"What Genius Thinks of Education"

"What Genius Thinks of Education"

By Paul Rosenberg

"As I compiled the thoughts from geniuses last week, one group of thoughts that I left out – simply because there were so many of them – were the thoughts of geniuses on the subject of regimented education. Thus, today’s list. The brightest men and women reach a surprisingly consistent set of conclusions on education, and a very interesting set of conclusions. And so I’ll share a number of them with you, beginning with Albert Einstein:

Albert Einstein: "It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. School failed me, and I failed the school. It bored me. The teachers behaved like sergeants. I wanted to learn what I wanted to know, but they wanted me to learn for the exam… I felt that my thirst for knowledge was being strangled by my teachers; grades were their only measurement. I learned mostly at home, first from my uncle and then from a student who came to eat with us once a week. He would give me books on physics and astronomy. Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school."

Thomas Sowell: "Back when I taught at UCLA, I was constantly amazed at how little so many students knew. Finally, I could no longer restrain myself from asking a student the question that had long puzzled me: ''What were you doing for the last 12 years before you got here?'' "The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling."

Baruch Spinoza: "Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men’s natural abilities as to restrain them."

Marshall McLuhan: "Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn’t know the first thing about either."

Ivan Illich: "School is the advertising agency which makes you believe you need the society as it is."

Bertrand Russell: "Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education."

Mary Wollstonecraft: "There is not, perhaps, in the kingdom, a more dogmatical, or luxurious set of men, than the pedantic tyrants who reside in colleges and preside at public schools."

Agatha Christie: "I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays, and have things arranged for them, that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: "Truth has to be repeated constantly, because Error also is being preached all the time, and not just by a few, but by the multitude. In the Press and Encyclopedias, in Schools and Universities, everywhere Error holds sway, feeling happy and comfortable in the knowledge of having Majority on its side. A teacher who can arouse a feeling for one single good action, for one single good poem, accomplishes more than he who fills our memory with rows on rows of natural objects, classified with name and form."

Celia Green: "Education by the State is a contradiction in terms. Intellectual development is only possible to those who have seen through society. It is easier to make people appear equally stupid than to make them equally clever, so teaching methods are adopted which make it practically impossible for anyone to learn anything."

John Stuart Mill: "A general State education is a mere contrivance for molding people to be exactly like one another: and the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government or the majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body."

Ludwig von Mises: "Education rears disciples, imitators, and routinists, not pioneers of new ideas and creative geniuses. The schools are not nurseries of progress and improvement, but conservatories of tradition and unvarying modes of thought. The mark of the creative mind is that it defies a part of what it has learned or, at least, adds something new to it."

H.L. Mencken: "The plain fact is that education is itself a form of propaganda – a deliberate scheme to outfit the pupil, not with the capacity to weigh ideas, but with a simple appetite for gulping ideas ready-made. The aim is to make ‘good’ citizens, which is to say, docile and uninquisitive citizens."

Sigrid Undset: "I hated school so intensely. It interfered with my freedom. I avoided the discipline by an elaborate technique of being absent-minded during classes."

Abraham Maslow: "We know that children are capable of peak experiences and that they happen frequently during childhood. We also know that the present school system is an extremely effective instrument for crushing peak experiences and forbidding their possibility. The natural child-respecting teacher who is not frightened by the sight of children enjoying themselves is a rare sight in classrooms."

Isaac Asimov: "Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is."

Boris Sidis: "Our young generation is trained by fear into discipline and obedience. We thus suppress the natural genius and originality of the child, we favor and raise mediocrity, and cultivate the philistine, the product of education, ruled by rod, not by thought. It is time that the medical and teaching profession should realize that functional neurosis is not congenital, not inborn, not hereditary, but is the result of a defective, fear-inspiring education in early child life."

Aldous Huxley: "Children are nowhere taught, in any systematic way, to distinguish true from false, or meaningful from meaningless, statements. Why is this so? Because their elders, even in the democratic countries, do not want them to be given this kind of education."

Buckminster Fuller: "Education by choice, with its marvelous motivating psychology of desire for truth and the exercise of this desire for truth, will make life ever cleaner and happier, more rhythmical and artistic. Our greatest vulnerability lies in the amount of misinformation and misconditioning of humanity. I’ve found the education systems are full of it."

Ralph Waldo Emerson: "We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing."

Buddha: "Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."

- https://freemansperspective.com

o

"According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 57% of Americans have a reading grade below 9th level, and 13% have a reading grade below 5th level. Only 13% can understand the Declaration or Patrick Henry’s speech, and virtually none can understand the Constitution. And that includes all Americans. Among Generation Z, it’s far worse. They are the least literate generation in American history.

Spend a few minutes on YouTube watching our young people be interviewed on the most basic matters of our history and values. They do not know anything of the good, the true, and the beautiful; and even if they wanted to, they could not learn it because the texts are inaccessible to them. Far too many have been cognitively crippled."

- "Independence Day 2023"

"Mass Formation Psychosis, Or... Mass Hypnosis - The Madness Of Crowds"

"Mass Formation Psychosis,

Or... Mass Hypnosis - The Madness Of Crowds"

by Robert W Malone MD, MS

"As many of you know, I have spent time researching and speaking about mass psychosis theory. Most of what I have learned has come from Dr. Mattias Desmet, who realized that this form of mass hypnosis, of the madness of crowds, can account for the strange phenomenon of about 20-30% of the population in the western world becoming entranced with the Noble Lies and dominant narrative concerning the safety and effectiveness of the genetic vaccines, and both propagated and enforced by politicians, science bureaucrats, pharmaceutical companies and legacy media.

What one observes with the mass hypnosis is that a large fraction of the population is completely unable to process new scientific data and facts demonstrating that they have been misled about the effectiveness and adverse impacts of mandatory mask use, lockdowns, and genetic vaccines that cause people’s bodies to make large amounts of biologically active coronavirus Spike protein.

