"Car Prices Set To Crash By 50% As Auto Market Collapse Begins"

Full screen recommended.

"Car Prices Set To Crash By 50% As 

Auto Market Collapse Begins"

by Epic Economist

"Severe supply constraints and a shift away from public transport during the pandemic resulted in an insane car price bubble that is now about to crash. Car dealers are watching prices drop like a rock in face of rapidly changing market conditions, soaring interest rates, and auto production finally picking up speed. On the other hand, many buyers that purchased their vehicles at inflated prices are now underwater on their loans, which is creating a crisis that is worrying even Elon Musk and other big names in the industry due to its size and scope, with experts warning that financial turmoil is ahead.

Vehicle prices, especially of used cars, are about to come crashing down after almost two and a half years of record highs as new supply starts to make its way into the market. From 2020 to 2022, wholesale prices for used cars (adjusted for seasonality, mileage, and age) shot up roughly 88%.

Some cars have already dropped in value by as much as 30% since the peak of the bubble. And despite some in-demand vehicles that are still commanding higher than retail prices – industry analysts say the value of secondhand cars is on its way back to pre-pandemic levels. Consequently, falling used car prices mean that the vast majority of consumers who took in the past two years are now underwater, so they owe more to the banks on these cars than these cars are actually worth.

All of these factors are likely to spark another automobile crisis that will have disastrous consequences. For instance, if today a buyer that is underwater on their loan and purchased their vehicle at the top of the bubble wants to trade it in, dealers would ask them to spend thousands of dollars to cover the difference between the loan and the car value but the consumer doesn’t have that money on hand. “This is the perfect storm: the dealer can’t sell the car, the consumer can’t buy a car and the lender can’t finance a car,” wrote financial analyst Adam Aya.

In a new statement, researchers at Moody’s pointed to "Additional downward pressure on used-car prices” coming from “weaker domestic demand” as the combination of rising borrowing costs and elevated inflation “erodes the ability of households and businesses to make big-ticket purchases." Meanwhile, JPMorgan says that used car prices are set to fall another 20 to 25% in 2023, and new car prices could drop by 5 to 10% in the coming months.

This situation is raising concerns of some big names in the industry in the past few weeks. On Twitter, Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, and famous investor Cathie Wood agree that disaster is coming. They are both warning about the ripple effects of this potentially explosive situation."ARK Invest has been concerned about the impact of declining residual values on the $1+ trillion auto loan market," Woods commented. "Potentially, the biggest financial crisis ever," Tesla's CEO added.

Conditions are deteriorating alarmingly fast, so if you have an extra car you don't particularly need, now is a good time to sell it while prices are high and falling. But if you’re looking to buy a car, you should probably wait a little longer. With used car prices falling around 2% per month, the value of anything you buy right now is going to melt like an ice cube in the sun. And the last thing you want is to be caught up in this colossal mess."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Judge Napolitano, "America's Act of War - The Nord Stream Pipeline Blasts"

Full screen recommended.

Judge Napolitano, 2/9/23:

"America's Act of War - 

The Nord Stream Pipeline Blasts"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

"How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline"

by Seymour Hersh

"The New York Times called it a “mystery,” but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret - until now."

Full article here:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

o

Dated, but true...

“We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world - a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us... No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we’ll kill you.

Well, sh*t on that dumbness. George W. Bush does not speak for me or my son or my mother or my friends or the people I respect in this world. We didn’t vote for these cheap, greedy little killers who speak for America today - and we will not vote for them again in 2002. Or 2004. Or ever.

Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush?They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us - they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. F*ck them.”

- Hunter S. Thompson

"The Wheels are Falling Off"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 2/9/23:

"The Wheels are Falling Off"

"We are living in the land of Economic Meltdown. This is not a happy place. More layoffs and business closures."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Soothing Relaxation, "Beautiful Relaxing Music"

Full screen recommended.

Soothing Relaxation,

"Beautiful Relaxing Music - Calming Piano & Guitar Music"

"Beautiful relaxing music by Soothing Relaxation. Enjoy calming piano and guitar music composed by Peder B. Helland, set to stunning nature videos."

