Monday, November 14, 2022

"Economic Market Snapshot 11/14/22"

"Economic Market Snapshot 11/14/22"
Market Data Center, Live Updates:
Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
Latest Market Analysis, Updated 11/14/22
A comprehensive, essential daily read.
Financial Stress Index

"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: creditequity valuationfunding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United Statesother advanced economies, and emerging markets."
Job cuts and much more.
Commentary, highly recommended:
"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
And now... The End Game...

Sunday, November 13, 2022

Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Sound of Invisible Waters"

Deuter, "Sound of Invisible Waters"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“While drifting through the cosmos, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud became sculpted by stellar winds and radiation to assume a recognizable shape. Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula, it is embedded in the vast and complex Orion Nebula (M42). A potentially rewarding but difficult object to view personally with a small telescope, the below gorgeously detailed image was taken in infrared light by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. 
The dark molecular cloud, roughly 1,500 light years distant, is cataloged as Barnard 33 and is seen above primarily because it is backlit by the nearby massive star Sigma Orionis. The Horsehead Nebula will slowly shift its apparent shape over the next few million years and will eventually be destroyed by the high energy starlight.”

"The Retirement Crisis Is About To Spark The Most Dramatic Shift In The Standard Of Living Ever Seen"

Full screen recommended.
"The Retirement Crisis Is About To Spark The Most 
Dramatic Shift In The Standard Of Living Ever Seen"
by Epic Economist

"Retirement today is very different from what it was just a few decades ago. Previous generations could actually count on a solid pension, healthcare benefits for themselves and their families, a much lower cost of living, and stronger purchasing power. Unfortunately, for the vast majority of Americans, that’s no longer the case. Employers are cutting back on retirement plans, individual healthcare costs are at the highest levels they’ve ever been, economists fear the return of hyperinflation, and the stock market just wiped out $3 trillion from U.S. retirement accounts. To make things worse, while the rate of Americans that are, or will be, able to retire in the future keeps going down, the rate of people that expect to work their entire lives is growing at an alarming pace.

The current economic downturn is preventing millions of Americans nearing retirement ages to save money for their future, with many of them having to tap into their retirement accounts to be able to make ends meet. Soon, our society will have an overabundance of people reaching their senior years without the ability to fully provide for themselves. Social Security benefits may not be around anymore, and all of these people won’t have a backup plan to count on, making them vulnerable to experiencing a dramatic decline in their living standards. This crisis is getting worse over time, and the latest stock market losses are here to show us that even if you play by the rules and do everything right, you are still at risk of losing everything and see your golden years being turned into your darkest years.

According to the Center for Disease Control, the average life expectancy at birth in 2020 was 77.3 years. Most of us would like to retire as early as possible. For example, if you’d like to retire at 62 years of age, you would need to have at least 15 years' worth of funding saved up. However, the latest data from the Center For Retirement Research at Boston College reveals that only 46% of Americans will have enough to maintain their planned standard of living when they retire, meaning that 54% of Americans don’t have enough savings to support themselves during retirement.

That’s why many people will have no choice but to continue working to survive. Today, 41% of those who do have a retirement, contribute to a 401(k) plan, which is the main channel through which most Americans are exposed to the ups and downs of the stock market. Nearly three-quarters of all 401(k) money is held in stocks, according to a Vanguard report from 2021.

We have seen what all of this exposure did to millions of retirement accounts in 2008. Over half of American families saw their net worth plummet along with the stock market. Many of these accounts were completely wiped out. Now, we’re witnessing a repeat of that same disaster. And the fact that more people aren’t talking about this is truly stunning. In the first half of 2020, the stock market selloff literally erased over $3 trillion from U.S. retirement accounts!

And now that the housing market is in free-fall, this crisis is set to get exponentially worse as homeowners watch the value of their properties - oftentimes, their main financial asset - taking a massive hit. Americans old and young will all be impacted by this. The future of our entire nation is on the line – and when things start crumbling down all around us, no will have doubts that the so-called “doomsayers” were actually right: we are indeed in the middle of an epic economic collapse."
Comments here:

"Frozen Bank Merger - Who is in Trouble?"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 11/13/22:
"Frozen Bank Merger - Who is in Trouble?"
"There is a bank merger that is in trouble. It is frozen by the regulators right now. The rumor is that it’s Union Bank and US Bank. Is one of them in dire straits?"
Comments here:

The Daily "Near You?"

Los Angeles, California, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"17 Words that Changed My Life Forever"

"17 Words that Changed My Life Forever"
by Jerry Clark

“I remember several years back I heard something that changed my life forever. Up until that point I had been struggling through life – doing everything the hard way. I couldn’t figure out why my life wasn’t going the way I felt it should be. I saw some people going through life effortlessly and seemingly with less tension and frustration while I was wondering if I could ever straighten out the mess my life had turned out to be. I was behind on my dreams, my promises, and my bills. Then one day I was listening to a tape and the lady was talking about the power of having dreams and goals and all of the other stuff that those motivational speakers talk about. By that point I had listened to hundreds of such tapes, but it seemed as if nothing worked for me.

