"The Economic Crisis Caused By This Pandemic Has Dramatically Altered How Americans Are Living Their Lives"

"The Economic Crisis Caused By This Pandemic Has 

Dramatically Altered How Americans Are Living Their Lives"

by Michael Snyder

"This seemingly endless COVID pandemic is causing immense stress for millions of ordinary Americans. In past articles, I have discussed the fact that surveys have shown that Americans are drinking more alcohol and taking more drugs during this pandemic. Even more alarming, we have seen suicide rates spike over the past 12 months as well. Sadly, this isn’t just happening here in the United States. All over the globe, more people are ending their own lives during this pandemic. But of course most people aren’t going to go that far. Instead, most people are just going to quietly struggle along, but in the process many of them are making huge changes to their lifestyles.

For example, this pandemic appears to be greatly affecting both marriage and divorce rates. Here are just a couple of examples: "In Oregon, divorces in the pandemic months of March through December were down about 24% from those months in 2019; marriages were down 16%. In Florida, for the same months, divorces were down 20% and marriages were down 27%."

I can understand why so many Americans are putting off marriage right now. A wedding can be extremely expensive, and many Americans may be hesitant to permanently tie the knot with so much economic uncertainty in our future. But why are divorce rates down by so much? That is a very good question. Limited access to courts during the lockdowns was certainly one factor, and many Americans are also concerned about what a divorce would mean for them financially: "One reason for fewer divorces: In many states, access to courts for civil cases was severely curtailed during the pandemic’s early stages. Another reason, according to marriage counselors, is that many couples backed off from a possibly imminent divorce for fear it would only worsen pandemic-fueled financial insecurity."

Meanwhile, this pandemic has also caused more Americans than ever to put off having children. In fact, birth rates are way down all over the country: "According to a Bloomberg analysis, births decreased by 19 percent in California between December 2019 and December 2020. Data from Florida, Hawaii, Arizona, and Ohio show large declines in birth rates since the pandemic started compared to the previous year’s data, too. A survey conducted by Modern Fertility, a company that sells fertility tests directly to consumers, found that 30 percent of nearly 4,000 people surveyed stated they changed their fertility plans due to COVID-19. One in four of those respondents said they’ve become unsure about having children at all; the most commonly cited reason was uncertainty about the world." At the beginning of this pandemic, some had suggested that we may see a “baby boom”, but it appears that we are experiencing a “baby bust” instead.

The rising cost of living is causing a tremendous amount of stress for ordinary Americans as well. Thanks to the crazy spending that Congress has been doing and the reckless money printing that the Federal Reserve has been engaged in, the money supply is skyrocketing and prices are aggressively rising all over the country.

Just look at what has been happening to natural gas prices. The recent cold snap has created a dramatic spike in demand, and this has pushed natural gas prices to unprecedented levels. The following comes from Zero Hedge: "We hit the proverbial offerless market where any natgas that was available would be purchased at virtually any price, which is why midcontinent prices such as the Oneok OGT nat gas spot exploded from $3.46 one week ago, to $9 on Wednesday, $60.28 on Thursday and an insane $377.13 on Friday, up 32,000% in a few days. This is one of those places where having a limit up circuit breaker could actually be useful, even though there simply is nowhere near enough product to satisfy demand at any price hence the explosive move.

Hubs across the Midcontinent led the surge in prices again Feb. 12 as weather forecasts predicted the coldest temperatures in more than a decade would hit the region over the upcoming holiday weekend. Platts reported that at locations across Kansas, Oklahoma and Eastern Arkansas, hub prices were trading at single-day record highs around $200 to $300/MMBtu. Regional hubs, which typically service only limited local demand, saw fierce competition among shippers, utilities and end-users looking to meet weekend requirements."

This is a reminder of what can happen when things get crazy. If a short-term cold spell can cause this much chaos, what would happen during a long-term national emergency? That is something to think about.

Other Americans don’t need to worry about heating their homes, because this pandemic has forced them to live in their vehicles: "Americans are being driven into their vehicles by pandemic-fueled woes. And their ranks are likely to grow as the government safety net frays and evictions and foreclosures rise. “It’s in times of crisis that the fragility of our systems are laid bare,” said Graham Pruss, a postdoctoral scholar with the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative at the UC San Francisco Center for Vulnerable Populations.

Particularly on the west coast, government officials have been setting up huge parking lots where those that live in their vehicles can sleep safely at night. Many of those that are now sleeping in their vehicles were once living comfortable middle class lifestyles, but now this crisis has changed everything. Nicholas Atencio and Heather Surovik are two examples: "For months, Nicholas Atencio and girlfriend Heather Surovik spent nearly every minute of their lives together in a 2000 Cadillac Escalade. After Atencio, 33, lost his job as a plumber in May, he and Surovik, 36, delivered for Grubhub by day and at night curled up with their puppy on an air bed in the back of their car parked in a lot in Longmont, Colorado, dreaming of being reunited under one roof with Surovik’s teenage son who was living with his grandmother."

Have you ever spent a night in a vehicle? If you have, then you already know that it isn’t pleasant. Unfortunately, once eviction moratoriums are finally lifted all over the country we are going to see the largest tsunami of evictions in American history. So that means that a lot more people are going to end up sleeping in their vehicles.

