The Poet: William Stafford, "The Gift"

"The Gift"

"Time wants to show you a different country. It's the one

that your life conceals, the one waiting outside

when curtains are drawn, the one Grandmother hinted at

in her crochet design, the one almost found

over at the edge of the music, after the sermon.

It's the way life is, and you have it, a few years given.

You get killed now and then, violated

in various ways. (And sometimes it's turn about.)

You get tired of that. Long-suffering, you wait

and pray, and maybe good things come - maybe

the hurt slackens and you hardly feel it any more.

You have a breath without pain. It is called happiness.

It's a balance, the taking and passing along,

the composting of where you've been and how people

and weather treated you. It's a country where

you already are, bringing where you have been.

Time offers this gift in its millions of ways,

turning the world, moving the air, calling,

every morning, "Here, take it, it's yours."

- William Stafford  

"Job Numbers Are Fake, Aggressive Rate Hikes Guaranteed; Consumer In Critical Condition" Comments here:

Jeremiah Babe, 8/5/22:

"Job Numbers Are Fake, Aggressive Rate Hikes 

Guaranteed; Consumer In Critical Condition"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Clonee, Meath, Ireland. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Controlled Demolition of American Prosperity"

"The Controlled Demolition of American Prosperity"

by Jeffrey Tucker

"How pathetic that daily the Biden administration dares defend the current economic environment! It’s why these times more and more remind us all of some dystopian novel. They lie to us daily, like an unending exercise in gaslighting. And how degrading for the human beings who are paid to stand in front of microphones to utter such inanities! It’s truly below human dignity.

Just as inflation rates seem to improve in one area (gasoline, for example), it pops up in other areas. Food prices are on the move again. So it may cost a few cents less to get to the grocery store; you will spend more this week than last in doing so. Substituting fancy products for cheaper ones only gets you so far. Meanwhile, one sector above all else now seems to be absorbing new inflationary energy: your utility bills. Have a look and compare them with last month and you will see what I mean.

This is how inflation works. It is not one rate. There is no index in the real world. There are only price pressures that migrate from sector to sector, place to place and in ways that no one can predict. In Texas, over the weekend, I found a brisket for sale for $18 per pound that only last year cost $5 per pound. It’s from a local ranch, meaning that the rancher had to pay high fertilizer costs and more. This new price is not robbery: It’s cost-covering costs.

Of course, inflation affects real income. Right now, income is falling faster and for longer than at any time on record. No living person has ever been hit this hard. That includes people who lived through the Great Depression. At least back then, the dollars you held were growing in value. Today they are declining in value. And to top it off, this crash in living standards happened just following the biggest financial head fake in history during which time we believed we were rich one day and suddenly we were poor the next. What a remarkable and speedy shift!

But hey, at least we have credit cards! Credit card debt is up by 13% in the second quarter, which is the largest increase in 20 years. And people are paying for it too: Rates for floating balances month to month are running 16–17% thanks to the Fed’s new interest rate policies that will not tamp down inflation anytime soon but are absolutely killing the bond market and guaranteeing the recession that the government denies exists.

If people look up recession on Wikipedia, they can confirm that no such thing exists for one simple reason: The government says it is not happening. Just like the famine in Ukraine in the 1930s. What is unreported is not existent.

Take a careful look at this chart that compares the purchasing power of the dollar with increases in M2, which is the only money aggregate we have left that offers some modicum of credibility.

I’m not a betting man but there is every reason to expect that red line to fall and fall, at least to keep in line with the increase in producer prices, which are running at an incredible 20% per annum rate of increase right now.

The first great mega-disaster could be in our old friend housing. Demand is falling dramatically. The house-flipping party has ended. You cannot sell even at a massively inflated price because you will be dumping a 2% three-year loan for a new loan of 6%. The housing roulette of 2020–21 worked so long as interest rates made the racket financially viable but that is no longer the case. The result snuck up slowly and then all at once.

Forget renting too. Rental vacancy rates are down to the lowest levels in 40 years, even as the price of rents themselves are close to being on par with the CPI generally. The pace of change here is also worth a heads up. It’s going to get worse.

After the grim realities of the housing market sink in, there will be more bad news in labor markets. We are just seeing the first signs. The only way to understand this sector is by decoupling professional and working-class jobs. There will be no shortages of opportunities to drive trucks, tend bars, fix cars and install solar panels. But high-end managerial positions, particularly in financial companies, are another matter. No longer will a college degree count for much in this labor crunch.

Already the signs are there, with Robinhood cutting one in four positions as the day-trading craze of the lockdown years has evaporated. Google, Facebook and Amazon are already making noise about culling management-level positions. The overall market will show continuing labor shortages and people who expect six figures for doing next to nothing will find themselves sorely disappointed.

One might suppose there would be panic at the highest levels. I’m not seeing the evidence. Instead, we have a U.S. Congress - probably the most criminally minded majority in at least a century - throwing wild amounts of money around to special interests without a care in the world.

Looking back at it, the rigged election of 2020, in which Trump’s defeat also put control of the House and Senate in the Democrats’ hands, created a political calamity without precedent that is still ongoing. They figure that they have two more months of this nonsense and intend to pillage as much as they can while they can.