Probably the only reason I was listening to that one was because I had developed a habit of listening to cassette tapes while driving my car. The statement the lady said was simple and I think I had even heard it somewhere before but this time a light bulb went on in my head. I remember stopping the tape and rewinding it over and over again to hear the 17 words she said. I couldn’t believe it was so basic and simple. I was looking for something sophisticated and complicated. I thought I had to attend a $10,000 seminar. I didn’t know I could find it on a $10 tape program.

I’m taking the time to tell you all of this preliminary information because when I tell you the 17 words, I really want you to get it and get it NOW! Because if you get it NOW, your life will never be the same. You will be using the same principle that all who have became wealthy before you have used. Even those who became wealthy and can’t tell you how they did use this same principle without even being aware of what they are doing. Well, are you ready for the 17 words that made a powerful and positive impact on my life and on the life of tens of thousands of individuals who have achieved unimaginable success? Of course you are… Well, here they are…
For things to change, you must get a
picture of what you want them to change to.

Yes, it’s as simple as it sounds and as easy as it seems… Don’t try to make it any complicated than this because it will only frustrate you.

You must know exactly what you want and the more specific and clear you can get, the better. This is important because Human Beings are Teleological in nature… In other words, we move towards the pictures we constantly hold in our minds. Let me give you an example… Suppose you went to the store and bought a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle but it didn’t have a picture on the box of what the end result should look like.

Would you have a much harder time putting the picture together? Of course. You may eventually figure it out; however, the person who has a clear picture of what the end result should look like will be more than 100 times ahead of you. The question is are they 100 times ahead of you because their IQ is 100 times greater? Is it because they are 100 times better looking than you? Maybe it’s because they live 100 times closer to the person who created the puzzle? Ohh, I know – they were one of the first students to take the Evelyn Woods mind-expanding speed-reading and comprehension course right? If none of this is true then what is?

Yes, the person who had the clear and specific picture of what the outcome was supposed to be was simply operating in accordance to how our brain works. It moves towards the pictures we hold in our mind. It’s interesting because once you know exactly what it is you are moving towards, you seem to automatically know the steps to take or the necessary steps will soon become noticeable.

Your brain's subconscious mind, operating similar to a magnet, will start to attract in your direction the conditions, people, and circumstances that will help you move closer to the mental picture you maintain in your mind and it will repel all of those things that do not correlate to the picture you have in your mind. Therefore, the people who are clear and specific about what they want are using the powers of the Universe to assist them. This is, indeed, an awesome power. A person who knows how and uses this awesome power of the Universe to his or her advantage is a person who is working smart. A person who struggles every day trying to move closer to the success that they have no idea how it’s supposed to look is a person who is working hard.

Based on your observations over the years, do you think that most people are working hard or working smart? People who just work hard day in and day out without a clear picture of what they are moving towards are about as exciting as a tulip. Even though they may seem to be willing to work hard and put in the hours, they don’t seem to have much life in them. And people want to follow people who seem to have some life in them. If they want to find people who don’t seem to have much life in them, all they have to do is go to their job. People will follow people who look like they know where they are going and look like they are excited about the journey.

You must understand that your strength comes from knowing what you want. This will ignite the fire inside of you and enable you to borrow from the promise of the future so you can engage in the activities today that will move you closer and closer to what you want. It will enable you to go through the trials and tribulations that may be necessary so you can arrive at your destination. But remember the journey will be more important than the destination because in the journey you will become the person you require to become to finally arrive at your destination. So when you reach your destination, look at the person you have become and set a new destination so you can continue to grow and develop.

Whatever you do, just always remember that for things to change, you must get a picture of what you want them to change to. These are the "17 Words that Changed My Life Forever"… why not allow them to change yours too?”

"This Is The Motive..."

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

"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

"Terrible Hunger In Russia Will Not Happen. Here Is The Core Reason Why"

Full screen recommended.
St.Petersburg - me, 11/13/22:
"Terrible Hunger In Russia Will Not Happen. 
Here Is The Core Reason Why"
"It's almost 9 months of sanctions against Russia. Many people are still hoping that soon terrible hunger breaks out in the country. Many bloggers are bragging with the abundance of produce in Russian stores. Maybe they don't understand the core reason why the shelves are full in stores. So today I'm going to explain it to you."
Comments here:

"Prepare For Massive Financial Losses, Layoffs"

Jeremiah Babe, 11/13/22:
"Prepare For Massive Financial Losses, Layoffs"
Comments here:

"Straight Calls - Ukraine Capitulation Is On The Horizon"

"Straight Calls - Ukraine Capitulation Is On The Horizon"
"Straight Calls with Douglas Macgregor: Your home for analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of current geopolitical events in the United states and the world. Geopolitics. No ego descriptions. No small talk. Straight to the point. Calls with the relevant analysis only. On the other side of the line is Aaron Maté and Katie Halper."
Comments here:

"How It Really Is"

 

"The Illusion of Choice"

The Penrose Triangle
"The Illusion of Choice"
by Joel Bowman

Buenos Aires, Argentina - "Welcome to another Sunday Session, dear reader, that time of the week when we stand back and take stock of the bigger picture... and remind ourselves just how infinitesimal our humble plot is within it.

