Greg Hunter, "Global Debt & Death Spiral"

"Global Debt & Death Spiral"

by Greg Hunter’s USWatchdog.com

"Analyst and financial writer John Rubino says we’re are in a “debt and death spiral” that will force dramatic changes on the world. Rubino explains, “The debt spiral part of this means things from here continue to get worse and worse for the big currencies of the world until they die. In other words, until people lose faith in them, refuse to use them and hold them anymore until their value falls to their intrinsic value, which is zero. That manifests to hyperinflation. The value of the currency falls as opposed to the things you buy with it. Things feel basically okay for a long time as long as governments could force interest rates down to really low levels. The side effects of that are massive money creation and, eventually, inflation. That’s what we are dealing with now. So, here we go. Welcome to the end game for the world’s big currencies.”

Rubino contends things have gotten so out of control that there is no stopping what is coming. Rubino says, “We are in the part of the cycle now where things just get worse, and there is nothing we can do about it. You are going to see companies that have borrowed huge amounts of money to buy back their stock, and now they see their interest costs explode. Governments around the world have the same problem, and there is nothing central banks can do about this.

 The next stage of this is when everybody realizes that there is no fix. Daddy is not going to come home and take care of all of this, and there is no adult supervision. The financial markets are basically on their own with so much debt that there is nothing left to do. You either have mass bankruptcies or inflate away the currencies of the world, and we’re there - finally. 2023 is going to be an amazing year, and we make the decision about what kind of a crisis we fall into. We have a 1930’s style deflationary depression, which is what happens if we keep raising interest rates. Or, a Weimar Germany kind of hyperinflation, which is what happens if we try to inflate our way out of our current debt problems. And that’s it. This is not something on the distant horizon anymore. It’s something right here staring us in the face.”

Rubino talks about the threat of global nuclear war and contends our extreme financial problems will seem timid if the nukes fly. In the nuclear war scenario, the global population could get cut in half with “radiation and starvation.” Rubino also talks about ways to be more resilient, and that starts with shedding as much debt as you can. It also includes food, water, cash, defensive investments and precious metals.

Rubino thinks the economy is so weak, with so many different financial bubbles, that one bubble pop could bring the entire system down rapidly. Rubino says look out for big European banks to go insolvent as a warning sign of trouble if the trillion-dollar derivative complex blows up." There is much more in the 52-minure interview.

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with financial 

writer John Rubino and his new enterprise called Rubino.Substack.com.

- https://rumble.com/

"Breaking! UFO Pentagon Plot Exposed As Deep State Pushes For War With China and Russia"

Full screen recommended.

Redacted, 2/13/23:

"Breaking! UFO Pentagon Plot Exposed As Deep 

State Pushes For War With China and Russia"

"The deep state part of the Pentagon has been laying the groundwork to use a catalyst for war. The globalists spent all weekend scaring us about UFO attacks worldwide and trying to prepare us for a major confrontation with China and Russia. We are watching a disinformation campaign of the highest order being carried out right before our eyes."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Judge Napolitano, "Will the Nord Stream Pipeline Blasts Ever Be Investigated?"

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 2/13/23:

"Will the Nord Stream Pipeline Blasts Ever Be Investigated?"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Homestead, Florida, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

The Poet: Anne Sexton, "Courage"

"Courage"

"It is in the small things we see it.

The child's first step,

as awesome as an earthquake.

The first time you rode a bike,

wallowing up the sidewalk.

The first spanking when your heart

went on a journey all alone.

When they called you crybaby

or poor or fatty or crazy

and made you into an alien,

you drank their acid

and concealed it.

Later,

if you faced the death of bombs and bullets

you did not do it with a banner,

you did it with only a hat to

cover your heart.

You did not fondle the weakness inside you

though it was there.

Your courage was a small coal

that you kept swallowing.

If your buddy saved you

and died himself in so doing,

then his courage was not courage,

it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.

Later,

if you have endured a great despair,

then you did it alone,

getting a transfusion from the fire,

picking the scabs off your heart,

then wringing it out like a sock.

Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,

you gave it a back rub

and then you covered it with a blanket

and after it had slept a while

it woke to the wings of the roses

and was transformed.

Later,

when you face old age and its natural conclusion

your courage will still be shown in the little ways,

each spring will be a sword you'll sharpen,

those you love will live in a fever of love,

and you'll bargain with the calendar

and at the last moment

when death opens the back door

you'll put on your carpet slippers

and stride out."

