"Where Did They Go? There Are 107 Million Working Age Americans That Do Not Have A Job Right Now"

Full screen recommended.

"Where Did They Go? There Are 107 Million Working

 Age Americans That Do Not Have A Job Right Now"

by Epic Economist

"The United States is in the middle of the worst shortage of workers in history. At the moment, every industry in the country is short-staffed and we are already seeing major disruptions occur due to the lack of qualified labor to perform the basic services our society needs. Many famous CEOs and business owners recently made the headlines complaining about the declining number of members in their staff. However, official numbers released by the federal government have been telling us a different story. They have been suggesting that there's no worker shortage, no unemployment crisis and that things are going fairly well in our labor market.

Recent data shows that there are currently tens of millions of job openings all across the nation. Employers have been so desperate to find new workers that they have been offering some generous bonuses, gifs, trips, and of course, dramatically raising wages to attract new employees. But even though all of this is happening, people are still not coming back. Nationwide, there are currently 100,450,000 people out of the labor force, up 38,000 from September numbers. October was the 14th straight month that the number of people out of work has remained above 100,000,000.

But that figure doesn't give us the full number of working-age Americans sitting on the sidelines because it doesn't include those who are officially unemployed. That number, according to the Federal Reserve, currently stands at 7.4 million, which gives us a grand total of more than 107 million people out of the workforce. With so many people on the sidelines, the labor market participation rate has remained stubbornly low in recent months, and it did not budge in October. Of course, this is already having a toll on the economy. In a recent note, the Congressional Budget Office pointed that such a low participation rate in the labor force is threatening to shrink our gross domestic product, compromise our economic growth this year and generate further federal outlays, as many who are not in the labor force are likely to enroll in federal benefit programs.

So far, the government hasn't shown much concern about this situation. But the fact that we went from a historically low unemployment rate before the health crisis to a severe lack of workers should be very alarming to all of us. After all, our workers are the backbone of our society. Right now, many of them are being impeded to do their jobs because of local mandates. And tens of millions as on the verge of losing their jobs as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) mandate goes into effect. The agency said that companies that fail to comply would face penalties of nearly $14,000 per violation. Repeat offenders or those found to be willfully non-compliant can face a fine of $136,532, according to a White House official.

It’s official. We now live in an authoritarian nightmare. Although we're already facing an acute shortage of workers, the federal government's measures are about to make this crisis even worse. On Twitter, the Co-Founder & President of RealClearPolitics, Tom Bevan, has expressed his concern about the consequences this mandate will have on our supply chains. "All the biggest trucking companies in America - who already face major driver shortages - will see a % of their workforce quit. The supply chain crisis is going to get much worse - very soon," he warned. It feels like they want to make it so that there is no escape. If people don't do as they're told, they will be unable to work anywhere. The threat of unemployment goes beyond the loss of a job and a steady source of income, it means that millions of people may lose the comfortable lifestyles they spent years building for themselves and their families.

In the short term, the national and local mandates will keep forcing millions of millions of highly qualified Americans out of their jobs. Needless to say, enforcing these measures while we're in the midst of the worst worker shortage in our history is absolutely insane. When it comes to the long-term, these measures may result in another economic slump and also worsen the political divides in our country. People say that a house divided shall fall, and given that we're now facing divisions that may never be repaired, it seems like the stage is set for a societal meltdown of epic proportions."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

"A Look to the Heavens"

"On an August night two friends enjoyed this view after a day's hike on the Plateau d'Emparis in the French Alps. At 2400 meters altitude the sky was clear. Light from a setting moon illuminates the foreground captured in the simple vertical panorama of images. Along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy stars of Cassiopeia and Perseus shine along the panorama's left edge. 

But seen as a faint cloud with a brighter core, the Andromeda galaxy, stands directly above the two friends in the night. The nearest large spiral galaxy, Andromeda is about 2.5 million light-years beyond the stars of the Milky Way. Adding to the evening's shared extragalactic perspective, the fainter fuzzy spot in the sky right between them is M33, also known as the Triangulum galaxy. Third largest in the local galaxy group, after Andromeda and Milky Way, the Triangulum galaxy is about 3 million light-years distant. On that night, the two friends stood about 3 light-nanoseconds apart."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap211106.html

“What Mark Will You Leave On The World?”

“What Mark Will You Leave On The World?”

by Maria Rodale

“As some of you know, this time of year is my favorite time to truly reflect on the past and the future. Things seem to slow down enough that there’s finally time to ponder and think and plan and dream. The questions and thoughts change as I get older. When I was younger, it was more about what I wanted to accomplish (although I still have a VERY ambitious list for that). Now, it’s a little bit more of what do I want to leave behind?

The thing about life and reality is that it is so fleeting. Things that seem huge and vastly important can become footnotes to history or, like handprints in the sand – here today, gone tomorrow – washed away by wind or a wave. But I firmly believe that if we don’t think about it – and aren’t awake about it – we simply drift through life asleep and miss the best of it. In fact, I kind of believe that part of our purpose here in life is to create it, create change, push evolution forward, and improve things. To me, leaving a mark isn’t about getting credit or recognition, but making sure that the things we do have a positive impact rather than a negative one, and I think that starts in our heads and our hearts.

So I urge you to take some time for yourself this week, carve out an hour or, better yet, a day when you can really open your heart and calm your head enough to dream about what you truly desire. If you can dream it, you can create it. And then your life will leave a wake of happiness and joy.”

- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

For more from Maria Rodale, go to www.mariasfarmcountrykitchen.com

"The Heart Has Its Reasons..."