Nor are the major news media making much of a fuss about the end of American prosperity. Yesterday’s New York Times featured a top article explaining how you can avoid COVID by limiting the number of people you have at your home barbecue and making sure that all guests are fully vaccinated and boosted and that everyone has recently tested negative.

Sounds like a real party! And yes, this article was written just yesterday, not in 2020. That’s the ruling-class vision of our future: poor, foraging for food, out of gas, paying through the roof for electricity, unemployed and living off welfare, vaxxed up and testing constantly for the presence of the coronavirus. Or maybe monkeypox."

- dailyreckoning.com

"No Room For Cowards..."

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

- C. Joybell C.

"The Fed Has It EXACTLY Backwards"

"The Fed Has It EXACTLY Backwards"

by Brian Maher

"The Federal Reserve believes it hangs from the hooks of a horrendous dilemma. To cage the inflationary tiger presently amok, it would likely plunge the economy into severe recession… Yet if it navigates a wallowing economy away from recession, inflation will run and run and run. But is it a false choice? Must the Federal Reserve bludgeon the economy to cripple inflation?

Consider: It believes it must strangle off excess “demand” in the economy. It is this excess demand that keeps inflation a going concern. The Keynesian prayer book from which most economists read says it. High priest Paul Krugman, drawing on the Book of Demand: "The problem may be that the Biden economy boomed “too much,” feeding inflation, and that it now needs to cool off, which may involve a recession (but hasn’t yet)."

Archbishop Larry Summers intones: "The right thing to do is to raise taxes right now to take some of the demand out of the economy."

A lesser clergyman - Harvard professor Jason Furman - affirms that the “economic logic for demand reduction to curb inflation is clear.” Just so. But it is this ceaseless obsession with “demand” that afflicts and hagrides the economics profession as we see it.

What about its twin - supply? The economics profession has forgotten its Say’s law - that supply creates its own demand. “Products are paid for with products,” argued Jean-Baptiste Say over two centuries ago.

Consider this one example… One man produces bread. Another produces shoes. The cobbler who requires bread for his dinner appears before the baker. And the baker who must clad his feet appears before the cobbler. They may transact in money, it is true. Yet money merely throws an illusory veil across their transactions. Ultimately the baker purchases his shoes with the bread he has baked. And the cobbler purchases his bread with the shoes he has cobbled. Multiply this example by millions, extend it to the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, from the border with Mexico to the border with Canada, the calculus remains identical.

Enlightenment-era thinker James Mill (father of the more famous John Stuart Mill): "The demand of a nation is exactly its power of purchasing. But what is its power of purchasing? The extent undoubtedly of its annual produce. The extent of its demand therefore and the extent of its supply are always exactly commensurate."

Again: Supply creates its own demand. To increase supply is to increase demand. When the government attempts to increase demand with no production to match it… it attempts to outlaw Say’s law. What happens when the happy marriage of supply and demand is driven to divorce, to artificial rupture?

During the Great Depression the wiseacres of the economics profession consecrated themselves to raising “demand.” The farmers were in a bad way, they argued. These sad sacks could not fetch enough money for their produce or their livestock. They were wanting in the way of demand. And so they needed a hand up. A program was therefore required to raise prices, to increase their demand. The brain trust then in operation hatched a beautiful scheme. What was it? To set fire to the crops and murder the livestock.

That is correct - to set fire to the crops and murder the livestock. The business would increase farmer demand (while decreasing consumer supply). For emphasis: They did not butcher animals to bring them to market - but precisely the opposite - to keep them off the market.

Ponder for one moment the reality of it: Millions and millions starved. Yet the food to feed them was destroyed on hellish and industrial scales - to increase demand for one group. It is very nearly inconceivable. But there you are.

Today’s monetary authority wishes to collar inflation by throttling demand. Yet the result is also a throttling of supply. What is the answer to today’s galloping inflation? Not reduced supply… but a stable dollar. John Tamny of RealClearMarkets: "The rising consensus on the left and right [is] that “demand” is the source of our alleged “inflation” troubles today…"

Reduced economic growth via “higher taxes, lower government spending or a combination of the two” will tamp down rising price pressures. Except that these won’t… measures taken to reduce “demand” will by definition reduce supply… Actually, the inflation answer is a stable dollar. Nothing else…

The dominant ideologies of today (and yesterday) are still captivated by a cart-before-the-horse, demand-side view of the world…Conservatives [also] think shrinking demand is the answer. In their case, their critique of government spending is that it fosters “excess demand” on the way to higher prices. Except that it doesn’t.

While the arguments against government spending are too numerous to list, the latter doesn’t cause higher prices born of “excess demand.” We know this because government can only redistribute wealth and “demand” insofar as it reaches into the pockets of the productive. All demand is a consequence of supply, period. Will someone please notify the Federal Reserve?"

- dailyreckoning.com

"A Great Kindness..."

