Friday, April 1, 2022

"Is Russia The Real Target Of Western Sanctions?"

"Is Russia The Real Target Of Western Sanctions?"
by Kit Knightly

"The first tweet I saw when I checked my timeline this morning was from foreign policy analyst Clint Ehlirch, pointing out that the Russian ruble has already started recovering from the dip created by Western sanctions, and is almost at pre-war levels: "The Russian Ruble is nearing its pre-invasion value. Sanctions were designed to collapse its value. They failed. pic.twitter.com/OLmVIsS34E
- Clint Ehrlich (@ClintEhrlich) March 29, 2022

Ehrlich states, “sanctions were designed to collapse the value of the Ruble, they have failed”. To which I can only respond, well “were they?” And perhaps more importantly, “have they?” Because it doesn’t really look like it, does it? If anything, the sanctions seem to be at best rather impotent, and at worst amazingly counterproductive.

It’s not like the US/EU/NATO don’t know how to cripple economies. They have had years of practice starving the people of Cuba, Iraq, Venezuela and too many others to list. Now, you could argue that Russia is a larger, more developed economy than those countries, and that’s true, but the US and its allies have previously managed to hurt the Russian economy quite drastically.

As recently as 2014, following the “annexation” of Crimea, Western sanctions were tame compared to the recent unprecedented measures, but crucially the US massively increased its own oil production, then later that year (following a visit by US Secretary of State John Kerry) Saudi Arabia did the same.

Despite objections from other members of OPEC – Venezuela and Iran chiefly – the Saudis flooded the market with oil. The result of these moves was the biggest fall in oil prices for decades – collapsing from $109 a barrel, in June 2014, to $44 by January 2015. This kicked Russia into a full recession and saw Russia’s GDP shrink for the first time under Putin’s leadership. Again, just two years ago, allegedly as part of competing with Russia for a share of the oil market, Saudi Arabia once more flooded the market with cheap oil.

So, the West does know how to hurt Russia if it really wants to – by increasing oil production, flooding the market and tanking the price. But has the US increased its oil production this time round? Have they lent on their Gulf allies to do the same? Not at all. In fact, in a point of beautiful narrative synchronicity, the US claims it’s “unable” to increase its oil production due to “staff shortages” caused by that gift that keeps on giving – Covid. Similarly, Saudi Arabia is not tanking the oil market, but deliberately increasing prices.

Yes, right now, with the Western allies locked in an alleged economic war with Russia the price of oil is soaring, and may continue to do so. This is good news for the Russian economy, to the point it may even make up for the damage done by the brutal sanctions. The high price of oil and need “not to rely on Putin’s gas” or “de-Russify” our energy supply will doubtless result in millions being poured into “green” technology.

Those Western sanctions are targeting other Russian exports too, including grains and food in general. Russia is a net exporter of food, meaning they export more food than they import. Conversely, many countries in Western Europe rely on imported food, including the UK which imports over 48% of its food supply.

If Europe refuses to buy Russian food, the net effect is that Russia has food…and the West doesn’t. And, just as with oil, increasing food prices will help rather than hinder the Russian economy.

Take wheat for example, of which Russia is the biggest exporter in the world. The vast majority of this wheat is not even sold to Western countries – but instead to China, Kazakhstan, Egypt, Nigeria and Pakistan – and so is not even subject to sanctions. Nevertheless, the sanctions, and the war, have actually driven the price of wheat up almost 30%. This is good for the Russian economy.

Meanwhile, according to CNN, the US is likely to enter a full-blown recession by 2023, France is considering food vouchers and countries all over the world are expected to begin rationing fuel.

So, the sweeping sanctions imposed against Russia by the West, allegedly in response to the invasion of Ukraine, are not having their stated aim – tanking the Russian economy – but they are driving up the price of oil, creating potential energy and food shortages in the West and exacerbating the “cost of living” crisis created by the “pandemic”.

You should always be wary of anybody – individual or institution – whose actions accidentally achieve the exact opposite of their stated aim. That’s a simple rule to live by. Remember how Orwell described the evolution of the concept of war in 1984: "War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact."

Recall that “the worst food shortages for fifty years” were predicted as a result of Covid. But they never materialized. Likewise, we were due to experience Covid-related energy disruptions and power cuts. Short of the UK’s damp squib of a “petrol crisis”, they never really arrived. But now they are heading our way after all – because of war and sanctions

Increased food prices, decreased use of fossil fuels, lowering standards of living, public money poured into “renewables”. This is all part of a very familiar agenda, isn’t it? Regardless of what you feel about Putin, Zelensky, the war in general or Ukrainian Nazis, it’s time to confront the elephant in room. We need to be asking: What exactly is the real aim of these sanctions? And how come they align so perfectly with the great reset?"