It must have been a tough week for the true believers, the civic soldiers and the badge collectors, that is... individuals who believed the destiny of the United States of America, and perhaps even the fate of the Free World, hinged on their (or anyone’s) single vote. Spoiler alert: It doesn’t. (And what a good thing, too!)

Aside from the fact that the two parties are more alike than different, in that they cheerfully converge on matters of deficit spending...foreign policy misadventures, money printing, cronyism, central banking, panem et circenses...

Aside from the fact that both parties operate within the confines of a wholly corrupted system, a “swamp,” full of vile critters which answer not to the “will of the people,” whatever that is supposed to be, but to an unseen army of lobbyists, special interest groups and deep state goons lining their pockets and pressing their greasy palms...

Aside from the fact that both parties work to undermine the “legitimacy” of the very process in which they are participating, accusing the other side of all manner of fraud and chicanery, sowing seeds of doubt, then denying any results that don’t go their way...

Aside from the fact that the corporate-captured media plays to the extremes of both sides, fanning the flames at the thin tails to drum up ratings, when most decent folk just want to get on with their own backyard barbecues, little league games and family feuds...

And aside from the fact that the age of true statesmen, of noble leaders, of angels among men is long gone and largely mythological anyway...Homo Credulous still goes “all in” on elections that he can’t possibly (statistically, mathematically, demonstrably) have any discernible impact on.

Indeed, as we’ve observed in this space before, the very phrase “making the world safe for democracy” was, itself, a marketing slogan, specifically designed to drag America into a war (the “war to end all wars”) that nobody at home wanted and which would have been better left un-fought anyway. Nevertheless, “Democracy itself is on the ballot,” cry hysterical pundits on both sides of the aisle, as if majority rule boasts an unimpeachable historical track record. (If you are not already thinking of a half dozen tyrants who were duly elected to public office, think harder...). Germany held no fewer than five “free and fair” democratic elections in 1932...at the conclusion of which the Nazi Party was (by far) the strongest in the land, and thus was able to form a ruling coalition, supported by the majority of allegedly open-eyed voters. And this from a nation that had given us Gutenberg...Luther...Schopenhauer...Bach... Goethe...Beethoven...Nietzsche...Einstein...

Of course, the efficacy (not to mention accuracy) of one’s political actions dissipates in direct proportion to the distance one ventures from one’s own garden. Leo Tolstoy made the point in the second epilogue to his epic tome, "War & Peace." History, said he, was like a giant ship steaming across the open ocean. When we look back over her journey, at turns calm and tempest tossed, we imagine great leaders, fierce generals and noble statesmen – such as Napoleon, in his example – as having consciously chartered her course. In reality, the generals of the ages are not at the helm, but rather in the dingy, thrashed about in the tumultuous wake behind.

In our Age of Democracy, many good men have gone to an early grave vowing to “vote the bums out.” And yet, look around you...Are there less bums in the nation’s capitol now than there were during the days of Adams or Jefferson or Washington? Can it really be a matter of “voting harder” next time? Perhaps the more important distinction is not between Left vs. Right, Elephant vs. Donkey, Red vs. Blue...but Federal vs Local, Collective vs. Individual, Public vs. Private. More in today’s essay, below...
"The Illusion of Choice"
by Joel Bowman

"If you've got a business, you didn't build that. 
Somebody else made that happen."
~ U.S. President Barack Obama, 2012

"Whence does [the State] draw those resources that it is urged to dispense by way of benefits to individuals? Is it not from the individuals themselves? How, then, can these resources be increased by passing through the hands of a parasitic and voracious intermediary?"
~ Frédéric Bastiat, "The Law"

"Tell me, sir, "yes" or "no," have you stopped beating your wife?"

"Of the myriad rhetorical tools employed in public discourse today, there are dangerous few more insidious than the false dilemma. Little surprise then that, whenever the election circus rolls into towns across the country, this Weapon of Dialectic Destruction (WDD) finds itself a favorite of slick politicians working to curry favor with an increasingly ovine voter mass.

Simply put, the false dilemma is a sly trick of exclusion whereby a speaker (always generously) offers his or her audience the apparently favorable choice between two unfortunately poor options. "With which horn do you wish to be gored, sir?"

The recently Nobel-decorated Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke, furnished an infamous case study back in 2008, when he told a hastily convened meeting in the conference room of the House Speaker, the permanently startled Nancy Pelosi: "If we don't do this [enact TARP legislation], we might not have an economy on Monday."

News of the backroom political panic soon hit the streets. One could almost hear the trillions of excited neurons misfiring in earnest around vacant braincases from sea to shining sea... "Sure, creating a giant, taxpayer-sponsored slush fund from which Bernanke and his minions could (and would) dole out hundreds of billions of dollars to their bankster cronies is not exactly optimal... but not having an economy on Monday? Surely that's worse, right?"

