Jim Kunstler, "The Alarm Bells Go Off"

"The Alarm Bells Go Off"

by Jim Kunstler

"Startling fact of the week: Twitter’s senior ranks of content moderators included over a dozen former FBI and CIA agents and analysts who let child porn run loose all over the app while surgically removing any utterance contradicting the government’s claim that mRNA “vaccines” are “safe and effective” - not to mention the effort this elite crew expended against anyone objecting to the Woke-Left’s race and gender hustles. Wouldn’t you like to know how much they were paid? Probably more than government work.

Here’s another awful reality (better fasten your seatbelts): What also emerged in the tweet record of Yoel Roth, the company’s chief censor (former “Head of Trust and Safety”), begins to look like a gay mafia assault on the collective American psyche. Having gained official federal government sanction and protection, a statistically tiny homosexual demographic left in charge of the country’s main public forum has been out for revenge against their perceived enemy, political conservatives - Americans disinclined to join the cheerleading for drag queen story hours, “minor-attracted persons,” transsexuals in the military, and other LBGTQ cultural pranks.

In the process, that gay mafia running the public dialogue supported every lie that the government, its protector, put out, to keep it happy and well-fed. Shocking, I’m sure… but there it is. That means they also promoted the most-deadly psy-op in world history: the Covid-19 scare and the mass “vaccination” crusade that will end up killing many millions world-wide, after destroying the economies of the Western Civ nations. The whole package looks like an attempt to turn the world upside down and inside out. Is it any wonder that so many feel the USA has gone crazy?

Of course, that aroused the widespread suspicion that these now-exposed nefarious operators in social media were merely tools for some murky plutocrat elite led by the likes of the WEF, Bill Gates, and George Soros. Could that be the greatest “conspiracy theory’ of all? More likely, I hesitate to suggest, all these characters in one way or another are merely tools of history itself, as the world enters the darkest days of a Fourth Turning secular winter. As TS Eliot observed: “Humankind cannot bear too much reality.”

Thus, so many sense we live in dangerous times. Everything appears to veer out-of-control, including thought itself. Disorder incites more disorder. While all this madness is going on in-country, the US government, led by the phantom president “Joe Biden,” continues to prosecute its insane proxy war in Ukraine in order to antagonize Russia. Lately the US has sent drones hundreds of miles inside Russia to blow up military airfields. How is that not an escalation of hostilities, and exactly how far do the American people want their government to take this crazy project?

Not a goshdarn inch further, the opinion polls indicate. We are apparently not quite so insane as to welcome nuclear annihilation, and we seem to recognize what might bring it on. And so, the dreadful realities of time still stand before us, unmoved by all the mental illness they provoke, uninterested in our excuses for behaving so badly. Is there any way to face them? To incorporate them into a truth-based narrative that Western Civ can use to rescue itself from something that looks like suicide?

Elon Musk, alone, apart from, and in defiance of all the cowards running things in America - the corporate sell-outs, the craven college presidents, the bought-off politicians, the bad-faith media fabulists, the vindictive denizens of Hollywood - is moving to inject some therapeutic truth into the American lunatic asylum. He came out pretty hot over the weekend, branding Dr. Anthony Fauci as a criminal, calling for his prosecution, and promising the release of Twitter files that will demonstrate just how deceitful and untrustworthy the old Twitter acted in all the medical melodrama surrounding Covid-19 and the “vaccines.” On Sunday, Elon tweeted, “Now things get spicy.” Will the reveal of all that wickedness make any impression on half the people of this country still deranged by the many previous salvos of official propaganda? Maybe not all of them. Maybe only twenty percent. But that would be enough to tip the consensus of opinion in the right direction: a recognition of the harm that has been done… and the will to quit doing more of it.

Beyond that, even, Elon has put the basic question to America: Are you in favor of free speech or not? Especially now that you know that “moderating” free speech is an invitation to live in lies. And lying all the time really does bend that old arc of history toward evil."

- https://kunstler.com/

"Alas..."

“Alas, regardless of their doom, the little victims play!

No sense have they of ills to come, nor care beyond today.”

- Thomas Gray,

“Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”

- https://www.poetryfoundation.org/

"Budget Christmas Shopping! Save Money This Holiday Season"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 12/12/22:

"Budget Christmas Shopping! Save Money This Holiday Season"

"In today's vlog we are going over very budget friendly stores to SAVE MONEY this Christmas! Prices are up everywhere this year, and we're gonna show how we can still save during this Holiday Season!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Unbelievable! NATO Chief Issues Warning; Millions Fleeing; USA OK's Attacks On Russian Nuclear Bases"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 12/11/22:

"Unbelievable! NATO Chief Issues Warning; Millions Fleeing; 

USA OK's Attacks On Russian Nuclear Bases"

"Odessa has been bombed to the Stone Age, the USA has greenlit Ukrainian attacks on Russian nuclear bases, Putins nuclear threats have reached unprecedented levels, NATO chief says we are headed for a world war. Buckle up!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

ͦ

"There are a multitude of fuses affixed to dozens of powder-kegs and little kids with matches are on the loose. I don’t know which of the fuses will be lit and which powder-keg will blow, but someone is bound to do something stupid, and then all hell will break loose. It could happen at any time. One military miscue. One assassination. One violent act that stirs the world. And the dominoes will topple, setting off fireworks not seen on this planet since 1939 – 1945. I can see it all very clearly."

- Jim Quinn

- https://austincountynewsonline.com/

"The Housing Market Crash Nobody Thinks Possible Is Here"

Full screen recommended.

