Friday, December 8, 2023

Bill Bonner, "When the Money Goes..."

"When the Money Goes..."
Hardship withdrawals, barbarians inside 
the gates and the burden of phony fiat.
by Bill Bonner

Baltimore, Maryland - "From ZeroHedge comes this update: 'More Americans Tapping Into Retirement Savings As 'Hardship' Withdrawals Rise.' "A new report from Fidelity, the nation's largest provider of 401(k) plans, reveals a troubling withdrawals and loans. The report shows that 2.3 percent of U.S. retirement plan participants took a hardship withdrawal in the third quarter of 2023, up from 1.8 percent in the third quarter of 2022.

Top reasons given for taking a hardship withdrawal were avoiding foreclosure or eviction and covering medical expenses. Besides hardship withdrawals, there was also an increase in the number of Americans taking loans from their retirement savings accounts, with this share growing from 2.4 percent in the third quarter of 2023 to 2.8 percent in the comparable period in the prior year.

Among employed Americans, 60 percent said their incomes haven't kept up with increases in household expenses due to inflation over the past 12 months, according to a new survey from Bankrate. That's up from 55 percent last year. Meanwhile, less than one-third (29 percent) said their pay has kept up with or exceeded inflation this year compared to 33 percent last year, and 11 percent say they don’t know."

Yesterday, through the eyes of former ambassador Jack Matlock, we looked at how US foreign policy changed dramatically from 1982 to today. After rolling along on a highway of high ideals and aspirations, the US took the low road exit towards bombing and bullying all over the world Today, we look at domestic policy.

Inside the Gates: The most notable change in our domestic situation is the one we follow almost daily. “When the money goes, everything goes,” we say here at BonnerPrivateResearch headquarters. We don’t pretend to have the cause and effect of it perfectly worked out; but the correlation is hard to miss.

In the space of the two periods – 1950-1980…and then 1980 to 2020 – we went from a nation that had real money, backed by gold (the actual change was made in 1968/1971…but it took a few years kick in) to a nation that relied upon paper money managed by a crew of bankers and economists. We were a nation of creditors…and became a nation of debtors. We made money – by selling goods and services; now, when we need an extra trillion, we just “print it” up. We went from a nation that ran a surplus in its national accounts, to one that pays $1 trillion per year just on the interest on its past deficits. We also went from being an export powerhouse to being a country with a trade deficit of nearly $1 trillion annually.

We saw yesterday that in 1955 we were on what Bishop Fulton Sheen called the “Way to Happiness.” The roadblocks and obstacles had been removed. No more war. No more deficits. Eisenhower had cut the defense budget; WWII debt was being paid off. And when France and England wanted the US to get involved in an ugly war in the Mideast, he told them that not only would Americans not participate; he said he’d cut off their military aid too. (The Suez war ended within hours.)

And for the next two and a half decades…millions of families found happiness in their own ways; with their higher wages, they could buy new automobiles…and new houses…and send their children to college.

That ‘70s Show: But those wage gains ended in the mid-70s. The reasons are widely debated, but our leading suspect is the post-1971 dollar. In 1971 the US Treasury changed the money system and things promptly began to get out of whack. A single dollar from 1955, for example, would be worth $11.48 today.

We have already served up this dish so often, our long-suffering Dear Readers are no-doubt gagging at the thought of another serving. So…we’ll rush along and settle into leather chairs for an after-dinner drink.

The most important feature of the new money system was that it favored debt over real wealth. Simply, it was easier to borrow money (often below the rate of inflation) than to make it honestly. Result? When Bishop Sheen saw the unencumbered roadway ahead as the ‘way to happiness’ in 1955, total US debt, even after WWII, was only $300 billion or 70% of GDP. Today, it’s almost $34 trillion; that’s 100 times more…and twice as much compared to GDP.

This debt, we remind ourselves, is the burden of yesterday’s expenses that yesterday’s public didn’t want to pay for. So now, tomorrow’s public gets the bill. And by our calculations, the annual interest alone represents about 15% of family income each year – a hefty price to pay for things you didn’t want and never will get. And it leads, inevitably, to an economy in which today’s workers are so burdened by the legacy rip-offs of the past…they can make little headway in the present.

Year after year, the burdens of the past accumulate…and become heavier and heavier. And it’s not just a matter of money itself. Laws, regulations, policy decisions – bought and paid for with fake money – distort and confuse the whole society. Bribery, corruption, incompetence, grift, waste and scam – the money that pays for them may be fake; but their effects are real…disastrous…and almost impossible to erase."

Scott Ritter, "Geopolitical Reality"

Full screen recommended.
Scott Ritter, 12/8/23
"Geopolitical Reality"
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"How It Really Is"

 

Jim Kunstler, "The New National Pastime: Blob-ball"

"The New National Pastime: Blob-ball"
by Jim Kunstler

“The similarities between the late 1980s USSR and present day USA are uncanny - the endless lies, the corruption, the hollowing out of institutions, the censorship, and the decrepit leadership that is despised by the public.” - Dr. Toby Rogers

"The blob ran a clever third down lawfare play deep in its own territory Thursday night, a sort of double-reverse statue of liberty counter-switcheroo in its game-plan to “save our democracy,” as it calls its agenda of suppressions, persecutions, swindles, bad trips, and mind-fucks laid on the sore-beset people of this land. Blob special prosecutor David C. Weiss finally managed to indict Hunter Biden on tax evasion charges so flagrant and obvious that all the ham sandwiches convicted for the Jan 6 “insurrection” watched in awe from their prison cells.

You understand, this was months after Mr. Weiss concocted a cream puff plea deal for the president’s beloved son that blew up embarrassingly in the Delaware federal court when Judge Maryellen Noreika discerned a lifetime get-out-of-jail-free clause buried deep in the document, at about the same time that two IRS whistleblowers revealed the malfeasant incompetence of Mr. Weiss’s initial five-year-long dawdling investigation that, oops, let the statute of limitations run out on many of the pending charges.

