Thursday, May 4, 2023

"The Point..."

“Knowing can be a curse on a person’s life. I’d traded in a pack of lies for a pack of truth, and I didn’t know which one was heavier. Which one took the most strength to carry around? It was a ridiculous question, though, because once you know the truth, you can’t ever go back and pick up your suitcase of lies. Heavier or not, the truth is yours now.”
- Sue Monk Kidd

"Meanwhile, Back in France"

"Meanwhile, Back in France"
By Addison Wiggin

“Everybody singin' in the kitchen bangin' on the pots and pans...”
- Bobby Bare

"A concert of casseroles. That’s how the Free French began their resistance to “overreaching” retirement reform, enacted by French President Emmanuel Macron in April. Banging on pots and pans. Now, the photos coming out of France look more like a hostile takeover than a walkout. “The page is not going to be turned as long as there is no withdrawal of this pension reform,” exclaims Sophie Binet, a French trade unionist and leader of the General Confederation of Labour. “We will not give up, there will be no truce,” she resolves.

108 police officers were injured in riots across France, Gérald Moussa Darmanin, Ministre de l'Intérieur reports. “Black Bloc” anarchists ransacked a McDonalds on Place Leon Blum and wrecked several real estate agencies, lighting everything in their wake on fire. Police responded by throwing tear gas and firing rubber bullets. Trash continues to pile up on the rues and avenues as sanitation workers continue their revolution.

“Regrettably,” writes our friend Egon von Greyerz, a Swiss gentleman who runs Matterhorn Asset Management, “a rotten and bankrupt financial system needs to go through a cleansing period which the world will now experience.”

Do we sound any less dramatic than the labor leaders and their voyous anarchiste? We actually have a Tennis Buddy Indicator (TBI) edition francaise to share today. You’ll recall the TBI uses tennis buddies as a way to take the pulse of the everyday man.

When we were living in France, we played tennis at the 5th arrondissement public courts near Jardin de Luxembourg. M. George was the coach. He was a debonair gentleman of a certain age. He was giving tennis lessons to the public just for something to do.

On occasion he’d pull me aside and ask me how life was in the United States. He’d never been but he heard it was awful. At the time, 9/11 had recently happened, there were frantic reports of anthrax being mailed to government employees and a father son duo were driving around the Washington D.C. area shooting people at random.

“Not so good, I guess,” I would reply. The French presse seem to enjoy stories of horror coming from the States. “I think what your problem is,” M. Georges would remind me – you can imagine his French accent if you want, it makes the story better – “you Americans live to work. We French… we work to live.” I heard that exact phrase come out of the mouth of one of the protestors near a fire being interviewed for NBC Nightly News. “Must be a theme,” I thought to myself, “the exact same phrase 20 odd years later.”

The protestor went on to explain that while a 2-year increase in the retirement may not seem like a lot to Americans, the unions took to the streets to draw the line somewhere. The change was pushed through L’Assemblee without a vote. “If we don’t draw the line here,” we paraphrase, “what stops them from doing it again? We don’t want to be working into our 80s like Americans. We want to stop working and enjoy life.”

He’s got a point. To a point. “What, are you turning into a socialist now?” Jennifer, my wife, asked when I was talking to her about the dramatic videos of protests on streets we know well. “No, not at all. It’s not an economic argument, it’s a cultural one.” The Free French feel it is their collective responsibility to rise against government reform without their consent. It’s in their blood going back years… even if the laws of economics come and bite them in the ass."

"Follow your own bliss,"

"This is Like a Horror Movie"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 5/4/23
"This is Like a Horror Movie"
"Things are getting spookier and spookier as we live through this economy. Globally there are mass layoffs and problems all around. Banks are failing at a record pace."
Comments here:

"How It Really Is"

 

Bill Bonner, "A Roman Sunset"

"A Roman Sunset"
The rise and fall of empires and those who mourn their passing...
by Bill Bonner

"In other words, there is little doubt in my mind that the existing world order is changing rapidly in challenging ways and that people who are living on the assumption that things will work in the orderly ways that they have gotten used to will be shocked and hurt by these changes to come." ~ Ray Dalio

"Fish gotta swim. Churches gotta have crosses. And empires gotta go whither they go. That is, they need to go to the grave. And the greater the imperial success, the more lavish the funeral. The Roman Empire was the western world’s biggest success story. It ran for nearly 500 years…and dominated all of Western Europe…North Africa…and much of the Middle East. Contemporaries regarded it as permanent. And many of its finest achievements seem to have been constructed to be amortized over a millennia – temples, aqueducts, roads…some still in service.

But even the Roman Empire reached its sell-by date eventually – in 476. German warfighters, many armed by the empire itself, breached Rome’s walls…and began to do what barbarians do…raping, murdering, torturing, stealing, enslaving, destroying, and vandalizing. The Empire whimpered, begged, and died. Europe spent the next 800 years in mourning.

Mock Outrage: Yes, the empire left its monuments – the colosseum, for example, where fighters went at each other with sword and spear…where the arena was flooded so that naval battles could be staged, with hundreds of dead, for the amusement of jaded crowds.
“It will be great when they get it finished,” said an American tourist, gawking at the colosseum, and perhaps missing the point of it. (According to Mark Twain).
And there too, still standing, is Trajan’s column, recalling the long history of battles…wars…death, destruction…sacrifice and bamboozle – stretching the empire’s limits far beyond what the first ‘Romans’ must have ever imagined.