"How It Really Is"

 

Thursday, March 31, 2022

Gerald Celente, "China And Russia vs The US And NATO: Who Wins?"

Full screen recommended.
Strong language alert.
Gerald Celente, 3/31/22:
"China And Russia vs The US And NATO: Who Wins?"
"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."

"15 Signs That The Americans Have Begun Freaking Out About The State Of The Economy"

Full screen recommended.
"15 Signs That The Americans Have Begun Freaking 
Out About The State Of The Economy"
by Epic Economist

"In today’s economic environment, Americans seem to be in a constant state of restlessness and frustration. We have never fully recovered from the financial pain brought on by the health crisis in 2020. And even though we’re only four months in 2022, we’re already on the edge of a recession again.

The economy is slumping at a very fast speed while the price of virtually everything continues to explode. From food to gasoline, electronics to furniture, energy to housing – everything is significantly more expensive, and U.S. consumers are getting fed up with the effects of soaring inflation. Our supply chains are still a complete and total mess. Shortages are causing severe market distortions and consumer demand continues to outstrip the system’s capacity of producing more supplies.

With all that in mind, it’s understandable why every new poll, survey, and measure of consumer sentiment shows that our population is becoming incredibly pessimistic about the future of our nation. Millions of hard-working Americans that have given everything they’ve got to build a comfortable lifestyle for themselves and their families are now seeing their standard of living declining more and more with each passing month as the cost of living rises but wages remain stagnant. Workers that have done everything right their entire lives are now realizing they may never be able to purchase a home, and that they’ll probably never get the chance to retire.

Labor conditions are so bad right now nearly 4 million burned-out workers have simply quit their jobs over the past 12 months, citing low pay, no opportunities for advancement, and a growing feeling of disrespect. The U.S. population is extremely anxious about their finances this year. Many people are trying to figure out how in the world they’ll be able to pay their mortgage, afford all of their monthly bills and still put three meals on their tables for each member of their families every day.

Meanwhile, the number of good jobs continues to go down. More than half of all job openings right now offer low wages and considering that a growing percentage of the jobs that are being created these days are very low paying jobs, it’s going to be a lot harder to find a decent job that can support the basic necessities of the average family. We’ve outsourced most of our production to foreign markets, and millions of middle-class jobs vanished in that process. Now, the average household can no longer afford decent health insurance, a new car, or unexpected expenses as saving rates sink to the lowest levels in decades.

Sadly, it appears that the American people are still waiting for "hope" and "change" to show up, but all they are going to get instead are more waves of "despair" and "frustration". As our tragic economic decline continues to accelerate, people are starting to panic. Many of us can already feel that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong in our country. We have never faced such a prolonged economic downturn in modern U.S. history, and a lot of people are starting to freak out about the collapse of our economy. As Gerald Celente once said: "When people lose everything and have nothing left to lose - they lose it."

The "new normal" is going to be a lot different from what the "old normal" was. We have to start waking up to the fact that the United States is a declining power. The long-term trends that have driven us to where we are now have taken decades to develop, which basically means that there is no "quick fix" that some politician can magically bring in to reverse the damages that have been done. Now, we are starting to pay the price for decades of reckless decisions. As the consequences of those decisions become more apparent, the American people are just going to get angrier and angrier. Today, we compiled 15 signs that the Americans have begun freaking out about the state of the economy."

The UN Warns Of Social Unrest From Lack Of Food; More LIES, Deceptions, And Distractions"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 3/31/22:
The UN Warns Of Social Unrest From Lack Of Food;
More LIES, Deceptions, And Distractions"

"People Have Been Broken; Too Lazy To Work; Stock Market Struggles; End Of The Dollar"

Jeremiah Babe, PM 3/31/22:
"People Have Been Broken; Too Lazy To Work; 
Stock Market Struggles; End Of The Dollar"

Musical Interlude: Two Steps From Hell, "Downstream"

Full screen recommended.
Two Steps From Hell, "Downstream"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"What's that in the sky? An aurora. A large coronal mass ejection occurred on our Sun earlier this month, throwing a cloud of fast-moving electrons, protons, and ions toward the Earth. Part of this cloud impacted our Earth's magnetosphere and, bolstered by a sudden gap, resulted in spectacular auroras being seen at some high northern latitudes. Featured here is a particularly photogenic auroral corona captured above a forest in Sweden from a scenic perch overlooking the city of Östersund. 
To some, this shimmering green glow of recombining atmospheric oxygen might appear like a large whale, but feel free to share what it looks like to you. The unusually quiet Sun of the past few years has now passed. As our Sun now approaches a solar maximum in its 11-year solar magnetic cycle, dramatic auroras like this are sure to continue."