“Passion doesn’t count the cost. Pascal said that the heart has its reasons that reason takes no account of. If he meant what I think, he meant that when passion seizes the heart it invents reasons that seem not only plausible but conclusive to prove that the world is well lost for love. It convinces you that honor is well sacrificed and that shame is a cheap price to pay. Passion is destructive. It destroyed Antony and Cleopatra, Tristan and Isolde, Parnell and Kitty O’Shea. And if it doesn’t destroy it dies. It may be then that one is faced with the desolation of knowing that one has wasted the years of one’s life, that one’s brought disgrace upon oneself, endured the frightful pang of jealousy, swallowed every bitter mortification, that one’s expended all one’s tenderness, poured out all the riches of one’s soul on a poor drab, a fool, a peg on which one hung one’s dreams, who wasn’t worth a stick of chewing gum.”

- W. Somerset Maugham

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“Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time;

it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.”

- Sydney J. Harris

The Poet: Robert Frost, “Acceptance”

“Acceptance”

“When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud

And goes down burning into the gulf below,

No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud

At what has happened.

Birds, at least must know

It is the change to darkness in the sky.

Murmuring something quiet in her breast,

One bird begins to close a faded eye;

Or overtaken too far from his nest,

Hurrying low above the grove, some waif

Swoops just in time to his remembered tree.

At most he thinks or twitters softly, ‘safe!’

Now let the night be dark for all of me.

Let the night be too dark for me to see

Into the future. Let what will be, be.”

- Robert Frost

Free Download: Kahlil Gibran, “The Garden of the Prophet”

“The Garden of the Prophet”

by Kahlil Gibran

“Oftentimes we call Life bitter names, but only when we ourselves are bitter and dark. And we deem her empty and unprofitable, but only when the soul goes wandering in desolate places, and the heart is drunken with over-mindfulness of self.

Life is deep and high and distant; and though only your vast vision can reach even her feet, yet she is near; and though only the breath of your breath reaches her heart, the shadow of your shadow crosses her face, and the echo of your faintest cry becomes a spring and an autumn in her breast.

And Life is veiled and hidden, even as your greater self is hidden and veiled. Yet when Life speaks, all the winds become words; and when she speaks again, the smiles upon your lips and the tears in your eyes turn also into words. When she sings, the deaf hear and are held; and when she comes walking, the sightless behold her and are amazed and follow her in wonder and astonishment.”

Freely download “The Garden of The Prophet” here:

- https://consciouslivingfoundation.org/ebooks/

The Daily "Near You?"

Afton, Virginia, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Saint Greta"

"Saint Greta"

by Bill Bonner

"You can shove your climate crisis up your arse…

 30 years of blah, blah, blah..."

– Saint Greta (Thunberg), climate change activist

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – "We begin today’s dot-connecting with an admission: We don’t know whether the world’s weather is getting better or worse. The experts say the Earth is warming. But warmer temperatures are not necessarily a bad thing. And what if there is a runaway heat effect that leaves the survivors sweating on hilltops?

Nobody knows what cover stories TIME Magazine readers will find most alarming next year. But at least the world’s climate scientists, green energy hustlers, scolds, and busy-bodies gathered in Glasgow last week had a hypothesis: "The more CO2 (carbon dioxide) emitted by human activity, they claim, the higher the temperatures will go."

Is that true? Maybe. Maybe not.

No Correlation: The “greenhouse effect” is appealing because it is simple. CO2 acts like glass, they say. It traps heat in the Earth’s atmosphere. Since the mid-19th century, which the climate worriers have taken as the baseline, there is at least a relationship… and a plausible explanation… for rising temperatures. The Industrial Revolution increased the use of fossil fuels… and CO2 emissions… leading to the aforementioned “greenhouse effect.” But over the longer term of the geologic record, there’s no proof that rising CO2 causes rising temperatures.

For millions of years, CO2 levels were higher… with higher temperatures, too. Then, there were millions of years when CO2 levels were lower… and temperatures went up and down. If there is any correlation at all, it is much too imprecise to draw any public policy conclusions. All we know for sure is that we don’t know much. Will temperatures continue to rise? Don’t know. Would that be a bad thing? Don’t know that either.

Would it make sense to force everyone to lower his standard of living in order to try to stabilize the world’s climate? Who knows? And even if it were effective, would it be worth it? Again, unknowable.

Empowered by Uncertainty: In the face of so many known unknowns… not to mention a boatload of unknown unknowns… and many other things about which we have no damn clue, sensible people hesitate. They take it for granted that some things are beyond our ken and outside of our control. The wisest course of action is to leave them alone, at least until we have a better handle on them.

Some people, however, are not hampered by uncertainty, but empowered by it. They simply replace convincing evidence with Revealed Truth. Their claims and guesswork are asserted as though they were facts… and taken up by the masses as religious dogma.

Great Cause: Centuries ago, hurricanes and tornadoes were considered the acts of an angry god. Today, they are the result of “global climate change.” And who better to lead us through the cracks of thunder and the wild whirling winds than a child saint, unblemished… untainted… pure as unsweetened muesli?

Like St. Joan of Arc, Greta Thunberg had her moment of Blinding Truth early in life. At age 11, beset by Asperger’s, obsessive-compulsive disorder, mutism, depression… unable to eat… she found a Great Cause to give meaning to her life… and something to live for. In an earlier age, she might have turned to God or the Church. Perhaps she would have joined a religious order and devoted herself to caring for lepers. But this is the 21st century. And today’s most popular faith is Climate Change.

And now, eight years later, Greta Thunberg believes, with her full heart and mind, that she can lead the world to victory over rising temperatures. She is a full-fledged Climate Change Believer… an activist in shining armor… and an obnoxious teenager.

Not the Whole Story: Flashing back to the young Joan of Arc… Her vision told her that she should support Charles VII, the still-uncrowned King of France, in a campaign against the English. Like all great causes, the fight between the English and the French in the 15th century had its nuances and uncertainties. The popular version – then and now – was a great deal less than the Whole Story.

The war was actually better understood as the Lancastrian Phase of the 100 Year War. It was a fight between factions, with English and French on both sides. What side God was on was not recorded. But Joan thought she knew. And then, the poor girl was captured, not by the English… but by the (French) Burgundians. Turned over to the English, she was tried by a French judge and a French prosecutor (charged, among other things, with cross dressing). She was burned at the stake in 1431.

