"Stumbling Toward Reality"

"Stumbling Toward Reality"

by Jim Kunstler

"Dr. Anthony Fauci, who answers to the title “The Science” in certain circles, said this week that there are going to be two Americas, the vaxed and the unvaxed. Earth to Fr. Fauci: we are already two Americas: the reality-onboard and the reality-optional.

One reality is that vaccines developed at “warp speed” appear to have gnarly side-effects that can outweigh the risk of the disease they’re engineered to protect against. Another reality is that the Delta variant of SARS-Covid-19 is more contagious, but also weaker, less likely to result in hospitalization among the unvaxed. Yet another reality is that the Delta variant also infects the fully-vaccinated. Oh, what to do?

Consider not allowing yourself to be jerked around by US health officials who have trouble keeping their story straight, for instance, Dr. Anthony Fauci (a.k.a. The Science) who, records show, apparently assisted the bio-warfare division of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) at the Wuhan lab in the development of a world-beating, gain-of-function bat virus - which, halfway through year-two of its run, seems to be following the usual trajectory of viral epidemics by growing weaker before it disappears altogether. And then we’ll see what happens longer-term among the vaxed, who were subjected to flurries of toxic spike proteins.

It’s the opinion of some - though not myself - that the Covid-19 episode was unleashed upon the world to allow “the elite” to execute a “controlled demolition of the global economy” so as quash climate change (by reducing carbon emissions), and therefore ensure a brighter future for said elite, while cruelly throwing the rest of the world’s population overboard. Oh, I dunno…. Klaus Schwab and his minions of The Great Reset seem more like hapless control freaks than persons actually able to control anything, least of all the whole world. Dr. Fauci’s role looks like a species of generic egomania with a top hat of greed (considering his financial interests in vaccines). The reality is that the global economy, such as it’s a high-tech industrial economy, is shooting its own wad very nicely without a whole lot of assistance from alleged nefarious parties.

Meantime, the Fourth of July is upon us and the nation is not quite half-vaxed-up, and yet we are about to celebrate the meaning of Independence Day, which is freedom from getting jerked around by tyrants. The idea! And so, you see, the USA also seems to be divided between those who take liberty and its associated values to heart, and those who seek to coerce, dominate, censor, cancel, and punish those who show signs of wishing to enjoy liberty in the pursuit of happiness.

Since the mythic figure known as “Trump” appears to represent the group that favors liberty, it has been necessary for the latter group of Woke tyrants to find some way to punish him. And so, after much sedulous digging and rooting through every record vaulted in the earth’s mantle, the Manhattan district attorney’s office, conducting an investigation alongside the New York attorney general, has lodged a 15-count indictment against the Trump organization and its CFO, a Mr. Allen Weisselberg, for a conspiracy to commit criminal tax fraud, falsifying business records, and omitting to pay taxes on employees “indirect compensation” (i.e., fringe benefits) amounting to $1.7-million over 15 years.

Cue Dr. Evil… with pinky finger inserted in corner of mouth. One-point-seven million!!! Over 15 years… equals about $113,000 a year! The New York state tax upon which might be in the neighborhood of $10,000! (That is, on the fringe benefits of company cars, parking spaces, and college tuition for company employees.) Now, there is a powerful case for malfeasance! Do you know what $1.7-million will get you: I’ll tell you: the raised ranch house that my parents bought in the Long Island suburbs for about 20-K in 1954. (Note, rather severely updated since then.) Just sayin….

Notice that the complaint against the Trump Org was not brought by the state tax authorities. Why not? Perhaps because it is beneath the dignity of even calling it a Mickey Mouse case. Instead, this is the sum total of what Democratic Party Lawfare ferrets could dig up in five years, including two years and $33-million spent by Robert Mueller’s investigators, plus the extra exertions of the DOJ’s Southern District federal attorneys. Well, done, Lawfare warriors! It will be fun to watch the prosecution of this case, if it isn’t peremptorily laughed out court. It was especially rich to see the way The New York Times played the story in Friday’s morning edition - a giant banner headline, taken down, by the way, sometime after 9:00a.m. EDT, but we screen-capped it just prior:

Finally, in this trifecta of clanging unrealities, Democratic Party efforts to promote endless, widespread election fraud were dealt a knockdown blow Thursday in the US Supreme Court’s decision upholding a new Arizona election reform law that prohibits “ballot harvesting” and voting out of one’s own election district. The SCOTUS decision kind of moots the DOJ’s more recent hustle to undermine Georgia’s new election reform law, which includes similar prohibitions against ballot shenanigans. In short, states now can take reasonable steps to ensure fair elections - a hard concept to grasp, I’m sure, but there it is. Now let’s see how many states seek to unravel previous election shenanigans, for instance what went down on November 3 2020. Happy July Fourth everyone. Don’t hurt anyone… or yourselves!"

- https://kunstler.com/

Gerald Celente, "The Trends Journal": "Markets Hit All Time HIgh, Will Covid War 2.0 Kill It?"

Gerald Celente, "The Trends Journal" PM 7/1/21:

"Markets Hit All Time HIgh, Will Covid War 2.0 Kill It?"

"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over hype and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in the increasingly turbulent times ahead."

- https://trendsresearch.com/

Musical Interlude: Ludovico Einaudi, “In A Time Lapse”

Full screen recommended.

Ludovico Einaudi, “In A Time Lapse”

“In A Time Lapse's” Track List:

02:25 - Walk

05:43 - Discovery At Night

09:51 - Two Trees

16:18 - Life

20:40 - Brothers

24:43 - Orbits

28:05 - Corale Solo

31:01 - Waterways

35:56 - Ronald's Dream

39:41 - Bever

45:33 - Newton´s Cradle

50:35 - Time Lapse

56:08 - Circles

58:19 - Experience

1:03:04 - Underwood

1:06:44 - Burning

"A Look to the Heavens"

“This wide, sharp telescopic view reveals galaxies scattered beyond the stars and faint dust nebulae of the Milky Way at the northern boundary of the high-flying constellation Pegasus. Prominent at the upper right is NGC 7331.

