So, we rise from the rubble...
Thursday, December 1, 2022
"Marauding Bands Of Looters Are Stealing Billions Of Dollars Worth Of Merchandise As America Descends Into Lawlessness"
"Marauding Bands Of Looters Are Stealing Billions Of Dollars
Worth Of Merchandise As America Descends Into Lawlessness"
by Michael Snyder
"Three years ago, I bet that 99 percent of my readers had never heard of ORC. Of course by now almost everyone knows that ORC stands for “organized retail crime”, and it is prompting retailers to permanently shut down stores all over the nation. Right now, retail theft is happening from coast to coast on a scale that we have never seen in our entire history. Marauding bands of looters are barging into stores, grabbing as much merchandise as they can possibly carry, and then loading it into their vehicles. Online marketplaces make it easier than ever to turn stolen goods into cash, and at this point organized retail crime has become a multi-billion dollar business. As I have repeatedly warned my readers, America is descending into lawlessness. The thin veneer of civilization that we all depend upon on a daily basis is rapidly disappearing, and if we stay on this path our society will soon be completely unrecognizable.
Every year, organized retail crime gets even worse. According to Fox Business, the number of ORC incidents in 2021 was 26.5 percent higher than in 2020…"ORC incidents soared 26.5% on average in 2021, with 81.2% of retailers surveyed reporting “somewhat more” or “much more” ORC-associated aggression and violence year-over-year, according to the survey."
Of course things are even worse here in 2022, and this is particularly true in states where shoplifting laws are very soft. For example, in Portland some stores are often victimized “more than once a day”…"Some of the hot items are perfumes and expensive handbags. Often, stores are victimized daily and sometimes more than once a day. A local pastor whose window looks out on the local Nike store says he sees thieves running out of the store with their arms full of stolen stuff all the time. And the excellent KGW-TV story makes the point that this stolen stuff is not to feed hungry children. It is organized theft. The stuff gets sold online and in flea markets."
Needless to say, it is almost impossible to run a profitable business in such an environment, and many store owners are throwing in the towel. In recent days, one store owner in Portland made headline news all over the nation by posting a note that explained exactly why the store is being closed…"A Portland, Oregon, clothing shop permanently shut down this month after facing a string of break-ins that has left the store financially gutted, according to a note posted to the front of the store.
“Our city is in peril,” a printed note posted on Rains PDX store reads, according to KATU2. “Small businesses (and large) cannot sustain doing business, in our city’s current state. We have no protection, or recourse, against the criminal behavior that goes unpunished. Do not be fooled into thinking that insurance companies cover losses. We have sustained 15 break-ins … we have not received any financial reimbursement since the 3rd.”
Sadly, organized retail crime is not just plaguing cities on the west coast. This is truly a national phenomenon, and large retail chains are losing giant mountains of money because of it. In fact, Target recently caused quite a stir when it admitted that organized retail crime accounts for most of the 400 million dollars that it has lost from shoplifting over the past year…
"Shoplifting is such a big problem, that last week, when officials from Target were explaining why the company’s profit fell by 50% in the third quarter, they mentioned shoplifting as a contributing cause. Target Chief Growth Officer Christina Hennington said Target shoplifting has jumped about 50% year over year. Target estimates shoplifting has cost the retailer $400 million and most of that, Hennington said, has come from organized retail theft."
If things are already this bad, what will happen when economic conditions in this country really start deteriorating in 2023 and beyond? The more desperate people become, the worse organized retail crime will get. At this point, thievery has reached such epic proportions that some retailers are actually considering locking up all of their merchandise…"In September, on an earnings call with investors, Rite Aid’s executive vice president of retail, Andre Persaud, floated an idea to improve the chain’s performance in New York City: turn the drugstore into one giant vending machine in order to fight shoplifting. “We’re looking at literally putting everything behind showcases to ensure the products are there for customers to buy,” Persaud said."
Does that sound familiar? Many big-city pharmacy chains are halfway there, with plexiglass cases that have mushroomed over even low-priced household goods like shampoo and deodorant—to say nothing of laundry detergent, razor blades, and baby formula. It’s like shopping at a pharmacy 100 years ago, with a white-aproned clerk pushing around a ladder to grab your tinctures and tonics, except now it’s a minimum-wage cashier with a key ring. These days, you press a red button and a loudspeaker tells the store that you have a foot fungus. In July, a Manhattan Duane Reade made international news when it placed a can of Spam—Spam!—in a theft-deterrent plastic case.
If this trend catches on, the way that we shop could change forever. The days of just going in and quickly gathering what you need could soon be gone permanently. And it is all because our society is becoming completely and utterly lawless.
