Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, PM 9/6/21:
“Unprepared People Will Lose It All;
Unemployment Gravy Train Is Over; Jetboil; Emergency Food”
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So, we rise from the rubble...
Monday, September 6, 2021
"If It Gets Bad, I'll Go to Idaho"
"If It Gets Bad, I'll Go to Idaho"
by Jeff Thomas
"In the 1930’s, the farm population in the US was nearly 25% of the total and it was quite common for farmers to borrow from the bank (using their farms as collateral) in the expectation that the proceeds from their annual crop would pay off the note each year. But, in 1929, there was a crash in the stock market, lowering the sales price of crops significantly. That, and coincidental droughts throughout the farm belt, resulted in a large percentage of the thirty million farmers failing to meet their payments. They lost their farms. Worse, they could not turn to another line of work, as layoffs were taking place in all industries, as a result of the Great Depression, which followed the crash.
But it was said that, in California, there was year-round good weather and the orange groves were full of fruit needing to be picked. If only the Okies could get there, they’d be all right. And, of course, as most Americans know, this ended in a mass migration. Some 7,000 Okies flooded into California every month.
Not surprisingly, Californians found that they had to deal with overwhelming numbers of people with limited skills, all of whom were broke. They were everywhere and, in a very short time, the authorities were called in to keep them out. Of course, in any situation in which large numbers of starving people are pitted against armed authorities, the situation does not end well.
In looking back at this period, it’s important to remember that, in mid-1929, warnings had been offered that a market crash was in the making and that the US would soon find itself in an economic crisis. In spite of these warnings, the great majority of people said, "If it happens, I’ll deal with it when the time comes." Unfortunately, if people are to escape becoming casualties of an economic crisis, they must make plans and implement them in advance of the crisis.
And so, nearly ninety years later, we find ourselves in a similar situation. A market crash is in the making and the US (and many other countries) will soon find itself in an economic crisis. And, just as in 1929, the bankers and the media are claiming that the economy has never been healthier and that it’s foolish to worry. (This is being said, even as larger players are quietly exiting the market.)
Increasingly, I’m asked for consultations by people who say, "I understand a crisis is coming, but what can I do about it?" Well, in fact, the answer is pretty straightforward, but that doesn’t mean it will be painless. Indeed, it requires a major change for most people, often the greatest change of their lifetimes.
• If you live in a jurisdiction that will be impacted in a major way, liquidate whatever assets you can.
• Remove all wealth, except for three months of expense money, from any banking institutions within that jurisdiction.
• Remove all the proceeds from that jurisdiction to one that’s less likely to be impacted. (If the proceeds are sufficient that they can be divided into multiple safer jurisdictions, so much the better.)
• Convert the proceeds into forms that are difficult for your home jurisdiction to confiscate (real estate, precious metals and some cash as expense money)
• Store all precious metals and cash in a non-banking institution in that jurisdiction.
• Purchase or rent a home in a jurisdiction that’s unlikely to be negatively impacted and obtain the right to reside there, should you choose to move there at short notice.
Unfortunately, in the great majority of cases in which I’ve described this as a "Crisis Insurance" policy, the individual asking for the advice views the policy as overwhelming. If he’s an American, as many of them are, he often says, "If it gets that bad, I’ll just go to Idaho."
Unfortunately, this "solution" is flippant and ill-advised. Since we have no crystal ball, our best bet is to turn to history if we’re to gauge the viability of current "solutions." We may ask ourselves, "How did this play out in previous similar situations?" This almost always forces us to be honest with ourselves – to abandon half-baked or "solutions" and do the harder work of developing a real solution.
In light of the Okie history of the 30’s, it’s safe to say that, if an American were to plan to "just go to Idaho," this time around, we can anticipate that this is what he would find: Like the Okies, he would have already have experienced the crash and had lost whatever wealth he had (however large or small) and was now in a rather desperate situation.