These are very troubled times, and they are about to get even more troubled…"

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

"Prisoners of Yesterday"

"Prisoners of Yesterday"

by Bill Bonner

RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA – "We’re trying to summarize… and clarify… what do we know now? One thing we’ve known for a long time is that the institution of government in a modern democracy is misunderstood. From an early age, children are taught (indoctrinated) to believe that it is supposed to be an expression of the “will of the people.” It is nothing of the sort. No matter what you call it, there are always some who lead and most who follow. In the U.S., circa 2021, the followers have not suddenly become leaders… and never will.

Common Goal: The “voters” have some influence, of course. But very little. They can select one empty pantsuit over another. At the margins, they can nudge the government towards building walls… changing the national anthem… or even cutting taxes. But the important policies – war or peace, spending or saving – are decided by insiders… the Enlightened Elite Establishment, which includes millions of people spread across the media, universities, the bureaucracy, lobbyists, The Swamp, The Deep State… even members of Congress.

These people – accounting for between 1% and 10% of the American population – are the rich and powerful. And even though they may fight viciously among themselves on a wide range of issues, they have one point of agreement that dooms the whole nation… They are the bright, juicy apples on the top of the pile. The last thing they want is for someone to upset the cart! That is, no matter what they say… important changes are what they don’t want… and won’t permit.

And the more their wealth and power comes to depend on either brute force (gestapo… secret police… death squads… gulags) or fraudulent money (printing-press dollars), the more the whole society is headed for trouble. As we’ve seen throughout history, they will resort to almost anything – robbery, disappearing people, torture, and counterfeiting – to make sure tomorrow looks as much like yesterday as possible.

The Future Delenda Est!

Us Versus Them: People want simple explanations and even simpler solutions. Millions of years of adversarial conflict – between tribes, mostly – have produced an “us versus them” instinct. The Democrats believe that now that their man is in the White House, for example, things will be a lot better. The Republicans, on the other hand, suspect things are going to Hell in a handcart.

A very dumb piece by David Leonhardt in The New York Times tried to add a veneer of pseudo-factual analysis to this “us versus them” dynamic. He showed how the American economy had generally performed better under Democratic leadership than under a Republican administration. He even pretended that there was some scientific – the Science! – or, at least, statistical proof to it. Going all the way back to World War II, he allowed readers to believe that so many data points, over so many years, couldn’t possibly be fake. The trouble was, the whole thing was fake… from beginning to end.

Inherited Consequences: Presidents do not make economies work. They have very little effect on them. Instead, their economic success or failure is almost entirely a consequence of what came before them. Bill Clinton, for example, inherited the boom created by Ronald Reagan and his Federal Reserve chair Paul Volcker. When George W. Bush came along, the dot-com bubble was already blowing up. Obama arrived in office just as Bush Jnr’s mortgage finance bubble was blowing up.

And Donald Trump was graced with three more years of the Obama recovery (disastrously financed with $3.6 trillion in new, fake money). Mr. Trump claimed credit for record-high stock prices and the lowest unemployment numbers since World War II… But he had very little to do with them. What he did do – cutting taxes and boosting spending – merely exaggerated and prolonged the harmful Obama Era trends.

And now, Joe Biden… Will he really be responsible for the economic trends and inevitable misfortunes of the Biden Years? Or is he just a prisoner of yesterday, like all the rest?

No Significant Change: The voters don’t have control over the administration. And the administration doesn’t control the economy. Each new set of jokers and jackasses that arrives in Washington (in the case of the Biden Team – retread has-beens, hacks, war criminals, and cronies from the Obama years – they never really left) is a prisoner of the policies and programs already in place.

This is especially true of government spending and deficits. The Trump group accustomed the economy to $1 trillion deficits and zero real interest rates. Now, any significant rise in interest rates… or cutback in spending… will likely trigger a correction – the very thing the elite cannot stomach. So, politically, no change of direction is possible.

The number of women or BIPOCs (black, indigenous, people of color) in high positions might change. Monuments might be toppled. “Green energy” might get even more taxpayer subsidies… But the real course of the nation – from here to calamity – is fixed. No significant change of direction will happen under Joe Biden, just as it didn’t under Donald Trump.

Solid Proof: The deeper into debt and disaster the nation goes, the deeper it needs to go to protect the wealth and power of its elite. Don’t believe us? Here is the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget reporting on last week’s Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Budget and Economic Outlook update…

• The budget deficit will total $2.3 trillion – 10.3 percent of GDP – in FY 2021 and total $12.3 trillion (4.4 percent of GDP) over the next decade.

• Debt will reach a new record as a share of the economy, growing from over 79 percent of GDP at the end of FY 2019 to over 102 percent of GDP by the end of 2021… and will grow another $13.6 trillion by the end of 2031, ultimately reaching $35.3 trillion.

• Four major trust funds are on a path toward insolvency. CBO projects Highway Trust Fund insolvency in FY 2022, Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund insolvency in FY 2026. Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund insolvency appears likely in calendar year 2032 and Social Security Disability Insurance Trust Fund insolvency in the mid-2030s.

• Debt could be even higher than projected. If policymakers enact $2 trillion of additional fiscal relief, extend expiring tax provisions, and grow annual appropriations with GDP, debt would total 120 percent of GDP by 2031.