The Poet: David Whyte, "One Day"

"One Day"

"One day I will say
the gift I once had has been taken.
The place I have made for myself
belongs to another.
The words I have sung
are being sung by the ones
I would want.
Then I will be ready
for that voice
and the still silence in which it arrives.
And if my faith is good
then we'll meet again
on the road,
and we'll be thirsty,
and stop
and laugh
and drink together again
from the deep well of things as they are."

- David Whyte,
"Where Many Rivers Meet"

"The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful.
And in the end, the poem is not a thing we see -
it is, rather, a light by which we may see - and what we see is life."
- Robert Penn Warren

"The World..."

"The world is a comedy to those that think, 
a tragedy to those who feel. "
- Horace Walpole, In a Letter, 1770

"Helpless People"

"Helpless People"

“Almost all Americans have had an intense school experience which occupied their entire youth, an experience during which they were drilled thoroughly in the culture and economy of the well-schooled greater society, in which individuals have been rendered helpless to do much of anything except watch television or punch buttons on a keypad.

Before you begin to blame the childish for being that way and join the chorus of those defending the general imprisonment of adults and the schooling by force of children because there isn’t any other way to handle the mob, you want to at least consider the possibility that we’ve been trained in childishness and helplessness for a reason. And that reason is that helpless people are easy to manage.

Helpless people can be counted upon to act as their own jailers because they are so inadequate to complex reality they are afraid of new experience. They’re like animals whose spirits have been broken. Helpless people take orders well, they don’t have minds of their own, they are predictable, they won’t surprise corporations or governments with resistance to the newest product craze, the newest genetic patent - or by armed revolution. Helpless people can be counted on to despise independent citizens and hence they act as a fifth column in opposition to social change in the direction of personal sovereignty.”
- John Taylor Gatto,
Sadly, this website is gone...

And so it is…
Big Brother & The Holding Company, "Heartache People"

"It's Not Just A Stock Market Crash - Jim Rickards"

Full screen recommended.
The Atlantis Report, 
"It's Not Just A Stock Market Crash - Jim Rickards"

The Daily "Near You?"

Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. Thanks for stopping by!

"Streets of Philadelphia, What’s Going On Today, March 31, 2022"

Full screen recommended.
kimgary, "Streets of Philadelphia, 
What’s Going On Today, March 31, 2022"

"Violent crime and drug abuse in Philadelphia as a whole is a major problem. The city’s violent crime rate is higher than the national average and other similarly sized metropolitan areas. Also alarming is Philadelphia’s drug overdose rate. The number of drug overdose deaths in the city increased by 50% from 2013 to 2015, with more than twice as many deaths from drug overdoses as deaths from homicides in 2015. A big part of Philadelphia’s problems stem from the crime rate and drug abuse in Kensington.

Because of the high number of drugs in Kensington, the neighborhood has a drug crime rate of 3.57, the third-highest rate by neighborhood in Philadelphia. Like a lot of the country, a big part of this issue is a result of the opioid epidemic. Opioid abuse has skyrocketed over the last two decades in the United States and Philadelphia is no exception. Along with having a high rate of drug overdose deaths, 80% percent of Philadelphia’s overdose deaths involved opioids, and Kensington is a big contributor to this number. This Philly neighborhood is purportedly the largest open-air narcotics market for heroin on the East Coast with many neighboring residents flocking to the area for heroin and other opioids. With such a high number of drugs in Kensington, many state and local officials have zoned in on this area to try and tackle Philadelphia’s problem."
Full screen recommended.
Bruce Springsteen, "Streets of Philadelphia"

"Never, Ever Forget..."

"Never, ever forget that nothing in this life is free. Life demands payment in some form for your "right" to express yourself, to condemn and abuse the evil surrounding us. Expect to pay... it will come for you, they will come for you, regardless. Knowing that, give them Hell itself every chance you can. Expect no mercy, and give none. That's how life works. Be ready to pay for what you do, or be a coward, pretend you don't see, don't know, and cry bitter tears over how terrible things are, over how you let them become."
- Ernest Hemingway, "For Whom the Bell Tolls "

"Massive Price Increases At Kroger! What Now? What's Next?"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, AM 3/31/22:
"Massive Price Increases At Kroger! What Now? What's Next?"
"In today's vlog we are at Kroger and are noticing massive price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

"The Housing Market is a Dead Man Walking"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly AM3'31/22:
"The Housing Market is a Dead Man Walking"
"I compiled a bunch of stats on real estate. It’s absolutely fascinating to see how people are in such a panic that they are going to miss out on the greatest real estate market ever and they just don’t realize it’s over. People need to take a deep breath and sit back. "

"How It Really Is"

"Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you 
down to their level and beat you with experience."
 - Mark Twain

“One can fight evil but against stupidity one is helpless.”
- Henry Miller

"Everyone Knows...