~ Anne Sexton

o

"Don't let fear keep you quiet. You have a voice so use it. Speak up. Raise your hands. Shout your answers. Make yourself heard. Whatever it takes, just find your voice, and when you do, fill the damn silence." 

- "Meredith Grey"

"Courage..."

"Courage isn't having the strength to go on - 

it is going on when you don't have strength."

- Napoleon Bonaparte

o

Related:

"Our Age of Crises Needs Bollnow’s Philosophy of Hope"

"Plato Quotes Everyone Should Know!"

"Plato Quotes Everyone Should Know!"

"Plato was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution of higher learning on the European continent."

Douglas Macgregor, "The Ukrainian Army Has Been Bled To Death"

Straight Calls with Douglas Macgregor, 2/13/23:

"The Ukrainian Army Has Been Bled To Death"

"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/

"Grey's Anatomy"

"Grey's Anatomy"

“Whoever said, "What you don't know can't hurt you." 

was a complete and total moron.

 Sometimes not knowing is the worst thing in the world." 

- Meredith Grey

"Knowing is better than wondering. 

Waking is better than sleeping, 

and even the biggest failure, even the worst,

beats the hell out of never trying." 

- Meredith Grey

“Yes or no. In or out. Up or down. Live or die. 

Hero or coward. Fight or give in. 

I'll say it again to make sure you hear me. 

The human life is made up of choices. Live or die. 

That's the important choice. And it's not always in our hands." 

- Derek Shepherd

- https://www.theodysseyonline.com/

"Buckle Your Seatbelts"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, 2/13/23:

"Buckle Your Seatbelts"

"We’re getting warnings from energy, retail, housing and the banks all at once. Buckle your seatbelt because this is going to be a very bumpy ride."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Bill Bonner, "An Act of War"

"An Act of War"

Plus, shooting down UFOs, 

revised inflation figures and 40 centuries of history...

by Bill Bonner

“Soldiers, remember that from the top of these

 pyramids, 40 centuries of history contemplate you.”

~ Napoleon Bonaparte

Youghal, Ireland - "What a weekend. Unidentified flying objects. The Super Bowl. And December’s inflation reading, previously reported as going down, was adjusted; now it’s up. Yahoo Finance: "New seasonal adjustments released by the BLS on Friday also switched December's initial reading of a 0.1% monthly drop in headline inflation to an increase of 0.1% in the year's final month." But all of the weekend’s noise was drowned out by the news from the week before. Let’s begin with the blockbuster, Seymour Hersh:

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

A Real Coup: It’s not every day that the US commits an act of war – against two of the most powerful nations in the world. It’s not every day that the US attacks its own allies, either. In this case, blowing up the Baltic pipeline was directed, not only against Russia, but against Germany too. Germany got its energy from Russia. It’s what fueled the German economy. Germany is also a US ally…and a member of NATO.

The report, from Seymour Hersh, a renowned investigative reporter, came out early last week. Hersh is no stranger to controversy. He won a Pulitzer Prize for blowing the whistle on the Mai Lai massacre. He also reported the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. In both cases, the feds denied it.

Later, Hersh was proven correct. Where this story will go – revealing an illegal, unconstitutional act of war by a sitting US president, clearly cause for impeachment – we don’t know. Probably nowhere. By Friday, there was still no mention of it from the mainstream press, neither the New York Times, the Washington Post, nor the Wall Street Journal.

But what a bold move! What audacity! How proud of themselves the elite foreign policy ‘experts’ must have been. Victoria Nuland, Anthony Blinken, Jake Sullivan and the ‘Big Man,’ Joe Biden himself; they pulled off a real coup, so to speak. With one swing of the saber, they cut Germany off from Russia…making it dependent on US sources of fuel, and they cut Russia off from its export revenue, effectively hobbling and humiliating them both.

Lest We Forget: It must have been similar to the rush of pride felt when George W. Bush invaded Iraq. Jack Wheeler called Bush a “geo-political genius,” because he had planted a US-style democracy right in the heart of the Muslim world. Jack must have imagined that the grimy coffee shops of Baghdad would all become Starbucks, with budding entrepreneurs working on their laptop computers…and housewives (wearing shorts and tee-shirts) taking money out of ATMs and going to malls to have their nails done. The thought of it made all the think-tank war-fighters giddy with joy. Pity the way it turned out.

And then, there were the ‘experts’ on the Wehrmacht staff. By invading Russia, they said, Hitler could seize much needed resources for Germany…and deny them to its Bolshevik rival in the East. Shame how that worked out too.

