"15 Big Stores That Will Probably Disappear Soon"

Full screen recommended.

"15 Big Stores That Will Probably Disappear Soon"

by Epic Economist

"America’s economic landscape is rapidly changing. In recent years, hundreds of thousands of stores were permanently shut down, and as we enter a new economic downturn, many more are likely to close doors for good. Conditions for business owners are getting increasingly difficult as the compounding effects of inflation, supply chain challenges, and slower consumer spending continues to compromise their sales and profits month after month. New data suggests that pessimism in the retail sector is growing all across the board, and even big companies are struggling to stay afloat right now.

Many of the most iconic American retailers have closed thousands of stores and filed for bankruptcy as they failed to keep up with their competitors. The rise of online retailers made several brick-and-mortar stores seem redundant. Even though companies tend to think that they have something unique to offer their customers, the reality is that not enough of them actually do. Some, in fact, lose touch with what shoppers truly want and need for such a long time that when they realize there’s no turning back or quick fix, they have no choice but to go out of business.

The disappearance of so many big stores is a major signal of economic weakness. The phenomenon known as the retail apocalypse is nothing more than a reflection of a shrinking middle class that’s been too overburdened with debt and soaring living expenses. Middle-income earners have also lost so much purchasing power that they're left with too little money to spend on other goods after paying their bills at the end of each month. More and more, middle-class Americans are turning to discount stores because they can't afford to shop at brand-name stores anymore. The shift in consumer habits towards online shopping has also been the impending doom for brick-and-mortar stores. Not only that, e-commerce is much more competitive in terms of price and promotions, and you can purchase whatever you want with only a click.

Hundreds of thousands of businesses have been closed in the past five years, and according to UBS data, 80,000 more might be gone by 2026. The shutdown of each of these locations means that dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of jobs are going to be lost at a time, too. America's economic landscape is looking gloomier and emptier, and the death of big business shows us that something is terminally broken in our system. In this video, we listed a series of stores that are suffering from a lack of customers, a lack of money, a lack of viable prospects, or a combination of all of those issues. Many of them have already shuttered dozens or even hundreds of locations all across the nation, or are in the process of closing down in 2022. Soon, they may disappear from our commercial scene altogether, and we might never get the chance to shop at these stores ever again."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

"The Great Pillaging"

"The Great Pillaging"

by Jeffrey Tucker

"By this time next year, the post-lockdown dollar will be worth $0.70 or less, on the way to a half dollar. In a mere five years, the dollar will have lost half its domestic value, even as its value among international currencies will likely rise. The dollar remains the least ugly currency out there even as it has been systematically destroyed in only a few years.

Still, the reality has not sunk in. The other day, when the Consumer Price Index came out, the first round of reports were (if you can believe it) rather positive. The Wall Street Journal headlined the news: Inflation is “easing.” I saw this three minutes after having looked at the actual data release from the Department of Labor. I could not believe my eyes.

Clearly, we are being lied to daily and hourly. If the American people knew the truth, there would be a revolution. At least one would hope.

The headline number was bad enough. But look at the two-year stack. It ended up at a whopping 13.6%. When the CPI was released at the same 8.3% rate in April of this year, the two-year stack was only 12.5%. That’s a signal: not better, not the same, but worse.

It took several hours before Wall Street got the hang of it. By noon, the DJIA had fallen 800 points. By the closing bell, the Dow had fallen 1,300, the worst crash in two years. The reason was clear. Inflation is not abating, contrary to what Biden said last month that inflation was 0%, a point believed only by the hopelessly stupid. It turns out that once you delete the gas price from the month-over-month increase, we are solidly in the double digits.

The Absurd Fed: The Fed’s bright idea is to keep inching up interest rates but nowhere near enough to bump short-term rates into positive territory, which is to say that the strategy will not work. Well, more precisely, it will work to crash the housing and bond markets and push people newly in credit card debt into new depths of bankruptcy. It will not cool much less stop this inflationary mess.

Let’s break it down. The good news is that gasoline is down 10.6% from the previous month and far lower than the highs of June. But such month-to-month swings mask the overall problem. From 12 months ago, gas is still up 25.6%, which is alarming by any standard. It’s much worse with fuel oil. Despite falling 5.9% last month, it is still up 68.8% from 12 months ago.

What drove this month’s numbers up were the prices of food, both at home and out, plus electricity and utility bills. You have surely noticed this. I’ve been watching the real-time data and seen this changing dramatically over six weeks.

Electricity was up 1.5% in August and utilities in general up 3.5%. Over 12 months, that’s 15.8% and 33% respectively. That’s some very serious inflation, and notice the migration of the virus across the energy sector. It comes to gas and leaves gas and then infects electricity and utility bills.

U.K. to the U.S. Europe and the U.K. are reverting fast to the Middle Ages without power. But the U.K. prime minister and the European Commission are instituting price caps, which only means rationing as we head into winter. In Europe, the policies are even more stupid: They have imposed a tax (a tax!) on windfall profits by energy companies, which is a way of punishing producers for producing at a time of grave shortages. It boggles the mind.

Something about Americans today: We believe it cannot and will not happen here. Nonsense. We could find ourselves in this exact position in a matter of months. The Biden administration has gone on a holy war against gasoline while trumpeting the glory of electricity, wind and sun. And now look: Electricity, wind and sun are breaking the bank while gas is relaxing a bit in price.

You might be sad that you bought that electric vehicle, especially if you live in California, which is already rationing electricity for drivers. Just wait for it: The Bidenites will soon be inveighing against electricity too on grounds that the main source is not clean but dirty: coal. They want us all living like pure spirits in some Rousseauian fantasy, basking in sun and wind.

Somewhere I had read that new and used cars had fallen in price over the last month. Nope: That’s more propaganda. New cars are up 0.8% in August and 10.1% for the year. Used cars fell only slightly in August by 0.1% but year over year are up 7.8%.

