Sunday, November 14, 2021

"The Countdown For The Biggest Stock Market Crash In History Has Begun"

Full screen recommended.
"The Countdown For The Biggest Stock 
Market Crash In History Has Begun"
by Epic Economist

"Wall Street investors are still in a relentless frenzy as stocks go higher and higher. They may have forgotten the risks of investing so much money in companies whose growth is not guaranteed, especially considering that economic conditions keep worsening by the day. They're truly believing the Fed will always come to the rescue. But the truth is that the days of Fed support are almost over. And when the music stops, this gigantic bubble will burst and the entire financial world will be turned upside down once again. A number of renowned market veterans have been alerting about the growing risks. But so far, no one seems to be listening to their warnings. They have been telling us that even though most people believe this time is different, the current bull market has become unsustainable. Bulls can stand many things, but the slightest sign that a two percent interest rate hike is coming can scare them to the core.

And what many investors may be failing to remember is that the Fed has announced that it will increase interest rates by the end of the year. Based on recent estimates, analysts forecast that the central bank can hike rates by 2.2 percent by December, and that figure goes up to 3.5 percent at the beginning of 2022. Such aggressive increases will come as a result of rampant inflation. Official data points that the inflation rate is at nearly 6 percent. But some economists argue that the true rate of inflation that people are seeing at the stores is ranging between 11 and 14 percent. As the holiday season approaches, inflation will soar higher. Unfortunately, this means that the Fed will have no other choice but to sharply raise interest rates before the economy overheats. And, of course, this will trigger the inevitable stock market crash no one seems to be prepared for.

For years, low-interest rates have propped up equity markets worldwide. They make it more appealing to borrow money to invest in stocks and ultimately push up company valuations. However, today's valuations are far extended beyond norms, by many measures. Although many want to believe that fundamentals do not matter, the market is cyclical and that's a universal truth. This means that at some point, valuations always come back to their norms, or, as the hedge fund manager John Hussman explains, everything that goes up must go down. That's the law of equilibrium.

The speculative frenzy started when the Fed decided to suppress already low-interest rates to near-zero levels. That was when many new investors entered the bubble. Needless to say, when interest rates do rise, these investors won't stick around. Higher rates are also likely to create disruptions in the economy, with indebted companies struggling to meet higher interest payments. That alone could trigger another recession, but we don't even have to go that far. In essence, there's a wide range of different risks that could spark a stock market crash after an interest rate hike. But today's investors are choosing to ignore the looming dangers for the sake of higher 'future' earnings.

They've been buying the narrative that the Fed will do "whatever it takes" to avoid a financial collapse and that it will keep fueling stocks through its quantitative easing policies. History has shown us over and over again that there's only so much liquidity can do. And that narrative is coming to an end, and it will cause unprecedented chaos. If you don't believe us, just take a look at the Fed's annual Financial Stability Report, in which central bank officials issued a very explicit warning that the market is in a bubble and extremely elevated asset prices are risking to trigger a broader stock market crash.

In a recent article, Bloomberg reported the highlights of the 85-page document published on the Fed's website moments after the market closed last week. The central bank warned that "prices of risky assets keep rising, making them more susceptible to perilous crashes if the economy takes a turn for the worse" adding that “asset prices remain vulnerable to significant declines should investor risk sentiment deteriorate, progress on containing the virus disappoint, or the economic recovery stall." This is proof that they already know what is coming next. They already know that there's no escape. For how much longer will we continue to ignore the red flags? The Fed keeps pretending for the public that everything will normalize soon, but those who witnessed previous bubble bursts are telling us that the stage is set for another massive financial meltdown. It is clear that a brutal stock market crash is fast approaching. The final question is: who are you going to believe this time?"

The Daily "Near You?"

Fife Lake, Michigan, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"America is Under Attack by Marxist Globalists"

"America is Under Attack by Marxist Globalists"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"
Back in July, legendary geopolitical and financial cycle analyst Martin Armstrong boldly said, “The system has come to an end.” What are we seeing now? There is massive inflation, huge defaults of debt in China, a badly broken supply chain and a hostile government against “We the People” here in America. It sure looks like the end of this system is near. Armstrong contends it is not an accident that all this is happening now to the United States because Marxist globalists want to overthrow our Constitutional form of government. Armstrong explains, “This is getting to be really absurd. Biden is the perfect President. I warned that this election had nothing to do with Trump versus Biden. It was Trump versus a foreign entity that was trying to take over the United States. Biden is absolutely the perfect President. They got their wish. They got somebody in there that really would not be able to figure out left from right. I am not making derogatory statements against him. This isn’t even Biden’s agenda. You are lucky if he even understands what’s going on. It’s the people behind him. It you look at his polls, they are down to 33%. A politician would normally care about that. You don’t see any change because he’s not the one doing this. They know he’s just a place holder. They are just moving their agenda through - period. The United States is being orchestrated from Geneva. All this ‘Build Back Better’ stuff was a slogan created at Davos. The United States is under attack from a foreign entity.”

Armstrong says his predictive Socrates computer program does not see the Marxist globalists succeeding. Armstrong says, “They think they can take over the world and create this fictional wonderland of Marxism. It’s not going to work. Our computer is showing that they have failed. In 2022, this whole thing is going to start blowing up. Bill Gates actually said that the vaccines don’t work. He said we are going to have to create a new sort of R&D. There is too much evidence now that the vaccines do not prevent you from getting Covid or spreading it. Data coming out of Israel shows the majority of people vaccinated are the majority of the people that are dying. Gates is being confronted with this behind the curtain.”

Armstrong says the Marxist globalists are trying to create a Great Depression. Why? Armstrong says, “The reason why they are trying to create a Great Depression is they are now desperate. They created, in my opinion, this virus that numerous people I know behind the curtain were told a virus was coming. I think it was planted. I think it was created by a lab in China. This is all total B.S. It’s being used mainly to prevent people from traveling.”