Confusions and Contradictions: Poor Greta is unlikely to feel the hot flames licking her toes. She may, however, eventually come to see the many confusions and contradictions of her faith. Signaling her Exalted Status among the disciples, for example, she eschewed flying to the U.S. to give a talk at the 2019 United Nations Climate Action Summit. Airplanes give off CO2, she reasoned. Instead, she took a private yacht, named Malizia II (malice), a zero-carbon yacht owned by a Rothschild, taking almost two weeks to cross the Atlantic.

The Team Malizia website shows 22 members. But the U.N. reports that only two of them, plus Greta’s father and a cameraperson, took the boat ride. Assume that each adult’s time was worth at least $200 a day. That’s a cost of more than $10,000 right there. Plus, the crew members flew back to Europe on carbon-emitting airplanes. And the boat needed servicing, maintenance, mooring… not to mention the initial investment to build the 60-foot racing yacht (probably millions).

Expensive Trip: Not to put too fine a point on it, but everything takes energy. And energy is measured in the prices we pay for things. So, if it cost Greta $700 to cross the Atlantic by plane, coach fare, that would be a fair measure of all the energy that went into to it – the energy from fuel, from building the plane, from the airport, from the pilot and stewards, rubber tires, the little bags of nuts, and so forth.

But instead of paying 700 bucks, Greta’s trip must have cost 100 times as much, and required far more fossil fuel than a seat on a commercial airline. And then, once arrived in New York, and celebrated as a saint by the great and the good… as if she had some special insight denied to the rest of us… or some virtue given only to crackpot virgins… she opened up the Summit with: "This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!

You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!"

If people are dying, it’s not because of fossil fuels. Just the contrary.

No Evidence: The press delights whenever people get their feet wet… and has a field day when their houses burn down. But is the weather really more of a threat today than it was in the past? Apparently not. Scientists have tracked hurricanes in the Caribbean, heat waves in the Midwest, and fires in California. They’ve found no evidence of worsening trends. In the case of California wildfires, for example, before the arrival of Europeans, fires routinely burnt off far more acreage than they do today.

Nature still “acts up” from time to time. But, thanks to fossil fuel, humans are much less at risk. In the old days, an early frost or a dry summer could mean starvation. Now, it means you pay a little more for your peaches. Likewise, in a poor country, such as Haiti… a hurricane could mean thousands of deaths – both from drowning and subsequent disease. In Florida, a storm of the same strength might just take tin off roofs and topple porch plants.

Why the difference? Each resident of Haiti uses about 394 kilograms of “oil equivalent” per year, according to the World Bank. In the U.S., the total is 6,804 – 17 times as much.

Saving Lives: The point is this: Wealth – made possible by fossil fuels – helps humans survive nature’s hissy fits. Higher standards of living increased lifespans. Better sanitation… better nutrition… better access to medical care – all were made possible by stored-up solar energy, in the form of oil, gas, and coal. Millions of lives have been saved by the Industrial Revolution. How many lives will Saint Greta save?"

- www.rogueeconomics.com

"Stocks Will Soar as We Get Bad News of More Inflation and Taxes"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, 11/8/21:

"Stocks Will Soar as We Get 

Bad News of More Inflation and Taxes"

"Medicine Wants to Kill You"

"Medicine Wants to Kill You"

by Jim Kunstler

"Historians of the future, savoring ‘possum goulash around their campfires, will marvel that modern medicine squandered its authority, its credibility, and its sacred honor in the Covid Panic of the 2020s, when public health officials and doctors in clinical practice colluded to force mass vaccinations while suppressing news of the harms and injuries the vaccines caused - potentially sacrificing millions of citizens like so many experimental fruit flies.

Poster-boy for this epic debacle was Dr. Eric J Rubin, editor of the New England Journal of Medicine who, serving on the CDC’s advisory vaccine committee, actually said, “We’re never gonna learn how safe the vaccine is until we start giving it.” Giving it to children, that is, which the government authorized last week, even while that same CDC issued a safety advisory warning on vaccine-induced myocarditis (inflammation of the heart), especially in boys and young men.

Nota bene: myocarditis is not a condition you necessarily get over because affected heart muscle cannot replace itself; rather the inflammation leads to scarring of heart muscle and a shortened life-span.

Meanwhile, young vaxxed athletes drop dead of heart failure in shocking numbers on high school gridirons, soccer fields, cricket pitches, bike trails, and running tracks around the world, and ordinary civilians develop a bewildering array of post-vax cardiovascular, neurological, and thrombotic disorders of which only a small fraction end up being recorded in the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Recording System (VAERS). Those numbers now are at least roughly 10,000 deaths and 20,000 permanently disabled. The VAERS website is so kludgy and inadequate that doctors are discouraged from using it - to the degree that only an estimated 10 percent of adverse events are actually reported. Doctors are also threatened with disciplinary punishment for publicizing problems with the vaxxes.

In fact, the news can’t be completely suppressed. It is obvious now - due to the frantic push for “booster” shots - that the various vaccines stop working to prevent infection with Covid-19 after several months. What is only partially understood is the action of the spike proteins that linger in the body post-vax, but the evidence is not good, since they have a particular affinity for attaching to the endothelial linings of blood vessels generally, and in the capillaries of major organs in particular - especially ovaries and testicles, raising the specter of widespread infertility ahead.

On top of that, the vaccines are suspected of breaking down the immune system, leaving the vaxxed vulnerable to opportunistic infection, disabling the genetic mechanism that allows the body to routinely defeat cancer cells, and turning people’s immune systems against them in auto-immune disorders.

How are the doctors and public health officials behaving in the face of all this? Pushing ever more strenuously for the forced vaccination of everybody of all ages, no matter what, and vilifying anyone who militates for respecting informed consent to be vaccinated. The net result is that doctors appear to have violated en masse their Hippocratic oath of ethics which calls on them to first do no harm.