Transportation services rose by 0.5% in August and by 11.3% for the year. Housing prices have not fallen either but rather the opposite: 0.7% for the month and 6.2% for the year. And so far in this inflationary wave, medical services have been protected from price pressure. No more. We are seeing sudden shifts here too: 0.8% for the month and now clocking 5.6% for the year.

Sure enough, they are in a serious pickle today, with this inflation report that defies every prediction and raises a serious fire alarm. Producer prices released today make the point: Once you delete the gas prices, producers are paying more than ever.

The Great Pillaging: Goldman Sachs announced this week that it would kick into gear a new round of layoffs. Based on what they are seeing, they fully expect a painful recession that hurts not only financials but the entire business sector. That’s significant because it reveals how the pain is spreading from Big Tech to all sectors of economic life.

With politics so intense these days, we cannot get even close to an objective accounting of the most basic facts. Last month we heard that inflation was gone and now we see that it is as bad as ever, even by the official data, once you look at a range of prices. In a matter of months, given present trends, we could find ourselves in a U.K.-like situation with cries for price caps and rationing. Don’t think for an instant that they won’t do it. They will.

There are very few means of escape anymore. My father’s bag of gold and silver coins, and his five acres on a rural lake, are looking better and better."

- dailyreckoning.com

Musical Interlude: Leonard Cohen, "Anthem"

Full screen recommended.

Leonard Cohen, "Anthem"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Colorful NGC 1579 resembles the better known Trifid Nebula, but lies much farther north in planet Earth's sky, in the heroic constellation Perseus. About 2,100 light-years away and 3 light-years across, NGC 1579 is, like the Trifid, a study in contrasting blue and red colors, with dark dust lanes prominent in the nebula's central regions.

In both, dust reflects starlight to produce beautiful blue reflection nebulae. But unlike the Trifid, in NGC 1579 the reddish glow is not emission from clouds of glowing hydrogen gas excited by ultraviolet light from a nearby hot star. Instead, the dust in NGC 1579 drastically diminishes, reddens, and scatters the light from an embedded, extremely young, massive star, itself a strong emitter of the characteristic red hydrogen alpha light."

- http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090130.html

Chet Raymo, "Starlight"

"Starlight"

by Chet Raymo

"Poor Calvin is overwhelmed with the vastness of the cosmos and no small dose of existential angst. He is not the first, of course. Most famously the 17th-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal wailed his own despair: "I feel engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing and which know nothing of me. I am terrified...The eternal silence of these infinite spaces alarms me."

And he didn't know the half of it. Not so long ago we imagined ourselves to be the be-all and end-all of creation, at the center of a cosmos made expressly for us and at the pinnacle of the material Great Chain of Being. Then it turned out that the Earth was not the center of the cosmos. Nor the Sun. Nor the Galaxy. The astronomers Sebastian von Hoerner and Carl Sagan raised this experience to the level of a principle -- the Principle of Mediocrity -- which can be stated something like this: The view from here is about the same as the view from anywhere else. Or to put it another way: Our star, our planet, the life on it, and even our own intelligence, are completely mediocre.

Moon rocks are just like Earth rocks. Photographs of the surface of Mars made by the landers and rovers could as well have been made in Nevada. Meteorites contain some of the same organic compounds that are the basis for terrestrial life. Gas clouds in the space between the stars are composed of precisely the same atoms and molecules that we find in our own backyard. The most distant galaxies betray in their spectra the presence of familiar elements.

And yet, and yet, for all we know, our brains are the most complex things in the universe. Are we then living, breathing refutations of the Principle of Mediocrity. I doubt it. For the time being, Calvin will just have to get used to living in the infinite abyss and eternal silence. He has Hobbes. We have each other. And science. And poetry. And love."

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"The Cruelest Joke Of All..."

“The smallest decisions made had such profound repercussions. One ten-minute wait could save a life… or end it. One wrong turn down the right street or one seemingly unimportant conversation, and everything was changed. It wasn’t right that each lifetime was defined, ruined, ended, and made by such seemingly innocuous details. A major life-threatening event should come with a flashing warning sign that either said ABANDON ALL HOPE or SAFETY AHEAD. It was the cruelest joke of all that no one could see the most vicious curves until they were over the edge, falling into the abyss below.”

- Sherrilyn Kenyon

"That's Where It All Begins..."

"That's where it all begins. That's where we all get screwed big time as we grow up. They tell us to think, but they don't really mean it. They only want us to think within the boundaries they define. The moment you start thinking for yourself- really thinking- so many things stop making any sense. And if you keep thinking, the whole world just falls apart. Nothing makes sense anymore. All rules, traditions, expectations- they all start looking so fake, so made up. You want to just get rid of all this stuff and make things right. But the moment you say it, they tell you to shut up and be respectful. And eventually you understand that nobody wants you to really think for yourself."

- Ray N. Kuili, "Awakening"

"The Economic Annihilation Of Eurpoe"

"Gonzalo Lira, the Ukraine-based, Chilean-born American who has made waves with his uncensored videos (see his YouTube channel here) and roundtable discussions about Russia and Ukraine, joined me for an epic 2+ hour interview late last night. We discussed topics like:

• Why Ukraine’s counter offensive was a victory for Russia.

• of the losses of Ukraine’s military men and equipment.

• Western politicians and media talking heads are incompetent and wrong.

• “Suicide sanctions” and the self-inflicted annihilation of Europe.

• How Western Europe will be reduced to an impoverished wasteland.

• Why Putin prefers to AVOID escalation of this war.

•The destruction of European industry, followed by finance.

• Details on the expected wave of civil unrest across Europe, and the weaponization of government to brutally repress public protests.

In summary, he described the coming winter of energy scarcity and economic collapse as causing the “economic annihilation of Europe,” adding that in the aftermath of this coming collapse, Western Europe would be transformed into an impoverished, desperate region of the world, utterly lacking the financial, economic and industrial power dominance it has enjoyed in recent history."