These hypnotized by this process are unable to recognize the lies and misrepresentations they are being bombarded with on a daily basis, and actively attack anyone who has the temerity to share information with them which contradicts the propaganda that they have come to embrace. And for those whose families and social networks have been torn apart by this process, and who find that close relatives and friends have ghosted them because they question the officially endorsed “truth” and are actually following the scientific literature, this can be a source of deep anguish, sorrow and psychological pain.

It is with those souls in mind that I included a discussion of the mass formation theory of Dr. Mattias Desmet during a recent talk I gave in Tampa, Florida to an audience of about 2,000. As I looked out into the audience and spoke, I could see relief on many faces, and even tears running from the eyes of stoic men.

"What Is Mass Formation Psychosis?"

Has everyone gone insane? Check your mass formation.

An overview of Mass Formation, which was developed by Dr. Mattias Desmet. He is a psychologist and a statistician. He is at the University of Ghent in Belgium. I think Dr. Mattias is onto something about what is happening and he calls this phenomena:

Mass Formation Psychosis: So, when he says “mass” formation, you can think of this as equivalent to “crowd” formation. One can think of this as: crowd psychosis. The conditions to set up mass formation psychosis include lack of social connectedness and sensemaking as well as large amounts of latent anxiety and passive aggression. When people are inundated with a narrative that presents a plausible "object of anxiety" and strategy for coping with it, then many individuals group together to battle the object with a collective singlemindedness. This allows people to stop focusing on their own problems, avoiding personal mental anguish. Instead, they focus all their thought and energy on this new object.

As mass formation progresses, the group becomes increasingly bonded and connected. Their field of attention is narrowed and they become unable to consider alternative points of view. Leaders of the movement are revered, unable to do no wrong.

Left unabated, a society under the spell of mass formation will support a totalitarian governance structure capable of otherwise unthinkable atrocities in order to maintain compliance. A note: mass formation is different from group think. There are easy ways to fix group think by just bringing in dissenting voices and making sure you give them platforms. It isn’t so easy with mass formation. Even when the narrative falls apart, cracks in the strategy clearly aren’t solving the issue, the hypnotized crowd can’t break free of the narrative. This is what appears to be happening now with COVID-19. The solution for those in control of the narrative is to produce bigger and bigger lies to prop up the solution. Those being controlled by mass formation no longer are able to use reason to break free of the group narrative.

Of course, the obvious example of mass formation is Germany in the 1930s and 40s. How could the German people who were highly educated, very liberal in the classic sense; western thinking people… how could they go so crazy and do what they did to the Jews? How could this happen? To a civilized people? A leader of a mass formation movement will use the platform to continue to pump the group with new information to focus on. In the case of COVID-19, I like to use the term “fear porn.” Leaders, through main stream media and government channels continuously feed the “beast” with more messaging that focus and further hypnotize their adherents. We're seeing the exact same process with Ukraine now.

Studies suggest that mass formation follows a general distribution:

● 30% are brainwashed, hypnotized, indoctrinated by the group narrative.

● 40% in the middle are persuadable and may follow if no worthy alternative is perceived.

● 30% fight against the narrative.

Those that rebel and fight against the narrative, become the enemy of the brainwashed and a primary target of aggression. One of the the best ways to counter mass formation is for those against the narrative to continue to speak out against it, which serves to help break the hypnosis of some in the brainwashed group as well as persuade the persuadable middle to choose reason over mindlessness.

Dr. Desmet suggests that for something as big as COVID-19, the only way to break the mass formation psychosis is to give the crowd something bigger to focus on. He believes that totalitarianism may be that bigger issue. Of course, after COVID-19, global totalitarianism may be the biggest issue of our time."

- https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/

○

Related:

• "Mattias Desmet on Our Grave Situation"

○

• "FFWN: Monstrous Provocations (with Helen Buyniski)"

False Flag Weekly News

“My Dinner with Andre”

“My Dinner with Andre” 

by Robert W. Malone, MD, MS

"The movie “My Dinner with Andre” (1981) is over forty years old… Jill and I first watched this film when we were in our early 20s. It may be one key reason why we have spent our entire adult lives unwilling to buy into “the system”, and why I took to Mattias Desmet’s “Mass Formation” hypothesis like a duck to water.

Transcript:

Wally: Well, why...why do you think that is? I mean, why is that, I mean, is it just because people are...are lazy today, or they're bored? I mean, are we just like bored, spoiled children who've just been lying in the bathtub all day just playing with their plastic duck, and now they're just thinking, "Well, what can I do?"

Okay. Yes. We're bored. We're all bored now. But has it every occurred to you, Wally, that the process that creates this boredom that we see in the world now may very well be a self-perpetuating, unconscious form of brainwashing created by a world totalitarian government based on money? And that all of this is much more dangerous than one thinks. And it's not just a question of individual survival, Wally, but that somebody who's bored is asleep? And somebody who's asleep will not say "no"?

See, I keep meeting these people, I mean, uh, just a few days ago I met this man whom I greatly admire, he's a Swedish physicist, Gustav Björnstrand, and he told me that he no longer watches television, he doesn't read newspapers, and he doesn't read magazines. He's completely cut them out of his life because he really does feel that we're living in some kind of Orwellian nightmare now, and that everything that you hear now contributes to turning you into a robot.

And when I was at Findhorn, I met this extraordinary English tree expert who had devoted his life to saving trees. Just got back from Washington, lobbying to save the redwoods, he's 84 years old, and he always travels with a backpack cause he never knows where he's gonna be tomorrow. And when I met him at Findhorn, he said to me, "Where are you from?" and I said, "New York." He said, "Ah, New York. Yes, that's a very interesting place. Do you know a lot of New Yorkers who keep talking about the fact that they want to leave, but never do?" And I said, "Oh, yes." And he said, "Why do you think they don't leave?" I gave him different banal theories. He said, "Oh, I don't think it's that way at all."