"Everyone knows that plagues have a way of recurring throughout history, yet somehow we find it hard to believe in the ones that crash down on us out of the sky. There have always been plagues and wars, yet they always take us by surprise. When war breaks out people say it's stupid and won't last long. Stupidity has a knack of getting in the way, which we would see if not wrapped up in ourselves. In this our townsfolk were like everybody else, they did not believe in plagues."
- Albert Camus, "The Plague"
Freely download "The Plague", by Albert Camus, here:

"The End Of The Global Economy As We Know It"

"The End Of The Global Economy As We Know It"
by Crack Newz

"At the beginning of nearly every war, including the current one in Ukraine, there are those who loudly declare that it will be over shortly and then business-as-usual can resume. They are rarely right. While no one can say for certain what the trajectory of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict will be, the economic warfare that is going on alongside it is very likely to destroy the current global trading system.

The last time a worldwide trading system was destroyed was just over a century ago. From the late 1800s up to the eve of World War I the dominance of the British fleet on the high seas and the reach of the British Empire created an era of stability and interconnection highly favorable to worldwide trade.

Then, World War I blew that stability and interconnection apart. Later, the Great Depression led to a global trade war that finished off the remnants of the international trading system. The world did not achieve a trading system that spanned the globe unhampered again until the end of the Cold War - which had split the world into two trading blocks for nearly 50 years.

It is unlikely that Russia will simply back down even in the face of crippling economic sanctions. Things have gone too far and the Russian leadership has staked too much on its position that Russia must have its own sphere of influence free from NATO soldiers and rockets. What the Russians have historically called “the near abroad” must not harbor threats to Russian security, they say. Think of this as Russia’s Monroe Doctrine.

The sanctions against Russia are hard to keep track of, ambiguous and ever expanding. Their consequences, however, are clear. Through pressure exerted by the United States and European countries, most of the world will be forced to curtail its trade with Russia sharply.

Russia, however, has potent trade weapons of its own since the country remains the second largest producer of both oil and natural gas in the world behind the United States according the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Russia is, however, the world’s largest natural gas exporter and the second or third largest oil exporter depending on where you look. Europeans are especially dependent on these exports. One would expect any reduction of Russian exports to cause prices to soar. This is exactly what has happen since the war began, complicating Russian deliveries - even though these exports are NOT under sanction and Russia actually INCREASED natural gas exports to Europe.

Russia is also among the top two producers of palladium used most notably in catalytic convertors and also in electronics. The same goes for platinum. In fact, Russia is a significant producer of many metals including nickel, cobalt, uranium, gold, silver, lead, zinc, and iron. A quick look at the “Mining Industry of Russia” page on Wikipedia illustrates just how important Russian production of minerals is in world markets.

One of the key exports Russia is considering withholding is potash fertilizer, something that would surely drive potash prices sky high and, in turn, drive food prices even higher than they already are. Russia is the world’s fourth largest producer.

Any decision by Russia to withhold commodity exports from the world market would have to be carefully calibrated since such move would, of course, further pummel the Russian economy by reducing or eliminating export earnings from the targeted products.

In yet another blow to the Russian economy, foreign businesses are leaving Russia at an increasing pace. Once gone, it is hard to see them returning anytime soon. And, with Russian assets abroad frozen and in some cases being seized, there is fear that Russia will seize assets within its borders belonging to foreign companies and individuals. Foreign patents might also be disregarded to allow Russia to make some its own goods based on patented technology and designs.

Some Russian banks have been excluded from the world’s largest international payments system known as SWIFT which might just push Russia to form its own payment system along with other countries suffering from sanctions such as Iran, Cuba, North Korea and Syria. Don’t be surprised if additional countries including China decide to join - while remaining in SWIFT - in order to continue to trade with these countries including Russia.

Given the ferocity of the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it is just as hard to imagine a full-scale retreat from sanctions under practically any likely long-term scenario as it is to imagine Russia withdrawing from Ukraine and saying that it is sorry; it was all just a big misunderstanding. And, there is always the possibility that a guerilla insurgency will continue in Ukraine for years to come so that there is no clear end to hostilities.

The result of sanctions and war so far has been to cause prices of practically every commodity to rise significantly, most notably wheat, which is up 50 percent since before the war. Oil which was already trading at an elevated level is now comfortably above $110 per barrel, up about 25 percent from the start of the war.

Spikes in oil prices have preceded 10 of the last 11 recessions (not including the COVID collapse). It seems likely, though, that a recession following this spike will not be a mild one given the dislocations in the world economy already and the determination of each side in the conflict to exert increasing economic pain on the other. And, we must also remember that oil and wheat prices are not the only ones going up rapidly. Food prices in general are soaring as are fiber prices (lumber and cotton, for example). Rising energy prices, of course, feed into practically every other good and service. Eventually, high prices undermine economic activity as buyers simply stop buying what they cannot afford.

