Bill Bonner, "Time to Panic?"

"Time to Panic?"

What to do as stocks plummet... crypto tanks...

 and the economy hits the skids...

by Bill Bonner

Youghal, Ireland - "Our subject is the “Decision of the Century.” Which way will the feds go? Will they stop inflation? Or let ‘er rip? We think we know the answer. But let’s not rush to judgment. This will probably be the most important decision the feds (including the Fed) ever make. And our educated hunch about which way it will go is probably our most important guess too.

If you think the feds will really stick with their ‘tightening’ program… you should panic now. Sell stocks, bonds, collectibles, the house, the kids – everything. They’ll all soon be available at much lower prices. But be ready to buy back in when the bottom is reached. Maybe in 6 months. Maybe 24. Maybe 50.

But if the feds flinch and begin another loosening, stimulating cycle… well… you’ll have more time. Prices will go up… in nominal terms, but down in real, inflation-adjusted value. It will be confusing. Ambiguous. The bottom won’t come for maybe 10 years… maybe 20. And be sure to renew your passport. When the end comes, it will be a horror show of poverty, hunger, chaos, corruption and revolution.

“Festina Lente”: So, let’s hasten to make our call slowly… carefully, after much prayer, meditation… and heavy drinking. We will race along… trying to connect the dots… as if our financial lives depended on it – which they do. But before taking action, we’ll hesitate… and reconsider.

“Emperor Augustus told his commanders to ‘festina lente’… or ‘hasten slowly,’” began our favorite fund manager, Chris Mayer, last week. The setting was the gracious old mansion, Woodlock House, near Waterford, Ireland, which serves as our overseas business headquarters. The coffee had been served. Introductions had been made. We sat in plush chairs waiting for hard facts. Chris took center stage; he was going to explain why the fund was down and what he was going to do about it.

What would he say, we wondered? We have all lost money. Would other investors be worried? Would they be mad? But the group was as genteel and relaxed as the setting. We have all been around the block. We’re grown ups. We don’t cry in public.

Chris noted that there is always a tendency for investors to panic, especially when things are going very badly. If so, this would be a good time to do it. Never in our 50-year career have we seen such a gloomy set-up as this.

Back in the 1970s, the inflation numbers were worse. But John Williams at ShadowStats still calculates the rate the same way they did back then; he gets 13.5% for today’s inflation – almost exactly what it was in 1979. But in 1979, conditions were much different. The beer from the last party had already gone flat. Stocks had hit a peak in 1968. By 1979, the froth was gone; adjusted for 11 years of inflation, they were already near the very bottom of their range. They would not go much lower, no matter how high the Fed raised its lending rate.

Cresting Mt. Debtmore: Today’s stocks are coming off an all time high. So far, they have lost about 15% of their value – which leaves another 30% to 40% more to go. And the federal debt in 1979 was still under $1 trillion… less than a third of GDP. Now it has crested $30 trillion… which is about 130% of GDP.

And here’s the latest. As expected… housing prices are rolling over. Bloomberg: "The US and European real estate markets are experiencing a downwards shift in prices as the buyers fall away, according to the global chief investment officer of Hines, one of the largest closely held real estate investors in the world. Prices have fallen by about 5% to 10% compared to a year earlier in some areas, according to David L. Steinbach, with Europe following a trajectory set in the US. “I think we’re in for a rough few months,” he said. “This year is going to be choppy water."

Meanwhile, stocks are getting hammered. “Markets plunge amid fears of sharply higher interest rates,” say PBS Newshour. Yesterday, the Dow fell nearly 900 points. And it’s the worst year for bonds in history – with a 12.8% loss for the US 10-Year Treasury. As for a traditional portfolio – 60% S&P 500 stocks, 40% US Treasury bonds – it’s already lost 15% of its value. Not since 1937 has it done so badly.

Readings of consumer sentiment have never been lower – ever. Or at least not since the University of Michigan began tracking it in 1952. Most people don’t own many stocks or bonds. What they care about is how much they earn each week and what they can buy with it. And for the last 63 weeks they’ve been getting poorer as wage hikes lag consumer price increases.

Rough Saylorin’: And the foam is coming off the foamiest part of the market, too. Here’s Bloomberg: "Bored Ape NFTs Face Steep Declines in Broad Cryptoasset Rout." "The NFT Index is down 23%. Bitcoin is at an 18-month low. The market cap of Bored Ape Yacht Club fell 47% in the past week. And some of the fringiest crypto assets have been blown away completely. The price for Luna, for example, is now so microscopically low that you could add or subtract zeros and no one would notice."

And poor Michael Saylor. A couple years ago, the MicroStrategy jefe had a very bad idea – to use the company as a proxy for bitcoin. He used stockholders’ money to buy BTC. Then, as crypto prices rose, he borrowed millions more to buy more. This looked like a winning strategy for awhile. People could easily buy his stock. Then, they’d ‘own’ bitcoin without having to remember passwords or key codes. At its peak, in February 2021, his stock was selling for over $1,300.

Alas, the froth on that heady brew disappeared too. As the price of bitcoin fell, Saylor’s coins were underwater. How would he repay lenders, investors asked themselves. The stock lost nearly a quarter of its value over the weekend and is now trading at $150… a loss of nearly 90%. More to come…"

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

Canadian Prepper, "If I Go Missing...This is Why"

Canadian Prepper, 6/14/22:

"If I Go Missing...This is Why"

"A new bill is being passed in Canada which provides the government with sweeping powers to regulate social media, this is very scary considering the nature of the times we are in."

The Daily "Near You?"

Bulverde, Texas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Life..."

"Life is not what you see, but what you've projected.

