"A Head-On Collision"

"A Head-On Collision"

By Bill Bonner

SAN MARTIN, ARGENTINA – "Last week ended with a game of chicken. A new “CARES” boondoggle is in the works. One side wants to keep the price tag below $2 trillion. The other is aiming for more than that. Neither side wants to be blamed for not coming through with the loot. But neither wants to hand the other a political victory.

On the one hand, the Democrats would like to stall… and see the stock market and the economy go up in smoke before the election. But they don’t want to be caught with a can of gasoline and a pack of matches. The Republicans, on the other hand, are desperate to keep the myth of a recovery alive… but can’t be seen giving in to Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. And no matter who chickens out first, a head-on collision is inevitable.

More Damage: Last week, we were exploring the sellout by the geriatric elite. Now comfortable in their sixties and seventies… their fortunes, their careers, their reputations, their marriages, and their families – all made… and in the shade. But they all now depend on fake money and fake interest rates. Their salaries and pensions… their portfolios… their pet programs… their medical expenses – the money has to come from somewhere.

This year, taxes only brought the U.S. government half the money it needed. What to do for the rest? It has to be printed… counterfeited… faked… conjured up with Black Magic and Voodoo Economics. But the more fake money the feds put out… the more damage it does. Already, the fake-money system has cut GDP growth rates in half since the 1970s – despite more engineers, more patents, more new technology, and more money than ever before. It has added debt… cut output… and increased costs throughout the system.

And while the old, educated, and rich have done well – thanks to the way the system skews wealth to the top – millions of lives have already been dented… bent… and banged up… by the disappearance of high-wage manufacturing jobs… by the decay of the old, goods-producing cities… by the shift of $30 trillion to Wall Street and the rich… by depressing interest rates and cheating savers… by the COVID-19 Shutdown… and the gutting of the whole hospitality and leisure sector…

Biggest Crash: But on the horizon is the biggest crash of all. Like a freight train loaded with debt… the U.S. is about to get slammed by $237 trillion worth of “unfunded liabilities.” The boomer elite did not merely look out for itself in the past and the present… It promised itself pension and medical benefits, literally, from now until Kingdom Come.

There are 76 million boomers. None is eager to get to the grave. But every one of them hopes to get there before his Social Security/Obamacare benefits run out. Many believe it’s a sure thing… They think there is a “trust fund” with money tucked away to pay for their care. But there is no “trust fund,” no savings, no pot of money anywhere. Here’s what former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan had to say about it: "The term Social Security “Trust Fund” is nonsense… It is a mandatory outlay and there is a 0% chance that outlay will not get made. When the fund runs out, there is no chance anything will change. The U.S. has committed to pensions it cannot pay…"

Greenspan is right. There is another head-on collision coming, much more serious than the Democrat-Republican game of chicken. There is zero chance that the payments won’t be made. But there is also zero chance that the funds will be there to make them.

Unpayable Liabilities: Immovable object meets irresistible force. The current estimate of unfunded liabilities – made by professor Laurence Kotlikoff of Boston University – is around $210 trillion. Add that to the $27 trillion official “national debt” and you get $237 trillion.

Who’s going to pay that? Well… no one… and everyone. Politically, it must be paid… or the party in power will be removed by boomer voters. But, financially, it can’t be paid, not without some hocus pocus from the Federal Reserve (which will make the payments much less valuable). And no, the system cannot be “reformed” and “saved.” Politically, entitlements are immovable. Mathematically, they are unpayable.

Result: a head-on collision. U.S. entitlements are “a tragedy we see coming,” says JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. So much of the economy now depends on money from the government that if the amounts forthcoming were reduced, consumer spending would go down… and the U.S. economy would crash.

Bigger Bailout: That is also why another CARES Act is becoming more urgent. The big GDP bounce we saw in the third quarter, which commentators took as evidence of a recovery, was a fraud. It was almost completely paid for with the Fed’s phony money. And now, that money is petering out. And so is the recovery. What else can the geezers do, but print more of it? And what will happen as they print more and more money, trying to keep the train on the rails?

There are only a few more weeks before the election. Our guess is that Ol’ Casey Jones – now recuperating in Walter Reed Hospital, and soon back on the job in the White House – and the whole team of Republican lawmakers, will be so desperate to announce another big bailout… and another beautiful stock market boom… that they will welcome a much bigger bailout than they first proposed. That is, they will chicken out… avoid a crash now… and set up a bigger one later. We’ll see."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

"What A Struggle..."