“Our wyrd is set,” [our fate is sealed] said the Old English."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

"Upbeat Isochronic Tones Study Music - Deep Focus for Complex Tasks"

"Upbeat Isochronic Tones Study Music - 

Deep Focus for Complex Tasks"

by Jason Lewis - Mind Amend

"This is a high-intensity audio brainwave entrainment session, using isochronic tones. Listen to this when you need a strong burst of intense focus to concentrate and study things like advanced mathematics, scientific formulas, financial analysis or any other complex mental activity. Listen to this track with your eyes open while doing the task/activity you want to focus on. Although headphones are not required you may find they produce a more intense effect, because they help to block out distracting external sounds."

- https://www.youtube.com/

Works for me...

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 2/15/21"

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 2/15/21"

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"When you have eliminated the impossible, 

whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

- "Sherlock Holmes", Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

• "Doctor Admits Masks Don’t Work: “All Viruses Can Get Through”

• "Redefining Death"

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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 Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak 

 Feb 15, 2021 7:44 AM ET: 

The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 108,920,300 

people, according to official counts, including 27,683,116 Americans.

Globally at least 2,401,100 have died.

  Feb. 15, 2021 7:44 AM ET: 

Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count

- www.nytimes.com

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"The COVID Tracking Project"
Every day, our volunteers compile the latest numbers on tests, cases, 
hospitalizations, and patient outcomes from every US state and territory.
- https://covidtracking.com/
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- https://www.cdc.gov/library/covid19/

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Coronavirus World Map: Tracking The Spread Of The Outbreak

Feb. 15, 2021, 9:20 AM ET

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Where I Live:

"Tracking Coronavirus in Pinal County, Ariz."

2/15/2021: "Based on the extraordinarily severe outbreak in Pinal County right now, Pinal County is at an extremely high risk level. The risk of getting Covid-19 is based on cases per capita and test positivity. Cases are very high but have decreased over the past two weeks. The numbers of hospitalized Covid patients and deaths in the Pinal County area have also fallen. The test positivity rate in Pinal County is very high, suggesting that cases are being significantly undercounted. We’ve recommended additional precautions below."

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- CP

So far so good...

Gregory Mannarino, "Markets: A Look Ahead, Updates"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 2/15/21

"Markets: A Look Ahead, Updates"

- https://traderschoice.net/

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FEB 15, AT 7:12 AM: "Millions Of Texans Freeze As 'Grid Chaos' Sparks Massive Rolling Blackouts"

FEB 15, AT 6:19 AM: "S&P Futures Hit Record High, Oil Soars As Frozen Chaos Hits Plains States"

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Remember Now"

2002, "Remember Now"

Beautiful playlist follows...

"A Look to the Heavens"

“This rock structure is not only surreal - it's real. The reason it's not more famous is that it is, perhaps, smaller than one might guess: the capstone rock overhangs only a few meters. Even so, the King of Wings outcrop, located in New Mexico, USA, is a fascinating example of an unusual type of rock structure called a hoodoo. Hoodoos may form when a layer of hard rock overlays a layer of eroding softer rock. 

Figuring out the details of incorporating this hoodoo into a night-sky photoshoot took over a year. Besides waiting for a suitably picturesque night behind a sky with few clouds, the foreground had to be artificially lit just right relative to the natural glow of the background. After much planning and waiting, the final shot, featured here, was taken in May 2016. Mimicking the horizontal bar, the background sky features the band of our Milky Way Galaxy stretching overhead.”

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170328.html

"It's The Way..."

"It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it."

- Lena Horne

Chet Raymo, “Thinking About Thinking”

“Thinking About Thinking”

by Chet Raymo

“It is not easy to live in that continuous awareness of things which alone is true living," wrote the naturalist Joseph Wood Krutch. And, of course, he was right. Our brains are separated from the world by a permeable membrane. Attention flows outwards. Sense impressions flow inwards. Of this two-way traffic- this awareness- we create a soul.

At this moment, as I sit at my desk on a hillside in the west of Ireland, I try to be aware. Sunlight streams across my computer keyboard; eight minutes ago these photons were on the surface of the sun. A Pholcus phalangioides spider spins its web under the shelf above the desk; I touch the web with a pencil point and the spider does a dervish dance. Outside the window, clouds scud in from the Atlantic; there will be rain in the afternoon.

Continuous awareness: It can be exhausting. Which is why, I suppose, we sometimes wish for the mind to go blank, for the windows of the soul to close, for darkness to fall. Fortunately, the one thing we don't have to attend to is awareness itself. The brain does its thing without the least bit of conscious control on our part. And a good thing, too; if we had to attend to what is going on in the brain when we attend to the world, we'd... We'd go nuts.

Nothing we know about in the universe approaches the complexity of the human brain. What is it? A vast spider web of neurons, cells with a thousand octopuslike arms, called dendrites. The dendrites reach out and make contact at their tips with the dendrites of other cells, at junctions called synapses. A hundred billion neurons in the human brain, with an average of 1,000 dendrites each. A hundred trillion octopus arms touching like fingertips, and each synapse exquisitely controlled by the cells themselves, strengthening or weakening the contact, building webs of interlinked cells that are knowledge, memory, consciousness- self.