It's not what you've felt, but what you've decided.

It's not what you've experienced, but how you've remembered it.

It's not what you've forged, but what you've allowed.

And it's not who's appeared, but who you've summoned.

And this should serve you well until you find what you already have."

- The Universe

"Reality is what we take to be true.

What we take to be true is what we believe.

What we believe is based upon our perceptions.

What we perceive depends upon what we look for.

What we look for depends upon what we think.

What we think depends upon what we perceive.

What we perceive determines what we believe.

What we believe determines what we take to be true.

What we take to be true is our reality.

- Gary Zukav

"The Bankers Versus Mass Depopulation"

"The Bankers Versus Mass Depopulation"

The Bankers Plus India and China versus the Malthusians -

 a Blockbuster Conflict coming soon to Planet Earth.

by BOOM

"There are suggestions of a mass depopulation program being used against many nations. Deaths from All Causes appear to be rising in the younger age groups 15 years - 60 years and many insurance companies have already warned us of this, especially increasing in the last quarter of 2021. We already have a name for this phenomenon - Sudden Adult Death Syndrome SADS. There now appears to be a growing epidemic of sudden death in the previously healthy, even in out top athletes and football players.

The theory is that Covid is an engineered, man made bioweapon deliberately released to infect the planet and to reduce its population dramatically. Some also suggest that the Covid leaky vaccines using mRNA genetic technology and viral vector genetic technology have been designed to accelerate and add to this process.

Thomas Robert Malthus was an English scholar and influential economist in the late 18th century. He wrote a book in 1798 titled "An Essay on the Principle of Population". In it, he observed that an increase in a nation's food production improved the well-being of the population, but the improvement was always temporary because it led to population growth. Taken to its extreme, the followers of Malthus - called Malthusians - predict that the Earth's resources are limited and therefore cannot support endless growth. Thus a certain maximum level of population must exist. They believe that the total population must therefore be controlled below that level.

If such a deliberate global mass depopulation program is occurring, presumably driven by modern day Malthusians, then BOOM predicts that it must eventually come into a severe, direct conflict with the commercial banking sector of all nations and then the central banks. Why? Because banking depends upon the continual renewal and expansion of its loan books in aggregate. And if such renewal of loans and growth in loans is threatened by demographic contraction, then the banks will be faced with shrinking loan books and falling revenues. And if the available pool of borrowers shrinks, the banks will eventually become desperate and reckless in issuing loans. The insolvency of banks would then threaten as sure as night follows day.

For the purposes of this discussion, let's assume that the mass depopulation hypothesis is correct. Current total global population is estimated to be almost 8 Billion. Some hypotheses imagine a target population of half that number for sustainability to occur. But others suggest a figure as low as 500 Million.

The Georgia Guidestones are a mysterious granite monument erected in 1980 in Elbert County, Georgia, in the United States. A set of ten guidelines is inscribed on the structure in eight modern languages and a shorter message is inscribed at the top of the structure in four ancient language scripts. One slab stands in the center, with four arranged around it. A capstone lies on top of the five slabs, which are astronomically aligned. An additional stone tablet, which is set in the ground a short distance to the west of the structure, provides some notes on the history and purpose of the Guidestones. The structure is sometimes referred to as an "American Stonehenge". The anonymity of the Guidestones' authors and their apparent advocacy of population control, eugenics, and internationalism have made them an object of controversy and conspiracy theories for more than 40 years.

There is a set of ten guidelines or principles engraved on the Georgia Guidestones in eight different languages, one language on each face of the four large upright stones. Moving clockwise around the structure from due north, these languages are: English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Traditional Chinese, and Russian.

Guideline Number 1 is to maintain humanity under 500 Million population in perpetual balance with nature. Another guideline is to "guide reproduction wisely - improving fitness and diversity". It is all very Utopian. This all sounds hard to believe. Most people have never heard of the Georgia Guidestones but the details are easily found on any search engine."

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones

Please view this complete article here:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

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BOOM seeks out the very best information from authoritative sources and strives for consistency in its quality and trustworthiness. In evidence of this, BOOM has developed a loyal readership which includes many of the world’s most senior economists, central bankers, fund managers and academics. We strive to always have good relationships with our readers. If you want a real edge in understanding the complex world of finance and economics, subscribe to BOOM as a Follower on LinkedIn or as a Subscriber (Free) to the BOOM Newspaper at http://boomfinanceandeconomics.com/#/

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Freely download "An Essay on the Principle of Population",

by Thomas Robert Malthus, here:

- https://math.uchicago.edu/~shmuel/

"It's The Way...

"It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it."

- Lena Horne

"Central Banks Are Racing To Crash the Economy"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 6/14/22:

"Central Banks Are Racing To Crash the Economy"

"The Central Banks are racing to finish the economy off. Their actions and inaction have done serious harm. Who will break first? Where will gas, food and mortgage prices end up at? Will everything continue to rise?"

"A Nightmare On Wall Street"

"A Nightmare On Wall Street"

by Michael Snyder

"This is bad. This is really, really bad. Investors loved the ride up, but now the Federal Reserve is helping to destroy the bubble that it once so eagerly created, and trillions of dollars in paper wealth is being wiped out in the process. Unfortunately, our system is not really designed to handle this sort of carnage. So many in the financial world live right on the edge, and when things go really, really bad the dominoes can start falling at a pace that is absolutely breathtaking. We witnessed this back in 2008, and it could soon happen again.

On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 880 points, and many were deeply concerned about what Monday would bring. Well, the pessimists turned out to be correct, because the Dow plunged another 876 points on Monday. Overall, the Dow is now down approximately 17 percent from its record high, and so it has almost reached bear market territory.