“Over the years you get to see what a struggle life is for most people, how tough it is, how easy it is to be judgmental and criticize and stand outside of situations and impart your wisdom and judgment. But over the decades I've got more tolerant of people's flaws and mistakes. Everybody makes a lot of them. When you're younger you feel: "Hey, this person is evil" or "This person is a jerk" or stupid or "What's wrong with them?" Then you go through life and you think: "Well, it's not so easy." There's a lot of mystery and suffering and complication. Everybody's out there trying to do the best they can. And it's not such an easy business.”

- Woody Allen

"15 Signs That America’s Economic Depression Is 

Accelerating As We Head Toward The Holiday Season

by Michael Snyder

Hardly anyone expected that things would get this bad in 2020. Once the pandemic hit and states all over the country started instituting lockdowns, economic activity collapsed dramatically. U.S. GDP was down 31.4 percent during the second quarter of 2020, and that was a drop without parallel in all of U.S. history. In fact, that decline was more than three times as large as the previous record. But eventually states started to “reopen” their economies, and U.S. GDP for the third quarter is expected to show a significant rebound when the numbers are finally released. Of course we still aren’t even close to where we used to be, but at least things weren’t as bad as they were in the second quarter. But now as the fourth quarter begins, it appears that economic conditions are heading back in the wrong direction again. The following are 15 signs that America’s economic depression is accelerating as we head toward the holiday season…

#1 All 546 Regal Cinema theaters in the United States are being shut down, and right now there is no timetable for reopening them.

#2 It is being reported that AMC Entertainment (the largest movie theater chain in the U.S.) will “run out of liquidity” in 6 months.

#3 Over the weekend, I was told by someone that works in the industry that he expects most movie theaters in the country to eventually close down permanently because of this pandemic.

#4 The average rent on a one bedroom apartment in San Francisco is 20.3 percent lower than it was one year ago.

#5 During the 3rd quarter, the number of vehicles delivered by General Motors was down about 10 percent from a year ago.

#6 It is being reported that Anheuser-Busch will be laying off 400 employees in Loveland, Denver, Littleton and Colorado Springs.

#7 Allstate has just announced that they will be laying off 3,800 workers.

#8 JCPenney says that it will be cutting approximately 15,000 jobs as we approach the holiday shopping season.

#9 At least one-fourth of the 28,000 layoffs that Disney will be conducting will happen in Florida.

#10 Collectively, American Airlines and United Airlines let 32,000 employees go last week.

#11 On Thursday, we learned that another 787,000 Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits during the previous week.

#12 Overall, more than 60 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits so far in 2020. That number is far higher than anything we have ever seen before in all of U.S. history.

#13 Retail store closings in the United States continue to surge along at a pace that is absolutely unprecedented.

#14 Bankruptcy filings in New York City have risen 40 percent so far in 2020.

#15 This number is hard to believe, but it is being reported that almost 90 percent of New York City bar and restaurant owners couldn’t pay their full rent for the month of August.

None of this was supposed to happen. By now, we were supposed to be well into a “V-shaped recovery” that would soon have Americans forgetting all about the dark days in the middle of 2020. But instead, millions upon millions of Americans have lost their jobs and are facing a deeply uncertain future. One of those Americans is an unemployed cook named Juan Jose Martinez Camacho:

"Juan Jose Martinez Camacho, 59, has been a cook for 30 years, since he was asked to fill in one day when he was working as a dishwasher in a restaurant. He has worked as a cook at the Crowne Plaza in Redondo Beach, California, for 22 years. When he was laid off on March 23, he was thinking it would be only two or three months before things got back to normal. But late last month he was notified he had permanently lost the job, which paid $22 an hour. He has been looking for other cooking jobs without any luck."

Can you imagine doing the same thing for 30 years and suddenly being out of a job? Like most Americans, he assumed that the pandemic would soon pass and he would be going back to his old routine. But that hasn’t happened, and so he is among the millions of restaurant workers that are not bringing in any income right now.

With so many Americans out of work, food banks around the country have been dealing with a tsunami of demand. In previous articles, I have written about the absolutely massive lines that we have been seeing in certain portions of the nation. In some cases, people have started lining up at 2 AM in the morning and the lines have gotten up to 2 miles long. And every week we see more gigantic lines at food banks all over America. The following is how one local news source described the massive lines that have been consistently forming in the state of Texas:

"Thousands of cars form tightly packed lines across the state every week now to receive food. From Chihuahuan Desert border towns and cities to the staked plains of the panhandle, across the piney wood of deep East Texas, down to the Rio Grande and back cars stack, growing into steel and fiberglass caterpillars, hungry."

These events have distributed tens of millions of pounds of food over the past six months. If you still have your job and you haven’t been forced to visit a food bank during this crisis, you should be thankful for your blessings. Just like in the 1930s, we are witnessing colossal lines for food all over the nation, and this is just the beginning.