Everything about the virus and its countermeasures - from the murky origins of it in Dr. Anthony Fauci’s official funding of bioweapons research, to the patent trail of conflicted ownerships and interests in the subsequent vaccine developments, to the fierce suppression of news and debate — suggests nefarious motives, or else a mass psychotic panic among the very highly-trained people society must depend on in a crisis.

It’s also getting harder to tell how much of a crisis this actually is or ever really was. There’s no reliable way of knowing how many people really died as a direct result of Covid, or just tested positive for the virus (with a janky PCR test) when they were struggling with one or more serious illnesses (co-morbidities), especially when there were substantial dollar subsidies at stake from the federal government tied to Covid cases. Nor is it possible to determine right now how many deaths attributed to Covid are actually a result of reactions to the vaccines. Most troubling of all, it looks like the rate of deaths from cardiac disorders, thrombosis, and neurological damage in the general population is noticeably exceeding the normal range — as reported officially in the UK, Ireland, and other countries.

It bears repeating that whatever Covid-19 actually is or where it came from, it’s a disease not a whole lot more deadly in the general population than the flu in a bad season; that in the natural course of things, it would have probably only killed mostly the very old and already sick, and that the rest of the population would have soldiered through it and acquired a sturdy natural immunity superior to anything the vaxxes might confer (even in theory).

My own doctor tried to persuade me to get vaxed-up during a routine physical in October. I asked him if he was aware of the thousands of deaths and disabling adverse events reported on the CDC’s VAERS system. He said the numbers were not true and went on to say that he had “one hundred percent confidence in the vaccines.” He’s always appeared to be a smart and capable person. A year or so ago he was enlisted to act as an executive administrator in the health care org he practices in, and now only sees patients two days a week. Perhaps that leaves him no time to follow the news. Or maybe he has no inclination to follow any news except what comes from sources like cable TV channels, which are almost entirely sponsored by the Pharma industry.

The bottom line for me is that he has compromised my faith in his judgment. I wonder how many other people feel that way about their doctors. The medical profession was already in trouble before Covid came on the scene. It had entered into a demonic symbiotic relationship with the insurance industry that amounted to pervasive racketeering. (Just imagine the hospital bills of all those people with adverse vax reactions that the doctors affected to be mystified by, and ran countless, fruitless tests on.)

The good news for now is that a federal court has stayed the “Joe Biden” vax mandates. The government is expected to dispute that decision today (Monday Nov 8). Meanwhile, the rumor of a general strike against vaccine tyranny, set for today through Thursday, is in the air and we’ll have to stand by to see if anything happens. We should also be standing by in the weeks ahead to see how many more people begin to show symptoms of developing serious bodily disorders from the multiple shots they have been suffered to take."

- https://kunstler.com/

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Related:

"Unthinkable Thoughts"

Gregory Mannarino, "AM/PM 11/8/21"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 11/8/21:

"Must Watch! 

A 'Biblical' Meltdown Of The Stock Market Is Coming"

- https://traderschoice.net/

○

Gregory Mannarino, PM 11/8/21:

"Epic! BlackRock Warns Of 'Asset Bubbles'; 

The FED Is Moving Goalposts, And I Have A Meltdown"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Avenue, November 7, 2021

Full screen recommended,

"Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Avenue, During The Night"

Violent crime and drug abuse in Philadelphia as a whole is a major problem. The city’s violent crime rate is higher than the national average and other similarly sized metropolitan areas. Also alarming is Philadelphia’s drug overdose rate. The number of drug overdose deaths in the city increased by 50% from 2013 to 2015, with more than twice as many deaths from drug overdoses as deaths from homicides in 2015. A big part of Philadelphia’s problems stem from the crime rate and drug abuse in Kensington.

Because of the high number of drugs in Kensington, the neighborhood has a drug crime rate of 3.57, the third-highest rate by neighborhood in Philadelphia. Like a lot of the country, a big part of this issue is a result of the opioid epidemic. Opioid abuse has skyrocketed over the last two decades in the United States and Philadelphia is no exception. Along with having a high rate of drug overdose deaths, 80% percent of Philadelphia’s overdose deaths involved opioids and Kensington is a big contributor to this number. This Philly neighborhood is purportedly the largest open-air narcotics market for heroin on the East Coast with many neighboring residents flocking to the area for heroin and other opioids. With such a high number of drugs in Kensington, many state and local officials have zoned in on this area to try and tackle Philadelphia’s problem."

"How It Really Is"

 

"Supply Shortages And Soaring Prices Sweep Across America As Supply Chains Face Catastrophic Damages"

Full screen recommended.

"Supply Shortages And Soaring Prices Sweep Across

 America As Supply Chains Face Catastrophic Damages"

by Epic Economist

"To say that conditions are chaotic in the US supply chains is quite an understatement. Americans are seeing shelves getting increasingly emptier at stores all over the country. Shortages and soaring prices have become the new normal. And a series of new issues keep aggravating the supply chain crisis ahead of the winter.

The way the U.S. government has mishandled the supply chain crisis is truly catastrophic. They have managed to create even more disruptions in every step of the way. With the memory of depleted supplies during last year's panic buying frenzy, consumers got spooked by the warnings of shortages and placed an extraordinary amount of orders this year, which may have broken US supply chains, according to industry experts. But the panic buying retailers have been doing has made the problem significantly worse.

Thanksgiving and Black Friday are just around the corner, and both dates mark the beginning of the biggest shopping days of the year. Retailers usually expect to make up for the lost revenue and kick off a buying frenzy that hopefully lasts for months. This year, however, those hopes will be crushed. The congestion at ports is so severe that millions of holiday items will not arrive in time at the stores. Just as consumers, retailers have been panic buying for the holidays as the supply chain crisis raises fears of empty shelves during their most profitable season of the year.

"When people expect there's going to be shortages for this holiday season, they increase their orders, which led to a dramatic increase in shipping to the US. That's why we see so many containers in our ports," Dr. Tinglong Dai, a professor of operations management and business analytics at Johns Hopkins University, told Business Insider. But instead of ensuring inventory for the coming shopping season, the panic ordering resulted in empty shelves, as deliveries are delayed, and many other bottlenecks at many steps along the way continue to keep products out of the reach of consumers.

