced by their own governments in collusion with a pharmaceutical industry metastasizing on money the way an aggressive cancer feeds on sugar in a human body. Fearful citizens swallowed all manner of unreality foisted on them by means of propaganda and censorship.

We still don’t know for sure how, who, and why, exactly, Covid-19 was set loose on the world, and the public health agencies don’t want you to know. Perhaps the worst and most baldly dishonest act was the official suppression of effective treatments with common, safe, anti-virals that could have saved millions of lives. And all just to preserve the vaccine companies’ liability shield from the Emergency Use Authorization. In fact, governments are still militating against the sale and use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, which could be taken prophylactically in anticipation of a new outbreak.

So, if these populations were driven crazy by authorities ginning up their fear and preying on it, what will happen if that fear turns to anger instead? Because that’s exactly what will happen when Americans, and perhaps even Europeans, realize they’ve been subject to history’s biggest homicidal fraud. That anger is going to seek targets, and they are going to find them very easily in their own government officials and also - get this - in the medical establishment that has betrayed its patients so unconscionably.

It’s just impossible to say exactly how that will play out on-the-ground. Governments are already falling - Spain, the Netherlands - but these were parliamentary downfalls according to regular political procedure. Our country has no such procedures for changing authority in a time of crisis. Instead, we have a president up to his neck in bribery scandal and executive agency thuggery, and political parties sunk in corruption, and no way to get rid of them except elections many months away - elections which at least half the people don’t believe are honest.

This crisis of bad faith and sickness is happening at the same time that Western Civ enters an equally vicious crisis of economy and finance. America and Europe are broke. All are playing games with their conjoined banking systems and their currencies. All are de-industrializing economies strictly based on industrial production of goods no longer being produced, and pretending to replace them with economies of computer vapor-ware. That can’t work and can only end badly in collapsing standards of living.

The past few years, an apparent coalition of global elites, functioning in orgs such as the WEF, the WHO, the EU, the IMF, the central banks, and countless NGOs, along with shadowy intel units and what remains of the old news media, have promoted ever more desperate top-down control programs to prevent a breakdown into wholesale economic and political disorder. Their efforts increasingly tilt into pretense.

Try to impose digital currencies and health passports? Fuggeddabowdit. You will only get a chaos of work-arounds, non-compliance, and probably violent opposition. Keep that stupid, dishonorable, perfidious, and unnecessary war going in Ukraine and you run the risk of turning Western Civ into a matched set of ashtrays.

As you can see, there has already been enough official mischief, crime, and malfeasance to severely piss-off the population. If Dr. Vanden Bossche is correct, we are perhaps heading into the conclusive shock of an evil era. Some kind of monumental correction will be in order. The people will need some way to regain credible self-governance, either through personnel change in every locus of power, or some revision in structure and procedure. For now, there is little faith that our institutions can manage either of those options. Better maintain situational awareness as we creep into the unknown."

"How It Really Is"

 

Now that will be the day! READ?! God forbid! LOL