Interview here:

- https://www.naturalnews.com/

Video here:

- https://rumble.com

Gregory Mannarino, "In Your Face Lies! Economic Whistleblowers Say: "The Data Doesn't Add Up" (Its Fake)"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 9/16/22:

"In Your Face Lies! Economic Whistleblowers Say: 

"The Data Doesn't Add Up" (Its Fake)"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

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You didn't really expect anything else, did you?

The Daily "Near You?"

Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. Thanks for stopping by!

Bill Bonner, "Following the Leader"

"Following the Leader"

From spouses to Fed Heads to

 Primary Trends, here's what to watch...

by Bill Bonner

Blenheim, England - "What are we doing in Blenheim, readers might wonder? We wonder too. When a man is building his career, his wife and children are often dragooned into service… moving from place to place, keeping his dinner warm when he gets home late, ironing his shirts so that he will look more presentable in business meetings. Later in life, after his career has peaked out and he has alienated his family, it is he who follows and they who lead. He attends weddings and christenings… family gatherings and birthday parties. And, when his wife is an ‘equestrian,’ he goes to Blenheim Palace Horse Trials. More about that later.

Cultivating Failure: Oh my… looks like we were wrong about the Kherson offensive. It looked like a sure loser to us. But the media now says it is a great success. Some reporters and opinion mongers say it means the war has turned in the Ukraine’s direction… and may soon be over. Which just goes to show – well, we don’t know what it goes to show. But there are so many things to be wrong about; choosing the right ones is the main challenge in life.

Here at BonnerPrivateResearch we are not always right. Sentimentally, we favor the lost cause, the diehard and the underdog – which is the losing side. But we don’t know in advance which side will lose. And wars have a way of backfiring… and success has a way of cultivating failure.

How much better it would have been for the young Jerome Powell, fresh out of Georgetown Law Center (in our class!) to have taken up chasing ambulances. He could have put up a billboard along the DC beltway: “Stay out of jail…even if you’re guilty. Collect $$$ – even if you have no case. Call Jay today!” Instead, he made such a success of his career, after joining the Federal Reserve, that he now feels the weight of the whole world economy on his weak, rounded shoulders.

Humans can survive defeat… and learn from it; victory is a much bigger danger. And Zelensky… the actor who once amused crowds by pretending to play the piano with his penis? We don’t know, but we suspect that the current narrative by the western press – describing him as if he had just captured Moscow – is subject to amendment, too.

As for the progress of the war… the effectiveness of the Russian air force… the morale of the troops… or the cleverness of the officer class – we have nothing to say. We are as lost in the fog of war as everyone else…

Time and Tide: Money is our beat. And all we can do, still subject to error, is to try to look for the Primary Trend… and see where it leads us. In our markets, we think we see the beginning of the new trend, circa 2022. Bonds topped out, after a 40-year bull market, in 2020. Stocks topped out a year later. Now – if we’re right – we’re in for a long period of falling real values – for stocks, bonds and real estate.

The primary financial trend works together with a dark trend in the economy. Growth rates have been falling for the last 20 years. Recently, US growth has been negative… meaning, we are going backwards, and getting poorer. Wage gains have been negative (adjusted for inflation) for the last 17 months straight. This calculation probably flatters the situation. In terms of the major costs in a person’s life – food, housing, and transportation – ‘inflation’ is actually worse than the feds say.

Despite a slight decline in the Consumer Price Index last month, the cost of food is still going up at a double digit rate. Houses, too. The average house sold for $161,000 in 1999. Now, it’s $428,000. In terms of the years you need to work to buy a house, it was 5.75 in 1999. Now, you’ll have to work for 7.5 years. And fuel? It took less than 2 hours of work to fill a 20-gallon gas tank in 1999. Today, it takes 2 and a half.

We’re measuring these things in time, because time doesn’t change. An hour in 1999 was exactly the same as an hour today. And when you need to spend more time to earn life’s necessities, you are poorer. Looking at a long term chart of wages, adjusted for inflation we see that real US earnings stopped going up in the early ‘70s. Today, an average American worker earns about the same as he did in 1972.

The Road to Nowhere: Now, that’s a Long-term Primary Trend!…a trip to nowhere over half a century. What should you have done, Dear Reader, if you had realized what a zero-sum hand the working class was holding in 1973? You should have joined the capitalists! The way to get ahead in the post-70’s America was to join the rentiers… you know, the people with capital. Yes, now it is obvious. After Richard Nixon freed the US dollar from its golden shackles, the place to be was where the new footloose dollars were going – to Wall Street.

The financial trend meant that money went to money… and the money was in Wall Street. And all you had to do was to borrow a lot of money… refinancing every time interest rates went down – which they did (after 1980) for the next 40 years. Borrow $100,000 in 1980… buy the 30 Dow stocks… refinance… refinance… refinance.

By 2020, you are paying about $350 a month on your outstanding balance (still $100,000… which is now worth only $28,000 in 1980 money)… but your Dow investment is now worth $3.5 million. What luck! What a success! What a genius you were! And now? The primary trend that pushed asset prices so high, seems to have turned around. That $3.5 million of 2020 is already down to $3.1 million… and it looks like it could go much lower. What to do now? Tune in on Monday…"

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Joel’s Note: Speaking of paybacks, we all know a great debt reckoning is coming due… that money borrowed from the future must eventually be paid back, and with interest. But what happens when your national credit card is bumping up against $31 TRILLION dollars outstanding, as is the case in the U.S. of A., and interest rates are on the march? (For those keeping score at home, that’s about $93,700 in national debt per citizen… or $245,000 per taxpayer.)

Well, for one thing, interest payments start to look pretty hefty, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of total income. Rising rates, which push up the cost of borrowing, only add to that pressure. “Net interest expense is $471 billion year-to-date (the government fiscal year ends in September),” Dan Denning wrote in a private note to the BPR team yesterday. “That makes it 10% of total government tax receipts.” (Total receipts were $4,408 billion over the same period.)