Earlier today, I was deeply saddened to read about a particularly horrific crime that happened in Philadelphia on the day after Thanksgiving…"A Philadelphia parking authority officer was shot in the head in broad daylight by a thug in the City of Brotherly Love last Friday. The suspect was caught on a surveillance camera walking up behind the 37-year-old male parking official and shooting him in the head at point-blank range at 3.50pm on the 4500 block Frankford Avenue the day after Thanksgiving. The officer, who was on duty at the time of the crime, is seen in video footage immediately collapsing onto the sidewalk before help arrives."
The fabric of our society is coming apart at the seams all around us, but most people don’t seem to care. Most people are just so self-obsessed that they can’t even see that our society is rotting and decaying at a truly frightening pace. A highly civilized society is extremely difficult to create, but it is very easy to lose. Unfortunately, most Americans are not going to realize this until it is far too late."
"Economic Market Snapshot 12/1/22"
"Economic Market Snapshot 12/1/22"
Market Data Center, Live Updates:
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Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
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Your guide:
Gregory Mannarino, AM 112/1/22:
"Alert! The MMRI Craters! 10 Year Yield Drops!
Dollar Falls! Very Important Updates!"
Comments here:
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A comprehensive, essential daily read.
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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: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
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Job cuts and much more.
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Commentary, highly recommended:
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"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
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Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
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And now... The End Game...
"Strange Prices At Kroger! This Is Crazy! What's Coming?"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 12/1/22:
"Strange Prices At Kroger! This Is Crazy! What's Coming?"
"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:
Wednesday, November 30, 2022
"The FED Supercharges Markets Today As Millions Wait For Relief Checks To Survive"
Jeremiah Babe, 11/30/22:
"The FED Supercharges Markets Today As
Millions Wait For Relief Checks To Survive"
Comments here:
"China’s People Go Absolutely Insane As Grocery Stores Run Out Of Food Right Now"
Full screen recommended.
"China’s People Go Absolutely Insane As
Grocery Stores Run Out Of Food Right Now"
by Epic Economist
"It is happening again. A massive panic buying wave is emptying supermarket shelves in China as fears of new lockdowns reignite. Local news outlets are reporting the worst outbreak since March 2020, which is prompting authorities to improvise isolation centers and reintroduce stay-at-home mandates and travel bans. Residents are getting increasingly fed up with the government’s zero-tolerance policy. They’ve been rushing to stockpile food and essential supplies in a repeat of scenes last seen during the peak of the pandemic. Many grocery stores have already run out of food by now. Meanwhile, farmers are seeing tons of fruits and vegetables rot because movement restrictions don’t allow them to deliver their produce to food distribution centers and stores. According to Bloomberg, growers are worried this will cause even worse food shortages in the coming months. The situation is being described as pure chaos. In a rare display of defiance, the Chinese people are taking their frustration with the draconian measures to the streets, and many of them seem to be reaching their breaking point
The capital of China is seeing the biggest spike in virus cases since 2020, and residents are afraid that prolonged lockdowns will start to be put in place again as Chinese authorities rush to build improvised quarantine centers and field hospitals in gymnasiums, exhibition centers, and other large, open indoor spaces. The locations have become known for overcrowding, poor sanitation, scarce food supplies, and lights that stay on for 24 hours.
Bloomberg reports that unusually large numbers of shoppers have been leaving supermarket shelves bare as they attempt to stockpile food and other everyday necessities before they’re locked in their compounds indefinitely. Several grocery delivery services have reached capacity given that hundreds of local grocery stores already ran out of food, Bloomberg noted. “Everyone is stocking up on food, so there’s definitely a jump-on-the-bandwagon kind of feeling,” one resident wrote on social media Weibo.
Even small convenience stores are seeing supplies being depleted at a stunning pace. “Normally it would be around 20 people in one store, but last night there were about 60-70,” a resident named Li wrote on the platform.The sudden spike in consumer demand combined with a worker shortage left some customers unable to place orders for food and supplies on popular online grocery services such as Alibaba's Freshippo and Meituan Maicai.
Online, some Chinese users revealed there were delivery workers whose compounds were locked down, worsening the worker shortage. In an interview with AFP News, delivery workers said they are exhausted, underpaid, and thoroughly fed up, State media have also reported that hundreds of food producers across China are struggling to send their harvest to processing plants and distribution centers because regional travel bans are preventing drivers to enter rural areas. Last week, one farmer in Shandong “had to bulldoze tens of thousands of kilograms of vegetables because no one could pick them up and transport them to market.”