He said, "I think that New York is the new model for the new concentration camp, where the camp has been built by the inmates themselves, and the inmates are the guards, and they have this pride in this thing they've built. They've built their own prison. And so they exist in a state of schizophrenia where they are both guards and prisoners, and as a result, they no longer have, having been lobotomized, the capacity to leave the prison they've made or to even see it as a prison." And then he went into his pocket, and he took out a seed for a tree and he said, "This is a pine tree." He put it in my hand and he said, "Escape before it's too late."

See, actually, for two or three years now, Chiquita and I have had this very unpleasant feeling that we really should get out. That we really should feel like Jews in Germany in the late thirties. Get out of here. Of course, the problem is where to go, cause it seems quite obvious that the whole world is going in the same direction. See, I think it's quite possible that the 1960s represented the last burst of the human being before he was extinguished and that this is the beginning of the rest of the future now, and that, from now on there'll simply be all these robots walking around, feeling nothing, thinking nothing. And there'll be nobody left almost to remind them that there once was a species called a human being, with feelings and thoughts, and that history and memory are right now being erased, and soon nobody will really remember that life existed on the planet."

- https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

Yeah, there is. Look around, what do you think is happening?

And this is just the beginning...

Adventures With Danno, "Food Shortage Report! This Is Getting Bad!"

Adventures With Danno, AM 10/8/23

"Food Shortage Report! This Is Getting Bad!"

"We are covering the food shortage report for Fall and Winter of 2023 and 2024. It's worse than we thought it would be as food shortages are popping up everywhere. We expose the truth as thousands of our viewers have commented on what is coming up missing in their grocery stores!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Target Is Getting Wiped Out, The Biggest Retail Chains Prepare To Follow Suit"

Full screen recommended.

The Atlantis Report, AM 10/8/23

"Target Is Getting Wiped Out, 

The Biggest Retail Chains Prepare To Follow Suit"

"Target, once the darling of the retail industry, is witnessing a notable decline this year. This retail giant, known for its commitment to quality, style, and affordability, has faced various challenges that have impacted its market position. Their financial performance has taken a nosedive, with profits dropping dramatically over the past year. Recently, its management has decided that the best way to stay afloat is to downsize by closing some select stores. However, its woes began a long time ago. A quick look into history reminds us of the retailer facing a sort of identity crisis as far back as 2014."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "You Can Move To The Moon"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, AM 10/8/23

"You Can Move To The Moon"

"Relocating has been getting more and more difficult. Lately, there’s a company that wants to offer homes built on the moon. Just think. You won’t have any problems with neighbors and it will be brand new."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Must View! Canadian Prepper, "WW3 Emergency Update: Total Chaos Is Erupting"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 10/8/23

"WW3 Emergency Update: Total Chaos Is Erupting;

 Lebanon, Iran, Russia; Insider Info 'Stand Down'"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

"Israel's Nearly Impenetrable Iron Dome 

Struggles To Stop Hamas' 5,000 Rockets"

"On the morning of October 7th, Israelis woke up to a war. Air raid sirens blared as Hamas fired over 5,000 rockets in merely 20 minutes from the Gaza strip. This act jeopardized Israel's nearly impenetrable Iron Dome air defense system. Watch how a Palestinian militant group outfoxed one of the most powerful weapons in the world."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Al Jazeera English, 10/8/23

"Gaza-Israel war: 

Israel and Hezbollah Rocket Attacks at Border"

"The number of Israelis killed has shot up to 600 since Hamas launched its biggest attack on Israel by land, air and sea early on Saturday. Dozens of bodies were found in an area called Reim bordering the Gaza. A number of burnt cars were along a road in the region. Israel launched strikes on Gaza early dawn on Sunday. Many buildings were damaged. More than 300 Palestinians have been killed so far. Israeli has also deployed troops along the Lebanon border after Hezbollah shelled areas under its occupation. Israel retaliated with artillery fire after 3 posts were hit in the Shebaa Farms areas. Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds reports from in Southern Israel, near the border with Gaza."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

One should remember that Lebanon-based Hezbollah

 has 150,000 missiles and shares a border with Israel...

- https://www.timesofisrael.com/

o

Should Iran be involved know that Iran possesses “over 3,000” long

 range ballistic missiles, and tens of thousands of shorter range missiles."

- https://www.iranwatch.org/our-publications/

"Assessing the Islamic Republic of

Iran’s Ballistic Missile Program"

- https://www.fdd.org/wp-content/

- https://www.politico.eu/article

o

"Israel  And  The 'Samson Option'”

Jeremiah Babe, "When The Credit Cards Run Out It's Game Over"

Jeremiah Babe, 10/7/23

"When The Credit Cards Run Out It's Game Over, 

Wake Up Time Is Running Out"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Ludovico Einaudi, "Oltremare"

Ludovico Einaudi, "Oltremare"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"How do clusters of galaxies form and evolve? To help find out, astronomers continue to study the second closest cluster of galaxies to Earth: the Fornax cluster, named for the southern constellation toward which most of its galaxies can be found. Although almost 20 times more distant than our neighboring Andromeda galaxy, Fornax is only about 10 percent further that the better known and more populated Virgo cluster of galaxies.

Fornax has a well-defined central region that contains many galaxies, but is still evolving. It has other galaxy groupings that appear distinct and have yet to merge. Seen here, almost every yellowish splotch on the image is an elliptical galaxy in the Fornax cluster. The picturesque barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 visible on the lower right is also a prominent Fornax cluster member."

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130111.html

"If You Caught A Glimpse..."

"If you caught a glimpse of your own death,

would that knowledge change the way you live the rest of your life?"