And the Forum…where Senators argued, raising a finger to emphasize a point or calling out their opponents in mock outrage, much like they do in Washington today. Where and how should the empire strike next? Which ally should it support? Which enemy should it target with sanctions and war?

When tourists first visited Rome…after reading about its antique wonders in the classics of Petrarch, Virgil and Caesar himself…they stumbled over the fallen stones, hidden in the underbrush…and chased away the goats to get a better view. By then – this was the 18th century – Rome was a faded memory, a remote legend…a ghost… as forgotten as Mike Pence -- like an abandoned graveyard, overgrown and forlorn; people hardly knew where it was. And who wept before the tomb? Who brought flowers to lay upon the grave?

Third Time Unlucky: But Rome was not alone. Empires come and go…each one leaving, but for a few years, the faint odor of a sweaty gladiator. The Sumerians? Akkadians? Hittites? Persians? Ottomans? Holy Romans? The Angevins? The Abbasid Caliphate? The Austro-Hungarians? Aztecs? Babylonians? Banamas? Carthaginians? Chola? Comanches? Golden Horde? Mongols? Zulu? The Belgian Colonial Empire? First Reich? Second Reich? Third Reich?

Who remembers the Abbasid Caliphate….in 850 AD it was perhaps the richest and most powerful empire in the world. It reached across North Africa to what is today Pakistan…a distance of 3,500 miles. It fought the Byzantines…captured Cyprus…massacred the Barmakids. And who cares? Who remembers? Who lights a candle or keens at the sepulcher?

There too among the shades and shadows is ancient Lydia. By the 6th century, BC, it had spread its protective wings over the many tribes of Anatolia. Its king was said to be the richest man alive – Croesus. His wealth came from the river Pactolus, where King Midas was said to have washed off his “Midas Touch.”

Lydia enjoyed its moment in the sun. Everything went well until 550 BC. It was then that Croesus made a fatal mistake. He attacked the city of Pteria and enslaved its population. But Pteria was not his to sack. Cyrus, the Persian Emperor, was not called “the great” for no reason. He counterattacked, Croesus was beaten, and soon all of Lydia squirmed beneath the Persian heel.

What happened to Croesus? What became of his wealth? Show us where it is buried…or where Croesus lies. No one knows. And the Lydians? Pffft…gone too. Their language erased. Their empire vanished. We should spend a moment in silence, recalling the splendor of their civilization. But we have no idea…

Fruitcake & Fuhrers: The Third Reich was supposed to last 1,000 years. In the event, fruitcakes lasted longer…the Reich was gone before children, born in 1933, became teenagers. To this day, there are probably still a few yellowed photos of the Fuhrer hanging on neglected walls – maybe in Paraguay. And it was during the lifetime of some people reading this message that millions stood and gave the Fuhrer a stiff-arm salute. Little girls, their hair in golden braids, brought flowers to honor him. And even now, 8 decades later, he is not yet forgotten; he is on the History Channel, almost every night. But where is his empire? From the Pyrenees in the West to the Urals in the East…it was triumphant…unbeatable…sure of itself and its mission. And today, its glories, such as they were, are almost unmentionable.

And the US empire? Is this where history ends, where love and goodness reign eternal? Or will it end up in the same place as all the others? In another unmarked grave in a paupers’ field? And will anyone give a damn?"

"Major Price Increases At Kroger! This Is Ridiculous!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 5/4/23
"Major Price Increases At Kroger!
 This Is Ridiculous!"
"In today's vlog we are at Kroger, and are noticing some major price increases on groceries! This is not good as stores are already charging extremely high prices on most items!"
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Full screen recommended.
Irina from Russia, 5/4/23
"Real Life In Russia Under Sanctions, 
Russian Supermarket"
Comments here:
(1 ruble is .013 US dollars)

"Alert! Banking System Collapse Is Accelerating! Prepare For 'The Greatest Depression'"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/4/23
"Alert! Banking System Collapse Is Accelerating! 
Prepare For 'The Greatest Depression'"
Comments here:
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"Russia Strikes Kyiv With 'For The Kremlin' Message; 'Revenge' Strikes After 'Bid On Putin's Life'"

Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times, 5/4/23
"Russia Strikes Kyiv With 'For The Kremlin' Message; 
'Revenge' Strikes After 'Bid On Putin's Life'"
"Following the drone attack on the Kremlin - the official residence of the Russian President, Moscow struck multiple Ukrainian cities with drones and missiles. According to Ukraine’s military, fragments of Russian drones inscribed with the message "For Moscow" and "For the Kremlin" were found in the city of Odessa. It comes in the aftermath of Russia's claim that Ukrainian forces were behind the attack on Kremlin."
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Col. Douglas Macgregor, Straight Calls, 5/4/23
"A Massive Russian Offensive is Annihilating Ukraine"
"Analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of current geopolitical events in the United States of America and the world."
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Wednesday, May 3, 2023

"Red Alert! Kremlin 'Leave Us No Choice', Bombers Being Loaded"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 5/3/23
"Red Alert! Kremlin 'Leave Us No Choice', 
Bombers Being Loaded"
Comments here:

"Warning! Another Bank Is Collapsing Right Now, Let Them Fail"

Jeremiah Babe, 5/3/23
"Warning! Another Bank Is Collapsing 
Right Now, Let Them Fail"
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"Oh Sh*t, The Small Bank Collapse Is Real And It's Here"