That fiasco was followed by Mr. Weiss and AG Merrick Garland contradicting each other in House testimony about who had investigative authority where in the federal court matrix. And finally, the tax evasion matters landed in the Biden-friendly Los Angeles federal district, where Hunter officially lives (when not hiding out in the Lincoln bedroom), emerging from a grand jury Thursday night as a bill for three felonies and six misdemeanors.

The indictment, a public document, contains some interesting particulars, such as Hunter attempting to write off as business expenses $683,212 in fees for the unspecified services of “various women” (much as the services rendered by Hunter’s Owasco PC shell company were never specified in million-dollar legal retainer agreements made with Chinese “clients”). The curious can consult the website https://bidenreport.com, a.k.a. “Marco Polo” for a photographic record of Hunter B’s sex trafficking capers, such as:
Click image for larger size.
Of course, buried in this hairball of sleaze is another cute dodge that will permit Hunter to take a pass on his subpoenaed closed-door deposition scheduled for December 13th with Rep. James Comer’s House Oversight Committee on the grounds that he is under indictment and would only repeat his 5th Amendment rights ad infinitum. Smooth move, DOJ. While it confers a short-term field advantage to the DC blob, few will misunderstand that behind all of this procedural stagecraft is the somewhat greater matter of Hunter’s dad, President “Joe Biden,” being a paid agent of the Chinese Communist Party (and several other entities not favorably disposed to the USA’s national interests). That is: hanging over all this is the question of treason, attending the question of bribery, both being gold-standard impeachable offenses, and one them a capital crime.

That is the place to which all this rigmarole is tending, and so the pretense that “Joe Biden” is actually running for reelection grows more preposterous by the day. But it is just one of a thousand other things that the DC blob - i.e., our government - lies about incessantly to the peril of the people suffering its governance. What’s actually happening is that “Joe Biden,” our Flying Dutchman president, is barely clinging to office long enough to pardon his son and accomplices in the influence-peddling racket he ran at the center of which was “Joe Biden’s” strangely fortuitous blobular selection as Democratic Party nominee and subsequent “victory” by blatant fraud in the 2020 election. Some people knew the fix was in.

The pathetic thing about the Biden family business is that for all that trouble and all those jet plane rides, and tedious dinners with men reeking of too much cologne, and all the cozying up to foreign poohbahs and kissing their hirsute asses, shlepping the family brand from one sad-sack national capital to the next: Ukraine, Turkmenistan, Romania, the Biden clan only grossed about $25-million, maximum, over many years - which is to say about equal to one year’s salary-and-bonus of a mid-level shlub at the commodities desk of a hedge fund. I mean, when you consider the billions accumulated by the likes of Larry Fink at BlackRock, or Bezos at Amazon, or the obscene fortunes of the wonder boys at Google and Facebook.

Side note: Senator John Kennedy, usually witty and agile, had a go at FBI Director Christopher Wray this week in a Judiciary Committee session. Mr. Kennedy asked Mr. Wray how come, in the fall of 2020, with the election on, and The New York Post’s scoop on the existence of a Hunter Biden laptop, and the subsequent psy-op by 51 former intel maestros saying the laptop story was Russian disinfo - Mr. Kennedy asked, “Why didn’t the FBI just come out and say, hey, the laptop’s real?” Mr. Wray gave a bullshit answer of course… “an ongoing investigation, blah, blah….”

I have a better question that Senator Kennedy might put to Christopher Wray about this matter. In fact, the FBI had the Hunter Biden laptop hard-drive in its possession as early as December 2019, just as the first Trump impeachment trial commenced. Had they bothered at that time to examine its contents, and if not, why not? And if they had looked around inside and seen the multitudinous emails concerning Hunter Biden’s business dealings with other countries, Ukraine especially, and in particular with Mykola Zlochevsky’s Burisma company, why did Mr. Wray not alert President Trump’s attorneys that he was in possession of possibly exculpatory evidence regarding the president’s supposedly nefarious phone call to newly elected Ukraine President Zelensky that kicked off the impeachment? Huh? Just wondering."

Dan, I Allegedly, "ATM Scammers Steal Millions - Protect Your PIN Now!"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 12/8/23
"ATM Scammers Steal Millions - 
Protect Your PIN Now!"
The FBI just arrested a credit card scam ring. They stole over $8 million and made bogus debit cards once they got people’s account and PIN numbers.
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"Stocking Up At Kroger! Buying What We Can Afford! What's Coming?"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 12/8/23
"Stocking Up At Kroger! 
Buying What We Can Afford! What's Coming?"
In today's vlog, we are at Kroger and are stocking up on items we can afford. Grocery prices have gotten so expensive that we are only shopping the bargains to help save money. It's getting rough out here as many families are struggling to put food on the table!
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Thursday, December 7, 2023

Jeremiah Babe, "The Financial System Must Collapse; California Exodus; Subprime Car Loan Tsunami"

Jeremiah Babe, 12/7/23
"The Financial System Must Collapse; 
California Exodus; Subprime Car Loan Tsunami"
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Canadian Prepper, "Breaking: Article 99 Invoked; US Troops To Europe; White House Panics; Middle East Exploding"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 12/7/23
"Breaking: Article 99 Invoked; US Troops To Europe; 
White House Panics; Middle East Exploding"
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"These Are Stressful Times! Food Prices Are Getting Beyond Ridiculous!"

Adventures With Danno, PM 12/7/23
"These Are Stressful Times! 
Food Prices Are Getting Beyond Ridiculous!"
"These are some stressful times as grocery prices are becoming unaffordable for a lot of people. Adding the holiday season as well doesn't help and many struggle to put food on the table!"
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Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Memories of an Angel"

Full screen recommended.
Deuter, "Memories of an Angel"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"What will become of our Sun? The first hint of our Sun's future was discovered inadvertently in 1764. At that time, Charles Messier was compiling a list of diffuse objects not to be confused with comets. The 27th object on Messier's list, now known as M27 or the Dumbbell Nebula, is a planetary nebula, one of the brightest planetary nebulae on the sky - and visible toward the constellation of the Fox (Vulpecula) with binoculars.
It takes light about 1000 years to reach us from M27, featured here in colors emitted by hydrogen and oxygen. We now know that in about 6 billion years, our Sun will shed its outer gases into a planetary nebula like M27, while its remaining center will become an X-ray hot white dwarf star. Understanding the physics and significance of M27 was well beyond 18th century science, though. Even today, many things remain mysterious about planetary nebulas, including how their intricate shapes are created."