A hundred billion neurons. That's more brain cells than there are grains of salt in 1,000 one-pound boxes of salt. A roomful of salt grains, floor to ceiling. Each in contact with hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of others. The contacts flickering with variable strength. Continuously. Unconsciously. Never ceasing. Remembering. Forgetting. Feeling joy. Feeling pain. Thinking. Speaking. Lifting a foot, moving it forward, putting it down again. Flickering. A hundred trillion flickering synapses. Just thinking about it is exhausting.

Neuroscientists are busy trying to figure it all out. Some folks would say that bringing the scrutiny of science to bear upon the human soul is the height of presumption. Others would say that the more we learn about what makes our brains tick, the more we stand in awe at the mystery of soul.

The sheer complexity of the human brain makes any adequate description a daunting task. Which is why some neuroscientists choose to work with simpler organisms- sea snails, for example- to get a grip on the basic structure and chemistry. In recent years, new scanning technologies enable neuroscientists to watch live human brains at work. Active neural regions flicker on the screens of computer monitors as subjects think, speak, recite poems, do math. Continuous awareness, displayed on the screen of a scanning monitor, can look like a grass fire exploding across a prairie.

Still other scientists attempt to model the brain in silicon, building electronic circuits called neural networks that mimic the activity of the brain as it creates constantly changing webs of neurons. So far, no electronic network begins to approach the complexity of the human brain, but the time is not far off when silicon brains will rival brains of flesh and blood. Just trying to make it happen teaches us a lot about how human brains work.

Perhaps the most exciting research is that of the scientists who study the biochemistry of neurons: How do the cells regulate synaptic connections to build new neural webs? One big surprise is just how much of the "thinking" of neurons is done by the dendrites, those hundreds of spidery arms that connect neurons to one another. DNA in a neuron's nucleus sends messenger RNA down along the dendrites to active synapses, where they are translated into proteins that regulate the strength of synaptic connections. Tiny protein factories in the dendrites are apparently key to learning and memory. Once the regulation of these protein factories is understood, drugs that ameliorate some kinds of hereditary mental retardation might be possible. As will drugs that help all of us to learn and remember. Are we ready for "smart" pills? Memory pills?

What all this amounts to is awareness of awareness. For the first time in the history of consciousness, the machinery of awareness has been turned upon itself. As neuroscientists have discovered, thinking about thinking is not easy. Thank goodness we don't have to think about thinking to think.”

- http://www.sciencemusings.com/

"Chaos And Shock As Electricity Prices Across America Explode!"

Full screen recommended.

"Chaos And Shock As Electricity 

Prices Across America Explode!"

by Epic Economist

"A brutal polar vortex blast is sending power and gas bills to the moon, triggering chaos and panic as electricity prices across the U.S. are exploding amid one of the toughest winters ever registered. That's what we're going to expose today. So stay with us, and don't forget to leave a thumbs up and share this video, and, of course, subscribe to our channel to keep updated with the next chapters of the U.S. economic collapse, the stock market frenzy, the housing market bubble, and much more. Without further ado let's jump into this video!

Numerous news reporting the blast of a huge polar vortex started to pop last week, as temperatures plummeted all across the nation in a phenomenon that is being called the Big Chill. Consequently, natural gas prices soared to never before seen levels as the cold wind has literally frozen natural gas supplies and forced several plants to cut down receipts at the same time customers' demand for heating continued to climb. Since then, experts have been alerting that the longer the cold wave lasts the higher prices could hit. Some even compared the unprecedented price surge to what was seen inside the stock markets during the peak of the GameStop frenzy. 

In fact, as frigid temperatures caused equipment failures, temporary shutdowns, and flaring in at least four processing plants, the hysteria to purchase natural gas has sent prices up 32,000% in a few days. The market's proverbial truth of low offer and high demand has dramatically hit prices. In several locations on the midcontinent, such as the Oneok OGT natural gas spot, demand was so incredibly high that any available natural gas started to be purchased at virtually any price companies asked, which is why it exploded from $3.46 one week ago, to $9 on Wednesday, $60.28 on Thursday and a shocking $377.13 on Friday, which explains the 32,000% increase - something completely unprecedented in all U.S. history. 

This is one of those situations where having a limit-up circuit breaker could actually be a life-saver, although there simply is nowhere near enough supply to meet the demand at any price, for that reason, this explosive upsurge in prices isn't expected to disappear so soon. Just a couple of days ago, weather forecasts predicted the coldest temperatures in over a decade would hit the midcontinent region over this holiday weekend, which led prices to surge again at several locations across Kansas, Oklahoma, and Eastern Arkansas, where hub prices traded at single-day record highs in the range of $200 to $300/MMBtu, according to a Platts report. 

At one Enable Gas Transmission spot, the cash market traded up to $500, with weighted-average prices staying steady by mid-session at around $359/MMBtu. On the other hand, as the offer for natural gas got increasingly limited, the immediate downstream commodity, electricity, followed the same surge in both prices and demand in a matter of hours across all US markets on Friday. Platts reported that "as arctic air mass continues to blanket much of the central US, daily temperatures across some of the locations will range between 30 to 40 degrees below average, according to the NWS. Eastern PJM, Northwest, and much of Texas are also under winter storm warnings and winter weather advisories."