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Here is one of the largest objects that anyone will ever see on the sky. Each of these fuzzy blobs is a galaxy, together making up the Perseus Cluster, one of the closest clusters of galaxies. The cluster is seen through a foreground of faint stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy. 

Near the cluster center, roughly 250 million light-years away, is the cluster's dominant galaxy NGC 1275, seen above as a large galaxy on the image left. A prodigious source of x-rays and radio emission, NGC 1275 accretes matter as gas and galaxies fall into it. The Perseus Cluster of Galaxies, also cataloged as Abell 426, is part of the Pisces-Perseus supercluster spanning over 15 degrees and containing over 1,000 galaxies. At the distance of NGC 1275, this view covers about 15 million light-years.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110712.html

The Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke, “Sunset”

“Sunset”

“Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors

which it passes to a row of ancient trees.

You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you,

one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth,

leaving you, not really belonging to either,

not so helplessly dark as that house that is silent,

not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing

that turns to a star each night and climbs -

leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads)

your own life, timid and standing high and growing,

so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,

one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.”

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Chet Raymo, “The Sea Grows Old In It”

“The Sea Grows Old In It”

by Chet Raymo

“The poet, like the electric [lightning] rod, must reach from a point nearer to the sky than all surrounding objects down to the earth, and down to the dark wet soil, or neither is of use. The poet must not only converse with pure thought, but he must demonstrate it almost to the senses. His words must be pictures, his verses must be spheres and cubes, to be seen, and smelled and handled.” 

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Ah, Mr. Emerson. This seems about as good a description of poetry as one is likely to find. I love the image. Not a hand reaching up to grasp the hand of Zeus, the hurler of bolts, but merely a pointed rod that reaches higher than any surrounding objects. A pen-point, scratching the firmament. Not a conductor reaching down to the earth, but deeper, into the wet inkpot of the soul.

Not lofty thoughts, airy philosophies, gnostic arcana. Rather, ideas that come wrapped in the stuff of the senses. Ideas that must be unwrapped the way you’d peel an orange, or pry open an oyster, or stir up from the bottom of a bowl of soup. The electric fire of the heavens captured and stored in the Leyden jar of physical self.

Take, for example, Marianne Moore’s “The Fish”, a poem that has been endlessly analyzed without ever giving up its secrets. Anyone who stands on that rocky shore with the poet, looking into the wave-washed chasm - the sea as fluid as breath, as hard as a chisel- takes away a lesson as profound as any one might learn in school, perhaps without being able to articulate exactly what the lesson is. The experience is simply there, to be seen, smelled, handled, in the weave and wave of animal bodies, in the intricate rhyme and syllabication of the poem. Truth- crow-blue, ink-bespattered, hatcheted, defiant.

I’d go further. I’d say that Emerson’s description of poetry can be equally applied to science, or to any human attempt to attract the spark of Zeus. One must lift one’s rod beyond the scratch and tumble of the everyday, while keeping its foot buried in the dark wet soil of lived experience.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

•

“The Fish”

“Wade through black jade.

Of the crow-blue mussel-shells, one keeps

adjusting the ash-heaps;

opening and shutting itself like an injured fan.

The barnacles which encrust the side of the wave,

cannot hide there for the submerged shafts of the sun,

split like spun glass,

move themselves with spotlight swiftness into the crevices -

in and out, illuminating

The turquoise sea of bodies.

The water drives a wedge of iron through the iron edge of the cliff;

whereupon the stars, pink rice-grains, ink-

bespattered jelly fish, crabs like green lilies,

and submarine toadstools, slide each on the other.

All external marks of abuse are present on this defiant edifice -

all the physical features of accident -

lack of cornice, dynamite grooves, burns, and hatchet strokes,

these things stand out on it;

the chasm-side is dead.

Repeated evidence has proved that it can live

on what can not revive its youth.

The sea grows old in it."

- Marianne Moore

"Time..."

“Space I can recover. Time, never.” 