Armstrong also says the Marxist globalists have a plan to default on all debt. Listen to how they are going to sell this to the public. Armstrong says, “They pretend they care about you. You won’t own anything. We are going to eliminate all mortgages, all credit card debt and you are going to be happy. Why? Because that’s the cover for them to default. They can’t default without wiping out everybody’s pension fund.”

Armstrong says rich people are buying tangible assets to get their money off the grid, and the little guy should be doing the same thing. This is why Armstrong says things such as art, collectibles, Bitcoin and gold are going up and will continue to do so. Armstrong says be careful with crypto currencies because, eventually, governments will have their own crypto currencies and will not allow competition."

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with 
Martin Armstrong, world renowned geopolitical and economic cycle expert.

Gregory Mannarino, "Markets, A Look Ahead: Must Know Now Updates"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 11/14/21:
"Markets, A Look Ahead: Must Know Now Updates"

"The Choice..."

 
"Except for totally impulsive or psychotic behavior, every human
decision comes down to the choice between two alternatives."
- Jeff Duntemann

"Gravity, Grace, and What Binds Us: Poet Jane Hirshfield’s Timeless Hymn to Love and the Proud Scars of the Heart"

"Gravity, Grace, and What Binds Us: Poet Jane Hirshfield’s 
Timeless Hymn to Love and the Proud Scars of the Heart"
by Maria Popova

"In the autumn of 1664, when the black plague shrouded the world in a deadly pandemic and universities sent their students home for a quarantine the end of which no one could foresee, a young man besotted with mathematics, motion, and light returned to his illiterate mother’s orchard, where he watched an apple fall. A revolution of understanding rose in its shadow - he fathomed the mechanics of a mystery that had enchanted humanity for epochs: how bodies can act on other bodies, attracting one another impalpably and invisibly across space and separation, as if by magic.

Religions had called it grace. Science, with the young Newton at its helm, called it gravity.

We have since discovered three other presently irreducible fundamental forces winding the clockwork of reality, with gravity the weakest of the four, 1038 times weaker than the strongest, and yet the most immediate, the most embodied, the most readily graspable by our creaturely intuitions. The unfathomed thing once explained as magic is now a commonplace of common sense, woven into our elemental understanding of the world and, in consequence, woven into our metaphors - those handles on the door of understanding.

It is on gravity’s metaphor we lean when we speak of the binding force of love - the attraction that draws ensouled bodies to one another, as if by magic. But for all the progress science has made in the epochs since Newton, along the long procession of history in which the brilliant and the brokenhearted have walked hand in hand, this binding force is still a mystery, still something closer to grace, perhaps the only form of grace that is real.

This might always remain so - as the stardust-residue of ideas that was once Carl Sagan reminds us, “the universe will always be much richer than our ability to understand it.” A vast part of me hopes it does remain so - some things are more important felt than known: felt fully and unconditionally, for they can only ever be understood incompletely and conjecturally. Rachel Carson, for all her devotion to the poetics of reality we call science, knew this when she insisted that it is not half so important to know as to feel. E.E. Cummings knew it when, in his impassioned case for the courage to be yourself, he observed that “whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself… the hardest battle which any human being can fight.”

Centuries after Newton and generations after Carson and Cummings, Jane Hirshfield - another philosopher-poet intimately attuned to the poetics of reality, an ordained Zen Buddhist who thinks deeply and writes splendidly about the living realities and lush metaphors of the natural world - addressed this in a poem that has saved me, and continues to save me, across many seasons of being. Originally published in her 1988 lifeline of a collection "Of Gravity & Angels" (public library) - a title evocative of the posthumous record of Simone Weil’s exquisite consciousness, "Gravity and Grace" - it is generously read here for us by the poet herself:

"For What Binds Us"

"There are names for what binds us:
strong forces, weak forces.
Look around, you can see them:
the skin that forms in a half-empty cup,
nails rusting into the places they join,
joints dovetailed on their own weight.
The way things stay so solidly
wherever they’ve been set down -
and gravity, scientists say, is weak.

And see how the flesh grows back
across a wound, with a great vehemence,
more strong
than the simple, untested surface before.

There’s a name for it on horses,
when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,
as all flesh,
is proud of its wounds, wears them
as honors given out after battle,
small triumphs pinned to the chest -
And when two people have loved each other
see how it is like a
scar between their bodies,
stronger, darker, and proud;
how the black cord makes of them a single fabric
that nothing can tear or mend."

- Jane Hirshfield

Complement with David Whyte’s sensitive meditation on what we place between ourselves and true love and Derek Walcott’s “Love After Love” - a classic hymn to living ourselves back to life after heartbreak - then revisit Jane Hirshfield’s timeless ode to resilience, “The Weighing.

"What A Privilege!"

“Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, “This is what I need.” It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment- not discouragement- you will find the strength there. Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege! This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have a chance to flow. Then, when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures, followed by wreckage, were the incidents that shaped the life you have now. You’ll see this is really true. Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not. The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes.”
~ Joseph Campbell

"Compassion..."

“Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what
it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge
 that there can never really be any peace and joy for me
until there is peace and joy finally for you too.”
- Frederick Buechner

"How It Really Is"

"The Means Are The End"

"The Means Are The End"
by Robert Gore

"Ignore the words and slogans associated with humanity’s periodic descents into death and destruction and what’s left? What’s on the other side of the rhetoric and ritualistic ends-justify-the-means rationalizations? More death and destruction. The means are the end, there’s nothing else. The dictators kill their way to the top and then keep on killing. Many of their victims believe the rhetoric. A few grasp during their last moments that their killers meant to kill them all along.

Humanity is once again confronted by a movement that once again claims our subjugation and its absolute power will lead to utopia. Along the way a few must be sacrificed for the greater good. If things go according to plan, few will mean billions, but the promised paradise will be worth it. Paradise for the homicidal psychopaths promoting and perpetrating these horrors is a world turned into a charnel house. The object of murder is murder.