Put another way, for every $10 you pay in taxes, $1 is going on interest payments to service the national debt. And there’s only one way it’s going from here…"

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

"Is There An Answer..."

"Is there an answer to the question of why bad things happen to good people? The response would be to forgive the world for not being perfect, to forgive God for not making a better world, to reach out to the people around us, and to go on living despite it all, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it has happened."

- Harold S. Kushner

"Them Are Fightin’ Words"

"Them Are Fightin’ Words"

by Addison Wiggin

“Life is a fight for territory; so is your success.”

-Nkem Mpamah

“What if the Founding Fathers had moved off to Belize instead of helping sort out what surely must have been a similar mess right here?” writes reader Zeke L from Oklahoma. Reader mail comes in all forms. We assume Zeke is commenting on the conversation on the Empire of Debt Bill Bonner and I had on The Wiggin Sessions this week.

The very “Idea of America” – as reimagined by Bill Bonner and Pierre Lemieux in 2003 – is by its nature as much a geographical event as an historical event. The triple crown of climate, crops, and the religiously ostracized coalesced into the prime conditions for the seed of American civilization to be planted. “The idea is really very simple,” Bill says.

“Cooperation, win-win deals, is what allowed civilization to go forward.” The colonists were left to their own devices. The climate cooperated. And there was a burgeoning global trade in commodities. There are a lot of pieces to civilization,” Mr. Bonner tries to explain, “but that is probably the critical one, that when you see somebody, you can't kill them and you can't steal their stuff. You have to work with them. You have to work out a deal.”

This is high-level, philosophical stuff, made simple and accessible with everyday language. He continues: "Once you win-win, that means you have to create something. There are other things that go along with civilization. That rule is probably the cornerstone, but you need property rights. If you don't have property rights, then you can't really build because you can't protect what you've got.

And you need money. You need money to be able to exchange your product with other people. And you need a language. You need a written language. Otherwise, you can't make any progress. So all these things sort of came together over thousands of years and these things are different from what a lot of people think of as civilization.

A lot of people think the government can pass a law and make us richer or make us more civilized or whatever. But it ain't so. It doesn't work that way. Civilization arises from the bottom. It doesn't come down from the top and from the bottom people make deals with each other, which are essentially win-win.

We have to remember that the Founding Fathers were revolutionaries in the eyes of the British Crown. Their Declaration of Independence was a declaration of war. And let us not forget the deracination of the Native Americans from the original Thirteen Colonies and the horrors of Amistad. That's why I called it win-win or lose,” Bill says. “Because the opposite, the losing, is what happens all the time when the government gets into the picture and they start a war or something and everybody loses. Civilization goes backward.”

From the Declaration of Independence, in what is called “The Indictment” of the Crown’s overbearing governance: "Such is now the necessity which constrains them [the new Americans] to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world."

As they’d say in Baltimore… them are fightin’ words. On Wednesday we were ruminating on the anniversary of Francis Scott Key’s poem turned national anthem which happened here in ‘Bawlmer.’ So… I guess we’ve got patriotic themes on the brain.

The true nature of civilization, however, is more than history and geography. Blessed as we may have been to happen upon such a land. Each generation, in choosing to live somewhere – somewhere real, with land and toil and natural rights – a deal must be made. Whether that deal is win-win or lose, is up to those who declare, those who speak up, those who present their case for independence.

This is nothing new, Bill exclaims: "There's nothing new in my book that you can't find in Adam Smith or the texts of Free Market economists or Milton Friedman. A lot of people write about the same sort of thing. And everybody comes at it from a different angle. What I tried to do was to come at it from an angle that made sense to me and this does. And I think so far it's been missed. In fact, our current civilization or our current status of society is going in the other direction, with more and more people who think that they can get something by using political means, which are essentially the opposite of win-win."

A political move, anything political is win-lose by definition. Would such an idea have arisen and manifested had Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton fled to Belize, as Zeke wants to know? Probably not. America could only have happened where it did. “We need all hands on deck to help guide America back in the coming years,” Zeke concludes, and we concur.

It’s Friday folks. Follow your bliss,"

- https://wigginsessions.libsyn.com/

"The Fourth Turn, Turn, Turn" (Excerpt)

"The Fourth Turn, Turn, Turn"

by Charles Hugh Smith

Excerpt: "The cycles of The Fourth Turning, Fischer and Turchin are all in alignment at this point in history. The 1997 book "The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy" proposed a cyclical pattern of four 20-year generations which culminate in a national crisis every 80 years. The book identifies these dates as Fourth Turnings: 1781 (Revolutionary War), 1861 (Civil War) and 1941 (global war). add 80 years and voila, 2021.

I use the term Fourth Turning generically to describe an existential crisis that decisively changes the course of national identity and history. In other words, we don't have to accept the book's theory of generational dynamics to accept an 80-year cycle. There are other causal dynamics in play that also tend to cycle: the credit (Kondratieff) cycle, for example. While each of the previous existential crises were resolved positively, positive outcomes are not guaranteed: dissolution and collapse are also potential outcomes.

David Hackett Fischer's book "The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History" proposes another cycle: humans expand their numbers and consumption until they've exploited and depleted all available resources. As resources become scarce, societies and economies unravel as humans do not respond well to rising prices generated by scarcities.

The unraveling continues until consumption is realigned with the resources available. In the past this meant either a mass die-off that drastically reduced human numbers and consumption (for example, The Black Plague), a decline in fertility that slowly reduced population to fit resources, mass migration to locales with more resources or the discovery and exploitation of a new scalable energy source that enabled a new cycle of rising consumption.

The 14th century Black Death reduce Europe's population by roughly 40%, enabling depleted forests to regrow and depleted agricultural land to restore fertility. Once the human population regained its numbers and consumption in the 17th century, wood was once again under pressure as the key source of energy, shipbuilding, housing, etc.