“So don’t ask yourself what people want. Ask instead, What is true? What really inspires me, excites me? What will really help people and take away their confusion and suffering? It’s sort of a funny, crazy way to go, but I think it’s the only way to bring water to the wasteland Joseph Campbell described. When I read something truthful, something real, I breathe a deep sigh and say, “Fantastic – I wasn’t mad or alone in thinking that, after all!” So often we are left to our own devices, struggling in the dark with this external and internal propaganda system. At that point, for someone to tell us the truth is a gift. In a world where people all around us are lying and confusing us, to be honest is a great kindness.”

- David Edwards

"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." 

- Oscar Wilde 

Bill Bonner, "Beware Money Pox!"

"Beware Money Pox!"

Symptoms may include inflation volatility, extreme market fluctuations, 

falling income, housing crises, political unrest, recession, revolution and more...

by Bill Bonner

Youghal, Ireland - "We wrap up another week. And what’s new? Oh no… not again! The New York Times: "As Monkeypox Spreads, U.S. Declares a Health Emergency." "President Biden’s health secretary on Thursday declared the growing monkeypox outbreak a national health emergency, a rare designation signaling that the virus now represents a significant risk to Americans and setting in motion measures aimed at containing the threat. “We’re prepared to take our response to the next level in addressing this virus, and we urge every American to take monkeypox seriously,” the health secretary, Xavier Becerra, said at a news briefing."

Not a single American has yet died from monkeypox. Millions die each year from murder, suicide, disease, heartbreak and old age. Why make a federal case out of the simian pox? Oh, dear, dear reader… you know as well as we do. Emergencies… alarums… war – each one is a call to arms… and an excuse to spend money. The feds love ‘em all.

Sound and Fury: Meanwhile… the world of money is full of noise too… and mixed signals. On the one hand, many of the most immediate causes of inflation – stimmies, PPP, rampant money-printing, Covid lockdowns, and the Russo-Ukrainian War – seem to be working themselves out. Like a bad meal, they are passing through the system. The stimmies are over… the Russkies are winning… and, for now, the money-printing has stopped.

On the other hand, the Fed is still lending money to member banks at 650 basis points (6.5%) below the Consumer Price Index. And some price increases show no sign of easing off. Wages, for example, go up in response to higher prices. Then, employers need to pass along the higher costs in the form of even higher prices. 

Here’s USA Today: "Restaurant, fast-food and retail pay has risen sharply, especially since the pandemic triggered widespread labor shortages, presenting fresh competition to higher-skill fields like health care, manufacturing and construction in the battle for workers. For entry-level positions – such as certified nursing assistant, welder and painter – wages have broadly converged in the $15 to $18 an hour range, with fast-food and retail pay often near or above the skilled roles, experts say." Fifteen dollars an hour doesn’t seem like much to us. But it’s 50% more than many workers were getting a couple years ago.

The markets too are sending puzzling messages. WTI oil slid below $90 yesterday. Coinbase rose nearly 40%. Investors don’t seem to know what to make of it. Stocks wandered around yesterday, like a Congressional candidate, with no clear idea of where they were going.

A Crescendo of Debt: But as we saw earlier this week, major trends get underway in confusion and contradiction. Mr. Market seems to make a point of keeping investors guessing. Years go by and they guess wrong about what is afoot. It is only after the fact that we see the long, broad strides of a primary trend.

Looking back on the last 42 years, you’d have to be blind to miss it. Paul Volcker tamed inflation. Interest rates fell from 1981 until 2020. Falling interest rates meant that you could refinance – your home, your business – every few years… borrow more and more… and still have lower monthly payments. Leveraged real estate speculators, for example, were able to refinance their holdings at higher prices and lower interest rates… over and over. This is what enabled the debt explosion. Federal debt in 1980 was less than 33% of GDP. Today it is 125% of GDP. Private debt followed a similar path, with total public and private debt in 1980 at 150% of GDP. Today, it is more than three times as much – around 350%.

The real crescendo of debt came during the last 10 years – when the Fed went hog wild with inflation-adjusted interest rates below zero, and trillions in giveaways. By the time it reached its climax, the Dow was 44 times higher than when it began in 1982… and total debt had risen from under $5 trillion in 1980 to nearly $90 trillion today.

It is obvious what was going on. The Fed was pumping in money. The tide raised almost all boats. And now?

Hell to Pay: The Fed is turning off the pumps… and even beginning to reverse the flow. Its QT program (quantitative tightening) will sop up liquidity, by allowing existing bonds, now in custody at the Fed, to expire. When they go, the money they represented will die. The Fed giveth; the Fed taketh away. And there will be Hell to pay.

As long as the Fed sticks with the anti-inflation program the primary trend should be roughly equal and opposite to the last 40 years. That is, asset prices, now high, should fall. Interest rates, now low, should rise. Does the Fed have the backbone to follow through? Won’t it get confused by the mixed signals… and bow to Elizabeth Warren, Donald Trump, Wall Street and other “low interest” activists? And won’t today’s trend come to an abrupt halt? Stay tuned…"

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

Must Watch! "The Unstable Economy Continues to Crater - Complete Meltdown"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 8/5/22:

"The Unstable Economy Continues to Crater - 

Complete Meltdown"

We are getting warnings from around the globe. There are diesel shortages in Canada and the average Canadian has more debt than they ever had. It now costs the average family between $150 and $200 per week just to pay for the additional inflation of their lives. Elon musk is warning of a recession."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com

Jim Kunstler, "A Glance Ahead"

"A Glance Ahead"

Satan is the father of lies and we have become Satanic, 

being and doing evil, most especially to ourselves…

by Jim Kunstler

"What’s ahead - like a few months down the road? Hysteria and chaos, if the “Joe Biden” regime can help it… and they’re helping it all they can. Twice vaxxed, twice boosted, and twice recent Covid-19 patient Dr. Anthony Fauci warned this week that the unvaxxed would “get into trouble” as the seasons turn this year. The part he left out is: the unvaxxed will be in trouble trying to keep up with helping their sick and dying vaccinated relatives whose immune systems have been damaged by their multiple vaxxes.