One reason they employ the smear “extremist” is to divert people from reaching extreme conclusions, especially if they’re the correct ones. People who realize they’re going to be murdered will fight back, which is troublesome for the utopians. Is mass murder the object? Cast aside the propaganda and look at what’s actually happening.

The figurative representation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is a sphere dotted with the coronal spike proteins that give coronaviruses their name. The novelty of the mRNA technology incorporated into the widely used Pfizer and Moderna vaccines is that they instruct cells to produce the same spike proteins. The assurances were that spike proteins produced by the vaccines would act locally, at the site of the shot, and that they would stimulate the immune system’s production of antibodies against the virus with no pathogenic effects.

The assurances were false. From the injection site the vaccine can travel via the bloodstream all over the recipient’s body to organs, tissues, glands, and systems, where cells are stimulated to produce the spike proteins. The spike proteins are pathogens even when detached from the virus. Often they disappear within a few days with no immediately apparent ill effects, but not always. In the vascular system, they can damage the endothelial tissue that lines blood vessels and the blood vessels themselves by binding to cells’ ACE2 receptors, leading to inflammation, bleeding, and blood clots. They can cross the blood-brain barrier and cause neurological damage. Spike proteins can damage cells throughout the body, accounting for the vaccines’ myriad reported adverse effects.

They apparently have an affinity for sexual organs. Menstrual problems and first-trimester miscarriages have been reported at far higher than normal rates among mRNA-vaccinated woman. For males, there have been reports of testicular damage, including swelling, and erectile dysfunction. We have no idea what these effects this may have on fertility long-term, but it should have been exhaustively studied before a single shot was administered to children.

Many adverse effects are identical to symptoms of Covid because they are both produced by the same spike proteins. Recent research indicates that the spike proteins may damage cells’ DNA and inhibit their natural DNA repair mechanisms. If this research is borne out, it will end the definitional dispute as to whether the mRNA vaccines are more properly termed “gene therapies”- they are. Given the potential damage to DNA, even gene therapies is misleading -there’s nothing genetically therapeutic about them.

When the Covid vaccines were rolled out, their manufacturers did not claim that they would either prevent Covid infections or transmission of the virus. The only efficacy claim was that vaccines would lesson the severity of Covid symptoms in those who contracted it. That makes these vaccines “leaky” rather than sterilizing - they don’t wipe out the virus.

The pressure that vaccines put on the virus cause it to mutate. An unvaccinated individual with a healthy immune system will produce antibodies that not only fight the original virus but variants as well. The Covid vaccines stimulate antibodies that only fight the original virus. Paradoxically, those antibodies may not be merely ineffective against variants, they can enhance the variants’ pathogenic effects, a phenomenon known as Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE).

The leakiness of the vaccines and ADE explain why fully vaccinated (original shots plus boosters) people contract Covid, even though at least one variant, delta, is supposed to be less pathogenic than the original. Vaccine proponents have admitted that vaccine efficacy wanes after a few months and now advocate booster shots. The boosters are essentially untested repeats of the original vaccines and are not designed for the variants.

Unfortunately, the vaccines and boosters impair the body’s natural immune system, which means it can no longer address the variants either. The fully vaccinated can be both infected by and transmit Covid. Thus, countries with high vaccination rates are seeing outbreaks of Covid that in some cases are more severe than outbreaks pre-vaccination. They are also experiencing above trend incidences of all-cause mortality, which may well be induced by the spike proteins, ADE, and reduced immune system effectiveness that flow from the vaccines and their boosters.

The origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is still in dispute. If, as alleged, it came from a lab in Wuhan, China whose gain-of-function research was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, then the disease and the touted cures come from the same globally interconnected amalgam of government agencies, nonprofit foundations, and corporations. And if Covid and all-cause mortality continue to climb because of widespread vaccination campaigns, then this amalgam has created a Doom Loop.

The Doom Loop started with a virus that kills a quarter to a half of 1 percent of those it afflicts. If it had been addressed in the same manner as previous viruses - sensible precautions and isolation of the infected - it would have shared their fate. By now it would be burned out or close to it. If the virus and cures are coming from the same people and institutions it’s telling evidence of malevolent intent. Even if that’s not the case, the vaccines’ deleterious effects -spike protein pathologies, ADE, and diminished immune capacity - were well known from vaccine research conducted on other coronaviruses before the appearance of SARS-CoV-2, wherever it came from.

Animal tests of mRNA vaccines against earlier coronaviruses initially produced an immune response, but ferrets, mice, and other test animals later died when exposed to variant strains. The SARS-CoV-2 vaccines’ animal testing was stopped before this[ secondary responses could kick in and conclusions could be drawn about ADE and diminished immune capacity.

Pfizer and Moderna also invalidated their own human control groups, who had been given a placebo, by giving them the vaccine shortly after the rushed first phase of the studies was completed. Both experimental procedures prevented any scientific assessment of long-term consequences before the vaccines received their emergency use authorizations.

In the absence of such knowledge widespread administration of the vaccines amounts to pharmacological Russian roulette. The Doom Loop is progressive and cumulative precisely because it’s gradual and long-term. Vaccines are administered, they damage cells all over the body, weaken the immune system, and promote variants against which the vaccines are ineffective. Recipients are rendered less able to fight the spike proteins from either Covid or those produced by the vaccines, and with each booster they receive, the damage increases and harms intensify, their shots preventing neither infection nor transmission.

Vaccine proponents insist that everyone on the planet get vaccinated. However, their ham-handed “Trust Us, We Know Best” propaganda seems designed to lead the independent-minded who distrust authority to resist vaccination. Distrust only intensifies when certain groups are exempted, particularly the migrants flooding the southern border and politically powerful constituencies. The proponents had to know that the alternative media would publicize vaccines’ adverse effects and breakthrough cases of Covid in the vaccinated. These are now so widespread that stories even leak into the mainstream media.

