"16 Tons of Debt"

"16 Tons of Debt"

"Another day older... and the straw boss said,

 "Well-a bless my soul!"*

by Bill Bonner

Youghal, Ireland -  First, ‘you load 16 tons and whaddya get…?’ We reported last week that inflation is costing the typical household around $300 a month extra, just to stay in the same place. Where does that money come from? Here’s part of it; Business Insider: "Americans have been swiping their credit cards at record speed in the last few months, as rising inflation eats into the savings people accumulated during the pandemic.

The total US household debt hit $15.8 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2021, the New York Fed reported this week, seeing an increase of $333 billion from the previous quarter. Credit card balances alone hit $860 billion, up $52 billion in that same timeframe. That's the largest quarterly increase the Fed has seen in the 22 years it's been collecting data, the researchers say, adding that the surge in debt overall was driven by home and car purchases."

Yes, day by day, you get another day older. And often, deeper in debt.

There are patterns to everything in life. Look at a leaf. Listen to a song. Look at a church… or a funeral home. If you build a house that looks like a church… or a slaughterhouse… it could still function very well. But, like a cowboy hat on a Swiss banker, it won’t ‘look right.’ A house ought to look like a house. A song ought to sound like a song. You ought to get what you pay for. And, if you rob a bank… or inflate the currency… or borrow too much money, you ought to get what’s coming to you.

Sometimes, the borders shift. What makes it a song, and not just noise? That is what we wondered as we saw some of the half-time entertainment during the SuperBowl. There is always innovation… experimentation; the frontiers get pushed out… and then recede.

The most basic kind of pattern is the one we refer to often in these pages. Actions have consequences. Those consequences are often described as “common sense” or signaled to us in moral lessons, old wives tales, and Bible quotations. They establish the patterns of life that we see rehearsed in movies, novels… and even the evening news!

‘Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind’ is one. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap” is another one using the same image. Others are more practical: ‘take care of your tools and they will take care of you’… ‘watch your pennies and the nickels will look out for themselves’… ‘if your income exceeds your outgo, your upkeep will be your downfall.’

Carl Jung maintained that there were ‘archetypes’ buried deep in the human psyche. He said you could find them in folk tales and myths. Maybe. What we notice is that we have certain, almost innate, ideas about what things are worth. And we express them in market patterns. Stocks go up and down, for example, but rarely – and only temporarily – get too far out of a normal channel. This gives rise to the old-timer’s advice: buy cheap; sell dear. That advice would be useless were it not for a pattern.

But if you measure stock market trends in dollars, you will easily be confused and deceived. Like a carpenter with an elastic tape measure, it will be hard to keep things straight. The dollar has lost 96% of its value since the Fed was set up to protect it. It’s losing more everyday… currently at the rate of 7.5% (officially) per year.

Measure for Measure: A better measure, for this purpose, is to compare the stock price to the company’s earnings – the P/E ratio. A dollar’s worth of earnings – whether from a gambling casino or a steel mill – seems to have some archetypal relationship to price. Over the last century, investors have paid as little as $5 for a stock in a company that earned $1/share. Or, when they are feeling their oats, they might pay $10… or $20 for the same stock with the same earnings. So, a pattern emerges… and is reflected in the stock market cycle. In bull markets, prices go up. In bear markets they go down. The pattern repeats itself in long waves, often playing out over decades. In the bond market, for example, the last time interest rates were going up was 40 years ago.

In the stock market, prices went down – adjusted for inflation – for 16 years, from 1966 to 1982. Except for short-lived counter-trends, they have mostly gone up since then – again, for 40 years.

P/E ratios range from a low around 5 to around 25 at the top of the range, with an average of about 12. They sometimes go much higher, of course. In the big bubble market of 1999, the P/E of the Dow index hit 44, an all-time high. There’s a lot of ‘noise’ in P/E ratios. Individual stocks sometimes just go bonkers with Ps that have no connection to Es at all. Sometimes the companies have no earnings to measure against. Or they have negative earnings. And in today’s market, there are plenty of ‘clown stocks’ or ‘meme stocks’ that trade at absurd prices. Sometimes, too, P/Es shoot up when stock prices suddenly fall. In the panic sell-off of 2008-2009, for example, the P/E of the S&P 500 soared over a 100.

In terms of gold, the stock market as a whole has gone nowhere over the last century. In 1929, you could buy all 30 Dow stocks for 18 ounces of gold. Today, you can still buy the Dow stocks for 18 ounces of gold. So, why bother?

But while it is sometimes tempting to be out of stocks… forever… it would be leaving money on the table. Companies, driven by a profit motive, create real wealth. And people who own companies – shareholders – get much of it. Stocks pay dividends. If you had simply re-invested your dividends, since 1929, you would have multiplied your original investment by 33 times – even adjusted for inflation.

In short, it pays to be in stocks. But not all the time. When should you get in? When should you get out? That’s what we tried to figure out. And we came up with a system, based on comparing the Dow to Gold. More on that on Monday. Enjoy your weekend..."

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

○

* Tennessee Ernie Ford, "Sixteen Tons"

The Daily "Near You?"

Homedale, Idaho, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"What If..."

What if when you die they ask, "How was Heaven?"

~ Author Unknown

A truly terrifying thought...

"One Can Make People Believe..."

“One could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness."

- Hannah Arendt, "The Origins of Totalitarianism"

Of course, we know very well what to expect...

This Is The Motive..."

Full screen mode suggested.

"All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves."

- Blaise Pascal

"Are People Really Stupid?"

“All of the available data show that the typical American citizen has about

as much interest in the life of the mind as does your average armadillo.”