The boldness of Dr. Fauci’s lying is really something to behold. Who in the entire HHS-NIH-CDC bureaucracy has failed to notice that the mRNA “vaccines” have no efficacy whatever against Covid-19? The vaccinated are by far those still getting sick and increasingly disabled from the disease and even more from the vaxxes themselves. The emperor’s new clothes hang in shreds. Rumor is that many upper-level employees in these public health agencies are increasingly freaked out by their now-obvious complicity in a momentous crime. They know they will have to answer for allowing the mRNA fiasco to get this far, for going along to get along, and they’re preparing to mutiny to save their own asses. Wait for it.

The regime’s back-up plan is the comical monkeypox, transmitted to date mainly via all-male orgies. HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra declared a national monkeypox emergency this week, saying he’d “explore every option on the table” (except an official advisory against homosexual orgies). There is, of course, reasonable suspicion that monkeypox is but one device for shutting down the November mid-term election, or, more deviously, closing polling places and allowing only mail-in ballots - the easiest way to rig elections.

That will lead naturally to several state’s attorneys general seeking relief in the Supreme Court against the federal government’s unconstitutional takeover of the states’ duty to conduct their elections. The “Joe Biden” regime will lose that one, but not before royally pissing off at least half the adults in the land, leading to even greater-than-anticipated election losses for the Party of Chaos.

Meanwhile, the Party of Chaos is about to unleash its “Inflation Reduction Act,” which proposes to spend three quarters of a trillion dollars created from thin air into an economy already hyperventilating on three years of multi-trillion-dollar injections derived from no productive activity. At the same time, the act will raise taxes especially for low-end wage earners and small businesses, completing the regime’s destruction of the middle-class. The cherry-on-top is the provision to double the size of the Internal Revenue Service by hiring 87,000 new employees to harass ordinary American taxpayers. Is that what you voted for in 2020? I thought not.

None of that is going to work as intended. More likely, passage of the act will trigger destruction of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, and a stampede out of dollar-denominated investments, which is to say, a very severe financial crisis. Credit will freeze, the distribution and sales of goods will cease, interest will stop being paid on virtually all outstanding debt, the bond market will implode, few will have anything identifiable as money, and there will be little in the way of everyday goods like food and gasoline to buy anyway.

You realize, of course, that this is a description of economic collapse. If things roll that way, there will be absolutely no trust left in the US government. It will be either ignored or opposed. And in places like my own New York, under the tyrannical and titanically incompetent accidental Governor Kathy Hochul, there will be no trust in state government either. Meaning, we’re on our own, community-by-community. This will be a very interesting experiment in the dynamics of emergence - the self-organizing properties of systems in chaos. I doubt that it will resolve in the direction of the globalists’ dreams of transhuman technocracy. Every macro trend now runs against centralization.

But the process could conceivably invite an attempted Chinese takeover of the USA, if not militarily, then in a way similar to America’s asset-stripping operations in the collapsed Soviet Union of the 1990s, a looting spree - as seen many other times in history when empires founder. Or else, the rest of the world will just kick back and witness the spectacle of our struggle as the lights of Western Civ flicker out. (Europe will be right in it with us, by the way.) The other nations of the world are tired of us trying to push them around, with increasingly evil intentions. They will enjoy watching our tribulations. They will be convinced we deserve it.

This is what comes from a culture of immersive and pervasive dishonesty. Satan is the father of lies and we have become Satanic, being and doing evil, most especially to ourselves, whether you believe in a literal Satan or not. So, do you think now that being transgressive is… fun? You’ll be changing what’s left of your mind about that soon. Along with the threat of literal starvation will also arise a terrible hunger for truth: How did this happen? How did we come to do this? Who was behind it? It won’t be hard to find out, once we’re motivated to look."

- https://kunstler.com/

"How It Really Is"

"A Phony Façade"

Amid soaring debt and falling income,

the Feds propose a $739 billion dollar lie.

Gregory Mannarino, "Alert! The 10-Year Yield Is Spiking Again! If This Continues Expect Stocks To Crater!"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 4/5/22:

"Alert! The 10-Year Yield Is Spiking Again!

 If This Continues Expect Stocks To Crater!"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Why Is Walmart Laying Off So Many Workers?"