"The Housing Market Crash Nobody 

Thinks Possible Is Here"

by Epic Economist

"First, they told us that the housing market was fine, and the rapid spike in prices was a healthy sign. Then, they were forced to admit that we were in the largest housing bubble ever. And now, the Dallas Fed is warning that a 20% correction is likely to occur, even though home prices have risen on average by 47% over the past couple of years. It’s safe to say that a 20% drop won’t correct markets where prices skyrocketed over 70%, such as Austin, Texas, and Boise, Idaho. It would take a whole lot more to bring overvalued markets back to normalcy. And according to Zillow estimates, almost 60% of U.S. housing markets are ‘significantly’ overvalued right now. That doesn’t bring any relief for homeowners, who are already struggling with mortgage rates that are still two times higher than they were in 2021 and falling property values that already wiped out trillions in home equity so far this year. According to Redfin, 2023 will be marked by the largest year-over-year decline in home prices since 2008. All indicators signal that more turbulence is ahead. They can deny all they want, but the housing market crash nobody thought possible is already upon us, and losses will only get bigger from this point on.

For the first time in a decade, U.S. homeowners are seeing their home equity fall abruptly. All thanks to soaring mortgage rates that have depressed purchasing power and sent home values down. Overall, U.S. homeowners with a mortgage have lost a collective $1.5 trillion in equity since May, according to September data provided by mortgage services company Black Knight. Since then, the number of underwater mortgages — where someone owes more on their loan than their home is worth — has more than doubled. Now, roughly 450,000 homeowners are already underwater on their mortgages, and nationwide double-digit declines in property values haven’t even started yet.

All in all, ever since the Federal Reserve began slowing down the economy to tame inflation growth, the wealth of American households has evaporated—collapsing by more than $6.8 trillion since January. From June to November, the average home lost almost $40,000 in value. In fact, BlackKnight data shows that roughly 10% of U.S. households who bought a home with a mortgage in 2022 are already underwater, and at least 40% have less than 10% equity. Andy Walden, vice president of research at Black Knight, said he expects more people will fall underwater in coming months as home price declines accelerate in 2023. Up until this point, the higher rates and the lower prices haven’t resulted in any of the benefits policymakers thought it would. Those struggling to buy their first home continued to be shut out, making up less than 25% of transactions last month.

“First-time buyers are really struggling with high prices, the high bar to get into the market, and high mortgage rates,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. The repercussions are impacting sellers, too. Right now, they’re either dropping asking prices at a faster pace than at any point in the past few years or removing their properties from the market altogether. In essence, this Fed-driven bubble burst is making conditions worse for everyone – owners, buyers, sellers, and even real estate agents. The most worrying part of all this is the fact that there the housing market goes, the broader economy follows, and if it is going down, everything else will fall out of place too."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

"No One is Shopping"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 12/11/22:

"No One is Shopping"

"The worst holiday shopping season ever. Take a look a South Coast Plaza. It’s two weeks to Christmas and people are not shopping like they used to."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

ͦ

An interesting comparison...Sanctions? Bah...

Full screen recommended.

Travelling with Russell , 12/11/22:

"Moscow Christmas Markets on Red Square December 2022"

"Take a walk through the famous Moscow Christmas Markets on a snowy December day in Red Square. See how the Christmas Markets look on Red Square in December 2022. Delight in the Christmas cheer and enjoy the sights and sounds that Red Square has to offer at the Christmas markets."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude :2002, "Spirit Moves"

Full screen mode recommended.

2002, "Spirit Moves"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"A gorgeous spiral galaxy some 100 million light-years distant, NGC 1309 lies on the banks of the constellation of the River (Eridanus). NGC 1309 spans about 30,000 light-years, making it about one third the size of our larger Milky Way galaxy. Bluish clusters of young stars and dust lanes are seen to trace out NGC 1309's spiral arms as they wind around an older yellowish star population at its core. 

Not just another pretty face-on spiral galaxy, observations of NGC 1309's recent supernova and Cepheid variable stars contribute to the calibration of the expansion of the Universe. Still, after you get over this beautiful galaxy's grand design, check out the array of more distant background galaxies also recorded in this sharp, reprocessed, Hubble Space Telescope view.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130116.html

"Life's Impermanence..."

"Lifes impermanence, I realized, is what makes every

single day so precious. It's what shapes our time here.

It's what makes it so important that not a single moment be wasted."

- Wes Moore

"We're All..."

"We're all sinking in the same boat here. We're all bored and desperate and waiting for something to happen. Waiting for life to get better. Waiting for things to change. Waiting for that one person to finally notice us. We're all waiting. But we also need to realize that we all have the power to make those changes for ourselves."

- Susane Colasanti

The Poet: Mark Jarman, "Coyotes"

"Coyotes"

"Is this world truly fallen? They say no.
For there's the new moon, there's the Milky Way,
There's the rattler with a wren's egg in its mouth,
And there's the panting rabbit they will eat.
They sing their wild hymn on the dark slope,
Reading the stars like notes of hilarious music.
Is this a fallen world? How could it be?

And yet we're crying over the stars again,
And over the uncertainty of death,
Which we suspect will divide us all forever.
I'm tired of those who broadcast their certainties,
Constantly on their cell phones to their redeemer.
Is this a fallen world? For them it is.
But there's that starlit burst of animal laughter.

The day has sent its fires scattering.
The night has risen from its burning bed.
Our tears are proof that love is meant for life
And for the living. And this chorus of praise,
Which the pet dogs of the neighborhood are answering
Nostalgically, invites our answer, too.
Is this a fallen world? How could it be?"

