"Strike Three"

"Strike Three"

Real wages... GDP... and now real productivity,

 all down, down and down...

by Bill Bonner

Ouzilly, France - "And so… the strike-out is complete…

Strike one: real wages are going down…

Strike two: real GDP is going down (US in recession)…

Strike three: Real productivity is going down….

And you’re out!

Breitbart: "U.S. Labor Productivity Suffers Biggest Crash Ever Recorded, Labor Costs Soar Most Since 1982." "The productivity of the business sector fell 2.5 percent compared with a year ago, the largest decline ever recorded in data going back to the first quarter of 1948, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Tuesday. The decline comes from a 1.5 increase in economic output and a 4.1 percent increase in total hours worked.

Productivity declined at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.6 percent in the second quarter. That’s a less rapid decline than the 7.6 percent contraction recorded in the first three months of the year but slightly below economist expectations for a 4.5 percent decline.

Unit labor costs jumped 10.8 percent in the second quarter of 2022, reflecting a 5.7-percent increase in hourly compensation and a 4.6-percent decrease in productivity. Economists had forecast labor costs to be up by 9.3 percent. In the first quarter, unit labor costs were up 12.6 percent."

How do you like that? Mighty Casey, the USA, has struck out.

Three Strikes, No Balls: From the year we were born until now, productivity could be counted on to increase. And productivity, more than any other single measure, tracks our wealth. There are only 24 hours in a day… from the day man first stood on two legs until today, the length of a day has not increased by a single minute. We are wealthy inasmuch as we are able to use those minutes to produce goods and services. The more output – goods and services – per minute, the richer we are. But now, the time goes by and we have less and less to show for it. In a typical hour, we just can’t produce as many goods and services as we did last year.

How did that happen? Did masons forget how to mix their mortar? Did machinists forget how to bend their steel? How about accountants; did they forget how to add and subtract? We doubt it.

More likely, thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act… along with countless other acts of petty insult or grand larceny…. America’s “hard working families” can hardly work at all. They have too many laws, regulations, taxes and jackass rules to work around. And they have the feds misleading them with phony price signals and stimmie checks. But of all the Fed’s many crackpot schemes, lowering interest rates to discourage savers was probably the most harmful. Savings allow us to invest in new factories, new machines, and new output. It is savings, in other words, that makes us more productive… and richer.

As savings went down so did serious capital investment. Instead of spending years building real, profit-making businesses, for example, entrepreneurs wanted to create overnight ‘start-ups’ that they could quickly unload on leveraged speculators. Less money was spent on new plant and equipment… and more on share buybacks, Mergers & Acquisitions, and other payouts to the rich. Why bother with the risk and hassle of long term business investment when you can borrow below the rate of consumer price inflation and jack up your stock price… or, like Michael Saylor, buy a crypto that was going to the moon?

The result was predictable. And now it is here. And we wonder…What will they think? After the confusion and ambiguity have lifted, like morning fog by the hot sun of time…will our descendants, 30 generations later, see us more clearly? How will they judge us? What will they say about us? We shudder to think…

Wikipedia: Year 3000: “Three things generally spelled doom for human societies – government, war, and inflation. And by the 21st century, all three were working against the United States of America and its global empire. Its government had become obese and incompetent. Its war mongers sought conflict. And its economic leaders promoted inflation as a way to keep the money flowing to themselves and their pet projects.

General, later President, Dwight Eisenhower had warned Americans about the ‘unwarranted power’ of what he called the ‘military, industrial complex.’ (MIC) in 1961. Forty years later, the MIC was running the country… and ruining it. It wasted trillions of dollars and thousands of lives. But the press asked no questions. And neither party dared oppose it. Then, the MIC so provoked and taunted its rivals – assassinating foreign leaders, seizing money and assets without even pretending ‘due process of law,’ trying to shut them out of the world financial system completely – that Russia, China, India, Iran, Brazil and many other countries finally joined forces to defend the world from US tyranny.

By this time, too, the source of America’s power – its free economy – had been substantially hobbled. Altogether, presidents Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden wasted $24 trillion on wars, deficits and boondoggles. In addition, the two scourges of economic growth – inflation and central planning – had been unleashed and allowed to run wild. In the 21st century, the world economy still depended on fossil fuel. Yet the US government was forcing industry to convert to more expensive “alternative” energy. Taxes were raised on the still-productive sectors, while subsidies, handouts, and unrepayable loans were given to the unproductive ones. By 2022, wasteful spending, along with extremely foolish policies from the central bank, brought growth to a halt; the slide into poverty had begun.

Corruption, chaos, civil unrest, inflation, poverty, recession, and war – that was the history of the period from 2022 to 2036.

Finally, an attack by state-of-the-art Chinese drones, from forward bases in Brazil, in 2037, devastated America’s military installations, sank its ships, and led the US to beg for peace. In the Treaty of Shanghai the following year, the US was occupied by Chinese troops. It agreed, also, to disarm what was left of its military and disband its two war-seeking political parties. In this manner was the peace and prosperity of the world restored.”

- https://bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com/

"Can't You See..."

"Can't you see that the courage to risk, to dare, to toss that gold coin up in the air over and over again, win or lose, is what makes humans human? They are fragile, doomed creatures, blinder than worms yet braver than the gods."

 - Jennifer Donnelly, "Stepsister"

"Shall We Play A Game?"

“A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.”

- "War Games"

"This is the "lesson" scene from the movie "War Games" where we learn that the only way to win in Nuclear War is not to play.