It goes without saying that this is catastrophic news not only for the continued halt in natural gas distribution but also for tens of thousands of Americans who are about to see the effects of this explosion in electricity prices in this month's electricity bill. Just yesterday, the peak price in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas reached an extreme all-time high of $5,500, up from $302 the day before.

The latest weather forecasts are indicating that the polar vortex will continue pouring Arctic air into most of the central US through the coming week, which means natural gas prices are likely to rise even further and electricity demand will continue to surge as Americans face one of the toughest winters ever recorded. And the results of this brutal chillwave will be translated numerically in our electricity bills this month, as it seems we have entered a new era where natural disasters and financial strains have become the new normal."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

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Related:

FEB 14, 2021 - 17:22: "Energy Trader: We've Officially Hit 'Holy S*it Levels'"  "As the day has progressed, amid deteriorating weather forecasts and no let up in demand (despite ERCOT's urgings), our trader contact at a Houston energy firm sums the situation up as eloquently and succinctly as ever: "We've officially hit the 'Holy F**king Shit Levels' here..."

Full article:

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

FEB 14, 2021 - 21:00: "Oil Surges To Jan 2020 Highs Amid Permian Freeze, Supercycle Chatter"

The Daily "Near You?"

Bay Shore, New York, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Currently At Odds...

 

"For The Most Part..."

"Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told- and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion."

- Michael Crichton, "The Lost World"

"The Sociopath Next Door"

"The Sociopath Next Door"

by Martha Stout

"Imagine - if you can - not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken. And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools.

Now add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people that your psychological makeup is radically different from theirs. Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal among human beings, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless. You are not held back from any of your desires by guilt or shame, and you are never confronted by others for your cold-bloodedness. The ice water in your veins is so bizarre, so completely outside of their personal experience, that they seldom even guess at your condition. In other words, you are completely free of internal restraints, and your unhampered liberty to do just as you please, with no pangs of conscience, is conveniently invisible to the world.

You can do anything at all, and still your strange advantage over the majority of people, who are kept in line by their consciences will most likely remain undiscovered. How will you live your life? What will you do with your huge and secret advantage, and with the corresponding handicap of other people (conscience)? The answer will depend largely on just what your desires happen to be, because people are not all the same. Even the profoundly unscrupulous are not all the same. Some people - whether they have a conscience or not - favor the ease of inertia, while others are filled with dreams and wild ambitions. Some human beings are brilliant and talented, some are dull-witted, and most, conscience or not, are somewhere in between. There are violent people and nonviolent ones, individuals who are motivated by blood lust and those who have no such appetites. Provided you are not forcibly stopped, you can do anything at all.

Maybe you are someone who craves money and power, and though you have no vestige of conscience, you do have a magnificent IQ. You have the driving nature and the intellectual capacity to pursue tremendous wealth and influence, and you are in no way moved by the nagging voice of conscience that prevents other people from doing everything and anything they have to do to succeed. You choose business, politics, the law, banking or international development, or any of a broad array of other power professions, and you pursue your career with a cold passion that tolerates none of the usual moral or legal encumbrances. When it is expedient, you doctor the accounting and shred the evidence, you stab your employees and your clients (or your constituency) in the back, marry for money, tell lethal premeditated lies to people who trust you, attempt to ruin colleagues who are powerful or eloquent, and simply steamroll over groups who are dependent and voiceless. And all of this you do with the exquisite freedom that results from having no conscience whatsoever.

You become unimaginably, unassailably, and maybe even globally successful. Why not? With your big brain, and no conscience to rein in your schemes, you can do anything at all. If you are born at the right time, with some access to family fortune, and you have a special talent for whipping up other people's hatred and sense of deprivation, you can arrange to kill large numbers of unsuspecting people. With enough money, you can accomplish this from far away, and you can sit back safely and watch in satisfaction. Crazy and frightening - and real, in about 6 percent of the population.

The high incidence of sociopathy in human society has a profound effect on the rest of us who must live on this planet, too, even those of us who have not been clinically traumatized. The individuals who constitute this 6 percent drain our relationships, our bank accounts, our accomplishments, our self-esteem, our very peace on earth.

Yet surprisingly, many people know nothing about this disorder, or if they do, they think only in terms of violent psychopathy - murderers, serial killers, mass murderers - people who have conspicuously broken the law many times over, and who, if caught, will be imprisoned, maybe even put to death by our legal system. We are not commonly aware of, nor do we usually identify, the larger number of nonviolent sociopaths among us, people who often are not blatant lawbreakers, and against whom our formal legal system provides little defense.

Most of us would not imagine any correspondence between conceiving an ethnic genocide and, say, guiltlessly lying to one's boss about a coworker. But the psychological correspondence is not only there; it is chilling. Simple and profound, the link is the absence of the inner mechanism that beats up on us, emotionally speaking, when we make a choice we view as immoral, unethical, neglectful, or selfish. Most of us feel mildly guilty if we eat the last piece of cake in the kitchen, let alone what we would feel if we intentionally and methodically set about to hurt another person. Those who have no conscience at all are a group unto themselves, whether they be homicidal tyrants or merely ruthless social snipers.