~ Mark Jarman

"We Were Here..."

"Someday stars will wind down or blow up. Someday death will cover us all like the water of a lake and perhaps nothing will ever come to the surface to show that we were ever there. But we WERE there, and during the time we lived, we were alive. That's the truth - what is, what was, what will be - not what could be, what should have been, what never can be."

- Orson Scott Card

"Now the voices and the sound of movement were gone, and the stream could be heard running quietly under its banks. The air was full of the scent of water and of flowers. She walked, quiet, while the house began to reverberate: a band had started up. She walked beside the river while the music thudded, feeling herself as a heavy, impervious, insensitive lump that, like a planet doomed always to be dark on one side, had vision in front only, a myopic searchlight blind except for the tiny three-dimensional path open immediately before her eyes in which the outline of a tree, a rose, emerged then submerged in dark. She thought, with the dove's voices of her solitude. Where? But where. How? Who? No, but where, where… Then silence and the birth of a repetition. Where? Here. Here? Here, where else, you fool, you poor fool, where else has it been, ever…?"

- Doris Lessing

The Daily "Near You?"

Hattiesburg, Mississippi, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Our Moral Compass..."

"The Holocaust teaches us that nature, even in its cruelest moments, is benign in comparison with man when he loses his moral compass and his reason."

- Samuel Pisar

"I think we need to be human. Nobody is objective. We need to go in and be human - especially today, especially given everything that's happening around us, especially given the divides between populations that are growing and what's at stake in terms of our collective humanity, and the fact that our moral compass is broken."

- Arwa Damon

"Moral compass?" Surely you jest! This is 'Murica, fool!

"30 Questions for a Narrative Believer" (Excerpt)

"30 Questions for a Narrative Believer"

by Margaret Anna Alice

Excerpt: "Do you (or did you) believe the COVID narrative? If so, would you be willing to answer some questions? All I ask is that you honestly engage with the questions. I promise to listen attentively and respectfully. Your responses may help me and many others answer questions of historic importance. If you would like me to consider publishing your answers in a future post, please share them in the comments. If you would prefer to keep them anonymous, you can email them to me by signing up for my newsletter and replying to the Welcome message. Feel free to selectively respond if you don’t have time to answer them all. Thank you for sharing your time and thoughts.

Note to My Readers: I need your help gathering responses. Can you please share this widely and ask friends, family members, coworkers, and other narrative believers to take this opportunity to relay their perspective?

Share: With the holidays coming up, this could offer a meaningful way to connect and help you understand each others’ experiences and viewpoints. You could record audio or video of their responses as you ask them and then send me transcripts of their answers if they are willing to share them publicly (I can retain anonymity as desired). I realize there are a lot of time-consuming questions here, and you may exhaust the patience of your subjects if you try to go through all of them. The first question alone could prompt an hourlong conversation. To save time, you may wish to select the ones you think are most appropriate for the particular party.

If you’re part of a church or other group, you could see if it would be possible to set up discussion groups, and people could take turns answering questions, maybe over multiple sessions.

Get creative! Feel free to add your own questions (share in the comments if you’d like) and simply use this article as a springboard for deeper conversations. While asking questions, try to avoid being confrontational or judgmental. We want participants to reflect on their feelings, thoughts, experiences, and behavior without fear of backlash. This may open up avenues for healing dialogue as you process the past three years together."

Full article is here:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

Greg Hunter, "Cut Interest Rates & Dollar is Done, Toast, It’s Over"

"Cut Interest Rates & Dollar is Done, Toast, It’s Over"

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Economic analyst and financial writer David Morgan says do not expect the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates anytime soon. Morgan thinks the Fed is not going to devalue the dollar. Morgan explains, “We need to continue the dollar until the new system is initiated. That’s the point. Yes, it’s about interest rates, that is part of the mechanics about this. The philosophy is we need a dollar in the system as the king when we transition into the new system. Now, there is a debate whether that is true or false. Is this going to be a global currency? Is it going to be a central bank digital currency (CBDC) that is worldwide? Or is it going to be nation states with their own currencies? That has yet to be determined. I think the power behind the Fed wants the dollar to survive, and they are going to make it survive. That means they are going to push interest rates as high as necessary until they can transition to this new system.”

So, what about this so-called Fed “pivot” to lower interest rates to save the day? Forget it. Morgan explains, “Take the converse. Most of my peer group talks about the ‘pivot.’ Meaning, the Fed stops raising interest rates or they get to a level, they pause, and they start to lower them. Anybody who is anybody in the financial markets knows if that is the case, they have basically destroyed the U.S. dollar. It’s done. It’s toast. It’s over. What that means is people will get rid of it as fast as they can. All the dollars overseas will come back and repatriate for anything such as land, Toyotas, Fords – anything. 60% of all printed physical currency (U.S. dollars) is held outside the borders of the United States. The reason for that is two-fold. 

Number one, it is the reserve currency of the world. The second reason is that it is trusted in countries that continually have currency crises. Argentina has a currency crisis every decade, and you have Turkey, and you have several others including Zimbabwe. What do they use? They use metal and U.S. printed currency. That’s their black market or free market. So, the currency of the U.S. dollar is trusted. If you use the Exter Inverted Pyramid as a model as to how the crash happens, there is a run to the U.S dollar before there is a run to gold. So, I am not surprised to see the dollar so high, but it has backed off some recently. The dollar is trusted at this point in time, and to keep that trust going, we are going to sweeten the deal and keep pushing interest rates up higher and higher. They are saying trust us, trust us, trust us. They are doing it to buy time because everyone knows the system is failing, and they have to do something different.”

