Chet Raymo, “Cosmic View”

“Cosmic View”

by Chet Raymo

“When writing about Philip and Phylis Morrison’s “Powers of Ten” the other day I found I had made the following notation in the flyleaf, perhaps a dozen or more years ago:

Britannica
 32 volumes
 1000 pages per vol
 1200 words per page
 5 letters/wd
 = 200 million letters. So, 200 million letters in the 32 volume set of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Why was I making that estimate? I can think of several possibilities. Perhaps…

1. I was making a comparison with the number of nucleotide pairs in the human DNA; that is, the number of steps- ATTGCCCTAA, etc.- on the double-helix. If the information on the human genome- an arm’s length of DNA in every human cell- were written out in ordinary type, it would fill 15 sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Nearly 500 thick volumes of information labeled YOU. Think of that for a moment. Fifteen 32-volume sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica in every invisibly-small cell of your body. And every time a cell reproduces, all of that information has to be transcribed correctly. Did I say the other day that it took a semester to stretch the imagination to grasp the universe of the galaxies? It could take another semester to stretch the imagination to grasp the scale of the molecular machinery that makes our bodies work.

Or maybe…

2. I was trying to give an insight into the complexity of the human brain. There are something like 100 billion nerve cells in the brain. That’s equivalent to the number of letters in 500 sets of the Britannica! Each many-fingered neuron connects to hundreds of other neurons, and each synaptic connection might be in one of many levels of excitation. I’ll let you calculate the number of potential states of the human brain. We’ve left behind the realm of Britannica. Even talking of libraries would be insufficient. I was marveling here recently about the amount of digital memory Google must command to store all of those 360-degree Street View images from all over the planet, all of it instantly retrievable by anyone with access to a computer and the internet. I imagined banks and banks of electronics in some cavernous building in California. Big deal! I’m sitting here right now in the college Commons and I can bring to mind street views of every place I’ve lived since I was three or four years old.

By the way…

3. The number of letters in 500 sets of the Britannica is about the number of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy.

And…”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"Too Often..."

"The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as we pass through this world. There will most likely be no ticker-tape parades for us, no monuments created in our honor. But that does not lessen our possible impact, for there are scores of people waiting for someone just like us to come along; people who will appreciate our compassion, our unique talents. Someone who will live a happier life merely because we took the time to share what we had to give. Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have a potential to turn a life around. It’s overwhelming to consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our love felt."

- Leo Buscaglia

"Americans Will Freak Out When Food Prices Soar 65% From Current Levels"

Full screen recommended.

"Americans Will Freak Out When Food Prices 

Soar 65% From Current Levels"

by Epic Economist

"It seems like the bad news won’t stop coming. At this point, every routine trip to the grocery store has become a cause of distress. Already, Americans have seen food prices going up for 20 consecutive months, but the nightmare isn’t over. Morgan Stanley Research shows that the price of some food staples is set to shoot up by 65% from current levels as an increasing number of companies continue to announce price hikes, and new disruptions on the supply chain threaten the food and energy security of our entire country.

A new forecast from Bloomberg says it is 100% likely that the recession will continue into next year, which means that conditions for about 3 in 4 American households are still going to get worse than they are right now. Honestly, that’s hard to conceive, especially considering that about a quarter of households in the U.S. have eaten significantly less in September compared to the month before, according to a new survey released by Morning Consult. That’s almost a 10% increase from August, which really exposes how rapidly the pain is spreading across our nation.

43% of consumers are having to dial back on purchases of meat, opt for generic brands and search for discounts to be able to make ends meet. Morning Consult’s researchers noted that current shopping trends marked a “stark contrast” compared to last year when many Americans were panic buying and hoarding food items. Now, they can’t afford to do that anymore. “Consumers are purchasing only the necessities and waiting for sales or their next paycheck to be able to purchase non-essential items,” the researchers added.

Morgan Stanley Research says that there’s little relief in sight on grocery store bills. Executives at large, food manufacturers and analysts expect food inflation to accelerate this winter and into 2023. Food staples, such as vegetable oils and wheat and grain based products are expected to rise by almost two-thirds, or around 65% from current levels, as we head towards the end of the year, they noted. The price of items like pasta and bread are expected to rise by 60% and 40%, respectively. The worst wheat harvest in nearly 50 years and the Ukraine crisis are major contributors to the coming increases.

And if you’re shopping for Thanksgiving, good luck because turkey prices are going through the roof. A few weeks ago, the American Farm Bureau Federation announced that "families can expect to pay record high prices at the grocery store for turkey”. But it’s safe to say, nobody could imagine that the retail price for fresh boneless, skinless turkey breast would actually skyrocket by 112% over the last 12 months.

Adding assault to injury, the devastating global energy crisis that has erupted is likely to intensify as new supply chain disruptions interrupt the flow of energy supplies in our country. Bloomberg reports that new transport woes — both for river and rail — are threatening the nation’s food and energy security. Needless to say, it’s never a good time to have a transportation crisis, and now is especially bad timing for new supply chain problems to emerge.

People are going to be forced to choose between eating and staying warm this winter. There’s a lot of uncertainty and factors in play that could still aggravate this situation. So we truly hope you guys got prepared ahead of time because the next couple of months are going to be exceedingly challenging for millions upon millions of people."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

Gerald Celente, "Trends In The News"

Full screen recommended.

Strong language alert!

Gerald Celente, 10/27/22:

"Trends In The News"

“The Wars Are Ungodly, Which Side Are You On, Life Or Death?”

"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 Recession’s Over - Or Is It?"