Of course the S&P 500 is already there…"The S&P 500 fell 3.88% to 3,749.63, marking its lowest level since March 2021 and bringing its losses from its January record to more than 21%. The benchmark closed in bear market territory (down more than 20% from its high) after trading there briefly on an intraday basis about three weeks ago. Some on Wall Street say it’s not an official bear market until the index closes there and that’s what happened on Monday. The last time stocks were in a bear market was in March 2020 at the onset of the pandemic."

Needless to say, the Nasdaq has them both beat. Tech stocks were on the cutting edge on the way up, and now they are on the bleeding edge on the way down. The Nasdaq dropped another 4.68% on Monday, and at this point it has already dropped over 33 percent from the all-time high.

Just think about that. A third of the value of the Nasdaq has already been obliterated.

Wow.

As I write this article, investors are extremely concerned that the Fed could raise rates by 75 basis points on Wednesday…"Major averages hit their lows of the session in the final 30 minutes after a Wall Street Journal report suggested the Fed would consider raising rates by 0.75% on Wednesday, more than the half-point increase currently expected."

And Fox Business is reporting that some traders believe that we could actually see a 100 basis point increase in July…."While market consensus is for a half-point interest rate hike at the Fed’s policy-setting meeting this week, the odds for a larger increase next month are surging, with a potential 75-basis point or 100-basis point jump on the table in July. About 16% of traders are penciling in a 100-basis point jump next month, compared to 53% forecasting a 75-basis point increase, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool, which tracks trading."

Of course the Fed should not be raising rates at all. The U.S. economy is clearly heading into a very painful recession, (depression - CP) and you don’t raise rates as a recession is starting. Unfortunately, Fed officials feel like their hands are tied because inflation is completely out of control. Last week we learned that the consumer price index has risen to 8.6 percent, and we were told that was the highest that it has been since December 1981. But if the inflation rate was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, it would actually be well over 15 percent at this point.

So the Fed is going to bring down the hammer, and that is going to continue to roil financial markets. And right now cryptocurrencies are being hit harder than anything else. In fact, the price of Bitcoin plunged 15 percent in just 24 hours…"Bitcoin, the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency, has lost 15% in the last 24 hours - putting it about 66% below its all-time high in November last year, when it traded around $69,000, according to data from Coinbase. Bitcoin fell below $24,000 Monday, sending the crypto to its lowest level since December 2020."

Ether, the second-most-valuable digital coin, plunged 17%, and has now lost about 75% of its value since November. At the peak, just about every Bitcoin investor was in the green. But as I have warned my readers over and over again, you only make money in the financial markets if you get out in time.

There was quite a bit of panic among crypto investors after the Celsius Network announced that it was being forced to temporarily pause “withdrawals, swaps and transfers”…"Celsius Network Ltd., one of the biggest lenders in crypto and a key player in the world of decentralized finance, said late Sunday that it was pausing withdrawals, swaps and transfers following weeks of speculation over its ability to make good on the outsize returns it offered on certain of its products, including yields as high as 17%. The move effectively halted a platform with registered entities across the globe and billions of dollars worth of digital coins under management, accelerating a selloff in the broader market that was already in progress on concern over prospects for tightening monetary policy ahead of a Federal Reserve meeting this week."

We should watch some of these big players in the cryptocurrency industry very carefully. In the end, I have a feeling that some people that thought that they were “crypto millionaires” will actually walk away with nothing or next to nothing. Of course it isn’t just crypto investors that are going to get eviscerated.

In recent years our financial markets have been transformed into the biggest casino in the history of the world. And a lot of investors had become convinced that the Federal Reserve had decided to permanently rig the game in their favor. Now the rug is being pulled out from under them, and the losses are piling up fast.

Hopefully the markets will stabilize after the Fed decision comes out. But the outlook for the months ahead is terrible, and my regular readers already know what I believe is coming beyond that. It took years to get to the top of the rollercoaster, but the ride down will go much, much faster."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

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Live Market updates:

- https://www.marketwatch.com/market-data

"How It Really Is"

 

"Genuinely Satisfying..."

"The happiness that is genuinely satisfying is accompanied by the fullest 

exercise of our faculties and the fullest realization of the world in which we live.''

- Bertrand Russell

"The United States Has Joined the Ranks of Sh*thole Countries"

"The United States Has Joined 

the Ranks of Sh*thole Countries"

by Paul Craig Roberts

"The Biden regime has turned the United States into a laughing stock. Not that the US wasn’t already a laughing matter, but now, oh boy!, even patriots are laughing.

You know those sanctions that were going to bring down Russia? Well, Biden’s sanctions drove up, not down, Russian oil shipments and revenues by 300,000 barrels a day as reported by the Wall Street Journal, and doubled the price of gasoline to Americans as reported by the American Automobile Association. - https://www.rt.com/business/

You know all those tanks and weapons promised to speed Ukraine’s defeat of Russia, well, sorry, the Russians aren’t supplying us with the titanium necessary for tank armor.

The United States government is so stupid and incompetent that the Washington morons do not yet comprehend that by becoming involved in Russia’s limited intervention in eastern Ukraine, formerly part of Russia, Washington is doing more than making the West combatants in the conflict and, thereby, potential targets. The people in Washington have to be the most stupid in the world. They are convincing Russia that her goal of demilitarizing and neutralizing Ukraine requires conquest of the entire country, not just destroying the Ukrainian army sent to reconquer the two breakaway republics in the Russian Donbass region.