Promoting skepticism, doubt, and distrust is probably part of the Doom Loop as well. Medically, the plan doesn’t require universal vaccination. Voluntary uptake rates in the most vaccinated nations will be more than sufficient to perpetuate it. The unvaccinated make a convenient, albeit increasingly implausible, scapegoat. Plausibility is not a concern, though; enough people accept the propaganda without question and criticisms have been sufficiently suppressed. Non-vaccination status is also a convenient marker for the troublesome independent-minded who distrust authority. Outright coercion to vaccinate them would spur resistance. So identified, they can be quietly eliminated by other means.

The Doom Loop is a masterplan for mass murder. “Coranicide” was SLL’s term for it last year before the vaccines were in place. The Covid outbreak and the irrational and anti-scientific response to it insidiously and inexorably promotes that objective, particularly vaccines. Non-medical developments compound the threat.

Government and central bank fiat-debt debasement have exploded, undermining incomes, saving, investment, and wealth, sparking a consumption and speculation binge. The distorted-beyond-recognition global economy features shortages and galloping price increases for virtually everything, including labor.

Energy shortages and rising prices have been exacerbated by the replacement of reliable fossil fuels and nuclear with unreliable renewable energy that is at its most unreliable in cold weather. Winter is coming. David Stockman recently did a five-part series debunking green energy mythology. (They’re excerpted on SLL with links back to the original articles; put “Stockman” in the search box.) The government-mandated replacement of fossil fuels and nuclear with renewables regardless of the costs and consequent havoc is touted by the same people and features the same garbage science and objectives as the Doom Loop.

Sickening us, bringing the economy to its knees, and freezing us out aren’t enough, they aim to starve us as well. Nothing brings home shortages quite like empty grocery store shelves. Of course sick, impoverished, freezing, starving people are compliant, but ultimately that’s not what the Doom Loopers want. The enslaved masses will be barely productive enough to provide for their own subjugation and subsistence, the usual economics of slavery. They’ll be eliminated.

Only by dint of massive mental and psychological evasion can the Doom Loopers believe that they won’t ultimately meet the same fate. Their current wealth and power are directly related to population. People provide the innovation, work, and markets upon which that wealth and power rest. Artificial intelligence is nowhere near advanced enough to replace humans as agents of innovation and progress, and even if it were, where would the markets come from if most of the population is wiped out? Eliminate freedom and you eliminate not just its fruits but eventually its eliminators.

Why are they doing this? The explanation offered by Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged and quoted in SLL’s “The Last Gasp” still stands, more obvious now than it was in March 2020 when that article was written. Perhaps the greatest fictional scene she ever wrote was the one towards the end of the novel when John Galt is strapped to an electroshock torture machine and after it fails tells his torturers how to fix it. The desire to rule is the desire to destroy... everything.

"He was suddenly seeing the motive that had directed all the actions of his life. It was not his incommunicable soul or his love for others or his social duty or any of the fraudulent sounds by which he had maintained his self-esteem: it was the lust to destroy whatever was living, for the sake of whatever was not. It was the urge to defy reality by the destruction of every living value, for the sake of proving to himself that he could exist in defiance of reality and would never have to be bound by any solid, immutable facts. A moment ago, he had been able to feel that he hated Galt above all men, that the hatred was proof of Galt’s evil, which he need define no further, that he wanted Galt to be destroyed for the sake of his own survival. Now he knew that he had wanted Galt’s destruction at the price of his own destruction to follow, he knew that he had never wanted to survive, he knew that it was Galt’s greatness he had wanted to torture and destroy - he was seeing it as greatness by his own admission, greatness by the only standard that existed, whether anyone chose to admit it or not: the greatness of a man who was master of reality in a manner no other had equaled. In the moment when he, James Taggart, had found himself facing the ultimatum: to accept reality or die, it was death his emotions had chosen, death rather than surrender to that realm of which Galt was so radiant a son. In the person of Galt - he knew - he had sought the destruction of all existence."
Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged", 1957

They want to rule you because they want to kill you because they want to kill every living value, including themselves. The means - suicidal murder - are the end, there’s nothing more. The reset is all the way back to zero.

Fortunately, impending murder backs us into a corner. Real resistance only kicked in when the jab or job threat and its appalling consequences became real. Not coincidentally, “Let’s Go Brandon” took off at the same time. A number of those who have threatened to walk off their jobs, have already done so, or have otherwise tangibly protested either suspect or realize they’re slated for extinction. Faced with the choice to resist or die, a nontrivial percentage will choose the former. As realization continues to spread, so too will the frequency and intensity of resistance. We’re much closer to the beginning of the revolt than the end.

As a general rule, the earlier you recognize someone is trying to kill you, the better off you’ll be. That was the concluding sentence of “Coronacide.” It’s late, but not too late to either recognize the truth or do something about it.
Related:

Saturday, November 13, 2021

"Middle Class Families Moving Back To Motels; Dollar Stores Booming; America's Broken Dream"

Jeremiah Babe, PM 11/13/21:
"Middle Class Families Moving Back To Motels;
 Dollar Stores Booming; America's Broken Dream"
Full screen recommended.
"America's Broken Dream: The Middle-Class Families 
Living in Motels; Poverty in the USA Documentary"
Nov. 2, 2021
"The poor bore the brunt of the sub-prime and credit crisis of 2008. Today, it is the turn of the middle class. The impoverishment of the American middle class is brutal. In a country that established liberalism as a creed, there is no safety net. For those who lose their jobs, the consequences are instantaneous and dramatic.

Larry Dodson, 52, used to manage a large customer service department. But two years ago he lost his job and house. Today he lives in a motel room with his wife and two children and scraps by on $820 dollars a month, welcoming tourists to Disney World. After he has paid the motel fees, he’s left with just $70 for food and other necessities.