Full screen recommended.
Redacted, PM 5/3/23
"Oh Sh*t, The Small Bank Collapse Is Real And It's Here"
"Half of America’s banks are “potentially insolvent,” according to Stanford School of Business. You may not want to hear that on a day when small bank stocks are taking a nose dive but the writing is on the wall and has been since March when Silicon Valley Bank started this domino chain. The Federal Reserve raised interest rates in an effort to stop the bleeding. Maybe that will help but the U.S. is about to hit a debt ceiling in short order so the crisis continues."
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"15 Facts Target Is Getting Pulverized By This Economy"

Full screen recommended.
"15 Facts Target Is Getting Pulverized By This Economy"
by Epic Economist

"Target’s boom may be over, but its bust has only just begun. The retailer saw sales skyrocketing during the pandemic, but everything came crashing down when inventory imbalances plunged profits by over 90% in a single quarter. Its supply chain problems continue to spark major disruptions in its operations and cause frustration among shoppers who are tired to see empty shelves at Target's stores. Several signs of distress are indicating that the company's financial health is rapidly deteriorating, and believe it or not, the megachain is falling behind smaller competitors in many categories right now.

Three years after the pandemic, Target aisles are still looking barer than normal. Shortages of baking goods, meats, produce, dry goods, and frozen food are making customers increasingly frustrated. On social media, thousands of posts document the retailer’s inventory holes. “What the heck is going on at Target? Have they given up?” one shopper asked on Reddit with an image of empty shelves. “My local target has looked like this recently too. I don’t know what's going on,” answered another. “The shelves are always half-empty, and if you ask a clerk for something, she may say “I’ll see” and point vaguely to two or three barren shelves down the way,” a third commented. “Is your Target at an all-time low right now, too?” another user asked. One employee responded, “None of us have enough hours. The stores are in disarray because no one has time to pick anything up at this rate. Our fulfillment team is getting the raw end of the deal as per usual. I overheard customer service workers telling someone on the phone that fulfillment can’t complete their order the same day it was ordered because they are so far behind. It's all spiraling out of control.”

In other words, its supply chain may be a much bigger problem than anyone imagined. According to retail expert Neil Saunders Target’s messy supply chain may cost an additional $100 million for the company this year. Problems with its next-day delivery capabilities, supplier losses, expensive transportation, and clogged warehouse space are just a few of the issues plaguing the retailer’s supply chain right now. If the chain doesn’t fix its network and improves its operations, expenses can be even greater than predicted and further damage Target’s balance sheet.

If the company fails to strategize during this critical moment, we are likely to see mass store closings and widespread layoffs being announced. Never before in history, the big-box chain faced so many difficult challenges all at once. With economic indicators signaling that more volatility is coming, the retailer must position itself to fight yet another battle. If there's something that we learned in the past few years is that the retail apocalypse forgives no one. We've seen huge chains falling apart and disappearing from one year to the other, and if Target doesn't play catch up soon, it may suffer from the same fate as other collapsing retailers. Today, we compiled several facts that reveal how poor Target's financial situation really is and expose the factors threatening to dismantle the retailer's business in 2023."
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Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind XII: “Peace”

Full screen recommended.
Liquid Mind XII: “Peace”

"A Look to the Heavens"

"This popular group leaps into the early evening sky around the March equinox and the northern hemisphere spring. Famous as the Leo Triplet, the three magnificent galaxies found in the prominent constellation Leo gather here in one astronomical field of view. Crowd pleasers when imaged with even modest telescopes, they can be introduced individually as NGC 3628 (right), M66 (upper left), and M65 (bottom). All three are large spiral galaxies but tend to look dissimilar, because their galactic disks are tilted at different angles to our line of sight. 
NGC 3628, also known as the Hamburger Galaxy, is temptingly seen edge-on, with obscuring dust lanes cutting across its puffy galactic plane. The disks of M66 and M65 are both inclined enough to show off their spiral structure. Gravitational interactions between galaxies in the group have left telltale signs, including the tidal tails and warped, inflated disk of NGC 3628 and the drawn out spiral arms of M66. This gorgeous view of the region spans over 1 degree (two full moons) on the sky in a frame that covers over half a million light-years at the trio's estimated distance of 30 million light-years. Of course the spiky foreground stars lie well within our own Milky Way."

"When the Sky Is No More Than Remembered Light"

"When the Sky Is No More Than Remembered Light:
Mark Strand Reads His Poignant Poem 'The End'”
- by Maria Popova

“Not every man knows what is waiting for him, or what he shall sing,
when the ship he is on slips into darkness, there at the end.”

“It’s such a lucky accident, having been born, that we’re almost obliged to pay attention,” the Pulitzer-winning poet Mark Strand (April 11, 1934–November 29, 2014) observed in contemplating the artist’s task to bear witness to the universe. And yet this universe in which we live is predicated on impermanence, and the lucky accident of our existence is crowned with the certitude of its end from the start. Why, then, are we always so shocked by the finitude of all we hold dear and, above all, by our own mortality? Few are those who can say with sincerity, like Rilke did an exquisite 1923 letter, that “death is our friend precisely because it brings us into absolute and passionate presence with all that is here, that is natural, that is love.” Instead, we spend our lives shuddering at any reminder of our inevitable end, unsalved by the miracle of having lived at all.

Montaigne articulated the central paradox of being perfectly in 16th-century meditation on death and the art of living: “To lament that we shall not be alive a hundred years hence, is the same folly as to be sorry we were not alive a hundred years ago.” Still, lament we do, and some of our greatest art gives voice to that lamentation.

