"We Are In So Much Trouble"

"We Are In So Much Trouble"

by Michael Snyder

"What we are witnessing is truly the beginning of the end. In recent months I have focused a lot on the economic implosion that is now taking place, but what we are facing is so much broader than that. Our society is literally falling to pieces all around us, and now World War 3 has begun. Many regard the war that has erupted on the other side of the globe as just a conflict between Ukraine and Russia, but the truth is that it is really a proxy war between the United States and Russia. And since neither side seems much interested in diplomacy at this point, this proxy war could eventually become a shooting war between the two greatest nuclear powers on the entire planet.

Before the war started, events were already starting to accelerate substantially. Inflation was out of control, a new energy crisis had flared up, and global food supplies were getting tighter and tighter. But now we are truly in unprecedented territory. If you doubt this, just look at what is happening to the price of fertilizer:

Fertilizer prices 1993-present:

The spike in the middle is the 2008 financial crisis

>it’s so over pic.twitter.com/MW0Csb1mXj

-  Alexei Arora (@AlexeiArora) March 26, 2022

That chart should chill you to the core, because it clearly tells us that food shortages are coming. In fact, even Joe Biden is now publicly admitting that food shortages are coming. On his show the other night, Tucker Carlson broke this down in a way that only Tucker Carlson can...

Before the war, some fertilizers had doubled in price and some had tripled in price. In the video that you just watched, we are told that some fertilizer prices are now four to five times higher than they were a year ago. Here in the western world, most farmers will simply bite the bullet and pay the higher prices. In turn, we will pay higher prices for food at the grocery store. But in poorer parts of the globe, many farmers will use a whole lot less fertilizer or none at all. As a result, global food production will be way down in the months ahead.

To turn this crisis around, what we really need is for the proxy war in Ukraine to end. Unfortunately, both sides just continue to escalate matters instead. For example, on Saturday Joe Biden shocked the entire world when he stated that Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power”… "President Joe Biden on Saturday said Russian leader Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power,” ratcheting up international pressure and further uniting NATO allies against Putin over his invasion of Ukraine. “A dictator, bent on rebuilding an empire, will never erase the people’s love for liberty,” Biden said at the end of a sweeping speech in Poland. “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia, for free people refuse to live in a world of hopelessness and darkness.”

That was a call for regime change in Russia. Russian leaders were already paranoid about western intentions before, and now their paranoia is going to be off the charts. Biden administration officials are trying to walk back Biden’s comments, but the damage has already been done.

Meanwhile, we just learned that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov have not spoken at all since February 15th… "Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov have not spoken since February 15, over a week before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the State Department told Antiwar.com on Friday.

Earlier this week The Washington Post cited US officials who said Blinken hasn’t attempted to speak with Lavrov since the start of the conflict. When asked to confirm the story, a State Department spokesperson said, “We can confirm that the last time Secretary Blinken and Foreign Minister Lavrov spoke was on February 15.”

Even during the darkest days of the Cuban missile crisis, U.S. officials always kept talking to the Russians. So this is something that should alarm all of us greatly.

On top of everything else, Joe Biden just told U.S. troops in Poland that they will see what conditions in Ukraine are like “when you’re there”… "According to The Associated Press, Biden’s remarks were given in front of U.S. troops who “had been sent near Poland’s border [with Ukraine] to assist with the humanitarian emergency and to bolster the U.S. military presence on the eastern flank of NATO.” The words, “and you’re gonna see when you’re there,” were spoken right after the president mentioned the bravery of Ukrainian citizens. Later, the White House once again told reporters that U.S. troops would not be deployed to fight in the war in Ukraine."

Every time Biden opens his mouth, he makes things even worse. If he isn’t careful, he could drag the entire world into a global war. Earlier today, I was horrified to learn that Biden has decided to reaffirm “America’s right to use nukes in a first-strike scenario” at such a tense moment…"President Joe Biden is abandoning a campaign vow to alter longstanding US nuclear doctrine, and will instead embrace existing policy that reserves America’s right to use nukes in a first-strike scenario, according to multiple reports. As Russian forces continue their bloody assault on Ukraine, Biden is under pressure from NATO allies not to abandon the right to use nuclear weapons to deter conventional attacks."

Many had thought that the war in Ukraine would help to unite America and would provide a boost to Biden’s extremely poor approval ratings. And in the initial days of the war, that seemed to happen. But now Biden’s approval ratings are falling once again…"President Joe Biden’s job approval ratings keep falling in his second year in the White House, with just 40% of Americans approving of the job that he is doing, a new NBC News survey finds." That is the lowest rating Biden has seen in his presidency.

We were warned that 2022 would be a very troubled year, and we are still in the very early chapters. If the Biden administration continues with all of this insanity, things are going to get a whole lot worse. I really like how Gerald Celente summarized matters during his recent interview with Greg Hunter…

“We are headed for an economic calamity the likes of which we have never seen in our lifetime. They are getting our minds off it with the war in Ukraine. You know, I wrote in the magazine in the beginning of the year, we said that the Covid war would wind down by late March and mid-April. It’s winding down. So, now, as we said in the magazine, we went from the Covid war to the Ukraine war, and now to world war. We are headed to World War III. There is not a peep about a cease-fire. Biden is only bragging about more weapons being sent in. Biden says we are going to defeat the Russians. We are not backing down. No one is talking about a cease-fire, and no one is talking about peace. If we don’t unite for peace, we are all going to die in war.”

A thermonuclear war with Russia would be more horrible than most people could possibly imagine, and our leaders should be doing all that they can to prevent that from happening. But right now Biden administration officials apparently don’t even see any point in talking with the Russians. We are steamrolling down a road that leads to nuclear war, and meanwhile the global economy is starting to implode at frightening speed.

If you are still delusional enough to believe that everything will work out “just fine” somehow, then I really feel sorry for you."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

Gregory Mannarino, "Dollar Drops... Gold, Silver, And Crude Slammed!"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 3/29/22:

"Dollar Drops... Gold, Silver, And Crude Slammed!"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Corruption, Conspiracy and Regime Change"

"Corruption, Conspiracy and Regime Change"

by Addison Wiggin

“No one will care about the markets or economy if nuclear war breaks out.”