Unlike the Okies, he would have better roads to travel on and the family SUV would be a better moving van than the Model A Ford of the 30’s. Once the decision was reached to actually go to Idaho, countless others would already have hit the road and an exodus would be underway.
It’s likely that, in today’s world, some states would declare an emergency and disallow travel over their roads. Others might charge a fee to pass through (as state governments would also be in a financial crisis and would need the money).
For the last ten years, police departments have been encouraged by the Federal Government to make up for their budget shortfalls by relying on Civil Asset Forfeiture – the confiscation of possessions (including money) of those travelling the highways. This would be likely to increase dramatically in an economic crisis.
It would not be at all unlikely that gangs of disenfranchised people would also take to the roads, to prey on travelers.
Once arrived in Idaho, the migrants would find that such a flood of people was quite unwelcome to those who had been wise enough to establish themselves years in advance. It wouldn’t be at all surprising to find that floods of newcomers would be met with force, both by the authorities and the citizens, as occurred in the 1930’s. The odds that "I’ll just go to Idaho" might be a workable solution to a crisis, would be unlikely in the extreme. As stated above, if people are to escape becoming casualties of an economic crisis, they must make plans and implement them in advance of the crisis. Any after-the-fact solution would be a pipe dream."
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Related:
MONDAY, SEP 06, 2021 - 02:10 PM: "Over 7 Million Lose
Yeah, it'll get bad alright...
"Let’s Set Wages for Everybody"
"Let’s Set Wages for Everybody"
by Bill Bonner
YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "Today is Labor Day. Most of the world pays homage to its sweating, bussing, trucking classes, its poor, huddled masses… yearning for a cushier seat and a better deal… on May 1. But in 1894, President Grover Cleveland chose the first Monday in September.
Of great interest to people in America on Labor Day – as indicated by the usual newspaper headlines – is how much the laborers earn. No one – or almost no one – writing in the editorial pages works at McDonald’s or earns the minimum wage. But practically every one of the elite has an opinion about how much the low-wage, non-elites should earn. A “living wage” is what they say they should have. Thirty thousand dollars a year is the amount we’ve seen discussed. They say it would help solve the inequality problem.
Of course, a national living wage is absurd. How much living you can do depends on where you do it. You could live well in the Ozarks on $30,000 a year. In Manhattan, you might starve to death. And it is far less expensive to live with Mom and Dad than to have a place of one’s own.
Bilge and Nonsense: But we are not so much concerned with the practical details as with the theory. If well-educated, well-liquored, and well-paid nomenklatura can decide the wages of McDonald’s workers, surely the burger-flippers should have the right to fix the wages of the chattering, meddling, improving classes. Were that to happen, our guess is that the well-paid know-it-alls would find themselves taking a pay cut.
We walk into McDonald’s, and a minimum-wage worker serves up our order. We get what we pay for and are content with the transaction. We do not begrudge the worker his recompense. We read the paper, on the other hand, and we get bilge and nonsense. If they pay their writers anything at all, it is too much.
Self-Satisfied Price-Fixers: Logically, there are only two possibilities. Either wages are determined by a free give-and-take between those who offer their labor and those who want to buy it… or someone else sets wages according to his own standards. The do-gooders want to use other people’s money to raise the wages of the least well-paid, but they make no mention of their own take-home. Nor do they offer to pay more for their hamburgers so that McDonald’s can raise its wages.
And if the minimum wage were raised, there would surely be more unemployed people – either because McDonald’s could not afford to hire so many people at higher salaries… or because it had replaced its minimum-wage employees with machines! But the price-fixers are so self-satisfied on the high road – driving along comfortably in their Subarus and Priuses – that they can’t be bothered to look out the window. If they did, they would see that price fixing always – always! – makes people poorer, not richer. Nevertheless, we will give them the benefit of the doubt, if there were any, by trying to imagine how the world could be improved by setting wages for other people.