And don’t forget Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign. He thought he could capture the key supply line from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and thus be able to menace Britain’s possessions in India. What a stroke of genius that was too...until Horatio Nelson’s fleet intervened, cutting the French off from their own supplies…and their line of retreat. Napoleon was famous for his audacity…and for losing armies. He misplaced them…putting them in harm’s way while attempting a bold move. Spain, Egypt, Russia…he lost them all. Finally, he lost France itself.

Here at BPR we are only interested in politics and foreign policy as a source of entertainment…or insofar as it affects the economy. Watching Congress in action is a little like going to an insane asylum and gawking at the half-wits and nutjobs. It may be amusing; but it is a sick pleasure. They are for the most part, morons; but it’s not their fault.

Necessary but not Sufficient: Sadly, stupidity isn’t enough to make a good member of Congress. It also requires a preternatural ability to lie…and, it helps to be blind. As a member of the elite, there are two things you’re never supposed to see…or discuss. Those are the things that are likely to do the most damage – war and inflation.

The US Constitution clearly gives the people’s representatives the exclusive authority in both matters. Congress is supposed to control the money. Yet, the Fed brought about the worst inflation in 40 years – with nary a word about it in Congress. As for blowing up the Nord Stream Pipeline, a clear act of war, the peoples’ elected representatives, such as they are, were never consulted, never debated it, knew nothing about it…and don’t want to know anything about it. So, the bold move was undertaken by the White House on its own say-so alone...

The great English writer, G.K. Chesterton, once wrote up a clever report on "Twenty Ways of Killing a Wife." One was hung. Another decapitated. And so forth. It was no doubt great fun for him…a real triumph of the imagination. But God forbid he actually put it into practice. By treating it as an intellectual exercise, rather than a business plan, he was able to enjoy the challenge, while still retaining the affections and services of his good wife, Frances. Had he tried to carry out the plans, on the other hand, he would have had the trouble of disposing of 20 corpses…and almost certainly ended his days in prison.

Alas, our ‘foreign policy’ jefes put into practice…in real life…something that should have remained a James Bond fantasy. They blew up the pipeline. And now America will have to answer, in one way or another, sooner or later, for a remarkably obtuse act of aggression against two nations that had done it no harm.

And what would we say if our internet connections mysteriously failed? Suppose an ‘accident’ suddenly crippled the power grid? Imagine the banking system…and all the nation’s ATMs…going dark? Is all the world’s infrastructure now at risk?"

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

"How It Really Is"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 2/13/23:

"Shopping At Kroger! Making Homemade Appetizers"

"In today's vlog we take you with us shopping at Kroger! We also take you back home with us, where Jessica shows how she makes her famous homemade appetizers!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jim Kunstler, "War of the Worlds"

"War of the Worlds"

by Jim Kunstler

“The Chinese spy balloons are most likely an

 op to pull the civil/military’s collective chain.” 

- Thomas L. Thomas

"Didn’t you get the feeling this weekend that we’re living in the HG Wells’ classic tale of the earth invaded by sinister alien spacecrafts? Our government is playing the story like a bassoon concerto. “American officials do not know what the objects were, much less their purpose or who sent them,” The New York Times reported, poaching a line from every horror movie of the 1950s. When do the giant ants show up on Fremont Street in Las Vegas?

Looks like they’ll keep up the suspense as long as possible, too. Oh, we can’t retrieve that thing up in Alaska due to white-out weather conditions… Oh, that other thing - the eight-sided silver tic-tac - it fell into Lake Huron, glug glug… and that first one, the big balloon payload, lies deep in Davy Jones’ Locker now. You’ll have to stand by, folks….

Let’s face it, all the other mindf**ks set in motion by the folks-in-charge are not just losing their mojo - they’re generating a lot of nasty blow-back in the way of widespread distrust of authority and institutional collapse. Even Woked-up Democrat voters begin to suspect that the vaxxes they greeted like a holy deliverance might not be so good for you after all. I’m waiting for Rob Reiner’s head to explode when he starts to notice how many young SAG-AFTRA members are waking up dead in West Hollywood.

More to the point, you are now correct to suspect that the entire Covid-19 episode, from the design of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus to the gene-modification shots put out by Pfizer and Moderna (erroneously labeled “vaccines”), was a joint Intel-DOD operation, not really a public health crisis. The abiding mystery is… why? Why turn Western Civilization upside down and inside out and then try to pound the whole thing down a rat-hole?