Experts like Tim Uy of Moody’s Analytics argue that, unfortunately, supply chain problems “will get even worse before they get better”.“As the global economy continues to gather steam, what is increasingly apparent is how it will be stymied by supply-chain disruptions that are now showing up at every corner,” Uy said in a recent report.

It currently takes almost an entire month to ship a container from China to the U.S. West Coast. And when cargo ships arrive with thousands of containers, they are having to wait off the coast of Southern California for up to four weeks before getting unloaded. The cheapest freight rate to carry merchandise coming from China to the U.S. is now in the range of $25,000, a 200 percent increase from 2019 levels. But several big companies are paying premiums at the spot market that can go as high as $100,000. That is leading to a painful price spike once those products hit store shelves.

What a situation the U.S.has gotten into. Everywhere we look we have disruption on top of disruption. And our leaders effectively made our problems a whole lot worse. If you think things are bad now, just wait until the Fed raises rates to try to control rampant inflation. The central bank will take out the air of equity bubbles it inflated throughout the past 18 months, and during that process, it will collapse markets and push the economy back into recession.

At the beginning of the year, many of us were hoping that conditions would improve for the economy. But now we're stuck in one of history's biggest traffic jams. This crisis has become so serious that analysts at Bloomberg Economics are calling it "The Big Crunch of 2021". In a new indicator developed to evaluate the extremity of the problem, the analysts found that supply shortages are now at a 20-year high in the U.S.

With prices hitting new records with each passing week, it's only a matter of time until we face a re-run of 1970s-style hyperinflation. That's why saying the situation is chaotic at US supply chains is an understatement. This is a gigantic mess that will take years to solve. And Americans will be lucky if the markets, the economy, and supply chains don't break down simultaneously before the end of 2021. A lot more trouble is ahead as this perfect storm evolves into a full-blown disaster in the coming months."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

"Where Did They Go? There Are Supposedly 107 Million Working Age Americans That Do Not Have A Job Right Now"

"Where Did They Go? There Are Supposedly 107 Million

 Working Age Americans That Do Not Have A Job Right Now"

by Michael Snyder

We are being told that we are in the midst of the worst worker shortage in the history of the United States, but the numbers that we are being given by the federal government suggest that there should be no shortage of workers. As I will detail in this article, we are being told that there are 107 million working age Americans that are not employed right now. That is an astoundingly high figure. In fact, it is much, much higher than the peak that we hit during the “Great Recession” of 2008 and 2009. Of course back then we had millions upon millions of unemployed Americans that were absolutely desperate for a job. Today, the opposite is true. There are millions upon millions of open jobs, and employers are doing everything that they can to entice people to come to work. They are dramatically raising wages, they are handing out huge signing bonuses, they are offering to pay for college, and in some cases they are even completely waiving drug testing requirements. But even though all of this is happening, we still have 107 million working age Americans on the sidelines.

On Friday, we got some brand new employment numbers from the Labor Department. According to those numbers, there are more than 100 million Americans that are considered to be “not in the labor force” right now…"The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics announced on Friday that 100,450,000 people in this country were not in the labor force in October, up 38,000 from the 100,412,000 in September."

This is the 14th straight month that this “not in the labor force” number has remained above 100,000,000. But that figure doesn’t give us the full number of potential workers that are on the sidelines, because it doesn’t include anyone that is officially unemployed…"Persons who are neither employed nor unemployed are not in the labor force. This category includes retired persons, students, those taking care of children or other family members, and others who are neither working nor seeking work."

So to get the full number of working age Americans that are “potential workers”, we need to add in those that are officially considered to be “unemployed”, and according to the Federal Reserve that number currently stands at 7.4 million. Once we add 100 million to 7 million, that gives us a grand total of 107 million working age Americans that do not have a job right now.

Why can’t we get more of them to go back to work? Of course there are many that were not working before the pandemic came along and that still have no intention of working now. We aren’t really concerned about them. But what should alarm all of us is that the number of Americans that were working just before the pandemic was much higher than the number of Americans that are working now.

So where did all of those workers go? Are they just lazy? Are some of them sitting at home collecting government checks? Have some of them become incapacitated? Have some of them died?

Needless to say, an increasing number of Americans are not working in their chosen fields right now because they have been forced out of their jobs by various local mandates. The good news is that the big OSHA mandate which was scheduled to go into effect on January 4th has been temporarily put on hold by the Fifth Circuit court of appeals…"President Joe Biden‘s rule forcing businesses of over 100 employees to mandate the Covid vaccine has been temporarily halted by the Fifth Circuit court of appeals. Attorneys general for several states, including Texas, Louisiana, and Utah, joined advocacy and business groups in the petition, which is not the only legal challenge faced by the administration over the rule."

Many conservatives seem to think that this is some sort of massive court victory. It is not. It is just a temporary order issued by one court to halt enforcement of the mandate while litigation proceeds. Ultimately, many courts will be looking at this mandate, and I am entirely convinced that eventually this will get to the U.S. Supreme Court. And at this point I have very, very little faith in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is already talking about creating an additional mandate for companies that have less than 100 employees…"The Biden-Harris administration on Thursday is weighing if they should expand the vaccine mandate for companies employing fewer than 100 employees. According to Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) federal rules released Thursday, the agency is “seeking comment to help the agency” determine if smaller employers with fewer than 100 employees can implement a coronavirus vaccine mandate “without undue disruption.”

They want to make it so that there is no escape. If you do not comply with their orders, they want to make it so that you will not be able to work anywhere. There are also rumors that the Biden administration is actually considering a national mandate for children that attend schools. When CDC Director Rochelle Walensky was asked about this, her response was more than a little bit alarming…“I will always encourage that parent to get their child vaccinated, and speak to them about the information and communication, and education that they need in order to get their children vaccinated,” Walensky said. “Right now, at this moment, those decisions are made at the jurisdictional level as they are for vaccination of other all - other vaccine preventable diseases among children.”