Meanwhile, consumers are having to pay between 10% and 20% more for vegetables since the end of October. “Food is running out for many families. People have been either locked in their homes or sent to makeshift hospitals,” one Lhasa resident, who identified himself as Sam Wang, said. That’s a tragic situation for millions of Chinese residents, who are reaching their breaking point after almost four years of having their lives constantly disrupted. As more and more cases continue to be recorded, their problems are likely to aggravate in the weeks and months ahead."
"Banks Are Melting Down"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 11/30/22:
"Banks Are Melting Down"
"The jobs report came out, and things don’t look good. But, that’s just the beginning. Banks are upside down a trillion dollars. Banks are melting down."
Comments here:
"An Inconvenient Truth"
"An Inconvenient Truth"
by Brian Maher
Annapolis, Maryland - "‘Tis is a shame that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change doesn’t follow the science more closely…"At its recent climate confabulation it announced a: Breakthrough agreement to provide “loss and damage” funding for vulnerable countries hit hard by climate disasters. That is, a breakthrough agreement to fleece the United States taxpayer. It is he - and she - whose pocket the United Nations would pick. That is because the United Nations fingers the United States for such disasters, uniquely.
Yet if the United States must shoulder the blame for the world’s “climate disasters,” should it not accept credit for climactic improvements? Satellite data reveals that Arctic Ocean ice has increased mightily since 2018:
More CO2, More Ice: Yet let the record indicate: Carbon dioxide emissions increased measurably through 2018. For example: Our scientific brethren inform us that total global emissions equaled 35.5 billion metric tons in 2015. Total global emissions equaled 36.65 billion tons in 2018. Our scientific brethren further inform us that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations equaled 401 parts per million in 2015. In 2018? Nearly 409 parts per million. Yet Arctic ice went trampolining in 2018 — despite carbon dioxide’s relentless assaults. How can this be?
We ordered our men to ransack the available scientific literature. What did they discover? Here is the short answer: Nobody knows. Here is the long answer - and please pardon the abstruse scientific terminology: Nobody knows.
No More Ice! The Sky Is Falling! “Amateur scientist” Willis Eschenbach: "Since around 1990, people have been talking about how human-emitted CO2 is busily reducing the amount of Arctic sea ice. When it started dropping very fast around 2015, there was talk that we’d passed a “tipping point” from which the Arctic ice would never recover. And over this entire time, predictions of an “ice-free Arctic Ocean” abounded."
But then… around 2018, the Arctic sea ice rebounded. Why did it suddenly start dropping so fast post-2015? Nobody knows. Not one scientist on the planet can tell you. Why the quick turnaround and rebound starting in 2018? Nobody knows. Not one scientist on the planet can tell you. By his own admission, this fellow is not a credentialed authority within the environmental sciences. Yet our men’s ransackings of the scientific literature yielded identical conclusions: Nobody knows.
Maybe the Little Ones Are Responsible: Explanations include shifting wind currents and meteorological phenomena such as “El Nino” and “La Nina.” The English-translated “little boy” and “little girl” wield substantial influence over sea temperatures… so we are told. There is also the sun to consider - we are told it gives off a varying glow.
Meantime, we learn that over half of today’s Arctic glaciers and ice caps failed to exist 3,400–10,000 years ago - or were smaller in size. Yet carbon dioxide concentrations were far less than today’s 410 parts per million. We are informed they hovered between 260–270 parts per million. Yet today’s Arctic ice holds a deeper grip than it did thousands of years past… when carbon dioxide concentrations were nothing against today’s (a nice point to put somewhere). Your editor concedes he commands a rudimentary knowledge of the environmental sciences. Yet he is greater swayed by the natural theory than the carbon dioxide theory.
Carbon Dioxide’s Limited Footprint: Our minions have investigated the literature on carbon dioxide. From them we learn: Carbon dioxide represents a vanishing 0.04% part of Earth’s atmosphere. Imagine - if you will - this atmosphere as 100 cases of one-liter bottles. That is, imagine this atmosphere as 2,400 one-liter bottles. Of those 100 cases, 99 are not greenhouse gasses whatsoever. They are therefore irrelevant to our inquiry. A mere one case of the 100 represents greenhouse gasses. Of the one case that represents greenhouse gasses, merely one bottle of the 24 represents carbon dioxide.
One Shot Glass! Of the one bottle that represents this demon molecule, perhaps 50 milliliters represent mankind’s annual contribution - roughly one shot glass. And so… of our theoretical atmosphere of 2,400 liters, humans contribute perhaps one shot glass of carbon dioxide per year.
Alternately: Analogize the atmosphere to a 100-story building. The human CO2 concentration rises to the linoleum on the ground floor - no higher. Yet the United Nations informs us that this relative trifle is scorching the planet. We request authenticated documentation - chapter, verse, line, letter. Please include the footnotes.