In other words, by interfering in the conflict with the hope of bogging down Russia in a Vietnam-type situation, Washington is convincing the Kremlin that Russia cannot achieve her objective without conquering the entirety of Ukraine. Faced with this task, Russia is unlikely to use a go-slow-save-the-civilians war policy. “The Horsemen of the Apocalypse are galloping ahead,” warns Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, but Washington is incapable of hearing anything that sounds like truth.

With Russia strengthened by Western incompetence, Washington has turned its guns against the Republican leading candidate for the governorship of Michigan. Ryan Kelley, leading in the polls, was knocked out of the race when the Democrats had their politicized FBI arrest him for “insurrection” in the false narrative of the “January 6” plot of Trump white supremacists intending to overthrow the US government, not with weapons or armed force, but by taking selfies of themselves sitting in Nancy Pelosi’s chair. For the woke Democrats, a few people wandering around the Capitol is all it takes to overthrow the Unipower US government. https://www.rt.com/news/

In the South American banana republics, former presidents are subject to being arrested by their successors. In much of the world, government is just a place where interest groups fight for power, and as the saying goes, all is fair in love and war. By arresting a political candidate to keep him from being elected, the United States has now joined this third world group. The Nazified Democrats have put the writing on the wall for the wimp Republicans.

The Democrats are abusing their legislative power by conducting “hearings” that President Trump and his supporters are guilty of sedition by attempting an insurrection. In actual fact, Trump’s supporters were listening to Trump’s speech a mile or more away at the Washington Monument, when the alleged “insurrection,” an FBI-orchestrated event, occurred at the Capitol.

Bloomberg “News,” a leading presstitute lie factory, demonizes patriotic Americans as insurrectionists who attempted a coup. Be sure you understand the nonsense of the accusation. Americans who came to Washington to show their support for a presentation to Congress of evidence that the Democrats stole the election from Trump have been arrested as “insurrectionists.” There were not enough “insurrectionists” at the Capitol to overthrow a McDonalds hamburger restaurant. Even if the Capitol had been occupied by people who refused to leave, how does occupying a building amount to a coup?

The purpose of the orchestrated “insurrection” was to breakup and prevent the presentation of the evidence of a stolen election to Congress, which the orchestration succeeded in doing.
Observing the gullibility of Americans, the Democrats and the whore media that services them have turned support for an investigation of election theft into a “deadly attempt to block the transfer of power” and into an “attempted coup” that was “the bloody culmination of a seven-part plan that began before the 2020 election – a plan ultimately moved forward by one person”–Donald Trump. - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/

Well, Trump forgot to arm his troops and he assembled them at the wrong place. 99% of the racist Trump deplorables were assembled too far away to participate in the attempted coup."

- https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "The Debt Market Has Now Become Unstable, If This Continues Global Markets Will Crash"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 6/14/22:

"The Debt Market Has Now Become Unstable,

 If This Continues Global Markets Will Crash"

- https://traderschoice.net/

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Related:

"The Laws Of Mean Reversion Have Begun Their Summer Offensive"

"Empty Shelves Everywhere At Meijer! Not Good! What's Coming?"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 6/14/22:

"Empty Shelves Everywhere At Meijer! Not Good! What's Coming?"

"In today's vlog we are at Meijer, and are noticing Empty Shelves Everywhere! We are also noticing ridiculous price increases, and a major food shortage! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

"And We Pretended..."

"It was like we had known all along that the sky was going to fall,

 and then it fell, and we pretended to be surprised."

- Elin Hilderbrand, "The Love Season"

"All Hell Is Breaking Loose, Huge Asset Crash Coming"

Jeremiah Babe, 6/13/22:

"All Hell Is Breaking Loose, Huge Asset Crash Coming"

Must Watch! Canadian Prepper, "We Warned You! Now Hell Has Broken Loose!"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, PM 6/13/22:

"We Warned You! Now Hell Has Broken Loose!"

"The markets have crashed and its gonna get ugly..."

"Crashed" is past tense. Oh no, it's "crashing" and will go a lot lower, with truly horrifying consequences... - CP

"Brace For Stock Market Crash That Will Freak Americans Out"

Full screen recommended.

"Brace For Stock Market Crash That Will Freak Americans Out"

by Epic Economist

"The 2022 stock market crash is much worse than anyone realizes. Some call it a slow train wreck - which is not untrue, - but at the end of the day, there’s no stopping this disaster. A dramatic sell-off continues to pick up speed, sending indexes to bear market territory while bubbly stocks face a free-fall that only rivals the downturn witnessed during the dot-com bust. Investors are panicking as inflation continues to soar despite the Fed’s attempts to control it. This means that even higher interest rates are coming, and they will probably be announced at tomorrow’s FOMC meeting. This also means that even sharper losses are ahead, and in today’s video, we compiled some dire outlooks shared by Wall Street’s greatest minds.

Stock markets faced a broad-based sell-off this morning after a very disappointing May Consumer Price Index report was released on Friday, which showed that instead of getting better, inflation is still getting worse in the U.S. As of midday today, the S&P 500 was down 3.76%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down approximately 2.5%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite plunged 4.19%.

The losses recorded since Friday reflect the depth of market disappointment with the CPI inflation data. In essence, this is a signal that the Federal Reserve will have to tighten policy even more aggressively to be able to contain inflation growth – which is very bad news for an overvalued stock market. At the same time, Bank of America’s Chief Investment Strategist Michael Hartnett released a recent note to clients warning that the ongoing stock market crash is far worse than anyone realizes. In fact, BofA's Bull & Bear Indicator is at "extreme bearish" territory right now, and just shy off all-time lows.

