"Why You Can Do Anything You Want… And Why You Can’t"

"Why You Can Do Anything You Want…

And Why You Can’t"

by Paul Rosenberg

"People frequently tell children “You can do anything you want.” And this causes a lot of confusion, because in the real world, they can’t. And after their first clash with the aforesaid real world, the child is left wondering all sorts of unpleasant things:

Did mom and dad lie to me?

Are they just ignorant?

Am I defective?

Should I find someone to blame?

The worst thing about this, however, is that the child is likely to have their opinion of themselves reduced. And that’s tragic. As I’ve noted many times, we are magical creatures. Humans, alone in the known universe, are able to create willfully… are able to reverse entropy willingly. The child should think of his and her self as magical… because they really are! So, let’s make some sense of this problem.

Why You Can: Humans are radically amazing. Sure, we’ve been long trained to consider each other to be sacks of crap – a belief that’s essential to rulership – but it simply isn’t true. We are stunningly capable beings, and we generally behave pretty well, even under the reign of self-debasement.

Take a look around you. Wherever you live, you’re surrounded by buildings, roads, and cars. All of them exist only because of human virtues. Without human creativity, they could not exist. Without human cooperation, they could not exist. And they are everywhere. We’ve filled the Earth with hospitals and airplanes and food and computers and medicine. And the list could go on almost indefinitely.

More than that, we’ve learned how to cooperate very well. Forget wars; they’re run by competing states and will exist as long as states do. Instead, look at your local soccer league, little league, church choir, and family gathering.

And remember that we’ve been trained to see one flaw in a cooperative group and condemn the whole from it. (And to hypnotically accept any and every flaw of the state.) A few flaws are meaningless compared to modes of cooperation that thrive over decades, centuries, and millennia. Does being less than perfect make us monsters? Does anything less than 100% equal zero?

So, we are wonderful creatures. And how much better might we be if we dared consider that possibility? Here’s a quote from G.K. Chesterton that I’d like you to read: "There runs a strange law through the length of human history – that men are continually tending to undervalue their environment, to undervalue their happiness, to undervalue themselves. The great sin of mankind, the sin typified by the fall of Adam, is the tendency, not towards pride, but towards this weird and horrible humility."

Can we dare imagine that Chesterton was right? And if not, why not? That kind of imagination is what the child needs, and it is that kind of imagination that results in human thriving, as noted by Leon Battista Alberti, the epitome of the Renaissance Man: "A man can do all things if he will."

Yes, that’s a bit overstated, but we have the essential ability to do amazing things, and if we thought and acted like it – thought and acted like Leon Battista Alberti – we’d do a lot more amazing things.

Why You Can’t: There are two reasons you can’t do anything at all. The first is simple: Nature stands in your way. No matter how much we imagine we can do something, if nature doesn’t agree, we can’t do it. We can work with nature to do “impossible” things (building flying machines for example), but we can’t simply violate it.

The second reason is also simple: Other human wills oppose us and stand ready to use violence against us. This second reason is habitually cloaked in confusing and deceptive terminology of course, but the truth is that adversarial wills and their violence oppose us all.

What we lack is what we can call “a life affording scope.” Limitations of our scope – weaponized wills set against us – have been colorfully covered by Reason magazine’s “Brickbats” section for decades, but the problem goes much farther than that. I’ll give you a few thoughts on that, then bring this column to a close:

• Regulation forbids adaptation.

• Obligation supplants compassion.

• Only violent and corrupt human wills deserve restriction.

And one more, the "14 words" we used in a previous article: "We are a beautiful species, living in a beautiful world, ruled by abusive systems." This is why I’ve been drawn to the cryptosphere. Our scope of life within that realm is not obstructed by weaponized wills. It’s a special place."

- https://freemansperspective.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Homestead, Florida, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"‘Now I Am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.’ The Story of Oppenheimer’s Infamous Quote"

"‘Now I Am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.’ 

The Story of Oppenheimer’s Infamous Quote"

By James Temperton

"As he witnessed the first detonation of a nuclear weapon on July 16, 1945, a piece of Hindu scripture ran through the mind of J. Robert Oppenheimer: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” It is, perhaps, the most well-known line from the Bhagavad Gita, but also the most misunderstood.

Oppenheimer, the subject of a new film from director Christopher Nolan, died at the age of 62 in Princeton, New Jersey, on February 18, 1967. As wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory, the birthplace of the Manhattan Project, he is rightly seen as the “father” of the atomic bomb. “We knew the world would not be the same,” he later recalled. “A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent.”

Oppenheimer, watching the fireball of the Trinity nuclear test, turned to Hinduism. While he never became a Hindu in the devotional sense, Oppenheimer found it a useful philosophy to structure his life around. “He was obviously very attracted to this philosophy,” says Stephen Thompson, who has spent more than 30 years studying and teaching Sanskrit. Oppenheimer’s interest in Hinduism was about more than a sound bite, Thompson argues. It was a way of making sense of his actions.

The Bhagavad Gita is 700-verse Hindu scripture, written in Sanskrit, that centers on a dialog between a great warrior prince named Arjuna and his charioteer Lord Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu. Facing an opposing army containing his friends and relatives, Arjuna is torn. But Krishna teaches him about a higher philosophy that will enable him to carry out his duties as a warrior irrespective of his personal concerns. This is known as the dharma, or holy duty. It is one of the four key lessons of the Bhagavad Gita, on desire or lust; wealth; the desire for righteousness, or dharma; and the final state of total liberation, moksha.