Terry used to be a sales manager and enjoyed a good life until he was made redundant. He ended up roaming from motel to motel in his car and eventually was judged ’economically incapable’ of raising his six children. The three eldest were placed in foster care. There are currently 1,800 children growing up in the motels around Disney World. They move from school to school as their parents are forced to find cheaper accommodation."

"Get Ready for the Worst Black Friday Ever - Workers Quit at Record Rate"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, PM 11/13/21:
"Get Ready for the Worst Black Friday Ever - 
Workers Quit at Record Rate"

Musical Interlude: Ludovico Einaudi, "Divenire"

Full screen recommended.
Ludovico Einaudi, "Divenire"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Returning along its 6.4 year orbit, periodic comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P) is caught in this telescopic frame from November 7. Sweeping past background stars in the constellation Gemini the comet's dusty tail stretches toward the upper right to Upsilon Geminorum. Also known as Pollux, Beta Geminorum, Gemini's brightest star, shines just off the upper left edge of the field-of-view. 
Churyumov-Gerasimenko reached its 2021 perihelion or closest approach to the Sun on November 2. At perigee, its closest approach to planet Earth on November 12, this comet was about 0.42 astronomical units away, though it remains too faint to be seen by eye alone. The well-studied comet was explored by robots from planet Earth during its last trip through the inner solar system. It's now famous as the final resting place for the historic Rosetta spacecraft and Philae lander."

"One Needs To Learn..."

"One of life's best coping mechanisms is to know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire – then you’ve got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One needs to learn the difference."
- Robert Fulghum

"All The Money You Make..."

Full screen recommended.
Steve Cutts, "Happiness"
“All the money you make will never buy back your soul. ”
- Bob Dylan

The Poet: Galway Kinnell, "Another Night in the Ruins"

"Another Night in the Ruins"

"How many nights must it take
one such as me to learn
that we aren't, after all, made
from that bird that flies out of its ashes,
that for us
as we go up in flames,
our one work is
to open ourselves,
to be the flames?"

~ Galway Kinnell

The Daily "Near You?"

McHenry, Illinois, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"What the Tipping Point Will Look Like: 5 Signs to Watch For"

Full screen recommended. 
City Prepping, 
"What the Tipping Point Will Look Like: 5 Signs to Watch For"
"The next several years have many issues converging that could result in a tipping point impacting humanity in ways not seen in generations. Armed with the foreknowledge of these challenges allows you to prepare accordingly."

"Revenge of the Real World"

"Revenge of the Real World"
by Charles Hugh Smith

"Rather than stare at empty shelves, you have two options for distraction: You can don a virtual-reality headset and cavort with dolphins in the “metaverse” or you can trade various forms of phantom wealth that always go up (happy, happy!) because of the Fed.

Neither distraction actually solves any real-world problems, a reality we can call the “Revenge of the Real World.” We've entered a peculiar phase in American history in which illusions of wealth and control are the favored distractions from the unraveling of the real-world economy and social order.

Printing trillions of currency units can't restore the global supply chain or social cohesion. Rather, jacking phantom wealth to the moon is only accelerating the collapse of the social order and the economy even as it accomplishes absolutely nothing in terms of solving real-world problems. Let's start with the core economic realities of the 21st century…

The Facts:

1. The number of high-consumption ("middle-class") people doubled from 1 billion to 2 billion. The human populace has expanded to 7.9 billion individuals, but poor people who don't have enough money to consume large quantities of energy, goods and services delivered by the global supply chain don't have much of an impact on global consumption of energy and resources. It's the number of people jetting around the world playing their part in the landfill economy (toss the old one, buy a new one) who drive "growth" (i.e., waste is growth).

Strangely enough, there are actual physical limits to resources being transformed into junk being dumped in the landfills. Humanity's rapacious appetite for stuff has extracted all the cheap-to-extract resources and now all that are left are the increasingly expensive-to-extract resources.

2. Corporate America offshored most of the production of essentials to exploit the low labor and energy costs, minimal environmental standards and currency arbitrage of overseas production. The net result has been an astounding increase in corporate profits. But a funny thing happened on the way to Corporate Profit Nirvana: America became dependent on foreign supply chains. In essence, we traded national security for corporate profits. Now the real-world costs of that myopic greed are becoming apparent.

3. Global supply chains have been optimized for cheap energy and cheap credit. This optimization stripped away all the buffers as a means of maximizing profits. Once the system veered outside the narrow band of optimization, the entire system lost coherence and unraveled.

Counting on Magic: Now that the entire global supply chain has been optimized to maximize profits at the expense of buffers, the buffers are too thin to save the system from collapse. The entire dependency chain depends on cheap energy (all those cheap seats on wide-body aircraft were subsidizing the air cargo beneath the passengers' feet) and cheap credit, as consumers can't buy enough with earnings to keep the machine well-oiled. And firms in the dependency chain need ample cheap credit to function, as many have receivables that stretch out over 90 days. Without cheap credit, these firms would have to close down.

The status quo response would be amusing if the consequences weren't so dire: We don't need no stinking buffers! The supply chain for the landfill economy will be back up to full speed any day now, or maybe next year, but don't you worry, the conveyor belt from China to big-box stores to the landfill will be fully restored.

In the meantime, cavort with dolphins in the metaverse and trade tokens of phantom wealth to amuse yourself. We're counting on magic to put it all right, and if that doesn't work, then the real world's revenge will be something to behold. What about the precious dollar? Is it toast? Let’s think about this…

TINA: The consensus makes sense: The U.S. dollar is doomed because the Federal Reserve and the Treasury will conjure trillions of new dollars out of thin air to prop up the status quo entitlements, monopolies, cartels and debt/asset bubbles, and since little of this issuance actually increases productivity, all it will accomplish is the dilution/devaluation of the currency.