Frankly, the only angle that makes sense is that our government is captive to a hostile force. The WEF, the WHO, and the UN are the most obvious culprits, certainly the most talked-up, the most active on-the-scene. But until a few years ago these organizations had no real influence on the world. They were bad jokes… only pretending to protect the global community’s interests… actually completely incapable, utterly incompetent. Klaus Schwab, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus? Please! What Muppet factory were they made in? The UN was a mere collective of Third World hustles and rackets. And everybody knew it, but the developed world played along as a sop to these sad-sack nations and their greedy officials because the grift was chump-change.

You’d have more reason to suspect that those outfits were fronting for something else, and that something might be the CCP. The Marxist culture war against American manners and values is unmistakably a re-play of China’s cultural revolution, with all its insults against reason, tradition, custom, common sense, and due process of law. The titanic wave of Woke lunacy was hatched in the universities over many decades - places easily infiltrated by malign agents - and seeded into political activism on the Left, especially among the Democratic Party - which now has a figurehead president implicated in bribery and treason.

How and why else has the evidence of those crimes been so sedulously suppressed when it should have been served up to a grand jury post-haste in 2019, as soon as Hunter Biden’s laptop surfaced. The darn thing was absolutely stuffed with a rich documentary record of crime from the lowest (drugs and whores), to the highest (payoffs from foreign actors). The extraordinary lengths that the DOJ and FBI went to hide it, or pretend to not look inside it, is one of the most transparently degenerate acts ever seen in US history - and continues to this day.

And now, all of it unwinds rapidly, all the organized deception and lying. You could argue, perhaps, that US government agencies, this aggregation of interests we call the Deep State, just went plumb insane from guilt, fear, and shame over its own long-running, rampant criminality, but even that fails to answer how come, for instance, the CDC is still pushing booster shots of a toxic bio-engineered cocktail that maims and kills people. Are they aiming to reduce the US population on-purpose - at the same time that the DHS is ushering millions from other countries across the border illegally? Is the Deep State working China’s will against us and the rest of the West? Did we collaborate with our adversaries in our own collapse?

All the usual totemic tropes the Deep State employs to intimidate its opponents - Russia, white supremacy, right-wing extremism, racism, misogyny, transphobia, blah blah - have lost their power to scare the non-insane. Fewer Americans believe the official bullshit about keeping America “safe” from “misinformation.” It’s perfectly obvious now that “misinformation” is a synonym for “the truth.” So, what have they got left? A UFO invasion? Is that what it’s come to? I guess so.

Forces are aligning now to shake this creaking system down to its foundation. The moment of criticality will most likely come when the financial markets crater and the US dollar gets broken by international ridicule to a near-worthless token of decrepitude. The public can apparently take an awful lot of gaslighting, double-dealing, and derogation. But that all changes when you can’t buy food anymore. The Superbowl is over. Here we are now, in the heart of the heart of winter, waiting for the ground to shift. Reality is out there howling against a cold moon, fixing to run our enemy down, like so much frightened prey. Before long, you’ll see blood on the snow."

- https://kunstler.com/

Jeff Wayne, 

"The War Of The Worlds - The Eve Of The War"

Full screen recommended.

Jeff Wayne, 

"The War Of The Worlds", Full Album

Narrated by Richard Burton

Canadian Prepper, "Red Alert! DEFCON Activated; TheTruth About Flying "Objects"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 2/12/23:

"Red Alert! DEFCON Activated; 

TheTruth About Flying "Objects"

"What are they really preparing for?"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

MUST VIEW! "Scott Ritter - Chemical Weapons in the Ukrainian Conflict"

Full screen recommended.

Redacted, 2/12/23:

"Scott Ritter - 

Chemical Weapons in the Ukrainian Conflict"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Absolutely horrifying...

Proud of this? It's what YOU and all of us paid for.

And you're just gonna love the nuclear war, briefly.

"Don't Rely On A Bankrupt System To Save You; Maxing Out Your Credit Card On Dumb Stuff"

Jeremiah Babe, 2/12/23:

"Don't Rely On A Bankrupt System To Save You; 

Maxing Out Your Credit Card On Dumb Stuff"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"The Retirement Crisis Will Financially Eviscerate Millions Of Young Americans"

Full screen recommended.