Morgan also gives predictions for what is in store in 2023. He talks about why you need gold and silver and why you need it now. Morgan also has predictions for war, real estate, food, unemployment, the vaxed and inflation along with deflation. The unprepared will be struggling way more than the prepared next year. You need to get ready now according to Morgan." There is much more in the 46-minute interview.

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One on One 

with David Morgan, founder of “The Morgan Report.”

- https://rumble.com/

"How It Really Is"

"Strange Prices At Walmart! This Is Ridiculous! What's Next?"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 12/22/22:

"Strange Prices At Walmart! This Is Ridiculous! What's Next?"

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

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"People Will Come Knocking On Your Door For Help; Grid Down, No Power"

Jeremiah Babe, 12/10/22:

"People Will Come Knocking On Your Door For Help; 

Grid Down, No Power"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Trader Joe's Stores Are Out Of Thousands Of Grocery Items As Shortages Intensify"

Full screen recommended.

"Trader Joe's Stores Are Out Of Thousands 

Of Grocery Items As Shortages Intensify"

by Epic Economist

"At this point, we have all gotten used to seeing empty shelves when grocery shopping. But when you’re talking about a store that is about one-fourth of the size of the typical Walmart, and whose product line is nearly 20 times smaller than big-box retailers’, when an item we love is out of stock, we notice it immediately. And that’s the case with Trader Joe’s. The company is very secretive about its suppliers and often discontinues products without any notice, something that Trader Joe's loyalists have been noticing that’s happening far more frequently in recent months. Every day, there’s a flood of social media posts published by disappointed customers complaining about stockouts and inventory holes at their local Trader Joe’s. And even though the grocery retailer has previously said that it keeps its product catalog lean to always ensure lower prices, it turns out that the truth behind the bare shelves we’re now seeing at this beloved chain is far more complex than that.

As opposed to other big retailers, Trader Joe’s doesn’t overorder items in anticipation of higher consumer demand or potential stockouts, and that sometimes leaves its stores with too few products available for shoppers. Even though its store layout makes us feel like we’re buying at a local market, and its brand-name items seem to be more sustainable compared to those of other grocery chains, Trader Joe’s is actually a multi-billion-dollar privately-held corporation and leaked documents show that the chain gets its products from the same food makers as other big-box retailers do. Actually, some consumer favorites including its Dry and Roasted Salted Pistachios and its Smooth and Creamy Classic Hummus are produced by no one less than Pepsico and Frito-Lay.

This small grocery chain is silently suffering from the same issues as bigger players, and customers are now seeing with their own eyes that the impact can be harder. The rate of out-of-stocks at Trader Joe’s is actually almost 40% higher than the rate of bigger competitors like Whole Foods, according to estimates released by Investopedia. Although the company says it’s all about offering the best quality product at the lowest price when the whole industry is facing supply and demand issues, that’s a promise they may not be able to keep.

Many of the store’s superfans lament the growing habit of panic buying that helps to keep shelves bare and worsen shortages in the long-run. Others say that if you’re not hoarding at Trader Joe’s, you’re not doing it right. With online shoppers documenting everything they see, a new rush of grocery hoarding at the retailer’s locations isn’t improbable. In fact, when people start realizing that inventory holes are only growing larger, they’re likely to take the chance to stock up on food staples before prices jump even higher and products become impossible to find.

In an environment where food manufacturers are dealing with higher costs of energy, raw materials, and commodities and a sizable reduction in the global food supply, it’s getting virtually impossible for them not to pass along those costs for retailers to offset their own losses. And that’s a hazard for Trader Joe’s business model.. On top of all that, Trader Joe’s might also be left at the end of the list of big food suppliers when shortages really start to sting in the coming months, and other retail titans, which are better positioned financially, are likely to snatch the available supply and raise prices accordingly. All the evidence we have found points to even more product stockouts, discontinuances, and persistent shortages for this adored retailer. Its supply chain may be leaner and more practical than other major grocers, but the problems it faces are just as big."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Land of Forever"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Land of Forever"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1055 is a dominant member of a small galaxy group a mere 60 million light-years away toward the aquatically intimidating constellation Cetus. Seen edge-on, the island universe spans over 100,000 light-years, a little larger than our own Milky Way galaxy. The colorful, spiky stars decorating this cosmic portrait of NGC 1055 are in the foreground, well within the Milky Way. But the telltale pinkish star forming regions are scattered through winding dust lanes along the distant galaxy's thin disk.

With a smattering of even more distant background galaxies, the deep image also reveals a boxy halo that extends far above and below the central bulge and disk of NGC 1055. The halo itself is laced with faint, narrow structures, and could represent the mixed and spread out debris from a satellite galaxy disrupted by the larger spiral some 10 billion years ago."

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

"I Wish You Enough"

"I Wish You Enough"

by Bob Perks

"At an airport I overheard a father and daughter in their last moments together. They had announced her plane’s departure and standing near the door, he said to his daughter, “I love you, I wish you enough.” She said, “Daddy, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Daddy.” They kissed good-bye and she left.

He walked over toward the window where I was seated. Standing there I could see he wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on his privacy, but he welcomed me in by asking, “Did you ever say good-bye to someone knowing it would be forever?” “Yes, I have,” I replied.