The story behind the quote: The quote comes from the 1983 science fiction thriller, "WarGames." In the film, all of the United States nuclear launch capabilities is given to a computer called “Joshua” or WOPR, which stands for War Operation Plan Response. It is programmed to consistently run military simulations to concoct the best plan of an attack if nuclear retaliation is needed. David Lightman (played by Matthew Broderick) unwittingly hacks into Joshua and causes the computer to think that the Soviet Union has launched missiles at the United States.

The quote comes from the very end of the film. David forces Joshuat o play tic-tac-toe against itself in the attempt to make it understand the concept of mutually assured destruction. As Joshua obtains the final launch code, it runs through all the possible scenarios in an attempt to find a winning plan. After cycling through all of them and not finding one where anyone survives, the machine delivers the quote."

○

"It would indeed be a tragedy if the history of the human race proved to be nothing more than the story of an ape playing with a box of matches on a petrol dump." 

- David Ormsby-Gore

"Defense Experts Game Out US-China War Over Taiwan; Dalio Warns Escalations 'Very Dangerous'" (Excerpt)

"Defense Experts Game Out US-China War Over Taiwan;

 Dalio Warns Escalations 'Very Dangerous'" (Excerpt)

by Tyler Durden

Excerpt: "A group of American defense experts operating out of a 5th floor suite in Washington DC have been mapping out a hypothetical war between the United States and China over Taiwan. "The results are showing that under most - though not all - scenarios, Taiwan can repel an invasion," said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which has been simulating various war scenarios. "However, the cost will be very high to the Taiwanese infrastructure and economy and to US forces in the Pacific."

"In sessions that will run through September, retired US generals and Navy officers and former Pentagon officials hunch like chess players over tabletops along with analysts from the CSIS think tank. They move forces depicted as blue and red boxes and small wooden squares over maps of the Western Pacific and Taiwan. The results will be released to the public in December." - Bloomberg

The base assumption is that China invades Taiwan to force unification, which the US responds to with its military. Another assumption (that's 'far from certain') is that Japan would grant 'expanded rights' to use US bases on its territory - but wouldn't intervene directly unless Japanese land is attacked.

Nuclear weapons are not part of the scenarios, and the weapons used in the simulation are the most likely to be deployed based on current capabilities of the nations involved.

News of the war game simulations come as China began test-firing missiles in recent days following House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) visit to Taiwan.So far, 18 of 22 rounds of the simulation to date have resulted in Chinese missiles sinking a large part of the US and Japanese surface fleet, and would destroy "hundreds of aircraft on the ground," according to Cancian, a former White House defense budget analyst and retired US Marine.

"However, allied air and naval counterattacks hammer the exposed Chinese amphibious and surface fleet, eventually sinking about 150 ships," he added. "The reason for the high US losses is that the United States cannot conduct a systematic campaign to take down Chinese defenses before moving in close," Cancian continued. "The United States must send forces to attack the Chinese fleet, especially the amphibious ships, before establishing air or maritime superiority. To get a sense of the scale of the losses, in our last game iteration, the United States lost over 900 fighter/attack aircraft in a four-week conflict. That’s about half the Navy and Air Force inventory."

View this complete article here:

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

"Unfortunately..."

“They say if you don't know your history, you're 

doomed to repeat it. Unfortunately, most Americans 

can't even figure out what's going on in the present.”

- Thor Benson

“All this had happened before, perhaps a million times, and because of this was doomed. There was no ordinary future any more, only this ecstatic tormented terrified present. The future had passed through the present like a sword. We were already, even eye to eye and lip to lip, deep in the horrors to come.”

- Iris Murdoch, "The Black Prince"

And they don't care or want to know...

"Trump: The Symbol and Symptom of the End"

"Trump: The Symbol and Symptom of the End"

by John Wilder

"Wednesday is usual the “wealthy” part of Wilder, Wealthy and Wise. Why? Because it starts with W. Duh. But I can’t this week. I normally like to talk to the deeper issues, the longer trends, and those timeless aspects of the human condition. There is more than a little evidence that we’ve been, in one way or another, been two sides fighting for thousands of years across a gulf between two factions. One is open, and the wellspring of Western Civilization.

The other is one that, for lack of a better allusion, is best represented by the worst aspects of Rudyard Kipling’s poem "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" (reprinted at the end of this, because it’s old enough that Disney® doesn’t own it, it’s wonderful, and it’s True) – that implacable urge to move away from those values that emphasize what is Good, Beautiful, Right and True to placate what Kipling called “The Gods of the Marketplace”. It is a battle that provides humanity amazing wealth, meaning, and prosperity when The Gods of the Copybook Headings win. Spoiler alert: The Gods of the Copybook Headings always win.

One signpost in the road downward is the raid on Donald Trump. The word that people are using is “unprecedented” and they’re using it for a reason. It is unprecedented. As I went upstairs a moment ago, the news on the radio was insisting that Joe Biden had “no idea” what was going to happen. The Mrs. remarked, well, it starts with “Bull”. You get the idea. If Biden didn’t know about this, then the system is horribly broken. If he did, the system is horribly corrupt.

Do I believe a former president should be above the law? I certainly do not. But unless the FBI® found a dead stripper or a live boy in the safe, it ain’t enough. As much as the Clintons were corrupt and literally stole items out of the White House, there was no real push to have them arrested. Sure, Bill was impeached, and sure, because he perjured himself he could no longer practice law. That was about it.

And I’m okay with that. Even Nixon, who took part in a conspiracy and looked like, well, Nixon, was pardoned. Why? Because Nixon was politically neutered and could never take part in the public sphere again in any consequential manner. He was humiliated enough that the Left could enjoy it. Bill was humiliated, but (unlike Nixon) was he decided he’d try to bilk millions (and bimbos) out of those that wanted to buy influence with his political machine.