Seeking his counsel, Arjuna asks Krishna to reveal his universal form. Krishna obliges, and in verse 12 of the Gita he manifests as a sublime, terrifying being of many mouths and eyes. It is this moment that entered Oppenheimer’s mind in July 1945. “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one,” was Oppenheimer’s translation of that moment in the desert of New Mexico.

In Hinduism, which has a non-linear concept of time, the great god is involved in not only the creation, but also the dissolution. In verse 32, Krishna says the famous line. In it “death” literally translates as “world-destroying time,” says Thompson, adding that Oppenheimer’s Sanskrit teacher chose to translate “world-destroying time” as “death,” a common interpretation. Its meaning is simple: Irrespective of what Arjuna does, everything is in the hands of the divine.

"Arjuna is a soldier, he has a duty to fight. Krishna, not Arjuna, will determine who lives and who dies and Arjuna should neither mourn nor rejoice over what fate has in store, but should be sublimely unattached to such results,” says Thompson. “And ultimately the most important thing is he should be devoted to Krishna. His faith will save Arjuna’s soul." But Oppenheimer, seemingly, was never able to achieve this peace. “In some sort of crude sense which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatements can quite extinguish,” he said, two years after the Trinity explosion, “the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.”

“He doesn’t seem to believe that the soul is eternal, whereas Arjuna does,” says Thompson. “The fourth argument in the Gita is really that death is an illusion, that we’re not born and we don’t die. That’s the philosophy, really. That there’s only one consciousness and that the whole of creation is a wonderful play.” Oppenheimer, perhaps, never believed that the people killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki would not suffer. While he carried out his work dutifully, he could never accept that this could liberate him from the cycle of life and death. In stark contrast, Arjuna realizes his error and decides to join the battle.

“Krishna is saying you have to simply do your duty as a warrior,” says Thompson. “If you were a priest you wouldn’t have to do this, but you are a warrior and you have to perform it. In the larger scheme of things, presumably, the bomb represented the path of the battle against the forces of evil, which were epitomized by the forces of fascism.”

For Arjuna, it may have been comparatively easy to be indifferent to war because he believed the souls of his opponents would live on regardless. But Oppenheimer felt the consequences of the atomic bomb acutely. “He hadn’t got that confidence that the destruction, ultimately, was an illusion,” says Thompson. Oppenheimer’s apparent inability to accept the idea of an immortal soul would always weigh heavy on his mind."

- https://www.wired.com/

o

Freely download the "Bhagavad Gita" here:

- https://rickpdx.files.wordpress.com/

"If We Have No Idea..."

“If we have no idea what we believe in, we’ll go along with anything. Truth takes courage. Courage to stand up for what we believe in. Not necessarily in a confrontational way, but in a gentle yet firm way. Like an oak tree, able to sway gently in the wind, but strongly rooted to the ground.”  -  A.C. Ping

"How the Middle East’s Poorest Country Confounds Its Adversaries"

"How the Middle East’s Poorest Country 

Confounds Its Adversaries"

by International Man

"International Man: Yemen has sometimes been called “the Afghanistan of the Middle East” because it is an impoverished tribal society that is well-armed, situated on mountainous terrain, and generally inhospitable to foreign invaders and a central government. What are your impressions of this country?

Doug Casey: Regrettably, I haven’t been to Yemen and have no plans on going - partly because I’ve seen enough similar flyblown Islamic hellholes. But it’s well known that the country is extremely primitive, poor, tribal, and very religious.

Yemenis take their Mohammedanism quite seriously. No offense to believers, but the more primitive, poorer, and more tribal a place is, the greater the tendency for their lives to revolve around religion. It binds them together and gives their lives meaning. It is not a good place for foreigners of a different race, religion, or culture to invade. This begs the question, why would anybody want to invade it? There’s nothing there of any real value. Maybe there are some undeveloped resources, but the natural resource business is high risk/high cost under even the best circumstances. You certainly don’t want to invest in a place with unfriendly natives. So, it’s entirely insane for outsiders to care about Yemen.

It has been said that war is nature’s way of teaching Americans geography. That’s true. Not one American in a thousand even knew the place existed until a few weeks ago; now, they all have opinions on what “we” should do, even if they still can’t find it on a map. But fear not. Even as we speak, plenty of reasons why we should care about Yemen are being fabricated in DC.

International Man: Yemen has long been a difficult place for foreign invaders. Most recently, the Houthis, an Iran-backed group that controls most of Yemen, frustrated the military coalition of Saudi Arabia and its allies. Though most people are unaware of this war or its details, it is remarkable that the Saudis, who are among the wealthiest in the Middle East and backed by the military and political support of the US, could not defeat the Middle East’s most impoverished people in Yemen. What is your take on the Houthi–Saudi Arabian conflict and its implications?

Doug Casey: I doubt if one American out of 10,000, or even 100,000, had even heard the word Houthi before last year, but now it’s everywhere in the news. And for some reason, they’ve become our problem.

There used to be two Yemens - North Yemen and South Yemen - that were quite different politically and sociologically. They fought each other, then united in 1990. Now, the Houthis, who are Shia (hence the relations with Iran), are fighting a civil war with other locals. But it doesn’t seem to me Yemen is or has ever been a real nation-state. It’s impoverished, with no industry to speak of or the prospect of getting any. The income it has is from some oil production, and it all goes to corruption and paying the army. It has a large foreign trade deficit and debt. And the population is very young and exploding in numbers. It is, by any and every measure, one of the very most dysfunctional and essentially worthless places in the world.