"The Retirement Crisis Will Financially 

Eviscerate Millions Of Young Americans"

By Epic Economist

"Today’s 65-year-olds can expect to live another 20 years, according to the Social Security Administration. Meanwhile, Baby Boomers — the generation born between 1946 and 1964 — are heading into retirement in droves. And even though higher longevity can be exciting after decades of hard work, it comes with a hefty price tag. Unlike their parents and grandparents, pre-retirees and retirees face a totally different retirement security landscape nowadays. Insufficient financial resources paint a gloomy picture for many of them, who are likely to face a nightmarish personal financial crisis as they age. But they won’t be the only ones. The vast majority of Americans are going to be impacted by the looming retirement crisis, too. According to researchers’ projections, the bottom 80% will be left to pick up this expensive bill. This means that with Social Security funds drying up, workers will be forced to pay increasingly higher taxes to fund retirement benefits for millions of elderly Americans that are at risk of falling below the poverty line. The outlook is scary – especially as we move towards another deep recession, which can prevent even more people from start building their nest eggs for the years ahead. That’s why in today’s video, we gathered very important information about the state of retirement security in the United States that everyone should know.

A new study released by The New School of Social Research shows that as the U.S. wealth gap widens, more and more households with older adults face financial risks. Their updated analysis revealed that most older Americans have made little to no progress toward financial security over the past three decades. In 2018, 47 million households with older adults, or 80%, — were financially struggling or at risk of falling into economic hardship. Moreover, this trend is worsening over time, as 90% of older households experienced decreases in income and net value of wealth between 2019 and 2022.

Furthermore, most of the gains in net wealth recorded until 2018 were due to increases in the net value of older adults’ primary residence. Non-housing financial assets, however, remained relatively flat for the bottom 60% of older adults. This shows that home ownership is still an important vehicle for wealth accumulation in the United States, but as we’re warned about the burst of the greatest housing bubble in history and a devastating stock market crash happening almost simultaneously, the real possibilities for workers to boost their gains and increase their assets are virtually null.

On the other hand, over the past few years, high inflation has forced savers to limit or altogether suspend contributions to retirement plans. Household wealth has taken a severe beating in 2022 amid worsening economic volatility brought on by the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes. In fact, the loss of household wealth is estimated at as much as $10 trillion last year

With federal funds drying up, in a not-so-distant future, the bottom 80% of U.S. workers will be facing tax hikes of 25 up to 40% to pay for these scheduled benefits. In essence, to guarantee the retirement of older generations, younger Americans risk being left with not enough resources to start saving for their own retirements.

In other words, the retirement crisis is looming over everyday Americans like a dark cloud, ready to unleash a storm of financial insecurity and hardship. The harsh reality is that many will have to continue working for as long as they possibly can, just to survive. This is a ticking time bomb that will ultimately disrupt all of our lives and tear apart what is left of our economy."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"You Need To Do Better Or Else"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 2/12/23:

"You Need To Do Better Or Else"

"The CEO of Ford had a Townhall meeting and basically threatened everyone at the company with their job. You need to do better. The car industry is in deep trouble."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: The Alan Parsons Project, "Sirius", "Eye In The Sky"

The Alan Parsons Project, 

"Sirius", "Eye In The Sky"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"The Horsehead Nebula is one of the most famous nebulae on the sky. It is visible as the dark indentation to the orange emission nebula at the far right of the featured picture. The horse-head feature is dark because it is really an opaque dust cloud that lies in front of the bright emission nebula. Like clouds in Earth's atmosphere, this cosmic cloud has assumed a recognizable shape by chance. After many thousands of years, the internal motions of the cloud will surely alter its appearance.

The emission nebula's orange color is caused by electrons recombining with protons to form hydrogen atoms. Toward the lower left of the image is the Flame Nebula, an orange-tinged nebula that also contains intricate filaments of dark dust. Two prominent reflection nebulas are visible: round IC 432 on the far left, and blue NGC 2023 just to the lower left of the Horsehead nebula. Each glows primarily by reflecting the light of their central star."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap211103.html

Chet Raymo, “Moments of Being”

“Moments of Being”

by Chet Raymo

“A passage from the "Pensees" of Teilhard de Chardin: "Though the phenomena of the lower world remain the same - the material determinisms, the vicissitudes of chance, the laws of labor, the agitations of men, the footfalls of death - he who dares to believe reaches a sphere of created reality in which things, while retaining their habitual texture, seem to be made out of a different substance. Everything remains the same so far as phenomena are concerned, but at the same time everything become luminous, animated, loving..."