Put simply, the dollar will lose its purchasing power as the inevitable result of the need to print and borrow ever-increasing sums to pay interest on existing debts; fund bread and circuses to keep the masses placated; and keep inflating the asset bubbles in stocks, housing, bat guano, etc. to maintain the illusion of prosperity.

This destruction of the dollar is TINA writ large: There is no alternative. The only way to keep the status quo from imploding is to print as many trillions as are needed, and this inevitably devalues the currency to the point of worthlessness.

OK, we get it: TINA so the dollar dies. But let's consider TINA from the perspective of the deep state...

Will the Deep State Allow the Dollar to Crash? Destroying the purchasing power of the dollar destroys the engine of America's power, which is the ability ("exorbitant privilege") to conjure "money" out of thin air and be able to trade this "money" for cobalt, steel, semiconductors, etc. supplied by other nations.

If the dollar is destroyed by overissuance, then how do we buy the cobalt and other goodies we need to keep the aircraft carriers and all their aircraft in working order? This is a problem, for if we can't conjure "money" out of thin air and persuade everyone it still has value, then America's global influence dissipates into thin air.

So what the consensus proposes as inevitable is financial trickery will destroy America's global influence and its prosperity, and there's no alternative. In other words, the deep state will just throw up its collective hands and surrender its empire so Wall Street can continue inflating its bubble of phantom wealth, even as that destroys the dollar, America's global empire and ultimately its prosperity.

Is this really inevitable? Isn't it plausible that the deep state might rouse itself from its various distractions and take notice that once the dollar loses purchasing power the deep state loses all its power? Are there really no adults left in the room who can make this basic observation?

Wall Street or Empire? For the sake of argument, let's assume there are a few adults left who understand that the dollar is the linchpin of the entire empire and so it's actually worth protecting. And let's also assume these few adults understand that boatloads of parasites, leeches, speculators, etc. will have to be sacrificed, and all manner of politically sacrosanct bubbles, skims, scams, rackets, monopolies and cartels will have to be demolished, much to the dismay of the parasites, leeches, speculators, etc. who have gotten immensely wealthy off these bubbles, skims, scams, rackets, etc.

It seems impossible that the parasites, leeches, speculators, etc. at the top of the heap could be brought down. It's certainly a stretch, given their entrenched power. It seems much more likely that the game of incrementally devaluing the dollar will continue indefinitely. But what's the endgame of this devaluation? Is it really so faraway that the banquet of consequences will never be served? These sorts of things have a way of gathering momentum as self-reinforcing feedbacks kick in, and then the consequences are served up faster than anyone believed possible.

Which is more valuable: Wall Street's debt/asset bubbles or the global empire? You can't have both, so choose wisely. The contrarian bet is that the deep state finally awakens from its troubled sleep and decides the empire is more valuable than the bubbles, skims, scams, rackets, etc. and so the dollar will have to be defended regardless of the cost to those benefiting from its devaluation. Very few are willing to take that bet now, but let's get comfortable and watch the printing-borrowing-trillions devaluation game for a few more years and see how it plays out."

"How It Really Is"

 

Free Download: Hermann Hesse, "Siddhartha"

"Siddhartha"
by Hermann Hesse

"Siddhartha" is a novel by Hermann Hesse that deals with the spiritual journey of a boy known as Siddhartha from the Indian Subcontinent during the time of the Buddha. The book, Hesse's ninth novel, was written in German, in a simple yet powerful and lyrical style. It was first published in 1922, after Hesse had spent some time in India in the 1910s. It was published in the U.S. in 1951 and became influential during the 1960s. Hesse dedicated "Siddhartha" to Romain Rolland, "my dear friend".

The word Siddhartha is made up of two words in the Sanskrit language, siddha (achieved) + artha (meaning or wealth). The two words together mean "he who has found meaning (of existence)" or "he who has attained his goals". The Buddha's name, before his renunciation, was Prince Siddhartha Gautama. In this book, the Buddha is referred to as "Gotama".

Plot summary: It starts as Siddhartha, the son of a Brahmin, leaves his home to join the ascetics with his companion Govinda. The two set out in the search of enlightenment. Siddhartha goes from asceticism, to a very worldly life as a trader with a lover, and back to asceticism as he attempts to achieve this goal. The story takes place in ancient India around the time of Gautama Buddha (likely between the fourth and seventh centuries BC.

Experience is the aggregate of conscious events experienced by a human in life – it connotes participation, learning and knowledge. Understanding is comprehension and internalization. In Hesse’s novel "Siddhartha," experience is shown as the best way to approach understanding of reality and attain enlightenment – Hesse’s crafting of Siddhartha’s journey shows that understanding is attained not through scholastic, mind-dependent methods, nor through immersing oneself in the carnal pleasures of the world and the accompanying pain of samsara; however, it is the totality of these experiences that allow Siddhartha to attain understanding. Thus, the individual events are meaningless when considered by themselves—Siddhartha’s stay with the samanas and his immersion in the worlds of love and business do not lead to nirvana, yet they cannot be considered distractions, for every action and event that is undertaken and happens to Siddhartha helps him to achieve understanding. The sum of these events is thus experience.

For example, Siddhartha’s passionate and pained love for his son is an experience that teaches him empathy; he is able to understand childlike people after this experience. Previously, though he was immersed in samsara, he could not comprehend childlike people’s motivations and lives. And while samsara clung to him and made him ill and sick of it, he was unable to understand the nature of samsara. Experience of samsara at this point did not lead to understanding; perhaps it even hindered him. In contrast to this, Siddhartha’s experience with his son allows him to love, something he has not managed to do before; once again, the love itself does not lead to understanding.