It’s almost always a mistake for foreigners to get involved in another country’s civil war, especially when it has religious overtones. It doesn’t matter which side you back; the people that you’re backing are not your friends, and the people on the other side will really hate you. It’s a no-win situation for the US. None of our business, with no upside. Except for US Government operatives who get to play bigshot.

International Man: Yemen sits at the gateway of the Bab-el-Mandeb, a strategic maritime choke point that gives the Houthis the ability to disrupt global shipping. The Houthis have targeted Israeli-linked ships in the region in support of the Palestinians in Gaza. A US-led military coalition has started bombing targets in Yemen in response. What do you think of the US intervention in Yemen and its direction?

Doug Casey: It’s absolutely insane, pointless, and almost certain to escalate. Why, you might ask, is the US government bombing a primitive country on the other side of the world that has never done anything to us and poses zero threat? The US is committing a giant war crime. Attacking a foreign country without provocation is a war crime. Furthermore, this adventure will fail for the same reason that the US lost in Afghanistan.

It’s uneconomic to fight primitive people with modern weapons. Our million-dollar missiles blow up huts in the sand. At some point, some of their $10,000 missiles are going to get through and destroy a billion-dollar warship. The situation resembles what happened with Rome and the barbarians. The barbarians were a danger, but the more time that the Romans spent warring against them, the more technologies, strategies, and tactics the barbarians picked up from the Romans. There was nothing that the Romans could get from the barbarians. Except for the glory of killing lots of savages, it was a losing deal. But they had no choice. The enemy was at the gates, and they had to fight the invasion.

The US, however, is not being invaded, at least not formally. And certainly not by Houthis or other Yemenis. What’s happening with the millions of aliens being subsidized to cross its southern border is a different question for another time.

The point is that it’s foolish for the US to engage with these primitive countries not just because the pointless war adds to our bankruptcy bill while making millions of new enemies. But because we wind up either putting them on welfare, like the Ukraine, or involuntarily bequeathing them scores of billions of dollars of weapons, as the US did in Afghanistan.

The gateway to the Red Sea is a maritime choke point. It’s important for the Egyptians, the Israelis, some Europeans, and the Chinese. If anybody is going to waste blood and capital while making enemies, it should be those people, not the US, which has absolutely no interest in the area. It’s essentially between the Houthis and Israel. It’s certainly not our problem.

International Man: What geopolitical trends do you see shaping the Middle East and beyond in the months ahead?

Doug Casey: The Middle East will definitely be reshaped, but it’s not ours to reshape. Every country in the Middle East is an artificial construct, the same as every country in Africa. They were assembled arbitrarily in the drawing rooms of Europe in the last century. There was no thought about the language, culture, ethnicity, or political allegiances of the people in the area. These countries will all disintegrate.

“Syria,” for instance, is no longer a country; it’s only a region. It’s become at least three or four different countries since the US fomented the civil war in 2011.

The same is true of “Libya,” which is now two separate countries, although nobody mentions that. There’s no reason why they should reunite.

Lebanon seems like one country, but Hezbollah runs substantial parts of the country, and the official government runs others. Not to mention numerous religious and ethnic groups that are all at each other’s throats. It’s not a real country anymore, although, at one time, it was the only Christian country in the Middle East. That’s changed - permanently.

You can be certain that Iraq is going to break up into at least three countries - a Shiite, a Sunni, and a Kurdish part. “Iraq” didn’t exist before 1920.

People in that part of the world take the religion of The Prophet (peace be upon him, as they say) very seriously. And they don’t appreciate Christian soldiers running around trying to rearrange things any more than we would appreciate Mohammedan soldiers in the US or Europe.

The US government is overextending itself by interfering in every corner of the globe. It’s all financed by massive amounts of money printing. However, the next financial crisis could end the whole charade soon. The truth is, we’re on the cusp of a global economic crisis that could eclipse anything we’ve seen before. And most people won’t be prepared for what’s coming."

- https://internationalman.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

"Yemen Ready For War? 

Houthis Order American, British UN Staff To Exit Country"

"What Are We All?"

"What can we know? What are we all?
Poor silly half-brained things peering out at the infinite,
with the aspirations of angels and the instincts of beasts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Dan, I Allegedly, "I Hope You Didn't Buy a Car Here"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 1/24/24

"I Hope You Didn't Buy a Car Here"

"Once again, we are told how great the economy is and now another discount car retailer goes down for the count. People are going to get stuck with DMV problems, service problems, and no roadside assistance. This is absolutely tragic."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

"It Is Our Fate..."

"Well, it is our fate to live in a time of crisis. To live in a time when all forms and values are being challenged. In other and more easy times, it was not, perhaps, necessary for the individual to confront himself with a clear question: What is it that you really believe? What is it that you really cherish? What is it for which you might, actually, in a showdown, be willing to die? I say, with all the reticence which such large, pathetic words evoke, that one cannot exist today as a person, one cannot exist in full consciousness, without having to have a showdown with one's self, without having to define what it is that one lives by, without being clear in one's mind what matters and what does not matter."