Saying that brought back memories I had of expressing my love and appreciation for all my Dad had done for me. Recognizing that his days were limited, I took the time to tell him face to face how much he meant to me. So I knew what this man was experiencing.

“Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever good-bye?” I asked. “I am old and she lives much too far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is, her next trip back will be for my funeral, ” he said.

“When you were saying good-bye I heard you say, ‘I wish you enough.’ May I ask what that means?” He began to smile. “That’s a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone.” He paused for a moment and looking up as if trying to remember it in detail, he smiled even more.

“When we said ‘I wish you enough,’ we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with enough good things to sustain them,” he continued and then turning toward me he shared the following as if he were reciting it from memory.

"I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright. I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more. I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive. I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger. I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting. I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess. I wish enough “Hello’s” to get you through the final 'Good-bye.'” He then began to sob and walked away."

- https://alltimeshortstories.com/

The Poet: William Stafford, “Starting With Little Things”

“Starting With Little Things”

“Love the earth like a mole,

fur-near. Nearsighted,

hold close the clods,

their fine-print headlines.

Pat them with soft hands -

Like spades, but pink and loving; they

break rock, nudge giants aside,

affable plow.

Fields are to touch;

each day nuzzle your way.

Tomorrow the world.”

- William Stafford

“In The Long Run… We Are All Alive”

“In The Long Run… We Are All Alive”

by MN Gordon 

“In 1976, economist Herbert Stein, father of Ben Stein, the economics professor in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, observed that U.S. government debt was on an unsustainable trajectory. He, thus, established Stein’s Law: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” Stein may have been right in theory. Yet the unsustainable trend of U.S. government debt outlasted his life.  Herbert Stein died in 1999, several decades before the crackup. Those reading this may not be so lucky.

Sometimes the end of the world comes and goes, while some of us are still here. We believe our present episode of debt, deficits, and state sponsored economic destruction, is one of these times.. We’ll have more on this in just a moment. But first, let’s peer back several hundred years. There we find context, edification, and instruction.

In 1696, William Whiston, a protégé of Isaac Newton, wrote a book. It had the grandiose title, “A New Theory of the Earth from its Original to the Consummation of All Things.” In it he proclaimed, among other things, that the global flood of Noah had been caused by a comet. Mr. Whiston took his book very serious. The good people of London took it very serious too. Perhaps it was Whiston’s conviction. Or his great fear of comets. But, for whatever reason, it never occurred to Londoners that he was a Category 5 quack.

Like Neil Ferguson, and his mathematical biology cohorts at Imperial College, London, Whiston’s research filled a void. Much like today’s epidemiological models, the science was bunk. Nonetheless, the results supplied prophecies of the apocalypse to meet a growing demand. It was just a matter of time before Whiston’s research would cause trouble…

Judgement Day: In 1736, William Whiston crunched some data and made some calculations. He projected these calculations out and saw the future. And what he witnessed scared him mad. He barked. He ranted. He foamed at the mouth to anyone who would listen. Pretty soon he’d stirred up his neighbors with a prophecy that the world would be destroyed on October 13th of that year when a comet would collide with the earth.

Jonathan Swift, in his work, “A True and Faithful Narrative of What Passed in London on a Rumour of the Day of Judgment,” quoted Whiston: “Friends and fellow-citizens, all speculative science is at an end: the period of all things is at hand; on Friday next this world shall be no more. Put not your confidence in me, brethren; for tomorrow morning, five minutes after five, the truth will be evident; in that instant the comet shall appear, of which I have heretofore warned you. As ye have heard, believe. Go hence, and prepare your wives, your families, and friends, for the universal change.”

Clergymen assembled to offer prayers. Churches filled to capacity. Rich and paupers alike feared their judgement. Lawyers worried about their fate. Judges were relieved they were no longer lawyers. Teetotalers got smashed. Drunks got sober. Bankers forgave their debtors. Criminals, to be executed, expressed joy.

The wealthy gave their money to beggars. Beggars gave it back to the wealthy. Several rich and powerful gave large donations to the church; no doubt, reserving first class tickets to heaven. Many ladies confessed to their husbands that one or more of their children were bastards. Husbands married their mistresses. And on and on…

The Archbishop of Canterbury, William Wake, had to officially deny this prediction to ease the public consternation. But it did little good. Crowds gathered at Islington, Hampstead, and the surrounding fields, to witness the destruction of London, which was deemed the “beginning of the end.” Then, just like Whiston said, a comet appeared. Prayers were made. Deathbed confessions were shared. And at the moment of maximum fear, something remarkable happened: the world didn’t end. The comet did not collide with earth. It was merely a near miss.

The experience of Whiston, and his pseudoscience prophecy, shows that predictions of the end of the world come and go while people still remain. Sometimes the fallout of these predictions, and the foolishness they provoke, is limited. Other times the foolishness they provoke leads to catastrophe. Here’s what we mean…

“In the long run we are all dead,” said 20th Century economist and Fabian socialist, John Maynard Keynes. This was Keynes rationale for why governments should borrow from the future to fund economic growth today. Of course, politicians love an academic theory that gives them cover to intervene in the economy. This is especially so when it justifies spending other people’s money to buy votes. Keynesian economics, and in particular, counter-cyclical stimulus, does just that.

U.S. politicians have attempted to borrow and spend the nation to prosperity for the last 80 years. Over the past decade, the Federal Reserve has aggressively printed money to fund Washington’s epic borrowing binge. Fed Chair Jay Powell confirmed that the Fed will pursue policies of dollar destruction to, somehow, print new jobs.