The presence or absence of conscience is a deep human division, arguably more significant than intelligence, race, or even gender. What differentiates a sociopath who lives off the labors of others from one who occasionally robs convenience stores, or from one who is a contemporary robber baron - or what makes the difference between an ordinary bully and a sociopathic murderer - is nothing more than social status, drive, intellect, blood lust, or simple opportunity. What distinguishes all of these people from the rest of us is an utterly empty hole in the psyche, where there should be the most evolved of all humanizing functions."

- http://www.cix.co.uk/~klockstone/spath.htm

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Related: 

"The Birth of a Psychopath"

Musical Interlude: Michael Jackson, "Earth Song"

Michael Jackson, "Earth Song"

Full screen recommended.

"Alas! regardless of their doom,

The little victims play;

No sense have they of ills to come,

Nor care beyond to-day."  

- Thomas Gray,

"Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College"

"How It Really Is"

 

Greg Hunter, "Currencies Will Be Worthless, Buy Precious Metals"

"Currencies Will Be Worthless, Buy Precious Metals"

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com 

"Gerald Celente, publisher of 'The Trends Journal' and a renowned trends researcher, is back to talk about the recent Bitcoin boom and many other trends coming in 2021. On Bitcoin and its recent price explosion, Celente says, “Why is Bitcoin going back up? It’s going back up because everybody with a brain bigger than a pea knows that the central banks are doing nothing but pumping all this fake money into the economies to artificially prop them up. This is young people’s gold, and they are the ones that began it. One of our top trends for 2021, and we come out with them in December, is the youth revolution. This isn’t going away. Another one of our trends from a year ago is they are going from dirty cash to digital trash. You don’t want to trust that dirty money forever. You can get the virus from that (sarcasm). So, we are going digital. Now, they can know every penny that you spent, where you spent it and how you spent it so they can get their cut. It’s called taxes, but it’s not really taxes. It’s stealing our money so these low-life scum pieces of crap called politicians who have never worked a day in their lives can keep sucking off the public teat. It is also to give all their buddies, imbeciles and morons called bureaucrats jobs.”

Celente goes on to say, “The currencies are worthless. They are going to come out with a new currency and say again, we don’t want the dirty money, we are going to come out digital so they can now readjust the entire system. They will make up a new coin, get rid of our debt and people will buy it. They will do what they are told just like they marched off to the Covid war. They will do anything they are told.”

On the economy, Celente says the trend is decidedly down. He cites New York as an example and explains, “We got his jerk (Governor Cuomo) that has destroyed New York State with executive orders. The place is dead. The economy is dead. We are in the ‘Greatest Depression.’ The Congressional Budget Office says it. The jobs that have been lost are not going to come back until 2024. That’s the jobs that were lost. How about creating new ones? No, we don’t need to create new ones because the rich are getting everything. The ‘Greatest Depression’ is not just America, it’s global.”

Celente warns, “The banksters and the criminal groups are in control, and I am angry. I am angry that they are stealing my rights away from me. I was not put on this earth to take orders. I don’t give them, and I don’t take them. I am born to be free.”

What should the common person do? Celente says, “Number one, get yourself in the best shape possible physically, emotionally and spiritually. The fight is on. You better be in good shape. You don’t win the fight without being in good shape. Number two, I believe in safe haven assets like physical gold and silver, both will be decidedly up, especially silver. Number three, create your own future. Think for yourself. Do what you can to bring back freedom, peace and justice to America and the real American way, and do it peacefully.”

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com in Rumble as he goes 

One-on-One with Gerald Celente, publisher of 'The Trends Journal'.

- https://rumble.com/

"Some Oddities...

"There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world. The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be."

- Douglas Adams

"Alert! Catastrophic Stock Market Crash Is Very Likely In The Months Ahead"

Full screen recommended.

"Alert! Catastrophic Stock Market Crash

 Is Very Likely In The Months Ahead"

by Epic Economist

"Experts are warning for a dramatic stock market crash: For the first time in history, the ratio of U.S. stock prices to U.S. Gross Domestic Product has reached a staggering 200 percent. This means that the total value of U.S. stocks is currently twice as high as the value of all U.S. economic output for an entire year. Historically, the ratio of U.S. stock prices to U.S. GDP is usually under 100 percent. That highlights how extreme this bubble has become. In the face of a bleak economic outlook, what this tells us is how stock valuations are completely disconnected from the real economy. That is to say, the stock price bubble isn't backed by real prospects, but mainly by speculation. The bubble has grown so much, experts do not doubt that it's just a matter of time until it bursts. The only debate now is how fast and how far the eventual collapse will be. The unsustainable stock prices won't stay this high for much longer, and everyone can see that the end of that bubble is approaching. That's what we're going to investigate in this video. 

The figure investors should all be paying attention to is the Shiller price-to-earnings ratio for the S&P 500. As of February 3, the Shiller price-to-earnings for the S&P 500 has reached unprecedented highs. The ratio was around 35, which is more than double the long-term average. To give you some perspective regarding this figure, there have only been five periods in history where the Shiller price-to-earnings ratio went above 30 and stayed there amid a bull market run. Amongst them, two events happened within the past three years, and led to declines of 20% and 34%, respectively, in the S&P 500. Simply put, anytime the Shiller price-to-earnings ratio surpasses and sustains 30 in a bull market rally, it has eventually suffered in a minimum correction of 20%.