A mere 50 million light-years away, the large spiral is one of the brighter galaxies not included in Charles Messier's famous 18th century catalog. The disturbed looking group of galaxies at the lower left is well-known as Stephan's Quintet. About 300 million light-years distant, the quintet dramatically illustrates a multiple galaxy collision, its powerful, ongoing interactions posed for a brief cosmic snapshot. On the sky, the quintet and NGC 7331 are separated by about half a degree.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap141023.html

"14 Astonishing Facts About The Blistering Heatwave That Is Absolutely Frying The Northwest Right Now"

Full screen recommended.

"14 Astonishing Facts About The Blistering Heatwave 

That Is Absolutely Frying The Northwest Right Now"

by Epic Economist

"There are so many absurdities happening right now that is getting hard to know which one is actually the worst. The United States is being plagued by so many crises and disasters that it almost feels like we have been cursed. And the extreme weather conditions we have been witnessing are just way far from "normal". For years, experts have been telling us that global weather patterns were starting to spiral out of control, but it seems like no one has listened to their warnings. However, nobody can deny right now that what we are experiencing is absolutely unprecedented. Most parts of the Northwest are being slammed by a “heat dome,” something just as crazy and scary as the catastrophes we see in apocalyptic movies.

Even though the U.S. went through other severe heatwaves, nothing compares to what is going on over the past few weeks. In the past, when the weather has gotten unexpectedly hot, one or two cities might have set new high temperature records during a given date, but this week we are seeing cities break their all-time records for hottest temperature ever recorded every day. At this point, all we can hope for is that this situation doesn't become the "new normal".

This phenomenon is reaching unimaginable proportions and we are just at the beginning of the summer. Over the past few years, we have been witnessing extraordinarily freezing temperatures during the winter, ravaging storms, floods, and also exceptionally high temperatures during the summer, catastrophic droughts, and water crises as well as multiple natural disasters all over the world. As opposed to what our leaders ingenuously believe, simply "changing our approach to the environment" won't solve crises like these. At this stage, those small "green initiatives" won't do much to contain nature's rage.

According to climate experts, the heatwave that is now completely baking the U.S. Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, Canada, has an intensity that was never recorded by modern humans. Data recently released suggest that "it is more rare than a once in a 1,000-year event," meaning that if you could be alive for 1,000 years and you happened to be at this particular spot, you'd probably only experience a heat dome like this once in your lifetime, if ever. The brutal heat is a result of a combination of an atmospheric blocking pattern in addition to a human-caused climate-changed planet, where standard temperatures are already much higher than nature intended. The current heatwave comes just after another historic one that happened less than two weeks ago in the U.S. Intermountain West, Desert Southwest, and California, which also set hundreds of new record highs.

We have been destroying entire ecosystems for decades, and now the whole planet is dramatically and irreversibly changing. These extreme weather conditions will persist throughout the rest of the season, and we will probably have new record-highs by then. Another worrying aspect of this crisis is how hot temperatures can affect people's mental health. Here, in the U.S. hot weather usually means a great level of social unrest and turbulence in our cities' streets, and since our society was already melting down all around us way before all of this happened, bizarre weather is definitely not going to help matters. In fact, those who are still believing that this situation is going to be miraculously turned around are just in a deep state of blissful denial. That’s why today, we brought you 14 truly astonishing facts about the blistering heatwave that is absolutely frying the Northwest over the past weeks."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

"In The Presence of Difficulty, Compassion"

"In The Presence of Difficulty, Compassion"

by Madisyn Taylor, The DailyOM

"True compassion recognizes that all the boundaries we perceive between ourselves and others are an illusion. Compassion is the ability to see the deep connectedness between ourselves and others. Moreover, true compassion recognizes that all the boundaries we perceive between ourselves and others are an illusion. When we first begin to practice compassion, this very deep level of understanding may elude us, but we can have faith that if we start where we are, we will eventually feel our way toward it. We move closer to it every time we see past our own self-concern to accommodate concern for others. And, as with any skill, our compassion grows most in the presence of difficulty.

We practice small acts of compassion every day, when our loved ones are short-tempered or another driver cuts us off in traffic. We extend our forgiveness by trying to understand their point of view; we know how it is to feel stressed out or irritable. The practice of compassion becomes more difficult when we find ourselves unable to understand the actions of the person who offends us. These are the situations that ask us to look more deeply into ourselves, into parts of our psyches that we may want to deny, parts that we have repressed because society has labeled them bad or wrong. For example, acts of violence are often well beyond anything we ourselves have perpetuated, so when we are on the receiving end of such acts, we are often at a loss. This is where the real potential for growth begins, because we are called to shine a light inside ourselves and take responsibility for what we have disowned. It is at this juncture that we have the opportunity to transform from within!

This can seem like a very tall order, but when life presents us with circumstances that require our compassion, no matter how difficult, we can trust that we are ready. We can call upon all the light we have cultivated so far, allowing it to lead the way into the darkest parts of our own hearts, connecting us to the hearts of others in the understanding that is true compassion."

- http://www.dailyom.com/

"FED Kills Economy To Save Wall St; Hollywood Has Fallen; Businesses Decimated; Doom and Gloom Reality"

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, PM 7/1/21:

"FED Kills Economy To Save Wall St; Hollywood Has Fallen; 

 Businesses Decimated; Doom and Gloom Reality"

The Daily "Near You?"

Oakes, N. Dakota, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Kahlil Gibran, "The Madman"

"The Madman"

"It was in the garden of a madhouse that I met a youth with a face pale and lovely and full of wonder. And I sat beside him upon the bench, and I said, “Why are you here?” And he looked at me in astonishment, and he said, “It is an unseemly question, yet I will answer you. My father would make of me a reproduction of himself; so also would my uncle. My mother would have me the image of her seafaring husband as the perfect example for me to follow. My brother thinks I should be like him, a fine athlete. And my teachers also, the doctor of philosophy, and the music-master, and the logician, they too were determined, and each would have me but a reflection of his own face in a mirror. Therefore I came to this place. I find it more sane here. At least, I can be myself.” Then of a sudden he turned to me and he said, “But tell me, were you also driven to this place by education and good counsel?”