It is clear that every president since (and certainly including!) FDR has likely committed multiple felonies in office. It’s our system. Some, because they were not good guys. Some simply because there are more felonies on the books than hairs that were implanted in Biden’s head. The Federal way is now the way that the Soviets liked it – as Lavrenty Beria, former head of the Soviet NKVD and GULAG architect extraordinaire said, “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.”

Now, Trump. In every case during his presidency, he has been the boogie man for the Left – the man that gives them I accidently killed John Wick’s dog-level night sweats. Why? I’m not sure. Even though he couldn’t build a wall, Trump certainly upset the apple cart. Perhaps his singular achievement as president was to return the Supreme Court into a court that could actually read the Constitution in plain English again. The Constitution was written the way it was, for common men. It was written that way so that nearly every man in the United States could read it and understand the plain language. I mean, today they’d do it with angry cat memes, but you get the picture.

Given hundreds of years, the language was buried in a stream of emanations and penumbras such that what was clearly the written language of the Constitution became ignored in favor of piles of case law that in some cases twisted the original meaning nearly 180°. The Fourteenth Amendment, so beloved by the Left, turned a series of prohibitions on Federal activity into a prohibition on activity by the Several States.

Why is this important? Because it became a weapon of the statists, of those that would become globalists to use as a club so that the centralized government that the Founders feared could be put in place. Now every Federal law could be pushed into the Several States with impunity. Horrible Federal bureaucracies could be put in place. I remember reading that OSHA (which regulates workplace safety) was challenged in court by a company in Maine.

The company in Maine argued that they only worked in Maine, digging a hole for people who lived in Maine, in Maine. What business was it of a Federal Administration that sounds like the noise I make when a cigar ash hits my bare chest? Why did anyone care that the Maine hole didn’t match what a government rule written in Washington D.C. said? The Federal prosecutor didn’t even refute the argument. The administrative (not Constitutional) judge in this case ruled against the guy from Maine, since the judge said, “they have a phone and use the mail” so they’re engaged in interstate commerce.

Really. It’s a nonsense ruling, like you’d see in Alice in Wonderland but involving people who hated their lives but who were just “doing their job”. In 2022, for the first time in my life, this sort of nonsensical reasoning is being challenged at the Supreme Court level.

And they hate Trump for it. They hate him with every fiber of their being, even more than they hate Vladimir Putler or people who don’t take the vaxx or people who would deny teachers the right to indoctrinate kindergarteners into the world of S&M. They hate it more than they hate people who won’t kill their babies. For that, Trump must be punished.

Is it rational? Not at all. They’re willing to destroy the Republic for that, because they want to destroy the Republic anyway. There are those on the Right that are accelerationists: anything that brings on the actual shooting war with the Left should be embraced. On the Left, there are accelerationists, too. Anything that can pull down another statue, anything that can pervert another value, anything that can make the legacy of the United States die is to be saluted. Really. They hate it so very much, and Trump has been an inconvenient speedbump along the way.

So, their most fervent fantasy is Trump in an orange jumpsuit, whereas the most fervent fantasy of the Right was Hillary being an impotent drunk wine aunt staring from the outside in at a party she could never be a part of. Sure, the crowds at the Trump rally chanted “Lock Her Up” but what they really wanted was her humiliation. The Right got it, and then some.

Perhaps that was what drove them over the edge into insanity. Again, they want the destruction of the United States, so, they’re cool with that. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. I’m not really sure what bizarre fantasy plays in their heads as they contemplate the collapsing economic system and the utter lack of any shared goals or morality. Perhaps it’s a rainbow, though I doubt they’ll understand that the only actual consequence that they can really have is one that will lead to. But Rudyard Kipling understood it, every bit of it.

"The Gods of the Copybook Headings"

by Rudyard Kipling

"As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,

I make my proper protestations to the Gods of the Market-Place.

Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall.

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn.

That water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:

But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision, and Breadth of Mind,

So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,

Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place;

But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come

That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch.

They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch.

They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.

So we worshiped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.

They swore, if we gave them our weapons,

 that the wars of the tribes would cease.

But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: 'Stick to the Devil you know.'

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life

(Which started by loving our neighbor and ended by loving his wife)

Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: 'The Wages of Sin is Death/'

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,

By robbing selective Peter to pay for collective Paul;

But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: 'If you don't work you die.'

The Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,

And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true

That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four--

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man--

There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:--

That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her mire,

And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins

When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,

As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,

The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!"

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/author/jwilder/

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Related:

• "Taibbi: Welcome To The Third World"

• "Deep State's 'Next Step Will Be Assassination' After Trump Raid,

 Warns Former NYC Police Commissioner"

"How It Really Is"

 

"Massive Price Increases At Sam's Club! This Is Crazy!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 8/10/22:

"Massive Price Increases At Sam's Club!

This Is Crazy!"

"In today's vlog we are at Sam's Club, 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/

Gregory Mannarino, "SHockER! More Fake Data And Stocks Are Poised To Take Off!

Gregory Mannarino, AM 8/10/22:

"SHockER! More Fake Data And Stocks Are Poised To Take Off!"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Shipping Prices Shot Up 1,000% As Port Congestion And Container Shortage Collapse Supply Chains"

Full screen recommended.

"Shipping Prices Shot Up 1,000% As Port Congestion 

And Container Shortage Collapse Supply Chains"

by Epic Economist

"As congestion continues to get worse at both coasts, U.S. companies are now paying the most expensive prices to move goods around ever recorded. Industry executives are seeing a 1,000% spike in shipping container prices as the backlog of empty containers keeps growing at major U.S. ports. Recent surveys show that pessimism is growing across the board, with an overwhelming majority of business owners reporting supply chain disruptions, shipping delays, and increased volatility in their operations. To make things worse, new data shows that hundreds of containerships are headed to the U.S., meaning that the chaos at ports has only just begun.