- Dorothy Thompson

Jeremiah Babe, "Sorry, Cash Not Accepted; America Is For Sale To The Highest Bidder"

Jeremiah Babe, 1/23/24

"Sorry, Cash Not Accepted; 

America Is For Sale To The Highest Bidder"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"The 2024 Debt Spiral: How $1 Trillion in Interest Is Breaking the Federal Budget"

"The 2024 Debt Spiral: How $1 Trillion

 in Interest Is Breaking the Federal Budget"

by Nick Giambruno

"Contrary to conventional wisdom, higher interest rates mean more inflation in the environment today. That’s because the federal interest expense increases as interest rates rise. As the federal interest expense rises, so does the budget deficit. As the budget deficit increases, so does the currency debasement needed to finance it.

Skyrocketing interest expense will have an enormous impact on the US budget. Even according to the US government’s rosy projections, the interest expense on the federal debt will exceed $1 trillion for the first time in 2024… and it shows no sign of slowing down. On the contrary, it’s growing exponentially. First, it’s essential to understand the basics of the US federal budget. Let’s zoom out and look at the largest components of the US federal budget from the latest available data in the chart below. (Click image to enlarge.)

The biggest expenditures for the US government are so-called entitlements. It’s not likely any politician will cut these. On the contrary, I expect them to continue to grow. With the most precarious geopolitical situation since World War 2, so-called "National Defense" seems unlikely to be cut. Instead, military spending is all but certain to increase.

Income Security is a catch-all category for different types of welfare. That’s unlikely to be cut too. Unless it becomes politically acceptable to cut things like Social Security, military spending, and welfare, efforts to make a dent in expenditures won’t be meaningful. Further, interest expense (Net Interest above) is set to explode higher.

The US government projects that the federal interest expense will exceed $1 trillion in 2024 for the first time. That means the interest expense will exceed defense and everything else in the budget except for Social Security, which it will also likely exceed soon.

As the cost of debt service is taking up a larger portion of the budget, there is less for other expenditures. That means the government has to borrow increasingly larger amounts to maintain basic functions. However, it’s worse than issuing more debt to cover Social Security and the military. The US government is now borrowing money to pay interest on the federal debt, which has a compounding effect as the federal debt and interest expense grow exponentially. I suspect we are close to the inflection point where it gets out of control. 2024 could be the year that it becomes evident the US is trapped in a debt spiral.

Here’s the bottom line with the budget. The most significant expenditures have nowhere to go but up. But don’t count on increased revenue to offset these increases. Even if tax rates went to 100%, it would not be enough to stop the deficits - and the debt needed to finance them - from growing. The US government is out of options. Therefore, the question is not whether it will default but how.

When faced with a choice, politicians always choose the most expedient option. In this case, that means issuing more debt rather than making tough budget decisions or explicitly defaulting. There is a big problem with that, though. As the amount of debt skyrockets, the interest rate rises to entice buyers and holders. Allowing interest rates to rise high enough to entice natural buyers would bankrupt the US government because of the higher interest costs, which are set to become the largest item in the budget.

So, I would not expect the Fed to raise interest rates much more. In fact, they have already paused the rate hikes and are signaling a pivot to easing again, likely for this exact reason. That means the Fed has effectively given up on bringing price inflation down even though the year-over-year change in the CPI remains above 4%, more than double the Fed’s target of 2%. In other words, even with their own crooked statistics and rigged game, the Fed has failed even to come close to their inflation target. It’s a massive failure. Bloomberg is already hailing it "The Great Monetary Pivot of 2024."

It’s crucial to understand that by surrendering to inflation, the Fed is returning to the same policies that caused prices to rise in the first place. So, if higher interest rates are off the table and cannot entice more natural buyers, who will finance these growing multi-trillion dollar budget deficits? The only entity capable is the Federal Reserve, which buys Treasuries with dollars it creates out of thin air. That’s why I am convinced extreme currency debasement is the inevitable outcome. All the rest is noise.

The US government’s only practical option is ever-increasing currency debasement… and it could devastate most people. I suspect it will all go down soon… and it won’t be pretty. It will result in an enormous wealth transfer from savers and regular people to the parasitic class -politicians, central bankers, and those connected to them. Countless millions throughout history were wiped out financially - or worse - because they failed to see the correct Big Picture as their governments went bankrupt."

- https://internationalman.com/

Greg Hunter, "Landslide Trump Victory in 2024"

"Landslide Trump Victory in 2024"

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong has correctly predicted every presidential race since the 1980’s with his “Socrates” data mining program. The 2024 race, featuring Donald J. Trump, is shaping up to be the most lopsided race for the White House in history. Armstrong explains, “Trump should win. This data has even shocked me, and it’s been right on every election and even Brexit. It’s basically showing, out of 6 models, it is showing four basically all for Trump, but two of them are showing absolute unbelievable landslides. It’s showing 61% for Trump. The computer has never come up before with this complete gap. In 2016, it showed Trump would win, but not overwhelming, but this one is absolutely stunning.”

Many say that they can stop Trump by cheating more than in 2020. Armstrong is seeing that the margins are so big they cannot cheat enough to fill the gap. Armstrong contends, “That’s the way it is shaping up. If you look at the polls on confidence in government, even Europe is down to only 30% of the people trust government anymore. We are looking at a serious collapse in the confidence of government on every level you want to look at. Our computer also shows that this election is not going to be accepted by the other side. Honestly, I have never seen our computer project such a landslide. The Biden Administration, in all honesty, is a complete disaster.”

Armstrong says interest rates are going to continue to edge up along with the federal debt. Armstrong points out, “If you pay attention, Fed Head Jay Powell came out in the beginning of December, and he actually said, ‘The spending is unsustainable.’ The Federal Reserve does not criticize the current administration. For him to say this, you know it is getting bad. This says the Fed knows we have a problem here. The higher rates go, the more unstable the banks become. We are in a sovereign debt crisis now.”