And I answered, “No, I am a visitor.”And he answered, “Oh, you are one of those who live in the madhouse on the other side of the wall...” 

- Kahlil Gibran

The Poet: Langston Hughes, “Life is Fine”

“Life is Fine”

"I went down to the river,

I set down on the bank.

I tried to think but couldn't,

So I jumped in and sank.

I came up once and hollered!

I came up twice and cried!

If that water hadn't a-been so cold

I might've sunk and died.

But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!

I took the elevator

Sixteen floors above the ground.

I thought about my baby

And thought I would jump down.

I stood there and I hollered!

I stood there and I cried!

If it hadn't a-been so high

I might've jumped and died.

But it was High up there! It was high!

So since I'm still here livin',

I guess I will live on.

I could've died for love -

But for livin' I was born.

Though you may hear me holler,

And you may see me cry -

I'll be dogged, sweet baby,

If you gonna see me die.

Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!"

- Langston Hughes

"How It Really Is"

Must Watch! "All the Stimulus Programs Ending in July, with Jeremiah Babe"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, IAllegedly, PM 7/1/21:

"All the Stimulus Programs Ending in July, with Jeremiah Babe"

"Jeremiah Babe joins me to cover all the different stimulus programs that are ending in the month of July. You need to get ready for rent moratorium, forbearance, unemployment and getting prepared with savings and security."

○

Related:

"The Systemic Risk No One Sees"

Gregory Mannarino, AM/PM 7/1/21

Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/1/21:

"ALERT! We Are In A Full Blown Inflationary Crisis; 

Crude Oil Now OVER $75 A Barrel"

- https://traderschoice.net/

○

Gregory Mannarino, PM 7/1/21:

"Wall St. Now Betting The Fed.

 Will INCREASE Asset Purchases! Not Taper"

-https://traderschoice.net/

"Think of the Wavering Millions"

"Think of the Wavering Millions"

by Bill Bonner

"Raise your glass to the hard-working people,

Let’s drink to the uncounted heads.

Let’s think of the wavering millions

Who need leading, but get gamblers instead.

Spare a thought for the stay-at-home voter,

Empty eyes gaze at strange beauty shows.

And a parade of the gray-suited grafters

A choice of cancer or polio."

– "Salt of the Earth" by The Rolling Stones

YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "Today, we raise a glass to the hard-working people… robbed by the gamblers and conned by the gray-suited grifters…Yes, we drink to the uncounted heads… the people who till the earth and pay the bills.

Elite Role: As we’ve oft explored in these Diaries, all wealth comes from work. Sweat. Innovation. From people who save their money and accumulate their knowledge. From people who plant gardens, write songs, and clean the windows. Typically, the elite play a valuable role – designing bridges, settling disputes, teaching the young, and healing the sick.

Its priests point the way to Heaven or hell. Its judges and opinion leaders moderate the savage impulses of the mob… and guide the “lower depths” (mostly by example) in all matters aesthetic, moral, and practical.

Its politicians should restrain themselves, stealing no more than a few percentage points of the national treasure.

Its generals should stay in their barracks, unless called upon to defend the country.

And its central bankers should protect the value of its money… no more, no less.

Irresistible Temptation: But the elite, naturally, have power as well as responsibility. They have guns and laws to boss people around. And the temptation not just to protect money… but to print infinitely more of it… appears to be irresistible. Left unchecked, the power corrupts… turning them from a helpful service class to a group of self-serving parasites. That is what America’s fake money has wrought.

As we reported, the top 1% has seen its wealth increase by $25 trillion since 2009. There are 330 million people in America, so the top 1% numbers 3.3 million… Divide that into $25 trillion, and we see that the average one-percenter has gained about $7.5 million – which works out at about $1,845 per day. Not a lot of money for a one-percenter. Maybe he can do better over the next 12 years!

Wealth Inequality: But today, our attention is on the rest. The carpenters and used car salesmen, the streetwalkers and factory girls, the people who serve the hamburgers and fix the potholes. The total “wealth” gain since 2009 is about $70 trillion. If the top 1% got $25 trillion, the bottom 99% must have gotten $45 trillion. But of that, almost all was concentrated near the top. Those in the bottom 50% gained only about $13,250 apiece over the last 12 years – or about $3.23 per day!

That is the “inequality” you hear lamented so frequently in the press. And it’s no accident. In the last 15 months, for example, the Federal Reserve has “printed” up some $4 trillion. Stocks have hit record after record. Real estate, too, is now in record territory.

Hornswoggled: The gamblers have never seen the cotton so high. They can borrow money below the level of consumer price inflation, and use it to speculate on SPACs, NFTs, meme stocks, cryptos – you name it. Billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller tells us what it is like: "...everyone wealthy that I know is making fortunes… this guy [Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell] is printing money like there’s no tomorrow… for the life of me, I can’t understand why the left is so excited about money-printing when all the data shows that the people who benefit from money-printing are rich people."

But the foot soldiers? The hairdressers? The proles and hoi polloi? They have only their time to sell… and, by retarding the growth of capital, the feds make each hour less valuable They are the masses… the people… the folks who supposedly control the government. But they’ve been hornswoggled. The inflation trick is too subtle. They don’t understand it. Besides, in each election, they are offered the same choice – between cancer and polio.

Bright Side: Still, here at the Diary, we always look on the bright side. We walk on the sunny side of the street and drink from the half of the glass that is full. Yes, there are advantages to being poor.