- Morris Berman

“Think of how stupid the average person is, 

and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

- George Carlin

"Are People Really Stupid?"

by Fred Russell

"On the face of things, judging from the general level of knowledge and understanding, not to mention the intellectual pursuits, of most of the human race one is tempted to say that the overwhelming majority of mankind lacks the intellectual capacity, the intelligence, to contribute to human progress. And it is in fact a very small elite that has carried us beyond Neanderthal Man, without whom, if the truth be told, we might still be living in caves. It is, in a word, appalling to contemplate the level at which ordinary people use their minds, what they read, if at all, what they watch on TV, the movies they go out and see, and the ease with which they are seduced and manipulated by the technicians of the psyche, namely, politicians and advertisers. 

The impression one gets when contemplating these tens and hundreds of millions of people glued to their TV screens for the reality shows and sitcoms or fiddling with their smartphones from morning till night is of complete empty-headedness. This is not to say that such people cannot be shrewd, resourceful, or, for that matter, simply decent. It is to say that at the average level of intelligence displayed by the human race, the great intellectual achievements of mankind seem to be beyond the scope of the vast majority of men and women. But are people really stupid? And if they aren't, who or what has held them back?

Now one may be inclined to place all the blame for our ignorance on the television producers and gadget makers, but the truth is that by the time they get to us the damage has already been done. All they really succeed in doing is dragging us down a little further. The problem starts in childhood. It starts in the schools with all those empty cells waiting to be filled and no one, not entire educational systems, really knowing how to fill them. In fact, the opposite result is achieved. By the time the child finishes elementary school, unless he is destined to join the intellectual or scientific or economic or political elite and is self-motivated, as the saying goes, he will have developed an aversion to the learning process that will persist for the rest of his life.

It is not hard to understand why. School bores him, and oppresses him. Its premise, fostered in the West by the Church the virtually exclusive supplier of teachers until fairly recent times, historically speaking is that as a consequence of Original Sin all men are born evil and must therefore be coerced into doing what is good. The result has been rigidly structured frameworks where teachers hammer away at the captive child until his head is ready to explode. Within just a few years, the public school system thus destroys the natural curiosity of the child and dooms him to a life of total ignorance, dependent, for whatever sense of the world he does have, on second rate journalists, who themselves lack the knowledge, understanding, discipline and integrity to be historians or even novelists and therefore shape his perception like the ignorant clerics of the Middle Ages, raining down on his head a disjointed and superficial body of information presented largely to produce effects, and even this is beyond his capacity to retain. 

The man in the street may thus be said to have a great many opinions but very little knowledge, mindlessly repeating the half-truths of experts and analysts who reflect his own biases and constructing out of them a credo of dogmatic views that remain embedded in his mind for an entire lifetime like bricks in a brick wall.

Does it matter? After all, we have all the scholars and scientists we need, and besides, a world where everyone became one would be a dull place indeed. It can even be argued that it is better for the race if progress is opposed, since, judging from its products, it mostly expresses itself materially and economically in an unholy alliance of greed and technology. However, progress of this kind cannot be fought if all that people have on their minds is to wire themselves into this technology, and that is what they will be doing until their minds are engaged in less frivolous pursuits. They are thus doubly victimized, first by the schools, whose methods are not attuned to the temperament and capacity of the average child, and then by the economic elites who control the technologies and consequently the flow of information and whose only interest in the man in the street is as a consumer of their products.

Unfortunately, there is very little hope that any of this will change. The wrong people control human society and will continue to do so, because they created the model and are the only ones who know how to operate it. The sad truth is that today's man in the street is neither wiser nor more knowledgeable than a medieval peasant. Calling ourselves Homo sapiens, or even Homo sapiens sapiens, seemed like a good idea once but very few of us have lived up to the billing." 

- https://www.counterpunch.org/

Apologies to armadillos for the comparison! lol

"Here's Why Our Monetary System is a Giant Ponzi Scheme"

"Here's Why Our Monetary System is a Giant Ponzi Scheme"

by Chris MacIntosh

"Ponzi schemes keep going until the perpetrator is stopped from the outside. They never stop by of their own volition. Bernie Madoff kept going until it all blew up. In the year 2000 the Nasdaq composite exceeded a P/E of 200 before collapsing 78% by October 2002. The more successful a Ponzi the more egregious the bubble and resultant pain. The granddaddy of Ponzi - far greater than anything we’ve seen before - is our monetary system.

Let’s consider what money is. It is a technology that allows us to produce and consume not just in the present but across time. It is, for this reason, that it needs to provide both a medium of exchange as well as a store of value. If for example a transaction needs to be made over a crop cycle then the value of the money needs to remain sufficiently stable over that time frame to allow the participants to make an exchange and not come out underwater. This benefits neither party to the transaction because, while in the short term party A may get an excellent deal from party B, if the deal is so "excellent" as to bankrupt party B, then no future commerce will be done and overall production declines causing less supply and a fall in the overall standard of living.

The money needs to be useful to both parties. In prisons they use cigarettes. Even if you don’t smoke enough inmates do and the cigarettes don’t change (consistency) and so they form a money. Of course, over time we’ve used all sorts of things used as money: gold, silver, copper, even slaves. At primary school I used to use marbles and Garbage Pail Kids (ah, those were the days).

To be used, money needs to be trusted, and to be trusted it needs to have integrity. But when you involve the government in money inevitably it gets corrupted. We’ve countless examples, but back in 1215 King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta, which meant that the crown couldn’t tax what the people hadn’t approved. That principle was the foundation of democracy.

Years later King Henry VIII figured out that by clipping the coins he could melt down the clipped portions, melt them into coinage and spend the money. In other words, he inflated the money supply. He was a wily bastard and later figured he could take a copper coin and coat it in silver.

Initially people thought they were getting a pound sterling, but as it turned out - because the old fart had his face emblazoned onto the coin - with his nose sticking out, it was his nose that gave him away. The silver coating specifically on his protruding nose scraped off when it rubbed in peasants’ pockets. This let the copper show through and made his face look like he had a red nose. And so peasants, whenever they looked at the coin with his red nose staring at them, knew immediately that he’s stolen from them. Trust vanished.

We’re no longer in the 1200’s but that only means the ruling class has gotten better. This time around, after they’re done with their economic killing spree (aka lockdowns) and rampant monetary inflation, the resulting stagflation will have the same effect amongst the peasants as it did in good ol’ copper nose’s time. Loss of faith.

This Ponzi too will blow up, and the catalyst will be a faltering of trust, because that’s all that’s left holding this together. It will be individuals that stop it. They’ll stop it by refusing to use the currency."

- internationalman.com

Must Watch! "The Fed Has a Plan to Crash Everything - Banks Closed"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 2/18/22:

"The Fed Has a Plan to Crash Everything - Banks Closed"

"The Fed has a plan to crash all the stocks and everything with it. Will this put an end to inflation? This is a lose-lose situation. Crash the economy to contain stocks. The Fed really has no idea what to do."

"How It Really Is"

 

"SOMEBODY Must Really Want A War In Ukraine, And We Should Remember That Both Previous World Wars Were Sparked In Eastern Europe"

"SOMEBODY Must Really Want A War In Ukraine, 

And We Should Remember That Both Previous

 World Wars Were Sparked In Eastern Europe"

by Michael Snyder

"Well, that sure escalated quickly. Early on Wednesday, it was being reported that Russia was moving forces away from the Ukrainian border and that both sides would try to give diplomatic talks another chance. But somebody out there must not have been too pleased with that, because by Wednesday evening everything had changed. The Ukrainian military and the separatists in eastern Ukraine started shelling one another relentlessly, and according to the latest information that I have been able to find it is still going on as I write this article. In previous articles, I have expressed my opinion that war in Ukraine will not begin this month, but it appears that somebody out there is trying to get it going as soon as possible.

I think that this is a good time to remember that both previous world wars were sparked in eastern Europe. The assassination of Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 is generally recognized as the event that initiated World War I. And the invasion of Poland in 1939 is generally recognized as the event that initiated World War II. So will a conflict in Ukraine by the event that initiates World War III?

As far as I can determine, the widespread shelling in Ukraine began some time on Wednesday evening. On Thursday, photos of a kindergarten class that had been hit by a shell were being widely circulated by western media… "A “Kindergarten” junior school in Stanytsia Luhanska, Ukraine, was struck by shellfire that impacted several villages and towns near the Donbas region in Eastern Ukraine on Thursday morning. According to the Ukranian government, as of Thursday afternoon, there had been “42 cases of shelling” recorded which had not caused any deaths, but had seen buildings damaged and seen several people injured, including at least four civilians and one soldier."

Western news sources are focusing on the shelling that is being done by the separatists, but Russian news sources are claiming that it was actually the Ukrainians that started shelling first… "The Russian government provided their own take on events, saying in a release from state media service TASS that the shelling was not by Russian forces but from “forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic” - in other words forces loyal to and equipped by Moscow - and was initiated in response to Ukraine shelling them first."

I wish that I could prove to you which side started shooting first. But what we do know is that both sides are now firing at one another. Could all of this shelling be a prelude to something bigger?

During a discussion with reporters on Thursday, Joe Biden made some rather startling claims… "President Biden on Thursday said the U.S. has reason to believe that Russia is “engaged in a false flag operation,” and said he believes that an invasion into Ukraine “will happen in the next several days.” After all of the false flag operations that the U.S. has been involved in over the years, it is quite ironic that the U.S. is now publicly accusing the Russians of doing the same thing. And we shall see if Biden is correct about “the next several days”.

I don’t think that he will be. But I do think that the possibility of a major conflict in the region happening this year has just gone way up. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says that the Russians now have more than 150,000 troops in the region… ‘We see them add to the more than 150,000 troops they already have,’ Defense Sec. Lloyd Austin. ‘Even in the last couple days. We see some of those troops edge closer to that border. We see them fly in more combat and support air craft. We see them sharpen their readiness in the Black Sea. We even see them stocking up their blood supplies,’ Austin said. ‘You don’t do these things for no reason. You certainly don’t do them if you’re getting ready to pack up and go home,’ the secretary said.

U.S. officials certainly seem to be acting as if they believe that we are on the brink of war. But are they trying to prevent it, or are they actually trying to make it happen? During a meeting of the UN Security Council on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised tensions by warning that the Russians may be plotting a “false flag” chemical weapons attack… "Russia accused Secretary of State Antony Blinken Thursday of raising tensions in Eastern European after he issued a warning that Moscow’s plans for a ‘false flag operation’ may include a chemical weapons attack to manufacture a pretext for invading Ukraine."

Blinken used a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to set out the fullest account yet of what Washington knows about Russia’s plans. Needless to say, the Russians were not pleased by such a wild accusation… "In response, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin said Blinken’s scenarios were ‘regrettable.’ ‘I would even go so far as to say that they are dangerous because they bring in more tension into the unready tense atmosphere,’ he said, before repeating Moscow’s discredited claims that some troops were already heading home after completing drills.

Of course the Russians are taking actions that are raising tensions too. For example, the second most important U.S. diplomat in Russia was expelled from the country on Thursday…"Russia has expelled the second-most senior American diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow as tensions between the two countries continue to rise over a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, the State Department said Thursday. “Russia’s action against our [deputy chief of mission] was unprovoked and we consider this an escalatory step and are considering our response,” a State Department spokesman said after U.S. deputy chief of mission Bart Gorman was ordered to leave the country despite having a valid visa."

In the coming days, the U.S. and Russia will trade lots of accusations of blame. I just wish that we could find a way to stop the process that has now begun. As I have stated previously, if Americans truly understood what was at stake the streets of our major cities would be filled with protesters. Because once World War III begins, nothing will ever be the same again. The time to stop it is now, and the window of opportunity is very narrow.

Unfortunately, somebody out there really seems to want this war to happen, and I have a feeling that whoever it is will eventually get their wish."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"Prices Are Getting Crazy At Walmart! - What's Next!?"

Full screen recommended.

"Prices Are Getting Crazy At Walmart! - What's Next!?"

Adventures with Danno, AM 2/18/22

"In today's vlog we visit Walmart and are noticing ridiculously high prices. Prices on groceries continue to rise, as we are also witnessing more empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores are struggling to get in products."

Gregory Mannarino, "Bank Of America Warns Again On The Stock Market"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 2/18/22:

"Bank Of America Warns Again On The Stock Market"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Warning: Bank Closures And Bank Runs, Get Your Money Out; Stock Market Crash; Home Loans Record High"

Jeremiah Babe, PM 2/17/22:

"Warning: Bank Closures And Bank Runs, Get Your Money Out; 

Stock Market Crash; Home Loans Record High"

"The Cost Of Living For Middle Class In The United States Is Rising To Absolutely Absurd Levels"

Full screen recommended.

"The Cost Of Living For Middle Class In 

The United States Is Rising To Absolutely Absurd Levels"

by Epic Economist

"The U.S. middle class is under a lot of pressure. With the cost of living soaring to absurd levels, even those who used to have comfortable lifestyles are now financially struggling. The cost of living has been skyrocketing into the stratosphere, and that has been particularly detrimental to the American middle-class, one of the main pillars of the U.S. economy. The middle class is responsible for the largest share of consumer spending, but ever since inflation has started to accelerate, people’s buying power has been declining at an alarming pace.

Consumer spending is going to continue to cool off as the price of necessities rises above what most people can afford. For example, a new study found that 82.2 percent, or 4 out of 5, new-vehicle buyers were forced to pay well above sticker price in January. The average price paid above sticker was $728. Just two years ago, shoppers would get an average discount of $2,648 when purchasing a new car.

On top of that, it’s getting increasingly more expensive to fuel our vehicles. Just yesterday, the average price of a gallon of gasoline hit a new record high. In California, the new average price of a gallon of gas is $4.72, and experts say a whopping $5 a gallon will likely become the norm in a matter of months, if not sooner. Though the national average of $3.52 a gallon is far lower than California's $4.72, industry executives say that the national price is rising much faster on a percentage basis. Gas prices were up 6% nationwide in just the last month and have jumped 40% over the last year.

In a recent interview, Energy Word founder, Dan Dicker, warned that drivers should brace for another surge in gas prices amid rising global tensions and years of under-investment by the oil industry.“My guess is that you are going to see $5 a gallon at any triple-digit oil prices as soon as you get to $100. And you might get to $6.50 or $7. Forget about $150 a gallon, I don’t know where we will be by then,” he said.

Housing is also increasingly unaffordable. The average price of a newly built home is nearly $19,000 higher due to a massive increase in the price of lumber. To make things worse, heating our homes, which is a major necessity during the winter, is actually becoming a privilege reserve to those who can afford rising heating costs. A new analysis released by the Heartland Institute reported that the typical American family’s home heating costs rose by as much as $1,000 as a result of the government’s energy and environmental policies.

It’s safe to say that most Americans were not prepared for such a dramatic increase in the cost of living. Currently, over 70 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. And even middle-class workers have been facing major difficulties to make ends meet.

That’s why more and more people are taking on credit card debt to pay for rising living expenses. In fact, according to the New York Fed, “the total US household debt hit $15.8 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2021, after an increase of $333 billion from the previous quarter. Credit card balances alone hit $860 billion, up $52 billion in that same timeframe. That’s the largest quarterly increase the Fed has seen in the 22 years it’s been collecting data,” the researchers say.

This is systematically destroying the U.S. middle class, and that will have enormous consequences for our economy as a whole. Most people had assumed that there would be endless prosperity for many decades to come, but now it is clear that our future is going to be extremely chaotic."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com

Gerald Celente, "The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!"

Gerald Celente, PM 2/17/22:

"The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!"

"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, "Fear Of War Hits The Market, Are You Ready?"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 2/17/22:

"Fear Of War Hits The Market, Are You Ready?"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Musical Interlude: Gnomusy, (David Caballero), "Virtuality II"

Gnomusy, (David Caballero), "Virtuality II"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud by chance has assumed this recognizable shape. Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula, it is some 1,500 light-years distant, embedded in the vast Orion cloud complex.

About five light-years "tall", the dark cloud is cataloged as Barnard 33 and is visible only because its obscuring dust is silhouetted against the glowing red emission nebula IC 434. Stars are forming within the dark cloud. Contrasting blue reflection nebula NGC 2023, surrounding a hot, young star, is at the lower left. The gorgeous featured image combines both narrowband and broadband images."

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150513.html

"What Is Hope?"

"What Is Hope?"

"What is hope? It is the pre-sentiment that imagination is more real and reality is less real than it looks. It is the hunch that the overwhelming brutality of facts that oppress and repress us is not the last word. It is the suspicion that reality is more complex than the realists want us to believe. That the frontiers of the possible are not determined by the limits of the actual; and in a miraculous and unexplained way, life is opening creative events which will light the way to freedom and resurrection. But the two - suffering and hope - must live from each other. Suffering without hope produces resentment and despair. But hope without suffering creates illusions, naïveté and drunkenness.

So let us plant dates even though we who plant them will never eat them. We must live by the love of what we will never see. That is the secret discipline. It is the refusal to let our creative act be dissolved away by our need for immediate sense experience, and it is a struggled commitment to the future of our grandchildren. Such disciplined hope is what has given prophets, revolutionaries and saints the courage to die for the future they envisage. They make their own bodies the seed of their highest hope."

- Rubin Alves

"Doomberg: Crisis Ahead As Market, Economic, Social & Geopolitical Pressures Reach "Tipping Point"

Full screen recommended.

"Doomberg: Crisis Ahead As Market, Economic,

 Social & Geopolitical Pressures Reach "Tipping Point"

by Adam Taggart, Wealthion, 2/17/22:

"Systemic pressures are building everywhere. Persisting inflation. Slowing economic growth. Prolonged supply chain outages. Falling consumer confidence. The trucker blockade in Canada. Kazakhstan as an energy flashpoint. Military tensions in the Ukraine. These are all interconnected signals that the status quo is unraveling.

What are the root causes? What kind of future do they portend? And what challenges & opportunities will they present? For answers, we hear from the team at Doomberg, one of the most important new voices in finance today. They suspect we are at a "precarious" tipping point, where much of the relative prosperity & tranquility we've enjoyed over the past several decades may be coming to an end."

- wealthion.com

Get Doomberg for free at https://doomberg.substack.com/

"In The End..."

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

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

~ Sydney J. Harris

The Poet: Mary Oliver, "Evidence"

“Evidence”

“Where do I live?


If I had no address, as many people do not,
 

I could nevertheless say that I lived in the 

same town as the lilies of the field,
 

and the still waters.


Spring, and all through the neighborhood 

now there are
 strong men tending flowers.

Beauty without purpose is beauty without virtue.


But all beautiful things, inherently, have this function -


to excite the viewers toward sublime thought.


Glory to the world, that good teacher.

Among the swans there is none 

called the least,
 or the greatest.

I believe in kindness. Also in mischief.
 

Also in singing, 

especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.

As for the body, 

it is solid and strong and curious and full of detail;
 

it wants to polish itself; it wants to love another body;


it is the only vessel in the world that can hold,
 

in a mix of power and sweetness:


words, song, gesture, passion, ideas,
ingenuity, 

devotion, merriment, vanity, and virtue.

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.”

- Mary Oliver

•

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for! To quote from Whitman, ‘O me! O life! of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless - of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?’ Answer: That you are here - that life exists, and that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”

- “Dead Poets Society”

The Daily "Near You?"

Winder, Georgia, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Bamboozle..."

"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back."

- Carl Sagan

"The Color of Money"

"The Color of Money"

by Bill Bonner

Youghal, Ireland - "Good ol’ Charlie Munger. Yesterday, the 98-year-old gave his opinion on the biggest danger facing US democracy. Yahoo Finance was on the case: "Citing examples from the Roman Republic to Adolf Hitler to Latin America, Munger said, “Inflation is a very serious subject, you could argue it is the way democracies die.” He notes that it was after years of inflation when “eventually the whole damn Roman Empire collapsed, so [the current situation] is the biggest long-range danger we have, apart from nuclear war.”

When the money goes, everything goes. Consensual democracy goes along with them. And our hunch, this morning, is that the feds will lead the way.

Yesterday, we saw that NFL teams seem to discriminate in a peculiar way – against Black coaches… but in favor of Black players. We guessed that – if you want to win the SuperBowl – you might want to hire someone who can keep crossing the goal line, rather than hiring a guy just because he is White. Or Black.

Terror… Bailout… Panic… This thought took us to the next one – that we are generally better off keeping our eyes on the ball… than by pursuing goals set up for us by the intellectual elite. “Public intellectuals should be regarded as charlatans,” says Nassim Taleb.

We’ve already seen that the three biggest initiatives that the intellectuals came up with so far this century – the War on Terror, the Wall Street bailout, and the Covid Panic – were all driven by corruption and riven by incompetence. All were failures. The War on Terrorism achieved nothing. The Wall Street bailout made the economy weaker, not stronger… and buried the whole nation under $44 trillion in additional debt. And the Covid virus romped across the nation regardless of the feds’ shutdowns and mandates.

So… what about the latest broad policy goals? Save the planet from CO2? Put an end to racism? Make everyone equal? Those programs will cost money (Janet Yellen estimated the cost of eliminating carbon emissions at more than $100 trillion…) Will they pay off?

And what about you, Dear Reader? Should you do your part by investing only in ESG (environmental, social, governance) companies? Is that how real progress is made? By conscious intention? By activists… do-gooders… and world improvers? Or, are efforts to rinse out the stain of slavery… to control the world’s temperature… and to make us all the same… doomed to fail? Do they even make the situation worse for the people they claim to help?

One of the narratives favored by the government elite is that the US is a ‘racist country,’ always has been… and without concerted effort by the great and the good… always will be. This message itself may do good… or harm. While it gives the old, rich, White investor an easy way to feel good about himself – simply invest in ESG companies – it signals to the young, poor, Black person that his problems are not of his own doing. Therefore, he might conclude, there is nothing he can do to improve things for himself. No point in studying late at night, working hard or saving his money; he can’t win.

Where Togo? We had a roof repaired in Baltimore recently. We were surprised when the crew arrived to do the job. They were a group of jolly, French speaking immigrants from Togo. What were they doing here? Didn’t they know how horribly America treats its ‘people of color?’ They didn’t seem worried about it. It was the color of money that interested them. And the people of color keep coming.

Deseret news has the report: “Following the relaxation of U.S. immigration policy in the 1960s away from racial preference, Black immigration to America in particular climbed sharply. According to the Population Reference Bureau, the foreign-born Black population in America increased seven-fold in the next two decades. Between 1980 and 2005 it tripled again. By 2013, Pew Research Center reported that Black immigration had more than quadrupled since 1980.

The latest studies now place the Black immigrant population around 4.6 million by 2019, nearly double the community’s size in 2000. The figures are even larger for Latin American immigration. In 2018, an estimated 44.8 million immigrants were living in the United States with more than half coming from Mexico or Latin America, according to a Pew Research Center report.

Many of the Black immigrants come from Caribbean countries such as Haiti or from Africa itself. The average wage in Haiti is about $800 per year. In Sub-Saharan Africa the average wage is only $315, according to Forbes."

Native-born Black Americans might know how the deck is stacked against them. There’s a White intellectual on every street corner to tell them so. But the poor foreigners don’t know what they’re getting into.

Steeped in white supremacy, hatred, and racism… it is amazing that America lets them enter in the first place. Or that they should wish to go there at all. And then, the new arrival, with almost no money… and barely speaking English… goes to a city like Baltimore, where – because of systemic racism – four out of ten young Black men are unemployed… he draws his cards… and the next thing you know, he’s repairing a roof!

Business Insider: "The researchers write that Black immigrants tend to earn more than US-born Black households, the former's median income being $57,200 while the latter's is $42,000. Black immigrants, however, still lag behind other immigrant racial groups, the pooled median being $63,000 for all households."

Huh? What gives? How come American whites discriminate so effectively against native born blacks, but not so much against foreign born blacks? How come they block the Black coaches but not the Black players?

And what about Asians? They’re ‘people of color,’ too. Yet, while White household income is reported at $72,000 per year, Asian household income is $98,000. Where’s the ‘white privilege?’ Where’s the ‘equality?’ Almost every pulpit, newspaper and microphone has sent forth the warning: America is a racist country. If so, the racists do a sloppy job of it."

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

"Dominant Superpowers Don’t Accumulate $30 Trillion In Debt"

Full screen recommended.

"US Debt of $30 Trillion Visualized in Stacks of Physical Cash"

○

"Dominant Superpowers Don’t Accumulate $30 Trillion In Debt"

by Simon Black

"The year 238 AD began with Maximinus I as Emperor of Rome – a former peasant who had worked his way up through the ranks of the military before being chosen as Emperor by his troops. By August of that year, Maximinus was dead, and five other men had briefly held the title of Emperor. Only one (Gordian III) was still alive by the end of 238 AD. This is known in Roman history as the ‘Year of the Six Emperors’, and it was an obvious watershed moment in the decline of the empire.

It’s not like Rome hadn’t seen plenty of turmoil before – There had been full-blown civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great nearly three centuries prior in 49 BC. Caligula managed to engineer a major supply chain crisis during his reign in the early 1st century AD. Much of the city of Rome burned to the ground under Emperor Nero in 64 AD. Caracalla heavily debased the currency and caused widespread inflation in the early 200s. And more than a dozen emperors had been assassinated up to that point in Roman history.

People were used to crisis and chaos. But the Year of the Six Emperors felt different. It was as if Romans suddenly realized they were no longer the dominant superpower. The next few decades, in fact, are known as the “Crisis of the Third Century”, with more than two dozen emperors seizing the throne in a power struggle, murdering their political enemies, and then being assassinated themselves. Some emperors, like Silbannacus, Quintillus, and Saloninus, literally sat on the throne for a matter of days before being killed.

The government was extremely unstable, and notoriously corrupt. They rigged elections. They sent Praetorian guards to harass and intimidate their opponents. And they sewed social conflict so that Romans turned on one another.

In the meantime, the Roman economy was collapsing. Inflation became so rampant that Diocletian infamously had to implement extreme price controls, and then threaten to kill anyone who didn’t follow them. They also lost control of their borders, as countless barbarian tribes poured into the empire and squatted on Roman lands.

The barbarian migration eventually turned into full-blown invasions and military conflict, and the Roman military lost a number of major battles. In 251 AD, for example, Rome suffered a crushing defeat by the invading Goths at the Battle of Abritus. The Goths decimated three Roman legions, killed the emperor, and stole TONS of gold.

Even the lowest peasant was able to figure it out: dominant superpowers don’t lose battles. They maintain secure borders. They have strong currencies. They don’t blow through six leaders in a single year. They aren’t in a constant state of social revolution. And they aren’t bankrupt.

We could easily apply the same logic today. And this is especially true after last week’s watershed moment in which the US national debt reached $30 trillion for the first time. It’s hardly controversial to assert that dominate superpowers don’t accumulate $30 trillion in debt (which, by the way, is 25% larger than the entire US economy). But it’s not just the debt. It’s so much more.

Dominant superpowers don’t surrender tens of billions of dollars of military equipment to their sworn enemy, and then fly away with local civilians clinging to the side of their aircraft.

Dominant superpowers don’t abandon their own citizens abroad.

Dominant superpowers don’t engineer historically high inflation… and then ignore it. Nor do they embrace socialism, i.e. the literal opposite of the capitalist economic system that created so much wealth and power to begin with.

Dominant superpowers don’t send their government agents to harass innocent citizens, or tell parents they have no say in the education of their children.

Dominant superpowers don’t suspend their Constitutions because of a virus. They don’t give people incentives to NOT work. They don’t constantly make it difficult for small businesses to succeed.

Dominant superpowers don’t deliberately reduce their military’s physical fitness standards in the name of diversity and inclusion. They don’t prioritize “equity” over national security. And they certainly don’t fire experienced intelligence operatives because of individual medical decisions.

Dominant superpowers don’t placate their adversaries and bow to their demands. They aren’t afraid to offend their rivals.

Dominant superpowers don’t create incentives for countless people to illegally cross the border and go live under a bridge.

And above all else, dominant superpowers are able to deal with challenges.

Yes, there’s always been conflict and disagreement. But dominant superpowers have stable, effective governments who can do what is necessary to solve problems. And they have societies whose people can coexist peacefully without being at each others’ throats all the time.

It might not be pleasant to think about, but these are all true statements about the United States. And like Rome, they are all obvious signs of decline. Simply put, the US is no longer the dominant superpower."

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

- https://www.sovereignman.com/

"The Mind Control Police: The Government’s War on Thought Crimes and Truth-Tellers" (Excerpt)

"The Mind Control Police: The Government’s

 War on Thought Crimes and Truth-Tellers" (Excerpt)

by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead

“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

- George Orwell

"The U.S. government, which speaks in a language of force, is afraid of its citizenry. What we are dealing with is a government so power-hungry, paranoid and afraid of losing its stranglehold on power that it is conspiring to wage war on anyone who dares to challenge its authority. All of us are in danger.

In recent years, the government has used the phrase “domestic terrorist” interchangeably with “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” to describe anyone who might fall somewhere on a very broad spectrum of viewpoints that could be considered “dangerous.” The ramifications are so far-reaching as to render almost every American an extremist in word, deed, thought or by association.

