"Mass Formation Psychosis, Or... Mass Hypnosis - The Madness Of Crowds"

"Mass Formation Psychosis,

Or... Mass Hypnosis - The Madness Of Crowds"

by Robert W Malone MD, MS

"As many of you know, I have spent time researching and speaking about mass psychosis theory. Most of what I have learned has come from Dr. Mattias Desmet, who realized that this form of mass hypnosis, of the madness of crowds, can account for the strange phenomenon of about 20-30% of the population in the western world becoming entranced with the Noble Lies and dominant narrative concerning the safety and effectiveness of the genetic vaccines, and both propagated and enforced by politicians, science bureaucrats, pharmaceutical companies and legacy media.

What one observes with the mass hypnosis is that a large fraction of the population is completely unable to process new scientific data and facts demonstrating that they have been misled about the effectiveness and adverse impacts of mandatory mask use, lockdowns, and genetic vaccines that cause people’s bodies to make large amounts of biologically active coronavirus Spike protein.

These hypnotized by this process are unable to recognize the lies and misrepresentations they are being bombarded with on a daily basis, and actively attack anyone who has the temerity to share information with them which contradicts the propaganda that they have come to embrace. And for those whose families and social networks have been torn apart by this process, and who find that close relatives and friends have ghosted them because they question the officially endorsed “truth” and are actually following the scientific literature, this can be a source of deep anguish, sorrow and psychological pain.

It is with those souls in mind that I included a discussion of the mass formation theory of Dr. Mattias Desmet during a recent talk I gave in Tampa, Florida to an audience of about 2,000. As I looked out into the audience and spoke, I could see relief on many faces, and even tears running from the eyes of stoic men.

Unknown to me, someone recorded the speech and appended the vocal track to a series of calming images of natural landscapes, producing a video that has gone viral throughout the world. The video below video, as well as some notes to clarify and supplement the talk are appended below. Many have told me that they find it very healing. I hope it may help you also.

Full screen recommended.

A brief overview of Mass Formation, which was developed by Dr. Mattias Desmet. He is a psychologist and a statistician. He is at the University of Ghent in Belgium. I think Dr. Mattias is onto something about what is happening and he calls this phenomena:

Mass Formation Psychosis: So, when he says “mass” formation, you can think of this as equivalent to “crowd” formation. One can think of this as: crowd psychosis. The conditions to set up mass formation psychosis include lack of social connectedness and sensemaking as well as large amounts of latent anxiety and passive aggression. When people are inundated with a narrative that presents a plausible "object of anxiety" and strategy for coping with it, then many individuals group together to battle the object with a collective singlemindedness. This allows people to stop focusing on their own problems, avoiding personal mental anguish. Instead, they focus all their thought and energy on this new object.

As mass formation progresses, the group becomes increasingly bonded and connected. Their field of attention is narrowed and they become unable to consider alternative points of view. Leaders of the movement are revered, unable to do no wrong.

Left unabated, a society under the spell of mass formation will support a totalitarian governance structure capable of otherwise unthinkable atrocities in order to maintain compliance. A note: mass formation is different from group think. There are easy ways to fix group think by just bringing in dissenting voices and making sure you give them platforms. It isn’t so easy with mass formation. Even when the narrative falls apart, cracks in the strategy clearly aren’t solving the issue, the hypnotized crowd can’t break free of the narrative. This is what appears to be happening now with COVID-19. The solution for those in control of the narrative is to produce bigger and bigger lies to prop up the solution. Those being controlled by mass formation no longer are able to use reason to break free of the group narrative.

Of course, the obvious example of mass formation is Germany in the 1930s and 40s. How could the German people who were highly educated, very liberal in the classic sense; western thinking people… how could they go so crazy and do what they did to the Jews? How could this happen? To a civilized people? A leader of a mass formation movement will use the platform to continue to pump the group with new information to focus on. In the case of COVID-19, I like to use the term “fear porn.” Leaders, through main stream media and government channels continuously feed the “beast” with more messaging that focus and further hypnotize their adherents.

Studies suggest that mass formation follows a general distribution:

● 30% are brainwashed, hypnotized, indoctrinated by the group narrative.

● 40% in the middle are persuadable and may follow if no worthy alternative is perceived.

● 30% fight against the narrative.

Those that rebel and fight against the narrative, become the enemy of the brainwashed and a primary target of aggression. One of the the best ways to counter mass formation is for those against the narrative to continue to speak out against it, which serves to help break the hypnosis of some in the brainwashed group as well as persuade the persuadable middle to choose reason over mindlessness.

Dr. Desmet suggests that for something as big as COVID-19, the only way to break the mass formation psychosis is to give the crowd something bigger to focus on. He believes that totalitarianism may be that bigger issue. Of course, after COVID-19, global totalitarianism may be the biggest issue of our time."

- https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/

"Freedom Is the Answer"

"Freedom Is the Answer"

by Jeffrey Tucker

"I’m now looking again at the polls of Biden’s popularity. They are shocking, even devastating. We are looking at nearly a 12-point split between approval and disapproval. I’m assuming that the reality is much worse, given that everyone knows what one is supposed to tell the pollsters. They are not looking for disapproval. They are looking for compliance. That so many are willing just to say what they think is striking.

To me, these numbers represent far more than the unpopularity of one guy. They are but a sign - a slight one but one we can see - of something far more fundamental going on. What we see here is a deeply dangerous loss of trust not only in government, but in everything, including tech, media, experts in general, and a growing cultural perception that truth is no longer accessible to us.

We are living amidst the rising of information chaos, the late stages of what Robert Malone has called mass formation psychosis. Where it ends up cannot be known in advance, but that something is coming and will hit us very hard is no longer in doubt. I’m still astonished that all of this happened in a mere two years. We went from the feel of peace, prosperity and contentment to absolutism and chaos so quickly. Every time it has seemed like it was ending, there has been another round of awful. And as I’m writing now, the nation is awash in sickness, despite all the measures, the vaccinations, the obsessions, the mitigations with masks and you name it. It has all failed.

What’s Next? The pandemic will end as they always do: with the arrival of herd immunity. That stage becomes the point at which the virus is a normal part of life, breeding with other viruses and becoming normal and seasonal like any sickness. My experts tell me that we are about a month away from that point in the Northeast, but that it has yet to make the rounds in the South, which could be facing a tough spring and summer.

Regardless, it comes to an end, with or without vaccination. What does not end so easily is the statism, the monitoring, the despotism, the urge to control, the rules, the threat that it could all happen again. Getting rid of the pandemic is something nature takes care of. Getting rid of the pandemic controls and the urge to bludgeon people into compliance is a much harder task. It will not likely be accomplished by any political movement.