The development of steam power and the technologies of mining enabled the exploitation of coal, which soon replaced wood as the primary energy source. Oil and natural gas added to the energy humans could tap, followed (at a much more modest level) by nuclear power. Despite gargantuan investments, the recent push to develop solar and wind energy has yielded very modest results, as globally these sources provide about 5% of total energy consumption. (See chart below)

It's self-evident that despite breezy claims of endless expansion of consumption, the global human population has now exceeded the resources available for practical extraction. Energy, fresh water, wild fisheries and fertile soils have all been exploited and the easy/cheap-to-extract resources have been depleted. So once again it's crunch-time: either we proactively reduce consumption to align with available resources, or Nature will do it for us via scarcities."

View this complete, illustrated, article here:

- https://www.oftwominds.com/

Must Watch! "This is the Opening Act of the Meltdown"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 9/16/22:

"This is the Opening Act of the Meltdown"

"People keep hoping for a quick ending to the economic problems. This is the opening act. We’re going to see nothing but chaos from here on out."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

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"The opening act of the meltdown"... Yes, it is. Already chaotic. World-wide economic collapse resulting in many company and corporate bankruptcies and job losses; soaring prices for food with true inflation rate 17.1%, huge shortages and much worse coming; rampant increase in violent crimes everywhere; 2 million foreclosures and evictions currently happening; "vaccine" deaths exploding to genocidal levels, quite intentionally; homelessness and camps everywhere; a nuclear war very possible, even probable; substance abuse and deaths soaring; fuel oil and energy prices rising rapidly - how will you drive your car or heat your home in the coming very cold winter? And on and on. Can you deny this? I can't...

Here's a video metaphor of where we are now. You know what's coming...

And it is.

Full screen recommended.

Gregory Mannarino, "Stock Market Set To Drop At The Open; Goldman Sachs Warns Of Steep Selloff In Stocks"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 9/16/22:

"Stock Market Set To Drop At The Open; 

Goldman Sachs Warns Of Steep Selloff In Stocks"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

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Market Data Center, Live Updates:

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

Jim Kunstler, "Rope-a-Dope"

"Rope-a-Dope"

by Jim Kunstler

"Between vanishing livelihoods, car-jackings gone wild, fears of stroking out or infarcting from their mRNA boosters, threats of nuclear annihilation over Ukraine, and remorseless waves of mindf**kery emanating from the evil machine fronted by “Joe Biden,” is it any wonder that Americans struggle to understand what is happening to our country?

Last week, the “president” blurted out “we beat Big Pharma!” That was a shocker. He didn’t elaborate. Did the White House staff and the Pfizer C-suite meet for a volleyball game at Rehoboth beach? Karine Jean-Pierre didn’t say. Nor did anyone mention the government-purchased 171-million doses of the new bivalent Covid “vaccines” the FDA is rolling out. Do you wonder what the price-per-dose was? Go suck an egg… you’re not allowed to know. The compliant search engines will not tell you. Not even the one that goes quack. That was some “beat,” though, huh? Wait for the news about who actually steps up to take this new, virtually untested shot. Hint: people who live under a rock.

This week, the “commander-in-chief” declared that his Inflation Reduction Act quashed inflation. Roger that, sir! You are the King Canute of economics! They had a party on the White House lawn to celebrate. James Taylor came down to fluff the crowd with song, leaving his brain behind in the Berkshires. Then, “Joe Biden” flew into his now-customary ‘roid rage, huffing and puffing and blowing smoke up America’s ass. The stock markets were not fooled. The very hour “JB” was dialing up the gaslight, the DOW landed 1,200-plus points below its morning open. Thud….

They are working this old dog hard as all their narratives shred, the economy heads south, and a karma train chugs down the tracks with a cargo of retribution aimed at the Party of Chaos and all its wicked, seditious, tyrannical flunkies. “Joe Biden” knows that he’s in its headlight. Joshua Philip at The Epoch Times’s CrossroadsET podcast had an elegant theory about the backstage doings concerning the fate of The Big Guy. (Check out shows for Sept 12 and 13.)

What “JB” fears, Mr. Philip says, is that his nemesis, Mr. Trump, following a decisive Red win in the 2022 midyears, will manage to get a few key states to de-certify their 2020 electoral college votes - based on proven ballot fraud - thus triggering a “contingency election” in the US House of Representatives, with one vote for each state, which Mr. Trump would likely win. Far out as it sounds, the machinery for all this is embedded deep in the constitution and federal statutory law.

The so-called Deep State - yes, that one… the administrative Moloch that ate Washington - fears for its existence in such a seemingly far-out case. As it should. Because Mr. Trump would replace the sniveling tool Merrick Garland with an Attorney General interested in restoring the rule of law, which will necessarily require the imposition of said law on a large cast of sinister characters in the federal bureaucracy, plus not a few elected officials, who have engaged in systematic seditious treachery lo these many years.

Among these are the upper ranks of the FBI, whose multi-year illegal antics have climaxed in the August raid on Mar-a-Lago, and the September blitz of late-night, SWAT-team subpoena servings and phone-grabbings on Mr. Trump’s associates and lawyers. Seems the FBI might have been rope-a-doped on the Mar-a-Lago caper. What the FBI confiscated were reams of evidence of the agency’s own misconduct dating back through the RussiaGate op. Then they attempted to hide the list of all that material by redacting the affidavit that accompanied the search warrant. Their aim: to designate all that evidence inadmissible in future proceedings against them due to it being tagged to an “ongoing investigation” that will never end. This has been FBI Chief Chris Wray’s ploy every time he’s been faced serious questioning in Congress. I can’t speak about ongoing investigations…

Late Thursday, however, federal Judge Aileen Cannon blocked the FBI’s use of the seized material in any criminal probe against Mr. Trump, and, at his request, appointed a “Special Master” to sort out the true ownership and privilege status of the docs. The Special Master is one retired federal judge Raymond J. Dearie. Mr. Dearie has until November 30 to complete his review of the material. By then, of course, the midterm election will be over; the FBI and its parent agency, the DOJ, will be making plans to do some ‘splainin’ to the new Congress come January. Game, set… Mr. Trump. Match to-be-determined.