A Jolly Undertaking: So let us begin with a modest nod to fairness: If it makes sense to set the wages of the least among us, why not do likewise for the most, too? If people not involved in a labor transaction can know better than the participants what the terms should be, why not set the salaries of editorialists… publishers… CEOs… sports celebrities… movie stars? And if it makes sense to raise the wages on the low end… wouldn’t it make just as much sense to lower them on the other? Why not promote equality by taking the elite down a peg?
You can see what a jolly undertaking this would be for a bureaucrat with a sense of mischief. Yes, we’ll rig the labor market – by assigning salaries where we think they should be. So, let’s have a go. We’ll take the lead, proposing annual salaries for the following trades according to the good we think they do for society…
Entrepreneurs (including your editor), poets, inventors, and whacked-out metaphysicians – $100,000 per year
Priests, teachers, mathematicians, scientists, pilots, nurses, and filmmakers – $85,000 per year
Corporate CEOs, prostitutes, writers, bartenders, and hedge fund managers – $75,000 per year
Drivers, laborers, clerks, salesmen, farmers, firemen, and policemen – $50,000 per year
Psychologists, bone-crackers, doctors (including witch doctors), and financial planners – $40,000 per year
Government employees (those not included in the groups above), politicians, drug dealers, world improvers, economists, counterfeiters, psychiatrists, sociologists, political scientists, pollsters, and flimflam artists – $30,000 per year
We do not mean this list to be comprehensive or final. It is just a suggestion – a point of departure toward a “fairer” distribution of national income. Readers are invited to make their own contributions. Write to feedback@rogueeconomics.com."
Gregory Mannarino, AM 9/6/21: “Markets: A Look Ahead; What You Need To Know Now”
Gregory Mannarino, AM 9/6/21:
“Markets: A Look Ahead; What You Need To Know Now”
Musical Interlude: Moby, "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?"
Moby, "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?"
"He'll open doors..."
Sunday, September 5, 2021
"Every Stimulus Program has Officially Ended - Let the Chaos Begin"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, PM 9/5/21:
"Every Stimulus Program has Officially Ended -
Let the Chaos Begin"
"Streets of Philadelphia: Kensington Avenue, What Happened Today, Aug. 30, 2021"
Full screen recommended. Horrifying...
"Streets of Philadelphia: Kensington Avenue,
What Happened Today, Aug. 30, 2021"
And if you think this can't happen where
you are you're a fool... Watch and see.
"The Shortages Are Going To Get Worse Later This Year As Global Supply Chains Increasingly Falter"
Full screen recommended.
"The Shortages Are Going To Get Worse Later
This Year As Global Supply Chains Increasingly Falter"
by Epic Economist
"Have you already started to notice that store shelves are getting increasingly emptier? Have you realized that some basic items have become impossible to find? If so, you're definitely not alone. All across America, consumers are having to deal with shortages of food staples and a series of other everyday items as the supply chains crisis is only getting worse. At this point, it seems that we can only hope for things not to escalate any further, otherwise, we might see people fighting over a can of beans and a pack of toilet paper just as we seen during the waves of panic-buying last year.
But, sadly, the truth is that global supply chains are now under more strain than ever before, and industry executives have been warning in recent days that consumers haven't yet seen the worst of this crisis. In the coming holiday season, things may get much more complicated. Even though people are trying to keep a positive mindset that things will eventually get better, many events are unfolding all over the world right now that are likely to dramatically aggravate supply chain problems, and result in shipping delays and even more shortages.
At this point, several local news outlets are already reporting massive shortages in their local areas, although the mainstream media hasn't covered the national shortages that are happening everywhere in the country just yet. Whether they are trying not to spread panic and unleash a panic-buying frenzy again or they are deliberately choosing not to tell people the truth, the reality is that many people can’t find some of their favorite and essential items since the health crisis started.
All across the country, the shortage of workers is making it harder for retailers to unload containers, transport their products and restock their shelves so that customers can find what they want and need. Therefore, there's no end in sight for the current shortages, particularly because the Delta variant has been spreading across Asian ports, which are key to global trade. In China, after one worker was detected with the virus, authorities decided to shut down one of the busiest port terminals in the entire world “indefinitely”.