The poor man doesn’t have to look at ugly or depressing art; he can buy a print of a Norman Rockwell magazine cover. He doesn’t have to wander around in a giant, empty palace and hire a gardener named Joselito. He can live in a cozy rambler… warm himself in front of the fireplace in the winter… enjoy a cool beer on the porch in the summer… and cut the grass himself. And he doesn’t have to travel. The rich man flits from business conference to his vacation digs, exhausting himself while pretending to be important. The poor man gets to stay at home.

Nor is the poor man expected to cheerlead for whatever cause is popular. He need not fly a rainbow flag from his bedroom window; his neighbors would think he was a little “funny” if he did. Nor does he have to worry about his carbon footprint. He drives a gas-guzzling pickup… but only to get to work.

The poor man doesn’t have to read How to Be an Anti-Racist or know who Ibram X. Kendi is; he knows where he stands. Black or white, he’s proud of his own people… and sure that others are low-lifes. And he doesn’t have to waste his time learning the difference between a Chablis and a Chardonnay. Or fear picking up the wrong fork at a fancy dinner party. “Fork ‘em all,” he mutters…"

- www.rogueeconomics.com

Must Watch! "You Could Be Jobless And Homeless Tomorrow; Living Paycheck To Paycheck; Economic Endgame"

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, PM 6/30/21:

"You Could Be Jobless And Homeless Tomorrow; 

Living Paycheck To Paycheck; Economic Endgame"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Few cosmic vistas excite the imagination like the Orion Nebula. Also known as M42, the nebula's glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1,500 light-years away. The Orion Nebula offers one of the best opportunities to study how stars are born partly because it is the nearest large star-forming region, but also because the nebula's energetic stars have blown away obscuring gas and dust clouds that would otherwise block our view - providing an intimate look at a range of ongoing stages of starbirth and evolution. 

The featured image of the Orion Nebula is among the sharpest ever, constructed using data from the Hubble Space Telescope. The entire Orion Nebula spans about 40 light years and is located in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210629.html

"Home Prices Just Did Something That They Have Never Done Before"

Full screen recommended.

"Home Prices Just Did Something That 

They Have Never Done Before"

by Epic Economist

"Everyone could see home prices were spiraling out of control, and now we are seeing some solid numbers that are just shocking. Home prices are rising at the fastest pace ever recorded, and millions of potential homebuyers are getting increasingly frustrated with how competitive the housing market has become. All across the country, average hard-working American families are being completely priced out of the market. Prior to the health crisis, the biggest price bubbles used to be in big cities and major urban centers along both coasts. But right now, buyers have been looking for the safety and comfort of rural and suburban areas, whose markets all over the nation are red hot. Bidding wars are happening so frequently that offering more than one million dollars over the asking price has become a common thing. Buyers are so desperate to purchase a home that in addition to cash bags they have been offering trips, cars, and even to buy another home for the seller. This crazy frenzy is sending home prices to dizzying heights, and the latest numbers can prove so.

On Tuesday, headlines all across America were reporting the latest reading of the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price data, which revealed that in the month of April, U.S. home prices jumped the most in over 30 years. Other financial experts with ZeroHedge affirmed these sharp price increases "make sense" thanks to "trillions in stimmy checks, near-record low mortgage rates, and an exodus away from cities". Experienced economists are telling us that this euphoric market is only expanding the growing divide between the haves and have-nots in housing, with sales activity dramatically rising on the higher end of the market but falling on the low end as increasingly more buyers are getting priced out.

They note that the Federal Reserve is responsible for keeping mortgage rates artificially low through its bond-buying program, and those suppressed rates helped to fuel the home buying boom over the past year. Even though they have ticked slightly higher in recent days, that wasn't enough to offset the huge price gains. “So much for the Fed’s all-inclusive monetary policy where lower income people now can’t afford housing,” wrote Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group.

Those who are being left out of the market have no other alternative rather than renting a place. However, rent prices have also been on a relentless rise in many areas around the country. The latest price increases are coming at a time U.S. renters collectively owe more than $30 billion in back rent. Some states, such as California, are trying to pay off unpaid rent accrued during the recession before mass evictions begin. At least 10 million workers who live paycheck-to-paycheck remain on the verge of losing their homes as soon as the CDC moratorium expires next month.

These days, companies are taking advantage of heated demand for products and dwindling supplies to stretch prices as much as they can. That goes from homes and vehicles to everyday items and food. At this point, every time Americans take a trip to the grocery store they end up paying more for the same products. But higher food prices aren't just affecting financially strapped families and the working poor. The truth is food price inflation is getting very painful for food banks just as well, which is making their mission of helping those in need much more expensive.

And if rampant inflation wasn't bad enough, U.S. consumers are also dealing with extensive shortages. For instance, now that the holiday weekend is just around the corner, several gas stations around the nation are already reporting widespread gasoline shortages. In the meantime, the 43 million Americans that are getting ready to hit the road for the July 4th holiday should brace for some of the highest gas prices in almost seven years, which are averaging $3.10 a gallon, a 42% increase compared to a year ago. The current shortages are being mainly caused by a lack of available truckers to deliver fuel, and according to CNN, this means that thousands of stations will not get any gas delivered at all. If we see the same we've seen after Colonial Pipeline was shut down for a week, this implies that we're headed to another wave of panic buying and chaos across the country's stations.

Although the mainstream media keeps trying to sugarcoat the devastating effects of high inflation, saying that these widespread shortages are a sign of a "booming" economy, the reality is much more bitter than many realize. We're effectively living a rerun of the Jimmy Carter era of the 1970s, and unfortunately, this is just the beginning of this crisis. Just like back then, Americans' financial pain was extended through years and years, and today, our economy's long-term outlook never looked so despairing."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

"MacArthur Park Is a Complete Wreck - Hollywood Homeless Breakdown"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, IAllegedly, PM 6/30/21:

"MacArthur Park Is a Complete Wreck - Hollywood Homeless Breakdown"

"Hollywood and MacArthur Park are two of the areas that are just getting worse by the week. Both of these areas are completely unsafe and sketchy to say the least."