The world as it was once known – where a dollar was as good as gold – has come and gone. Today, in life after the end of that world, we are witnessing the illusion of wealth, erected by four generations of borrowing and spending, crumble before our eyes. Moreover, contrary to Keynes, in the long run we are not all dead. In fact, in the long run we are all very much alive. And we are all living with the compounding consequences of shortsighted economic policies.”

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Ellensburg, Washington, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"This Is The Best Economy Ever!"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 12/10/22:

"This Is The Best Economy Ever!"

"Things are not good right now. We are continually being told that everything is looking up. We are being told that the labor sector is doing great! We are told that manufacturing is up! And now we have just been told that the service industry is thriving. All you need to do is look outside and understand that this is completely false."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jim Kunstler, "Some Lights Go Out, Some Lights Go On"

"Some Lights Go Out, Some Lights Go On"

by Jim Kunstler

“The DNC and Biden Team knew they had friends at Twitter who would do their bidding during the election. And Twitter lied to the FEC [Federal Election Commission] about that influence… But that’s just at the surface.” - TechnoFog on Substack

"Have Americans grokked that virtually all of the mis-and-dis-information bombarding them lo these many years actually comes from the government and the news media channels that serve it? What we’ve got now in this country is a Mind-F**kery Industrial Complex waging a psy-ops war on the people of this land. Why is that?

Essentially, to cover-up crimes against the country by public officials that have already occurred. Twitter, pre-Musk, was a major accomplice and enabler of all that, and suddenly it’s not - to the horror of everyone in charge at our nation’s seat of government. The main crimes revolve around selling-out America’s future one way or another - “Joe Biden” and Company being only the most blatant perps in the big picture.

Before them was Hillary Clinton, with her purchase of the Democratic National Committee and previous lucrative ops during her turn as Secretary of State, like the Uranium One deal, the Skolkovo military tech transfer op, and then the Russia Collusion op to insure none of that would ever come to light. The whole Intel Community behemoth was neck deep in it, too, amping up the Russia prank into a four-year coup d’état. Remember, The New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting that Hillary’s little hoax was for-real. It’s all just gotten more grotesque since Mr. Trump was ejected in the souped-up 2020 election, with sideshows such as the ongoing race-and-gender hustles, the climate con, and the Green New Deal bullshit.

Covid-19, surely released on-purpose, was, as Ed Dowd avers, a cover for global bankruptcy. Nothing else explains the astounding coordination of so many governments acting the same way against their own citizens: lockdowns, vaxx mandates, vaxx passports, and all. The icing on that poison cake, of course, is that everything the public health officialdom told you about Covid-19 was patently untrue, and dishonestly so, not via omission or plain incompetence. In fact, the virus was made in a Chinese lab with the help of Dr. Fauci and colleagues. Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine did work effectively against it. The “vaccines” were not tested properly and turned out to be harmful. And now the Covid-19 melodrama is ending in a discernable death-of-the-vaxxed and the reveal of all those aforesaid lies, while, anyway, the global bankruptcy approaches its nauseating climax.

Watching the post-election political vaudeville during the lame-duck Christmas intermezzo, one can’t escape perceiving that just about everything in the USA is now heading south toward breakdown and ruin. The on-the-ground economy craters, inflation rages at the supermarket, supply lines break, the oil and gas industries get strangled, health care goes down smoking and burning, public education folds in disgrace and failure, Wall Street ends with a bang and a whimper, and John Fetterman prepares for his place in history.

Our government’s Ukraine op is ending in disaster for that sad-sack former Russian province and, surprise-surprise, for the European Union, NATO, and us, too. We finally played the Russia card like we’re the proverbial patsy at the poker table. Our hand turns out to be a pair of deuces with the five-of-diamonds high. Russia rakes in the chips with its massive natural resources and the world’s most stable currency, soon to be backed by gold. How’d that turn out, Victoria Nuland?

The EU was already functionally bankrupt. Now it has lost its entire industrial base for a lack of fuel to run it - self-Epsteined, shall we say, on the national scale - and faces not just a return to the medieval standard-of-living but also to the competitive savagery of many small nations soon to be fighting among themselves, making bad conditions worse. So sad. Euroland was a nice place to visit at the turn of the millennium and now the lights will blink out, like seeing a fond relative expire, eyes going vacant, on her deathbed.

Western Civ is, after all, a kind of family. And now the family is disintegrating - as old families will - in a malodorous fog of receivership, vice, and imbecility. Here in the USA, it’s hard to have faith in the supposed political opposition, the Republican Party. Not with Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy still riding herd. They preside over their own coterie of extravagant grift and disgusting privilege. Don’t be shocked… shocked… if they just stand by while America collapses at the hands of “Joe Biden.” If there is any saving of this nation these two must be defenestrated, and, anyway, saving the nation from penury, depravity, and senility looks increasingly improbable, at least in the form of our old federal republic.

The macro trend is quite clear, as laid out in "The Long Emergency:" What’s coming is the opposite of global government; rather, national governments become increasingly impotent and illegitimate, and smaller regions by necessity must retreat into autarky to keep anything going. For us that means Washington DC sinks into irrelevance while the states, or perhaps mere parts of the states, have to take charge of their own affairs.

That process might have been jump-started by the Elon Musk revolution at Twitter. It will be a lot harder for the Mind-F**kery Industrial Complex to operate with this key player in revolt. Lies will be contested now on the grand scale in ways that were formerly subverted. Things blurry will come into focus. Fresh air will blow in on chill winter winds. New ops against the people, such as the threatened central bank digital dollar, will be laughed off the stage. Some lights go out, but others get turned on."