The answer is likely to be bound up with noncompliance. Many people are already there. They are done obeying. Many people have quit their jobs. They have moved. They have upended their lives in shocking ways. They have completely rethought their relationships to civic institutions and leaders. And they are ready for something entirely new.

The psychologist who is the world’s leading scholar on mass formation psychosis said something interesting in a recent interview. He is Dr. Mattias Desmet of the University of Ghent. He says that the answer is not merely to go back to the previous normal we used to enjoy. It was that old normal that set the stage for the upheaval. We cannot go back because then we risk repeating what we just lived through.

Instead, he says, the entire culture and all countries need to discover a new way of living and thinking, a new relationship with our civic leaders and a new relationship with each other. He declines to say precisely what that looks like. I will say it, however.

Freedom Is the Answer: It must be rooted in the traditions of freedom. We need to learn to find happiness in human choice, tolerance and peace with our neighbors. We need to again find joy in work and fulfillment in prosperity and health. That is a rebuilding exercise that will consume the dominant part of the rest of our lives.

It will likely have to take place in the midst of a growing economic crisis. Inflation might calm down a bit in the first quarter, but the money sloshing around the country and the world has to end up somewhere. It will eventually convert to a much different price level that we have right now. All our savings are at risk. All the things we took for granted in the past could come into question as people look desperately for a way out.

What Can We Trust? People masked up. They distanced. They curbed their social activities. They complied with the shots, one, then two, then the booster. They did everything right. And they got the virus anyway. It is impossible to underestimate the implications of this for millions of people. They trusted the experts. The experts were wrong. Now people have to ask themselves what is next.

Above all else, this is going to be about regaining health. Eat right. Exercise. Get sun. Stop the junk food. Focus on fundamentals. Eat fresh things. Stay as stress-free as possible. Stop playing games with substances that are unhealthy. If we really do all intend to live past the age of 80, we are going to have to rethink many aspects of our lives.

In addition, some of the most astute cultural observers out there are predicting a widespread return to religious faith. Sadly, many of the religious institutions of our past acquiesced to the tyranny. They did not resist. They even preached compliance with practices pushed by Fauci and others, surrendering their leadership in the spiritual realm.

The ones that did not were the oddballs out there, the Amish, the Orthodox Jews and the independent evangelicals. They kept their integrity. They are likely to thrive in the future.

The Crypto Moment: Other institutions that sailed through this crisis will thrive as well. It is impossible not to notice that Bitcoin and associated cryptos paid almost no attention at all to the pandemic, to the shutdowns, to the crackdowns and controls. Blockchain applications continued to function beautifully, without a hitch.

Friends of mine are careful these days to put away as much as 20% of their paycheck into Bitcoin and other cryptos. They leave them there, not spending them unless absolutely necessary. They keep them in cold wallets, holding them and guarding them for the days ahead. This makes sense.

We once imagined that cryptocurrency would become the hand-to-hand currency that would replace fiat money. That day may be coming, but it is a very long way off. The economic function of crypto has been in fact to serve as the safe haven in a world gone mad, an uncorrupted and incorruptible source of value that ignores the nation-state and the madness of political culture.

I never wanted to live in a world with mass loss of trust in everything that so many generations worked so hard for so long to build. But that is where we are. Now is the time for resilience and fortitude, and all the other virtues taught to us by the ancients. Despite all our modern technologies and conveniences, in the end what will save us are not our gadgets, but our values."

- dailyreckoning.com

"How It Really Is"

 

"It's Gonna Get Real Bad; Bank Doors Closed, Locked; Middle Class Savings Gone; Economy Is Dead"

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, PM 1/7/22:

"It's Gonna Get Real Bad; Bank Doors Closed, Locked; 

Middle Class Savings Gone; Economy Is Dead"

○

Related:

"Shocking Consumer Credit Numbers: US Credit 

Card Debt Soars Most On Record With Savings Long Gone"

"Things Become Clear..."

"50 Items That You Should Be Stockpiling For The Imminent Economic Collapse"

Full screen recommended.

"50 Items That You Should Be Stockpiling 

For The Imminent Economic Collapse"

by Epic Economist

"Welcome to 2022! Or as some have been saying on social media "2020, too". The first few days of the year were enough to show us that we have some major challenges are ahead. Way before our reality started to be shaped by a global health crisis, economists were already warning about economic collapse, financial, and geopolitical threats that have been gradually worsening, and that could potentially lead us to the collapse of the world as we know it. The many crises that erupted in 2020 have disrupted our most basic institutions and created imbalances that might take decades to resolve. The economic and financial trends set back then defined the next year, and in 2021, it became crystal clear how global events can accelerate at record speed. Last year, we all have witnessed many of our economic problems being severely aggravated, while ravaging natural disasters led to unprecedented destruction, and our global supply chains faced catastrophic damages, which have been compromising the flow of goods around the planet up until this day.

To make it worse, we ended the year recording another wave of virus cases right when everyone was ready to come back to normal life. And we started 2022 with another round of lockdowns in major manufacturing economies, congested ports, skyrocketing freight rates, widespread business shutdowns, store closures, and a persistent shortage of workers in every corner of the global and domestic industry. Meanwhile, conditions in our financial markets have never looked so risky. Some asset bubbles have already burst and that is triggering a silent chain effect under the surface of the market as billionaire investors strategize to get out of the rally before this gigantic bubble explodes and wipe out trillions of dollars in earnings.

Market insiders and corporate CEOs have been dumping their stocks at an alarming pace, literally selling off billions in stocks at a time, but many investors still don't see this as a signal that something bigger is coming for us. Soon, the Federal Reserve will start tapering its bond purchase program and hiking interest rates to fight inflation, and if you are a regular on our channel, you already know what that means: A massive crash is only a matter of time. The economic outlook doesn't look any more promising. US consumers are getting increasingly frustrated with the acute price increases they've been facing, while store shelves continue to get emptier and emptier. Food prices are spiking to levels we have only seen during the Great Depression of 1929. Living expenses are surging must faster than people's wages can keep up.

And that's not the end of it. The whole world is on the verge of a disastrous energy crisis that is already resulting in prolonged power outages and interruptions in output in some European and Asian countries. The Earth is exhausted. It is losing its capacity of producing enough energy supplies for the entire global population, especially with the extraordinary boost in consumption we have seen over the past two years. There's a huge shortage of raw materials and extreme weather and natural disasters may make this shortage ever worse this year.