If the next recession is deep and drawn out, as I believe it might be, it may hasten the breakup of current trading arrangements as people around the world seek to protect their home industries from those abroad by restricting trade even further (just as countries did during the Great Depression).

The Russians sought to reorganize the security framework in Europe by making sure Ukraine does not join an alliance hostile to Russia. In the bargain, the Russians may get a reorganization of the world trading system, one that may break up into relatively closed trading blocks with more and more emphasis on self-sufficiency as a prudent bulwark against unexpected disruptions including wars."

"Economic Market Snapshot 3/31/22"

Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
"Economic Market Snapshot 3/31/22"
Updated as available.
MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates
CNN Market Data:
CNN Fear And Greed Index:
Latest Market Analysis, Updated 3/31/22
A comprehensive, essential daily read.
March 30 to 31st
Financial Stress Index
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: creditequity valuationfunding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United Statesother advanced economies, and emerging markets."
Daily Job Cuts
Commentary, highly recommended:
"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
Oh yeah...
And now... The End Game...

Gregory Mannarino, "The Economy Continues Its Freefall, No End In Sight"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 3/31/22:
"The Economy Continues Its Freefall, No End In Sight"
"Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun."
- Kurt Vonnegut, "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater"

Wednesday, March 30, 2022

"We Are About To See Catastrophic Times; Mortgage Refis Plunge; Addiction"

Jeremiah Babe, PM 3/30/22:
"We Are About To See Catastrophic Times; 
Mortgage Refis Plunge; Addiction"

"Chinese Lockdowns Aggravate Shipping Crisis As Freight Rate Spikes Trigger Panic On Supply Chains"

Full screen recommended.
"Chinese Lockdowns Aggravate Shipping Crisis 
As Freight Rate Spikes Trigger Panic On Supply Chains"
by Epic Economist

"The supply chain chaos continues to grow and spread at an alarming pace. Right now, ports and warehouses in China are extremely log-jammed as a consequence of strict testing protocols imposed on one of the nation’s biggest cities after an outbreak was detected a couple of weeks ago. At least 180 container vessels are still stuck at sea outside Shanghai-Ningbo, the city’s main port. Meanwhile, in Shenzhen, a major manufacturing center in the country’s south, trucking costs have jumped by 300 percent due to a backlog of orders and a shortage of drivers following the introduction of health-crisis-related restrictions. This whole situation has triggered ripple effects on US ports and supply chains, which have been plagued by prolonged delivery delays, soaring shipping costs, and exceedingly long lines of container ships waiting for a slot to unload amid the worst congestion on record.

On top of that, vessel capacity is severely strained. Given that more than a million containers that typically travel around the globe by train every day, on a route that goes from China through Russia, are now being forced to make their journey by sea due to Western sanctions, disruptions are piling up with each passing day. Supply chain experts explain that if the health crisis, which sparked an extraordinary surge on consumer demand, pushed supply chains to the edge, the worsening conflict between Russia and Ukraine and China’s zero-tolerance policies as well as continuing lockdowns, are threatening to break it completely

Several US companies are now scrambling to improve resilience and are trying to come up with new measures to prevent disruptions in their operations that result from the ongoing chaos in Chinese ports. Most solutions, however, seem impractical so far. According to an expert on foreign trade at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, William Reinsch, ideas about disentangling supply chains completely, by moving US manufacturing out of China, for instance, are unrealistic. “When everything is made everywhere, and a piece of the puzzle is suddenly not available for whatever reason, everything kind of grinds to a halt,” the expert says.

In fact, many other problems are about to simultaneously impact the U.S. Even though official numbers say that congestion has been easing in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, that is happening because container ships are being required to anchor farther offshore, where they’re not visible from land, a move that is essentially cosmetic in nature, but it hides the reality in which dockworkers are having to face every day.

Right now, consumer prices are already at the highest level they’ve been in over 40 years. But to make things worse, port congestion can still push these higher costs to even more absurd levels as it drives shipping and freight rates up. The more congestion, the lower the effective ship supply and the higher the value of vessels in the freight market, explained Evangelos Chatzis, CFO of Danaos. The executive said that 25-year-old smaller feeder ships are being rented for $30,000 per day. “This is a spectacular number that we have never seen before.”

We must remember that at the end of the day, all of these shocking increases in shipping costs are going to push consumer prices to stratospheric levels. The supply chain crisis isn’t going to be fixed any time soon, and at the moment, the storm clouds on the horizon look quite menacing. The bottom line is that an already complicated picture has become even more complex, and now fears of food shortages, a worsening cost of living crisis, and soaring energy prices are about to bring unimaginable consequences and inflame civil and geopolitical tensions for the rest of the world."