But were these the only two options? Your money... or your economy? What about letting profligate institutions go broke? What about adhering to the market principle of Too Stupid to Succeed rather than capitulating to the State's self-serving version: Too Big to Fail?

Where might the economy be now, fourteen years on, if the weak hands had been eliminated from the market then, ceding what remaining value they had on the books to institutions that had exercised prudence and good judgment, while future bailout recipients busily indulged in excessive risk-taking and reckless profligacy? We'll never know, of course... because Bernanke, Paulson, Pelosi & Co.'s false dilemma scared enough people into thinking there was "no other option."

Classic False Dilemmas: Known variously as the either-or fallacy, the fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses or, more colloquially, plain ol' black and white thinking, the false dilemma is both deceptive and destructive. First, because it lures unsuspecting listeners into a misguided belief that their choices are limited to those offered by the speaker and, second, because it attacks the creative process by which new ideas "come to market" by slamming the door closed on alternative possibilities.

Take the above quote, from none other than President Barack Obama. Speaking to supporters in Roanoke, Virginia, back in 2012, Mr. Obama channeled the insufferable Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren in declaring that: "If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business - you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."

Implied here is the false notion that, without roads built by the State... there would be no roads. Without schools constructed by the State... there would be no education. Without the "unbelievable American system"... creative individuals wouldn't be allowed to thrive. In other words...

Choose the State or choose illiteracy. Choose the State or choose dirt tracks on which to haul your goods. Choose the State or nobody will help you... nobody will cooperate with you... and you will be alone, unable even to survive, much less thrive.

Textbook false dilemmas, each and every one of them.

Circular Logic: Nowhere here is a free-market alternative presented. And it's little wonder why. At the precise point the free market ends, the tyranny of the State begins. Nowhere do the two overlap. (Crony capitalism, corporatism, mixed market economies and the rest are NOT free markets.) Clearly, therefore, it is in the State's best interest to see that free market activity is marginalized as far as possible in order that the State itself might occupy ever more space in people's minds and, by extension, in the economies they are "allowed" to build.

So profoundly have certain false dilemmas bored their way into people's "thinking" that supposedly able-minded individuals have stricken the very possibility of free-market cooperation from their mental maps. Indeed, some confused people even contend that, were we to ignore the iron-fisted directives of the State, we would promptly descend into a Mad Max-style dystopia, in which a collection of unchecked territorial monopolies would roam the planet, stealing and damaging property at whim and torturing, imprisoning and killing whomever they so wished.

Strange then that these same people would "remedy" this apocalyptic nightmare by supporting the State... itself a collection of unchecked territorial monopolies that roam the planet, stealing and damaging property at whim and torturing, imprisoning and killing whomever they so wish.

These individuals are sorely misled... victims of the classic false dilemma. They are so misled, in fact, that they find themselves circling back to a position that sees them fervently supporting an entity that tirelessly labors to turn their worst fears into harsh reality. Worse still, they continue to mislead others by repeating such vapid nonsense.

Spontaneous Order: Unlike the State's obedient apologists, advocates of the free market don't pretend to know the best solution to each and every problem - something F.A. Hayek called the "pretense of knowledge." Rather, they humbly cede the discovery process to free individuals acting in their own self-interest.

When confronted with a problem deserved of our very best solution, it is helpful to first ask, "Is there a peaceful, market-based solution here? Might, for example, freely associating individuals work together to meet the obvious demand for schools, roads and bridges? Might free competition stand guard against coercive monopolies? Might the market process of creative destruction weed out inept and/or corrupt businesses, rather than reward them with stolen property?"

Like the election process itself, in which well-intentioned voters saddle themselves with the misguided obligation to choose the "lesser of two evils," the false dilemma lulls individuals into thinking there is no alternative, no preferable option, no choice that does not, at least to some degree, rely on compromising their values and morals. No choice that does not involve the hired gun of the State. No choice, in other words, that does not render them party to evil.

Surely we can think a little harder than that, dear reader, beyond the iniquities perpetrated by the political left and the right. Instead of a system based on violence and coercion, peaceful, cooperative individuals learn in time to welcome and celebrate a system such as here described by Hayek: "Spontaneous order is a system which has developed not through the central direction or patronage of one or a few individuals but through the unintended consequences of the decisions of myriad individuals each pursuing their own interests through voluntary exchange, cooperation and trial and error."

When it comes to false dilemmas, we need not slavishly impale ourselves on one of the State's two horns, but only to open our eyes to what is in our direct control. We advocate not fatalistic inaction, but rather private action. (Hint: It’s why we write for a private research publication and not a public policy platform.) We are invited by minds like Voltaire to tend our own garden and Goethe to sweep our own doorstep. Perhaps if we invested more time becoming better men ourselves, better fathers and husbands and neighbors, we would not depend so meekly on others to lead our better lives for us."

"Do You Want..."