"The Recession’s Over - Or Is It?"

by Brian Maher

"We learn today that the gross domestic product increased 2.6% in the year’s third quarter. Reports CNBC: "The U.S. economy posted its first period of positive growth for 2022 in the third quarter, at least temporarily easing recession fears, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Thursday. GDP, a sum of all the goods and services produced from July through September, increased at a 2.6% annualized pace for the period, according to the advance estimate. That was above the Dow Jones forecast for 2.3%."

Thus there is greater joy in heaven today…The United States economy is up from recession - in reminder, the year’s first two quarters yielded negative growth. Two consecutive quarters of negative growth meet the broadly accepted definition of recession. Yet today’s report fails to sway us. We do not believe it represents an authentic bounce.

Not So Fast: We concede, nature has riveted into us a reflexive distrust of positive news, a very deep cynicism. In an honest moment, we would likely admit that this distrust verges upon the irrational. If we witnessed the Lord Our Savior walking on water? We would condemn instantly and reflexively His inability to swim. We nonetheless remain skeptical of today’s economic news. We remind you that numbers can conceal more than they reveal. They often spin wondrous tales and tell fantastic lies.

Like a Hollywood movie set… a false set of teeth… or a toupee… the numbers are not as they appear. Let us then seize the numbers by the scruff… and haul them in for interrogation.

Does Government Spending Really Boost GDP? According to the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis - whose very data-manglers crafted the report - government spending gave third-quarter GDP a good goosing: The increase in real GDP reflected increases in exports, consumer spending, nonresidential fixed investment, federal government spending and state and local government spending… The increase in federal government spending was led by defense spending. The increase in state and local government spending primarily reflected an increase in compensation of state and local government employees.

In all, third-quarter government spending expanded at a 2.4% annual rate. The report notes that defense spending contributed substantially to third-quarter GDP. We have not seen the data. Yet we hazard a handsome portion of this spending was consecrated to re-coffering the depleted war stocks dispatched to Ukraine. Our spies inform us that ammunition is running low. The defense contractors may be lolling in clover as they begin to make good the shortages. Yet what about the poor beset taxpayer who is handed the bill? Is this a genuine contribution to the gross domestic product of the United States?

A Transfer of Money, Not a GDP Increase: We remind you that government commands no resources of its own. It cannot ladle out one dime for “defense” - Ukraine’s or America’s - without first tapping the taxpayer on the shoulder. What would this taxpayer have done with his money had not the tax man plucked it from his pocket… and emptied it into Lockheed Martin’s pocket?

He may have spent it. He may have saved it. He may have invested it. Each option constitutes an authentic contribution to the gross domestic product in one way or other. Yet the taxpayer’s money was transferred to Lockheed Martin and the others. Is a transfer an addition? A pickpocket might as well claim his craftwork represents an addition to the gross domestic product.

Yet where is the addition? The purloined dollar the pickpocket spends is the very dollar his victim would have spent - only on different goods or services. The ledgers are even. This involuntary transfer is nonetheless credited heavily for the third-quarter’s positive GDP.

Is Bloodsucking an Economic Boon? Meantime, today’s report informs us, again, that: "The increase in state and local government spending primarily reflected an increase in compensation of state and local government employees." Once again we ask: Is this an authentic economic boost - or merely a transfer from one pocket to another?

It merely constitutes another transfer. And in this instance especially, a transfer from productive hands to nonproductive hands. For the government employee lives off the fat of the land. He takes his living at the taxpayer’s very expense. What does the taxpayer receive for his sacrifices? Very little. And by “very little,” we extend an uncharacteristic degree of generosity.

In nearly every instance - we will grant certain exceptions - the government employee represents a subtraction from the gross domestic product, not an addition. See for example the clerk with the Department of Motor Vehicles. See for example the busybody with the planning and zoning board. See for example the director of the Taxi and Limousine Commission …See for example the assistant school principal and the deputy assistant to the assistant to the assistant to the director of the Office of Administrative Affairs. Only very strict time constraints prohibit us from expanding the list.

Again, we permit a limited number of exceptions. Yet the government employee’s overall economic impact runs negative. But in the official telling he pinches the taxpayer for a raise and the pinching represents an addition to the gross domestic product.

Get Sick, Increase GDP: Today’s report continues. Likewise giving GDP a push is an increase in health care spending: "Within consumer spending, an increase in services (led by health care and "other" services)."

You are down with a horrendous toothache. You must take the day off from productive employment to visit the dentist. He yanks a tooth…. Or you must have your appendix plucked and you are confined for days to a sick bed. Or you break your leg and are down for weeks.

The tooth-yanker, the appendix-plucker and the break-setter are better off — and may the Lord bless them for their inestimable service to the human race. Yet should we consider your agonies and their necessary alleviation an economic blessing and a gain to GDP? The classical economist Frederic Bastiat and his broken windows spring immediately to mind.

The Broken Windows Fallacy: A hooligan heaves rocks through a shopkeeper’s window. This shopkeeper must contract the glazer’s services to replace the window. The transaction represents an economic benefit, argues the superficial-seeing. Look at the new money our fortunate glazer has to spend on the cobbler, the baker, the butcher. Yet they neglect to consider the money the original shopkeeper cannot spend on the cobbler, the baker and the butcher. He has spent it on the glazer - and merely to rise up to even. He has gained not a thing. Again, where is the economic gain?

Lies, damn lies and statistics. We have but one request: that government confines itself to lies and damned lies. It is the statistics we cannot take…"

- dailyreckoning.com

The Daily "Near You?"

Port Dover, Ontario, Canada. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Sometimes Hidden Beauty of ‘This Too Shall Pass’"

"The Sometimes Hidden Beauty of ‘This Too Shall Pass'"

By Richard Haddad

"It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent a sentence to be ever on view and which would be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words, 'And this, too, shall pass away.'"

"“This too shall pass.” This proverb has no doubt been repeated millions of times in many different languages since the COVID-19 pandemic started. The sentiment may be difficult to accept amidst so many hardships from lost jobs, lost businesses and lost lives.

This adage grew from the roots of a Persian fable and became known in the Western world primarily through a 19th-century retelling by the English poet Edward FitzGerald, who crafted the fable “Solomon’s Seal” in 1852 illustrating how the adage had the power to make a sad man happy but, conversely, a happy man sad. The fable was reportedly also employed in a speech by Abraham Lincoln before he became the sixteenth President of the United States.

But the version I want to share today that I think is most beautiful and powerful was written in 1867 by American newspaper editor and abolitionist Theodore Tilton. He reworked the fable into a poem called “The King’s Ring.” Here again, the retooled adage wields a double-edged sword. It can help us endure the passage of difficult times, or keep our perspective and humility during good times. Here is the Tilton poem:

"The King’s Ring"

"Once in Persia reigned a King,

Who upon his signet-ring

Graved a maxim true and wise,

Which, if held before his eyes,

Gave him counsel, at a glance,

Fit for every change or chance;

Solemn words, and these are they:

“Even this shall pass away.”

Trains of camels through the sand

Brought him gems from Samarcand;

Fleets of galleys through the seas

Brought him pearls to rival these.

But he counted little gain

Treasures of the mine or main.

“What is wealth?” the King would say;

“Even this shall pass away.”

In the revels of his court,

At the zenith of the sport,

When the palms of all his guests

Burned with clapping at his jests,

He, amid his figs and wine,

Cried, “O loving friends of mine!

Pleasures come, but do not stay:

Even this shall pass away.”

Lady fairest ever seen

Was the bride he crowned the queen.

Pillowed on his marriage-bed,

Whispering to his soul, he said,

“Though no bridegroom never pressed

Dearer bosom to his breast,

Mortal flesh must come to clay:

Even this shall pass away.”

Fighting on a furious field,

Once a javelin pierced his shield.

Soldiers with a loud lament

Bore him bleeding to his tent.

Groaning from his tortured side,

“Pain is hard to bear,” he cried,

“But with patience day by day,

Even this shall pass away.”

Towering in the public square

Twenty cubits in the air,

Rose his statue carved in stone.

Then the King, disguised, unknown,

Gazing at his sculptured name,

Asked himself, “And what is fame?

Fame is but a slow decay:

Even this shall pass away.”

Struck with palsy, sere and old,

Waiting at the Gates of Gold,

Spake he with his dying breath,

“Life is done, but what is Death?”

Then, in answer to the King,

Fell a sunbeam on his ring,

Showing by a heavenly ray -

“Even this shall pass away.”

I believe enduring well is an essential part of the test we must pass while on this Earth together. I am still taking this test. We all are. I also believe we must have a certain amount of faith and hope as we do all in our power to make things right in this world while also accepting that we don’t have the power to control all outcomes. I’ve been learning these truths and striving to apply them more in my own life. In the past I have sometimes hearkened to gloomy voices in the world. Many a time I entertained unnecessary doubt and worry. But I am learning that worry works against faith and hope. My mother once shared this other saying with me that I have tried to apply in my older years - “Worry is interest paid on money never borrowed.”

"May we all strive to endure, live and love well, for this too shall pass."

- https://www.dcourier.com/

"Everything We Assume Is Permanent Is Actually Fragile"

"Everything We Assume Is Permanent Is Actually Fragile"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"The great irony of the past 75 years of expanding consumption is the belief that all these decades of success prove the system is rock-solid and future success is thus guaranteed. The irony lies in the systemic fragility that's built into the large-scale industrial production that generates endless surpluses of energy, food, fresh water, etc. and the global financial system that delivers endless surpluses of capital and credit to be distributed by public authorities and private owners of capital.

The key driver of increasing efficiencies has been scaling up production by concentrating ownership and capacity into a few quasi-monopolies/cartels. In industry after industry, where there were once dozens of companies, there are now only a handful of behemoths with outsized market and political power which they wield to retain their dominance.

For example, where there were dozens of large regional banks in the U.S. not that long ago, relentless consolidation has led to a handful of supergiant too big to fail banks which can take extraordinary risks (and undertake criminal skims) knowing that the federal government will always bail them out and leave the banks' corporate criminals untouched.

Two of these too big to fail banks recently paid fines in the billions of dollars, yet no one went to prison or even faced criminal charges. This highlights the systemic problem with concentrating capital and power in the hands of the few: too big to fail means corporate wrongdoers have a permanent get out of jail free card while the small-fry white-collar criminal will get a fiver (five-year prison sentence) for skimming a tiny fraction of the billions routinely pillaged by the too big to fail banks.

The net result is a two-tier judicial/law enforcement system: the too big to fail "essential" companies get a free hand and the citizenry get whatever "justice" they can afford, i.e. very little.

This concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few corporations is of course state-cartel socialism in which the public good has become subservient to the profits of corporate owners and insiders, and the skims paid to the state's insiders. The state enables and enforces this concentration of private wealth and power in a number of ways: regulatory capture, the polite bribery of lobbying, the revolving door between government and private industry, and so on.

The public good would best be served by competition and transparent markets and regulations, but these are precisely what's been eliminated by relentless consolidation and the paring down of the economic ecosystem to a handful of too big to fail nodes which work tirelessly to eliminate competition, transparency and meaningful public oversight.

This ruthless pursuit of efficiencies and profits has stripped the economy of redundancies and buffers. Production supply chains have been engineered to function in a narrow envelope of quality, quantity and time. Any disruption quickly leads to shortages, something that became visible when meatpacking plants were closed in the pandemic.

Supply chains are long and fragile, but this fragility is not visible as long as everything stays within the narrow envelope that's been optimized. Once the envelope is broken, the supply chain breaks down. Since redundancies and buffers have been stripped away, there are no alternatives available. Shortages mount and the entire system starts breaking down.

Quality has been stripped out as well. When markets become captive to cartels and monopolies, customers have to take what's available: if it's poor quality goods and services, tough luck, pal, there are no alternatives. There are only one or two service providers, healthcare insurers, etc., and they all provide the same minimal level of quality and service.

The moral rot in our social, political and economic orders is another source of hidden fragility. I'm constantly told by readers that corruption has been around forever, so therefore nothing has changed, but these readers are indulging in magical nostalgia: things have changed profoundly, and for the worse, as the moral rot has seeped into every nook and cranny of American life, from the top down.

There is no "public good," there is only a rapacious, obsessive self-interest that claims the mantle of "public good" as a key mechanism of the con.

As I discussed in "Everything is Staged", everyone and everything in America is now nothing more than a means to a self-interested end, and so the the entirety of American life is nothing but 100% marketing of various cons designed to enrich the few at the expense of the many. That America was a better place without endless marketing of Big Pharma meds and "vaccines", and colleges hyping their insanely costly "product" (a worthless diploma) has been largely forgotten by those indulging in magical nostalgia.

What few seem to realize is all the supposedly rock-solid permanent foundations of life are nothing more than fragile social constructs based on trust and legitimacy. Once trust and legitimacy have been lost, these constructs melt into the sands of time.

A great many things we take for granted are fragile constructs that could unravel with surprising speed: law enforcement, the courts, elections, the value of our currency -- these are all social constructs. Once legitimacy is lost, people abandon these constructs and they melt away.

It's clear to anyone who isn't indulging in magical nostalgia that trust in institutions is in a steep decline as the legitimacy of these institutions, public and private, have been eroded by incompetence, corruption, dysfunction and the rapacious self-interest of insiders.

What we've gotten very good at is masking the rot and fragility. Masking the rot and fragility is not the same thing as strength or permanence. The nation is about to discover the difference in the years ahead."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

"Yet Now..."

“Yet now, as he roared across the night sky toward an unknown destiny, he found himself facing that bleak and ultimate question which so few men can answer to their satisfaction. What have I done with my life, he asked himself, that the world will be poorer if I leave it?”

- Arthur C. Clarke, “Glide Path”

"The World..."

"The world is a comedy to those that think,

a tragedy to those who feel. "

- Horace Walpole, In a Letter, 1770

Scott Ritter, "Putin's Ultimatum; 101st Airborne in Europe; Ukraine's Dirty Bomb"

Scott Ritter, 10/27/22:

"Putin's Ultimatum; 101st Airborne in Europe; 

Ukraine's Dirty Bomb"

"On episode 10 of the show we are joined by Franz Klincevich, a Russian politician, former member of the Federation Council of the Russian Federal Assembly representing the administration of the Smolensk region. Ex First Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Defense and Security of the Upper House of Parliament. Colonel of the Russian Airborne Forces in retirement."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

"Real Estate Carnage - Las Vegas"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, 10/27/22:

"Real Estate Carnage - Las Vegas"

"Welcome to Las Vegas, Nevada. Today we are very lucky to have the very talented Denise Cesena show us around Las Vegas. Real Estate has become a challenge. Denise is truly an expert in everything when it comes to Las Vegas real estate. Plus, we get to visit with our stock market hero Greg Mannarino."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

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Gregory Mannarino, "Alert!! Global Debt Market Remains Unstable As Central Banks Continue To Inflate!"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 10/27/22:

"Alert!! Global Debt Market Remains Unstable 

As Central Banks Continue To Inflate!"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"United Against Existence"

"United Against Existence"

by Robert Gore

"One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,

One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them."

- J.R.R. Tolkien, "Lord of the Rings"

"Middle Earth had its Mount Doom, into which the One Ring of Power could be tossed, ridding that evil from J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional setting. Real Earth is not so fortunate, but in all other aspects the lessons drawn from his classic apply. It only comes up short in one respect. Tolkien never delved into the psychology of Sauron, Saruman, and the lessor denizens of Middle Earth who lusted after the One Ring’s power, other than to depict the inevitable corruption of the soul their lust produced.

There are two conclusions uncorrupted souls have difficulty accepting, although both experience and logic point uncompromisingly towards them. The first is that those in power and those who lust for it want power for power’s sake, ultimately to destroy and kill. The second is that they want to destroy and kill because they want to destroy existence and kill themselves. We owe the first conclusion to Orwell, the second to Rand. (For a fuller explanation see “The Last Gasp,” Robert Gore, SLL, March 24, 2020.)

This article assumes both conclusions are well-founded and that the second in particular is the key to understanding where the world is now and where it’s going. They offer a realistic assessment of the chances for nuclear Armageddon.

It is no coincidence that the twentieth century witnessed history’s most totalitarian regimes and its bloodiest wars and genocides. By all indications the twenty-first century will extend the connected trends. Power goes hand-in-hand with destruction and death. Governments are based on their capacity to inflict violence; what else can they produce? Rejecting lofty rhetoric and revolutionary rationales, Orwell wrote that: Power is not a means; it is an end. The twentieth century demonstrated that power is a means to inflict incalculable destruction and death. Know them by their fruits - those are the true ends of those who seek and hold power.

Report after report details the injury and death inflicted by the Covid mRNA vaccines, puncturing hollow platitudes and invocations of “Science.” The travesty offers a refresher course we don’t really need: from world leaders down to petty politicians and functionaries, they want to kill us. Those who aren’t killed are to be frightened into compliance with their ghastly and tyrannical edicts, herded like cattle into some other slaughterhouse.

The gelatinous souls who move whatever direction the bowl tilts usually don’t recognize what’s happening until the moment of their execution. Beforehand, a few of the more intellectually adept will argue that the powerful will be limited by their instinct for self-preservation - if they kill too many they’ll end up killing themselves. Perhaps that thought offers comfort, however scant.

But what if the powerful are like those mass shooters whose terror ends only when they turn their guns on themselves? What if mass murder is the means to their desired end: suicide? Someone who kills himself but no one else is to be pitied. Someone who kills innocents before taking his own life perpetrates paramount evil.

"...Now he knew that he had wanted Galt’s destruction at the price of his own destruction to follow, he knew that he had never wanted to survive, he knew that it was Galt’s greatness he had wanted to torture and destroy - he was seeing it as greatness by his own admission, greatness by the only standard that existed, whether anyone chose to admit it or not: the greatness of a man who was master of reality in a manner no other had equaled. In the moment when he, James Taggart, had found himself facing the ultimatum: to accept reality or die, it was death his emotions had chosen, death rather than surrender to that realm of which Galt was so radiant a son. In the person of Galt - he knew - he had sought the destruction of all existence."

- Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged," 1957

Rand pinpointed the core motivation of those who seek power, whose lives are defined by those they subjugate. Regardless of their differing aims, professed justifications, and ideological platforms, the powerful are united against existence. Spoken or unspoken, acknowledged or unacknowledged, they are united by the ultimate evil: to slaughter innocents before their own lives are inevitably extinguished. That puts the prospect of global nuclear war in a whole new light.

How would it play out? Credit Putin and Xi with more intelligence than the cast of cretins running the American empire. It’s a low bar. But are they any less power-driven, any less evil? Russia’s oligarchy and China’s totalitarian dictatorship are, like the U.S. government, organized crime. Angels don’t get to the top of such syndicates, and these two non-angels have set themselves up as rulers for life. Putin’s and Xi’s intelligence are matched by their ruthlessness, which may surpass that of their Western counterparts.

Say the brain trust that masterminded the Nordstream sabotage decides that a low-yield, false-flag nuclear or dirty bomb detonation in Ukraine would accomplish important objectives. They could blame it on Russia, shoring up empire support for the Ukrainians sagging war effort. It would be the perfect excuse to cancel the elections the Democrats are set to lose and perhaps institute martial law. Russia might respond in kind, and the brain trust’s giddy hopes for global nuclear war would be realized. Obvious insanity for most of us, a feature not a bug for the suicidally inclined.

Once the bomb detonated, Putin and Xi would know the U.S. was behind it. They may even know beforehand. Russia has accused Ukraine of planning to detonate a dirty bomb, and the Chinese government has reportedly told Chinese citizens in Ukraine to leave the country. The comfortably numb assumption U.S. defense policy rests upon is that their responses will be proportional to the provocation out of respect for the planet-destroying potential of the U.S. nuclear triad.

What if they’re not? What if Russia and China respond with everything they’ve got, hypersonic missiles - to which the empire has no defense - taking out major cities, infrastructure, industry, and communications and computer networks? And what if the empire’s nuclear response capability has been surreptitiously crippled or eliminated by Russian and Chinese hacking and sabotage? They’re pretty good at that sort of thing.

Here is an urgent plea to anyone within the empire’s power structure who can short-circuit the false flag: check your assumptions. That false flag might not lead to the desired global holocaust, but rather to A RUSSIAN AND CHINESE VICTORY! In either instance you’ll probably be dead, but you can’t take the chance that the Russians and Chinese might win. That would be simply intolerable. Stop the false flag!

A Putin and Xi victory would leave the U.S. as a nuclear wasteland and those two as the world’s rulers - not unipolarity or multipolarity but bipolarity. Of course there’s only one Ring; sharing absolute power sounds like a contradiction in terms. Regardless, a radioactive U.S. and its miserable survivors would be at the very bottom of the pecking order in a world run by one or two totalitarian dictators.

However, the radioactivity from any nuclear attack capable of decimating the U.S. wouldn’t stay confined to the U.S. Russian and Chinese hacking and sabotage may not prevent every U.S. bomb from landing in those countries. Theirs would be the Pyrrhic victory to end all Pyrrhic victories if fallout extinguished everyone. Assuming the powerful - American, European, Russian, Chinese and globalist - are indeed murderously suicidal, united against existence, that outcome is not just a nontrivial possibility; it’s more likely than not.

In which case only God can save humanity. Let us hope in his justice, compassion, and wisdom he gives our species, woefully deficient in all three, one more chance."

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

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Hat tip to The Burning Platform for this material.

"Massive Price Increases At Kroger! Not Good!! This Is Crazy!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 10/27/22:

"Massive Price Increases At Kroger! 

Not Good!! This Is Crazy!"

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

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"The Calm Before A Major Storm, Staggering Inflation"

Canadian Prepper, 10/26/22:

"The Calm Before A Major Storm, Staggering Inflation"

"In todays video I go over a list of staggering price increases and projections throughout 2022, is peace possible (not likely), I share my thoughts on some stuff."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

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Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 10/26/22:

"Shocking Info About Coming Nuclear Incident"

Some new developments signal imminent fallout of Russian US relations.

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Investing In This Market Is Like Licking Honey Off The Razor's Edge, When The FED Blinks It's Over"

Jeremiah Babe, 10/26/22:

"Investing In This Market Is Like Licking Honey 

Off The Razor's Edge, When The FED Blinks It's Over"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

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Well, since 63% of us don't have a dime to invest in anything, it really is this:

"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it. 

You and I are not in the Big Club."

- George Carlin

"15 Facts That Show Amazon Is Destroying America"

Full screen recommended.

"15 Facts That Show Amazon Is Destroying America"

by Epic Economist

"The empire being built by Amazon is a major threat to America, but most people don't have any idea of the sketchy things the company does to establish itself as one of the major players in the industry. The world's largest e-commerce retailer and the nation's second largest employer is actually crushing the retail industry and killing millions of jobs all over America. Given that its real estate footprint is significantly smaller than most brick-and-mortar retailers, the company’s overhead costs are significantly smaller. Offering low wages, using public services, and taking advantage of legal loopholes to get massive tax breaks also allow the giant company to operate on extremely thin profit margins that would kill many struggling players. In today’s turbulent economic environment, it’s getting increasingly harder to compete against Amazon. Since 2000, hundreds of thousands of retail stores have been shuttered as they failed to compete with Amazon's low prices and thin profit margins. A staggering number of jobs have also disappeared in the process.

As the retailer has grown, the number of independent businesses has dramatically fallen. Between 2007 and 2017, the number of small businesses fell by 165,000. About 52% of the nation’s small apparel, toy, and sporting goods stores disappeared, along with about one-third of small book publishers, RetailWire Data shows. For the record, 64% of Republicans and 62% of Democrats say Amazon is bad for small businesses, which highlights that even Congress is worried about the consequences of Amazon’s rapidly rising empire. On the other hand, the jobs created by the company are some of the lowest quality jobs in the U.S. Amazon workers are forced to live on starvation wages and rely on federal assistance programs to be able to get by. The retail giant does everything it can not to pay taxes and take advantage of public resources to make its business grow. What Amazon doesn't tell the public is that it is us, the U.S. taxpayers, who fund the company's exponential growth while they collapse our retail sector, the quality of our jobs, our supply chains, and our economy.

Economists David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson have estimated China’s manufacturing exports to the U.S. may have cost as many as 3.7 million jobs since 2001. If Amazon continues to crush brick-and-mortar retailers at the pace it’s been doing for the past decade, by 2033, it would lead 22% of them to go bankrupt, costing 2.5 million jobs. Add in the jobs Amazon will kill at grocery stores, drugstores, warehouses, and delivery services, and the total would be well over 3.7 million. And unlike the manufacturing jobs lost to China, which were clustered in a comparatively few counties, those retail jobs are located in every city, town, and hamlet in America. Unlike other retailers, Amazon employs significantly fewer workers, which means that most of the laid-off employees wouldn’t be hired by the retailer, and our national unemployment rate could face a spike. “What Amazon won’t tell us is that every job created at Amazon destroys one or two or three others,” they wrote.

It is evident that Amazon's growing market dominance is eroding opportunity and fueling inequality in the U.S. The retail giant uses its market power to kill competition and take over one industry after another. The more they annihilate small businesses and retailers, the more power they have. All of this power concentration is endangering competition, independence and democracy in our country. That's what we're going to expose today."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, "My Orchid Spirit (Extragalactic)"

Full screen recommended.

Liquid Mind, "My Orchid Spirit (Extragalactic)"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Globular clusters once ruled the Milky Way. Back in the old days, back when our Galaxy first formed, perhaps thousands of globular clusters roamed our Galaxy. Today, there are less than 200 left. Many globular clusters were destroyed over the eons by repeated fateful encounters with each other or the Galactic center. Surviving relics are older than any Earth fossil, older than any other structures in our Galaxy, and limit the universe itself in raw age.

There are few, if any, young globular clusters in our Milky Way Galaxy because conditions are not ripe for more to form. Pictured above by the Hubble Space Telescope are about 100,000 of M72's stars. M72, which spans about 50 light years and lies about 50,000 light years away, can be seen with a small telescope toward the constellation of the Water Bearer (Aquarius).”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120819.html

"A Superpower Just Declared War"

"A Superpower Just Declared War"

by Brian Maher

“A superpower declared war on a great power and nobody noticed.” This is the studied conclusion of journalist Edward Luce, unfurled in a recent Financial Times column. The war-declaring superpower in this instance is the United States. The declared-against great power is the People’s Republic of China. Like an Easter egg laid strategically in high grass… the unnoticed war declaration lies obscure within the impenetrable vegetation of the Biden administration’s latest National Security Strategy.

From which: "The PRC… is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to advance that objective…We must ensure strategic competitors cannot exploit foundational American and allied technologies, know-how or data to undermine American and allied security."

A Polite Declaration of War: These are confrontational words, you say, perhaps instigating words - yet not fighting words. Where is the war declaration? This Luce fellow argues it is there. It exists in subtle and coded form; behind, beside, beneath and between the written lines. Only the discerning and nuanced eye can penetrate the fogs surrounding the official text. Yet to this practiced eye… the war declaration is clear as a mirror, clear as gems.

This eye sees clearly that: The United States is attempting to throttle off advanced technology sales to China. Moreover, the United States is conscripting its allies to join in the throttling off. Luce: "The new restrictions are not confined to the export of high-end U.S. semiconductor chips. They extend to any advanced chips made with U.S. equipment. This incorporates almost every non-Chinese high-end exporter, whether based in Taiwan, South Korea or the Netherlands. The ban also extends to ‘U.S. persons,’ which includes green card holders as well as U.S. citizens."

Like Choking off the Oxygen Supply: China - of course - requires these advanced technologies to get along. To deny China these technologies is like denying a man oxygen. And as strangulation constitutes an act of war against a man, technological and economic strangulation constitutes an act of war against a nation. Hence Mr. Luce’s tremblings about war.

Assume there is justice in his claims. More importantly, assume China believes there is justice in his claims. Imagine then what China must infer from National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s recent tub-thumping: "On export controls [against China],we have to revisit the long-standing premise of maintaining ‘relative’ advantages over competitors in certain key technologies. We previously maintained a ‘sliding scale’ approach that said we need to stay only a couple of generations ahead. That is not the strategic environment we are in today. Given the foundational nature of certain technologies, such as advanced logic and memory chips, we must maintain as large of a lead as possible…[Sanctions against Russia] have demonstrated that technology export controls can be more than just a preventative tool… they can be a new strategic asset in the U.S. and allied tool kit."

A Historical Parallel: Will China submit to the strangulation planned against it - or might it strike out preemptively against its would-be strangler - to keep the violent hands off its throat?

Mr. Niall Ferguson professes history at Harvard University. He is also a Daily Reckoning reader, incidentally, as he confirmed to our co-founder Addison Wiggin some years ago. He also likes to write books. These include: "The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World"… "The War of the World: 20th-Century Conflict and the Decline of the West"… "Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire"… to name some. Thus he maintains a great store of knowledge in his locker.

Does this learned and distinguished fellow purchase stock in Luce’s unnoticed war declaration theory? In brief, he is monitoring the stock very closely. That is because Ferguson sketches warnful parallels between 1939–1941 Japan and 2022 China…"Prior to the Second World War, over 80% of Japan’s supply shipped in from the United States. Japan’s economic machinery would seize absent the American lubrication. Yet in August 1941, the United States government embargoed all oil and gasoline exports to Japan. That is, the United States chose to strangulate Japan."

Will China Pull Its Own Pearl Harbor? How Did Japan take it? By striking out against the United States before the strangulation could work its lethal effects. It simultaneously proceeded against the Dutch East Indies and its vast oil stocks. The United States embargo had forced Japan’s hand, as the phrase runs. Ferguson: "[It] might be a repeat of the mistake the U.S. made with Japan between 1939 and 1941, when economic sanctions so boxed in the imperial government that in the end there seemed no better option than to gamble on surprise attack..."

Cutting China off from high-end chips today seems a lot like cutting Japan off from oil in 1941. And it is an especially hazardous move when more than 90% of the production of those chips takes place in Taiwan, an island that China claims as its own.

Will China attempt the same preemptive blow as Japan in 1941? We do not pretend to know. The year 2022 is not the year 1941. Nuclear arms were unavailable in 1941, for example. Both the United States and China carry them around in 2022. Conventional jousts in the Taiwan Strait could lead to nuclear jousts between the warring nations. Thus the nuclear deterrent may well keep the swords in their sheaths, the guns in their holsters… and the saner heads prevailing. That is our earnest hope.

China may also determine it can outfox the technology embargo, that it can get its hands on technologies regardless. It need not resort to warfare, that is.

Love and War: Yet nations can stumble into war as easily as a man can stumble into love. Again, Ferguson: "The Biden administration would not be the first Democratic administration elected on a progressive domestic program that stumbled into a major war: Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Johnson - they all did it. The record is: won two, tied one, lost one."

This publication is stridently, dogmatically and ruthlessly anti-partisan. Yet we harbor little faith in the generalship of the present Democratic administration. And as the great Mencken observed wryly, returning to our amorous/martial analogy: Both love and war are easy to start - but very hard to stop. Is it evidence you need? Evidence that wars are easy to start but very hard to stop? We refer you simply to Mr. Vladimir Putin, president of Russia. Ask him."

- dailyreckoning.com

"We’re Living in Deranged and Dangerous Times"

Full screen recommended.

Gerald Celente, Judge Andrew Napolitano,10/26/22:

"We’re Living in Deranged and Dangerous Times"

"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/

Gregory Mannarino, "Don't Be Shocked If After The Midterm Elections All Hell Breaks Loose"

Gregory Mannarino, 10/26/22:

"Don't Be Shocked If After The 

Midterm Elections All Hell Breaks Loose"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Groundhog Day, But It’s The Economy"

"Groundhog Day, But It’s The Economy"

by John Wilder

"Back in 2018, 2019, there were few reasons to post contemporary economic posts. I could do what I like to do best, sit back, research, think, and give a few strategic thoughts on what I thought the future would bring. There weren’t a lot of stories of an immediate nature. That had been true (more or less) going back to 2010. The motions in the markets were longer, and we could take the time to post the waves, print bikini-girl graphs, and talk about the problems that were coming.

Now? It’s that damn movie Groundhog Day. I have folders of graphs on economic doom that, in a normal year, where each would be the biggest story in months. In 2022, those stories are coming out every week. Germany collapsing and all of their people are going to be cold in the 2022-2023 winter? Check. Britain collapsing and the latest prime minister wants to (spins wheel) import 50 million illiterate immigrants that marry their first cousins because that’s what will fix Britain’s problem? People literally saying, “Global thermonuclear war? Bah, that’s not as bad as COVID®.

I’m not even making the above three stories up or exaggerating it in any way. The Babylon Bee in 2022 has become non-fiction. I’m expecting Joe Biden to pull a rubbery mask off his face and reveal himself as the old man who ran the carnival. He would have gotten away with it, if not for those pesky kids. So, this week I’m just going to rant. On (spins wheel) vodka. “Vodka, it’s not just for breakfast anymore®.”

Our economic system before the Federal Reserve™ was a mess. Why, people had to have actual gold to back money. And if a bank got sideways? It failed. Talk about incentives. Gold wasn’t the biggest of the pre-Fed© sins, though. Regional banking centers outside of New York were taking a larger and larger percentage of the banking market. That, my friends was a sin. If there’s money to be made off of charging people interest, and a New Yorker isn’t involved, that’s treason.

The Federal Reserve™ Act essentially stopped the growth of banking outside of New York like Kanye West would be stopped from attending a Soros-family bar mitzvah. But that pesky gold remained. So, FDR confiscated it. All of it.

Why? So he could immediately make the dollar worth less. It was a con. But one he sold because (smoke and mirrors) I have no idea. Seriously. Maybe it was the equivalent of the COVID® panic back then. If the American public had stormed the White House when FDR stole their money, lynched him, and then placed statues of Eleanor Roosevelt’s face on each coast to ward off evil spirits I think we’d be a better country. But we didn’t.

I’ll skip ahead to 1971. There are plenty of things I could complain about in the decades between the 1930s and 1971, but I don’t think there’s enough vodka in the house (only a few gallons) and my liver has indicated that it can only take these utter financial rants about once a year unless I switch to wine or beer. But, I tell my liver, we already drank the wine and we’re saving the beer for . . . hmmm. Why are we saving the beer? Shut up, liver.

Regardless of my weak organs, in 1971 Nixon booted the dollar off of any convertibility to gold. That was because the French had figured out the game: they saw how many dollars that we were printing and wanted us to give them gold instead of dollars. Nixon saw right through that (thank you, vodka!) and just said, “We’ll print all the damn money we want to, or I’ll send G. Gordon Liddy to eat France.”

Of course, inflation followed. Jimmy Carter was an awful president, mainly because he wasn’t aware of what happened, why it was happening, what he could do about it, or . . . wait, this is sounding like Biden, but Carter was actually smart and relatively virtuous.

Then we sailed. Interest rates were raised, stopped inflation, and after two decades of high interest rates the currency stabilized to the point gold prices dropped and the biggest problems the country had were Hillary killing people and Bill Clinton having sex with anyone else besides Hillary. Ahhh, brings back memories of a sillier time.

Pressure though, was there to inflate the currency. That was built in. Social Security and Medicare Hang on. Need more vodka for this. Be right back.

Social Security and Medicare require a growing economy. They require more people working than those that are receiving benefits. But tax policy and birth control and Hillary Clinton’s Abortion Clinic® (Motto: No human is too old to abort©!) made it important to import people to pay for this stuff, especially if they’d vote (D) in elections. That made the economy less stable, rather than more. But the Federal Reserve© retained two controls: printing money, and interest rates. Heck, the Fed© should call it, “This One Weird Trick Allows Us To Print Money Without Printing Money.”

That one weird trick is low interest rates. When people borrow money, it actually is inflationary. I could go into detail, but each $100 you have in a bank can be loaned out. So, if you put $100 in a bank, you think it’s there. In reality, it has been loaned out, so you think you have your $100 at the same time someone else is spending it. There’s more to it than that, but I’m running low on vodka and, last time I checked, you have the whole Internet. I mean, none of it is as funny as this place, but, you know, I have to leave room for other folks.

But that brings us to the Great Recession. The Fed™ and Congress wanted everyone to own a home, so they created massive amounts of money through the magic of low interest rates. Poof. Then everyone wanted to buy six or a dozen houses because they never go down in value. Then it collapsed.

The problem with a debt deflation as the loans collapse is that the cash supply collapses even faster than the Fed© can print it. That’s the Great Recession. So, the Fed™ tried to smooth things out by “dropping money from a helicopter” – which is a direct quote from the Fed© chairman. It worked. Sort of. When you do things like that, it distorts the economy in a big way. You bail out banks, but cause other people to fail. But those people aren’t congressmen, so, who cares, right?

Again, it worked. Sort of. The problems with Social Security and Medicare remain, and are getting bigger. We’re pretending that those things aren’t happening, just like I’m pretending that having Kamala within a heartbeat of the presidency is something that Jefferson, Adams, or Washington would be cool with.

Then, COVID. Solution? Print money. Now, we’re back to inflation. The solution is simple: raise interest rates to the point where they’re larger than Barron Trump. But we can’t! Back in the 1970s when we played this game the first time, we had functional manufacturing and the undisputed strongest economy in the world. It still almost wrecked the place.

We’ve run out of places to hide. Admittedly, this nonsense has gone on far longer than I expected it could already. We are living in a time and place where we’ll see more changes in a year than we normally see in a decade. Heck, we might see weeks in the near future where we see more economic changes in a week than in a decade.

I’ll admit, I do miss boring at this point. But, I still have you, vodka."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Lower Hutt, Wellington, New Zealand. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Most Beautiful Lies..."

"Memories and feelings of nostalgia are nothing more than cruelties; they are the most beautiful lies we will ever convince ourselves to believe. We chase the false hope so fiercely that we nearly push ourselves past the edges of our sanity, longing for that which can never be in our possession again. These edges are blurred by our regrets and desperation all throughout the darkest hours of the night, until finally we are set free from the illusions and the ghosts of our past with the rising of the sun... and we are changed in some small, yet permanent way."

- Margaret E. Rise