Global shipping giant Maersk is predicting this year’s annual profits to reach $31 billion, a $10 billion increase from its January forecast. But many across the industry are accusing shipping companies of 'profiteering' and contributing further to the crippling cost of living crisis. Each year, the Danish firm typically moves 12 million containers around the globe. But over the past couple of years, the company has raised prices from around $2,600 per container to between $26,000 and $30,000 today. That massive spike has fueled inflation and widespread consumer price increases that have continued to squeeze the budgets of millions of American households in recent months.

According to Nick Glynn, from the Buy it Direct Group, shipping firms are “acting like a cartel”. In a recent statement, he noted that “the extraordinary costs for a single container are directly hitting businesses and consumers”: “If you go back to 2019, the price of moving a 40ft container was less than $2,500. During Covid this went up over 1,000% percent, reaching $26,000. This has a significant impact on the cost of goods.” But even though shippers say that shipping and freight companies are price gouging, the firms cite worsening port congestion as the main reason for the sharp price hikes.

The situation at ports is getting critical again. Windward data shows that from March-June 2022, container vessels undertook 800 voyages from China to US ports, representing a capacity for 4 million twenty-foot equivalent units. Right now, there are 212 container vessels currently en route to a U.S. port, according to the firm’s analysis.

Congestion is no longer a problem exclusively seen at West Coast ports. “The port congestion situation has morphed from primarily impacting the West Coast to where it has shown up on all coastal ranges,” as noted by Blue Alpha Capital founder John McCown in a new research report. “The present port system is not in a position to accommodate the geometric growth on the foreseeable horizon. Containers can’t be endlessly stacked ever higher in existing terminals,” he added. As of Thursday morning last week, there were 153 container ships waiting for a berth off East and Gulf Coast ports.

This month marks the beginning of the traditional peak season in ocean shipping, which means that the current backlog of containers at the ports will only increase congestion and add wait time for incoming vessels. It also means that shipping prices could go even higher and that businesses haven’t seen the worst of supply chain disruptions just yet.

With all that said, it’s no wonder why an overwhelming majority of 97% of manufacturing companies in the United States reported that they are experiencing “significant disruption” in their direct supply chains. Those who are anxiously hoping for a light at the end of the tunnel and some relief from the current state of shipping and freight prices are probably out of luck. At least, that’s what the industry executives expect. Although the specifics vary slightly in how long they think rising container prices and port congestion will persist, pessimism is still spreading across all sectors.

End consumers will be facing more painful price increases in the months ahead and inflation probably hasn’t peaked yet. The system is gradually falling apart, and Americans will confront the repercussions of the ongoing supply chain collapse sooner than they think."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

Gerald Celente, "That's All Folks!"

Strong language alert!

Gerald Celente, Trends Journal,

"That's All Folks!"

"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."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Get Food Preps Now, We Are Heading For Trouble; Qualified Homebuyers Going Extinct; Bank Bail-ins"

Jeremiah Babe, 8/9/22:

"Get Food Preps Now, We Are Heading For Trouble; 

Qualified Homebuyers Going Extinct; Bank Bail-ins"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Why Did They Really Raid Trump’s Estate?"; "Will We Reclaim Our Freedom?"

"Why Did They Really Raid Trump’s Estate?"

by Jeffrey Tucker

"The FBI has raided Donald Trump’s home in Florida and opened a private safe, hanging around for hours looking for classified material that might or might not be there. They were likely looking for items that Trump believed he had declassified - the president can do this with anything - but is still holding in his possession. Top officials of the National Archives, the DOJ and the FBI believed otherwise and thus sought the search warrant. If The New York Times is correct, then this is really about state secrets. Trump wanted them public. Others inside the deep-state machinery disagreed.

The scene in Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida, gives rise to images from societies without law and constitutions, places where regimes are merely juntas seeking plunder and revenge. In this case, the problem is complicated by a mass administrative state apparatus that lives outside the democratic process. “Aides to President Biden,” reports the Times, “said they were stunned by the development and learned of it from Twitter.” This is likely true. But it gives rise to the more fundamental question: Who is actually running the government?

If we didn’t before realize the extent of the multivariate crisis gathering all around us, now is the time. It’s a time for analysis and understanding. It’s also the time to make a decision concerning what we are all going to do about it.

Even those of us who are not fans of Trump - I wrote one of the first articles from 2015 warning against his ideological leanings, which later became a full book - see the deeper implications. The betting odds favor him for the presidency in 2024. Someone somewhere wants to make this impossible. So all the forces of the administrative state - the actual rulers of this country - have coalesced around crushing him and his legacy, Soviet-like.

In the background of all of this is the real struggle that will define American politics for years to come. Two weeks before he left office in 2021, Trump issued an executive order that would have put a major dent in the power of the administrative state in this country, taking the first steps toward returning government to the people after a century in which it gradually slipped away. In some people’s view, this is intolerable.

Trump, for all his failings, among which was green-lighting the lockdowns that started this social and economic crisis, has become over time a symbol of resistance. The raiding of his private home sends a message about who is in charge. It’s a warning for everyone. An intimidation tactic. We are used to this but we should not become so.

Biden has once again declared a national emergency in the name of virus control. Such a declaration effectively enshrines the permanent bureaucracy to rule the country at all levels in whatever ways they desire, at least until courts stop them. The extension of the declaration hardly made the news.