 

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

"Stock Up Now At Costco! Massive Holiday Sale! Don't Miss This!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 11/13/22:
"Stock Up Now At Costco! 
Massive Holiday Sale! Don't Miss This!"
"In today's vlog we are at Costco, and are noticing that they are having a huge sale on holiday baking items this month! We are stocking up, and showing the best deals as we take you shopping with us. It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
Comments here:

Gregory Mannarino, "Markets, A Look Ahead"

Gregory Mannarino, 11/13/22:
"Markets, A Look Ahead: 
Expect The Global Money Supply To Balloon!"
Comments here:

Saturday, November 12, 2022

Douglas Macgregor, "Lies"

Douglas Macgregor, "Lies"

"Crypto To Take It All Down"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 11/12/22:
"Crypto To Take It All Down"
"The FTX exchange is going to affect banking like we never dreamed that it would. You start to see credit cards be frozen and you’re seeing that so many smart business people and athletes lost millions of dollars."
Comments here:

"I Would Rather Have..."

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

Musical Interlude: Peder B. Helland, "Dance of Life"

Full screen a must for this beautiful video!
Peder B. Helland,
"Dance of Life" 
Relaxing Fantasy Music for Relaxation & Meditation

"A Look to the Heavens, With Chet Raymo"

“Reaching For The Stars”
by Chet Raymo

“Here is a spectacular detail of the Eagle Nebula, a gassy star-forming region of the Milky Way Galaxy, about 7,000 light-years away. The Eagle lies in the equatorial constellation Serpens. If you went out tonight and looked at this part of the sky – more or less midway between Arcturus and Antares – you might see nothing at all. The brightest star in Serpens is of the third magnitude, perhaps invisible in an urban environment. No part of the Eagle Nebula is available to unaided human vision. How big is the nebula in the sky? Hold a pinhead at arm’s length and it would just about cover the spire. I like to think about things not mentioned in the APOD descriptions.
If the Sun were at the bottom of the spire, Alpha centauri, our nearest stellar neighbor, would be about halfway up the column. Sirius, the brightest star in Earth’s sky, would be near the top. Let’s say you sent out a spacecraft from the bottom of the spire that travelled at the speed of the two Voyager craft that are now traversing the outer reaches of the Solar System. It would take more than 200,000 years to reach the top of the spire.

The Hubble Space Telescope cost a lot of money to build, deploy, and operate. It has done a lot of good science. But perhaps the biggest return on the investment is to turn on ordinary folks like you and me to the scale and complexity of the universe. The human brain evolved, biologically and culturally, in a universe conceived on the human scale. We resided at its center. The stars were just up there on the dome of night. The Sun and Moon attended our desires. “All the world’s a stage,” wrote Shakespeare, and he meant it literally; the cosmos was designed by a benevolent creator as a stage for the human drama. All of that has gone by the board. Now we can travel in our imagination for 200,000 years along a spire of glowing, star-birthing gas that is only the tiniest fragment of a nebula that is only the tiniest fragment of a galaxy that is but one of hundreds of billions of galaxies we can potentially see with our telescopes.

Most of us still live psychologically in the universe of Dante and Shakespeare. The biggest intellectual challenge of our times is how to bring our brains up to speed. How to shake our imaginations out of the slumber of centuries. How to learn to live purposefully in a universe that is apparently indifferent to the human drama. How to stretch the human story to match the light-years.”

"A Gift..."

“The life you have left is a gift. Cherish it.
Enjoy it now, to the fullest. Do what matters, now.”
~ Leo Babauta

The Poet: Mary Oliver, "Coming Home"

"Coming Home"

"When we are driving in the dark,
on the long road to Provincetown,
when we are weary,
when the buildings and the scrub pines lose their familiar look,
I imagine us rising from the speeding car.
I imagine us seeing everything from another place -
the top of one of the pale dunes, or the deep and nameless
fields of the sea.
And what we see is a world that cannot cherish us,
but which we cherish.
And what we see is our life moving like that
along the dark edges of everything,
headlights sweeping the blackness,
believing in a thousand fragile and unprovable things.
Looking out for sorrow,
slowing down for happiness,
making all the right turns
right down to the thumping barriers to the sea,
the swirling waves,
the narrow streets, the houses,
the past, the future,
the doorway that belongs
to you and me."

- Mary Oliver

The Daily "Near You?"

Rock Port, Missouri, USA. Thanks or stopping by!

"The American Empire at Sunset"

"The American Empire at Sunset"
by Brian Maher

"The year is 1991… Contrary to Mr. Khrushchev’s boast decades prior, the United States had buried the Soviet Union. Its forces had just trounced the world’s fourth-largest army - Iraq’s - within weeks. America bestrode the world like a new colossus… and put all potential rivals in its shade. Its armies bossed the four corners of the globe. Its fleets commanded the Seven Seas. Declared India’s former Army Chief of Staff: “The lesson of Desert Storm is, don’t fight with the United States without a nuclear weapon.” It was the Pax Americana… the “end of history.”