Musical Interlude: Grateful Dead, "Touch of Grey"

"If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told the nearest land was

a thousand miles away, I'd still swim. And I'd despise the one who gave up." 

- Abraham Maslow

Grateful Dead, "Touch of Grey"

"We will get by, we will get by, we will get by,

we will survive..."

The Daily "Near You?"

Rockledge, Florida, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Therefore..."

“The bewildered herd is a problem. We've got to prevent their roar and trampling. We've got to distract them. They should be watching the Superbowl or sitcoms or violent movies. Every once in a while you call on them to chant meaningless slogans like "Support our troops!" You've got to keep them pretty scared, because unless they're properly scared and frightened of all kinds of devils that are going to destroy them from outside or inside or somewhere, they may start to think, which is very dangerous, because they're not competent to think. Therefore it's important to distract them and marginalize them.”

- Noam Chomsky

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed 

(and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it 

with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

- H. L. Mencken

"Silly Season Gets Sillier"

"Silly Season Gets Sillier"

by Bill Bonner

YOUGHAL IRELAND – "Yes, it’s the age of miracles. The Bubble Epoch. The silly season. And it just gets sillier and sillier. Christine Lagarde, who holds the top spot at the European Central Bank (ECB), announced that she’s going to continue pumping up the money supply by 17 billion euros per week. She says it is going to add 1.8% to Europe’s growth over the next two years. That is, somehow the fake money will be magically transformed into real wealth. How does she know that?

Strange Voodoo: Oh, Dear Reader, is that a serious question? Of course, she has no idea…And by the way, if her €17 billion per week would add precisely 1.8% to the economy, why not print €18 billion and get 1.9%, we wonder? Or €100 billion? Apparently, none of the journalists who cover the ECB thought to ask… So we’ll just have to go on wondering. What strange voodoo is this… that 17 billion per week is the exact number of euros needed to raise GDP by 1.8%?

A Good Deal: Meanwhile, her co-delusional over in the U.S., Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell, says he’s going to continue the money-printing, too – at the rate of $30 billion per week. His aim is to hit 2% inflation – not 2.1%, not 1.9% – which he’s convinced is some sort of sacred number guaranteeing uninterrupted growth and full employment.

What it actually guarantees is higher prices, as we see in the asset markets. The S&P 500 just hit another new all-time high. As did house prices. The Fed is buying $40 billion worth of mortgage bonds each month, driving down mortgage rates to the point where you can get a 15-year mortgage at a negative rate. That is, your mortgage interest will be less than the going rate of consumer price inflation. A good deal? Apparently. And it’s likely to be a better deal if tomorrow’s inflation makes today’s mortgage rates even more negative.

Housing Market Update: Capitalism never strikes out completely. It just swings at whatever wacko spit-balls the authorities send its way. Here’s an update from yesterday’s Stansberry’s Morning Market Update: "According to the Census Bureau, sales of newly constructed homes fell 5.9% from the month prior to an annualized rate of 769,000. That was below Wall Street’s estimate of 817,000. It also marked the third decline in the last four months.

Existing home sales saw a similar story. The National Association of Realtors reported a 0.9% drop from 5.85 million sold in April to 5.8 million in May. However, that exceeded analysts’ expectation for 5.73 million existing home sales. Yet, according to the Census Bureau, prices are up 23.6% on a year-over-year basis. The figures hit a record-average price of $350,300 in May."

Let’s see… Fewer houses for sale. Higher prices. Inflation!

Swing for the Fences: But the wilder the pitches… the wilder the swings… and the more foul balls. Facebook – a timewaster! – was worth more than $1 trillion dollars yesterday. Tesla, a company that loses more than $1,000 on every car it makes, was not far behind, at $650 billion. Invisible art… NFTs… joke cryptos… MicroStrategy… SPACs… An investor gives a SPAC (special-purpose acquisition company) his money. The SPAC looks for something to buy.

The targets are coy. They know the score. There are no “walks” in the SPAC game. If the SPAC makes no purchase within two years, it must give the money back to the investors. And then, the SPACsters lose money. If they make a purchase, on the other hand, even if it is a bad one, they get 20% of the deal, just for putting it together. Won’t they swing at almost anything?

Zombie Companies: Meanwhile, a serious investor can only laugh. He needs facts… figures… profits! If he is buying a soap company, for example, he might reasonably enquire as to how many bars of soap the company sold last year… and at what profit margin. But even asking the questions puts him out-of-step with the whole team of uncoordinated lunatics who make up today’s financial world.

Profits? Airbnb, Dropbox, Casper, Blue Apron, Lime, Lyft, Peloton, Pinterest, Slack, Snap, Uber, WeWork, Wayfair, Zillow – none of them are profitable.

And here’s the latest from Bloomberg: "Since the end of March, almost 100 unprofitable U.S. companies, including GameStop Corp. and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., have raised money through secondary offerings, twice as many as coming from profitable firms, according to data compiled by Bloomberg." … "During the past 12 months, almost 750 money-losing firms have sold shares in the secondary market, exceeding those that make profits by the biggest margin since at least 1982, data compiled by Sundial Capital Research show."

$3 Billion Home Run: But at least there are a couple of capitalists who hit a home run, with $3 billion in fees coming their way from the most reliable payer in the world, the U.S. government. What’s their secret? Simple. They set up websites and ran ads to offer free money. No kidding. One ad on Facebook: “Literally free money for those who qualify.” Who qualified? Almost everyone. Another ad you might have seen on billboards or buses spelled it out: “Get up to $50,000 in PPP. Apply now.”