Have we forgotten what normalcy is? It was only three years ago. Yes, there were political arguments and enormous problems but it still felt like a nation of laws with a government subject to the people. Already, there was something in the air in mid-March 2020, something that suggested that everything was changed. Governments all over the world dared to do the unthinkable, partly under the influence that it happened in the U.S., and under a Republican administration.

Countless millions found themselves locked in their homes. The churches were forcibly closed. Businesses and schools too. You know the story. It was not only a sweeping use of state power without precedent. It foreshadowed dark times ahead. Here we are 2½ years later and the state is on the march in ways we never imagined possible three years ago. The raiding of Trump’s home is but a sign and symbol: None of our homes is safe. And they haven’t been for years now. Can we reclaim our liberty?"

○

"Will We Reclaim Our Freedom?"

By Jeffrey Tucker

"Even now, in the land of the free, people are being pressured to accept the shot or get fired. We all have unvaccinated friends who want to visit us but cannot because the U.S. government blocks them. Our health authorities have only expressed regret in one area: for not having locked down more. And they are creating a bureaucratic machinery to make doing so next time more ferocious and better enforced. All of this is taking place without a scrap of evidence that any of it makes any scientific and/or medical sense. The scientists who resist have been canceled. Only one view is permitted to ascend. Everyone with doubt is being marginalized and silenced.

Congress itself became addicted to authorizing trillions in spending, and they keep doing it again and again. This adds pressure on the Federal Reserve to enter the markets and buy the resulting debt with freshly printed money just as rates are being pushed up to clean up its disastrous balance sheet. No one knows, least of all the Fed, how long this grueling inflation will continue but regardless, the damage is done.

The labor markets, despite the propaganda from the White House, reveal alarming weakness. Fewer full-time jobs. More part-time jobs. More people with two jobs. And fewer workers overall, as labor-market participation and worker/population ratios fall and fall.

Not only have these markets not recovered from lockdowns. The trends are getting worse, with fully 1 million dropped out completely from the labor force since March 2022, which is highly suggestive of a demoralized workforce lacking in ambition and hope for the future. Wages and salaries in real terms are falling more than the nominal rates can cover. There is a debate about whether we are in a recession because the GDP has fallen for two straight quarters. But looking at the broad trends, there can be no mistaking what is happening.

American prosperity is fundamentally threatened. The relationship between freedom and prosperity is one of the most well-established truths in economic literature. It should not be surprising that both decline in tandem. Complain too much and you will find yourself without a voice on social media. The tech companies developed a deep relationship with the administrative state over the last two years, corresponding with each other, sharing insights, making enemies lists and silencing dissidents of all sorts.

Clearly, the lockdowns did not achieve the goal, as the virus came and has gradually become endemic regardless of external interventions including mass vaccination mandates. What they did do was test society’s tolerance for despotism. Tragically, they got away with it all, much more easily than most of us might have expected.

Even now, even though the ruling class has never been less popular with the public, too many have adapted to the new normal. It’s like the frog in the pot of water, becoming acclimated to the gradually rising temperature. For many people, this is by necessity: What, after all, can anyone really do when freedom is slipping away and even core functioning of civilization (safe streets, vibrant cities, class mobility) is something we can no longer take for granted?

Let history record that lockdowns triggered this. All of it. Yes, there were problems before but they seemed within the realm of fixable. There appeared to be in the old days (three years ago) some relationship between public opinion and regime priorities. That was blown away with lockdowns. Now it is no longer clear whether and to what extent public opinion matters at all to the masters and commanders of our societies. They are leading us to ever greater crises and yet we feel powerless to do anything about it.

In the most incredible of ironies, it was Trump himself, now targeted for destruction by the bureaucrats he sought to control, who enabled this in the dreadful year of 2020. Realizing but never admitting his error, he flipped in the other direction late in the season, arguing for openness and normalcy. But it was too late. He already lost control, as Deborah Birx’s book makes clear. The deep state that he had loathed needed to prove its hegemony. This raid on his own home underscores the point.

One read of history is that such times lead inexorably to the forward march of tyranny. Certainly interwar political history teaches us this. The crisis in Germany began in an economic crisis that cried out for a strongman, but Germany was hardly alone in this. The same inexorable push toward centralization and against freedom took place the world over in those horrible years: Spain, Italy, France, China, the U.S. Read the popular and scholarly literature from the early 1930s: Freedom and democracy were out and central planning was in. I read all of this in college and was grateful that those days were gone forever.

We are so much more enlightened now! How wrong I was. The same themes are back again today as entrenched elites clamor to hold on to power regardless of public opinion. In the 1930s, the extremist political left threatened many countries and the extremist political right arrived to prevent that from happening and then erected their own despotisms, always under the cover of emergency. It became a kind of civil war between two opposing camps with their own plans for people’s lives. Freedom was lost in the struggle.

We had hoped those days were long behind us. But the allure of power has proven too tempting for the worst among us. We are all watching as all the things we love - the way of life that many generations have fought to protect - are being swept away. And it is happening with not nearly enough explanation or protest.

These are not the most terrifying times in history but they are among the most terrifying in our lifetimes in the West. Where are the parties and movements that defend freedom as a first principle? Where are the successors to Voltaire, Locke, Goethe, Paine and Jefferson, among the many great thinkers who sacrificed so much for the liberal vision of a social order in which people manage their own lives?

Such people are here, many of them producing articles, books and podcasts to get around the opinion cartel being built by censors public and private. What difference can they make and how? This much is true: What man has made man can unmake and make something new: a new Magna Carta, whether formal or de facto. The urgency has never been more intense. A state without an acquiescing populace is powerless in the end. But not without struggle. And that struggle is ultimately an intellectual one. It’s about what we believe and what kind of society we want to live in.