-  Napoleon Bonaparte

○

“Lands can be reconquered, indeed in the course of a battle, a hill or a certain plain might trade hands several times. But missed opportunities? These can never be regained. Moments in time, in culture? They can never be re-made. One can never go back in time to prepare for what they should have prepared for, no one can ever get back critical seconds that were wasted out of fear or ego. Napoleon was brilliant at trading space for time: Sure, you can make these moves, provided you are giving me the time I need to drill my troops, or move them to where I want them to be. Yet in life, most of us are terrible at this. We trade an hour of our life here or afternoon there like it can be bought back with the few dollars we were paid for it. And it is only much, much later, as they are on their deathbeds or when they are looking back on what might have been, that many people realize the awful truth of this quote. Don’t do that. Embrace it now.”

- Ryan Holiday

○

Full screen recommended.

Hans Zimmer, "Time"

MUST VIEW! "Oh SH*T, They Just Crossed the RED Line and Putin Readies Response"

Full screen recommended.

Redacted with Clayton Morris, 2/9/23:

"Oh SH*T, They Just Crossed the RED Line

 and Putin Readies Response"

"Videos have surfaced showing unspeakable atrocities by Ukrainian soldiers. The Kremlin has responded and said those responsible will be found. All of this comes as Putin readies a massive offensive in Ukraine. Pfizer and BioNTech caught falsifying vaccine lab test results in new report. The WHO warns of the next pandemic and has already mobilized drug manufacturers to prepare."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Humanity Today..."

"Humanity today is like a waking dreamer, caught between the fantasies of sleep and the chaos of the real world. The mind seeks but cannot find the precise place and hour. We have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. We thrash about. We are terribly confused by the mere fact of our existence, and a danger to ourselves and to the rest of life."

- Edward O. Wilson

"On Which Hill?"

"On Which Hill?"

by T.L. Davis

"I don’t usually title a piece before I write it, preferring to let the piece speak for itself, but I wanted to keep myself on track with this one. As the title suggests, on which hill do we die? We all die, it’s just a matter of how much pain and anguish goeth before the end.

The only thing more emotionally difficult than watching the perfection of the United States die such a horribly corrupt and meaningless death was watching my father die of cancer. I don’t usually get into personal issues here, or talk much about my family; it’s just not relevant. But this time, in anticipation of death, both of myself and my nation, I’ll go outside that restriction.

My father was a farm boy, just a rural kid who watched in amazement his father work long, hard, endless years to build something out of the soil. He was plucked from that pastoral existence to shoot Koreans, or, more likely, Chinese, across the frozen plains of Korea. He was a machine gunner and spent a year and a half on the front lines, earning him a quick discharge. I don’t know how he lived through that, most didn’t.

He returned to his home not so much different from when he left, but immeasurably, inwardly, older. Everything I just related about him was unknown to us as kids. He didn’t even keep many pictures, but there was one with him standing between two others with sandbags as a background and the cockiness of men in the thick of it; it showed in their eyes, their stances. I asked my father about the two others in the picture. He took a moment and said: “well, this one here,” he pointed, “was shot in the head about three minutes after that picture was taken.” I didn’t learn any more than that until I returned from the Air Force, when he opened up more about it.

So, my reverence for my father and what he did with his life had nothing to do with his service, but how he lived it. Honesty, integrity and doing what was right were the qualities he was known for, so watching him wither, eaten up by cancer, knowing what I know now, that it was probably injected into him when he started taking flu shots encouraged by his doctor and others, grips my heart with a hatred and a thirst for vengeance.

What I find so appalling about the reaction of Americans to this vaxx insanity is they are watching their innocent children, their wives, brothers and sisters die from this, their teenage boys and girls, just starting out, having not lived at all, being culled, brought down, destroyed or permanently maimed by this cabal of Satanist clowns at the WHO, FDA, CDC, in every hospital, every clinic, encouraged by every celebrity and politician, with no interest, no curiosity as to those dropping dead all around them. Still, the push continues. Mask compliance in hospitals is still the norm, STILL! With all of that, no organization for those victims, no mass uprising of the bereaved? Just roll over?

The fact that all of this could take place in America, where the press is free to investigate anything it finds amiss; where whole divisions of the federal bureaucracy is founded on investigating the most powerful, the highest, the biggest without fear; where the courts can remedy the worst abuses, right the worst wrongs and address the greatest issues of the times…in silence…without a peep from any of them about the mass annihilation of two entire generations, the very old and the very young, tells me that whatever America was, whatever it might have strived to be and could have been has morphed into a totalitarian police state with the ease of knocking over a chessboard.