That paradox is what Strand explores with transcendent courage and curiosity in his poem “The End,” found in his "Collected Poems" (public library) - the trove of truth and beauty that gave us Strand’s love letter to dreams.

In this hauntingly beautiful recording, courtesy of The New York Public Library, an aged Strand reads his poignant poem shortly before he repaid his own debt to mortality:

"The End"
by Mark Strand

"Not every man knows what he shall sing at the end,
Watching the pier as the ship sails away, or what it will seem like
When he’s held by the sea’s roar, motionless, there at the end,
Or what he shall hope for once it is clear that he’ll never go back.

When the time has passed to prune the rose or caress the cat,
When the sunset torching the lawn and the full moon icing it down
No longer appear, not everyone knows what he’ll discover instead.

When the weight of the past leans against nothing, and the sky
Is no more than remembered light, and the stories of cirrus
And cumulus come to a close, and all the birds are suspended in flight,
Not everyone knows what is waiting for him, or what he shall sing
When the ship he is on slips into darkness, there at the end."

Complement with the lyrical "Duck, Death and the Tulip", Marcus Aurelius on mortality and the key to living fully, and the great Zen master Seung Sahn Soen-sa’s explanation of death and the life-force to a child, then revisit Strand’s celebration of clouds and everything they mean."

"The Essence Of Human Existence..."

"Curiosity is the essence of human existence.
'Who are we? Where are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?'
I don't know. I don't have any answers to those questions.
I don't know what's over there around the corner. But I want to find out."
- Eugene Cernan

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

"In Three Words..."

"Someday stars will wind down or blow up. Someday death will cover us all like the water of a lake and perhaps nothing will ever come to the surface to show that we were ever there. But we WERE there, and during the time we lived, we were alive. That's the truth - what is, what was, what will be - not what could be, what should have been, what never can be."
- Orson Scott C

The Daily "Near You?"

Frankfurt Am Main, Hessen, Germany. Thanks for stopping by!

"For Whom the Polls Bell"

"For Whom the Polls Bell"
RFK, Jr. shakes up the Republican and Democrat elites...
by Bill Bonner and Joel Bowman

Dublin, Ireland - Here’s a headline from Slate: "What to Take Away From Those Alarming RFK Jr. Polls." What is ‘alarming’ about the polls is that they show a rising…and surprising…support for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. It’s alarming to Slate – and the Liberal Elite – because they regard RFK,Jr. as a “kook,” a “fringe figure,” an “eccentric” and, OMG, a “conspiracy theorist.” As we’ve seen, RFK,Jr. has turned away from the orthodox views of both Republican and Democratic elite. He aims to take America out of its $1.5 trillion/year Empire business.

Here at Bonner Private Research, we’re not the kind of faux ‘conservative’ you see on TV. No, we’re the old-fashioned, finger-waving, ‘we told you so’ kind of conservative. And what we’re telling you today is what we’re going to wag a finger about tomorrow: RFK,Jr. is right…sometime in the future, thinking Americans, if there are any left, will regret their Empire and wish they’d gotten out sooner.

Empire Regret Syndrome: You’ll recall that the empire is expensive. It supports thousands of grifters in the military and out of it…in think tanks, Congress, universities, ‘defense’ suppliers, the World Bank…and many other squirrely sinecures. It is so costly that the government needs to borrow…and print…money to support it. As in the Vietnam War, the money in circulation goes up…followed by consumer prices. You get what you pay for. We get ships and missiles. We don’t get houses, cars, carrots and the other things people want to buy. Again, consumer prices go up.

RFK, Jr. is the first candidate who proposes to put a stop to it. But, empires have a logic…and a trajectory…of their own. Fish gotta swim. Birds gotta fly. Empires gotta be empires.

Military enterprises can be profitable – but only so long as you are winning, bringing back booty, selling captured slaves and collecting tribute. Even then, the easy money and slaves eventually undermine your home economy…and then you need to use violence not on foreigners, but on your own citizens, to keep them in line.

Yes, what goes around, comes around. A nation that celebrates its ‘shoot ‘em ups’ abroad eventually gets shoot ‘em ups at home. That is perhaps the meaning of this strange news at OpenTheBooks on Substack: "Since 2006, 103 rank-and-file agencies outside of the Department of Defense (DOD) spent $3.7 billion on guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment (inflation adjusted to CPI). 27 of those agencies are traditional law enforcement under the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

However, 76 agencies are pencil-pushing, regulatory agencies, i.e. Environment Protection Agency (EPA), Social Security Administration (SSA), Veterans Affairs (VA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Health and Human Services (HHS), Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and many others.

Headcounts: There are now more federal agents with arrest and firearm authority (200,000) than U.S. Marines (186,000).

Fraud, Farce and Failure: If you favor gun control, you might want to start there. A ‘police state’ is not something anyone ‘wants.’ But it is part of the empire’s life cycle. You pass a Patriot Act, giving your elite more power to fight ‘terrorists’ abroad…and then, mirabile dictu, you find terrorists at home!

This insight is important to us, because it gives us a hint about which way the fight against inflation might go. In a nutshell, we expect the empire to keep doing what empires do – fighting, fleecing, and fudging the facts. We expect the Fed to put on a show too – dancing around the ring, jabbing at its opponent…and then taking a dive. Between them, look for at least a decade of financial and political fraud, farce and failure.