"Why Is Walmart Laying Off So Many Workers?"

by Michael Snyder

"If brighter days are eventually coming for the U.S. economy, why would Walmart be so eager to lay off corporate employees? Of course the truth is that brighter days are not coming. Yesterday, I posted an article in which I listed 11 big companies that are laying off workers. After I completed that article, I discovered that Walmart is also letting people go. If a seemingly unshakable giant such as Walmart already feels compelled to eliminate jobs, what is the outlook for employees of companies that are far smaller and far weaker?

When Walmart announced that it would be laying off nearly 200 corporate employees, it rapidly made headlines all over the nation…"Walmart let go of almost 200 corporate employees on Wednesday amid the economic downturn and rising inflation, according to a person familiar with the development. The company said in a statement that these layoffs are a part of updating its structure."

Yes, they are “updating their structure” because they know that really hard times are coming. And the projections that the company recently released confirm this…"Walmart said it now anticipates adjusted earnings per share for the second quarter and full year to decline around 8–9 percent and 11–13 percent, respectively. Previously, the retailer had predicted a 1 percent fall it had previously forecast for the full year.

“Food inflation is double digits and higher than at the end of the first quarter. This is affecting customers’ ability to spend on general merchandise categories and requiring more markdowns to move through the inventory, particularly apparel,” Walmart said."

I also just learned that SoundCloud has decided to lay off “approximately 20% of its global workforce”…"SoundCloud will be laying off approximately 20% of its global workforce citing “a significant company transformation” and the current economic and financial landscape. “During this difficult time, we are focused on providing the support and resources to those transitioning while reinforcing our commitment to executing our mission to lead what’s next in music,” reads a statement by a rep for SoundCloud.

Just like in 2008, the pace of layoffs is beginning to accelerate at a pace that is absolutely breathtaking. If you missed my article from yesterday that contained many more examples, you can find it right here: “It’s Happening: Here Is A List Of 11 Big Companies That Have Announced Layoffs Within The Last 2 Weeks”.

As more Americans lose their jobs, the number of people filing new claims for unemployment benefits will continue to go up. In fact, the number for last week was up to 260,000…"The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits edged higher last week, hovering near the highest level of the year - the latest sign that the historically tight labor market is starting to cool off. Figures released Thursday by the Labor Department show that applications for the week ended July 30 rose to 260,000 from the downwardly revised 254,000 recorded a week earlier. That is above the 2019 pre-pandemic average of 218,000 claims and just narrowly missed topping the eight-month high of 261,000 recorded in mid-July."

Meanwhile, inflation continues to spiral out of control and that is causing immense hardship for millions of American families. According to Zero Hedge, the Misery Index in the United States just hit the highest level since 2011…"Although the White House seems to believe that things are pretty OK, the US’s misery index suggests they’re not. June’s misery index (a composite of unemployment and CPI inflation) has risen to 12.5. That’s the highest since September 2011 when the US economy was experiencing a time of very weak job growth and economic growth following the Great Recession. At the time, the yield curve almost inverted, and there were fears of a new recession. June’s misery index is also above the index from the 2007-2009 recession when the index peaked at 11.4 percent."

So many people are hurting out there right now. Many Americans are working as hard as they can, but it still isn’t enough to pay the bills because inflation has been absolutely eviscerating our standard of living. As a result, more people are falling out of the middle class and into poverty with each passing day.

The lines at our food banks are getting longer and longer, and many of those that are now showing up for assistance were once solidly part of the middle class. Here is one example…"The first time Kelly Wilcox drove her 2017 Dodge Grand Caravan to the food pantry near her home in Payson, Utah, she immediately noticed one thing that surprised her: new models of Toyota and Honda sedans and minivans. “I saw a bunch of other people with cars like me who had kids in their cars,” she said.

The mother of four young sons didn’t know what to expect when she made an early visit to Tabitha’s Way Local Food Pantry this spring. She knew that she needed help. Her husband had lost his job. He soon found a new job as an account manager, but that wasn’t enough with inflation."

Can you identify with Kelly Wilcox? When I was growing up, I lived in a middle class neighborhood and I went to a very large school that was packed with middle class kids. At that time, I can’t remember encountering a single family that was truly impoverished. But these days it seems like almost everyone is struggling. For years I have been writing about the disappearance of the middle class. Now we have gotten to a point where the gap between the ultra-wealthy and the rest of us is greater than ever.

One recent survey found that nearly half of the country has cut back spending on food because the cost of living has become so oppressive. That is frightening. But the pain that we are currently experiencing is just the tip of the iceberg. As I have been warning for a long time, much worse is ahead. So please try to enjoy this summer while you still can. Compared to what is eventually coming, the middle of 2022 is actually a time of rip-roaring prosperity."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

○

Related:

• "Walmart’s Mass Layoffs Could Be the Canary in the Coal Mine"

• "Walmart Lays Off Corporate Employees After Slashing Forecast"

"Strange Prices At Walmart! This Is Absolutely Ridiculous!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 8/5/22:

"Strange Prices At Walmart! This Is Absolutely Ridiculous!"

"In today's vlog we are at Walmart and are noticing massive price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"The Only Final Sin..."

"In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is

getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity."