Two more miscellaneous items du jour: Is Special Counsel John Durham preparing to fold up his tent? Some observers think so. He disbanded his grand jury. The trial of Igor Danchenko awaits, a subsidiary character in the RussiaGate saga. If it is so that Mr. Durham’s inquiry ends with this minnow, then it will be the most astounding cover-up of an official crime spree in US history. What is the net result of Mr. Durham’s work to date? Conviction of FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith for falsifying documents in a FISA Court proceeding - with no punishment. Presiding over the Clinesmith trial was Judge James Boasberg, a FISA court judge himself, who was repeatedly snookered by the FBI in issuing FISA warrants against Trump associates. The mills of the federal judiciary grind mysteriously.

So, after Mr. Danchenko’s case is disposed of, will that be all? Mr. Durham is obliged to supply a final report. But AG Merrick Garland is not obliged to make it public. One sees the sphincter of a cosmic black hole closing.

Last, is the comedy of Governor Ron DeSantis flying fifty illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard, summer playground of America’s Woke-ocracy. Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Duke County officials labeled it “a humanitarian situation.” MV Homeless Coordinator Lisa Belcastro complained that the posh little island lacked “resources” to accommodate the new arrivals. Surely Barack Obama, or some other celebrity property-owner out there, could throw a benefit party to support the brave little band of travelers. Pass the arugula crostini! Massachusetts has eight “sanctuary cities,” but the state as a whole hasn’t claimed that honorific. State Senator Julian Cyr of Cape Cod remarked, “This is deeply disgusting…a cruel ruse that manipulates families that are seeking a better life.” Uh-huh…. Odd, nobody said that about the countless federal flights of border-jumpers from Texas and elsewhere to blue states all over the land the past two years. Note: pertinent observation by Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin down on the US-Mexico border."

- https://kunstler.com/

"Prices Are Getting Crazy At Aldi! "What Now?!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 9/16/22:

"Prices Are Getting Crazy At Aldi! "What Now?!"

"In today's vlog we are at Aldi, and are noticing some crazy 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/

"How It Really Is"

I've never said anything about myself on this blog, and won't, it was never about me and I don't need stroking, but this outrages me. Commercials everywhere. What a disgrace! I was a Marine infantry rifleman, MOS 0311, at LeJeune for a year long ago, and now we know they knew about this all along since 1953 and never told us or did anything about it until 1985. But now, if you have any of a dozen cancers, there's "compensation", a couple hundred dollars a month for however long you still live. Yeah, Semper Fi...

- https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/camp-lejeune/

Musical Interlude: Disturbed "The Sound Of Silence"

Full screen recommended.

Official release.

Disturbed "The Sound Of Silence"

Singer: David Draiman

839,794,039 views.

○

Full screen recommended.

Conan O'Brian Show live performance.

Disturbed "The Sound Of Silence"

132,890,662 views.

Folks, there's "something" here, what it is I can't say, but if there are 

words for it I don't know them, and can only stand in speechless awe...

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 9/16/22"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up 9/16/22"

Dem Election Plan: Lie, Cheat, Steal, Intimidate

 & Silence While Economy Implodes

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"It’s clear to me that the Deep State Democrat Party has zero to offer voters. Killing babies, taking your guns, offering unlimited war funding for Ukraine and driving you into poverty is not a vote-getting platform, but that is their platform. This is why the Dem election plan appears to be: lie, cheat, steal, intimidate (with the FBI and DOJ) and silence any opposition or critic. Can it work? No! But the desperate Dems are trying it anyway because it’s all they’ve got. Whether it’s raiding President Trump’s home or taking pillow man Mike Lindell’s phone while serving a search warrant at a fast food joint, that’s the plan in plain sight.”

This weird political theater is happening all because they know the real Biden approval numbers that the public does not get to see. The AP just came out with a new poll that says Biden’s numbers are on the rise. I say this is a continuing Biden-psyop that is total bull crap. They are trying to give Biden some coattails for the upcoming midterm election, and I think the lying legacy media (LLM) are lying to do it. It ain’t going to work. Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer is already throwing in the towel on the House and says Nancy is not going to retain the majority. Maybe this is why Pelosi wants an ambassador job from the Biden handlers. The real approval number is 12% for sleepy Joe. Again, the public never sees this number, but everybody in the know knows it.

The stock market tanked 1,500 points this week alone, inflation holding at 8.3% (the real number is about 18% according to Shadowstats.com), and the Fed is determined to fight inflation with rate hikes. The hike next week will be at least .75%, but people are worried about a full 1% hike to kill the inflation monster, which will kill the economy. Add the financial implosion taking place in the EU as the war with Russia continues, and this brings to mind the phrase “Run Forrest Run.” You better get ready because there is no way out this time. The “Everything Implosion” is coming.

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about these

 stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 9/16/22:

- https://rumble.com/

Must Watch! "Economic Apocalypse Imminent; The Scariest Housing Crash Has Begun"

Jeremiah Babe, 9/15/22:

"Economic Apocalypse Imminent; 

The Scariest Housing Crash Has Begun"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Horror Of America's New Breadlines! The Cost Of Living Is Pushes More People Into Poverty"

Full screen recommended.

"Horror Of America's New Breadlines!

 The Cost Of Living Is Pushes More People Into Poverty"

by Epic Economist

"The horror of breadlines is back in America. Food banks all over the country are being overwhelmed by a massive surge in demand as the cost of living crisis continues to push more people into poverty. Food lines are getting increasingly longer as prices of everyday necessities rise much faster than people’s incomes. Even though authorities say that inflation is easing, for millions of hard-working Americans out there, it certainly doesn’t feel that way. The price of most of the goods we buy and consume on a daily basis is going up at a much brisker pace than official inflation numbers suggest, and people from all over the U.S. are seeing their lifestyles be absolutely eviscerated by soaring living expenses. That’s why an increasing number of them are turning to food banks. The bad news is that many charities are starting to send people away or closing doors altogether because they don’t have enough supplies for everyone.

From coast to coast, demand for food assistance is rapidly growing. Even in rural locations, such as northwest Montana, food banks are witnessing an unprecedented surge in the number of families in need of help. In the Flathead region, pantries are struggling with emptier shelves and scarcer donations while demand for their services continues to rise. “Our numbers have definitely been increasing,” Ann Bohmer, co-manager of the Columbia Falls Food Bank, said. “[There’s been an] influx of people and a shortage of supplies.” According to Bohmer, the food bank is now overwhelmed by the level of demand it is experiencing, but the problem of stressed and understocked pantries is not unique to Montana.

Unfortunately, the same thing can be said for numerous other facilities across the country. With food and gas prices skyrocketing, Americans are being forced to pinch pennies and limit purchases. In August, grocery prices increased 10.8% compared to a year ago. And while bills are getting higher, lines at food banks are getting longer.

Sadly, higher costs and supply chain constraints are forcing dozens of U.S. food banks to either shut down or reduce services at a time when they are needed the most. Recent reports describe that food shortages and grocery inflation led several “charitable nonprofits to shutter, temporarily close, or reduce services.”

Even some of the world’s wealthiest nations aren’t being spared. In the UK, “four out of 10 Universal Credit claimants have admitted to missing meals over the summer in order to keep up with rising costs”.

The saddest part of it all is that this is just the beginning. We’re being repeatedly warned that there will be widespread food shortages all over the globe next year. Even the head of the UN is alerting that there will be “multiple famines” in 2023. In the meantime, breadlines are getting longer and longer, while millions of acres of crops continue to get destroyed by extreme weather events all over the planet."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Wings II, Return To Freedom"

2002, "Wings II, Return To Freedom"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Stars are sometimes born in the midst of chaos. About 3 million years ago in the nearby galaxy M33, a large cloud of gas spawned dense internal knots which gravitationally collapsed to form stars. NGC 604 was so large, however, it could form enough stars to make a globular cluster.

Many young stars from this cloud are visible in the above image from the Hubble Space Telescope, along with what is left of the initial gas cloud. Some stars were so massive they have already evolved and exploded in a supernova. The brightest stars that are left emit light so energetic that they create one of the largest clouds of ionized hydrogen gas known, comparable to the Tarantula Nebula in our Milky Way's close neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121211.html

"We Never See..."

“You know, we never see the world exactly as it is. We see it as we hope it will be or we fear it might be. And we spend our lives going through a sort of modified stages of grief about that realization. And we deny it, and then we argue with it, and we despair over it. But eventually - and this is my belief - that we come to see it, not as despairing, but as vitalizing. We never see the world exactly as it is because we are how the world is.”

- Maria Popova

Gerald Celente, "Trends Journal 9/15/22"

Full screen recommended.

Strong language alert!

Gerald Celente, "Trends Journal 9/15/22"

"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/

"The Grim Calculus of Debt"

"The Grim Calculus of Debt"

by Brian Maher

"An “empire of debt.” This is what our co-founders Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin labeled the United States… in a 2005 book bearing that very title. The United States is unquestionably an empire in debt - some $31.5 trillion - and mounting with each clock tick. Atop this $31.5 trillion debt floats a $25 trillion economy. Thus the nation’s debt-to-GDP ratio runs to some 125%... the highest since 1946.

Sixty cents of each dollar Uncle Samuel spends, he borrows. The remaining 40 cents he collars in taxes. Contrast these figures with the guns-and-butter 1960s - before old Nixon banged the gold window shut. You will find the mathematics very nearly inverted. Seventy-five cents of each expended dollar the government hauled in through taxes. It borrowed the remaining 25 cents.

Borrowing to Consume, Not to Invest: Has our doddering uncle borrowed to invest in a productive American future? No he has not. He has borrowed largely to satisfy the consumptive needs of the moment. He is a squirrel that has failed to stash his acorns for winter. He has left little for the morrow. Consider the abovesaid 1960s...Merely 15 cents of each government-spent dollar went channeling toward “transfer payments” - that is, channeling from productive hands to nonproductive, consuming hands.

Today the figure approaches a productivity-sapping 50 cents of each dollar. Some 50% of Americans haul aboard at least one federal benefit. Some 63 million receive Social Security payments. Sixty million receive Medicare. Medicaid, 75 million. Five million American households claim housing subsidies. Some 40 million Americans take “supplemental nutritional assistance.” That is, food stamps. Only during the locust years of the Great Depression - from 1931–36 - did government dolings out exceed taxes coming in… as they do now.

Is it any wonder then that the nation sags and groans under $31.5 trillion of debt? We hazard it is not. Do we hector? Do we preach? Do we wag our finger? No we do not. We approach the business with the detached air of an accountant tackling the ledgers. We merely count beans. Yet a distressing calculus fetches our eye…

Rising Interest Rates Means Rising Debt Payments: We note that interest rates are on the increase. Today the 10-year Treasury note yields 3.46%. Two years ago the same 10-year Treasury note yielded 0.677%. And so interest payments on the debt are on the increase. They are devouring larger portions of the federal budget.

Mr. Jeff Deist, president of the Mises Institute: "In fiscal year 2020, at the height of COVID stimulus mania, Congress managed to spend nearly twice what the federal government raised in taxes. Yet in 2021, with Treasury debt piled sky-high and spilling over $30 trillion, Congress was able to service this gargantuan obligation with interest payments of less than $400 billion. The total interest expense of $392 billion for the year represented only about 6% of the roughly $6.8 trillion in federal outlays.