How will they pay all this back? Armstrong says, “I think they want to deliberately start a war, and the way they get out of the debt crisis. I think they will refuse to pay all the debt that China holds. That’s it. Any enemy that holds US debt, they are simply not going to pay it.”

Armstrong also says there is a plan to run Michelle Obama in place of Joe Biden for President in 2024. Again, Armstrong says that is not going to stop a Trump landslide. There is also talk of the UN and the WHO taking control of the world in the next medical crisis or pandemic. Armstrong’s computers do not see that working out either. Armstrong does see a peak in global disease and sickness in 2026. Armstrong points out that could be a combination of the nearly 14 billion global CV19 vax injections and some new disease unleashed on the public, too. Armstrong also sees a Deep State that is so desperate to beat Trump that “it will start a war in August or September” just before the November election. Armstrong says that the Deep State is so evil that even if Trump does win, they will get him involved in a world war that will not be easy to walk back. Armstrong says the biggest fear his global clients have is World War III getting started before Trump can get back into office.” There is much more in the 1-hour and 2-minute in-depth interview.

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One 

with Martin Armstrong, financial and geopolitical cycle expert. 

- https://rumble.com/

"Feds Spent $20 Billion On Migrant Refugee Assistance"

"Feds Spent $20 Billion On Migrant Refugee Assistance"

by Adam Andrzejewski

"The U.S. border patrol made 2.5 million migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2023, an all-time high. There seems to be no end in sight, or meaningful plan from the Biden administration to stop or slow the number of people coming over the border. Meanwhile, federal funds flowing to migrants are growing at an exponential rate.

Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com looked at just one federal office to get an idea of how much spending is going towards accommodating, transporting, and providing migrants with various other services. The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), a part of Health and Human Services, is a major vehicle for migrant-related spending. Congress appropriated $20 billion in just two years on “refugee and entrant assistance.”

Background: Last year, we published an oversight report on the unaccompanied children program run by the agency: up to 85,000 minors were lost after “sponsorship” with a “vetted” guardian. The New York Times found credible allegations of child labor law violations and congressional whistleblowers detailed large-scale child trafficking.

Now, our investigation into the agency reveals new oversight: 1. billion-dollar spending spikes in the adult refugee programs; and 2. potential conflicts-of-interest between agency leadership and its largest grant recipients. In fact, for decades, agency director Robin Dunn Marcos was employed in executive positions by two non-profit organizations that are among the agency’s largest grantees. Here is a five minute interview describing the big issues in our reporting:

$20 Billion For Refugee Care (2022-2023): Refugee and entrant assistance totaled a stunning $20 billion over the last two fiscal years. The costs rose from $8.925 billion (FY2022) to $10.928 billion (FY 2023).

Across all programs, the Administration of Children and Families (ORR’s parent agency) received funding of $2.94 billion in Afghanistan Supplemental Appropriation and additional supplementals just in fiscal year FY2022 (P.L. 117-43 and P.L. 117-70). Ukrainian refugees cost taxpayers $900 million in FY2022 and $1.775 billion in FY2023 (P.L. 117-128 and P.L. 117-180).

In its latest Congressional Budget Justification, the agency suggested expanding its mandate still further by providing more services to a broader range of applicants, advocating that:“Special Immigrant Juvenile Minors” within the “Unaccompanied Refugee Minor” program access the same benefits as refugees, which include access to Medicaid and the same foster care services as American children.

• Legal assistance to Ukrainian and Afghan children and other URM-designated youth to legal assistance ensuring permanent residency.
• Cash assistance to full-time college or technical school students for refugees.
• Removing the need for refugees to obtain economic self-sufficiency “as quickly as possible.”

• All aspects of programmatic activities - from who is eligible to how much is spent - is authorized by Congress.

An Explosion In Funding For Refugee And Entrant Assistance Discretionary Grants:The Refugee and Entrant Assistance Grants are just one of many refugee-focused programs offered by the Administration for Children and Families. These grants are intended to serve those with the following legal status: asylees, refugees, survivors of torture, victims of trafficking, special immigrant visa holders (such as those from the Afghanistan Operation Allies Welcome) and entrants from Cuba and Haiti.

The grants cover a wide variety of programs, such as the Individual Development Accounts program, which helps eligible people save for asset purchases like a car or a house, and the Refugee Microenterprise Development program, which helps qualified people build credit through business and personal loans.

From 2013-2023, ORR doled out over $1.5 billion in grants under the Discretionary Grants category. But much of this spending occurred in 2022 and 2023. Between 2021 and 2022 grant spending went from $33 million to over $400 million. In 2023 this spending was $615,601,449.

The “Preferred Communities Program” within the Refugee and Entrant Assistance category accounted for over half of all spending for this category in 2022: $275,949,105. In 2023 that spending was up to $436,247,481. These funds were split between just seven organizations.

A summary of the benefits of ORR’s Preferred Communities Program reads: "offers intensive case management to overcome barriers” to “extremely vulnerable individuals." One grantee lists the program’s benefits:

• Emergency housing support (if necessary)
• Work authorization application
• Public benefits application
• Medical screening
• School enrollment
• Referrals to employment programs
• Cultural orientation
• Mental health referrals
• Legal assistance referrals

Both IRC and Church World Service have been some of biggest recipients of Refugee and Entrant Assistance Discretionary Grants over the years. From FY 2013-2023 IRC received over $180 million in these grants from ORR, and Church World Service received nearly $125 million.