- Hunter S. Thompson

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap 8/5/22"

"Weekly News Wrap 8/5/22"

Dem Desperation, Dem Voter Fraud, Dem Depression

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"The Democrats in the White House look desperate with the actions they are taking because they do not make sense in a normal sane world. The Biden/Obama Administration is declaring Monkeypox a huge heath problem when, in fact, it is only affecting a very small percent of the U.S. population. It’s less than 7,000 people who are infected. I guess the Biden Administration wants to release more funding for the next so-called pandemic, but the public is not buying it this time around.

The primaries have happened in many parts of the country, and we are still seeing voter fraud on a grand scale. The Democrats have a terrible President with a terrible message and a sinking economy. It all adds up to massive cheating because the Dems can’t find enough stupid people to vote for their own demise. Without massive cheating, the Dems will be out of power come November. Can they pull off the biggest cheat ever? That is what it is going to take.

The Fed just raised interest rates another .75% and so did other countries such as the UK. It raised interest rates and is projecting a severe recession. It is also predicting 13% inflation by the end of this year. The Fed is signaling it, too, will be raising rates more in the upcoming months to fight inflation even if it tanks the economy further. The Dems already own the coming downturn, and many experts say this may turn into a Dem Depression. There is much more news in the 37-minute presentation."

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about 

these stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 8/5/22:

- https://rumble.com/

Must Watch! Canadian Prepper, "This Is Unreal, The Riots Have Started! God Help Us..."

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 8/4/22:

"This Is Unreal, The Riots Have Started! God Help Us..."

"I'm not religious but all I can say in response to today's news is... God help us."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"15 Signs That The U.S. Economy Is Poised To Crash Really Hard During The Second Half Of 2022"

Full screen recommended.

"15 Signs That The U.S. Economy Is Poised To 

Crash Really Hard During The Second Half Of 2022"

by Epic Economist

"Things weren’t exactly great during the first half of 2022. But there are many pieces of evidence showing that conditions are going to be far worse during the second half of the year. Millions of businesses are falling into a financial abyss as their operational costs continue to climb. At the same time, the housing bubble has already burst and a catastrophic crash has begun. From coast to coast, the number of layoffs is on the rise, and economic activity is really slowing down all around us. Those who are thinking that things can’t get any worse are about to get bitterly surprised by the economic downturn that has just started.

Right now, even big corporations and tech giants are extremely concerned about what is coming. For years, nothing could seem to crush the relentless optimism of the big tech companies, and their stocks soared to absolutely absurd Heights since the onset of the health crisis. But now everything has changed as we head into the second half of this year. According to the Washington Post, “Big Tech is bracing for a ravaging economic recession and an uncertain future. That, in turn, is triggering more economic angst. The biggest tech firms, most of whom report quarterly earnings next week, have offered recent hints they are hunkering down. News of layoffs and hiring slowdowns have become commonplace across Silicon Valley. Start-ups are saying capital is drying up. Workers are being put on notice that businesses are changing.”

It’s not often that we see such pessimism coming from Silicon Valley.Surprisingly, even the White House is admitting that the economy is slowing down, but Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen insists that what we are experiencing is quite “appropriate” for a “healthy economy”. Last weekend, Yellen acknowledged that the U.S. is going through an economic downturn but downplayed the potential for a severe recession, arguing that the country is in a period of “transition” following rapid economic growth. “The economy is slowing down,” Yellen said in an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” adding that a correction is “appropriate” for a healthy economy.

People can believe her if they want to. But we have to remember that she also told us that inflation would be “transitory”, and now we can clearly see how that prediction turned out. Even though we are still only in the early stages of this new recession, food insecurity is already rising all over the country, and lines are getting really long at food banks in several states. The cost of living continues to hit unprecedented heights, and this is impacting working poor Americans harder than anyone. Over the new few months, we should expect to see a tidal wave of layoffs, sharp declines in housing prices, hordes of small businesses going under, and an enormous spike in the number of bankruptcies.

It goes without saying that all of this will not be good for the financial markets either. The stage is definitely set for the sort of historic economic meltdown that several economists have been warning about for a long time, and the economic despair that our society will experience will be extremely severe. That’s why today, we decided to compile several numbers that prove that a lot more pain is coming as we enter another historic recession."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gerald Celente, "Trends In The News 8/4/22"

Strong language alert!

Gerald Celente,

"Trends In The News 8/4/22"

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

- https://trendsresearch.com/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Prepare For Credit Freeze, Credit Cards Will Be Shut Down; Walmart Firing People; Insiders Dump Stock"

Jeremiah Babe, 8/4/22:

"Prepare For Credit Freeze, Credit Cards Will Be Shut Down;

 Walmart Firing People; Insiders Dump Stock"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Atmospheres"

Full screen recommended. 

Be kind to yourself, relax and enjoy this...

Deuter, "Atmospheres"

00:00​ ⋄ Uno

05:45​ ⋄ Deux

11:58​ ⋄ Drei

18:27​ ⋄ Four

25:15​ ⋄ Cinque

31:58​ ⋄ Sei

36:33​ ⋄ Sieben

42:22​ ⋄ Huit

50:55​ ⋄ Nine

57:27​ ⋄ Dieci

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Close to the Great Bear (Ursa Major) and surrounded by the stars of the Hunting Dogs (Canes Venatici), this celestial wonder was discovered in 1781 by the metric French astronomer Pierre Mechain. Later, it was added to the catalog of his friend and colleague Charles Messier as M106. Modern deep telescopic views reveal it to be an island universe - a spiral galaxy around 30 thousand light-years across located only about 21 million light-years beyond the stars of the Milky Way. Along with a bright central core, this stunning galaxy portrait, a composite of image data from amateur and professional telescopes, highlights youthful blue star clusters and reddish stellar nurseries tracing the galaxy's spiral arms.