We stand now on the precipice of world calamities of several different constructions: the genocidal vaxx; the economic maelstrom brewing in the markets designed to usher in the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) and with it enslavement by a social credit system; World War III growing increasingly powerful in Ukraine that’s likely to end in a nuclear exchange; the rising power and arrogance of the Satanists demonstrated by the Grammys, of all ridiculous things.

We are here. We are left. We are the ones called on by our ancestral brothers and sisters in freedom to fill the gap in the front lines, to take up that position vacated by a bullet from a communist muzzle. We are healthy, because we saw through the enormous propaganda of the whole world trained on us. We are prepared with stores and supplies. We are armed with some of the most sophisticated arms and valuable training. We are legion in number and most are guided by a faith in God.

Most of us have known this offensive would come for decades, it’s been on the horizon like a brewing storm. We’ve had the time to write the wills and settle the debts. Our drafting in this cause is not as abrupt as a farm boy fresh off the tractor getting his draft notice in the mail. We’ve known. The only question left is: “On which hill will we die?” Because, die, we will."

- https://tldavis.substack.com/

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

o

Graphic: "The Last Stand of the 44th Regiment at Gandamak During the Retreat From Kabul, 1842", by William Barnes Wollen

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1842_retreat_from_Kabul

The Daily "Near You?"

Erwinna, Pennsylvania, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Don’t Be the Sucker at the Poker Table"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 2/9/23:

"Don’t Be the Sucker at the Poker Table"

"You need to walk away before it’s too late. I sat down with Bob Kudla again. He brought up such a great point that people are not looking at life and business in the precarious manner that it really is."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"The Reality Of Life..."

"Despite my firm convictions, I have been always a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth."

- Malcolm X

"Wars And Rumors Of War"

Scott Ritter, 2/9/23:

"Russia's Certain Victory in the Conflict"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Straight Calls with Douglas Macgregor, 2/9/23:

"Russia Is Striking Ukraine With 

Accurate Devastating Firepower"

"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."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Hindustan Times, 2/9/23:

"Iran 'Threatens' Israel With Underground Air Base"

"Iran has threatened Israel of a response and a counter-assault as it unveiled first of its kind, underground air force base. Iran's news agency IRNA reported that 'Eagle 44' base is capable of storing and operating fighter jets and drones. Though the location of the base remains unknown, it is reportedly built deep underground, housing fighters equipped with long-range cruise missiles. Forbes reported Iran's armed forces' Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri as saying, "Any attack on Iran from our enemies, including Israel, will see a response from our many air force bases including Eagle 44.""

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

"It is well that war is so terrible, 

otherwise we should grow too fond of it."

- Robert E. Lee

o

Oh, we're far too fond of it already...

"The Motive..."

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

- Blaise Pascal

"How It Really Is, And Will Be"

 

"Before We End Up In Wars With Russia And China Simultaneously, Let’s Review The Nuclear Balance Of Power"

"Before We End Up In Wars With Russia And China Simultaneously, 

Let’s Review The Nuclear Balance Of Power"

by Michael Snyder

Excerpt: "It has been said that there are no winners in a nuclear war, but the Russians and the Chinese have been feverishly preparing to fight one anyway. When I was growing up, I was taught that nobody would ever dare start a nuclear war because both sides would fire their missiles and everyone would die. In those days the doctrine of “mutual assured destruction” was universally accepted in the United States, and once the Cold War ended our politicians saw no more need to upgrade our missiles or to develop cutting edge anti-missile technologies. Unfortunately, the balance of power has changed dramatically over the past decade. Russia and China have both made enormous leaps forward, and that puts us in a very precarious position.

In recent days, Republicans in Congress have been buzzing about a new report “from the top commander of U.S. nuclear forces” that says that China now has more launchers for land-based nuclear missiles than the U.S. does…"Top Republicans on Capitol Hill are raising alarms over news that China has surpassed the U.S. in its number of launchers for land-based nuclear missiles - and arguing for the U.S. to expand its own arsenal to keep pace.