But let’s stick with today’s theme – why empires cannot push away from the table before their arteries get blocked. In short, there are too many people with spoons in their hands and pudding in the bowls before them. Here’s Senator Tommy Tuberville: "Experts have known for more than a decade that the military is top heavy. We do not suffer from a lack of generals," Tuberville said. "When my dad served in World War II, we had one general for every 6,000 troops. Think about that: one for every 6,000. Now, we have one general for every 1,400 enlisted service members." The brass lives high on the hog at the Pentagon. Then, it moves even higher on the hog.

Uncivilizing America: In another book, now entitled “Uncivilizing America” and scheduled for release in two weeks [now available on Amazon…note that it is an updated version of “Win -Win or Lose” which was never distributed outside of our own channels] we highlight the case of General Keith Alexander, USA retired. The greatest danger he ever faced came from the dessert counter at the Officers’ Mess…and paper cuts at his desk. But Mr. Alexander is emblematic of the trend in the empire’s Praetorian Guard towards bureaucracy…expense… incompetence…and mendacity. Alexander told Congress that his outfit did not collect information on Americans…even while he was putting together the most extensive database in history…recording every conversation that Americans ever had. Alexander: “I believe it is in the nation’s best interest to put all the phone records into a lockbox that we could search.”

Who can search it? The people with all those guns, of course. And now, he’s moved on, but no….he’s not retiring gracefully to the family farm as Dwight Eisenhower did in 1961. Now he’s selling his secrets to foreigners. Here’s the Washington Post: "Retired Army Gen. Keith Alexander, who led the National Security Agency under Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, secured $2 million in consulting deals with foreign governments after leaving office, including a $700,000 contract to advise Saudi Arabia on cybersecurity after the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, newly released records show.

Alexander’s consulting firm also won a $1.3 million contract from the government of Japan to provide advice on cyber issues, according to additional documents obtained by The Washington Post as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit."

Lies and Murder: If we were going to sell our soul to the Saudis, we’d want a little more money. But Alexander knows what his soul is worth. And he’s not the only one. More from the Washington Post: "Retired military officials are finding high-paying jobs with the Saudi government and can make up to 7-figure salaries working for other foreign governments:

A new investigation by The Washington Post found that more than 500 retired military personnel have taken jobs with foreign governments since 2015, and a majority of the positions were located in North Africa or the Middle East, including consulting jobs for Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Defense.

Australia's government, for example, offered former senior US Navy officials more than $10 million for consulting deals. In Azerbaijan, one retired US Air Force general was offered a consulting job with a pay of $5,000 a day."

From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, the contracts keep coming. Among the Empire’s many tricks – to keep the money coming its way – is its willingness not only to lie but to murder. The Church Committee found as many as 638 schemes to assassinate Fidel Castro, for example. In one of them, the CIA recruited the Mafia to poison Castro’s food.

Which is why criticizing the US military/industrial/spook complex is not necessarily a good strategy for getting ahead in life…or getting elected to the White House. While those responsible for wasting $20 trillion – and the deaths of a million people – get even more money…those who ‘blow the whistle’ go to jail. Or worse. We’d advise Mr. Kennedy to get a food taster."
o
Joel’s Note: As if promising to reign in the empire’s military and tighten her fiscal belt wasn’t enough, RFK, Jr. recently set the cat amongst the elitist pigeons by daring to come out on the side of (gulp)… free speech! Here was the senator, dropping some truth bombs of his own on Twitter yesterday (May 2, 2023)…"Instead of championing free speech, the U.S. actively persecutes journalists and whistleblowers. I’ll pardon brave truth-tellers like Julian Assange and investigate the corruption and crimes they exposed. This isn’t the Soviet Union. The America I love doesn’t imprison dissidents.

Other brave truth-tellers include John Kiriakou, Chelsea Manning, Reality Winner, Daniel Hale, Thomas Drake, Jeffrey Sterling, and Edward Snowden. They were trying to return America to its democratic and humanitarian ideals.

Since the passage of the euphemistically-named “Patriot Act,” the United States Government has been committed to transparency… your transparency, that is. In addition to massive spook and spy programs of its own (as uncovered by some of the above whistleblowers), it has actively encouraged citizens to turn against one another by fostering an “If you see something, say something” environment of snitching and Stasi-style paranoia.

But in a classic case of “rules for thee, not for we,” the state is all about keeping its own sordid affairs away from the disinfecting light of public scrutiny, regularly jailing dissidents in a manner most unbecoming of country that calls itself the “Land of the Free, Home of the Brave.”

Over the past few months, journalists Matt Taibbi, Barri Weiss and Michael Shellenberger brought to light the Twitter Files, which demonstrated explicit collusion between US federal agencies and Big Tech, in which information of critical public interest (see the Hunter Biden laptop story) was suppressed in the lead-up to the 2020 election.

Did the journalists receive any thanks for their investigative reporting? Any applause from the media or members of Congress for rooting out collusion and corruption? Any ovation for “speaking truth to power” or “afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted?”

Hardly. After being lectured by congress, the award-winning journalists were smeared by their (no doubt jealous) coevals in the mainstream press, if their story was covered at all. As for Mr. Taibbi, probably the lead journalist of the trio, he was rewarded with a visit from the IRS while he was giving testimony to congress. Pure coincidence, we’re sure."

It is sometimes said that “democracy dies in darkness.” The obvious corollary: “authoritarianism thrives in the shadows.” Let there be light."

"Real Life in Russia Under Sanctions! Russian Supermarket!"