It also shows off remarkable reddish jets of glowing hydrogen gas. In addition to small companion galaxy NGC 4248 at bottom right, background galaxies can be found scattered throughout the frame. M106, also known as NGC 4258, is a nearby example of the Seyfert class of active galaxies, seen across the spectrum from radio to X-rays. Active galaxies are powered by matter falling into a massive central black hole."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210409.html

The Poet: Henry Austin Dobson, “The Paradox Of Time"

“Time passes in moments. Moments which, rushing past, define the path of a life, just as surely as they lead towards its end. How rarely do we stop to examine that path, to see the reasons why all things happen? To consider whether the path we take in life is our own making, or simply one into which we drift with eyes closed? But what if we could stop, pause to take stock of each precious moment before it passes? Might we then see the endless forks in the road that have shaped a life? And, seeing those choices, choose another path?”

- Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully, “The X-Files”

○

“The Paradox Of Time"

“Time goes, you say? Ah no!

Alas, Time stays, we go;

Or else, were this not so,

What need to chain the hours,

For Youth were always ours?

Time goes, you say? – ah no!

Ours is the eyes’ deceit

Of men whose flying feet

Lead through some landscape low;

We pass, and think we see

The earth’s fixed surface flee;

Alas, Time stays, – we go!

Once in the days of old,

Your locks were curling gold,

And mine had shamed the crow.

Now, in the self-same stage,

We’ve reached the silver age;

Time goes, you say? – ah no!

Once, when my voice was strong,

I filled the woods with song

To praise your ‘rose’ and ‘snow’;

My bird, that sang, is dead;

Where are your roses fled?

Alas, Time stays, – we go!

See, in what traversed ways,

What backward Fate delays

The hopes we used to know;

Where are our old desires?

Ah, where those vanished fires?

Time goes, you say? – ah no!

How far, how far, O Sweet,

The past behind our feet

Lies in the even-glow!

Now, on the forward way,

Let us fold hands, and pray;

Alas, Time stays, – we go!”

- Henry Austin Dobson

○

Full screen recommended.

Hans Zimmer, "Time"

"And There Are Times..."

"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, and 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

Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet: Freedom”

“Freedom”

"And an orator said, “Speak to us of Freedom.”

And he (the prophet) answered:

" At  city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself

and worship your own freedom, Even as slaves humble themselves before

a tyrant and praise him though he slays them.

Aye, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have

seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.

And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even

the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you,

and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.

You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your

nights without a want and a grief, But rather when these things

girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.

And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights 

unless you break the chains

which you at the dawn of your understanding 

have fastened around your noon hour?

In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains,

though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle your eyes.

And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that

you may become free? If it is an unjust law you would abolish,

that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead.

You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing 

the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them. 

And if it is a despot you would dethrone,

see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.

For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud,

but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their own pride?

And if it is a care you would cast off,

that care has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you.

And if it is a fear you would dispel,

the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared.

Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace,

the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished,

the pursued and that which you would escape.

These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling.

And when the shadow fades and is no more,

the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light.

And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters 

becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom."

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet: Freedom”

○

Freely download "The Prophet", by Kahlil Gibran, here:

- http://www.brainybetty.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Still, Sometimes..."

“The early bird catches the worm. A stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can’t pretend we haven’t been told. We’ve all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day. Still, sometimes, we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today’s possibility under tomorrow’s rug, until we can’t anymore, until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin meant: That knowing is better than wondering. That waking is better than sleeping. And that even the biggest failure, even the worst, most intractable mistake, beats the hell out of never trying.”

- “Meredith”, “Grey’s Anatomy”

"The Choice..."

"Except for totally impulsive or psychotic behavior, every human

decision comes down to the choice between two alternatives."

- Jeff Duntemann

"It’s Happening: Here Is A List Of 11 Big Companies That Have Announced Layoffs Within The Last 2 Weeks"

"It’s Happening: Here Is A List Of 11 Big Companies 

That Have Announced Layoffs Within The Last 2 Weeks"

by Michael Snyder

"When the economy slows down, layoffs inevitably happen. We witnessed this on a very large scale in 2008 and 2009, and now it is happening again. U.S. economic numbers are rapidly getting worse, and companies all across America don’t want to get caught with bloated payrolls as we plunge into a recession. As you will see below, many of the firms that are laying off workers are either in the real estate industry or the tech industry. Those are two industries that were on the leading edge of the “boom times”, and now it appears that they will also be on the bleeding edge as the economy crashes.

It is always a tragedy whenever any hard working American is forced out of a job. Unfortunately, what we are witnessing right now is just the beginning. The following is a list of 11 big companies that have announced layoffs within the last 2 weeks…

#1 Ultratec Inc. says that it will be laying off more than 600 workers.