Whatever we think of Teilhard's Christocentric phenomenology, however much we are baffled by his vague and gushy prose, it is clear from his writing that he was a man who was in love with the world and experienced it as luminous, animated, and loving. Certainly, the experience he describes is not restricted to "he who dares to believe," by which Teilhard means a specifically Christian faith, or at least a faith which for him involved an image of the "cosmic Christ." No, I would suggest that the interior experience of the world he describes- as luminous, animated, and loving- is an predisposition of the human condition, part of our evolutionary makeup. It finds expression in religion, certainly, but also in art, music, poetry, scientific discovery, and in even in the quiet contemplation of a single flower or grain of sand.

It is an experience we all consciously or unconsciously seek, with varying degrees of success. For certain people- an artist like Kandinsky or a mystic like Teilhard- the interior rhapsodic state seems more or less permanent. For most of us, its achievement is a struggle against the humdrum and superficial, the "habitual texture" of things.

The challenge is not to abjure the world of immediate sensation, but to experience the world as fully as our present knowledge allows- not just earthworms and nematodes, wind and weather, Sun, Moon and stars, but also the ineffable flow of atoms, the ceaseless dance of the DNA, the whirling of the myriad galaxies, the infinite and the infinitesimal- to see in the mind's eye and feel in the mind's heart the fire and the flow that animates all things. We may not experience the universe as "loving," but we might certainly find it lovable.

"The whole universe is aflame," wrote Teilhard. His vision was partly informed by his science and partly by his religious faith. And partly, surely, because he was born with a particularly acute sensitivity to the ineluctable wholeness of things. Those of us of a less sensitive nature will settle for the occasional moments when the gates of our senses unaccountably fling themselves open to the unspeakable and unspoken mystery of the world."

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"If Even 1% Could See it - Maya Angelou On Finding Courage"

Full screen recommended.

"If Even 1% Could See it - 

Maya Angelou On Finding Courage"

An emotional and profound speech from poet, activist and singer Maya Angelou on finding the ultimate courage. Remember - "You can't get so high somebody won't try and bring you down", advice from Billy Holiday.

“Courage is the most important of all the virtues because 

without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.”

- Maya Angelou 1928 - 2014

"Nick Cave on the Art of Growing Older"

"Nick Cave on the Art of Growing Older"

by Maria Popova

“The perilous time for the most highly gifted is not youth,” the visionary Elizabeth Peabody, who coined the term transcendentalism, wrote in her timeless admonition against the trap of complacency. “The perilous season is middle age, when a false wisdom tempts them to doubt the divine origin of the dreams of their youth.”

A century and a half after her, contemplating how to keep life from becoming a parody of itself, Simone de Beauvoir observed: “In old age we should wish still to have passions strong enough to prevent us turning in on ourselves.”

Moving through the stages of life and meeting each on its own terms is the supreme art of living - the ultimate test of self-respect and self-love. Often, what most blunts our vitality is the tendency for the momentum of a past stage to steer the present one, even though our priorities and passions have changed beyond recognition.

How to honor the unfolding of life without a punitive clinging to past selves is what Nick Cave explores in a passage from "Faith, Hope and Carnage" - one of my favorite books of 2022. At sixty-five, he reflects: "We’re often led to believe that getting older is in itself somehow a betrayal of our idealistic younger self, but sometimes I think it might be the other way around. Maybe the younger self finds it difficult to inhabit its true potential because it has no idea what that potential is. It is a kind of unformed thing running scared most of the time, frantically trying to build its sense of self - This is me! Here I am! - in any way that it can. But then time and life come along, and smash that sense of self into a million pieces."

In consonance with the great Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön’s insight that “only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us,” he considers what is found on the other side of that self-shattering:

Then comes the reassembled self, the self you have to put back together. You no longer have to devote time to finding out what you are, you are just free to be whatever you want to be, unimpeded by the incessant needs of others. You somehow grow into the fullness of your humanity, form your own character, become a proper person - I don’t know, someone who has become a part of things, not someone separated from or at odds with the world.

A generation earlier, Bertrand Russell touched on this in his astute observation that growing older contentedly is matter of being able to “make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life.”

Complement with Grace Paley on the art of growing older, then revisit Nick Cave on self-forgiveness, the relationship between vulnerability and freedom, and the antidote to our existential helplessness."

- https://www.themarginalian.org/

The Daily "Near You?"

Phoenix, Arizona, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"All We Really Need..."

"Causes do matter. And the world is changed by people who care deeply about causes,about things that matter. We don't have to be particularly smart or talented. We don't need a lot of money or education. All we really need is to be passionate about something important; something bigger than ourselves. And it's that commitment to a worthwhile cause that changes the world."