Meanwhile, another major factor supply chains are having to deal with is a historic global shipping container shortage. The demand for shipping containers is outstripping the supply by such a great scale that global shipping container rates soared to levels we have never seen before. In the US, companies are paying up to $32,000 for a single container coming from China. And once those containers arrive on our coast and get delivered at ports, there aren’t enough port workers to unload them all. For that reason, it's been taking months for products that are made in China to get to our stores. And some of them may never arrive at all. That's the case of any product that might contain a computer chip.
Now that the holiday season is right at the corner, due to the series of supply chain bottlenecks, many in the retail industry are anticipating complete and utter chaos. In a recent study conducted by Reuters, nearly a dozen suppliers and retailers of everything from toys to computer equipment in the United States and Europe were surveyed. They found that all of the companies expect "weeks-long delays in holiday inventory due to shipping bottlenecks, including a global container shortage and the recent outbreak-related closure of the southern Chinese port of Yantian, which serves manufacturers near Shenzhen".
Even if nothing else goes wrong, it could take years for supply chains to normalize, and considering how fast things are changing, another devastating crisis can suddenly erupt and take us back to square one. As inventory levels continue to go down, prices are going up to compensate. However, several economists are becoming increasingly more alarmed as the price hikes have hit food staples all over the world.
Unrest is something that always follows when acute food price hikes happen, and in face of the growing social tensions we've been witnessing all over the globe, this sustained increase in prices for basic staples is making some governments extremely nervous, including America's. Despite insisting that all of this will be "transitory", consumers have started to realize that our leaders' concept of "transitory" is actually translated into years of high inflation and economic pain for millions of people. When the masses become aware of the fact that most politicians in Washington and policymakers with the Federal Reserve don't seem to know what they're doing, this country will start to see some definitive changes."
"A Look to the Heavens"
"These cosmic clouds have blossomed 1,300 light-years away, in the fertile starfields of the constellation Cepheus. Called the Iris Nebula, NGC 7023 is not the only nebula to evoke the imagery of flowers. Still, this deep telescopic image shows off the Iris Nebula's range of colors and symmetries, embedded in surrounding fields of interstellar dust. Within the Iris itself, dusty nebular material surrounds a hot, young star.
The dominant color of the brighter reflection nebula is blue, characteristic of dust grains reflecting starlight. Central filaments of the reflection nebula glow with a faint reddish photoluminesence as some dust grains effectively convert the star's invisible ultraviolet radiation to visible red light. Infrared observations indicate that this nebula contains complex carbon molecules known as PAHs. The dusty blue petals of the Iris Nebula span about six light-years."
"I'm Sure..."
"Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not.
Both are equally terrifying."
"I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life.
It's just been too intelligent to come here."
- Arthur C. Clarke
Chet Raymo, “To Sleep, Perchance To Dream”
“To Sleep, Perchance To Dream”
by Chet Raymo
“To sleep, perchance to dream
What is more gentle than a wind in summer?
What is more soothing than a pretty hummer
That stays one moment in an open flower,
And buzzes cheerily from bower to bower?
What is more tranquil than a musk-rose blowing
In a green island, far from all men’s knowing?
More healthful than the leafiness of dales?
More secret than a nest of nightingales?
What indeed?”
"The poet Keats answers his own questions: Sleep. Soft closer of our eyes. I’ve reached an age when I find myself occasionally nodding off in the middle of the day, an open book flopped on my chest. Also, more lying awake in the dark hours of the night, re-running the tapes of the day. And, in the fragile moments of nighttime unconsciousness, dreaming dreams that reach all the way back to my childhood.
I’ve read the books about sleep and dreaming. There has been lots of research, but not much consensus about why we sleep or dream. Sleep seems to be pretty universal among animals. Who knows whether animals dream. Do we sleep to restore the soma? To knit the raveled sleeve of care? Process memories? Find safety from predators? After 50 years of work, the sleep researcher William Dement opined: “As far as I know, the only reason we need to sleep that is really, really solid is because we get sleepy.”