— Dave Gonigam, The 5 Min. Forecast

"Five hundred years before Jesus preached the Golden Rule, Sun Tzu, the immortal Wu dynasty general, penned "The Art of War." Among his many instructions,Tzu recommends giving your enemy a “golden bridge” by which they can gracefully defeat. “Even if you know you have the power to crush your opponent,” writes an attorney who calls herself The Conflict Expert, explaining how Tzu’s ideas can be used in modern times, “allow them the possibility to retreat so that you do not deplete your own resources, time or money unnecessarily.”

Clearly, given his gaffe-heard-posted-tweeted-retweeted-round-the-world on Friday, Joe Biden believes the West has the means to crush Russia economically. Clearly, he hasn’t read Sun Tzu and believes he’s been anointed guardian of the West’s mystical moral high ground. Or he’s intentionally goading Russia into an escalation of the war in Ukraine.

Maybe it’s both. Last week, Biden’s “New World Order” gaffe also suggests Biden’s unilateral belief in the West’s superiority. Likewise does Kamala Harris’ speech in Poland prior to the invasion where she suggested Ukraine will soon join NATO. In 2013, Obama said we needed a regime change in Syria. Before him, Bush thought his “shock and awe” strategy would lead to a Western-style vassal state in Iraq. We know how all these conflicts have turned out… that is to say, not good. Hundreds of thousands of dead. Trillions of U.S. dollars spent. Zero political achievements gained.

Lester Munson, writing in the New York Sun, attributes “the temptations of righteousness to President Wilson’s ‘crusading moralism’ of a century ago. Of course, Woodrow Wilson’s dream of a ‘global political order that ends the nightmare of warring nation-states’ was specifically rejected by the U.S. Senate in the form of the League of Nations.”

Economist Martin Armstrong, my guest for the Wiggin Sessions today, presents a much more provocative explanation of Joe Biden’s off-script comment that Putin “cannot remain in power.” Armstrong argues the European Union needs this war. “I've been fighting with various different central banks for the last 10 years,” Martin says rather emphatically. “I've been arguing this whole thing's going to come and fall apart.” He’s referring to exploding EU pension obligations which will decimate the economy… not to mention the ballooning national debt in the United States.

For the same reasons, founder and director of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, has been pushing his Great Reset agenda for several years. “Many people have seen his eight-point Agenda 2030. In it he says ‘you'll own nothing and be happy’. All right? But he's not actually advocating communism. They're trying to make it sound like they're doing this for you.The governments can't default. If they do, there's going to be millions of people with pitch works dragging them out of their parliament over there.” 

Armstrong contends that academics, like Schwab, are convinced Marxists would have prevailed had they also controlled the United States and Europe. “They feel that since we were not Marxist that's why communism failed,” says Martin. “But of course, that's total nonsense.”

The invasion in Ukraine gives them a convenient enemy in Vladimir Putin. With the Great Reset, “they really think that they're going to be able to pull off Bretton Woods II,” and reset the global economy. Three things have stood in their way: Donald Trump, who was against their climate change agenda. They have effectively vilified Trump in the mainstream press. The next is Putin’s Russia, then XiPing’s China.

“The [globalists] feel that if they can cause regime change in Russia,” that would suit their aims better.”But I just don't see that as happening and our computer model basically says that they're going to fail.” Armstrong is referring to his Ask-Socrates economic and political forecasting platform. Ask-Socrates forecasted a Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2013, a year before Putin forcibly annexed the Crimean Peninsula. 

Follow your bliss,"

The complete Session with Martin Armstrong, including the origin and track record of Ask-Socrates, his proprietary tool:

Full screen recommended.

Jim Kunstler, "What Is to Be Done?"

"What Is to Be Done?"

by Jim Kunstler

"The black hole of depravity known as Hunter Biden’s Laptop dilates ever wider as the rickety “Joe Biden” regime chugs towards its event horizon of disgrace and collapse, throwing off the jetsam of our nation’s remnant honor in its toxic vapor trail. The memos and emails on the device could not be clearer: “Joe Biden” and his grifting family sold out their country.

The mentally incompetent husk of a crooked old pol is owned by every foreign interest in his decaying orbit, and owned as well by the foul and perfidious “intel” mafia lodged like a cancerous mass eating away at what used to be known as the American government. Face it: this false “president,” installed by malignant forces allied with his Party of Chaos, is a menace to our nation.

The Russian clean-up of Ukraine has exposed the operational base of the Biden Family’s flagrant crimes. The laptop confirms that Hunter’s Rosemont Seneca front company invested in the chain of bio-weapons labs set up by the CIA and Department of Defense and operated through their front company Metabiota, with tendrils reaching to the Wuhan, China, virology lab that was the most likely point-of-origin for SARS-CoV-2, a.k.a. Covid-19.

Money money money everywhere along the trail for the Biden Family, fees-for-service from the crooked Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky, chairman of Burisma, the gas company that provided walking-around money for Hunter’s insatiable drug habit and degenerate sexual adventures… more millions from shady sources in Russia… and then billions more from the board rooms of Chinese companies connected with the intel and military arms of the CCP.

If the American public had known of these entanglements, Joe Biden would certainly not have been the beneficiary of the engineered balloting irregularities that determined the 2020 election. But the public, still reeling from the mindf**kery of Covid 19, was left ignorant through the combined operations of the CIA’s captured social networks along with a tractable legacy news media.

Of course, the FBI had Hunter’s laptop in its possession in January of 2020. How is it possible that the device and all its incriminating contents were withheld as evidence in the momentous impeachment trial of Donald Trump which, after all, was instigated by Mr. Trump’s inquiring phone call about those very matters involving the Bidens and Mykola Zlochevsky? Answer: Because the FBI was already rattled by the unravelling truth about its seditious role in the RussiaGate folly, and the agency was wholly invested in the removal of Mr. Trump before top agency officials found themselves in grand juries — federal crimes on top of federal crimes by federal officials. How do we stand for that?