- Paco Ahlgren, "Discipline"

Free Download: Richard Bach: "Illusions"

"We Are All. Free. To Do. Whatever. We Want. To Do.”

by Richard Bach

“We are all free to do whatever we want to do,” he said that night. “Isn’t that simple and clean and clear? Isn’t that a great way to run a universe?” “Almost. You forgot a pretty important part,” I said. “Oh?” “We are all free to do what we want to do, as long as we don’t hurt somebody else,” I chided. “I know you meant that, but you ought to say what you mean.”

There was a sudden shambling sound in the dark, and I looked at him quickly. “Did you hear that?” “Yeah. Sounds like there’s somebody…” He got up, walked into the dark. He laughed suddenly, said a name I couldn’t catch. “It’s OK,” I heard him say. “No, we’d be glad to have you… no need you standing around… come on, you’re welcome, really…”

The voice was heavily accented, not quite Russian, nor Czech, more Transylvanian. “Thank you. I do not wish to impose myself upon your evening…” The man he brought with him to the firelight was, well, he was unusual to find in a midwest night. A small lean wolflike fellow, frightening to the eye, dressed in evening clothes, a black cape lined in red satin, he was uncomfortable in the light.

“I was passing by,” he said. “The field is a shortcut to my house…” “Is it?” Shimoda did not believe the man, knew he was lying, and at the same time did all he could to keep from laughing out loud. I hoped to understand before long.

“Make yourself comfortable,” I said. “Can we help you at all?” I really didn’t feel that helpful, but he was so shrinking, I did want him to be at ease, if he could. He looked on me with a desperate smile that turned me to ice. “Yes, you can help me. I need this very much or I would not ask. May I drink your blood? Just some? It is my food, I need human blood…”

Maybe it was the accent, he didn’t know English that well or I didn’t understand his words, but I was on my feet quicker than I had been in many a month, hay flying into the fire from my quickness. The man stepped back. I am generally harmless, but I am not a small person and I could have looked threatening. He turned his head away. “Sir, I am sorry! I am sorry! Please forget that I said anything about blood! But you see…”

“What are you saying?” I was the more fierce because I was scared. “What in the hell are you saying, mister? I don’t know what you are, are you some kind of VAM-?” Shimoda cut me off before I could say the word. “Richard, our guest was talking, and you interrupted. Please go ahead, sir; my friend is a little hasty.” “Donald,” I said, “this guy…” “Be quiet!” That surprised me so much that I was quiet, and looked a sort of terrified question at the man, caught from his native darkness into our firelight.

“Please to understand. I did not choose to be born vampire. Is unfortunate. I do not have many friends. But I must have a certain small amount of fresh blood every night or I writhe in terrible pain, longer than that without it and I cannot live! Please, I will be deeply hurt – I will die – if you do not allow me to suck your blood… just a small amount, more than a pint I do not need.” He advanced a step toward me, licking his lips, thinking that Shimoda somehow controlled me and would make me submit.

“One more step and there will be blood, all right. Mister, you touch me and you die…” I wouldn’t have killed him, but I did want to tie him up, at least, before we talked much more. He must have believed me, for he stopped and sighed. He turned to Shimoda. “You have made your point?” “I think so. Thank you.”

The vampire looked up at me and smiled, completely at ease, enjoying himself hugely, an actor on stage when the show is over. “I won’t drink your blood, Richard,” he said in perfect friendly English, no accent at all. As I watched he faded as though he was turning out his own light… in five seconds he had disappeared.

Shimoda sat down again by the fire. “Am I ever glad you don’t mean what you say!” I was still trembling with adrenalin, ready for my fight with a monster. “Don, I’m not sure I’m built for this. Maybe you’d better tell me what’s going on. Like, for instance, what… was that?”

“Dot was a wompire from Tronsylwania,” he said in words thicker than the creature’s own. “Or to be more precise, dot was a thought-form of a wompire from Tronsylwania. If you ever want to make a point, you think somebody isn’t listening, whip ‘em up a little thought-form to demonstrate what you mean. Do you think I overdid him, with the cape and the fangs and the accent like that? Was he too scary for you?”

“The cape was first class, Don. But that was the most stereotyped, outlandish… I wasn’t scared at all.” He sighed. “Oh well. But you got the point, at least, and that’s what matters.”

“What point?” “Richard, in being so fierce toward my vampire, you were doing what you wanted to do, even though you thought it was going to hurt somebody else. He even told you he’d be hurt if…”

“He was going to suck my blood!” “Which is what we do to anyone when we say we’ll be hurt if they don’t live our way.”

I was quiet for a long time, thinking about that. I had always believed that we are free to do as we please only if we don’t hurt another, and this didn’t fit. There was something missing.

“The thing that puzzles you,” he said, “is an accepted saying that happens to be impossible. The phrase is hurt somebody else. We choose, ourselves, to be hurt or not to be hurt, no matter what. Us who decides. Nobody else. My vampire told you he’d be hurt if you didn’t let him? That’s his decision to be hurt, that’s his choice. What you do about it is your decision, your choice: give him blood; ignore him; tie him up; drive a stake of holly through his heart. If he doesn’t want the holly stake, he’s free to resist, in whatever way he wants. It goes on and on, choices, choices.”

“When you look at it that way…”

“Listen,” he said, “it’s important. We are all. Free. To do. Whatever. We want. To do.“

○

“Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah”

by Richard Bach

“Born in 1936, Richard Bach is an American author who has written many excellent books. His quotes are inspirational and motivational. “Jonathan Livingston Seagull;” “Illusions;” “The Bridge Across Forever;” to name only a few of his books.

Notice: This electronic version of the book has been released for educational purposes only. You may not sell or make any profit from this book. And if you like this book, buy a paper copy and give it to someone who does not have a computer, if that is possible for you.