Four GOP leaders on the House and Senate Armed Services committees said the revelation about China’s nuclear capability, made in a Jan. 26 letter from the top commander of U.S. nuclear forces, is a warning that Beijing’s arsenal is expanding faster than anticipated, though the U.S. still has more warheads and intercontinental ballistic missiles."

This wasn’t supposed to happen. We all knew that the Chinese were upgrading their arsenal, but it turns out that they were even busier than we had anticipated. In fact, they “have doubled their number of warheads in just 2 years”…“The [Chinese Communist Party] is rapidly expanding its nuclear capability. They have doubled their number of warheads in just 2 years,” Rogers said at the outset of Tuesday’s hearing. “We estimated it would take them a decade to do that.” I was stunned when I saw that. The Chinese were not supposed to catch up with us that quickly.

Meanwhile, the Russians have developed a new intercontinental ballistic missile that is the most advanced in the world by a wide margin. It is called “the Sarmat”, and it is absolutely frightening…

"The Sarmat is a three-stage, silo-based, liquid-fuel, heavy ICBM with a reported range of 18,000 kilometers. Dubbed “Satan II” by NATO, the missile is a Russian-built replacement of the Soviet-era SS-18 “Satan” ICBM, which is reaching the end of its life cycle. The Sarmat reportedly can carry a 10-ton payload consisting of 10-plus multiple independent reentry vehicles along with penetration aids used to evade missile defenses. Moscow says the new missile can also carry several Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles. A single Sarmat can carry enough firepower to destroy an area the size of Texas."

RS-28 Sarmat

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-28_Sarmat

15 warheads per missile, 11,000 mile range, 

hypersonic speed of 15,880 mph. No possible defense against it.

Do we really want to do this?

If the Russians or the Chinese fire their missiles at us, can we shoot them down? The answer is no."

Full, most highly recommended article is here:

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

o

Hindustan Times, 2/9/23:

"Putin Warns of Russia-U.S. Direct Clash 

Over Nuclear Provocations; Blasts 'Cynical' Biden'"

Russia has issued a deadly warning to the U.S. and its president, Joe Biden. The Russian Foreign Ministry says that the U.S. has "unleashed a total hybrid war" on Moscow and is putting two nuclear nations on a path to direct confrontation. In a strongly worded statement, the Russian foreign ministry said that Washington’s demands for nuclear inspections in Russia are cynical and that they will obviously assist Ukrainian attacks on Moscow's strategic nuclear forces. Russia issued the "direct clash" warning in response to U.S. allegations of blocking nuclear inspection and violating the New Start treaty. Watch this report for more."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Do we really want to do this? It seems we do...

"A Wise Man Once Said..."

“A wise man once said you can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it. What he meant is nothing comes without a price. So before you go into battle, you better decide how much you’re willing to lose. Too often, going after what feels good means letting go of what you know is right, and letting someone in means abandoning the walls you’ve spent a lifetime building. Of course, the toughest sacrifices are the ones we don’t see coming, when we don’t have time to come up with a strategy to pick a side or to measure the potential loss. When that happens, when the battle chooses us and not the other way around, that’s when the sacrifice can turn out to be more than we can bear.

So, how do you beat the odds when it’s one against a billion? You’re just outnumbered. You stand strong, keep pushing yourself against all rational limits, and never give up. But the truth of the matter is despite how hard you try and fight to stay in control, when it’s all said and done, sometimes you’re just outnumbered.”

- "Meredith", "Gray's Anatomy"

"Shopping At Kroger! Checking Prices And Stocking Up!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 2/9/23:

"Shopping At Kroger! Checking Prices And Stocking Up!"

"In today's vlog we are at Kroger, and are noticing some good sale prices on groceries. With prices continuing to rise in all grocery stores across the country, we are on the hunt to find the best deals for you, and your family."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Michael Jackson, "Earth Song"

Full screen recommended.

Michael Jackson, "Earth Song"

Canadian Prepper, "OMG, You're Not Gonna Believe This!"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 2/8/23:

"OMG, You're Not Gonna Believe This!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Don't Worry About A Recession, Worry About A Meltdown; Inflation Has Just Begun"

Jeremiah Babe, 2/8/23:

"Don't Worry About A Recession, Worry About A Meltdown; 

Inflation Has Just Begun"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Scott Ritter, "When Will Russian Offensive Begin?"