Our prayer today should be for freedom above all else, a society and a world in which powerful elites do not rule the rest of us and forever fight amongst themselves for the right to do so, with the people deployed as fodder in their struggles, and while hope and prosperity slip ever deeper into memory.

These are very dangerous times, with a toxic mix as backdrop: a growing economic crisis, a spitefully supercilious ruling class and a vengeful administrative state determined to crush all enemies before it. Something has got to give.

May the USA defy the historical odds, find its way back to simple liberty and begin to restore what has been lost so dramatically and so quickly. Otherwise, all truth will be declared a state secret and our homes will never be safe from invasion."

- dailyreckoning.com

Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Endless Horizon"

Full screen recommended. 

Deuter, "Endless Horizon"

○

"I cannot paint

What then I was. The sounding cataract

Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,

Their colors and their forms, were then to me

An appetite; a feeling and a love,

That had no need of a remoter charm,

By thought supplied, not any interest

Unborrowed from the eye.

That time is past,

And all its aching joys are now no more,

And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this

Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur: other gifts

Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,

Abundant recompense. 

For I have learned

To look on nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes

The still, sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue." 

- William Wordsworth,

"Lines Written A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Where do the dark streams of dust in the Orion Nebula originate? This part of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, M43, is the often imaged but rarely mentioned neighbor of the more famous M42. M42, seen in part to the upper right, includes many bright stars from the Trapezium star cluster. 

M43 is itself a star forming region that displays intricately-laced streams of dark dust - although it is really composed mostly of glowing hydrogen gas. The entire Orion field is located about 1600 light years away. Opaque to visible light, the picturesque dark dust is created in the outer atmosphere of massive cool stars and expelled by strong outer winds of protons and electrons."

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

Albert Camus, "Life Changing Quotes"

Full screen recommended.

Albert Camus, "Life Changing Quotes"

Voice-over by Chris Lines

"Powerful quotations from the great French philosopher Albert Camus. A good quote can offer a lifetime of experience in a simple sentence or statement. They are lessons forged through the overcoming of obstacles and set backs that are passed on to others like a baton in a relay race. They say, "here's what I learned, now use it and go even further."

"Quotes for Hard Times"

Full screen recommended.

RedFrost Motivation, "Quotes for Hard Times"

Performed by Peter Revel Walsh

"A fully narrated quote collection aimed at getting you through difficult times in life. This video features wisdom from the likes of Joseph Campbell, Albert Camus and Martha Graham. A good quote can offer a lifetime of experience in a simple sentence or statement. They are lessons forged through the overcoming of obstacles and set backs that are passed on to others like a baton in a relay race. They say, "here's what I learned, now use it and go even further."

The Poet: Wendell Berry, “Leavings”

 
“Leavings”

“In time a man disappears

from his lifelong fields, from

the streams he has walked beside,

from the woods where he sat and waited.

Thinking of this, he seems to

miss himself in those places

as if always he has been there.

But first he must disappear,

and this he foresees with hope,

with thanks. Let others come.”

- Wendell Berry

○

“Perhaps as he was lying awake then, his life may have passed before him – his early hopeful struggles, his manly successes and prosperity, his downfall in his declining years, and his present helpless condition – no chance of revenge against Fortune, which had had the better of him -neither name nor money to bequeath – a spent-out, bootless life of defeat and disappointment, and the end here! Which, I wonder, brother reader, is the better lot, to die prosperous and famous, or poor and disappointed? To have, and to be forced to yield; or to sink out of life, having played and lost the game? That must be a strange feeling, when a day of our life comes and we say, “Tomorrow, success or failure won’t matter much, and the sun will rise, and all the myriads of mankind go to their work or their pleasure as usual, but I shall be out of the turmoil.”

- William Makepeace Thackeray, “Vanity Fair”

Gregory Mannarino, "Citigroup Warns Of Massive Stock Market Sell-Off...Mar-A-Lago Raid Is A Distraction"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 8/9/22:

"Citigroup Warns Of Massive Stock Market Sell-Off... 

Mar-A-Lago Raid Is A Distraction"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

○

Related:

"Global Planned Financial Tsunami Has Just Begun"

Must Watch! "Col. Douglas Macgregor - Will Biden Stumble into a New World War?"

Full screen recommended.

Judge Napolitano, Judging Freedom,

"Col. Douglas Macgregor - 

Will Biden Stumble into a New World War?"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"There Was A Time When We Once Could Laugh At Ourselves. Those Days Are Gone"

"There Was A Time When We Once Could Laugh 

At Ourselves. Those Days Are Gone"

by Martin Armstrong

"To my total shock, I know a family that fled Poland to flee from Russia and went to Canada. They then fled Canada because of all the insanity of Trudeau and refused to return. Since their visa for America is expiring, they said to me that they may now go to Russia. I was completely stunned. They said Western culture is pushing them to return from pronouns to canceling anyone who has ever said anything, even 25 years ago, and the total craziness in politics. What they once fled from is still far better than what is taking place here.

Every person I know here in America who fled from Russia when the USSR collapsed says the same thing. What they fled from is now here. Putin has come out and warned that wokeness is what destroyed Russia. His popularity in Russia is double that of Biden because he has turned Russia back to traditional values. Using the wrong pronoun is now offensive. I remember going to the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and seeing Don Rickels live in the ’70s. There was not a single race or ethnic group he did not make a joke about. There was a time when we once could laugh at ourselves. Those days are gone.