And they continued to sit on and hide the laptop through the first fifteen months of “Joe Biden’s” astoundingly calamitous term in office to the dangerous point that America has arrived at today, the potential brink of a nuclear exchange with Russia — all a product of our decade-long interventions and machinations in sad-sack Ukraine, a train-wreck of foreign policy blunders that can only be explained as a product of the most extreme and ruinous organizational hubris seen since Germany’s misadventure invading the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, 1941.

And now the suits in America’s intel, state, and war offices are apparently thinking that the “Joe Biden” operation has got to be thrown overboard before it is too late to dissociate themselves from it, and its slime-trail of crime. All hinges on whether a percentage of the mesmerized American public — those buffaloed by the combined effects of Woke hysteria and mass formation psychosis — might rouse from their induced trance and recognize the ominous shape that reality has assumed while their minds were hostage.

Too many can see that everything now in American life is going south. “Joe Biden” has knocked the remaining props out from under the country’s assumed standard-of-living. We are on track to go medieval in months, not years: no replacement parts for our machines, no money (or else money that’s worthless), no food, no heat, no light, no getting from Point A to Point B, soon no hope. And if we’re really unlucky, the very land itself and the things we’ve built upon it reduced to cinders and ash.

One thing you must know: we are not entering the wishful robotic anti-utopia of social credit control, QR code management, and World Economic Forum/Klaus Schwab transhumanism. We are veering, rather, off-the-rails into epic historic political disorder, something much more perplexing than the clear-cut crack-up of the 1860s. In this new pandemonium, the best of us will remember what has been best about us: liberty, the rule of law, freedom of speech and the press, the dignity of work, our sense of obligation to a common good, and the decorum of truth-telling. For now, strive to stay sane against all the inducements of the wicked."

- https://kunstler.com/

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Related:

Hunter Bidens Laptop Pics

"'The Russians have videos of me doing crazy f***ing sex!' 

"Hunter Biden’s Video: US President’s Naked Son Seen Telling Prostitute That Russian Drug Dealers Stole His Laptop That Had More Sex Videos"

"Panic Buying Energy Supply Accelerates As Shortages Send Prices To Skyrocket"

Full screen recommended.

"Panic Buying Energy Supply Accelerates As 

Shortages Send Prices To Skyrocket"

by Epic Economist

"The rush to hoard energy supplies continues to accelerate and it is creating massive shortages across every segment of global supply chains. As refineries announce that declining inventories will lead to fuel rationing in the coming weeks, consumers, manufacturers, freight carriers and farmers are panic buying gasoline and diesel in anticipation of further shortages and price hikes. Meanwhile, gas theft cases are being reported all across the U.S., as prices surpass the $6.00 mark in some cities and drivers face sticker shock at the pumps.

Diesel is essential for freight transport – is what carriers use to deliver goods to consumers. But it is also the main fuel used for industrial transport, so companies are doing everything they can to ensure supplies and prevent inventories from going down even further. Although some companies are trying to switch to other suppliers instead of buying Russian diesel, they will hardly be the only ones doing so, and alternative suppliers such as Saudi Arabia simply cannot absorb this extraordinary excedent demand. As demand largely outstrip supplies, all large markets for middle distillates will experience shortages, which will consequently keep pushing oil prices higher.

On top of being crucial to freight and industrial transport, diesel is the main fuel used to power mining and agricultural equipment. With prices for the fuel higher, the prices of the end products will also soar, exacerbating the inflation that has turned into a major headache for millions of consumers in the United States. Farmers are scrambling to stock up on diesel to power up the machines used to harvest their crops, with some of them panic buying whenever they can find the fuel available.

Over the past two weeks, fuel sales climbed 20 percent as drivers, businesses and farmers rush to hoard fuel in preparation for the imminent rationing and higher prices. Meanwhile, drivers are getting angry as panic buying of fuel is leading to long lines of cars waiting outside their local stations, with many locations closing unexpectedly as they run dry. Similar scenes are being reported in the U.S., the U.K., France, Spain, and also in Ukraine, as drivers desperately try to fill up their tanks before an inventory collapse occurs.

Apparently, the more prices go up, the more consumers try to get “creative”, with some people trying to use plastic bags and laundry baskets to store the heavy liquid gold. According to a recent report, one unidentified fuel hoarder was seen using a big plastic container to hold their purchase, only to have it spill onto the street.

The event prompted fire officials to issue a warning about the dangers of hoarding gasoline. "People underestimate the explosive power of gasoline," says Fire Marshal Nathanial Gibbons. The fire department urged all gas stations to call the authorities if they see someone collecting gas in an unapproved container. Cases of gas ingestion incidents increased by 21 percent in the weeks following the burst of the Russia and Ukraine crisis, according to AAPCC data. “Between February 24 and March 13, AAPCC data showed poison centers across the U.S. received 165 reports of gas ingestion, an increase from the 141 incidents reported during the 18-day stretch immediately prior to the invasion,” it reported.

The situation is getting so crazy, that people have been doing extremely crazy things too. Meanwhile, U.S. drivers will continue experiencing sticker shock as they pull up to gas pumps. However, analysts say that should expect another uptick as companies switch to summer blends of gasoline. During the warmer-weather months, gasoline is reformulated to prevent excessive evaporation, which makes it way more expensive to refine and distribute. Summer blends can be 25 to 75 cents more expensive than winter blends. So the combination of all of these factors will impact everything from trucking costs to Uber rates in the coming weeks. And, of course, consumer prices will continue to reach new highs while we collectively march towards a devastating financial abyss."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

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Related:

"Farmers on the Brink"

"I’ve Never Heard So Many Lies"

"I’ve Never Heard So Many Lies"

by Jim Rickards

"All wars are full of lies. Winston Churchill famously said, “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” We accept that idea broadly. Secret invasion plans should be closely held. The identities of spies must be kept under wraps. New weapons and defensive tools should not be revealed because enemies will be alerted to their potential and begin offensive workarounds.