With all that said, it is safe to say that an impending societal and economic collapse has never been nearer. In essence, many of the short and long-term trends are starting to spiral out of control, and the least we can do is to get prepared for some extremely troubled times. We must face the fact that there's no turning back anymore. Our leaders have put us in this mess and they won't come to save us when things go from bad to worse. That's why today's video focuses on practical advice for the challenges we will be facing in 2022 and on. We gathered a list of 50 things we should start stockpiling for the year ahead.

Always keep in mind that getting fully prepared for an economic collapse is not something that can be done overnight. In fact, no one can be “fully prepared” for all possible scenarios, but the supplies on this list may be helpful in covering many of the basics. Preparedness is going to be different for everyone and it also depends on where you live or where you plan to go. Just never forget to evaluate your long-term needs during a prolonged period of crisis. We all depend on food, water, power, and shelter to live comfortably. So make sure you pay extra attention to all of those four major areas. And don't forget to share the message. Many people out there are going to need a lot of practical advice as our society starts to fall apart all around us."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

Gregory Mannarino, "Wall Street Superbank Warns Of Potential SURGE In The Price Of Commodities"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 1/7/22:

"Wall Street Superbank Warns Of Potential 

SURGE In The Price Of Commodities"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"The Bubble Economy is About to Burst - The Real Numbers Don’t Lie"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly PM 1/7/22:

"The Bubble Economy is About to Burst - 

The Real Numbers Don’t Lie"

"The economic numbers are awful. The economy is in real trouble. The facts just don’t lie. People are having a very difficult time as everything is propped up and we are told that everything is fantastic."

“The Plain Truth..."

“The plain truth is we are going to die. Here I am, a teeny spec surrounded by boundless space and time, arguing with the whole of creation, shaking my fist, sputtering, growing even eloquent at times, and then - poof! I am gone. Swept off once and for all. I think that is very, very funny.”

- Charles Simic

Musical Interlude: Dan Fogelberg, "Nether Lands"

Full screen recommended.

Dan Fogelberg, "Nether Lands"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"These two mighty galaxies are pulling each other apart. Known as the "Mice" because they have such long tails, each spiral galaxy has likely already passed through the other. The long tails are created by the relative difference between gravitational pulls on the near and far parts of each galaxy. Because the distances are so large, the cosmic interaction takes place in slow motion - over hundreds of millions of years. 

NGC 4676 lies about 300 million light-years away toward the constellation of Bernice's Hair (Coma Berenices) and are likely members of the Coma Cluster of Galaxies. The featured picture was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys in 2002. These galactic mice will probably collide again and again over the next billion years so that, instead of continuing to pull each other apart, they coalesce to form a single galaxy."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap211004.html

Chet Raymo, “In A Dark Time…”

“In A Dark Time…”

by Chet Raymo

“I’ve quoted a few of these lines before, from a poem by Charles Simic:

“It’s like fishing in the dark.

Our thoughts are the hooks,

Our heart the raw bait.

We cast the line past all believing

Into the night sky

Until it’s lost to sight.”

In a sense, that’s the story of my life: a long love affair with the night sky. My first book of popular science was “365 Starry Nights”. My first book of personal prose was “The Soul of the Night: An Astronomical Pilgrimage”. “An Intimate Look at the Night Sky” followed much later, but every book in between, fiction and non-fiction, cast a line into the night sky.

What is it about the starry night that gives rise so effectively to what might be called the “religious instinct”? The dark, precisely. The unplumbable depth. The hiddenness. The silence. The infinity. The abyss of time. I can calculate the number of thimblefuls of water in the sea, but I have no way of knowing how many galaxies there are in the universe, or whether the universe is finite or infinite, or even how many universes might exist. Or where the universe came from. Or where it’s going.

I stand barefoot on the terrace in the dark of night, and looking is a kind of prayer. A prayer without words. Without supplication. A silent acknowledgement of ignorance. Heartfelt ignorance. An ignorance that is a receptacle aching to be filled.

“My heart the bait.”

The dark night of the soul. The starlit valley of shadow. The knowing that unknows. There, just there, hanging between Cassiopeia and Perseus, the barely visible blur of the double cluster, the rent veil of the temple."

“The line’s long unraveling

Rising in our throats like a sigh.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

“Isochronic Tones: Cognition Enhancer For Clearer and Faster Thinking”

Full screen recommended.

“Isochronic Tones:

Cognition Enhancer For Clearer and Faster Thinking”

by Jason Lewis

“HEADPHONES REQUIRED – Note: As this session stimulates each ear with different frequencies, you will need to use headphones to experience the full effect. Alternative background sounds available on Mp3 here: Orchestral, Hybrid, World Music, Rain, Brown Noise.

What does this track do? This session stimulates Beta, SMR and Alpha, alternating in 2 minute increments to help keep the user relaxed and engaged. Note: SMR (sensorimotor rhythm) relates to the frequency range between 12 – 15Hz. It’s associated with sensory processing and motor control. Stimulating this can result in relaxed focus and improved attention. This session is meant to speed up the brain while keeping the left hemisphere dominant (good for attention, concentration and reducing emotional response and hyperactivity). ADD and similar disorders are often characterized by “slow-wave” EEG patterns, particularly in the left frontal region. As such, this session stimulates the left brain hemisphere with Beta frequencies and the right with SMR.

Can it be used to help with studying and if so, when should you listen to it? Yes, it can be helpful to use while studying, and if you read through the many comments about this track, you’ll see that many people have successfully used it for studying. You can either listen to it while you are studying, to get your brain into a good mental state when you need it. Or if you are someone that gets a bit distracted by music while studying, listen to it just before you begin.

How Loud Should The Volume Be? There is varying advice and opinions on the impact of volume with brainwave entrainment, with some saying the louder it is the more impact it has. From my own experience, my advice is to play it at a volume level you feel comfortable with. The main thing to consider is that it should be loud enough to hear the repetitive isochronic tones, so you don’t want it so quiet you can hardly hear them. But you also don’t want it so loud that its uncomfortable for you. Somewhere in the middle is my recommendation. 

Use this session in the morning or afternoon, to train your brain for better cognition, such as clearer and faster thinking. You can either sit somewhere quiet and comfortable with your eyes closed and give your brain a nice workout, or you can also listen to this while doing an activity that requires a boost in concentration, like studying. 

How long should you listen for to get a good effect? It takes around 6 minutes for your brainwaves to fall in step with the tones and become entrained. It then takes time to be guided along the frequency range used in the track. Listening to about half way through is the minimum in my opinion, but 30 minutes is the optimum and preferred length to listen for. 

IMPORTANT RECOMMENDATIONS:

●Drink some water – Make sure you are well hydrated before listening to brainwave entrainment.