Full screen recommended.

Scott Ritter, 2/8/23:

"When Will Russian Offensive Begin?"

"We are joined by Andrey Klincevich, a Russian statesman, military expert in the field of weapons & military equipment. Graduate of the Tver’ Suvorov Military Academy and the Military University of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. Former officer of the Special Forces Regiment of the Russian Airborne Forces."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gerald Celente, "We’re Living On Borrowed Time and Borrowed Cash"

Gerald Celente, 2/8/23:

"We’re Living On Borrowed Time and Borrowed Cash"

"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present facts and truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what’s next in these increasingly turbulent times."

- https://trendsresearch.com/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"An Industry Insider Just Revealed Why Major Grocery Stores Are Struggling To Stock Up On Essentials"

Full screen recommended.

"An Industry Insider Just Revealed Why Major 

Grocery Stores Are Struggling To Stock Up On Essentials"

by Epic Economist

"This video is for everyone who is sick and tired of hearing that inflation is going down when you’re actually not seeing this being reflected on your grocery bill. No matter which store you go to, you still get shocked to see how much prices have gone up from one week to the other. It’s also very frustrating to see that many shelves are wiped clean and staying that way for months. If you can relate to all that, stay tuned with us because in today’s video, we compiled some chilling revelations made by sources in the food industry, with one in particular laying out the truth behind the new price hikes and the comeback of shortages of essential products now happening all around America.

Nowadays, shopping for groceries has become a challenging task, like preparing for battle. As you enter the store with your shopping list in hand, you are immediately faced with empty displays, missing everyday items, and some eye-popping prices that have an instant effect on your mood. It's not uncommon to return home with only half of what you intended to buy, having spent twice the amount you budgeted, and feeling quite defeated.

Believe it or not, prices are soaring so high right now that even major food retailers like Target and Whole Foods are begging their suppliers to cut costs this year. But several sources within the food industry say that retailers’ requests will be left unheard and consumers will continue to bear the brunt of absurd grocery price hikes in 2023 because a handful of corporations that control the global food market are rushing to capitalize on inflation before they lose the chance to do so. “Food price rises around the world are the result of a “broken” food system that is failing populations and concentrating power and profits in the hands of a few,” Alex Maitland of Oxfam said in a recent interview.

In other words, “corporate greed is the biggest factor keeping food prices high,” the expert highlights. Even more notably, Phil Lempert, the editor of supermarketguru.com, and respected food industry insider revealed even the chairman of Tesco, John Allen, is alarmed by the fact that major food firms are profiteering from inflation at the cost of some of the poorest consumers. Grocers are having to come forward and step up against such dishonest practices. “They're challenging companies that they believe are lifting prices disproportionately. So when we look at this fight that's now taking place, and I don't think it's anywhere near over, I think we're gonna see a lot of consumers get hurt. I think we're gonna see a lot of small grocers get hurt. All of these big guys at the top of the chain may try to crush them,” he noted.

The harsh reality of soaring food prices and shortages of essentials is painting a bleak and desolate picture for our population. The greed of corporations has brought the nation to its knees, leaving ordinary people to suffer the consequences. With each passing day, the struggles of everyday Americans become more unbearable as they are forced to choose between feeding their families and paying for life's other necessities. The inability of the government to take action and hold corporations accountable is only adding fuel to the fire, as institutions fail to provide the protection and relief that is so desperately needed. There’s no sign of a reprieve from this dark and gloomy reality. This is a moment of crisis, a time when the very fabric of our society is being tested and revealing its shortcomings."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

“You Deserve to Be Hanged for Treason”

“You Deserve to Be Hanged for Treason”

by Brian Maher

Annapolis, Maryland - “You are sick… You deserve to be hanged for treason.” This, reader I.W. has informed us. He elaborated his case no further, alas. His charges therefore lack the legal warrant for an official hanging. Upon this slender hope we hang… if you will indulge the expression. Yet the question dangles: Why would I.W. have us hanged? What have we done to rate a hanging?