If you have been waiting for a “recovery”, you can stop waiting, because what we witnessed during the third quarter was about all the “recovery” that we are going to get. Now we are less than a month away from a presidential election that promises to be incredibly chaotic, and the extremely deep divisions that already exist in our nation are likely to get even worse. Many believe that this election will produce even more civil unrest, and that will likely depress economic activity even further.

I truly wish that economic conditions would “return to normal” and that all of us could get back to our old patterns. But there isn’t going to be any “return to normal” any time soon. Instead, very dark days are ahead, and those very dark days will shake this nation to the core."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"You Are (Not) Alone"

"You Are (Not) Alone"

by Mark Manson

"Each week, I send you three potentially life-changing ideas to help you be a slightly less awful human being. This week, we’re talking about loneliness and all of its many repercussions. Let’s get into it.

1. What's the deal with loneliness? Okay, I gotta admit. I totally teased you guys last week. Towards the end of last week’s email I dropped this bomb: “Loneliness is low-key the root of so many of the mental health and social welfare issues today, yet nobody seems to know how to talk about or solve it.” ...and then moved on as if nothing had happened. No less than eight bajillion of you replied to that email asking me to write about loneliness and explain what I meant, so here we go.

Loneliness is a tough topic to tackle. It’s so widespread, yet we still know little about how or why it happens. First, here are things that we know that are probably true: Loneliness is widespread in the western world. In numerous surveys in the US and Europe, anywhere from 30% to 60% of the population self-reports feeling lonely and/or says that they have no meaningful in-person interactions on a daily basis. What’s more surprising is that younger people often report experiencing more loneliness than older people.

• Loneliness is bad for you. There’s a famous stat that gets bandied about claiming that loneliness shortens your lifespan as much as smoking 15 cigarettes per day. I always think it’s pretty ridiculous how they calculate these factoids, but the point remains: loneliness is unhealthy, both physically and mentally. It raises the risk of anxiety and depression. It also harms your physical health. Studies find that people who are lonely experience more heart disease, high blood pressure, and weaker immune systems.

2. What we don't know about loneliness - Okay, so that sounds pretty bad. But wait, there’s more! Here’s what we don’t know: Why this is happening. Loneliness afflicts the western world in a way that it doesn’t appear to affect other cultures. There are many theories for why this is, but we still don’t have any solid answers. Some point to westerners’ more individualistic culture with less emphasis on family or community. Some blame urbanization and cultural norms around owning your own house, living alone, working independently, etc. Some point to demographic changes: people are having fewer children, move from city to city more often, and spend less time with the elderly. Some point to the decline in religiosity, arguing that religion has historically been the core of human community and camaraderie. It could be any or all of these.

• How to fix it. Again, there are a lot of theories, but we know little for sure. Connections online and through devices seem to be a poor replacement for the emotional and psychological sustenance we get from being around others. Social media and video games are like the diet soda of our emotional well-being — it tastes like we’re hanging out with people, but there are no emotional calories. And in this case, no emotional calories is a bad thing… it’s starving us. Loneliness is both a function of quality and quantity of social interactions. Not only do we need to see people we know often, but we also need to feel some degree of intimacy and trust with those we know.

That said, efforts are being made. In 2018, the UK appointed a “minister of loneliness.” Scandinavian countries such as Denmark are having success with “co-housing policies” where a mixture of elderly retired people and young families in need of childcare are “matched” into housing units where they share living spaces and can support each other. But overall, this appears to be a big issue. It’s an issue to the point where the medical world has taken notice and pharmaceutical companies are even questioning if they could develop a drug to treat loneliness much in the same way there are pills to treat depression (sidenote: please f***ing don’t).

3. The dark path from loneliness - But this still doesn’t get at why I think loneliness is “the low-key root” of so many social and cultural issues today. Psychologically speaking, we’re social animals. Most of the meaning and purpose we derive in life comes via our relationships with other individuals or from our perceived role within society, at large. In fact, it appears that our need for human connection is so strong that much of our ability to form functional beliefs about ourselves and the world is tied to our relationships. Like a muscle, you lose empathy if you don’t use it.

And this is why, when people look at what motivates religious fanatics, conspiracy nuts, and political extremists, time and time again, what they find is abiding loneliness. Rejection and social isolation radicalize people. In the absence of affection and understanding, people fall back onto delusional ideas of revolution and saving the world to give themselves a sense of purpose.

Hannah Arendt, the mid-20th century philosopher and writer, was a German Jew who successfully escaped the Nazis. After the war, she spent years studying totalitarianism, the rise and fall of fascism, the communist revolutions, the horrors of Stalin and Hitler and Mussolini and Mao—and more importantly, why these leaders became so popular so quickly among their followers despite the terror they invoked.