WHY? Your brain is made up of around 75% water, so it needs plenty of water to function well. When you stimulate your brain in this way, you’re increasing electrical activity and blood flow in the brain and giving your brain a good workout, so it can be a good idea to drink before listening, so that your brain can fire on all cylinders.

● It is not recommended to listen to this while driving or operating machinery. 

WHY? Brainwave entrainment involves a process of stimulating your brainwaves and changing your mental state. While this is safe to do and use in normal situations, it can sometimes zone you out during the track, as you focus in on the sound of the tones. This could result in you being distracted temporarily, which is not a good thing while you’re driving or operating machinery. Some people also experience tingling and other sensations from the stimulation. While that might feel quite nice sitting in a comfortable chair at home, it could cause you to be distracted while driving and result in an accident.

● It is not recommended to listen to this while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or any mind altering substance.

WHY? When your brain is under the influence of drugs or alcohol it’s not operating to it’s full capacity, and you react differently to stimulation and situations, compared to when you are sober. So as a precaution and because I don’t know how you will react in that situation, I recommend you do not use it in that situation.

● Who Should NOT listen to this audio? Those who should not listen to this video/audio include: Those who are prone to or have had seizures, epilepsy, pregnant or wear a pacemaker should NOT listen to this video/audio. 

WHY? There is insufficient research data in this area, so as a precaution, if you are among the categories listed above, I would recommend you consult a doctor or medical professional before listening to this video/audio.”

- http://www.mindamend.com/

The Poet: Linda Pastan, “What We Want”

“What We Want”

“What we want

is never simple.

We move among the things

we thought we wanted:

a face, a room, an open book

and these things bear our names-

now they want us.

But what we want appears

in dreams, wearing disguises.

We fall past,

holding out our arms

and in the morning

our arms ache.

We don’t remember the dream,

but the dream remembers us.

It is there all day

as an animal is there

under the table,

as the stars are there

even in full sun.”

- Linda Pastan

"No Room For Cowards..."

“Life has no victims. There are no victims in this life. No one has the right to point fingers at his/her past and blame it for what he/she is today. We do not have the right to point our finger at someone else and blame that person for how we treat others, today. Don’t hide in the corner, pointing fingers at your past. Don’t sit under the table, talking about someone who has hurt you. Instead, stand up and face your past! Face your fears! Face your pain! And stomach it all! You may have to do so kicking and screaming and throwing fits and crying – but by all means – face it! This life makes no room for cowards.”

- C. Joybell C.

“Sigmund Wollman’s Reality Test”

“Sigmund Wollman’s Reality Test”

by 
Robert Fulghum  

“In the summer of 1959, at the Feather River Inn near the town of Blairsden in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of northern California. A resort environment. And I, just out of college, have a job that combines being the night desk clerk in the lodge and helping out with the horse-wrangling at the stables. The owner/manager is Italian-Swiss, with European notions about conditions of employment. He and I do not get along. I think he’s a fascist who wants pleasant employees who know their place, and he thinks I’m a good example of how democracy can be carried too far. I’m twenty-two and pretty free with my opinions, and he’s fifty-two and has a few opinions of his own. One week the employees had been served the same thing for lunch every single day. Two wieners, a mound of sauerkraut, and stale rolls. To compound insult with injury, the cost of meals was deducted from our check. I was outraged.

 On Friday night of that awful week, I was at my desk job around 11:00 P.M., and the night auditor had just come on duty. I went into the kitchen to get a bite to eat and saw notes to the chef to the effect that wieners and sauerkraut are on the employee menu for two more days.

That tears it. I quit! For lack of a better audience, I unloaded on the night auditor, Sigmund Wollman.

I declared that I have had it up to here; that I am going to get a plate of wieners and sauerkraut and go and wake up the owner and throw it on him.

I am sick and tired of this crap and insulted and nobody is going to make me eat wieners and sauerkraut for a whole week and make me pay for it and who does he think he is anyhow and how can life be sustained on wieners and sauerkraut and this is un-American and I don’t like wieners and sauerkraut enough to eat it one day for God’s sake and the whole hotel stinks anyhow and the horses are all nags and the guests are all idiots and I’m packing my bags and heading for Montana where they never even heard of wieners and sauerkraut and wouldn’t feed that stuff to the pigs. Something like that. I’m still mad about it.

I raved on this way for twenty minutes, and needn’t repeat it all here. You get the drift. My monologue was delivered at the top of my lungs, punctuated by blows on the front desk with a fly-swatter, the kicking of chairs, and much profanity. A call to arms, freedom, unions, uprisings, and the breaking of chains for the working masses.

As I pitched my fit, Sigmund Wollman, the night auditor, sat quietly on his stool, smoking a cigarette, watching me with sorrowful eyes. Put a bloodhound in a suit and tie and you have Sigmund Wollman. He’s got good reason to look sorrowful. Survivor of Auschwitz. Three years. German Jew. Thin, coughed a lot. He liked being alone at the night job – gave him intellectual space, gave him peace and quiet, and, even more, he could go into the kitchen and have a snack whenever he wanted to – all the wieners and sauerkraut he wanted. To him, a feast. More than that, there’s nobody around at night to tell him what to do. In Auschwitz he dreamed of such a time. The only person he sees at work is me, the nightly disturber of his dream. Our shifts overlap for an hour. And here I am again. A one-man war party at full cry.

“Fulchum, are you finished?”

“No. Why?”

Lissen, Fulchum. Lissen me, lissen me. You know what’s wrong with you? It’s not wieners and kraut and it’s not the boss and it’s not the chef and it’s not this job.”

“So what’s wrong with me?”

“Fulchum, you think you know everything, but you don’t 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 got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. Learn to separate the inconveniences from the real problems. You will live longer. And will not annoy people like me so much. Good night.” In a gesture combining dismissal and blessing, he waved me off to bed.

Seldom in my life have I been hit between the eyes with a truth so hard. Years later I heard a Japanese Zen Buddhist priest describe what the moment of enlightenment was like and I knew exactly what he meant. There in that late-night darkness of the Feather River Inn, Sigmund Wollman simultaneously kicked my butt and opened a window in my mind.

For thirty years now, in times of stress and strain, when something has me backed against the wall and I’m ready to do something really stupid with my anger, a sorrowful face appears in my mind and asks: “Fulchum. Problem or inconvenience?”

I think of this as the Wollman Test of Reality. Life is lumpy. And a lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat, and a lump in the breast are not the same lump. One should learn the difference. Good night, Sig.”