The Latin poet Martial supposed that sleep “makes darkness brief,” a worry-free way to get through the scary hours of the night when wolves howl at the mouth of the cave (and goblins stir under the bed). That hardly explains my dropping off after lunch into a dreamless stupor that I neither desire nor welcome.
“Low murmurer of tender lullabies!
Light hoverer around our happy pillows!
Wreather of poppy buds, and weeping willows!”
Not quite! There are the nightmares too. The tossing and turning. The hoo-has. But enough of this idle speculation. I’m getting sleepy.”
"A Deep Attentiveness..."
“When the pain of leaving behind what we know outweighs the pain of embracing it, or when the power we face is overwhelming and neither flight nor fight will save us, there may be salvation in sitting still. And if salvation is impossible, then at least before perishing we may gain a clearer vision of where we are. By sitting still I do not mean the paralysis of dread, like that of a rabbit frozen beneath the dive of a hawk. I mean something like reverence, a respectful waiting, a deep attentiveness to forces much greater than our own.”
- Scott Russell Sanders
"The Things We Beg For..."
“These are the things we beg for. A root canal, an I.R.S. audit, coffee spilled on our clothes. When the really terrible things happen, we start begging the god we don’t believe in to bring back the little horrors, and take away this. It seems quaint now, doesn’t it? The flood in the kitchen, the poison oak, the fight that leaves you shaking with rage. Would it have helped if we could see what else was coming? Would we have known that those were the best moments of our lives?”
- “Meredith”, “Grey’s Anatomy”
“Mary Oliver On How to Live ‘Your One Wild and Precious Life’”
“Mary Oliver On How to Live ‘Your One Wild and Precious Life’”
by Sanjiv Chopra, M.D.
“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”
- Mary Oliver
“The quiet, plain-spoken poet Mary Oliver died on January 17, 2019. An outpouring of emotion and tributes spanned the globe. She was both mourned and wildly revered by those for whom her words were a totem. With stark simplicity, she offered us both spiritual guidance and common sense, all of which was garnered from lessons she learned while simply meandering in the woods.
Mary Oliver’s gift was her ability to marvel at the world with an unsentimental acceptance that it (and we) are temporary. She looked clear-eyed and with unflinching certainty at the impermanence of our existence. In it she found not despair but rather joy. She chose to live in the moment and to be dazzled by it.
Mary Oliver’s roots were thoroughly midwestern. She hailed from Maple Heights, Ohio, a leafy suburb of Cleveland. From all accounts, hers was a difficult childhood. She wrote in “Blue Pastures” (winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award): “Adults can change their circumstances; children cannot. Children are powerless, and in difficult situations they are the victims of every sorrow and mischance and rage around them, for children feel all of these things but without any of the ability that adults have to change them.”
This darkness of her youth led her to escape into nature and into books. Words and woods offered her solace. She fiercely embraced them, noting that “the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books – can re-dignify the worst stung heart.”
We know, and she acknowledged, that overcoming adversity isn’t easy: “There are stubborn stumps of shame, grief that remains unsolvable after all the years, a bag of stones that goes with one wherever one goes and however the hour may call for dancing and for light feet.” But she persisted. She said she read, “the way a person might swim, to save his or her life,” and that nature offered her “an antidote to confusion.”
She advised, “you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.” And in saving her life, she rekindled so many of ours, using words that were deceptively simple but that had the power to shine a bright light into the dark crevices of our pain and misfortune and to set us free from the past. She gave us clear instructions for living a life:
“Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”
And for her- and for so many of us who have long sat at the knee of her prose – it worked. Mary Oliver wrote, “Having chosen to claim my life, I have made for myself, out of work and love, a handsome life. And can do what I want to with it. Live it. Give it back, someday, without bitterness, to the wild and weedy dunes.” And when she died, she gave it back.