American capitalism, American democracy represented civilization’s apex, its zenith, its perfection. Yet the gods are a jealous lot. They are hot to put down any mortal who has outgrown its britches. Hubris they will not abide...

The Worst Thing the Russians Ever Did To America: Perhaps Russian political scientist Georgi Arbatov divined their wicked intentions at the end of Soviet rule… As he sneered - with a sort of purring relish - “We are going to do the worst thing we can do to you.” Which was what precisely? “We are going to take your enemy away from you.”

We fear he was correct. A superpower needs an enemy as the policeman needs criminals… as the psychiatrist needs madmen… as the Church needs the devil. Absent an enemy it loses its direction. Its vigor. Its éllan vital. It flounders, adrift, aimless and rudderless. Between world wars, berserker Winston Churchill lamented "the bland skies of peace" that stretched above Earth. Those same bland skies of peace overhung Earth at the Cold War’s conclusion.

Now jump ahead 31 years… after heavy weather has rolled on through… after the gods have worked their mischievous will…

A Changed World: America has had another go at Iraq - to liberate it from its own ruler and introduce it to Thomas Jefferson. The result may represent its greatest foreign policy blunder yet - greater even than Vietnam.

And if Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires… the flags had come down to half-mast… and the pallbearers loaded America’s empire into the hearse. “You Americans have the watches,” said the Taliban. “But we have the time.” And they did - have the time.

Americans are a restless, fitful people. We are eternally on the jump, forever hunting the next opportunity, perpetually peeking over the next hill. That is, Americans are poor imperialists. We simply lack the requisite patience. We have the watches, yes. But not the time. The American founders studied their history… and knew the pitfalls of empire…

Destroying Monsters Abroad: America “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy,” said Adams (John Quincy). But the once modest American Republic took up the hunt at the end of the 20th century. It found its first monster in fiendish Spain… Americans remembered the Maine. And forgot their Adams. They have been forgetting their Adams ever since...

America has gone buccaneering around the globe, chasing down monsters during WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq (twice) and Afghanistan. For every one it scotched, another rose in its place. Hitler took over from the Kaiser. Stalin from Hitler. Osama bin Laden from Stalin. Perhaps Chairman Xi will take over from Osama bin Laden?
 
We do not know. But if not him, we hazard another monster will. There is always another. And another. What of American democracy and capitalism - the world’s envy three decades prior?

The Glory of American Democracy: The high glories of American democracy are presently displayed before a watching world… Americans are at each other’s throats, red-state America and blue-state America. American cities have been scenes of riot, of mayhem, of chaos. Statues of old heroes are down. The nation’s founding myths are called into contempt and ridicule. Millions and millions believe the elections was rigged and thieved, fraudulent and illegitimate.

Are they right? Are they wrong? We refuse to wade into the bog. We take no official stance. Yet if masses of American voters no longer trust the electoral process… what does it speak for American democracy?

Is this the alabaster city shining on the hill, glistening in the mists? Is this the model the world would mimic? Is this the cause American soldiers have killed and died for? As an American patriot in whose veins course the reddest blood, we hope it is not. Yet we begin to harbor grave doubts. China has ventured so far as to label American democracy a “joke.” But few appreciate the jest.

The Long, Withdrawing Roar of American Capitalism: Covid reduced American capitalism to a sad, sad caricature. But scroll the calendar backward, before the pandemic. The economy appeared healthy enough on the surface. But if you scratched the paint… and looked deeper… you would find: Gutted industries, stagnating growth, flat wages and a stock market that is captive of the central bank.

The entire system, meantime, is rotten through with unpayable debt — some $163.2 trillion and running. It is not sustainable.

When did the American economy go wrong? And why? Our own Charles Hugh Smith gives his answer: "In broad-brush, the post-World War II era ended around 1970. The legitimate prosperity of 1946-1970 was based on cheap oil controlled by the U.S. and the hegemony of the U.S. dollar. Everything else was merely decoration.

The Original Sin to hard-money advocates was America's abandonment of the gold standard in 1971, but this was the only way to maintain hegemony. Maintaining the reserve currency is tricky, as the nation issuing the reserve currency has to supply the global economy with enough of the currency to grease commerce and stock central bank reserves around the world.

As the global economy expanded, the only way the U.S. could send enough dollars overseas was to run trade deficits, which in a gold standard meant the gold reserves would go to zero as trading partners holding dollars would exchange the currency for gold.

So the choice was: give up the reserve currency and the hegemony of the U.S. dollar by jacking up the dollar's value so high that imports would collapse, or accept that hegemony was no longer compatible with the gold standard. It wasn't a difficult decision: who would give up global hegemony, and for what?

The elites have cannibalized the system so thoroughly that there's nothing left to steal, exploit or cannibalize. The hyper-centralized global money control has run out of rope as the cheap oil is gone, debts have ballooned to the point there is no way they'll ever be paid down, and the only thing staving off collapse is money-printing, which holds the seeds of its own demise."