FREELY download “Illusions”, in PDF format, is here:

- http://img1.liveinternet.ru/images/

"We Have Reached The Terminal Phase Of The Greatest Debt Spiral In The History Of The Human Race"

"We Have Reached The Terminal Phase Of

 The Greatest Debt Spiral In The History Of The Human Race"

by Michael Snyder

"If you are going to go out, you might as well do it with a bang. At the beginning of June, our national debt was sitting at $31,467,639,287,894.39. Today, it has risen to $33,442,148,619,617.43. That means that we have added almost two trillion dollars to the national debt in just three months. It is the largest single debt in the entire history of our planet, and it will never be paid off. Our debt spiral has reached a terminal phase, and all we can do now is prolong the agony. If we keep taking on more debt at an exponential rate, we may be able to extend our seemingly endless party for a little while longer. As for the bright future that our children and grandchildren were supposed to have, we destroyed that a long time ago, and so it doesn’t really matter what we do now.

What our politicians are doing to us is truly a crime against humanity. And I am not just talking about the United States. All over the world, politicians have been on the greatest debt binge in the history of the human race, and for quite a few years it seemed like they were getting away with it. But now interest rates are rising and there is great turmoil in the bond markets. The following comes from CNN…

"A slump in government bonds around the world has pushed up the cost of some nations’ debt to levels not seen in more than a decade. That’s bad news for governments in the red but also for the wallets of millions of mortgage borrowers, stock investors and businesses. The sell-off has been fueled by expectations among investors that the world’s major central banks will keep interest rates “higher for longer” to bring inflation down to their targets.

It works like this: Governments looking to raise cash for public services and investments issue bonds. A bond provides a way to borrow money from investors for a set length of time, with the obligation to make regular interest payments. In recent weeks, bond yields have reached very alarming levels.

If this continues, governments all over the world will soon be facing enormous problems: When official interest rates rise, so do investors’ expectations for returns on bonds, known as yields. This creates an incentive for investors to sell the bonds they currently hold and buy newly issued ones that offer higher interest payments. Selling bonds reduces prices. So, in short, when yields rise, bond prices fall.

And yields have most definitely been rising: The yield on 30-year US government bonds, also known as Treasuries, hit 5% on Tuesday for the first time since 2007. In the United Kingdom, the yield on 30-year bonds also reached 5% this week, the highest level in more than two decades. Yields on German long-dated bonds are back to levels last seen on the eve of the eurozone debt crisis in 2011. Yields on Italy’s 10-year bonds hit 5% on Wednesday, the highest level since 2012, when that crisis was in full swing.

There is no way out of this mess now. If we would have acted responsibly all along, we would have gotten a much different outcome. But at this point our fate is pretty much sealed.Of course our politicians never intended to change course. In fact, they continue to spend money like drunken sailors.

As Zero Hedge has aptly noted, the U.S. government recently added 275 billion dollars to the national debt in a single day…The US added – checks notes – $275 billion in debt in, uh, ONE DAY. Total US debt is now $33.442 trillion, hit $33 trillion just 2 weeks ago, and on pace to rise by $1 trillion in 1 month.

What makes all of this even more frustrating is that they aren’t even spending the money efficiently. And in many instances, it is being wasted on extremely frivolous things…Federal officials have been criticized after splashing $3.3 billion on swanky new office furniture during the pandemic, when almost all staff worked from home. The egregious spending habits of the US government included almost $250,000 on solar-powered picnic tables for the CDC, and $120,000 on plush Ethan Allen leather chairs.

We are borrowing and spending money at an exponential pace, and we all know how this is going to end. It is going to end with the U.S. dollar becoming worth little more than toilet paper. This is a point that author Robert Kiyosaki made very eloquently during a recent interview…

"Robert Kiyosaki, renowned author of the phenomenal personal finance book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” shared a piece of his mind on how to decentralize from the fiat currency in these scary times of a broken banking system. According to him, the dollar has been losing its purchasing power and not long from now, it would just be worth less than “toilet paper.”

During his appearance on the recent episode “Decentralize.TV” hosted by Mike Adams and Todd Pitner, Kiyosaki pointed out how the lack of financial education in the United States blinds the people and even President Joe Biden’s administration in tackling the current economic downturn. “Just recently they raised the debt ceiling again…and because our schools have no financial education, no idea of credit rating, our debt increased by $1.8 trillion. The United States via Fitch Rating services downgraded the U.S. debt from AAA to AA-plus. We are on a collision course for disaster.”

It is true. We really are on a “collision course” with disaster, but most Americans don’t realize what is happening. Most Americans seem to believe that there will never be any serious consequences for all the borrowing and spending that we have been doing. And that is because most Americans don’t understand basic economics.

When your debt rises much faster than your income does for an extended period of time, it is always going to result in pain. Every single time. If you have ever found yourself drowning in debt, you know exactly what I am talking about. Well, now our entire country is drowning in debt, and our politicians are adding hundreds of billions more to that debt every single month.

This is not going to end well, and that should be obvious to everyone. For the moment, our politicians are doing their best to keep the debt spiral humming, but the clock is ticking and time is quickly running out…"

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"We Are Witnessing One Of The Greatest Financial Market Crashes In History Right Now"

"We Are Witnessing One Of The Greatest

 Financial Market Crashes In History Right Now"

By Michael Snyder

"History is starting to repeat itself. In 2008, bond prices crashed before stock prices did. Here in 2023, bond prices are crashing again. In fact, we are currently witnessing one of the greatest financial crashes in U.S. history at this moment. Of course most Americans have absolutely no idea that this is happening. Most Americans don’t know anything about the bond crash that is causing a tremendous amount of fear in the financial community right now, and that is because the big news networks aren’t talking about it too much. But it is serious. Since the peak of the market, 10 year bonds are down 46 percent and 30 year bonds are down 53 percent…

"Losses on longer-dated Treasuries are beginning to rival some of the most notorious market meltdowns in US history. Bonds maturing in 10 years or more have slumped 46% since peaking in March 2020, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s just shy of the 49% plunge in US stocks in the aftermath of the dot-com bust at the turn of the century. The rout in 30-year bonds has been even worse, tumbling 53%, nearing the 57% slump in equities during the depths of the financial crisis."