Full screen recommended.
Irina From Russia, 5/2/23
"Real Life in Russia Under Sanctions! 
Russian Supermarket!"
"My name is Irina. I live in Russia In Siberia city Novosibirsk. I am blogger and I show my life in Russia. I post videos daily about Prices In supermarket, shopping malls, grocery stores and beautiful places In my city. I hope you will like my Vlogs from Russia."
Comments here:
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So tell me, Good Citizen, how's YOUR supermarket?
We all know, don't we? Yeah...

"How It Really Is"

 

"Kremlin Attacked, WW3 Just Entered A New Phase"

Canadian Prepper, 5/3/23
"Kremlin Attacked, WW3 Just Entered A New Phase"
"East vs West conflict is now a certainty. Get ready."
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Must view analysis!
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom 5/3/23
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"Going, Going, Gone…"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 5/3/23
"Going, Going, Gone…"
"The global economy grew for centuries. Now, for the first time,  we are seeing what was once growing, growing to be gone. The recession is all around us."
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"What Happened Yesterday… and Why Regional Banks Are in Trouble"

"What Happened Yesterday… 
and Why Regional Banks Are in Trouble"
By Graham Summers, MSA

"Thus far in 2023, there have been three major bank failures. And I do mean MAJOR: all told the three banks had $532 billion in assets. That amount is actually greater in size that the combined assets of the 25 banks that failed in 2008. What is going on here? What is going on is that the Fed created this mess… and bad risk management at the banks has exacerbated it. Let me explain.

Traditionally, banks make money as follows:
1) You deposit your money at the bank.
2) The bank pays you a low interest rate on this deposit.
3) The bank turns around and loans out $5, $7, even $10 in loans for every $1 you deposited. The bank charges a much higher rate of interest on these loans than the interest rate it pays you on your deposit.
4) Alternatively, the bank buys $5, $7, or even $10 in long-duration assets (Treasuries, or other long-term bonds) for every $1 you deposited.
5) The bank pockets the spread between the interest it earns on its loans/ bonds and the interest rate is pays you on your deposits.

This situation works well provided the Fed keeps interest rates low. Unfortunately for the banks, the Fed unleashed inflation by printing ~$5 TRILLION between 2020 and 2022. Bond yields trade based on many things… including inflation. And once inflation entered the financial system, Treasury yields ripped higher. When Treasury yields rise, bond prices FALL. And who was sitting on trillions of dollars’ worth of long-term Treasuries and loans that traded based on long-term Treasuries? You guessed it… the regional banks. Courtesy of the Fed’s idiocy, the banks were destined to be sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of losses on these assets. But it gets worse.

Once the Fed finally decided to get off its rear and do something about inflation, it embarked on its most aggressive rate hike cycle in history, raising rates from 0.25% to 5% in the span of a single year. Why does this matter?

Remember how banks pay you a low interest rate on your deposit? Well who is going to want to keep his or her money in a bank that pays 0.3% at best… when he or she can earn 4% or even 5% in a money market fund or short-term Treasury bond, courtesy of the Fed raising rates so high so fast ? And so, depositors began pulling their money from banks… and not by a little: 2022 was the first year since 1945 in which money on a NET BASIS left the banking system in the U.S.

But hang on… remember how the bank loaned out or bought $5, $7, or even $10 worth of loans or long-term assets based on every $1 you deposited in the bank? Well when you pull your money out of the bank, the bank has to unload all that stuff to maintain its capital requirements. And so, the Fed delivered the ultimate 1-2 punch to the U.S. regional banking system.

The first punch was it ignored inflation to the point that the banks were sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of losses. However, the KO punch was the Fed raised rates aggressively, which resulted in depositors pulling money out of the banks in search of higher returns on their cash.

Now, don’t get me wrong. The banks are partially to blame for the fact that didn’t act once the Fed announced it would be raising rates to end inflation. With proper risk management (bond hedges for instance) these banks would have been better prepared for the bond market massacre of 2022. However, even careful risk management would have done nothing to help these banks once depositors started pulling their money out. And no bank could raise its deposit rates to 4% or 5% to compete with money market funds or short-term Treasuries while staying in business.

And so we get this: a situation in which MAJOR regional banks are going bust and the regional bank ETF has lost a third of its value in the span of six weeks. This situation is nowhere near over. According to some analysis, HALF of the U.S.’s banks are currently insolvent. The clock is ticking here. Ignore trader games, something BAD is coming to the markets."

Greg Hunter, "CV19 Bioweapon Caused a Pandemic of the Vaccinated"

"CV19 Bioweapon Caused a Pandemic of the Vaccinated"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Ed Dowd was a money manager on Wall Street and is still a skillful number cruncher. He worked for Black Rock and made billions of dollars in profits by being right on the data. Now, Dowd has turned his skills toward the numbers of deaths and serious injuries surrounding the CV19 bioweapon vax. He sees a very dark and disturbing future taking shape. Dowd explains, “We did our vaccine damage report after months and months of collecting data. There are three buckets. There are the dead, disabled and injured. The dead is easy enough to find, it’s excess mortality. In 2021 and 2022, it’s over 300,000 deaths, and that’s probably on the low side. There are 1.36 million disabled from the vax, and that is a conservative number. Finally, 26.6 million people are injured. 