How is this possible? In short: very low interest rates. In fact, the average weighted rate across all outstanding Treasury debt in 2021 was well below 2%… even dramatically rising federal debt in recent years did not much hike Congress’ debt service burden."

And now? If Treasury rates continue to rise, and rise precipitously, the effects on congressional budgeting will be immediate and severe. Even if we laughably assume total federal debt remains static… interest rates of merely 2% or 3% will cause interest expense to rise considerably.

Average weighted rates of only 5% would cost taxpayers more than $1 trillion every year. Historically, average rates of 7% swell that number to more than $1.5 trillion. Rates of 10% — hardly unthinkable, given the Paul Volcker era of the late ’70s and early ’80s — would cause debt service to explode to over $2.3 trillion.

How Much Money Would Be Left Over? And as Mr. Deist notes: "Even a 5% average rate would render debt service the largest annual federal expenditure — greater than Social Security ($1.2 trillion), Medicare ($826 billion) and “defense” spending ($704 billion)."

The historical average, incidentally, comes in at 5.6%. Interest payments of 10% would swamp the entire federal budget. And the lovely illusion that deficits do not matter would crash against hard rocks of mathematical reality. But will interest rates maintain their increase… or will they come floating back downward?

Investor - and speculator - Nick Giambruno believes he has the answer: "Interest rates last peaked in 1981 at over 15%. Then, they fell for 39 years and bottomed in July 2020 at around 0.62%... Since the bottom in 2020, yields have gone up more than 5X. This reflects a significant shift. I think we are now at the very beginning of a new, long-term uptrend in interest rates…The 10-year Treasury is yielding around [3.46%]. That’s still far below the long-term historical average of approximately 5.6%."

That is, the scales will balance at or near the historical 5.6% average. And here this Giambruno fellow raises our hair: "I expect interest rates to reach new all-time highs in this new, long-term cycle. That would mean we’d see the 10-year Treasury yield north of 15%."

Kind heaven, no - 10-year yields north of 15%? Can you imagine it? We only hope that we are under the sod by that time… and roasting in the hell to which we are unquestionably fated.

The Government We Deserve: Yet one question must be answered: How did what was once the world’s greatest creditor nation sink so deeply into debt? It is easy to blame the politicians. But We the People must be as guilty as the politicians we elect. As we have asked before: Were the American people humbugged into so much debt? Or have we freely and knowingly put our names to the contract?

Two possibilities immediately suggest themselves…

1) The elected officials of the United States are colossal rogues who amassed today’s $31.5 trillion debt in full defiance of the thrifty American voter.

Or:

2) The $31.5 trillion debt reflects faithfully the desires of the American voter. He has gotten what he wants. At the very least, he accepts it in exchange for the perceived benefits it showers upon him.

Option 1 mocks our cherished democratic theories. Option 2 stands in full indictment of them. “Every nation gets the government it deserves,” said 18th-century French philosopher Joseph de Maistre. Alas, we must conclude the United States has gotten the government it deserves…"

- dailyreckoning.com

The Daily "Near You?"

Georgetown, Maine, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"We Don't Have A Clue..."

“We don’t have a clue what’s really going down, we just kid ourselves that we’re in control of our lives while a paper’s thickness away things that would drive us mad if we thought about them for too long play with us, and move us around from room to room, and put us away at night when they’re tired, or bored.”

- Neil Gaiman

Chet Raymo, “Hanging On”

“Hanging On”

by Chet Raymo

“I change the desktop image on my laptop every now and then, generally when I come across a new image I like. In the last year or so you’ll remember that I wrote about Caravaggio’s “The Rest on the Flight Into Egypt” and Vermeer’s “The Milkmaid.” Live with an image for a while and it’s inevitable that you learn something from it. Here is the painting I’ve had as my desktop in recent weeks, Winslow Homer’s “Snap the Whip”, 1872, one of America’s sentimental favorites.

A simpler, more innocent time. Boys at recess, barefoot in the grass. Hand-me-down clothes. Autumn wildflowers, trees turning to red and gold. A fumbling Ulysses S. Grant is in the White House, the country is at peace after a horrendous civil war, and the Panic of 1873 and subsequent depression is still in the offing. Anyway, all of that political and economic stuff is a bit of a pother and far away. The sun is high in the sky, there’s an apple in the pocket, and only the oldest boy is thinking yet about the eternal mystery that is girls.

Yes, a lovely sentimental anecdote to the busy rancor of our own time, the incessant noise of the television, the attack ads, the news of war. How blissful to be twelve years old again, fit and healthy with the grass between your toes. Never mind that these boys had a life expectancy at birth of about 40 years, and that many of them had probably already lost a sibling or parent; when the sun’s out, and it’s recess, and you’ve got eight pals to play with…

But that’s not why I like the painting. I love the way the arc of the whip reflects the curve of the hill. The vanishing point of the red schoolhouse and three white shirts – everything converges on the two adults in the distance, the grown-up world that inevitably awaits.

Between the three boys who anchor the whip and the six who resist the centrifugal force that breaks the chain is the schoolhouse, the open door and window bracketing the anchor’s grip. Maybe it’s because I was a teacher all my life, but I like to think that the “message” of the painting has to do with education, with what goes on when the boys and girls are called back inside by the teacher’s bell – the glue that holds a civil society together when the whiplash of events threatens to tear us apart. Not indoctrination. Rather, reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic, the basic skills that enable an individual to explore the world creatively. History, geography and science, with their lessons of diversity, tolerance and respect for empirical fact. The ameliorating influence of poetry and art. And one of these boys, maybe the oldest in the center, will become a teacher himself, maintaining an unbroken chain of accumulated knowledge that anchors us to the past and propels us together into a mutually supportive and secure future.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"The Motive..."

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

- Blaise Pascal