The novel ends with Siddhartha being a ferryman, learning from a river, and at long last at peace and capturing the essence of his journey: "Slower, he walked along in his thoughts and asked himself: “But what is this, what you have sought to learn from teachings and from teachers, and what they, who have taught you much, were still unable to teach you?” And he found: “It was the self, the purpose and essence of which I sought to learn. It was the self, I wanted to free myself from, which I sought to overcome. But I was not able to overcome it, could only deceive it, could only flee from it, only hide from it. Truly, no thing in this world has kept my thoughts thus busy, as this my very own self, this mystery of me being alive, of me being one and being separated and isolated from all others, of me being Siddhartha! And there is no thing in this world I know less about than about me, about Siddhartha!”

"Never, Ever Forget..."

"Never, ever forget that nothing in this life is free. Life demands payment in some form for your "right" to express yourself, to condemn and abuse the evil surrounding us. Expect to pay... it will come for you, they will come for you, regardless. Knowing that, give them Hell itself every chance you can. Expect no mercy, and give none. That's how life works. Be ready to pay for what you do, or be a coward, pretend you don't see, don't know, and cry bitter tears over how terrible things are, over how you let them become."
- Ernest Hemingway, "For Whom the Bell Tolls "

Free Download: Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged "

"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 "

"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"
"Moral compass?" This is 'Murica, fool...
And it ain't funny.
Freely download "Atlas Shrugged", by Ayn Rand, here:

"Do You Wish To Know?"

"Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard - the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money - the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law- men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims- then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion- when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing- when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors- when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you- when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed."
An excerpt from “Atlas Shrugged,” by Ayn Rand.
Full text of “Francisco’s Money Speech” is here:

"Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Avenue, Nov.12, 2021"

Full screen recommended.
"Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Avenue, Nov.12, 2021"

"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."

"The Hyphen..."

"Life is the hyphen between matter and spirit."

- A.W. and J.C. Hare, "Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers," 1827

"Too Often..."

"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word,
a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring,
all of which have the potential to turn a life around."
- Leo Buscaglia

"Remember..."

“Remember, we all stumble, every one of us.
That’s why it’s a comfort to go hand in hand.”
- Emily Kimbrough

Friday, November 12, 2021

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Stillpoint"

Full screen recommended.
2002, "Stillpoint"

"Into The Abyss We Go…"

Full screen recommended.
"Into The Abyss We Go…"
by Epic Economist

"Why won’t our politicians ever listen? Americans have made it exceedingly clear that they don't agree with vaccination mandates, but the administration has decided to ignore the people and do whatever they want anyway. The nationwide OSHA mandate will go into effect early in 2022, and that is putting millions of workers and hundreds of thousands of businesses on the edge. The OSHA mandate will affect the lives of tens of millions of people, and some economists argue that it could potentially result in a severe shortage of highly qualified workers by the beginning of 2022. New estimates point that the order will apply to approximately 84 million workers. Thankfully, many representatives are noticing the immense absurdity of this measure, and some of them are already challenging it in court.

From an economic perspective, this measure will have absolutely disastrous consequences. Especially considering that we're already in the middle of a severe worker shortage. The fact over 80 million more workers may be pushed out of their jobs is just insane. We're currently facing the worst supply chain crisis in modern history, and forcing all of these people out of the labor market right in the middle of the upcoming winter will take both the worker shortage and the supply chain crisis to a whole new level. But the government is insisting to do it anyway.

Last week, White House officials announced that staff members of companies with 100 or more employees are required to show proof of vaccination until the end of the first week of January 2022. Those who choose not to comply have to get tested for the virus on a weekly basis and show negative results if they want to keep working. To make things even worse, OSHA warned that companies that fail to comply are eligible to pay a fine of nearly $14,000 per violation.

Other Georgia lawmakers added that "millions of American workers will fight against job losses over the vaccine mandate, but many of them are unfortunately bound to tight non-compete clauses. If terminated, these people will be held in workers' purgatory -- they won't be able to earn a living, and they can't find a new job. How are they expected to put food on their table? This is unacceptable!" New York Congresswoman Claudia Tenney said the "OSHA rule far exceeds the boundaries of executive authority": "The President has made the decision to render our constitutional guardrails completely irrelevant," she added. "It is truly the point of no return for this Administration, and the rule will further exacerbate an already disastrous labor crisis."

This is where we're at now: in the middle of a tyrannical uprising led by those who vowed to protect us. Remember the days when America used to be the “land of the free”? Those are far gone by now. The coming months will be incredibly hard. As the new rules push the economy into the abyss, we're about to see the ongoing shortages getting a whole lot worse and prices spiking to unprecedented levels. The administration's obsession with vaccine mandates is clearly making them forget about the issues plaguing Americans' everyday lives. The top concern of our society right now is rising inflation, which economists say will only get worse with the new mandate.

We're being warned to brace ourselves for “sticker shock” when we go to the stores. A wide range of food products is already facing sharp price hikes. For meat-eaters, the increase is absolutely shocking. Some cuts have surged by 25 percent over the past year, and others are reaching near-record prices, which is making meat one of the biggest contributors to food inflation in the US. And industry experts forecast that meat prices will keep going up through the holidays and beyond. It goes without saying that these problems will continue to intensify over the coming year. That's why we always recommend you to stock up while you can because many unpleasant disruptions emerge every day. From now on, food prices are only going to get higher, and if you're amongst those whose job is on the line because of those new mandates, you should start getting ready as soon as you can because very dark days are ahead."

"A Look to the Heavens"

"The small, northern constellation Triangulum harbors this magnificent face-on spiral galaxy, M33. Its popular names include the Pinwheel Galaxy or just the Triangulum Galaxy. M33 is over 50,000 light-years in diameter, third largest in the Local Group of galaxies after the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), and our own Milky Way. About 3 million light-years from the Milky Way, M33 is itself thought to be a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy and astronomers in these two galaxies would likely have spectacular views of each other's grand spiral star systems. 
As for the view from planet Earth, this sharp image shows off M33's blue star clusters and pinkish star forming regions along the galaxy's loosely wound spiral arms. In fact, the cavernous NGC 604 is the brightest star forming region, seen here at about the 4 o'clock position from the galaxy center. Like M31, M33's population of well-measured variable stars have helped make this nearby spiral a cosmic yardstick for establishing the distance scale of the Universe."