We’re Still Waiting: As we have conceded in the past: It is fully plausible that fuel burning has tinkered Earth’s temperature. But a tinker is not a manipulation. And again we concede the science is… complex. Moreover, that it is beyond our slender comprehension. Yet if Earth’s climate was so exquisitely sensitive to minor carbon dioxide rises… why didn’t it erupt long ago?
Our men inform us this planet has previously endured CO2 levels 25 times or greater than today’s. Yet the match never struck. The catastrophists warn us nonetheless that we will roast if emissions continue - and that they have models in proof of it.
Garbage In, Garbage Out: Yet do these models give true readings? They do not. From a 2020 report by the American Geophysical Union: "The tendency of climate models to overstate warming in the tropical troposphere has long been noted… We focus on the 1979–2014 interval, the maximum span for which all observational products are available…. all 38 models overpredict warming in every target observational analog, in most cases significantly so, and the average differences between models and observations are statistically significant."
All 38 models! Can you believe it? Further razzing comes by way of geophysicist Mr. Allan MacRae: "By the end of 2020, the climate doomsters were proved wrong in their scary climate predictions 48 times. At 50-50 odds for each prediction, that is like flipping a coin 48 times and losing every time! The probability of that being mere random stupidity is one in 281 trillion!…"
The global warming alarmists have a perfect NEGATIVE predictive track record - they have been 100% wrong about every scary climate prediction - so nobody should continue to believe them.
When the UN Will Admit It Might Be Wrong: Even the catastrophists themselves are beginning to cough behind their hands, disappointedly. They concede they were yelling wolf. Science magazine: "The climate models that help them project the future have grown a little too alarmist. Many of the world’s leading models are now projecting warming rates that most scientists, including the modelmakers themselves, believe are implausibly fast."
The United Nations nonetheless fingers the United States for the “climate disasters” that besiege the world. Yet if the United States wields such vast influence over the world’s climate… Should the UN not then credit the United States for the expanding Arctic ice? Here is precisely when you can expect it: When the United States taxpayer is fully fleeced… or when hell freezes over… Whichever comes first."
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Over 400,000 light years across NGC 6872 is an enormous spiral galaxy, at least 4 times the size of our own very large Milky Way. About 200 million light-years distant, toward the southern constellation Pavo, the Peacock, the remarkable galaxy’s stretched out shape is due to its ongoing gravitational interaction, likely leading to an eventual merger, with the nearby smaller galaxy IC 4970. IC 4970 is seen just below and right of the giant galaxy’s core in this cosmic color portrait from the 8 meter Gemini South telescope in Chile.
The idea to image this titanic galaxy collision comes from a winning contest essay submitted last year to the Gemini Observatory by the Sydney Girls High School Astronomy Club. In addition to inspirational aspects and aesthetics, club members argued that a color image would be more than just a pretty picture. In their winning essay they noted that “If enough color data is obtained in the image it may reveal easily accessible information about the different populations of stars, star formation, relative rate of star formation due to the interaction, and the extent of dust and gas present in these galaxies.”
"What Foolish Forgetfulness..."
“You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, so all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last. You have all the fears of mortals and all the desires of immortals… What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to defer wise resolutions to the fiftieth or sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point to which few have attained.”
- Denis Diderot
The Poet: William Stafford, ”Today”
”Today”
“The ordinary miracles begin. Somewhere
a signal arrives: “Now,” and the rays
come down. A tomorrow has come. Open
your hands, lift them: morning rings
all the doorbells; porches are cells for prayer.
Religion has touched your throat. Not the same now,
you could close your eyes and go on full of light.
And it is already begun, the chord
that will shiver glass, the song full of time
bending above us. Outside, a sign:
a bird intervenes; the wings tell the air,
“Be warm.” No one is out there, but a giant
has passed through town, widening streets, touching
the ground, shouldering away the stars.”
- William Stafford
Chet Raymo, "As Time Goes By"
"As Time Goes By"
by Chet Raymo
"Is time something that is defined by the ticking of a cosmic clock, God's wristwatch say? Time doesn't exist except for the current tick. The past is irretrievably gone. The future does not yet exist. Consciousness is awareness of a moment. Or is time a dimension like space? We move through time as we move through space. The past is still there; we're just not there anymore. The future exists; we'll get there. We experience time as we experience space, say, by looking out the window of a moving train. Or is time…
Physicists and philosophers have been debating these questions since the pre-Socratics. Plato. Newton. Einstein. Most recently, Lee Smolin. Without resolution. What makes the question so difficult, it seems to me, is that time is inextricably tied up with consciousness. We won't understand time until we understand consciousness, and vice versa. So far, consciousness is a mystery, in spite of books with titles like "Consciousness Explained". Will consciousness be explained? Can consciousness be explained? If so, will it require a conceptual breakthrough of revolutionary proportions? Or is the Darwinian/material paradigm enough? Are we in for an insight, or for a surprise?