She then produced a classic book called "The Origins of Totalitarianism". The book stretches to nearly 500 pages in length and in the end, she comes to a startling conclusion: she argued that loneliness makes people susceptible to the contempt and fragmentation that causes functional societies to collapse into extremism and violence. I will quote her at length here and hope her progeny don’t sue me:

“Loneliness, the common ground for terror, the essence of totalitarian government, the preparation of its executioners and its victims, is closely connected with uprootedness and [meaninglessness] which have been the curse of modern masses since the beginning of the industrial revolution and have become acute with the rise of the imperialism at the end of the last century and the breakdown of political institutions and social traditions in our own time.

[...]

What prepares men for totalitarian domination in the non-totalitarian world is the fact that loneliness, once a borderline experience usually suffered in certain marginal social conditions like old age, has become an everyday experience of the ever-growing masses of our century. The merciless process into which totalitarianism drives and organizes the masses looks like a suicidal escape from this reality. [The reasoning] which “seizes you as in a vise” appears like a last support in a world where nobody is reliable and nothing can be relied upon. It is the inner coercion whose only content is the strict avoidance of contradiction that seems to confirm a man’s identity outside the relationships with others.”

Basically, once cut off from empathetic social contact to ground us, the only way we make sense of the world is by adopting radical all/nothing views. And within these views, people begin to see a need for radical overthrow of the status quo. They begin to imagine themselves complete victims or destined saviors of society."

Keep in mind, too, that she wrote this in 1951, long before Trump and woke leftists and Twitter were thought to have ruined everything. And perhaps this is the real threat of social media: it does not necessarily make us lonelier or angrier or more selfish or more spiteful — it simply enables the lonely and angry and selfish and spiteful to self-organize and be heard like never before. It used to be that if you were a radical Marxist who wished for violent revolution or if you were a quack who thought Bill Gates was implanting microchips in millions of African children, you kinda had to keep that shit to yourself. You'd cause a lot of awkward silences and shifty side-glances until you’d realized you weren’t being invited to kids’ birthday parties anymore.

So… you’d shut the f**k up. And eventually, you’d start to realize, hey, most people are all right. Things are going to be fine. But now? There’s a forum somewhere full of people with the exact same batshit crazy you have. And what do all humans who have similar yet strange beliefs do when they get together? That’s right, they convince themselves that they’re going to save the fucking world with their knowledge. That is, they go on a crusade. And you and I and everyone else has to listen to them, emboldened and invigorated by their new internet “friends,” as they explain to us at Thanksgiving why Jesus was a communist and the movie Armageddon was really a coded message from QAnon explaining why Bruce Willis doesn’t just run a pedophile ring, but he is secretly a sixteen-year-old boy being held prisoner against his wishes, and...

(F**k, now I’m really going to get sued.) Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah! Loneliness…

Perhaps another way to look at Arendt’s argument is that we run the risk of extremists taking over when it becomes easier for radicals with fringe beliefs to mobilize and organize than the moderate majority. Historically, this mobilization of the extremes was enabled by economic depressions and famines and (gulp) pandemics and whatnot. Today, perhaps social media and smartphones have inadvertently made that mobilization more possible.

But who knows… I could be wrong about all of this. The fact is, we still don’t know enough to say for sure. Until next week..."

- https://markmanson.net/newsletters/

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Related:

"Loneliness Makes a Bigger Impact on Your Mental 

and Physical Health Than You Might Think"

"How It Really Is"

 

"Market Fantasy Updates 10/5/20"

"Market Fantasy Updates 10/5/20" 

Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...

Only the consequences are real - to you!

○

"The more I see of the monied classes, 

the better I understand the guillotine."

- George Bernard Shaw

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Gregory Mannarino,

AM 10/5/20 UPDATE: 

“Alert! The 10yr Yield Makes A BIG MOVE"

 - https://traderschoice.net/

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Updated live.

- https://www.marketwatch.com/tools/marketsummary

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

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Daily Update (October 4th to 6th)

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

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Insane...

"Covid-19 Pandemic Update 10/5/20"

October 5, 2020 

by David Leonhardt

• President Trump’s doctors acknowledged Sunday that his condition was more serious than they had publicly described on Saturday. Dr. Sean Conley, the White House physician, suggested he had given the rosy assessment to avoid upsetting Trump.

• Trump did not disclose to the country the first positive virus test result he received, The Wall Street Journal reported. That first positive test came Thursday during the day. He appeared on Fox News that night and said he was awaiting his test result, which was in fact a follow-up test.