IRC is a huge international nonprofit, collecting over $924 million in contributions and grants in 2020, according to tax documents. That same year IRC executive director David Miliband earned a salary of over $1 million. (Interns, however, are never paid.)

IRC provides several services related to ORR’s mission. In 2020 the organization claimed to have served 45,000 individuals in the United States with food, shelter, English classes, and legal advice. In 2023, IRC received funding for the first time from ORR’s Unaccompanied Children program: $13,005,424 for “home studies and post-release services” But even before then, the nonprofit worked in some capacity with unaccompanied children.

According to one article “IRC Los Angeles...[provides] assistance with school enrollment, acquiring state medical insurance, and obtaining pro bono legal services from local partner organizations.” As spending at ORR swelled to new heights, IRC benefitted handsomely. The organization received over $235 million in spending in FY 2023 compared to $22 million in FY 2021.

Click image for larger size.

Critical Quote: Roger Severino, former HHS director of the Office of Civil Rights, wrote in a recent report: “HHS and ORR have forgotten their original refugee-resettlement mission and instead have provided a panoply of free programs that incentivize people to come to the U.S. illegally.”

ConclusionThe Office of Refugee Resettlement is just one office in one agency, and this report focused primarily on just a few major grant programs within the office. The universe of taxpayer spending is so much larger, especially when including state and local funds as well.

As funding, mandates, and the overall number of entrants - legal and illegal - increases dramatically, American citizens and lawmakers would be wise to examine the web of incentives between the agency, nonprofit contractors, and the individuals eligible for these programs."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

o

Meanwhile...

"America's Homeless Veteran Problem Is Getting Worse"

o

"The Number Of Homeless People In America Grew 

In 2023 As High Cost Of Living Took A Toll: 653,104"

Pardon me, but WTF is wrong with this country?!!

A better question is what isn't?!!

Canadian Prepper, "WW3 Update: All Hell Is Breaking Loose"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 1/24/24

"WW3 Update: All Hell Is Breaking Loose"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Along the High Ridges"

Full screen recommended.

Deuter, "Along the High Ridges"

Beautiful... 

be kind to yourself, relax and enjoy this.

"A Look to the Heavens"

“What's happening behind those houses? Pictured here are not auroras but nearby light pillars, a nearby phenomenon that can appear as a distant one. 

In most places on Earth, a lucky viewer can see a Sun-pillar, a column of light appearing to extend up from the Sun caused by flat fluttering ice-crystals reflecting sunlight from the upper atmosphere. Usually these ice crystals evaporate before reaching the ground. During freezing temperatures, however, flat fluttering ice crystals may form near the ground in a form of light snow, sometimes known as a crystal fog. These ice crystals may then reflect ground lights in columns not unlike a Sun-pillar. The featured image was taken in Fort Wainwright near Fairbanks in central Alaska.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160208.html.

Chet Raymo, “Mortal Soul: The Great Silence”

“Mortal Soul: The Great Silence”

by Chet Raymo

“If there is one word that should not be uttered, it is the name of – no, I will not say it. Any name diminishes. In the face of whatever it is that is most mysterious, most holy, we are properly silent. It is appropriate, I think, to praise the creation, to make a joyful noise of thanksgiving for the sensate world. But praising the Creator is another thing altogether. When we make a big racket on His behalf we are more than likely addressing an idol in our own image. What was it that Pico Iyer said? “Silence is the tribute that we pay to holiness; we slip off words when we enter a sacred place, just as we slip off shoes.” The God of the mystics whispers sweet nothings, as lovers do.

In a diary entry for “M.”, near the end of his too-short life, Thomas Merton wrote: “I cannot have enough of the hours of silence when nothing happens. When the clouds go by. When the trees say nothing. When the birds sing. I am completely addicted to the realization that just being there is enough.” The natural world was for Merton the primary revelation. He listened. He felt a presence in his heart, an awareness of the ineffable Mystery that permeates creation. It was this that drew him to the mystical tradition of Christianity, especially to the Celtic tradition of creation spirituality. It was this that attracted him to Zen.

There come now and then, perhaps more frequently in late life than previously, those moments of being (as Virginia Woolf called them) when creation grabs us by the shoulders and gives us such a shake that it rattles our teeth, when love for the world simply knocks us flat. At those moments everything we have learned about the world – the invaluable and reliable knowledge of science- seems a pale intimation of what is. In Virginia Woolf’s novel “The Waves”, the elderly Bernard says: “How tired I am of stories, how tired I am of phrases that come down beautifully with all their feet on the ground! Also, how I distrust neat designs of life that are drawn upon half sheets of notepaper. I begin to long for some little language such as lovers use, broken words, inarticulate words, like the shuffling of feet on the pavement.”

In moments of soul-stirring epiphany, it is reassuring to feel beneath our feet a floor of reliable knowledge, the safe and sure edifice of empirical learning so painstakingly constructed by the likes of Aristarchus, Galileo, Darwin and Schrodinger. But at the same time we are humbled by our ignorance, and more ready than ever to say “I don’t know,” to enter at last the great silence. Erwin Chargaff, who contributed mightily to our understanding of DNA, wrote: “It is the sense of mystery that, in my opinion, drives the true scientist; the same blind force, blindly seeing, deafly hearing, unconsciously remembering, that drives the larva into the butterfly. If the scientist has not experienced, at least a few times in his life, this cold shudder down his spine, this confrontation with an immense invisible face whose breath moves him to tears, he is not a scientist.”