The two small companies partnered with banks to hand out Paycheck Protection Program cash. Everybody involved made money. The banks made the loans (guaranteed by the feds). The loan recipients got the money and, generally, didn’t have to pay it back. But nobody made more than these two companies, Blueacorn and Womply. According to an analysis by The New York Times, they have $3 billion to split between them. But wait. Whose money are they divvying up? Oh, Dear Reader, don’t ask such silly questions. Just enjoy the game."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

Gregory Mannarino, AM 6/30/21: "Currency Crisis: Mortgage Demand Craters And The FReaKshoW Continues"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 6/30/21:

"Currency Crisis: Mortgage Demand 

Craters And The FReaKshoW Continues"

- https://traderschoice.net/

○

Related:

"Mortgage Apps Crash To Pre-COVID Lows 

As Homebuyer Confidence Collapses"

"How It Really Is"

○

Related:

"Pseudopandemic"

○

"'Panic Porn Dressed Up As Science' - 

Exposing The Truth About The Delta Variant"

○

"Do Not Buy the Covid Delta Variant Propaganda"

Must Watch! "Homeless People Rotting Away As Economy Collapses; Los Angeles Walking Through Hell; LA Has Failed"

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe,

"Homeless People Rotting Away As Economy Collapses;

 Los Angeles Walking Through Hell; LA Has Failed"

○

Related:

"San Francisco Homeless Camp Costs $60,000 Per Tent, Per Year"

○

"With moratorium ending at the end of June, 

more than 40 million Americans face foreclosure or eviction."

- https://www.cbsnews.com

○

Gerald Celente, "Trends Journal: 4th of July Festival, Freedom Peace & Justice"

Gerald Celente, 

"Trends Journal: 4th of July Festival, Freedom Peace & Justice"

"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over hype and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in the increasingly turbulent times ahead. Join us for the upcoming festival, at the Crown Gardens in Kingston, New York. July 4th, 2021, 2pm."

- https://trendsresearch.com/

"Starvation And Food Shortage Coming As Food Prices Rise To Dangerous Levels!"

Full screen recommended.

"Starvation And Food Shortage Coming As

Food Prices Rise To Dangerous Levels!"

by Epic Economist

"Americans should brace for a very expensive summer as the price of everything continues to shoot higher and higher. From corn to soybeans to sugar, and sunflower oil, as well as plastic, steel, gasoline, lumber, houses, cars, diapers, and toilet paper - everywhere you look, prices are just exploding. As the economy reopens, global supply chains are still deeply struggling to keep up with the unprecedented demand. Following last year's economic collapse, after businesses were shut down and millions upon millions of workers lost their jobs, consumer demand dropped to record lows. But now, demand has rebounded with a vengeance, boosted by trillions in government stimulus that ended up sharply deteriorating Americans' purchasing power. Companies are also being impacted by shortages and soaring prices. Many of them put their workers on furlough during lockdowns last year, and now they are unable to secure enough raw materials to manufacture the products, make the cars, build the homes or assemble the appliances are suddenly in high demand.

At this point, American consumers already absorbed a huge surge in prices. In May, overall consumer prices went up by 0.6% over April and 5% over the past year, the biggest 12-month inflation spike since 2008. And while restaurants prepare to receive customers back this summer, at least nine fast-food chains and restaurant companies surveyed by Reuters said they are experiencing shortages of key ingredients and products. Food supply shortages are not only affecting people's grocery bills but the very existence of some restaurant locations. Some Starbucks locations are being closed down across the country due to widespread shortages that include cups, straws, peach-flavored juice, and oat milk. For other chains, ketchup packets have become really hard to find.

As a consequence, a dearth in supply is leading some restaurants to boost prices on their own menu in an attempt to stay in business. This week, Chipotle Mexican Grill announced it would raise menu prices by at least 4%. Undoubtedly, it is going to be a muggy summer on the inflation front. That's what Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, has recently noted. He said that the pass-through from higher goods prices to higher prices for services is just beginning. In face of all that, if anyone still believes that inflation is going to be temporary is because they don't know or don't understand how serious this crisis is getting.

Our current monetary policies have created such profound imbalances between supply and demand that even Fourth of July celebrations are going to be affected by a shortage of fireworks and higher prices. "Prices are going up across the board," said William Weimer, vice president of Phantom Networks, one of the largest consumer fireworks brands in the US. "It's impacting everyone in our industry. Nobody expected this hangup in logistics. We have companies that have never worked with us before coming to us for supplies. People are scrambling to get supplies, and we just have enough to stock our own shelves."

And the problems U.S. consumers will face over the summer don't end quite there. Appliances such as air-conditioners are by 12% this year. Prices for washing machines and dryers have also shot up 26% from a year ago, and major appliance makers including Whirlpool have announced across-the-board price increases. In the meantime, the Federal Reserve continues to insist that all of these increases will soon fade away. Politicians and policymakers are actively trying to make our society believe this is just a momentary crisis. But all evidence is pointing to years and years of painful inflation.

In fact, a recent survey found that for Americans earning the minimum wage, rising inflation is making their dollar the weakest it's been in more than a decade. The broad upswing in consumer prices and the enormous expansion of our money supply has been translated into the lowest minimum wage since 2008 in relation to current inflation levels, meaning that millions of low-income Americans are the poorer they have been in decades. Living costs surged again last month, driving inflation to a 13-year high of 5%, making economists worry that we could soon witness runaway inflation just as seen during the oil shocks of the 1970s.

It's just infuriating to know that in one year politicians and policymakers effectively contributed to making a huge part of our society poorer while taking credit for their "generosity" of distributing stimulus money. At the end of the day, that money didn't offer a proper safety net for those who needed it the most because it mostly ended up in the hands of wealthy investors. Now, we are headed to a summer of painful inflation, extremely high prices, shortages of essentials and an economic deterioration Americans have never experienced in their entire lives."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Deep Still Blue"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Deep Still Blue"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“What powers are being wielded in the Wizard Nebula? Gravitation strong enough to form stars, and stellar winds and radiations powerful enough to create and dissolve towers of gas. Located only 8,000 light years away, the Wizard nebula, pictured above, surrounds developing open star cluster NGC 7380. Visually, the interplay of stars, gas, and dust has created a shape that appears to some like a fictional medieval sorcerer.

The active star forming region spans 100 about light years, making it appear larger than the angular extent of the Moon. The Wizard Nebula can be can be located with a small telescope toward the constellation of the King of Aethiopia (Cepheus) Although the nebula may last only a few million years, some of the stars being formed may outlive our Sun.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/

The Poet: A. J. Constance, "All of Us Here On This Spinning Blue World"

"All of Us Here On This Spinning Blue World"

"Let's not plan too much

or expect

or promise

or say how much

or how little

or outline how things must be

or how they must not be.

All of us here on this beautiful

spinning blue world,

let's just love each other

from one millisecond to the next

as much as we can."

- A. J. Constance

The Daily "Near You?"

Woolwich, Maine, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Bank Of America WARNS Of 'Transitory HYPER-INFLATION.' Stock Market Hits NEW Record Highs"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 6/29/21:

"Bank Of America WARNS Of 'Transitory HYPER-INFLATION.'

Stock Market Hits NEW Record Highs"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Back to the Future"

"Back to the Future"

by Bill Bonner

YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "We’re going to stick with Paul Krugman today. Not because his thoughts are especially original or provocative, but because they are not. They reflect elite, mainstream thinking. They tell us what lies ahead. As we showed you last week, the New York Times’ go-to economist’s predictions are almost always amiss. So, if we want a contrarian indicator, who better than the Great Man himself? But Krugman’s pensée is more important than just a shrewd investor’s contrary signal. He is the elite of the elite… It is to him that Washington’s apparatchiks, movers and shakers, politicians, and kingmakers look for guidance. He points to the mushroom. The elites eat it. And Western Civilization turns pale.

Krugman’s Predictions: Just to recap… Mr. Krugman’s solution to the dot-com bubble blow-up was to create another bubble, this time in housing. When that blew up, he urged the Obama team to pump up another one. And when Donald J. Trump was elected, he completely missed the boat. He thought Mr. Trump was going to end the Bubble Epoch. Instead, Mr. Trump fell right into line with the other bubbleheads… and gave us the biggest deficits ever.

Knowing what Mr. Krugman thinks now could be invaluable. It could inform our investment decisions… as long as we remember to do the opposite of what his views imply. But it also helps us understand what is ahead for Western Civilization. Not that Mr. Krugman himself is particularly influential outside of the U.S. But his claptrap ideas are widely consumed by the elites of Europe and other westernized economies. All dine on the same funghi velenosi. All share the same hallucinations. So, we return to the sage’s New York Times column… and see the future.

The Fed has been arguing that recent price rises are similarly transitory. True, they’re not coming from food and energy so much as from pandemic-related disruptions that caused surging prices of used cars, lumber and other nontraditional sources of inflation. But the Fed’s view has been that this episode, like the inflation blip of 2010-11, will soon be over. And it’s now looking as if the Fed was right. There you have it. Inflation is so… “last week,” says Krugman. Which makes us think it must be next week. And the week after.

Statistical Hocus Pocus: In fact, it is already here. And the only reason it is not more obvious is that the feds fudge the figures. It has never been politically attractive to report high inflation numbers. And it became fiscally unattractive, too, after Congress added COLA (Cost of Living Adjustments) to Social Security payments in 1973. Then, the feds had a very strong incentive to redefine the Consumer Price Index (CPI), so as to disguise the real effect of their inflation tax and neuter the COLA increases. This they did in two moves – one in 1987 and another in 1998.

As our friend David Stockman points out, the effect was to turn the inflation index (a measure of rising prices) into a cost-of-living index (a measure of how much it costs to make substitutions and quality adjustments more or less as the feds choose). If strawberries are especially expensive, for example, they’ll take them out of the index and replace them with raspberries. Or if they think the strawberries have been genetically modified to make them better… they can pretend they are less expensive. These adjustments make some logical sense. But they also open the door to all sorts of statistical hocus pocus.

As we’ve shown several times, a new Ford F-150 is much more expensive than a 1971 version – both in terms of dollars… and the time it takes to earn them. But the new truck is much better, say the statisticians.

Back to the Seventies: We’re not here today to quibble with the statistics. We’re just going to point out that inflation is already here… and Krugman is probably wrong about where it is going. In the first place, if you calculated inflation the way they did before the Boskin Commission reworked the formula in 1996, the CPI would be running around 9%. Or, if it were the 1970s, and you figured the CPI as they did back then, today’s raw numbers would give you a CPI between 12% and 13% – almost exactly what it was in the late 1970s.

But Krugman is as calm as a cucumber. He maintains that the Federal Reserve is on the job. And even if inflation were to go back to 1970s levels (he is unaware that it is already there)… the Fed would “step on the brakes if the economy really is exceeding the speed limit.” By its recent “hawkish” statements, says Krugman, “the Fed has largely undercut whatever case there was for worrying about a return to the 1970s.”

Up, Up, and Away: He is wrong about everything. The Fed has been inflating heavily for the last 10 years. And it uses the new cash it prints to buy Wall Street assets. The stock market has risen more than six times from its 2009 bottom. The top 1% of Americans have increased their wealth by $25 trillion. Just yesterday, the S&P 500 hit yet another new high… its 32nd record close of 2021. And Facebook (FB) shares have gone up more than 60% in the last 12 months, yesterday reaching over $1 trillion in market capitalization for the first time.

While Fed governors suffered occasional bouts of sanity during this period, never once did they seriously “tap the brakes.” And now, inflation is showing up in consumer prices. That’s not likely to stop either, since more and more of the “stimulus” money is going, via federal deficits, into the Main Street economy as well as Wall Street.

Lessons Learned: But what do we learn from Krugman? He tells us not to worry about inflation – so, it is inflation we should be worried about. He tells us central bankers will “step on the brakes” when inflation begins to go over the “speed limit.” Ergo, central bankers will not put on the brakes at all; they will push down on the accelerator. He tells us not to worry about a replay of the 1970s. But wait… In the 1970s, U.S. national debt stayed under $1 trillion. Now, it is over $28 trillion. Total U.S. debt – households, businesses, and the government – was still under $2 trillion in 1971. Now, it’s over $85 trillion.

And in the 1970s, central bankers – as well as leading economists – still feared inflation and believed they had a duty to keep it under control. Now, they are under Krugman’s spell. Inflation is no problem, they believe. And more government spending is the cure for every problem – from global warming to inequality. So… put Super Fly back on the big screen… and get out the beige leather couches, leisure suits, and disco music. The badass 1970s are ba-a-a-ck! Ba-a-ader than ever. More to come…"

- www.rogueeconomics.com

Must Watch! "Is Los Angeles The Worst Ran City In America - Homeless Update"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, PM 6/29/21:

"Is Los Angeles The Worst Ran City In America - Homeless Update"

"Los Angeles is the homeless capital of the world. This is

incredibly disturbing. This is so shocking to see all of this."

"How It Really Is"

 

"When Expedient 'Saves' Become Permanent, Ruin Is Assured"

"When Expedient 'Saves' Become Permanent, 

Ruin Is Assured"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"The belief that the Federal Reserve possesses god-like powers and wisdom would be comical if it wasn't so deeply tragic, for the Fed doesn't even have a plan, much less wisdom. All the Fed has is an incoherent jumble of expedient, panic-driven "saves" it cobbled together in the 2008-2009 Global Financial Meltdown that it had made inevitable. The irony is the only thing that will still be rich when the whole rotten, corrupt, fragile financial system of illusory stability collapses in a heap of runaway instability. The irony is that the Fed's leaky grab-bag of expedient "saves" was not designed to ensure systemic stability, though that was the PR cover story.

The Fed's leaky grab-bag of expedient "saves" had only one purpose: save the fat-cats, skimmers, scammers, fraudsters and embezzlers who had gotten rich off the Fed's cloaked transfer of wealth: the purpose of all the 2008-2009 extremes was not to impose the discipline required to truly stabilize the financial system; the purpose was to elevate moral hazard-- the separation of risk from the consequences of risk--to unprecedented heights, backstopping every skimmer, scammer, fraudster and embezzler from well-deserved losses as the entire pyramid of fraud collapsed under its own enormous weight of risky bets gone bad.

To save its cronies from the catastrophic losses that should have been taken by those making the bets, the Fed instituted one expedient "save" after another: backstopped global banks with $16 trillion, dropped interest rates to zero, eliminated truthful reporting by ending mark-to-market pricing of risk, flooded the financial system with free money for financiers, all designed to signal that the Fed will never let its cronies suffer the consequences of their risky bets, i.e. the perfection of moral hazard.

The Fed's perfection of moral hazard has now spread to the entire market and populace: it's not just the skimmers, scammers, fraudsters and embezzlers who are supremely confident the Fed will never allow them to experience the consequences (i.e. crushing losses) of super-risky bets going bad; the entire American populace now shares that supreme confidence that one can put all of one's life savings on any roulette number (GME or AMC option, Doge cryptocurrency, etc.) and the Fed will guarantee every roulette number is a winner--a big winner.

As a result of the Fed's perfection of moral hazard, systemic risk has exploded to unprecedented levels. As risk cannot be extinguished, it can only be transferred, the Fed has transferred geometrically expanding risk to the system itself.

The Fed's fig-leaf for this vast transfer of wealth to the top layer of gambler sociopaths is the wealth effect: if the Fed triples the value of stocks, then all that new wealth will encourage people to borrow and spend freely, keeping the economy from the cleansing of a recessionary contraction of risky credit.

The wealth effect was just another fraud, as the concentration of wealth in America is so extreme that the tripling of equities only benefited the already-wealthy. All the Fed accomplished with its grab-bag of expedient "saves" was new and destabilizing extremes of wealth-income inequality: the earnings of the top 0.1% exploded higher 15-fold while the earnings of the bottom 90% stagnated; virtually all the gains from the Fed's expedient grab-bag of consequence-free winnings accrued to the top 0.1%.

Having engineered the greatest transfer of wealth and risk in human history via its expedient "saves" of those who shouldn't have been saved, the Fed is now trapped: if it stops inflating the stock market, and allows consequence to re-connect with risk, then the losses will be catastrophic for everyone who blindly believed that the Fed's powers to suppress risk and guarantee every roulette number is a big winner was god-like.

But if they keep inflating the stock market and signaling "no one will ever lose a penny buying stocks" (i.e. the perfection of moral hazard), then the entire system's stability is increasingly at risk. (Not to mention the potential for rip-your-face-off inflation to become embedded in expectations.)

By making expedient "saves" permanent policy, the Fed has ensured the destabilization of the entire financial system. If you promise no amount of risk will ever deliver any consequence other than "every roulette number will be a big winner," then risk rapidly approaches near-infinite heights. If the Fed attempts to backstop and bail out every institution and punter who believed in the Fed's power to extinguish risk, that expedient "save" will collapse the system.

Here's the Fed's choice: continue making expedient "saves" permanent policy, the system collapses. Withdraw the guarantee that risk will never have any consequences, and the system collapses. The Fed's "choice" is as illusory as the "wealth" the Fed has created with its perfection of moral hazard--a perfection that could only end in the collapse of the entire fraudulent fantasy of risk-free gains forever."

- https://www.oftwominds.com/

"We're Headed For Doom"

Success Attraction, 6/29/21: "We're Headed For Doom" 

Peter Schiff Interview with Ben Shapiro on 

economy, money printing, taxes, inflation and more.

○

Related:

"And Now Prices Are Really Soaring: 

June Rent Jump Is Biggest On Record"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 6/29/21: “So It Begins! Banks Start To Buy Back Their Own Stock And Raise Dividends”

Gregory Mannarino, AM 6/29/21:

“So It Begins! Banks Start To Buy Back 

TheirOwn Stock And Raise Dividends”

- https://traderschoice.net/