• Trump’s doctors are treating him with dexamethasone, a steroid that has helped severely ill patients, but not typically used in milder cases. Outside health experts said they could not tell if Trump was sicker than he appeared in photos — or if doctors were treating him with unusual aggressiveness.

• Dexamethasone can cause side effects, including confusion, sleep loss and changes in mood and cognition, raising concerns about whether the president’s treatment may affect his ability to do his job.

• Trump briefly left the hospital in an S.U.V. to wave at supporters, potentially putting at risk of infection the two Secret Service agents who were also in the car. “The irresponsibility is astounding,” Dr. James Philips, an attending physician at the hospital where Trump is being treated, tweeted.

• Joe Biden’s campaign said he had tested negative for the virus again, five days after sharing a debate stage with the president. Biden will campaign today in Florida, despite public health guidelines calling for a 14-day quarantine after potential exposure. His campaign said he did not need to because he did not have “close contact” with Trump.

• Fearing a second wave of the virus, Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed new restrictions in 20 hot spots in New York City.

Oct 5, 2020 7:55 AM ET:

 Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak 
The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 35,224,200 
people, according to official counts, including 7,444,705 Americans.

      Oct 5, 2020 7:55 AM ET: 
Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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Updated 10/5/20, 4:23 AM ET

Click image for larger size.

- https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

"It’s Over For The Dollar: Emerging Evidence Of Hyperinflation That Will Lead To Banking Crisis"

"It’s Over For The Dollar: Emerging Evidence Of 

Hyperinflation That Will Lead To Banking Crisis"

by Epic Economist

"The new monetary stimulus relief issued by the Fed is going to create a massive hyperinflation that will provoke a banking crisis and potentially trigger the dollar collapse on the financial markets. Even though a second round of unemployment checks may sound good at this point in the economic meltdown, what lays behind this policy is yet another attempt of the US government to trap the American currency into an inflation loop. However, as the is hostage to foreign sellers and the market tendency points to a major dollar sell-off, experts have been alerting that how the second round of state money is programmed to swiftly lose utility, which will defeat its own purpose, and soon we’ll witness the dollar lose its purchasing power.

As the economic meltdown unfolds, the Fed continues with policies whose purpose is to sustain a bubble in financial markets. However, when the massive inflation bubble pop the inevitable result will be the total destruction of the dollar. To simply put, the extensive scale of printed money injections will create such an overpowering hyperinflation that the dollar's purchasing power will rapidly deteriorate. 

You may think the main purpose of monetary inflation is to support the economy, but the government’s real reason is that only a large-scale inflation can fund the colossal governmental deficit, which is climbing fast due to higher future welfare liabilities becoming current and also to the political class' disruptive behavior to keep finding new reasons to spend money. Underneath the extravagant spending, there are unsustainable tax burdens on the underperforming US economy. And, the economic meltdown consequent to the health crisis was only the final blow that triggered the dollar downfall.

At the end of the day, as economy expert Alasdair Macleod explained, the real intention behind monetary inflation is to transfer wealth from savers, salary-earners, pensioners, and welfare beneficiaries to the government. In no way does this benefit the people as a whole. It also transfers wealth from savers to borrowers by diminishing the value of capital over time. That is to say, with yet another round of fiscal relief, the inflation of the money supply is now going to skyrocket, meaning that these negative implications are going to get much worse. 

The coming elections will likely be another aggravating factor for it, because prospects to reduce, or at least restraint budget deficits have been totally suppressed by it. No matter who wins, government spending won’t be controlled nor tax revenue will be increased. The thing about unsubstantiated state currencies is that whenever they can be issued to cover budget deficits they will be issued. As a consequence, the inflated currency loses its purchasing power as the pace of its issuance speeds up to compensate - and that's the main traction behind hyperinflation of the quantity of money.

Due to the Fed's monetary response to the economic meltdown boosted by the outbreak, the imminence of a second wave of the virus destroying the possibility of a V-shaped recovery, forthcoming elections, and another stimulus package, a significant surge in FMQ will emerge. Although, right now, FMQ already exceeds GDP, and it will potentially exceed 125% of GDP in the coming months.

This money is raised through quantitative easing which is a policy that overlooks rules to enable the Fed to keep printing money and handing it to the US government. As the fiscal deficit has been expanding way before the sanitary outbreak struck the economy, and after businesses' widespread collapse that led to the direct injection of money into each household due to the staggering unemployment rates, the government debt is predicted to be of $20.3 trillion by the end of fiscal 2020.