Antidotally, it is all making sense. Everyone is reporting coworkers that are chronically ill and sick. The worktime data is really the smoking gun. It went 13 standard deviations above the 20-year trendline in 2022. It went up in 2020, and then it went up again in 2021, but it exploded in 2022 well after the virus and well into the CV19 vaccine program. It is a stunning a 13 standard deviation event. It is a ‘Black Swan’ event. This affects 10 percent of the total population, but 30% of the labor force. There is about 100 million to 110 million in the labor force. With the injured, disabled and the dead, it’s about 28.9 million. That’s about 30% of the labor force that has died, been disabled or is chronically sick. This is going to have huge implications on productivity going forward.”

On the U.S. dollar, Dowd says it’s not going down in the near term. Dowd contends, “We are predicting deflation, which will be good for the dollar. It’s pretty much bad for every other asset class.”

On the ongoing banking crisis, Dowd says, “The regional bank stocks are getting slaughtered. When you raise interest rates 500 basis points or 5% in a little over 12 months after a 14-year 0% interest rate regime, you are going to leave tremendous skid marks, and the skid marks are the regional banks, unfortunately, because they have a lot of commercial real estate. This is not the end of the crisis, it is the beginning.”

Dowd see’s a “deep recession” coming soon. He also says it is going to be at least as bad as the savings and loan crisis in the early 1990s, but he says all bets are off if the Fed loses control of the economy. That, too, is a good possibility.

Dowd says one really “disturbing” thing is how everyone in power is ignoring the CV19 bioweapon/vax unfolding disaster. Dowd is surprised there are “no investigations or hearings in Congress” and is also surprised no one is asking for his stunning CV19 vax data. Dowd says, “They all want to hope it’s going to go away, but it’s not going to go away because the numbers are so big. My book “Cause Unknown” was written for loved ones who think everything is hunky-dory. When you look at the numbers, you have to ask yourself why aren’t we talking about this? We have pandemic numbers now. It’s way more in the 2020 time frame. We have a pandemic. It’s the pandemic of the vaccinated. I think if we don’t do something soon, the country is gone. No one is taking action.” There is much more in the 39-min. interview.

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with money manager and investment expert Ed Dowd, author of the book called “Cause Unknown: The Epidemic of Sudden Deaths in 2021 and 2022" for 5/3/23.

God have mercy on you if you've taken this horror...

Gregory Mannarino, "Be Ready! Expect To See One Or Two Major Banks Fail!

Gregory Mannarino, 5/3/23
"Be Ready! Expect To See One Or Two Major Banks Fail!
This Thing Is Just Getting Started"
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Tuesday, May 2, 2023

"Plan For Big Trouble, The Empire Is Broke"

Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 5/2/23
"Plan For Big Trouble, The Empire Is Broke"
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"Middle Class Families Can No Longer Afford Car Payments As Tough Times Ahead"

Full screen recommended.
"Middle Class Families Can No Longer Afford 
Car Payments As Tough Times Ahead"
by Epic Economist

"The car market is in crisis, and so is America’s middle class. Even amid a scenario of crashing used car prices, the cost of a vehicle is still out of the reach of most middle-income households, a new study shows. In the past, new cars were a symbol of middle-class strength, but now only affluent Americans can afford to purchase a new vehicle at current prices -- especially considering that interest rates are adding almost $7,000 to the average car loan. Since 2017, while the price of a new car jumped by a whopping $14,000, median wages grew by a mere $1,000. According to some big names in the auto industry, including executives at major companies such as Toyota and Nissan, although some vehicle prices may drop, from now on, cars will remain expensive for middle-class families and prices will never come back to where they were in 2020. In today’s video, we will expose the reason why owning a car is becoming a distant dream for millions of U.S. workers.

Today, the average monthly payment for a new car is at a record $777, nearly doubling since 2019, while used models have climbed to $544 a month on average, according to Kelley Blue Book owner Cox Automotive. A monthly payment of $777 corresponds to almost a sixth of the after-tax income for middle-income U.S. households.

No wonder why many people are borrowing more, for longer periods of time, to finance a car purchase. Experian Automotive said that in the first quarter of this year, the proportion of new cars bought with the help of financing skyrocketed to more than 86%, and the average loan amount topped a staggering $41,000, which is the highest since the firm began tracking the data. The average term for a new-car loan is now 72 months or six years, but longer-term loans carry more risks.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau warns that borrowers who take out long-term loans end up paying more for the car overall, and also run a greater risk of being “upside down” on the loans, meaning owing more than the car is worth.

The price typical used car now stands at roughly $27,000, Cox reports. But an average monthly payment of $544 is still too much for middle-income earners. For over a decade, the average new car payment in the U.S. bumped along at around $400 a month and $300 for used cars. That’s about as much as the typical American household can shell out and still meet other major expenses, said Jonathan Smoke, chief economist at Cox. But since it crossed that mark in November 2019, it only got higher and higher.

For those looking for a new car at a budget price, the options are extremely limited. Domestic automakers stopped building compact cars in the U.S. because they couldn’t make money on them. At the root of the problem is automakers’ pricing strategy: Keep inventory lean to keep price tags fat. They are now giving preference to more luxurious cars that can generate a higher revenue than cheaper popular models, which have significantly lower profit margins.