Celente and the Judge, "Bush And His Tortures. Get Out Of Guantanamo"

Full screen recommended.
Celente and the Judge, 
"Bush And His Tortures. Get Out Of Guantanamo"
"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."

Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, "Dream Ten"

Liquid Mind, "Dream Ten"
"Is the beauty of the Whole really enhanced by our agony? And is the Whole really beautiful? And what is beauty? Throughout all his existence man has been striving to hear the music of the spheres, and has seemed to himself once and again to catch some phrase of it, or even a hint of the whole form of it. Yet he can never be sure that he has truly heard it, nor even that there is any such perfect music at all to be heard. Inevitably so, for if it exists, it is not for him in his littleness. But one thing is certain. Man himself, at the very least, is music, a brave theme that makes music also of its vast accompaniment, its matrix of storms and stars. Man himself in his degree is eternally a beauty in the eternal form of things. It is very good to have been man. And so we may go forward together with laughter in our hearts, and peace, thankful for the past, and for our own courage. For we shall make after all a fair conclusion to this brief music that is man." 
- Olaf Stapledon, "Last and First Men"
Freely download "Last and First Men", by Olaf Stapledon, here:

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Peculiar spiral galaxy Arp 78 is found within the boundaries of the head strong constellation Aries. Some 100 million light-years beyond the stars and nebulae of our Milky Way galaxy, the island universe is over 100,000 light-years across. Also known as NGC 772, it sports a prominent, outer spiral arm in this detailed cosmic portrait from the large Gemini North telescope near the summit of Maunakea, Hawaii, planet Earth. 
Tracking along sweeping dust lanes and lined with young blue star clusters, Arp 78's spiral arm is likely pumped-up by galactic-scale gravitational tidal interactions The close companion galaxy responsible is NGC 770, located off the upper right of this frame. But more distant background galaxies are clearly visible in the cosmic field of view."

"Here And There..."

"But what a universe, anyhow! No use blaming human-beings for what they were. Everything was made so that it had to torture something else. Sirius himself was no exception, of course. Made that way! Nothing was responsible for being by nature predatory on other things, dog on rabbit and Argentine beef, man on nearly everything, bugs and microbes on man, and of course man himself on man. (Nothing but man was really cruel, vindictive, except perhaps the loathly cat). Everything desperately struggling to keep its nose above water for a few breaths before its strength inevitably failed and down it went, pressed under by something else. And beyond, those brainless, handless idiotic stars, lazing away so importantly for nothing. 

Here and there some speck of a planet dominated by some half-awake intelligence like humanity. And here and there on such planets, one or two poor little spirits waking up and wondering what in the hell everything was for, what it was all about, what they could make of themselves; and glimpsing in a muddled way what their potentiality was, and feebly trying to express it, but always failing, always missing fire, and very often feeling themselves breaking up as he himself was doing. Just now and then they might feel the real thing, in some creative work, or in sweet community with another little spirit, or with others. Just now and then they seemed somehow to create or to be gathered up into something lovelier than their individual selves, something which demanded their selves sacrifice and yet have their selves new life. But how precariously, torturingly; and only just for a flicker of time! Their whole life-time would only be a flicker in the whole of titanic time. Even when all the worlds have frozen or exploded, and all the suns gone dead and cold therewill still be time. Oh God, what for?"
 - Olaf Stapledon, "Sirius: A Fantasy of Love and Discord"
Freely download "Sirius: A Fantasy of Love and Discord",
by Olaf Stapledon, here:

"Only Americans Could Ruin America"

"Only Americans Could Ruin America"
by Brian Maher

“God has a special providence for fools, 
drunkards and the United States of America.”

"Thus concluded 19th-century Germany’s Otto von Bismarck - the Iron Chancellor. The years have heavily affirmed the Teutonic autocrat. All available evidence indicates it is true. And of these God-blessed categories, we conclude God has most blessed the United States of America. She has absorbed more divine favor than the most foolish fool or the drunkest drunkard.

Let us first consider God’s providence for fools and drunkards. Their very existence constitutes proof of His benevolent interventions in this fallen world of sin and vice. How else can you explain their superabundance among us?

Darwin Awards: Leave these gentlemen and ladies to their foolish and drunken ways. It is unlikely many would survive evolution’s ruthless crucible. Pertaining to fools specifically, we refer you to the “Darwin Award.” Explains Wikipedia: "The Darwin Awards are a tongue-in-cheek honor… [that] recognize individuals who have supposedly contributed to human evolution by selecting themselves out of the gene pool by dying or becoming sterilized via their own stupid actions."