I.W.’s laments attend our recent articles on the Ukrainian unpleasantness - articles in which we called United States involvement into severe question. Put simply: We argued against United States involvement in the Ukrainian war. That is because we fear it opens the roadway for direct United States conflict with Russia itself. Thus we are a Putin “apologist.” Thus we sanction, bless and enable the man’s multiple evils in Ukraine. Thus we are an agent of Satan and against every human decency. Thus we must hang for treason - by the neck - until dead.

Tread Carefully: Yet we might remind I.W. that nations can stumble into war… as easily as men can stumble into love. War’s dogs are willful and excitable hounds. They are forever plotting to break the leashes. The June 1914 assassination of an Austrian archduke did not by itself fire the guns of August. War was not an inevitability. But blunders were made… and miscalculations. That is, human beings were at their normal tricks. Two months later the guns were roaring. They roared for the next four years.

We would avoid a nuclear-age sequel - a sequel with a far less lengthy conclusion. We fear that the distance from initial clash with Russia… to nuclear clash with Russia… may be nearer than most imagine…That the howitzers of June that led to the tanks of February could lead to the aircraft of April and the troops of September and the atoms of October. How many homicides escalated from a simple shove? The graveyards and the jails crowd with examples.

What Would Adams Think? America “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy,” said Adams (John Quincy) in 1821. More from whom: "She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings…

Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be…She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.

The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit...America's glory is not dominion, but liberty… She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice."

Adams Says No to the Early Neoconservatives: In the early 1820s the nation of Greece was at war with the Ottoman Empire. It was a war for Greek independence - similar to America’s own war for independence from the British Empire. The Greek government formally solicited aid and assistance from the United States. Many Americans, including prominent politicos, were hot to jam their snouts into the thing. They believed the Greek cause was in essence the United States’ cause. And so they were for the Greek proposal. They were out to aid Greece materially - even to dispatch a squadron of the United States Navy to those distant, contested waters.

Yet Secretary of State Adams did not think “quite so lightly of a war with Turkey.” Thus he put out a very stern rebuke against the Greek request: "While cheering with their best wishes the cause of the Greeks, the United States are forbidden by the duties of the situation from taking part in the war, to which their relation is that of neutrality… Their established policy and the obligations of the laws of nations preclude them from becoming voluntary auxiliaries to a cause which would involve them in war."

Incidentally, Mr. Adams references the United States in the plural form - “the United States are…” That is because the United States was not yet an “it.” It remained a “them.”

What Would Adams Say About War With Russia? Would Secretary of State John Quincy Adams counsel war with Russia in 2023? Or would the fellow not think “quite so lightly of a war” with Russia? We do not presume to speak for the dead. And so we shall not presume to speak for Mr. Adams. Yet we can draw certain… inferences… based on his written declarations. And we believe he would be against war with Russia - for the very reasons he cited in 1821.

Must the United States of 2023… the “it”... cling to the doctrines of the “them” United States of 1821? No, it is under no such bonds. The world of 2023 is vastly different from the world of 1821. And the contemporary United States is free to chart its own course, to blaze its own path, to do as it pleases. It need not - must not - be devoted slavishly to the old ways. Even old Tommy Jefferson argued that the nation’s Constitution should be written anew every 19 years. And who are we to dispute old Tommy Jefferson? No one whomsoever.

What if Adams Was Right? Yet we must consider this possibility: The Adams admonitions of 1821 maintain their value in the year 2023. They may transmit a vast and enduring wisdom worth a good hard listen. Yet the living so rarely listen to the dead. The living believe they inhabit unrivaled times. That they confront unrivaled circumstances - and challenges. “This time is different” is their eternal refrain.

These unrivaled times, circumstances and challenges lead some to conclude that Russia constitutes a unique menace to global tranquility. And that the world’s civilized nations must scotch it before the menace grows… like a cancerous growth They further believe that war with a nuclear-armed Russia is a tolerable risk in pursuit of this greater good. And some even believe that a man should hang for treason if he is against it…"

- dailyreckoning.com

Musical Interlude: Neil H, "Candlelight Dreams"

Neil H, "Candlelight Dreams"

"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.

Click image for larger size.

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.