As I sit here at my desk under the hill, looking out at a vast panorama of earth, sea and sky, filled, it would seem, infinitely full of detail, so full that my awareness can only skim the surface, I have that uneasy sense that it's going to be damnably difficult to extract consciousness, as a thing, from the universe in its totality. I think of that word "entanglement," from quantum theory, and I wonder to what extent consciousness is entangled, perhaps even with past and future.
Who knows? Perhaps consciousness, or what I think of as my consciousness, is just a slice of cosmic consciousness, in the same way that the present is a slice of cosmic time. As a good Ockhamist, I am loathe to needlessly multiply hypotheses. But time will tell. Or consciousness will tell. Or something.”
"The Very Idea..."
"In the last few years, the very idea of telling the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth is dredged up only as a final resort when the
alternative options of deception, threat and bribery have all been exhausted."
- Michael Musto
Judge Napolitano, "Scott Ritter - Ukraine-Russia War Update"
Full screen recommended.
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 11/30/22
"Scott Ritter - Ukraine-Russia War Update"
"Plato's Cave"
Full screen recommended.
"Plato's Cave"
by Phil Williams
Orson Welles’s psychedelic 1973 adaptation of Plato’s timeless allegory of the cave and Kafka’s “Before the Law,” two parables of the human condition.
"It is the task of the enlightened not only to ascend to learning and to see the good but to be willing to descend again to those prisoners and to share their troubles and their honors, whether they are worth having or not. And this they must do, even with the prospect of death."
– Plato’s "Republic", Book 7
"Plato’s allegory of the cave thought-experiment ponders the experience of prisoners shackled in a cave from birth, only able to see the shadows of objects projected onto a wall. The text then traces the journey of a prisoner who is set free from the cave, given the opportunity to experience reality in the glow of the Sun and, upon returning to the cave, is met with laughter by the other prisoners, who think him a fool for struggling to readjust to his old existence. A simple story yielding complex commentaries on the nature of reality and wisdom, Plato’s timeless allegory is built into the foundations of modern philosophy and, more than two millennia later, still stirs debate. Carried by a rich narration from Orson Welles, this rarely seen 1973 animated adaptation of Plato’s words populates the tale with haunting human figures, bringing retro-surreal life to the parable."
Comments here:
"Not Knowing..."
“Not knowing you can’t do something
is sometimes all it takes to do it.”
- Ally Carter
Greg Hunter, "War Cycle Heats Up & Markets Tank in 2023"
"War Cycle Heats Up & Markets Tank in 2023"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"Renowned geopolitical and financial cycle expert Charles Nenner said, back in September, the markets would sink and then go back up. Both calls happened right on time. What does Nenner see now? Nenner says, “Two days ago, we started to take profits again. So, we are not that bullish. The public we have now do not understand bear markets. They don’t understand that we can have rallies of 15% to 20%, and then it can go down again. So, we took profit and we are mostly in cash again. We are long in the bond market for a change because it looks like inflation is going to moderate for a little bit. We are waiting for the gold cycles to bottom, and we are getting very close, but the bull market in gold will come, but it’s still going to take a few more weeks.”
So, are interest rates on the way down? Nenner says, “Yes, but for very short term. You might remember our interest rate cycles bottomed, and the cycle is up for the next 30 years. I expect interest rates to go back to where they were in the early 1980’s. Longer term interest rates are going much higher. Right now, we have a bounce because commodities are weaker, and I think they will be weak until around February. This is probably why the Fed is not going to talk as aggressive as they were talking. This is still temporary and interest rates are still going to go much higher in the future.”
Nenner also says, “Mortgage interest rates will go to the 8% to 9% range in 2023. . . .and the stock market will go down by about 50%.”
Nenner says look for inflation to moderate for the next few months but look out in 2023. Nenner predicts, “Beware because once inflation raises its head, it is very difficult to get it back into the box. We could go down to 6% or 6.5% inflation, but also the inflation cycle just started, and we are going to see much higher inflation.”
On the war cycle, Nenner has been predicting this “war cycle will really heat up in 2023.” He’s convinced all the signs say he’s going to be right. Nenner says, “I don’t think the inflation has anything to do with the war in Ukraine, but I think in the middle of next year, we have war cycles bottoming. I think we are in for a really big mess because it doesn’t seem like anybody is ruling any country anymore, even China. This may be the reason why gold and silver are going to take off. If there are shortages, then the inflation will go through the roof.” There is much more in the 36 min. interview.