Imagine a skydiver who had neglected to strap himself to a parachute. Imagine a tourist taking a “selfie” upon the ledge of a sheer cliff to capture his view… and losing his footing. Now you have the flavor of it. Yet fools proliferate among us nonetheless… as weeds, rats and venereal disease proliferate among us.

We must conclude God has the majority of fools invisibly by the hand. He eases them across life’s dark and treacherous valley. Thus He exempts them from Charles Darwin and his ruthless rules of survival.

Washington: Magnet for Fools: Incidentally, the United States capital appears a sort of magnet for fools. Do you require proof? Look merely to the Capitol Building. Look merely to the White House. Look merely to the Eccles Building. There you will find your proof.

Why they congregate disproportionately in Washington, we do not know precisely. Incidentally, here the fool and the drunkard often combine in the same person. We will not reveal their identities. Our attorneys counsel us to keep it dark. If the Internal Revenue Service has ever selected you for special scrutiny, you will understand. Why the Almighty smiles upon these fortunates we do not know. His ways are mysterious… and famously mysterious.

That drunkards enjoy God’s inscrutable, paternalistic favor scarcely requires explanation. It is obvious enough. Let us now consider God’s special providence for the United States of America…

God’s Chosen Land: God filled two oceans - one Atlantic, one Pacific - to moat it off from marauders. Russia may have its “General Winter,” it is true. Messieurs Bonaparte and Hitler can attest to his formidability. Yet the Russian General Winter is nothing against Admirals Atlantic and Pacific of the United States Navy.

Meantime, God emplaced two geopolitical runts against American land borders - one to the north - one to the south. It is like surrounding a cat with mice.

God furthermore blessed the United States with vast tracts of fertile, bountiful land… an extended capillary system of internal waterways… natural harbors from which to send things out and to take things in. What other nation has enjoyed such natural, God-granted riches?

God’s Less Favored Nations: An England or a Japan may have its points. For example, the sea forms a high wall against invasion. A tempest blew away the Spanish Armada in 1588 when it adventured an English invasion. And two “divine winds” spared Japan from Mongol invasions in 1274 and 1281 - or so the legends have it. Yet England and Japan are island nations. God did not favor them with abundances of natural resources. They must therefore bus them in… which represents a severe vulnerability.

The German U-boat fleet nearly hollowed England out in the Second World War. The American submarine fleet did hollow out Japan during the same world war. What about Germany? She too lacks divine favor. She is squeezed geopolitically between the French and Russian vise. German adventurism in 1914 and 1939 were in part efforts to break the squeeze. And the flat geography of its north… with its absence of natural barriers… renders Germany eternally vulnerable to invasion from east or west.

France - meantime - is eternally vulnerable to Germany. Russia too is massively vulnerable to uninvited visitors… as history documents richly. And despite its immense bulk it is boxed in by winter ice that chokes its coasts. Why do you think Mr. Putin fixates so monomaniacally upon Crimea? Its warmwater port of Sevastopol is the historical home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

We must next consider China…

The Celestial Kingdom: China believes it is the Celestial Kingdom, uniquely favored by God. Yet we are not half-convinced it is true. Why else would China require a Great Wall against invasion? And it is bottled in by a chain of fortresses stationed off its coast - South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines. All ally themselves with God’s chosen nation, the United States, to maintain the cordon.

But let us extend our investigation beneath the global equator. Consider Brazil… “Brazil is the country of the future,” runs the old saw - and “always will be.” Much of it is lawless jungle. It lacks arable land. Its primary cities are isolated dots, accessible primarily by air.

The list of second- and third-rate nations runs on. Again, we must conclude: God has sat America down on Earth’s throne.

God’s Sense of Humor: Has God given it a Baltimore… a Detroit and a Cleveland? Has He populated its capital with rogues, rascals, cadges, chiselers, grifters and swindlers, with fools and drunkards? Well, friends, maybe He has. Yet He has a mischievous, even puckish sense of humor. He delights in pulling noses.

Yet the central fact remains: He has nonetheless showered America with such immense natural extravagance. In quiet moments, often in the small hours of night, we often marvel. Why are we so fortunate as to reside in this Eden, this El Dorado, this Elysium? Countless others in the world’s various hells are infinitely more deserving. Yet we conclude the Almighty must have His reason… and we are consoled.

Only Americans Could Ruin America: America is indeed so blessed, only Americans themselves could make a botch of it. And it appears we are determined to botch it…

It is Americans who transformed America from a creditor nation to a debtor nation…

It is Americans who have shoveled ourselves into a $30 trillion debt hole - a $280 trillion debt hole when factoring all debts, public and private…

It is Americans who have wasted trillions and trillions of dollars buccaneering around the globe in ill-conceived, ill-planned and ill-starred wars of choice…

It is Americans who impose sanctions on foreign nations… sanctions that will likely hasten the dollar’s demise as the world’s primary reserve currency… and hence hasten America’s economic falling…

It is Americans who assume God’s special providence is limitless, that it will continue, forevermore, world without end.