Mary Oliver’s religion was simple. It could best be described as “gratitude.” And so, as she departed this world leaving for us so many gifts, we offered this prayer for her – thank you. To honor her, we share here one of Mary Oliver’s most powerful poems, one that offers sage advice about accepting imperfection.”
“The Ponds”
“Every year
the lilies
are so perfect
I can hardly believe
their lapped light
crowding
the black
mid-summer ponds.
Nobody could count all of them -
the muskrats swimming
among the pads and the grasses
can reach out
their muscular arms and touch
only so many,
they are that
rife and wild.
But what in this world
is perfect?
I bend closer and see
how this one is clearly lopsided -
and that one wears an orange blight -
and this one is a glossy cheek
half nibbled away -
and that one is a slumped purse
full of its own
unstoppable decay.
Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled -
to cast aside the weight of facts
and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking
into the white fire
of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing -
that the light is everything -
that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading.
And I do.”
- Mary Oliver
"How It Really Is"
"If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders - what would you tell him to do?"
"I... don't know. What could he do? What would you tell him?"
"To shrug."
- Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged "
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"Learn to distinguish the difference between errors of knowledge and breaches of morality. An error of knowledge is not a moral flaw, provided you are willing to correct it; only a mystic would judge human beings by the standard of an impossible, automatic omniscience. But a breach of morality is the conscious choice of an action you know to be evil, or a willful evasion of knowledge, a suspension of sight and of thought. That which you do not know, is not a moral charge against you; but that which you refuse to know, is an account of infamy growing in your soul. Make every allowance for errors of knowledge; do not forgive or accept any break of morality."
- Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"
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Freely download or read online "Atlas Shrugged",
by Ayn Rand, here:
Greg Hunter, "Desperate Money Printing Leads to Depression"
"Desperate Money Printing Leads to Depression"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"Legendary investor, economist and market forecaster Dr. Marc Faber thinks central banks (CB) are not going to cut back the money printing. Just the opposite. He predicts CBs are going to print even more money at a faster pace to hold the failing economic system together for a little while longer. Dr. Faber explains, “What is perceived to be safe, namely cash, isn’t safe anymore. It is unsafe. You ask me what is safe? I don’t know what is safe anymore when you have money printers who print money indefinitely. I don’t think they can stop. I actually think they have to accelerate their money printing. So, stocks may go up, but in real terms, it doesn’t mean your standard of living will go up. Maybe the standard of living of the 50 richest people in the world will go up, but not the standard of living of the typical American, or the average American. That standard of living will go down. All the money printing is a desperate measure to keep the voters from rebellion.”
Dr. Farber predicts that not only are we going to see more asset inflation, but dramatic wage inflation too. Dr. Faber, who holds a PhD in economics, says, “What I think will happen, and most people have not really considered, we will get wage inflation. For the first time since the late 1970’s, we will get accelerating wage inflation, and in some cases, quite dramatic. In some states, the minimum wage is $15. I could see that going up to $30 per hour very quickly. I don’t think inflation is ‘transitory’ (as the Fed proclaims). We will not have stagflation. We will have something worse. We will have rising prices and a depression in the standard of living of most people.”
Dr. Faber says the U.S. stock market is “overpriced and over-owned.” He likes stocks in foreign countries, real estate “far outside the cities” and physical gold, silver and some cash. Faber also likes some crypto currency in one’s portfolio.
Dr. Faber is less worried about the economic picture and more worried about the rise of socialism and communism in the western world. Faber contends socialism destroys economies and liberty. Faber points out, “I can tell you one feature of all the socialist countries I have visited in my life, and all of them had less freedom, less happiness than we have, and the standards of living were substantially, not a little bit, but substantially lower than they are in the free capitalistic world. I am sorry to say that I think the western world has gone down a very dangerous path where essentially, through zero interest rates, everything is free. Then you get the unintended consequences.”