"I'm Rightly Tired..."

“I'm rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I'm tired of bein' on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin' no buddy to go on with or tell me where we's comin' from or goin' to or why. I'm tired of people bein' ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I'm tired of all the times I've wanted to help and couldn't. I'm tired of bein' in the dark. Mostly it's the pain. There's too much. If I could end it, I would. But I can't.”
- Stephen King, "The Green Mile"

"This Hasn’t Happened Since 1933"

"This Hasn’t Happened Since 1933"
by Brian Maher

"The United States economy is enduring a phenomenon not witnessed since 1933 - during the hellsent deeps of the Great Depression. Is it a frightful omen of lean times… a straw swaying in the wind… a looming menace? We do not know. Yet we hazard it rates an inquiry. An inquiry, incidentally, the mainstream financial press will not afford it. What is it? Answer anon. Let us first direct our gaze briefly to Wall Street…

All Eyes Are on Friday: After a series of defeats, stocks rediscovered their courage today. Each of the major averages reclaimed lost earth. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 63 points. The S&P advanced 36 and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 193 points. Yet investors have their eyes on the morrow. That is when the Bureau of Labor (Misapplied) Statistics issues November’s unemployment data.

Explains CNBC: "Economists polled by Dow Jones expect that 190,000 jobs were added in November, a step up from the prior month. Investors are hoping for signs of cooling in the labor market, leaving the Federal Reserve comfortable with its decision to halt interest rate hikes. “The market has more than likely gotten ahead of itself in forecasting rate cuts for early next year,” said Alex McGrath, chief investment officer at NorthEnd Private Wealth. “The jobs number tomorrow could dump an ice bath on sentiment.” An ice bath indeed.

Meantime, gold yielded back $2.20 today. The 10-year Treasury yield slinked slightly forward to 4.129%… for what it is worth.

Oh My! Yet what phenomenon is the United States economy presently enduring that it has not endured since 1933? Here is the answer: The money supply - measured broadly - is contracting at a furious gait. The M2 money supply constitutes saving deposits, time deposits, certificates of deposit and money market funds. It has grown and grown for well past a century. It has endured some trembles, some slight contractions. Yet like the federal government of the United States… or its debts… it has expanded nearly inexorably. We instructed our minions to ransack the historical data.

This Hasn’t Happened Since 1933: They informed us that the M2 money supply has contracted by at least 2% - on an annualized basis - in six previous instances. These shrinkages transpired in the years 1878, 1893, 1921, 1931, 1932 and 1933. Each year coincided with economic frights of one sort or other. And now? We learn that the M2 contraction exceeds 2%. Here is the graphic evidence, courtesy of Reventure Consulting:
An Accelerating Contraction: What is more, the contraction rate is itself accelerating. Mr. Ryan McMaken of the Mises Institute: "Money-supply growth has now been negative for 12 months in a row. During October 2023, the downturn continued as YOY growth in the money supply was at -9.33%…With negative growth now falling near or below -10% for the eighth month in a row, money-supply contraction is the largest we’ve seen since the Great Depression. Prior to this year, at no other point for at least 60 years has the money supply fallen by more than 6% (YoY) in any month.

Money supply growth can often be a helpful measure of economic activity and an indicator of coming recessions. During periods of economic boom, money supply tends to grow quickly as commercial banks make more loans. Recessions, on the other hand, tend to be preceded by slowing rates of money supply growth."

Just so. Yet it is not so much the direction of travel that riles us. It is rather the pace of travel: "It should be noted that the money supply does not need to actually contract to signal a recession and the boom-bust cycle. As shown by Ludwig von Mises, recessions are often preceded by a mere slowing in money supply growth. But the drop into negative territory we’ve seen in recent months does help illustrate just how far and how rapidly money supply growth has fallen. That is generally a red flag for economic growth and employment. The fact that the money supply is shrinking at all is remarkable because the money supply in modern times almost never gets smaller."

We must agree. It is remarkable. M2 has nonetheless withdrawn 13% from its April 2022 summit - remarkably. Yet perhaps the foregoing analysis lacks… context.

One Gigantic Anomaly: We must consider that the monetary deliriums of 2020–21 were unique madnesses. They lack all precedent. We refer you once again to the above chart. And it is true. Never had the monetary sluice gates been flung so widely open. Never has a similar deluge washed over the nation. It is only natural - then - that money creation returns to some normal semblance once the crisis passed. Thus the vast contraction may less indicate contracting economic conditions… than merely illuminate the lunatic excesses of the pandemic period.

In this telling we are merely witnessing a normal corrective. The Federal Reserve has merely accelerated the normalization. It has undertaken heroic anti-inflation exertions since March 2022. They have diminished the supply of money. Yet the facts remain the facts. In each instance that the M2 money supply has contracted 2% or more - in 1878, 1893, 1921, 1931, 1932 and 1933 - the United States economy was in for heavy weather. And the M2 money is presently contracting more than 2%.

“The Year of Reckoning”: Will this time prove the exception? Will the United States economy hold against the weather? As stated at the onset… we do not know. We have raised false warning flags before. Often, in fact. We will not do it again. Yet Jim Rickards forecasts that 2024 will be “the year of reckoning.” He has cited many reasons why. Among them are: Credit contraction, rising bad debts, increasing jobless claims, collapsing commercial real estate markets, contracting world trade, inverted yield curves and many other reliable technical indicators.

As we are fond to say, climate is what a fellow can expect. Weather is what he actually gets. It is possible the weather holds. It is possible the Federal Reserve and fiscal authorities will blow away the storm systems. Yet it is likewise possible they will not. And the plunging money supply is one reason why…"
o
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"Fellows, You Had Your Day..."