The Democrats don’t seem to understand that the mandates are the number one reason why they just did so poorly in Virginia and elsewhere. And if they keep pushing these mandates, they will get soundly defeated in 2022 and 2024. But they are going ahead with them anyway. It is almost as if they don’t care about the political consequences.

In the short-term, the various mandates that are being implemented around the nation will force millions of highly qualified Americans out of their jobs. Doing this in the midst of the worst worker shortage in our history is absolutely insane. In the long-term, the consequences of these mandates will set the stage for a societal meltdown of epic proportions. We were such a divided nation before Biden announced these mandates, but now we are rapidly approaching a point where national unity may no longer be possible. A house divided will surely fall, and thanks to Biden we are now facing divisions that may never be repaired."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

○

Related:

"Where Did 7 Million Workers Go?"

“Are We In A Bubble? FED Ignores Inflation Risk”

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, PM 11/7/21:

“Are We In A Bubble? FED Ignores Inflation Risk”

"FDA Documents Show CV19 Vax Produces a Bioweapon"

"FDA Documents Show CV19 Vax Produces a Bioweapon"

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Karen Kingston is a former Pfizer employee and top biotech analyst who has researched and written about many cutting edge pharmaceutical issues. Kingston contends the so-called vaccines are in fact bioweapons and she can prove it with the FDA’s own data Kingston also says the FDA’s own research shows they have known it is the vax bioweapons that have caused all the deaths and injuries. Kingston explains, “More people got Covid 19 (from the vax) than they got from placebos, but they pulled 409 people out of the vaccine group because now they are saying that was a side effect. The side effect is the disease. 

The FDA document is incriminating evidence. If Janet Woodcock (Janet Woodcock is the director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) at the FDA) would read this in front of the Senate, she should be put in handcuffs for conspiring to commit aggravated assault and murder of American children and adults through poison. They are calling them side effects. When you have a meeting two months before you approve and you list a bunch of severe chronic diseases that induce morbidity and mortality in children and adults, and you say you know this is going to happen, that is not a side effect. 

 That is an intended consequence. That is the effect of the vaccines. The effect of the vaccines is to cause havoc within your immune system. That immune imbalance results in heart attacks, heart inflammation; it results in neurological disorders ranging from fatigue to paralysis to brain fog to rapid onset to disorders, to narcolepsy, to death, to pregnancy stillborns, birth defects and miscarriages. They knew this was going to happen. In the FDA data for Pfizer, they say, look, more people got Covid 19 that got vaccinated. They said that was a side effect. It is not a side effect – it is the effect. The majority of people are in agreement that the Wuhan lab spike protein that was put up on the genome web January 10th of last year is a bioweapon. 

If you read the FDA approval letter, what is the vaccines’ ingredients? It is the synthetic mRNA code, the computer generated artificial intelligence generated code, which was injected in your body that produces, and I am telling you this verbatim, it says it produces the ‘Wuhan-Hu-1 full sequence spike protein from genome web.’ It says in the (FDA) approval letter the vaccine produces the bioweapon. It says in the data that more people are getting Covid19 from the vaccine than from not being treated. People say I should be an expert witness. I don’t need to be an expert witness. We just need the FDA to read their own documents.”

In closing, Kingston says, “I think we can work with science at the molecular level to heal this, but if people don’t know they are sick, then millions of Americans are going to die and our children are going to be part of this sacrifice. I am filled with deep, deep sorrow.”

- https://usawatchdog.com/

"Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with biotech analyst Karen Kingston as she blows the lid off the FDA authorized CV19 bioweapon."

- https://rumble.com/

"Beautiful Relaxing Music with Amazing Nature Videos"

Full screen recommended.

Soothing Relaxation,

"Beautiful Relaxing Music with Amazing Nature Videos"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"To some it looks like a cat's eye. To others, perhaps like a giant cosmic conch shell. It is actually one of brightest and most highly detailed planetary nebula known, composed of gas expelled in the brief yet glorious phase near the end of life of a Sun-like star. This nebula's dying central star may have produced the outer circular concentric shells by shrugging off outer layers in a series of regular convulsions. The formation of the beautiful, complex-yet-symmetric inner structures, however, is not well understood. 

The featured image is a composite of a digitally sharpened Hubble Space Telescope image with X-ray light captured by the orbiting Chandra Observatory. The exquisite floating space statue spans over half a light-year across. Of course, gazing into this Cat's Eye, humanity may well be seeing the fate of our sun, destined to enter its own planetary nebula phase of evolution... in about 5 billion years."

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

Kahlil Gibran, “On Talking”

“On Talking”

“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;

And when you can no longer dwell in

 the solitude of your heart you live in your lips,

and sound is a diversion and a pastime.

And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.

For thought is a bird of space,

that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.

There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.

The silence of aloneness reveals to their

eyes their naked selves and they would escape.

And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought

reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.

And there are those who have the truth within them,

but they tell it not in words.

In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence.

When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place,

let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue.

Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear;

For his soul will keep the truth of your heart 

as the taste of the wine is remembered

When the color is forgotten and the vessel is no more.”

- Kahlil Gibran,

Freely download “The Prophet”, by Kahlil Gibran, here:

- https://holybooks-lichtenbergpress.netdna-ssl.com/

“Requiem for a Ladybug”

“Requiem for a Ladybug”

by Frankly Francis

“You lie still less than a foot away on top of the soft mouse pad that protects me from carpal tunnel syndrome. I noticed this morning, through eyes not yet clarified by my first coffee of the day, your presence in my study. Odd, I thought, that you would even be present now. It is certainly past your time of the year in these parts.

I had the presence of mind to reckon that your life must be short. Rather than remove you from my space, both physical and mental, I decided that if these were your final moments then my study could be your Hospice and I your companion.