The truth is that even if stock prices fell by half, the Shiller price-to-earnings for the S&P 500 would still be above the long-term average. Therefore, if the market only drops by 20 percent this year, that would be the best-case scenario and we should consider ourselves to be extremely lucky. Especially because stretched valuations are just one of the concerns at the moment. Nosebleed premiums baked into the stock market assume that the health crisis will soon disappear, but according to a recent survey that reported that roughly half of the population is unwilling to get in line for a vaccine, and this outlines that the outbreak might be far from over.

Additionally, our economy is still hurting. Millions upon millions of workers have been laid off or furloughed, and many of those who are still working have seen their hours cut. A significant number of Americans and their families are still counting on continued assistance from the federal government to make it through the recession. But if the partisan dispute continues to delay the issuance of additional fiscal stimulus, that could seriously impact consumer spending, which is the main driver of U.S. gross domestic product, and potentially lead to a remarkable increase in loan and credit delinquencies. Consequently, that would put financial stocks in huge trouble, and those are considered to be the backbone of the U.S. equity markets. 

As the stock mania is still spreading across the nation, the brand new group of investors that just entered the markets is affirming to be getting increasingly rich. However, you only truly make money when you leave the markets, and most of these earnings are still on paper. Considering that every other stock market bubble in U.S. history has ended in a dramatic crash, John Hussman recently noted that this is our generation’s moment of peak financial insanity: "nothing so animates a speculative herd as a parabolic price advance in an asset detached from any standard of value. I am convinced that future generations will use the present moment to define the concept of a reckless speculative extreme, in the same way our generation uses “1929” and “2000”.

At this point, it's just a matter of time until a stock price correction occurs, and a decline of anything over 50 percent is likely to be too much for our system to handle. In other words, it would essentially end our financial system as we know it, sparking a catastrophic collapse that would drag numerous stocks straight into rock bottom, while also causing much more economic pain than we have experienced so far. As we wait to discover what will be the next trigger event, you should start getting prepared to watch the most epic stock market crash of all time." 

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com​​

"Without Rule Of Law"

"Without Rule Of Law"

by Ted

"'This is going to come to a head. I will tell you what’s coming in this country. When there’s no law and order and the politicians are all corrupted, and they’re all on the take, and the judges are totally worthless… I’ll tell you what happens. It’s called vigilantism.

It has happened throughout history. The people had to defend themselves because society could not do it. People took the law into their own hands. They had to, in order to survive. And that’s what’s going to happen. I’m not recommending that, and it would be illegal for you to do so. But I’m telling you, for society at large that is what is coming. More and more people will take the law into their own hands when the government refuses to do so. It’s that simple.'

The words typed above are a close transcript of what a popular radio talk show host said the other day. His geographical reference was his own region, San Francisco, the streets of which have apparently turned into a hell-hole, so to speak. His words got me to thinking… Let me explain: There are cities in the United States, right now, that are essentially without the rule of law in many aspects. That would include cities like Portland, San Francisco, and others where far leftist mayors and apparent corrupt leadership at law enforcement, are, in a word, corrupted and politicized. Those who have watched or read about the goings-on in those cities and others, know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s a real problem.

Here’s the thing though: There’s a very thin line between civility and civil breakdown.

Vigilantism: What is vigilantism? Taking the law into one’s own hands and attempting to effect justice according to one’s own understanding of right and wrong; action taken by a voluntary association of persons who organize themselves for the purpose of protecting a common interest, such as liberty, property, or personal security.

The history of vigilantism in the United States is as old as the country itself. In many ways, the history of the United States began with vigilantism. On December 16, 1773, American colonists, tired of British direct taxation, took part in what came to be known as the Boston Tea Party. As part of the resistance, they threw 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor.

Since then, we have become a nation of laws. State and federal governments are given what amounts to a Monopoly over the use of force and violence to implement the law. Private citizens may use force and violence to defend their lives and their property, and in some instances the lives and property of others, but they must do so under the specific circumstances allowed by the law if they wish to avoid being prosecuted for a crime themselves.

Taking law into their own hands: By taking law into their own hands, vigilantes flout the rule of law, effectively becoming lawmaker, police officer, judge, jury, and appellate court for the cause they are pursuing. We all know the system is corrupt, right? (there’s corruption in nearly all institutions). It is the way of man. The issue however is this: We are going to see vigilantism when a tipping point are fed up with what they see as injustice, and when the entire system itself is perceived as totally corrupt. I’m not saying that I recommend it. I’m just saying what will be a logical outcome as the system decays into total corruption and injustice.

ANTIFA lawlessness/Social Injustice Warriors: We are already seeing this with Antifa (the anti first amendment group). They are violently acting out and getting away with their violence under the willingness of city mayors and police leadership which have been allowing it. It’s going to get worse. “Social Injustice Warriors” have evident “open season” on conservatives, whites, males. It’s getting ugly. If you wear a MAGA hat in these cities, you will likely end up with a cracked skull. And if you defend yourself in this instance, YOU will likely be the one in jail. This is present reality folks…

It gets worse. I’m NOT disrespecting the police. They are actually under attack by the Antifa types, anarchists, social injustice warriors, and even the public at large in some cities. What’s worse, the mayors are NOT standing up in defense of their police even as they are being attacked. The more without rule of law is allowed to happen, the worse it’s going to get!