Hartnett explains that a significant reversal in investors’ sentiment is taking place right now given that the inflation shock has become an undeniable reality. In the first quarter alone, natural gas prices shot up by 141%, gasoline prices rose 91%, oil went up by 61%, while wheat and corn surged by 39% and 30%, respectively. In his view, the rates shock triggered by the Fed is just beginning, and a massive slowdown in economic growth is also going to contribute to a stock market meltdown.

On a similar note, Salem Abraham, a 34-year market veteran says that a Great Depression-style stock-market crash and economic meltdown can't be ruled out for 2022, and a striking double-digit loss could wipe out a quarter of the market’s gains in a single day."I see this [downfall], and I'm just like, 'This is really nothing,'" Abraham said in an interview with Insider. "There's a way worse scenario than this. People have both a short memory and a lack of respect for history," he said.“We may just be setting up for a 25% drop in one day," Abraham predicts.

If that apocalyptic scenario plays out, it's not just rich investors who will get crushed. Worker pensions and college endowments would be wiped out if they're too heavily reliant on stocks, he alerted. Simply put, we may be on the verge of an economic catastrophe unlike anything we’ve ever experienced. Sooner than later the "house of cards" is coming down. The panic and the pain ahead won't end anytime soon, and they are going to be far greater than most Americans will be able to handle."

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "Markets Meltdown"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 6/13/22:

"Markets Meltdown"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Musical Interlude: Gnomusy, "Dolmen Ridge"

Gnomusy, "Dolmen Ridge"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Slide your telescope just east of the Lagoon Nebula to find this alluring field of view in the rich starfields of the constellation Sagittarius toward the central Milky Way. Of course the Lagoon nebula is also known as M8, the eighth object listed in Charles Messier's famous catalog of bright nebulae and star clusters. 

Close on the sky but slightly fainter than M8, this complex of nebulae was left out of Messier's list though. It contains obscuring dust, striking red emission and blue reflection nebulae of star-forming region NGC 6559 at right. Like M8, NGC 6559 is located about 5,000 light-years away along the edge of a large molecular cloud. At that distance, this telescopic frame nearly 3 full moons wide would span about 130 light-years."

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

"I Would Rather Have..."

"When a bull is being lead to the slaughter, it still hopes to break loose and trample its butchers. Other bulls have not been able to pass on the knowledge that this never happens and that from the slaughterhouse there is no way back to the herd. But in human society there is a continuous exchange of experience. I have never heard of a man who broke away and fled while being led to his execution. It is even thought to be a special form of courage if a man about to be executed refuses to be blindfolded and dies with his eyes open. But I would rather have the bull with his blind rage, the stubborn beast who doesn't weigh his chances of survival with the prudent dull-wittedness of man, and doesn't know the despicable feeling of despair."

- Nadezhda Mandelstam

"The Ultimate Panacea is… [drumroll]"

"The Ultimate Panacea is… [drumroll]"

by Addison Wiggin

“The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists”.

– Ernest Hemingway

"I’m completely aware that Hemingway’s quote is overused. But guess what? Panacea is Merriam-Webster’s word of the day. You’ll just have to suffer this lead. That’s not to say Ernest’s comment isn’t accurate. Or even more pointedly appropriate to our current time.

We concern ourselves with permanent ruin. Some of our colleagues call it a hobby. But we know some other folks who do the same. We first met James Howard Kunstler right after he published "The Long Emergency." He was talking about climate change mostly. But after speaking with him this past week, I gained a more nuanced view of his understanding. Climate change is a thing, but the long emergency is really our response to it. The same could be said of mass shootings.

Jim’s an interesting guy. He wrote for Rolling Stone for some time. Then went out on his own. I admire him for having the temerity to choose his own path. You’ll probably agree. Take a look:

“It's a hallucination du jour,” Jim tells me, “a hallucination of the moment. It's a figment. And that's exactly why so many people in the financial world are afraid of a real King Hell crash because they know if the bond market goes up in a vapor, our money's going to disappear. We're going to be in the most unbelievable deflationary depression that world history ever saw because the money is just going to rush out of here into a black hole. And it will, of course, take the equity markets down with it as that occurs." There’s more where that came from at the link above."

"Follow your bliss,"

- WigginSessions@email.5minforecast.com

"This Is The Motive..."

"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

"It's Not the End of the World"

"It's Not the End of the World"

by Jeff Thomas

"Periodically, I’ll encounter someone who has read one of my essays and has decided not to pursue them further, stating, "You’re one of those ‘End of the world’ guys. I can’t be bothered reading the writings of someone who thinks we’re all doomed. I have a more positive outlook than that." In actual fact, I agree entirely with his latter two comments. I can’t be bothered reading the thoughts of a writer who says we’re all doomed, either. I, too, have a more positive outlook than that.

My one discrepancy with such comments is that I don’t by any means think that the present state of events will lead to the end of the world, as he assumes. But then, neither am I naïve enough to think that if I just hope for the best, the powers that be will cease to be parasitical and predatory out of sympathy for me. They will not.

For any serious student of history, one of the great realizations that occurs at some point is that governments are inherently controlling by nature. The more control they have, the more they desire and the more they pursue. After all, governments actually produce nothing. They exist solely upon what they can extract from the people they rule over. Therefore, their personal success is not measured by how well they serve their people, it’s measured by how much they can extract from the people. And so, it’s a given that all governments will pursue ever-greater levels of power over their minions up to and including the point of total dominance.