So, with inflation going up and the standard of living going down in the West, is the possibility of war going up? Faber says, “Correct. I think once this Covid19 thing is over, the elite, the ones who make the money, will go to war. That is the last recipe to keep the population together.”
"Join Greg Hunter in Rumble as he goes One-on-One
with Dr. Marc Faber of the “Gloom, Boom & Doom Report.”
○
Related, highly recommended:
"The elite, the ones who make the money, will go to war..."
Saturday, September 4, 2021
“Collapse In Confidence As Jobs Hammered; Stock Market Should Have Collapsed; Economy Is Being Doped”
Jeremiah Babe, PM 9/4/21:
“Collapse In Confidence As Jobs Hammered;
Stock Market Should Have Collapsed; Economy Is Being Doped”
Musical Interlude: The Traveling Wilburys, "End Of The Line"
Full screen recommended.
The Traveling Wilburys, "End Of The Line"
"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."
Chet Raymo, "Away Above The Chimney Pots "
"Away Above The Chimney Pots "
by Chet Raymo
"So Oz finally became home; the imagined world became the actual world, as it does for us all, because the truth is that once we have left our childhood places and started out to make up our lives, armed only with what we have and are, we understand that the real secret of the ruby slippers is not that "there's no place like home", but rather that there is no longer any such place as home: except, of course, for the home we make, or the homes that are made for us, in Oz: which is anywhere, and everywhere, except the place from which we began.
In the last paragraph of his delightful meditation on the film "The Wizard of Oz", Salman Rushdie, himself an immigrant to another land, takes gentle issue with the concluding cliche: "There's no place like home." If the net result of Dorothy's technicolor adventure is to end up where she began, in gray old Kansas, then what was the point? asks Rushdie.
Poor Dorothy, waking up in bed with Auntie Em and the others clustered around her, born again, so to speak, into the same old life. "It wasn't a dream, it was a place," she cries, piteously. "A real, truly live place! Doesn't anyone believe me?" She must begin her rebellion all over again.
Visitors here will have observed that I have reached a stage in life where I am prone to look back on the journey, reflect somewhat nostalgically upon the place I came from, and try to ascertain where it is I have ended up. It is clear that the destination was in part determined by where I began, as is true, I suppose, for all of us. We are armed, after all, only with "what we have and who we are." But it is clear too that having experienced the technicolor universe of the galaxies and the DNA, there is no going back to the dusty, gray dogmas of my youth.
The Emerald City may indeed be over the rainbow, but it is still in the here and now. The Wizard's powers may not be supernatural, but his translucently turreted city sure beats Kansas. Science was my Yellow Brick Road. I'm still a "Kansas" boy, so to speak, but with no desire to be born again. For better or worse, home is here, now, in a universe of a grandeur of which I had no idea at the beginning, at a place along a Yellow Brick Road that reaches tantalizingly into the future, with no foreseeable terminus in an ultimate Oz. "
"A Life of Learning: Earth School"
"A Life of Learning: Earth School"
by Madisyn Taylor, The DailyOm
"Earth school provides us with an education of the heart and the soul. Life is the province of learning, and the wisdom we acquire throughout our lives is the reward of existence. As we traverse the winding roads that lead from birth to death, experience is our patient teacher. We exist, bound to human bodies as we are, to evolve, enrolled by the universe in earth school, an informal and individualized academy of living, being, and changing. Life’s lessons can take many forms and present us with many challenges. There are scores of mundane lessons that help us learn to navigate with grace, poise, and tolerance in this world. And there are those once-in-a-lifetime lessons that touch us so deeply that they change the course of our lives. The latter can be heartrending, and we may wander through life as unwilling students for a time. But the quality of our lives is based almost entirely on what we derive from our experiences.