Furthermore, eventually, the inflation impact will be seen in prices, and ultimately, people will start to reject it as a currency, preferring to trade it in exchange for goods, because it will become worthless paper. While authorities are relying on public ignorance about how money and the theory of exchange works, foreign holders already started to dump dollars or sell them off in exchange for commodities.

Countries that hold the dollar as a reserve currency or as portfolio investment, are witnessing the worsening of the global economic outlook, boosting the deterioration of the currency. Additionally, the second round of stimulus relief will likely spark a banking crisis that will make the whole traditional banking system obsolete, and possibly mark the end of the Fed’s money-printing policy and the beginning of a new digital currency. In any case, the effects on the real economy will be disastrous and the financial markets are going to face another blow."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com

Gregory Mannarino, "Markets A Look Ahead: Special Report! Critical Updates"

Gregory Mannarino,

"Markets A Look Ahead: Special Report! Critical Updates"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, "When Time Slows (Born Star)"

Liquid Mind, "When Time Slows (Born Star)"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"No, hamburgers are not this big. What is pictured is a sharp telescopic view of a magnificent edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 3628, a puffy galactic disk divided by dark dust lanes. Of course, this deep galactic portrait puts some astronomers in mind of its popular moniker, The Hamburger Galaxy. 

Click image for larger size.

The tantalizing island universe is about 100,000 light-years across and 35 million light-years away in the northern springtime constellation Leo. NGC 3628 shares its neighborhood in the local Universe with two other large spirals M65 and M66 in a grouping otherwise known as the Leo Triplet. Gravitational interactions with its cosmic neighbors are likely responsible for the extended flare and warp of this spiral's disk.”

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170503.html

"Are There Any Questions?"

"Are There Any Questions?"

by Robert Fulghum

"Are there any questions?" An offer that comes at the end of college lectures and long meetings. Said when an audience is not only overdosed with information, but when there is no time left anyhow. At times like that you sure do have questions. Like, "Can we leave now?" and "What the hell was this meeting for?" and "Where can I get a drink?"

The gesture is supposed to indicate openness on the part of the speaker, I suppose, but if in fact you do ask a question, both the speaker and the audience will give you drop-dead looks. And some fool - some earnest idiot - always asks. And the speaker always answers. By repeating most of what he has already said. But if there is a little time left and there is a little silence left in response to the invitation, I usually ask the most important question of all: "What is the Meaning of Life?" You never know, somebody may have the answer, and I'd really hate to miss it because I was too socially inhibited to ask. But when I ask, it is usually taken as a kind of absurdist move - people laugh and nod and gather up their stuff and the meeting is dismissed on that ridiculous note. Once, and only once, I asked that question and got a serious answer…

Papaderos rose from his chair at the back of the room and walked to the front, where he stood in the bright Greek sunlight of an open window and looked out… he turned. And made the ritual gesture: "Are there any questions?" Quiet quilted the room. These two weeks had generated enough questions for a lifetime, but for now there was only silence.

"No questions?" Papaderos swept the room with his eyes.
So. I asked.
"Dr. Papaderos, what is the meaning of life?"

The usual laughter followed, and people stirred to go. Papaderos held up his hand and stilled the room and looked at me for a long time, asking with his eyes if I was serious and seeing from my eyes that I was.

"I will answer your question."

Taking his wallet out of his hip pocket, he fished into a leather billfold and brought out a very small round mirror, about the size of a quarter. And what he said went like this: "When I was a small child, during the war, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village. One day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror. A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place. I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece. This one. And by scratching it on a stone I made it round. I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine - in deep holes and crevices and dark closets. It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find.

I kept the little mirror, and as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game. As I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child's game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of light. But light - truth, understanding, knowledge - is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it. I am a fragment of a mirror whose design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world - into the black places in the hearts of men - and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life."

And then he took his small mirror and, holding it carefully, caught the bright rays of daylight streaming through the window and reflected them onto my face and onto my hands folded on the desk."

- Robert Fulghum, 

"It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It"

"The Random Revenge..."

“A man who has blown all his options can't afford the luxury of changing his ways. He has to capitalize on whatever he has left, and he can't afford to admit - no matter how often he's reminded of it - that every day of his life takes him farther and farther down a blind alley. Very few toads in this world are Prince Charmings in disguise. Most are simply toads, and they are going to stay that way. Toads don't make laws or change any basic structures, but one or two rooty insights can work powerful changes in the way they get through life. A toad who believes he got a raw deal before he even knew who was dealing will usually be sympathetic to the mean, vindictive ignorance that colors the Hell's Angels' view of humanity. There is not much mental distance between a feeling of having been screwed and the ethic of total retaliation, or at least the random revenge that comes with outraging the public decency.”

- Hunter S. Thompson

The Daily "Near You?"