- Steve Goodier

"Find the things that matter, and hold on to them,

and fight for them, and refuse to let them go."

- Lauren Oliver

"Knowing..."

“Knowing can be a curse on a person’s life. I’d traded in a pack of lies for a pack of truth, and I didn’t know which one was heavier. Which one took the most strength to carry around? It was a ridiculous question, though, because once you know the truth, you can’t ever go back and pick up your suitcase of lies. Heavier or not, the truth is yours now.”

- Sue Monk Kidd

"The Dreaded D-Word"

"The Dreaded D-Word"

Plus, everyday high and higher prices,

 from the Federal Reserve to you...

By Joel Bowman

Buenos Aires, Argentina - "Welcome to another Sunday Session, dear reader, that time of the week when we gather at the virtual saloon to solve the world’s problems, one copa de bonarda at a time...

We jest, of course. It takes a humble public servant to actually believe he/she/they can make the whole world a better place... and to do so at everyone else’s expense. The best we mere citizens can hope for is to put one pant leg on at a time and one foot in front of the other. Small victories. Speaking of which, we hear our American readers are readying for the big game later today, baking quail egg cookies and such, if we understand Dan correctly...

We have no idea who’s in the match, what the pitch conditions are like, or which team is favored to score the most touchdowns, but we wish everyone a fair contest all the same. (Just kidding. Go team!)

Meanwhile, the cost of this year’s Super Bowl party might come as something of a shock. Analysis by the serious-sounding team at GoBankingRates.com warns us to “get ready for the spending equivalent of being sacked for a 15-yard loss.” Umm... what? Oh, here’s the bit we understand..."U.S. consumers are expected to spend a total of $16.5 billion on food, drinks, apparel, decorations and other items this Super Sunday, according to Statista. That’s nearly $2 billion more than in 2022. Food and beverages take up a huge part of this share, with Americans expected to pay around $85 per person. According to Wells Fargo, the cost of a Super Bowl party is up 11.8% from last year; 8.3% higher if you choose to head to a restaurant or bar for the festivities."

We take a look at the central bank’s promise of everyday high and higher prices in today’s column, below...

"Everyday High and Higher Prices"

by Joel Bowman

"Too many factors must be known, 

and no one can know them."

~ Henry Hazlitt

"Everyday low and lower prices. That's the free market's promise to you. And if the free market were allowed to operate properly, that is to say, if it were left to function as the name suggests, freely, lower prices are precisely what you would expect to see. Lower prices at the grocery store... at retail outlets... at the gas pump and online...at the game and at the wing bar.

And yet, as inquiring minds fairly recognize, that's simply not the case. Rather than enjoying a cornucopia of hyper-abundance, brought about by the turbo-charged purchasing power of the dollar, the average working stiff has witnessed his greenbacks plummet in value. In real terms - that is, adjusted for inflation - household net income has gone virtually nowhere in the U.S. over the past half a century. This despite the fact that most households now send two warm bodies off to the daily production line...How could this be?

Road to Nowhere: With all that extra input... with a growing population... mechanized machinery... Moore's Law... the ubiquitous wonders of the digital age... cryptos... EVs... NFTs... ChatGPTs... and all the rest... shouldn't we expect the price of production and, therefore, the cost of associated goods and services, to fall... or, dare we utter the dreaded D-word... "deflate"?

Price deflation is progress, after all. Lower prices – ceterus paribus – are a surefire sign we're getting better at "making stuff." It means we're becoming more efficient. This happy outcome is the result of increased competition and scale in the marketplace. It’s the glowing, cherub-cheeked lovechild of Schumpeter's "creative destruction" and the compounding effect of "learned processes." Standing on the shoulders of giants, and all that.

In this way, lower prices ought to serve as a "kind of dividend for the working man,” as Jim Grant, editor of the venerable Grant's Interest Rate Observer, once (ahem) observed.

“Not so fast!” cry the know-it-all federales. After a year of grinding, multi-decade high inflation, consumers are growing weary of watching the price of their favorite goods ticking up every time they visit the store... or disappearing from the shelves altogether. See everything from baby formula to toilet roll... eggs to prescription medicine... cement to champagne.

As we pointed out earlier in the week, the prices of real world goods, paid for by real world people, satisfying real world needs and demands, are through the roof. Flour was 23.4% more expensive in dollar terms in 2022… lettuce was up 24.9%… butter by 31.4%… and margarine by 43.8%. Then there’s airfares, eggs and school lunches, up 28.5%… 59.9%… and 305%, respectively, for the year.