- http://www.livinglifefully.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Mimbres, New Mexico, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Everything Crash"

"The Everything Crash"

by Bill Bonner

Poitou, France - "Castles are no place for sick people. Not in the winter. The stone walls and rattlely windows make it impossible to heat properly. There are always mold spores in the cool air. And drafty hallways lead to rooms warmed only by open fires. You spend all day in front of the fireplace… feeding in logs.

Here in France, we live in a big ramshackle chateau far from the chic precincts of Paris. When people hear that you live in a chateau they get the wrong idea. They think you must be rich. But chateaux in France are a dime a dozen… and everybody sees them as a sign, not that you are rich… but that you are stupid. They are expensive to keep up… impractical… and uncomfortable. They drain away savings fast. Energy ebbs away too, as you struggle to keep up with repairs. “When I came to France,” says an English friend in a similar situation, “I was in good shape and the chateau was broken down. Now, I have fixed up the place…but I am broken down.”

So, the rich move on – to ski chalets in the alps… to apartments on the Avenue Foch… or villa on the cote d’Azur. But we’re still here. This is our home, such as it is… and like an old pair of boots… or an old spouse… we’ll stick with it until one of us wears out.

(Photo: The Bonner Chateau… impractical, uncomfortable… home.)

Meanwhile, comes the news from the New World: “Eastern US faces bomb cyclone of snow and wind,” says a headline. We used to face ‘snowstorms.’ A ‘bomb cyclone’ sounds much scarier. Surely, it is caused by ‘climate change.’ And surely, we are all doomed.

Keeping people in a state of alarm seems to be a good strategy for the major media – and the government itself. They seem to want to keep you glued to the news cycle… and ready to follow orders. That’s part of the reason the Fed can no longer tolerate a normal market correction. Or normal interest rates. Now, they’re like normal flu seasons… or a normal recession – the media treats them like the end of the world. Something must be done!

The media creates the demand… the government rushes to fill it with the deciders demanding a new vaccine at ‘warp speed’… or a trillion-dollar budget boost immediately, or else “we may not have an economy on Monday” (as Ben Bernanke, former Fed head put it on Sept.18, 2008).

Back to the Future: This week, we’ve been trying to peek into the future. We take it for granted that we will be surprised. After all, if the future were like the past, what would be the point of having it? We’ve already lived it. So, what will be the Big Frightening Headlines of the months ahead? How about a stock market crash? Followed by another multi-trillion-dollar rescue program?

The likelihood is hard to gauge. But it is not negligible. Commentators are telling us that there is “plenty of liquidity,” so that even if inflation increases and the Fed backs off from its money pumping, stock prices are likely to hold steady or rise. That seems possible. On paper at least, there’s ‘cash’ everywhere – in the game and on the sidelines. But cash is sometimes bold… and sometimes fearful. It doesn’t necessarily want to go into a stock market at an all-time high… or stay there when prices fall.

The investment geniuses on TV tell you not to worry. We’ve had three major sell-offs so far this century, they say. Each time, you would have been better off staying put, rather than selling out. And yes, we could relive any one of those first 21 years of the 21st century, but where would be the surprise in that?

Source: TheChartStore.com)

A real crash and bear market – such as the one in Japan beginning in 1989 – that would be a whole ‘nuther thing. Something people don’t expect. Stocks lost 82% of their value over the next 20 years… and still haven’t recovered 32 years later. And the government’s liquidity didn’t help. It didn’t stop the Japanese stock crash… and it didn’t bring about a stock market recovery either. The Bank of Japan expanded its balance sheet (via ‘printing press’ money) by approximately 1,300% since 1989. Government debt went from under 70% of GDP in 1989 to more than 250% today.

The interesting thing about ‘liquidity’… compared to cold, hard cash… is that it tends to disappear just when you need it. Stocks, for example, are easily liquified. But in a matter of hours… or days… the amount of available liquidity can go not just to zero…. but below… to negative liquidity. You bought a stock on margin. The stock goes down. No margin left… instead, you get a “margin call.” You have to find some liquidity elsewhere or your positions get liquidated.

Margin debt - money borrowed against the value of stocks to buy more stocks - increased over 40% between October 2020 and October 2021. By the end of October 2021, it had reached a $935 billion—an all-time high. It declined to $918 billion in November. Still high. But given this week’s action in the Nasdaq, you wonder if the margin calls have already begun. Also, as investors become convinced that the best place for their money is in the stock market, they tend to leave it there – and borrow against it, rather than liquidate it. So when stocks go down it drains money from other parts of the economy as well.

Imagine a whole society calling up banks… and turning up the seat cushions – looking for liquidity. They will need to refinance over-priced houses… to roll over record business debts (many zombie businesses will soon be desperate)… and to salvage underwater investments. In short, when prices are falling, cash goes into hiding.

A Mean Reversion: In these pages for example, we calculated that the FANGMAN stocks alone could hold as much as $8 trillion in vanishing liquidity. But wait… a TV financial commentator tells us we have a whole new source of ‘liquidity’ – cryptos. They are certainly ‘liquid’ forms of wealth, readily exchanged for other cryptos… and even dollars. That market is said to be worth nearly $3 trillion, ‘that’s $3 trillion dollars of purchasing power that didn’t exist before,” he beamed. But it’s also $3 trillion that could evaporate as easily… and much faster… than it accumulated. Ex nihilo nili fit. So the nili might go right back to the nihilo whence it came. In fact, the total market cap of cryptos hit that $3 trillion peak in November of last year. As of Thursday, it was $1.99 trillion, according to coinmarketcap.com. The big culprit is Bitcoin - the largest crypto by ‘market cap’ - which has fallen from $69,000 at its high to around $41,000 this morning (a respectable correction of 40%).

Taken as a whole, if the stock market were to go back to normal range, about $20 -$30 trillion would go away. That’s based on the historic mean of Warren Buffett’s famous market-cap to-GDP indicator, which is 86%. In other words, with GDP around $23.2 trillion today, stocks would be worth around $29 trillion. The total market cap of the Wilshire 5,000 - the broadest measure of US stocks - hit $48.7 trillion earlier this week.

You do the math. Or we’ll do it for you. Stocks would lose around $28.8 trillion if they declined from 211% of GDP to 86% of GDP. Give or take a couple of trillion, given how markets tend to overcorrect.

It’s not just the magnitude of the bear market that matters. It’s the duration, or time. You never get the time back. The last bear market (defined as a fall of 20% or more from an all-time high) was short and sweet. The S&P fell over 30% during 23 trading days in February and March of 2020. But thanks to the Fed, the index is up 109% since then. Holding paid.

The bear market in 1929 saw stocks fall 86%, peak-to-trough, and lasted 34 months. The 1987 crash saw stocks lose 34% in three months. The S&P 500 lost 49% over 31 months after the dot.com crash in 2000 (it was 78%, peak-to-trough, for the Nasdaq. It was a 57% ‘drawdown’ for the S&P over 17 months after the housing bubble popped in 2007.

Our asset allocation strategy, which Dan Denning tells me he’s updating for early next month, is based on the next crash being bigger (and taking a lot longer to recover from) than recent crashes. Why? It’s a crash in everything. A failure of the Fed’s QE era. Perhaps even a failure of the US dollar itself. Do you have a plan for that? How much liquidity would you have then? Not much. And that would be a big surprise to everyone. Until next week,"

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

"Prices Going Up At Kroger! - More Empty Shelves! - What's Next?"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, "Prices Going Up At Kroger! - 

More Empty Shelves! - What's Next?"

"In today's vlog we are at Kroger with a lot of empty shelves. We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and to get a few items of course they don't have. It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

Gregory Mannarino, "Hiring CRATERS In December As Inflation Continues To Surge Out Of Control"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 1/7/22:

"Hiring CRATERS In December As Inflation 

Continues To Surge Out Of Control"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"How It Really Is"

 

"When That Ol’ Mojo Stops Workin’"

"When That Ol’ Mojo Stops Workin’"

by Jim Kunstler

"What you’re actually seeing in the rhetorical hoo-ha over the January Sixth capitol riot is the main cattle-prod driving mob madness - fear of Covid-19 - losing its power to terrorize the public. The Party-of-Chaos put on a grand opera of lamentation Thursday to celebrate its unity in victim-hood - we wuz so traumatized by the riot! - but in the background, they can see their dearer dream of total vaccination - and total control of the population - fade in the winter mists.

This is the crisis of a managerial class that has lost its ability to manage anything, including all of us. Thus, the hysteria in the blue precincts of America, where they are concentrated. And, as I’ve averred before, the madness probably has its roots in the slow-motion train wreck of our techno-industrial economy. The managerial class can surely sense it and see it coming, but they don’t have a clue what to do about it. So, in desperate need of some signifying ritual, they’re left performing a grand-scale Chinese fire drill like drunken sophomores of yore - a flurry of pointless, attention-seeking activity.

You see, this total vaccination fantasy is meant to compensate for that inability to govern in a time of epic turbulence. It provides an illusion of control. But the obvious insanity of it stands out in the demonstrable facts that the vaccinations don’t work, and that they are racking up an impressive record of harming people. These two facts must be ignored by the vax-happy Blue Team, even as the immunizing and pretty harmless Omicron variant spreads speedily across the land conferring superior natural immunity on those who survive it - which is, functionally, everyone.

The virus looks like it’s on that ol’ exit ramp, but the disintegrating economy will still be with us, and no amount of political degeneracy disguised as virtue will stop it. We still have to manage our lives individually and collectively going through it. It’s going to be a tough slog. The federal government in its current iteration is looking like more of an impediment than a help to any of us. Its current hysterical flounderings send a clear message: You can’t depend on us to do anything right. Instead, select a favorable place to plant your flag, and figure out what you can do locally to rebuild some means of productive activity, fortify basic institutions of law, public safety, and money, and restore credible authority.

You will have to be nimble and resourceful. The Covid lockdowns of the past two years have destroyed many small businesses, but think of that as the tide going out before the blowback of a tsunami that will sweep away the large businesses next. The WalMarts, the automobile industry, the airlines, trucking, Amazon.com, major league sports, the fast-food empires, the oil industry, the mega-banks - all these systems have gone into speed-wobble and most of them will crash hard.

It’s an issue of scale. The broken giants will have to be replaced by lower-scaled systems for producing stuff, moving it, and selling it. That includes food, especially, by the way. How are you going to be part of that where you live? What role can you imagine yourself in? What are you good at? What do you dream of being good at? Can you assemble a social network for yourself? Do you have any ability to look after the public interest? Can you speak coherently? Do you mean what you say? Are you grounded morally in right-and-wrong? Can others depend on you to keep your word? These are the questions that will matter going forward, not whether you were vaccinated, or voted for Mr. Trump, or know the lyrics to God Bless America.

It looks like the disorders of economy and community are heading to center stage as the Covid-19 melodrama closes down. Since human nature is perverse, the current mass formation psychosis may transfer its energy onto new hobgoblins. But the mass of Americans - putting aside blue and red insignia for a moment - might simply be tired of lunacy. They may even begin to show some impatience with those who generate it, for instance the cable TV news channels. Some of the most practiced conveyers of lunacy are heading out the door in the months ahead. Joy Reid of MSNBC is reportedly on her way off-camera (not by choice), and a while back the redoubtably dishonest Rachel Maddow announced her exit for April of this year, probably in anticipation of all her beloved narratives falling apart.

Lunacy is exhausting. Soon enough, even the crazed governments of Euroland and Australia will suddenly drop their lockdowns and vaccination tyrannies as reality presses on the bubbles they occupy. In the face of the Omicron fade-out, they’ll turn 180-degrees and try to pretend that the episode of madness never happened. I doubt they will get away with it. Many politicians in these lands will be bum-rushed from office at the first opportunity.

Even our earnestly malicious Dr. Fauci is back-pedaling furiously, perhaps hearing the bloodhounds of justice yapping out in the gloaming. This week, he finally admitted that half the hospital cases of Covid were actually some other illnesses with the label “Covid” slapped on - in effect, to bribe corrupt hospital managers with big wads of federal subsidy money for using the killer drug remdesivir and intubating hapless Covid victims. Sounds like a racket, a little bit, but then the word racket defines the totality of Dr. Fauci’s career. The decisions he made about banning early treatment of Covid and suppressing information about cheap and effective drugs - in the service of preserving the emergency use authorization and the concomitant liability shield for his deadly “vaccines” - arguably led to the deaths of several hundred thousand people. If he doesn’t live to see prosecution, bear in mind that he had plenty of deputies and associates throughout the public health agencies carrying out that policy who deserve to spend some time in courtrooms.

Meanwhile, the prudent will save their energy to get through the rigors ahead and make plans for a changed economic landscape that will require all the classical virtues they can muster for creating a life worth living."

- https://kunstler.com/

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 1/07/22"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up 1/07/22"

Narrative Continues to Collapse with Vax, Voter Fraud & Fed

by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"I predicted at the end of 2021, the narratives would collapse with the vax, voter fraud and economy propped up by the Fed. I did not realize the collapse would happen at this speed, but it has. There is more bad news with the vax injection narrative. The sick are overwhelmingly the vaxed, and now more autopsies have been done on the injected that show 93% in one study died of the CV19 so-called vaccinations. The vax attacked the body and all its organs, including the heart 100% of the time. The doctors that performed the autopsies have never seen this before.