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One
with renowned cycle analyst and financial expert Charles Nenner:
"700,000 Russian Troops Are Now Devouring Ukraine"
"700,000 Russian Troops Are Now Devouring Ukraine"
Straight Calls with Douglas Macgregor, 11/30/22
"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.
Comments here:
"Banks Are Underwater By Over One Trillion Dollars, You Will Bail Them Out"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 11/30/22:
"Banks Are Underwater By Over One Trillion Dollars,
You Will Bail Them Out"
Comments here:
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Related:
"Shopping At Target! Very Strange Prices! What's Coming!?"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 11/30/22
"Shopping At Target! Very Strange Prices! What's Coming!?"
"In today's vlog we are at Target 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:
"Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’, or, Don’t Spit in the Well"
"Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’, or, Don’t Spit in the Well"
By Batiushka
"The Ukrainian people will be liberated from their Neo-Nazi rulers, they deserve to live as friends and good neighbors and prosper alongside their Slav brothers."
"Introduction: There is such a thing as retribution. This is what it says directly in the verse, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord’ (Rom. 12: 19) and what lies behind the New Testament, ‘Do as you would be done by’. However, other cultures have other words for retribution, ‘karma’ for example in India. Then there is the proverb, similar in several languages, which in English appears as: ‘Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind’. (See Galatians 6: 7). Then there is another saying which is also pretty universal. The Maltese form says: ‘Don’t spit in the air’ – there is no need to quote the second half – you can imagine the spit falling back onto the spitter.
In Russian we have the same proverb, only that is to do with spitting in the well – since you might yourself need to drink the water. Others quote: ‘What goes around, comes around’. Australians and others speak about ‘the boomerang effect’ and Americans speak of ‘blowback’ and ‘payback’. The fact is that there is a universal spiritual law, the law of cause and effect, that when you do something good, there are always good consequences, and when you do something bad, there are always bad consequences. Sooner or later. Anyone who has lived a little can confirm it from experience. Basically, you simply cannot get away with it. And this is what is happening to the Western world today. It’s payback time.
The Perfect Storm: I mention consequences because the history books of the future will be asking the question: ‘Where did the perfect storm in the Western world in 2022 come from’? One thing for sure, it did not come out of the blue. Any number of dates will be put forward as the origin, as far back as 1492 and even further back, for instance, the First Crusade in 1096. From more recent dates we could suggest:
1917, when after nearly three years the US elite entered the first part of the Europeans’ twentieth-century Civil War, having forced Russia out of it through violent regime change. To this day these utterly corrupt Western propagandists justify this cunning strategy by declaring that the Tsar’s government was utterly corrupt (sic!) and going to collapse anyway (sic!) and all were well rid of it (sic!). Some people actually believe that propaganda. They should investigate it objectively, instead of naively swallowing the West’s self-justification for creating the conditions for its genocide.
1944, when US forces invaded and occupied Continental Europe, making it into the first US-occupied Eurasian peninsula, just as they later did with other Eurasian peninsulas, (South) Korea, and (South) Vietnam, in the latter of which they were defeated.
1991, when the USSR collapsed and was (briefly) colonised by the US, leaving chaos and poverty with Chicago-style gangsters everywhere and millions dying of despair and drinking themselves to death.
2014, when the US took over the Ukraine in a violent regime-change coup.
2021, when the US was humiliated in Afghanistan.
2022, when the US clearly began to lose against Russia’s war of liberation of the Ukraine, its equipment and its relations with Western Europe in ruins.
We will leave other dates and the details of the debate to the history books of the future. But the debate will be there, you’ll see. However, beyond the detail that we can leave to the disputes of the academics, the main question that future generations will be asking is: ‘However did the Western world think it could get away with it?’ Where did its delusion come from? These are the questions I will be trying to answer below.
Losing the War in the Ukraine: The US lost the war in the Ukraine the day it began. Russia had been preparing for it for eight years. Ever since, the US and its vassals have just been prolonging the agony by financing a Nazi regime, supplying it with arms, training its troops and sending it paid-for mercenaries. Pessimists see the agony now dragging on for years and years, whereas optimists think it will be much shorter, just a couple of months more. I would like to think the optimists are right, but I actually go along with a more pessimistic ‘another eighteen months’. I hope I am wrong. Every day is a day too long. The fact is the US elite will have to put a lot of effort into face-saving. They hate losing, even though they lost in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria etc.