Add historically high-interest rates to the mix, and cars — just like home ownership and college education — are fast becoming the domain of the rich. At the end of the day, the car market crisis is a societal crisis, too. It is a clear demonstration that most hard-working Americans cannot afford to live in America anymore."
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Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, "Laguna Indigo"

Full screen mode recommended.
Liquid Mind, "Laguna Indigo"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“The beautiful Trifid Nebula, also known as Messier 20, is easy to find with a small telescope in the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. About 5,000 light-years away, the colorful study in cosmic contrasts shares this well-composed, nearly 1 degree wide field with open star cluster Messier 21 (top right).
Trisected by dust lanes the Trifid itself is about 40 light-years across and a mere 300,000 years old. That makes it one of the youngest star forming regions in our sky, with newborn and embryonic stars embedded in its natal dust and gas clouds. Estimates of the distance to open star cluster M21 are similar to M20's, but though they share this gorgeous telescopic skyscape there is no apparent connection between the two. In fact, M21's stars are much older, about 8 million years old.”

"Reality..."

“Reality is what we take to be true.
What we take to be true is what we believe.
What we believe is based upon our perceptions.
What we perceive depends upon what we look for.
What we look for depends upon what we think.
What we think depends upon what we perceive.
What we perceive determines what we believe.
What we believe determines what we take to be true.
What we take to be true is our reality.”
- Gary Zukav

Chet Raymo, “We Are Such Stuff...”

“We Are Such Stuff...”
by Chet Raymo

“Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices,
That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again.”

"Caliban is talking to Stephano and Trinculo in Shakespeare's “Tempest”, telling them not to be "afeard" of the mysterious place they find themselves, an island seemingly beset with magic, strangeness, ineffable presences. And you and I, and, yes, all of us, find ourselves inexplicably thrown up on this island that is the world, and we too, if we are attentive, hear the strange music, the sounds and sweet airs, that seems to come from nowhere and everywhere

No, I'm not talking about the usual ubiquitous clamor, the roar of internal combustion, the blare of the television, the beeping of mobile phones. I'm not talking about the Limbaughs and the Becks, the televangelists, the blathering politicians, the twitterers and bloggers (including this one). I'm not even talking about the exquisite music of Mozart, the poetry of Wordsworth, the theories of Einstein.

I'm talking about the sounds we hear in utter silence, in moments of repose, in the heart of darkness, when we are a little bit afraid, disoriented, off kilter. A strange music that comes from beyond our knowing, a felt meaning. You've heard it. I've heard it. You'd have to be deaf not to have heard it.

Where we differ is how we describe it. Mostly, we give its source a name. Angels. Fairies. Gods or demons. Yahweh. Allah. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Nixies, E.T.s, shades and shadows. Naiads, dryads, Ariel and Puck. A host of invisible creatures who are, in one way or another, images of ourselves. And, in naming, we are a little less afraid.

And some of us are just content to listen, to take delight. Having woken to the inexplicable mystery of the world- the sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not- we let the music lull us back into a sweet slumber, a kind of dreamless dream, a reverie. Does reverie share a deep root with reverence? I don't know.”

A Timely Repost: “Neuroscience Says Listening to This Song Reduces Anxiety by Up to 65 Percent”

Full screen highly recommended.
“Neuroscience Says Listening to This Song
Reduces Anxiety by Up to 65 Percent”
By Melanie Curtin

“Everyone knows they need to manage their stress. When things get difficult at work, school, or in your personal life, you can use as many tips, tricks, and techniques as you can get to calm your nerves. So here’s a science-backed one: make a playlist of the 10 songs found to be the most relaxing on earth. Sound therapies have long been popular as a way of relaxing and restoring one’s health. For centuries, indigenous cultures have used music to enhance well-being and improve health conditions.

Now, neuroscientists out of the UK have specified which tunes give you the most bang for your musical buck. The study was conducted on participants who attempted to solve difficult puzzles as quickly as possible while connected to sensors. The puzzles induced a certain level of stress, and participants listened to different songs while researchers measured brain activity as well as physiological states that included heart rate, blood pressure, and rate of breathing.

According to Dr. David Lewis-Hodgson of Mindlab International, which conducted the research, the top song produced a greater state of relaxation than any other music tested to date. In fact, listening to that one song- “Weightless”- resulted in a striking 65 percent reduction in participants’ overall anxiety, and a 35 percent reduction in their usual physiological resting rates. That is remarkable.

Equally remarkable is the fact the song was actually constructed to do so. The group that created “Weightless”, Marconi Union, did so in collaboration with sound therapists. Its carefully arranged harmonies, rhythms, and bass lines help slow a listener’s heart rate, reduce blood pressure and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

When it comes to lowering anxiety, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Stress either exacerbates or increases the risk of health issues like heart disease, obesity, depression, gastrointestinal problems, asthma, and more. More troubling still, a recent paper out of Harvard and Stanford found health issues from job stress alone cause more deaths than diabetes, Alzheimer’s, or influenza.

In this age of constant bombardment, the science is clear: if you want your mind and body to last, you’ve got to prioritize giving them a rest. Music is an easy way to take some of the pressure off of all the pings, dings, apps, tags, texts, emails, appointments, meetings, and deadlines that can easily spike your stress level and leave you feeling drained and anxious.

Of the top track, Dr. David Lewis-Hodgson said, “‘Weightless’ was so effective, many women became drowsy and I would advise against driving while listening to the song because it could be dangerous.” So don’t drive while listening to these, but do take advantage of them:

10. “We Can Fly,” by Rue du Soleil (Café Del Mar)
7. “Pure Shores, by All Saints
6. “Please Don’t Go, by Barcelona
4. “Watermark,” by Enya
2. “Electra,” by Airstream
1. “Weightless, by Marconi Union

I made a public playlist of all of them on Spotify that runs about 50 minutes (it’s also downloadable).”