“Times goin' change again an' things too, and that great British Empire goin' change too, 'cause time ain't got nothin' to do with these empires. God don't like ugly, an' whenever these big great empires starts to get ugly with the thing they does the Almighty puts His hands down once an' for all. He tell them without talkin', fellows, you had your day.”
― George Lamming, "In the Castle of My Skin"

“Calf-deep in the soothing water I indulge myself in the wishful vision. I am not unaware of what such daydreams signify, dreams of becoming an unthinking savage, of taking the cold road back to the capital, of groping my way out to the ruins in the desert, of returning to the confinement of my cell, of seeking out the barbarians and offering myself to them to use as they wish. Without exception they are dreams of ends: dreams not of how to live but of how to die. And everyone, I know, in that walled town sinking now into darkness (I hear the two thin trumpet calls that announce the closing of the gates) is similarly preoccupied. What has made it impossible for us to live in time like fish in the water, like birds in air, like children? It is the fault of Empire!

Empire has created the time of history. Empire has located its existence not in the smooth recurrent spinning time of the cycle of the seasons but in the jagged time of rise and fall, of beginning and end, of catastrophe. Empire dooms itself to live in history and plot against history. One thought alone preoccupies the submerged mind of Empire: how not to end, how not to die, how to prolong its era. By day it pursues its enemies. It is cunning and ruthless, it sends its bloodhounds everywhere. By night it feeds on images of disaster: the sack of cities, the rape of populations, pyramids of bones, acres of desolation.

A mad vision yet a virulent one: I, wading in the ooze, am no less infected with it than the faithful Colonel Joll as he tracks the enemies of Empire through the boundless desert, sword unsheathed to cut down barbarian after barbarian until at last he finds and slays the one whose destiny it should be (or if not his then his son's or unborn grandson's) to climb the bronze gateway to the Summer Palace and topple the globe surmounted by the tiger rampant that symbolizes eternal domination, while his comrades below cheer and fire their muskets in the air.”
- J.M. Coetzee, "Waiting for the Barbarians"

"Gregory Mannarino, Trends Journal 12/7/23"

Strong language alert!
Gregory Mannarino, Trends Journal 12/7/23
"Pearl Harbor: When All Else Fails 
They Take You To War, Nothings Changed"
"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."
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The Daily "Near You?"

Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"This Is Unbelievably Bad News For Banks"

Full screen recommended.
The Atlantis Report, 12/7/23
"This Is Unbelievably Bad News For Banks"
"Unrealized losses are the unspoken nightmare of the Banking sector. Analysts estimate that the securities portfolios of U.S. banks may be facing unrealized losses totaling at least $650 billion. The stakes are high; banks are in deep trouble, and there’s no saving in sight. Wolf Street recently reported that unrealized losses on securities held by banks had jumped by 22% to 684 Billion dollars in Q3. As per the latest quarterly bank data release from the FDIC, there has been a significant surge in unrealized losses within the financial landscape. Notably, unrealized losses on held-to-maturity securities saw a sharp increase of 81 billion dollars compared to the preceding quarter, reaching a total of 391 billion dollars. Simultaneously, unrealized losses on available-for-sale securities experienced a noteworthy uptick, rising by 45 billion dollars from the previous quarter to a total of 293 billion dollars."
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Judge Napolitano, "Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: Ukraine Defeat, Gaza Slaughter: Where Is The Outrage?"

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 12/7/23
"Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: Ukraine Defeat, 
Gaza Slaughter: Where Is The Outrage?"
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"A Very Short History Of The F-word"

"A Very Short History Of The F-word"
Today, the F-word is enjoying a renaissance the 
likes of which it hasn’t seen since, well, the Renaissance.
by Kevin Dickinson

"The first unambiguous use of the F-word comes from De Officiis, a treatise on moral conduct by Cicero. No, the Roman philosopher didn’t gift English its soon-to-be favorite obscenity. Rather, in 1528, an anonymous monk scrawled this parenthetical into the margins of a De Officiis manuscript: “O d f*ckin’ Abbot.”

It isn’t obvious whether the monk’s remark aimed to belittle the abbot or reference his less-than-celibate hobbies. Either way, it seems brazen to us today that a 16th-century monk would scribble such fresh language in a book like some edgelord middle schooler. And it was brazen, too, but not for the reasons you may think.

That lone “d” served as a stand-in for damned - as in “Oh, damned f*ckin’ abbot.” This bit of self-censorship reveals that in the Middle Ages, the unmentionable indecency wasn’t the F-word. It was flippantly evoking matters of religious significance. In fact, this medieval mindset still hangs on in our contemporary euphemisms for vulgar language, such as swearing, profanity, and curse words.

A century later, the roles would begin to reverse. One obscenity would transform into a PG-rated curse, while the other would ascend to become the naughtiest of naughty utterances. It’s all part of the weird and mysterious history of this infamous four-letter word.

Where did the F-word come from? Etymologists aren’t entirely sure where the word originated. It must have been in use for it to appear in our monk’s saucy marginalia, but if we push past 1528 and deeper into written history, things start to get blurry.

In 1503, for example, William Dunbar, a Scottish court poet and ordained priest, penned this dirty ditty: “He held fast, he kissed and fondled,/As with the feeling he was overcome;/It seemed from his manner he would have f*cked!/‘You break my heart, my bonny one.’” In the original Scots, Dunbar’s rhyme scheme was to pair chukkit (“fondled”) with fukkit (“f*cked”), showing the word had taken also root in English’s sister language.

Another early instance comes from a 1475 poem written in an English-Latin hybrid: “Non sunt in celi / quia fuccant uuiuys of heli.” Translation: “They [the monks] are not in heaven because they f*ck the wives of [the town of] Ely.”

The word certainly goes back further still and we see hints of its usage - and the more relaxed attitudes surrounding it - in the names of people and places. A favorite picnic spot could be labeled “F*ckinggrove” on the map and no one would think twice about it. And people from the 1200s signed documents with monikers such as “Henry F*ckbeggar” and “Simon F*ckbutter.” In fact, Chester County documents reveal that between September 1310 and May 1311, one “Roger F*ckebythenavele” was called to court three times before being “outlawed.” (Historians can only guess as to his crimes.)

From there, the etymological trail goes cold. People have proposed various theories regarding the word’s origin, some more absurd than others. One popular theory is that the word is an acronym for “fornicate under the command of the king.” But this idea supposes that everyone in Merrie England went around fornicating until the king commanded them to do it so often they had to coin a shorter term. Unlikely.

In "Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter," a book this article is greatly indebted to, linguist John McWhorter offers two more likely scenarios. The first is that our F-word comes from an Old English one now lost to us. Neither a gratifying nor surprising answer. As McWhorter points out, we only have about 34,000 Old English words, compared to the roughly 225,000 you’ll find in a standard desk dictionary. What’s more, the Old English texts that have survived are mostly official or religious documents.

Another possibility is that the word was on loan from another language. Various Germanic words have been floated as possible contenders, among them ficken (meaning “to make quick movements to and fro, or flick”). McWhorter suggests another candidate in the now obsolete Norwegian word fukka.

As this theory goes, the Vikings’ invasion of England wasn’t a hit-and-run operation. Many stayed and settled. They started farms, took English wives, and became part of the culture. Naturally, their word for such a common activity came with them and blended into the local vernacular. This theory may also explain Dunbar’s fukkit as the Vikings heavily settled Northumbria (a kingdom that once consisted of the North of England and south of Scotland).

“We will likely never be absolutely sure which of these origin stories is the right one,” McWhorter writes. “Overall, however, our word shall likely ever remain the mysterious little f*ck that it is, turning up off in a corner of the lexical firmament sometime after the Battle of Hastings.”

A big effing deal: Even after the 16th century, the English language doesn’t use the word much - in print at least. “In the 1500s and before, it was, to be sure, naughty,” McWhorter writes. “However, since the Renaissance, f*ck has been the subject of a grand cover-up, the lexical equivalent of the drunken uncle or the pornography collection, under which a word known well and even adored by most is barred from public presentation.”

For instance, the word didn’t appear in an English-language dictionary until 1966 when The Penguin Dictionary broke the taboo. The American Heritage Dictionary wouldn’t offer entry until 1969, and even then not without also printing a “clean” edition to compensate. A notable exception to this rule was Queen Anna’s New World of Words, an Italian-English dictionary printed by John Florio in 1611.

One reason for the word’s conspicuous absence has to do with the nature of the written word. For most of history, the majority of people could neither read nor write. Those who could were often the social elite, and they wrote for other elites. To further separate themselves from the bawdy riffraff, they coded their language to mark their status. One way to do that was to not use the obscene language associated with the lower classes - except maybe in omission, and always from the safe distance of the moral high ground.

As print and literacy became more widespread, these norms remained firmly entrenched. Most historical examples come to us from underground entertainment, such as folk songs, erotic comics, and pulpy literature. However, the social, cultural, and artistic aftershocks of the two World Wars began to slowly nudge profanity back into print. In the 1924 play "What Price Glory?" the soldiers swore like, well, soldiers, but without dropping a single F-bomb. Ernest Hemingway included damn in The Sun Also Rises (1926) but had to settle for the oblique muck in "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (1940). And Norman Mailer famously substituted fug in "The Naked and the Dead" (1948).

The watershed moment wouldn’t come until 1960, with the obscenity trial of "Lady Chatterley’s Lover." D.H. Lawrence’s now-revered novel was initially banned or censored across the English-speaking world for its use of the word and explicit sexual descriptions. In the U.K., Penguin Books, the novel’s publisher, was brought to trial for violating the Obscene Publications Act 1959. The prosecution argued the novel would “deprave and corrupt” readers, but the jury found Penguin not guilty on account that such literature fell under the act’s public good provision. Other courts soon followed, and the novel is today viewed as a milestone in the counterculture movements that would usher in our more permissive social mores.

Evolution of the F-word: Since then, things seem to have come full circle. Once unutterable in polite society, the word has lost much of its stigma and can now be heard in the office, on TV, and even at the family dinner table (assuming the kids are playing in the other room). (Or not - CP)

As linguist Valerie Fridland points out, it is 28 times more common in literature today than when Lawrence wrote of Lady Chatterly’s illicit affair - to say nothing of its marquee status in titles. It’s the most tweeted cuss word by Americans, and in a truly stunning upset, it recently surpassed bloody as the favored obscenity among the British “This suggests that something has changed over the decades that has made such language less offensive, at least to a significant portion of the population,” Fridland writes. “And, even more than just an uptick in use, what is especially striking is how omnipresent even more offensive ‘bad’ words have become.”

A 2023 study looked at the word’s usage among British teens over several decades. It found that the word has undergone “delexicalization,” the process by which a word expands its range of contextual uses different from its original meaning. In this case, the word has become more functional than definitional. Much like that anonymous monk of yore, we use it today for that kick of expressive spice.

Fridland, who was not involved in the research, offers the example, “It’s f*cking hot in here.” This usage no longer carries any literal meaning. It’s there to amplify and emphasize just how hot it is. She writes: “By picking a word that has some shock value and takes a bit of verbal risk owing to its associated taboo use, it carries more impact. […] As swear words get put to work in less traditional/literal ways, their negative connotations are less likely to be the first thing that comes to mind upon hearing them.”

Even so, in some settings or groups, the word hasn’t completely lost its edge, and that’s for the best. We need words that give our expressions that emotional oomph and inform others just how disgusted, ecstatic, or angry we are. We need to be able to signal when our social hair is down or that we’re part of the in-group. And sometimes, we just need an easy way to distinguish the pastors from the shock jocks.

Should the day ever come when the word no longer fulfills these roles - hitting instead with all the impact of a “golly gee” - you can bet another one will step up to take its place. Until then, it will continue to evolve in our language in ever-resourceful and interesting ways."

"How It Really Is"

 

Shantaram"

“But I couldn't respond. My culture had taught me all the wrong things well. So I lay completely still, and gave no reaction at all. But the soul has no culture. The soul has no nations. The soul has no color or accent or way of life. The soul is forever. The soul is one. And when the heart has its moment of truth and sorrow, the soul can't be stilled. I clenched my teeth against the stars. I closed my eyes. I surrendered to sleep. One of the reasons why we crave love, and seek it so desperately, is that love is the only cure for loneliness, and shame, and sorrow. But some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths about yourself are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. And some things are just so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you.”
- Gregory David Roberts, "Shantaram"
"Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope.
Sometimes we cry with everything except tears.
In the end that’s all we have – to hold on tight until dawn.”

“For this is what we do. Put one foot forward and then the other. Lift our eyes to the snarl and smile of the world once more. Think. Act. Feel. Add our little consequence to the tides of good and evil that flood and drain the world. Drag our shadowed crosses into the hope of another night. Push our brave hearts into the promise of a new day. With love: the passionate search for truth other than our own. With longing: the pure, ineffable yearning to be saved. For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on. God help us. God forgive us. We live on.”
- Gregory David Roberts, “Shantaram”
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“Shantaram”
by Gregory David Roberts

“Crime and punishment, passion and loyalty, betrayal and redemption are only a few of the ingredients in “Shantaram,” a massive, over-the-top, mostly autobiographical novel. Shantaram is the name given Mr. Lindsay, or Linbaba, the larger-than-life hero. It means “man of God’s peace,” which is what the Indian people know of Lin. What they do not know is that prior to his arrival in Bombay he escaped from an Australian prison where he had begun serving a 19-year sentence. He served two years and leaped over the wall. He was imprisoned for a string of armed robberies performed to support his heroin addiction, which started when his marriage fell apart and he lost custody of his daughter. All of that is enough for several lifetimes, but for Greg Roberts, that’s only the beginning.

He arrives in Bombay with little money, an assumed name, false papers, an untellable past, and no plans for the future. Fortunately, he meets Prabaker right away, a sweet, smiling man who is a street guide. He takes to Lin immediately, eventually introducing him to his home village, where they end up living for six months. When they return to Bombay, they take up residence in a sprawling illegal slum of 25,000 people and Linbaba becomes the resident “doctor.” With a prison knowledge of first aid and whatever medicines he can cadge from doing trades with the local Mafia, he sets up a practice and is regarded as heaven-sent by these poor people who have nothing but illness, rat bites, dysentery, and anemia. He also meets Karla, an enigmatic Swiss-American woman, with whom he falls in love. Theirs is a complicated relationship, and Karla’s connections are murky from the outset.

Roberts is not reluctant to wax poetic; in fact, some of his prose is downright embarrassing. Throughout the novel, however, all 944 pages of it, every single sentence rings true. He is a tough guy with a tender heart, one capable of what is judged criminal behavior, but a basically decent, intelligent man who would never intentionally hurt anyone, especially anyone he knew. He is a magnet for trouble, a soldier of fortune, a picaresque hero: the rascal who lives by his wits in a corrupt society. His story is irresistible. Stay tuned for the prequel and the sequel.”
– Valerie Ryan

Freely read “Shantaram” online, by Gregory David Roberts, here:
There is a download option for registered users.

Bill Bonner, "America, What the Hell Happened?"

"America, What the Hell Happened?"
A retrospective look and the gradual decline of a once-great power...
by Bill Bonner

Baltimore, Maryland - "In Bishop Fulton J. Sheen’s book (1954, 63 cents), “Way to Happiness,” he lamented, and I quote, “Lenin once said that America would collapse by spending itself to death.” I assume that the good bishop was paraphrasing Vladimir. US Federal debt at the time stood at nearly $300 billion compared to the $33 trillion that you and colleagues have been slamming (rightfully) over the past several months. What a ‘way to happiness.’" ~ From a Dear Reader

"We are looking at how things have changed…from the dynamic prosperity of the ‘30 glorious years’ 1950-1980…when Bishop Sheen wrote his book…to the huge, (largely fake) boom of our adult lives, the 1980-2020 period. The rich got very rich in the second period, including Buffett and Munger. But everybody else struggled to stay even. Debt rose. Prices rose. Real wages did not.

As we’ve seen, Milton Friedman’s new money system did not really eliminate inflation and debt crises; it made them worse. Honest prices – especially honest prices for credit – are the True North to navigators on the wide capitalist sea. There’s a lot of water. And it’s not easy to get where you want to go. Distorting prices with Fed policy mistakes is like shifting the stars or bending the compass; a lot of sailors end up on the rocks.

In Search of a Solution: “Do you have to write about it every day?” asks a sympathetic reader. Of course not. But the facts change daily. And we, trying to make sense of them, can’t afford to get behind. It is like a giant box into which your 7-year-old has scrambled all of last year’s Christmas lights. The sooner you get started…untying the knots, following up the loose ends, replacing the bulbs…the sooner you’ll be able to put them up again. But how do the strands connect? Where are the plugs, the adapters…the switches? There’s no other solution: you have to dig in and find them.

Besides, our insights come with the news, in 24-hour cycles. We see the reports. We read the headlines. We wonder. Then, usually around 5am…we have an insight: we left the controls in the drawer under the sink! It’s not the actual price movements…or the incoming ‘data’…that complete the picture. Both are noisy, almost random. It’s the bigger picture we want to see. Humans have changed little over the last 200,000 years. They are fairly predictable. Read history and you will see the patterns. .

Empires, for example, follow a fairly well-known arc – from growth to expansion…and then overstretch, rising costs, corruption, decay…and finally, failure. America appears to be in the ‘rising costs-corruption’ stage. We know too that every empire that comes on the scene has to exit sooner or later. And here we are thinking not so much of the US empire itself, but of the entire last 500 years of European domination.

Historians and Grave Robbers: We leave it to future historians and grave robbers to tell us when the decline actually began, what caused it, and when we Americans became the ‘bad guys.’ We don’t know, of course, but we imagine the current period – in which Europe and America are complicit with Israel in obliterating Gaza – will feature prominently in their analyses. In the meantime, we focus on what big changes that have occurred over the last 70 years.

“What has happened to America?” asks a former US ambassador to the Soviet Union. Jack Matlock was instrumental in working with Reagan and Gorbachev on the ‘détente’ of the 1980s…which led to the end of the Soviet empire. Recently, he was looking at a speech he had given in 1982. It was a speech to the Czechs, explaining why America was such a great country. Re-reading it, he wonders: what went wrong?