There is a cycle to everything. The culture shift in Russia is actually hopeful that we too will shed these restrictions of wokeness, and I will not be offended if you say, “Hey, you!” Civilization is when everyone comes together for mutual benefit. Wokeness is all about division. When you ask an American what are you, they will typically respond half-German and half-Irish or whatever their mix. That illustrates that America was the melting pot where everyone merged into one, whereas you do not see that in Europe except on rare occasions. This is what is being torn apart by wokeness, and we will see oppression and civil unrest that could lead even to civil war because of it.

When I was growing up there was just straight, gay, and bi-sexual. Today, I am told there are 70 distinctions. I have absolutely no idea anymore but it no longer makes one look upon everyone as equal. You suddenly have to stay to yourself and be afraid to address someone for being accused of racism or sexism or whatever new term they manufacture. We once were all Americans. I hired Robert Howe who was probably the first black analyst because he was qualified. Today, you get inquires from the state demanding to know how many minorities and women you have on your staff. We have every race and gender on our staff, as well as religion. Perhaps I am old fashion, but I never hire people because of quotas.

It’s not a question of patriotism, and it is not wrong for that family to suddenly say they are moving back to Russia all because of the political propaganda. The traditional values that once kept American culture as the beacon of light in a dark world have been overthrown. The public forum, where the people once discussed differences and enacted their laws as well as elected their representatives, has been enclosed by fences at times to protect it from the people, and the chamber that shined for the world as an example of freedom has been reduced to one of hatred and has been exploited by foreign agendas seeing a Great Reset. The public and private institutions that were founded for eternity lie naked and broken by partisan politics indistinguishable from the ruins of ancient Greece. Those stupendous relics of the past are all that has survived the injuries of time and the folly of men.

Today is a sad statement of our times. Our leaders not only preach war, but they also seek to divide our nation by turning brother against brother until our civilization exists no more. The Democrats have exploited every distinction to separate and divide us while seeking 5 years imprisonment for those who only entered the capitol and took a selfie all to paint their opposition with hatred.

The possession of wealth today only stimulates the hatred of others and any traditional rigid virtue of centuries now offends and warrants censure. The irregularities of voting are swept aside and those who seek to investigate are targeted as conspiracy theorists. Anyone who objects is always insured the aversion of those in power who search for any excuse to imprison them until death for their part.

Suspicion has merely become the equivalent of proof and any trial is mere pretense to condemnation. They seek the execution of Donald Trump and paint 50% of the people are worthless scum unworthy of a seat in their hallow hall of dictatorial wokeness power. Once they have tasted supreme power, they have become incapable of pity or remorse no less respect for human rights of liberty, and justice for all. Those words have become just propaganda as their meaning has crumbled to dust on the foundation that was once the bedrock of the American dream. Our highest standard of living has been pushed aside as racist or some other terminology crafted with an endless redefinition of the English language.

As I have been stating at conferences, Schwab will fail in his quest to seize control of the world with his unoriginal theories. The very cornerstone of civilization of bringing people together because it is mutually beneficial to all has been broken. The temple of freedom and dignity has fallen. These power-hungry people are separating and dividing us as they turn even families against one another. They vary from the above but can see no differently than Karl Marx who thought he could redesign society. The rise and fall of political states, Schwab believes, can be prevented if the people surrender everything that makes life worthwhile. Schwab and his co-conspiractor at the World Economic Forum seek to turn our corporations into fascist limbs of the state all preaching Schwab’s stakeholder economics and suppressing human rights for at the heart of all of this, there is no divine right because there is nothing divine about them. The future is only theirs to shape – no one else’s.

The world so many rebuilt post-WWII is collapsing - deliberately. It must always appear darkest before a storm and the new light of day that will arrive. We cannot save the institutions of today. We must plan for what comes after this house-cleaning we must go through. Academics such as Klaus Schwab have always presented the greatest threat to societies. Just as Putin said Lenin was just a Bolshevik and not a statesman, someone in the future will remember Klaus Schwab with the same dismissive comments. Posterity will remember his name as it remembers Marx, Hitler, and Stalin. Napoleon sought to conquer Europe, but he had no designs to change human nature."

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Lincoln, Nebraska, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Fools And Knaves..."

"In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority of 

fools and knaves; who, singly from their number, must to a certain

degree be respected, though they are by no means respectable.”

- Philip Stanhope

○

"How to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England: A Guide for Knaves, 

Fools, Harlots, Cuckolds, Drunkards, Liars, Thieves, and Braggarts"

○

"There are more fools than knaves in the world,

 else the knaves would not have enough to live upon."

- Samuel Butler

"Bonhoeffer‘s Theory of Stupidity"

Full screen recommended.

"Bonhoeffer‘s Theory of Stupidity"

"Dietrich Bonhoeffer argued that stupid people are more dangerous than evil ones. This is because while we can protest against or fight evil people, against stupid ones we are defenseless - reasons fall on deaf ears. Bonhoeffer's famous text, which we slightly edited for this video, serves any free society as a warning of what can happen when certain people gain too much power."

○

Related:

"Bonhoeffer", Full Movie (2003

"Where Your Gaze Lingers..."

“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that has nothing to do with you, this storm is you. Something inside you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step. There’s no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up the sky like pulverized bones.

You have to look! That’s another one of the rules. Closing your eyes isn’t going to change anything. Nothing’s going to disappear just because you can’t see what going on. In fact, things will be even worse the next time you open your eyes. That’s the kind of world we live in. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won’t make time stand still.”

- Haruki Murakami

“Closing your eyes won’t make the awfulness go away. It may be that nothing will. But dwelling on it, dreading the evil, playing out the misery in your head – doesn’t this feed the monster? You can’t close your eyes to life, but you can choose where your gaze lingers.”