#2 Electric truck maker Rivian will be laying off approximately 840 workers.

#3 7-Eleven has announced that it will be eliminating 880 corporate jobs.

#4 Shopify is laying off about 1,000 people.

#5 Vimeo says that it will be eliminating 6 percent of its current workforce.

#6 Redfin will be reducing the size of its workforce by 8 percent.

#7 Compass will be reducing the size of its workforce by 10 percent.

#8 RE/MAX will be reducing the size of its workforce by 17 percent.

#9 Robinhood will be reducing the size of its workforce by 23 percent.

#10 It is being reported that Ford “is preparing to cut as many as 8,000 jobs in the coming weeks”.

#11 Geico has closed every single one of their offices in the state of California, and that will result in vast numbers of workers losing their jobs…"GEICO, one of the largest insurance companies in the United States, reportedly closed all 38 of it’s California offices on Monday, resulting in hundreds of workers being laid off.

According to the company, GEICO would not be leaving outright, and will still be offering policies directly online, with all insurance functions continuing as normal. Buying directly through agents by phone, however, will not be possible. “We continue to write policies in California, and we remain available through our direct channels for the more than 2.18 million California customers presently insured with us,” said GEICO in a statement on Monday."

On top of everything else, Amazon has announced that it reduced the size of its workforce by approximately 100,000 workers in just one quarter…"With recession fears mounting - and inflation, the war in Ukraine and the lingering pandemic taking a toll - many tech companies are rethinking their staffing needs, with some of them instituting hiring freezes, rescinding offers and making rounds of layoffs."

Amazon.com Inc. was one of the latest companies to discuss its belt-tightening efforts this week. During its quarterly earnings call Thursday, the e-commerce giant said it’s been adding jobs at the slowest rate since 2019. After relying on attrition to winnow its staff, Amazon now has about 100,000 fewer employees than in the previous quarter. You could fill up two very large football stadiums with 100,000 workers. Eventually, this wave of job losses will become a tsunami, and millions of Americans will suddenly find that they are unable to continue paying their bills.

Meanwhile, our new housing crash is starting to pick up speed as well. In fact, we just witnessed an absolutely massive spike in the number of Americans that are searching for the term “sell my home fast” on Google…"Within hours of the latest GDP report on Thursday, which raised fears that the United States could be entering a recession, online search volume for “sell my home fast” spiked a whopping 2,750%. Shortly after the Commerce Department released the report on July 28, revealing that the economy showed negative growth for a second straight quarter - shrinking by an annual pace of 0.9% - home sellers hoping for higher housing prices to continue are now concerned."

Just like in 2008 and 2009, a lot of Americans that bought near the peak of the market are going to end up underwater on their homes. We didn’t learn from history, and so now we are repeating it. And things are going to get worse and worse for the housing market as the Federal Reserve continues to raise interest rates.

Of course it isn’t just the U.S. that is going to be suffering in the months ahead. The whole planet appears to be heading for a major downturn, and one of the largest shipping companies in the entire world has just confirmed that global economic activity is really starting to slow down…"AP Moller-Maersk on Wednesday predicted a slowdown in global shipping container demand this year amid weakening consumer confidence and supply chain congestion. The Danish shipping and logistics company - one of the world’s largest and a broad barometer for global trade - said it loaded 7.4% fewer containers onto ships in the second quarter when compared to the same period in 2021, prompting it to revise the full-year outlook for its container business."

Europe is being hit harder than just about anywhere else. Many of the numbers that are coming out of Europe are surprisingly bad, and now thanks to the war in Ukraine they are bracing for an extremely cold and bitter winter…"Germany’s presidential palace in Berlin is no longer lit at night, the city of Hanover is turning off warm water in the showers of its pools and gyms, and municipalities across the country are preparing heating havens to keep people safe from the cold. And that’s just the beginning of a crisis that will ripple across Europe.

It might still be the height of summer, but Germany has little time to lose to avert an energy shortage this winter that would be unprecedented for a developed nation. Much of Europe is feeling the strain from Russia’s squeeze on natural gas deliveries, yet no other country is as exposed as the region’s biggest economy, where nearly half the homes rely on the fuel for heating."

We haven’t seen anything like this in Europe since World War II. In Spain, they have already resorted to extreme measures as they desperately attempt to conserve energy…"Responding to Europe’s energy crisis, Spain has controversially banned air conditioning from dropping below 27°C (80.6°F) in the summer. The new government decree, which applies to a whole host of public buildings as well as shops, hotels and other venues, will also stop heating from being raised above 19°C during the winter. “The rules will be mandatory in all public and commercial buildings, including bars, cinemas, theaters, airports and train stations,” reports EuroNews."

I am stunned by many of the things that I see in the news every day. And things are only going to get worse as time rolls along. Decades of incredibly foolish decisions have brought us to this point, and instead of reversing course our leaders continue to take us down the exact same road. So we shall reap what we have sown, and it appears that there is an enormous amount of pain on the horizon."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com

"How It Really Is"

"When you're born in this world you get a ticket to the freak show. 

When you're born in America, you get a front row seat."

 - George Carlin