Your flight and movement were a little chaotic, seemingly random. You nestled in the heat of the light in the globe of my desk lamp, you circled my cranium, you landed in various spots, and in and on various objects on my desk while I got about the business of the day.

Sometimes I could see you, other times I did not know where you were. Then you would rise again to a new location. I wondered if you had any purpose in this, if there was more going on than my conscious programming allowed me to realize.

Perhaps it was, in your reality, some last business to be done? Or perhaps a ritual of your species’ existence? I hoped that if there is any pleasure in being a Ladybug that it was satisfying in some way, even so far from your natural habitat. Then you landed on your final resting spot and moved no more.

For me, my study is a place of many good things. I hope in your last moments it was to you as well. Rest in Peace my little Ladybug. And thanks for reminding me of the preciousness and fragility of life.”

- http://franklyfrancis.com/?p=1255

"Life's Funny..."

“Life’s funny, chucklehead. You only get one and you don’t want to throw it away. But you can’t really live it at all unless you’re willing to give it up for the things you love. If you’re not at least willing to die for something – something that really matters – in the end you die for nothing.”

- Andrew Klavan

The Poet: Stephen Levine, “Half Life”

“Half Life”

“We walk through half our life

as if it were a fever dream,

barely touching the ground,

our eyes half open,

our heart half closed.

Not half knowing who we are,


we watch the ghost of us drift


from room to room,


through friends and lovers


never quite as real as advertised.

Not saying half we mean


or meaning half we say,


we dream ourselves


from birth to birth


seeking some true self.

Until the fever breaks


and the heart can not abide


a moment longer


as the rest of us awakens,


summoned from the dream,


not half caring for anything but love.”

~ Stephen Levine

The Daily "Near You?"

Bowie, Texas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Our True Friends..."

"Our true friends are those who are with us when the good things happen. They cheer us on and are pleased by our triumphs. False friends only appear at difficult times, with their sad, supportive faces, when, in fact, our suffering is serving to console them for their own miserable lives." 

- Paulo Coelho

"Spartan Rules For Life - The Philosophy of Sparta"

Full screen recommended.

Orion Philosophy,

"Spartan Rules For Life - The Philosophy of Sparta"

"The Spartans have been referenced time and time again as a nation of hardened, resilient and Stoic warriors, with a simple philosophy of life. As a nation Sparta was feared for its soldiers, and respected for its way of life. In modern day, the Spartans are still held in high regard, and the Spartan helmet and shield still used as a symbol to reflect their values almost 2000 years later. These quotes help to explain the Spartan philosophy and the mindset of Sparta, a mindset that helps us remain calm, collected and resilient in the face of hardship, adversity, and events that threaten to invade our peace of mind."

- https://orionphilosophy.com/

"How It Really Is"

Gregory Mannarino, "Markets, A Look Ahead: Stock Market Melt-Up, Currency Melt-Down"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 11/7/21:

"Markets, A Look Ahead: 

Stock Market Melt-Up, Currency Melt-Down"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Mass Psychosis & You"

Full screen recommended.

Chris Martenson, Peak Prosperity,

"Mass Psychosis & You"

"This video explains why people you know seem to have lost their ability to reason or even be reasonable. Mass Hysteria, or psychosis is a very routine and well-documented part of human history. It also describes well our current circumstances. The key questions are (1) is it deliberate or accidental and (2) either way, what can you do to avoid the worst effects of it all?"

- https://www.peakprosperity.com/

"Warning: Infrastructure Bill Guarantees More Inflation; Minimum Wage Jobs And Inflation A Bad Combo"

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, PM 11/6/21:

"Warning: Infrastructure Bill Guarantees More Inflation; 

Minimum Wage Jobs And Inflation A Bad Combo"

"You Can’t Make This Stuff Up - Crazy Economic News"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, PM 11/6/21:

"You Can’t Make This Stuff Up - Crazy Economic News"

Musical Interlude: Yanni, "The Storm"

Full screen recommended.

Yanni, "The Storm"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Dwarf galaxies NGC 147 (left) and NGC 185 stand side by side in this sharp telescopic portrait. The two are not-often-imaged satellites of M31, the great spiral Andromeda Galaxy, some 2.5 million light-years away. Their separation on the sky, less than one degree across a pretty field of view, translates to only about 35 thousand light-years at Andromeda's distance, but Andromeda itself is found well outside this frame. 

Brighter and more famous satellite galaxies of Andromeda, M32 and M110, are seen closer to the great spiral. NGC 147 and NGC 185 have been identified as binary galaxies, forming a gravitationally stable binary system. But recently discovered faint dwarf galaxy Cassiopeia II also seems to be part of their system, forming a gravitationally bound group within Andromeda's intriguing population of small satellite galaxies."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap211104.html

"When We Have Time..."

“How small a portion of our life it is that we really enjoy. In youth we are looking forward to things that are to come; in old age, we are looking backwards to things that are gone past; in manhood, although we appear indeed to be more occupied in things that are present, yet even that is too often absorbed in vague determinations to be vastly happy on some future day, when we have time.”

- Charles Caleb Colton, “Lacon”

○

“The problem is, you believe you have time.”

- Buddha

"A Brewing Revolution?"

"A Brewing Revolution?"

by Jeffrey Tucker

"I’ve been waiting many months for some good news to report. This past week brought it. Let’s hope it’s just the beginning. Before continuing, let me add this one proviso: The changes needed to get the country and world back on track to prosperity and flourishing are not fully realized in politics. We need a dramatic cultural, social and legal transformation, one that is far-reaching and permanent. And yet it also has a political expression. For now. On that front, there is nothing but good to report.

What’s significant about Tuesday’s election results is not the remarkable upset in the Virginia gubernatorial race. What’s remarkable is the depth and breadth of the blow to the regime sweeping through the whole state. Seats that Democrats had held very comfortably were taken away. And the reasons were the same in each case: the economy, education and virus restrictions.