We haven’t seen anything like this in many years. As bond yields go up, bond prices go down. And the last time the yield on 10 year bonds rose to this level was “just before the 2008 financial crisis”…"At the center of the storm is the 10-year Treasury yield, one of the most influential numbers in finance. The yield, which represents borrowing costs for issuers of bonds, has climbed steadily in recent weeks and reached 4.8% on Tuesday, a level last seen just before the 2008 financial crisis."

We are witnessing the exact same pattern that we witnessed in 2008 and during other financial panics. Bonds crash first, and then stocks crash later. I have warned over and over again that high interest rates were going to have an absolutely devastating impact on our system, and now it is staring to happen. Our banks are going to be in so much trouble. They were already sitting on hundreds of billons of dollars in unrealized losses, and the spike in bond yields in recent weeks has pushed that number even higher.

Meanwhile, mortgage rates continue to soar…"Freddie Mac’s latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey released Thursday shows the average rate for the benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage jumped to 7.49%, up from 7.31% last week and from 6.66% a year ago. The rate for a 15-year mortgage also climbed, averaging 6.78% after coming in last week at 6.72%. One year ago, the rate on a 15-year fixed note averaged 5.9%."

These high rates are absolutely paralyzing the housing market. Millions of potential buyers have been forced to the sidelines, because high rates have made housing “unaffordable” in 99 percent of all U.S. counties…"Housing prices are growing more unaffordable even with the astronomical rise in mortgage rates, putting ownership out of reach for millions of Americans. That’s according to a new report published by real estate data provider ATTOM, which examined 572 U.S. counties and determined that median home prices in 99% of those areas are out of reach for the average income earner, who makes about $71,214 annually. “The latest trend continues a two-year pattern of homeownership getting more and more difficult for average U.S. wage earners,” the report said."

The home prices that we are seeing today are absolutely insane. Recently, a 565 square foot house in West Hollywood “sold for a whopping $1.1 million”…"A miniature home in Los Angeles’ West Hollywood neighborhood recently sold for a whopping $1.1 million despite only offering 565 square feet inside. The 1924 Craftsman-bungalow – settled on a 2.240 square foot lot – is tucked away behind a row of hedges and located just across the street from a fire station."

I couldn’t imagine paying that much for a glorified closet. But apparently someone out there had money to burn. Of course most homes are not selling at this point. In fact, sales of existing homes have fallen by about a third over the past year. So something has got to give.

Either the Federal Reserve has got to dramatically reduce interest rates or home prices have got to fall. And the Federal Reserve is not planning to reduce interest rates any time soon. Unfortunately, Fed officials keep talking about the possibility of raising them even higher.

So a lot more pain is coming, and the American people are getting restless. If you can believe it, a recent Rasmussen survey discovered that more than half of all U.S. adults believe that we will experience “another Great Depression” within the next few years…"Despite claims by President Joe Biden about the strength of America’s economy, most Americans still think we’re headed toward another Great Depression.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 52% of American Adults believe it is likely that, over the next few years, the United States will enter a 1930s-like depression, including 21% who say a major depression is Very Likely. Thirty-six percent (36%) don’t think another Great Depression is likely over the next few years, including 11% who say it’s Not At All Likely. Another 11% are not sure."

Even though they may not understand the specifics, most Americans can feel that something has gone horribly wrong. But things didn’t have to turn out this way. You see, the truth is that we didn’t learn our lessons from the last financial crisis Instead of fixing the system, we created bubbles that were even bigger. Now that bonds have crashed, it is just a matter of time before stocks crash too. And we are headed for an economic meltdown of epic proportions. The months and years ahead are going to be incredibly challenging. So I hope that you have been preparing for difficult times, because the nightmare that many of us have been warning about has already begun."

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Steuben, Maine, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Israel's 'Pearl Harbor Moment'? Hundreds Dead, Horrifying Scenes Of Entire Families Kidnapped & Whisked Into Gaza"

Full screen recommended.

"Israel, Gaza Conflict - 

Hamas Attacks, Netanyahu Declares 'War'"

"Hamas attacks Israel: The ruling Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel at daybreak Saturday, firing thousands of rockets as dozens of fighters infiltrated the heavily fortified border in several locations by air, land and sea, catching the country off guard on a major holiday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war in a televised address, calling for a mass army mobilization, "Not an ‘operation,’ not a ‘round,’ but at war."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

"Israel's 'Pearl Harbor Moment'? Hundreds Dead, 

Horrifying Scenes Of Entire Families Kidnapped & Whisked Into Gaza"

By Tyler Durden

Excerpt, Continuing Updates:

Update(1430ET): "Former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) international spokesperson Jonathan Conricus has summed up what this day means for Israel, calling in the country's "Pearl Harbor" moment. "The entire system failed. It's not just one component. It's the entire defense architecture that evidently failed to provide the necessary defense for Israeli civilians," he told CNN of the surprise invasion from Gaza militants. "This is a Pearl Harbor type of moment for Israel, where there was reality up until today, and then there will be reality after today."

Town-by-town and farm-by-farm fighting is still underway given Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) reportedly control swathes of southern territory and even military outposts in Israel.

Netanyahu and his cabinet now must be contemplating what will surely be a high-risk rescue operation and potential ground incursion.

⚡️More hostages being taken into Gaza pic.twitter.com/G612nStiQt - War Monitor (@WarMonitors) October 7, 2023

Every hour results in even more incredible, shocking footage being released of dead Israeli soldiers and civilians. The Times of Israel is reporting that over 200 Israelis have been killed, and at least 1,000 injured. The death toll is also mounting into the hundreds on the Gaza side as Israel retaliates.