Whatever happened to “price stability”... one half of the Fed’s own so-called “dual mandate.” (The other half being “maximum employment,” a subject for another Sunday Session...)"

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

"How It Really Is"

 

"Price Increases At Walmart! This Is Crazy! Some Price Drops!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 2/12/23:

"Price Increases At Walmart! This Is Crazy! Some Price Drops!"

"In today's vlog we are at Walmart, and are noticing some price increases on groceries! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and the empty shelves situation. We also are seeing some good rollback offers at Walmart!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Setting The Record Straight - Stuff You Should Know About Ukraine" (Excerpt)

"Setting The Record Straight - 

Stuff You Should Know About Ukraine"

By Mike Whitney

Excerpt: "On February 16, 2022, a full week before Putin sent combat troops into Ukraine, the Ukrainian Army began the heavy bombardment of the area (in east Ukraine) occupied by mainly ethnic Russians.

Officials from the Observer Mission of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) were located in the vicinity at the time and kept a record of the shelling as it took place. What the OSCE discovered was that the bombardment dramatically intensified as the week went on until it reached a peak on February 19, when a total of 2,026 artillery strikes were recorded. Keep in mind, the Ukrainian Army was, in fact, shelling civilian areas along the Line of Contact that were occupied by other Ukrainians.

We want to emphasize that the officials from the OSCE were operating in their professional capacity gathering first-hand evidence of shelling in the area. What their data shows is that Ukrainian Forces were bombing and killing their own people. This has all been documented and has not been challenged.

So, the question we must all ask ourselves is this: Is the bombardment and slaughter of one’s own people an ‘act of war’? We think it is. And if we are right, then we must logically assume that the war began before the Russian invasion (which was launched a full week later) We must also assume that Russia’s alleged “unprovoked aggression” was not unprovoked at all but was the appropriate humanitarian response to the deliberate killing of civilians. In order to argue that the Russian invasion was ‘not provoked’, we would have to say that firing over 4,000 artillery shells into towns and neighborhoods where women and children live, is not a provocation? Who will defend that point of view?

No one, because it’s absurd. The killing of civilians in the Donbas was a clear provocation, a provocation that was aimed at goading Russia into a war. And –as we said earlier– the OSCE had monitors on the ground who provided full documentation of the shelling as it took place, which is as close to ironclad, eyewitness testimony as you’re going to get. This, of course, is a major break with the “official narrative” which identifies Russia as the perpetrator of hostilities. But, as we’ve shown, that simply isn’t the case. The official narrative is wrong."

Full article here:

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Redacted, with Clayton Morris, 2/12/23:

"This Is HORRIBLE and Putin Says "No More"

"Is Ukraine using chemical weapons on Russian forces, which would be a violation of international laws? If so, why the silence from the mainstream media and Western governments? We speak to Scott Ritter, the person who warned that there were NOT weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, about whether or not there ARE now."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

A Comment: So, despite our own country going straight to hell in every possible way, what did you think you bought for the $121 BILLION we've already so very kindly and compassionately sent to that goddamned absolutely murderously corrupt Nazi hellhole? 157,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed and 20,000 Russians dead, and YOU and all of us paid for it. Might as well learn the truth, don't you think?

- CP

"The Monstrous Thing..."

"The monstrous thing is not that men have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other, they should want roses. For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured - disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui - in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable. And all the while a meter is running inside and there is no hand that can reach in there and shut it off."

- Henry Miller, “Tropic of Cancer”

Musical Interlude: Soothing Relaxation, "Dance of Life"

Full screen recommended.

Soothing Relaxation, "Dance of Life"

Be kind to yourself, forget all the troubles 

for a little while and enjoy this beautiful video...

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Gorgeous spiral galaxy NGC 3521 is a mere 35 million light-years away, toward the constellation Leo. Relatively bright in planet Earth's sky, NGC 3521 is easily visible in small telescopes but often overlooked by amateur imagers in favor of other Leo spiral galaxies, like M66 and M65. It's hard to overlook in this colorful cosmic portrait, though. Spanning some 50,000 light-years the galaxy sports characteristic patchy, irregular spiral arms laced with dust, pink star forming regions, and clusters of young, blue stars.

Remarkably, this deep image also finds NGC 3521 embedded in gigantic bubble-like shells. The shells are likely tidal debris, streams of stars torn from satellite galaxies that have undergone mergers with NGC 3521 in the distant past."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210402.html

"Promise Me..."