In the government’s latest assault on those who criticize the government - whether that criticism manifests itself in word, deed or thought - the Biden Administration has likened those who share “false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis-dis-and mal-information” to terrorists.

The next part is the kicker. According to the Department of Homeland Security’s latest terrorism bulletin, “These threat actors seek to exacerbate societal friction to sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions to encourage unrest, which could potentially inspire acts of violence.”

You see, the government doesn’t care if what you’re sharing is fact or fiction or something in between. What it cares about is whether what you’re sharing has the potential to make people think for themselves and, in the process, question the government’s propaganda. Get ready for the next phase of the government’s war on thought crimes and truth-tellers."

Please view this complete article here:

- https://www.rutherford.org/

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

"America is Headed for the Worst Real Estate Crash Ever"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, AM 2/17/22:

"America is Headed for the Worst Real Estate Crash Ever"

"All the warnings signs point to a major real estate crash. This will be the worst ever. We have prolonged low interest rates for so long and the Fed has no interest in raising them. The supply chain problem is catching up to the home builders. Plus, you can finance your next pizza."

"Free Download: Aldous Huxley, "Brave New World Revisited"

"At this point we find ourselves confronted by a very disquieting question: Do we really wish to act upon our knowledge? Does a majority of the population think it worthwhile to take a good deal of trouble, in order to halt and, if possible, reverse the current drift toward totalitarian control of everything? If the United States of America is the prophetic image of the rest of the urban-industrial world as it will be a few years from now - recent public opinion polls have revealed that an actual majority of young people in their teens, the voters of tomorrow, have no faith in democratic institutions, see no objection to the censor­ship of unpopular ideas, do not believe that govern­ment of the people by the people is possible and would be perfectly content, if they can continue to live in the style to which the boom has accustomed them, to be ruled, from above, by an oligarchy of assorted experts. 

That so many of the well-fed young television-watchers in the world’s most powerful democracy should be so completely indifferent to the idea of self-government, so blankly uninterested in freedom of thought and the right to dissent, is distressing, but not too surprising. “Free as a bird,” we say, and envy the winged creatures for their power of unrestricted movement in all the three dimensions. But, alas, we forget the dodo. Any bird that has learned how to grub up a good living without being compelled to use its wings will soon renounce the privilege of flight and remain forever grounded. Something analogous is true of human beings. If the bread is supplied regularly and copiously three times a day, many of them will be perfectly content to live by bread alone - or at least by bread and circuses alone."

- Aldous Huxley, "Brave New World Revisited", 1958

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

Freely download "Brave New World Revisited" here:

- https://ia801002.us.archive.org/

○

Hat tip to WILLIAMBANZAI7

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

"How It Really Is"

"Prices Are Getting Ridiculous At Kroger! What Next ?!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, AM 2/17/22:

"Prices Are Getting Ridiculous At Kroger! What Next ?!"

"In today's vlog we visit Kroger and are noticing ridiculously high prices. Prices on groceries continue to rise, as we are also witnessing more empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores are struggling to get in products."

Gregory Mannarino, "The Economic Freefall Worsens- Be Ready For Anything"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 2/17/22:

"The Economic Freefall Worsens- Be Ready For Anything"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"The Cost Of Living In The United States Is Rising To Absolutely Absurd Levels"

"The Cost Of Living In The United States 

Is Rising To Absolutely Absurd Levels"

by Michael Snyder

"Most of the time, the vast majority of Americans simply do not care about economics. And it pains me to say that, because I have been running a website about economics for more than a decade. But it is true. Under normal circumstances, most hard working Americans don’t have the time or the energy to debate the finer points of economic policy. But now things have changed. Here in 2022, our leaders have messed things up so badly that suddenly just about everyone is feeling the pain. Most people just want economic conditions to “return to normal”, but that isn’t going to be so easy.

Over the past couple of years, the Federal Reserve has pumped trillions of fresh dollars into the financial system. You just can’t “undo” that.

And our politicians in Washington have been on the biggest borrowing spree in all of human history. I think that many of them truly believed that there would never be any serious consequences, but as Forbes has aptly noted, we “are now paying a heavy price for this magical thinking”…

Unfortunately, Americans are now paying a heavy price for this magical thinking. Inflation—spurred at least in part by record government spending and inaction on other issues—is running at its highest rate since 1982. The prices for meat and eggs are up 12.2% since last year. Furniture and bedding is up 17% and used cars and trucks are up 40.5%. Meanwhile, the Treasury Department recently reported America’s total national debt is now over $30 trillion—the highest ever. To put this in context: If you stacked $30 trillion of $100 bills you could almost reach the weather satellites orbiting the earth at over 20,000 miles above us.

Today, we have absolutely gigantic mountains of money chasing a smaller pool of goods and services because of the pandemic. As a result, the cost of living has been soaring into the stratosphere. For example, one new study found that 82.2 percent of new vehicle buyers actually paid above sticker price during the month of January…"A study from the online marketplace found that 82.2% of new car buyers paid over the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) in January, up from .3% in January 2020, before the coronavirus pandemic started affecting the industry The average price paid above sticker was $728, while savvy shoppers were getting a discount of $2,648 just two years ago. Cadillac’s customers led the way by paying a $4,048 premium, followed by Land Rover’s ($2,565) and Kia ‘s ($2,289)."

In my entire lifetime, I have never seen anything like this. Years ago, I remember spending hours hammering a salesman until I was totally satisfied that the dealership would not knock off a single penny more from the price of a used vehicle that I wanted. But now things have completely changed. Today, just about everyone is paying above MSRP.

Of course it is becoming more expensive to fuel our vehicles as well. On Wednesday, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in California hit a brand new record high… "Gas in California hit a record high of $4.72 a gallon on average on Wednesday — and experts say a whopping $5 a gallon will likely be the norm there in a matter of months, if not sooner."