- Richelle E. Goodrich

"China Just Made A Move That Could Literally Provoke A Major War With The United States"

"China Just Made A Move That Could Literally 

Provoke A Major War With The United States"

by Michael Snyder

"If the Chinese don’t end their blockade of Taiwan, the Biden administration will be under immense pressure to respond. So let us hope that cooler heads prevail in China and that a decision is soon made to end the pointless “military exercises” that the Chinese are currently conducting. When the live-fire drills were first announced, we were told that they would last for only four days. That was supposed to be it. On Monday, they were supposed to go home. But that didn’t happen. Instead, on Monday the Chinese announced that the military exercises in the waters off Taiwan would be extended, and no new end date was given…

"China said Monday it was extending threatening military exercises surrounding Taiwan that have disrupted shipping and air traffic and substantially raised concerns about the potential for conflict in a region crucial to global trade. The exercises would include anti-submarine drills, apparently targeting U.S. support for Taiwan in the event of a potential Chinese invasion, according to social media posts from the eastern leadership of China’s ruling Communist Party’s military arm, the People’s Liberation Army."

This move by China crosses a very important line. The Chinese have essentially established a “maritime and aerial blockade” around Taiwan, but it was only supposed to last from Thursday to Sunday…"The Chinese military designated six closure areas, one of which is merely 12 miles from Taiwan’s southern shipping hub of Kaohsiung. Beijing also warned commercial airliners to avoid wide swaths of airspace around Taiwan, in what amounts to a no-fly zone over major flight routes. Even though China portrays this as a step short of total encirclement, Taiwan’s defense ministry describes it as “a maritime and aerial blockade.”

A four day blockade wouldn’t have been that big of a deal. But a full blown “maritime and aerial blockade” that lasts for weeks or even months is clearly an act of war. Taiwan relies on food and essential supplies from the outside world. If commerce is severely restricted or cut off completely, life on the island will radically change. And the pressure on the Biden administration to “do something” will become enormous.

Of course it is still possible that the Chinese could decide to go home at some point this week. And let us hope that actually happens. But right now both sides continue to escalate matters. For example, in response to the Chinese “drills”, the Taiwanese have decided to conduct live-fire exercises of their own…"Meanwhile, Taiwan’s official Central News Agency reported that Taiwan’s army will conduct live-fire artillery drills in southern Pingtung county on Tuesday and Thursday, in response to the Chinese exercises. The drills will include snipers, combat vehicles, armored vehicles as well as attack helicopters, said the report, which cited an anonymous source."

That certainly won’t ease tensions. And members of the U.S. Senate are publicly calling for more economic and military aid for Taiwan…"In an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) backed the House speaker’s travel to Taiwan and tied the two foreign policy issues together - warning that China is watching how the U.S. continues to respond to Russia’s attack on Ukraine as the war nears its sixth month. Graham directed his message directly at China and pushed for the passage of the bipartisan Taiwan Policy Act, which is aimed at bolstering Taiwan economically and militarily."

The Chinese are going to interpret this as a threat. It has become quite obvious that many prominent members of Congress consider Taiwan to be analogous to Ukraine, and that is definitely not going to help matters. On top of everything else, it has been announced that U.S. forces will actually be participating in war games very close to India’s disputed border with China later this year…"The US will participate in war games with the Indian military in an area of India that is less than 62 miles away from the country’s disputed border with China, known as the Line of Actual Control (LAN). The drills will be held from October 18-31 and will be the eighteenth iteration of annual exercises between the two militaries known as Yudh Abhyas, which is Hindi for “war practice.” They will be held in the Auli area of the Indian state of Uttarakhand in the Himalayas mountain range."

For years, I have been relentlessly warning that a war with China was coming, but my hope is that cooler heads will prevail and that this current crisis can be resolved peacefully. Because a shooting war with China would instantly change all of our lives for the worse. If we go to war with China, shipments of the thousands upon thousands of products that we currently receive from China would immediately cease. And if the Pacific Ocean becomes a war zone, trade with other Asian powers such as Japan and South Korea would be paralyzed as well.

In addition, Taiwan produces more of our microchips than everyone else in the world combined…"In particular, Taiwan’s position in the world of semiconductor manufacturing is a bit like Saudi Arabia’s status in OPEC. TSMC has a 53% market share of the global foundry market (factories contracted to make chips designed in other countries). Other Taiwan-based manufacturers claim a further 10% of the market.

As a result, the Biden administration’s 100-Day Supply Chain Review Report says, “The United States is heavily dependent on a single company – TSMC – for producing its leading-edge chips.” The fact that only TSMC and Samsung (South Korea) can make the most advanced semiconductors (five nanometres in size) “puts at risk the ability to supply current and future [US] national security and critical infrastructure needs”.

If China invades Taiwan, the global flow of microchips would permanently be reduced to a trickle. I don’t think that I even have the words to describe what that would do to the global economy. The stakes are incredibly high, and our leaders should be doing all that they can to avoid a needless war with the Chinese. Unfortunately, our leaders are not exactly what you would call “competent” at this point, and we could soon find ourselves involved in pointless conflicts with the Russians and the Chinese at the same time."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"How It Really Is"

"GOP Warns Thousands Of New IRS Agents 

Will Target Middle-Class Americans"

"Shopping Trip To Meijer! More Price Increases, And Some Empty Shelves!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 8/9/22:

"Shopping Trip To Meijer! 

More Price Increases, And Some Empty Shelves!"

"In today's vlog we are at Meijer, and are noticing massive price increases on most products! We are seeing 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/

Gregory Mannarino, "Beyond The Markets: Be Ready For A Great Fall"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 8/9/22:

"Beyond The Markets: Be Ready For A Great Fall"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/