Charles tells a woeful tale. Yet we believe there is good, hard sense in it. It is a competent autopsy.

“Empires have a logic of their own,” Bill Bonner and our intrepid leader Addison Wiggin wrote in "Empire of Debt", concluding: “That they will end in grief is a foregone conclusion.” It seems so. But if the American empire is ending in grief, we hope for a quiet grief, a whimpering grief - not a banging grief. Meantime, the gods watch the unfolding spectacle... munching popcorn… as the will of Zeus moves toward its ultimate end."

"I Wish..."

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
- J.R.R. Tolkien, "Lord of the Rings"

"Russian Typical Supermarket 9 Months After Sanctions"

Full screen recommended.
Travelling with Russell, 11/12/22:
"Russian Typical Supermarket 9 Months After Sanctions"
"Let's walk in a Russian TYPICAL Supermarket in Moscow, Russia to find out how 9 months of sanctions have affected this Russian Supermarket. How does it look, how have Sanctions affected the Food industry in Russia in 2022?" (A ruble is 0.016 United States Dollars.)
Comments here:
Full screen recommended.
Travelling with Russell, 11/12/22:
"Russian's Largest Perfume Supermarket 
After 9 Months of Sanctions"
"Take a walk in Russia's Best Perfume shop, "Gold Apple" How does the store look, which brands do they sell? Let's take a look at a Russia's largest perfume supermarket in Moscow City, Russia." (A ruble is 0.016 United States Dollars.)
Comments here:
For comparison, sadly:
Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 11/12/22:
"Strange Prices At Kroger! This Is Ridiculous!"
"In today's vlog we are at Kroger, and are noticing very strange prices! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and the empty shelves situation! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
Comments here:
Look at the buildings; look at the people, how they're dressed, how they seem emotionally, do they seem content compared to the people around you? Do they seem so very different from you? Look at the stores... and all this is typically normal. What are your thoughts? And how are things where you are, Good Citizen? Truth is truth whether you like it or not...

Canadian Prepper, "Something Isn't Right Here..."; "Russia Is Fighting A Land War In Asia"

Canadian Prepper, 11/12/22:
"Something Isn't Right Here..."
Comments here:
"Russia Is Fighting A Land War In Asia"
by Raúl Ilargi Meijer

"I was thinking all day about Kherson, and how the re-capture of the city is presented in our media. Thinking, also, about the 2,500 kilometer (1,500 miles, give or take) frontline. And of course if you focus troops and material at any single given point along a line of that size, you can make some advances. But does that mean anything, really? Other than PR? Dr. D. today adds the historic etc. perspective to this.

The adagium is: never fight a land war in Asia. Napoleon and Hitler found this out, along with many millions of their young men. But Russia IS Asia. Which means they have no choice but to fight there, and also that they have – deep-rooted – experience. Those 1,500 miles, meanwhile, are an indication of why Russia called up 300,000 reservists.

At the heart of it: you can take some land, but you can’t take our men, they have much more value: “Land is utterly worthless without the men, and Slavic men are precious and few.” Something Russia and Ukraine appear to view differently.

Dr. D.: "Out on a limb for Kherson. Anyone want to take up the issue that Ukraine will blow the dam if anyone gets in there? A human rights crime? They’ve been shelling it for weeks?

Okay, Russia moves across, with a huge plain in front and a river crossing in the back. They should just lazily do this? What’s the solution? General Armageddon said “he would make uncomfortable choices”. Withdrawing would seem to fit that bill. We’ve seen him non-stop, and perhaps even ham-fistedly attempt to feint the Ukrainians – actually, why bother? – Feint the Brits and Americans into attacking at points of his choosing, aka “A Trap”.

They have not jumped at them, but Kherson is the biggest wounded bird they’ve ever flapped. How can London ignore it? They MUST have it to make a mess of Crimea, but as it’s a Steppe on a river bridge, instead or Russia, London and the Poles would be in the artillery fire and dam floodplain. And this is a Russian defeat? At the same time, Putin isn’t taking a political hit for it, despite the wounded bird routine.

Wait: unless you BELIEVED what reporters, the news media said. They said it? Russian news, which is known to be the most Western infiltrated or influenced of any body in Russia? And you took what they said seriously? How’s this: “They said it, therefore it is a lie.” That better?

Russia is fighting A Land War in Asia. I don’t know how many times I have to say this. You do not use Kentucky rules, or Melbourne rules, who basically never fought a war. Russia has a tactic, had it for 1,000 years, and it always works so why change it? You trade men for territory. Because there is so much territory, the land is worthless. However, Slavs are few, and the front line is huge.

Over time, almost a year now, Russia instantly, constantly withdraws to cede territory in exchange for men. They lost so much doing this, they now own 1/4 of the country! Oh noes! Because with “A Land War in Asia”, there’s nothing out there. Just open plains. They only thing stopping any movement is 1) the other army 2) rivers. Once the army has no men, Russia can go wherever they like.