It should be said that, on rare occasions, a people will rise up and create a governmental system in which the rights of the individual are paramount. This was true in the creation of the Athenian Republic and the American Constitution, and even the British Magna Carta. However, these events are quite rare in history and, worse, as soon as they take place, those who gain power do their best to diminish the newly-gained freedoms. Such freedoms can almost never be destroyed quickly, but, over time and "by slow operations," as Thomas Jefferson was fond of saying, governments can be counted on to eventually destroy all freedoms.

We’re passing through a period in history in which the process of removing freedoms is nearing completion in many of the world’s foremost jurisdictions. The EU and US, in particular, are leading the way in this effort. Consequently, it shouldn’t be surprising that some predict "the end of the world." But, they couldn’t be more incorrect.

Surely, in 1789, the more productive people of France may have felt that the developing French Revolution would culminate in Armageddon. Similarly, in 1917, those who created prosperity in Russia may well have wanted to throw up their hands as the Bolsheviks seized power from the Romanovs.

Whenever a deterioration in rule is underway, as it is once again now, the observer has three choices:

Declare the End of the World: There are many people, worldwide, but particularly in the centers of the present deterioration – the EU and US – who feel that, since the situation in their home country is nearing collapse, the entire world must also be falling apart. This is not only a very myopic viewpoint, it’s also quite inaccurate. At any point in civilization in the past 2000 years or more, there have always been empires that were collapsing due to intolerable governmental dominance and there have always concurrently been alternative jurisdictions where the level of freedom was greater. In ancient Rome, when Diocletian devalued the currency, raised taxes, increased warfare and set price controls, those people who actually created the economy on a daily basis found themselves in the same boat as Europeans and Americans are finding themselves in, in the 21st century.

It may have seemed like the end of the world, but it was not. Enough producers left Rome and started over again in other locations. Those other locations eventually thrived as a result of the influx of productive people, while Rome atrophied.

Turn a Blind Eye: This is less dreary than the above approach, but it is nevertheless just as fruitless. It is, in fact, the most common of reactions – to just "hope for the best." It’s tempting to imagine that maybe the government will realize that they’re the only ones benefitting from the destruction of freedom and prosperity and they’ll feel bad and reverse the process. But this clearly will not happen. It’s also tempting to imagine that maybe it won’t get a whole lot worse and that life, although not all that good at present, might remain tolerable. Again, this is wishful thinking and the odds of it playing out in a positive way are slim indeed.

Accept the Truth, But Do Something About It: This, of course, is the hard one. Begin by recognizing the truth. If that truth is not palatable, study the situation carefully and, when a reasonably clear understanding has been reached, create an alternative. When governments enter the final decline stage, an alternative is not always easy to accept. It’s a bit like having a tooth pulled. You want to put it off, but the pain will only get worse if you delay. And so, you trundle off to the dentist unhappily, but, a few weeks after the extraction, you find yourself asking, "Why didn’t I do this sooner?"

To be sure, those who investigate and analyze the present socio-economic-political deterioration do indeed espouse a great deal of gloom, but this should not be confused with doom. In actual fact, the whole point of shining a light into the gloom is to avoid having it end in doom.

It should be said here that remaining in a country that is tumbling downhill socially, economically and politically is also not the end of the world. It is, however, true that the end result will not exactly be a happy one. If history repeats once again, it’s likely to be quite a miserable one.

Those who undertake the study of the present deterioration must, admittedly, address some pretty depressing eventualities and it would be far easier to just curl up on the sofa with a six-pack and watch the game, but the fact remains: unless the coming problems are investigated and an alternative found, those who sit on the sofa will become the victims of their own lethargy.

Sadly, we live in a period in history in which some of the nations that once held the greatest promise for the world are well on their way to becoming the most tyrannical. If by recognizing that fact, we can pursue better alternatives elsewhere on the globe, as people have done in previous eras. We may actually find that the field of daisies in the image above is still very much in existence, it’s just a bit further afield than it was in years gone by. And it is absolutely worthy of pursuit."

- internationalman.com

Bill Bonner, "Massacre on the Potomac"

"Massacre on the Potomac"

Dems face a day of reckoning in November as inflation bites down hard.

by Bill Bonner

Youghal, Ireland - "The native-born Irish do not pronounce the “th” sound. So, our telephone service, named “Three,” is called “Tree” by the locals. This linguistic quirk led American friends of ours, visiting a restaurant in Dublin and enjoying a ‘tree” course meal, to the following exchange:

Waiter: “Are you finished your second course?”

Americans: “Yes, thank you.”

Waiter: “Then I’ll bring out the t….”

Americans: “Wait. Stop. Don’t say it. It will take away our appetite.”

Consumers hate the ‘inflation tax.’ And the voters go a little sour and threaten to throw out the bums who caused it. Joe Biden’s approval rate is dropping. TownHall: "A new ABC/Ipsos poll found that Biden’s approval rating is sinking faster than the Titanic. When it comes to inflation, only 28 percent of voters approve of Biden’s job, with 71 percent disapproving."

And polls show the Democrats could be facing an electoral massacre in November. The “New American:” "An internal poll conducted for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (first reported by startup political newsletter Punchbowl News and confirmed by The Hill) revealed that Democrats running for reelection in November are in deeper trouble than they originally thought. In a generic matchup between Republicans and Democrats, the generic Republican is beating the generic Democrat by eight percentage points, 47-39."

A second poll, commissioned by the Republican super PAC Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF) focused on districts where Biden won in 2020 by more than eight percentage points. Biden is now underwater in those districts by eight points and is dragging down the reelection prospects of Democrats in those districts, from likely to questionable.

Won’t the Democrats try to save themselves by coming down hard on inflation? That is the question left untouched on Friday, like the ‘third’ course, that we take up today. It’s the ‘Decision of the Century.’ Will they or won’t they? Yes or no? Up or down? Now or never.