Without Rule Of Law: As all this escalates and these far leftist vigilante groups push further and further into the faces of conservative Americans who just want to live a peaceful good life… If the rule of law does not stop these radical groups, there WILL be a tipping point. And when that happens, it’s going to be nuts. Why? Because once you flip that switch to the “ON” position, it’s going to be ON. It’s going to get really, really ugly in those regions where this is being allowed to happen.

I’m not advocating this. But I’m expressing my opinion based on what I’m seeing, reading, hearing, and observing. We don’t seem to have consistent law enforcement across this nation. In fact there is quite a lot of egregious inconsistencies and much of it is POLITICALLY MOTIVATED. It’s happening in so many places, SELECTIVE enforcement of the law based on POLITICAL IDEALS of the city/region itself. That is not good. We’re splintering."

- https://beforeitsnews.com/

“Auto Sales Collapse; Mental Illness Crisis; Shopping Malls Closing; Severe Economic Suffering”

Jeremiah Babe,

“Auto Sales Collapse; Mental Illness Crisis; 

Shopping Malls Closing; Severe Economic Suffering”

Deuter, "Music of the Night: East of The Full Moon"

Deuter, 

"Music of the Night: East of The Full Moon"

Full screen recommended.

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Large galaxies and faint nebulae highlight this deep image of the M81 Group of galaxies. First and foremost in the wide-angle 12-hour exposure is the grand design spiral galaxy M81, the largest galaxy visible in the image. M81 is gravitationally interacting with M82 just below it, a big galaxy with an unusual halo of filamentary red-glowing gas. 

Around the image many other galaxies from the M81 Group of galaxies can be seen. Together with other galaxy congregates including our Local Group of galaxies and the Virgo Cluster of galaxies, the M81 Group is part of the expansive Virgo Supercluster of Galaxies. This whole galaxy menagerie is seen through the faint glow of an Integrated Flux Nebula, a little studied complex of diffuse gas and dust clouds in our Milky Way Galaxy."

- http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080512.html

Chet Raymo, “A Few Words Inspired By The Tomato Plant”

“A Few Words Inspired By The Tomato Plant”
by Chet Raymo

"Mostly we think of life in terms of individuals - this person, this tomato plant, this frog, this oak tree, this gnat. And we talk about birth and death as the beginning and ending of life. But there is another sense in which life is just one thing, whose beginning is lost in the depths of time and whose end is not in sight. Life in this sense embodies itself in matter, temporarily, as a tomato or a frog, puts on matter and puts off matter as we might don or doff clothes. By this account, I am an ephemeral conglomeration of atoms that life is using to perpetuate itself.

But what is this thing called life? It cannot exist except as embodied form, but it maintains a continuity independent of any particular embodiment. It is a strange enduring wave that stirs the material world into purposeful and directed avenues. With Johannes Kepler we might call it the facultas formatrix of nature, the formative faculty, but giving something a name doesn't explain it. Whatever life is - in the unitary, enduring sense - it would be surprising if it only existed here on Earth. If I were a betting man I would bet that life is as pervasive as matter itself, or energy. Matter, energy and complexification. We have lots left to learn.

But let's be cautious. There are lots of folks out there with half-baked biocentric theories of the universe. Someone once chided the philosopher W. V. O. Quine with a quote from Shakespeare: “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” To which Quine is said to have responded: “Possibly, but my concern is that there not be more things in my philosophy than are in heaven and earth.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"Anything Can Happen..."

 

"The Summit"; "Benedicto"

"The summit is believed to be the object of the climb. But its true object - the joy of living - is not in the peak itself, but in the adversities encountered on the way up. There are valleys, cliffs, streams, precipices, and slides, and as he walks these steep paths, the climber may think he cannot go any farther, or even that dying would be better than going on. But then he resumes fighting the difficulties directly in front of him, and when he is finally able to turn and look back at what he has overcome, he finds he has truly experienced the joy of living while on life's very road."

- Eiji Yoshikawa

○

"Benedicto"

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets' towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you - beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.”

- Edward Abbey

The Daily "Near You?"

Elma, Washington, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Free Download: T. S. Eliot, "Four Quartets"

“Little Gidding”, Excerpt

"We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring 

Will be to arrive where we started 

And know the place for the first time. 

When the last of earth left to discover 

Is that which was the beginning; 

At the source of the longest river 

The voice of the hidden waterfall

And the children in the apple-tree.

Not known, because not looked for 

But heard, half-heard, in the stillness

Between two waves of the sea.

Quick now, here, now, always - 

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)

And all shall be well and

All manner of thing shall be well

When the tongues of flames are in-folded 

Into the crowned knot of fire 

And the fire and the rose are one.”

- T.S. Eliot

The "Little Gidding" is the last of T. S. Eliot's "Four Quartets," 

which you may freely download here:

- http://www.paikassociates.com/pdf/fourquartets.pdf

"The Monstrous Thing..."

"The monstrous thing is not that men have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other, they should want roses. For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured - disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui - in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable. And all the while a meter is running inside and there is no hand that can reach in there and shut it off."

- Henry Miller, “Tropic of Cancer”