More is coming out with voter fraud from the 2020 Election season. One whistleblower says he was paid $10 per ballot to rig the election for the Democrat candidates for Senate in Georgia. The whistleblower says 240 other people did the same thing in the Georgia runoff for Senate, and that adds up to $11 million in illegal money and voter fraud to throw the Senate to the Democrats. New information is coming out almost every week, and the fraud is being cut off by state legislatures. The Dems are panicking and trying to change the voter laws on a national level to make legal their fraud of 2020.

Minutes of the Fed meeting in December are out, and the Fed looks like it is worried enough about inflation to do something about it. They can stop the money printing and kill the economy, or they can go full speed ahead with debt monetization and kill the U.S. dollar and probably kill it as the reserve currency of the planet. Tough choice and both are bad. You best be ready and that means own your stuff and cut back on the risk."

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about these 

stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up 1/07/22.

- https://rumble.com/

Musical Interlude: "Dance of Life • Relaxing Fantasy Music for Relaxation & Meditation"

Full screen recommended. 

"Relaxing fantasy music, 

"Dance of Life" by Peder B. Helland, for relaxation and meditation."

"Yet Now..."

“Yet now, as he roared across the night sky toward an unknown destiny, he found himself facing that bleak and ultimate question which so few men can answer to their satisfaction. What have I done with my life, he asked himself, that the world will be poorer if I leave it?”

- Arthur C. Clarke, “Glide Path”

Musical Interlude: The Who, "Overture" from "Tommy"

The Who, "Overture" from "Tommy"

"This Is What Happens When Millions Of Workers Disappear From The System"

"This Is What Happens When Millions 

Of Workers Disappear From The System"

by Michael Snyder

"We were warned that this would happen. In 2021, millions of Americans either quit their jobs or were forced out of their positions because of various mandates that were implemented all over the country. And as I discussed earlier this week, countless other workers either died or became incapacitated last year. As a result, our society is descending into a state of utter chaos and basic services are breaking down all around us.

Let me give you a perfect illustration of what I am talking about. On Sunday, a man in St. Louis called 911 because his brother needed to go to the hospital, and it took 10 hours for the ambulance to get there… "A St. Louis man said it took 10 hours for an ambulance to arrive to help his brother who fell ill Sunday afternoon. Jesse Shaw said his older brother, Wilbert, is now in the hospital fighting for his life. Shaw said his brother woke up in so much pain, he couldn’t move."

If I called 911 and it took an ambulance 10 minutes to come, I would be greatly upset. Can you imagine waiting for 10 hours? That is crazy.

When Shaw asked about the delay, he was told that they simply didn’t have any vehicles available… "Shaw said he rushed over to his brother’s apartment and called 911 around 2:00 p.m. He was hoping to see an ambulance soon after that but ended up waiting for hours. “An hour passed. Two hours passed. Three hours passed,” Shaw said. “I called back just to make sure. Maybe they had the wrong address or something. They said they had the right address, but just didn’t have any vehicles available at the moment.”

I am sure that St. Louis had plenty of empty ambulances just sitting around doing nothing. It is just that they didn’t have enough workers to operate them.

Sadly, some people that actually get to the hospital on time end up dying in our emergency rooms. A few days ago, one of my readers emailed me about what is happening in her area, and she said that I could share this with all of you… "Hi Michael, I hope you are well. Just wanted to share experience where I work. I have worked for the same doctor for over 30 years and I work next to Hospital. 2 people died in waiting room in past week of the ER!. The wait is 12 to 24 hours. My neighbor was stuck in ER for 3 days because of no beds."

A 12 hour wait in an emergency room is inexcusable. But this is what happens when you force thousands upon thousands of hospital workers out of their jobs in the middle of a major national health crisis.

Of course every industry is being hit hard by the trends that we are witnessing, and it is getting worse with each passing month. 4.5 million more Americans quit their jobs in November, and Mike Rowe is warning that “every single American” will be affected as multitudes of highly qualified people leave their posts… "FOX Business personality and “How America Works” narrator Mike Rowe cautioned that “every single American” will feel the effects from the record number of U.S. workers quitting their jobs."

He is right. When basic services break down, we all suffer. According to Rowe, he has “never seen anything like this”… “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Rowe noted. “I’ve heard from the energy industry, the flooring industry… the restaurant industry, the cable and broadband industry, they are all struggling with the same basic problem.”

I have never seen anything like this either. But I specifically warned that this was coming. I warned my readers repeatedly that all of these absurd mandates would cause widespread chaos, and that is exactly how it is playing out.

So what is the federal government going to do about this crisis? Well, apparently yet another “stimulus package” is being prepared… "The Washington Post’s Tony Romm first reported that lawmakers from both parties were in talks about potentially proposing to pump billions into businesses, including hard-hit ones like restaurants. The Post reported that Sens. Ben Cardin, a Democrat from Maryland, and Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican — who are reportedly leading the talks — had put together a $68 billion proposal in December. “We started with restaurants but we’re prepared to expand it if we can have the necessary support,” Cardin told reporters on Wednesday. “There’s other industries that have legitimate concerns.”

Throwing more money at the problem won’t bring back the workers that were sent packing because of the mandates. And throwing more money at the problem certainly won’t bring the workers that have died back from the dead. But it will cause more inflation.

As I have detailed over and over again in recent months, the price of just about everything is shooting up dramatically. Unfortunately, our big spending politicians just can’t help themselves. Whenever they hear about a new problem, their solution is always to pile on more debt and more spending.

Some of the biggest companies in America have already announced huge price increases for 2022, and this is just the beginning. So things are only going to get worse for the millions of U.S. families that are financially stressed because of rising inflation.

According to a study that was recently released, the average American now worries about their finances “six times a day”… "Budgets are tighter for millions of people with 2022 in full swing. Being money-conscious is nothing new for many of us, but new research shows the average American worries about their finances six times a day. The poll of 2,000 adults to uncover how people feel about their finances also finds millennials are more focused on their finances than any other generation."

The level of worry is only going to increase as the cost of living continues to rise much faster than paychecks do. And of course all of this is setting the stage for the sort of horrific inflationary meltdown that I have long warned about.