In some instances, there are what look like Israeli soccer moms and their families being escorted barefoot across the border. Video footage suggests at least dozens of Israelis have been taken captive, possibly even hundreds. Grandmothers, men, women, children - the young and old - are being paraded in front of Hamas and PIJ cameras...

One of the POW’s captured by the PIJ in Gaza pic.twitter.com/vzLOWF4gT9— Younis Tirawi | يونس (@ytirawi) October 7, 2023

At the same time, the expected Israeli aerial assault has begun. In some instances entire apartment housing blocks have been leveled.

Breaking: Many hundreds of Israeli civilians are being captured by #Hamas terrorists and are seen being taken back to #Gaza and attacked by #Palastinians#IsraelUnderAttack #Israel #IsraelPalestinewar pic.twitter.com/gx9YlyrBE4— Jim Ferguson (@JimFergusonUK) October 7, 2023"

Full, constantly updated article is here:

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

"Cycles, Systems and Seats in the Coliseum"

"Cycles, Systems and Seats in the Coliseum"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"Contrary to first impressions, I am not a doom-and-gloomer; I'm a systems-cycles-er, meaning I'm interested in where systems and cycles are heading. Cycles work because we're still running Wetware 1.0 which entered beta testing around 200,000 years ago and was released, bugs and all, around 50,000 years ago. Since the processes and inputs haven't changed, neither do the outputs.

Nature is a mix of dynamic, semi-chaotic systems (fractals, etc.) and cyclical patterns which tend to operate within predictable parameters. Why should human nature and human constructs (societies, economies and political realms) be any different?

So longterm success breeds complacency, hubris, economic and intellectual sclerosis, draining political infighting and the overproduction of parasitic elites, to use Peter Turchin's apt description. Consumption of resources expands to soak up every last bit of what's available and then the supply of goodies plummets for a multitude of completely natural and predictable reasons (sunspot/solar activity, El Nino, etc.) and a host of unpredictable but equally natural semi-chaotic extremes (100-year droughts, floods, etc.).

Wetware 1.0's go-to solutions to all such difficulties are rather limited:

1. Ramp up magical thinking. If a couple of human sacrifices ensured good harvests in the good old days, let's slaughter a couple hundred now - and if that doesn't work, then...

2. Do more of what's failed spectacularly and slaughter a couple thousand fellow humans, because darn it, maybe everything will turn around if we just kill another couple dozen. This requires ignoring the novelty of the current challenges and clinging to what worked so well in the past even as whatever worked in the past can't possibly work now because circumstances are fundamentally different.

3. Seek scapegoats. It's those darn witches. Burn a bunch of them and our troubles will magically disappear.

4. Go take what we need from some other tribe. What's our oil doing under their sand?

5. Consolidate power and wealth in the hands of elites whose failures exacerbated the crisis. Because the obvious solution (to the elites with cushy offices around the palaces and temples) to repeated failures of a leadership that only excels in one thing, squandering rapidly depleting resources on infighting and self-aggrandizement, is to give us all the remaining wealth and power. Hey, this makes perfect sense once you understand #2 above.

6. Demand sacrifices of the many to protect the privileges of the few. The Empire needs some warm bodies to fend off the Barbarians, because it would be a real shame if the Barbarians reached our palatial estates and disrupted the flow of wine and festivities. No worries when you come back on your shield; the bureaucracy will give you a decent burial and your spouse and kids can join the multitude of half-starved beggars waiting for the dwindling distributions of bread and circuses. But never mind that, did you hear about the upcoming games in the Coliseum? Good seats are going fast.

7. Eat your seed corn to keep the party going awhile longer. Not every human group had the luxury of borrowing "money" to keep the fast-unraveling party going awhile longer, so they consumed their seed corn and drained the last of their reserves--which is the same thing as borrowing "money" from a future with diminishing resources and productivity.

8. Maintain supreme confidence that "it will all work out fine because it's always worked out fine" without any sacrifice required of "those who count." What's forgotten is that the luxe greatness that is now teetering on the precipice of ruin was won by the sacrifices of the elites far exceeding the sacrifices of the many.

Back in the day, joining the elite and maintaining one's position required constant sacrifices on behalf of the common good, and strict adherence to public virtue. Now that's all forgotten, and all that remains are elites possessed by the demons of shameless greed and self-interest. The idea that debt, leverage, speculation, greed, exploitation and parasitic elites can expand exponentially forever is magical thinking. Yet that is precisely what America and the rest of the global economic order insists is true and will always be true, forever and ever.

By all means, reject those horrid, awful doom-and-gloomers who look at systems and cycles. Everything will be fine as long as you secure seats for the next games at the Coliseum - they should be spectacular - but not in the way you expect."

- https://www.oftwominds.com/

"How It Really Is"

"At the beginning of June, our national debt was sitting at $31,467,639,287,894.39. Today, it has risen to $33,442,148,619,617.43. That means that we have added almost two trillion dollars to the national debt in just three months. It is the largest single debt in the entire history of our planet, and it will never be paid off."

- https://coyoteprimeblog2.blogspot.com/

o

Jethro Tull, "Locomotive Breath"

The Atlantis Report, "U.S. Bankruptcies Will 100% Crash Small Banks"

Full screen recommended.