The whole thrust of the mystical tradition, the whole thrust of science, is toward the great silence- an awareness of our ignorance and a willingness to say “I don’t know.” A lifetime of learning brings one at last to the face of mystery. We live in a universe of more than 2 trillion galaxies. Perhaps the number of galaxies is infinite. And the universe is silent. Achingly, terrifyingly silent. Or, rather, the universe speaks a little language such as lovers use, broken words, inarticulate words, like the shuffling of feet on the pavement.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"Acceptance..."

"Acceptance is a crucial step forward for those who prefer the idea of living this life over simply existing within it. Accept all that you've said and what you've done, because you cannot change your past. Accept the idea of the unknown, because the future is the unknown waiting patiently to reveal itself. Accept the person you have become thus far in your journey, because you are the only person who will be there with you when you finish it. Do all of this so that you may never find yourself having to accept regret that haunts you at two a.m., leaving you sweaty and broken hearted. All you have is this minute; not this hour, or this day, or this year. Live in this minute so that you won't get stuck simply existing with your guilty past, or with nothing but anxiety for the future."

- Margaret E. Rise

"What We Can Do..."

"What we can do, we must do: we must use what we are given, and we must use it the best we can, however much or little help we have for the task. What you have been given is a hard thing - a very hard thing... But my darling, what if there were no one who could do the difficult things?”

- Robin McKinley,"Sunshine"

The Daily "Near You?"

Wichita Falls, Texas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"In The End..."

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

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

- John Ruskin

Bill Bonner, "The Fake Money Fandango"

Actual colors of your money. Look and see...

"The Fake Money Fandango"

The end of America's 'exorbitant privilege,' 

a comeuppance for China and more fiat-based fiascos...

by Bill Bonner

Baltimore, Maryland -  As we reported last week, there’s a time for everything. And the best time to sell US equities was in 2000, when you could get 40 ounces of gold for the Dow. Since then, it has been downhill for the flower of US industries – the 30 stocks in the Dow – which have fallen by half, in real terms (gold).

Every ship ends in a scrap yard or at the bottom of the sea. And by the 21st century the rust was apparent on the USS American Empire. It was time to head to its last port. But history, always looking for the sturm and drang of a good story, found a number of clownish captains willing to steer the great ship onto the rocks – Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden. And the voters, doing their part as citizens of a late, degenerate empire, stuck with the bumblers – electing Bush and Obama both to two terms each, despite their dereliction and manifest incompetence. And they now seem to want to re-elect Trump or Biden, no matter their age, intellectual impairments, or alleged criminality.

The thing that doomed the empire, more than any other, was its currency. When the US substituted a fake, paper-only, dollar in 1971, it set in motion a financial doomsday machine. For a long time, it seemed to Americans and foreigners alike as a blessing…an ‘exorbitant privilege.’ We didn’t have to make things; we could just print money. Since the dollar was the world’s ‘reserve currency’ other nations took it willingly and even lent it back to us by buying more of our paper, US bonds!

I.O.U.S.A.: But now, the great weakness of paper money is (once again) becoming apparent. Since it can be produced at will, it can also be lent out at will…but in a crunch, it gives way. When the US switched from an asset-backed money (dollars backed by gold) to a credit-backed system (dollars backed by an IOU from the US government ) it lost its anchor.

Gold is limited. And precious. People are careful with it. And when the wind picks up, it holds fast. Typically, in a correction or a crisis, prices fall and money becomes more valuable. People discover that they’ve made mistakes. Those who’ve put their faith in promises and speculations lose money. Asset prices fall. And those who have real money can buy up the distressed assets and get back to work.

In a fake money system, however, the money reserves at the heart of the system – ‘invested’ in US bonds – don’t become more valuable; they disappear. As Dan pointed out on Saturday, US banks have some $685 billion in unrecognized losses. These reserves were not really a solid asset, but a dubious credit, in which the world’s largest debtor promised to pay its debts with its own fake money. Now, in a pinch, they discover that they aren’t worth what they paid for them.

What can banks do? For now, it’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ They’re hoping the Fed will lower rates this year; then, things will go back to ‘normal;’ the value of their bonds will go back up. In other words, the only way a fake money system can hold together is for the Fed to create more of its fake money…and lend it out at fake rates. Inflate…and make the next crisis worse.

That is not just a problem for the US. It’s also a big problem for its fellow delusional, China. Americans thought they could buy things they couldn’t afford, using their new fake money. China thought they could sell products to people by lending them the money to buy them.

When Boom Turns to Bust: And now, the whole fandango has reached a new phase. Chinese factories turned out finished products at low prices; consumer prices, worldwide, fell. This left Chinese exporters with a lot of money – and an almost insatiable optimism about the future. They spent, they borrowed…they invested in more productive capacity, counting on the boom to continue.

Economies adjust to whatever conditions they’ve recently experienced. And after 40 years of the fastest economic expansion ever recorded on planet earth, many of China’s capital investments now depend on impossibly high rates of growth. Alas…the boom has come to an end, leaving the Chinese with unsold apartments, silent factories, empty trains…and billions of dollars’ worth of debt.