Backing down from the confrontations they began and chaos they caused is not something they like doing. But when the last US helicopters take off from the roofs of the US embassies in Kiev and Lvov, we shall see. Last Friday an electrician near Kiev said to my friends there: ‘This war is horrible. And it’s only going to get worse. There’s only one solution. We’ll line up all the politicians from the Rada (Parliament) and shoot them. Then peace will come immediately’. I am told from Kiev that there are more and more Ukrainians saying the same thing: there must be a popular revolt to stop it all. Get ready for it there and, at the rate things are going, get ready for the same thing in Western countries as well.
Losing the EU: In the longer term, however, there is the much more serious problem for the US of losing Europe. The national slogan of the Ukraine since 2014 has been: ‘The Ukraine is Europe’. This is of course nonsense. Geographically, the Ukraine, like the Russia where most Russians live, is obviously Europe. Indeed, most European territory is inside Russia. Of course, what the Kiev regime means is that the Ukraine belongs to Western Europe, the EU, only it does not say that. This is because it obviously does not belong there, apart from the small region of Galicia which is now in the far west of the present borders of the Ukraine, formerly Poland, formerly the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 2014 the EU actually dismissed the Kiev fantasy, telling it that Ukrainian membership of the EU might be considered in 25 years’ from then.
The nonsense about ‘the Ukraine is Europe’ reminds me of a visit to Moldova five years ago. All official buildings flew the EU flag and that was in a country that is not part of the EU and never will be. In other words, ‘The Ukraine is Europe’ is a political daydream, a fantasy. Today, as a result of US incompetence and its lickspittle poodle UK enthusiastically blowing up the Nordstream pipeline, as though that were a present to Germany, we can see that although the Ukraine is not Europe, Europe is fast becoming the Ukraine. In other words, Europe is being corrupted by US political intrigues, being sucked into the same black hole as the Ukraine, without finance, heating, lighting and sewerage. In the words of that old Eastern European joke: ‘Which are the two most corrupt countries in the world? Lithuania is first and the Ukraine is second. But only because the Ukraine bribed Lithuania to take first place, so that it could be second’. Well, today the whole of Europe is being Ukrainianised. Well done, US/UK/EU elite!
Losing the World: Beyond Western Europe, the US elite is also losing the rest of the world. At one time, the US was No 1. Today it is China. At one time Europe was the most populated area in the world. Today over one third of the world’s population is in China and India. At one time the G7 was respected. Today it is a ghetto, representing only a small and increasingly irrelevant part of the world. At one time the G20 represented twenty countries which were pro-Western or at least Western-controlled. Today, definitely not. The G-20 is being taken over by BRICS +.
At one time the dollar was the world’s reserve currency. Today the world is being dedollarized, as countries sell dollars and US treasury bonds and trade in their own countries. After all, who wants to invest in a deindustrialised country which may illegally confiscate (= steal) your assets, gold reserves included, whose currency is not underpinned by gold, but only by printing presses, and whose national debt totals 31 trillion dollars, nearly all of which has been accumulated in the last forty years?
Conclusion: After 500 years of bullying the rest of the world, with the genocides of the native peoples of the Americas and Australia (100 million dead?), the manipulations of imperialism, colonialism, slavery, the Opium Wars, the salt hedge in India, the massacres in the Belgian Congo and in German South-West Africa, the bloodiest Western War in history which it called two World Wars (70 million dead), exporting Marxism outside Western Europe (millions dead), the carpet bombing of Korea, the French massacres in Algeria, the US genocide in Vietnam, uranium-tipped shells in Iraq and Yugoslavia, the pillaging of Eastern Europe and Russia under Western-appointed puppet governments, the war you started in the Ukraine and the mass of arms you are supplying Ukronazis with. However did you think you could get away with it? Where did your delusion come from? Because you came to believe in your own lies. You are delusional.
I do not fear the civil authorities in Western Europe and their death-threats. I fear only the traitors to Russia, who in fact are CIA assets. I fear today’s traitors, who want to make money from this war or have endless zoom meetings with their American masters and let people be massacred by the Gestapo Nazis from Kiev, trained by the CIA and MI6. True, there are fewer of those traitors than there were. Now I will tell you too: You will not get away with it. There are forces at work which are far greater than any of you. ‘The Ukrainian people will be liberated from their Neo-Nazi rulers’. Yes, they will be liberated, just as the German people were liberated from their Nazi rulers, but at such a price. I tremble for you traitors, because your end is coming too. For everything you have done, you will have to repay. Did you really think you could get away with it and that payback time would never come? You spat in the well? Now you will have to drink from it."
○
Robert Palmer, "You're Gonna Get What's Coming"
"They Are Going To Turn You In"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 11/29/22:
"They Are Going To Turn You In"
"There’s so much of a talk about a recession. The real question is not yes, but when we’re going to see Major banking problems as the banks get more desperate. They are going to turn you in."