The Atlantis Report, 10/7/23

"U.S. Bankruptcies Will 100% Crash Small Banks,

Major Warning For Corporations"

"S and P Global predicts that the United States will be trailing the 12 month corporate default rate, soaring to a daunting 4.5 percent by June of 2024. Just to put things in perspective, as of this past July, that rate stood at a mere 3.5 percent ; a nearly 30 percent surge in just a single year. But here's the crux of the matter: American outfits are standing on the precipice of a colossal wave of maturing debt in the near future. Brace yourselves for this staggering revelation; a mind boggling $790 billion is set to mature in 2024, followed by a jawdropping $1.07 trillion due the very next year in 2025. Now, here's the kicker: When the Federal Reserve steps up with its updates and soothing promises of soft lending, they conveniently omit this impending financial storm. We're on the brink of 2024, and the Fed is gazing at the same harrowing figures I've just laid out for you. It's crucial to recognize that we're not talking about small, obscure firms going belly up; we're talking about corporate titans. Take the recent filing by the Yellow Corporation, for instance. This massive corporation filed for bankruptcy in August, a move that impacted tens of thousands of employees; those are jobs lost."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "Even the Employees Were Fake"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly AM 10/7/23

"Even the Employees Were Fake"

"A couple weeks ago we talked about a company that had sold bogus airline components. Now we find out that they may have even affected the employees as well. Who did this?"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Adventures With Danno, "Stocking Up On These Deals At Kroger!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 10/7/23

"Stocking Up On These Deals At Kroger!"

"In today's vlog, we are at Kroger Marketplace and are taking full advantage of their sales on Halloween Candy, along with meat and produce! We show all the different prices and many things that are worth stocking up on!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "Fake Labor Market Is Stronger Than Ever"

Jeremiah Babe, 10/6/23

"Fake Labor Market Is Stronger Than Ever; 

Here Come More Rate Hikes"

Comments here:

-  https://www.youtube.com/

"I Just Got An Email That Left Me Speechless, We're At DEFCON 2"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper 10/6/23

"I Just Got An Email That Left Me Speechless, 

We're At DEFCON 2"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Memory of the Sky"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Memory of the Sky"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"A now famous picture from the Hubble Space Telescope featured Pillars of Creation, star forming columns of cold gas and dust light-years long inside M16, the Eagle Nebula. This false-color composite image views the nearby stellar nursery using data from the Herschel Space Observatory's panoramic exploration of interstellar clouds along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. Herschel's far infrared detectors record the emission from the region's cold dust directly. 

The famous pillars are included near the center of the scene. While the central group of hot young stars is not apparent at these infrared wavelengths, the stars' radiation and winds carve the shapes within the interstellar clouds. Scattered white spots are denser knots of gas and dust, clumps of material collapsing to form new stars. The Eagle Nebula is some 6,500 light-years distant, an easy target for binoculars or small telescopes in a nebula rich part of the sky toward the split constellation Serpens Cauda (the tail of the snake).”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160728.html

The Poet: May Sarton, “Now I Become Myself”

“Now I Become Myself”

“Now I become myself. It’s taken
Time, many years and places,
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people’s faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
“Hurry, you will be dead before —”
(What? Before you reach the morning?
or the end of the poem, is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move,
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the Sun!”

~ May Sarton,
 Collected Poems, 1930-1993

"15 Fast Food Chains Closing Restaurants Right Now"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist 10/6/23

"15 Fast Food Chains Closing Restaurants Right Now"

"Your favorite local fast-food restaurant may disappear before you even notice. That's because the sector is now preparing for the year ahead, and companies are reevaluating their businesses, cutting costs, separating the profitable restaurants from the unprofitable ones, and deciding which locations will make it into 2024. Competition has never been so tough, and with economic conditions suggesting that consumers will continue to limit their dining-out budget, brands need to adapt to the new market conditions and cut off some bad apples that could compromise their growth and stability in the near future.

For instance, after parent company Yum! Brands reported a 25% drop in net income for the first quarter of 2023 due to declining sales and foot traffic at its restaurants, KFC and other chains owned by the company began closing stores to start rebalancing their business. Since 2020, almost 70 KFC restaurants have been shuttered, with 35 closings happening over the past twelve months. Though the chicken chain also opened some locations in 2022, after generating its first unit growth in years, it reverted back to closures this fall. Revenue slipped by 1.1% during Q1, but data from the most recent quarters hasn't been released to the public yet. Now, the popular fried chicken fast food chain is exiting the market of one U.S. state completely, shuttering all stores and liquidating its assets in the region. According to the U.S. Sun, dozens of KFC locations are closing down in Louisiana. And the last seven closures meant that the chain will no longer serve customers in the state. KFC restaurants in Jennings, DeRidder, Crowley, Eunice, Lake Charles, Lafayette, and Sulphur were reportedly closed without notice. The company didn't respond to the outlet why it is leaving the state. Staffers said they were only made aware of the shutdowns by notices put at the restaurants' doors. The stores were not franchisee-owned, but operated by the corporation. According to retail analysts, the only reasonable explanation for the sudden closings is underperformance. Right now, Yum! Brands is reassessing its portfolio, and many other chains operated by it, including Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, are likely to follow the same move as KFC.

Similarly, burger chain Hardee's seems to be in trouble. In 2022, annual sales declined by 4.2%, and average sales volumes dropped by 3%. The brand is a sister to Carl's Jr., and both chains have been reporting weak sales since at least 2018, according to Restaurant Business. Then, Summit Restaurant Holdings, a large Hardee's franchisee went bankrupt and closed 40 restaurants. Now, parent company CKE Restaurant Holdings is planning to reduce Hardee's store count by 13%, or approximately 213 locations. The targeted restaurants are based in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Kansas, Missouri and Wyoming. During the filing, CKE said Summit Restaurant Holdings should sell the restaurants it operated to a “qualified and well-capitalized buyer, with a record of success across the restaurant, entertainment, food, beverage and retail markets.” Unfortunately, that didn't materialize, and the restaurants are at risk of being liquidated.

For most of these brands, closing stores is not something they take lightly. Oftentimes, that is their last resort. However, they must protect their business now to be able to navigate the challenges ahead. In many cases, it's a matter of survival. This trend is likely to intensify as economic conditions continue to deteriorate, meaning that we may have to say goodbye to multiple beloved restaurants before the year ends."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"A Person..."

“A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet ‘for sale’, who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence – briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing – cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity.”

- Erich Fromm