Chet Raymo, “Free As A Bird”

“Free As A Bird”

by Chet Raymo

“All afternoon I have been watching a pair of hummingbirds play about our porch. They live somewhere nearby, though I haven’t found their nest. They are attracted to our hummingbird feeder, which we keep full of sugar water. What perfect little machines they are! No other bird can perform their tricks of flight – flying backwards, hovering in place. Zip. Zip. From perch to perch in a blur of iridescence. If you want a symbol of freedom, the hummingbird is it. Exuberant. Unpredictable. A streak of pure fun. It is the speed, of course, that gives the impression of perfect spontaneity. The bird can perform a dozen intricate maneuvers more quickly than I can turn my head.

Is the hummingbird’s apparent freedom illusory, a biochemically determined response to stimuli from the environment? Or is the hummingbird’s flight what it seems to be, willful and unpredictable? If I can answer that question, I will be learning as much about myself as about the hummingbird. So I watch. And I consider what I know of biochemistry. The hummingbird is awash in signals from its environment – visual, olfactory, auditory and tactile cues that it processes and responds to with lightning speed.

How does it do it? Proteins, mostly. Every cell of the hummingbird’s body is a buzzing conversation of proteins, each protein a chain of hundreds of amino acids folded into a complex shape like a piece of a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. Shapes as various as the words of a human vocabulary. An odor molecule from a blossom, for example, binds to a protein receptor on a cell membrane of the hummingbird’s olfactory organ – like a jigsaw-puzzle piece with its neighbor. This causes the receptor molecule to change that part of its shape that extends inside the cell. Another protein now binds with the new configuration of the receptor, and changes its own shape. And so on, in a sequence of shapeshifting and binding – called a signal-transduction cascade – until the hummingbird’s brain “experiences” the odor.

Now appropriate signals must be sent from the brain to the body – ion flows established along neural axons, synapses activated. Wing muscles must respond to direct the hummingbird to the source of nourishment. Tens of thousands of proteins in a myriad of cells talk to each other, each protein genetically prefigured by the hummingbird’s DNA to carry on its conversation in a particular part of the body. All of this happens continuously, and so quickly that to my eye the bird’s movements are a blur.

There is much left to learn, but this much is clear: There is no ghost in the machine, no hummingbird pilot making moment by moment decisions out of the whiffy stuff of spirit. Every detail of the hummingbird’s apparently willful flight is biochemistry. Between the hummingbird and myself there is a difference of complexity, but not of kind. If humans are the lords of terrestrial creation, it is because of the huge tangle of nerves that sits atop our spines.

So what does this mean about human freedom? If we are biochemical machines in interaction with our environments, in what sense can we be said to be free? What happens to “free will”? Perhaps the most satisfying place to look for free will is in what is sometimes called chaos theory. In sufficiently complex systems with many feedback loops – the global economy, the weather, the human nervous system – small perturbations can lead to unpredictable large-scale consequences, though every part of the system is individually deterministic. This has sometimes been called – somewhat facetiously – the butterfly effect: a butterfly flaps its wings in China and triggers a cascade of events that results in a snowstorm in Chicago. Chaos theory has taught us that determinism does not imply predictability. Of course, this is not what philosophers traditionally meant by free will, but it is indistinguishable from what philosophers traditionally meant by free will. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.

I watch the hummingbirds at the feeder. Their hearts beat ten times faster than a human’s. They have the highest metabolic rate of any animal, a dozen times higher than a pigeon, a hundred times higher than an elephant. Hummingbirds live at the edge of what is biologically possible, and it’s that, the fierce intenseness of their aliveness, that makes them appear so exuberantly free. But there are no metaphysical pilots in these little flying machines. The machines are the pilots. You give me carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and a few billion years of evolution, and I’ll give you a bird that burns like a luminous flame. The hummingbird’s freedom was built into the universe from the first moment of creation.”

- http://www.sciencemusings.com/

"We Have The Power..."

“Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans to gain or maintain power. What is more, those who choose not to empathize may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it through our own apathy. If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.”

– J. K. Rowling, Harvard Commencement, June 5, 2008

The Daily "Near You?"

Wooster, Ohio, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Banks Are Getting Ready for Defaults"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 2/8/23:

"Banks Are Getting Ready for Defaults"

"We just heard from Bank of America’s CEO, Robert Moynihan, and he is convinced that the United States government is going to default on its credit. Where does it go from here?"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

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"Banks Could Seize Your Accounts"