Here’s Charles Hugh Smith: "In broad brush, central banks got away with the illusion of permanently low inflation even as they pumped trillions in new currency into the global economy for one reason: China. In the course of a single generation, millions of Chinese peasants began punching a timeclock. This cheap labor filled the world with low-priced exports. But now… The pool of cheap, abundant Chinese labor has been completely drained. Wages in China have soared, along with inflation, and demographics is shrinking the labor pool even as the high expectations generated by 30 years of rapid expansion have diminished the labor force's willingness to perform low-paid factory work far from home and family.

And then…"…once the most productive uses of credit are satiated, the new money flows into unproductive speculation and financial skimming operations. At that point, all the new money flooding into the system drives inflation... And now, China – with billions (trillions?) of dollars’ worth of the ‘unproductive speculations,’ faces a credit meltdown. Its ‘money’ is disappearing along with its customers and its asset prices. What can it do, but replace the fake money with more fake money…just like the US?

This is probably not the end of China’s drive for full spectrum dominance of the world economy, but it looks like the end of the 1979-2021 boom. What will it mean for the US? Stay tuned…"

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "The Next Red Flag Is Here"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, AM 1/23/24

"The Next Red Flag Is Here"

"We have massive banking problems right now. I just had a relative not only get his credit card compromised, but he went to use his debit card from Wells Fargo, and they had said that the entire system was down. People need to get ready for the banking system collapse. This is the next red flag for our economy. Massive bank branches are closing and this is just the beginning."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

How It Really Is"

"America's Homeless Veteran Problem Is Getting Worse"

Bill Bonner, "Face Value"

"Face Value"

Fraud, scams, lies and other election year modi operandi...

by Bill Bonner

Youghal, Ireland - "In private life, misinformation is a mischievous delight. We bluff at cards. We wear lifts in our shoes. We embellish our resumes and exaggerate our affections. But, in public life, lies are a damned nuisance. Hold on…

This morning, it is gray and rainy. Just as it was yesterday morning. And the day before. We escaped the winter of Maryland for the winter of Ireland. Here it is not as cold. It rarely snows. “If ye want snow, go back to America,” explained a taxi driver. “If it snows here, the whole country comes to a halt. We have no snow plows. Not even any salt trucks. We just wait for it to melt.”

There were traces of snow in the mountains when we arrived. But it rained all weekend, a terrific storm, with high winds coming off the Atlantic and falling tree limbs. The West Coast – in County Clare and Galway – got hit hard, with power outages, trees down and flooding. For us…we just keep a cozy fire in the kitchen; and a pot of tea ‘on the hob.’ Meanwhile…

Fraud and Farce: In the news today, the Chinese are taking a page out of America’s "Handbook for Fooling the Public". It’s the Greenspan Put! By law, the government is going to make stocks more valuable. Bloomberg: "China Weighs Stock Market Rescue Package Backed by $278 Billion." "Chinese authorities are considering a package of measures to stabilize the slumping stock market, according to people familiar with the matter, after earlier attempts to restore investor confidence fell short and prompted Premier Li Qiang to call for “forceful” steps.

In China, they are proposing to manipulate asset prices by taking money from a number of sources, including state-owned businesses, and buying stocks. In America, the authorities did a kind of trifecta of deception: printing fake money, lending it at fake rates, to produce fake prices on Wall Street.

"

Fraud is the key element of almost all public policy. It is not the icing on the cake; it is the sugar and the flour. We have a ‘defense’ department that is expected to protect us from foreign attacks. But since foreigners rarely attack us, we attack them. And now, fresh from its victories in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US firepower industry begins a new war against its most pathetic enemy yet – a desert tribe that doesn’t even control its own sh*thole country. Maybe this one will be a winner.

All for the Worse: At home, we spend trillions on various programs that are nothing more than boondoggles and giveaways. The Inflation Reduction Act, for instance, had nothing to do with reducing inflation; instead, it gave a big dollop of tooth-rotting subsidies to ‘green energy’ lobbyists while helping to raise consumer prices at the fastest rate in 40 years.

Fraudulent, scammy, counterfeit – public policies almost invariably make things worse. And we can’t afford them anyway. We are supposed to have a marvelous economy, but that too is a scam; we cannot afford to pay for current programs, let alone pay off those from the past. At the apex of so much tomfoolery is the money that enables it. No longer an asset, since 1971, the US dollar is a liability. It is a promise by the largest debtor on the planet to pay up. With what? More fake money. As much as needed.

And now…investors, in keeping with the spirit of mendacity, are ready for it. They believe the Fed will cut its key lending rate. Yesterday, the Dow hit a new all-time high. USA Today: "Wall Street hits record high following a 2-year round trip scarred by inflation." "Wall Street returned to record heights and capped a punishing, two-year round trip dogged by high inflation and worries about a possible recession that seemed inevitable but hasn’t arrived."

A Fake Calm - Meanwhile, inflation is going down everywhere – imports, producer prices, retail prices, wholesale prices, energy, food, consumer expectations, business expectations – you name it. (WHAT?!!! - CP) And according to the real-time Truflation index, it has dropped from over 6% in 2022 to just 1.85% today. (Absolutely total lies! - CP) That’s under the Fed’s 2% target. What’s going on? We’ll know more later, but for now we seem to be in a saccharin spot…a fake calm somewhere between real disasters. The big question is whether the Primary Trend really did change in July 2020…or whether that too was just another fake-out. After all, it’s an election year; you can’t take anything at face value. More to come…"

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

"Relax..."

"Relax. They're not going to kill us. They're going to

TRY and kill us. And that is a very different thing."

- Steve Voake, "The Dreamwalker's Child"