- https://kunstler.com/

"How It Really Is"

“We'll know our disinformation program is complete 

when everything the American public believes is false.”

- William Casey, former director of the CIA

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

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 12/10/22:

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

"In today's vlog we are at Kroger, and are noticing major price increases on groceries! 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:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Blackrock Sends Ominous Message; No One Coming To Rescue You; Credit Card Rates Explode"

Jeremiah Babe, 12/9/22:

"Blackrock Sends Ominous Message; 

No One Coming To Rescue You; Credit Card Rates Explode"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"20 Food Items Americans Can't Afford Anymore"

Full screen recommended.

"20 Food Items Americans Can't Afford Anymore"

by Epic Economist

"It's pretty evident to everyone that things are hard out there. With consumer prices at the highest level they've ever been this entire generation, desperately low wages, and persistent supply chain problems, it seems like we're all struggling to make ends meet and trying to stretch our dollars as far as we can these days. A brand new survey released yesterday by retail technology platform Swiftly found that nearly 70% of Americans are struggling to pay their grocery bills, and around 83% are currently relying on some form of coupons or loyalty program to put food on the table.

Over the past year, food inflation rose by 12.4%. But we're all seeing much steeper price increases at our local stores. Some grocery items have doubled or tripled in price in recent months. For example, eggs, one of the most versatile foods we can find out there can be prepared in a number of ways or incorporate them into many different recipes. Plus, they’re an important source of protein and collagen – two substances that are essential for the good functioning of our bodies. But who could ever imagine that in a couple of years eggs prices would rise up to 125% in some stores? Official inflation numbers say that on average egg prices rose by almost 40% this year, but many of us are seeing the cost of this staple going even higher at our local supermarkets, and that’s because consumer demand is oftentimes outpacing the available supply. Unfortunately, the era of cheap eggs is over, and more price increases are expected in 2023.

And now several food manufacturers are warning that a new round of price hikes is coming in 2023. Sadly, millions of families out there are already having to make some tough decisions and cut some of their favorite foods from their grocery lists as their monthly budgets continue to shrink. With the cost of basic staples rising to such unreachable levels, it’s getting harder and harder to find ways to save on food costs. Research conducted by food retail company My Patriot Supply earlier this year revealed that 4 in 10 Americans are already skipping meals to be able to provide food for their kids. If anyone told us back in 2020 that things would get to this point in a span of less than three years, we would think that person was out of their mind. 

But reality has become too hard to believe, and yet we’re seeing things getting even more complicated with each passing day. All food that wasn’t planted and harvested in 2022 due to soaring costs of fertilizers, diesel, farming equipment, and extreme weather will be translated into extensive shortages in the year ahead. We are being warned about this for months, and now we’re starting to witness just how bad conditions are about to get for all of us. We should all brace for even higher food prices in 2023, folks. What we’ve seen so far is just the start. Today, we compiled some of the products that experienced the highest spikes in prices and that are becoming increasingly unaffordable for virtually all Americans."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

"The Slow Strangulation of the World Economy"

"The Slow Strangulation of the World Economy"

by Jeffrey Tucker

"I was visiting with a friend recently and she was recounting her early panic over COVID. She has kids and loves them. As a mom, she believed her first duty was to protect them from the bad virus that was floating around. She went into full freak-out mode, keeping the kids indoors and spacing them out. Her heart never stopped racing.

One day, she looked out her window and saw that her neighbor’s dog was loose on her front lawn. She ran outside and started screaming at her neighbor to get that dog off her lawn immediately and never allow such an outrage again. Why? Because she had heard on CNN that dogs carry Covid. She believed that the dog was spreading Covid around and that this would waft through her windows and infect her kids. Now, this is a brilliant woman, educated at a prep school that no normal person could afford and attended a top school before becoming a partner in a firm that serves only high-end clients. Moreover, she is herself brilliant and stable, and not politically left-wing at all. She is sober and strong. But Covidophobia snagged even her. Simply amazing.

I had not remembered the weeks during which we were supposed to hate on people's pets. We can add that to the endless litany of nonsense we’ve been through.

The Fauci Effect: Why the attack on pets? Well, the frightening Fauci in August took a day or two to work with his co-author from the National Institutes of Health on an academic article explaining the bigger picture. The problem, they explained, began 12,000 years ago. That’s when humankind started farming, killing land animals, and moving around from place to place.

That caused disease to spread! So they say. It only got worse once we got to cities. Then everyone started mixing. Icky germs were everywhere. Next thing you know, we spread smallpox and cholera and god knows what else. Humankind was dooming itself with its ridiculous ambition to do more than live in a hut by the river and grab fish to eat! We are very, very bad.

That’s the origin of COVID, they wrote, which is why we need a “new infrastructure of human existence.” This will require emptying out the cities, getting rid of pets, abolishing large events, and forbidding people from meeting in groups in restaurants and things. Only once we massively reduce the population and go back to a state of nature can we fully conquer disease.

This is their vision. It’s pure insanity. Worse than Marx. Worse than anything even the nuttiest philosopher from the ancient world ever wrote. Worse than the devil himself. And yet this was the guy who was practically running the world for the better part of two years. He was not only scripting the pandemic response. He was in charge of social media. He was in charge of economics. He was in charge of technology. He was the totalitarian dictator for the U.S. and really for the whole world by influence.