Earth school provides us with an education of the heart and the soul, as well as the intellect. The scope of our instruction is dependent on our ability and readiness to accept the lesson laid out before us in the circumstances we face. When we find ourselves blindsided by life, we are free to choose to close our minds or to view the inbuilt lesson in a narrow-minded way. The notion that existence is a never-ending lesson can be dismaying at times. The courses we undertake in earth school can be painful as well as pleasurable, and as taxing as they are eventually rewarding. However, in every situation, relationship, or encounter, a range of lessons can be unearthed. When we choose to consciously take advantage of each of the lessons we are confronted with, we gradually discover that our previous ideas about love, compassion, resilience, grief, fear, trust, and generosity could have been half-formed.
Ultimately, when we acknowledge that growth is an integral part of life and that attending earth school is the responsibility of every individual, the concept of "life as lesson" no longer chafes. We can openly and joyfully look for the blessing buried in the difficulties we face without feeling that we are trapped in a roller-coaster ride of forced learning. Though we cannot always know when we are experiencing a life lesson, the wisdom we accrue will bless us with the keenest hindsight."
Earth school provides us with an education of the heart and the soul, as well as the intellect. The scope of our instruction is dependent on our ability and readiness to accept the lesson laid out before us in the circumstances we face. When we find ourselves blindsided by life, we are free to choose to close our minds or to view the inbuilt lesson in a narrow-minded way. The notion that existence is a never-ending lesson can be dismaying at times. The courses we undertake in earth school can be painful as well as pleasurable, and as taxing as they are eventually rewarding. However, in every situation, relationship, or encounter, a range of lessons can be unearthed. When we choose to consciously take advantage of each of the lessons we are confronted with, we gradually discover that our previous ideas about love, compassion, resilience, grief, fear, trust, and generosity could have been half-formed.
Ultimately, when we acknowledge that growth is an integral part of life and that attending earth school is the responsibility of every individual, the concept of "life as lesson" no longer chafes. We can openly and joyfully look for the blessing buried in the difficulties we face without feeling that we are trapped in a roller-coaster ride of forced learning. Though we cannot always know when we are experiencing a life lesson, the wisdom we accrue will bless us with the keenest hindsight."
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"Every person, all the events of your life are there because you have
drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you."
- Richard Bach
- Richard Bach
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"Ten Rules For Being Human"
Rule One: You will receive a body. You may love it or hate it, but it will be yours for the duration of your life on Earth.
Rule Two: You will be presented with lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called 'life.' Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or hate them, but you have designed them as part of your curriculum.
Rule Three: There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of experimentation, a series of trials, errors, and occasional victories. The failed experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that work.
Rule Four: A lesson is repeated until learned. Lessons will be repeated to you in various forms until you have learned them. When you have learned them, you can then go on to the next lesson.
Rule Five: Learning does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.
Rule Six: 'There' is no better than 'here'. When your 'there' has become a 'here,' you will simply obtain a 'there' that will look better to you than your present 'here'.
Rule Seven: Others are only mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.
Rule Eight: What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you.
Rule Nine: Your answers lie inside of you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
Rule Ten: You will forget all of this at birth. You can remember it if you want by unravelling the double helix of inner knowing.
- Cherie Carter-Scott, 
"The Essence Of Human Existence..."
"Curiosity is the essence of human existence.
'Who are we? Where are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?'
I don't know. I don't have any answers to those questions.
I don't know what's over there around the corner. But I want to find out."
- Eugene Cernan
“As I’ve Aged”
“As I’ve Aged”
- Author Unknown
“You ask me how it feels to grow older. I’ve learned a few things along the way, which I’ll share with you…
As I’ve aged, I’ve become kinder to myself, and less critical of myself. I’ve become my own friend. I don’t chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn’t need, but looks so avante-garde on my patio. I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to be extravagant.
I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging. Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 AM and sleep until noon? I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of many years ago, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love… I will.
I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set. They, too, will get old.
I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And I eventually remember the important things. Sure, over the years my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody’s beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion. A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.
I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning gray, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face. So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.
As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don’t question myself anymore. I’ve even earned the right to be wrong. So, to answer your question, I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day (if I feel like it). May our friendship never come apart especially when it’s straight from the heart!”
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