Gregory Mannarino, "Must Watch! Shock And Awe: The US Dollar Value Is Plummeting! Get Out Of The Dollar Now!"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 11/12/21:
"Must Watch! Shock And Awe: 
The US Dollar Value Is Plummeting! 
Get Out Of The Dollar Now!"

"Are We Living Through the Most Terrifying Experiment in Human History?"

"Are We Living Through the Most Terrifying 
Experiment in Human History?"
by Chris MacIntosh

"Any organized structure is corrupted over time. That is a law of entropy. The "Universe 25" experiment is one of the most terrifying experiments in the history of science. It involves the behavior of a colony of mice, and is an attempt by scientists to explain human societies.

Here is what happened. Between the late 1960s and early 1970s, American ethologist John B. Calhoun created a seemingly perfect utopia for mice. Calhoun built a predator-free, disease-free enclosure, furnished it with limitless food and even an upper level with miniature mouse condos. Essentially, the mice would enjoy all the modern comforts that people in the developed world have come to enjoy and now actually expect today as a "right".

Consider what we are witnessing today. What I call "safety extremists" run the Western liberal democracies. It is as if hall room monitors all got put in charge. No climbing trees for Johnny because he may fall. Safety extremism. You can’t ride your bike without a helmet on. Safety extremism. Warning signs on hot coffee cups, telling you that the coffee is hot. The list of safety extremism is endless. So, you see, we’re like these mice. Now, along comes the hand-wringing lefties who believe it’s everyone's "right" to enjoy all the benefits of a modern world.

Let’s see what happened to the mice because it’s instructive for what is happening to Western societies.

The Experiment: To begin the experiment, Calhoun introduced four pairs of healthy mice into the enclosure. For the first 104 days, the mice explored their new habitat, marked their territory, and began nesting. Then, the population began to increase, doubling every 55 days. All normal stuff.

Interestingly, even when the population was well under 1/4 of the enclosure’s capacity, most of the mice still crowded together in select areas. Eating, for example, was a shared activity, so mice would group together during feeding times even though there was plenty of space to eat by themselves. Just like humans.

By the 315th day, the population reached 620 mice. Crowding behavior discouraged mating, heavily contributing to dropping birth rates. Universe 25 would now begin its slow but steady decline. A prominent social ladder quickly took shape.

Within the male population, the most dominant mice were characterized by their extremely aggressive behavior. The so-called "alpha mice" would often engage in wildly violent bloodbaths, proceeding to attack, rape, and even practice cannibalism at the expense of their peers. Disturbingly, these violent outbursts usually had no clear provocation or motive.

On the opposite side of the spectrum were the least socially adept mice who were completely excluded from mating. They spent their time moving between larger groups of mice, eating, and sleeping by themselves. Occasionally, these mice would also fight one another.

As the social roles broke down, the females took on more aggressive attitudes of their own. Taking care of their nests in the midst of such a chaotic domain was no easy task, so many mothers would sometimes act violently towards their own litters. Others would completely withdraw from their motherly responsibilities, ignoring their litters and quitting mating practices entirely.

Day 560 marked the beginning of the end, the "death phase." The spike in mortality rate fluctuated at around 100%, halting population increase altogether. However, the new generations that did survive had grown up in the tumultuous environment that was the Universe 25. These mice had no perception of the "normal" lives that mice led beyond the enclosure’s walls. "Studies… have consistently revealed that an absence of social stimulus and maternal care leads to a high rate of physical and emotional retardation and mortality."

Now, consider the absence of social stimulus that we’ve all experienced during this plandemic. In the context of the Universe 25, isolation paved the way for a new category of mice that Calhoun called the "beautiful ones." These mice were segregated from the other, bloodthirsty mice and the violence that plagued the rest of the enclosure. Their subsequently unruffled appearances were the inspiration for their name.

Furthermore, being separated from the rest of the Universe 25 mice, the beautiful ones made no contributions to society. The mice gave no help in mating, mothering, marking territory, etc. Instead, they spent all their time feeding, drinking, grooming, and sleeping.

Eventually, the beautiful ones outnumbered the more aggressive mice. Still, rather than mating or creating new roles in the Universe 25 society, the beautiful ones continued to exist solely for their physiological satisfaction. With everything provided for them in the enclosure, the paradox of the beautiful ones reveals the self-destructive patterns that emerge when living a life without purpose. Soon, because of the collective indifference towards mating or building a sustainable society, the mouse population began to die out until there were no mice left at all. Every single mouse died leaving nothing left. Calhoun repeated this experiment multiple times and found the exact same outcomes every time. Chilling.

Implications For Humanity: The Universe 25 experiment offers insight into the demise of humankind. The beautiful ones in particular show us that individuals will not assume a productive role in society if they do not have proper relationships or role models in the environment they grow up in. It is worth noting that the extreme left, which is found in Western society today, rejects family values in favor of multiculturalism and it is an advocate for universal basic income. How is this any different from the mice? It’s not.

The parallels with Universe 25 and humanity are obvious. Clearly we’re a more sophisticated species with the ability to acknowledge, think about, and change course. What gives me optimism for the future is that during times of crisis we see both the worst of humanity but also the very best. As we head into increasingly troubling times humanity has the chance to stop, recollect, re-evaluate and recalibrate what we value, why life is beautiful and worth fighting for. The minds of mice and men are not the same but just as a diamond is only made when put under extreme pressure, so too are people, communities, and societies."

The Daily "Near You?"

Kinsman, Ohio, USA. Thanks for stopping by!