Highlighting the differences between Soviet Rule and the US system, he said – in 1982 – that, in the US "…States and governments are created by the people to serve the people and that citizens must control the government rather than being controlled by it. Furthermore, we believe that there are areas of human life such as expression of opinion, the practice and teaching of religious beliefs, and the right of citizens to leave our country and return as they wish, which no government has the right to restrict.

Last week, Matlock wondered if we can…“Really say that our citizens “control the government” today? Twice in this century we have installed presidents who received fewer popular votes than their opponents did.”

The Ship of State: But that scarcely scrapes the surface. Even if citizens always got the politicians they voted for, they still would not get the policies they want. Who wants a $1 trillion deficit? But we have one. Who wants to support two wars overseas, neither of which is of any vital national interest? Who wants to pay for the billions squandered in agencies, committees, programs and departments encrusted like barnacles on the ship of state?

We heard from the directors of two of those parasite organizations on Saturday night. The scene was a museum ‘opening night.’ Center stage was the director of the National Endowment for the Humanities…and some other agency we never heard of. Both took applause for a show no member of Congress and few members of the ‘public’ will ever see. Still, the museum director, the trustees, board members, collectors, and art historians congratulated each for spending other peoples’ money.

Matlock continued in 1982: “Through our history we have faced many challenges but we have been able to surmount them through a process of open discussion, accommodation of competing interests, and ultimately by preserving the absolute right of our citizens to select their leaders and determine the policies which affect their lives.”

In 2023, Matlock has his doubts: "Since when have we seen an open discussion and accommodation of competing interests in the work of the U.S. Congress? When in this century has there been a debate on foreign policy? Why has Congress repeatedly authorized violence normally legal only during a state of war without voting a declaration of war as the Constitution requires?"

In 1982, he went on: "We are convinced that no individual and no group possesses a monopoly of wisdom and that our society can be successful only if all have the right freely to express opinions, make suggestions and organize groups to promote their views.

In 2023, the story is different. You have a right to free speech “Unless you are a Member of Congress who speaks out in defense of the rights of Palestinians to live in freedom in their ancestral lands, or students at Columbia University who wish to do the same.”

In 1982, he proclaimed the intent of US foreign policy was to...“Work for a world in which human diversity is not only tolerated but protected, a world in which negotiation and accommodation replace force as the means of settling disputes.” Forty-one years later, he wonders what we were doing in “Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Syria, or Palestine…or, for that matter, in Iran, Cuba, or Venezuela.”.

Ambassador Matlock was upbeat in 1982. His cause was just. His conscience was clear. He winds up: "Nevertheless, I speak to you today with optimism, since I know that my country enters the 207th year of its independence with the determination not only to preserve the liberties we have at home but to devote our energies and resources to maintaining peace in the world.

And then, his head pops up 41 years later and asks: “OH, LORD, WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO US?” “Is this the ‘way to happiness?” he might have followed up. Ambassador Matlock is referring to US foreign policy. What about domestic policy? What has happened to us there? Stay tuned..."

"Russia & Turkey Ready to Send Troops In Gaza To Stop Israel!"

Full screen recommended.
Tech Beat, 12/7/23
"Russia & Turkey Ready to 
Send Troops In Gaza To Stop Israel!"

We look at the most recent international happenings, with a special focus on the ongoing Gaza conflict and the unexpected entry of Russia and Turkey into this geopolitical arena. In this video, we will go over the reasons for Russia and Turkey's decision to potentially send troops to Gaza, the repercussions of their action, and the larger context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

As tensions in Gaza continue to rise, Russia and Turkey's involvement has raised questions on a worldwide scale. Both countries have aggressively sought to increase their influence in the Middle East, battling with regional rivals and competitors. This move emphasizes the volatile geopolitical situation, in which global powers attempt to assert their position in an area riddled with complicated historical and political difficulties.

One of the primary motivators for Russia and Turkey to participate is their enormous geopolitical interests in the Middle East. Russia, led by President Vladimir Putin, has progressively increased its regional influence, frequently putting it in direct rivalry with other global powers such as the United States and China. Turkey, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has likewise been forceful in pursuing regional interests, challenging adversaries, and positioning itself as a champion of a variety of causes, including the Palestinian conflict.

Furthermore, the humanitarian concerns raised by the Gaza conflict have spurred Russia and Turkey to take the global arena. The international community, including competing states and competitors, has expressed grave concern about Gaza's deteriorating humanitarian situation. Images of civilian victims, including women and children, have aroused outrage around the world, putting pressure on countries to act and address the growing humanitarian crisis.

The global community is concerned about the potential consequences of Russian and Turkish action, particularly for competing nations and rivals interested in the Middle East. While the goal is to achieve a cease-fire and end the fighting, the approach is fraught with danger. The escalation of violence, the involvement of neighboring countries, and the complication of international diplomatic efforts are all possibilities that could have far-reaching ramifications for global stability.

Furthermore, Russia and Turkey's involvement in the Gaza conflict may spark larger regional involvement, perhaps attracting competitors such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. These regional adversaries have major interests in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and may respond to foreign military presence in Gaza with their own activities, aggravating the situation even further.

Turkey's decision to send troops to Gaza may also have an influence on its relations with rivals and competitors, particularly Israel. As a result of this decision, the long-strained ties between Turkey and Israel may worsen further, impacting the dynamics of the Middle East and increasing concerns among major countries with interests in the region.

The duration of Russian and Turkish troops' deployment in Gaza is unknown, which could have consequences for the region and its adversaries. If foreign soldiers become engaged in the battle, the geopolitical environment may transform, potentially leading to a longer international participation with implications for contending countries and regional stability.

Historical disagreements, the influence of the United States, peace talks, and the presence of groups such as Hamas all add to the complexities of the situation in the broader framework of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Competitors, adversaries, and global powers have historically influenced the conflict's development, making the Gaza issue a focal point of international diplomacy.

The probable engagement of Russia and Turkey in the Gaza crisis highlights the complexities of the Middle Eastern geopolitical scene. As global powers, rivals, and competitors vie for influence and strive to solve humanitarian issues, the world will be watching to see how this development affects the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the larger regional dynamics. Stay tuned to our channel for more in-depth analysis and updates on this vital subject and its global consequences."
o
17,000 dead Palestinians...old people, women and 6,000 CHILDREN! Shame and disgrace on the bloodthirsty MONSTERS doing this, and shame and disgrace on US for allowing and supporting this genocidal slaughter! - CP!