“Bloodbath”: As attorney Jeff Childers wrote: "In what lefty pollster Larry Sabato called a “bloodbath,” Republicans swept Virginia’s elections last night. The GOP handily won the governorship (Glenn Youngkin), the lieutenant governorship (Winsome Sears) and the attorney general’s office (Jason Miyares)... In the House of Delegates, Republicans now have a majority.

There are historic elements to the win. Republican Winsome Sears, a former Marine, became the first Black female lieutenant governor in Virginia’s history. Jason Miyares is the state’s first Cuban-American attorney general.

This development shows some pretty deep problems for pro-lockdown, anti-parent Democrats all over the country. Virginia is a deep-blue state. Current governor and cozy Clinton confidante Terry McAuliffe had been described as “unbeatable.” Just yesterday, Biden confidently predicted McAuliffe’s win, in a state he won easily one year ago. But according to White House officials, Biden declined to take McAuliffe’s call last night after the election."

We Will Not Live in Cages: All of these wins trace to a hard repudiation of lockdowns, of course. In the case of education, the schools were locked shut last year and parents were forced to keep the kids at home. They involved themselves in their education and helping them with their textbooks and lessons. They sat in on their Zoom classes.

They were astonished at what they discovered. Their kids were being divided by race and told that one race is inherently exploitative and another permanently victimized. This wildly divisive message was considered mainstream by the teachers who were presenting material pushed by the school boards.

The seething began slowly, but as teachers refused to go back to work, intensifying pain on families, the moms got angry. When the schools finally reopened, the kids had masks forced on them. They were also subjected to lockdowns every time there was a positive case. It led to a year and a half of chaos.

School board meetings grew chaotic. The cops were called. Many parents were thrown out and some arrested. It became a badge of honor. Then the Democratic candidate for governor put a fine point on it. He catastrophically said that parents should not be in charge of what their students are taught. That seems to have done it. It prompted the electoral rout based in a wild anger at what the lockdowns, leftists and their henchmen have done at all levels of society.

The Price of Arrogance: As for the economy, Virginia is emblematic of the whole country right now. There are high prices for everything, especially gas. The stores have randomly empty shelves. Labor shortages have hit small businesses. Everyone is struggling and scared. Meanwhile, the monopoly party that controls the federal government seems clueless about the crisis developing at all levels of society. The arrogance of the Democrats at the state level seemed to mirror that.

This is the first real test of the party that now owns all these lockdowns, mandates and impositions on liberty. The result is a complete and total disaster for the Democrats. The rethinking of everything began at 12:30 a.m. on Nov. 3, 2021. They might see for the first time in a long time that there is no mandate in the United States for socialism, critical race theory, inflation and shortages. They are facing calamity now.

The Truck Driver vs. the Big Shot: The incumbent Democratic governor won reelection in New Jersey, but it came down to the wire. Just saying that is stunning. The betting odds for the Democrat incumbent favored him at 90%. Even though the Democrat won, the results have already caused shock waves.

The most exciting race in New Jersey happened at a lower level, in the 3rd Senate District. The seat of state Senate President Steve Sweeney, the longest-serving legislative leader in New Jersey history, was never in question. But he lost to Edward Durr, a conservative truck driver who reported spending only a few thousand dollars on his entire campaign. Durr did not give speeches and had no website or employees. All he had was a Facebook page. Boom: He got the job done.

This is a sign of something approaching revolution. Durr is a blue-collar worker, a paradigmatic case of a person horribly victimized by all these COVID policies that have wrecked life in the U.S. and the economy.

Democracy Saves the Day: Tuesday’s results give us every indication that an anachronistic political establishment is being swept away in favor of a new class of people dedicated to traditional American ideals. Such as freedom. Such as independence. Such as the rights of self-government.

Remember the reason the 19th-century liberals favored democracy. It was never intended as a perfect system that would end all corruption. The point was to have a system that enabled the peaceful transition of power without the ghastly social and economic cost of bloody coups and revolutions. It allows the people some hope of prevailing against a corrupt political establishment.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that Republicans are the party of freedom and liberty. I’m a libertarian and I disagree with them on many issues. They also tend to spend like Democrats when they’re in power. So I’m not being partisan here. But on issues like lockdowns, vaccine mandates and children’s education, Republicans are simply offering saner policies. Democrats are acting like authoritarians.

We Will Break Free: A recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll reveals that 41% of independents consider Democrats the bigger threat to democracy and 37% say Republicans are. Of all respondents, 42% say the Democrats are the greatest threat to democracy. At this point, democracy is our biggest hope for getting the U.S. back on the track for prosperity and peace. It will take 10, 20 or even 30 years to recover from the horrors of 2020 and following. But perhaps Nov. 2, 2021, will be remembered as the day that the country began fixing the damage inflicted by the old political establishment.

The new dawn will be a long time coming, but at least we see now the path the revolution will take and the hope it will bring to this long-suffering nation. They tried to put us in cages. We will break free."

- dailyreckoning.com

"A Point Of No Return..."

”There is a point of no return, unremarked at the time, in most lives.”

- Graham Greene

○

“When swimming into a dark tunnel, there arrives a point of no return when you no longer have enough breath to double back. Your only choice is to swim forward into the unknown… and pray for an exit.”

 - Dan Brown

○

“And it was pointless… to think how those years could have been put to better use, for he could hardly have put them to worse. There was no recovering them now. You could grieve endlessly for the loss of time and for the damage done therein. For the dead, and for your own lost self. But what the wisdom of the ages says is that we do well not to grieve on and on. And those old ones knew a thing or two and had some truth to tell… for you can grieve your heart out and in the end you are still where you were. All your grief hasn’t changed a thing. What you have lost will not be returned to you. It will always be lost. You’re left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is to go on or not. But if you go on, it’s knowing you carry your scars with you.” 

- Charles Frazier

○

“Never be ashamed of a scar. 

It simply means you were stronger than whatever tried to hurt you.” 

- Unknown

The Daily "Near You?"

Woodstock, Ontario, Canada. Thanks for stopping by!