Still, just because the government has legitimate reasons to deceive the public in wartime does not mean that citizens don’t have a duty to find the truth to the extent they can. The Russian-Ukraine kinetic war and the broader U.S.-Russian economic war are full of more lies than any public events I’ve seen in my lifetime including Vietnam, Watergate and the Iraq War. That’s how big the lies are.

The Bodyguard of Lies: Here’s the official U.S. narrative as echoed by the mainstream media: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was unprovoked, Putin’s three-day blitzkrieg of Kyiv has failed, Russian forces are bogged down and valiant Ukrainian troops are putting up a powerful defense and regaining lost ground with the help of weapons from NATO. In this version, President Zelenskyy is the new Churchill rallying patriots against an evil dictator. All of that is either entirely or mostly false.

Here’s the real story: Russia’s invasion is the end result of 14 years of provocation by the West, including repeated declarations that Ukraine will join NATO and a U.S.-backed coup d’état in 2014 that displaced a pro-Russian president.

Russia never planned a blitzkrieg on Kyiv. That’s a Western invention intended to make Putin look like a failure. In fact, Russia is slowly and methodically taking territory in the south and east of Ukraine in order to control the seacoasts, eliminate pro-fascist elements in Mariupol and establish pro-Russian autonomous zones in Donbas.

Churchill? Really? A full assault on Kyiv, if it ever comes, is last on the list. Ukraine may reoccupy a village here and there, but they’re losing ground in Kherson, Mykolaiv, Melitopol, Mariupol, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk and surrounding areas. Moreover, Zelenskyy is no Churchill. He’s succeeded in presenting himself as a strong wartime leader, standing up to the big, bad Putin. But in reality, he’s a corrupt oligarch with millions of dollars hidden offshore. His acting skills have enhanced his propaganda efforts, but it doesn’t take much training to see how phony he is.

Innocent civilians, including women and children, are dying under his failed leadership and inability to come to terms with Putin before the invasion began. In a nutshell, Zelenskyy bet on support from Biden and the West and lost. There is ample evidence from numerous sources to support this analysis. Some of the best sources come from Switzerland, where military experts are infuriated that traditional Swiss neutrality has been cast aside.

Most tellingly, Pentagon leaks say the same thing. The story from inside the Pentagon is that Putin is not acting recklessly but is being patient and methodical. It also says that, despite some civilian casualties, Putin is actually using a restrained approach. Furthermore, there are no signs he is preparing for the use of chemical or biological weapons. So what about the economic sanctions? Are they working?

The Most Severe Sanctions in History: Payments in and out of Russia have been blocked. The Central Bank of Russia has been banned from the global dollar payments systems. The same is true for the 10 largest Russian banks and a long list of oligarchs and Russian government officials.

Accounts of Russian targets in Western banks have been frozen. Exports of critical technology and high-tech equipment to Russia have been banned. U.S. and European airspace has been closed to Russian airlines. Secondary sanctions have been imposed so that if another nation like China sells goods to Russia made with U.S. technology or machines, that nation will be punished also. The list goes on.

Economic sanctions of these kinds sound powerful when they’re announced and do have some impact. But in the long run they never work. In the end, the costs are real but the effects of the sanctions are nil. It’s a lose-lose proposition.

Sanctions Against Oligarchs Are Doing Putin a Favor: Some losses are incurred by those whose accounts are frozen or whose businesses are handicapped. A few Russian oligarchs may lose their yachts, but guess what? Putin doesn’t like the oligarchs anyway. We’re actually doing Putin a favor by clipping the oligarchs’ wings. Putin’s power comes from the military and security services, not the oligarchs. Tellingly, the strategic goals that justified the sanctions are never achieved. At most, they are slowed down temporarily. It’s just a matter of time before the affected parties devise workarounds to the sanctions.

The bottom line is Russia has not stood still. Russian exports of critical strategic metals such as nickel, titanium, palladium and aluminum have been cut off. Russian (and Ukrainian) wheat and other grains have also been cut off. This will result in starvation in certain parts of the world and massive food price inflation everywhere. Given the extent of these sanctions and the retaliation, the damage to world trade, supply chains and even the availability of goods will be massive. But what about the strategic aims of the sanctions?

Sanctions Won’t Stop the Ukrainian War: Here, the sanctions are a complete failure. They have had zero impact on Russian advances on the battlefield and Russian goals in Ukraine. In fact, Putin has proved to be a master chess player as he runs rings around the sanctions.

When the U.S. imposed sanctions on Russian banks, the value of the ruble collapsed. Still, oil and natural gas exports from Russia were allowed because Europe is dependent on them and the world is facing an energy shortage independent of the war in Ukraine. Oil and natural gas are paid for in dollars. In a masterpiece of judo, Putin is now demanding that Russian oil and natural gas bought by states imposing sanctions be paid for in rubles. This mystified many. If Russia needs dollars (they do), why be paid in rubles?

The answer is that the only way for Europe to get rubles quickly is to buy them from the Central Bank of Russia using dollars. Under Putin’s plan, Russia still gets the dollars, still sells oil and natural gas but he has the added benefit of making rubles stronger because Europe has to buy them to pay for the energy exports. Cutting off Russian exports of oil and natural gas is pointless because Russia will just sell the same energy to China and India. But the price will go up. It's a world market, after all.

Putin’s Many Moves Ahead of Biden: This is how judo works. You use your enemy’s power against him by avoiding the main attack and turning the tables. Putin’s a judo expert in real life and he just demonstrated that he can practice it in economic warfare. The West will now be engaged in propping up the ruble after they did so much to destroy it. Putin thinks many moves ahead on the chessboard while Biden is playing pin the tail on the donkey, blindfolded.

Sanctions ultimately harm everyday citizens and consumers most. Inflation is surging in Russia and the United States because of the sanctions. But the pain on the American people has only begun. It's about to get much worse. U.S. consumers and investors will suffer as prices soar, growth lags and stocks collapse.

This is all unpleasant news for Western warmongers. But it’s critical for everyone to know what’s actually going on so they don’t lose money in the chaos to come. The best information is that the war in Ukraine will last longer than most expect, will produce supply chain disruptions and will amplify the inflation that’s already present. In the end, Putin will prevail in Ukraine, while the Ukrainian people and Western consumers will pay the heaviest price."