Nonstop Wreckage: It’s truly hard to imagine how it came to be that this pest ended up dismantling the whole of the Trump administration. He was the terrifying guru that even Trump could not swat away. As a result, Trump fell in the polls and lost, taking the House and Senate with him. The economy was wrecked. The Constitution was abolished.

Now we have terrifying inflation without end. In many parts of the world, people are having to choose between eating and heating. School kids are behind by two years. We’ve lost three years of lifespan just in the U.S. The whole country is utterly bankrupt. Trade is wrecked. Business is demoralized. 5.8 million people are missing from U.S. labor rolls right now.

What an unspeakable disaster. Even writing this, it sounds like fiction. It’s not. It’s our reality, and it is getting worse by the day. Media won’t discuss the fullness of the calamity. Mostly we just pretend as if life is normal. What else can we do? Well, there are substances we can take, and millions take them if only to lessen the pain. They lead to early death. Excess deaths are through the roof right now, as ill-health spreads across the land.

Oh, but won’t the Fed save us? They are raising interest rates. The 30-year mortgage is at 6%. The demand side of the housing market is in free fall. The supply side is suddenly flat. Prices are still rising. This is what an inflationary recession looks and feels like.

Faucian Economics: I’ve never been one for conspiracy theory but one would have to be stupid not to see that there is something of a plan here. They are attacking cities, enterprise, economic growth, and even procreation too. How? In every conceivable way. I’ve given up trust, all trust, in these people, their plans, and even their products. They are dangerous. Their vision of the world is even more so.

We used to say that socialism cannot work. What does that mean? It means that it will only make people poorer and more miserable. But what if you have an ideology that is actually intended to do that? Can Faucian economics work? Yes, if you mean to reduce the population, spread misery, end progress, abolish all comforts, empty the cities, cause people to freeze to death, and only allow what’s left of the population to live off bugs.

We need to get real. These people are truly up to no good. They have gotten their way. What’s more, the gang that did this is not subject to the voters, so elections might not make a bit of difference, even if they turn out well.

The Root of the Problem: The real problem is much more fundamental. It is structural. It is philosophical. It can be defeated but not through the usual ways. In the meantime, we really need to wake up, all of us, and recognize that nothing is normal anymore. Surviving this period in history will require cleverness and courageous action. We simply cannot ignore the trends all around us and expect to survive.

It’s bad enough to realize the utter stupidity of the policies that are wrecking the world. It’s worse suddenly to realize that they are not stupid at all but rather the product of a diabolical mission to ruin civilization itself. But in truth, it is all deliberate, I’m sorry to say. The people who run the world today have no interest in a thriving social order and civilization. The means to survive them is to outsmart them."

- https://dailyreckoning.com/

"Moscow on Fire, Putin Threatens Preemptive Nuclear Strike"

Canadian Prepper,12/9/22:

"Moscow on Fire, Putin Threatens Preemptive Nuclear Strike"

"NATO and Russia relations have hit a new low with new accusations about Angela Merkel war preparations emerge. Massive conflagration in Moscow as more attacks on US power grid are waged. Inflation artificially suppressed, the bubble bursts in 2023."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Endless Horizon"

Full screen recommended.

Deuter, "Endless Horizon"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“What powers are being wielded in the Wizard Nebula? Gravitation strong enough to form stars, and stellar winds and radiations powerful enough to create and dissolve towers of gas. Located only 8,000 light years away, the Wizard nebula, pictured below, surrounds developing open star cluster NGC 7380. Visually, the interplay of stars, gas, and dust has created a shape that appears to some like a fictional medieval sorcerer.

The active star forming region spans 100 about light years, making it appear larger than the angular extent of the Moon. The Wizard Nebula can be located with a small telescope toward the constellation of the King of Aethiopia (Cepheus) Although the nebula may last only a few million years, some of the stars being formed may outlive our Sun.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/

"Don't Wonder..."

"Don't wonder why people go crazy. Wonder why they don't.

In the face of what we can lose in a day, in an instant,

wonder what the hell it is that makes us hold it together."

- "Grey's Anatomy"

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 12/9/22"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up 12/9/22"

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com 

"In a very rare occurrence, Congress halted the military from continuing a widespread program of CV19 vaccination. Stopping it was part of the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) that gave the military $858 billion to spend on its operations. This sort of legislation is unprecedented and clearly shows members of Congress know the CV19 vax is unsafe, deadly, debilitating and is not a vaccine. They also know what is coming in terms of death and injuries from this bioweapon, and I think they are wanting some cover. This is yet another sign the vax hoax is ending. It is being revealed as a genocidal attack on America and the world. Nothing can stop the truth from coming out. Severe repercussions are in store for the people responsible for this murder program.

The so-called “Twitter Files” Elon Musk is leaking out show huge national security concerns. The suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story by the FBI and Twitter was a huge operation just before the 2020 Election. The laptop contains documented bribes and deals with foreign enemy powers. It was falsely called Russian fake news to discredit it. Shame on the FBI for not acting and gaslighting the public. It is also coming out the government of the United States was suppressing free speech using back door channels in Twitter. This is the biggest First Amendment violation in history, and lawsuits by the hundreds are sure to follow. The coming out party is just getting started.

Everywhere you look this week, you can see the economy not just slowing down but plunging. Housing is tanking, used car prices are collapsing at the fastest pace on record and unemployment is surging. Meanwhile, the Fed is going to continue raising interest rates to fight inflation and support the U.S. dollar. There is not going to be a “pivot.” Buckle up, it’s going to be a rough 2023!" There is much more in the 55-minute newscast.

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble for these stories

 and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 12/09/22.

- https://rumble.com/