Comments here:
"These Are Scary Times, Take Action; Economy In Biggest Bubble In History"
Jeremiah Babe, 11/29/22:
"These Are Scary Times, Take Action;
Economy In Biggest Bubble In History"
Comments here:
Tuesday, November 29, 2022
"Breaking News: 5 Million Soldiers To Be Mobilized"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper 11/29/22:
"Breaking News: 5 Million Soldiers To Be Mobilized"
"Russia may be actually mobilizing MILLIONS for war according to intelligence agencies. China's cases are about to explode... Things are spiraling out or control."
Comments here:
"Target Reports Major Losses As Retail Industry Headed For A Dark Winter"
Full screen recommended.
"Target Reports Major Losses As Retail
Industry Headed For A Dark Winter"
by Epic Economist
"Target’s supply chain problems should be a major red flag for all U.S. retailers. The company’s latest warning about profits for the final quarter of 2022 is triggering major repercussions across the entire sector and prompting shares of several popular retailers to crash as investors fear that a flood of disappointing results is coming even as we enter the busiest shopping season of the year. At this point, most consumers are overwhelmed by higher prices in all spending categories, and they’ve been changing the way they shop to adjust to a reality of lower buying power as inflation continues to squeeze the budgets of many. But that shift has sparked a ripple effect that is severely hurting retailers’ bottom lines, and a weaker-than-expected Black Friday is adding to their financial setbacks. The shock has been so extreme that now the retail titan is in big trouble, and that’s after it had already faced a 90% profit loss in the second quarter. The outlook for Target is disturbingly gloomy, and given that many of its industry peers are facing a similar situation, soon we might see an avalanche of collapsing retailers as the U.S. economy breaks down all around us.
Target’s lopsided supply chains and its continuous logistics imbalances have resulted in what retail experts have called “the worst train-wreck profit outlook of the year”. Since the pandemic broke out, the retailer has been facing a series of problems with its inventory levels. Shoppers were not interested in the items they had on their shelves, and inventory wasn’t moving at all. It didn’t help that their total inventory volume had increased by over 40%. By mid-spring, it was imperative for the company to get rid of these products to be able to empty its warehouses and bring in products consumers actually wanted to buy. Their only alternative was to slash prices on all of these goods and take on a profit hit of 90%.
When you’re one of America’s biggest retailers, seeing your inventory lose 90% of its value is undoubtedly dangerous for your business. At that time, many retailers, including Amazon, Home Depot, Costco, Walgreens, Best Buy, and Dollar General were in a disturbingly similar situation. However, right now, the outlook has gone from ugly to downright horrifying as Target reports another blow on its earnings for the third quarter and issues a dire warning for profits in the fourth and final quarter of 2022. Reporting a 52% profit loss in Q3, the retailer is still holding an excessive amount of inventory even after offering deep discounts and at a time the whole sector is facing a slowdown in consumer spending. Altogether, Target has faced a 193% profit loss so far this year.
In face of these mind-blowing numbers, there’s no wonder why Wall Street analysts and many other retail companies are sitting on the edge of their seats this holiday season. Target’s bleak prediction for the weeks ahead also took down other major retailers' stock values. Macy's lost 8.1%, Best Buy dropped 8.6%, and Advance Auto Parts fell 15.1%. Investors are afraid that a flood of collapsing earnings will mark this year’s holiday shopping season.
If their forecasts come to fruition, that will be the worst holiday shopping season since the global financial crisis. With thousands of retailers around the U.S. struggling financially, a bleak holiday season is likely to accelerate their demise. We may be headed to a new year of mass retail layoffs, store closures, and bankruptcies. The numbers do not look good. The feeling of dread seems to be spreading across every sector. A major shift has begun. And it looks like it’s all downhill from here."
"A Look to the Heavens"
“This pretty, open cluster of stars, M34, is about the size of the Full Moon on the sky. Easy to appreciate in small telescopes, it lies some 1,800 light-years away in the constellation Perseus. At that distance, M34 physically spans about 15 light-years. Formed at the same time from the same cloud of dust and gas, all the stars of M34 are about 200 million years young.
But like any open star cluster orbiting in the plane of our galaxy, M34 will eventually disperse as it experiences gravitational tides and encounters with the Milky Way's interstellar clouds and other stars. Over four billion years ago, our own Sun was likely formed in a similar open star cluster.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100211.html
"Know What's Weird?"
"Know what's weird? Day by day, nothing seems to change,
but pretty soon... everything's different."
- Calvin, from "Calvin and Hobbes"
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