- dailyreckoning.com

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Related, highly recommended:

 “Gradually, Then Suddenly”

“How did you go bankrupt?” “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”

- Ernest Hemingway, "The Sun Also Rises"

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

Musical Interlude: Moody Blues, "Question"

Full screen recommended.

A Spadecaller video of The Moody Blues "Question"

Please do visit the Spadecaller channel link above.

○

Matthew Schwartz (AKA Spadecaller) is an artist imbued with 

deep convictions. His galleries of original art and photography 

are available for viewing and purchase at:  

- https://matthew-schwartz.pixels.com/

"A Look to the Heavens"

"One of the brightest galaxies in planet Earth's sky is similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy: big, beautiful Messier 81. Also known as NGC 3031 or Bode's galaxy for its 18th century discoverer, this grand spiral can be found toward the northern constellation of Ursa Major, the Great Bear.

The sharp, detailed telescopic view reveals M81's bright yellow nucleus, blue spiral arms, pinkish starforming regions, and sweeping cosmic dust lanes. Some dust lanes actually run through the galactic disk (left of center), contrary to other prominent spiral features though. The errant dust lanes may be the lingering result of a close encounter between M81 and the nearby galaxy M82 lurking outside of this frame. M81's faint, dwarf irregular satellite galaxy, Holmberg IX, can be seen just below the large spiral. Scrutiny of variable stars in M81 has yielded a well-determined distance for an external galaxy - 11.8 million light-years."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210312.html

"When We Walk To The Edge..."

“When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take a step into

the darkness of unknown, we must believe one of two things will happen.

There will be something solid to stand on, or we will be taught how to fly.”

- Patrick Overton

"Tell Me..."

“Life passes like a flash of lightning, whose blaze barely lasts long enough to see. While the earth and sky stand still forever, how swiftly changing time flies across man’s face. O you who sit over your full cup and do not drink, tell me – for whom are you still waiting?”

- Hermann Hesse

"What You Are Pursuing..."

“If the sun is shining, stand in it – yes, yes, yes. Happy times are great, but happy times pass – they have to – because time passes. The pursuit of happiness is more elusive; it is life-long, and it is not goal-centered. What you are pursuing is meaning – a meaningful life… There are times when it will go so wrong that you will be barely alive, and times when you realize that being barely alive, on your own terms, is better than living a bloated half-life on someone else’s terms.”

- Jeanette Winterson

Chet Raymo, “Free As A Bird”

“Free As A Bird”

by Chet Raymo

“All afternoon I have been watching a pair of hummingbirds play about our porch. They live somewhere nearby, though I haven’t found their nest. They are attracted to our hummingbird feeder, which we keep full of sugar water. What perfect little machines they are! No other bird can perform their tricks of flight – flying backwards, hovering in place. Zip. Zip. From perch to perch in a blur of iridescence. If you want a symbol of freedom, the hummingbird is it. Exuberant. Unpredictable. A streak of pure fun. It is the speed, of course, that gives the impression of perfect spontaneity. The bird can perform a dozen intricate maneuvers more quickly than I can turn my head.

Is the hummingbird’s apparent freedom illusory, a biochemically determined response to stimuli from the environment? Or is the hummingbird’s flight what it seems to be, willful and unpredictable? If I can answer that question, I will be learning as much about myself as about the hummingbird. So I watch. And I consider what I know of biochemistry. The hummingbird is awash in signals from its environment – visual, olfactory, auditory and tactile cues that it processes and responds to with lightning speed.

How does it do it? Proteins, mostly. Every cell of the hummingbird’s body is a buzzing conversation of proteins, each protein a chain of hundreds of amino acids folded into a complex shape like a piece of a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. Shapes as various as the words of a human vocabulary. An odor molecule from a blossom, for example, binds to a protein receptor on a cell membrane of the hummingbird’s olfactory organ – like a jigsaw-puzzle piece with its neighbor. This causes the receptor molecule to change that part of its shape that extends inside the cell. Another protein now binds with the new configuration of the receptor, and changes its own shape. And so on, in a sequence of shapeshifting and binding – called a signal-transduction cascade – until the hummingbird’s brain “experiences” the odor.

Now appropriate signals must be sent from the brain to the body – ion flows established along neural axons, synapses activated. Wing muscles must respond to direct the hummingbird to the source of nourishment. Tens of thousands of proteins in a myriad of cells talk to each other, each protein genetically prefigured by the hummingbird’s DNA to carry on its conversation in a particular part of the body. All of this happens continuously, and so quickly that to my eye the bird’s movements are a blur.

There is much left to learn, but this much is clear: There is no ghost in the machine, no hummingbird pilot making moment by moment decisions out of the whiffy stuff of spirit. Every detail of the hummingbird’s apparently willful flight is biochemistry. Between the hummingbird and myself there is a difference of complexity, but not of kind. If humans are the lords of terrestrial creation, it is because of the huge tangle of nerves that sits atop our spines.

So what does this mean about human freedom? If we are biochemical machines in interaction with our environments, in what sense can we be said to be free? What happens to “free will”? Perhaps the most satisfying place to look for free will is in what is sometimes called chaos theory. In sufficiently complex systems with many feedback loops – the global economy, the weather, the human nervous system – small perturbations can lead to unpredictable large-scale consequences, though every part of the system is individually deterministic. This has sometimes been called – somewhat facetiously – the butterfly effect: a butterfly flaps its wings in China and triggers a cascade of events that results in a snowstorm in Chicago. Chaos theory has taught us that determinism does not imply predictability. Of course, this is not what philosophers traditionally meant by free will, but it is indistinguishable from what philosophers traditionally meant by free will. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.

I watch the hummingbirds at the feeder. Their hearts beat ten times faster than a human’s. They have the highest metabolic rate of any animal, a dozen times higher than a pigeon, a hundred times higher than an elephant. Hummingbirds live at the edge of what is biologically possible, and it’s that, the fierce intenseness of their aliveness, that makes them appear so exuberantly free. But there are no metaphysical pilots in these little flying machines. The machines are the pilots. You give me carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and a few billion years of evolution, and I’ll give you a bird that burns like a luminous flame. The hummingbird’s freedom was built into the universe from the first moment of creation.”