So Much at Stake: We remind readers that this decision will probably determine the course of public events for decades ahead. If the Fed halts inflation and lets things return to normal, it will mean a crash on Wall Street… business failures… defaults… unemployment… depression and bankruptcies. But the misery will probably be over in a couple years.

If the Fed lets inflation continue, on the other hand, the consequences will be ambiguous at first… and then catastrophic, stretched out over many years of war, revolution, hunger, poverty, destitution and chaos. With so much at stake… and for the benefit of readers who weren’t paying attention… it’s worth backtracking and looking more closely.

We’ve seen that this is no ordinary business cycle inflation. Nor is it an event-driven ‘inflation shock,’ such as when the price of plywood goes up as a hurricane approaches or gasoline goes up because the Saudis turn off the taps.

If you have that kind of “inflation,” you count yourself lucky, because it corrects itself – usually quickly and effortlessly. As prices rise consumers consume less and producers produce more; problem solved. Price increases are just information. If the price of bananas rises, for example, it may mean that banana growers suffered a drought or a pest. Or, it may mean that people want more bananas. And when prices for everything go up, it tells us that we have a money problem. Our money is losing value. And Friday’s CPI ‘print’ showed no sign of a peak. Bloomberg:

US inflation accelerated to a fresh 40-year high in May, a sign that price pressures are becoming entrenched in the economy. That will likely push the Federal Reserve to extend an aggressive series of interest-rate hikes and adds to political problems for the White House and Democrats.

The consumer price index increased 8.6% from a year earlier in a broad-based advance, Labor Department data showed Friday. The widely followed inflation gauge rose 1% from a month earlier, topping all estimates.

Understated: That 8.6% number is a huge understatement. Prices for food, shelter, and fuel are rising much faster. As we saw last week, it takes an average working man twice as many hours on the job to fill his tank today as it did a half century ago. That was not the result of an accident… nor of a sudden shock. It was a systematic rip-off. Intentional. Premeditated. It was public policy. And now, it’s getting much worse.

The Fed ‘printed’ $8 trillion new dollars since 1999 – 10 times as much as it had since it was created in 1913. And it forced interest rates below the running rate of price increases. This gave people an incentive to borrow, speculate, and spend – further increasing the ‘inflation’ pressure.

The motive was not hard to spot. This new money fell like manna from heaven. Nobody ever saved it. Or earned it. The feds didn’t have to ask the taxpayers for it. Nor did they have to borrow it from savers. There was no need to say ‘please’ or ‘thank you.’ And they could spend it, just as though it was real. On wars. Transfers. Giveaways. Whatever.

But what now? The voters are angry. Can the feds continue with their inflation policy; can they get away with it? What will happen? Stay tuned..."

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

“I’m Only Human, After All”

“The acceptance of ambiguity implies more than the commonplace understanding that some good things and some bad things happen to us. It means that we know that good and evil are inextricably intermixed in human affairs; that they contain, and sometimes embrace, their opposites; that success may involve failure of a different kind, and failure may be a kind of triumph.” 

- Sydney J. Harris

And, of course, the universal and inevitable excuse…

“A person who is going to commit an inhuman act invariably

excuses himself to himself by saying, “I’m only human, after all.”

- Sydney J. Harris

○

○

I've always wondered...

Everyone says “Only human…” compared to what?

The Poet: Theodore Roethke, “The Waking”

“The Waking”

“I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.

I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?

I hear my being dance from ear to ear.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?

God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,

And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?

The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do

To you and me; so take the lively air,

And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.

What falls away is always. And is near.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I learn by going where I have to go.”

- Theodore Roethke

"Not Such An Easy Business..."

“Over the years you get to see what a struggle life is for most people, how tough it is, how easy it is to be judgmental and criticize and stand outside of situations and impart your wisdom and judgment. But over the decades I've got more tolerant of people's flaws and mistakes. Everybody makes a lot of them. When you're younger you feel: "Hey, this person is evil" or "This person is a jerk" or stupid or "What's wrong with them?" Then you go through life and you think: "Well, it's not so easy." There's a lot of mystery and suffering and complication. Everybody's out there trying to do the best they can. And it's not such an easy business.”

- Woody Allen

"INFLATION: It’s Much Worse Than We Thought… But Wait Until This Little Monster Grows Up!" (Excerpt)

"INFLATION: It’s Much Worse Than We Thought… 

But Wait Until This Little Monster Grows Up!"

by David Haggith

Excerpt: "We could all be on the cusp of the most deadly inflation the world has ever experienced, due to a unique setup of global forces that have the power to accelerate that into happening in a surprisingly short amount of time. I’m going to tell you how that could happen more quickly than anyone appears to expect….

First, a short, fun documentary lesson because it is important to understand that - as easy as it is for anyone to foresee what I’m about to tell you - it is highly unlikely our leaders will see it coming. You can assess how likely they are to avert this developing disaster by seeing how well they saw the present inflation coming and averted that because that, too, was not hard to see coming for reasons I need not reiterate, having done so more than enough in the past:

They're laughing at us, this is planned for the "Great Reset". Timeline video with all of their quotes. Please retweet.

Sound ON pic.twitter.com/zYvHbFe5Hm

- Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) June 10, 2022

Follow the money: Consider how the inflation fuel the Fed has created for years through its record-high balance sheet will pass through global markets when people see the fuel is actually being siphoned off. When the Fed’s past money creation didn’t go into the hands of consumers, it didn’t create inflation, except in assets, where it did flow and built up beyond anything we’ve ever seen in a stored and intentional wealth effect. Whenever it moved from stocks to bonds, it only inflated the prices of bonds, increasing their value as assets.