Sadly, five dollar gas is only just the beginning. In fact, one expert that was interviewed by Yahoo Finance has actually raised the specter of seven dollar gas… "Drivers best start bracing for another surge in gas prices amid the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and years of under-investment by the oil industry, warns one veteran energy strategist. “My guess is that you are going to see $5 a gallon at any triple-digit [oil prices] … as soon as you get to $100. And you might get to $6.50 or $7. Forget about $150 a gallon, I don’t know where we will be by then,” Energy Word founder Dan Dicker said on Yahoo Finance Live."

Can you imagine paying seven dollars for a gallon of gasoline? That definitely seems crazy to me. But soon it will happen.

Housing prices continue to surge as well. In fact, we are being told that a recent spike in lumber prices has increased the average price of a new home by nearly $19,000… “If people aren’t listening now, the dire predictions that we’ve been making appear to be coming true,” National Association of Home Builders CEO Jerry Howard said on “Varney & Co.” Wednesday." Volatile lumber prices have caused the average price of a new single-family home to increase by $18,600, according to a new statistic from the NAHB.

Heating our homes is becoming a lot more painful too. According to the Heartland Institute, the average American family saw their heating and cooling costs jump “by as much as $1,000” last year… "A new analysis by the Heartland Institute reports the typical American family’s home heating and cooling costs increased by as much as $1,000 in 2021 as a result of President Joe Biden’s energy and environmental policies."

Needless to say, most Americans were not prepared for a dramatic shift in the cost of living such as this. At this point, 70 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.

So how are people making ends meet? Well, we just found out that credit card debt rose at the fastest pace ever seen during the fourth quarter of 2021… "Americans have been swiping their credit cards at record speed in the last few months, as rising inflation eats into the savings people accumulated during the pandemic.

The total US household debt hit $15.8 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2021, the New York Fed reported this week, seeing an increase of $333 billion from the previous quarter. Credit card balances alone hit $860 billion, up $52 billion in that same timeframe. That’s the largest quarterly increase the Fed has seen in the 22 years it’s been collecting data, the researchers say, adding that the surge in debt overall was driven by home and car purchases."

The middle class is being systematically destroyed, and it is happening right in front of our eyes. And the truth is that we can see evidence of this all around us. For example, just check out this footage that one man recently took of his neighborhood in Los Angeles.

My neighborhood in Los Angeles 2/14/22

People have just given up. pic.twitter.com/C0LA0jd2tn

— Colin Keating (@keating89_colin) February 14, 2022

Our major cities are becoming exactly what I warned they would become. Once upon a time, the U.S. had the largest and most prosperous middle class that the world had ever seen. But now that middle class is being absolutely eviscerated, and it is our own leaders that have done this to us.

With each passing day, more Americans are waking up and understanding what has happened, and anger is growing all over the nation. Most Americans had assumed that there would be endless prosperity for many decades to come, but now it is becoming clear that the years ahead are going to be very, very ugly."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"McDonalds Food Shrinks, Prices Skyrocket; Living Credit Card To Credit Card; Homebuilders In Danger"

Jeremiah Babe, 2/16/22:

"McDonalds Food Shrinks, Prices Skyrocket; 

Living Credit Card To Credit Card; Homebuilders In Danger"

"5 New Numbers That Prove That America’s Horrifying Inflation Crisis Is Getting Even Worse"

Full screen recommended.

"5 New Numbers That Prove That America’s

 Horrifying Inflation Crisis Is Getting Even Worse"

by Epic Economist

"Inflation is SOARING in the US! The inflation rate is now at 7.5% and many signs point that inflation is getting worse! That’s what we’re going to expose in today’s video. We’re sharing 5 numbers that show that why the horrifying inflation crisis is getting even worse!

The vast majority of the U.S. population has never seen inflation running this hot in their entire lives. Explosive consumer prices are bringing a lot of pain to everyday Americans, whose buying power has been on a steady decline. The producer price index just hit a new record high.

In essence, “PPI offers a window to the price pressures that businesses are facing, and which will likely be passed on to consumers in the way of consumer price inflation in the months to come,” PNC economist Kurt Rankin has explained. “Strong gains across the board for businesses reinforce the inflationary concerns that the Federal Reserve is set to battle this year with monetary policy, and which the economy, in general, has recently begun expressing caution and concern over”.

Meanwhile, the transportation crisis continues to aggravate! There’s a massive shortage of trailers adding much more pressure to our already-stressed supply chains. Since the final quarter of 2021, trailer manufacturing has contracted. Of course, the effects of this shortfall are already rippling through the economy and leading to much more expensive rates to move goods across the country. The Department of Labor’s index of the price of transportation of freight by truck rose 18.3 percent last month compared to a year ago. Rail freight prices have also jumped nine percent and air freight prices went up 10.8 percent

On a consumer level, the rise in transportation costs has been even more acute. Last week, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released new data showing that the price of used vehicles shoot up! The agency pointed out that the market is extremely bleak for buyers right now, and blamed the aggressive increase in prices on the ongoing global semiconductor shortage.

You may have noticed that prices at the pump have been shooting up recently. Between January 2021 and January 2022 gas prices rose from an average of $2.50 to $3.50 per gallon last Sunday, up nearly a dollar from last year's levels, according to AAA. Recent data also shows that transportation services - including buses, trains, airlines, and taxisare expected to continue rising throughout 2022 as gasoline prices soar all across the country.

Furthermore, if you’re thinking about remodeling or buying a newly-built home, you may have to think twice. The price of lumber has started to go up once again. The latest numbers released by the National Association of Home Builders suggest that the most recent price jump has added “more than $18,600 to the price of a newly built home.”

“With a historically low level of overall housing inventory and solid demand due to low mortgage interest rates and favorable demographics, new construction has been unable to add additional needed supply to the market, resulting in unsustainable gains for home prices,” stressed David Logan, director of tax and trade analysis at NAHB.

We are headed to national ruin, and those that are running our country are even more blind than those that they are supposed to be leading."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/