- http://www.sciencemusings.com/ 

The Daily "Near You?"

Granbury, Texas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

The Poet: David Whyte, ”Sweet Darkness”

”Sweet Darkness”

“When your eyes are tired the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes

to recognize its own.

There you can be sure you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb tonight.

The night will give you a horizon

further than you can see.

You must learn one thing:

the world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds

except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness

to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.”

- David Whyte,

“House of Belonging”

"If..."

“If Man were relieved of all superstition, and all prejudice, and had replaced these with a keen sensitivity to his real environment, and moreover had achieved a level of communication so simplified that one syllable could express his every thought, then he would have achieved the level of intelligence already achieved by his dog.”

~ Robert Brault

Gregory Mannarino, "Beyond Hyper-Ballooning Debt Will Fuel Higher Stock Prices, Commodities and Inflation"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 3/28/22:

"Beyond Hyper-Ballooning Debt Will Fuel 

Higher Stock Prices, Commodities and Inflation"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Jim Rickards: The Worst Financial Market Crash Nobody Believed Was Coming Is Already Upon Us"

Full screen recommended.

The Atlantis Report, "Jim Rickards: The Worst Financial

 Market Crash Nobody Believed Was Coming Is Already Upon Us"

"How It Really Is"

 

"Gas Rationing And Food Vouchers Being 

'Normalized' In Preparation For Next Phase"

Bill Bonner, "Following the Leaders"

"Following the Leaders"

by Bill Bonner

San Martin, Argentina -  "What jolly insanity! Came this report last week, from Yahoo Finance: "LA county, America's largest, sees gas prices hit record high. Los Angeles County saw a new record in average gas prices on Tuesday as the price of crude oil remains over $100 a barrel, signaling the cost to fill up at the pump won't be easing soon enough for drivers.

The average price for the largest U.S. county by population rose 2.3 cents to $6.011 - nearly 17 cents more expensive than it was a week ago, $1.224 higher than one month ago, and $2.085 greater than one year ago, according to figures from the American Automobile Association."

Highest Recorded Average Price:

Regular Unleaded. $5.866. 3/22/22

Diesel $6.297. 3/11/22

California is a leader. Its governor, Gavin Newsom, who – along with Chelsea Clinton and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg – was formed by the World Economic Forum’s ‘School for Young Leaders’ (aka… the Davos Deciders) … has a plan to deal with inflation: “We are working on a proposal that helps Californians with rising gas prices and provides funding to public transit so they can provide direct relief for riders,” Newsom spokesperson Erin Mellon told the Los Angeles Times."

Get it? Spend more money! And Mr. Newsom is not alone in the dark night of economic ignorance. Along come three House Democrats with white canes. Yahoo Finance: "Three House Democrats introduced a bill last week to provide Americans with monthly direct payments through 2022 - or, at least, while prices remain exceptionally high.

Reps. Mike Thompson of California, Lauren Underwood of Illinois, and John Larson of Connecticut unveiled the plan. It would provide $100 monthly checks to individuals and $200 to couples while the national gas price average is $4 a gallon or above. Households would also be able to claim another extra $100 for each dependent they claimed on their tax returns."

Tax, Borrow or Print? Let’s see. Where do they get the money? There are only three possible sources. Taxes. Borrowing. Or printing. By which of these are the people of the United States of America made better off? If the money is raised via taxation, it is simply taken from one citizen and given to another – both of whom suffer from rising prices. If it is borrowed, it must be paid back – with interest. By whom? How? When?

California cannot print money; but the USA can. And since fewer and fewer people want to lend at today’s ultra-low (but rising!) rates, most likely, all future spending programs will be funded by the Fed’s printing presses. In other words, attempts to salve the hurt caused by rising prices will result in even higher prices.

We used to rely on Canadians to be a little more prudent and dignified than those of us south of the 49th parallel. No more. The province of Quebec is already ahead of Newsom and the three looney Democrats. The government in Quebec City announced a new spending program that is supposed to "help Quebecers cope with the sharp increase in the cost of living that we have seen in recent months,” according to Finance Minister Eric Girard. As many as 6 million Quebecers are supposed to receive a $500 stimmie/gimmie check.

Mo’ Money: And here, back in the good ol’ USA, is CNN with an even more bodacious proposal: "The administration should ask Congress to authorize a payment of $1,100 per household to pay for four months of higher prices going forward, and provide an option for the president to provide a second or even third check to low-and-moderate income families for an additional four months in the event that prices remain high. We don’t know when this crisis is going to end or when prices for essential goods and services will return to more affordable levels."

Sure. Whatever. There must be at least 80 million ‘low and moderate’ income families in America. Giving them $1,100 every four months would cost, in round numbers, about $250 billion a year, with no plausible source of funds other than the printing press.

But wait. Why not tax oil company profits and distribute the money to consumers? Yes, that idea too – like a runaway trash barge – is floating around the media. It would ‘kill two birds with one stone,’ say proponents, who seem to have it in for our feathered friends. It would help reduce reliance on the devil’s pitch… while alleviating the pain of rising gasoline prices.

What is the matter with these geniuses? Prices rise (inflation) when the supply of money goes up faster than the goods and services that it buys. Of course, there’s always more to the story. But if you’ve understood that much, you’ve got the important part. Taxing oil company profits would only discourage production… while handing out money would encourage consumption. Gasoline prices would rise faster than ever. Don’t they teach these ‘young leaders’ anything in their WEF school? Don’t they learn how to control inflation? Or do they just show them how to use inflation to get what they want? But what do they want? More to come…"

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

○

Related, highly recommended:

"We Are In So Much Trouble"

"Food Shortages At Kroger! What's Next?"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 3/28/22:

"Food Shortages At Kroger! What's Next?"