Monetary expansion only creates inflation where the money flows. So, when the new money doesn’t flow to consumers, we don’t see consumer inflation. When it stayed in financial circles, it created inflation in financial circles where inflation was viewed as a desirable thing. When we did see some of the Fed’s inflated money supply finally flow directly to consumers through various kinds of stimulus programs doled out by the federal government during the Covidcrisis, we saw a lot of consumer inflation starting to build right away. That happened because the new money met a supply shortage head-on due to fewer people being able to work under lockdowns and then due to fewer people being willing to work after they built up their share from the government’s dole via Robinhood-style stock investments. Inflation suddenly went on a tear when that combination of events formed."

Please view this complete and highly recommended article here:

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

"Do You Want..."

"Do you want to live life, or do you want to escape life?"

- Macklemore

The Daily "Near You?"

Kannapolis, North Carolina, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Too Often..."

"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word,

a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring,

all of which have the potential to turn a life around."

- Leo Buscaglia

"Bank Runs Have Started in China - Will They Come Here?"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 6/13/22:

"Bank Runs Have Started in China - Will They Come Here?"

"China is experiencing bank runs. People cannot get to online banking and they cannot withdraw money from ATMs. Electronic payments are not going through, but the worst part is they’re allowing funds to be deposited into accounts that people cannot get access to."

"A Crisis Of Legitimacy"

"A Crisis Of Legitimacy"

by John Wilder

"I think one thing that has always been a feature of Americans is that we’ve had a healthy distrust for authority. The entire Revolutionary was because we didn’t trust the British to take our interests into account. We even used roosters to find British spies – a version of chicken-catch-a-Tory. Yet, just enough trust has existed to keep us going.

Mostly. Right now, however, there is a crisis brewing – a crisis of legitimacy. We see it everywhere, but I’ll start off with the worst: the “Presidency” of Joe Biden. The points that bear discussing are certainly well known to readers here:

• The “open” conspiracy to change laws to beat Trump,

• Evidence of ballot harvesting, and

• Evidence of counting “irregularities.”

Among a lot of other things. Heck, even Pa Wilder voted for Biden, which is something he’d never do if he’d still been alive.

The reaction of the Left is more of their politics as usual. Anything possible to distract and vilify the Right is in play. Any hint or even joke about the legitimacy of Biden’s electoral “victory” is shut down. Case in point, I made a joke about Biden’s victory being more in the counting than in the voting, and that podcast was immediately shut down by YouTube’s® A.I. (Shhh, don’t make fun of that A.I., it’s really self-conscious),

If they’re that sensitive, I know I’m over the target. The reason is that there is a mountain of evidence that shows fraud in the election, in just the right places and locations it would be needed (and would be possible) to swing the election to Biden.

Huh.

A robust and positive response would have been to participate as hard as possible to show Biden was legitimately elected. They would have taken the points brought up by (in many cases) non-partisan analysis showing the trickery. Nope. The Democrats looked for voter fraud just as hard as O.J. looked for “the real killer”.

I wonder could there be a parallel there, or if that could be the reason that a majority of the American people think Joe was falsely elected? Instead, they use the word “baseless” when they really mean “facts we really, really, want you to ignore.”

Hmmm.

If a phony election was enough to destroy the Republic, though, it would have failed long ago. Historically, there have been other elections that have been called into question: 1876 and 1960 were two big examples. But we survived both, even though Rutherford B. Hayes was called “His Fraudulency” for the rest of his life. Rutherford B. Hayes was a stunning success compared to Biden, serving one term where his most notable accomplishment was attempting to avoid inflation and keep the money supply sound, whereas Biden prints and spends money like a Pelosi drinks and drives.

That’s the second crisis of legitimacy – phony money. Again, none of this is new – I’ve written that our monetary policy appears to be less sound than the logic of a drunken 22-year-old rock star in a strip club in Vegas.

The phony money is, of course, only one component of the phony economy. For years now, pools of cash have kept up the appearance of value in home prices. Likewise, stock prices have been artificially pushed upward at the same time bond prices (and interest rates) were artificially kept downward. At some point (and, it’s looking like that point is very near, indeed) the stored energy caused by the distortions will cause the economy to snap. Because? Our economy is illegitimate.

What about the Uvalde police department: Who thinks that they’re legitimate now? But how many people are secretly asking, “if that happened in my town, what would our cops do?” and then thinking, “probably the same thing.” Where most people would expect cops to run in and, oh, save children, it’s not in their playbook. Really. Lots of police departments put as their number one priority “officer safety”. And courts have repeatedly backed the cops up – they have no duty to even try to save me, kids in a school, or you. How legitimate does that feel?

I could keep going all night, but sometime I have to sleep, so I’ll just bring up one more. We’re in a society where even the concept of “being a man” or “being a woman” is legitimate anymore. But even that is a symptom of a society where the basic values that have been consciously subverted at every opportunity – good is now bad, and vice versa. Truth is now despised while lies are celebrated.

To summarize our society is in deep jeopardy because we have:

• Illegitimate Politicians (especially the President),

• Illegitimate Money,

• An Illegitimate Economy, and

• Illegitimate Values.

This is the opposite of the formula to make a country work well. Civil strife combined with a collapsing economy, rising prices, and a collapsing social fabric sounds like a lot to take away from just a loss of legitimacy, but it’s not – for people to create a productive, free society, they have to have incentive, they have to have trust. They have to have legitimacy – they have to believe. To restore that? They have to have truth."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

"Never, Ever Forget..."

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

- Ernest Hemingway, "For Whom the Bell Tolls "