Yet we hazard that even God’s providence has its limits. How much more He will shower upon the United States of America, we do not know. Yet we fear the United States of America may soon require God’s special providence as never before…"

Gregory Mannarino, "The UN Warns Of "CATASTROPHIC" Global Food Shortages; Corporate Profits Hit Record High"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 3/30/22:
"The UN Warns Of "CATASTROPHIC" Global Food Shortages; 
Corporate Profits Hit Record High"

"Banks Win, We Lose! Higher Fees and Credit Lines Cut"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 3/30/22:
"Banks Win, We Lose! Higher Fees and Credit Lines Cut"
"This is an avoidable. Banks for charging more for fees than ever. They are cutting our credit lines. They are closing branches around the world. Banks are winning and we are losing."

Bill Bonner, "Time to Sell!"

"Time to Sell!"
by Bill Bonner

San Martin, Argentina - "Time to sell! There are times to weep and times to laugh. And times to buy and times to sell. Yesterday, we heard from former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. He argued that the Fed has not yet recognized the magnitude of its errors. It kept interest rates too low for too long, failed to see rising inflation, failed to realize that it was not ‘transitory,’ and then failed to take any serious steps to stop it. It was ‘sleepwalking’… while inflation rose to the highest levels in 40 years. Calculated honestly, US inflation may already be at its highest levels ever.

But the burden of today’s note is that millions of investors and homeowners may suffer from somnambulance too… and could soon step right off the edge. “It’s crazy down here,” says our son, describing the real estate market in his area of South Florida. “I wanted to move to a different house. But the prices have gone up so far, so fast that they are just out of my reach. There was a house over by the inter-coastal that I wanted. I had looked at it a couple of years ago. And when I saw it on the market again last week, I thought it might be worth another look. But they want more than $4 million. Incredible.”

Unhinged from Reality: Rents in Miami have been rising at the fastest pace in the nation. The South Florida Business Journal reports that landlords, in neighborhoods such as Delray Beach, are “making a killing.” They’re raising rents by 30% a year… and more. As for real estate sales, Norada Real Estate reports: "It is a seller’s market with many sellers getting top dollar… The Miami real estate market continues to break records due to pent-up demand and low mortgage rates which continue to fuel real estate transactions.

Miami's hot housing market, fueled by domestic and international homebuyers, ended 2021 with 39,394 existing total home sales, up 49.5% from the 26,345 transactions in 2020 and 31.1 percent from the previous annual record of 30,041 transactions in 2013. Miami's dollar volume of sales will reach $30.3 billion in 2021, a 103.4 percent annual increase.

The typical value of homes in Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach Metro is $397,603. This value is seasonally adjusted and only includes the middle price tier of homes. Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach Metro home values have gone up 22.3% over the past year and Zillow predicts they will rise 16.2% in the next twelve months."

Real estate prices are becoming “unhinged from fundamentals,” says the Dallas Federal Reserve bank. Bloomberg reports: “Our evidence points to abnormal U.S. housing market behavior for the first time since the boom of the early 2000s,” the Dallas Fed researchers wrote, citing data to measure “exuberance” on property markets that they’ve developed with scholars around the world as part of the International Housing Observatory."

The measure suggests that “the U.S. housing market has been showing signs of exuberance for more than five consecutive quarters through third quarter 2021,” they wrote. The surge in home prices has continued since then. Yes, and behind the unhinged real estate boom are the Fed’s unhinged interest rate policies. The amateurs saw that they could ‘trade up’ by rolling over real estate debt at lower and lower rates. And the pros found that they could borrow money below the rate of inflation and make a profit by buying residential units and renting them out – en masse.

Swings Both Ways: Recently, about a third of house purchases were being made by investors, not owner-occupiers. This buying pressure then pushed up prices and left prospective homeowners scrambling to find a place to live. Type in “Room for Rent” on Bing search and you get 20 million results.

But the hinge swings both ways. The interest rate cycle seems to have run its course, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury Note hitting a record low in July 2020. Since then, the yield has swung back from 0.51% to 2.4% today. This may not sound like a lot, but the rise in yields, worldwide, has already caused bond investors to lose about $5 trillion. And now mortgage rates are spiking up. Homeowners face 5% mortgages.

Our guess, for what it is worth, is that mortgage rates will continue to rise, for many years. (Interest rate cycles tend to last a very long time.) Refinancers will be unable to keep up with the monthly payments… houses will go back on the market at lower prices… and recent buyers will wish they had waited until after the bust."