"In today's vlog we are at Kroger with shortages everywhere! We are here to check out food shortages, and the empty shelves situation! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

"How to Prepare for Food Shortages and Your Security"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, AM 3/28/22:

"How to Prepare for Food Shortages and Your Security"

"Now have a very dangerous world. Things are more precarious by the week. You need to plan to work on your families security and the potential for food shortages. Here’s a video covering basic steps you can do for your security and planning on what to purchase."

Gregory Mannarino, "New Phase In Russia/Ukraine War"; Stocks, Markets"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 3/28/22:

"New Phase In Russia/Ukraine War"; Stocks, Markets"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Washington Is Delirious With War Fever (For No Reason To Do With Homeland Security)"

"Washington Is Delirious With War Fever

(For No Reason To Do With Homeland Security)"

by David Stockman

"Economic, social and political dangers abound. That’s because Washington and its subservient mainstream media are delirious with war fever like at no time in the last seven decades. The resulting reckless pursuit of an unhinged Sanctions War against Russia poses a dire threat to the global economy and domestic prosperity and does so for no good reason of homeland security whatsoever.

With respect to the latter, the sheer facts are overwhelming. So we repeat them with an added total for the respective military budgets: To wit, the economic might of NATO is 29X that of Russia and its combined defense budgets are 18X greater, which tells you all you need to know about the “Russian threat”:

• NATO: $42.78 trillion of GDP; 945 million population; $45,130 per capita income; $1,200 billion defense budget;

• RUSSIA: $1.46 trillion of GDP; 144 million population; $10,300 per capita income; $67 billion defense budget.

Given these realities, why should Washington care about an intramural battle among contiguous peoples and territories that have been joined at the hip for most of the last 1300 years? The implicit answer is because it’s the world’s self-appointed policeman and Spanker-in-Chief. Beyond that, it’s apparently due to a putative aggrandizement syndrome. That is, Putin’s Russia may be puny in the economic and military scheme of things today, but once it is permitted to acquire a taste for conquest it is certain to grow into a Hitlerian monster.

Needless to say, the former reason is based on Washington’s institutionalized arrogance and has no place at all in realistic thinking about national security, while the latter is based on sheer ignorance about the actual history of Hitler’s conquests. The truth is, there was nothing inexorable about it. Contrary to today’s nostrums, Nazi Germany wasn’t a self-feeding deus ex machina of conquest, nor was it a generic model of what happens when ruthless dictators are not braced with opposing force early on.

To the contrary, Hitler was a product of a specific, unique and unfortunate history that bears no resemblance to current circumstances on the Ukrainian/Russian line of conflict. In fact, Hitler’s original expansion was rooted in deep German grievances about its territorial, industrial and financial (i.e. onerous reparations) decapitation by the vengeful winners at Versailles.

Thus, the re-occupation of the Alsace-Lorain and the Ruhr, the annexation of the German speaking Sudetenland, the dispute over the Danzig Corridor in Poland – all involved the reclamation of former German territories, while the Anschluss with Austria was a voluntary marriage of German-speaking losers from the abomination of 1919.

So Hitler’s rise and initial territorial expansion had been preventable, not inexorable, because it was rooted in historic mistakes that took on a life of their own: Namely, the irridentism of an aggrieved German population that had been stripped of 15% of its historic territory and upwards of 50% of its coal and other industrial resources by the “peacemakers” at Versailles.

Stated differently, Hitler was the metastasized residue of history gone wrong, not the inexorable product of annexing, for instance, the overwhelmingly German speaking population of the Sudetenland. The latter had been extracted from Germany in 1919 and handed to the new state of Czechoslovakia, which, in turn, had been carved out of whole cloth by Wilson & Co.

The correct lesson from the 1930s, therefore, is more nearly the opposite of the deus ex machina aggrandizement syndrome peddled by Washington and Brussels. It was the West’s insistence on the creation and perpetuation of the artificial states of Poland and Czechoslovakia that gestated Hitler, not the mere fact of neighboring territories being conquered after the fact.

As it happened, Poland had disappeared from the maps of Europe in 1795 and had no reason to come back in the fulsome extent provided by the Versailles Treaty except for Wilson’s courting of the Polish vote in the industrial Midwest. Similarly, the mongrel state of Czechoslovakia with its linguistic, religious and ethnic concoction had no historical basis or reason for existence at all. Well, again, except for American electoral machinations, which constituted the raw politics underlying Wilson’s messianic determination to remake the map of the world so as to be “safe for democracy” in his own exalted opinion.

The fact is, Ukraine is the Poland and Czechoslovakia of the present time – an artificial state loaded with Russians and with no reason for existence in its present form and girth. Well, still again, other than Washington’s fanatical insistence that the happenstance map of administrative units which fell out of the Soviet Union’s collapse constitute sacred borders that must be preserved at all hazards.

To the contrary, what Putin wants, ironically, is the pre-communist status quo ante. That is, he wants Crimea, where Ukrainians constitute but a tiny minority and which had been Russian since 1783. And, more crucially, which hosts the greatest strategic military asset possessed by Russia thereafter – -the great Naval base at the headwaters of the Black Sea in Sevastopol.

Likewise, the Donbas and territories east of the Dnieper River and along the northern edge of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov have been Russian for upwards of 300 years. By all facts of pre-1922 history, these territories amounted to Novorossiya (“New Russia”) as shown in this map from 1897.

As it happened, they became “Ukrainian” only by writ of two of history’s greatest evil monsters – Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin – who placed them in the administrative unit of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic for reasons that have no historic validity whatsoever.

Yet a devastating war goes on there today – a war which is careening to the precipice of WWIII – because Washington encourages Kiev to insist on retention of “every inch” of a map put together by Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev. In fact, the latter did for the map of Ukraine what Wilson & Co. did to Germany after the Great War. That is to say, these long gone commie dictators extracted from Russian and Polish territories a combustible mongrel that begs to be partitioned and returned to the status quo ante, not defended to the last drop of Ukrainian blood and US/NATO treasure.