Bacolod City, Bacolod, Philippines. Thanks for stopping by!

"2020: The Year The System Showed Its Real Face"

"2020: The Year The System Showed Its Real Face"

by Paul Rosenberg

"As we grew up, nearly all of us were inundated with stories of our glorious national fathers, our beautiful democracies, and so on. And being young, we for the most part believed them. The system gave us our prosperity, our comfort, our medicine, our sense of importance. Soon enough we learned that the system was also stupid and perverse, but we found a way around that contradiction by blaming one segment of the system or another: The Blues or the Greens or the Red are the problem; it could not, must not, be that the system itself is the problem. Then came 2020, and the system revealed its true face. I suppose I should be fair and add that the system wasn’t always as rotten as it is now, but regardless, it wasn’t able to prevent the rot that overtook it.

2020, In A Nasty Little Nutshell: The system would like everything except the daily outrages (one for the Blues, one for the Reds) to go down the Memory Hole. So I think it’s important to recap the revelations of 2020:

The system decreed who could work and who couldn’t. This was not done democratically; it was done by edict. “Democracy” did nothing to stop it.

People were arrested for going to church or synagogue. This was the real disgrace of the police forces. Are there any orders from their paymasters they won’t enforce upon us?

Political gangs roam the streets, beating, threatening and burning. Make no mistake, these are covertly authorized political gangs, serving political ends. This vile tactic goes back to ancient Rome at least, where gangs of thugs beat opponents in the streets.

“Science” said one thing then the opposite, supporting whatever power wanted. Not every scientist, but more or less the entire grant-seeking, position-seeking complex showed themselves to be without integrity; they said and did whatever power wanted them to do.

Mass media was as a fear delivery system. They were devoted to capturing eyeballs with fear and monetizing outrage. Journalistic integrity was a joke at best.

Social media silenced thousands of dissenters, purely at the behest of political power. This was no less that the suppression of speech. (If you want to profit from becoming the public square, you have to act like a public square.) Free services have always been parasites, but these have shown themselves to be sycophantic to the point of fascism.

The mandatory school system, around which millions of families had arranged their lives, was ripped away in an instant.

Hate was legitimated. Political loud-mouths and televised faces have treated hate as the voice of justice, instead of the disease it is. Millions have joined in the barbarity, pretending that hate is actually duty, honor, and truth.

More could be added, but this is quite enough to make my point: The system is not what we were taught it was, and 2020 has revealed that quite well.

The System Doesn’t Deserve Us: By referring to “the system” and “us,” I’m dividing the world into two parts, and so I should be clear on what those parts are:

Us refers to producers: the people who grow food, transport it, process it, build machines, provide medical care, and so on. Everyone from the construction worker to the small business owner to the cleaning lady is a producer, and deserve great respect for what they do. We owe all the comforts of our lives, and frequently our lives altogether, to these people.

The system refers to the entire governmental complex that takes our money and couldn’t survive without it. It also includes everything that couldn’t be what they are without them: Central banks, government school systems, businesses that live on government connections, television networks, social media behemoths, and more or less everything high and mighty.

What I’d like is for the producers of the world to become clear on the fact that we don’t need them. Everything they “do for us” is done with our money, which they take from us by force and fraud. And let’s be honest about this: The system is a violent, corrupt and control-obsessed entity. Millions of us would choose other arrangements if we could, but the system forbids them. Forcibly.

We should also understand that this has happened before. Here, to illustrate, is a passage from historian C. Delisle Burns on the real reason Rome collapsed: "Great numbers of men and women were unwilling to make make the effort required for the maintenance of the old order, not because they were not good enough to fulfill their civic duties, but because they were too good to be satisfied with a system from which so few derived benefit."

The system is not worthy of our labor and treasure. Whether or not it once was (and if so, when) no longer matters. 2020 has made this much clear. It’s time to drop our child-training and look at the world like the adults we’ve become."

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

"DHS Just Banned All Communists and 'Totalitarians' From the USA."

 "DHS Just Banned All Communists and 'Totalitarians' From the USA."

by Flamehuntz

50 U.S. Code § 842. Proscription of Communist Party, its successors, and subsidiary organizations: The Communist Party of the United States, or any successors of such party regardless of the assumed name, whose object or purpose is to overthrow the Government of the United States, or the government of any State, Territory, District, or possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein by force and violence, are not entitled to any of the rights, privileges, and immunities attendant upon legal bodies created under the jurisdiction of the laws of the United States or any political subdivision thereof; and whatever rights, privileges, and immunities which have heretofore been granted to said party or any subsidiary organization by reason of the laws of the United States or any political subdivision thereof, are terminated: Provided, however, That nothing in this section shall be construed as amending the Internal Security Act of 1950, as amended [50 U.S.C. 781 et seq.]