If you want to know who is responsible for this giant economic mess, it is our “leaders” in Washington. Their policies created the worker shortage that we are now facing. And their policies created the rampant inflation that we now see all around us. In 2022, I am sure that they will find even more ways to royally mess things up. We are starting to reap what we have sown, and it isn’t going to get any easier from here."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"I'm Worried About You; Cash Is King; Aggressive Interest Rates; FED Intervention Will Stop"

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, PM 1/6/22:

"I'm Worried About You; Cash Is King; 

Aggressive Interest Rates; FED Intervention Will Stop"

Gerald Celente, "Trends in The News 1/6/22"

Full screen recommended.

Very strong language alert!

Gerald Celente, "Trends in The News 1/6/22":

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

- https://trendsresearch.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "What?! Another Bailout? Trade Deficit Hits New Record"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 1/6/22:

"What?! Another Bailout? Trade Deficit Hits New Record"

- https://traderschoice.net/

“Every High Civilization Decays by Forgetting Obvious Things”

“Every High Civilization Decays by 

Forgetting Obvious Things”

by Brian Maher

“'Every high civilization' - wrote Chesterton - 'decays by forgetting obvious things.' We begin to suspect American civilization is down with a hard amnesia. It has forgotten such obvious things... we fear it is decaying beyond hope.

It has forgotten, for example, that: The free lunch has no existence… A nation hopelessly indebted is a nation hopelessly enchained… Money and wealth are not synonyms… Savings form the granite foundations of wealth... And a man must produce before he can consume.

The True Drivers of Economic Growth: Mr. John Tamny, editor of RealClearMarkets: "Savings and investment, not consumption, are the true drivers of economic growth. Entrepreneurs cannot innovate, and companies can’t grow or be founded without savings first. There’s no getting around this truth…"

Just don’t expect to hear this simple truth from most any economist. Deep believers in the religion that is consumption, they can’t see that the latter is the easy part. That what really powers growth is the capacity to save the fruits of one’s production so that workers can produce (and ultimately consume) even more. It is obvious. Yet it is forgotten. Nonetheless… as the gentleman states… “There’s no getting around this truth.”

Let us recall, then - we believe it is necessary - Say’s law…

Supply Creates Its Own Demand: Say’s law is the iron law of economics demonstrating that supply creates its own demand. “Products are paid for with products,” argued Jean-Baptiste Say over two centuries ago. His law has yet to be overturned, despite the fevered efforts of Lord Keynes and his countless disciples who even today burn incense at his altar.

Consider: One man produces bread. Another produces shoes. Let us assume the baker bakes a baker’s dozen - 13 loaves of bread. Three of them go upon his dinner table, then into his family’s bellies, consumed. The remaining 10 loaves represent his savings. He can hold them out against other goods he needs… shoes in our little example.

Meantime, the cobbler cobbles together 13 pairs of shoes. He places one new pair upon his blistered and aching feet. He places two additional pairs upon his children’s growing feet. This fellow “consumes” three pairs of shoes, that is. The remaining 10 constitute his savings. Like our baker, he can exchange his shoes — his savings — for other goods he requires. In our example he requires bread.

The Illusory Veil of Money: Each exchanges money to fetch him his goods - direct barter is primitive. But lean in for a closer examination. Squint your eyes a bit. Concentrate your attention. You will now see the transaction in its true aspect. You will see that money merely throws an illusory veil across the exchange. You will see that the baker ultimately purchases his shoes with the bread he has baked and that the cobbler ultimately purchases his bread with the shoes he has cobbled.

Concludes Monsieur Say: Money performs but a momentary function in this double exchange; and when the transaction is finally closed, it will always be found that one kind of commodity has been exchanged for another. We must conclude that there can be no excess of savings. Savings equal stored wealth. To argue that savings injure society is to argue that wealth injures society. Only an Ivy League economist can argue it. And savings spring from production as the fruit springs from the seed.

Outlawing Say’s Law: Yet the consumptionists would turn Say’s law upon its head. They sob not about a lack of production but a “lack of demand.” They insist that government race the printing press to make the shortage good, to furnish the lack. But no new production accompanies the blitz of money. The additional money merely chases the existing stock of goods. It represents the attempted outlawing of Say’s law.

That is, the money-printers place the wagon cart of consumption before the draft horse of production. Yet the horse must go in front. The cart does not tug the horse. Consider the thought experiment of another 18th-century thinker David Hume…

False Wealth and True Wealth: Imagine a benevolent fairy slips money into all the nation’s pockets overnight. And so the money supply doubles at a stroke. Is this nation doubly rich? Alas, it is not doubly rich. The money supply has been doubled, yes. The nation’s pockets are doubly deep. Men feel flush and are eager to spend. But no additional goods have entered existence. Where is the gain - except in prices?

Explains the late “Austrian” economist Murray Rothbard: "What makes us rich is an abundance of goods, and what limits that abundance is a scarcity of resources: namely land, labor and capital. Multiplying coin will not whisk these resources into being. We may feel twice as rich for the moment, but clearly all we are doing is diluting the money supply. As the public rushes out to spend its newfound wealth, prices will, very roughly, double - or at least rise until the demand is satisfied, and money no longer bids against itself for the existing goods."

There you have the wisdom of classical economics - the forgotten wisdom of classical economics. We would refresh the memory.

Savings Equal Investment: And as we would remind the consumptionists: There can be no investment without savings, as there can be no bread without grain. Again, Rothbard: "Savings and investment are indissolubly linked. It is impossible to encourage one and discourage the other. Aside from bank credit, investments can come from no other source than savings… In order to invest resources in the future, he must first restrict his consumption and save funds. This restricting is his savings, and so saving and investment are always equivalent. The two terms may be used almost interchangeably."

The more accumulated savings in the economy, the more potential investment - a nice point to put somewhere. An economy built atop a sturdy foundation of savings is therefore a rugged economy, a durable economy. No passing gale will knock it over.

Saving Is Spending: And as we have argued before… When society saves, it is not eliminating consumption. It is merely delaying it. It is a future bird in a future hand. The demand that is supposedly lost is not lost at all. It is simply shifted away from the present… and toward the bountiful future.

Today’s savings are therefore tomorrow’s spending, tomorrow’s consumption. By reducing consumption today… society consumes more tomorrow. By increasing consumption today, society consumes less tomorrow. It devours the seed corn.

Or according to Henry Hazlitt, author of the classic "Economics in One Lesson": “Saving, in short, in the modern world, is only another form of spending.” More from whom: "From time immemorial proverbial wisdom has taught the virtues of saving, and warned against the consequences of prodigality and waste."

We have forgotten this immemorial proverbial wisdom. Yet it echoes deep within the heart, it echoes deep within the soul. It is time to remember…"

- dailyreckoning.com