Needless to say, there is no Washington policy-maker familiar with the above map, nor Capitol Hill armchair warrior who has a clue. Most especially, by shrieking about “borders” being violated and the need for all out support to a heroic nation valiantly resisting the Russian ogre, the GOP’s bloodthirsty hawks and neocons have made it easy as pie for Biden and his national security minions to pivot to an all-out war footing against Russia, thereby distracting the American public from the abysmal failure of their domestic policies.

Indeed, red in tooth and claw the vast majority of Republicans are now demanding suicidal measures like a No Fly Zone and secondary sanctions, including against China. The latter are being proffered in the vain hope that it will weaken Russia enough to eventually cause it to quit its “invasion” and permit the map of Ukraine to revert to what Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev ordered it to be.

One of these war-loving Republicans is Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, who recently relieved himself of the following gem in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal. “To cut off Mr. Putin’s oil and gas sales globally, the administration and Congress should impose secondary sanctions on the entirety of Russia’s financial sector.” What he means is that any bank on the entire planet which should dare to defy Washington’s writ and finance a Russian oil trade to a third party, such as China, India or Brazil, should be slapped with sanctions for aiding and abetting what amounts to global commerce–now redefined as an act of war against the US and NATO.

So to repeat: The GOP has gone for full-scale “war socialism.” Suddenly, the rights of private property owners are not so sacred after all – if they are involved in exporting, importing or financial intermediation with anything Russian. In those instances, they are far game for Washington’s economic draft – and the consequent loss of markets, sales, profits and value on the say so of war-loving blowhards like Senator Toomey.

The worst thing, of course, is that all of this “war socialism” has nothing to do with defense of the homeland or anything rational at all. To the contrary, it’s the rotten spawn of an Imperial City populated by careerist politicians who get their jollies pretending to be the suzerains of mankind and Spanker-in-Chief of the planet’s malefactors.

Unfortunately, the current mess isn’t the half of it. The MSM is presenting such a distorted and fanciful picture of on-the-ground conditions in the Ukraine that the American public is totally in the dark about what comes next. That is, the Ukrainian military has been decimated and the resistance of the Kiev government is on its last legs – notwithstanding the nonstop whistling past the graveyard of the nation’s clownish president.

Recently, the peripatetic Mike Whitney had a powerful interview with one Larry C Johnson. The latter is a veteran of the CIA and the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism. He is the founder and managing partner of BERG Associates, which was established in 1998 to provide training to the US Military’s Special Operations community. He has been vilified by the right and the left, which means he must be doing something right.

In any event, Johnson summarized what amounts to the dogs of war which are not barking on the Ukrainian side of the ledger. The implication is that its only a matter of time until a fait accompli on the ground in Ukraine results in the aforementioned partition of its borders and the demilitarization and neutralization of the rump state left behind, even as Washington finds itself in full-scale economic war with Russia.

That is to say, either Imperial Washington is going to surrender from its Sanctions War or the real truth of the matter will come to light. Namely, that the violation of Ukraine’s putative borders is only the excuse for Washington hegemonic determination to call the shots in the former Soviet Union – just like it has attempted to do elsewhere on the planet during the last 70 years in the name of promoting democracy.

As to the looming collapse of the Ukrainian resistance, here are the key spoiler alerts from the Johnson interview, conveying the inconvenient truths about where the war is actually heading.

Russia’s de facto No Fly Zone: Within the first 24 hours of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, all Ukrainian Ground Radar Intercept capabilities were wiped out. Without those radars, the Ukrainian Air Force lost its ability to do air to air intercept. In the intervening three weeks, Russia has established a de facto No Fly Zone over Ukraine. While still vulnerable to shoulder fired Surface to Air Missiles supplied by the U.S. and NATO to the Ukrainians, there is no evidence that Russia has had to curtail Combat Air Operations.

The Allegedly Stalled 40-Mile Russian Column: When a 24 mile (or 40 mile, depends on the news source) was positioned north of Kiev for more than a week, it was clear that Ukraine’s ability to launch significant military operations had been eliminated. If their artillery was intact, then that column was easy pickings for massive destruction. That did not happen. Alternatively, if the Ukrainian’s had a viable fixed wing or rotary wing capability they should have destroyed that column from the air. That did not happen. Or, if they had a viable cruise missile capability they should have rained down hell on the supposedly stalled Russian column. That did not happen. The Ukrainians did not even mount a significant infantry ambush of the column with their newly supplied US Javelins.

Cut Off to the South, North and East: We have not seen a single instance of a Ukrainian regiment or brigade size unit attacking and defeating a comparable Russian unit. Instead, the Russians have split the Ukrainian Army into fragments and cut their lines of communication. The Russians are consolidating their control of Mariupol and have secured all approaches on the Black Sea. Ukraine is now cut off in the South and the North.

Destruction of De Facto NATO Military Bases: The really big news came this week with the Russian missile strikes on what are de facto NATO bases in Yavoriv and Zhytomyr. NATO conducted cyber security training at Zhytomyr in September 2018 and described Ukraine as a “NATO partner.” Zhytomyr was destroyed with hypersonic missiles on Saturday. Yavoriv suffered a similar fate last Sunday. It was the primary training and logistics center that NATO and EUCOM used to supply fighters and weapons to Ukraine. A large number of the military and civilian personnel at that base became casualties.

Agreement With Colonel Douglas Macgregor – A Guest on the Tucker Carlson Show Who Said: “The war is really over for the Ukrainians. They have been ground into bits, there is no question about that despite what we hear from our mainstream media. So, the real question for us at this stage is, Tucker, are we going to live with the Russian people and their government or we going to continue to pursue this sort of regime change dressed up as a Ukrainian war? Are we going to stop using Ukraine as a battering ram against Moscow, which is effectively what we’ve done.”

Washington’s Massive Miscalculation: I am shocked at the miscalculation in thinking economic sanctions on Russia would bring them to their knees. The opposite is true. Russia is self-sufficient and is not dependent on imports. Its exports are critical to the economic well-being of the West. If they withhold wheat, potash, gas, oil, palladium, finished nickel and other key minerals from the West, the European and US economies will be savaged. And this attempt to coerce Russia with sanctions has now made it very likely that the US dollar’s role as the international reserve currency will show up in the dustbin of history."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/