If Russia loses no men, because they trade land to save men, they can fight this for 500 years. Ukraine is doing the opposite: trading battalions to gain cow pasture. #Winning! Am I crazy here? What is the single Russian defense measure? That they have enormous territory between them and the idiots in the West who like attacking Russia and losing. That’s why they keep Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine in front of them, and exactly why NATO wanted to encroach all these countries and remove this safety. …While, as we just admitted, change to first-strike nuclear protocol.

Surely Russia would NEVER trade territory for men, always R E T R E A T before an advancing army? That would be LOSING, wouldn’t it?

History Lesson: Russia RETREATED East of MOSCOW for Napoleon. Napoleon had the entire empty city of Moscow for his leisure. It was sacked freely, Russia gave no defense. Yay Leon! Did they lose then? How was Napoleon doing? Do they speak French in St. Petersburg now? No. The combined Western army of Napoleon, the entire combined forces of Europe minus Britain CEASED TO EXIST. That settled anyone going to war for a while and they didn’t try anything so stupid with Moscow for 100 years after.

If you have a Land War in Asia, trade Men for Land. Land is utterly worthless without the men, and Slavic men are precious and few. Russia agrees and is behind Putin on this move. They can only DREAM that London will be so idiotic and suicidal as to move their army into Kherson, where Russia can shell them at will from far across the river. If I can shell them, but they can’t advance and stop me, is that losing? How, exactly?

What would I do, retreating, getting my hyperventilating 5th column Russian Press to lose their minds at home? Like this: Ukraine moves forward. They have success, the shelling is not so bad! Surovikin amasses forces out of range but can’t cross the river. Russia is losing! All expected. Then because of the maneuvers and feints of two big armies, Surovikin is able to ACTUALLY amass an army without Ukraine “noticing” – a thing he could not do right now. This army is amassed to the north, above the dams, perhaps by Zap, floods through, and not only can’t be stopped, it therefore cuts off the now-amassed London army from Kiev and their supplies out of Poland. Depending on the men tied up, they reach Odessa from the center of the country, not the south. Either quickly — or more likely, eventually.

For just one scenario. But you understand they can’t amass 300,000 Russians at Kherson without 1) Proving exactly what their plan is and 2) having the army be shot up more or less constantly as they attempt to trickle across the river…WHILE Ukraine definitely drops a dam on them. Was that your war plan and idea? Of what they should do, are required to do according to Anglos sitting safely 10,000 miles away? ‘Cause it sure ain’t mine. And apparently not General Surovikin’s either.

It’s just plain stupid. Russia is 10x Ukraine’s size. Spoiler alert: Russia wins. So should they be reckless, put half an army in harm’s way just because they’re annoyed, impatient and English bloggers tell them to? No. Get them the h– out of harm’s way, and keep on reducing home casualties, every day. If only our Anglo armies would do the same. But this is Biden’s Slavic genocide, after all. Why help London by killing your own Slavs?"

"How It Really Is"

 

Indeed they are, kid...

Friday, November 11, 2022

"Day Of Reckoning Is Knocking At Your Door; Getting Fired Tomorrow With No Plan; Shipping Crash"

Jeremiah Babe, 11/11/22:
"Day Of Reckoning Is Knocking At Your Door; 
Getting Fired Tomorrow With No Plan; Shipping Crash"
Comments here:

"The Soul of Liberty"

"The landing of Roger Williams in 1636" by Alonzo Chappel
"The Soul of Liberty"
by Addison Wiggin

“Human nature being what it is in the world is always going
 to face challenges, especially in preserving freedom.”
- Steve Forbes

"A short history lesson for a kindly Friday. In 1636 the English-born American theologian Roger Williams landed in what is now the state of Rhode Island. Having fled the Puritan-led Massachusetts colony, Roger Williams founded a city upon a hill and called it Providence. The new town’s mantra: Hope.

Simple, resounding, and looking to the future. Full of hope, Roger Williams created Providence on the grounds that: "No person within the said colony, at any time hereafter, shall be in any wise molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question, for any differences in opinion, in matter of religion, who do not actually disturb the civil peace of our said colony; but that all and every person and persons may, from time to time, and at all times hereafter, freely and fully have and enjoy his own and their own judgments and consciences, in matters of religious concernments, throughout the tract of land hereafter mentioned, they behaving themselves peaceably and quietly and not using this liberty to licentiousness and profaneness, nor to the civil injury or outward disturbance of others."

He called it “soul freedom.” At the time it was the largest liberty event in the New World, setting the standard in our blessed Thirteen Colonies for what civil liberties in America should look like – not to mention his fair treatment of the native peoples.

Almost a century later the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America echoed Williams’ declarations, reading: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

By now we have the First memorized… If you don’t, you ought to, for it is our God-given, Madison-written, Franklin-scrawled right!"

Canadian Prepper, "Nuclear Weapons Expert: Prepare Your Family Now!"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 11/11/22:
"Nuclear Weapons Expert: Prepare Your Family Now!"
"I interview a nuclear weapons expert about the current 
state of things, they offer a sobering analysis of the situation."
Comments here: