Tuesday, February 9, 2021

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Stars can be like artists. With interstellar gas as a canvas, a massive and tumultuous Wolf-Rayet star has created the picturesque ruffled half-circular filaments called WR23, on the image left. Additionally, the winds and radiation from a small cluster of stars, NGC 3324, have sculpted a 35 light year cavity on the upper right, with its right side appearing as a recognizable face in profile. 
This region's popular name is the Gabriela Mistral Nebula for the famous Chilean poet. Together, these interstellar clouds lie about 8,000 light-years away in the Great Carina Nebula, a complex stellar neighborhood harboring numerous clouds of gas and dust rich with imagination inspiring shapes. The featured telescopic view captures these nebulae's characteristic emission from ionized sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms mapped to the red, green, and blue hues of the popular Hubble Palette."

The Poet: Mary Oliver, "The Journey "

"The Journey"

"One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice -
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
 Mend my life! 
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do -
determined to save
the only life you could save." 

- Mary Oliver

"As Humans..."

“It is easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of the intoxicating existence we’ve been endowed with. But what’s life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as ours - arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don’t. Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, endure any insult, for a moment’s additional existence. Life, in short just wants to be.
- Bill Bryson

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 2/9/21"

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 2/9/21"
"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will
do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."
- John Maynard Keynes
"Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
Your guide:
Gregory Mannarino, PM 2/9/21

"Stocks Hit New Highs: 

Dollar Craters, Deficit Balloons, Child Poverty Skyrockets

"The more I see of the monied classes, 
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates

CNN Market Data:

CNN Fear And Greed Index:
A comprehensive, essential daily read.
Feb 9th to Feb 10th, Updated Daily 
Financial Stress Index
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
Daily Job Cuts

The Daily "Near You?"

Stigler, Oklahoma, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Great Fear Machine of 2020"

"The Great Fear Machine of 2020"
by Paul Rosenberg

"The events of 2020 were unique in human history, and so I think it’s important to give them some perspective. What we experienced was the first televised plague. What it spawned was a unique fear machine. Fear delivery systems go back to the first tyrants, of course, but this one featured a scale and an intimacy that went beyond all others, even those of the vile USSR.

The plague itself, COVID-19, was minor as such things go. The flu of 1919 was far worse, not to mention historical plagues that made this one look like a case of the sniffles. Nonetheless, it was enough to spawn something unique. So, briefly, let’s look at the pieces that came together:

• TV news: Television news was dying; their ratings had cratered and there was no real hope to be seen. Politicians and the elderly still took TV news seriously; the informed and the young did not. To these companies, COVID was salvation. It locked people in their houses for months at a time, with nothing to do but watch.

• Politicians: Nothing in our time empowered middling political officials like COVID-19. Governors and regional officials became gods. They shut down whole states and provinces in a stroke and sent their armed enforcers to make it so, while television cameras hung on their every word. People get into politics for the rush of power, and 2020 gave it to them in spades. The new potentates decided what could or could not be sold, forbade relgious ceremonies, and so on.

• Social media: Facebook, Google (YouTube), Twitter and the rest have become the core of soft power (aka, mass manipulation). As with television, COVID forced people into their arms, and they were pleased to addict them. More than that, the operators of these systems stepped from the land of geeks to the halls of power, where they drank the evil brew and liked it.

To this we could add maniacal health officials and others. It was an orgy for power addicts. And again we saw that fear makes humans manipulable.  All of this was bad enough, but what’s coming out of it is worse: These groups became organs of the big hierarchy, joining the inner sanctums of power as essential players. But here’s the important part: Once joined to power, you see the rest of humanity as masses rather than individuals.

You can find psychological studies that demonstrate this with hard data, but its easy enough to see for yourself. Phrases like “managing perceptions” imply precisely this. Furthermore, the actions of the newly powerful demonstrated this. Seeing the rest of the world as nameless serfs, they behaved like hubristic monarchs:

• Tell the masses not to wear masks so there are enough for all the doctors to get them.
• After a week or two, tell the serfs to wear the mask for their safety, so they have something to hang on to. 
• As mask-wearing turns into a Good-Bad divide, play to the narrative; keep the masses outraged and engaged.
• Scare people away from fast cures so the opposition can’t seize credit. Hold out for a vaccine.
• Never admit mistakes that your group makes (like ten thousands of predictable nursing home deaths). If the issue persists, double-down and keep repeating “conspiracy theory;” the serfs are terrified of public ridicule. 

Aside from a quibble or two, I can’t see many honest disputes with these points; we all saw them.

2021: The Year of Winding It Down: As I write this, a general pulling back of the fear machine has begun. New incentives have asserted themselves and a large segment of the power complex now sees this as necessary. The primary reason for this change is that lockdowns crashed the tax receipts of the middling officials, who are facing broken budgets. That could be solved with money printing, of course, but the money masters are trying not to make the dollar a complete joke; that might collapse the entire Western system.

There are complications, of course, such as tax serfs leaving the regime’s most loyal states and an abused working class that may eventually wake up. Still, the great fear machine of 2020 must be pulled back. Power, however, cannot be seen to admit an error, or to take anything less than a powerful stride forward. And so declining case numbers and vaccines will provide cover for winding down the hysteria. “Peace with honor” and all that.

What Comes Out of This? Obviously it’s hard to predict what comes out of a situation like this one, but there are certain aspects that are reasonably clear:

• Political regimes will hurry to pull as much out of this moment as possible.
• State and provincial bosses will slide back toward to their former roles. Their lives will be overrun with servicing labor unions, preventing citizen revolts and begging for newly-printed money.
• Social media, having made itself power’s best and most reliable friend, will ride high. They’re now the indispensable managers of the herds.
• TV news will shrink back toward what it was: running from one crisis to another, large or small, real or manufactured. To prevent that, they’ll have to operate as court sycophants. 

The wild card in all of this is the productive class. Intellectually, these people are quite capable of understanding that they’re living in a totalitarian regime: They are regimented, herded, monitored, restricted and stripped of income far beyond the dreams of any Pharaoh. Emotionally, their ability to accept it is uncertain. They have a great deal of their identity tied to national myths; possibly too much to overcome.

The facts say that the regimes of the West have become totalitarian. Standing against this statement is neither data, nor reason, nor observation: standing against it is emotion, and particularly fear. Good luck to us all."

"Same Old, Same Old"

"Same Old, Same Old"
By Bill Bonner

"The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists."
- Ernest Hemingway

RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA – "Today, we’re putting aside our travel tales and turning to more important matters – the future of the nation, that is. For a president, there are only two things that really count: Protecting the citizens’ wealth… and protecting their freedom. Typically, presidents do neither. Instead, they eat away at them, like termites hollowing out a log. They waste the nation’s wealth on jackass programs… inflate the currency… and make enemies all over the world, with their wars, sanctions, bullying, and meddling. With those basics in mind, it is probably not too early to look at what the new Biden team has in store for us. In short: Same old, same old.

Plus Ça Change: Looking back a few weeks, we wonder… What was all the election bruhaha about? What difference did it make who was elected? We forecast that it would make none. And as to the basics, we were right. Nothing much has changed.

War? If anything, the Biden Bunch is likely to make a bigger mess of things than the Trump gang. To his everlasting credit, Donald Trump was the first American president in nearly 50 years not to start a new war. But Biden has already signaled that he won’t cancel Trump’s sanctions… that Russia and China will continue to be regarded as adversaries… and that those in the military/industrial/Deep State complex can begin building new vacation homes.

Lest we forget, as a senator and then as vice president, Biden played his part in getting Democrat support for the War on Terror, the invasion of Iraq, and the other military misadventures of the last 20 years. He and the “queen of the warmongers,” Hillary Clinton, pushed the bombing of Libya and the war in Serbia before that.

Professional Warmongers: And now, the liberal media says Biden is bringing professionalism back to American foreign policy. Yes, he’s replacing Trump’s amateurish incompetents with seasoned war criminals and career cronies. The rascals are taking refuge in the nation’s capital. Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Neera Tanden, and Michèle Flournoy – smart scalawags, every one of them.

Wasting no time, the retreads and has-beens from the Clinton and Obama days are back on the job… desperately trying to remain relevant (and keep the cash flowing) by throwing their weight around. CNN reports: "US deploying B-1 bombers to Norway to send a message to Russia." "The US Air Force is deploying B-1 bombers to Norway for the first time in a move that sends a clear message to Moscow that the US military will operate in the strategically important Arctic region and demonstrate that it will defend allies in the area against any Russian aggression close to the country’s border."

Going Big: As for the other part of the formula – inflation – nothing has changed there, either. The Biden boys and girls are going to “go big,” just like the Trumpistas before them. It’s hard to exaggerate the biglyness of Trump’s inflationary push. During his reign, the spending… the deficit… the budget… the debt… and the money-printing all expanded more than ever. Not even in wartime was so much monetary and fiscal inflation added to the system.

And if Donald Trump had somehow managed a recount, and gotten another four years in office, it would inevitably be more of the same – more spending, more deficits, more debt, and more money-printing. The Donald was all for it.

And so is Joe Biden. The bigness of Biden’s plan is so loony that even the loons themselves are beginning to wonder about it. Here’s Breitbart: "Leading Liberal Economist Sounds Alarm Over Biden’s $1.9 Trillion Covid Bill." "One of the world’s leading liberal economists dealt Joe Biden a blow in recent days, warning that the president’s $1.9 trillion Covid relief legislation could ignite an inflationary conflagration.

Olivier Blanchard, the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund and perhaps the most cited economist in the world, spelled out his case against the Biden bill in a series of tweets on Saturday. Blanchard’s argument is that the size of the stimulus injected into the economy would be too large, especially when added to the measures taken last year. The additional spending power created by the additional $1.9 trillion budget deficit would drive up prices and force the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates."

But to hear the “experts” tell it, printing-press money is just the panacea that America needs. The only question, for them, is, “How much?”

Bird on a Wing: They believe they can use government spending – funded by fake money – to stimulate the U.S. economy… to rescue American families from poverty… to redress the wrongs of the patriarchy, white supremacy, Big Business, greed, and nature… and even to save the planet from the evils of carbon dioxide. And they believe (according to the now-popular Modern Monetary Theory fantasy) that the only real limit is consumer price inflation.

When the cost of living rises above their target, they say they’ll let the printing presses cool down… and raise taxes to control inflation. But as we know, that’s not going to happen. Those who live by the printing press die by the printing press, with more and more “liquidity” (aka fake money) needed just to stay in the same place. Yes, Dear Reader, it’s “inflate or die.” And Joe Biden, like Trump before him, will continue to inflate the American economy.

And what’s this? Agricultural commodities are up 13% over the last 12 months. Metals are up 18%. The buzzard of consumer price inflation hath but a short way to fly… And as we reported yesterday, lo… the bird is on the wing. Stay tuned…"

“A Strange Game” (Part Two)

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
"War Games", 1984

“A Strange Game” (Part Two)
by Jim Quinn

"In Part One of this article I laid out the dire situation we find ourselves facing, as the illegitimate Biden administration inflicts the coup de grace to our dying empire of debt. I will now provide a possible framework of resistance and methods of undermining the corrupt pillaging system we call government.

The concept of passive resistance has existed in various forms for centuries and has been used effectively in toppling enemies. A few weeks ago I was introduced to a concept I had never heard before in Doug Lynn’s article "Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair: Hover Through the Fog and Filthy Air". The passage below references “Irish Democracy” as a method for bringing an authoritarian regime to their knees.

More regimes have been brought, piecemeal, to their knees by what was once called “Irish Democracy”- the silent, dogged resistance, withdrawal, and truculence of millions of ordinary people - than by revolutionary vanguards or rioting mobs. The premise behind “Irish Democracy” is that the State lacks the enforcement power to have its way with millions upon millions of rebels. It’s Mohandas Gandhi’s strategy, albeit without his overt confrontations with the institutions of government. “You can ignore the State and do as you please, as long as you keep your head down.”

Removing the overt confrontations makes “Irish Democracy” much safer than any other form of rebellion. The State needs conspicuous, targetable rebels. It cannot use terror of its forces without someone to turn into an “example.” No conspicuous rebels means nothing for the State to crucify for the edification of the public.

The description of Irish Democracy was put forth by Yale professor James C. Scott in his book, “Two Cheers for Anarchism“: “Quiet, anonymous, and often complicitous, lawbreaking and disobedience may well be the historically preferred mode of political action for peasant and subaltern classes, for whom open defiance is too dangerous. One need not have an actual conspiracy to achieve the practical effects of a conspiracy.”

Widespread non-coordinated resistance to the mandates and dictates of a totalitarian state can succeed, as millions of individual actions result in having an overwhelming cumulative negative impact on the state’s functioning. As Scott reflects, the state needs conspicuous targetable enemies, which we have clearly seen, as this fledgling communist regime continues to promote the white supremacist insurrection fabrication and Trump’s guilt in provoking pretend Vikings to steal podiums and take selfies in Pelosi’s office.

The goal of these mendacious totalitarians is to provoke Trump supporters into a violent response, so they can usher in their Domestic Terrorism Act (Patriot Act 2.0) and implement a modern-day techno gulag solution. We cannot take the bait. It is time to arrange our affairs in such a way that denies the State their claimed piece of your pie, while doing so in such a way the State does not scrutinize your “unlawful” acts. Ignoring ridiculous decrees, demands, and laws are the duty of every right-thinking American.
As the cancel culture social justice warriors seek their next prominent victim to crucify across their media empire, it behooves us “little people” to deny them the satisfaction of ruining our lives. They want nothing more than to de-platform you, get you fired from your job, and destroy your reputation. This is where Irish Democracy, Going Galt, and numerous other variations of these strategies, along with heeding the wisdom Sun Tzu, need to be utilized to defeat our now firmly entrenched enemy.

There are no white hats coming to save us. It is now up to millions of truculent, disagreeable, angry, deplorable citizens to undermine the establishment and force this empire built on a foundation of unpayable debt to collapse. It might seem like a daunting task, but each individual act of resistance is like a grain of sand added to the unstable pile. No one knows which grain will trigger the catastrophic failure of the system. We are all capable of becoming the straw that broke the camel’s back.

John Galt’s speech in Ayn Rand’s "Atlas Shrugged" is over 33 thousand words, but these passages capture the essence of Going Galt: “For twelve years, you have been asking: Who is John Galt? This is John Galt speaking. I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who does not sacrifice his love or his values. I am the man who has deprived you of victims and thus has destroyed your world, and if you wish to know why you are perishing - you who dread knowledge - I am the man who will now tell you.

You have heard it said that this is an age of moral crisis. You have said it yourself, half in fear, half in hope that the words had no meaning. You have cried that man’s sins are destroying the world and you have cursed human nature for its unwillingness to practice the virtues you demanded. Since virtue, to you, consists of sacrifice, you have demanded more sacrifices at every successive disaster. In the name of a return to morality, you have sacrificed all those evils which you held as the cause of your plight. You have sacrificed justice to mercy. You have sacrificed independence to unity. You have sacrificed reason to faith. You have sacrificed wealth to need. You have sacrificed self-esteem to self-denial. You have sacrificed happiness to duty.

You will win when you are ready to pronounce the oath I have taken at the start of my battle -and for those who wish to know the day of my return, I shall now repeat it to the hearing of the world: I swear - by my life and my love of it - that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

The key point is to deprive the Marxist/Deep State/Oligarchy of victims who they can use to further their warped, non-sensical, totalitarian agenda of control, force and wealth extraction for the greater good - of the oligarchs. They create a crisis with their laws, regulations, legislation, mandates, executive orders, and decrees and then make it far worse with their “solutions”, while demanding more sacrifices by the little people to keep their sinking ship afloat. This is their Achilles heel.

If millions of individuals Go Galt and Starve the Beast, one transaction at a time, withdrawing our consent because we believe those governing us are illegitimate, the State lacks the enforcement power and means to punish people they cannot find or identify as criminals. This is guerilla warfare in a modern technological dystopian world. Each of us has different life circumstances, financial capacity, and constraints, but everyone can contribute something to toppling our oppressors. Here are some thoughts. I am sure you can creatively add to this list:

• Reduce your taxable footprint as much as possible, rendering as little to Caesar as possible. Spending less deprives them of sales tax.
• Do home improvement projects yourself and buy supplies from local retailers, rather than big box mega-stores.
• Don’t buy anything from Amazon. If you are still on Facebook or Twitter, depart for a platform that does not censor. Don’t use Google for searches. Cancel Netflix and Amazon Prime.
• Boycott any organization pushing the BLM agenda or critical race theory.
• Take a course or two at the local tech school in electrical, plumbing, or other practical skill, so you can do it yourself.
• No matter how small your plot of land, learn to grow some food – the more the better. See if hydroponics is possible. Deny the mega-food industry your business.
• Make friends with local farmers, source meat, eggs, corn, milk, etc. from them and pay in cash. The government cannot track the transaction.
• If you need to utilize a contractor, landscaper, painter, etc. find a local guy and pay in cash. They often will give a discount and the government will not get their slice.
• If your circumstances warrant, bartering with locals can satisfy the needs of both parties and keeps the government out of your business.
• Only frequent small family-owned restaurants and always pay in cash, including the tip for your waitress. The government will absolutely get their slice if you pay using a credit card.
• If you have money in a Wall Street bank, withdraw it and put it in credit union or small local bank.
• Do not carry any credit card debt. Pay down your mortgage. Do not borrow to buy a new car. Buy a used car.
• Reduce your driving, not to save the environment, but to deny the State gasoline taxes and toll revenue.
• If possible, own some precious metals, in preparation for the inevitable collapse of the USD. Crypto currencies may also be a hedge but may be too risky for most people.
• Learn how to communicate with allies using encrypted messaging.
• Don’t wear a mask or get the experimental DNA altering jab. Ridicule those who do.
• The IRS is a dysfunctional, understaffed, bureaucratic calamity of an organization. You are small potatoes. They don’t have the resources to check whether your return is accurate. If the Fed can print $4 trillion out of thin air, why do they need your taxes anyway. Act accordingly.
• If you live in an urban area, and have the means, get the hell out, preferably to a rural area inhabited by like- minded people.
• If you live in a blue state or blue county, and can do so, move to a red state or red county. As states raise income tax rates, move to states with little or no income taxes. PA governor Wolf just proposed increasing the state income tax by 46% to give my money to teachers’ unions. Florida is looking awfully inviting.
• With federal, state and local taxes surely going to rise, if you are near retirement, and can afford to, just drop out now and stop paying income taxes.
• As these Going Galt actions are sure to infuriate those wielding power, make sure you are armed, have firearms training, and have a sufficient supply of ammo. Be mentally prepared to defend your homestead.

Some of these actions are easier than others, but they would all contribute to an undetected rebellion against the State. If you are interested in going full Galt, this article from Marc Moran (aka Hardscrabble Farmer) - "Five Things To Do When Going Galt" - details his family’s journey from being trapped in the Matrix to the freedom of controlling your own destiny – also known as the liberty to live life as you choose.

None of what I’ve described is easy, but direct confrontation would be futile, as the majority of sheep would support the government because they are incapable of critical thought, distracted by their technological gadgets, and fearful of their own shadows. Since there is no doubt we are already at war, as the new regime has already classified us as domestic terrorists, we should heed the wisdom of Sun Tzu in confronting the enemy.

“If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.” - Sun Tzu, "The Art of War"

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” - Sun Tzu, "The Art of War"

If ever an opponent had a choleric temper it is the Marxist regime currently in power, with the hateful Pelosi, wrathful Schumer, venomous AOC, angry Biden, malevolent Harris, and malicious Deep State apparatchiks easily irritated and can be goaded into making irrational decisions. Their arrogance, lack of self-awareness, and continuous barefaced hypocrisy, leaves them exposed to ridicule and scorn on a daily basis, which makes them angrier and more susceptible to contempt and mockery from their opponents.

There is no need to interrupt the enemy when they continue to issue executive orders and pass legislation which will have disastrous consequences. Even though the Reddit guys eventually had their asses handed to them, they proved a strategized sneak attack by the little guys could create havoc and disarray on Wall Street. The entire episode tore back the curtain and revealed the game is perpetually rigged in favor of billionaire hedge fund managers and the Wall Street cabal.
This war is winnable if we use Irish Democracy and Going Galt tactics and out-think our narcissist, intellectually deficient, liberal arts major enemies. The danger is when they become frustrated by being out-smarted and out-maneuvered, they will lash out violently against men who just want to be left alone to live their lives as free men. When the financial system implodes, and it certainly will, they will attempt to scapegoat the deplorables.

If they endeavor to violently enforce their mandates, they will unleash hardened men who will give no quarter in inflicting their vengeance upon those who chose not to leave them to peacefully liver their lives. The electrical grid and government computer systems are highly susceptible to attack. Strategic strikes of truckers could create food shortages in a matter of days in Democrat run urban enclaves of peaceful protests.

The 300 million guns in this country are owned by men who know how to use them. These political animals will pay a dear price for awakening the inner Outlaw Josey Wales in millions of angry men. This unattributed quote captures what will happen when they push us too far.
“The most terrifying force of death comes from the hands of ‘Men who wanted to be left Alone’. They try, so very hard to mind their own business and provide for themselves and those they love. They resist every impulse to fight back, knowing the forced and permanent change of life that will come from it.

They know the moment they fight back, the lives as they have lived them, are over. The moment the ‘Men who wanted to be left Alone’ are forced to fight back, it is a small form of suicide. They are literally killing off who they used to be.

Which is why, when forced to take up violence, these ‘Men who wanted to be left Alone’, fight with unholy vengeance against those who murdered their former lives. They fight with raw hate, and a drive that cannot be fathomed by those who are merely play-acting at politics and terror.

TRUE TERROR will arrive at the Left’s door, and they will cry, scream, and beg for mercy, but it will fall upon deaf ears.”
The corrupt establishment will do anything to suppress sites like the Burning Platform from revealing the truth. The corporate media does this by demonetizing sites like mine by blackballing the site from advertising revenue. If you get value from this site, please keep it running with a donation. [Jim Quinn - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal at the website.

"How It Really Is"

 

"A situation too weird for 99.99% of people to adequately explain."

"Simpler Taxes Long Promised, Never Delivered"

"Simpler Taxes Long Promised, Never Delivered" 
by Tom Purcell

"I love winter. I love snow. I love making a roaring fire in my fireplace on a chilly day. But I hate one thing about this time of year: taxes. February is rough for the self-employed. It's rough because my 1099 forms - official records of how much my clients paid me last year - arrive in the mail. As the 1099s roll in, I hope and pray I made less than I know I did - because my tax "contributions" are always way more than I thought they would be. I'd like to meet the genius who used "contribution" in place of "mandatory tax liability." He's probably the same guy who calls our nearly $28 trillion national debt an "investment."

As a former English major, I've never been fond of math and accounting. But from February through April 15, tax day, I have to do my best at both. That's because our income tax system is complex. It's complex because drunk people (members of Congress) designed it so that a bureaucracy (the IRS) converts the incomprehensible (tax law) into the unfathomable (complex tax regulations) to punish productive Americans (the self-employed), all in the name of good fun.

I hire a certified public accountant to calculate my tax contributions. But my CPA makes me sort and tally all of my expenses first. From Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, I toss every bill, receipt, expense, etc., into a large cardboard box - because these little slips of paper, which are deductions against my tax burden, are like currency to me.

Beginning in February, I spend hours sorting through last year's slips with one goal in mind: to get my earnings from the prior year as low as legally possible, so my income tax bill doesn't give me a heart attack, which I cannot afford anymore because my "self-employed health insurance policy" has a deductible that's soared higher than the value of my 2020 Toyota Tacoma!

About this time every year, I curse Republicans, who have talked about simplifying the tax system throughout my adult life. "Vote us into power and the tax code is the first thing we're going to fix!" they always promise. "You'll be able to complete your tax return on the back of a postcard!" they say with a wink. "We're going to make filing so easy we'll put tax lawyers in the unemployment line!" they say, laughing.

And I laugh and laugh. Because when they're voted into power, Republicans do little to nothing to simplify the ever-more-complicated tax code that causes the self-employed to worry about heart attacks, which I can afford even less because my 2021 premium jumped again and I had to switch to an even higher-deductible plan.

Now the Democrats control the White House, the House and the Senate. They promise to tax only the rich and leave the rest of us alone. And I laugh and laugh - as I brace for new tax complexities that will cause me even more grief.

I'd love to go skiing on gorgeous snow-covered hills and forget about the tax agitations that are already dragging me down. But I'm afraid to spend the money to go skiing - because, like every year, my tax bill is going to be way higher than I thought it would be. Gosh, I hate this time of the year."

"Debt and the Demise of the Middle Class"

"Debt and the Demise of the Middle Class"
by Charles Hugh Smith

"What exactly is the Middle Class and what unique role does it serve in the economy? Given that the Middle Class is constantly invoked by politicos and economists, you'd think the status quo had a solid understanding of the Middle Class. Alas, it isn't that simple.

The conventional view defines the middle class by income, education or type of labor being performed. These are all superficial attributes and ignore what actually differentiates the working class from the middle class. Yes, the middle class tends to earn more, have higher educational credentials and perform white-collar labor rather than blue-collar labor. But getting a higher education credential and increased pay doesn't automatically provide a middle class role in the economy, nor does performing white-collar work. None of these automatically moves the individual up the social mobility ladder from near-zero ownership of capital (working class) to meaningful ownership of productive capital (middle class).

As I explained in "The Top 10% Is Doing Just Fine, The Middle Class Is Dying on the Vine", the middle class is fundamentally a means of transforming labor into capital via savings and investment. The traditional ladder of social mobility from the working class to the middle class is one of capitalizing work: time and savings are invested in higher education, in effect capitalizing future labor by increasing productivity.

In other words, what separates the working class from the middle class is the middle class is able to transform their labor into capital while the labor of the working class only funds consumption. The working class is defined not by credentials, type of labor or credentials but by limited access to the means to transform their labor into capital.

In the classical Marxist view, there is a bright line between labor and capital: the proletariats labor in the factories owned by the capitalist industrialists who depend on monopoly capital controlled by the commercial/investment banks. The class of small business - tradecrafts, commerce, professionals, etc. - is merely a wedge between the dominant classes of labor and capital.

In this view, the exploitation of labor is the dominant force of capitalism. While labor is indeed exploited in many cases, the dynamic that this schema misses is the essential role of middle class credit/debt and consumption in generating profits for the big owners of capital. Low-wage workers benefit their employers but not the banks or those who profit from selling goods and services to higher-wage workers - the middle class.

Debt is immensely profitable, and so low-income workers are a limited pool of profitability. The financial services are expert at ripping off the working class with payday loans, check-cashing services, sky-high used auto loans, rapacious late fees and overdraft charges, but again, there is only so much blood that can be extracted from low-wage workers.

The higher, more secure wages of the middle class offer a bonanza of longer-term profits from debt taken on by the middle class: student loans to gain the credentials deemed necessary for middle class membership; auto loans, the larger the better for the aspirational consumption enabled by fatter paychecks, mortgages to buy homes, and consumer debt for all the consumption the middle class can afford: ski trips, cruises, fine dining, etc. In other words, modern capitalism stagnates without a vibrant, creditworthy middle class that borrows and spends freely, for profits flow from high levels of debt and aspirational consumption that low-wage, insecure precariats cannot afford.

But here's the rub: most of the middle class debt stems from the aspiration to transform labor into capital via higher education (student debt) and home ownership (mortgages). As middle class wages lose purchasing power and incomes become more precarious (as employers offload healthcare and pension costs onto employees and shift workers from employees to gig-contract workers), the ability of the middle class to borrow and consume more falters.

Even worse, these time-honored avenues to ownership of productive capital are no longer reliable. Higher education credentials no longer guarantee stable, ample wages, and home ownership in a housing-bubble-addicted economy is less a means of saving and more a chip in the bubble-economy casino.

Debt serfdom awaits the aspirants to middle class ownership of productive capital. While debt payments are guaranteed, the rewards for taking on the debt are contingent and prone to sudden collapses in demand for credentials and assets purchased with debt. Debt only works for the middle class if incomes and income security rise due to improving productivity and access to productive capital. Both productivity and access to productive capital are eroding, and so what made sense in past generations - borrowing for university educations and homes-are increasingly pathways to debt-serfdom.

The status quo "solution" to the decline of middle class ownership of income-producing capital is an economy that is now totally dependent on speculative bubbles. The idea here is as assets bubble ever higher, those in the middle class who own these assets will reap capital gains that will offset their declining purchasing power and income security.
Unfortunately, this "solution" has only enriched the top 10%, as the bottom 90% collect a near-zero 3% of all income from capital, which indicates that 1) the bottom 90%, which includes the middle class, own near-zero income-producing capital and 2) what capital they do own is either rapidly depreciating "stuff" (vehicles, appliances, etc.) that generates zero income or dead-money assets such as family homes that cost a fortune but produce no income and are no longer reliable investments, as the next bubble burst might evaporate the phantom homeowners equity generated by the serial housing bubbles.
As the middle class stagnates, so do the banks and producers of goods and services, and the lower-wage working class who labors in services and low-productivity producers. As the middle class awakens to the fact that the rungs of social mobility are broken, a systemic breakdown is predictable, a topic Jay Taylor and I discuss in the "Upcoming Revolt of the Middle Class" (22 min)
Unfortunately for those at the top who've benefited immensely from speculative bubbles, speculative bubbles don't create a vibrant middle class - they push what's left of the middle class off a cliff."

"The (New Normal) War On Domestic Terror"

"The (New Normal) War On Domestic Terror"
by CJ Hopkins

"If you enjoyed the Global War on Terror, you’re going to love the new War on Domestic Terror! It’s just like the original Global War on Terror, except that this time the “Terrorists” are all “Domestic Violent Extremists” (“DVEs”), “Homegrown Violent Extremists” (“HVEs”), “Violent Conspiracy-Theorist Extremists” (“VCTEs”), “Violent Reality Denialist Extremists” (VRDEs”), “Insurrectionary Micro-Aggressionist Extremists” (“IMAEs”), “People Who Make Liberals Feel Uncomfortable” (“PWMLFUs”), and anyone else the Department of Homeland Security wants to label an “extremist” and slap a ridiculous acronym on.

According to a “National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin” issued by the DHS on January 27, these DCEs, HVEs, VCTEs, VRDEs, IMAEs, and PWMLFUs are “ideologically-motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority” and other “perceived grievances fueled by false narratives.” They are believed to be “motivated by a range of issues, including anger over Covid-19 restrictions, the 2020 election results, police use of force,” and other dangerous “false narratives” (e.g., the existence of the “deep state,” “herd immunity,” “biological sex,” “God,” and so on).

“Inspired by foreign terrorist groups” and “emboldened by the breach of the US Capitol Building,” this diabolical network of “domestic terrorists” is “plotting attacks against government facilities,” “threatening violence against critical infrastructure” and actively “citing misinformation and conspiracy theories about Covid-19.” For all we know, they might be huddled in the “Wolf’s Lair” at Mar-a-Lago right now, plotting a devastating terrorist attack with those WMDs we never found in Iraq, or generating population-adjusted death-rate charts going back 20 years, or posting pictures of “extremist frogs” on the Internet.

The Department of Homeland Security is “concerned,” as are its counterparts throughout the global capitalist empire. The (New Normal) War on Domestic Terror isn’t just a war on American “domestic terror.” The “domestic terror” threat is international. France has just passed a “Global Security Law” banning citizens from filming the police beating the living snot out of people (among other “anti-terrorist” provisions). In Germany, the government is preparing to install an anti-terror moat around the Reichstag. In the Netherlands, the police are cracking down on the VCTEs, VRDEs, and other “angry citizens who hate the system,” who have been protesting over nightly curfews. Suddenly, everywhere you look (or at least if you are looking in the corporate media), “global extremism networks are growing.” It’s time for Globocap to take the gloves off again, root the “terrorists” out of their hidey holes, and roll out a new official narrative.

Actually, there’s not much new about it. When you strip away all the silly new acronyms, the (New Normal) War on Domestic Terror is basically just a combination of the “War on Terror” narrative and the “New Normal” narrative, i.e., a militarization of the so-called “New Normal” and a pathologization of the “War on Terror.” Why would GloboCap want to do that, you ask?

I think you know, but I’ll go ahead and tell you.

See, the problem with the original “Global War on Terror” was that it wasn’t actually all that global. It was basically just a war on Islamic “terrorism” (i.e., resistance to global capitalism and its post-ideological ideology), which was fine as long as GloboCap was just destabilizing and restructuring the Greater Middle East. It was put on hold in 2016, so that GloboCap could focus on defeating “populism” (i.e., resistance to global capitalism and its post-ideological ideology), make an example of Donald Trump, and demonize everyone who voted for him (or just refused to take part in their free and fair elections), which they have just finished doing, in spectacular fashion. So, now it’s back to “War on Terror” business, except with a whole new cast of “terrorists,” or, technically, an expanded cast of “terrorists.” (I rattled off a list in my previous column.)

In short, GloboCap has simply expanded, recontextualized, and pathologized the “War on Terror” (i.e., the war on resistance to global capitalism and its post-ideological ideology). This was always inevitable, of course. A globally-hegemonic system (e.g., global capitalism) has no external enemies, as there is no territory “outside” the system. Its only enemies are within the system, and thus, by definition, are insurgents, also known as “terrorists” and “extremists.” These terms are utterly meaningless, obviously. They are purely strategic, deployed against anyone who deviates from GloboCap’s official ideology… which, in case you were wondering, is called “normality” (or, in our case, currently, “New Normality”).

In earlier times, these “terrorists” and “extremists” were known as “heretics,” “apostates,” and “blasphemers.” Today, they are also known as “deniers,” e.g., “science deniers,” “Covid deniers,” and recently, more disturbingly, “reality deniers.” This is an essential part of the pathologization of the “War on Terror” narrative. The new breed of “terrorists” do not just hate us for our freedom… they hate us because they hate “reality.” They are no longer our political or ideological opponents… they are suffering from a psychiatric disorder. They no longer need to be argued with or listened to… they need to be “treated,” “reeducated,” and “deprogrammed,” until they accept “Reality.” If you think I’m exaggerating the totalitarian nature of the “New Normal/War on Terror” narrative, read this op-ed in The New York Times exploring the concept of a “Reality Czar” to deal with our “Reality Crisis.”

And this is just the beginning, of course. The consensus (at least in GloboCap circles) is, the (New Normal) War on Domestic Terror will probably continue for the next 10 to 20 years, which should provide the global capitalist ruling classes with more than enough time to carry out the “Great Reset,” destroy what’s left of human society, and condition the public to get used to living like cringing, neo-feudal peasants who have to ask permission to leave their houses. We’re still in the initial “shock and awe” phase (which they will have to scale back a bit eventually), but just look at how much they’ve already accomplished.

The economic damage is literally incalculable… millions have been plunged into desperate poverty, countless independent businesses crushed, whole industries crippled, developing countries rendered economically dependent (i.e., compliant) for the foreseeable future, as billionaires amassed over $1 trillion in wealth and supranational corporate behemoths consolidated their dominance across the planet.

And that’s just the economic damage. The attack on society has been even more dramatic. GloboCap, in the space of a year, has transformed the majority of the global masses into an enormous, paranoid totalitarian cult that is no longer capable of even rudimentary reasoning. (I’m not going to go on about it here… at this point, you either recognize it or you’re in it.) They’re actually lining up in parking lots, the double-masked members of this Covidian cult, to be injected with an experimental “vaccine” that they believe will save the human species from a virus that causes mild to moderate symptoms in roughly 95% of those “infected,” and that over 99% of the “infected” survive.

So, it is no big surprise that these same mindless cultists are gung-ho for the (New Normal) War on Domestic Terror, and the upcoming globally-televised show trial of Donald Trump for “inciting insurrection,” and the ongoing corporate censorship of the Internet, and can’t wait to be issued their “Freedom Passports,” which will allow them to take part in “New Normal” life - double-masked and socially-distanced, naturally - while having their every movement and transaction, and every word they write on Facebook, or in an email, or say to someone on their smartphones, or in the vicinity of their 5G toasters, recorded by GloboCap’s Intelligence Services and their corporate partners, subsidiaries, and assigns. These people have nothing at all to worry about, as they would never dream of disobeying orders, and could not produce an original thought, much less one displeasing to GloboCap, if you held a fake apocalyptic plague to their heads.

As for the rest of us “extremists,” “domestic terrorists,” “heretics,” and “reality deniers,” (i.e., anyone criticizing global capitalism, or challenging its official narratives, and its increasingly totalitarian ideology, regardless of our specific DHS acronyms), I wish I had something hopeful to tell you, but, the truth is, things aren’t looking so good. I guess I’ll see you in a quarantine camp, or in the psych ward, or an offshore detention facility… or, I don’t know, maybe I’ll see you in the streets."
Related:
"UK Government Considering Knocking On Doors Of Vaccine Refusniks, Report" "To determine why people are refusing the vaccine and then “see what might convince them” to change their minds."

Musical Interlude: Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Dolmen Ridge"

Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Dolmen Ridge"

Musical Interlude: Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Footprints On The Sea"

Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Footprints On The Sea"