Gregory Mannarino, "AM/PM: This Entire Thing Is Coming Apart!"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 12/7/23
"This Entire Thing Is Coming Apart! 
Banks, Markets, Debt Hyper-Bubble, Much More"
Comments here:
Gregory Mannarino, PM 12/7/23
"Massive Effort To Keep Stocks Propped Up, 
And We Haven't Seen Anything Yet!"
Comments here:

Jeremiah Babe, "How Can The Broke Paycheck To Paycheck Consumer Buy A House?"

Jeremiah Babe, 12/6/23
"How Can The Broke Paycheck To Paycheck Consumer
 Buy A House? US Economy Built On Bubbles"
Comments here:

Wednesday, December 6, 2023

Canadian Prepper, "Alert! 'Big Event Coming Soon'"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 12/6/23
"Alert! 'Big Event Coming Soon', China Will Make 
Move Very Soon; 'They're Not Telling Us The Truth!"
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: Leonard Cohen, "Hallelujah"

Full screen recommended.
Leonard Cohen, "Hallelujah" (Live In London)

"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 Poet: Charles Bukowski, "The Laughing Heart"

“Get Up Off Your Knees!”

“Get Up Off Your Knees!”
On your knees you may live to see another day,
but you’ll never live to see better days.
by Robert Gore 

“Zoos are among the saddest places on earth: magnificent but confined creatures on display for gawking crowds, prevented from living out their biological destinies, fed their daily rations, and domesticated beyond where they could ever return to the wild. You have to feel pity and sorrow for these innocent prisoners; they’d flee in a heartbeat if they could.

Humans have made themselves inmates – whether of a zoo, prison, or asylum is hard to say, likely a combination of all three. Animals earn our admiration because they resist losing their freedom. Humans occasionally do too, but usually surrender theirs for promises and trifles. The promises are broken and the trifles grow more trifling as humanity for the most part gives up. Keep people amused and make sure the rations don’t stop and no outrage rousts them to try to reclaim their birthright. When they visit the zoo, the animals stare back at them with contempt.

In this country, we sing, “Sweet land of liberty,” and, “The land of the free, and the home of the brave.” We incant “freedom” and “liberty” during election seasons, but anything beyond that is considered embarrassing, bad form. A legislator denouncing a proposed law as an infringement of freedom would be regarded as a lunatic. Millions of pages of federal, state, and local laws and regulations already infringe freedom. The denouncer might be irrefutably right, but his denunciation would be irrelevant.

While wildlife should be free in the wild, coping with the risks to the best of their capabilities, humans are supposedly unsuited for freedom. Free humans might develop their own talents and capabilities, produce, exchange, exercise their rights, and engage in voluntary association and social intercourse, all unsupervised. You can argue that such activities are generally beneficial. However, there is a special class who are permitted to supervise and coerce the rest of us, to curtail our freedom. This special class ensures fairness or equality or some such thing. Who knows what might happen without them. Think of the dangers!

Just consider the concept of people deciding what’s in their own best interest. A hyphenated word lurks: self-interest. The special people are motivated by everything but self-interest, or so they say. Indeed, nobility of motive justifies their power and the destruction of your liberty. The desire to better your life is selfish, unlike the impulses supposedly animating those holding the guns to your head. After widespread surrender, few champion their right to their own lives, which is selfish after all, or challenge the special people’s moral superiority, which confers their right to hold the guns.

It might mitigate moral condemnation for liberty’s surrender if it had produced some benefit for those waving the white flag. An old bromide has it that liberty is irrelevant when people are starving. Nothing is further from the truth; it’s freedom that feeds people, creates wealth, and advances humanity. The historical record offers ample proof. It’s the absence of liberty that produces starvation, poverty, decay, destruction, genocide, and war. Here too the historical record is clear, one need go no farther back than the last century. During this ascendancy of the special people, humanity fought its two deadliest wars and over a hundred million were murdered, victims of special plans for a better world.

But somehow it’s liberty that’s dangerous. Fortunately the special people still rule, to make sure it doesn’t break out somewhere. Their reign assures that this century will challenge the last for the title: Century of Slaughter. They see their subjects are domesticated draft animals, just smart enough to keep economies running, not smart enough to challenge domestication. However, it’s been free minds and free markets, not draft animals, that have produced the wonders that make modern life modern. Welfare states are halfway houses to totalitarianism. As they grow, liberty shrinks and progress slows, stops, and reverses, the deterioration culminating in either anarchy or tyranny.

Judging from the prevalence of terms like “secular stagnation” and the “end of growth,” we are in the stop phase and reversal is nigh. People have seen their freedom shrink and have borne the consequences, although most don’t make the connection between the two. Incomes have stagnated, opportunities have diminished, life grows ever coarser, and fear of a looming apocalypse pervades the popular consciousness. Many are preparing for a future in which modernity is no longer modern, where access to necessities and conveniences cannot be taken for granted. Guns and gold are at the top of checklists, for a day when the inevitable failure of the special people leads to the inevitable tyranny or anarchy.

The discontent sweeping the planet is recognition that things are wrong on multiple fronts, although recognition of the root cause is rare. The idea that changing the hands on the levers offers solutions is magical thinking. The problems stem from granting the special people the levers in the first place. They may be replaced, but once the replacements have their hands on the levers, they’ll feel special, too. Power assuredly corrupts.

We’re closer to the real solution in the lament: “Why can’t they just leave us alone?” They – the special people – must leave us alone, it’s our moral right. Those who think the collapse will never come, or that freedom can be reclaimed without a fight, delude themselves. The craven adage: It’s better to live on one’s knees than die on one’s feet, offers a false choice. On your knees you may live to see another day, but you’ll never live to see better days. You may die on your feet, but liberty offers the only hope for better days. It’s worth fighting for. It’s worth dying for.”

The Daily "Near You?"

Missoula, Montana, USA. Thanks for stopping by!