(Aug. 24, 1954, ch. 886, § 3, 68 Stat. 776.)

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

The Poet: Mark Jarman, "Coyotes"

"Coyotes"

"Is this world truly fallen? They say no.

For there's the new moon, there's the Milky Way,

There's the rattler with a wren's egg in its mouth,

And there's the panting rabbit they will eat.

They sing their wild hymn on the dark slope,

Reading the stars like notes of hilarious music.

Is this a fallen world? How could it be?

And yet we're crying over the stars again,

And over the uncertainty of death,

Which we suspect will divide us all forever.

I'm tired of those who broadcast their certainties,

Constantly on their cell phones to their redeemer.

Is this a fallen world? For them it is.

But there's that starlit burst of animal laughter.

The day has sent its fires scattering.

The night has risen from its burning bed.

Our tears are proof that love is meant for life

And for the living. And this chorus of praise,

Which the pet dogs of the neighborhood are answering

Nostalgically, invites our answer, too.

Is this a fallen world? How could it be?"

~ Mark Jarman

I couldn't resist!

"How It Really Is"

 

"Moral compass?!" 

 Surely you jest... This is 'Murica!

"The Level Of Intelligence..."

"If Man were relieved of all superstition, and all prejudice, and had replaced these with a keen sensitivity to his real environment, and moreover had achieved a level of communication so simplified that one syllable could express his every thought, then he would have achieved the level of intelligence already achieved by his dog."

~ Robert Brault

"How It Really Will Be, Soon"

 
Good riddance...

"Be Open Minded..."

 

"Things Change"

"Things Change"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"Things change, supposedly immutable systems crumble and delusions die. That's the lay of the land in the "The Empire of Uncertainty" I described Friday. It's difficult not to be reminded of the Antonine Plague of 165 AD that crippled the Western Roman Empire. The exact nature of the virus that struck down as many as one-third of the Empire's residents is unknown; it's thought to be an early variant of measles or smallpox.

One would have guessed the populace achieved "herd immunity" after the first wave devastated the Empire, but that's not what happened. The plague continued until 180 AD, and recurred a decade later, continuing to sow misery and economic costs. Valiant co-Emperor Verus fell ill and died in 169 AD, leaving his adopted brother Marcus Aurelius to struggle on as the sole leader of Rome's efforts to repel invasions and maintain its defenses.

What's different now is the extreme fragility of America's financial and social orders. The apparent strength of the economy rests on increasing extremes of financialization and its corrupting fruit, soaring wealth/power inequality. "The market" would have us believe corporations profiting from "engagement" (i.e. divisiveness and turmoil) are the most valuable assets in the land. If the Empire's most precious assets are the derangements of "engagement," then what else do we need to know about its advanced fragility?

If data stripmined from debt-dependent consumers is the most profitable resource in the nation, that's a definition of distortion and delusion. It's almost as if the American economy and social order have discounted the material world, as if financial leverage, data-mining and "engagement" are all that really matters and the material world will magically take care of itself.

Just as we can't eat an iPad, we also can't eat "engagement" or burn data to keep warm or use leverage and other tricks to conjure up productive wealth. The rising tide of dysfunction and incompetence in America's institutions can be monitored by tracking how functionaries are rewarded for navigating the bureaucratic thickets and padding budgets, not for achieving the institution's purpose.

The Crisis of Competence is increasingly visible, but delusions of grandeur still hold. As everyday life decays into developed-world status, we're told the problem is the hospital or university or corporation no longer has sufficient revenues to cover its bloated expenses, and so the nation must borrow additional trillions to bail out virtually every entity in the land. The concept of financial viability without access to ever-expanding debt has been lost, and with that lost, resilience and competence have also been lost. The status quo's "solutions" are nothing more than doing more of what's hollowed out our economy and society.

Things change. We can't freeze change in its tracks, we can only respond: either competently and effectively, fully aware of our limitations and the risks of relying on debt to paper over our weaknesses, or incompetently, clinging on to delusions of magical thinking, misguided faith in failed leadership and institutions and seeing debt and money created out of thin air as our savior rather than the source of our downfall.

Here's the projection I made on February 2, 2020, a week after Covid-19 was finally acknowledged by authorities as a global threat. By my reckoning, this projection is still on track, and we're approaching "Wave 2 outbreaks around the world, half-measures fail, vaccine months away."

"World finally awakens to the pandemic, global economy slides into depression" is on tap for 2021. Things change. Doing more of what's hollowed out our economy and society is a slippery path to ruin."

- https://www.oftwominds.com/